Talk pages consultation 2019/Structure and updates

Consultation structure
This consultation will have a "hub-and-spoke" structure, with a central hub located here on mediawiki.org ("Talk Page Consultation central"). Over the course of the consultation, multiple participant groups will have discussions on other wikis and in off-wiki settings, and then contribute notes and findings back to TPC central. Some participant groups will participate through the whole process, others may participate for a limited time (especially if they're in real life/meet-ups). Everyone can follow along and participate at TPC central (language permitting).

Phase 0: Planning ✅
This was the planning phase. During this phase, we:


 * Publicly announced the project (banner info here), and invited questions and ideas from the Wikimedia community
 * Set up TPC central documentation structure; current notes were featured on the main TPC page, while historical staff notes could be found here and here
 * Created a list of wikis and user groups for initial outreach and invited groups to sign up
 * Established code of conduct guidelines
 * Carried out retrospective process for StructuredDiscussions/Flow, Liquid Threads and wikitext workflows, collect important documentation
 * Reached out to participant groups
 * Invited volunteers to facilitate discussions and participate in other ways
 * Created the schedule for the project

Phase 1: Collect information ✅
Source: TPC Feedback from volunteer participant groups and individuals

When: Mid-March - April; Community summaries posted by April 6, 2019

During this phase we solicited open feedback from a wide range of individuals and groups about their experiences with talk pages or alternative tools. Questions were:


 * 1) When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you? Why?
 * 2) How do newcomers use talk pages, and what blocks them from using it?
 * 3) What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
 * 4) What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?

The information collection started when the first message was sent. Interested users could check if a group existed for their language.

Wrapping up the conversations ✅
Community summaries were due by April 6, 2019. We advised communities, especially the ones that would have had collected a lot of replies, to end the conversation by March 31. That way, volunteers making the wrapping-up had time to make it.

Since this consultation was based on a different consultation process than how consultations are defined by local rules, those rules regarding how to close conversations were not applied.


 * Read the summaries

Phase 2: Trade-offs and prioritization
Source: Phase 1 report, built from from the feedback received from volunteer participant groups and individuals.

When: Starts in mid May

Some ideas generated during Phase 1 may be mutually exclusive. Some ideas might work better for some purposes or some kinds of users. We'll have to talk about which problems are more urgent, which projects are most closely aligned with the overall needs and goals of the movement, and which ideas we should focus on first.

Discussions about these trade-offs will be moderated by the Wikimedia Foundation, guided by our decision criteria, listed below. We advise that they happen on wiki, like for Phase 1. As such, communities can sign-up on the group sign-up page under the new Phase 2 section, similarly to how they did for Phase 1.

We invited everyone back to review the emerging direction for this project during Phase 2.

Space for unexpected discoveries
Within the scope of this project, all the options are on the table. There are no hidden agendas. We don't know all the things, and we don't know what we might learn. We need to accept these "unknown unknowns".

The schedule of this consultation may change because of these unexpected discoveries.

Wrapping up the conversations
Community summaries are due by June 24, 2019 (formerly June 15). We advise communities, especially the ones that have to collect a lot of replies, to end the conversation by June 10. That way, volunteers making the wrapping-up have time to make it.

Since this consultation is based on a different consultation process than how consultations are defined by local rules, those rules regarding how to close conversations are not applied.

A report for Phase 2 will be published in August 2019. After that, the project will be turned over to the team for design research, user testing, and product development.

Status report: Wrapping up Phase 1
Thanks to everyone who's participated in the Talk Pages Consultation so far! We're wrapping up the discussions for Phase 1 and compiling all the results, which will lead into the start of Phase 2 in May.

The purpose of Phase 1 has been to collect as much information as we can about how people use talk pages, documenting the advantages and challenges, and generating ideas for making improvements. We've also collected information about communication tools that people are using now, both on-wiki and off-wiki. People have hosted group discussions on more than 15 wikis and at events, and we've also received individual feedback from many people. You can see the summaries of the wiki discussions here, which has links to the original discussions.

In addition, as part of Phase 1, we're currently running some user tests with people who are active Wikipedia readers and would like to become editors, in order to document what it's like for them to communicate on-wiki. The tests are just starting now; we'll post results over the next couple of weeks.

For the rest of April, the team is working on bringing together all the information and ideas that you've provided. We're reading all of the discussions, summaries and feedback, and putting it together into a big report that we'll publish at the beginning of May. The report will reflect all of the major themes from the discussions, so we all have a shared understanding of the issues that have been raised. It will also include a list of all the things that people want to accomplish on talk pages. (People in software development call these "user stories"; you can see the current draft list here).

Once we publish that report and people have had a chance to look at it and respond, we'll start Phase 2 in May. This is the "tradeoffs" phase, where we'll ask more specific questions about how to balance different user stories. The discussions we have in Phase 2 will help us to put together ideas to propose for a product direction in Phase 3. (You can see some early notes on the tradeoffs phase here.)

We'll post more updates on the Talk pages consultation 2019 page, as we work on the Phase 1 report together, with links to the current work. We're excited and inspired by all of the ideas that people have posted so far; thank you for being a part of this project! -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

July 31, 2019
The Phase 2 report is coming together and, at the earliest, will be available at the end of this week, but isn't a guarantee. While many of the sections are coming together nicely, the team wants to make sure that communities understand the product direction is derived solely from the feedback of the phases; also that the direction is not guided by the feedback from any one community.

