Fabrice,

Congratulations on the new position.

I was just thinking today about the “communication” . On Commons, where I often can be found, one type of communication that seems to be still a problem is how to communicate with new users, especially the ones that have some problems with their uploads. A lot of new users, have problems navigating the maze of rules, policies  and traditions (which often serve as policies since we do not have that many official policies), copyrights, communication channels, etc. If their upload have some issue than the preferred mode of communication is one of few message templates which are often internationalized so they can be displayed in any language. I have noticed that for a lot of new users, especially with none or limited English or technical skills, those messages are undecipherable and their pages are filled with them. I think we should have a look if there is something we can do to improve lines of communication with new users, especially the ones whose uploads have some problems.

I tag a lot of files which are uploaded without any license templates with {{No License}} tag and notify the uploaders about the issue. A lot of them come back to my talk page with questions and it is often a real challenge to explain the issues. Additional thing that might help is much more links to help pages and examples from the Upload Wizard, or even better detection of issues at the upload time.

One challenge is the balance between brevity and completeness. Other issue is the number of translations and if they are up to date or not.

Something to pounder at your new job.

Jarek T.

(user:Jarekt)

From: commons-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:commons-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fabrice Florin
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2015 2:01 PM
To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
Subject: [Commons-l] Joining WMF Communications team

Hi folks,

I am happy to announce that I will be joining the Wikimedia Foundation's Communications team as Movement Communications Manager for a period of six months. 

I have really enjoyed my work as product manager at WMF in the past 3 years, leading the development of new tools like Notifications, Thanks, Beta Features, Media Viewer and other multimedia products [1]. 

One of the lessons I learned during that time is that 'better communications' are really important to make our movement more effective. I also think that growing a 'culture of kindness' is key if we want to engage a broader community [2]. I hope to support both of these goals in my new role. 

Starting this week, I will be working with the communications team on the Wikimedia blog and general WMF/movement communications. My focus for the blog will include improving contributor workflow for community members and WMF staff, and providing editorial guidance for contributors. I will also act as the main contact point for authors submitting new blog posts, and shepherd the publication process. Within movement communications, I will work to improve the availability, distribution, and timeliness of communications from the WMF to the broader community. I will also manage a range of movement communications tasks previously handled by Tilman Bayer, who is transitioning to the WMF Product team as Senior Analyst. 

Going forward, senior engineer Gilles Dubuc will lead the multimedia team and take on some of my responsibilities as product owner, until a new product manager is assigned to that team. Please contact him directly with any questions related to our multimedia work.

I’d like to thank all my colleagues on the multimedia and product teams -- as well as our many community champions -- for being such wonderful collaborators over the past few years. I am proud of what we accomplished together, and I hope that the features we created can help many more people share knowledge productively in years to come. Special thanks to Erik Moeller for his thoughtful guidance throughout the past three years -- and for making this transition possible.

I'm delighted to take on this new assignment, and look forward to more collaborations with you all in the coming year.

Onward!


Fabrice Florin
Movement Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation



[1] Fabrice's user page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)

[2] 'A Culture of Kindness' blog post:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/23/a-culture-of-kindness/