Talk:2012 Five Year Plan/First draft/Counterproposal

I've rewritten this a lot to reflect where I think our priorities should be a little different from those you had before. Edit away if you think I'm wrong or could be improved.

Thanks for contributing! I think you need to be a bit more specific, long lists (particularly of things that we may or may not do - this is a plan, not a brainstorm, so let's actually decide what we want to do) aren't particularly useful. We need SMART targets. --Tango (talk) 22:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm a little wary of making a plan before we have brainstormed the options (and by we I mean more than just me and you) and it's hard to set SMART criteria until you have a plan. Filceolaire (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we should brainstorm here, on the talk page, and then we can transfer things across once they are agreed. --Tango (talk) 11:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Brainstorm, with targets, added. Now how do we get this reviewed? Should we just move it to the article page as it is and work on it there? Filceolaire (talk) 23:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Cultural Partnerships

Should this be one of our priorities for the next five years? What should our target be? Proposed targets

In five years time there should be one thousand organisations large and small in the UK who have declared themselves friends of Wikipedia and have had at least one training session or editathon. WMUK should undertake or support whatever organisational and/or software development, is needed to support this objective. Filceolaire (talk) 23:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

WMUK should work with volunteers in other countries to help them develop similar links to at least one thousand organisations outside the UK. Filceolaire (talk) 23:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Software development

Should this be one of our priorities for the next five years? Filceolaire (talk) 23:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

What is the best way to choose which project to back? Filceolaire (talk) 23:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposal software development should be limited to programs which support the other strategic objectives as these requirements are identified over the five years. Filceolaire (talk) 23:30, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Free school textbooks

A project to develop freely licensed teaching materials for schools adressing all the major items in the UK schools curriculum.

This would have a significant effect on the country. It could be replicated and spread to other countries.

It could leverage the work already done in Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Wikiversity.

It could attract new editors. Filceolaire (talk) 23:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed targets

Produce a 'Good' Wikipedia article and a good Wikiversity teaching guide page on each of the topics in the syllabus for England and Wales, for Scotland, for Northern Ireland for Kindergarden to GCSE level.

Begin translating these into the other languages of the UK.

Begin developing content for A-level and Undergraduate courses.

Inspire people to develop innovative new ways to deliver this content to children.

Within five years similar projects have begun in twenty other countries.

Oral history project

A project to encourage people to record the reminiscences of witnesses to history, speakers of dieing languages, keepers of folk traditions.

It could leverage the work done in dozens of existing oral history projects around the country.

It could encourage schools and school children to participate in Wikimedia.

It could encourage custodians of existing archives of recordings (the BBC Mass History project, the English Folk Dance and Song society) to release these. Filceolaire (talk) 23:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed target

Develop guidelines (selecting subjects, lighting, sound, staging, which questions) for recordings.

Five thousand hours of new recordings uploaded to wikimedia in five years

Five thousand hours of existing recording by other uploaded within five years.

One hundred schools and other organisations working to find subjects and make recordings for us.

A Great War project

The hundredth anniversary of the 1914-1918 war is coming up and will start during the next five years. Should WMUK have a special project tied to it? Filceolaire (talk) 21:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

We have one! See World War I - currently a budget of £30k with several major institutions involved. Richard Symonds (talk) 09:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought there was something. Can someone who knows more about it write it up as a programme objective for the five year plan with five year (or even 6 year if it goes to 2018) targets? Filceolaire (talk) 10:30, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

That might be too specific for a 5 year plan. It's not really a strategic goal, it's just a particular programme that we are working on. It probably is worth outlining a long term plan for the whole anniversary period, rather than just doing it a year at a time, but I would do that separately from the 5 year plan. --Tango (talk) 12:10, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm definitely keen to have WWI activity lasting over a 5-year period - and there is the potential to do it, as well. But any plan we write at this level of detail will be immensely speculative, too speculative in my view. PS Filceolaire - do sign up for the Editathon :-) The Land (talk) 21:03, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

We have committed to spend £30k to a project and you can't even tell me what it's trying to do? Surely not. Could somebody outline a possible 6 year plan building on what has been planned for this year? Maybe looking at integrating what's agreed for this year into a wider more strategic long term objective. If this project does not feed into wider strategic goals then we should probably not be doing it and we should shut it down now.

