Hoi,
David, who is the community and how do you get members of the community
recognise and respect the decisions it does not like that are taken on
their behalf by "its" representatives. We do not have one community, we
have many. The interests people aim for are diverse and all too often
contradictory..
Really, in the past one part of the community insisted that it ALWAYS
requires to be able to have the deciding influence for "its" project.. That
clearly pains the picture for me.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 15 August 2014 10:17, David Cuenca <dacuetu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 11:30 PM, Chris Keating <
chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
how should this be solved?
To me it's saying that no matter who is informed, the WMF can never
expect
that their work won't be overruled.
That is problematic (regardless of who has the final authority)
A first step would be to abide to the principles of Open Process
http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/OpenProcess
Namely:
- Transparency - all communications and decisions are public and
archived, so anyone interested may get all information
- No time constraints - all decisions (democratic or not) are suggested
or announced a reasonable timespan before they become effective. So
there
is still time for discussion and even last minute intervention.
- Participation - in principle (this opens the chance for restrictions
in case of problems) anyone is welcome to participate (discussions,
decisions *and* work)
- * Reflection and reversibility - any decision may be reversed if the
results are not as expected. *
- Tolerance - any system or process should have the flexibility in the
application of its - necessary - rules
- Sharing and collaborating on visible and accessible goals and
resources
Then a second step would be to engage the community, not only as something
that has to be "managed", but as an equal partner that has to take up
responsibilities and who is able to affect decisions. This of course means
a paradigm shift moving away from "community liaisons" and into the realm
of helping contributors to constitute themselves enabling them to take up a
shared ownership role without the need of a formal organization.
I don't think the wmf is entirely responsible for making this happen, there
is also have to be a general will to embody such a spirit without resorting
to staff, hierarchies, or votes. The problem is that most of us live in a
world that doesn't work this way, and the attached structural flaws are
imported, when there is no need to.
Anyhow, that should be something to speak about when the tensions have been
defused.
Cheers,
Micru
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