Talk:Community Wishlist

You can't edit a wish using the gadget if the wish title is longer than 100 characters including ‎<translate>...‎</translate>. Nardog (talk) 09:42, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Nardog, well noted, problem has been raised with the team. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 16:27, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Unarchived since it has not been resolved. Nardog (talk) 14:14, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I raised again the problem with the team. Can you please open a bug on Phabricator, detailing as much as possible the problem you're encountering? This will help us understand how to solve it. Thank you in advance. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:20, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, I didn't realize it was fixed in the meantime. A heads-up or a link to the Phab task would have been nice. Nardog (talk) 00:52, 2 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can't edit a wish

Latest comment: 14 days ago8 comments3 people in discussion

I tried to add a Phab task to this wish using the wish editor, only to be rejected with the message "Only Wikimedia Foundation staff can change the status, proposer, and creation timestamp of wishes and focus areas. Please change the fields back to their original values." I don't even see "the fields". Nardog (talk) 07:39, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

It looks like Special:AbuseFilter/355 was triggered because the proposer field contained a trailing space, which the editor trimmed. One wonders how the space got there in the first place. Nardog (talk) 07:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Community_Wishlist/Wishes/Make_the_visual_editor_a_real-time_editor&diff=next&oldid=27648614 seems to have fixed it. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 22:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

That's not a fix. Either the intake form needs to be fixed not to insert trailing spaces or the filter be fixed to ignore them. Nardog (talk) 00:09, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think it inserts the user's signature, and that specific user's signature has a trailing space. This is an edge case not worth fixing IMO unless they start producing tons of wishes. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 00:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ah, then I'd submit that the intake form shouldn't use the signature and generate the links directly from the username (or let the template generate them) instead. Nardog (talk) 00:48, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Unarchived since it has not been resolved. Nardog (talk) 14:14, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd submit that the intake form shouldn't use the signature and generate the links directly from the username – That is precisely what is to come with the upcoming MediaWiki extension that is to replace the gadget, slated to be deployed late July or in August. So this won't be a problem anymore. We also won't be relying on AbuseFilter at all. In the meantime, we will have to deal with this edge case manually should it pop up again. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 16:44, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wish erroneously marked as closed

Latest comment: 14 days ago5 comments2 people in discussion

The status of Community Wishlist/Wishes/I don't need all the special characters, but it can be hard to find the ones I want has been changed to "closed", which is not recognized by the interface. Please change it to open or in progress, as it has not been delivered to WikiEditor users, i.e. the majority. Nardog (talk) 06:42, 1 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm at a loss as to why it took more than a month and a volunteer to fix this. Nardog (talk) 06:44, 9 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Resolved. Wish has now been marked as Delivered –– STei (WMF) (talk) 13:45, 12 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

@STei (WMF): Can you comment on why anyone on your team did not bother to do it? It would have taken less than a minute, and you clearly read this page. Slapping the resolved tag after weeks of ignoring is adding insult to injury. Nardog (talk) 03:02, 13 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Unarchived since it has not been resolved. Nardog (talk) 14:14, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Reflecting on the new process to date

Latest comment: 18 days ago32 comments12 people in discussion

We're now about a half year in to the new format of the Community Wishlist, approaching two years from the last survey, and have just passed by the time where that process would have started so I thought it appropriate to take stock of the new process to date. The Wishlist team identified three goals with the change: Improve connection, Reach more audiences, and Collaborate with other wishlists. At least in the goal of "reach more audiences" the new format has been a dramatic failure.

The new process has seen a dramatic drop-off in participation compared to the old system. So far there have been (by my count) 70 unique participants across all wishes compared to 842 in the last survey (or about a 92% drop-off). In fact there were 24 distinct wishes in the old format which had more support than the total participation so far. The most supported wish in the last survey got 240 supports, while the most supported focus area has 25 (or about a 90% drop-off). There were 115 wishes which got more support than any focus area. I am guessing that the new system is doing better on other metrics (which I'm presuming are in some annual plan that I would have access to somewhere on meta but aren't linked where I could see them on any of the Wishlist or Future of Wishlist pages so I didn't find them), but that's just a guess.

