Community Wishlist Survey/Future Of The Wishlist/Renaming

Help us rename the Wishlist.

May 2024 Update

Why a rename?

We realized that we’ve outgrown the name “Community Wishlist Survey” in our redesign efforts. With a new approach, we think it’s the right time to think about a new name.

In this new approach, we’ll be looking at three areas to define success:

Impact. Number of Focus Areas adopted or addressed by the Foundation, Affiliates, and Volunteer developers in a given fiscal year.
Participation. Number of people proposing new ideas and reporting issues, number of different languages and projects represented in the new process.
Collaboration. Number of conversations around people’s ideas, number of votes or supports we can generate.

What’s in a name?

A new name should ideally reflect a space where Wikimedians work together to identify the most pressing needs in Community Tech brainstorm solutions, and build them into reality. It should signal a space that is neither a solutions desk (too prescriptive for the submission stage) nor an idea aggregator (we want accountability for outcomes):

After brainstorming a few names, a few front-runners have emerged, and we want your input:

Wikimedia Opportunities registry
Wikimedia Collaboration hub
ImagineWiki

Please propose a name on the talk page if the names above don’t resonate with you.

We’d love for you to review these potential names and propose alternatives by May 31. From there, we will identify the top two or 3 naming options and solicit your vote for our new name.

June 2024 Update

Thanks to everyone who’s provided feedback on renaming the Community Wishlist Survey. After reviewing your comments, it’s clear we need “Community” in the name. We want to encourage community participation, foster collaboration, and build up each other’s ideas.

Still, the terms “Wishlist” and “Wish” have unintended baggage that’s led to misaligned expectations. Moving forward, we want to ensure that our name reflects the collaborative and idea-driven nature of this initiative, and to be more transparent about solving community-identified problem areas than building to single proposals.

We have three alternative names that better capture the spirit and purpose of this project. These names focus on the exchange of ideas and community involvement to build better and more inclusive products:

1. Community Ideas Exchange.

Idea. Community Ideas Exchange emphasizes our aspirations for community collaboration and being an ideas exchange.

2. Community Feature Requests.

Request. Community Feature Requests is straightforward, aligned to common product development practices. Though the name is not inclusive of bug reports, we would consider bug reports in our work.

3. Community Suggestions Portal.

Suggestion. Community Suggestions Portal highlights the platform as a central place for community suggestions, covering both new ideas and improvements.

We value your input greatly and want to ensure this platform continues to serve the community effectively. Please cast your vote for the new name and help us shape the future of our collaborative efforts.

Voting will close on June 20, 2024, and we can’t wait to re-open this process on July 15!

Voting guidelines

Please use the {{Support}} template to vote for the name you prefer. By typing the template under that name.
Please make sure you are logged in
Please sign your vote (see the sample vote by User: STei (WMF))
Please vote for one name

–– Jack Wheeler, Lead Community Tech Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

Vote Now

Voting

None of the above

Support I object to and boycott this voting because giving each voter only one ballot to cast with no runoff means the most favored candidate can end up in second place and the result will not be reflective of the participants' opinion. Nardog (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Additionally, as I allueded to in my unanswered question below, change should be on consensus and not on numerical voting counts. RudolfRed (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support The three options are all bad (the Feature/Suggestions ones a little less but those aren't only features or mere suggestions) and the problem is not the name of the things but the long grave neglect of technical development / implementation of these wishes by the WMF as pointed out here, here and elsewhere. Technical needs survey is the term used on Commons and "Technical requests" may also be good. Instead of thinking long about which name may or may not be better just implement or facilitate implementation of the supported wishes. --Prototyperspective (talk) 16:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for sharing this, @Prototyperspective. We're working hard to put a better system in place for WMF to respond to and address needs addressed by the communities. This new system should better align technical needs to our annual planning process and thus implement more wishes. Ultimately, CommTech and the Foundation will be measured by the impact of our work. As we began implementing this new system, we believed it was (and is) time for a new name. Once we launch the new system, I hope you'll start seeing the impact you've longed for. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 16:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds great. (Nevertheless, I don't think the three suggested names are fitting and would suggest "Technical requests" (features, bugfixes, tools, meta, config-/code-changes).) Prototyperspective (talk) 17:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Missed to clarify: I prefer to just keep the current name rather than renaming even if a fitting term like "Technical proposals/requests" is chosen. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:21, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Please keep the existing name because it is accurately descriptive and well known. Certes (talk) 17:52, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support e/c. Glrx (talk) 17:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support It better to keep "wishlist survey" because it belong the wish of the user. WikiFer ^msg 19:30, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer something along the lines of Community Feature Priorities. As an aside, it's hard to look at this and wonder if we could've gotten one more wishlist item instead of a rebranding initiative... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:23, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the input @Rhododendrites. The process to rebrand the Wishlist has no impact on WMF's ability to address Wishlist items, as stakeholders in Movement Comms, Product, and Brand have engaged here, and not engineers.

