Thoughts about Wikimedia-l communications - Wikimedia-l

28 Jul 2016

There has been recent discussion about Wikimedia-l communications. I think
that there are varying understandings that would benefit from discussion in
a distinct thread.

The information page for Wikimedia-l says:

*"Discussion list for the Wikimedia community and the larger network of
organizations (Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/>,
chapter organizations
<http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Local_chapters>, affiliates,
partners) supporting its work. *

*This mailing list can, for example, be used for: *

   -
*The initial planning phase of potential new Wikimedia projects and
   initiatives *
   -
*Organizational issues of the Wikimedia Foundation, chapter organizations,
   others *
   -
*Discussing the setup of local Wikimedia chapters *
   -
*Developing and evaluating grant-making programs *
   -
*Planning elections, polls and votes *
   -
*Discussion of projects that don't already have a mailing list *
   -
*Finding ways to raise funds *
   -
*Other Wikimedia-related issues *

* This is a high traffic mailing list. The list is moderated, and is
publicly archived. Participants are asked to remain civil and stay on
topic. There is a soft post limit of 30 posts per individual/month."*

I think some of the mixed expectations are coming from a few places, which
I'd like to try to address. I want to emphasize that this is my perspective
only, and others may wish to share varying perspectives.

1. I'm happy to hear that Board members want to be responsive to community
questions and comments. However, my impression is that a few Board members
are feeling obligated to check the list constantly. I feel that that's
unnecessary. Checking the list twice a week is probably fine, and I'm
grateful for the responsiveness of Board members to community input.

2. Likewise, WMF staff don't need to feel obligated to check the list on a
daily basis, let alone be constantly reading every email that comes across
the list. Many staff don't need to subscribe to the list at all. For most
comments or questions that are directed to staff, I think that a response
within 7 days should be the expectation.

3. I encouraged Lila, and would still encourage WMF, to appoint an employee
to be responsible for ensuring that questions and comments from the many
community channels are referred to appropriate places in WMF. This would
reduce the burden on WMF staff to monitor multiple channels. Multiple
channels are inevitable; Wikimedia-l happens to be one of the higher
traffic channels. My impression is that the community product liaisons
already do this kind of work for technical questions and comments, and I
think that a similar arrangement should be made for questions and comments
about other subjects.

4. I share the concern that low-volume individuals may feel too intimidated
to post on the mailing list, and I would welcome ideas about how to
encourage them to speak up more often with well-intentioned questions and
comments.

5. I would encourage us to experiment with Discourse (
https://www.discourse.org/faq/) to see if it will provide a platform that
is easier to use than our current mailing list setup. Perhaps we could set
up a test instance and move a small number of lists there, and evaluate how
those go. If the tests go well then we could consider moving progressively
higher traffic mailing lists to Discourse.

I'd welcome hearing from other people about these points. This is a public
list that's intended for high traffic, and I hope that anyone with a
well-intentioned comment or question will feel that it's okay to speak up
with their perspectives.

Thanks,

Pine (writing in personal capacity only)