--- On Thu, 8/27/09, Kropotkine_113 <Kropotkine113(a)free.fr> wrote:
From: Kropotkine_113 <Kropotkine113(a)free.fr>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia
Foundation
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2009, 7:53 AM
Thank you very much all of you
(Brigitte SB, Ting Chen, Mickael Snow and
others).
To close my participation in this thread I just add three
points :
- My question about the wikimedia membership criterion
wasn't very
important, but just-to-know ; thanks for your
explanations.
- The communication process on this whole story has been
disastrous ;
this, added to the fact that Wikis, Q&A and help pages
are not
up-to-date or are confused, tranforms a maybe-good-decision
(I have my
own opinion on this point ;)) in a
too-weird-to-be-good-decision ; the
"NOMCOM disapearance in vacuum" is a good example. It
doesn't worth 10Mo
discussion threads, I think you are aware of this.
I agree. Inward facing communication has long been a problem for WMF. At times there
have been board members that took more leadership in this area regarding various issues,
but I can't remember a time when this hasn't been an issue. I think it is mostly
a problem of WMF not setting up the expectations accurately. In my personal opinion when
communicating with the community; surprises are bad. Even good surprises are bad.
Fulfilling expectations on the other hand is good. It seems to be better received by the
community when WMF fulfills a modest expectation than when it reveals a wonderful
surprise.
- Even more important point is the cultural gap between
Foundation's
intentions and communication, which are very
"north-american slanted" (I
don't know how to say that), and its perception by a very
multicultural
community. The gap is particularly large concerning
financial/executive
power relations. You have to be very careful about this and
to be very
pedagogic when you report such decisions, because when the
story will
appear in french village pump (for example) it will be hard
tuff for
chapter's members to explain it correctly (if possible).
The answer
often used is : "It's not evil, it's just the way american
people deal
with it every day".. Just let me tell you that's not a
sufficient answer
for many people (like me ;)). I think that a non-used but
very efficient
solution would be to share informations before the official
report and
to work closely with local chapters ; but this is a more
wide problem
and slightly out-of-the-scope of this thread.
I don't completely understand what you are talking about here. What is the
"american way" ? And what do you mean by "pedagogic"?
Birgitte SB