Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Global Conversations/Feedback

Hello! This is an on-wiki way to provide feedback regarding the Global Conversations Event on November 21/22, December 5/6, and January 23/24. Feel free to leave your feedback here. It would be great if you could say what you liked most and least about events, and especially how we could improve them. Please respect the Friendly Space Policy, thank you, --Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 14:14, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback on Global Conversation events (January 23/24)

Leave your feedback here.

From Ad Huikeshoven

Thanks for organizing this meeting. I appreciated the polling leading to convergence of ideas. --Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 14:45, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

+1 but it would be great that they can be corrected and adapted on the fly if need be. Zblace (talk) 08:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nanour Garabedian

I agree with Ad and I think we need more meetings in the near future. Thank you again. --Nanour Garabedian (talk) 19:13, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

LIonel Scheepmans

I point here a problem of duplication off feelback. I just finish to reply to the google formI sended by CKibelka (WMF) and I send it before to copy past my answer here (I would prefer an open source alternative self hosted or a framaforms). So maybe it could be better to just use an on line form only for closed questions or multiple choise one and ask the open question or general feedback only here ? Is that possible CKibelka (WMF) to copy past my form answers here ? Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 15:19, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

+1 good point Zblace (talk) 08:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Z. Blace

I liked that etherpads and the new polling use in break-out rooms, as it brought much needed focus to conversation sessions there. It would be ideal to announce the use of new tools and methods, so that people can look it up and get familiarized if they did not use or know of it before (this is partly also with zoom), rather than having people be confused over new modalities instead of fully focusing on content and context. There is also waste of time and focus for other if they listen to tech and methodological questions while trying to write. This maybe does not sound much to native speakers, but people processing non-clear accents and thinking in 2 languages is a lot. Zblace (talk) 08:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vexations

To preserve the history of how ideas on the IGC came about, I think it may be good to link to the etherpads that were used in the discussion. That would align with Manage Internal Knowledge recommendation; facilitate a culture of documentation.

Vexations (talk)

+1 Good point! Zblace (talk) 16:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback on Global Conversation events (December 5/6)

From Jadnapac

This was one of the best engaging-global virtual gathering. I enjoyed how participants (both at the main session and at the break out rooms) were so actively providing, suggesting, recommending different ideas, opinions and insights on the immediate steps to be taken for the WM movement recommendations and initiatives to be implemented. Bravo to All! Jadnapac (talk) 14:27, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From Amir E. Aharoni

(I also submitted the Google form, but I'm happy to make this public, and the Google form had too little room.)

Positive

Meeting Wikimedians is always fun!
The organization of facilitation was mostly good, although I have a couple of comments.

Negative

The most important thing: I'm somewhat concerned that lots of people who could contribute didn't come, because they find the format daunting or inconvenient. Attendance of fewer than 200 people is nowhere near representing all the editors well. I'm mostly fine with this format myself, and I try to represent my community as well as I can, but not everyone is like me. Perhaps you should allow more offline participation for people who prefer talk pages, and to make them feel that their voice actually influences the decisions. For example, the vote in the end of the previous meeting, which decided much of the prioritization of the initiatives is strongly skewed towards people who bothered to registered. Such a vote should be more representative, too.

The time to discuss in the facilitation break-out rooms is a bit too short. I had only one minute per person.
I was a facilitator in one of the meetings, and I had very little time to prepare the brief synthesis to present after the breakout sessions. I managed to do it, but it was a bit rushed. The next time something like this is done, there should be a quiet half-hour to read all the notes and do this.
Lightning talks: Great idea, but 3 minutes is a bit too short. Myself and another speaker were interrupted because we spoke too quickly. It breaks the momentum, although I guess most of it is my fault. I prepared all my text in advance, checked that it fits in three minutes, and even sent it to the interpreters, but apparently it was still not perfect. Perhaps you could give more time, or provide suggestions about the number of words per minute. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 19:15, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback to feedback

- Excellent feedback Amir. Meeting 100+ people who are committed to work on project like Wikimedia creates good feeling, but it could be better. It was confusing for me also why lightning talks were not just pre-recorded and summarized in other languages, so that people who present them could actually use (live!) presence to connect and interact with those most interested in split rooms. Discussion time and facilitation could have been more adequate. I guess experiences and impressions were hugely different between each of us and each sessions (with me #1 was super to short, #2 was just long enough but was also not ideal). Zblace (talk) 08:03, 7 December 2020 (UTC) [reply]

