[Foundation-l] WMF Development and Memes

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 8, 2008 8:53 PM, Mike Godwin <mgodwin at wikimedia.org> wrote:
[snip]
> that have gone through growing pains, what you're seeing is not "a
> massive collapse" but the long-term recovery from institutional
> problems that are not unusual in growing organizations.

It is almost universal that when something is becoming worse the
people involved think they are really fixing things.  Agent
provocateurs excluded, people don't set out to break their
organizations.

This truth does not mean that I'm right and you're wrong,  but it does
mean that you can't prove them irrelevant by claiming that you're
fixing it. Instead we must rely on objective evidence.

I believe that I have a substantial amount of objective evidence
supporting my positions, but I have not yet figured out how I can
express them in a way which will be understood but not violate any
expectations of confidentiality or create yet another press disaster
for Wikimedia.

[snip]
> I don't think the Foundation has failed quite yet, Greg.  What I
> actually suspect you're feeling is the shockwave of changes that
> mostly were necessary.

I do think it is informative to contrast Erik's response to me with
yours. The impression I get from Erik's "I don't feel that there's
been significantly less or more sharing of information over the last
few months than over the last couple of years." is "nothing has
changed", while your response appears to be much further to the
"Things are changing because they had to.. and for the better!".

And, for the avoidance of doubt, I do not think that it has failed. I
am, however, concerned that *Wikimedia* is is closer to substantial
failure than it has been previously.  And as you may be aware I am, by
far, not the most important person around the organization to express
this view in the last month or so.

[snip]
> And
> that's the extent to which memes that undercut the potential of the
> Foundation and its projects are spread by people who mean well.

I do recall your theory of directing a decentralized volunteer
community from our past conversations, and I do not disagree with it.

But let me suggest a different 'meme' for you:  "The Emperor's New Clothes".

If our fear of self-fulfilling negative outcomes or bad press causes
us to perform self-censorship or denial we will not only fail but we
will very likely cause harm to the outside world in the process.

As the projects and Wikimedias grow there will be more things wrong,
and so it will take more eyes to see them, and more mouths to speak up
about them. Not less.

> For
> example, if you're "surprised" by something you hear in a
> conversation, you may infer (and spread the meme of) lack of
> transparency or dishonesty or whatever.

Transparency is something which is objectively measurable, so we
should be able to escape the trap of inferences.

I am fairly confident that the foundation is acting in a manner which
is effectively less transparent.

Perhaps this means that the foundation never communicated well, still
doesn't communicate well, and now is simply doing more things. The
effect is that there are more things not disclosed, inaccurately
disclosed, or disclosed late than before.

> it's harder to keep everything "transparent"  (for example,
> there may be legal constraints on what you can disclose in the
> interests of transparency when you're dealing with employment-law
> issues),

There is a fine line between actual constraints and artificially
created confidentiality suicide pacts.  In my experience the
distinction is not very important in most other organizations, but
here I think it's an area which you will have to navigate very
carefully.

While I don't want the foundation to be subject to a transparency
suicide pact either, if transparency isn't one of the most 'expensive'
soft-costs of doing business for Wikimedia then something is probably
wrong.

> If we're sufficiently jaded, I suppose, we can dispense with the
> Assume Good Faith counter-meme, which I think was designed to remind
> us that the great majority of us mean well, are honest, etc.  But I
> hope you aren't ready to toss it just yet.

Dishonesty is a question of motivations, such questions are often hard
to resolve.
Hanlon's razor is an often applied tool when someone is suspected
being dishonest. My own view is that Hanlon's razor isn't all that
useful: Stupidity, Malice. If the effect is the same we still need to
fix it.

> I'll close by saying something I've noted before, which is that we
> have created a culture of *editors* here -- people who look at
> everything anyone says or writes with a critical eye -- and so we've

This sounds nice, but I don't see anything objective to support it.

Here is a counter hypothesis:

We have created a culture of personal ownership here -- people who
feel responsible for the product of their collective labors, or at
least the parts they pick and choose -- and so they feel entitled to a
fairly high degree of control, or at least visibility into the actions
of those who are exerting influence over it, just as you might ask
questions as a doctor works on your body or a plumber works on your
home.  This concern is heightened when the actors do not appear to
have the same level of investment and when they do not have the
credibility that doctors or plumbers have.  There are not yet any
certified wiki wranglers yet, as much as some here would like to claim
to be one.

I'll leave the implications of this alternative theory as a personal
soul searching exercise for the reader.

While I am disappointed in the level of hostility in our forums, I
can't personally agree with the position that we have become too
critical.  While some areas may have become too critical at times, I
think there are a lot of areas where more criticism is needed.

When the time comes that a Wikimedia representative can't make a
clearly incorrect claim in the media without Wikimedians calling the
person out about it (politely, of course) in our forums, come back to
me.. and at that time I'll be willing to consider the idea that we're
critical enough.