How to create "workgroup consciousness"

[Larry Sanger]

All, how do you think we should get workgroups moving?  Shouldn't we be in more regular communication with each other?  If so, how?  Should we close the boards for workgroups, and move to push-style mailing lists?  (I think that might do the trick.)  Do we need to have more workgroup-oriented initiatives?  Like what?

[Joe Quick]

Like a competition between workgroups.  Article creations, article approvals, or some such.

[Greg Woodhouse]

All, how do you think we should get workgroups moving?  Shouldn't we be in more regular communication with each other?  If so, how?  Should we close the boards for workgroups, and move to push-style mailing lists?  (I think that might do the trick.)  Do we need to have more workgroup-oriented initiatives?  Like what?

Define a purpose for workgroups (as far as I can tell, there is none right now), and give them a measure of autonomy. Physicists ought to have some say in how physics articles should be handled, historians ought to have some say in how history articles are handled, etc.

[Todd Coles]

I agree with Greg.  My current perception of the workgroups are that they are just a broad category for storing articles.  It would be nice to see some sort of leadership within the workgroups that help encourage productivity, and pushing articles toward approval.  I know I'm relatively new here, but things seem stagnant in that area.

[Chris Day]

I know I'm relatively new here, but things seem stagnant in that area.

I'm not sure we're at critical mass yet. I can see what's going on quite easily just by looking at recent changes. When we have enough editors that this is not possible then I suspect the workgroups will take off.  I suggest that we have one CZ workgroup functioning right now. This is obviously frustrating, for example, it is hard to find editors to approve articles in some (many?) workgroups.

It's possible that an e-mail might nudge people along but I'm not sure we can expect too much activity coordinated at a workgroup level until we have many more contributors. Maybe we should just focus on The whole CZ workgroup until we grow more? I'm not trying to be negative but more relalistic.

[Stephen Ewen]

I've always envisioned area Chief Editors. 

[Aleta Curry]

I agree with Chris.  First things first.  Most of these issues will take care of themselves with more active people.  We seem to have enough initiatives to work on at present.  And, Chris's point about the current difficulty finding active editors is a good one. 

Can you say a little more about the one workgroup idea, Chris?  What do you envision?

I've always envisioned area Chief Editors. 

Well, it's good to be a visionary, Stephen!

[Derek Harkness]

I think a bit of team building is required here. We need to get to know the other people in our workgroup. Then we can build communication links and get people working together rather than individually. So far, all the teamwork has been focused on CZ as a whole. Some of the larger workgroups like Biology have effectively formed a working team, but others have not. Many are still to small to really have a team.

Where the workgroup has a decent population of authors and editors, the leaders need to encourage that workgroup to communicate and talk to each other, become friends with each other. Form there a team can form.

Where the workgroup is too small, e.g. linguistics, we need a recruitment drive to pull in some more members.

Another problem I see is the use of personal talk pages. If editors and authors talk on their own user pages, it promotes individual work among the editors. Where as if the discussion was moved to a central location such as the workgroups talk page or forum page, it promotes teamwork and outside contribution.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

All, how do you think we should get workgroups moving?  Shouldn't we be in more regular communication with each other?  If so, how?  Should we close the boards for workgroups, and move to push-style mailing lists?  (I think that might do the trick.)  Do we need to have more workgroup-oriented initiatives?  Like what?

Apropos of Pythonesque "No one ever expects the Spammish Inquisition", Larry, I'm going to agree strongly with this idea and suggest it be reexamined. Yes, push vs. pull models are highly relevant; one has to be fairly motivated to pull. Certainly, it would be informative even to try a mailing and see if some of the inactive people's email addresses are even still active.

While inferences can be drawn from Editors that haven't contributed anything in a while, it never hurts to try a push and see if there is a response. Getting a real sense of editors that might be motivated by a push, and those who have completely lost interest, would give us a lot better handle on some of the issues of resources for moving Approval.