User talk:Eekim/2009-10-13

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Welcome to the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic planning process. We appreciate your interest in taking part. You can start by reading our Community guidelines (en). Check out the links on the Main Page (en) and find an area that interests you. Please feel free to ask me any questions, or you may leave a message on the Village pump (en).

Who says you shouldn't be welcomed just like everybody else? :-) - Rjd0060 18:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Thanks, Rjd0060. :-) --Eekim 18:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Sandbox

Signpost

Hi Eugene,

Just wanted to make sure you saw this kind offer for interviews in the Signpost. -- Philippe 04:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Issues

Hi Eugene. I've started a page for refactoring the discussions and proposals that come up in terms of issues. I'd like to make a link to Issues from the main page, and from the proposal page, and I'd like to rename "Issues with this wiki" to something like "Technical problems with this wiki" so that it is not confused with issues. Would you be amenable to adding a link from the shortcuts? I see that you are the Bureaucrat for this wiki. How does one become an Admin? Can I apply for the job? -- Sam 08:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Sam,

I'm going to jump in and speak for Eugene right now, because I know he's in meetings this morning.

First, I spent some time looking at the issues page and really like the format. It seems that's a good way to begin to separate some ideas for evaluative purposes. There's actually a main page redesign in the works, so I'd like to suggest that we table the idea of adding a link to issues from the main page until we actually finish the redesign and see where it would fit into the new structure. Every time we add or change something, it results in the need to update translations, so we would prefer to group as many changes as possible into one new version, to reduce load on translators.

We haven't actually created any admins yet (other than the two of us and Eloquence) and are going to hold off on doing so until we see a demonstrated need for tools (but, as the wiki size grows, no question we're going to need more). You're on the list of people that are interested, and I know you'd do a fine job. :) -- Philippe 17:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey Sam. What Philippe said. :-) --Eekim 17:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Where is the redesigned front page being constructed? found it. Also, it seems that there could be quite a bit of tension between the need to create translations, and the stated desire to make this an open community process. I suggest that the "open" part not be sacrificed. Perhaps there's a way to mark which versions of things are up to date in their translations -- kinda a "flagged translations" system. -- Sam 19:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by a tension between the two? Could you clarify? I'm thinking in terms of resource allocation for translators, but also in terms of not wanting this to look like an "english-only" project. That's critical to getting buy-in from throughout the community. -- Philippe 19:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

As this is a Wiki, we want to make as much as possible open to community input, but what I'm hearing here is that "There's actually a main page redesign in the works, so I'd like to suggest that we table the idea of adding a link to issues from the main page until we actually finish the redesign and see where it would fit into the new structure." because of "the need to update translations". I don't think this response to me is the kind of response we want to present to the community. It sounds like "We'll keep your suggestion in mind as we go about our work". I think the response we want to give is "Come to the New Main Page redesign and help us integrate it into our redesign". I also think you want to have a message like that on the old Main Page. You can consider me a guinea pig for testing how the community might respond. There will be people like myself coming here with a good deal of energy, wanting to jump in. You can't tell us to wait because of translations, rather you have to create an open community process and figure out how to manage the problems that result from that process. -- Sam 19:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I certainly hope you didn't take my message as any sort of throttle on your contributions. I think the issues page is fantastic, and look forward to working with you toward integrating it. I thank you for your language suggestions as well. I hope you will jump in and help out, and - now that the bare bones of the new main page are up and created (which they weren't when you made your suggestion), I hope you'll hop in and work on that too. -- Philippe 19:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't feel throttled at all, but I know how things can get misinterpreted, especially at the launch of new processes, hence the language suggestions. Enough meta-conversations! I've commented on the talk page for the new Main Page, with some questions about how to integrate our efforts. We can continue the conversation there. -- Sam 03:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Convenors

So what is a convenor? I have not seen this word used in any Wikimedia sites. -- Sam 00:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Originators

Saw your change to Philippe's addition of originators, Eugene. I think the motivation behind it was to preserve my name on the participation page, given the Philippe was the one to actually upload. Does this make sense? --JohnF 19:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

It does, and I understand it, but since it was there, it's now part of the revision history anyway, and I fully expect that you'll be participating on that page in the future. --Eekim 19:57, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Language

Hi Eugene,

I'm hoping a wiki implementation of a process for strategic planning, collaborative problem solving, or dealing with ongoing community-wide issues can be an on-going end-product of our efforts here. So that is my focus. I see this as the big meta-problem for all of WikiMedia. There have been thousands of proposals generated in English Wikipedia about all sorts of things, but there is no effective widely-accepted process for making big community decisions.

Here is what I see as essential to make such a process work on a wiki:

1. FOCUS: A centralized place to focus peoples attention on an issue (you can substitute the words "problem", "decision", "plan", etc... but I'm going to stick with "issue"). This centralized location needs to become the focus by linking it wherever the issue is raised.
2. EDUCATION: Brief descriptions of the issue that are meant to educate users along with summaries and links to the history, discussions, proposals, policies, etc... related to the issue.
3. DEFINITION: The need to define issues before discussing and implementing proposals that are meant to fix them.
4. TRANSPARENCY: A totally transparent process for dealing with these issues that is easily understood and that can be advanced by anyone on the wiki.
5. TOOLS: Facilitation tools that help bring the community toward consensus, inspiring creativity, and encourage civility.

I can understand, that for reasons of expediency you might not want to do all this for the current strategic planning process. But without these things I don't understand how you can say that you have gotten the full participation of the wiki users who are concerned with whatever issue is being discussed. If, for example, a proposal is going to be considered to "Change Wikipedia Notability Guidelines" it cannot bypass the numerous discussions that have happened in the past. It must reference the past, organize it, analyze it and make sense of it. Without this, it will not be convincing. Even if it is convincing, it needs the attention and participation of the people who are concerned about the issue.