"Where the project goes from here" section is likely going to be of particular importance, especially to those members who have been following the TPC from its outset. Special consideration is being made to answer some of the most common questions likely to arise, e.g. "how long is production going to take?" (end of 2020, but not set in stone), "how will we measure success?", "will there be user testing?" (yes, likely newcomer-focused as well as experienced users), "will there be a beta product(s)?", "will specific communities be targeted?", etc.

The section will also address some of the most frequently mentioned concerns so that users understand there are some things the team has no intention of doing, such as: making a chat/forum, getting rid of the ability to edit wikitext, or focusing on expanding Flow. The focus is to make talk pages avenues for collaboration in a way that improves the articles they are connected to, using to-be-determined metrics for measurement. Not only is this a new product, but it likely will be comprised of several smaller components. The idea is to utilize user testing; some of those components may be successful, some not, and some might end up taking a much longer amount of time to develop than anticipated. The idea, of course, is to keep those elements that prove successful. Elements that might take a longer time to produce won't necessarily be scrapped, but they will be placed on the back burner - the reasoning is that we don't want to deliver a half-baked product. Focus on providing full development resources to elements that are the most viable, based on metrics and feedback, in promoting healthy, productive talk pages.

As far as this team goes, the last meeting is scheduled for after Wikimania. The Editing team will take over from there. Conversations have already started with the developers, so we want to make sure we are conveying all necessary subjects in those meetings.

July 24, 2019
With the upcoming Wikimania, the team is preparing their presentation, with a number of key goals to consider, first of which is relaying to communities that they are, indeed, listening to feedback and incorporating it into the recommendation being forwarded to the designers/engineers. Along the same thought, it should be mentioned here at least that those additional teams have already been in contact with the team and reviewing material, so the recommendations will not be a surprise.

The feedback has come from a wide variety of TPC participants across communities and languages, with some core shared themes emerging. It is clear that improvements to communication are wanted to varying degrees from all walks of users, including movement organizers, experienced Wikimedians, GLAM, chapter participants, wiki trainers, and those who support newcomers in a variety of fashions.

The team will give an overview of Phase 2 and their findings, as well as product principles, next steps, participation and testing, etc. More pointed questions, such as what is happening to Flow and Talk pages, will be answered.

The presentation will closely mirror what will be contained in the Phase 2 report. That report is not yet ready.

July 17, 2019
With comments properly tagged and with tags consolidated, the framework of the Phase 2 report was created. The team is working to fill in the details, including major findings, concerns, direction moving forward, relevant quotes, and tag counting. Among multiple points raised, a discussion was had about the "stupid people" argument that some users tend to bring up, i.e. "if they aren't smart enough to figure out wikitext, we don't want them because they're too stupid". While the team certainly wants to avoid another Article Feedback situation that occurred on some sites, one of the core principles centers around knowledge equity and equal access for all. Visitors can be exceptionally bright about particular subjects yet untrained in wikitext; lumping people together into a bucket of "stupidity" doesn't serve the greater purpose of allowing anyone who has information to share - wikitext-savvy or not - the ability to share it. There is a further argument to be made that requiring such knowledge is, in essence, throwing out the baby with the bathwater in an attempt to minimize unwanted chitchat. The team does recognize, however, that idle chitchat is not what editors use talk pages for.

A rough draft of the report will hopefully be completed by this coming Friday to be reviewed internally. An effort is being made to have the entirety of the report translated across multiple languages. The team is also looking internally for some assistance in the visual design aspect.

Once the report is finalized, a determination will be made by the team regarding the next phase, with a focus on what the team is handing off to the next team, as the consultation itself will be complete. There needs to be a definition of what "better" entails for talk pages, as well as the ability for the next team to access all gathered data and project pages. All the internal gdocs have already been shared.

July 11, 2019
Tagging of community responses is largely complete, and the team is taking time to go through them to pull the weightiest comments. These will be grouped onto an internal doc for review. To be clear, however, all comments are in the process of being grouped by their respective tags for ease of reading and consolidation of ideas. Community response has been largely positive with regard to product direction, for instance, but there are concerns and suggestions that need to be examined and addressed. As in Phase 1, a tally will be made of all tags.

The Phase 2 report is still in its infancy. The meat of the report will focus on the first two questions (e.g. What do you think of this product direction? and marking separate discussions); additional questions will be addressed in smaller subsections. Due to the information gleaned during the first two phases, the consultation itself will not have a Phase 3 (clarifying from previous meeting).

Some questions have arisen from communities about Flow in general, and so the following has been clarified: No more Flow deployments. Flow is not being removed from any wikis. No new features are planned for Flow at this time. Maintenance will continue for the foreseeable future.

July 3, 2019
Due to end-of-fiscal-year responsibilities, much of the tagging of community responses was put on hold and resumes this week. Final tagging likely will not be complete until the end of the week at the earliest, and then the tags need to be properly sorted and parsed - per question, probably - to enable a more structured look at community concerns and suggestions.

Phase 2 has largely been considered successful, though the translation issues have been noted for future consideration, especially regarding length of reports and the burden that places on volunteer translators. Phase 2 will transition to Phase 3, from consultation to design. At the Monthly Activities meeting in mid-July the results of the TPC project will be presented, highlighting how the overall project went, its outcomes, direction moving forward, and overall vision; the official report likely will not be ready at this time, as the report deals with the minutia while the presentation is a general overview.

Previous
See updates from before July, 2019 at Talk pages consultation 2019/Status updates.