Thanks Fae.
Aside from what the initiator of the communication can do (in this case,
the WMF/affiliates), what could the community do to make their life easier?
It sounds to me like you're answering that with 'nothing'. Fair enough,
thanks for the response. Anyone has some ideas what might be improvements
on the community side of the communications?
Best,
Lodewijk
2017-03-20 11:35 GMT+01:00 Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com>om>:
I did, it's not my job to teach Communications
theory to the WMF or all
affiliates by writing 50 words in an email. There are plenty of books for
that. Most define what Communication is, and how to measure its success,
perfectly well.
Fae
On 20 Mar 2017 10:24, "Gerard Meijssen" <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
Would you be so kind and answer the question Lodewijk asked. We are all
aware that things are not perfect but what is it that can be done to
improve it?
Thanks,
GerardM
On 20 March 2017 at 10:58, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
In practice what we (Wikimedians) see from WMF
communications programmes
is
widely spread announcements and sometimes an
anonymous survey, again
widely
spread. This is literally not
'communication', it is 'broadcasting'.
For communication to be meaningful, your message must not only be sent to
the right stakeholders, but it is essential for the communication to be
two-way. This is why I find it especially frustrating to see generic
posts
from the WMF sent by bots with no named person
being the contact point.
At
least with most emails sent to email lists, these
are from a named person
and community members can respond to it, often with later replies from a
WMF employee.
Fae
On 20 Mar 2017 09:51, "Peter Southwood" <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net>
wrote:
Might it be useful to analyse the community before trying to get
communication out of them? Then efforts can be directed to be more
representative of the various parts. OK, I understand that to analyse
them
it needs some communication. But that is a
specific and directed
communication. Work out what might be useful to know and ask everyone.
Put
a survey link on talk page for logged in users,
and a banner for IP
users.
We get this anyway for fundraising. Before going
full scale, test the
survey on a small group, to find out what is wrong with it, fix the worst
problems, and be sure to allow comments and feedback.
Cheers,
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of Lodewijk
Sent: Monday, 20 March 2017 11:04 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations
Hi Pine,
it's always easier of course to tell other people what they have to
change,
which is why I'm asking the opposite question
too :) What can we change,
on
our end, to make communications easier for the
WMF, for community members
that want to reach out, for chapters and other affiliates. All these are
having a hard time to get useful input from the community.
There seem very few generally accepted approaches to that:
- using some mailing list, or some kind of forum that serves a part of
the
community you think would be most relevant (such
as this mailing list,
the
wikitech mailing list etc).
- Going all out and doing a full scale consultation/RfC with banners and
everything. Gives you lots of comments.
- Doing a broad and translated approach through village pumps etc - gives
you a broad reach over languages, but within those languages still
reaches
a specific part of the community.
Those methods are typically either very expensive, or not very effective.
And I'm only talking about getting input here, not even about 'informing'
everyone.
So what can we, as a community, change to facilitate better exchange of
ideas, experiences and provide input?
Best
Lodewijk
PS: I apologize to the people who read this kind of email for the n'th
time, it's not the first time I talk about this, I guess :)
2017-03-20 7:40 GMT+01:00 Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com>om>:
> Attempting to summon Chris Schilling over here from the other thread.
(:
I think that some kind of analysis about optimal use of consultations
and surveys would be beneficial, and I'd welcome seeing something like
that in the next Annual Plan. Perhaps there might even be a
consultation or survey about consultations or surveys, which I know
sounds ironic but may be helpful in figuring out how much is too much
or too little, timing, locations, etc.
Information management is a big deal. We have watchlists, email,
social media channels, Echo, and lots of other tools, but even so --
or perhaps because -- there are so many channels, it's easy to drown.
I imagine that holds true for both staff and community members, and
I'd welcome some initiatives to improve the situation. Perhaps someone
will have some ideas that they can submit to IdeaLab.
Pine
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