Structured Discussions

What is Flow?
Flow is a project being undertaken by the Core features team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Our goal is to build a modern discussion and collaboration system for all Wikimedia projects.

Why discussion?
User expectations don't match the reality of talk pages today.

Users expect a modern and intuitive discussion interface. Talk pages—as a discussion technology—are antiquated and user-hostile.

Users are surprised by the cultural norms of the community. Many things about the culture that has grown up around talk pages (such as "talkback" templates or being able to edit other people's comments) are confusing.

We believe that a modern user-to-user discussion system will improve the projects. Better methods for collaboration will improve collaboration, which will improve all of the projects.

Short-term (up to December 2013)

 * ✅ Initial brainstorming and user research


 * ✅ Defining the scope of the first release (Minimum Viable Product)


 * Build interactive prototype of the MVP on WMF Labs


 * ❌ Community testing and feedback


 * ❌ Limited, opt-in release on select WikiProject discussion spaces

Long-term (2014-2015)

 * Wider release to more WikiProject and community discussion spaces


 * Limited user talk release


 * Workflow language exploration

How can I help?
On May 30, 2013, the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation unanimously approved a resolution on the Wikimedia Foundation Guiding Principles. Two of the key principles were:

Serving every human being: "The Wikimedia Foundation aims to make material in the Wikimedia projects broadly accessible to all. Ensuring continued reliability, availability and responsiveness of all Wikimedia sites and services is our first priority. In prioritizing new products and features, our goal is to impact the largest-possible number of readers and contributors, and to eliminate barriers that could preclude people from accessing or contributing to our projects, such as poor usability and accessibility, lack of language support, and limited access to technology."

Shared power: "The Wikimedia Foundation works in partnership with a global community of volunteers made up of article writers, copy-editors, photographers, administrators, page patrollers, quality assessors, translators, wiki-gnomes, help-desk staffers, developers, bot creators, people who do outreach work and many others. These are the people who build the projects, and they are the Wikimedia Foundation's partners in developing the platform. This community selects Board members who oversee the Wikimedia Foundation’s work. And within the framework of our shared principles and values, the participants on each Project develop their own policies and structures."

The Core features team is dedicated to the guiding principle of serving every human being with the ability to contribute to the Wikimedia movement. We need your help to keep us on this path. If you agree that better tools for discussion will help "eliminate barriers that could preclude people from accessing or contributing to our projects," you have the power to shape the development process of Flow. Let your voice be heard.