Quoting MZMcBride: "...the two issues (a rush to deploy features versus resource allocation for unwanted features), while sometimes intertwined, can certainly also be discrete." I agree with you in this point, and the Technical Committee is intended in part to improve both situations.
Quoting David: "Unfortunately - and we quite definitely saw this in the VE introduction - it leaves a lot of them in the position of customer service ablative firewall, the designated targets of people's frustration." Yes, and this is unfortunate. I sometimes feel that the Community Advocacy and Engineering Community Liaison groups get blame for decisions that were made by other people, and these liaisons are placed in the difficult position of trying to please everyone. I have sympathy for the people in those roles and I feel that they often do good work for the WMF and the community.
Quim, it seems to me that the methods used by Features have repeatedly produced troubled results over the years, so it's time for a different approach. Grantmaking has a community-intensive approach to making major decisions and I think the same approach should be taken in Features. I am optimistic that embedding the community deeply in leading Features would be a long-term change for the better. I believe that the Tech Ambassadors aren't empowered to make high-level community recommendations about Features as the Technical Committee is intended to do, although Tech Ambassadors may want to volunteer to serve on the Technical Committee and/or be integrated into its work. I would like to invite you and the Tech Ambassadors to participate in the discussion about the Technical Committee on the Board Noticeboard [1].
Pine
On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Quim, it seems to me that the methods used by Features have repeatedly produced troubled results over the years, so it's time for a different approach.
Note that the approach of empowering Tech Ambassadors to explicitly represent the voice of the content communities hasn't been tried yet. To me, this is also "a different approach".
Grantmaking has a community-intensive approach to making major decisions and I think the same approach should be taken in Features. I am optimistic that embedding the community deeply in leading Features would be a long-term change for the better. I believe that the Tech Ambassadors aren't empowered to make high-level community recommendations about Features as the Technical Committee is intended to do, although Tech Ambassadors may want to volunteer to serve on the Technical Committee and/or be integrated into its work. I would like to invite you and the Tech Ambassadors to participate in the discussion about the Technical Committee on the Board Noticeboard [1].
The Wikimedia Engineering Community Team can work here and now on the specific goal of "let's empower people to serve on the Wikimedia Engineering Community Team". We can work with the 'people' interested to bring them closer to the development process and tell them how to participate in it effectively.
This line of work doesn't get in the way of a potential Technical Committee. I just think that if a committee like that should exist, their potential members should be active at e.g. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2014-15_Goals and related planning pages already today, because the possibility to ask and influence already exists.
Anyway, I should have a shower and some breakfast before running to Wikimania. If you happen to be in London and you find this topic exciting, I will be very happy to share a chat with or without coldBeverage().
Hi Quim,
Thanks for the invitation. I did not attend Wikimania but would be interested in setting up an office hour to discuss ideas about improving features design and development, including TechCom and the roles of tech ambassadors, ECT, and ECL in features. Could we set up a time off-list?
Pine On Aug 8, 2014 1:10 AM, "Quim Gil" qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Quim, it seems to me that the methods used by Features have repeatedly produced troubled results over the years, so it's time for a different approach.
Note that the approach of empowering Tech Ambassadors to explicitly represent the voice of the content communities hasn't been tried yet. To me, this is also "a different approach".
Grantmaking has a community-intensive approach to making major decisions and I think the same approach should be taken in Features. I am optimistic that embedding the community deeply in leading Features would be a long-term change for the better. I believe
that
the Tech Ambassadors aren't empowered to make high-level community recommendations about Features as the Technical Committee is intended to do, although Tech Ambassadors may want to volunteer to serve on the Technical Committee and/or be integrated into its work. I would like to invite you and the Tech Ambassadors to participate in the discussion about the Technical Committee on the Board Noticeboard [1].
The Wikimedia Engineering Community Team can work here and now on the specific goal of "let's empower people to serve on the Wikimedia Engineering Community Team". We can work with the 'people' interested to bring them closer to the development process and tell them how to participate in it effectively.
This line of work doesn't get in the way of a potential Technical Committee. I just think that if a committee like that should exist, their potential members should be active at e.g. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2014-15_Goals and related planning pages already today, because the possibility to ask and influence already exists.
Anyway, I should have a shower and some breakfast before running to Wikimania. If you happen to be in London and you find this topic exciting, I will be very happy to share a chat with or without coldBeverage(). _______________________________________________ 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
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