Website retrospective

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Hello everyone,

In Followup on Website Concerns, we promised a retrospective about the website in early 2019. I want to announce that work has started and the retrospective will be done later this month. We know that you have expected the work to start sooner. With all relevant people also being away on christmas holidays and involved in the Rust all-hands earlier in February, we needed some space to spend the brain cycles the topic deserves.

The goal of the retrospective is giving people insight into the decision process that lead to the current shape of the website project, the people, planning and structure involved and the process of working. This includes a thorough review and overview of:

  • Goals and their completion
  • The production process
  • Timeline and planning timeframes
    • analysis of delays
  • Decision making process and responsibilities
  • Project and community involvement
  • Communication towards the community
  • The current state of the website

Reception of the website will also be covered, but given the amount of feedback, we simply do not have the resources to do comprehensive research there. We will make some effort to move beyond anecdotes, though.

The goal of the retrospective is to work towards a shared understanding about what went well and what didn’t by fixing what we already perceive as a lack of communication and giving insights from our side.

If you have any specific questions about the retrospective or suggestions for things you want clarified, please let me know here or contact me on Discord (username: skade).

I will also use this topic to keep everyone posted of the current status.

Florian

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Echoing one comment from the linked thread, I would suggest that moderation response be included in the retrospective, in addition to more general issues of communication.

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:+1: Issue and forum interaction is definitely a big part of the retrospective. I would like to stress that it is more a documentary task, as subjects of high tensions can often not be properly relieved in retrospectives, but we will work out perspectives and conclusions for future interactions.

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Any news on this? People are asking here.

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You are correct, we haven't done a website retrospective. The folks involved with the website were and continue to be beyond burnt out by the work on the website and the discussion surrounding it. There are also people starting new day jobs and doing work on other parts of the project, like async (another energy-sapping topic lately). Thank you for your patience, and we will make an announcement when we have something to report.

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Thanks for the update, I can surely sympathize with that.

But I believe that a large part of the surrounding discussion was not only well-meant, but also warranted. The thing went quite sour for well-intended people who tried to help cleaning up the fallout. And indeed, a lot of those discussions were generated by how their contributions were handled.

I think that the community team should abide to higher standards, since they often represent the project in the presence of new contributors.

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Hi,

The delay is mostly on me and being too optimistic with the timeline. The reason for the delay is simply that people I wanted to interview are on holidays or are switching jobs. The retro is mostly finished, but I still need a key interview.

Best, Florian

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Cool :smiley:

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