Hi all,
Last January we announced the roll out of the Wikimedia Resource Center, [1] a hub intended as a single point of entry for Wikimedians all over the world to the variety of resources and types of Wikimedia Foundation staff support they may need to develop new initiatives or expand existing ones. The Wikimedia Resource Center’s beta version is now live on Meta Wikimedia: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center
The redesign of the hub was informed by user-testing sessions at the Wikimedia Conference 2017 in Berlin and feedback gathered on the talk page of the hub. We have ordered resources by user types to make them easier to navigate, and now all Wikimedians can add resources developed by themselves, other individuals or organizations to the hub. The next step for the Wikimedia Resource Center is to include features that will enable Wikimedians to better connect with other Wikimedians that can support them.
We are currently performing more testing and working to incorporate a link to the Wikimedia Resource Center from different community spaces, and it will be presented at Wikimania 2017 in Montréal. If you are interested in taking part in this conversation, please contact me, and if you are coming to Wikimania, join our session [2] to discuss how we best learn from each other in the Wikimedia movement.
We want to hear what you think about this new version and would like to also invite you to submit your comments about it privately, via direct email to me, or publicly on the talk page.
We’d like to thank Nirzar Pangarkar, Carolyn Li-Madeo and Volker Eckl,key allies in bringing the new design to life, for all their support in this project! Also a shout-out goes to James Hare, our technical design intern, who has done great work of processing all the documentation on the WRC, understanding its history and goal, and creating amicable interfaces for contributors.
We are looking forward to more collaborations!
Best,
María
[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-January/085982.html
[2] https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/How_not_to_reinvent_the...
*María Cruz * \ Communications and Outreach project manager, L&E Team \ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. mcruz@wikimedia.org | Twitter: @marianarra_ https://twitter.com/marianarra_
On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 7:54 AM, Maria Cruz mcruz@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi all,
As we have stated in our annual plan [1], “currently, community members must search many pages and places to stay informed about Foundation activities and resources.” We have worked in the past two quarters to create a single point of entry. We call it the Wikimedia Resource Center, and its alpha version is now live on Meta Wikimedia: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center
As the movement expands to include more affiliates and more programmatic activities every year, newer Wikimedians are faced with lack of experience in the movement and its various channels for requesting support. In order to expand Wikimedia communities’ efforts, we want to provide easy access to resources that support their very important work. The [[m:Wikimedia Resource Center]] is a hub designed in response to this issue: it is intended to evolve into a single point of entry for Wikimedians all over the world to the variety of resources and types of staff support they may need to develop new initiatives or also expand existing ones.
This version of the Resource Center is only the beginning. For phase two of the project, we will enable volunteer Wikimedians to add resources developed by other individuals or organizations to the Wikimedia Resource Center, and in phase three, the Wikimedia Resource Center will include features to better connect Wikimedians to other Wikimedians that can support them.
We want to hear what you think about this prototype and our plans for it! If you have comments about the Wikimedia Resource Center, you can submit your feedback publicly, on the Talk Page, or privately, via a survey hosted by a third party, that shouldn’t take you more than 4 minutes to complete. A feedback button is on the top right corner on every page of the hub.
Looking forward to more collaborations!
Best,
María
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_ Annual_Plan/2016-2017/draft#Program_3:_Develop_capacity- building_tools_and_resources_for_core_Wikimedia_programs -- María Cruz Communications and Outreach Project Manager, Community Engagement