What I don't have to guess about is my own frustration and seemingly that of the mere handful of people who have participated in this page in conversations like this one. I have sympathies to the idea that the Wishlist team wanted to change the name because they knew it was no longer going to be a wishlist and wanted a new name to symbolize the new system where they would have far more control over the process, but following to the feedback for not changing the name of the process without making any other changes based on the feedback offered there suggests they didn't actually listen to the feedback. I would love to understand ways that perhaps I'm not giving enough credit for the new process, but absent that I would love to understand ways that something will radically change to course correct from what has happened so far. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:45, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think it was wrong to assume that Meta is anyone’s project to go to for things like this. Currently, the new top-down process is pretty much pointless for outside onlookers, since you can only support ‘focus areas’, whatever those are, so posting a Phabricator task about the issue you have or a feature you want is literally 100 times more useful since at least there it would rot for years but more people would see it rotting. I am not surprised that this overhaul ended up with such result. stjn^[ru] 18:11, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Good points. However, I wonder what measures like The most supported wish in the last survey got 240 supports would be good for: this involvement in voting and reading wishes doesn't mean more proposals get implemented. That there appears to be much activity may even just distract from the fact that only very little gets actually worked on and implemented. So I at least wonder whether level of participation is the subject/measure to worry about, i.e. instead of other things, and whether changing it would (necessarily) have much of an effect. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:49, 8 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some of the promised improvements might help with engagement (individual votes/categories). However, a continuous wishlist removes the feeling of coming together with different communities, as it's necessarily slower even if we get the total engagement numbers back up.

If I remember correctly, with the implementation of the new system, the hope was that more wishes could be honoured because:

Other WMF teams (or volunteers) pick up some focus areas
The focus areas allow developers to work on the same code base for a longer time, so that they become more familiar with it.

If we move back to the old system, having other WMF teams work on wishes shouldn't be too difficult, I say naively. The idea of focus areas need not be lost either, but they can be made after the voting: of the top-100 ideas, make a few small (2-4 wishes) focus areas and benefit from spending more time with similar wishes. Femke (talk) 20:45, 8 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Prototyperspective you're absolutely correct that the data I presented only talked about participation and did not talk about product results. However, by the WMF's own standards participation is its own goal with the Wishlist. And I think they have that right. If 10 things get done but only 2 of them were really desired by the community, that's worse for a community wishlist, than if 5 things get done but all of them were really desired by the community. So the right answer might be to keep focus areas rather than just have individual wishes. There were any number of changes made and I'm sure, as I mentioned in the original post, there is other data that is going to suggest they are worth keeping (or that it's at least too soon to tell). I am in fact not advocating for any specific change here. I am raising the alarm of what I see to be a change to community participation that has gone very poorly and which is an acknowledged goal of this process so there should be agreement from the foundation side that it needs to be fixed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

In the old wishlist system, the amount of resources/energy the WMF spent identifying tasks was wildly disproportional to the amount of energy they spent actually working on them. I agree the new system is very flawed for the reason Stjn identified, but the old wishlists have several years' worth of tasks that are mostly still relevant that they could take up if they wanted. There's a better balance to be had somewhere. Sdkb ^talk 04:40, 9 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

The new process has left me feeling out of touch with what the community needs or wants. Traditionally, I could expect to go through once a year and see a bunch of ideas, and weigh in, and then mostly forget about it for a year. Having it advertised on watchlists and banners and so on probably helped with that. But now, there's no pomp or circumstance, nor any deadline to motivate me. I'm not saying we need to return to the old system. But I think more outreach, at say a select time of year, might be a good idea. Perhaps it could coincide with the previous wishlist period ;)
I also wouldn't mind having some kind of "yearly report from the wishlist" of the ideas that got suggested/supported during a year, and kind of giving the broader community a nudge to participate at that time. That could be worked into existing processes of the Foundation showing off "here's what we got done on the wishlist this year".
I think another issue is that there are so many excellent ideas that got identified in previous wishlists but have gone unimplemented or not been raised in subsequent wishlists. Perhaps we as a community need to go through the old wishlists and identity the ideas that got left behind. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:08, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Instead of only a yearly report, an annual collaborative event that motivates developers to implement wishes – including a leaderboard and a final report – would be better I think. Regarding further things relating to incentives, motivations, visibility, deadlines / event-type-feeling, participation, and actual implementation of proposals see more concrete readily-adoptable nearly-free-of-cost proposals here.
Perhaps we as a community need to go through the old wishlists and identity the ideas that got left behind. Already done more or less for proposals until 2024: simply go here and see those tables Category:Community Wishlist Survey results. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I feel the point of this change was to be able to effectively ignore Community's wishes, while projecting an image that they care about them. This is a familiar pattern the WMF has shown in recent years. Unfortunately I fear that a drop in engagement of >90% is not a bug, but a feature. Same with the voting system (by focus areas), which makes it essentially impossible for users to make their opinions heard. The current list does not even allow for sorting by votes, which makes the whole process even more frustrating and less transparent Ita140188 (talk) 14:36, 23 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I still don't see any substantial reason for why votes are so important when there are so little resources dedicated to actually implementing the wishes. That is the issue I think. Wishes were already largely ignored earlier with just a very small percentage of wishes ever getting implemented even a decade after they have been first submitted. Why would engagement with the Wishlist according to number of votes in particular be a good metric? It isn't. Whether or not and how people such as active Wikipedia editors can express their views on the proposals is way secondary to whether these are of any practical use at all and get implemented. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:30, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

