To be filled in by the Technical Collaboration team
Which were your team's most important research questions?
To be honest, many questions that looked very important a year ago seem less important now. We wanted to map the developer and tech-savvy community and many questions were devoted to that.
To what extent were these questions answered?
We didn't think that such mapping would only work with very high response rates, which we missed. There was also a problem that we did not plan for: answers from volunteer and professional developers were all mixed. We were looking for volunteers' opinions only.
Therefore, we didn't get many reliable answers to our questions.
What additional analyses does your team need?
None based on this CE Insights round.
Which questions surprised your team?
No big surprises.
It was good to confirm that the majority of tech respondents have heard about the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces, and many of them were aware of related discussions. The answers related to community friendliness, respect, diversity and being welcoming are... interesting. They depict an overall friendly community but with little variations. Of course, this is a self-reflection and is therefore biased.
The opinions about "The Wikimedia Foundation collaborates well with volunteer developers to build software" were relatively diverse. It would have been interesting to know whether the answers among volunteers and professionals were very different, and the motivations of the respondents with more extreme opinions.
It was interesting to see that developers are mission driven, free software driven, and willing to help editors while learning and helping themselves. The interest in helping readers was lower.
Developers seem to be quite satisfied about the software developed by the Wikimedia Foundation. It would have been interesting to have the same question asked to everybody, to check whether different profiles had different opinions.
How does your team you plan to use the data?
These are the areas where the results of this survey should contribute to better plans:
Communication channels to inform about software products and development updates.
Types of software news to be promoted.
Need for translation glossaries.
Involvement of developers in events via online channels, before and during the events.
What survey questions would your team like to ask next time?
A new iteration to decide the new questions was performed during Autumn 2017.
2 – Help test new Wikimedia Foundation products (32%)
3 – Help document Wikimedia Foundation software products (15%)
4 – Submit bugs related to Wikimedia Foundation products through phabricator (44%)
5 – Use Wikimedia projects and products (72%)
6 – Other (specify): (12%)
From survey participants who have participated in developing software, 44% reported submitting bugs, 32% reported testing software, and 72% reported being users of Wikimedia projects.
48% of sampled editors who responded to this question reported that when they translate they find it easy or very easy to find the availability of new translations. 19% of those who answered the question selected "no opinion".
51% of sampled editors who responded to this question reported that when they translate they find it easy or very easy to find translations to update. 18% of those who answered the question selected "no opinion".
50% of sampled editors who responded to this question reported that when they translate they find it easy or very easy to find progression status for a translation. 21% of those who answered the question selected "no opinion".
31% of sampled editors who responded to this question reported that when they translate they find it easy or very easy to find the priority of different translations. 24% of those who answered the question selected "no opinion".
4 – Wikimedia Foundation product newsletters (Visual editor/Discovery weekly) (8%)
5 – Community pages/Village pump on wikimedia project (43%)
6 – Wikimedia Blog (11%)
7 – Tech blogs and websites outside of Wikimedia Foundation (18%)
8 – Social networks (16%)
9 – Other (4%)
10 – I don’t receive these updates (30%)
11 – Wikitech mailing list (7%)
12 – Phabricator (8%)
43% of participants selected receiving updates about WMF software on community pages/village pumps, and 30% selected that they do not receive these updates.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, the four Foundation supported projects that technical contributors reported being aware about were Wikimedia developer events (92%), Google summer of code (90%), Community wishlist (82%), and Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces (77%). The projects that technical contributors were least aware about were Trello (4%), Collaboration team newsletter (24%), and Wikitech (16%).
3 – Other wikis pages (Meta, Wikipedias....) (37%)
4 – Mailing lists (63%)
5 – Facebook (7%)
6 – Twitter (11%)
7 – Slack (11%)
8 – GitHub (51%)
9 – Messenger (3%)
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, the four channels that were reported most often for participating in Wikimedia software development were Phabricator (73%), Mediawiki wiki pages (63%), mailing lists (63%), and github (51%).
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 93% reported they find phabricator mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 64% reported they find MediaWiki Wiki pages mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 77% reported they find Other wikis pages mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 58% reported they find mailing lists mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 71% reported they find Github mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 77% reported they find IRC mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 85% reported they find Gerrit mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 60% reported they find Wikitech mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question 80% reported they find IRC mostly or completely useful for collaborating and accomplishing tasks.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 36% often or almost always focus on tools using the Wikimedia API and 37% reported that they sometimes focus on this activity.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 52% never or rarely focus on bots and 48% sometimes, often or almost always focus on bots.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 50% never or rarely focus on extensions and 50% sometimes, often or almost always focus on extensions.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 59% never or rarely focus on Mediawiki core and 41% sometimes, often or almost always focus on Mediawiki core.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 77% never or rarely focus on analytics and 23% sometimes, often or almost always focus on analytics.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 52% have no experience to beginner experience with PHP and 27% reported having advanced experience with PHP.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 50% have intermediate to advanced experience with JavaScript and 36% reported having beginner level of experience.
