What?
- The Campaigns team would like to build a designated place in the wikis for pages that are for events.
What does the future look like if this is achieved?
- The Campaigns team is proposing that we create two new namespaces in MediaWiki, which will be called “Event” and “Event Talk.” There are currently multiple namespaces in the wikis (for example, there are 28 in English Wikipedia, and there are 36 on Meta-Wiki).
- Implementation task (blocked pending outreach/review): T296280
- The new namespace will be the default place for event pages. We want a way to easily determine what is an ‘event’ page, so that we can:
- Add registration to event pages (and avoid adding it to inappropriate pages, such as article pages).
- Display all events in an event calendar in the future.
- Efficiently determine how many events are going on in the movement.
- Note: Some of these items can also be achieved with some kind of opt-in process which transforms a page into an event page, but this is out-of-scope for the MVP.
- We want to make it easier for everyone to know what is an event page vs. another kind of page in the movement, since right now event pages often look the same as article pages.
- We want to highlight the fact that event engagement (whether it’s organizing events, participating in events, promoting events, etc) is a form of movement activity, and that someone can be an impactful Wikimedian in more ways than just contributing to the wikis.
What happens if we do nothing?
- Without a designated namespace for events:
- There would be no mechanism to stop contributors from adding our event registration tools to inappropriate pages, such as article pages.
- Creating an event page would require an additional step to transform it into an actual event page recognized by our extension.
- It would be more difficult to find and display all events in an event calendar in the future.
- It would be more difficult to determine how many events are going on in the movement.
- It would be more difficult for everyone to know what is an event page vs. another kind of page in the movement, since right now event pages often look the same as article pages.
Why?
User Value/Organization Value AND Objective it supports and How
- Grow in Underserved Communities (T-GUC): New Contributors in underserved communities will feel welcomed and successful and continue to contribute over time.
- Team Objective 1 (Q3 21-22): The team begins developing an event platform, so that organizers can have simplified workflows and create more impactful events.
- K1: Engineers have determined the short-term architectural approach for MVP and have started to build V0.
- Team Objective 1 (Q3 21-22): The team begins developing an event platform, so that organizers can have simplified workflows and create more impactful events.
Why are you bringing this decision to the Technical Forum?
- While adding new namespaces isn't necessarily a cross-cutting change to mediawiki, the Campaigns team is conducting technical, product, and Wikimedia community outreach to ensure that our plan is a good one and that there are no major issues or concerns.