Re: [Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Craig Franklin]

As someone who has been telling anyone at the WMF who will listen that this
sort of capacity development is *essential* if community groups are going
to meet the governance requirements of the Foundation and actually achieve
measurable outcomes, I'm enormously pleased that something has finally been
done about this.  Nothing to add at this point except high fives and thanks
all around for everyone who was involved in making this happen.

Cheers,
Craig

On 26 August 2015 at 09:40, Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> {{Nutshell|WMF Community Engagement Team is allocating staff time and
> funding to deliberate capacity-development projects with interested
> communities in six capacity areas: community governance; conflict
> management; on-wiki technical skills; new contributor engagement and
> growth; partnerships; communications}}
>
> ==Details==
> This is a new way of partnering with WMF: through two way conversations
> (rather than top-down planning), WMF will work with specific emerging
> communities to explore obstacles for community growth and explore and pilot
> solutions together.
>
> The first phase of this work consisted of a series of in-depth interviews
> with individuals from 16 specific emerging communities to gather
> information about existing and missing capacities.  Reviewing those
> interviews in aggregate, we came up with six capacities it seems useful to
> work together on.
>
> We prepared a page per such capacity, detailing challenges and possible
> approaches to build that capacity. We welcome your  feedback! Contributions
> to those pages can be done in the following ways:
>
> * Sign up on the sidebar of each capacity subpage if you want to implement
> certain practices described,
> * Provide more links to resources,
> * Expand the Potential Solutions section with new ideas.
>
> These pages, including your contributions, will serve as the basis for
> specific conversations with specific communities to develop plans or
> projects to build capacity.
>
> During this initial pilot period, we intend to pursue projects in two or
> three capacities at most, which will be chosen according to community
> interest, scale of community, and scale of readership.  We expect some of
> the specific actions we take in these projects would create resources
> [re-]usable by other communities as well.
>
> ==Join the Conversation==
> We invite you all to read through the capacity pages, and specifically, to
> see if the challenges described resonate with you and your community.  If
> they do, have an on-wiki discussion about it with your community, and if
> there's general interest, sign up on the capacity pages and we'll have a
> conversation about what might be some possible next steps.
>
> Find the six capacity pages on Meta, here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development
>
> Looking forward to fruitful engagement,
>
>Asaf Bartov
>Sati Houston
>Community Engagement department
> --
> Asaf Bartov
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
> 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
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Kerry Raymond]

Obviously discussions on these six topics are not new as they are
frequently discussed on a number of Wikimedia mailing lists and forums.
Ideas are often put forward that attract some who say it will work
wonderfully, while others doubt if it will work at all, while a third group
think it will do harm.  One of the issues that frequently arises is the
need for some capacity to experiment  Will there be any support for testing
ideas? That is, to be bold and try something instead of just talking about
it? E.g. repeal policy XYZ for a month and see if it makes a difference and
whether it is for better or worse. And of course some ideas might require
engineering support to test. Will that be available?

To illustrate a concrete example, what if we wanted to trial a grace period
for new users (one of the example ideas)? Right now, it is very easy for
anyone to undo a newbie's edit and WP:NOBITE is routinely ignored. So, to
implement a grace period, we would probably need to do some re-engineering,
perhaps require an extra step in the "undo" process where the reverter had
to acknowledge that this was a new user within the grace period and then
asked if the edit appeared to be good faith (and then directed on to more
appropriate ways to respond to good faith edits by newbies) or bad faith
(allowed to continue with the undo action). Will there be support for
experimentation or for engineering needed for experimentation? Will there
be support from the metrics team around those experiments to collect
appropriate qualitative and quantitative data to assist drawing conclusions
as to whether the experiments were beneficial or not?

It seems to me that without support for experimentation it will be
difficult for communities to put forward ideas as even the formulation of
ideas will be bogged down from a lack of evidence. As you say, talk is
cheap and it is clear that years of talking have not made a great
difference. It's time to experiment if only on a small scale (a subset of
users, a subset of articles) etc. Are the resources to do this available?

Thanks

Kerry
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Kerry Raymond]

Asaf

This is a very interesting initiative. But can I get some clarification as
to the scope of "communities" under discussion here? Having read through
the material, I see "Sign up below if you are interested in implementing
this in your local community" appears on all 6 pages and there is mention
of face-to-face meetings, so I have the impression you mean a
geographically-co-located community but I have no real sense of the
intended scale here.

For example, in my own case, are you talking about Brisbane or about
Queensland or about Australia? Or are we discussing the entire en.WP
community here? From the references to face-to-face meetings, I think we
must be talking about Brisbane. But if we are discussing policies,
traditionally that is a whole of en.WP community issue, so is it being
proposed that local communities can adopt their own policies, e.g.
notability that applies within their region? If so, that sounds an
excellent idea.

