Abstract Wikipedia/Updates/2023-06-22

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Abstract Wikipedia Updates

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Team offsite in Delft

Last week, our team had our annual in-person meeting, this year in Delft, in the Netherlands. It is the second ever offsite for the team, following last year’s in New York City. The offsite was also the reason we didn’t find the time to give an update last week.

Abstract Wikipedia team at Delft offsite 2023. From left to right, back: Amin Al Hazwani, Cory Massaro, Genoveva Galarza Heredero, Elena Tonkovidova, David Martin, Stef Dunlap, Amy Tsay, Denny Vrandečić, James Forrester; in front, kneeling: Nick Wilson and Luca Martinelli. Taken in front of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag

This time, we were focused heavily on launching Wikifunctions. We discussed the necessary work still ahead of us, and carefully reviewed and removed many of the open tasks from blocking launch. Instead, the tasks were either marked as “it would be great to have this before launch” (nice-to-have) or simply as after-launch tasks. You can see our new, simplified board with the current status in Phabricator.

We also discussed and had retrospectives on the way the team works. All of these discussions benefited heavily from being in person, especially when we were figuring out which steps still need to happen before launch, and which ones can be moved back. After three years, we certainly are both excited and worried about launching – everything feels like it could use just some more polish, and every feature feels like it would be great to have it available at launch, so it was good to come together and push back on this together.

For team-building, we visited two local museums: the Royal Delft manufactury in Delft, and the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, where we particularly enjoyed the temporary exhibition on M. C. Escher, who beautifully combined functions with art. We also visited the local Makerspace, where we gave a presentation on Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions and met with some local members of the Wikimedia community.

Wikifunctions at Wikimania

We just learned this week that our submission to present Wikifunctions at Wikimania 2023 in Singapore has been accepted by the program committee. Wikimania will offer the opportunity to attend remotely. We are looking forward to presenting our work to the community. We will share more details as they become known to us.