Talk:Tech/News

Archives

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Talk:Tech/News/Archives

Section headers changing

Noting that we're going to be testing out some new section-headers for Tech News this week (and in the following weeks), that are intended to help readers to better navigate the content in each week's newsletter. We'll move the new section-headers into the {{Tech news text}} system after a couple of weeks, if all goes well.

We're also planning some updates for the Manual, with this and related info, such as an expanded Style Guide. Thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Date postpone

Hi. I just saw the news issue in wikitech-l. It was sent on Tuesday. So, I have a suggestion: let's move the RSS feed jump date from Monday to Tuesday too? Because now it is sent about 12 hours before the wikipages delivery, and there were some cases over the years when these versions were different after last minute change. IKhitron (talk) 19:23, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Are you familiar with what exactly needs to be changed? If so, please go ahead and edit it, or point me towards where and what needs to be changed. (I've tried reading the docs, but they are unclear to me). If not, I will ask around for help. Thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:35, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't. IKhitron (talk) 00:43, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Request filed at phab:T370811. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Feedback

Hi. I really hope the new format will not continue, otherwise I think I'm going to leave the translation, and there will be one language less every week. It's the second week I spent about 90 minutes to translate the issue, instead of 5 minutes before, or 15 minutes until a couple of months ago. I just don't have so much time. Today it was even harder, because I needed to rephrase from scratch half of the entries, and I still don't know how to translate the new section headers, because straight translations make no sense in the target language. IKhitron (talk) 23:27, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I also have the same feeling. I doubt if Tech News is still tech news. I really liked the very concise format of "this is changing; if you're affected (usually not), go there". Now it's more of tech outreach bulletin to non-technical people. I believe that target groups of these are mainly disjoint. I don't know what were the survey results, but I strongly believe, there should be a newsletter like Tech News used to be - short action items for community technicians to act upon, without the bloat of "have you known that...?" (which I don't say is useless but do we really have so many of these every week?). Msz2001 (talk) 13:43, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@IKhitron & @Msz2001: Thank you for this detailed and helpful feedback. Yes, the survey responses (a summary is coming soon™) and other related discussions did indicate that some readers do really want more details or context in each entry, and also more entries overall (so that they can learn about other Tech-related work that is ongoing within the movement, or tools they weren't already aware of). However, that definitely needs to be balanced with all of your weekly translation-efforts.

Re: Now it's more of tech outreach bulletin to non-technical people. I believe that target groups of these are mainly disjoint -- I believe I understand your point about the intended-audience for Tech News, but I'd suggest that technical skill-levels and technical interest-levels are both a huge spectrum in the movement! We're aiming to be more helpful to all editors who are interested in news about the varied technical infrastructures we all use to contribute, but that is inherently a difficult balance.

In the short-term (the next few weeks), we (my teammates) will continue to experiment with adjusting various aspects, including sub-section-titles and entry-structures, but we will try to find a better balance for the length of each entry. One partial-solution might be for us to settle on some more "standardized" entry-structures, that are thus more easily translatable by you all each week. My teammates and I have been discussing that, but haven't settled on anything precise yet; I'll write some notes here over the next few weeks.

In the longer-term, we may need to think of other new ideas, such as perhaps a special (longer) monthly edition of Tech News for these less time-specific but still informative entries.

If anyone else has related thoughts (both pros and cons of recent experiments, or other suggestions for ways to improve), please do share them. Thanks again. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the goal of keeping it simple, but I disagree that the recent increase in volume is a way of reaching this goal. By introducing long-winded sentences with rhetorical questions and vague expressions, we are increasing the complexity of the messages. Le Loy (talk) 06:12, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Same. It is quite unfortunate to see the tone shifting to marketing and promotion ("This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers" ??? "This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform" ??????)
I don't like it.
We should keep Tech News fact-focussed, otherwise it is not enjoyable to read / translate. I read enough marketing materials at work. Le Loy (talk) 02:58, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Week 31

I would like to thank everyone who participated in writing this week's Tech News issue. It is so much more concise and well-written, thanks a lot for your work. Le Loy (talk) 23:31, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Week 32

Well, it's much better. I only hope there will be one day translatable section headers. IKhitron (talk) 00:47, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, we just moved the previous ones into a template and now we're back at the manual mode. Le Loy (talk) 03:58, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Not at all. I'm talking about the fact that I can't find local ewuivalents to these new expressions. I can suggest "Software", "Problems", ... and "Publications" instead. The third one I can't, because I have no idea what does "Project updates" mean. IKhitron (talk) 10:13, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I can agree that Tech News is nicer to translate now! Thanks to everyone who participated in it! Msz2001 (talk) 10:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you again, all!

Re: Headers: Yeah, I both want to get them into the {{Tech news text}}, but I also don't want to do that but then end up changing them again... Especially related to IKhitron's uncertainties about how to translate, and my team's various ideas about alternative solutions for clustering & labeling the sections! (Naming things is hard, etc!). I hope to have some time next week to put both the final survey results, and the draft-notes full of ideas and the thinking behind them, here on meta-wiki. For the next couple of weeks, I plan to keep doing the manual headers, and I hope that's not too troublesome for you all. Best wishes, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 2 August 2024 (UTC)