[Wikimedia-l] Upcoming Survey, Feedback requested, and Office Hour

Tue Aug 21 12:04:54 UTC 2012

Hi, sorry to fish out a very old message, but since the survey is
about to go live, I would like to share some concerns I have about it.
Unfortunately, I was on holidays as this announcement came out, so
couldn't do it earlier.

I find the idea of an editor's survey to be extremely important, since
it is (among other) a good indicator of how the editing community
perceives the atmosphere in the projects, the evolution of the
software and such things. However, I feel this survey is a bit of a
missed opportunity on different aspects.

There is a mix of "feedback about the projects and the community" and
"satisfaction about the WMF", which does not, in my opinion, quite fit
together. I find we should separate those things so as to keep people
free of personal opinions about what the organisation may or may not
do for/with them and let them focus better on their editor's
experience as such. Moreover, this would allow for more questions
about editing, maybe a short presentation of new tools, rating them
etc. which seems to be quite absent from this questionnaire. For
example, I would love to see a question in the technology part about
whether people want/edit from their mobile device, or if they are
familiar with the mobile apps and use them, that kind of stuff.
(rationale given for taking these questions out was length of the
survey, but I think these things are much more relevant to the
well-editing of the contributors than how well they rate the WMF
work). Not to mention that trying to get some feedback from sister
projects would be good also (Commons is already a good first step).

If, however, we're going to mix editor's experience and satisfaction
about Wikimedia, I am cruelly missing any kind of feedback question
about the work of the chapters and/or other organisations or groups in
the Wikimedia Universe that would give people the right scope about
what is happening in a more "offline" kind of way. Of course, we could
do a separate survey for chapters, but if we're truly an international
movement, then all Wikimedia entities that support/interact with the
community probably would benefit from being put in the same bag in
order to fine tune their support and help for the Wikimedia
communities.

Sue in Washington at Wikimania pulled out the results of one question
that was asked in the editor's survey about whether people were
satisfied about the work of the Foundation and the work of the
chapters. She underlined herself that the results to this question
were probably difficult to interpret out of the box since at no point
in the survey was there a question about whether people were aware
that there was a chapter in their country, which would have qulified
the results a bit. This was already quite criticized last time, yet
the question is still there, unchanged, and without more context than
it had last time. (under FINAL THOUGHTS). In short people are asked to
rate the Foundation about everything it does, while the chapters are
never mentionned, and then people are asked to rate the work of both.
Interesting way to look at it.

We're doing much better, but there is still some English Wikipedia
centrism in Question F2 for example. ;-)
: How well do you believe the Foundation supports:
English Wikipedia?
Wikipedia sites in other languages?

Finally, what I regret most, is that so little time was allocated to
reviewing this survey collaboratively. There was about 20 days to
review, comment, give feedback, translate etc. and this in the mist of
the summer holiday for a big part of our community. When I see such
processes as the ToS revision [1] conducted successfully allowing for
120 days of discussion, and such surveys rushed through the summer,
when their data will probably be used to decide much of the strategic
orientation of the next year, I'm thinking we're missing out on trying
to collect data that is truly relevant to the work we do and that
helps us to review our orientations and adjust how well we support our
editing community.

Best,

Delphine

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use

On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 7:28 AM, Christine Moellenberndt
<christinemoe at gmail.com> wrote:
> *Hi everyone,
>
> It's been a bit since I last emailed this list (or any list, for that
> matter!)... you may remember me, I worked at the Foundation last year in the
> Community Department, working with Philippe on any number of issues, as well
> as with the OTRS team.  I've come back to work on a short term project with
> the Foundation, and I have to say it's great to be back! (and a great break
> from my Master's thesis!)
>
> We're getting ready to run the next version of the Editor Survey, for August
> 2012. This will be the third incarnation we've run since 2011.  As with the
> prior incarnations of the survey, we'll be looking at a variety of topics,
> this time with the goal of not only understanding your needs and pressing
> issues while interacting with fellow editors, but also focusing on editors'
> satisfaction with the work of the Foundation.
>
> The last time we ran an editor survey, it was completed by over 6,000
> respondents.  When you break that down, it means that each minute of time
> demanded by the survey corresponds to 100 hours of Wikipedians' time.  We
> want to make sure that this time is spent wisely, ensuring that the
> questions we have are worded clearly, don't cause confusion, and will
> generate meaningful answers.  So we'd like to ask you to take a look at the
> survey, and give us feedback on the questions.  You can find them here:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_August_2012/Questions
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_August_2012/Questions>
> ... and please leave your feedback on the talk page there so we can keep the
> discussion in one place :)
>
> You can find out more information about the survey here:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_August_2012
>
> Also, we are planning an IRC Office Hour on the survey, this **Tuesday, July
> 31 at 1700 UTC.** (See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hoursfor
> general information about IRC Office hours)
>
> I know there has been some discussion about offering Office Hours in a
> broader range of times, and I know this time may not be the greatest for
> some... but this was the best time we could find currently.
>
> Thanks everyone!!
>
> -Christine
> Wikimedia Foundation*
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