Talk:Community Capacity Map/About

Practically...

Maybe some helpful additions to this page (at least I was wondering about it):

• How much time do you expect groups to spend on this assessment?
• Realistically, what is the expiry date of an assessment?

Thanks, Effeietsanders (talk) 00:32, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Added these, with answers, to the main page. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 00:59, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Asaf. Could you add for the first question an answer that gives a range for the whole assessment loop? For example, I imagine you could give a range for a small 3-person team, and one for a formalized chapter with an office. In both cases you could probably give an estimate what a 'lets do this as quick as possible while having some benefit from it' approach would cost in hours, and how long a very serious 'lets do this thorough' would cost. Or is my assumption that a small organization would take less time an incorrect one? I agree the assumption that the right people are in the room, is a fair one. Effeietsanders (talk) 01:12, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Effeietsanders: I don't see the value of specifying numbers in addition to the estimate I offered in my answer. I think that would be false precision.

I do share your expectation that a small organization would need less time, and possibly find fewer of the capacities relevant.

I see Yger has already offered assessments for both the Swedish Wikipedia community and Wikimedia Sverige. Perhaps he could tell us a little about how he went about it, and how long it took. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 11:11, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

It took me 10-15 minutes each to fill in. Then I made a typing mistake and filled in the values for WMSE over the ones I have already given for the ocmmunity values, and it took me longer to redo and retype then the first entries. I saw the wish to get a feeling of how things look, not a scientific "truth", so felt my very good insights of the community and chapter was enough. And if any collegue from these two groups disagree they can correct. Just like Wikipedia. And the broad table meañt I had to have two windows open, but that is my everyday way I work with editing in Wikipedia (one to type in, one to look).Yger (talk) 12:44, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Define the term community capacity

Hi. What is "community capacity"? There's a parenthetical that somewhat hints at what capacity means, I guess: "[...] changes in capacity (new volunteers, new skills, new energy, or conversely, loss of key volunteers) [...]". But even as a native English speaker and knowledgable Wikimedian, I can't really define what it is you're talking about here. It sounds like you want to do some kind of audit or status report about Wikimedia-related activities currently? What I most quickly think about is equivalent to "maximum capacity" or "at capacity", which in the case of Wikimedia probably has an infinite or unknown upper bound.

I think the "likely asked questions" or even Community Capacity Map should clearly define what "community capacity" is, perhaps with a sub-definition of what a "community capacity map" is. My suspicion is that a concept that's currently vague and murky (to me, anyway) in English will only become much more so in other languages. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:20, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Apparently Community Capacity Development has some of the definitions I'm asking about. Which sense of w:en:capacity is being used here, I wonder? After skimming some of these pages, I start to feel like the goal is to define and build capacity in order to expand capacity and strengthen our capacities. Whatever that means. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:29, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

That's a rather uncharitable way of reading the text, but I'm happy to help you find a better one: the goal is not to define capacity -- that is already done, in some detail, in the Guidelines page -- but to build (i.e. cultivate, develop, increase, enhance) capacity (i.e. the set of abilities, skills, and experience necessary to perform a particular kind of work) in communities, groups, and organizations across the Wikimedia movement. Since others may also be asking the same thing, I have added your question to the bottom of the page. Thank you for the feedback. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 15:32, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be uncharitable. I think auditing or generating a status report about Wikimedia-related activities currently is fine. I guess w:en:capacity building is what this is about.

I wonder where the value judgments come from. There are lots of sub-communities that we (Wikimedia) do not want to build the capacities of. Pedophilia advocates or vandals are two extreme examples. On the other hand, I'm not sure that matters much here, since the focus of this map seems to be for organizations that are seeking funding from Wikimedia Foundation Inc., while most of the actual community behind the Wikimedia projects (regular or irregular editors of the wikis) falls outside of these groups and won't be represented. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:46, 24 January 2018 (UTC)