On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Noein pronoein@gmail.com wrote:
I've been watching the dialogues between the WMF and this mailing list for a while now and most of the conflicts are the same: bad communication. This is apparently not due to individuals but institutional.
I think you're wrong.
Try to get any sense out of the upper echelons of your phone company, your gas providers, whoever gives you your electricity.
The Wikimedia community is huge. The staff relatively small. It's unthinkable you'd write to AT&T and get a response from the CEO. Looked at in that light, the WMF is very transparent. The WMF office would be incapable of turning over every query the wider public has. We're a community and we should be supporting the office folk in their roles. They do not have a call centre and nor should they.
However, should you have a question that needs to be looked at by someone high up, my best recommendation is to be a good community member. If you have a rep for doing lots of good work on the projects you will come to the attention of WMF staff and they will communicate with you because they have to come to know and respect you.
To illustrate; I worked on the Wikimedia Strategy website for two or three months. During that time I had a few exchanges with Philippe who is now full-time (he was a contractor, I believe, when I was interacting with him)... and I just know that if I have any deep-seated problem, something I think is important *that the community can't answer for* I can go to him. And I can say to him "Hey, here's this thing. Who would you recommend I contact on this issue?"
However, that's on the trust that I won't pester him on any old thing that crosses my mind. It would have to be something big. And for the most part I would go to the community first, and if I felt there were a groundswell of opinion behind me I'd write to someone in the WMF and say "hey, look, there's a couple hundred people here taking one side on this issue and I think someone at WMF should take a look".
We cannot expect such a tiny staff to be open to all of us. You have to build out from your own opinion/idea, nurture and grow it and if it gains ground then go to the WMF.
User:Bodnotbod