Once again I repeat. I'm worried that we are spending £30k on something and three senior WMUKians think it's ok that no one seems able to summarise what we are trying to achieve with that money. (PS The Land - I haven't signed up for the editathon because I felt I haven't any expertise on this bit of history to contribute) Filceolaire (talk) 00:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The 30k is just for this year. I think there is a decent plan for what to do this year with it. What we're talking about here is a longer term plan (and longer term budget?) rather than just doing it one year at a time. --Tango (talk) 11:20, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I was perhaps a bit harsh above. Sorry. I actually believe the World War 1 project probably is worth while and does serve WMUKs strategic objectives. I'm just surprised that you guys were claiming that it wasn't practical to articulate how it is worth while and how it could integrate into a longer programme. Is it that your vision of the five year plan is a set of more general 'motherhood and apple pie' goals like the WMF strategy - stable infrastructure/more editors/more readers/better content and shouldn't include more specific details (though the infrastructure but is pretty specific). If a plan for building on this years World War I project over the next five years doesn't belong in the five year plan then what does? Filceolaire (talk) 11:40, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I think this plan should be our five or six top priorities for the next 5 years. I think the WWI project is important, but I don't think it is one of the top five or six priorities. That doesn't mean it won't fit into the plan - we'll certainly have at least one priority that is about developing content (possibly more than one) and the WWI project can be one of the ways we can achieve that priority (it can even be explicitly mentioned as such in the plan), but I don't think it should be a priority in itself. --Tango (talk) 12:23, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Something else?

Can anyone come up with another major free culture project we could tackle.

Yes intangible cultural heritage across the whole of the UK. Festivals, campaigns, folk music, oral tradition the whole kit and caboodle. This was a key part of my negotiations with Museums Galleries Scotland, but raises interesting issues on how Wikipedia might not be suitable for material about modern intangible heritage with issues of notability, media sensitivity and how to handle primary sources such as interviews with festival participants. Such a complex programme could provide a wealth of new material for Commons, illustrations and supporting evidence for Wikipedia and provide fresh challenges of considering how to handle constraints of no-derivatives for culturally sensitive material (such as recent videos of children performing traditional dances). --Fæ (talk) 22:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Wow. Yes. This is a bit like the Oral History thing above but much better. Filceolaire (talk) 00:54, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Infrastructure, finance, membership

I don't think that targets for membership numbers or staff numbers or even money raising are particularily SMART. They can become an end in themselves. My proposal:

Proposed targets

Over the next five years develop WMUK in whatever way is neccessary to support the programmes above. Filceolaire (talk) 23:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

That's not specific or measurable. Also, the main purpose of the infrastructure is to support programmes beyond the next 5 years. --Tango (talk) 00:06, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not meant to be specific or measurable. The specific and measurable targets are all above related to our mission. The success of the organisation is measured purely by how well it supports the mission targets. Plans for expansion etc. are year to year tactical plans prepared by the CE and are not part of the five year strategic plan. Filceolaire (talk) 06:11, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that is a short-sighted approach. Just as you didn't start paid employment as soon as you could walk, but rather spent the first couple of decades of your life in education since that would allow you to be more productive when considered over your whole life, we should do much the same. We should spend our youth developing what we need in order to be as productive as possible in the long-term. We shouldn't neglect programmes entirely for five years, obviously, but developing infrastructure should still be a priority. --Tango (talk) 08:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

My problem with that is that the type of organisation you decide to build will end up driving what type of programme objectives you pursue. I think we should start by picking the programme objectives (Strategy) we want to achieve in five years and use that to help us decide what infrastructure we want to build next year (tactics). Filceolaire (talk) 18:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Things like a diverse revenue stream and good governance are things all successful charities need, regardless of what type of programmes they pursue. --Tango (talk) 19:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I expect that after the whole exercise we will circle back to an infrastructure plan very similar to this one because most of us have got a similar strategic vision of what WMUK is for at the back of our minds even if we haven't articulated it yet. I just think we should articulate it first then go back to the infrastructure tactical plan after. Filceolaire (talk) 21:37, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Reorganise this page

This page s a bit of a mix of draft content and discussion. Should we move the draft content to the main page and just keep the discussion here. Filceolaire (talk) 11:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything on this page that is currently in a form ready to go into a draft plan. At the moment, it's just brainstorming. If you look at the priorities I put in the draft, you'll see they start with a description of the current situation and why it needs to change. They talk a bit about how it should change. Then there are some SMART targets, divided into 1, 3 and 5 years. I think that is the format the draft need to be in. Just adding vague brainstorming to the draft won't help anything because it will just need to be rewritten later. --Tango (talk) 12:28, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Jon Davies

Some really useful ideas here that I will incorporate into the third version of the plan. And of course in line with the old joke, in retrospect 'I wouldn't have started from here'...my attempt at a simple chart was too constraining.

The one thing I wanted to avoid (and I have been involved in plans that took taxis to deliver in the past) is making it so overwhelmingly detailed and long that we lose sight of the overall vision.

So, what with the ideas I expect to get from the AGM, quite a challenge to come up with a five year plan that has enough detail in it to create a clear framework but isn't trying to pin down every detail of every project.

Thanks for the support - the criticism I can cope with.

Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 09:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)