Wikimedia Product/2017-18 Q1 Goals

From mediawiki.org
Q4 (with Technology) Wikimedia Audiences Goals, FY2017–18, Q1 (July – September) Q2

Purpose of this document: Goals for the Wikimedia Audiences department for the first quarter of fiscal year 2017–18 (July 2017 – September 2017). The goal setting process owner in each section is the person responsible for coordinating completion of the section, in partnership with the team and relevant stakeholders.

Goals for the Technology department are available on their own page.

Status fields can use the following templates: In progress In progress, To do To do, N Postponed, Yes Done or Incomplete Partially done

ETA fields may use the initialism EOQ (End of Quarter).


Focused on meeting the needs of active Wikimedia editors for improved, expert-focused curation and moderation tools.

Goal setting process owner: Danny Horn

Team Objective Key result Dependency ETA Status
Anti-Harassment Tools Increase the confidence of our admins for resolving disputes Plan, measure, and analyze baseline confidence of English Wikipedia admins with their ability to make accurate and efficient decisions in conduct disputes (focusing on their use of tools, processes, their training, community policies and WMF policies), measured via focus groups and/or survey.  Community Engagement EOQ Yes Done
Assist Support & Safety in preparing a qualitative research methodology for measuring the expectations and experiences of people using our main noticeboards for user disputes. Support & Safety EOQ Yes Done
Improve the quality of existing admin tools Implement performance and anti-spoof improvements to AbuseFilter, allowing admins to block recurring harmful edits EOQ Yes Done
With the Wikipedia community, research and plan the User Interaction History feature, allowing admins to evaluate and understand the sequence of events between 2+ users. EOQ In progress In progress
Conduct community consultation for page-specific blocking, allowing admins to block a user from editing a specific page EOQ In progress In progress
Empower individual users to protect themselves on the MediaWiki platform Finish and release the Mute feature, which allows users to privately list usernames from which they do not want to receive Echo and email notifications and Special:EmailUser emails. EOQ Yes Done
Community Wishlist Improve very active contributors' productivity Rollout support for section heading URLs for non-Latin languages (wish #3) EOQ In progress In progress
Create a technical plan for Global preferences (wish #4) Technical Operations EOQ Yes Done
Represent both large and small communities Build a Grant metrics tool that automatically counts and updates important metrics Community Resources EOQ In progress In progress
Begin ACTRIAL experiment on Enwiki to measure the impact of directing new users who create new pages to the Article Wizard, in partnership with the New Page Patrol community New Page Patrol community, Research and Data EOQ Yes Done

Maintain and improve content creation and editing tools.

Goal setting process owner: Trevor Parscal

Team Objective Key result Dependency ETA Status
Editing 3.1: Improve and consolidate our unified editing platform so that it's great on all devices Complete conversion of CX editing surface to use VE platform. Community Liaisons EOQ Incomplete Work continues
Global Collaboration 5.2.1: Apply the new recent changes filters technology with Machine Learning to other contexts like watchlists and history pages Roll out the recent changes filters to all users on all wikis.  Community Liaisons EOQ Yes Done
5.3.2: Improve structured discussion features for the communities that use them, based on user feedback and prioritising technical debt Triage the list of planned changes to Structured Discussions, sequencing them for they year, and begin work on at least one of them. Community Liaisons EOQ Yes Done
Parsing 3.6: Support work towards unifying MediaWiki's parser implementations, in liaison with Technology's MediaWiki team Switch from Tidy to RemexHtml in Wikimedia production.  Community Liaisons

MediaWiki team

Q2+ Yes Work continues as planned
Design 3.5: Modernise user interface technologies to encompass mobile and desktop platforms, with continued work on the Wikimedia-wide adoption of a standard Web user interface library Expand roll-out of converted OOjs UI buttons in the 2010 wikitext editor to all wikis in desktop. Community Liaisons EOQ Yes Done
New Editor Experiences 4.1:  Expand and deepen our understanding of the experiences of new editors in emerging communities based on generative research Produce a prioritised list of possible interventions based on the New Editor Experiences project and generative research for wider discussion and then selection. Community Liaisons

Audience Design

EOQ N Delayed

Increase our global reach by increasing readership.

