Wikimedia Engineering/2016-17 Q2 Goals
Purpose of this document: Goals for the Wikimedia Technology and Product Development department, for the second quarter of fiscal year 2016–17 (October 2016 – December 2016). The goal setting process owner in each section is the person responsible for coordinating completion of the section, in partnership with the team and relevant stakeholders.
Status fields can use the following templates: 
In progress, 
To do, 
Postponed, 
Done or 
Partially done
ETA fields may use the initialism EOQ (End of Quarter).
The Product department, alongside the community, builds, improves and maintains the user facing features on all the Wikimedia projects. The software, interfaces, apps, and other systems and applications the team supports are essential means by which contributors and readers connect with our sites. The work of the team’s three “audience” groupings – Discovery, Editing, and Reading – is interrelated and enables a channel for progressive engagement with the users of the Wikimedia projects.
Our mission is to make the wealth of knowledge and content in the Wikimedia projects easily discoverable.
| Team | Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search
Goal setting process owner: Dan Garry |
Enable the backend for cross-project searching from Wikipedias to their sister projects |
|
|
EOQ | Done
|
| Enrich the data stored in ElasticSearch to allow targeted improvements to result relevance |
|
— | EOQ | Done (except for all spaceless languages, e.g. zh)
| |
| Interactive team
Goal setting process owner: Yuri Astrakhan |
Increase maps and graphs usage on Wikipedia |
|
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| Enable shareable Geoshapes and Tabular data storage on Commons |
|
|
EOQ | In progress
|
Wikidata Query Service will not have any dedicated goals this quarter. The service will continue to be maintained by Stas and Guillaume, and Stas will work on user feature requests as time permits. Additionally, the dedicated hardware for the service will be upgraded to support the continued growth and use of the service.
Wikipedia.org will not have any dedicated goals this quarter. Per Katie's email to the Discovery mailing list, Jan will continue to maintain the page by fixing critical bugs and performing regular statistics updates. No other work on the page is planned in Q2. The Services Team is planning on prototyping a version of wikipedia.org which uses service workers; this should increase the performance and decrease the data usage of the page, and allow some content on the page to be accessible offline, whilst having minimal or no impact on the user interface and experience of the portal.
Goal setting process owner: User:Trevor Parscal (WMF)
The Editing Department build collaborative, inclusive tools for creating and editing free knowledge.
Also see the more detailed version of these goals and Program 4 of the Annual Plan
| Annual Goal | Team | Objective | Output (deliverable) | Outcome | Dependencies | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1: Maintain and incrementally improve current content creation and curation interfaces | VisualEditor | Iterate on the New Wikitext Editor Beta Feature | Add features to the new wikitext editor, such as auto-saved drafts, and prepare for rollout to wikis on desktop and mobile. | Editors have a unified, consistent editing interface between mobile and desktop Web, and between visual and wikitext editors. |
|
EOQ | Done (more coming)
|
| 2: Improve editing experience by reducing technical and product debt | Parsing | Remove Tidy dependency from MediaWiki output | Deploy (disabled by default) Tidy replacement service and deploy ParserMigration extension in production. | Editors can compare output of a page with Tidy and with its replacement service. |
|
EOQ | Not done (delayed)
|
| Multimedia | Improve architecture of rich media file annotations | Integrate multi-content revision system to allow annotations to be used outside the file page. | Users are supplied with relevant data, tags and other information as they see media files. |
|
EOQ | Not done (delayed)
| |
| UI Standardization | Apply and refine the style guide | Apply and refine the overhauled style guidelines in current Editing products and in parts of MediaWiki core. | Users have a unified, easier-to-use interface and time-saving front-end implementation. |
|
EOQ | Done (more coming)
| |
| 3: Invest in new types of content creation, and new forms of curation and collaboration tools | Collaboration | Provide an edit-review process suited to the needs of new contributors | Add ORES good-faith and damaging tests, optimized ORES data display, new filtering UI and a new user filter to the recent changes page. | Reviewers will gain insight into contributors’ intentions and be able to identify damaging but good-faith edits by new users. Also, a Beta release will yield user response information. |
|
EOQ | Not done (delayed)
|
| Language | Stabilize Content Translation for going out of beta | Support for block and inline templates
Users are shown an indication when templates cannot be adapted. Editing mode for block level templates |
Content Translation is more stable in terms of publishing articles with templates, requiring less maintenance work from patrollers. | — | EOQ | Done (more coming)
|
Goal setting process owner: User:Khorn_(WMF)
| Objective | Key result | Dependencies | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fix bugs and prep for Big English |
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Mid November | Done
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| Cross Training with Operations (Jeff Green) |
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EOQ | Partially done. Kicked off new hire. |
| Support Big English |
|
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EOQ | Done
|
This is still very much a draft. We plan to coordinate with Advancement on the details of high priority english campaign support. Also this is a very randomizing time for us. We plan to wait until the last week of September to form full bug lists and plans.
