Talk:Tech/Ambassadors/Role

Skills

This is definitely for later, but I wanted to mention how mw:Google_Code-in/2018 does a good job at surfacing information that people could be interested in, like timezone and skillset/interest area, in a simple way. --46.255.84.17 08:42, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Please provide feedback on the Ambassadors Role document

You've listed yourself to be a Tech Ambassador. We've been recently working on documenting the role of Ambassadors on a page that lists some ways that you can help improve communication for the wikis you are active in (your communities). We try to make it easier for less-technical editors and readers to learn about, and talk about, technical changes.

Please review the current guidelines and think about the challenges you have when you share some technical informations with your community. We are all here to think about solving those issues and removing blockers.

Please create a section for each blocker. That will ease discussions.

Most people who will discuss here are not native English speakers. If you have a good understanding of English, please consider it, to ease conversations for everyone. :)

We can also schedule some meetings (video-conference) for the ones preferring discussion.

Thank you! Trizek (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

WMF Tech contactsperson?

• The content of Tech/Ambassadors/Role makes sense to me. I don't have anything big to add or change. But I wonder if it'll be useful for each Wikimedia project to have their own WMF Tech contactsperson, whom the ambassador would reach out to as a first point of contact? Deryck C. 16:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

  That point has been raised some times. The reply I gt over the years was about scaling: which communities should get that advantage? Would we pay people for time to time messages? Some chapters/user groups can have staff to help with. In any case I think we try that with volunteers first. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

  @Deryck Chan: I endorse it, each Wikimedia project should have their own local Tech/Ambassador/Role contactperson, I request to assign me the role for Sindhi Wikipedia, Sindhi Wiktionary, I am admin at Sindhi Wikipedia. JogiAsad (talk) 00:16, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

  I think it should be something to consider if there is a clear overload on Ambassador work. But for now, there is no tasks that involve ambassadors globally. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 16:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF): *The content of Tech/Ambassadors/Role is laudable and i believe that it will further commensurate the effort of volunteer editors . Developer Avocdo /tech community building is one ting ive done for six years and i can tell you with no iota of doubt that it is a step in the right direction, howver i have my concerns which bother about 1.Would they be Wikimedia Staff members , full time or contract? 2. Would it be per region or per country ? 3. Would there be an annual conference to pre-train and re-train them? 4. What would be the criteria for selection? . I'd like to stop here and await your response. User:Eyitayo Alimi 10:16, 26 November 2018 (WAT)

Thank you for your feedback, User:Eyitayo Alimi!

At the moment, we rely on volunteer ambassadors. Ambassadors are not by country, but by language.

We can imagine to have a training. This is a good idea. But it would be online, because we don't have a budget for travelling.

The criteria are listed on "Tech/Ambassadors/Role#Which_skills_are_needed?". Maybe that section is not visible or well written?

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

A quick precision for User:Eyitayo Alimi: if we are looking for ambassadors by language, that's because our wikis are organized by languages. They are not organized by countries. That's why you have English Wikipedia for everyone who understands English (they live in Ireland, Nigeria, Australia...), Arabic Wikipedia for everyone who understands Arabic (and that language is not a country), Esperanto Wikipedia for everyone who understands Esperanto (there is no Esperanto country).

If ambassadors on the same wiki are from different countries, it may help. The Ambassador(s) would then attends local events. But that's the first thing to consider because we target wikis and communication on wikis. :) Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:26, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Trizek (WMF) Thanks for the clarity. Just ensuring no one is let out! That solves it. Best. :)

General quick feedback

• Hi @Trizek (WMF):, thank you for the page redaction and the ping. I finally took the time to read the page. Not much feedback to provide, that seems clear to me. Maybe making English mandatory is a bit stronger a requirement as necessary, if a potential tech ambassador can rely on an other ambassador translations works but not English, it might be good to make the indirect translation works happen rather than having no liaison at all because of this choice. I would thus suggest that we make this page translatable, investigate which languages have stable enough translations provided over the N last months, and make good enough understanding of any of these languages the requirement. --Psychoslave (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

