Topic on Talk:Wikimedia Developer Summit/2017/Topic ideas

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• +2: @Qgil-WMF
• +1: @RobLa-WMF
• -1: @Cscott
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This is the text of the "Wishlist" section of WikiDev17/Topic ideas as of this writing

Broad technical plan agreed for the hardest wishes among the Community Wishlist 2016 results.

From all the main topics proposed, this is the one that has been supported by everyone at different times. We have reflected it in the related Technical Collaboration quarterly goal (Phab:T141938). Danny Horn from the Community Tech team is on board as well.

We don't know what requests will make it to the top of the wishlist and we don't know which technical challenges will those bring, but there should be a good coverage of technical areas and skills among the Summit participants, and it is healthy to commit to prioritize those discussions whatever happens.

Let's consider this main topic selected.

I spent a lot of time reviewing the community wishlist. I don't think it's suitable as a topic without more structure. As constituted, it is an accurate reflection of the community, but that means it's a mix of "overlooked feature we could do easily", "impossible thing we don't have resources for", "not as simple as it's made out to be", "thing WMF is already actively working on", "thing that the community needs to fix itself instead of waiting for WMF", "thing we wish we could do but the board won't give us resources", etc. Just dropping the wishlist intact as a summit topic would (IMO) be opening a can of worms, since there are so many totally different challenges involved with each item, only some of which are actually engineering-related.

(As one example, I know that one funded group has been pursuing a "what's the least possible hack we could do to claim to have addressed wishlist item X" strategy, which is a top-level approach that is worth serious meta-discussion on its own.)

Some ways the "wishlist" topic could work:

1. As an format for invited talks. Solicit worked proposals and/or in-depth review of wishlist topics. If the wishlist is "something WMF has on its roadmap" this is an opportunity for the relevant team to present its roadmap. If the wishlist item is "not as simple as it's made out to be", then someone who understands the issues can present them and lead a discussion. If the wishlist item is "overlooked feature", then a presenter can make a case for prioritizing it, provide examples of its use in the community, etc.
2. As an unconference. Similar to the above, but again we'd be discussing specific wishlist items and the unconference process can do some of the work of narrowing scope.

"Just dropping the wishlist intact as a summit topic" is definitely not what this proposal is about. By the beginning of the Summit the Community Tech team will have decided the top tasks that they will focus on. Some of those tasks might be straightforward ("just work") while others might need deeper and wider discussion on existing platform limitations, different possible implementations, etc. Those are the discussions we want to have at the Summit.

There might be also discussions more meta about the Community Wishlist itself, i.e. how to make progress in the rest of tasks out of the scope of the Community Tech team (hackathons, outreach programs, Foundation team's goals, 20% projects...), how to improve survey/voting system itself, etc.

Ping @DHorn (WMF) because he is the ultimate owner of this main topic.

The title of this main topic could be "A plan for the Community Wishlist 2016 top results".

I like this idea, but wasn't this already the topic of a conference this year? :D Wikimedia Hackathon 2016

Not exactly. We are encouraging developers to *work* on Community Wishlist projects in every hackathon we organize. At the Summit, we want to identify technical obstacles to solve the top Wishlist requests and have a plan for them (so the Community Tech team and others can start working on them).