Hi Isarra, thank you for the question. We want to support our diverse technical communities in a variety of ways. One of our key tools are the hackathons, where we hope to welcome both seasoned and new volunteer developers. We want to support them not just by providing a series of events but also with tools and WMF staff time. These are the key goals of our new Wikimedia Cloud Services team. They build and make labs and tools available and participate in the hackathons to onboard newcomers and in general assist volunteers. Another key change we are making this year is creating the MediaWiki Platform team who as well as doing much needed work on the codebase will also facilitate contributions and planning with the volunteer community by publishing a roadmap. And as Quim notes below we are changing the nature of the Dev Summit to have it focus on the strategic technology issues and decisions the Movement is faced with. As such it is an event that might appeal more to the seasoned members of our community. Attendance for the summit will be decided on the basis of position papers for WMF staff and volunteers alike. I am personally excited about the lineup of events this coming year. But as always we learn and adapt. If we collectively decide to try for a different configuration the following year, we can totally do that. Please keep the feedback coming!
Best regards, Victoria > On Apr 26, 2017, at 12:23 PM, Isarra Yos <zhoris...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Regarding the Developers Summit in particular, how do you plan to reconcile > making the event smaller with your goal of better retention of newcomers and > volunteers in general when that's often the only venue they have at which to > discuss the high-level technical issues with other stakeholders? Volunteer > and third-party developers are not privy to most of the usual venues afforded > to WMF staff such as inter-team meetings and events, and yet they make up an > important part of the overall stakeholder community that these issues impact. > They - we - need to be able to participate in these discussions, and the > Developers Summit is one of very few opportunities even open to us where we > can make our voices heard. > > -I > > On 20/04/17 07:28, Quim Gil wrote: >> On Sun, Apr 9, 2017 at 1:14 AM, Quim Gil<q...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >> >>> Hi, the Wikimedia Foundation has published a draft of its Annual Plan >>> FY2017-18 >>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Draft> >>> and it welcomes your review. >>> >>> I want to highlight here the improvements that we are proposing to the >>> developer events (co)organized by the WMF. From local to global: >>> >>> The Technical Collaboration team proposes to combine multiple activities >>> (often disconnected) in a single program focusing on onboarding new >>> developers >>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Draft/Programs/Community_Engagement#Program_12:_Onboarding_new_developers>. >>> We >>> want to work with the Wikimedia technical community to bring a new wave of >>> developers to our projects, and events play an important role. >>> >>> Local developer events >>> We want to support developers and organizations willing to reach out to >>> specific groups and geographies. We are hoping to see many local developer >>> meetups and small hackathons or workshops around the World, starting small >>> and simple. We should be able to offer introductory materials, contacts >>> with Wikimedia developers in the region, maybe travel budget to send >>> experienced volunteers to help mentoring the in the bigger events, maybe >>> travel budget to invite the best newcomers to our regional and global >>> events. >>> >>> Adding tech to regional Wikimedia events >>> Last year we experimented organizing technical workshops in WikiArabia, >>> and others have done similar efforts in other regional events (for >>> instance, a small hackathon next to WikiConference India). We want to work >>> with the organizers of these regional events in order to attract >>> experienced Wikimedia developers and newcomers, organize developer >>> activities, and also improve the collaboration between the technical and >>> non-technical contributors in these regions. >>> >>> Better retention of newcomers at the Wikimedia and Wikimania hackathons >>> Although we don't expect major changes in the organization of the >>> Wikimedia Hackathon and the hackathon at Wikimania, we want to focus better >>> on new developers onboarding and retention. In every Hackathon we meet many >>> new developers, but the retention rates are very low. We want to review >>> what we can do before, during, and after these apparently successful events >>> in order to retain newcomers better. One hypothesis is that we should focus >>> call for participation, scholarships, and Wikimedia Foundation >>> participation in providing a great experience to new volunteers who have >>> gone through local and regional events, and also "junior" developers coming >>> from wiki projects through the development of bots, gadgets, tools, >>> templates. >>> >>> A smaller and more focused Wikimedia Developer Summit >>> After some discussions between Community Engagement, Technology, and >>> Product, we have decided to propose a different approach for the Wikimedia >>> Developer Summit. Organized by the Technology department as part of their >>> technical >>> community building >>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Draft/Programs/Technology#Program_4:_Technical_community_building> >>> efforts, we want the Summit to finally become the venue where the toughest >>> technical problems are discussed between the stakeholders directly related. >>> We want to reduce the size/budget of the event, separate it from the WMF >>> AllHands, >>> >> Due to travel budget considerations, the Summit still might be connected to >> the WMF AllHands. >> >> >>> and define its main themes well in advance. >>> >>> A Program Committee<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T160996> would >>> decide these main themes to be discussed at the Summit. We also want to >>> explore the possibility of tackling some of these themes at the Wikimedia >>> Hackathon and Wikimania, where we could get most stakeholders involved with >>> just a little extra effort (since many of them would be attending anyway). >>> >>> We believe that this approach will serve better the Wikimedia technical >>> community that we have, and also the the community that we want to have, >>> with a new wave of developers joining our various projects. >>> >>> -- >>> Quim Gil >>> Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation >>> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil >>> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
