Talk pages consultation 2019/Program and event organizers

This is a page for program and event organizers to add your perspectives and ideas to the Talk pages consultation 2019. We want to identify a general product direction for improvements to the communication tools on wiki by June 30, 2019. (For more information, see the TPC main page.)

As a movement organizer, you work with a wide range of wiki contributors, from very active editors to newbies who have never contributed to a wiki before. It's been difficult for us to involve new contributors in this consultation, so we're especially interested in your experiences working with people who are new to wikis.

When we say "talk pages," we mean all the on-wiki forms of communication. This could mean any of the talk namespaces, a project page, a subpage, a sandbox, or any other page. It includes all the tools or systems you use on the wiki: wikitext talk pages, Structured Discussions (Flow), LiquidThreads, user scripts, gadgets, WikiLove messages, pings, notifications, etc.

Feel free to respond to other people on this page, if you'd like; we'd like to get as much information as we can. If you have questions or thoughts about the consultation process, please tell us. You can write on the consultation main talk page, or ping User:DannyH (WMF) and User:Trizek (WMF). Thanks!

What's the program/event/group(s) that you participate in?

 * Enterprise Knowledge Management
 * Berkeley Edit-a-thon

For programs where participants communicate with other people on-wiki
'''Why do participants communicate on-wiki in your program? Do they communicate with organizers, with each other, both? How often?'''
 * To share and publish structured knowledge content. Most communicate with a small group to edit, but share with a larger group.

'''Do you teach participants how to use talk pages, or give them tips or instructions? What kind of information do you give them?'''
 * Only talk page instruction that is provided to users is to inform them on the type of discussions that our KM program uses the wiki talk page. That is to ensure that only discussion around the development of an article, not discussion about a topic.  Since the audience for wiki talk pages are limited to page authors or those who have added the page to their watchlist, our program doesn't use them to troubleshooting the business daily topical discussions.
 * Conflict management strategy: trying to empathize with other editor, understand if they have stakes in “claiming” a particular domain. No formal talk page use training.

'''Do participants struggle with on-wiki communication? Do they make mistakes, or get frustrated? What kind of problems do they have?'''
 * Due to the limited audience or ablitiy to connect to users on the wiki, their is rarely any user communications within the wiki. The only issues that users express is the lack of consistent alerts.
 * Tips are mainly for those that have some sort of conflict with other editors or admins. Mention of difficulty with page creation.

'''Do participants communicate successfully on wiki? What helps them?'''
 * See above.
 * Users are far more comfortable discussing issues in person, so generally avoid on-wiki communication.

Are there features or changes to talk pages/on-wiki communication that would make your program easier or more successful?
 * Here are a few features that would improve the use of wiki talk pages:
 * The ability to manage alerts for teams
 * A user friendly view of recent changes
 * Tagging of discussions with SMW properties and/or categories
 * Following a user or tag.
 * N/A

For programs where participants don't communicate with other people on-wiki
'''Why do participants communicate in your program? Do they communicate with organizers, with each other, both? How often?'''
 * This is a duplicated question, see above.
 * They communicate with organizers and other edit-a-thon members.

'''Do participants use another way to communicate? In person, email, a different website or tool? If so, why does that method work better than on-wiki communication?'''
 * Yes, our users use a SharePoint ask and discuss thread to communication. SharePoint allows more visibility, organization by tagging with topical terms, marking as helpful solution, information only posts, searching by topics and key words
 * Generally will speak to other editors in-person and well as with their friend groups.

Are there any features or changes to talk pages/on-wiki communication that would make your program more likely to use on-wiki communication?
 * Yes, see above
 * N/A

Your own experience
When you want to talk on wiki, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
 * See above.

What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
 * See feature listing mentioned above.

Any other thoughts or suggestions about talk pages?

Thank you for participating!