Hi Ted,
Kinneret Gordon here, Research Community Officer on the Research Team at WMF :) Thanks for sharing your thoughts and making your voice heard. Indeed, due to personnel changes on the team, the evaluation period for our approach shifted a bit. We expect to have more information and updates on our initiatives, including office hours, by the end of September/early October. I'll make sure to provide an update here as well. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to me at kgordon@wikimedia.org if you'd like to discuss this further.
Best, Kinneret