On 29 October 2013 16:26, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
On the one hand, the WMF often gets accused of failing
to communicate
properly and consistently with the Wikimedia community. On the other hand,
when consistent communication is attempted though things like these
notices, some people can get frustrated and tune out.
Since 2008 I recommend better communication from WMF towards communities as local
communities feel not being informed well enough. I personally think it is very good that
WMF tries to communicate, but seeing how local users more and more start to react on the
banners we should consider using other ways of communication towards the local
communities, otherwise the communication works against WMF.
Seeing how the local users react on all the notices they get, I think that we should limit
the number of notices and use other methods. Local users expect that the banners are only
used as exception.
How would you suggest we tackle this problem? Simply
not using these
notices any more would lead to reducing our communication with the
community, so without a better solution, we can't really disable the
notices.
Using more notices will lead to reducing the communication as more and more users will
block the CentralNotice, or even whole wikis will block all CentralNotices. (Today in the
discussion the negative comments named the banner(s) as unwanted spam. I have seen how
discussions in the past can get out of control with users getting more and more annoyed
resulting in blocking messages for everyone, I tried to reply as damage control on the
Dutch Wikipedia.)
At this moment it is difficult or impossible to have a solution ready tomorrow, but we
should try to have better ways in the near future. Perhaps the best way is to have a
(product?) team or something like that working on it. I am happy to help with that and
give feedback. Perhaps a special team that tries to improve the communication inside the
Wikimedia movement.
I see currently two ways of receiving information by communities on their wikis:
1. CentralNotice: too many notices will result in banner blindness and blocking notices as
they are very disturbing often on every page.
2. Posting in central discussion/notifications page on a wiki: a lot of users will see
that notice but also many users do not see them.
To me there is a gap between CentralNotice messages on one side and on the other hand the
postings in central discussion/notifications page. I think we should get a way to notify
every user targeted just as with the CentralNotice: if needed geo specific, translated,
etc but isn't shown as big banner on every page.
In September I supported the implementation of the Notifications system (Echo) by
announcing and explaining to the local community what was going to change and how it
works, and even while that system has minor issues it is considered very much as a success
by the community of nl-wiki.
I think a nice way to tackle the problem is by having the Notifications tool expanded with
the ability to receive there notices like with the FDC.
Romaine
(tech ambassador for nl Wikipedia)