Dear Wikimedians,
We are changing our engineering processes to improve how we engage with you -- our valued contributors and editors -- around software development.
We are beginning with the collaborative buildout and deployment of VisualEditor. We are moving community engagement processes and product decisions into earlier stages of development, and making them iterative. In a perfect world this process would start prior to feature development, but in this case VisualEditor is already in-flight, so your participation now is critical. With your participation, we can work together to ensure this new process works.
In this new process, we commit to:
• Collectively identify success criteria for each target audience, from new editors (simple feature set) to expert editors (complex feature set). • Ensure success criteria represents the quantified and qualified goals. The feature will only be shipped when the success criteria is met. • Enable the feature for only portions of specific audiences that would best benefit (a process known as “incremental roll-out”) at a time. • Triage and prioritize all bugs and feature requests on a weekly basis to ensure they are addressed in a timely fashion. Publicly post responses, assessment, and target implementations. This will replace the RFP process and ensure we are tracking on all requested features efficiently.
How you can engage:
• Report bugs or enhancement requests in Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/visualeditor/ • Join any of the weekly triage meetings to nominate a release blocker. Please see the instructions at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal • Participate in development. You can find the team on IRC in the #mediawiki-visualeditor channel on irc.freenode.net.
We are excited to get this long-standing feature to the level of quality and success we all want and need. It is a collective effort. You are not only a stakeholder, but an active contributor in this work. We want to all to be proud of the outcome. Please participate now.
All my best,
Damon
— Damon Sicore VP of Engineering Wikimedia Foundation dsicore@wikimedia.org
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Damon Sicore dsicore@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear Wikimedians,
We are changing our engineering processes to improve how we engage with you -- our valued contributors and editors -- around software development.
We are beginning with the collaborative buildout and deployment of VisualEditor. We are moving community engagement processes and product decisions into earlier stages of development, and making them iterative.
Dear Damon and all,
I think this is great, and I'm genuinely excited to see what gets developed and built with our editing and engineering communities working together. I look forward to both participating in the process and using the fruits of this work as an editor!
best, Phoebe
Damon Sicore, 11/02/2015 21:31:
• Collectively identify success criteria [..]
How you can engage:
• Join any of the weekly triage meetings to nominate a release blocker [...]
Lila:
Visual Editor Built-out/Roll-out planning -- engage now to define
deployment criteria
I don't know others, but I didn't identify any question in the text of this email. Yet, it's written as if you expected some response.* It looks like you're asking proposals for "success criteria" and "deployment criteria". Is there a list or summary of existing criteria? I couldn't find one, in the linked resources. What the linked page does talk about is a process to "nominate blockers", listed here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/1015/ Blockers are not defined. Usually a blocking bug is simply a bug which blocks another bug, i.e. a required milestone in the way to a *determinate* place. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bugzilla/Fields#Blocks In other words, I don't see a way to comment or propose "success criteria", which is what you were apparently asking. Don't expect any success criteria to come out of this exercise. A quick search shows LibreOffice has one such "bug blocker nomination" process: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Release_Criteria Their definitions are much clearer but this might be what you have in mind. If so, this is about a process to control release quality, correct? Not a process to measure/decide success of VisualEditor. Is my interpretation correct?
Nemo
(*) If you expect replies and only get silence/you hit a wall, please don't let us disappoint you unknowingly; ask us to try harder. I didn't plan to answer this email but 0 community replies in 2 days might look discourteous/irresponsible. Or maybe I misunderstood and it was just an announcement, in which case ignore this entire message.
I think the goal with this message is to kick off a deeper, more meaningful engagement between engineering and the various communities that use MediaWiki. But it's hard to see how the message will move the needle. It's jargony, as if aimed at an audience of software developers. The mechanisms proposed for engagement are technical - report bugs in Phabricator (hardly anyone receiving this message will know what that is), nominate release blockers (which are what?), or join IRC meetings.
The message contains nothing about vetting the features themselves, no outreach from the engineering team to the receiving communities, no translation from English or facilitation for community members who don't read and write in English, etc. So I think it's fair to ask that Engineering work a little harder to reach the people who have objected to previous feature rollouts where they live. The reactions from these people have presumably driven the desire to engage more fully, so the nature of that engagement must actually reach them. If these things are actually being done, that's great and I think readers of Wikimedia-l would love to hear about it.
Hi all,
Regarding criteria, there is a list of objectives for VisualEditor to achieve for this quarter in Phabricator [0], so all tasks which do not allow reaching those objectives should be nominated as "blockers", as explained on Mediawiki [1].
In these Triage meetings, we are seeking the attention of interested developers and technical users with the purpose of reviewing and collaborating on completing those tasks. If this doesn’t describe you, your feedback about VisualEditor product is welcomed on feedback on pages in your language [2].
Tech News is intended to inform interested users about engineering projects and written to minimize jargon. We encourage you to subscribe if you are not [3]. The Editing Team also publishes a periodic VisualEditor newsletter for more in-depth information about VE [4]. Both newsletters are available in several languages.
The Triage meetings are being held at different times to accommodate as many interested contributors as possible; the second is scheduled for Wednesday 18 February at 4pm UTC [5] (reminders will follow in the next few days). Results of the current status of these bugs are listed in Phabricator [6], and results of the meetings will be posted at the portal soon [5].
