Talk:Community Wishlist Survey

For information about the translations, see Community Wishlist Survey/Help us.

Archives

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1, 2

Great logging tool tl_talk:Community_Wishlist_Survey

Cool template, very handy to see how hardwork as developed/fruited/touched down at the goal. -- Omotecho (talk) 06:04, 16 January 2022 (UTC) / fixed typos Omotecho (talk) 06:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Moved from Template talk:Community Wishlist Survey/Talk page navigation ~TheresNoTime-WMF (talk) 17:54, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Where do i add My wish?

Where do i add My wish? Yoitsme3342 (talk) 22:59, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Yoitsme3342: You wait on January 23, so then. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 00:06, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok. Now where do I actually submit my proposal? Or is it deliberate that I have to make my way through a maze first? 86.171.69.218 08:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Go to Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Proposals, pick the category it belongs in, and enter a title in the box near the top next to the 'Create proposal' button. 3mi1y (talk) 02:48, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Please, stop edit-warring

Hello. Recently user @Xavier Dengra created a proposal that can be read here: Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Archive/Dismantling of the annual Wishlist Survey system. The proposal was automatically archived by User:Community Tech bot after a comment by NRodriguez (WMF), what is quite ironic, as it was an anti-harassment proposal and this is a community wishlist. I recovered it, because not only free of expression, also the core idea of what a wish is was deleted without discussion. Then MusikAnimal (WMF) archived it again. I don't want to edit-war, but I think that a Meta administrator should protect user's wishes from the WMF arbitrary decissions on what a wish can be, because this process belongs to the community. Thanks. Theklan (talk) 20:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for posting here in the Talk Page. We archive invalid wishes during the Propose phase of the CWS every year. Feel free to check out the Archive for the year 2022, for example. If you notice, in that Archive, you can see what we did here was standard protocol. Right now, our list of Archive reasons focus on the nature of the wish not being Technical in nature. Often, people come to the CWS with content requests, policy requests, and or staffing requests. The purview of the CWS is technical. In our FAQ, we dedicate a section to explaining that proposals must be within the Community Tech area of activity. I hope this shines some light on why I moved it into the Archive. The decision was not Abitrary and we try to be consistent with our Archive reasons-- which is why we've developed a list of 15 common Archive reasons. Thanks for reading and for participating, I hope to see other proposals from you! NRodriguez (WMF) (talk) 21:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

From the link:

• The Community Tech team declines proposals if they
  • Only require doing edits on wiki, even if it's about "technical" edits (in templates, modules, etc.). NOT THE CASE
  • Are already in Wikimedia Foundation teams' plans. NOT THE CASE
  • Were declined by Community Tech or other Wikimedia Foundation teams in the past. NOT THE CASE
  • Call for removing or disabling a feature that a Wikimedia Foundation team has worked on. NOT THE CASE
• Less than a year-long project, more than a bug. NOT THE CASE
• Pick one specific problem and describe it in detail (it should be rephrased but, NOT THE CASE )
• You don't have to suggest ways for resolving the problem. It will be the Community Tech task to find solutions. <<< read this, please.

So no, the archiving is not based on the guidelanes provided in the FAQ. Theklan (talk) 21:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, the proposal in question was not "automatically" archived by the bot. The bot only handles the (un)transcluding bits. @Xavier Dengra and others; Would you please pay mind to the edit notice? Category pages are maintained by the bot. I'm not going to undo your edits again, but the bot will eventually remove the transclusion anyway.

I want to be abundantly clear we're not trying to silence anyone. Criticism and feedback about the survey is most welcome here on the talk page, where "meta" kinds of discussions typically happen. See the archives for past examples. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:31, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks MusikAnimal. I untagged it, so the bot doesn't move it "automatically". Theklan (talk) 21:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@Theklan That's not how it works... The propsoal is under the /Archive page, and only staff can move propsoals to and from there. The bot will still (eventually) remove the transclusion since it's not actually under /Anti-harassment.

Is there a reason why we can't have the same discussion here? I totally understand your sentiments, and believe it or not, we even want to hear your criticism. But forming it as a proposal isn't the way to do it. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

There's no way to do it. Last year there were two similar proposals and were moved below the carpet. One of those (1%) was one of the most voted proposals. It was dismissed. So no, there's no way to have a discussion.

Category pages are maintained by the bot. I'm not going to undo your edits again, but the bot will eventually remove the transclusion anyway. and The propsoal is under the /Archive page, and only staff can move propsoals to and from there. are opposite statements. Theklan (talk) 22:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

As staff members are trying to change the status of the most voted proposals last year (excluding the "larger suggestions" proposals that were widely voted for adoption), I copy this table here, for the record.

Projects	Project status
Templates translation	Not done
Notifications for user page edits	In development
Real Time Preview for Wikitext	Not done
Tool that reviews new uploads for potential copyright violations	Not done
Improve SVG rendering	Not done
Allow filtering of WhatLinksHere to remove links from templates	Not done
Automatic duplicate citation finder	Not done
Select preview image	Not done
Generate Audio for IPA	In development
Enhanced Move Logs	Not done

This is the situation one year after the proposals were proposed, refined, declined and adopted by devoted volunteers. -Theklan (talk) 22:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Done, undone and in progress

The current tables with the proposals that were done, not done or in progress is not even accurate. Most of the non-done proposals are excluded, and this gives a false sensation of "development", what is far from reality. Please, correct it to show the real numbers. Theklan (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@Theklan I think there might be some confusion here. Since 2021, we expressly do not commit to the top 10. Instead, we use a prioritization framework to help us ascertain what we can afford to do annually. It's far from perfect, but we believe it's a step up from the old "top 10" commitment that we used to have, which left a lot of wishes undone. Your changes at Special:Diff/24421210 seem to make the assumption we committed to those "Not done" wishes, which is not true. We kindly ask you leave editing of our project pages to us. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:27, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

This is even worse. So you ask volunteers to make proposals and discuss them, the WMF decides what can be discussed and what not, after that we vote and the WMF decides what was the correct result of the voting? WOW.

