Wikimedia Technical Conference/2018/Session notes/Process and Action

Corey:


 * TechConf Setup presentation by Corey Floyd at Wikimedia Technical Conference.pdf[Slides and presentation]
 * Why are we here, and how can we make it a successful conference
 * In general, we provide the tools to multiply the impact of other people
 * People have various frustrations with the status quo
 * We want to move faster despite the difficulty of change - Everything can potentially be done, but only some things are feasible
 * We've been working separately so much, which causes frustrations.  We’ve worked to make sure as many stakeholder perspectives as possible are represented here
 * Hence, Platform CDP, and this conference.
 * [Q. to audience] What is our platform?
 * [Daniel K.] Something that others build on
 * [Brion] Our platform is people
 * [many] MediaWiki!
 * Yes, it could be defined as:
 * [slide showing perspective options]
 * Besides MediaWiki and associated extensions and services, there are largely separate platforms for things like analytics, fundraising, content scoring, and search
 * Onwiki contributors tend to see the top-layer of technical aspects. The bots, the templates, the gadgets.
 * Content and Community
 * Everyone has a different definition, but this is one way of conceptualizing the platform
 * Slide showing overlapping venn diagram of platforms and audiences, and how much is shared
 * How should we evolve?
 * [discussing Focus areas slide] note that we haven’t even gotten to tech yet by the third bullet. There are many human problems to investigate and solve.  We created this list by talking to you.
 * [Slide showing how Platform Evolution Program evolved from previous similar attempts]  The first thing we realized we had to do is talk to as many stakeholders as possible.
 * [Slide illustrating topic clustering that reduces to the five focus areas]
 * While we want people to explore and build new and unexpected things, we also need a map and a destination so that we’re working in the same direction.
 * The goal of all of this is to arrive at a 3-5 year technical roadmap.
 * We’re not going to arrive at a roadmap here, but we are practicing collaborative roadmapping skills
 * Don’t clump: we have a lot of people here with a wide range of expertise, who probably have the answers to your questions.  Meet them!
 * Help leaders make decisions, by clearly detailing the pros/cons for each option.  It’s easy to assume that leadership has ground-level knowledge that they actually don’t
 * "No buts" - don't second guess your ideas, or shoot down other ideas too quickly. We need to know about challenges, but many can be resolved.