Reading/Web/Request process

How to submit a request

If you'd like to request help from the Web team, please

• Create a task in Phabricator using this form (this URL should also be available from the left sidebar on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/web-team-backlog/)
• Send an e-mail to reading-web-team@lists.wikimedia.org or post to slack at #readers-web including the task
• Requests should not be informally made on Slack as this may exclude certain people from the request that need to be involved

Requests are reviewed by the team and inform the priorities of new work. A team member will follow up about whether we’ll be able to work on your request and approximately how long it will take us (see #How requests are handled).

Some questions may be suited to office hours; see Web team Office Hours for more information and a link to book appointments.

Provide the following information to help us prioritize and respond to your request appropriately:

• What team(s) or group is this for?

• Who is your main point of contact and contact preference?
  • We use Phabricator to track our work and provide progress updates.
• What are the details of your request? Include relevant timelines or deadlines
  • Please provide any timeline/relevant deadlines, examples, links to documentation, or other relevant information that would help us understand your request.  Also, focus on the following questions:
    • What type of work is requested? Will you be providing patches for our team to review, are we working as consultants, or is the request for work that our team is expected to do completely?
    • Is the scope of the work predictable - would this work happen over a finite period of time or would it be ongoing over the course of a quarter/year as new problems emerge?

• How does the request fit within the departmental or foundation priorities?
  • This helps us understand the context and priority, please include the following:
    • What are your goals?
    • Will you take different actions depending on the results of this request?
    • How does resolving this task move your team/department/foundation priorities forward?

• Is this request urgent or time sensitive?
  • We try to reply to “Urgent” requests immediately and “Time sensitive” requests by the end of the workday. All other requests will be prioritized during our weekly triage.

How requests are handled

• We will endeavor to get back to the requester within 2 weeks.
• The Web team maintains a spreadsheet of all requests for other teams.
• At minimum, the tech lead, designer and an engineer should consider the request.
• The tech lead, designer and engineer will estimate relative effort of the request and whether the deadline is realistic given other promises to other teams.
• The Web team will reply to the e-mail request with an update with options and confirm whether the deadline is realistic.
• If the deadline is not realistic, the Web team and requestor can negotiate with other teams with requests on the Web team to find a path forward.