Projects	Project status
2022
Better diff handling of paragraph splits	In development
Notifications for user page edits	In development
Real Time Preview for Wikitext	Not done
Tool that reviews new uploads for potential copyright violations	Not done
Improve SVG rendering	Not done
Allow filtering of WhatLinksHere to remove links from templates	Not done
Automatic duplicate citation finder	Not done
Select preview image	Not done
Generate Audio for IPA	In development
Enhanced Move Logs	Not done
2021
Templates translation	Not done
Warn when linking to disambiguation pages	Done
Copy and paste from diffs	Done
Live preview	In development
Add sorting options in category pages	Not done
Improve graphs and interactive content	Not done
Multiple watchlists	Not done
InternetArchiveBot for Wikidata	Not done
Better diff handling of paragraph splits	In development
Add filters to history pages	Not done

Realtime Preview is deployed to all wikis, so that one surely counts as done. All the others are not projects we committed to, and even some of those are at least partially done or in progress (just not by us). We use "Not done" to convey projects that we committed to but were unable to do, and there should be status updates that accompany those explaining why we were unable to do them. The same information is conveyed at Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Results, so I'm not sure why it needs to be duplicated on the tables we used for projects we did commit to.

We encourage you to read our documentation to better understand how the survey works. Your vote definitely matters, even if it seems like it doesn't :) Editing our project pages against our will and going against our processes here at the survey, however, is not constructive. We'd really appreciate it if you'd leave the survey management and project page editing to our team. Thanks for your cooperation, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 23:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

There's an article for this: en:Enlightened absolutism.

However, no, Realtime Preview is not available if you use the "new wikitext mode", so is not available for most of the advanced users. Not commited projects are, by definition, not done. You can make it worse and mark them as declined, but that wouldn't make your point better, so let's play this on your side.

The same information is conveyed at Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Results, yes. But not in the main page, where we can find a false summary of what has been done, giving the false impression that wishes are done.

What is not constructive is trying to avoid discussions, trying to decide what can be discussed and what not, trying to silence volunteers, making them spend hours of their time in a process that, at the end of the day, goes nowhere.

Let people vote. Let people decide. That's what the word wish is about. Theklan (talk) 23:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I think its time you disengage. You seem to be overly invested. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The word is concerned. Theklan (talk) 06:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I kindly ask you, @The DJ, to remove or rephrase your last comment. It is not only an unfounded tone policing to request a user with legitimate, founded arguments to disengage a talk based on being "overly invested". But also an incipient form of an "appeal to motive" user threat that pushes out diverging opinions from the public agora by unfastening them from the reasoning. Best regards. Xavier Dengra (MESSAGES) 08:09, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Translation of category button on Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Proposals

Hi, how can I add and proofread the translation of these category button? Tryvix1509 (talk) 01:59, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Tryvix1509! It should be in our "priority" list of messages. There's a list among the other message groups at Community Wishlist Survey/Help us. Specifically, the message names for the categories should be the same as the English message, as a subpage of Template:Community_Wishlist_Survey. So for instance, "Admins and patrollers" is at Template:Community Wishlist Survey/Admins and patrollers. Translatable messages are also categorized at Category:Community Wishlist Survey/Messages. Let me know if you need anymore help, and thanks for helping with translation :) Regards, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 02:07, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Wie kann ich Vorschläge übersetzen?

Konkret meinen eigenen Vorschlag, aber eventuell auch noch mehr. Ich habe den natürlich nicht auf Englisch angelegt, Englisch ist ja nur eine beliebige Sprache unter vielen und sollte nicht besonders herausgehoben werden. Allerdings kann ich die zufällig auch ganz gut, und würde meinen Vorschlag gerne dahin und auf Nederlands übersetzen, ich finde nur keine Möglichkeit dazu. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

For those only capable of English: How can I translate especially my, but generally any, wish? Either, as with mine, to English and Nederlands, or perhaps as well some from English to German and/or Nederlands? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

There is an example in last years' wishlist: Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Citations/Structuring of individual references —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:57, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

And where's the translations in different languages there? I just see one page, with little information, discussion in English, wish in German. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 12:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I tried something, but I don't know if it's the proper syntax: Community_Wishlist_Survey_2023/Untranslated/VisualEditor:_Allow_references_to_be_properly_named Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:42, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I guess there's no harm in using {{LangSwitch}} for now, but once a proposal is approved, we'll remove those and set the page up for proper translation. Only the proposal content is translatable, not the discussion. You can use {{LangSwitch}} on the discussions if you'd like.

Translatable proposals can be found at Category:Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Proposals/Translatable, or in the agg-Community_Wishlist_Survey_2023_Proposal aggregate group (direct link for translation).