Also, starting in mid-October, we will begin a code freeze for all our major systems. Anything that has a chance of endangering the english campaign will wait until January. This may mean that other cross team projects or coordination will be largely on hold.
| Team | Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web | Increase learning by lowering cost of exploration | Refine hovercards feature and remove all known blockers for moving from beta to stable |
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| iOS | Enable location based exploration and search. | Add a Nearby tab (similar to Android) with map based search and browsing functionality. |
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Update: Q3 | In progress
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| Android | Open up a new and simple way for readers to start contributing, and reinforce the idea that Wikipedia articles are editable by anyone. | Enable editing of Wikidata descriptions from the app. |
|
EOQ | In progress
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| New Readers | Collect feedback on direction and implementation of proposed user-facing software changes from both potential end-users and community members. | Deliver a wrap up report of the feedback that was received and the changes that were made as a result. |
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| Reading Infrastructure | Bolster MediaWiki API consumer (apps, bots, mashups, etc.) ability to obtain key revision quality and pageview stats | MediaWiki API endpoints are available and operate at scale for: | Research (ORES), Analytics | EOQ | To do
|
| Mobile content service | Notify users that Wikipedia has the background info on the latest current events | Deploy real time Trending Page API based on the number of edits performed by users |
|
EOQ | In progress
|
Goal setting process owner: Danny Horn
Team focused on meeting the needs of active Wikimedia contributors for improved, expert-focused curation and moderation tools.
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Increase core contributors' productivity | Build a proof-of-concept version of Cross-wiki watchlist (#4 on wishlist), to determine the hardware requirements for the finished tool |
|
EOQ | To do
|
| Help program leaders to organize and manage their programs | Make UI improvements to WMF's Programs & Events Dashboard |
|
EOQ | Done
|
| Improve the contribution workflow for an underserved Wikimedia project/language | Deploy a tool to use Google OCR service for Indic language Wikisources | EOQ | Done
| |
| Include Wikimedia communities in goal development and prioritization | Conduct 2016 Community Wishlist Survey, in collaboration with contributors from all Wikimedia projects | EOQ | Done
| |
| Reduce barriers for new volunteer developers | Extend Striker to help new developers create an LDAP account and manage their SSH keys, removing barriers in the new account creation process |
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| Improve workflows for Tool Labs developers | Define evaluation criteria for evaluating Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions |
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| Encourage community maintenance of important tools | Develop a takeover policy for abandoned tools, in collaboration with the Tool Labs community |
|
EOQ | Done
|
| Measure success of Tool Labs changes over the last 12 months | Run a second annual Tool Labs user survey and analyze the results |
|
EOQ | Done
|
Goal setting process owner: Kristen Lans
The Team Practices Group (TPG) supports the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) teams in their continual improvement.
Mission: TPG believes that healthy teams reliably deliver customer value and innovative products. Through dedicated resourcing, coaching, and workshops at the Wikimedia Foundation, we facilitate the use of practices that support team health, with a strong emphasis on creating conditions of clarity, trust, and continuous improvement.
Note: our team is piloting a prototype goals template.
| Goal 1: Maintain the quality of our services across embedded teams that we support | |||
| What is your objective / workflow? | Who are you working with? | What impact / deliverables are you expecting? | Status |
| Work with teams requesting embedded TPG support |
|
Maintain average net promoter score of 40 or greater across embedded teams.
