Thank you for writing this; I completely agree.
I've long thought the WMF should put more resources into community wishes, not less. I do hope this will be reconsidered. Perhaps there could be more wishes granted to non-Wikimedia projects, while maintaining the same number of wishes for Wikipedia? > On Oct 4, 2019, at 4:43 PM, Yuri Astrakhan <yuriastrak...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Ilana, restricting wishlist to non-Wikipedia this year is a very sad news. > > For many years, wishlist survey was the best way for the community to talk > back to the foundation, and to try to influence its direction. WMF mostly > ignored these wishes, yet it was still a place to express, discuss, > aggregate and vote on what community needed. Big thank-you is due to the > tiny community tech team that tackled the top 10 items, but that's just ~3% > of the foundation's employees. > > WMF has been steadily separating itself from the community and loosing > credibility as a guiding force. Take a look at the last election -- almost > every candidate has said "no" to the question if WMF is capable of > deciding/delivering on the direction [1]. In **every** single conversation > I had with the community members, people expressed doubts with the movement > strategy project, in some cases even treating it as a joke. > > This is a huge problem, and restricting wishlist kills the last effective > feedback mechanism community had. Now WMF is fully in control of itself, > with nearly no checks & balances from the people who created it. > > I still believe that if WMF makes it a priority to align most of its > quarterly/yearly goals with the community wishlist (not just top 10 > positions), we could return to the effective community-governance. > Otherwise WMF is risking to mirror Red Cross Haiti story [2] -- hundreds of > millions of $$ donated, and very few buildings actually built. > > With great respect to all the people who made Wikis what they are today, > --[[User:Yurik]] > > [1] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Questions#Do_you_believe_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_in_its_present_form_is_the_right_vehicle_for_the_delivery_of_the_strategic_direction?_If_so_why,_and_if_not,_what_might_replace_it? > > [2] > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Red_Cross#Disaster_preparedness_and_response > > On Fri, Oct 4, 2019 at 5:18 PM Ilana Fried <ifr...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > >> Hello, everyone! >> >> My name is Ilana, and I'm the product manager for the Community Tech team. >> We’re excited to share an update on the Community Tech 2020 Wishlist Survey >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2020>. This >> will >> be our fifth annual Community Wishlist Survey, and for this year, we’ve >> decided to take a different approach. In the past, we've invited people to >> write proposals for any features or fixes that they'd like to see, and the >> Community Tech team has addressed the top ten wishes with the most support >> votes. This year, we're just going to focus on the *non-Wikipedia content >> projects* (i.e. Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Commons, Wikisource, >> Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, and Wikinews), and we're >> only going to address the top five wishes from this survey. This is a big >> departure from the typical process. In the following year (2021), we’ll >> probably return to the traditional structure. >> >> So, why this change? We’ve been following the same format for years — and, >> generally, it has lots of benefits. We build great tools, provide useful >> improvements, and have an impact on diverse communities. However, the >> nature of the format tends to prioritize the largest project (Wikipedia). >> This makes it harder to serve smaller projects, and many of their wishes >> never make it onto the wishlist. As a community-focused team, we want to >> support *all* projects. Thus, for 2020, we want to shine a light on >> non-Wikipedia projects. >> >> Furthermore, we’ll be accepting five wishes. Over the years, we’ve taken on >> larger wishes (like Global Preferences >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Global_preferences> or Who >> Wrote That >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Who_Wrote_That_tool>), >> which are awesome projects. At the same time, they tend to be lengthy >> endeavors, requiring extra time for research and development. When we >> looked at the 2019 wishlist, there were still many unresolved wishes. >> Meanwhile, we wanted to make room for the new 2020 wishes. For this reason, >> we’ve decided to take on a shortened list, so we can address as many wishes >> (new and remaining 2019 wishes >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2019/Results>) >> as possible. >> >> Overall, we look forward to this year’s survey. We worked with lots of >> folks (engineering, product management, and others) to think about how we >> could support underserved projects, all while preserving the dynamic and >> open nature of the wishlist. *Please let us know your thoughts >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Wishlist_Survey_2020>* >> related >> to this change. In addition, we’ll begin thinking about the guidelines for >> this new process, so *we want your feedback >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Wishlist_Survey_2020>* (on >> what sorts of processes/rules we may want to consider). Thank you, and >> we’re very curious to see the wishes in November! >> >> >> Thanks, >> >> Ilana Fried >> >> Product Manager, Community Tech >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
