Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:39:24 -0700 From: Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org To: ee@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [EE] Flow and newsletters (was EE Digest, Vol 20, Issue 5) Message-ID: 522E400C.7050800@wikimedia.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 09/08/2013 11:00 PM, ENWP Pine wrote:
Steven, that's a great idea for wider visibility. Can you talk to the right people to implement this notification, along with an opt-out feature, forward compatibility with Flow, and the capacity to add other newsletters such as Kurier or This Month in GLAM on any wiki that uses Echo?
Flow and Echo are mainly E2, which is led by Maryana (although other features will/do leverage Flow and Echo when useful).
Matt Flaschen
Maryana, can you comment on when we could get functionality from Echo or Flow resembling what we've discussed in this thread?
Pine
On Sep 12, 2013, at 12:05 AM, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:39:24 -0700 From: Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org To: ee@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [EE] Flow and newsletters (was EE Digest, Vol 20, Issue 5) Message-ID: 522E400C.7050800@wikimedia.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 09/08/2013 11:00 PM, ENWP Pine wrote:
Steven, that's a great idea for wider visibility. Can you talk to the right people to implement this notification, along with an opt-out feature, forward compatibility with Flow, and the capacity to add other newsletters such as Kurier or This Month in GLAM on any wiki that uses Echo?
Flow and Echo are mainly E2, which is led by Maryana (although other features will/do leverage Flow and Echo when useful).
Matt Flaschen
Maryana, can you comment on when we could get functionality from Echo or Flow resembling what we've discussed in this thread?
Pine
It's tough to estimate until Flow is released into production, which should happen by December of this year.
There have been a lot of great ideas kicked around for how to leverage Echo + Flow to make them greater than the sum of their parts, and there'll probably be about ten times as many ideas once Flow is out in the wild, so I don't want to commit to an ironclad roadmap for this just yet.
What we probably should do at this stage is start rounding up all these ideas in one central location and keep track of how our thinking and priorities evolve over the next few months. I can start up a page onwiki somewhere -- if anyone else gets to it before I do, ping out the link on this list :)
Hi Maryana, for this request is there any need to wait for Flow? I think Echo alone could be made to do the job, the only issue is making sure the system is forward compatible with Flow. I would like to see this get implemented sooner rather than later. I think it would be an important qualitative improvement for editor engagement and possibly help with editor population statistics.
Pine
On 13-09-12 10:58 PM, ENWP Pine wrote:
Hi Maryana, for this request is there any need to wait for Flow? I think Echo alone could be made to do the job, the only issue is making sure the system is forward compatible with Flow. I would like to see this get implemented sooner rather than later. I think it would be an important qualitative improvement for editor engagement and possibly help with editor population statistics.
Pine
Putting newsletters into Echo, might be better than putting them into Flow, because otherwise: When I'm talkpagestalking dozens of users, all the duplicate copies of newsletters that they subscribe to, would show up in (or have to be filtered out of) their board feeds.
I made a list of newsletters at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quiddity/sandbox&oldid=5... I guess I'll integrate them into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:News which (afaik) is where they're meant to be listed. But not tonight.
To some degree, but Echo is not set up for long messages. I can see a Flow+Echo newsletter working something like "create a newsletter thread on [project] talkpage, tag all newsletter recipients, it'll show in their boards and also on the talkpage for people who drop in, and they'd be notified of it via Echo".
Echo is totally (potentially) good for things like "hey! there's [[a thread you should participate in]]", or will be once other features are built and SUL finalisation is complete - but they've not be, it's not, and a newsletter is a very different beastie.
On 13 September 2013 19:08, Quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
On 13-09-12 10:58 PM, ENWP Pine wrote:
Hi Maryana, for this request is there any need to wait for Flow? I think Echo alone could be made to do the job, the only issue is making sure the system is forward compatible with Flow. I would like to see this get implemented sooner rather than later. I think it would be an important qualitative improvement for editor engagement and possibly help with editor population statistics.
Pine
Putting newsletters into Echo, might be better than putting them into Flow, because otherwise: When I'm talkpagestalking dozens of users, all the duplicate copies of newsletters that they subscribe to, would show up in (or have to be filtered out of) their board feeds.
I made a list of newsletters at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/**index.php?title=User:Quiddity/** sandbox&oldid=572833236https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quiddity/sandbox&oldid=572833236 I guess I'll integrate them into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Wikipedia:Newshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:News which (afaik) is where they're meant to be listed. But not tonight.
______________________________**_________________ EE mailing list EE@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/eehttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee
I agree with Oliver. I think until we have a nicer way of presenting newsletters onwiki and letting new users easily comment (the current commenting setup on The Signpost is, imho, even more confusing than a regular talk page), it doesn't make a lot of sense to send new users this notification. It may end up hurting more than helping.
On Sep 14, 2013, at 1:02 AM, Oliver Keyes okeyes@wikimedia.org wrote:
To some degree, but Echo is not set up for long messages. I can see a Flow+Echo newsletter working something like "create a newsletter thread on [project] talkpage, tag all newsletter recipients, it'll show in their boards and also on the talkpage for people who drop in, and they'd be notified of it via Echo".
Echo is totally (potentially) good for things like "hey! there's [[a thread you should participate in]]", or will be once other features are built and SUL finalisation is complete - but they've not be, it's not, and a newsletter is a very different beastie.
On 13 September 2013 19:08, Quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
On 13-09-12 10:58 PM, ENWP Pine wrote:
Hi Maryana, for this request is there any need to wait for Flow? I think Echo alone could be made to do the job, the only issue is making sure the system is forward compatible with Flow. I would like to see this get implemented sooner rather than later. I think it would be an important qualitative improvement for editor engagement and possibly help with editor population statistics.
