Hello, I agree with Mike's viewpoint: the report seems to be prewritten, and not based on actual discussions about the forum. Nevertheless, even if the summary was good, which is doubtful, the data presented in the discussion (https://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/ms-forum-community-review-report/1436/...) is confusing, and I would like to have a clarification. First of all, the axis isn't to scale, you are presenting three different monthly usages in percent but some of them are not adding 100%. I think I'm missing something in these graphs, because they should add up. Furthermore, presenting it as a percent makes the things confusing: there's actually more than 10x people participating in Meta, but the graph doesn't suggest this. The only world region where it seems to be more interactions via Forum than via Meta is in Sub-saharan Africa. But this is a percent, not a grand total. Around 12,5% of the Meta Users are from this region and around 22,5% of the Forum users. But 12,5% of the Meta users is 575 users, and 22,5% of MS forums is 33 people. Is to say, there are more than 17 times more users from Sub-saharan Africa using Meta than MS Forums. The graph is misleading also in this point, not only in the percent not adding up.

Then there are some interesting points about engagement. Is clearly going down. Is there any reflection on this? We don't have data on Meta engagement, so a comparison is difficult, but the data provided to defend that this forum is thriving is just saying the opposite.

If possible, I would like to have some clarifications on this data.

Thanks

Galder

________________________________ From: Mike Peel email@mikepeel.net Sent: Friday, August 19, 2022 7:56 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Invitation to join the Movement Strategy Forum

Hi,

With respect, I think you have a big selection effect in your report. I guess you're getting most of your positive comments directly on your new forum, and you're matching them against your initial viewpoint, rather than being unbiased?

If you look at comments on-wiki, they seem to be quite negative, e.g., have a look through discussions at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Strategy/Forum/Proposal and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#new_resource_for_....

I strongly suggest running a Meta RfC about the existence of this forum, following standard community processes, and then decide on its future: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment

Thanks, Mike

On 18/8/22 17:00:36, Quim Gil wrote:

Hello everyone,

The Movement Strategy Forum https://forum.movement-strategy.org/(MS Forum) is a multilingual collaborative space for all conversations about Movement Strategy implementation. We are inviting all Movement participants to collaborate on the MS Forum. The goal of the forum is to build community collaboration using an inclusive multilingual platform.

The Movement Strategy https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Movement_Strategyis a collaborative effort to imagine and build the future of the Wikimedia Movement. Anyone can contribute to the Movement Strategy, from a comment to a full-time project.

Join this forum with your Wikimedia account, engage in conversations, and ask questions in your language.

The Movement Strategy and Governance team (MSG) launched the proposal for this MS Forum in May. After a 2-month review period, we have just published theCommunity Review Report https://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/ms-forum-community-review-report/1436. It includes a summary of the discussions, metrics, and information about the next steps.

We look forward to seeing you at the MS Forum!

Best regards,

-- Quim Gil (he/him) Director of Movement Strategy & Governance @ Wikimedia Foundation https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Qgil-WMF https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Qgil-WMF

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Percentages look good, and show some comparison but the reality is the actual raw number say just as much when meta has 4600 and formun has less than 200 and without staff less than 150 its not exactly a like for like engagement. By the end of the survey majority are those who are getting heard on Forum are going to be the ones who fill in the survey. We see what we want to see. Going right back to the early days of the movement the biggest issue has always been splitting off discussion holding discussions outside of the room and taking decision arbitrarily based on these discussion areas. There has been many admin/crat users sanctioned for taking decision based on an IRC discussion, an email, or other off project discussions.

What we appear to be doing is taking everything off the projects because "talking on the project is too difficult" excuse is being rolled out everywhere, the only ones not able to discuss on the projects are those that dont contribute to the projects. My single most frustrating issue is that those being hired to run MS sections dont know the projects nor the community and make no effort to fill that void in their knowledge and prefer outside formats, outside paid for tools over the projects.

On Sun, 21 Aug 2022 at 07:18, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi,

On Sat, Aug 20, 2022 at 11:08 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga < galder158@hotmail.com> wrote:

...

Hello, I agree with Mike's viewpoint: the report seems to be prewritten, and not based on actual discussions about the forum.

Please provide excerpts of the report that make you think this.

...

