[04:38:20] ragesoss: I really enjoyed the conference. I found it strange to highlight an event as focused on the English Wikipedia, when such an exclusive focus on the English Wikipedia is considered by some{{who?}} a somewhat outstanding problem. [04:38:20] http://enwp.org/Template:who%3f [04:38:34] Thanks, wm-bot. [04:38:34] Hey Fiona, you are welcome! [04:38:38] Heh. [06:33:02] Fiona: I rather think that the biggest problems on the community engagement team's plate are en.wiki problems. [06:52:55] ragesoss: I think both the community engagement and community advocacy teams resemble shams. [06:53:31] The English Wikipedia is pretty large and consequently hits a lot more issues. [06:54:05] It has a wider spread and might make for a decent case study in some contexts, I guess. [19:07:51] Fiona: why do you think they resemble shams? Because they don't have enough impact in getting the WMF tech (and other departments) to address the specific problems and complaints of active editors? [19:09:46] I mean, in general I think there's much too big of a gap there, and the CE team's job is to bridge that gap. [19:10:27] I dare say that I've chatted enough with the community liaisons to say that they are pretty frustrated with that gap. [19:11:39] but having the kinds of focused discussions that happen at WikiConference USA are the kind of things that can empower them to make a better case for, or better representation of, community priorities. [19:12:38] and in general, in person events create a level of connection and empathy that is hard to establish working strictly online. [19:14:40] ragesoss: The entire idea of needing liaisons between the community and the Wikimedia Foundation feels pretty dubious. [19:15:48] it's real work to keep up with the needs and views of the community, and it's not realistic to expect the entire development team to keep up with that stuff on a daily basis. [19:16:36] The daily basis part is what makes up a job, I think. [19:16:48] And I don't think you need to keep apprised daily. [19:17:07] But having a general understanding of the community you're developing or designing for is good. [19:17:10] I agree. [19:17:26] I'm not sure having extra people who are supposedly advocating or engaging on my behalf or whatever is really doing much. [19:17:42] the community is so huge and diverse, though, that if you don't have people dedicated proactively to doing that, then you only keep up with the people who already have access to the people and communication channels that (for example) the development team pays attention to. [19:17:42] They have no real power and they're ultimately bound to implement and support the company line. [19:18:06] s/company/organization/ [19:18:25] I dunno, it all feels a bit hokey to me. [19:18:32] "Directory, Community Advocacy" [19:18:43] "Community Engagement (Product)" or whatever. [19:19:04] Even for a liberal non-profit, it's a bit much. [19:19:33] From my experience on both sides of the fence, I see why it seems like that, while also seeing how the CEP team works hard to effect changes and does have an impact in how development gets done and what gets prioritized. [19:20:01] Even if both they and the community get frustrated at time about how much or little impact they have on a particular project. [19:20:26] You're working for the Wiki Education Foundation now, right? [19:20:31] yes [19:21:28] You still come across as a Wikimedia Foundation staffer. :P [19:21:45] heh [19:22:20] I'm not arguing against the value of conferences and get-togethers. [19:22:28] I attend and I enjoy the discussions. [19:22:36] well, I'm frustrated that the CEP team — who do really understand the community and its needs — don't have as much of an impact in driving development priorities as I'd like. [19:22:43] Though none of them ever feel particularly productive, I understand that ideas grow there and then become real in time. [19:23:42] Right. [19:23:53] I'm not inclined to empower the team. [19:24:05] Maybe I should be. [19:26:04] Fiona: didn't realize who you were until just now. I thought you were Fiona Apps. [19:27:00] (o: [19:27:19] ragesoss: I feel like I sat in on a meeting with the head of the CEP team. [19:27:44] And it was more about "change management" and "community management" than it was about actually evaluating ideas and calling the bad ideas bad. [19:28:11] And, for better or worse, there's a lack of understanding and institutional memory with a lot of