Talk:Wikibase Community User Group/Reports/2020

Content of the report

Hello everyone.

Thank you @GreenReaper: for your additions to the report. However, I think they are mostly off-topic. This is the report of the Wikibase Community User Group, not of Wikibase. In previous discussions, the idea was to “scour telegram and mailing list for any additions directly related to the group”, not to make a full report of every channel related to Wikibase. For instance, I don't see how any of your additions in January are related to the user group. For comparison, here is the 2019 report of the Wikisource Community User Group: not everything that happens in the Wikisource community is cited.

In May, I discussed with @MKaur (WMF):. She explained about the report of the user group: “As it is an Affiliate Annual Activity Report, it should only contain the affiliate activities or meetings.” As this was written in a private discussion and that I don't provide the full context, I notified her so she can explain and contextualize the quote.

In any case, I think that a full report of what happens in the official Wikibase group on Telegram (managed by another WMF affiliate) should be distinct from the WBUG annual report.

Cheers, Envlh (talk) 19:57, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I was a little surprised to read this, as earlier versions gave much prominence to meetings and presentations that - as I think you pointed out - we did not always arrange ourselves.

I think we need to find a shared understanding on "the activities of the affiliate" - and whether [most of the] members of the Telegram group can be considered members of WBUG, bearing in mind the largely external appeal of Wikibase means they may not be active on Meta. (Meaningful participation on Telegram was good enough for the election of group contacts.)

For my part, I consider less structured advice and discussion to be a core part of WBUG's activity. We're more than a series of monthly presentations and a low-traffic mailing list. As Wikibase users, we provide interactive, volunteer support for other users - primarily (but not solely) via Telegram. It's a large portion of our 2020 activity, and so should be covered.

I also did not "make a full report of every channel related to Wikibase". I summarised topics raised in the mailing list and Telegram group listed on our page - which I consider to be group spaces. WBStack's group isn't a listed venue, so I didn't include it - despite some interesting Wikibase discussions. Nor Twitter threads, or WMDE announcements. (Some staff are WBUG members, and may be present in a personal capacity; their contributions were included.)

The question of management seems like a red herring. By comparison, if we obtain "ownership" of the mailing list, we'll be subject to WMF management - indeed, we'll have to seek their intercession to obtain it. Does that mean debates and advice there shouldn't be reported? Surely what matters is whether the activity in question is attributable to the user group?

(For readers' context: the Telegram group was owned by a group founder; it had to be recreated after it vanished along with them. That was done by WMDE staff member Auregann; as far as I can see, there was an attempt to restore the original membership. Andra and Sannita, user group members since 2018, are admins, as are a few who appear to be from WMDE and WMF, at least one in an official capacity.)

I share concern over delineation of the bounds between WMDE and WBUG. But I don't want to get hung up on who "owns" what space - if we presented at a physical conference space leased by WMF or WMDE, it'd still be a group activity creditable to WBUG. As I see it, it's not just the place, but the people and context. And while WMDE does promote their surveys there (as they do on the mailing list), most of the activity is users helping other users. Their "official" channel, where they present the Wikibase office hours, is "Wikidata".

That said, this is a draft, and I'm open to moving some or all of what I added elsewhere, ideally with consensus on how to do so. Some topics are more trivial than others; perhaps all events and discussions should be on a subpage, and an executive summary presented, highlighting event series, issues arising repeatedly, and questions which didn't have good answers - with the goal of identifying opportunities for improvement? GreenReaper (talk) 03:47, 30 July 2021 (UTC)