What is your answer if not votes for how the community can say "we want development to help us with X?" I don't think this current iteration is doing a good job on the community front especially given the participation this used to get. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:50, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello everyone, please note that while this conversation has not yet received a response, CommTech is actively taking notes and will reply. (Feel free to move this box to a less obstructive but visible spot so it can reassure arriving discussants that their concerns are being acknowledged.) Thank you all so much. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 11:11, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@STei (WMF): Do you have a ballpark of when that will be? Nardog (talk) 15:38, 3 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Nardog we will get back to everyone by the close of this week with a timeline or some early thoughts I believe. The commtech team have spent the past week discussing their work offsite. They have been unavailable. Sorry for the delay everyone! –– STei (WMF) (talk) 19:15, 3 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some thoughts from CommTech: Hi everyone and thanks, thank you for your patience. The Community Tech team has been away for a work offsite and also faced unforeseen challenges due to a medical emergency which has made us slower in responding to this thread and impacted our timelines for our response here as a result.

We’re back now with some thoughts to share on here is how we want to move forward with the issues raised:

Continuous Engagement: Having the Wishlist open all the time creates more opportunity for people to submit wishes on their own timeline, and without the nearly year-long wait as before. That said, improving the monitoring and triaging of new wishes is something that we are still working on improving, and there’s a balance we’re trying to get right between responding to incoming wishes and actually developing them.

We do hear from all of you here that you want more conversation with us about what is/isn’t working on wishes and focus areas, and think this is a good idea too. Specifically, our updates page will be reviewed soon to make sure we have information about ongoing work on wishes, and which you can follow to stay current on our progress.

We also hear that many of you are interested in strategies around the wishlist that might motivate more people to sign up or join in for a focused time period. This is an interesting idea - while we do think a continuous wishlist is important for the reasons shared above, we’ll think about ways to play with the idea of focused wish periods or events that could bring back a sense of fun, collaborative energy from users who liked that about the old system, and ideally use it to bring in a more diverse contributor base (which we think about a lot, and remains a top priority for us).

Clarifying Focus Areas: We hear from several of you that Focus Areas have felt confusing or process-heavy. On the WMF side, the recent introduction of Focus Areas plays an important role, which is helping connect the dots across the underlying needs of many users. While we understand that to some people this can feel like less direct influence on the final product, this is actually really important for good product design. In particular, it helps us avoid spending a lot of time and energy on a pre-determined solution without really understanding the full scope of the problem and how it impacts different types of users. While we know many of you see “total completed wishes” as the main indicator of success, we’re also keenly aware that elsewhere on the wikis volunteers (and staff!) get frustrated when we build the wrong things, or the right things poorly, or the right things well that soon become obsolete anyway. So if we’re going to build the right things for the right reasons and in the right way, we need to understand why something is needed. Focus Areas help with this.

Focus Areas also help more WMF teams participate in the Wishlist, because this problem-first approach fits well with how teams plan their goals and allocate their time for the year. For instance, Moderator Tools supported Community Tech create some focus areas around moderator topics and have adopted the Task Prioritisation for Patrollers area. The Moderator Tools team will share progress on this work soon. Community Tech is already gathering insights through the Templates focus area case study and aim to complete our evaluation of this proof of concept and share our findings with the community.

All this is to say, Focus Areas are here to stay but with your help we do want to keep refining how we use them. This includes refining individual focus areas as needed, as well as importing old wishes into a focus area where it would make sense. Our goal is to make focus areas more practical and understandable and you can learn more about Focus Areas on our FAQ page.