It's only day 2 of the survey, so not many proposals have been approved yet. More will come in over time, and certainly before voting starts, all proposals should be fully translatable. When viewing in a non-English interface, you will also see a "Translate" link beneath the headings of translatable proposals. We are making an effort to get proposals approved as soon as possible to give more time for translators, so despite what the schedule says you won't necessarily need to wait until the "Review" phase.

Hope this helps and many thanks for your translation efforts! MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I expect this regardless of the language, English is not a lingua france, it's just one random language among many. So English-only is not good, it's something that needs to be made accessible for non-english speakers, i.e. most of the Wikiverse. A wish in just one language is less valid then a wish in 10. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:27, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Discussion tools don't work on wishes pages

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T327704 resolved

I'm guessing this is a known issue but I was disappointed to be unable to use the discussion tools (which I'm using now to write this section) on the talk pages for individual wishes. When I attempted to do so I get the error "Your comment could not be published to the most recent version of the page. To see the latest changes, copy your drafted comment and then use your browser to reload the page.". Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:47, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah, at least that clears up what was being reported at User talk:TheresNoTime-WMF#Related to my proposal.. :( ~TheresNoTime-WMF (talk) 17:04, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't know what changed as it worked fine last year. It's being tracked at phab:T327704. Apologies for the inconvenience. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 17:06, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

This has reportedly been resolved. Thanks to the Editing team for the quick fix :) MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:48, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Prioritisation

Last year, the prioritisation equation weighted votes quite lightly, only about 1/4th of the total prioritization. Has it been decided yet if that is the same this year?

If it isn't decided yet, I hope we can make votes weight more heavily. Many aspects of the community score probably measure roughly the same as votes, but without input of the community. While it makes sense to put more weight on smaller communities for equity, I think putting more weight on wishes for admins is duplicative of the votes (admins are probs overrepresented); similarly, I don't see why non-textual aspects should be prioritised.

What about a system with 2/5rd of the prioritisation based on votes? Femke (talk) 19:06, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello, the Prioritization framework we published last year is indeed subject to improvements. For what it's worth, right now we are working on Better diffs, which was the top wish (most votes) from last year, and it did not score that high in our prioritization score. After taking a hard look at the top ten wishes, even with our prioritization score taken into account, we decided that working on Better diffs was what made sense even though it was fairly complex. We are definitely going to continue to give votes a larger weigh in which wishes we accept for completion in 2023. NRodriguez (WMF) (talk) 19:26, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Brilliant :). Really excited to see you're working on better diffs now! Femke (talk) 19:35, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

@Femke Even with a better weighting onthe Priority score equation still may not get the best outcome.Decision analysis works best when

• there are numbers to back it up (rather than saying that a proposal is complexity 5, specify a range of work days)
• all decision factors ae visible (is it in line WMF Limits to configuration changes, WMF Annual plan (from Deckelman's post on Diff),
• a consistency of process (will this process apply to all wikipedia projects, and
• measurable benefits (# of edits involving this, editors leaving etc. Back of the envelope figures at least start the discussion

Wakelamp (talk) 12:03, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Translation

Please mark this for translation. As with last year, it's a bit frustrating the author of a proposal doesn't have a say in its detail once it gets moved to a subpage. It should be a principle that whenever the original proposer edits it during the first phase it gets marked. Nardog (talk) 06:15, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nardog I'll try to build a system to make it more clear which proposals need to be marked for translation so that they can be tended to more quickly. In this case the error was my fault – I should have used tvar there! Thanks for adding it :)

We try to get any well-written, clear proposal up for translation as soon as possible to give translators more time. I guess there's an assumption that when the proposer submits, they are content with the content of their proposal. We only intervene if we see any issues. However any important changes by the proposer are most welcomed at any time, even after it's marked for translation. In your case there wasn't a change to the content, only to the translation template. Did you want to make any other changes? MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 16:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, I came up with a better idea for this wish last year but it wasn't marked until after the voting ended. Phase 1 had already ended when I edited it so that's on me, but I think it got fewer votes as a result, as some of the comments indicate I didn't quite succeed in communicating the problem and solution. There aren't any more changes I want to make atm, but I think you should be notified of and be able to review all unmarked edits to the proposals before the voting begins, as (and I imagine I'm preaching to the choir when I say) communication is most important and yet most difficult when it comes to technical problems so there's always room for improvement. Nardog (talk) 07:10, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

This too. Nardog (talk) 16:53, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Would Community Tech actually work on Wikidata proposals?

The only Wikidata proposal that has been fulfilled in the past (Community Wishlist Survey 2020/Wikisource/Inter-language link support via Wikidata) was developed by Ladsgroup who I think was working for WMDE at the time?

Does Community Tech have the interest of taking the time to develop solutions for Wikidata (Wikidata internal code) or will requests possibly just be forwarded to WMDE to consider working on? It seems like Community Tech is not going to accept proposals that other WMF development teams could be working on so I'm a bit confused as to what possibility Wikidata proposals could have at being fulfilled if at all. Lectrician1 (talk) 06:09, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Lectrician1 Please don't be confused. If you have a Wikidata request, please propose it. I look forward to seeing your wish(es) if you have any –– STei (WMF) (talk) 16:41, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

But do you have an answer to my question? Lectrician1 (talk) 17:06, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Lectrician1 CommTech, at the proposal phase, is interested in receiving and delivering technical Wikidata wishes, which is why we have a category dedicated to Wikidata.

Decisions on how and by whom a request gets granted comes after we let an individual wish go through the phases to acceptance.

