Talk:Strategy consultation

This is the primary discussion space for the WMUK Strategy, agreed 08/03/2014

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Much of the consultation feedback was taken through the individual talk pages of the documents. The Strategy consultation letter summarises that feedback, and our responses and actions arising from the consultation process. On the 8th of March 2014 the board voted on, and approved, the strategy as amended following the consultation process. The comments on the talk pages of the individual documents can still be seen in the page histories, but to avoid confusion I've redirected those pages to here to direct people in the first instance to the Strategy consultation letter. Of course any further points can be raised on this page, although the consultation period itself is over and the strategy now approved by the board. Sjgknight (talk) 11:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Quality and quantity

Looking at the strategy monitoring plan, I notice the following are under "G1.2 The quality of Open Knowledge continues to improve".

• Number of new articles started on a Wikimedia site (eg any of the encyclopedias), excluding Welsh Wicipedia
• Number of new articles started on Welsh Wicipedia inspired by WMUK

Would they not be better under "G1.1 The quantity of Open Knowledge continues to increase"?

Yaris678 (talk) 19:59, 1 May 2014 (BST)

We take it that new articles are an indicator of increasing coverage - a quality indicator. The content added is covered under G1.1 Sjgknight (talk) 20:08, 1 May 2014 (BST)

Sorry, this is a very strange answer to Yaris' question. Measuring quantity is by definition a measurement of quantity. A measurement of quality must be qualitative, such as increased depth or range of a subject area, or improvement in article quality, say by moving stubs into 'B' class articles. Going from 300 articles on a subject to 400 does not mean that quality is 30% better, for example a bot could create 100 basic stubs to deliver that quantity. --Fæ (talk) 21:07, 1 May 2014 (BST)

Counting articles moving from stub to 'A' is also quantitative. We're not saying this is a perfect measurement, it's a proxy, but it is something we think worth measuring (and a relatively easy measure to capture). This is a way of us creating proxy indicators, and targets, for quality. You're quite right it is of course more complex (and "30% better" will always be open for debate); we hope to develop more sophisticated indicators, e.g. Technology Committee/Project requests/WikiRate - rating Wikimedia Sjgknight (talk) 21:14, 1 May 2014 (BST)

It says in the table that it is a proxy too. But what is it a proxy for? Increased coverage of a thing (e.g. a TV Show) might mean that thing has a higher quality... but it doesn't say anything about the quality of open knowledge. Yaris678 (talk) 10:41, 2 May 2014 (BST)

It's a proxy for quality.... If new articles are created and 'survive', we can assume that coverage has been expanded and that basic notability requirements were met. We're looking at whether this sort of survival metric (WikiTrust) can be used on an individual contribution level too, but the 'article creation' case is an easier one. Note the quality here is not necessarily the articles themselves - that would require edit level analysis, it's that increased coverage improves the quality of open knowledge (or the encyclopaedia) in general, would you disagree with that? I'm very happy to discussion this, but I would note we did put out requests for comment prior to agreeing these goals and concerns were not raised at that time. Sjgknight (talk) 10:47, 2 May 2014 (BST)

Yes, comments were invited. However as the strategy was presented as a done deal after being prepared in-camera, I found that there was significant resistance to new ideas or making any significant improvement, such as making measurements more realistic and meaningful that could help trustees monitor the performance of the charity, that I just gave up on the process after being rebuffed a few times. No doubt this is a problem with the consultation with members that exists in my head, what with having "an ability to lose friends alienate people which is almost unparalleled" according to your respected fellow trustee.

The working Chapter solution, as we have been advised on the Engine room, is that when the official performance targets are not met, rather than seeing this as a "non-success" of Operations, the trustees will accept a narrative as an authoritative statement of successful performance instead. Most organizations that are so concerned about PR that they always re-frame non-success into success stories have a problem with learning and improvement, often waiting until there is such a high level external-facing radical incident, that they are forced to break the pattern rather than managing the change needed. --Fæ (talk) 11:29, 2 May 2014 (BST)

That is not an accurate framing of what I said on the engine room. For clarity, so there is no misunderstanding through poor rephrasing, what I said on the engine room is here. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 12:27, 2 May 2014 (BST)

@Sjgknight

1. If I understand your words, you are saying that "number of new articles started" is a proxy measure of the quality of the articles created, because if a poor article was created it would be removed. If this is the case, the words need to be tightened up. An article that was created and then deleted might still be counted as "started", depending on who is doing the counting.
2. In terms of when is an appropriate time for such comments:
   1. Remember you a dealing with volunteers who give time when they have it, rather than when is most convenient for others.
   2. If comments result in a decision to make a big change, there is nothing wrong in saving that change until then next time that is convenient.
   3. In this case, it looks like the solution is just to tighten up some words. If that is the case then I think that can be implemented now without causing any disruption to the operation of the charity.

Yaris678 (talk) 13:37, 2 May 2014 (BST)