[Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
Hello everyone. This office hours will be in a little under 11 hours from now. On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Siebrand Mazeland (WMF) smazel...@wikimedia.org wrote: Date: 2012-07-18 Time: 16.30 UTC Venue: #wikimedia-office You are invited to a Wikimedia Foundation IRC Offfice Hours in Wednesday July 18, 2012 at 16:30 UTC (time zone information: http://hexm.de/j6). The Wikimedia Foundation features, product, design and legal teams want to discuss with the community how they see they use of e-mail in the future, as development of new features will increasingly make more use of e-mail as a way to contact and engage new, current and previously active users. Please mark this date in your calendar if you wish to participate in the discussion. We will send a reminder a few days before the meeting. -- Siebrand Mazeland Product Manager Localisation Wikimedia Foundation M: +31 6 50 69 1239 Skype: siebrand Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
That is an encouraging update - thank you. -greg aka varnent On 8 Jul, 2012, at 9:39 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Excuse me. Just about a month ago, we had a discussion about spreading out the times during which office hours would be hosted. Instead of increased diversity in times, it seems ALL office hours are now being scheduled during a very narrow window of time from roughly 1530 UTC to 1800 UTC. Now, I don't have a problem with *some* office hours being scheduled then. But I can't remember the last time an office hour was scheduled outside of that narrow window. So...if you wish to have diverse opinions, you need to engage people who aren't available during normal business hours throughout the Western world. At this point, office hours have essentially become the same group of people meeting at about the same time to discuss whatever the topic of the day is. Now, maybe that's the objective here, and I'm misunderstanding. Just to follow up on this topic... Saturday we held the office hours for the editor engagement experiments team. As Risker pointed out, we did get it a crowd that was slightly different, mostly people who were from North American timezones likely to be working or in school during other office hours. It felt like a success to me. I think in the future it will be fruitful to hold some office hours outside normal business hours West Coast time, though obviously not everyone will want to work on the weekends all the time. ;-) Regards, Steven ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
2012/6/26 Risker risker...@gmail.com: On 25 June 2012 13:56, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Excuse me. Just about a month ago, we had a discussion about spreading out the times during which office hours would be hosted. Instead of increased diversity in times, it seems ALL office hours are now being scheduled during a very narrow window of time from roughly 1530 UTC to 1800 UTC. Now, it's entirely possible that the WMF staff and those of other projects using the usual timeslot have decided that their target audience is the people who are available during that timeslot (I don't think Wikidata's ever had an office hours outside of the same slot, for example). However, Since we have been named explicitly: our three English office hours have so far been at 16:30 UTC (twice) and 12:00 UTC (once), so one out of three was outside that narrow band you mentioned. I have to admit that the next one was again scheduled for 16:30 UTC, but in order to respond to the critique we will move it to 22:00 UTC (which is, by the way, midnight for us. I hope that someone appreciates that effort). We will try to keep that in mind for further scheduling and to make it more diverse, and if we do not, anyone is free to remind us. We're not perfect :) Thanks for pointing it out, Cheers, Denny -- Project director Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
On 26 June 2012 07:47, Denny Vrandečić denny.vrande...@wikimedia.de wrote: 2012/6/26 Risker risker...@gmail.com: On 25 June 2012 13:56, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Excuse me. Just about a month ago, we had a discussion about spreading out the times during which office hours would be hosted. Instead of increased diversity in times, it seems ALL office hours are now being scheduled during a very narrow window of time from roughly 1530 UTC to 1800 UTC. Now, it's entirely possible that the WMF staff and those of other projects using the usual timeslot have decided that their target audience is the people who are available during that timeslot (I don't think Wikidata's ever had an office hours outside of the same slot, for example). However, Since we have been named explicitly: our three English office hours have so far been at 16:30 UTC (twice) and 12:00 UTC (once), so one out of three was outside that narrow band you mentioned. I have to admit that the next one was again scheduled for 16:30 UTC, but in order to respond to the critique we will move it to 22:00 UTC (which is, by the way, midnight for us. I hope that someone appreciates that effort). We will try to keep that in mind for further scheduling and to make it more diverse, and if we do not, anyone is free to remind us. We're not perfect :) Thanks for pointing it out, Cheers, Denny _ Denny - Thank you very much. I for one will make every effort to attend. Risker ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Excuse me. Just about a month ago, we had a discussion about spreading out the times during which office hours would be hosted. Instead of increased diversity in times, it seems ALL office hours are now being scheduled during a very narrow window of time from roughly 1530 UTC to 1800 UTC. Now, I don't have a problem with *some* office hours being scheduled then. But I can't remember the last time an office hour was scheduled outside of that narrow window. So...if you wish to have diverse opinions, you need to engage people who aren't available during normal business hours throughout the Western world. At this point, office hours have essentially become the same group of people meeting at about the same time to discuss whatever the topic of the day is. Now, maybe that's the objective here, and I'm misunderstanding. I'm glad you brought this up Risker, but to be fair, Siebrand can't speak for everyone scheduling office hours, since there is no one person who coordinates them all -- each team is responsible for their own, and some are not associated with the WMF. Anyway, I'm willing to test out doing this at a different time that's not during North American working hours. The editor engagement experiments team is due for another office hours. How does 10:00 UTC next Monday sound? Steven ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