From Yves Madika

En tout, la discussion s'est bien déroulée. Une chose que je peux déplorer, le temps global était long, et aussi la non participation de membres de la communauté mondiale quant bien même cet appel vidéo a eu plus de 120 participants. Je suggère que des Offices Hours soient organisés au niveau local pour que les communautés locales s'imprégnent de la quintessence sur l'implémentation des récommandations. Merci Yves Madika (talk) 02:45, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. Also just seeing Wikimedia Communities as more complex system of different groups, rather than single community that can be addressed in single format would be useful to potentially increase quantity and quality of engagement. Zblace (talk) 08:13, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

...also from Z. Blace

(I already made comments to others so this is just extra for new arguments)

Conceptually I have some issues with (what it takes, how and why to make) this kind of events and present it as 'global' constituency, but that is somewhat philosophical and beyond feedback to event organizers scope here... It was obviously a big effort and on the big learning curve is doing these things in most adequate ways.

Positive

With these 2 events the 2030 process and its understanding is slightly de-centering Meta and from use of just English text
Friendly space policy is normalized globally via this kind of events (especially gender and language ability)
#2 is better than the #1 event effort (communication towards it was more clear and there were less technical issues)
I got better in understanding of how others are informed (or not) of the process and their agency - think others have also
I have more information and better understanding of differences in terms of focuses and communication norms/issues we have which would take longer to figure out if all in text form and interpretation of behavioral patterns :-)

Negative

Events more-less served one purpose for getting a heat-map of interests based on votes *(bit also by discussion), while potential of actionizing plans and negotiating commitments was very low (this is something I would focus rather then just vote, as individuals/communities voting might be just to busy next 18 months to do anything and...)
No private exchanges or ad-hoc coordination/collaborations were stimulated or even possible technically due to protocol and zoom limitations *(this is major issue to video conferencing tools conceptually)
Zoom as proprietary tool is one issue, but also as bandwidth scaling/buffering is limited *(people with mobile 3G/4G phones suffered) and it is computer resource hungry, but also bit of clunky for use with just breakout rooms (+ assigning translations)... limited chat options and history loss issues was sub-optimal

I hope the team can have some rest, evaluate and have more courage to innovate event formats (outside of zoom features and norms) in future follow-ups. I am still convinced it is worth trying to develop this with FLOSS tools in 2021. Best --Zblace (talk) 09:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From Kayode Yussuf

It was exciting to catchup with the global community again. I am also glad to see how the strategy is panning out from some confusing discussion to something that can be explained and discussed. if there is something I wished for, it will be that these meetings hold physically. We are losing out on the social connections. Understandably that this is almost impossible at this time. Kayusyussuf (talk) 14:18, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From Lionel Scheepmans

This second experience show me and confirm what is good and what doesn't work with this kind of digital gathering.

Good way to :

enhance the consciousness of being a social movement or a big family.
have fun and feeling the movement as efficient without being too much serious
to share oral questions and answer for people who don't have the mastering of digital writing

Wrong way with so many people but not enough to represent all the community for :

Voting
Discussing and brainstorming
Decide or organize something concerning the strategy

I think that a traditional and multilingual Request For Comment shoud be a much better way to chose together what the movement have to be. This asynchronous way makes easier the debate, analyse and reach of consensus. Don't forget that the RFC was created and used by the creators of the Internet. That's for me a proof of efficiency.

Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 14:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From Sänger

Good stuff:

Etherpad on Wikimedia server instead of off-site Telegram
Board was there
Good atmosphere and good organisation
Kaarels rap of course

Not that good stuff:

Groups A were a wee bit too big, especially on a mobile screen
As mentioned above: just a small, not at all representative, cut from the community
Too short group sessions

Of course everything done here has to be vetted by an RfC, the only valid decision body, and in a multilanguage way, english only is a way to get non-english speakers away and keep them at distance. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From Geertivp

It should be allowed to send chat messages to any individual participant. Chat was only allowed to "everybody" or to "coordinators". We could not send individual messages to peers, which strongly disabled our online communication. At physical conferences we can talk to any participant, anyway. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 14:07, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Op de Mattermost Chat is het wel mogelijk. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:14, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What I meant was a private, non permanent, 1:1 Zoom chat; not a (public) 1:M chat... so the wmcloud chat is not a solution neither because it is also public. Also Zoom is already a complicated application with multiple windows (main video, participant mosaic, the presentation or video window, participant chat); we have the Meta page with the agenda, and the Etherpad, possibly private note taking, so adding again WM Chat as another communication path is too much. Why not sticking with Zoom chat in this circumstance? It is an efficient communication path within the video conferencing tool. (note that I already had 2 large screens to order all those communication channels in parallel and a nice and effective no-echo speakerbox so I did not suffer from a headset). What about small smartphone screens? Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 16:53, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Geertivp:: Hi! That was, actually, on purpose. As the Friendly Space Policy applies to the event, we couldn't control (and then enforce) the policy if people could chat one on one with each other. That's why we desactivated that option. Best, --Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 15:43, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would have believed that the community consider us as responsible adults, having "good faith". If there would have been a problem of harassment, due to the private online messaging, the responsible coordinators can always be notified by the "victim" when necessary, anyway? Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback on Global Conversation events (November 21/22)

Feedback from Llywrch

(Note: I was the one who was using my wife's Zoom account. This is only the second time I've used this software.)

The positive

Enjoyed interacting with a number of Wikimedians I would probably not have met under other circumstances. I heard some opinions that surprised me, & helped me to know I was not the only person to share them.

The negative

This session relied on too many different kinds of software, which seemed to all be proprietary. We need to remember that free information heavily depends on free software; otherwise, the information is locked away & requires money to access.
I felt the schedule was too rigorously enforced. The first breakout session I was involved in was abruptly ended without warning, & in the middle of one person's sentence. (I don't know if this was the case in the Saturday session.)

-- Llywrch (talk) 01:20, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. We were in the same #1 group and I fully agree with all of the above Zblace (talk) 08:43, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agree for the tree points Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 11:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback from Camelia

(Note: November 22th Global meeting)

Positive

General good organization: splitting in different rooms and random assignation of participant helped to share opinions with people you never talked to before.
Good moderation: clarity most of all.
The opportunity to have someone's thoughts from various perspectives: as representative of an affiliate, as an editor of a Wikimedia project, as individual
Essential, right to the point.
The singing session in one of the breaks and Kaarel's final poetry/rap. This is one of the Wikimedians best characteristics: giving a joyful imprint to what they are doing and have fun together.
Organization in rooms, discussions, short interventions by the staff and the design team, breaks, gave a nonheavy and easy to stay there 4,5 hours meeting.

Negative

The clear time of the meeting's start, many of us rely on the calendar.
First session interrupted without warning (then improved by having a timer on the screen).
The need to have at least for a few minutes, in the beginning, someone from the designing team to think to ask for translations. Maybe we missed these explanations, but the second discussion (room 6, in English) was not followed by someone who speaks only French.
More languages for translations would be useful.
I put it here but is a general consideration: a lot of missing voices, we need to increase participation.

--Camelia (talk) 09:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback from Sänger

Positive

Quite good organisation and moderation
New perspectives from other communities/people
friendly atmosphere
Kaarels closing statement

Negative

Too much proprietary software, especially from untrustworthy sources like Google
The elephant in the room, the new bylaws, could not be talked about
First session too short, as some warm-up was needed, second session was a bit unclear, but at least everyone was aware of the sudden end then

Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:32, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with all of the above. + I trust Zoom less than Google, it is just that Google is bigger :-) Zblace (talk) 08:46, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jitsi is a good alternative for groups under 20 participants. But Why Wikimédia Movement don't create his how server for video conversation ? It could be used on every project's talk page with a permanent link. Is that already discussion somewhere about this ? Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 11:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent idea. Think it applies to Wikimedia Chat also - so I pasted it there. Zblace (talk) 08:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From Lionel Scheepmans

At least one member of Wikimedia boards have to be present at each meeting. Lot of questions concern them directly. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 11:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]