On Jan 9, 2008 3:16 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
I would disagree. In general, many members of the sister projects have a strong sense of disconnect and disenfranchisement when it comes to the WMF. This is especially true of the smaller projects and the smaller non-english projects. The lines of communication are virtually non-existant for these small projects. If it appears that the only time the WMF cares about a small project is when something is wrong and "action" needs to be taken.
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While it may be worse for small and non-english projects, I think many participants in many of the larger projects also feel disconnected with WMF. Project participants are usually there because they enjoy creating something, but from the point of view of project participants the WMF is almost never directly involved in creating anything. The WMF mostly provides a behind-the-scenes service to keep the servers running, and many people would be perfectly happy if the WMF never, ever got involved in the governance of individual projects. When the WMF does get involved, many participants wonder: "Why are you messing with MY work."
Frankly, the WMF needs better communication all around.
As I write that, it occurs to me that there isn't even a clear point of contact for project participants who want to contact the Foundation with questions or requests. As far as I know, there is no prominent page anywhere that amounts to "Instructions on Contacting the Foundation for Help", so when "Foundation Issues" come up people are mostly left to guess on what to do. Eventually very experienced hands get a sense of when to A) call the office, B) post to foundation-l, C) email Jimbo/Anthere/Brion, etc., but as far as know there isn't any place that actually tries to explain best practices for interacting with the Foundation.
-Robert Rohde