We also aim to learn from open-ended feedback from customers. |
Done
|
| Goal 2: Ensure high-quality of service to Light Engagement customers | |||
| Work with teams requesting lightweight coaching or workshops |
|
Establish baseline metrics for Light Engagements:
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Done
|
| Goal 3: Work with Design-related roles and stakeholders to improve collaboration | |||
| Iterative and incremental cross-team and organizational collaboration improvements |
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Design Statement of Purpose Phase 2:
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Partially done
|
Wikidata
[edit]Goal Setting and process owner is Lydia Pintscher.
Wikidata is Wikimedia's structured data project and knowledge base. Our goal is to support all the other Wikimedia projects with structured data and provide a top-notch knowledge base to everyone who needs structured data about the world.
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UI Improvements
We will continue to evolve the user interface based on results of usability testing, user feedback and trends in our larger ecosystem. |
|
EOQ | In progress | |
| Wikimedia Commons build out
In 2015 the Wikidata development team and the WMF Multimedia team have started working on improving Wikimedia Commons infrastructure by providing it with structured data support. This work will continue in 2016 / 2017. The end result will be a good technical foundation to store metadata related to multimedia files in a structured and machine-readable way. This will allow many future innovations like multilingual search and display of file information, easier license compliant re-use of our content and a richer multimedia experience on Wikipedia. We're making progress towards that goal. |
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Q4 | In progress |
| ArticlePlaceholder
Some of our small projects struggle to provide their readers with the information they are searching for because they lack manpower. The ArticlePlaceholder can help those projects. When searching for a concept that is not covered by an article on the project the reader will be shown a quick overview of the information available on Wikidata about this concept. The reader will also be invited to start writing an article. |
|
Wikipedia Communities (small WP) | EOQ | Done |
| Automated list generation
Wikipedias have a lot of list articles like the list of space missions. They are currently maintained and updated by hand. With Wikidata we can provide the means to automatically generate them based on data in Wikidata while still giving the editors full control. This activity depends on the Wikidata Query Service currently in development together with WMF. |
|
Input from Discovery team | Q4 | In progress |
| Unit conversion & new data types
The height a mountain and other measurements can be entered in Wikidata. The editor can specify it using the unit given in the original source of the data point. However, to be able to meaningfully query all this data and for example get a list of the ten highest mountains, these data points need to be converted to a base unit. We will make this possible and provide converted data to the Wikidata Query Service. |
New datatypes:
Unit conversion
|
Input & Implementation supported by Discovery team | Q4 |
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| Extend and Implement data partnership process with community
Data from external sources becomes increasingly important as Wikidata grows. Data donations enrich not just Wikidata, but are then also availible to generate more content in Wikimedia sister projects. From the external perspective, WMDE has the opportunity to grow Wikidata’s reach, relevance and usability for partners and institutions beyond the Wikimedia projects. |
|
Wikidata community | EOQ | In progress |
Technology
[edit]Goal setting process owner: Nuria Ruiz
These goals are preliminary until the end of September 2016, they are on priority order
Feedback can be sent to analytics@lists.wikimedia.org (public e-mail list)
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | Outcome/Rationale/Value Proposition | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Productionize Druid Pageview Pipeline and UI (pivot) on Druid task T138261 | Easy access for WMF-internal users to Druid query UI. Users can get to pageview data without having to write SQL | Security, Operations | Carry on from LAST quarter | Done
|
| Operational Excellence |
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Operations | Set of tasks needed to keep lights up and update/upgrade existing systems to maintain and improve current level of service | |
| Count Pageviews for all wikis. task T130249 | Outreach wiki and others will be able to easily retrieve pageviews from pageview API | Done
| ||
| Wikistats 2.0 (ongoing goal). ticket task T130256. | * Replacing edit metrics in dashiki with data from new edit data depot task T143924 | Enables Easy consumption of edit data. At this time consuming edit data from database or dumps is cumbersome | Done
| |
| Public Event Stream (ongoing goal). Details: here task T130651 | Productionization of POC that happen last quarter task T143925 | Not done
| ||
| A/B testing framework design doc. task T135762 | Contingent on traffic's team avaialability | Not done
|
Goal-setting process owner: Rob Lanphier
| Objective | Key result | Dependencies | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WikiDev17 - Represent ArchCom on the WikiDev17 Planning Committee | WikiDev17 that improves on WikiDev16 | Community Engineering, Product, Technology | EOQ | To do
|
| Wikitext - Work with Parsing team on making the Wikitext spec clearer for wider interoperability, helping with complicated i18n issues | Ability to eventually deploy VisualEditor to all wikis, and having wider understanding of how Wikitext works | Parsing, Language | EOQ | To do
|
Goal-setting process owner: Ori Livneh
Speed is Wikipedia's killer feature. ("Wiki" means "quick" in Hawaiian.) As the Wikimedia Foundation’s Performance team, we want to create value for readers and editors by making it possible to retrieve and render content at the speed of thought, from anywhere in the world, on the broadest range of devices and connection profiles.
