This makes sense and I've added it to our second iteration epic. (However we can consider this work sooner if we hear that this is a top concern for organizers or newcomers).

I wonder if we should capture different start/end for the update and for the event. Like:

• Update start date (required): the date the update will start to show, eg: 1 month before the event
• Update end date date (required): the date the update will stop to show, eg: 1 day after the event
• Event start date (optional, if the update is from an event), eg: the day and hour event starts (this could be shown in the design? cc @JFernandez-WMF @KStoller-WMF
• Event end date (optional, if the update is from an event), eg: the day and hour event starts

Agreed, I think there are two different needs:

• Scheduling
• Improving the UI (and configuration form) so dates can be (optionally) displayed on the module.

Short-term (while we are experimenting) I think if dates need to be displayed we should include them in the main body. Similar to the current banner on enwiki:

Medium-term (after the experiment) let's listen to feedback from communities and decide how to prioritize improvements like this.

@KStoller-WMF FYI might be good to resurface this task since the Campaigns team is thinking of including the event start date within the Community Updates module expansion. cc @ifried

To add a bit more context: When we were going over the differences in data shown between the Collaboration List and the Community Update module, I felt like the Community Update module was able to communicate some key event info we had but in different ways. For example, it doesn't show the topic of the event, but it does have the description (which often conveys the topic). One missing piece was the start date. It can help the user decide if they can join and it can also give a sense of urgency (i.e., this isn't something that can be joined at any time -- it is a timebound event, so you can join when you can!).

Thanks for the context! I'll discuss this idea with the team. I'm open to fitting in some Community Updates work, but only quick wins... Growth has a lot of other competing projects right now.

Yup, makes sense! Thanks for sharing the context about competing priorities as well. I guess we'll see what comes of the discussion with the team. Thank you!

I really hope that we can connect Campaigns features to this module soon: improvements would be very welcomed.

@Trizek-WMF: Yes! The Campaigns team is in the early stages of planning to expand the Community Update module so it can include events from event registration. We will be reaching out to the Growth team with the next stages of our designs/ideas soon (which was fleshed out via T387793). I am glad that the changes will be welcomed, and I will share more updates soon.

I'm excited for the Campaigns team to think about next steps for the Community Updates module!

I discussed this task with several task subscribers during 1:1s.
We concluded that it's best to wait until Campaigns resumes this work before deciding on next steps.

My perspective: What if, in the future, we create a stronger connection between Events and the Community Updates module? The Community Update form could evolve to focus more on scheduling which Event or Community to highlight. Or alternatively, the selection of which event to feature might take place directly within the event form itself.

My perspective: What if, in the future, we create a stronger connection between Events and the Community Updates module? The Community Update form could evolve to focus more on scheduling which Event or Community to highlight. Or alternatively, the selection of which event to feature might take place directly within the event form itself.

Yes, I love this! If we think of the module as always having events available for people to discover (assuming there are events for the given wiki), then yes, I think it makes sense for the form to identify which event is highlighted in the module.

Also, yes, there may be ways to tie in the process of enabling registration (from the organizer side) to determining which event to highlight (on the admin side). For example, perhaps when an organizer configures registration, they could be asked if they want to submit their event to be considered as a "highlighted" event on the Newcomer Homepage. I could imagine that many organizers would say yes, although a smaller subset of events would most appropriate to be highlight. So, perhaps there could be things to think through, including how we share what is an appropriate event with organizers & how we share a feed of requested highlights to admins. But, if we create some tie-in, then a) the admin work could be lightened, since it could conceivably be more about approving "highlight requests" rather than inputting all the info about the event, and b) perhaps more events will be submitted to be highlighted.

But this is also an unformed thought that may not be a good idea! This could just be creating more work for admins.

Questions I have now: How are organizers made aware of the module now? How do they know to approach admins to get their event featured?

In T373900#10696035, @ifried wrote:

Questions I have now: How are organizers made aware of the module now? How do they know to approach admins to get their event featured?

The module isn't integrated into any organizer workflow, so at this point it's been entirely word-of-mouth and some minimal outreach.

• Diff post
• Growth Newsletter

We also put together a page meant to support organizers:

• Community Updates help page

And I suppose that some experienced volunteers familiar with Community Configuration, might simply learn about it by seeing a new Community Updates option available on the Community Configuration Dashboard.

Thank you, @KStoller-WMF!

This makes me think that perhaps a better idea than my previous idea (which would be way less burdensome to admins!) is to have some central way for organizers to discover all the ways that they can promote their events (community update module, collaboration list, invitation list, centralnotice, etc) through documentation and links to next steps. It is great that you have that page for organizers already set up. Much appreciated.

xref T391113: Add an end date to Community Updates