staff. [19:28:16] Not all the staff, to be sure, but a lot. [19:29:12] The change management part (or "socializing changes") seemed closer to branding/PR/marketing. [19:29:20] And that's how I read "community engagement." [19:29:49] intitutional memory has definitely been a problem, in part because WMF has had such a turnover problem until the last year or so. it seems to be getting better, so hopefully they can start to really do better in that area. [19:30:14] And I understand and appreciate that there are good people in the middle. People who are being asked to be servants of two masters. [19:30:21] I don't envy that position. [19:30:44] it can be fun. but also not so fun at times. [19:30:46] I frankly don't know how some of them do it. I'd be ready to blow my brains out if I had to sit in the harebrained meetings some of them are forced to suffer. [19:30:49] Yeah. [19:31:14] I was lucky enough not to have to deal with too much of that at WMF. [19:31:27] There has to be a comfortableness and a willingness to actually speak up. [19:31:38] And argue (strongly) against bad ideas. [19:31:43] Of which we have no shortage. [19:31:50] I mean, came back to WMF a year after the public policy initiative to try to salvage the botched deployment of the EducationProgram extension. [19:31:59] which was itself something of a mess, and still is. [19:32:20] Development is hard. [19:32:37] but I got to priortize what got fixed and what got changed about it to make it suck little enough that it was better than turning it off. [19:33:08] I didn't really have to fight uphill, except after the initial deployment, to convince the community to take its software medicine, as it were. [19:33:41] A triumph of mediocrity; a success story for the ages. ;-) [19:33:47] :) [19:34:07] well, now I have a real development budget and get to build a replacement that isn't a mediawiki extension. [19:34:19] :) [19:34:30] I'm not sure the issue was that it was a MediaWiki extension. [19:34:49] Integration with MediaWiki is a pretty big plus for a wiki-education tool, I think. [19:35:07] well, it was an issue insofar as it's tied to the rest of the mediawiki system, and has to work within that framework and work within the code review and deployment system. [19:35:16] it makes it hard to do anything quickly. [19:35:24] It's interesting that there's now a Wiki Education Foundation. It makes you wonder what the Wikimedia Foundation's mission is, if not education.... [19:35:40] Well, yeah, code review and deployment requires an inside track. [19:35:53] Plenty of teams do weekly deploys these days. [19:36:05] But it's not a small hurdle by any means to get to that point. [19:36:29] and even with an inside track, it can take a while if you're not actually part of one of the main engineering teams. [19:36:46] Sure. [19:36:57] But so does, like, all development everywhere. [19:36:58] but OAuth opens up a lot of possibilties. [19:37:11] Universities work on projects that span decades. [19:37:35] I understand that the Internet moves faster, or wants to, anyway. [19:38:25] And a slower approach allows you to look for larger patterns so that you can hopefully write more modular and reusable code. [19:38:30] it's wonderful being able to just deploy whenever you want. [19:38:41] and I'm enjoying not having to use PHP as well. [19:38:41] For sure. [19:39:14] If you can sidestep architectural, security, and performance considerations, code development is significantly more enjoyable, yes. [19:39:21] :D [19:39:37] At least in the short-term. In the long-term... ;-) [19:40:22] although making that a possibility in the first place, by having an OAuth system that lets people do all the things they could do on Wikipedia anyway, is itself a major architectual thing. [19:40:34] Sure. [19:40:51] OAuth, a usable Web API, decent documentation, etc. [19:41:01] and making things more modular is something WMF is trying to work towards. [19:41:26] Maybe. [19:41:32] service-oriented architecture and all that. [19:41:58] "Services is just a fancy euphemism for external dependency, right?" -- me, paraphrased [19:42:32] Not novel and often undesirable, IMO! [19:44:01] well, by all appearances, MediaWiki core has been pretty hamstrung by the level of interdepency of the many, complex different parts of itself. [19:44:24] It could certainly use some refactoring. [19:44:43] Some people seem to think mean refactoring means "rewrite in Node.js." [19:44:58] Minus a "mean."