Goal setting process owner: Jon Katz

Team Objective Key result Dependency ETA Status
Reading Web
  • Increase learning for all users by providing articles that load quickly in various settings
  • Build initial offline functionality for the mobile web
Begin work on new mobile website with a focus on performance and connection management - set up development infrastructure, define MVP for initial feature set, plan user testing for connection management workflows Reading infrastructure, Services, Legal Ongoing, full roadmap for project can be found on the project page To do To do
Provide a smoother reading experience by improving the ways that users can flag articles of interest for later consumption
  • Improve rendering functionality for PDF creation and book tool by deploying new rendering tool
  • Deploy button for readers to download PDFs from the mobile website
Community Liaisons, Reading Infrastructure, Services, TechOps EOQ To do To do
Discovery 1.2.1: Search Frontend—Improve user interface of search results page to help users explore content and discover more content across the projects Finish up testing of the Explore Similar feature on search results page; analyze data and gather community feedback; request internationalization strings; deploy feature Community Engagement, Analytics, Operations EOQ Yes Done
1.2.3: Portal—Experiment with wikipedia.org to improve its ability to serve as a landing page for finding content in Wikimedia sites, such as trending articles Maintain the portal by fixing critical bugs, performing regular statistics and translations updates Operations On-going Yes Done
1.3.1: Maps—Ensure that the current map functionality is rolled out and supported across the projects. Finalize and deploy the new map style; monitoring service for critical bugs; increase frequency of OSM replication Community Engagement, Operations On-going In progress In progress
Reading Infrastructure Support power users across devices by developing a Reading List Service Develop a Reading list Service. Deploy to production and integrate into one client Services, Ops EOQ In progress In progress
Improve reliability and consistency of page display by normalizing page content for Reader clients Deploy Beta of Page Content Service and begin integrating into at least one client TechCom, Services, Ops EOQ In progress In progress
Android app Iterate and improve new app features that drive reuse and learning by high-affinity readers Update Explore feed to provide fresher and more customizable experience to improve use and user investment in the app. None EOQ To do To do
iOS app Iterate and improve new app features that drive reuse and learning by high-affinity readers Develop and release to beta a Reading Lists to allow users to organize saved pages into folders and to sync those lists across devices when logged in. Reading Infrastructure EOQ To do To do
Multimedia Support more expressive media formats, namely 3D models (the 11th most requested item in the 2015 wishlist). Ship 3D model support to production with the Commons community. Community Liaisons, Communications; possibly TechOps, Services, Performance EOQ To do To do

Program Management[edit]

Managing large-scale, cross-team programs

Goal setting process owner: Anne Gomez

Team Objective Key result Dependency ETA Status
New Readers 1.1 Coordinated marketing efforts (campaigns) with launch events in target countries/markets that educate potential readers on what Wikipedia is and the value that it offers, developed in partnership with local networks of advocates. The New Readers team pilots awareness-building efforts that consult, collaborate, and train community members on how to continue strategic marketing initiatives. Deliver report and present results of Iraq campaign, including roll-up of data from social media, Wikipedia usage, and phone survey results. Global Reach, Communications, Analytics EOQ In progress In progress
2.1 Build better interfaces for offline support for individuals who sometimes have internet access across all platforms, working hand in hand with existing solutions (both community and external). In particular:
  • extend functionality in Android app
  • build initial offline functionality for the mobile web
Deploy button for readers to download PDFs from the mobile website (already works using system dialog). Reading Web will be executing this work. Q2 N Postponed
2.3 Better understand the existing ecosystem of solutions for offline support of Wikimedia content. Assess if it would be useful to partner with existing efforts (such as Kiwix or distributors) and move forward on those that have potential through product, grants, and/or partnerships. Deliver a plan to distribute offline Wikipedia at a national level in 1-3 target countries. Plan should include product, partnerships, and grant strategies as appropriate. Global Reach, Community Resources EOQ To do To do
Structured Data 1.1 Store structured data within wiki pages, in particular on media file pages on Commons.
  • Finalize MCR database schema
  • Plan and schedule schema migration
  • Actor table (T167246) development substantially complete, ready for deployment
  • Comment table (T166732) development substantially complete, ready for deployment
  • De-globalize EditPage.php (T144366)
  • Narrow AbuseFilter interface
  • EditPage backend (T157658)
MediaWiki Platform, Wikidata, Ops (DBA), Technical Collaboration EOQ In progress In progress
1.2 Introduce Multi-Content Revisions (MCR) MediaWiki Platform, Wikidata, Ops (DBA), Technical Collaboration EOQ In progress In progress
3.1 Commons contributors, partners contributing media, individual uploaders, and others interested in classifying structured data about media will enjoy a more seamless, predictable, and bug-free user experience. Research and iterate on initial designs for editing structured metadata on commons Readers PM + UX EOQ In progress In progress
4.2 Develop a better understanding of existing needs for Structured Commons (task T152248) Report on initial user stories and research themes Research, Community Engagement Programs EOQ To do To do