I provided feedback previously on Space earlier and I could not find it now but I assume it was taken into consideration when the decision was taken. Without repeating it, let me remark that the two main questions, which remained unsolved, were (i) what is the target audience and (ii) what is the content to be discussed there. For (i), we have many different groups with many different interests. We have project people (editors), active on different projects, we have affiliate people, we have WMF people, there is certain overlap between these categories, but I am afraid not much. They have very different interests and vision. If I understand it correctly, the idea was to bridge the gap between these categories (primarily, between WMF and community), but it did not work - it is understandable that people who never edited Wikipedia and have no interest editing it, do not find a topic on the first Wikipedia contribution very appealing, and those for example who deal with Wikipedia as their daily job are not so keen to discuss the job on social media - I also have an exciting job but I do not have any desire to discuss it anywhere in my free time. Concerning (ii), we have people who were looking for something like social media, just to hang out, we had people who wanted to discuss project and foundation issues which they found important, we had people who were only posting announcements - but I do not think we had general understanding why people should come to Space to discuss, and what they should discuss. There are discussions going on in the projects. Meta started as a cross-product (and cross-language) discussion venue, but now it is essentially dead - I long ago stopped following my watchlist there. The mailing lists are mainly dead or at least half-dead. Understandably, people went to FB and Twitter - they will discover at some point that there are serious privacy issues, and, in addition, this is like Wild West where you are on your own (I had my FB account disabled for alleged copyright violations last year, and there is nothing I can do about it), but before they discover it I am not sure why they should go to any other platform to discuss - what? There might be some room for a social media platform run by WMF, but it should be very well discussed what exactly we expect, what we can provide, and how this can be done. I would recommend a community conversation - not a "community consultation", when a decision has already been taken, and the "consultation" is used to legitimize this decision, but a real brainstorming, and see what the stakeholders are and what they want. I am afraid though that it would be difficult to organize even this brainstorming and collect a sufficient number of responses to make meaningful conclusions.
(There were opinions voiced that the Space would never take off because it is run by WMF who would erase any criticism - well, I have not seen this happening. This would not be my concern at this point.) Despite my skepticism, I believe that people who were running the Space and people who invested into the Space clearly had good intentions, and whereas things did not work at the end, I would like to thank them - mainly Elena and Quim I guess. Yaroslav On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 3:35 PM Quim Gil <q...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Thank you for all the feedback. After scanning different channels, we have > a wide range of opinions which reflect how deep and complex the problem of > cross-wiki collaboration is, and also how differently the Space prototype > and this decision is being perceived. We will process this feedback and > integrate it in the lessons learned. If you have more feedback or > questions, please share. This conversation is important. > > The channels we are watching: > > * https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/next-steps-on-wikimedia-space/3184 > * > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Space#Next_steps_on_Wikimedia_Space > * > https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2020-February/094269.html > and replies > * > https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/2699004306814050/ > > If you are aware of more conversations related to this announcement, please > share them here as well. > > On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 11:30 AM Quim Gil <q...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > > > Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation launched Wikimedia Space to > experiment > > with new ways to connect volunteers, increase movement participation, and > > showcase community stories. While we remain committed to this important > > goal, based on lessons learned through the Space prototype, the > Foundation > > has decided to close Discuss Space. The Space blog, which continues to > fill > > a need to share news for the movement by the movement, will continue in a > > new home. Please continue to submit community-focused stories [1], so > that > > we may share them with the movement. > > > > To learn more about the next steps, check the full announcement at > > https://space.wmflabs.org/2020/02/18/next-steps-on-wikimedia-space/ > > > > We have learned a lot from this initiative and want to thank all Space > > users [2] for their time and contributions. We also invite everyone > > interested in documenting lessons learned and discussing next steps to > join > > us in taking this effort even further, either at the About Wikimedia > Space > > category in Discuss [3] or the Space talk page in Meta [4]. > > > > [1] > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Space/Editorial_guidelines#How_to_get_started > > [2] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/u?period=all > > [3] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/about-wikimedia-space/2 > > [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Space > > > > -- > > Quim Gil (he/him) > > Senior Manager of Community Relations @ Wikimedia Foundation > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Qgil-WMF > > > > > -- > Quim Gil (he/him) > Senior Manager of Community Relations @ Wikimedia Foundation > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Qgil-WMF > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
