Kaya Natalia Thank you for the in depth response and clarification of changes to the wishlist process, as well as how the tech team works. We do appreciate knowing that larger issues can be listed and will actually go somewhere rather than being dismissed as too large. One thing I'd hope to see is the tech team to have a specialist contact for each project so that project specific issues can be highlighted to someone who can translate between contributors who dont have the tech knowledge or language to assist issues being clearly reported.
Boodarwun Gnangarra On Thu, 6 Jan 2022 at 01:43, Natalia Rodriguez <nrodrig...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hey all, > Nice to meet many of you for the first time! Thanks for your feedback and > for raising larger concerns around resource allocation at the Foundation. > These concerns are extremely valid-- especially the ones around allocating > resources for less supported platforms such as Commons and broken > infrastructure. The wishlist process will begin next week with the proposal > phase starting Jan 10. > > In the email thread, I identified some open questions about the Wishlist > process so I am answering them here. > > > - Can we vote/focus on the maintenance of tools rather than new tools? > - Yes. The wishes that we work on do not have to be associated with a > new tool. In the past we’ve taken on projects that were maintenance > related. For example, in the last year, we took on improvement projects > for > Wikisource Export and Wikisource OCR tools, among other initiatives. We > also maintain and fix all the tools we’ve built in the past. Check > out the fresh documentation about what qualifies as a proposal here. > > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey/FAQ#How_to_create_a_good_proposal?> > - Gnangarra, your points about the issues with bulk uploads in > Commons would make a sound proposal-- a proposal does not have to be a > new > tool in the least. The part about uploading large files is out of scope > for > our team though (see link above about our areas of focus, the issue is > infrastructural <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T86436> and too > large for what we can take on). I still believe there is value in > suggesting it, though. > - We have Talk to Us > > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey/Updates/Talk_to_Us> > hours on January 19-- where the entire team will be available for a > video > call to help folks who want to write proposals and polish them so that > they > may get selected. > > > > - What if what we want fixed is larger than what the Community Tech > team can accomplish? > - This year, we will be talking directly with leadership about larger > wishes that we can't fulfill ourselves. To make this possible, we will > no > longer be formally 'Archiving' ideas. One improvement we are > implementing > from conversations with all of you at past Talk to Us Hours and other > places, is that we will place projects that are too large for us into a > new > category called “Larger Suggestions'' because we still want people to be > able to voice those needs. We plan to share this with the Foundation's > leadership during the WMF's annual planning, which takes place in the > spring. > - This being said, if you have an idea that may be too large for us > to take on, I would also encourage you to come to Talk to Us Hours (link > above) and see if we can help you workshop the proposal into something > we > can help with. If we can’t then I would still highly encourage you to > propose, by all means! Chances are if you think it’s an important > problem, > many other members do as well. > - Finally, the wishlist isn't just for Community Tech. Volunteer > developers and other Wikimedia Foundation teams have taken on wishes > from > the wishlist. For this reason, there is a chance that a wish may not be > appropriate for our team, but it can be addressed by someone else. > > > > - Why isn’t the WMF fixing what we feel are be the most urgently > needed fixes in functionality? > - This is a larger question that gets answered at the board and > C-leadership levels. There are also some relatively new teams at the > Foundation, such as Architecture and Platform Engineering, that aim to > improve the technical infrastructure overall in the years to come. > However, > every team can help with the answer and Community Tech can help with > communication of technical needs. This “Larger Suggestions” collection > of > wishes I mentioned in the previous answer will not be a silver bullet > that > fixes all of the problems, but I believe in the power of incremental > steps > to steer us in that direction. > > > > - How can we communicate the urgency of the fixes that we need? > - I don’t believe there is any lack of documentation of concerns about > functionality that is broken. Folks are right to point out that it’s > about > synthesizing what is most urgently broken, the maintenance that is > really > necessary, and surfacing it to leadership. We, the Community Tech team, > had > a lot of hard conversations about how to handle this because we never > want > to mislead anyone into thinking we are going to work on ideas that are > too > large for our team. However, we all collectively came to the conclusion > that we should still be the team that gives people the space to voice > what > they need from a technical perspective. > - The wishlist itself can communicate urgency. If you submit a > detailed wish (the more details, the better!), and if the wish receives > a > high number of votes, we definitively know as a team that it's urgent > and > high-priority. From there, we have the information we need to take next > steps. This may involve taking on the wish ourselves or communicating > the > wish to leadership. > - Does the Community Tech team work in isolation? > - No, we constantly collaborate with other teams at the Foundation and > most importantly, with all of you. This year our goal is to share the > top > wishes with other product managers who are responsible for products > related > to the categories in the wishlist. This way, they may incorporate > relevant > wishes into their team's roadmap, or they will at least consider > community > requests as they plan upcoming work. We always check to see if other > teams > are already working on solutions related to what is asked inside of the > Wishlist. We plan to do more and are energized that the conversation is > already beginning to happen in this thread. > - Why is the Community Tech team so small? Why can't more people be > hired, or why can't a second Community Tech team be formed? > - As a team, we deeply believe in our work, and we hope to keep > growing. We know how important it is to work directly with community > members and fulfill community requests. If you want our team to grow, > one > of the best ways you can champion us is to participate in the wishlist. > As > participation rates grow (and they have!), the more effectively we can > advocate for our team and its resources. > > > P.S. We are still welcoming help to promote the survey and to translate > the updated documentation. Thanks for reading. > > Best, > Natalia Rodriguez > Senior Product Manager, Community Tech > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/WRXDIQSGZ63UGFRU5AUOOGXLYUZMEKGM/ > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org -- GN.
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