Nevertheless, even if the summary was good, which is doubtful, the data presented in the discussion ( https://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/ms-forum-community-review-report/1436/...) is confusing, and I would like to have a clarification. First of all, the axis isn't to scale, you are presenting three different monthly usages in percent but some of them are not adding 100%. I think I'm missing something in these graphs, because they should add up. Furthermore, presenting it as a percent makes the things confusing: there's actually more than 10x people participating in Meta, but the graph doesn't suggest this. The only world region where it seems to be more interactions via Forum than via Meta is in Sub-saharan Africa. But this is a percent, not a grand total. Around 12,5% of the Meta Users are from this region and around 22,5% of the Forum users. But 12,5% of the Meta users is 575 users, and 22,5% of MS forums is 33 people. Is to say, there are more than 17 times more users from Sub-saharan Africa using Meta than MS Forums. The graph is misleading also in this point, not only in the percent not adding up.

It's obvious that the number of users is way higher for Meta than the Forum. Having more users than Meta is not a goal of the Forum. We are sharing the numbers there only to better understand the percentages shown.

The point of these metrics is to compare the regional location of Forum users vs the regional location of Meta users. The hypothesis is that the MS Forum can be especially useful for users outside of Northern & Western Europe and North America.

The percentages show the distribution of users by region on Meta and on the Forum. ~18% for the ESEAP blue line means that in that month ~18% of Meta users were located in that region. The red line means the % of Forum users in that month without counting Foundation staff. The yellow line includes Foundation staff as well (as the number of Forum participants grows, the influence of Foundation staff should become irrelevant, as in Meta).

This is the first time we produce these metrics. Comparing Meta with the MS Forum is complex for many reasons. Meta covers way more than Movement Strategy and discussions happen (with some exceptions) in the Talk namespace. We could explore a smaller subset of Meta pages getting closer to the MS Forum scope. Again, the goal being to check regional distribution of users, not "Meta vs Forum". Still, we thought it was useful to start recording this data and sharing it.

We will include these metrics in our monthly reports. Over time we will see whether we can learn anything comparing the regional distribution of Meta and Forum users.

...

Then there are some interesting points about engagement. Is clearly going down. Is there any reflection on this? We don't have data on Meta engagement, so a comparison is difficult,

When a new space is announced, it is expected to receive a first bump of activity. After that comes the actual curve of consolidation (or not) of this new space. Two other factors influence in this case:

• Many users responded to the community review call, joined, tested,

maybe engaged a bit, and then left back to their routines, waiting for the outcome of the review period.

• After mid June, Wikimedia activity enters a seasonal reduction of

activity that can be especially felt in global conversations.

We will see how the trends look for August-October, after the review period has ended and in the context of a more active season.

About Meta, there is this: Active editors on Meta in non content pages https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/meta.wikimedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Cbar%7C1-year%7C(page_type)~non-content%7Cmonthlyhttps://stats.wikimedia.org/%23/meta.wikimedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Cbar%7C3-month%7C(page_type)~non-content%7Cdailyhttps://stats.wikimedia.org/%23/meta.wikimedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Cbar%7C1-year%7C(page_type)~non-content%7Cdaily. One can see that May-July has lower numbers than January-April. Maybe a seasonal effect? We will see in the upcoming months.

There is also All Time active editors in non content pages https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/meta.wikimedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Cbar%7Call%7C(page_type)~non-content%7Cmonthly, and in all pages https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/meta.wikimedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Cbar%7Call%7C(page_type)~content*non-content%7Cmonthly. It took a couple of years for the new platform to consolidate and start growing month after month. Just to put things into perspective.

...

but the data provided to defend that this forum is thriving is just saying the opposite.

That's because we don't provide the data to defend anything, but to allow everyone to check how the Forum is doing. Your critique based on that data proves this point.

...

If possible, I would like to have some clarifications on this data.

Thanks

Galder

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Dear Asaf, You are right, Meta users are talking about whatever. It should be interesting to know what are the strategic discussions about, and how are them of a better quality through the MS Forum.

The forum topic with more interactions is interesting: 日本とのつながり / Japanese Connectionhttps://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/japanese-connection/203/6. Then the next with most comments is "Say hello!https://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/say-hello/79/18". We have then one related to the Strategy, Sub-saharan Africa Strategic Talkhttps://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/sub-saharan-africa-strategic-talk/867, and the next most used 6 forum topics are about the platform itself, not about strategy. From the next 20 more commented topics, only 2 are about the MS. There's another one about the elections.

It seems that, as in Meta, the interactions are not especially about the Movement Strategy. And even those that are about the MS are not really impactful ([DRAFT] Minimum Criteria for Hub Pilotshttps://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/draft-minimum-criteria-for-hub-pilots/487/45), with less than 7 users actually discussing, and at least 3 of them members of the WMF.

I don't know how to measure impact. I know that this is not a good metric in any way.

