On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 12:43 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
I hope some day someone will be bold enough to tell the rest of us what this is all really about. I'm sure I'm not alone (though perhaps in the minority!) in not having inside staff contacts to provide the straight dope.
I think it's quite clear what's going on. Signpost [1] and Liam's post [2] have good descriptions (with some of the positions) of what happened. Plus, James was on the side of the discontent part of staff (which seems to be the majority) and didn't articulate his position well.
And as I suppose this is the ongoing general-type thread, I'd say few words in relation to that.
Our technology is based on the concept from 1990s, implemented in 2001 and slightly changed up to the moment. The only major technology which catches 2005 (Visual Editor) is in alpha or beta stage, depending on how harsh QA process would be implemented.
Something should be done with that. While I would be much more happy with a social and gaming platform, I think anything towards technology innovation is good, as during the last 15 years our technology innovation was around zero. The most important Sue's impact on Wikimedia is financial stability. I expect that the most important Lila's impact on Wikimedia will be moving it from technologically passive organization to an active one.
Restructuring one organization is hard process. I mean, if I found myself feeling offended because of moving coffee machine away from the door of my office and putting it on more appropriate place, I completely understand that any larger change could produce significant discontent.
On top of that, unlike Sue, Lila is a geek. And geeks have troubles in understanding the social impact of their actions, especially inside of the extraordinary complex environment of Wikimedia movement.
The only solution for such situations is constructive communication. And constructive communication. And more constructive communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-01-06/News_a... [2] http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/