Notifications/Release Plan 2013



Here is our proposed 2013 release plan for the Notifications project (code-named 'Echo') and related tools.

In 2013, the Wikimedia Foundation's Editor Engagement team developed and released this new notification system on the English Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and MediaWiki.org, where we encourage you to try it out.

To learn more about Notifications, read this FAQ page, this project hub and/or Testing page.

Feature development has now ended for this project and we are now working on these next milestones:
 * release final features (HTML Email notifications and improved notification structure)
 * release Notifications on a half-dozen non-english Wikipedias in August (e.g. French, Polish)
 * support the Notifications tool through bug fixes on all pilot sites, as needed
 * discuss more releases on other sites, based on the results of the first pilots
 * incrementally release Notifications on most MediaWiki sites in autumn 2013

Timeline
Here is a first tentative timeline for upcoming releases of Notifications in the second half of 2013.

Phase 1 (DONE)

 * Aug. 20th: First set of non-english sites:
 * French Wikipedia (released)
 * Hungarian Wikipedia (released)
 * Polish Wikipedia (released)
 * Portuguese Wikipedia (released)
 * Swedish Wikipedia (released)

Phase 2

 * Sep. 17: Second set of sites under consideration:
 * Dutch Wikipedia? (discussion started)
 * Estonian Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Hebrew Wikipedia? (discussion started)
 * Romanian Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Spanish Wikipedia? (discussion started)
 * English Wikivoyage? (discussion started)

Phase 3

 * Sep. 26: Third set of sites under consideration (non-roman languages):
 * Catalan Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Danish Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Japanese Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Kannada Wikipedia (starting outreach)
 * Korean Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Norwegian Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Telugu Wikipedia? (discussion started)
 * Vietnamese Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Ukrainian Wikipedia? (discussion started)
 * More sites TBD

For this and subsequent releases, we plan to use 'platform train' deployments every Thursday (for other language Wikis) -- or Mondays (for sister projects) --, instead of manual deployments.

This means we will need to commit the code for those wikis the preceding Thursday, in order to have it automatically deployed the following week. For example, for this phase 3 release, we would commit code for the above languages by Thursday Sep. 19, so that it would be released automatically the following Thursday, Sep. 26.

We would then aim to deploy to at least a dozen more wikis each week every Thursday after that, and keep increasing the number of wikis as we get the process refined, as will be outlined below.

Phase 4
More wikis and phases will be added to this list as our community outreach expands. We expect to have weekly batch releases every Thursday to dozens of Wikis throughout October (and the rest of 2013, as needed).
 * October 2013: Fourth set of sites under consideration:
 * German Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Italian Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Malayalam Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * Russian Wikipedia? (starting outreach)
 * More sites TBD

Note that we will support these pilots with initial releases and bug fixes, but are not planning to develop any new notification features this year.

Projects interested in adding Notifications to their sites should review the "Checklist" section below and contact us to discuss a release date.

Checklist
Here is a checklist of actions to consider for any release of Notifications on a new Wikipedia or MediaWiki site:

1. Contact us about this release
 * Contact our product manager Fabrice Florin (fflorin-at-wikimedia-dot-org) and/or community liaison Keegan Peterzell (kpeterzell-at-wikimedia-dot-org) to discuss your interest in releasing this tool on your project (e-mail is preferred as a communication channel).
 * We recommend that you identify an english-speaking community representative to act as a liaison with our team (and provide us with their e-mail address)

2. Discuss this release with your community
 * We recommend that you start an online conversation to discuss this tool with your community (see this example of how we announced it on Meta-Wiki).
 * Make your community aware of the tool's benefits (e.g.: inform users of activity that relates to them, take quick action, see slides).
 * Let them know about special features such as Thanks, the new message indicator, and default settings for new and existing users.
 * Confirm that the community is generally ready to use this tool with its current features and settings, starting on the proposed release date.
 * If any of the recommended features or settings cause serious issues with your community, report back to us to see if we can address their concerns.

3. Prepare for your release
 * Check the Echo page on translatewiki.net to confirm that the interface and content has been properly translated for your language (be sure to translate the Thanks extension as well).
 * Test the user experience on Meta-Wiki to see if it behaves as expected (change your preferences to your language and send yourself a few web and email notifications).
 * Create a local version of this Notifications FAQ page and translate it in your language (please send us the URL, so we can link to it from the question marks in the tool).
 * Create a local version of this Notifications Project page and translate it in your language (this is less important than the help page, so do that afterwards).
 * Consider whether you need to disable any notifications on your site (see current list on this FAQ) (we recommend keeping them all, but we may be able to disable some if needed).
 * Consider whether you need to change the default settings for new users and existing users (note that current user default settings cannot be reversed once deployed).
 * Contact the Wikimedia Foundation's editor engagement team with this information, as well as special needs for your project (note that special requests may delay your release).

There may be other important localization action items which should be added to this list. Please add to this list anything we missed.

More info
To learn more about Notifications, visit one of these pages:
 * Notifications FAQ
 * Notifications project hub
 * Notification Project Slides
 * Feature requirements page
 * Testing page (for trying out features in advance)

Once you've tested Notifications and discussed it with your community, please share your feedback on this discussion page or report bugs on Bugzilla.

Thank you!