Brianna Laugher wrote:
Keeping this in mind --
On 15/11/06, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
We also developed a mission statement from scratch. What's the point? Aside from uniting behind a set of key goals, it helps us to decide which activities fall within our scope and which ones don't -- something that is not always easy, given the diversity of our existing projects and communities. Should we launch a WikiFoo project, or is Foo not part of our mission? Both the vision and mission statement will be frequently cited in future discussions of this kind, so they are relevant, and not just organizational fluff.
== Vision Statement ==
'''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.'''
Comment:
One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by teaching another language like English and then giving access to learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination in our vision statement. Rather, I suggested we could add a phrase such as "unimpeded by language barriers, socioeconomic status, or government censorship". This was seen as too negative. In any case, I feel that the simple adjective "freely" may be sufficient in order to convey the idea that we seek to make knowledge as widely available as possible.
I think some statement of the importance of multilinguality is needed here.
The suggestion that teaching everyone English and offering them English works is equivalent to offering them works in their own language is... really appalling. We may as well shut down all the other languages and just offer Wikibooks "learn English" in x trillion languages, right? I don't think so...
== Mission Statement ==
'''The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop knowledge under a free license, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.'''
'''In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation is committed to making and keeping all information from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.'''
This just seems like an expanded version of the above. And it doesn't seem like this: "A vision statement articulates the future of an organization. The statement should be a rich, meaningful, detailed description of what an organization hopes to become."
Wouldn't this be a good time to expand on specific visions for each of the projects? If not here, then where? Nowhere? Or each community can come up with its own?
Yes. Please develop charters for each project.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Charte_Wikiquote_FR
Seems like MediaWiki software development would be worth mentioning as well, considering how important it is to the projects...
I am not convinced it should, given that MediaWiki developers wish to maintain a certain independance (whether they succeed doing that is another issue).
Also seems to be some mention of project communities vitally missing here. "People around the world" are not collecting and developing knowledge in isolation. They are, first, getting welcomed by other users (ok, or maybe bots :)). They are getting guidance, help and warnings from more experienced users. They are being invited to help out with collaborative projects, and being invited to edit in a consensus-driven way. They are evaluating the quality of material collectively. They are running for positions of various power and status, and they are voting on such candidates. Perhaps all this is implied in the use of the word "wiki"... or perhaps not.
Would that do ?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mission%2FUnstable&diff=4707...
Anyway my main complaint is that I don't see how either of these statements would prevent "wikistalk" being successfully proposed, or how they explain why video game guides are inappropriate for Wikibooks. Or why people shouldn't upload ten photos of their friends and dog at Commons. Or why they shouldn't write about their school teacher. Needs some adjective somewhere like EDUCATIONAL.
Ah... Look Brianna. In french, there is a saying "you can not have the butter and the money from the butter at the same time". Editors are telling us all the time that the editorial policy should be developped by community, NOT by the Foundation. If in its statement, which is recorded in its *bylaws* the Foundation somehow clarifies video games guides are not appropriate (I am forcing the point here on purpose), then, the Foundation is setting up the editorial policy.
I do not think it should be this way. The way you ask is The Foundation decides to create a project and the project should follow these exact rules.
Versus The community decides to create a project with this goal, and the Foundation likes the idea and decides to support it (or decide not to).
My suggestion (and this was a collective desire of board retreat participants) is that each project develop a very detailed charter. That this charter be adopted by all languages of this project. That new language starting should adopt this charter. And the Foundation agrees to support this project, with this charter.
Anthere