If you just want to spend time with the team to chat about the product and the process, we’ll have VisualEditor office hours again soon. [7]
Community Engagement is continuously considering effective ways of interacting with you around product development and would love your suggestions. What kinds of communications from WMF would you like to see?
Thank you, and have a good weekend,
rachel
[0] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/1015/
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal#How_to_join_the_tria...
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Feedback
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassa...
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Newsletter
[5] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal
[6] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/sprint/board/1015/
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours
And if you do like the technical detail, James just sent a full recap of last week's triage to wikitech-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2015-February/080803.html
Hoi, As a very involved Wikimedian I do not get anything out of your approach.
It is obvious that you care about the VisualEditor because you have self nominated it. That is fine. I do not care either about it so you already lost me. Given that this is the Wikimedia list and not the Wikipedia list I hope you find my reply obvious and irritating. When you want to engage all of us, make sure that you do not phrase a general plea for engagement in something that is mostly Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
On 11 February 2015 at 21:31, Damon Sicore dsicore@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear Wikimedians,
We are changing our engineering processes to improve how we engage with you -- our valued contributors and editors -- around software development.
We are beginning with the collaborative buildout and deployment of VisualEditor. We are moving community engagement processes and product decisions into earlier stages of development, and making them iterative. In a perfect world this process would start prior to feature development, but in this case VisualEditor is already in-flight, so your participation now is critical. With your participation, we can work together to ensure this new process works.
In this new process, we commit to:
• Collectively identify success criteria for each target audience, from new editors (simple feature set) to expert editors (complex feature set). • Ensure success criteria represents the quantified and qualified goals. The feature will only be shipped when the success criteria is met. • Enable the feature for only portions of specific audiences that would best benefit (a process known as “incremental roll-out”) at a time. • Triage and prioritize all bugs and feature requests on a weekly basis to ensure they are addressed in a timely fashion. Publicly post responses, assessment, and target implementations. This will replace the RFP process and ensure we are tracking on all requested features efficiently.
How you can engage:
• Report bugs or enhancement requests in Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/visualeditor/ • Join any of the weekly triage meetings to nominate a release blocker. Please see the instructions at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal • Participate in development. You can find the team on IRC in the #mediawiki-visualeditor channel on irc.freenode.net.
We are excited to get this long-standing feature to the level of quality and success we all want and need. It is a collective effort. You are not only a stakeholder, but an active contributor in this work. We want to all to be proud of the outcome. Please participate now.
All my best,
Damon
— Damon Sicore VP of Engineering Wikimedia Foundation dsicore@wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hoi, When the community and the developers are to be more involved, I want to share with you the kind of discussions we have far, far away in Wikidata land. There are a few thing you must know.
- most subjects are not covered in any Wikipedia - we want to link to subjects that are not present at present in a Wikipedia - we want to show the information as much as possible preferably in the local language - we want to ensure that vandals in Wikidata will not destroy the credibility of a Wikipedia or Wikidata
This is mostly an engineering issue as most of these issues have a proof of concept. So yes, we very much want engineering and community to be more mutually engaged. Thanks, GerardM
On 14 February 2015 at 09:56, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, As a very involved Wikimedian I do not get anything out of your approach.
It is obvious that you care about the VisualEditor because you have self nominated it. That is fine. I do not care either about it so you already lost me. Given that this is the Wikimedia list and not the Wikipedia list I hope you find my reply obvious and irritating. When you want to engage all of us, make sure that you do not phrase a general plea for engagement in something that is mostly Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
On 11 February 2015 at 21:31, Damon Sicore dsicore@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear Wikimedians,
We are changing our engineering processes to improve how we engage with you -- our valued contributors and editors -- around software development.
We are beginning with the collaborative buildout and deployment of VisualEditor. We are moving community engagement processes and product decisions into earlier stages of development, and making them iterative. In a perfect world this process would start prior to feature development, but in this case VisualEditor is already in-flight, so your participation now is critical. With your participation, we can work together to ensure this new process works.
In this new process, we commit to:
• Collectively identify success criteria for each target audience, from new editors (simple feature set) to expert editors (complex feature set). • Ensure success criteria represents the quantified and qualified goals. The feature will only be shipped when the success criteria is met. • Enable the feature for only portions of specific audiences that would best benefit (a process known as “incremental roll-out”) at a time. • Triage and prioritize all bugs and feature requests on a weekly basis to ensure they are addressed in a timely fashion. Publicly post responses, assessment, and target implementations. This will replace the RFP process and ensure we are tracking on all requested features efficiently.
How you can engage:
• Report bugs or enhancement requests in Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/visualeditor/ • Join any of the weekly triage meetings to nominate a release blocker. Please see the instructions at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal • Participate in development. You can find the team on IRC in the #mediawiki-visualeditor channel on irc.freenode.net.
We are excited to get this long-standing feature to the level of quality and success we all want and need. It is a collective effort. You are not only a stakeholder, but an active contributor in this work. We want to all to be proud of the outcome. Please participate now.
All my best,
Damon
— Damon Sicore VP of Engineering Wikimedia Foundation dsicore@wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/GuidelinesWikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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