Talk pages consultation 2019/Communication/Advice about Phase 1

Some advice about hosting the Talk pages consultation
Hello

You have volunteered to be a coordinator for the Talk pages consultation 2019. Thank you!

We want to share with you some important information, so as some advice. All of this is based on feedback, observations and some decisions taken around phase 1 of the consultation.

Can you ask for details?

We have noticed that some people explain what they wish to have, and they express what they like or dislike on talk pages. However, they don't explain why.

Explaining why is very important: it allows us to find the common needs between users. Can you please review the feedback already received, and ask for details and "why"?

Reaching at other projects

Most of the consultation pages are hosted on Wikipedia, on several languages. We also need to get the feedback from people who contribute to other projects. Don't forget to invite them to participate (or setup their own consultation page). The more feedback we have, the better.

Reaching at newcomers

Most feedback received so far has come from experienced users. It is unfortunately not representative of all the users who use talk pages. Please consider to send an invite to some active newcomers. Again, the more feedback we have, the better.

To find some newcomers to contact, you can replace the RecentChanges link on your wiki with the following set of filters:. It will show the list of users who have made less than 500 edits, and some edits on discussion pages. You can also invite people who left messages ont your local Help desk.

Due date is now known!

Community summaries are due by April 6, 2019. We advise communities, especially the ones that would have had collected a lot of replies, to end the conversation by March 31. That way, volunteers will have enough time to wrap up the discussions.

How to close the conversations?

We have seen that some of the coordinators have started the conversations using the usual places to have conversations on their wikis. It is an easy way to reach people. However, since the consultation is based on a different consultation process than the usual ones, those rules regarding how to close conversations may not need to be applied. It is up to you to decide!

And again, thank you for your help!

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