In our FAQ, we have stated that volunteer developers or other development teams may address some of the wishes. This means it is not true that Community Tech will not accept proposals that other WMF development teams could be working on. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 12:05, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Is the schedule correct?

The first phase seems to run till the 6th. But the second phase is listed as beginning before that and lasting till the 10th.. Is this entirely correct ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey TheDJ, the tail-end of phase 1 (23 January – 6 February 2023, community members submit proposals etc.) happens concurrently with phase 2 (30 January – 10 February 2023, Community Tech reviews & organises proposals).

That way we don't have 150+ proposals to review and organise in the few days before phase 3 (10 February – 24 February 2023, community members vote on proposals) starts ~TheresNoTime-WMF (talk) 20:43, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

How are the untranslated proposals translated?

What are the procedures for proposals under /Untranslated? Who translates them? They ought to be in the FAQ. Nardog (talk) 17:47, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nardog CommTech starts the translation process by marking the proposals for translation, and anyone can join in the translation. The FAQ has information on this. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

No, I'm talking about the proposals under /Untranslated that haven't been translated into English. Nardog (talk) 19:42, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I updated the header at Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Untranslated for clarity. It's a tedious job so we don't ask volunteers to help us. This will be the last survey using this system, as we plan to use proper forms the next go around, which will greatly simplify many things. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 03:53, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I still find it quite opaque (like who actually translates them, whether you use machine translation, whether they are proofread, etc.) but if this is the last time then I guess it doesn't matter much now.

One thing I noticed is that it appears some of those who created pages under /Untranslated didn't realize (and would have preferred) they could do it in English themselves if they went to individual categories. So Template:Community Wishlist Survey/Create proposal-non-english could be improved to say "If you speak English, you can create a proposal in English on each category page", though this too may be moot at this point. Nardog (talk) 06:25, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Better voting system

Just something I've been personally conflicted with when it comes to the Community Wishlist Survey is that there's no way to say that you would prefer one proposal over another. I'm likely going to support almost every proposal in the survey and because my votes are weighted equally, it feels almost like I'm not voting at all.

It would be nice if there was a ranked-choice voting system so that users could convey the importance of proposals over others. This could also help Community Tech better-judge the importance of proposals. Lectrician1 (talk) 22:22, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

It's like the priority vote, but for this current voting process, it's nearly impossible to do that. Thingofme (talk) 15:06, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I like this idea Lectrician1... would two "levels" of choice ranking be enough (e.g. like  Support /  Strong support), or are you thinking of something wider (e.g. like ranking in order per category)? — TheresNoTime-WMF (talk • they/them) 22:11, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

@TheresNoTime-WMF Sure! Literally anything that allows me to distinguish something's better than one thing, even if it's basic, would be good. Lectrician1 (talk) 22:13, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

We could have a run off vote - these are the top 10 which do you want most? My preference is to make it evidence based for the top 10 to stop bloc voting and justify development, (seemy comment Wakelamp (talk) 12:09, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Why I'm so fatigued with the wishlist

@NRodriguez (WMF)@KSiebert (WMF)@JMcLeod (WMF)@DMaza (WMF)@MusikAnimal (WMF)@SWilson (WMF)@HMonroy (WMF)@TheresNoTime-WMF@DWalden (WMF)@GMikesell-WMF@STei (WMF)@JFernandez-WMF: I recently encountered a simple problem, and after looking to see if it was already on Phabricator and after not finding anything, I created a ticket for it. A little while later, it was merged into the existing Phabricator ticket, which I hadn't found before but which has existed since 2013, since of course it has, tagged lowest priority, since of course it is. Editors for years have been expending effort to point out this problem, but it hasn't been fixed since developer resources are so incredibly constrained.

My remedy at this point would have been to create a Wishlist proposal, spending more of my time to draft it and requiring more time of other editors to review and !vote on it. It would be competing with all the other proposals, almost all for similarly backlogged issues, and even if it received 100+ !votes, unless it was in the very top sliver of the most urgent of urgent issues, it wouldn't be taken up. I decided not to bother.

The fundamental issue is that the wishlist, by its nature, posits that the problem is one of prioritization. By asking us to !vote every year, you're saying, "if only we knew what you needed us to work on, we'd be able to help." But it's glaringly obvious that prioritization is not the problem. There is a cornucopia of high-priority tasks on Phabricator, and editors have been pleading for them to be addressed for, in some cases, more than a decade. The fundamental issue is that the WMF, despite its sizeable wealth, has refused to devote enough technical resources to actually make a dent in the backlog.

To use an analogy, imagine you're trying to feed 100 people with a granola bar. Everyone is always hungry because they get only crumbs. The message that the annual wishlist survey sends is, "help us apportion the granola bar better!" And yeah, it'd be good to ensure that the people closest to starvation get their bit, but really the problem isn't apportionment. The problem is that you only brought one granola bar. And the apportionment question would be a lot easier/lower-stakes if you brought more.

Courtesy pinging @MIskander-WMF, as you're the one actually empowered to do something about this by devoting more financial resources to community tech support, as the community requested you do at last year's survey. I think many of us would appreciate hearing from you directly about this. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:24, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I strongly support allocating more money / more devs to the Community Tech team. There is quite a lot of volunteer time and effort that goes into participating in the wishlist, and the payoff is usually only a handful of wishes. More devs = more wishes = happier volunteers :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

cc @SDeckelmann-WMF –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:06, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree on many points. But next to chronic understaffing, I also think there is a huge underappreciation for ad-hoc bug fixing. It seems that the foundation sees this as 'expensive' and rather focuses on 'big problems'. This historically has grown from the fact that all the software was done by volunteers, so it made sense to have paid staff deal with the large architectural problems and the product development and unpaid devs the 'little' work. However this long ago stopped scaling and there is a great value in finding bugs that people run into EVERY single day and getting them fixed. It shows that you care about the experience of the user, removes friction from their workflow and gives ppl time to focus on what matters.