I don't know if what I am after is possible, or that it will work. But it seems that without it all we are capable of doing is continuing the status quo. We certainly may be able to expand our reach, encourage more participation, expand content and improve quality. But longstanding problems will likely continue to be problems, perhaps getting much worse. Using the Notability Guidelines as an example, we might find that they are a cause of participation problems (I almost quit the project over a notability conflict, many others have). Some people think they are putting a damper on content. Others think that they have been helping to insure the quality of articles. Many longstanding intractable issues, like this one, are weakening the foundation of Wikimedia. We need a process to deal with them -- a strategic plan. -- Sam 10:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I want all of these things. What I'm trying to understand is, do you think we're not going in this direction right now? If so, what do we need to do to get back on track? --Eekim 13:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is the "wrong" direction, I just don't think it is nearly as good as it could be. More specifically:

1. The focus currently seems to be on creating proposals. I don't see a structure in the wiki that brings people with similar concerns to the same place. To do so would mean that issues all over WikiMedia projects would be linked to a centralized location here. A template, similar to the ones that tell users about files available on a subject in commons or other projects is needed that informs people discussing issues in other projects that a centralized discussion about the project is happening here. But you can't make the template unless there is a centralized place to discuss the issue here.
2. Once people come here they need a concise summary of what the issue is -- the "where we are now" -- and a forum to have the "where we want to be", all related to the issue. The first thing we should encourage, for anyone who has an idea or proposal, is getting steeped in the history of the issue. This is currently difficult to do, even if you want to do it, because the history of issues has not been collected in a centralized way. This step is facilitated by having done the first step. I don't see much of this happening on this wiki, and I don't see it being encouraged by the process as it has been laid out.
3. Implicit in this wiki is that the issues are "Broaden the reach", "Improve participation", "Expand the content" and "Improve quality". I'm not convinced that this is the best way to frame the difficult issues that face the community. They seem too broad to be topics of discussion and thereby focus attention. For example, If someone comes here with concerns about "Notability", it is related to all of these issues. How does this wiki focus energies around the more specific issue? Where is the forum for having a conversation about what the key issues are?
4. What is the process of coming up with the strategic plan -- from start to finish? What is the role of the board? the community? the consultants? the convenors? If a participant doesn't know what is going to happen in phase two and phase three, it makes it seem less transparent. As an ongoing process, multiple issues need to be able to coexist in different stages of development. Issues should move from one phase to another as they naturally mature, and participants should know what the next step will be and what checkpoints must be reached before the next phase can begin.

I've suggested a way in which an Issues page can be set up. I haven't linked it to anything because I want this to be a collaborative effort, and I don't have a sense of how what I am looking for links into what has already been set up. I don't want to create a parallel effort. That would seem to dissipate the energy of participants, and without a clear focus would not accomplish what I am looking for anyway. So my question to you is whether you think issues can be integrated into the process, and how you see that as happening. Thanks. -- Sam 19:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(comment about #3) This is one of many views of what matters. We need to generate many such views, and identify which views matter to different groups of people -- this is an effectively neutral way to approach planning, rather than deciding early on what the goals are. Sj

That looks interesting. See comments on the issues page. I'm also not sure how that links up, but it is important. Sj 18:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Request for input pages

Hi Eugene--we actually wanted to try leaving out specific directions/questions for the participation fact base to see if we were being too directive. We're now populating the discussion pages with select questions, and want to try leaving the fact base itself as is--just the facts. I'm going to revert, but wanted to let you know. Open to hearing your thoughts on this! --JohnF 17:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Eugene, I actually have some problem with this approach. The "fact base" is really missing some important information and perspectives...along the lines of the wiki way - the more perspectives the closer to fact we get.... And the fact base represent quite a bias toward Wikipedia and English. Or maybe I'm just not seeing the whole picture? I put some additions both to the Participation fact base content page and its talk page. I'll post this to JohnF as well Jennifer Riggs 18:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikiversity warm welcome

I'm glad you're here Eric! On behalf of Wikiversity I'm inviting you to come down and have a look at our project. There is a lot we can offer in the way of research and input on the academic front. I took the liberty of creating a user page and talk page not to burden you, but to provide a workspace for extending your Reach. We gather on freenode #wikiversity (hub channel) and have #wikiversity-en, #wikiversity-de and several other chapters. We're linking a range of resources to here and I'm encouraging other Wikiversitans to join this process. See this list for some insight into how the context can grow. Thanks for your efforts! --CQ 15:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Answer to question

Eekim, you asked a question on my user page four days ago. Today I supplied an elaborate answer, though not a definitive one. Dedalus 15:20, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

First convenors resolution

Eugene, have a look at First convenors resolution, edit if necessary, and please sign if you do agree. Dedalus 09:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for your message. I just hope I can make it into a task force! I've seen the criteria and I feel I will have to show a lot of passion to make up for what I lack in demonstrable skills. Ah well, I'll see how it goes... Bodnotbod 02:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Hey Eugene, just wanted to say the more I explore this site, the more I'm enjoying the exchange of ideas it's facilitating. Just wanted to say thanks. Also, I'll be in SF later this week for an interview -- would be great if we could get together! Give a call if you're free. 503-383-WIKI -Peteforsyth 03:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Sent you an email, but not 100% sure I have your up to date address. As of now, no plans for Friday, so hopefully we can hook up! What part of town are you in? -Peteforsyth 23:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Translation

Hi! I some words of the left box have not been translated to Basque language (eu). Could you tanslate the following ones?

• Fact base ---> Datu-basea
• Random proposals ---> Ausazko proposamena

Thank you in advance.--An13sa 12:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

pt

I answered here. Please read carefully, I'm beginning to believe no more in this project. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 21:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)