  Thank you Psychoslave. Rely on other ambassadors to have translations made is a bottle-neck. Plus communication will be more complicated. One is this position would help to spread the word, but wouldn't be an Ambassador as in "communicating with other parties outside of their wiki". Have the page not being translatable is then a way to be sure that people can be Ambassadors: if they understand the page, it means that they can be Ambassadors. My concern at the moment is to get enough people listed as Ambassadors to react. And we are far from it. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 16:41, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

• YOUR QUICK FEEDBACK HERE

Difficulty finding whether I'm qualified

Hi,

I'm Kaartic. I signed up to be a Tech Ambassador with a lot of dilemma of whether I could do the job correctly or not. I wasn't sure whether I was active enough in the community I signed up to be an ambassador for. I thought I could become active at least by means of signing up to be an ambassador. I'm not sure if that was a right thing to do. I just wanted to give it a try! It was a nice experience but I think I don't fit the role of a Tech ambassador perfectly as I'm not active in the community.

My feedback is the Tech/Ambassadors/Role page didn't exist when I signed. The Tech/Ambassadors/List#Role_definition wasn't very useful to me when I signed up. The new page is very informative and is clear. Thanks for the update on the role! I'm not sure if it would have been easier now but I guess it would be nice if the process of assessing whether one is qualified to be a Tech Ambassador or not could be made easier/more obvious. I guess that requires specifying who an "Active Ambassador" is. Who could be considered active in their community? This is the particular thing I found to be difficult. I wasn't sure whether I was active or not.

Hope this helps!

Thanks, Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 19:19, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Kaartic, it helps!

I'm happy to see that you've found the page clear.

Anyone can qualify since they can communicate in English, and would share what they've learnt with their community. They know better where to leave the messages. How can we get the it more clear?

Being active means following what's going on on a given community and where to contact people. It doesn't mean have thousands of edits. Maybe we should have rephrase it?

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Trizek,

Good to know my feedback was helpful :-) Some thoughts,

I guess the fact that there aren't much requirements other than good communication in English is clear in the new Tech/Ambassadors/Role page. But re-iterating the requirement about communication and knowing where to communicate may help a bit. Actually I think there's no use in being an ambassador if you couldn't do that. As a side point, I guess I'm not so good at it actually.

A few points about why I consider myself "not so good at it". (Sorry, this got a bit too longer than I thought. I'm not sure how to shorten it. Excuse me for that.)

I don't have the experience of communicating in the common places where the people in the community discussed. As a consequence of which I think I'm not an effective ambassador. Getting a little more deeper, I'm not sure whether I even belong to a community or not (I signed to be an ambassador for English Wikipedia as that's the only one I used the most. I'm not sure if that was a right decision. Let me know if I'm wrong). That's one of my issues. Is there any conditions for it like getting involved in the community discussions and feeling comfortable about posting things to the right places etc. or am I just over-thinking stuff? (I think there are some conditions) Any help that would help me out my dilemma would be useful :-)

Consider for the time being that I'm part of the English Wikipedia community for some unknown reason. I have subscribed for the Tech news but I'm not sure which particular information in Tech news to inform the community about. Actually, I was doubtful as to whether it's even required, at least in my particular case, to post about specific things in Tech news as I think the English Wikipedia's village pump has already subscribed for the Tech news. So, they're already informed about Tech news, right? Or am I missing something? I guess I'm seeing a more general point here. The point that I'm not sure what actions to take or more correctly how to know if a particlar action that I think of doing would be correct/useful? Would informing people in Village pump about a particular change like the OOUI update in Special:Preferences that I came to know about via Tech news be useful or would it be redundant as the Village pump has already subscribed to Tech News? Would it be enough if I take action on tasks tagged with #tech-ambassadors? Maybe this is an indicator I'm not fit to be a Tech ambassador? Any help in clarifying my dilemma a little would be useful.

