Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[MZMcBride]

Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
>P.s.: I asked about this one because there wasn't a concrete roadmap for
>"everything [to] continue[s] as planned", so it would not be strange to
>continue not hearing anything (public/definite) about it. :)

Sue or Erik: is there any update on this e-mail from November 2012? (Or
some place interested folks should be watching for news?)

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Sue Gardner, 02/04/2013 18:46:

Hi Nemo,

No, nothing is on hold. The Board and I were really explicit about this
when we talked together about the transition: we're going to continue with
everything as-is -- nothing will go on hold purely due to the transition.

That doesn't mean I won't change plans or make adjustments on a
case-by-case basis because I think the circumstances warrant it: I might.
But the default assumption should be that everything continues as planned,
unless I make a specific decision otherwise.


Ok, thank you. Glad to see that we may still hear news in one direction 
or another in the near term.


Nemo

P.s.: I asked about this one because there wasn't a concrete roadmap for 
"everything [to] continue[s] as planned", so it would not be strange to 
continue not hearing anything (public/definite) about it. :)


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Nemo,

No, nothing is on hold. The Board and I were really explicit about this
when we talked together about the transition: we're going to continue with
everything as-is -- nothing will go on hold purely due to the transition.

That doesn't mean I won't change plans or make adjustments on a
case-by-case basis because I think the circumstances warrant it: I might.
But the default assumption should be that everything continues as planned,
unless I make a specific decision otherwise.

Thanks,
Sue

Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

https://donate.wikimedia.org/


On 2 April 2013 01:50, Federico Leva (Nemo)  wrote:

> Erik Moeller, 06/11/2012 04:03:
>
>> FYI
>>
>
> Is it safe to assume that, until  wiki/ED_Transition_Team>
> ends, all this is on hold?
>
> Nemo
>
>
>
>>
>> -- Forwarded message --
>> From: Erik Moeller 
>> Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM
>> Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
>> To: Staff All 
>>
>>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking &
>> talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people
>> about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product
>> department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take
>> seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view
>> that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept
>> and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
>>
>> To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
>> want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
>> is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
>> I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to
>> anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting
>> tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can
>> also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
>>
>> There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to
>> wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in
>> this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
>>
>> Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering
>> and product departments:
>>
>> - It’ll give product development and the user experience more
>> visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more
>> conversations at that level about the work that most of the
>> organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is
>> represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
>> - me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
>> whack.
>>
>> - It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
>> as appropriate without making my head explode.
>>
>> - I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
>> recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an
>> engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in
>> managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform
>> issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that
>> are less visible than our feature priorities.
>>
>> A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams --
>> we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.),
>> and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly
>> autonomously.
>>
>> It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two
>> functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications
>> breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would
>> outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the
>> negatives.
>>
>> The way we’d get there:
>>
>> I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities
>> and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as
>> a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start
>> that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue
>> that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of
>> Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in
>> place today.
>>
>> So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of
>> the fiscal year.
>>
>> Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new
>> world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role,
>> so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the
>> search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the
>> kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
>>
>> The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions.
>> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Big Fat Brussels Gathering

[Jan Engelmann]

Hi all,

our meeting in Brussels is coming closer and we´re really looking
forward to talk face to face and discuss the organisational structure,
methods of communication and tasks of the future EU-Policy-Group [1].

During the last days, we’ve polished the schedule a little bit and
asked a professional facilitator to lead the discussion. So please
check the project site on Meta [2] and feel free to mention, comment
or ask anything you consider as important.

Please note: This is not - and has never been conceived as - an
exclusive event. If anybody likes to join us spontanously, please
don't hesitate to come to Brussels. It's gonna be challenging - and
fun.

For those who can't make it at all (and will be greatly missed), we'll
provide a protocol on an Etherpad:
http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/BrusselsMeeting

But as you all know, you never can beat the live performance ;-)

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy/Big_Fat_Brussels_Meeting

Best, Jan

--
Jan Engelmann
Leiter Politik & Gesellschaft
-
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Obentrautstr. 72
10963 Berlin

Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de

Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/

 Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes
digitales Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird. Unterzeichnen Sie die
Online-Petition! http://wikipedia.de 

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

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[Wikimedia-l] Scribunto/Lua : how to call a local wiki module within a module

[Mathieu Stumpf]

Hello,

Sorry for the noise, but I didn't know where to post this. Please point 
me any place more appropriate for this kind of topic if you know one.


So, I begin to play with Lua, trying to rewrite piece a software which 
take a digit ([0-9]*) in input, and provide a "how you spell/pronounce 
it" string in various languages in output. Well, that's not a 
transcendent goal, but I think it's a good way to learn this new tool.


Now that I have a minimal piece of functions (but nothing close to even 
a single language decent support), I wanted to make a unit tests page.


But I'm blocked, because I don't find how to call my main module within 
my test module. For those interested, pages are there :

https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Module:Pr0n
https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Module:Pr0n/test
https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Psychoslave/test_pr0n

And the relevant part are:

pron = require( "Module:Pr0n" )
for i=0,99 do
pron.ortho(i) -- fail!
end

Here is the error message:

Erreur Lua dans Module:Pr0n à la ligne 37: attempt to index local 
'frame' (a number value).


Trace arrière:

Module:Pr0n:37 : dans la fonction « ortho »
Module:Pr0n/test:8 : dans la fonction « chunk »
mw.lua:463 : dans la fonction « chunk »



--
Association Culture-Libre
http://www.culture-libre.org/

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[Wikimedia-l] Save the date: Wikimedia Australia committee get-together in Sydney, 7 April

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Sydneysiders,



As the WMAU committee will be in Sydney this weekend for the Wikimedia in
Higher Education
symposium,
we thought that we should take the opportunity to have a get together with
the Sydney Wikimedia community at large.  As such, we’ve put *Sunday 7 April
* aside for a face-to-face meeting with the community.  This is your
opportunity to meet with the committee, pepper us with Q&A, and talk with
us about the future of the chapter and the Wikimedia movement in general.



The location is still TBA, once we’ve got this secured we’ll let you know
straight away.  At the moment it is planned to be an all day event, but if
you can’t spare the entire day feel free to drop in whenever.



Cheers,

Craig Franklin

Wikimedia Australia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Erik Moeller, 06/11/2012 04:03:

FYI


Is it safe to assume that, until 
 ends, all this is 
on hold?


Nemo




-- Forwarded message --
From: Erik Moeller 
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM
Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
To: Staff All 


Hi folks,

consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking &
talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people
about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product
department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take
seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view
that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept
and a product dept in about 6-8 months.

To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to
anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting
tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can
also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.

There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to
wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in
this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.

Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering
and product departments:

- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more
conversations at that level about the work that most of the
organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is
represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.

- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.

- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an
engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in
managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform
issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that
are less visible than our feature priorities.

A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams --
we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.),
and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly
autonomously.

It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two
functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications
breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would
outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the
negatives.

The way we’d get there:

I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities
and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as
a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start
that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue
that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of
Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in
place today.

So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of
the fiscal year.

Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new
world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role,
so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the
search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the
kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.

The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions.
Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes
sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and
User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated
Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes
a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working
closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as
follows:

* VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
* VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new
leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize
here because it works so closely with product)

Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I
believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build
this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past
experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering
operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned
issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect l