Hey Fae, Let me make sure I understand.
*You believe suggesting posting limits resulted in less posts because people were afraid of the post limits *This makes you feel doubt about the health of the mailing list *The count of posts is low year-over-year for the last few years *This is indicative of community health *You feel the content of the list is low on substantive conversation *You would like feedback on these ideas.
Correlation does not equal causation, so I think it’s not as clear (or black and white) as I interpret your writing on why we've seen less participation. Nor do I find any lack of quality in the conversations that do happen here.
Of course, who's to say that those past years and corresponding numbers are indicative of a healthy community? :) I remember this mailing list to have a great number more posts in early 2016, but many remember that period of time as not such a healthy time for the movement. If the goal is more posts at the cost of more drama - I'll take a hard pass.
Do you feel that the mailing list content is less healthy or perhaps just less noisy? Noisy in the sense of distractions. You mention criticism and thoughtful conversation. Is it possible that is happening in other more friendly (technologically accessible and civil) venues? Perhaps one where familiar usernames are not given such court to create more distraction?
As for the usefulness of this mailing list I can only speak for myself. I work remotely. I have conditioned into me from previous experiences not to send frivolous single-sentence replies. However in my experience within the movement, these sort of of “hey I acknowledge you exist, saw your message, but have nothing to add” messages are helpful for remaining connected to colleagues who are physically distant, but frequently encountered (and sometimes sadly not) in online spaces. It’s part of the reason I find the Thanks extension helpful on-wiki. So that is to say, this is a hearty +1 to the current state of things. In my opinion, I'm fine. We're fine.
I hope this is a somewhat thoughtful observation and not too spammy. :)
Thanks, Chris K.
Le 09/02/2018 à 22:57, Chris Koerner a écrit :
As for the usefulness of this mailing list I can only speak for myself. I work remotely. I have conditioned into me from previous experiences not to send frivolous single-sentence replies. However in my experience within the movement, these sort of of “hey I acknowledge you exist, saw your message, but have nothing to add” messages are helpful for remaining connected to colleagues who are physically distant, but frequently encountered (and sometimes sadly not) in online spaces. It’s part of the reason I find the Thanks extension helpful on-wiki. So that is to say, this is a hearty +1 to the current state of things. In my opinion, I'm fine. We're fine.
Maybe a mailling list equivalent could be developed, for example indicating a link to thank the person at the end of the email, which both email this person and add some data for the mailling-list statitics.
Cheers
For some time there have been periodic mentions of the idea of moving Wikimedia-l to Discourse. [0]
I am considering establishing a Discourse installation myself and offering it to host Wikimedia-l or its successor, which in addition to potential usability improvements from Discourse would have the added benefit that it would not be hosted on a WMF server and therefore would be somewhat insulated from governance controversies at WMF such as we have experienced in the past and such as the one recently experienced by WMFR. However, I am concerned that I would be unable to provide sufficient legal protections for the privacy of the list and its members, so I have not initiated this project.
I think that a good first order of business would be for someone to close the existing RfC on Meta. After that RfC is closed I think that we should have further discussions about how we might like to continue to adjust our communications on Wikimedia-l or its successor.
I am currently limiting myself to approximately 15 posts per month until the RfC is closed.
The question is, does it need a successor?
Seddon
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 10:42 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
For some time there have been periodic mentions of the idea of moving Wikimedia-l to Discourse. [0]
I am considering establishing a Discourse installation myself and offering it to host Wikimedia-l or its successor, which in addition to potential usability improvements from Discourse would have the added benefit that it would not be hosted on a WMF server and therefore would be somewhat insulated from governance controversies at WMF such as we have experienced in the past and such as the one recently experienced by WMFR. However, I am concerned that I would be unable to provide sufficient legal protections for the privacy of the list and its members, so I have not initiated this project.
I think that a good first order of business would be for someone to close the existing RfC on Meta. After that RfC is closed I think that we should have further discussions about how we might like to continue to adjust our communications on Wikimedia-l or its successor.
I am currently limiting myself to approximately 15 posts per month until the RfC is closed.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_(software) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[writing at personal capacity.]
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 2:55 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
The question is, does it need a successor?
Whether mailing list is a good option for the kind of discussions we have in wikimedia-l is not clear to me, however, the list is serving some purposes and we need to make decisions about how those purposes will be served if the list is removed. On a personal and professional level, this list has helped me:
* find a social side to Wikimedia: When I joined WMF as a staff member four years ago, I pretty much knew no one. Keeping an eye on this list has helped me over the years to find a base beyond WMF staff that I know and I can have volunteer, staff, or personal relations with. This is invaluable. :)
* learn about Wikimedia's governance: again, for a newcomer like myself, it was invaluable to be exposed to many different voices, opinions, backgrounds, perspectives, etc. in one place.
* learn about the different projects going on around the Movement.
* find people who are interested to work with me in the research projects I do at staff time.
This being said, I'm all for rethinking how we as a Movement communicate, for what purpose, and what kind of technologies can help us do that more efficiently and effectively.
Leila
Seddon
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 10:42 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
For some time there have been periodic mentions of the idea of moving Wikimedia-l to Discourse. [0]
I am considering establishing a Discourse installation myself and
offering
it to host Wikimedia-l or its successor, which in addition to potential usability improvements from Discourse would have the added benefit that
it
would not be hosted on a WMF server and therefore would be somewhat insulated from governance controversies at WMF such as we have
experienced
in the past and such as the one recently experienced by WMFR. However, I
am
concerned that I would be unable to provide sufficient legal protections for the privacy of the list and its members, so I have not initiated this project.
I think that a good first order of business would be for someone to close the existing RfC on Meta. After that RfC is closed I think that we should have further discussions about how we might like to continue to adjust
our
communications on Wikimedia-l or its successor.
I am currently limiting myself to approximately 15 posts per month until the RfC is closed.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_(software) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- Seddon
*Community and Audience Engagement Associate* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 2:42 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I am considering establishing a Discourse installation myself and offering it to host Wikimedia-l or its successor
There are already two experimental Discourse instances: https://discourse.wmflabs.org/ for trialing Discourse as a mailing list alternative (see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Discourse ) https://discourse-mediawiki.wmflabs.org/ for trialing it as a developer support channel (see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discourse ) The latter has more movement these days (it's seen as a more pressing problem to solve, also it's a semi-official WMF project) but in any case the technology side of introducing Discourse is well covered; it's the social side (finding a small or new mailing list, convince them to move to Discourse, collect feedback) that needs work.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org