Technical decision making/Forum
The Wikimedia Technical Decision Forum is a rotating group of representatives from Wikimedia Foundation teams, affiliates, and volunteer groups. The purpose of the Forum is to provide feedback to teams making decisions.
Forum chairs
editThe Forum is led by two co-chairs: one from the Wikimedia Foundation Technology Department and one from the Product Department. Forum chairs are responsible for leading, facilitating, and administering the technical decision making process.
| Department | Chair |
|---|---|
| Product | Desiree Abad |
| Technology | Moriel Schottlender |
Responsibilities
edit- Time commitment: 2-4 hours per week
- Turnaround times: 24 hours for questions, 1 week for document review and feedback
- Lead Technical Forum meetings
- Provide advice and council on following the process, including templates and good decision making practices
- Respond to questions from decision teams within 24 hours
- Escalate decisions to the Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) as appropriate
- Run retrospectives and update processes, templates, and documentation
- Schedule meetings and office hours
Selection and rotation
editChairs are appointed by the Wikimedia Foundation's CPTO and rotated on a quarterly basis.
Forum members
editThe Forum is composed of representatives from Wikimedia Foundation teams, affiliates, and volunteer groups. Members can be engineers, project managers, engineering managers, technical writers, product managers, etc. Forum members are responsible for reviewing decision documents and acting as a point of contact for the Forum to interface with their team.
| What the forum does | What the forum does not do |
|---|---|
| Empowers teams to make decisions that are informed by experts from around the organization | Makes decisions on behalf of teams or blocks teams from making |
| Provides feedback to teams on their opportunity statements and solutions | Develops technical designs or solutions |
| Creates a touch point for stakeholders, subject matter experts, and development teams to discuss larger technical decisions | Creates an alternate process to approve technical decisions outside of existing development processes |
We actively encourage groups to select people with a variety of experience levels in order to make space for new voices and gaining experience.
| Team | Member
(Responsibility for representative selection) |
Department | Forum representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Wikipedia | Adam Baso | Product | James Forrester |
| Anti-Harassment | Aida Ramirez | Product | Thalia Chan |
| Community Tech | James McLeod | Product | Dayllan Maza |
| Campaigns - Pilot | Lauren de Lench | Product | Claudio Melo |
| Editing | James McLeod | Product | Bartosz Dziewoński |
| Design Systems Team | Lauren de Lench | Product | Roan Kattouw |
| Growth | Dennis Mburugu | Product | Gergo Tisza |
| Android | Joseph Seddon | Product | Cooltey Feng |
| iOS | Joseph Seddon | Product | TBD |
| Structured Data | Carly Bogen | Product | Matthias Mullie |
| Web | Lani Goto | Product | Jan Drewniak |
| Content Transformers | Sérgio Lopes | Product | Yiannis Giannelos |
| Language | Niklas Laxström | Product | Abijeet Patro |
| Inuka | Runa Bhattacharjee | Product | Stephane Bisson |
| Product Analytics | Kate Zimmerman / Mikhail Popov | Product | Jennifer Wang |
| Moderator Tools | Astuthi Odit | Product | Jason Sherman |
| Data Engineering | Olja Dimitrijevic | Technology | Andrew Otto |
| Platform Engineering | Mat Nadrofsky | Technology | Dr. Cindy Cicalese |
| Architecture | Kate Chapman | Technology | Dana Bredemeyer |
| Performance | Larissa Gaulia | Technology | Larissa Gaulia |
| Release Engineering | Kate Chapman | Technology | Tyler Cipriani |
| Quality and Test Engineering | Mat Nadrofsky | Technology | Jean-Rene Branaa |
| Fundraising Tech | Greg Grossmeier | Technology | Dylan Kozlowski |
| Machine Learning | Chris Albon | Technology | Chris Albon |
| Search Platform | Carly Bogen | Technology | David Causse |
| Security | Jennifer Cross | Technology | Scott Bassett |
| Research | Leila Zia | Technology | Fabian Kaelin |
| Data Center Operations | Faidon Liambotis | Technology | Chris Danis |
| Data Persistence | Mark Bergsma | Technology | Manuel Arostegui |
| Infrastructure Foundations | Faidon Liambotis | Technology | Chris Danis |
| Observability | Faidon Liambotis | Technology | Cole White |
| Service Operations | Mark Bergsma | Technology | Giuseppe Lavagetto |
| Traffic | Mark Bergsma | Technology | Brandon Black |
| Trust and Safety Tools | Aida Ramirez | Product | Jay Cano (filling in for Joaquin Oltra Hernandez) |
| Developer Advocacy | Birgit Mueller | Technology | Bryan Davis |
| Wikimedia Cloud Services | Birgit Mueller | Technology | Bryan Davis |
| Technical Documentation | Alexandra Paskulin | Technology | Alexandra Paskulin |
| Affiliate | Member
(Responsibility for representative selection) |
Forum representative |
|---|---|---|
| WMDE Technical Wishes | Tobi Gritschacher | Thiemo Kreuz |
| WMDE Wikibase | Conny Kawohl | Conny Kawohl |
| WMDE Wikidata | Kara Payne | Kara Payne |
| Volunteer group | Member
(Responsibility for representative selection) |
Forum representative |
|---|---|---|
| MediaWiki Stakeholders | Mark A. Hershberger | Mark A. Hershberger |
| Fandom | Daniel Grunwell | Daniel Grunwell |
| Community | Member
(Responsibility for representative selection) |
Forum representative |
|---|---|---|
| Indonesian Wikipedia
Tech Ambassador |
Adi Purnama | Adi Purnama |
| Dessalegn Yehuala | Dessalegn Yehuala |
Responsibilities
edit- Time commitment: 0-2 hours per week
- Turnaround times: 48 hours for questions, 1 week for document review and feedback
- Asynchronously review problem statements from teams and provide feedback
- Connect decision teams to subject matter experts (SMEs) on their teams/groups
- Distribute decision records within their team for review
- Respond to questions from decision teams via Slack or email
Forum members can provide feedback in several ways:
- Give feedback themselves
- Circulate documents within their team and aggregate feedback
- Delegate to other team members to provide feedback
Teams can decide amongst themselves how to best provide feedback.
Selection and rotation
editWikimedia Foundation teams
edit- Each team appoints a representative for the Forum. Teams can change their representative at any time.
- Teams can choose to share representatives with related teams. For example: SRE may decide to have fewer people represent their teams than the number of the individual teams. As teams change or grow, updates will be made accordingly.
- Teams are expected to plan for coverage during vacations and other types of leave.
Affiliates
edit- Each affiliate appoints a representative in the Forum. Affiliates can change their representative at any time.
- Affiliates can choose to share representatives with related groups. For example: SRE may decide to have fewer people represent their teams than the number of the individual teams. As groups change or grow, updates will be made accordingly.
- Affiliates are expected to plan for coverage during vacations and other types of leave.
Community representation
edit- The Forum is looking for representatives from the Wikimedia community who will review the proposals brought to the forum. Visit the community representation page for more information.