Talk:Wikimedia monthly activities meetings/2013-07

Interesting talk

• Thanks for sharing. "Transparent" about something negative.

• Seem like some reasonably sharp, interested young people working there. The Asian fellow towards the beginning with the statistics seemed good and several audience questions were on target.

• I can see there is a social aspect as well to the team...and you need to have some of that in a startup-y type environment, especially with the growth and churn.

• Reasonably happy with the analytics and types of questions. There's always more you can do and better you can do, but it was in right direction and "decent".

• Would try to do some multiple methods as well, not just aggregated cuts of the overall data. For instance...that fellow talking about the French Teahouse...what is to stop him from turning on Google Translate and snooping out what they are doing? Or get on the blower and just call and talk to some people who work in it. Could probably get a quick handle on it in an afternoon (and a better handle with more time/focus of course). And nothing against him, he seemed a little new/nervous...and he was moving things forward and talking to a big group...so it's all good.

• I think you need to look at the big picture and the readers and the future editors. Wiki is very ingrown and "vet dominated".

• If you're not growing, you're probably dying. Tech especially is a field where user preferences, patterns, etc. change markedly. It's not the steel industry.

• I think you need to think about multiple avenues of growth/effort and be open to thinking of them rather independently. It gives you more "chances of success" to NOT have dependencies. And that doesn't mean eschewing all synergies, but still. For instance, let's say you succeed on the female front and fail on the Global South front...that's OK! Really. It's still better than failing on BOTH. This concept extends to all your initiatives.

• I'm glad to see some (more) inklings of thinking about the needs of the different projects differently. Maybe you could class them into 3 tiers, English Wiki/Big ~12/Everything else. And the needs and problems and opportunities are very different. Note the Strategic Plan did not really have a lot of this portfolio based thinking. But you could see how the emphasis on ultimate quality/community building/translation of content might be very different.

• The discussion of mobile and pictures was very interesting. There is a nugget of an insight in there. I'm not sure what it is, but consider some aspects:
  • Donating photos is an aspect where there is less reversion and drama. Really...it is a huge NEGATIVE aspect of Wiki that you end up fighting over the same piece of real estate, having your work altered, wrecked, fought over. This is why many people just opt out and go to Commons (you can build).
  • There really are a lot of basic articles needing simple photos. For example, many NFL football players lack photos...and teams have several open to the public days during training camp, with a lot of "access". Many household objects, plants, mechanical objects, etc. need illustration.
  • It's one area, with the growth in cell phone photos, where you are a little closer to the cusp of new tech trend. I mean...the talk page mechanism is actually something WORSE than 1990s BBSes.  ;-)
  • "Gateway drug"

TCO (talk) 18:01, 12 July 2013 (UTC)