Hi all,
OK, I've been reading this plus the emails that I got off-list. It seems
that there are a lot of diverse ideas and priorities, and probably the best
way to gather and prioritize them is through a strategic planning process
somewhat like what WMF and the community did in the last time around. I'm
not sensing a lot of appetite for strategic change that involves moving
away from the WMF hosting model, although am sensing interest in ongoing
conversations with WMF about expectations for how WMF behaves toward the
community especially around software deployments, and interest in a number
of other Meta-level issues. As probably could be expected, a lot of people
say "I'm upset about X" or "I want to change Y" but the level of
interest
in walking through the steps that it takes to actually do something about X
or Y beyond talking about them is limited to a relatively small number of
people. I want to thank those who spoke up and hope that everyone stays
active in the already underway WMF-led strategic planning process as that
goes forward, and that we keep our ideas ready for when the right time
comes to provide input into that process.
Thanks again. This is of course not the end of the discussion about
strategic issues, so please continue talking if you wish. (:
Pine
On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Marc A. Pelletier <marc(a)uberbox.org>
wrote:
On 07/14/2014 10:39 AM, Martijn Hoekstra wrote:
I still
believe, that the success of English Wikipedia hinges on the ability of
the
community to generate content, and that
that's the absolutely most
important part of English Wikipedia - all else, including consumption by
end users - follows from that.
I don't believe that's where the value lies. While I am certain we have
a number of contributors who write for the sake of writing; ultimately
we are *all* beholden to the readers. Collecting the world's knowledge
and making it available only has value insofar as it is, in fact, used
as such.
The servers running, the editors editing, the coders coding are all
necessary components but all, in the end, subservient to the actual
objective of serving the readers. Everything else is replacable.
In my long stint on the meta-side of the biggest project (and keeping
abreast of what goes on elsewhere) I saw a very great deal of
self-important navel gazing, but very little actual consideration that
the "community" (if there is such a thing) is only a means to the actual
end. The WMF certainly does not do everything perfectly, but at the
very least it actually /attempts/ to keep an eye on the prize.
-- Marc
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>