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 41% have intermediate to advanced experience with Java and 55% reported having no experience and beginner level of experience.
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with user help documentation for Wikimedia products in the following areas? - Search and discover information across Wikimedia projects
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with user help documentation for Wikimedia products in the following areas? - Wikitext or Flow Talk page discussions
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent do you feel it is appropriate to use the following events as spaces to work on Community Wishlist tasks? - Google Summer of Code and Outreachy
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent do you feel it is appropriate to use the following events as spaces to work on Community Wishlist tasks? - Documentation for new developers at MediaWiki.org
8 – wikitech-l or other technical mailing lists (52%)
9 – I don’t follow Wikimedia Foundation’s software development planning (9%)
10 – Other (please explain) (6%)
11 – Developers Summit (34%)
12 – Developers Summit (34%)
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, the three most often ways reported for participating in planning the Wikimedia Foundation’s software development work were phabricator (72%), community wishlist (52%), and mailing lists (52%).
From the technical contributors who participated in this survey, 83% are satisfied or very satisfied with Tech News as an activity to broadcast technical information to our communities.
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the following activities to broadcast technical information to our communities? - VisualEditor newsletter
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the following activities to broadcast technical information to our communities? - Discovery weekly
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the following activities to broadcast technical information to our communities? - Collaboration team newsletter
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the following activities to broadcast technical information to our communities? - Other mass messaging to community forums (Village Pumps) or to user talk pages.
45% of technical contributors who participated in this question reported being satisfied or very satisfied with "other mass messaging to community forums (Village Pumps) or to user talk pages" as an activity to broadcast technical information to our communities
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 79% agree or strongly agree with the following statement: The Wikimedia Foundation's Community Wishlist Survey is a good mechanism to identify projects that technical volunteers could work on.
How many years have you been involved in the Wikimedia movement as a technical contributor, including giving feedback about software, testing products, and contributing software code?
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, the median number of years reported for being involved in the movement as a technical contributor is 4 years.
15% of technical contributors who participated in this question reported that they have felt uncomfortable or unqualified to attend a Wikimedia technical event
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
This question was only seen by developers with 1 year of experience or less or 2
To what extent are the following MediaWiki.org resources useful or not useful for you to get involved in making technical contributions? - MediaWiki.org homepage
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
Note: this question was only shown to developer with 1 or 2 years of experience:
To what extent are the following MediaWiki.org resources useful or not useful for you to get involved in making technical contributions? - MediaWiki.org search
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
FILTER: Developers with 1 year of experience or less or 2
To what extent are the following MediaWiki.org resources useful or not useful for you to get involved in making technical contributions? - Documentation for newcomers
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
FILTER: Developers with 1 year of experience or less or 2
To what extent are the following MediaWiki.org resources useful or not useful for you to get involved in making technical contributions? - Support / getting answers
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
FILTER: Developers with 1 year of experience or less or 2
To what extent are the following MediaWiki.org resources useful or not useful for you to get involved in making technical contributions? - Finding first task/project to work on
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
FILTER: Developers with 1 year of experience or less or 2
To what extent are the following MediaWiki.org resources useful or not useful for you to get involved in making technical contributions? - Finding experienced peers
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
FILTER: Developers with 1 year of experience or less or 2
To what extent are the following MediaWiki.org resources useful or not useful for you to get involved in making technical contributions? - Other (specify)
From the technical contributors who participated in this question, 64% agree or strongly agree with the following statement: The Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces enforced by a committee could help make our technical community more friendly and diverse
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following:
The Wikimedia Foundation's participation in the following programs helps us achieve our goals to recruit new volunteer developers, implement new features, and promote Wikimedia as an open source project. - Google Summer of Code (GSoC)
Be cautious with interpreting the results. Read more >>
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following:
The Wikimedia Foundation's participation in the following programs helps us achieve our goals to recruit new volunteer developers, implement new features, and promote Wikimedia as an open source project. - Outreachy
96% of technical contributors who have participated in this question reported that they are moderately, mostly or completely familiar with the software created by the Wikimedia Foundation.
68% of technical contributors who participated in this question are satisfied or very satisfied with the software developed by the Wikimedia Foundation.
48% of technical contributors agree or strongly agree with the statement: The Wikimedia Foundation collaborates well with volunteer developers to build software