[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Mid-Year Presentation to the Board, esp. Visual Editor

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Pine,

I made that part of the deck and yes, you're interpreting it correctly. I
put green checkmarks to indicate where something was (more-or-less) on
track, where progress was about where it was supposed to be midway through
the year. That's the basis on which the Visual Editor got a green check.

I did consider using an orange marker of some kind, but there was no
obvious symbol to indicate "on track" or "half done, as expected halfway
through the year." So I just used a green check, to mark those activities
as more-or-less fine. The point of those slides was really to emphasize
where we are *not* on track, which is of course number-of-active-editors.
We had hoped by this point that we would have arrested the slide and
starting bringing the numbers up, but that has not happened. That's the
message those slides are intended to convey.

I would also say: that deck was used in a three-hour verbal presentation to
the Board. Verbally, in person, we were able to convey more nuance and
detail than is in the deck, and I would say the deck doesn't stand alone
particularly well. We wanted to publish it anyway, because there is quite a
bit of useful information in it. But it's not designed so much as a
standalone report: it was really used as the backdrop for a presentation,
in order to kick off a conversation about next year's plan.

Thanks,
Sue
On Mar 3, 2012 10:09 PM, "En Pine" <deyntestiss at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Clarification: I see that
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=51says in the text, “First opt-in user-facing production usage by December
> 2011, and first small wiki default deployment by June 2012”. However,
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=46doesn’t include those caveats. As someone who’s accustomed to reading
> highly colorful charts and audit reports with carefully chosen visual
> flags, I find it disturbing to have green checks by an item that’s still a
> work in progress and months away from completion. I would like to suggest
> that a more cautionary visual symbol such as the words “in progress” would
> have been more appropriate.
>
>
> From: En Pine
> Sent: Saturday, 03 March, 2012 21:42
> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: Wikimedia Foundation Mid-Year Presentation to the Board, esp.
> Visual Editor
>
> I appreciated this presentation. It raised many good points about
> successes and challenges. However, I’d like to know why the visual editor
> appears to be checked as a finished item in this presentation, in the
> slides
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=46and
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=51.
> This is inconsistent with the latest information that I’m able to find
> about the visual editor.
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor#Status says that the visual
> editor isn't scheduled for an initial rollout until June. Sorry to be
> critical, but I get the impression that this presentation counted the
> chickens several months before they've hatched.
>
> Pine
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