Thread:Talk:Flow Portal/Workflows/reply

We've been using the term "workflow" rather loosely to refer to any discussion or process on Wikipedia that includes a set of steps that are more or less regular. Examples include the AfD process on English and other Wikipedias (step one: an article is nominated for deletion; step two: users comment with keep or delete; step three: the discussion is closed and summarized, and the appropriate action is taken on the article), or user blocking (step one: user is warned; step two: user gets a block template on their talk page, with the option to request unblock; step three: user requests unblock, which goes into a category for admins to review; step four: user is either unblocked or his/her request is denied).

Some of these processes can be automated with software, and we've done a bit of brainstorming on how this might actually work – check out this doc for an example. But in the first release, we've decided to focus more on the unstructured user-to-user discussion side of things. There are benefits to automation (it can make some processes work faster and more smoothly), but there are also drawbacks – we want to ensure that any automation we create is maximally flexible, configurable by the community, and can evolve alongside the policies and practices that it's meant to serve. That's why we're holding off on the workflow piece of Flow until we can devote our full time and energy to it.