And sorry if this was a very long winded way of expressing my problems or if I'm missing something obvious. I just wrote out what I had in my mind as this has been disturbing me a lot. I feel a bit relieved of some burden I had.

Thanks, Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 18:51, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I'll be honest with you Kaartic: the last time I've worked with you as an Ambassador (on the deployment of the new filters on recent changes and watchlists), you've done more than we would have ever expected. You've been great at being an ambassador! :)

There is no need to be really active on the community, just knowing where to post the messages in order to spread the information. It is like the mailperson, who knows where your mailbox is but (so you receive letters) but don't know where you store your towels in your bathroom (what would be the point?). If the mailperson is your friend, it may change that, but that's optional.

From experience, not everybody reads Tech News (or messages), even if posted on a central place. That's why we encourage Ambassadors to watchlist their communities' Village Pump(s) or Technical Help Desk: if someone goes there to says "I wasn't informed of that thing", the Ambassador can say "it has been announced here and there". It would help to improve the communication on wiki: maybe there are other places where important information should be? Ambassadors will get that experience.

All your questions are the right ones, since they help us to improve the role of Ambassadors. I hope that my replies provide you some clarifications. It may results in edits on the page concerning the role, and that's a good thing.

I've already added the pre-request concerning communication, because that's something that has been raised by several people.

Thank you again, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:41, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the appreciation, Trizek :-) Actually I had a lot of time to spare during that period as a consequence of which I could help with that. Things change and I don't find a lot of time to spare recently. That's why I'm finding it difficult to involve a lot as a Tech ambassador. I'll try to help in ways I can but I'm not sure how effective I could be. Let me know if you have any hints for what to do (first) when the time to spare is less.

BTW, your points were helpful and did provide some clarity. About the point regarding watchlisting central pages. For some unknown reason, I haven't become accustomed to routinely checking for changes in the watchlist. I don't check for changes made to the few pages that are in my watchlist a lot. Not sure why but may be because I wasn't interested in it. I guess I should be interested in them now. I remember that there's a RSS feed for the watchlist page. I guess it could help me improve my situation.

BTW, a few possible improvements to the Tech/Ambassadors/Role page.

• I guess you could clarify the reason behind having to watchlist some central pages with the example you gave me ("people not reading Tech news, seeing central notices etc."). Your example was useful to me and it could be useful to others too.
• You could also add a note about the RSS feed which might also be of help to others, I suppose.

Thanks, Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 16:52, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Good ideas! I edit the page right now.

Ideally, it would be great to have multiple Ambassadors per wiki. this would help to coordinate and have at least one or two person around when others don't have much time. Have you considered to contact other ambassadors for English language? Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:22, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Role feedback

Hello, Tech ambassador/translator role give us nice opportunity to explain certain changes that are related to our language wikis in user's own language. ★ Anoop / ಅನೂಪ್ ^✉ _© 06:28, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

When is this Starting ?

Hi Tzerik,

Just curious as to when this is Starting.Fully or officially. When it does are there lits to be sent to all tech ambassadors as guide as to what to do and also a form of identify as ambassadors? Would there be any form of branding on that ? Are we going to be coming up with event ideas to engage the Community? Is it something the WMF would plan or we would ?

I'm going to stop here . I need answers. Best. Eyitayo Alimi (talk) 06:32, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Hello Eyitayo Alimi

It has already started: the page about the Role was created to clarify what is already done. The idea now is to check what is doable and how. If some people would like to step in and help, they are more than welcomed: it is both on community and WMF hands.

Side note: I'll not take care of that Ambassadors project for now. Some other projects required my attention for now. I still believe in it though.

Best, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 00:55, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

How to be an ambassador

Hi I would love to be an ambassador and work technically in this community Willpread (talk) 08:59, 28 January 2022 (UTC)