For a long time I've been trying to make the point that we should tackle this as if it were a cohesive platform instead of technical building blocks. We should have a MediaWiki team, improving the core and the architecture and avoiding technical dept, which makes MediaWiki a platform product, there should be a Wikipedia team that makes sure the wikipedia experience as a whole is the best it can be, a Commons/Multimedia team and a 'sister projects' team with their own goals, etc etc. This allows you to focus on the user at a higher level, instead of subdividing by internal politics (which have never served endusers).

'Product' as a WMF branch is a set of mini products that exist in a make believe world, where teams are afraid to touch others teams code and where no coordinated bugfixing takes place for the sole reason that ppl are afraid that other teams will 'throw stuff over the fence' to the 'bugs'-team. Fear is terrible council, lead with a vision. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:55, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I won't pretend to understand enough about organisation governance strategies to comment on if "We should have a MediaWiki team [...], a Wikipedia team that makes sure the wikipedia experience as a whole is the best it can be" etc. is viable, but the concept of "focus[ing] on the user at a higher level, instead of subdividing [...]" certainly sounds like it'd be popular with the community (e.g. the English Wikipedia has been asking for something similar iirc). My biggest concern has always been with ensuring that not only the community is being actively listened to, but that they feel heard and involved too — languishing phabricator tasks for "quality of life" "ad-hoc bug fixing", especially when those bugs affect a small but active group of Wikipedia editors, can often feel like "being ignored". (volunteer comment) — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 11:35, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

There have been at least two iterations of a "MediaWiki" team at the WMF. The first was disbanded when Lila reorganized everything, under the idea that general maintenance should be done by "everyone" which really resulted in it being done by almost no one. The second was co-opted by ladder-climbing management, as general maintenance is a harder sell to upper management than shiny new features. OTOH, even when those teams existed there was still far too much work for the people involved to get to everything, particularly when it's in a specialized extension like VE rather than in core PHP code. Anomie (talk) 14:52, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I think BOTH problems need tackling. focusing on one is like shovelling the shit into a neighbours septic field. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:25, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm one of the lucky and grateful few who actually had a request implemented (temporary watchlisting). However, I have to agree that the even the most urgent and supported of wishlist items has little chance of becoming reality. We are hearing promising words from the WMF about starting to listen to the communities again, and saw some actual action in the toning down of the donation banners, though the juggernaut will take a long time to turn and we're still seeing actions against consensus such as UCoC and Vector2022. If the reconciliation continues, resources may start to be diverted from unwanted developments towards the watchlist wishlist. If not, the watchlist wishlist is worth keeping as a constant reminder that this work remains outstanding, and as a to-do list for any volunteer team that might have to step in and take over MediaWiki development. Certes (talk) 12:36, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

@Certes: You mean wishlist? Nardog (talk) 00:38, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Fixed; thanks. Certes (talk) 00:42, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Dear you all, I want to chime in as the Engineering Manager of the CommTech team. From within my role I make sure that the engineers on the team are not overworked and feel fulfilled regarding their hopes and aspirations. Especially during an intensive time like the Wishlist Survey the members of the team are extremely proactive, lose some good nights of sleep and are trying to do their best to genuinely pay good attention to all incoming proposals, because the proposals deserve it and at the moment the team is actually at the limit to be overworked. What do I want to say? The team is certainly not trying to "let anyone starve", as we are doing the best within the reach of our relatively small team. In addition, I also want to say that we really hear and appreciate the thoughts you expressed, especially when they are phrased in a kind and constructive way, at the moment we are actually a bit fatigued as well by the wishlist, because we notice that most wishes stay untouched. If we, as a team, would be able to dream we would let the wishlist grow into an important democratic tool that directly impacts the annual planning of the Wikimedia Foundation and we also really appreciate leadership and trust their decision-making and know that the Foundation has grown quickly and want to be patient and wait for these changes to happen. Touching bigger projects that have been outstanding for a while seem a good way to start making change happen. I am sure the rest of team has thoughts as well. Please let the comments continue! KSiebert (WMF) (talk) 13:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

None of this is feedback towards the team (and I think they know this). Its feedback towards management of WMF. And again, I think focusing on 'big projects' is actually quite problematic, its just that it is all we have right now, so might as well use it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