As far as progress on Wishlist items, CommTech is building out a new form to accept wishes. This is a tradeoff against progress on individual wishes. We made this tradeoff because the previous process was built on a series of patches, and with the Foundation's focus on making the Wishlist even more successful (ie, achieve more), we need a more resilient and inclusive wish intake process. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 21:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice behind "feature requests": keep the name the same. Levivich (talk) 22:29, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support- I like "Community Wish List." That's my choice. But, of course, that's overly descriptive and not nearly bureaucractic-sounding enough to ever suffice. Carrite (talk) 23:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Retain the existing name. No change is a good change. Pavlor (talk) 05:18, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the existing name. Ayack (talk) 10:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'd like to see the phrase "community priorities", since this is a prioritization process, not just a list of feature requests. "Community Ideas Exchange" and "Community Suggestions Portal" are too vague and don't give a sense of the scope of topics relevant for the wishlist. Recommendations for WMF grants? Proposals for new projects like WikiTravel? Based on the scope evident in the survey's current selected projects, I would suggest something more descriptive like "Community Priorities for Technical Improvements". Daask (talk) 15:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I like the current name a lot. It's an institution. For me, the first and third suggestions are no-gos, as they are overly vague and don't give a sense of priority. The second one may miss wishes which are not a new feature, such as improving current features and possibly fixing bugs. I like the suggestions above in the direction of "technical community priorities", which captures the process well. Femke (talk) 16:47, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support I support keeping the current name. I have already given my reasons for this in prior discussion. StefenTower (talk) 18:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Existing name is fine. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - If you want to rename it, by all means rename it, but I object to using voting as a way to legitimize a rename that didn't really come from the community. More generally I am concerned that the direction this rebrand process is going in effectively strips the community of its voice and power. Bawolff (talk) 18:42, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support The current name seems good. Superzerocool (talk) 19:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support a variation of "Community prioritization" or "technical wishlist". We need a consistent year-over-year prioritization process, not a place to exchange ideas or suggestions (we already have many of those!); and many community priorities aren't FRs. To the concern about baggage: we are all familiar with using wishlists as a place to look for topics for community-run hackathons and other dev sprints, so while some may have expectations of a central group building towards a single implementation, the concept is also familiar as a place for all-purpose discussion, refinement, and even clustering of priority issues. –SJ talk –SJ talk 01:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Making people argue about minor variations of a name we are all used to for almost a decade is nothing but a distraction. The name is not the problem. If you really want to change it then just do it. --TMg 06:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. Only after seeing the new system in action can we assess what name best describes it. Nardog (talk) 12:56, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support No change, per TMg. This is a classic BIKESHED situation. Leave the name alone. RudolfRed (talk) 16:03, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For me as a non-native English speaker, Wishlist is a way understandable (what this initiative did) than any of proposed titles. MBH (talk) 16:11, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support I like the existing name, I think it is easy to understand and I think it's pretty appropriate.--Ethn23 (talk) 17:56, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support – keep the name the same. Am concerned that the new names don't reflect a community-led approach to this, similarly to Bawolff's comments above. --Yodin^T 03:21, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support No real argument has been made for changing the name of a well-known area and the current name is fitting. And this appears to be a top-down edict rather than something organic. The WMF should spend more time worrying about fulfilling the requests of the community, not finding a preferred name for the area in which the generally ignored requests are made. The usual style-over-substance WMF thing. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 06:52, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While my first choice is to keep things the same, my second choice would be a name that reflects how the area is treated by the WMF, such as the Futility Folder, the Event Horizon, or the Depository of Ideas Discarded in Favor of the Mid-Tier Silicon Valley Executive Obsession du Jour. OK, the last one may be too wordy. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 06:55, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looking at the discussion, I am struggling to see 2 of these 3 voting options having appeared there? I am however seeing various participants expressing preference for the current name. Does "Working with consensus" figure in the WMF staff onboarding process? If not, should it? The present "not-listening" attempt to impose a change expresses a power relationship which would hardly bode well for the future. AllyD (talk) 07:28, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support the current name is fine. Ingenuity (talk) 12:38, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support I prefer "WeSpentOurTimeRenamingThisInsteadOfFixingGraphs". Or, if that's a no-go, "Wishlist McWishlistface". AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:11, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gdansk or Danzig? "mcwish mcwish face". you might want to spend the emotional energy making wishes, lest people stop engaging when they perceive their wishes are unrequited. --Slowking4 (talk) 23:26, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Discussing the name is a distraction, as a WMF employee wrote above: "The process to rebrand the Wishlist has no impact on WMF's ability to address Wishlist items". Also, we are in a multilingual project and the proposal fails to adress how it would affect other langugage communities. Arpyia (talk) 08:26, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support I prefer the status quo. --SHB2000 (t • c) 10:30, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support keep XtexChooser (talk) 10:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

Is this meant to be a literal vote, as in counting the number of supporters of each choice? Or is it going to be consensus driven, as we expect for most dicussions? RudolfRed (talk) 04:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it is very confusing that trying to edit the Voting section does not take you to the page with the votes. Why do we need a separate page with a button to get there? RudolfRed (talk) 04:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Edit section links do work for each proposal. Edit section link for main Voting section does not work, because we use transclusion to ensure translation pages are ever up-to-date, containing all new votes. --Pols12 (talk) 21:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]