[Foundation-l] How could information flow ?

Thu Jul 15 12:47:40 UTC 2004

I heard there was some complain surrounding the fundraising message.
I would like to clarify a couple of points, and make a suggestion or two. 

The fundraising banner was set because there was an ongoing interview of Jimbo on Slashdot.

Given the number of visits we have each time WP is slashdotted, and given that the last time WP was on /. there were many discussions about donations and other means to get money to run the project,  it appeared to be a good choice to make "donation link" temporarily much more visible.
This fundraising banner will only stay up for a couple of days. 

This was not planned so we could not really discuss it in length beforehand. It was more an opportunity.
As far as I know, the message was initially set only to be on en.I understood that the message was then made active on all wikipedias, without warning.
And several languages were quite upset by this message. Several criticisms were voiced, and in particular the fact it was not translated. 
Some people then started translating the message in their respective languages. 
Finally, while several languages were already translated, the message was removed from the non english wikipedias, again without warning. further upsetting some people. 

I was not there when that happened but a couple of people told me about it yesterday, in particular Sj who I think helped on the translations, and I saw comments on the french wikipedia as well, since a vote was started to have the banner removed.
I was also nicely explained I should have made a page to explain why the banner was on, how long it would stay on and so on. Of course, that page should have been in 50 languages all at once.
I agree with all this, but it is just not possible that one, or even two people make this all by themselves, in particular when time is short.
This is only possible if more people are automatically made aware of the issue, and can come and help.

Here are the points which were pointed at

1. the fundraising campaign was not discussed beforehand2. Non english wikipedias were not warned before the message was set3. Non english wikipedias were not warned before the message was removed4. Non english wikipedias were not explained the reasons why the message was set,so it came unexpectedly. They were not told either it would be temporary.5. The message appeared everywhere in english, and people did not know how to have it translated6. The message is not pretty (location in the page, red border, police size...)7. The message appears on every page (not enough discretion)

If we let aside the fact it was decided very quickly, so not discussed before hand, I see two major issues at stake here.

First, the message is not pretty and is “defacing” the wikipedia pages. Each time this banner is up, people complain about it.
Would it be possible that someone try to think where it would be best to place it, and to have it be visible, but not outrageously visible ?  

The second issue is simple. It is just a communication issue between projects.

We discussed it with Sj yesterday, and here is a proposal.
Within one project, communication works quite well. 

Mailing lists is another channel, but it only covers some of the people. Not everyone is registered to wikipedia-l or foundation-l or wikitech-l. And not everyone understands english. And unfortunately, it seems few of those understanding take the time to have the information flow.

IRC is a great information channel when speed is required, but again, not everyone is on irc.

Meta is getting slowly a rather good information channel, but only those visiting meta know the information, and again do not necessarily spread it. I doubt very much goings-on are regularly updated on most projects. The source is reliable, but structurally very slow, because people do not come everyday.

So, in the end, the ONLY way to have information be known on all projects, by everyone and very rapidly, is this little red banner. This is why we use it for server downtime warning, for elections warning, for fundraising and such. 

I think another tool would be very much welcome. What I would like to see is something similar to the current “you have a message”.  A little warning at the top of every page (anonymous included), indicating the editor that new global information is available. For example, when a down time is planned 48 hours in advance, do we really need a huge and highly visible message on each page for 48 hours ? Not really, we just need to be warned once, and the highly visible banner could be set just before the down actually occur.I could figure an additional link in the menu, where we could add global information, for example [[Global news]].
The information could be added one paragraph at a time on meta, and in english. It could be in a mediawiki page or a form.
Once edited, it would appear on all projects, in english by default, but will be editable easily for translation (just as a mediawiki page, and in this case, it will always be a unique mediawiki page, so users won’t have to look for the page to translate it). That way, anyone reading the message first, could translate it at once for the other readers. 

Each time the meta message page is updated (each time a message is added to the meta page, or through a form), a warning of the type “you have a message” would appear to all users on all projects. They can click on it to access the global news page.
Once the page is read, the warning message would disappear, but the information still be available from the menu in the “global news” page.
Each language would be responsible from cleaning up their message page little by little, for translating it, or not translating it (depending on the local editors)I do not foresee a new message being added every day.  We should be careful not to abuse of it, and really use it for relevant information, when we want information to be delivered very quickly or when we really want to ensure every one is informed.

I view it a bit like the announcement-l mailing list which was an attempt to do this, but never really worked. I think doing it directly on the website would ensure that everyone is really aware of the announcement and every one can easily participate to its translation.

Is this technically possible ? Is this suitable ? What do you think ? Do you have other ideas ?

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