The Research & Data team is currently experimenting with a tool called Trello for tracking progress and simplifying monthly reporting [1]. We don’t have a good solution for tracking progress on research/data support requests originating from the community or from non-WMF researchers. Using the same board for these requests is not going to work: - the board is currently set up as read-only for non-WMF users - it mostly reflects work prioritized by the team as part of our quarterly planning [2] and it’s not designed as a generic inbox for data requests - repurposing the board as a generic backlog would set the wrong expectations that the team has bandwidth or a mandate to support these requests as they come in What if we set up a public (read/write accessible) board where anyone (including volunteers) can create, pick up, execute and complete requests? The purpose of this would be purely to categorize, track and (self-)assign or reassign tasks: the actual requirements and the output of a request would be hosted on Meta (for example in the Research Index or the Labs2 portal) and/or in a public data repository. How do people feel about this? We also have a bugzilla component for generic analytics requests that people have been using for a while [3] but I don’t think it has been particularly successful because BZ is mostly focused on development and bug reports or feature requests for analytics infrastructure. The bottom line is that I don’t want to create more work for WMF researchers – we are a small team of 2.5 FTE staffers supporting the whole organization, if we exclude WMF analysts that are not part of Analytics – but test if a lightweight tool like Trello can be used to distribute tasks and track progress on a body of research and data requests. Dario [1] https://trello.com/b/k5N0ivoM/research-and-data [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Analytics_Quarterly_Review_Q2_2013_(Res… [3] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=251983&resolution=--… _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

I agree with Aaron. - J On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote: -- Jonathan T. Morgan Learning Strategist Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

Link to IdeaLab: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Jonathan's comment reminded me to mention that this is how IdeaLab & Grants works too. On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Jonathan Morgan <jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: I agree with Aaron. - J On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: I like the idea of working together internally with a trello board because it gives us some nice structure and many of us are familiar with how it work. Howevere, when it comes to Wikipedians requesting and discussing research work, I can't think of a better solution than the wiki. It's the format and notification structure that editors are most likely to be familiar with. Such a work request/discussion queue could work like L2 Ideas[1]. There, I've set up a series of templates and input boxes that make it straightforward to capture an idea/request, discussion and progress. See also the Idea creation page[2] and an example idea [3]. 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Labs2/Ideas 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Labs2/New_idea 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Ideas/How_has_the_retention_of_fem… -Aaron On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 6:51 PM, Dario Taraborelli <dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: The Research & Data team is currently experimenting with a tool called Trello for tracking progress and simplifying monthly reporting [1]. We don’t have a good solution for tracking progress on research/data support requests originating from the community or from non-WMF researchers. Using the same board for these requests is not going to work: the board is currently set up as read-only for non-WMF users it mostly reflects work prioritized by the team as part of our quarterly planning [2] and it’s not designed as a generic inbox for data requests repurposing the board as a generic backlog would set the wrong expectations that the team has bandwidth or a mandate to support these requests as they come in What if we set up a public (read/write accessible) board where anyone (including volunteers) can create, pick up, execute and complete requests? The purpose of this would be purely to categorize, track and (self-)assign or reassign tasks: the actual requirements and the output of a request would be hosted on Meta (for example in the Research Index or the Labs2 portal) and/or in a public data repository. How do people feel about this? We also have a bugzilla component for generic analytics requests that people have been using for a while [3] but I don’t think it has been particularly successful because BZ is mostly focused on development and bug reports or feature requests for analytics infrastructure. The bottom line is that I don’t want to create more work for WMF researchers – we are a small team of 2.5 FTE staffers supporting the whole organization, if we exclude WMF analysts that are not part of Analytics – but test if a lightweight tool like Trello can be used to distribute tasks and track progress on a body of research and data requests. Dario [1] https://trello.com/b/k5N0ivoM/research-and-data [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Analytics_Quarterly_Review_Q2_2013_(Res… [3] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=251983&resolution=--… _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics -- Jonathan T. Morgan Learning Strategist Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

You guys know how I feel about wiki portals (having created the first incarnation of the research index on Meta). But to clarify this proposal: the idea was *not* to move away from the wiki but to use a tool on top of the wiki to track tasks more effectively. Using a wiki as a bug tracker or queue system for people who are not familiar with templates or wiki markup has been historically a huge usability barrier. The case of subject recruitment approvals is a great example of how hard it is to coordinate task assignment and progress tracking on wiki even for people who are supposed to be fluent mediawiki users. If the idea doesn’t have enough support or there’s a perception that it creates more issues than it solves, I’m ok ditching it but I don’t think a wiki portal solves this problem. On Nov 21, 2013, at 9:54 AM, Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Link to IdeaLab: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote: _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics