Hello all,
Sorry for cross-posting.
The Technical Decision-Making Forum Retrospective
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making> team invites you
to join one of our “listening sessions” about the Wikimedia's technical
decision-making processes.
We are running the listening sessions to provide a venue for people to tell
us about their experience, thoughts, and needs regarding the process of
making technical decisions across the Wikimedia technical spaces. This
complements the survey
<https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/885471?lang=en>, which closed
on August 7.
Who should participate in the listening sessions?
People who do technical work that relies on software maintained by the
Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) or affiliates. If you contribute code to
MediaWiki or extensions used by Wikimedia, or you maintain gadgets or tools
that rely on WMF infrastructure, and you want to tell us more than could be
expressed through the survey, the listening sessions are for you.
How can I take part in a listening session?
There will be four sessions on two days, to accommodate all time zones. The
two first sessions are scheduled:
- Wednesday, September 13, 14:00 – 14:50 UTC
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1694613630>
- Wednesday, September 13, 20:00 – 20:50 UTC
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1694635220>
The sessions will be held on the Zoom platform.
If you want to participate, please sign up for the one you want to attend: <
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making/Listening_Sessions…gt;.
If none of the times work for you, please leave a message on the talk page.
It will help us schedule the two last sessions.
The sessions will be held in English. If you want to participate but you
are not comfortable speaking English, please say so when signing up so that
we can provide interpretation services.
The sessions will be recorded and transcribed so we can later go back and
extract all relevant information. The recordings and transcripts will not
be made public, except for anonymized summaries of the outcomes.
What will the Retrospective Team do with the information?
The retrospective team will collect the input provided through the survey,
the listening sessions and other means, and will publish an anonymized
summary that will help leadership make decisions about the future of the
process.
In the listening sessions, we particularly hope to gather information on
the general needs and perceptions about decision-making in our technical
spaces. This will help us understand what kind of decisions happen in the
spaces, who is involved, who is impacted, and how to adjust our processes
accordingly.
Are the listening sessions the best way to participate?
The primary way for us to gather information about people’s needs and wants
with respect to technical decision making was the survey
<https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/885471?lang=en>. The listening
sessions are an important addition that provides a venue for free form
conversations, so we can learn about aspects that do not fit well with the
structure of the survey.
In addition to the listening sessions and the survey, there are two more
ways to share your thoughts about technical decision making: You can post
on the talk page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Technical_decision_making/Technical_Decision-Making_Process_Retrospective_and_Consultation_plan>,
or you can send an email to <tdf-retro-2023(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>.
Where can I find more information?
There are several places where you can find more information about the
Technical Decision-Making Process Retrospective:
-
The original announcement about the retrospective from Tajh Taylor:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/…
-
The Technical Decision-Making Process general information page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making
-
The Technical Decision-Making Process Retrospective page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making/Technical_Decision…
-
The Phabricator ticket:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T333235
Who is running the technical decision making retrospective?
The retrospective was initiated by Tajh Taylor. The core group running the
process consists of Moriel Schottlender (chair), Daniel Kinzler, Chris
Danis, Kosta Harlan, and Temilola Adeleye. You can contact us at <
tdf-retro-2023(a)lists.wikimedia.org>gt;.
Thank you for participating!
--
Benoît Evellin - Trizek (he/him)
Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>