See here and here, it's not a new suggestion. This should be The Community Wishlist towards the WMF, all of the devs. As much as I appreciate the small group of devs dedicated towards wishes of the communities, I'd like to see this as the main focus of all the devs, to care about those, who provide the content, thus keep the projects working and the donations coming, the communities. So this is indeed nothing detrimental for the small group of Community Tech, it's more about the mindset of the rest of the WMF. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:48, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Sdkb, thank you for letting us know how you feel. Rest assured that the people pinged have read your comments or will do so soon. Just last week, the Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander, in her one year update, acknowledged the technical debt and software maintenance and how this will be factored into our annual planning. Here is an excerpt: A second concern was about the Foundation's responsiveness to editors and other technical contributors. We collectively have to respond to decades of growing technical debt, poor processes for maintaining software, and staying relevant in a world where technology keeps going faster. There is no quick fix to most of our technical challenges. [...] Annual planning is being led this year by the needs of our Product & Technology departments. I hope this helps showing how concerns are already being taken into account. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't disagree with anything Skdb wrote and in fact have made similar comments about a lot of it myself. But I also don't think the challenges KSiebert writes about should be ignored. When I had the chance to talk with Selena last week about Vector 22, I had some hard truths I felt the need to express and I appreciate that she seemed to genuinely hear them. But she also shared her own hard truth about what it means to motivate and retain high quality staff at a non-profit. I think we're seeing a real change in commitment from senior leadership on this topic - the quote from Maryana's blog post above being one example - which is great and I'm thankful. I'm especially thankful given the management challenges that go along with doing this shift in priorities and approach. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:39, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I was just asked to alter my wish at the WMF to something less ambitious, that was asked for last year already, so that my wish could be swept under the carpet. If you don't have enough sources for tthe wishes of the community, you have to reallocate some of the devs from some pet projects towards the stuff, the community wants, not just someone in the ivory tower, like such disasters as FLOW. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 22:00, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I, wholeheartedly, endorse the sentiments of fatigue set out in this section. While I agree that the inexcusably huge backlog and embarrassingly slow pace of technical progress is not attributable to an unskilled or lethargic technical staff, it is an unacceptable condition that absolutely must (and does) have an underlying, attributable cause. And it's operationally imperative that this cause, and its owner(s), be identified and purged from their associated role(s). We deserve, and need better than that which has given birth and long life to the conditions that have such a clearly debilitating effect as that which has come to light in this thread. I hope this will be the year that ends the privation that stifles our betterment, especially regarding technical things.--John Cline (talk) 10:55, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

My wish today

I managed to miss the 2023 deadline, I wish, somehow, the dates could be amended to allow more time for submissions, I know this is asking a lot, and I don't have illusions that it will occur, but I had to ask, and do ask: please reopen phase 1 and grant more time for its development. Thank you. --John Cline (talk) 03:38, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

@John Cline: Hello John, unfortunately we can not reopen, but would like to discuss your wish here. All the best KSiebert (WMF) (talk) 09:47, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate your reply. I am going in to work right now, I'll extend my reply this evening after I get home. Thanks again, and be well. --John Cline (talk) 11:51, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I'd like to reiterate my sincere appreciation of your reply, and to further say: The "above and beyond" nature of your committed selfless intent speaks well of your character and recommends the fast track of upward mobility for you and your likes. Among other things, I wish this for you. Furthermore, while it was my intent to accept your kind offer, I've come to believe that so doing would come at unreasonable cost; leaving you vulnerable to all others who later may come to demand similar allocations of your time and consideration. In such light, I have decided, instead, to respectfully decline. Sincerely given with best regards, I remain.--John Cline (talk) 16:44, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

You could post it in Community Wishlist Survey/Sandbox. Although you have to wait two years for the next survey, that way you can gauge how much support your proposal might garner and polish it to improve the chance of success, not to mention CWS isn't the only channel for feature requests. Nardog (talk) 17:17, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. It is good advice, relating things I had not known. I will certainly pursue things further, along these available lines. Thanks again and best regards.--John Cline (talk) 00:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

@Nardog@John Cline for now, the Wishlist has been returned to/still considered annual. If anything changes, we will inform the community.

@Nardog thank for taking the time to reply John. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 09:03, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

@STei (WMF): Oh, it looks like TheresNoTime-WMF told me that on this page above but I didn't grasp what they meant by "withdrawn"—I thought it just meant the frequency was still being deliberated. So it looks like you made the first announcement in Tech News but never issued a correction in another issue—which I find bizarre and kind of... reckless? I also urge you to restore the deleted revisions of Community Wishlist Survey/Updates/2023 Changes Update for the sake of transparency (the perma/diff links in TNT's comment were alive for only six hours—which is quite likely why I had the wrong interpretation). It's quite confusing to see the first visible revision saying "Contrary to the initial announcement" and the only link there AFAICF (on the TN issue) predates the apparent creation of the page. Nardog (talk) 16:11, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

@STei (WMF) and NRodriguez (WMF): I've added the retraction to Tech/News/2023/08. Nardog (talk) 22:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

@Nardog the community is currently commenting on the dismantling of the Wishlist.

Selena Deckelmann, CPTO of the Wikimedia Foundation has encouraged the community to give ideas and suggestions (besides dismantling) on what should happen to the Community Wishlist Survey eventually – what the future should hold.

The CEO Maryana Iskander also mentioned earlier in her one-year update that the upcoming annual planning will be led by the needs of the Product and Technology departments.

Think of these moving parts, before making announcements which may no longer be valid in the next few months. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 13:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

It is you, CommTech, who first announced going biennial in fairly definitive terms ("Community Tech will be running the Community Wishlist Survey (CWS) every two years. This means that in 2024, there will be no new proposals or voting"). Many Wikimedians probably still think you are committed to that (as did I until you told me, and I even watch this page!). What kind of sense does it make to announce a decision, backtrack on it, and never announce the retraction through the same channel? I've changed the wording to "the current plan is". You should have the final say on the wording, or on whether to send it for that matter, because it's your decision, but I'd be dumbfounded if you weren't going to at least tell Tech News readers that the previous news is no longer true. Nardog (talk) 13:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think CommTech would want to change a volunteer's announcement. But what I can do (as a Community Relations Specialist), and I have already done, is to alert you of related matters ongoing, before making mass announcements about the future of the Wishlist. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 15:23, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

(Intentionally replying using my volunteer account). Let me first say I deleted that updates page because at the time, it was not linked to or transcluded anywhere. We were not trying to hide anything, I just didn't want it to needlessly stay up for translation.