I would also like to mention that our Lead Community Tech Product Manager Jack Wheeler had also separately reached out to Barkeep and discussed the concerns they had shared about focus areas. Jack is out of office on medical leave but will be back soon. On behalf of Jack and the rest of the Community Tech team, thanks for caring so much about the wishlist and continuing to reach out with your concerns and ideas.

–– STei (WMF) (talk) 17:29, 6 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I feel like my point above was ignored. The continuous Wishlist process is currently entirely separate from Wikimedia Phabricator despite in a way serving the same function: having WMF’s attention on things that matter to volunteers. It is hard not to perceive Wishlist process as the less fulfilling out of the two, since Phabricator tasks at least can (sometimes) get direct attention from the folks involved in maintaining a certain project and the back and forth is faster. But it seems like, from what I’m reading here and elsewhere, volunteers are told that they are supposed to use Wishlist process to get their wishes across to various Wikimedia Foundation teams. If that’s the case, then Wishlist team should implement some ways to ease up the load from participating in two duplicative community areas. Right now as a technical volunteer I am both expected to file tasks on Phabricator for everything I want to see fixed and at the same time to file wishes in Community Wishlist. Even filing tasks on Phabricator is tedious, having to duplicate that work in another venue is doubly so, especially since, as perceived, there is practically no return for it. stjn^[ru] 22:14, 6 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

A little digression – I hate the fact that we haven't figured out the integration between the wiki space (WMF wikis) and development space (Phabricator, Gerrit, etc.) in Wikimedia. A while ago, I described an idea about having a Questions & Answers system for both volunteer and employee devs like they have on GitHub. I envisioned it to be on Phab (there is a Q&A extension for that in Phorge). In case of Community Wishlist, on the other hand, the ecosystem is being built around the wiki space. Which is probably a good idea (having to familiarize yourself with a new website is an unnecessary barrier). But there is this disconnect between the two spaces, and the users are now torn between them.

Maybe something could be done to gap that bridge. The most basic thing that comes to mind is auto-creation of a Phab task together with a wish, and keeping their statuses in sync. Some way of reflecting the last Phab activity in the wish perhaps. Jack who built the house (talk) 20:27, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can you give specific examples of "the wrong things", "the right things poorly", and "the right things well that soon become obsolete anyway" that you built? Nardog (talk) 22:50, 6 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

What is the research and evidence that made you conclude moving away from individual wishes "helps us avoid spending a lot of time and energy on a pre-determined solution without really understanding the full scope of the problem and how it impacts different types of users"? Nardog (talk) 22:50, 6 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

One thing I mentioned on the call I had with Jack was that the WMF resisted both dark mode and supporting NPP, two top place selections in the last 5 years of the wishlist. It was only through the community being able to express its support, through the wishlist, that those things finally got WMF developer attention. Focus areas are fine and I appreciate the point Sdkb made above about the learning curve, but I worry that this becomes a way to add barriers to things the community really wants actually happening. And then one thing I mentioned in a follow up email last week (which I've now forwarded to Sandister) is that by failing to respond to wishes it acts as a disserve to volunteer developers, because even if a volunteer developer picks up a task there is no guarantee they're going to be allowed to actually get their work accepted. (see [1] and [2] for two examples of a volunteer trying to address wishes I filed and reasonably meeting with some WMF resistance). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:41, 6 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

"One thing [..] WMF resisted both dark mode and supporting NPP, two top place selections in the last 5 years of the wishlist." This is not true btw. They didn't resist. They said "this is too big to do within the purview of this team". Dark mode specifically was then selected by another team, based in part on information that came out of the Wishlist, technical blockers were picked up BEFORE people started working on these areas (took 2 years) and THEN when the time was ready, the work could finally begin (another 2 years). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:30, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks DJ for clarifying. I never cared much about dark mode and followed at enough distance I clearly got the facts wrong. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think from the outside it looked like the WMF was ignoring the dark mode wish, they could have done a better job communicating that another team is starting the necessary groundwork to deliver this wish one day. But I agree that the work described in these blog posts [3][4] would have been too much for the Community Tech team – which might demonstrate how the new system could be beneficial if other WMF teams are going to pick up community wishes more frequently in the future. Johannnes89 (talk) 20:05, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

