[Foundation-l] Some paths toward communication improvements

Florence Devouard wrote: First, hi Sandra (or Sandy, or Wiki Blue), Communication is a area of work where you will have to be working hand in hand with community members. So I thought a good way to get in touch with them all was to outline a few things on this list. This way, they can complete the picture as necessary :-) The mailing lists you need to be on are * Foundation-l (this one. Public list - do not put any thing confidential here). You need to register yourself * Internal-l (private list but archived. You need to register but one of the list admin will have to approve you) * Wmfcc-l list (private list of the communication committee. You need to register, but one of the list admin will have to approve you). Overview of lists here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/overview (you may of course wish to register other lists) Wikis on which you may need to have an account * meta.wikimedia.org (entirely open) * internal.wikimedia.org (I recommand you bug Angela, Dungodung or Delphine to get an account) * comcom.wikimedia.org (bug Michael Snow to have an account) * Wikimediafoundation.org (bug Michael Snow to have an account) * OfficeWikimedia.org (bug Brad) That should do for a start. Also try to get a skype account as soon as possible so that we do not drain Foundation resources in phone. Meta is very largely outdated sometimes. Do not fully trust information over there :-) Office wiki is fairly new, so hopefully not outdated yet. ------ Here is the page about the http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee As you may see, it seems the last meeting was quite a while ago. I would recommand that a new meeting is organised soon :-) The chair of that committee is Michael Snow. The committee is very active in some areas, very inactive in other areas. I would say it largely would require new members to join, or an active communication process with regards to its activity. That committee has been divided in several areas http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees ------ The first group is the one dealing directly with the press, and in charge of press releases. What happens right now is that many many more people than these ones are answering the press, this group being rather the one dealing with english speaking press, or possibly german press. What really happens is that many editors in various countries also deal with the press. In several europeans countries, we also have local associations (generally referred to as Wikimedia NameOfCountry, eg, Wikimedia France). In many cases, members of an association deal with the press (but this is not mandatory). I am not certain communication is always good between the different languages subgroups answering the press, but overall, we handle things. There are some languages where we have troubles keeping up with the pace of press requests, and I think press needs to be educated and dealt with differently (perhaps with more press release. Clarification of various FAQ etc...). Another issue is press releases. We have more and more pain drafting them. And the last 3-4 press releases were never send to the press. There is a system used by german association (see Akl - Arne Klempert about that) to send them semi-automatically, but few take the time to do it and/or the press database seems to be outdated. Or whatever. But the result is that press releases are NOT send. There is work to do here. Within this group, Mathias (presroi) makes a fabulous job keeping us informed on the publication of various press articles which may be relevant to the activity of the committee (mostly english and german press. Aphaia often completes in japanese). Typical outcome is to be aware of potential PR bombs and react between wrong assumptions disseminate in the whole internet. David Gerard is the main person taking charge of the british press requests and does it very well. ------- Translation Our goddess here is Aphaia. To know more about how translations are handled (whether public announcements or internal communication), get in touch with her. ------- OTRS Is our ticketing system. Nearly all emails we get goes there and can be handled by dozen of volunteers. OTRS is a rather special world. Very invisible, but populated by many volunteers who do a critical work. Issues are classified in various queues (such as "donation", "legal", "press" etc...). You need to join that place. Your contact there can be Kat (mindspillage - also a board member) or I strongly suggest UninvitedCompany. OTRS can also be a real nightmare, as emails pile up at an amazing rate.... -------- Internal communication A lot of the internal communication is done through Wikizine (Walter publication - contact him) and through the SignPost (a very good newspaper on the english wikipedia). See with Flcelloguy or Michael Snow the foundator of the paper. Other internal communication go through the list, meta or wikimediafoundation website. There have been suggestion for the foundation to communicate more through the SignPost. As for the Wikizine, Walter keeps very good track of what is written everywhere. -------- Marketing, promotional material Elian is historically our most active person in the area, so I suggest you contact her as she may be the most knowledgeable person in this area. But many others are also working on this, and might just contact you on these issues. Akl is the CEO of the german chapter -------- Uh, not listed here, but a big new area is probably handling of a volunteers dababase for conferences/speech. This is however controversial. -------- For all non-confidential communication issues, it is best to work on meta (public wiki), where editors from all countries can help. Only confidential issues (such as for example a press release) should be done on private wikis. There are many people involved in communication issues, and I guess we are all happy to benefit from your expertise. A very important point is that for most communication issues, it is important to maintain a link between the foundation and the community. Do not hesitate to discuss here (do not mind the trolls) or on meta, and to make calls for participation and support from editors. My main concerns with regards to communication are these ones right now * We have troubles handling the huge demands of the press. Not only the USA press. We can not keep up properly with the requests. We need to channel these requests. To go beyond simply answering requests one after the other and hoping the flow will drop sometimes * We need to communicate better on what we are and what we do. Stop the confusion with various commercial websites. Get it known we are a non profit. Which may involve press release, clarification of foundation website. FAQ. Publishing the annual report etc... * Improve the internal communication (community). I think we now provide quite a lot of information, but only a limited number of people find it... Does that require working more with wikizine ? More with SignPost ? More translations ? More meetings ? A collective blog ? A weekly podcast ? We need to be creative here :-) Here are some of my thoughts. Start with joining the lists and the various wikis I suggested above. Once you are on internal, you'll get all the emails necessary to contact all the poeple mentionned above. Comments from editors very warmly welcome. Sandy, we try to make an irc/skype meeting end of the week. Cheers Anthere