Talk:Community Wishlist Survey/Future Of The Wishlist

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Community Wishlist Survey is now Community Wishlist

Just in case you missed the renaming vote and discussions, please note that based on your feedback, we will keep the 'Community Wishlist' and remove 'Survey'.

Please read more about the renaming, check out the vote results and learn more about the re-opening of the Community Wishlist on July 15, 2024, in our latest update. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 20:31, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The Community Wishlist is re-opening July 15, 2024

Here’s what to expect, and how to prepare.

Hello everyone, the new Community Wishlist (formerly Community Wishlist Survey) opens on 15 July for piloting. I will jump straight into an FAQ to help resolve questions you may have:

Q: How long do I have to submit wishes?

A: As part of the changes, Wishlist will remain open. There is no deadline for wish submission.

Q: What is this ‘Focus Area’ thing?

A: The Foundation will identify patterns with Wishes that share a collective problem and group them into areas known as ‘Focus Areas’. The grouping of wishes will begin in August.

Q: At what point do we vote? Are we even still voting?

A: Contributors are encouraged to discuss and vote on Focus Areas to highlight the areas

Q: How will this new system move wishes forward for addressing?

A: The Foundation, affiliates, and volunteer developers can adopt Focus Areas. The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to integrating Focus Areas into our Annual Planning for 2025-26.

Focus Areas align to hypotheses (specific projects, typically taking up to one quarter) and/or Key Results (broader projects taking up to one year).

Q: How do I submit a wish? Has anything changed about submissions?

A: Yes there are some changes. Please have a look at the guide.

I hope the FAQ helped.

You are encouraged to start drafting your wishes at your pace. Please consult the guide as you do so. Also if you have an earlier unfulfilled wish that you want to re-submit, we are happy to assist you draft.

Start your draft (see an example I have), don't hesitate to ask for support. Send me a link to your draft/sandbox via Meta email to help/review it. Alternatively you can leave the link in the Drafts List below.

More on this topic

Drafts List

• User:STei (WMF)/Sample Wish Make it easier for newcomers to create their first article (Sample) –– STei (WMF) (talk) 10:58, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This comment is to add a signature so the subscribe button works for this heading. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:55, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know if I'm getting this right. If we propose a wish, have enough votes and momentum, and the Foundation agrees that we are right somehow (because there's no deadline for voting)... it will be added to be done in... at least one year, but maybe two? Am I right? Theklan (talk) 15:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Theklan - Once you propose a wish, it will be made public to the technical community and WMF for comments. The Foundation will look for patterns between wishes - typically a shared problem - and propose Focus Areas. Volunteers can vote on Focus Areas to signal interest and inform prioritization, and then the Foundation, an Affiliate, or volunteer developers can adopt this Focus Area.

There isn't a set "timeline" for a Wish, in part because wishes come in all shapes and sizes, and some wishes may better articulate a user need than others.

Happy to chat further about this if there's additional confusion. Our goal, for the Wishlist in 2024-5, is to: By the end of December 2024, the new Wishlist better connects movement ideas and requests to Foundation P+T activities: items from the Wishlist backlog are addressed via a 2024-5 KR, the Foundation has completed 10 smaller Wishes, and the Foundation has partnered with volunteers to identify 3+ areas of opportunity for the 2025-26 FY. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 16:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

What does KR mean here? Femke (talk) 18:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Key result in the annual plan JWheeler-WMF (talk) 18:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Reopening discussion

Something that doesn't seem clear to me is editing of a wish. I would prefer to accept comments but do the editing on my wish myself (outside of strict technical fixes), unless, of course I have agreed for specified others to help with it. Idea integrity could become an issue with freewheeling editing access. I'd like to be able to say "Comments welcome, but I would like to maintain editorial control". Thoughts? StefenTower (talk) 08:52, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @StefenTower thanks for the comment. This is a tough call, as some people in the communities prefer to collaborate whereas others seek to write a wish and have it be "done."

Your suggestion of "comments welcome" sounds like a great disclaimer that you can add when you write your wish. For future versions of the Wishlist, we're evaluating a "draft mode" of Wishes for collaboration, and then a submit mechanism which would more or less only allow commenting. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 16:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm all for collaboration, but at the same time, like in community discussions, I don't want others directly editing my words, potentially changing their meaning to something I did not intend. Collaboration still happens with folks leaving comments and me taking them into consideration to make edits to the idea. Frankly, if someone edits my idea even one time without my agreement, that will sour me on participation. StefenTower (talk) 03:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Past wishes

A number of popular ideas have been proposed in the past, and remain valid today, but have not been reposted every year. Given the value in having a surge of collective energy around ideas w/ active advocates, is there an expected way to help contributors see popular perennial requests as a source of inspiration for this process? –SJ talk  00:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sj all previous wishes are still accessible, and moving forward, new wishes will appear in our list. I agree that reviewing other's wishes are a source of ideation and collaboration, and hope we'll continue to keep this momentum. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 00:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Are you only asking about 'inspiration in the process of submitting new proposals in the Community Wishlist' in particular?

I think it would be best if one had a campaign to attract volunteer developers and/or facilitate closing of wishes/issues (such as via badges and/or bounties and/or a leaderboard according to e.g. issue story points × impact/support and generally actively calling for volunteer devs to join) where no year's wishes are prioritized/emphasized over any other's – e.g. a good thing to link is this and maybe these lists could be combined somehow (possibly transclusion). Moreover, one could put greater consideration of the years a much-needed feature has remained open (such as adding sortability to table columns in the app open since 2017 or cats on mobile since 2010) which could also balance out the larger visibility and/or greater energy behind recently proposed ideas. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:07, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

New wishlist notice box wording

As of a few days ago, {{Community Wishlist Survey/Future of the Wishlist Box}} reads,

..."For piloting"? That I have to ask what that means feels like a bad sign for the goal of improving communication with the community, but: What does that mean? Nothing I've seen in any of the other discussions indicated that this was a pilot program (if that's what the term is even referencing), the other communication indicated that it's all hands on deck, full speed ahead. FeRDNYC (talk) 05:12, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Taking stock of the new process

Over on the talk page of the new wishlist process I've done a post taking stock (as I see it) of the changes so far. Followers of this page may be interested in that discussion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)