On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a cesspool.
Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would like to see on foundation-l.
My take on foundation-l is that the foundation doesn't take it very seriously. They recognize the potential of a mailing list and like the possibilities, but in practice there are too many people being overly critical of the foundation here for it to be useful to them. Also, the topics of discussion often seem like useless jabs that aren't really in the direction of progress. People are just itching to find the foundation doing something wrong so they can start a riot.
This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress? Some of us feel that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea.
Sue recently posted a couple of articles to foundation-l that were cookbooks for how to shut people that you perceive to be unproductive out of your community. That was obviously a flawed e-mail to send. Of course we are all aware of people who want to discuss the color of the bike shed. Discussing the difference between red and blue is not, in fact, a priori bad, and there should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of their employees in which they are expected to participate in these discussions. This is, after all, the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list. And yet with dozens of employees the Foundation's voice is but a whisper here.
To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it.
I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also let the community know that it takes what they say seriously.