On 13/08/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/08/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
What would be real cool would be to try to keep a written state of each project, what is hot, what is working, what is not working, technical wish list, biggest issues, big figures etc.... so that all participants could "follow" what is going on. I know all this is actually available, but only in a very dispersed manner, so not so easy to find out.
[snip]
On 8/12/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
OK here is an idea for Florence. Write a post to foundation-l addressing all projects (e.g. enwikipedia, frwikisource). Ask them to put together a 'state of the wiki' report, with the things you mentioned:
- progress reports on pages, users, admins, policies
- success of any special projects like printed material, wikiprojects
- any special policy or practice that they have developed, that is not
seen on other projects
- technical wishlist
- "perennial debates" - controversies that often come up in the community
Tell them it's optional to submit a report, and they have a month to write it.
If nothing else it would make for seriously interesting reading. :) And the Board can just, you know, publish it on the foundation wiki. They don't have to do anything else with it. But just having this kind of 'official' request may make people think about these kind of things.
This is, unfortunately, not a new idea. Quarto [1] lived and died a beautiful death and was exactly about that. Making sure that all projects had a place to express themselves, raise their issues, tell about the state of their project.
Indeed. Well, it was such a good wheel, I think it is still worth reinventing. :)
So let me try a different approach. Rather than waiting for Florence to try again something that she and other people have tried before, or for "the Foundation " to issue a dealdine, why don't you, Brianna, come up with a "state of commons" that you broadcast across lists and projects and ask for the same from other projects, just because you're interested?
I am a fervent believer that top down has its limits, and that a call from a "fellow community member" might be better heard altogether. My take being that an "official" request is not always the answer to everything, on the contrary.
Hm, well I very very much doubt that my call should be better-received than Florence's, or another Board members'.
Florence said "What would be real cool would be to try to keep a written state of each project..." Having the Board make a request is maybe one way to make that happen. I did not intend to attack or blame Florence or anyone else for not having done this.
I guess underlying this discussion is some lack of certainty about what is the exact relationship between the Board and the projects. Probably all Wikimedians have slightly different visions about what they want the Board to be or do. Where some favour a "hands-off" approach maybe others prefer intervention.
The Mission statement says "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content... the Foundation provides...an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects..." ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission )
So is that empowering and engagement anything more than keeping the websites up, keeping the servers running? Should it be? What is the organisational framework?
Does this sound like I am being attacky and saying "this should have all been done yesterday"? I hope not, because I have great respect for all the present and past Board members, and witnessing the evolution of WMF into a professional, powerful, thoughtful and smart organisation. But I hope the end is now in sight for the "working Board" (another year at most?), and that discussions about the project/Board relationship will be welcome.
regards Brianna