The biggest problem I see is this whole focus area thing. I think people should be voting on wishes, not focus areas. The WMF should select the focus area by banding a few related things together opportunistically, based on the vote results and I don't see why the community has to be involved with that focus area selection. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm a little sympathetic to focus areas and am not surprised the com tech team is taking the rhetorical position that they're non negotiable. As Skdb pointed out above the total efficiency of this team was really hindered by having to learn so many different areas of the code base. A disprotionate amount of their time was being spent in research (and presumably testing though I don't think that has been stated). So the net benefit to the community in a best case scenario is going to be higher than in the old system. But from a political point of view I'm not sure if saying "we've looked at the results and are going to work on the 5th, 6th, 11th, and 20th placed wishes as a focus area because that is the best combination that can be grouped" is something the community would tolerate. I wonder if instead there is some sort of process with community input to identify 4-6 focus areas ahead of the wishlist survey month returned, allow for new wishes to be submitted in those areas and then include all wishes in the database in those areas, vote on individual wishes and then start with the focus area whose wishes combine best. This would have some similarity to the years where non Wikipedias or small Wikipedias were the theme. But I agree that after the complete failure of com tech to get participation focus groups are the biggest problem to solve. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:23, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I feel like an easier to parse approach would be having community collect and !vote with arguments on certain proposals in one time period, then CommTech collecting and grouping those wishes so that all well-supported wishes get grouped, and then community getting to vote again without arguments on focus areas. It will be a more demanding process, of course, but it is at least transparent in the same way that Picture of the Year voting is. Being able to submit the wishes for the whole year is fine. stjn^[ru] 19:48, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would like to second TheDJ's suggestion: let's vote for individual wishes only, and have the focus areas created based on wishes that do well individually. Currently, focus areas combine wishes that are likely very unpopular with common-sense wishes, which makes it unclear what you're voting for. This takes away influence from the community. It also means that CommTech is using its precious resources on improbable wishes, rather than have the community bring to light the most useful wishes.

For instance, we can create focus areas from wishes in the top-20 or top-30 by category (so that smaller communities still stand a chance of having their wishes selected). Are categories still coming soon?

To respond to Barkeep: I think a large majority would be happy politically if we get wish 5, 6 11 and 20. This would honour many more votes than a potential alternative of honouring #1 and #2 which use similar resources. In the previous system, we had something similar with the prioritazation system, where each wish got weighted by technical and design complexity. This was explained well and accepted by the community. The grouping of wishes decreases both types of complexity, so I can only assume this will be accepted. Femke (talk) 09:52, 8 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, it was begrudgingly accepted by everyone, not enthusiastically accepted. With focus area system, the transparency between the wish getting added to the wish getting prioritised became even worse. I get that product management doesn’t really like democratisation, but the goal of this process is to provide WMF feedback on what communities feel like is important, so the democracy aspect got lost when CommTech decided to revamp the process despite objections. stjn^[ru] 12:55, 8 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just to be clear, I fully agree with your point that the new process is insufficiently democratic.

If I remember correctly, the idea of prioritization wasn't too controversial, but some elements of it were (i.e. the low weight of the votes in some years). Femke (talk) 15:48, 8 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Focus Areas also help more WMF teams participate in the Wishlist" reads like circular reasoning. If the problem-first approach fits well with how teams plan their goals and allocate their time, that does not preclude the possibility that certain problems would be better addressed by non-problem-first approaches but are exacerbated by the very structure of WMF that incentivizes the problem-first approach. Nardog (talk) 12:48, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello everyone, as usual please know that CommTech is reading your comments and will reply. Feel free to move this box to a less obstructive but visible spot so arriving discussants can be notified. Thank you.

–– STei (WMF) (talk) 17:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Again, no further replies from the WMF in this thread since posting this placeholder message in February Ita140188 (talk) 14:38, 23 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Stuck at submitted

Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments3 people in discussion

May I ask what needs to be done to get wishes like this, this, and this out of the "submitted" status. I responded to your inquiries nearly half a year ago. Nardog (talk) 15:38, 30 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello @Nardog, the wishes need to be marked for translation and then moved to open. I have attended to one. I will see to the others later in the week. Thank you for your patience. STei (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 3 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

That does not answer the question. What about these wishes in particular prevented them from being marked for translation and moved to open while others were? What needs to be done before a wish can be marked for translation and moved to open? Nardog (talk) 02:02, 4 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are still many wishes with Submitted status as well as wishes of either status that aren't valid development-related requests – please

