Technical changes on the Wikimedia projects can be hairy. We are currently having a discussion about the Wikidata deployment to the Wikipedias, and there have been many examples in the past of deployments that raised discussions. One of my statements in this discussion is that the a priori discussion of such features is highly undemocratic. What I mean with that is that design and deployment decisions are often made by a very small group, which are in the best case a part of the affected community, but, in many cases, even external to the affected community. So the decisions are made by a group that does not represent or is constituted by the community - which I mean with undemocratic. This has repeatedly raised criticism. And I think that criticism is often unfair. Additionally, it is usually true (which makes is not anymore fair, though). I thought that in order to discuss these design decisions with the community before hand, telling them on their respective village pump is sufficient. Not so it seems. No single channel would find acceptance to communicate with the community. This, obviously means, that it is not actionable to communicate with the community. What about setting up a community selected body of representatives to discuss such issues beforehand? At first, it sounds like a good idea - but the issue is, it makes the process only more complicated without at all resolving the underlying issues. Does anyone really think that such a body would stop the criticism before or after the deployment of the change in question? Yeah, right. Doesn't change a thing. So, what do I want to achieve with this Mail? Merely to ask some community members to be a bit more constructive in their comments. Claiming that the product managers and designers have no idea of the Wikimedia communities and the use of wikis is often neither help- nor truthful. What would be even better would be to come up with processes or mechanisms to avoid these issues in the future. I would be very glad if the people who are often critically accompanying such changes would help in building effective channels for their discussion. Any thoughts? -- Project director Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.