Cheers, Galder ________________________________ From: Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, August 22, 2022 4:49 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Invitation to join the Movement Strategy Forum

On Sun, Aug 21, 2022 at 4:43 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.commailto:gnangarra@gmail.com> wrote: Percentages look good, and show some comparison but the reality is the actual raw number say just as much when meta has 4600 and formun has less than 200 and without staff less than 150 its not exactly a like for like engagement.

"Meta has 4600 and forum has less than 200", you say. 4600 what, though? That number is the number of "Active users", meaning people who make edits.

However, comparing the 4600 active users of Meta to the 200 active[1] users is not comparing like with like: on Meta, edits are made on hundreds of different topics, from requests for permissions through learning patterns, global abuse investigations, to grant proposals and discussions. And very little discussion of Movement Strategy. In other words, a very small proportion (what proportion exactly, I don't have the means to ascertain) of the 4600 active users of Meta are engaged in Movement Strategy, so the number 4600 represents nothing relevant to this discussion. The Forum, on the other hand, is dedicated to Movement Strategy discussion, so a large number of the 200 active users are in fact discussing Movement Strategy. (Personally I would like the Forum to be even more focused on Movement Strategy and to discourage content-free "social" posts, but I am not involved with the Forum's governance.)

In other words, I suggest that those of you determined to only discuss Movement Strategy on Meta do more of that, to lead by example. It is within your power to move the critical mass of active discussion of Movement Strategy and the liveliest proposals and plans to Meta. Remember that it is as a response to the difficulty[2] of gaining traction for Movement Strategy conversations that the Forum was created.

Asaf (personal opinion)

[1] I think discounting staff engaging on the Forum is a mistake. Staff is also engaging on Meta, yet is included in the 4600 figure. I am guessing more staff engage on the Forum, by design, but surely that engagement is a good thing, as it is on Meta.

[2] that difficulty is certainly not solely due to the technology of Meta; there were other factors dampening engagement about Movement Strategy, some of them, I daresay, the fault of the Foundation. But Meta's shortcomings as a venue are indicated in surveys as a major reason people aren't engaging in conversation about Movement Strategy, so the Foundation acted on that input. Again, you can demonstrate that that reason is not a significant factor by creating and participating in lively Movement Strategy discussions on Meta.

[https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/SWZYcVEn695dioXdRPnKh1kLODfCsGvJ3osStupE1-...]

Asaf Bartov (he/him/his)

Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities

Wikimedia Foundationhttps://wikimediafoundation.org/

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.orghttps://donate.wikimedia.org/

Dear Quim and all,

On Sun, Aug 21, 2022 at 12:18 AM Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi,

If anyone finds the report https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Forum/Community_Review_Report biased, it would be helpful to share the excerpts or the absences that prove this bias. We are happy to amend any mistakes, but for that we need to identify them.

I would start with the first sentence of the summary. This currently reads:

"The result of the community review is positive."

This is not a neutral summary of even the report's own content, which accurately describes sentiments as "mixed". The summary continues:

"The goal of the MS Forum is: *to improve community collaboration around Movement Strategy (MS) on a multilingual platform that is welcoming and easy to use. *The participation and support received during the community review support the premise. Close to 300 people participated in the community review; many participants were from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Many are contributors from medium-size and small Wikimedia projects."

We all know few people read Wikipedia articles from beginning to end. Most just scan the first couple of paragraphs. The same will apply to this page.

The fact that none of the negative community feedback has made it into the Summary's first paragraph makes this report come across like an ideologically driven ad, designed to shape opinion rather than reflect it.

So, revising the summary, starting with the first sentence, would be a good place to begin.

Best, Andreas

Quim, thanks for sharing. This feels like a project where going part-way and stopping could make things more confusing, but seriously embracing the challenge of integrating the strengths of discourse and wikis, and ensuring the result helps streamline and integrate and improve communication, could be excellent -- and well received / used by more people than just us.

+ Automatic translation of discussions is essential, tangibly useful for our communities, and very satisfying. --> how can we bring this to Mediawiki? This is a core question for community health, movement development, and tech. It is a straightforward concept, not exclusive to Discourse, and we should learn from it.

+ Forum threading and features (tags, emotes) are nice, beloved by some. This is the third attempt to start a WM-related discourse. --> how might we support integrating discourse into a) mediawiki, b) interwiki links? (so that a forum post could link to *m:Power_structure*, and a meta post could link to *f:Wikischool*)

– Wikimedia Space was closed after a year, and its links no longer resolve. --> how can we add discourse into current versioning + archiving workflows?