In terms of welcoming new users, I am all for this. We already have an
Australian template {{subst:welcome-au}} for that purpose already (and of
course could easily create more localised variants of it). But can we tell
if a new contributor is Australian as new contributors rarely have user
pages that reveal such information? At the moment, it's a case of stumbling
over them in one's watchlist and assuming they are Australian because they
have contributed to some Australian-related article. It would be much more
helpful if we could we get some feed of new contributors that appear to be
coming from an Australian IP address to assist in this welcoming process.
And how do we prevent others from "welcoming" new contributors in a
not-so-pleasant way by undoing their contributions or a nasty message?
Because I suspect one negative experience can easily outweigh a positive
experience.

Could you provide some more clarity on the scale of the communities you are
considering as obviously that impacts on the kinds of solutions/proposals
that might be put forward.

Thanks

Kerry
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Asaf Bartov]

Thanks for the feedback, Romaine!

To your question, we have indeed observed this in some communities, and
have heard in interviews about the value and motivating force of  "editing
as a group".  We gave this some expression in the "Off wiki events"
section[1], and is indeed something that seems to work well in some (most?)
communities.

That said, these pages do not presume to be comprehensive, of course, and
neither the "challenges" nor the "potential approaches" sections should be
read as exclusive.  We welcome constructive contributions to those pages
(keeping in mind that the goal of the pages is to inform conversations
about actual capacity-building projects).

Cheers,

Asaf

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development/New_contributor_engagement_and_growth#Off_wiki_events

On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Romaine Wiki 
wrote:

> Hi Asaf,
>
> It sounds interesting, but I do not have a clear idea how to proceed.
>
> Like Capacity 4: New contributor engagement and growth. We organise a lot
> of edit-a-thons and workshops with new contributors and one of the things
> we sense is that the new users are willing to continue after the workshop,
> but experience it as difficult and have no idea how to proceed. This can be
> described as empty feeling, but this perspective as I described, is not
> represented in the paragraph about empty feeling. Noticing the reactions we
> got and the needs they described, it does not match with the section of
> possible approaches. For them it is not a grace period, personalised
> welcomes, or recognition, but they miss a way to keep a social interaction
> with the group as they had such with the workshop/edit-a-thon about a
> theme. Mentorship can be something, but as I tried that, it is pretty
> difficult and extremely time sensitive in the current situation to keep
> following a group of users. It is more, they like to work together easily
> instead of having to look op all sorts of pages (Contibutions, Watchlist,
> Project page, and so on).
>
> So I think our issue matches for a part with this page, but I do not know
> how to continue and do not know if this would fit here.
>
> I also see in other capacities points that are interesting, but I am not
> sure how to have it on the local wiki itself.
>
> Greetings,
> Romaine
>
>
>
> 2015-08-26 1:40 GMT+02:00 Asaf Bartov :
>
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> > {{Nutshell|WMF Community Engagement Team is allocating staff time and
> > funding to deliberate capacity-development projects with interested
> > communities in six capacity areas: community governance; conflict
> > management; on-wiki technical skills; new contributor engagement and
> > growth; partnerships; communications}}
> >
> > ==Details==
> > This is a new way of partnering with WMF: through two way conversations
> > (rather than top-down planning), WMF will work with specific emerging
> > communities to explore obstacles for community growth and explore and
> pilot
> > solutions together.
> >
> > The first phase of this work consisted of a series of in-depth interviews
> > with individuals from 16 specific emerging communities to gather
> > information about existing and missing capacities.  Reviewing those
> > interviews in aggregate, we came up with six capacities it seems useful
> to
> > work together on.
> >
> > We prepared a page per such capacity, detailing challenges and possible
> > approaches to build that capacity. We welcome your  feedback!
> Contributions
> > to those pages can be done in the following ways:
> >
> > * Sign up on the sidebar of each capacity subpage if you want to
> implement
> > certain practices described,
> > * Provide more links to resources,
> > * Expand the Potential Solutions section with new ideas.
> >
> > These pages, including your contributions, will serve as the basis for
> > specific conversations with specific communities to develop plans or
> > projects to build capacity.
> >
> > During this initial pilot period, we intend to pursue projects in two or
> > three capacities at most, which will be chosen according to community
> > interest, scale of community, and scale of readership.  We expect some of
> > the specific actions we take in these projects would create resources
> > [re-]usable by other communities as well.
> >
> > ==Join the Conversation==
> > We invite you all to read through the capacity pages, and specifically,
> to
> > see if the challenges described resonate with you and your community.  If
> > they do, have an on-wiki discussion about it with your community, and if
> > there's general interest, sign up on the capacity pages and we'll have a
> > conversation about what might be some possible next steps.
> >
> > Find the six capacity pages on Meta, here:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development
> >
> > Looking forward to fruitful engagement,
> >
> >Asaf Bartov
> >Sati Houston
> >Community Engagement department
> > --
> > Asaf Bartov
> > W

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Romaine Wiki]

Hi Asaf,

It sounds interesting, but I do not have a clear idea how to proceed.