On 25 June 2012 13:56, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Excuse me. Just about a month ago, we had a discussion about spreading out the times during which office hours would be hosted. Instead of increased diversity in times, it seems ALL office hours are now being scheduled during a very narrow window of time from roughly 1530 UTC to 1800 UTC. Now, I don't have a problem with *some* office hours being scheduled then. But I can't remember the last time an office hour was scheduled outside of that narrow window. So...if you wish to have diverse opinions, you need to engage people who aren't available during normal business hours throughout the Western world. At this point, office hours have essentially become the same group of people meeting at about the same time to discuss whatever the topic of the day is. Now, maybe that's the objective here, and I'm misunderstanding. I'm glad you brought this up Risker, but to be fair, Siebrand can't speak for everyone scheduling office hours, since there is no one person who coordinates them all -- each team is responsible for their own, and some are not associated with the WMF. Anyway, I'm willing to test out doing this at a different time that's not during North American working hours. The editor engagement experiments team is due for another office hours. How does 10:00 UTC next Monday sound? Well, let's see - that's 7 a.m. Eastern time, and 4 a.m. Pacific, so it's certainly not North American business hours. Perhaps the bigger question is who the target audience is, and whether or not you're likely to attract it during that time. Now, it's entirely possible that the WMF staff and those of other projects using the usual timeslot have decided that their target audience is the people who are available during that timeslot (I don't think Wikidata's ever had an office hours outside of the same slot, for example). However, I know that a very significant percentage of Wikimedians are not able to participate during those hours, and the effect is strongly exclusionary. In many cases, those office hours are really the only way to keep current and participate in the discussion of various projects, unless one has a direct pipeline to one or more of the project co-ordinators. I'm the world's worst wikitable creator, and even I can see how these constant overlaps can be avoided by creating a table on Meta to map out which office hours will occur when and having rules about how many office hours can be in a given two- or three-hour period. For example, the rule could be only 50% of office hours can start between 1600 and 1830 each month or no more than two office hours in a row can start between 1600 and 1830, if you're the third one then you have to choose another time, or unless you are trying to reach a specific identified target audience, half of any project's office hours must be held outside of North American/European business hours of 0800 UTC to 2000 UTC. There are sometimes good reasons for holding office hours consistently at a specific time, most particularly if there is a desire to draw in editors from a certain geographic area, or if that is the time that a specific language group finds most convenient. But if the subject is intended to have global effects, then there needs to be variety in the timing so that a wider range of voices can participate. If it's something primarily focused at English Wikipedia, the office hours have to be late enough for North Americans to attend outside of business hours, at least some of the time, and some thought should also be given to ensuring our ANZA editors can also be included, at least some of the time. Now, none of this is specifically about Siebrand's office hours. It's about the fact that this consistent scheduling implies nobody's interested in hearing from those who aren't available during the San Francisco mornings. Best, Risker ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
I think the top slot in the poll I took was Saturdays, either 11AM to noon SF time (6PM-7PM UTC, going from memory) or noon to one SF time (7PM-8PM UTC). I am totally fine with either of those times, and so I will volunteer to do my next office hours in one of those slots. Normally I'm scheduled via, and accompanied by, Steven or sometimes Philippe. I'd like Steven to get me scheduled (please), but Steven you don't need to come moderate: I can probably just handle it by myself :-) So, Wikimedia Foundation staff can turn up if they're online and free and feel like it, but nobody should feel compelled to attend just because they're on the staff. Like I said, I don't mind doing it -- arguably it's easier for me than squeezing it into the middle of other meetings. But I don't think the value-add of other staff being there necessitates them breaking into the middle of their weekends. Hope this makes sense for people. If we draw a different crowd that hasn't otherwise been able to attend, we can figure out how to do more of it in a way that works for staff -- meaning, we can lean on weekends when people are travelling for work anyway, or are for some reason available and game. Thanks, Sue On Jun 25, 2012 7:34 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Well, let's see - that's 7 a.m. Eastern time, and 4 a.m. Pacific, so it's certainly not North American business hours. Perhaps the bigger question is who the target audience is, and whether or not you're likely to attract it during that time. I'm sorry, I forgot to check a box on one of those stupid time converters. I meant 22:00 UTC that day. That's late afternoon SF time and the early evening for the rest of the continent. The poll Sue took also suggested maybe we should try holding some on Saturdays. That might not be preferable for all staffers, but some of us don't mind. Steven ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC
On 24 June 2012 18:22, Siebrand Mazeland (WMF) smazel...@wikimedia.orgwrote: Date: 2012-07-18 Time: 16.30 UTC Venue: #wikimedia-office You are invited to a Wikimedia Foundation IRC Offfice Hours in Wednesday July 18, 2012 at 16:30 UTC (time zone information: http://hexm.de/j6). The Wikimedia Foundation features, product, design and legal teams want to discuss with the community how they see they use of e-mail in the future, as development of new features will increasingly make more use of e-mail as a way to contact and engage new, current and previously active users. Please mark this date in your calendar if you wish to participate in the discussion. We will send a reminder a few days before the meeting. Excuse me. Just about a month ago, we had a discussion about spreading out the times during which office hours would be hosted. Instead of increased diversity in times, it seems ALL office hours are now being scheduled during a very narrow window of time from roughly 1530 UTC to 1800 UTC. Now, I don't have a problem with *some* office hours being scheduled then. But I can't remember the last time an office hour was scheduled outside of that narrow window. So...if you wish to have diverse opinions, you need to engage people who aren't available during normal business hours throughout the Western world. At this point, office hours have essentially become the same group of people meeting at about the same time to discuss whatever the topic of the day is. Now, maybe that's the objective here, and I'm misunderstanding. Risker ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
