We hardly ever say 'Thank You'

On 29 May 2014 11:10, Gerard Meijssen <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hoi,
>
> James is right in that we could do better in growing the number of people
> contributing to our projects. So what is it that makes people back?
> Typically it is that they find the information they look for. Typically it
> is that their contribution is valued and does not take too much effort.
>
> When you look at our efforts they typically require a "big intellect". That
> excludes many people because it is often more that you are expected to
> conform to particular expectations than being brainy. We are focused on our
> existing largest community, we cater for what is important to them and
> consequently we do not consider those that are not obvious targets for that
> largest community.
>
> When we do venture out, for instance in "Wiki loves monuments" we do really
> well; we make the Guiness book of records. It is however not the WMF that
> learns the lessons; it is left for the communities, the chapters. The same
> is for the GLAM participation, it is not even the WMF that provides the
> infra structure, it is the chapters and they are "blamed" for having an
> agenda that does not align with the technical aspirations of MediaWiki et
> al development. The GLAM cooperation is another area where we as a movement
> shine.
>
> When you want opportunities where we expand on things outside of core
> en.wp, have a look at the games developed by Magnus [1]. People find them
> highly entertaining and they do serve a need. In the "Reasonator" people
> can get information about data in Wikidata even when there are no "labels"
> in their language because it provides language fall back. However,
> Reasonator is served from Labs and it is not consistently available to our
> users. Its "up time" is not consistent with what is needed for an end-user
> experience and consequently its growth is stunted at the current level.
>
> We do not know what people are looking for and fail to find. We do not know
> that for any language and consequently we cannot ask things like: "do you
> know the name of what you are looking for in another language". This could
> add labels to Wikidata and help in finding results for other people using
> WD-Search support in a Wikipedia.
>
> Really when we want to engage more people, we should not only cater for
> what our most visible and most loud community is looking for. We should
> consider opportunities outside that community. When the en.wp may benefit
> as well, it should be a fringe benefit !!
>
> So yes, lets grow our community and the most growth is where we have
> achieved the least.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
>
>
>
> [1] http://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-game/#
>
>
> On 29 May 2014 10:06, James Salsman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Lila Tretikov wrote:
> > >...
> > > Allocation should follow strategic priorities and it
> > > is the strategy that helps answer this question.
> >
> > On this point, it should be enormously helpful to point out that the
> > only strategic goal which the Foundation has ever failed to achieve,
> > and has consistently failed to achieve, is this one:
> >
> >
> >
> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities#Increase_participation
> >
> > That specific strategic priority of increasing participation is the
> > focus of the sixteen proposed additional strategic goals below. Some
> > people have substantial objections to some of them, but I'm not clear
> > on the details. Nobody has suggested any reason that Foundation goals
> > would not benefit from at least an attempt at alignment to volunteer
> > contributing editor preferences on these issues.
> >
> > But what have I forgotten? What have I left out? If I could only get
> > one suggestion for every two people who take issue with specific
> > things already on the list, I would feel a lot more comfortable and
> > confident that there isn't anything being forgotten.
> >
> > >... On a more operational scale, resources tend go
> > > to where the users are or where the opportunity is.
> > > When they go to opportunity, it is towards verifying
> > > hypothesis that it would yield results.
> >
> > I agree with measuring what is likely to work best, but for some of
> > these proposals, including some of the lowest hanging fruit, that is
> > very hard. So again, I recommend depending on the wisdom of
> > contributing editors. To that end, an editor survey is something which
> > really needs to be done to prep for this. I trust the Board and Staff
> > to be able to veto things which are unworkable and reach through to
> > the opportunities in an agile fashion. What I don't understand are the
> > few who suggest that the Foundation should not be more active on
> > trying to improve the lot in life of potential volunteer editors. How
> > can that possibly be part of a strategy to increase participation?
> >
> > 1. Labor rights, e.g., linking to fixmyjob.com
> >
> > 2. Support the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the
> > Child and its protocols without reservation
> >
> > 3. Increase infrastructure spending
> >
> > 4. Increase education spending
> >
> > 5. Public school class size reduction
> >
> > 6. College subsidy with income-based repayment terms
> >
> > 7. More steeply progressive taxation
> >
> > 8. Negative interest on excess reserves
> >
> > 9. Telecommuting
> >
> > 10. Workweek length reduction
> >
> > 11. Single-payer health care
> >
> > 12. Renewable power purchase
> >
> > 13. Increased data center hardware power efficiency
> >
> > 14. Increased security against eavesdropping
> >
> > 15. Metropolitan broadband
> >
> > 16. Oppose monopolization of software, communications, publishing, and
> > finance industries
> >
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