Marc Riddell writes:
> The Foundation - and those who represent it - seem to have forgotten
> that
> people are at the heart of what they are there to do. And, without the
> heart, it cannot live.
This is really an insupportable assertion. The Foundation and those
who represent it are, if anything, hyperaware of the community on
whose volunteer efforts we depend. That awareness factors into
practically every decision we make. Anyone who tells you otherwise is
speaking out of ignorance.
To name only one example: Every time we discuss Flagged Revisions at
the Foundation, someone will express concern about how it might affect
community participation if current edits of a sighted version are not
visible (for some period of time, at least) to those who consult
Wikipedia without logging in. Sometimes the person expressing concern
is me -- I know from my own long-term experience in online communities
that keeping people motivated to contribute is central to a
community's success.
The idea that anyone at the Foundation ever forgets about the
dependence of the projects on the larger community of editors is just
nonsense, born out of the impulse, so common in online forums, to
Assume Bad Faith.
Erik's passing reference to a 23-person organization is, when read
properly, an *acknowledgement* of the larger community of volunteers
-- it is precisely because the size of our organization is so small
that we are so dependent on volunteers for our mission to succeed. In
fact, if you look again at Erik's actual words, that very passage
*stresses how essential volunteers are*. Here's the passage in
question: "As a 23-people organization, it's clear that our
communication efforts need to culminate in volunteer-driven efforts of
both a proactive and reactive nature. That's already the case to a
great degree (thanks to volunteers like yourself), and I hope that we
will continue to improve in that regard."
It take a lot of mental labor to read those sentences as *forgetting*
about volunteers, when in fact volunteers are *expressly mentioned and
given credit*,
Finally, it bears remembering that Erik's own role in the Foundation
derives from his own history as a volunteer editor -- Erik's record as
a contributor is exceptional by any standard, so it plainly makes no
sense to suppose that Erik might even theoretically have forgotten
about the importance of volunteers.
Try assuming good faith.
--Mike