Wikipedia talk:Bay Area WikiSalon May 2019

Where's my invite?

Has this been publicized? Nothing on my Talk page yet. @Ben Creasy, Nikikana, and Slaporte: Mathglot (talk) 21:58, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, can you expose a link to the invite template on the project page, so that those coming to the page can pick up the template, and invite others manually? If there's no template, and it's a bot, can you publish the invite text someplace and link to that as copypasta; thanks. Mathglot (talk) 22:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I'll assume good faith and imagine that you didn't intend your message to be as rude as it sounds. As you can probably see from the page, I created it - and not sending the 'invites' is probably my mistake. I don't know how to steer through that mechanism. If anyone else does, please know that your help would be appreciated. effeietsanders 03:10, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders: Hi, nice to "meet" you. I'm a regular attendee, and normally I hear well in advance, and I meant this as a heads-up to let folks know in case there was some glitch in the sending mechanism. I look forward to meeting you.

Regarding rudeness, I'm sorry it came across that way to you. I had another look at my message, and honestly, I came up blank. If you could let me know, though, what you found rude, I will make a concerted effort to change whatever it was that offended you. From my PoV, the first sentence of my message was informative, in order to help ensure the group's message gets out, as it would be a shame if you threw a party and nobody came. The second sentence, was an offer to help publicize it; I already have one person in mind that I'd like to notify. If there is no template, then I'll just compose a message myself, and invite them, or if I can find the sign-up page, I'll point them at it. Also, I had no idea who created the page, and just assumed it was Ben or Wayne. How would you reword my message, in order to convey those two messages in a way that comes across as polite to you? Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 03:24, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Hello all, I was just responding simultaneous with @Effeietsanders: - Hello @Mathglot: - this has been publicized via the Wikimedia-SF mailing list, our internal mailing list, and we have requested a Geonotice. We have not been doing mass messages on talk pages for the last few salons, and will consider reviving that. At this time we do not have an invite template, at least not one that I can find. I can't discern if you are offering to make an invite template for the event - in which case, I'd say please do and thank you! I'm personally not familiar with the invite/mass message process, but I did find an invite list from a previous BAWS mass message which we could use for this or future mass message invites, here. Thanks for your support of the salons and desire to help spread the word. Nikikana (talk) 03:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Nikikana, I was really only looking for the invite text in order to copy/paste it to a user I think would be interested, but since you mentioned creating a template, we could talk about that. I looked at a bunch of past messages , and they change quite a bit; it might be hard to define a more or less stable core, and a set of varying parameters to customize it month to month, but if we can do that, I can create a template for it. Let's take that up somewhere else, draft space? or suggest a location. Mathglot (talk) 03:55, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi Mathglot, I'm honestly not familiar enough with templates and such to really advise on this - let's discuss in person at the salon with some of the other organizers to define the stable core, I think this would be really helpful. Thanks! Nikikana (talk) 04:07, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Also really appreciate your reply to the rudeness comment and willingness to open dialogue about how things are interpreted and could be rephrased (especially given that the topic of this month's salon is talk pages and communication!) From my perspective, the phrasing of message 1 could be revised as follows to come across more politely: Subject: Talk Page invite? Message: "Has this been publicized? I don't see anything on my Talk Page, and wanted to let you know in case you had meant to send a message." - it's subtle but makes an impact cause it's clear that the inquiry comes from a place of mutual concern and not accusation. The subject line of "Where's my invite?" came across to me as demanding and accusatory, leading me to feel defensive, like waving my hands in the air and sighing "give us a break! we are all volunteers trying to do the best we can". Message 2 seems fine to me. Thanks again for caring enough to respond and welcome this dialogue! Nikikana (talk) 04:07, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Nikikana, thanks for that, and yes I can see your perspective. Tl;dr: Different cultures value short summary lines differently from others; cultures clash, toes are stepped on. Succinct and informative to one, is abrupt and offensive to another.

Long version: I come from a background of corporate tech culture where everybody is busy, and their time is valuable. People tear their hair out, getting long emails which never get to the point, headed by a subject line that says, "Request for information", which, from a purely information-theoretic viewpoint, gives almost no information. The ability to distill an email or document into a short, pithy summary line of just a few words, is highly prized; this gives managers the ability to just scan down the list of subject lines, and pick out the ones that are worth reading, or need to be read first. (People who use Phabricator are no doubt familiar with this syndrome.) A subject line of "Talk Page invite?" is pretty good, as it gets about 1/2 or 2/3 of the message through, although it might also be a request to reword it, or ask what it meant. The intent of "Where's my invite?" was to provide a very brief subject line that can be read in one gulp, so that the "managers" (Ben, Wayne, you, Stephen, whoever) can actually get all the information you need to know directly from the subject line, without actually having to read the message at all.

I'm picturing Ben reading a ToC page or summary list and seeing, "Where's my invite?" and before even reading my message, thinking to himself, "Oh, no, did the invites go out?" and switching to another app on his monitor, to quickly verify if they did or they didn't. I picture him having his response ready, following his little investigation, before actually reading my message, and then just glancing/speed-reading it while responding, to make sure I didn't include something in the text of my message not implied by the heading line. So, that's where I come from, with email subject lines, and Talk page section headers.

An example of the almost direct opposite of this, is the ToC section at the Wiki Ed folks' Talk pages, whose section headers are triggered, I believe, by a template available to WikiEd students, and whose summary line output I find almost completely useless: see here, for example. I would tear my hair out, to see that as my ToC every morning. For me, those titles, "Need help request, from..." which in conversational polite society, would be deemed polite, are the height of rudeness to me, because they are disrespectful of my time, as I have to click every one and read it, before I can even triage them. I think this is a matter of differing technological cultures, and people who have different backgrounds, will not interpret it the same way. When I was in the thick of it, it was not unusual to have many dozens of emails waiting every morning, and a hundred was possible. What I want for the subject line, is precise, highly informative, distinctive (different from all the other messages), and brief. Having read your and Effeietsander's response I'll have a think whether there's a middle ground, but up to now, I haven't had much, or any, pushback on it at Talk pages on Wikipedia, as far as I can recall.

I look forward to hearing the talk about this month's topic regarding Talk page communication! Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 04:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your consideration and I do appreciate you bringing it to our attention. I thought it better to be up front about how your message got across (I hear a lot of people privately complain about rudeness - I imagine regularly unknown to those who sent the message). I'm pretty sure we must have met at some point btw, not sure which face to connect to the name though :) effeietsanders 05:04, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I definitely appreciate your raising the issue; it's a gift you have given. See you there, perhaps? I'll be the one wearing egg on my face. mvg, Mathglot (talk) 05:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Mathglot (talk · contribs) "...switching to another app on his monitor, to quickly verify if they did or they didn't..." - if only. Our system isn't all that sophisticated. Seems like there's a demand for an app to manage / automate all the different channels for advertising an event (if you recommend one, let me know) but I don't think I'll be building it. I don't know much about talk page invites. CheckingFax (talk · contribs) was putting the lion's share of the effort there, and we're figuring out how to do without the amazing energy. And I don't really have capacity to step up my efforts. Many hands make light work, as they say, if there's interest in helping out... Ben Creasy (talk) 06:10, 29 April 2019 (UTC)