Secondly, despite me even editing that page after it was recreated, I totally missed the "will continue to run annually" bit. I'm not certain that was a team decision, and we should be upfront about that.

I think there will be a lot more clarity around the wishlist and its future after we do our retrospective, which happens after the survey. @Nardog would you mind refraining from sending anything in Tech News until then? I know you just want to set the record straight with readers, which makes perfect sense. I just worry with all the uncertainty, sending out potentially incorrect or misleading info could worsen the situation. — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Done, but if it wasn't "a team decision" then I don't think the update page should say it so definitively (in bold no less). Nardog (talk) 10:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

The voting tool (AddMe) was broken

For a little while today the AddMe gadget prevented votes from being cast (or, being cast using the "Support" button) in the Community Wishlist Survey — this was reported at Meta talk:AddMe, and on Phabricator. After some wrestling with the proposal header template, this has now hopefully been fixed — I'll be keeping an eye on this page closely this evening/weekend, so please feel free to ping me if there's any further problems!

As an aside, I missed my chance to wish for Delete all templates because MediaWiki template code is difficult! /j — TheresNoTime-WMF (talk • they/them) 19:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Voting isn't working in mobile as in right now Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 10:26, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@Ignacio Rodríguez: Thank you for letting us know — to be honest, I'm not sure if the AddMe gadget ever did work from the mobile interface (I'm checking with the team now).

Are you able to vote by directly adding * {{support}} ~~~~ manually to the Voting section of the proposal? — TheresNoTime-WMF (talk • they/them) 10:59, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Manually I can, but is a little bit deceptive to have a flashy blue button that doesn't do anything Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 11:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

This is now fixed :) Sorry for the long delay! If it means anything, the issues identified and fixed with AddMe are beneficial beyond the survey, as this new version of AddMe is meant to replace the old one. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

List of all wishes

Is there a page that lists all wishes somewhere, with some short summary text? A two column table in the format "column A = wish name and link to wish", "column B = summary" would be great for perusing. Maybe "column C = category". –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: Something exist: Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Tracking. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 21:21, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This is very helpful. Doesn't have the summary column, but close enough. Thank you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:38, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Something like User:TNTBot/CWS/All proposals? Please note that on every update, it'll shuffle the order to prevent any bias. If this fits what you're looking for, we could consider moving it somewhere more "official" — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 23:01, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Nice. Could potentially add a "support votes" column to make it easier to sort that way. I don't think I have time to view every wish so that is currently how I am filtering the other list. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:47, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

There should be oppose votes column and the tally option. Thingofme (talk) 15:33, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Invalid proposal

The title "More functionality for the talk-page reply gadget" suggests the proposal is about bringing more functionality to the reply tool in general, but the body is asking two very specific things, one of which is already possible. As a result, it is not clear what the support voters are in favor of, as this comment demonstrates. Whether it was the intent of the author or not, the proposal as it stands is effectively gaming the system by having a broad, agreeable title and misleading voters into supporting something very specific under the pretext of supporting something generic. Archive it or qualify the scope and rename it. If latter, the votes should be wiped clean and the voters asked to clarify their position. Nardog (talk) 16:37, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@Nardog, thank you for notifying us, we will look into it. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 08:14, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Was soll das?

Seit Tagen fällt mir bei jeder Anmeldung das übergroße Abstimmungswerbebanner regelrecht auf den Wecker. Dann ist der ganze Zirkus nur englisch. Wo ist die Schaltfläche, mit der ich das alles ein für allemal beenden kann? Wenn die Nutzbarkeit der Wikis für die drei bis vier Bewohner dieses Planeten, die zufällig nicht im englischsprachigen Gringoland leben, verbessert werden soll, dann wäre der erste Schritt, erstmal diese Auswahlunterlagen in die Sprachen derer zu übertragen, die hier für werweißwas stimmen sollen. Kann ja sein, dass ich besonders dämlich bin, aber wenn die entsprechenden Seiten nicht deutsch oder kastilisch verfügbar sind, dann kann ich nicht helfen und ist es mein dringender Wunsch, die Verursacher auf die Molukken zu schicken. Falls jemand fragen sollte, warum: Dort wächst der Pfeffer.

Es ist nicht die feine Art, die Sprecher aller anderen Sprachen erst auszusperren und dann auch noch regelmäßig zu belästigen. –Falk2 (talk) 18:56, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

@Falk2, you raised two issues:

1. You want to remove the Community Wishlist Survey 2023 voting banner permanently.
2. Some pages concerning the Wishlist are not yet translated.

Let me know if I have understood you.

Here's an answer and a follow-up question:

• To remove the banner please go to Special:MyPage/global.css and edit your CSS preferences with the following syntax:

 #CommunityWishlistVote, #CommunityWishlistVote_Mobile {display:none;}

• CommTech and community translators before the start of the 2023 survey, have been translating various categories of documents into as many languages as possible. Can you specify which documents you are referring to?