Check which of the wishes that have been suggested to be archived on their talk pages should be archived (link)
Check all nonrecent wishes that still have status "Submitted" and either move them to "Open" or clarify what needs to be done to enable them getting moved or why they haven't (and won't?) be moved (the latter may also need some info somewhere so that users know what the difference is and what that status means or implies)

Prototyperspective (talk) 16:02, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Community Wishlist/Wishes/Voice dialing is barely intelligible and the request for clarification on its talk page has not been answered, but it's just been given the open status after a month. Meanwhile two of the wishes mentioned above remain "submitted". Now you're just begging for frustration and distrust. Nardog (talk) 11:04, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wishlist in the annual plan

Latest comment: 16 days ago13 comments7 people in discussion

Hey folks - I'm really excited that we successfully integrated 3 focus areas into the upcoming WMF annual plan, and that the wishlist at large was a key input in shaping the plan at large. Here are the focus areas that were prioritized:

WE1.2: Connecting Like-Minded Contributors
WE1.3: Task Prioritization
WE3.1: New Consumer Experiences

In addition, the Community Tech team is already working on Template Recall and Discovery, by building Favoriting Templates. Focus Areas are prioritized against long term goals, team speciality, and community interest. Beyond these 3, WMF will continue to evaluate additional focus areas in 2025-6.

And, we'll continue to evolve how the Foundation processes and communicates the status of wishes. If you're interested in discussing either with us, please drop a line here! JWheeler-WMF (talk) 15:38, 7 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

These focus areas have a total of 17 supporters. The first one has zero. Why where they selected?

And do you have an update on when we can vote on individual wishes to bring back community input? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:31, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

You said you were going to work on bringing back categories and voting for individual wishes "Feb/March". Are you? Nardog (talk) 11:11, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just for your info, I have posted about the Wishlist at Annual Plan talk page. Commander Keane (talk) 22:58, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Femke @Nardog thanks for sharing your feedback on the Wishlist and continued frustrations.

During Annual Planning, we evaluated every focus area. The Foundation will continue to re-evaluate focus areas as we develop quarterly hypotheses and new key results over the fiscal year.

Regarding the selected Focus Areas, we are actively working on Template recall and discovery, the top-voted focus area.

We prioritized Connecting Like-Minded Contributors as the wishes in this focus area neatly align to the KR defined in WE1.2. We've seen signals that when contributors connect with each other, they are more likely to have longterm success on their respective Wikis.

Similarly, the Foundation sees new consumer experiences as a strategic investment, and the included wishes are topical and representative of possible experiments.

Task Prioritization was prioritized over repetitive tasks as the wishes were more actionable and would directly impact the lives of administrators sooner.

Lastly, there's been questions about voting on individual wishes and categories. Though I mentioned we'd bring these back in February or March, this effort is being put on pause, so we can do more discovery around evolving the Wishlist. At large, we want to prioritize as many wishes as possible, process them efficiently, and increase participation. We've experienced inefficiencies at how WMF processes wishes, which has impacted participation and prioritization. As such, we'd like to brainstorm with communities and the foundation how to improve this: https://calendar.app.google/LoJ3H3UGNEJs7TUA7. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 18:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm done with this hemming and hawing. As I've said on this page and to you personally, I was excited for the new wishlist. But your constant sidelining and outright ignoring our voices drained all benefit of the doubt I was willing to give you. Nardog (talk) 13:42, 11 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for explaining the rationales behind these selections a bit. I still think the main issue, also or especially inefficiencies at how WMF processes wishes, is that there is too little tech development. Here if you work mostly on just these three focus areas that leaves a lot of other wishes remaining unaddressed, not even considering the many existing feasible phab issues and proposals in prior Wishlists that haven't been included in this Wishlist but are still important and/or heavily-supported.
I don't see why template discovery is such a top-priority one for example – if I'm writing or editing an article, I just go to a popular similar one and check which template is included in that article and on the occasion that I don't find such (or for new users) it's not a huge problem if the infobox is missing and likely some editor will later add it; I don't see why slightly improving the use of templates is particularly urgent or would have a major impact in specific (it's useful nevertheless). There can't be any somewhat satisfying result with so little capacity. Too little work on implementing wishes & issues can be solved by increasing funding for development (/more devs) and/or increasing participation/number of volunteer devs. If there are barriers like too few mentors for MediaWiki devs if you make that a requirement, then work on addressing that effectively please. If you'd also "prioritize" individual wishes & issues "against long-term goals", you'd see how in total tech development is having a far too low priority. For example, if you really think despite the many millions WMF has, it doesn't have enough for substantial development beyond some experiments and occasional solving of some many years-old code issue, then please at least do the many possible things that WMF could do to help others implement things. Would have donated to a separate fund or organization that rewards open source devs with some relatively small weighted 'bounty' reward for implemented issues or some coding challenge with prizes. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:55, 11 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

"the top-voted focus area" means 30 people. This is an incredibly small number of editors. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:55, 11 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

During Annual Planning, we evaluated every focus area.