Like Capacity 4: New contributor engagement and growth. We organise a lot
of edit-a-thons and workshops with new contributors and one of the things
we sense is that the new users are willing to continue after the workshop,
but experience it as difficult and have no idea how to proceed. This can be
described as empty feeling, but this perspective as I described, is not
represented in the paragraph about empty feeling. Noticing the reactions we
got and the needs they described, it does not match with the section of
possible approaches. For them it is not a grace period, personalised
welcomes, or recognition, but they miss a way to keep a social interaction
with the group as they had such with the workshop/edit-a-thon about a
theme. Mentorship can be something, but as I tried that, it is pretty
difficult and extremely time sensitive in the current situation to keep
following a group of users. It is more, they like to work together easily
instead of having to look op all sorts of pages (Contibutions, Watchlist,
Project page, and so on).

So I think our issue matches for a part with this page, but I do not know
how to continue and do not know if this would fit here.

I also see in other capacities points that are interesting, but I am not
sure how to have it on the local wiki itself.

Greetings,
Romaine



2015-08-26 1:40 GMT+02:00 Asaf Bartov :

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> {{Nutshell|WMF Community Engagement Team is allocating staff time and
> funding to deliberate capacity-development projects with interested
> communities in six capacity areas: community governance; conflict
> management; on-wiki technical skills; new contributor engagement and
> growth; partnerships; communications}}
>
> ==Details==
> This is a new way of partnering with WMF: through two way conversations
> (rather than top-down planning), WMF will work with specific emerging
> communities to explore obstacles for community growth and explore and pilot
> solutions together.
>
> The first phase of this work consisted of a series of in-depth interviews
> with individuals from 16 specific emerging communities to gather
> information about existing and missing capacities.  Reviewing those
> interviews in aggregate, we came up with six capacities it seems useful to
> work together on.
>
> We prepared a page per such capacity, detailing challenges and possible
> approaches to build that capacity. We welcome your  feedback! Contributions
> to those pages can be done in the following ways:
>
> * Sign up on the sidebar of each capacity subpage if you want to implement
> certain practices described,
> * Provide more links to resources,
> * Expand the Potential Solutions section with new ideas.
>
> These pages, including your contributions, will serve as the basis for
> specific conversations with specific communities to develop plans or
> projects to build capacity.
>
> During this initial pilot period, we intend to pursue projects in two or
> three capacities at most, which will be chosen according to community
> interest, scale of community, and scale of readership.  We expect some of
> the specific actions we take in these projects would create resources
> [re-]usable by other communities as well.
>
> ==Join the Conversation==
> We invite you all to read through the capacity pages, and specifically, to
> see if the challenges described resonate with you and your community.  If
> they do, have an on-wiki discussion about it with your community, and if
> there's general interest, sign up on the capacity pages and we'll have a
> conversation about what might be some possible next steps.
>
> Find the six capacity pages on Meta, here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development
>
> Looking forward to fruitful engagement,
>
>Asaf Bartov
>Sati Houston
>Community Engagement department
> --
> Asaf Bartov
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
> 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
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Asaf Bartov]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> ==Details==
> This is a new way of partnering with WMF: through two way conversations
> (rather than top-down planning), WMF will work with specific
>

Permit me a quick clarification.  The above sentence is infelicitous: I did
not mean by the "rather" above to assert that what's new here is the "not
top-down planning" part.  I meant two separate statements: 1. this is a new
way of partnering with WMF; 2. it consists of two-way conversations rather
than top-down planning (and this isn't new).

   A.

-- 
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation 

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
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

[Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Asaf Bartov]

Dear Wikimedians,

{{Nutshell|WMF Community Engagement Team is allocating staff time and
funding to deliberate capacity-development projects with interested
communities in six capacity areas: community governance; conflict
management; on-wiki technical skills; new contributor engagement and
growth; partnerships; communications}}

==Details==
This is a new way of partnering with WMF: through two way conversations
(rather than top-down planning), WMF will work with specific emerging
communities to explore obstacles for community growth and explore and pilot
solutions together.

The first phase of this work consisted of a series of in-depth interviews
with individuals from 16 specific emerging communities to gather
information about existing and missing capacities.  Reviewing those
interviews in aggregate, we came up with six capacities it seems useful to
work together on.

We prepared a page per such capacity, detailing challenges and possible
approaches to build that capacity. We welcome your  feedback! Contributions
to those pages can be done in the following ways:

* Sign up on the sidebar of each capacity subpage if you want to implement
certain practices described,
* Provide more links to resources,
* Expand the Potential Solutions section with new ideas.

These pages, including your contributions, will serve as the basis for
specific conversations with specific communities to develop plans or
projects to build capacity.

During this initial pilot period, we intend to pursue projects in two or
three capacities at most, which will be chosen according to community
interest, scale of community, and scale of readership.  We expect some of
the specific actions we take in these projects would create resources
[re-]usable by other communities as well.

==Join the Conversation==
We invite you all to read through the capacity pages, and specifically, to
see if the challenges described resonate with you and your community.  If
they do, have an on-wiki discussion about it with your community, and if
there's general interest, sign up on the capacity pages and we'll have a
conversation about what might be some possible next steps.

Find the six capacity pages on Meta, here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development

Looking forward to fruitful engagement,

   Asaf Bartov
   Sati Houston
   Community Engagement department
-- 
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation 

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
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,