I would appreciate it if reports on this Forum could explicitly address ~ how & why Space was closed, and implications for the approach here, ~ how to keep links to Space discussions working/redirecting appropriately, and implications for how to ensure the same linkrot doesn't happen here, ~ how conversations there & on the Meta Forum https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Forum & on other evergreen pages on Meta are intended to be kept in synch, for both short-term discussions (like rfcs) and long-term strategizing (like a page describing the history and state of an initiative) ~ what it might look like for this to later become a more standard part of our wikiverse (e.g., *forum.wikimedia.org/c/strategy http://forum.wikimedia.org/c/strategy*).

Warmly, SJ

On Sun, Aug 21, 2022 at 9:18 AM Mike Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:

On 21/8/22 00:17:59, Quim Gil wrote:

...

Given that this Forum is especially conceived to better support those who can't or won't use Meta for discussions and collaboration, we don't think a Meta RFC would be the right tool for this task.

I think this is a good example of the problem here. You've already decided that on-wiki is not the answer, so any appeals for you to do things on-wiki get noted down in documents like this, and promptly ignored. It's a very high impact bias that undermines the whole report and process. A more neutral (and independent?) review that took into account more of the options would have helped.

BTW, personally I'm worried about scope creep here - if it is just movement strategy, then the damage is at least limited to that topic, but it's already crept into being involved in the WMF board election, for example. Hopefully at least that trend won't continue?

Anyhow, see you on-wiki.

Thanks, Mike

On Tue, Aug 23, 2022 at 7:15 AM Gergő Tisza gtisza@gmail.com wrote:

On Sun, Aug 21, 2022 at 8:22 AM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:

...

• Automatic translation of discussions is essential, tangibly useful for

our communities, and very satisfying. --> how can we bring this to Mediawiki? This is a core question for community health, movement development, and tech. It is a straightforward concept, not exclusive to Discourse, and we should learn from it.

I filed T309920 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T309920 a while ago, it has some technical details. IMO it's doable (although things usually turn out harder than they look when they have to be built on top of an unstructured soup of wikitext, but AIUI the Editing team has done some great foundational work to make MediaWiki discussion pages more manageable, so maybe these days that's less of an issue) but it would be a largish project that would have to be slotted into the WMF's annual planning.

Thank you for this info. I hope it can be realistic and a priority for the next annual plan.

...

• Forum threading and features (tags, emotes) are nice, beloved by some.

They aren't "nice", they are essential for scaling discussion. Just like you can't manage thousands of articles without some kind of category system, you can't manage thousands of discussions without some kind of tagging system. And likes or reacjis allow scaling up the number of participants without excluding anyone from the discussion who is unwilling to spend several hours a day on reading new comments - they both cut down on the number of comments, and allow software to highlight the most important or most representative comments.

Well said...will only add that even most simple option to add 'like'-like feedback makes huge difference as it at least partly cuts down on extra messages that feel like unnecessary spam in big mailing-lists and telegram groups (those that did not turned on that recent feature).

--> how might we support integrating discourse into a) mediawiki, b)

...

interwiki links? (so that a forum post could link to *m:Power_structure*, and a meta post could link to *f:Wikischool*)

MediaWiki is concept-addressable; forum software aren't because they need to deal with more and messier content. You could have something with like *f:123* but I'm not sure it adds value over plain links.

From what I learned as Drupal user is that having multiple (fixed and flexible) taxonomies for tagging could be super useful and I hope this feature gets developed in both core Discourse and MediaWiki (even if just on user end).

...

– Wikimedia Space was closed after a year, and its links no longer resolve.

I apologize for that. Space needs to be migrated from Debian Stretch to Buster as part of a generic upgrade of Wikimedia Cloud infrastructure. I volunteered to do it but it turned out to be non-straightforward, or possibly I've been going at it wrong, I ran out of time, and then kinda forgot about it. I'll try to wrap it up soon.

Thank you for volunteering for this, but I think it should be systematically done by more than one person and as part of WMF workflows.

...

--> how can we add discourse into current versioning + archiving workflows?

A good question regardless! There was some discussion in T235235 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T235235, but it didn't go far.

See also T262275 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T262275, which is about a different Discourse site (which I didn't think was worth keeping up), but it shows a minimal-effort solution for keeping discussion content available and links working in perpetuity, although in a rather ugly format.

Think living with ugly is kind of bearable in Wikimedia world ;-p

~ what it might look like for this to later become a more standard part of

...

our wikiverse (e.g., *forum.wikimedia.org/c/strategy http://forum.wikimedia.org/c/strategy*).

There's a bunch of discussion at https://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-proposed-n... on why a *.wikimedia.org domain is unlikely to be used anytime soon.

IMHO use of w.wiki subdomains, should not be bad option :-)

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