I didn't realise that focus areas would impact Annual Planning. I must have missed the memo. I would understand if the WMF hired exclusively software developers, but I heard there are staff whose role it is to comunicate or manage. STei_(WMF) mentioned it in a discussion with Femke in August 2024. Ironically Femke is/was waiting for more focus areas before voting (and I was holding off submitting new wishes until categories/individual voting was introduced and there weren't any focus areas I was interested in supporting). Nothing would scare the community into mass participation (ie sitewide banners) in the Wishlist more than the threat of "we are going to direct software development and influence the Annual Plan by looking at focus area voting on [this date]." Not an empty threat, that is what happened. Out of curiosity at what date was this (I can work out the state of focus areas if you give me the cutoff date).

we are actively working on Template recall and discovery, the top-voted focus area. - it was top-voted at an unknown cutoff date when more appropriate focus areas didn't exist, by an extremely small number of editors.

I do not find Prototyperspective's concern about development funding relevant to the Wishlist. It is a given that community wants better software. I think the JWheeler-WMF comment inefficiencies at how WMF processes wishes is about the fact that the WMF looks at every wish and decides what what to do them (status submitted/open). The simple solution is for the WMF not do this work. What do they think it is achieving? Take this wish. I interpreted it (volunteer), then Product Manager, Editing (WMF staff) filed a Phabricator bug on my interpretation, then Senior Software Engineer (WMF staff) investigated the bug and found it is probably invalid, and the bug still sits in Phabricator as open (and actually on the Wishlist Phabricator workboard for some reason). Similar story on this wish, WMF software developer doing tech support for a functioning product that can be handled by volunteers at Village Pump Technical on enwiki. Maybe don't encourage WMF software developers to look at the Wishlist (thay make software...), but I apologise to any WMF staff that peruse the Wishlist in their personal time, that is commendable.

I do like connecting WMF communucation staff with with 10 year old tasks on Phabricator that have been forgotten (example, see talk). But the cost of this sort of WMF attention is too great for the WMF. Maybe WMF could pay attention to wishes with at least two supports to cut out the noise. Commander Keane (talk) 05:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nothing would scare the community into mass participation (ie sitewide banners) in the Wishlist more than the threat of "we are going to direct software development and influence the Annual Plan by looking at focus area voting on [this date]" is a great point that further proves WMF is either actively trying to reduce wishlist participation contrary to what Jack has said, or accidentally marvelous at it. Nardog (talk) 01:25, 15 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe this page should be renamed the "WMF Wishlist" then? Ita140188 (talk) 14:40, 23 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why this page? What you wrote makes no sense. Or did you mean "annual plan" should be renamed to "WMF Wishlist"? Prototyperspective (talk) 13:24, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I meant this page, the Community Wishlist, in reference to the fact that the choice of wishes seems entirely up up the WMF rather than the editors at this point Ita140188 (talk) 17:22, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

phab:tag/Community-Wishlist-Wishes

Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hey :) Just to check, is this Phabricator project intended to be a tag for tasks that represent a wish made on the Community Wishlist? If so, would you/CommTech have any objections if its appearance is changed to a yellow tag, to make clearer at a glance that the Phabricator project is for tracking & doesn't represent its own software component?

cc @KSiebert (WMF) as project creator. Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 12:57, 14 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done (Karolin was out of office this week) MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Re latest update

Latest comment: 22 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Improved the modules of the Wikimedia Dashboard ([…] The wish this links to doesn't have anything to do with the changes implemented or does it? I also could not find a link explaining what those changes were as with the other points where there's some phab link. Please fix this, e.g. by removing the wikilink to that wish or by specifying which part(s) of that wish have been implemented (or simply a link that explains all the changes). Btw, here is another wish about modules of the Wikimedia Dashboard. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:17, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've been given this link for the Dashboard improvements, but it's true that probably it's not the correct one. I'll just remove it. Thanks for the feedback. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 09:18, 23 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Novem's thoughts (2025)

