User:Johan (WMF)/CE Insights and Tech News

Community Engagement Insights is a set of surveys of Wikimedia contributors organized by the Wikimedia Foundation. Results here are taken from Community Engagement Insights/2016-17 Report/Technical Collaborations.

Questions

Questions to the editing community

Question 224 (TC41)

In which of the following ways do you receive updates and news about WMF software development? (select all that apply) Participants could select more than one option

participants (n) = 261 See more >>

3% did not select an option [?] 1 – Meta:Tech/News (21%) 2 – Wikimedia Foundation mailing lists (16%) 3 – Wikimedia news (Signpost/Kurier/RAW) (17%) 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.

Question 225 (TC42)

The data may need to be filtered based on responses to the question above. Be cautious with interpreting it.

Which of the following channels do you prefer to receive updates and news about WMF software development? (select all that apply) Participants could select more than one option

participants (n) = 261 See more >>

2% did not select an option [?] 1 – Meta:Tech/News (20%) 2 – Wikimedia Foundation mailing lists (21%) 3 – Wikimedia news (Signpost/Kurier/RAW) (18%) 4 – Wikimedia Foundation product newsletters (Visual editor/Discovery weekly) (10%) 5 – Community pages/Village pump on wikimedia project (39%) 6 – Wikimedia Blog (11%) 7 – Tech blogs and websites outside of Wikimedia Foundation (6%) 8 – Social networks (17%) 9 – Other (4%) 10 – I don’t receive these updates (25%) 11 – Wikitech mailing list (7%) 12 – Phabricator (5%)

From the survey participants, 39% prefer to receive updates on community pages/village pumps and 25% do not receive these updates.

Questions to technical contributors

Question 517 (TC55)

Which of the following Wikimedia Foundation supported projects have you heard about (select all that apply) Participants could select more than one option

participants (n) = 71 See more >>

0% did not select an option [?] 1 – Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces (77%) 2 – Technical Collaboration Guideline (39%) 3 – Community Wishlist (82%) 4 – Google Summer of Code (90%) 5 – Outreachy (46%) 6 – Google Code-in (55%) 7 – Wikimedia developer events (e.g. Wikimania or Wikimedia Hackathons) (92%) 8 – Tech News (69%) 9 – VisualEditor newsletter (51%) 10 – Discovery weekly (35%) 11 – Collaboration team newsletter (24%) 12 – Trello (4%) 13 – IRC (55%) 14 – Other (specify): (8%) 15 – Gerrit (38%) 16 – Wikitech (30%) 17 – Tool Labs (41%)

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 (30%).

Question 529.01 (TC04)

Few responses – be cautious with interpreting the results.

To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the following activities to broadcast technical information to our communities? - Tech News

Participants (n) = 30 Median = 4 See more >>

14% selected "No opinion" [?] 1 – Very dissatisfied (0%) 2 – Dissatisfied (3%) 3 – Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (13%) 4 – Satisfied (43%) 5 – Very satisfied (40%)

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.

Question 530 (TC05)

Few responses – be cautious with interpreting the results.

How often do you read Tech News?

Participants (n) = 31 Median = 2 See more >>

21% selected "" [?] 1 – Less than once per month (19%) 2 – About once per month (39%) 3 – About twice per month (6%) 4 – About three times per month (6%) 5 – Four times per month (about once per week) (29%)

From the technical contributors who participated in this question, the median number of times reported for reaching TechNews is once per month

Analysis

Tech News is the second most common way to receive technical updates for editors who do so. The alternative was marked Meta:Tech/News, though. Could this have been confusing? Maybe the number is actually higher, but they don’t read it on Meta – they read it on Village Pumps or other community pages. Only Village Pumps/community pages were more popular. When asked how they prefer to get their technical news, Tech News was the third most popular option, after Village Pumps/community pages and mailing lists.

At the same time, we know that a barrage of updates from WMF or the Wikimedia technical community to all Village Pumps isn't universally popular. More than one wiki has specific pages where they ask these updates be put rather than on their main Village Pump, sort of hidden away. For example, Swedish Wikipedia asks that all MassMessage posts are posted on Wikipedia:Bybrunnen/Massmeddelanden; if they are posted on the Village Pump, they will manually remove them from the Village Pump and put them on the mass message page instead, where there's typically no discussion, comments or questions.

69% of technical contributors have heard of Tech News. While this is comparatively high (IRC 55%, VE newsletter 55%, Gerrit 38%, Wikitech 30%, Collaboration newsletter 24%), we should probably make sure more technical contributors are aware of the existence of the technical newsletter, as well as how to effectively flag our attention. Those who read it seem largely satisfied (83% satisfied, 3% dissatisfied). The number of participants is low enough that we shouldn't stress this too much, but at least these numbers give no reason to assume the technical community feels their work is misrepresented.

Typically, they seem read Tech News roughly once a month, but the number of participants here is again fairly low. We don't know if readers in the editing community follows the same pattern.

Potential action items

• Highlight the opportunity to get a weekly digest of technical updates, potentially translated, to community pages of the wiki's choosing.
• Consider sending Tech News to more mailing lists.
• Make technical contributors more aware of the existence of Tech News (quarterly email to relevant mailing lists? Not often enough to be annoying, but will reasonably soon introduce it to newcomers), and how to flag updates for our attention.
• Follow up on whether most editors are occasional readers or read it weekly – if occasional readers, should we change anything?