Wikimedia Discovery/Meetings/Checkin/2017-08-29

= Topics from the past =
 * Tagging Phab boards with Program/Goal tags
 * Phlogiston: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phlogiston
 * http://phlogiston.wmflabs.org/
 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/2948/
 * Deb was interviewed at Wikimania about Search for a podcast, now available at https://wikijabber.org/wikijabber-0003-with-deb/
 * Remote weeks Sept 18-29

= Announcements, Information, Questions =
 * Research Showcase with WikiGene demo and discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0Ztv2iF4w
 * Trey’s blog post: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/08/28/wikipedia-search-phonetic-keyboards/
 * We are in the process of defining measurable search metrics for SDoC: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i5eBwTxv4O_PGRfxGwCClma3XGpAz4dYGyAxALEgRms/edit
 * Monday Sept 4 is a WMF holiday (Labor Day in the US)
 * Maps update from Toby in latest C-level update on office wiki
 * Conference: Using machine learning to build great products Sep 14 (Redwood City, CA)
 * WikiDataCon is coming up, Oct 28 – 29 2017 in Berlin

= Scrum of Scrums = Are we blocked? Are we blocking? Other dependencies (in either direction) which don’t need to be called out as “blocked” (e.g. are progressing smoothly, have no urgency, etc.)
 * None
 * None
 * None

= Discovery News =
 * See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discovery/Status_updates

= Quick Quarterly Goals/KPI Update (if needed) = Discovery Roadmap FY 2017/18: https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1N41eNrz0vFHJamLkhQjSFCOSiDg-bKr5H3ROchqwVJU/edit?usp=sharing

FY 2017-18 Q1 (Jul-Sep) goals: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Discovery#Projects

This status was last updated 2017-08-22. Completed/dropped goals are not shown.

Tech:Search Platform
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Technology/Goals/2017-18_Q1#Search_platform

Backend Search:

1. Implement advanced methodologies such as “learning to rank” machine learning techniques and signals to improve search result relevance across language Wikipedias. 2. Improve support for multiple languages by researching and deploying new language analyzers as they make sense to individual language wikis. WDQS: Wikidata Query Service goal for this quarter will be working on expanding category search in the query service, while also collecting SPARQL statistics; it will be maintained by Stas and Guillaume to support the continued growth and use of the service; the Analysis team will help with statistics.
 * Perform load tests and A/B tests on new models to make sure they can be safely deployed to production (IN PROGRESS)
 * When ready, deploy newly automated models which match (at a minimum) current performance of manually-configured search result relevance
 * Perform research spikes to find new analyzers for different languages (IN PROGRESS)
 * Test new analyzers to see if they are improvements (Japanese and Vietnamese) (IN PROGRESS)
 * Deploy new / updated analyzers
 * Deploy analyzers in progress from last quarter (Hebrew)

Audiences:Readers:Discovery
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Audiences/2017-18_Q1_Goals#Readers

Frontend Search: Portal: Wikipedia.org Portal team will not have any dedicated goals this quarter other than continuing to maintain the page by fixing critical bugs and performing regular statistics and translations updates.
 * Finish up testing of the Explore Similar feature on search results page
 * Analyze data and gather community feedback (IN PROGRESS)
 * Request internationalization strings
 * Deploy feature

Maps: The Maps goal for this quarter is to finalize and deploy the new map style, as well as monitoring the service for critical bugs and increasing the frequency of OSM replication.

Analysis: The team will continue to work closely with the Search teams to analyze A/B tests and other assorted data; they will also prototype automated A/B test reports and investigate addition of Continuous Integration to their R codebases.

= FYI =
 * Sep 4: US holiday
 * Sep 18 - 29 are all remote weeks when the SF office move happens
 * Oct 9: US Holiday (Labor Day)
 * OOO
 * Trey out 9/1 for volunteer stuff
 * Erik at Lucene/Solr Revolution Conference 9/12-9/15
 * Erika out 9/25-26 for Wikilead
 * Chris out Sept 28-30 for Strange Loop
 * Trey out Sept 28-29, not for Strange Loop
 * Erika out 10/3-10/4 for Agile Open NorCal conference
 * Erika out 10/13 for Transformative Technology Conference
 * Paul off October 19 - 22 + travel for State of the Map US in Boulder, CO
 * Deb off October 20 for State of the Map US in Boulder, CO