Topic on Talk:Structured Discussions

Just this once I'll express I'm concerned about the recent reprioritization of the Collaboration team. Workflows (collaboration tool) will be most welcome, but we also need Flow (communication tool). This post should be dedicated to the PM and is dedicated to "whoever is the fill-in, if anyone is".

Polish Wikipedia community has just noticed that Facebook provides better communication/collaboration tools than its wiki, mailing list and other official channels of communication do. "Only in October, on the closed group of Polish Wikipedia on Facebook, 25 posts, 113 comments and many likes appeared. For comparison, on the mailing list, there were 5 threads and 6 comments." -- @Kenraiz (diff)

AFAIK, a similar proportion applies to CEE. No one complains on social media or any offwiki, closed, non-archivable tools. They are used partly instead of wikis and partly by the way of regular use of social media, because they are less diffy, "cody", more default-oriented, intuitive, quick.

I respect the Wikimedia diversity. Maybe some communities don't use social media as much as we do and/or find Flow too un-wait4it-traditional. But in sake of diversity, please don't forget about those who use modern tools and, simultaneously, experience a decline of activity on wiki/mailing lists etc.

Hi Tar Lócesilion

Do you have large community pages on Polish Wikipedia or anywhere else to compare with stats from Facebook? The experience I have about Facebook tools can be easily done with Flow. Do you plan to request Flow on any other location?

Concerning Facebook, does all these conversations can happen on wiki? The experience proved it with IRC: there is sometimes conversations that you don't want to have on wiki (which is not cool for transparency reasons).

I wrote 3/4 of my reply, went afk, came back and accidentally closed this tab. Applause :// This version won't be comprehensive.

• The main channel is "Kawiarenka" (or "Bar"), the village pump with 6 "tables" and 1263 edits in October. On fb, there's a lot of chit-chatting, but also news being quickly passed along, quick reactions, and purely social stuff. Bar is for achieving consensus, important discussions and is default. However, don't let the numbers mislead you. The greatest part of discussions do and will happen on wiki, but (1) there are concerns about increasing importance of such external tools (2) IMHO status quo excludes new/occasional users from decision-making.
• Positive, Flow is a big step to 21. century, but is still lacking some crucial features (e.g. search, no default cross-wiki categories, and more-which-I-don't-remember-now). Until this is fixed and improved to a level acceptable for Eamon/Eliot, local tech background like compatibility with gadgets isn't provided, Flow won't be deployed to Bar. I think we won't create a new table just for Flow, because existing tables are divided logically and the new one would be an offtop.
• It's not about transparency, since WikiLove'n'stuff are in force off-wiki as well. It's more about social media. People use fb either way, so since they are Wiki[m/p]edians, they talk about Wiki[m/p]edia.
• IMHO there's no chance of redirecting activity from fb to wiki until Flow isn't developed.

I hope I answered and it wasn't too long.

Thank you for your answer Tar Lócesilion!

I understand your needs to go further with Flow. There is several tasks related to your needs, but they are stalled by the new plan (we are focusing efforts on cross wiki notifications with Echo).

• search on Flow boards (tracking task)
• editing toolbars
• gadget compatibility

We are currently working on fixing some issues on History pages and system (tracking task), to avoid spam and help patrollers. But remember there is Flow boards already deployed on several wikis, with an important traffic and multiple conversations. And it works. :)

Yes, I'm aware of the current state of these tasks (am a so-called member of Flow project on phab). Cros-wiki stuff are great ex natura (get cloned, Legoktm, & MTFBWY* ;). I strongly believe (no, I know) that Workflows are also needed and I'm enthusiastic about that all.

But am not so sure whether Flow works or quite works. It like does on plwiki's Forum des nouveaux, maybe on cawiki (brave people, respect for them), but the problem we notice is about deploying it more widely, which does require further development (task T88140, bloody important!) I know, there's no point in convincing the convinced ones, probably this should be read by Lila, or BoT?

* In fact, get cloned you all, Collaboration team.