Wikimedia Discovery/Meetings/Checkin/2017-07-11

= Topics from the past =
 * Staff annual reviews: should all be done by now
 * https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/FY_2016-17_Annual_Review_and_Retrospective
 * Future of Maps document has been presented, working on next steps
 * Looking into securing funding, working with advancement
 * In the meantime, stays in maintain and sustain, looking for a little more engineering support
 * Preparing for Wikimania (Aug 8 - 14)
 * Add in any info for us to share:
 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T168748
 * Might need a business letter, people are asking travel and we should hear soon (Erika)
 * Meeting on July 12 which should answer some questions

= Announcements, Information, Questions =
 * Goals for Q1 2017-18 have been published:
 * Discovery team page
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Discovery
 * Q1 goals for Audiences:Readers:Discovery Frontend
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Audiences/2017-18_Q1_Goals
 * Q1 goals for Technology:Search Platform
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Technology/Goals/2017-18_Q1#Search_platform
 * All-Discovery retrospective is on July 13th
 * Kevin will facilitate
 * Check your email for document link and pre-fill comments as desired
 * Remoting weeks last two weeks of the month

= 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 2017-07-11 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.
 * Perform load tests and A/B tests on new models to make sure they can be safely deployed to production
 * 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
 * Test new analyzers to see if they are improvements (Japanese and Vietnamese)
 * Deploy new / updated analyzers
 * Deploy analyzers in progress from last quarter (Hebrew)

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.

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

Frontend Search:
 * Finish up testing of the Explore Similar feature on search results page
 * Analyze data and gather community feedback
 * Request internationalization strings
 * Deploy feature

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.

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

 * July 13: All-Discovery retro
 * July 17: Quarterly check-in for Search Backend
 * July 20: Quarterly check-in for Search Frontend
 * July 24 - August 4: all WMF staff encouraged to work remotely
 * Also Sep 18 - 29 are all remote weeks when the SF office move happens
 * Aug 15: WMF holiday
 * Sep 4: US holiday
 * OOO
 * Guillaume on vacation from July 10 - 21st
 * Paul off July 16 - 23 (vacation/camp)
 * David would like to take Jul 14 off (bastille day)
 * David (August: wikimania + vacation 2 weeks after the event, back on Aug 29)
 * Deb Aug 8 - 14 Wikimania and Hackathon
 * Stas Aug 10 - 17 Wikimania + Structured data offsite
 * Paul off August 18 - 20 + travel (State of the Map)
 * Paul off October 19 - 22 + travel (State of the Map US)
 * Deb off October 19 - 20 for State of the Map US
 * Erika off 7/31 - 8/4
 * Trey out Aug 7-15 (vacation + Wikimania + holiday)
 * Trey out Aug 21-22 (vacation)