Latest comment: 8 years ago12 comments2 people in discussion
Changes only relevant for one language or one wiki. There are easier ways of getting that information out than putting it in a movement-wide newsletter translated to ~15 languages.
Are you going to suggest this as a sort of rule from now on? While I get the logic behind the fact that it just doesn't make sense to talk about something only happening on one of our 900 wikis, OTOH it can't be denied that some wikis are exceptional in size or community activity. Because of its influence, for example, I think it may make sense to use TN to communicate about a change which affects the English Wikipedia (such as a product getting launched there, even if just for a group of users). Of course this is a double edged sword, but usually the argument "X Wikipedia now does/uses Y, why don't we do the same?" encourages adoption of new products/features, by allowing people to know of other fellow Wikimedians to consult in case of doubts or to get tips. (Also, TN gets mirrored from time to time in the Signpost, and it'd probably be too much of a burden for those editors to go and trace tech stuff which actually matters to the English community, but which was left out for some reason?) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
This is less me trying to make up new rules and more writing down my understanding of what Tech News is and what we put in it, from the months I've been working on it and my conversations with Quiddity, Trizek and, mainly, guillom. I've attempted to follow this the entire time, and guillom said he's more or less been keeping to it, but with occasional exceptions.
To clarify – and I'll see if I can do so on the page as well, not just here – if a new feature is available on a specific wiki and others could use it to, I definitely think it could make sense to put it in the newsletter, but with more focus on "you can now use this on your wiki if you'd like to import it/turn it on" rather than "this is now happening in X Wikipedia". Recent examples have been things like "this happened on German Wikipedia this week, but will soon be coming to other wikis". If someone marks something for inclusion in Tech News and I think it's relevant for users of a particular wiki but not for the newsletter, I try to make sure they are reached somehow, making sure they know how to get the word out on e.g. a Village Pump or something like that. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 9 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Non-technical changes. Very little that happens in the Wikimedia world is more than one step removed from being technical. We are a collection of websites. However, this also means that once we stop defining technical change as something that is technical in itself, rather than something that can lead to technical change, we lose much of the definition that separates Tech News from being a general Wikimedia newsletter.
Another good example would be the ED of the organization stepping down. It's certainly news. But if that is technical, is there anything within the movement that isn't? /Johan (WMF) (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Fancy things related to the Wikimedia sphere that don't really affect reading, editing or developing. A good example would be Listen to Wikipedia, to the sound of which more than one issue of Tech News has been written.
"Fancy things" is perhaps not the best description, but external tools could affect editing, and in that case they could absolutely be included. What I'm trying to get at here is really tools like Listen to Wikipedia or Wikispeed (and I love both of them). /Johan (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 9 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Small changes with very little effect on Wikimedians.
Again, examples? There can easily be changes which technically affect just one community, but which may have more global, "philosophical" repercussions, and this is not always understandable from Phab tasks (related conversations happen mostly elsewhere. I think Yandex for CX is the example I have in mind). Adding a product to the Beta tab may have "very little effect on Wikimedians". Sunsetting an extension may be a small change. We just need to find good compromises between the need to inform people, the need to avoid overwhelming people with things they don't care about, and the need to be transparent about what happens. In my experience, even big changes can go unnoticed, but we should always avoid the suspicion that we didn't communicate about them precisely to avoid comments, especially negative ones, to be blockers for our work. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
I'm mainly thinking about really small changes in how already existing things work or in the UI, rather than small technical changes that signify something bigger, and to be honest, maybe Tech News should be better at not including some of these than it currently is. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 9 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