Pine
Putting newsletters into Echo, might be better than putting them into Flow, because otherwise: When I'm talkpagestalking dozens of users, all the duplicate copies of newsletters that they subscribe to, would show up in (or have to be filtered out of) their board feeds.
I made a list of newsletters at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quiddity/sandbox&oldid=5... I guess I'll integrate them into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:News which (afaik) is where they're meant to be listed. But not tonight.
EE mailing list EE@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee
-- Oliver Keyes Product Analyst Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee
Happy to see Newsletters being discussed! [1]
What matters is to allow users to receive a notification via web or email (according to their preferences) pointing to a newly posted edition.
Let's forget about Flow for now: there are many problems to solve before addressing discussions in newsletters.
I think we can also forget about posting full newsletters in Talk pages. Bots are already doing this, if anybody is interested.
After some thoughts and the priceless feedback and help from Siebrand (who runs the TranslateWiki.net newsletter), we decided to start with
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Newsletter
Today it simply contains a user preference allowing autoconfirmed email users to opt in to one newsletter. The email from these users can be retrieved from the database for a manual mailing.
This is VERY pedestrian, but it's a start. See some draft specs at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:Newsletter#Drafting_specs_3325...
I guess the right step is to make an Echo extension? Your guidance and help is welcome.
[1] See Engaging users with the old plain newsletter http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/ee/2013-August/000616.html
On 09/16/2013 03:14 PM, Quim Gil wrote:
Happy to see Newsletters being discussed! [1]
What matters is to allow users to receive a notification via web or email (according to their preferences) pointing to a newly posted edition.
Let's forget about Flow for now: there are many problems to solve before addressing discussions in newsletters.
I think we can also forget about posting full newsletters in Talk pages. Bots are already doing this, if anybody is interested.
After some thoughts and the priceless feedback and help from Siebrand (who runs the TranslateWiki.net newsletter), we decided to start with
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Newsletter
Today it simply contains a user preference allowing autoconfirmed email users to opt in to one newsletter. The email from these users can be retrieved from the database for a manual mailing.
This is VERY pedestrian, but it's a start. See some draft specs at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:Newsletter#Drafting_specs_3325...
I guess the right step is to make an Echo extension? Your guidance and help is welcome.
Yeah, any extension can use Echo for notifications. We definitely need some docs for this, but until then, you can use Thanks (https://git.wikimedia.org/blob/mediawiki%2Fextensions%2FThanks.git/HEAD/Than...) and GettingStarted (https://git.wikimedia.org/blob/mediawiki%2Fextensions%2FGettingStarted.git/H...) as examples.
The key hooks are BeforeCreateEchoEvent and EchoGetDefaultNOtifiedUsers.
Matt Flaschen
On 09/16/2013 10:30 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
Yeah, any extension can use Echo for notifications.
I'm thinking of adding this idea to
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects
Do you think that the amount and complexity of work of
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Newsletter
fits with an internship or an Individual Engagement Grant project (3 months of one person approx)
This is definitely a useful feature for any MediaWiki site. It may help keeping in touch with users registering but not used to a routine of logging in and check their watchlist and new messages. It may be also useful to reach to regular users through an exceptional channel for an exceptional reason.
Within Wikimedia, I can see WikiProjects and even whole sites like Meta, Outreach or small Wikipedias willing to have it. As a mediawiki.org admin I believe we could make good use of it.
On 09/17/2013 01:19 PM, Quim Gil wrote:
Do you think that the amount and complexity of work of
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Newsletter
fits with an internship or an Individual Engagement Grant project (3 months of one person approx)
Hard to say. It depends on:
* how well architected it is * how integrated it is into Echo and Flow (of course, before the project is funded, it would be good to check on how it relates to their current roadmap, but it may be it makes sense for planning to adopt Flow late) * how much of the wishlist is considered hard requirements * last, but not least, how experienced the developer is with the MW codebase and Wikimedia community
If they have at least some experience with the MW code base and Wikimedia community, they can probably delivery something useful in three months. How it fits into a bigger roadmap is another story.
Matt Flaschen
On 09/17/2013 12:40 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
On 09/17/2013 01:19 PM, Quim Gil wrote:
Do you think that the amount and complexity of work of
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Newsletter
fits with an internship or an Individual Engagement Grant project (3 months of one person approx)
Hard to say. It depends on:
- how well architected it is
- how integrated it is into Echo and Flow (of course, before the project
is funded, it would be good to check on how it relates to their current roadmap, but it may be it makes sense for planning to adopt Flow late)
- how much of the wishlist is considered hard requirements
- last, but not least, how experienced the developer is with the MW
codebase and Wikimedia community
If they have at least some experience with the MW code base and Wikimedia community, they can probably delivery something useful in three months. How it fits into a bigger roadmap is another story.
Ok, so we seem to have these sequential questions:
1. Do the Echo / Flow / Core Features / Growth teams think that a Newsletters extension is compatible with their plans or is there a reason to block it?
2. Is there someone willing to mentor or provide technical guidance for this project?
3. Can this project be sliced in a way that an internship / IEG project could deliver a solid first version?
Let's find the answer to 1 first.
PS: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43840 seems to be a good report related to this discussion. Otherwise I will create one.
On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
- Do the Echo / Flow / Core Features / Growth teams think that a
Newsletters extension is compatible with their plans or is there a reason to block it?
The only reason to block this is if it did not deliver newsletters in a way compatible with Echo and Flow. Otherwise it's a great idea, much desired by the community in a variety of use cases (WikiProjects, Tech News, etc.). I say go for it.