The following is a summary of the Performance Team Goals.
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Thumbor deployment |
|
Operations | EOQ | Not done (partially done)
|
| Active/Active datacenters |
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Design | EOQ | Not done (partially done)
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| Save time performance |
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EOQ | Done
| |
| Front-end performance |
|
EOQ | Done
| |
| ResourceLoader | Improve stability.
Add support for modular package loading. - task T133462 |
EOQ | Not done
|
Goal setting process owner: Greg Grossmeier
All tracked in: #releng-201617-q2 - More details at Wikimedia Release Engineering Team/Goals/201617Q2
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | Team members | ETA | Status | KPI (if applicable) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Address Technical Debt | Continuous Integration
|
Ops (advice) |
|
EOQ | Done
|
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Deployment tooling (Train 2.0)
|
Ops (puppet) |
|
EOQ | Done
|
||
| Release MediaWiki 1.28 | A quality MediaWiki 1.28 is successfully released - task T148087 |
|
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End of November | Done
|
In Wikimedia Research we use qualitative and quantitative methods to provide strategic insights and technological solutions to the movement and the Foundation, to foster innovation and to inform the development of new products.
Research & Data
[edit]Goal setting process owner: Dario Taraborelli [ Wikimedia Research goals overview ]
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FOCUS |
|
EOQ | In progress
| |
| FOCUS |
|
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| FOCUS |
|
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| FOCUS |
|
|
EOQ | In progress
|
| EXPERIMENT
Stub recommendation |
|
|
EOQ | In progress
|
Design Research
[edit]Goal setting process owner: Abbey Ripstra [ Wikimedia Research goals overview ]
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FOCUS
New Reader research |
|
|
end of Q2 | Done
|
| FOCUS
New editor support |
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end of Q2 | In progress
| |
| STRENGTHEN
Design Research policy updates |
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mid Q2 | Done
| |
| EXPERIMENT
Persona development |
|
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end of Q2 | Done
|
Goal setting process owner: Darian Patrick
More details at Wikimedia Security Team/Goals 2016-2017#Q2_.28Oct-Dec_2016.29
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Continue Security Team hiring process | Increase team capacity | Input from interview team | EOQ | Not done
|
| Onboard new Security Team members | Increase team capacity | Hiring completion | EOQ | Not done
|
| Improve automated scanning implementation | Increased utility of existing tools | Onboarding (unit on automated scanning) | EOQ | In progress
|
Goal setting process owner: Gabriel Wicke
| Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliably process events with EventBus & ChangeProp infrastructure. |
|
Reading, Collaboration, Discovery | EOQ | Done |
| Provide infrastructure for ServiceWorker web frontend with support for offline, poor connectivity & caching of authenticated requests. |
|
Performance, Reading | EOQ | Done |
Under consideration:
- Protect sensitive user information (auth / sessions): Depends on outcome of discussion with operations.
- Productize PDF render service: On track for deployment towards end of Q1, likely little work in Q2.
| Team | Objective | Key result | Dependency | ETA | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Ops |
Experiment with Kubernetes for services in production |
|
EOQ | Done
| |
|
Replace Ganglia with Prometheus |
|
EOQ | Done
| ||
|
Labs |
Upgrade Labs DB replica service and introduce High Availability |
|
Core Ops (DBAs) |
EOQ | Done
|
| Traffic |
Finish Varnish 4 migration |
EOQ | Done
| ||
|
Complete a valid, workable design for a standardized A/B test infrastructure |
Analytics | EOQ | Not done
|