–– STei (WMF) (talk) 06:29, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

For future reference

- URls are rotting all over WP. Instead, whenever a ref with an URL is added, automatically archive it and add an archive link to the ref.

- In VE, add a way to add a cite to the external links section using the same mechanism used to add a ref. (Possibly by adding a checkbox to the ref page that says something like include ref wraper. Currently, you have to switch to source to get rid of the ref wrapper.

- In source editing, if you save a change that has a damaged ref in it, display the error without finishing the save. Once the errors are gone, then accept the change. Lfstevens (talk) 06:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

You can put these ideas at Community Wishlist Survey/Sandbox, where you (or anyone else) can find them when the next survey begins, making sure they don’t get lost in the talk page archives. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Lfstevens, thank you for these suggestions. @Tacsipacsi is right, please put them in the sandbox for the next survey.

@Tacsipacsi, thank you for handling this response. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 08:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Missing wish?

Hello

I was checking on the two wished I submitted. One of them seems to be missing: Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Structure request pages.

Thank you. Trizek ^{from FR} 16:55, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Trizek it seems you missed some steps in the submission of the proposal. But since it was sent within the proposal acceptance period, we have added categories and we have approved it. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 12:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @STei (WMF). Trizek ^{from FR} 14:29, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Creating Phabricator tasks for all wishes

Would it be okay to create Phabricator tasks for all wishes? Then people could subscribe to them and receive notifications if they are ever worked on. They would also be linked if they are ever re-proposed in a future CWS. Lectrician1 (talk) 15:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Lectrician1 Unless it is very likely to just be declined, it is probably a good idea, tag them as requests. Many of these already have phab tickets, for them you can just add them to the tracking project: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/6397/ — xaosflux ^Talk 20:18, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, there is a lot of stuff in here that will never realistically be done (impossible, or too much of the community would not agree). So do apply a bit of editorial discretion I would say. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposers voting for their own proposal

I have noticed some have voted for their own proposals, and most have not. Just one example here (the same user has done it several times). How is this going to be handled in the end? SoupePrimordiale (talk) 08:10, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@SoupePrimordiale As per the dialog shown when voting and the edit notice, a proposer's vote is automatically counted. If they add a vote anyway, it still only gets counted as one vote. We also have automation to detect duplicate votes, etc., but some of that may not be addressed until after voting ends in a few hours. Regards, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 14:48, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Column for links to Village pump discussions last 12 months

Can we add a column to the wishlist results for links to ideas, proposals, rfc in the last 12 months. It would be good to know if the community process is working and that proposals are being discussed, or whether we need to modify our process.

This 2018 WMDE white paper on wish lists proposes that we might be better off if became focused on agreeing and prioritising our core problems, and then working with WMF dev to create solutions and finding synergies/opportunities from the various problems , (Mea culpa – I hadn’t discussed my 2 proposals, but I had discussed other solutions to editor retention and reducing abuse) Wakelamp (talk) 12:59, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

(volunteer comment) I personally can't see why y'all shouldn't add information like that to the status column of the results — something like " In discussion at [[link to RfC]]"? It'd be pretty useful, but ymmv

As to your second point, "we might be better off if [we/the community] focused on agreeing and prioritising our core problems", that's an interesting idea... but how would it work? It sort of sounds like it'd be a collection of Meta RfCs for the community to agree on a "shortlist" of top-priority things? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 22:16, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion for New Process - Add un-used WMF develeopments

As part of a new process, maybe WMF should add proposals for some small stuff that WMF has already built, but we don't use, or is only used in some wikis. (Think regifting rather than a Tolkien Mathom-house.

Why? There will always be resource constraints on the wishlist, but there also seems to be a lot of things in mediawiki that we don't use/have rejected in the past (I like the side by side source/wysiwig view).This rejection may have been because of editors wanting an option for an individual preference, or WMF-editor collaboration issues, or assumptions that were false and not checked against evidence, or that tweaks were needed.

From a WMF perspective, offering these existing developments as preferences might simplfy the code base and development cycle.From a developer perspective, creating stuff that never got used must have been depressing. From our perspective, having preferences allows evolution of wikipedia based on choice, and is in line with the open source/usenet/asd/dev norms Wakelamp (talk) 13:41, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

A significant number of extensions/tools/bots etc. are surprisingly difficult to effectively measure how many people continue to use it — this ongoing usage is a key metric when reviewing our (CommTech's) ongoing maintenance, but I agree that perhaps a table like you describe, especially if built in partnership with the community, could be somewhat useful.. — TheresNoTime-WMF (talk • they/them) 22:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Larger suggestions votes should be reflected

I know that there's no appetite to work on those labeled as "larger suggestions" even before the process starts. But the results should reflect that, indeed, they do exist. Not doing it is a lack of respect to the proposals, the users and the democracy itself. Theklan (talk) 15:24, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

This should of course be the wish list by the community for the WMF, all of them. If they don't follow this instructions by their superiors, i.e. the community, they show clear disdain for the Wikiverse, the real Wikiverse, the communities, not the WMF, that's just a surrogate without inherent own raison d'etre. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 21:36, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

@Theklan: The results do reflect that the larger suggestions exist — do you mean we should make them more prominent than the mention on the results page? — TheresNoTime-WMF (talk • they/them) 22:01, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting to make them more prominent, but to add them to the results page. Exactly as prominent as all the other proposals, because we proposed, discussed and voted form them. Any other decision is against the community. Theklan (talk) 07:21, 8 March 2023 (UTC)