Latest comment: 6 days ago8 comments5 people in discussion

This is partially a response to User:Prototyperspective's comment here, but I'd like to give it its own section:

Problem A: Gathering wish data. The old wishlist system was kind of like a WikiProjet backlog drive. Once a year, we'd all focus on submitting the community's software wishes and we'd focus on voting and prioritizing, and we'd come out with an accurate list of what the communities wanted that year. I don't have the raw data, but I suspect the new wishlist's activity has gone way down since it is no longer like a backlog drive where we have a deadline and we all focus once a year, but rather a never-ending queue. And less activity means the wishlist is probably less accurate. I used to participate in the December wishlists, but now I can't remember the last time I edited a meta wish page. So we have basically lost this ability to take a snapshot of what software the communities currently want the WMF to work on, because wish voting is spread out and there is low participation. And also because things get bundled together into abstract buckets, instead of very specific wishes.

Solution A: To fix problem A, we should probably switch back to the old wishlist system. The one where we all vote in December, and wishes are voted on individually instead of in groups.

Problem B: Doing a high volume of wishes. I get the impression that problem B has improved under changes in the last few years. The WMF talks about how they've assigned more teams and resources to help with wishes, trying to make it a multi-team effort instead of just CommTech. This is good. I don't have the raw data, but I assume that is an improvement in volume of wishes over the old system.

Solution B: If we want to continue improving problem B, I think the fundamental way to get more wishes worked on is to double or triple the # of devs on the CommTech team. This is also a sensitive community relations issue. Certain communities such as English Wikipedia, in my opinion, do not really like experimental software ideas very much (AI, Roblox, etc.) and would instead prefer donor money to be spent on 1) essential work / boring maintenance stuff / technical debt / bug reports of existing software, and 2) CommTech. Don't forget, CommTech and the Wishlist is basically the community's main channel for requesting the WMF to work on its software priorities. I think most other product teams have their software priorities invented by their product managers rather than by the community. And sometimes those ideas are good (e.g. DiscussionTools), and sometimes they are not (e.g. Flow). I think with a properly run Wishlist that has individual wish voting and high participation, under most circumstances, the community will really like that software being worked on and the software will be well-received. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:15, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

This —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:33, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was astonished to get this answer. It indicates that even if the new wishlist was an utter failure to anyone's eyes including theirs, they have no contingency plan to go back to the previous system. Nardog (talk) 03:15, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

That is a good analysis of the situation. However, considering what I've seen so far, unfortunately I doubt that the WMF is interested in actually solving any of this Ita140188 (talk) 12:36, 2 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Novem Linguae Thank you very much for your feedback and for sharing your concerns. We agree that more engagement is important, and that the current version of the Wishlist has some margin of improvement in this aspect.

We announced on May 14 that we are working on some improvements to the Wishlist, namely a better way to categorise and browse wishes for users, and the possibility to support individual wishes (as it happened in the past), and not just focus areas as identified by the team. You can follow our current work on reshaping the Wishlist on Phabricator too.

As for the number of WMF engineering staff involved in the Wishlist, our model helps distribute responsibility to teams across the Foundation, in addition to the Community Tech team. This ensures that wishes align to movement strategy and/or essential workstreams. We cannot increase staff on Community Tech without undermining the work of other, equally important departments at the Foundation.

I hope my brief answer helped you get some more insights, but we’re open to discuss further these and other points you might want to raise in the discussion. Feedback from the community, especially when constructive, is always welcome. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 2 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

In the May 14 announcement, a July-September timeline was given for supporting individual wishes. Any update on when we get our vote back? And when will the old category browsing system interface become the standard again, with the foundation focus areas just a tracking category?

I would disagree with the statement that other workstreams are equally important, as the amount of co-production with the community varies tremendously across other teams. And working together is what makes for the best workstreams. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:40, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Even if they were, it is hard to see how expanding one department "undermin[es] the work of other [...] departments". I doubt those equally important departments have the same number of personnel and get the same amount of budget. Nardog (talk) 14:29, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Femke Sorry for the late reply. We're still working on the technical implementation of the new system, our current timeline is to deploy it by the end of August, save for last-minute problems. When we'll have more detailed info, we'll be sure to share them with you all. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:50, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply