Hello Rogol,
Whether the staff concerned feel it's a good use of their time to respond
in detail on Meta or on this email list, who knows. There is always a
judgement call to be made about what it's helpful for staff to spend
their
time replying to. However, if I was in their
position, looking at the
nature of comments on Wikipedia Weekly, on Meta and in this thread, I
would
probably not be leaping to provide a full and
thorough response.
In the interests of improving communications between staff and the
community of volunteers and donors, please indicate how a request might
have been framed that would have encouraged your colleagues "to provide a
full and thorough response"?
Just to be clear they aren't "my colleagues" :)
However I would suggest that the following things make it less likely to be
worth responding:
* Many of the points the WMF could make have already been said by community
members, either on Facebook or on Meta. (For instance, in the words of one
Wikimedian who is normally unafraid to express his criticisms of the WMF,
"Organisation has desire and strategy to maximise positive media coverage.
Shock horror. Film at 11.")
* Despite the issue having been raised in three different fora, the number
of community members who are expressing concerns remains countable on the
fingers of two hands.
* Given that the criticisms are expressed as selective quotes without any
appreciation of context (either from the document or the wider
environment), the staff who would be inclined to respond are probably
concerned that any response they gave would also be selectively quoted to
misconstrue what they were saying
* The whole idea that there was something wrong here started on the
Wikipediocracy forums, which is a hotbed of crackpot Wikiconspiracy
Of course I wouldn't suggest any of these is an absolute counterindication
for WMF staff wishing to spend their time responding to the issue, but it
all adds up...
Regards,
Chris