I can't find a more formal way to word this message, so I'll hope something
along the lines of a word vomit essay is alright.
I think a major part of the problem you brought up is a lack of easily
accessible resources to get involved. Sure, Meta tells users *how to get on
mailing lists*, but there's no description of the topics regularly
discussed, and no information on those topics. For example, not a ton of
Wikimedia users are all that familiar with the Affiliations Committee—even
I wasn't until reading this mailing list.
In order to get more users involved, we need to focus not just on
international language barriers, but also information barriers for
everybody. Even something as simple as a "Wikimedia-l topic reference" or
"Mailing list topic reference" page on Meta including quick rundowns of
certain things and some links to more in-depth information pages on the
various topics would likely have a positive impact on participation.
When people know what is being discussed, they can learn by observing the
discussions, and feel that much more confident in participation.
I hope this helps!
Dakota (dross)
Hi Mathieu,
Thank you very much for these suggestions.
Communications inside the Wikiverse and among projects are messy and
complex. I have some ideas for how to improve our communications, including
transitioning mailing lists to Discourse and creating a central place where
people can subscribe or unsubscribe to newsletters. I will add your ideas
to the mix. Hopefully these issues will get some attention during 2019.
Pine
(
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
On Sat, Nov 17, 2018 at 4:24 PM Mathieu Lovato Stumpf Guntz <
psychoslave(a)culture-libre.org> wrote:
Hi Pine,
I hope you are doing well. ☺️
It's nice to see your attention for more diversity, thank you for being a
voice on this concern.
Here are the few suggestions that come to my mind regarding what could be
done to make people feeling more at ease in contributing on that list :
- explicitly state in the list description that anyone can contribute in
any language, and conversely provide way to access /contribute to
translation of each message (this could go on Meta for example), we could
also provide links to automated translations were such a tool exists for
the implied pair of language
- actively promote the list in misc. village pumps, either through a
global message that summerize recent active threads, with a distribution
method similar to technews, or making sure that a permanent link with an
attractive punchline in some main discussion place of each wiki.
I don't feel like those feedback have any chance to be given any resource
by anyone reading the list, so publishing there don't seem of any use to
my
mind. But since reading your message made these
ideas pop in my head, I
prefer to at least share them with you. Feel free to do whatever you feel
appropriate with that. 😉
Cheers
Le 7 novembre 2018 22:58:11 GMT+01:00, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> a
écrit :
>
> Hello Wikimedia-l,
>
> One subject that continues to be a source of concern for me is that I'd
> like to have a greater quantity and greater diversity of participants on
> Wikimedia-l. I have heard that some people feel that their English
skills
> are not good enough to participate here, and
I don't know what more we
can
> do to help with them to feel welcome to
participate regardless of their
> choice of language or their level of English skills.
>
> Also, I sometimes wonder whether some of our more pointed or stressful
> discussions on this list make good-faith newbies and quieter people feel
> too intimidated to post when I think that no one intends to make them
feel
> unwelcome.
>
> I hope that this will not sound selfish, but I would like to encourage
> people to comment on what could be done to facilitate greater and more
> diverse participation in discussions here, and that includes feedback on
> how those of us (including me) who frequently post here could do better
at
> helping people to feel that they have an
opportunity to be heard.
Although
> I would encourage public discussion of these
subjects, I also welcome
> comments off-list. I realize that it is difficult to balance being
candid
> with being hospitable, and I am hoping that
we can be both.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pine
> (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> ------------------------------
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