On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 11:30 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ruwrote:
On Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:19:59 +0300, Dan Rosenthal wrote:
I too have to say that while I agree with a narrowing focus, I disagree with the tabling of Fellowships. Not only have they brought a lot of great talent into the foundation (as I saw when I worked there, as well as after), but more than anything the WMF is an agent of disruptive innovation, and I feel strongly that encouraging Fellows to explore things that might not be viable for the rest of the staff (whether due to resources or interest) serves that innovation, and thus the foundation itself. I believe at one point there was a Fellow working on studying ways to improve en.wp's internal governance. After witnessing the utter debacle that is going on in the clarifications on Malleus' ban, I'm more convinced than ever that such a review is critical and that the WMF should actually be devoting MORE resources to this. Editor engagement comes not just through things like Visual Editor (which is awesome), but also creating a conducive environment for new editors from a policy standpoint. I'm afraid we're going to lose that in a narrowing focus.
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Hi Dan,
whereas I can agree or disagree with you on your points, I fail to see the connection to the Malleus's ban debate. Could you please elaborate? I am not sure I would like to see WMF involved there, if this is your point (probably not).
Cheers Yaroslav
on 10/21/12 5:29 PM, Dan Rosenthal at swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The connection is that it is an example of the significantly more negative/hostile environment and failure of en.wp's governance structure that harms editor retention; this is something that could have been studied and reported on by the Fellowship program. Basically, it's a specific example of a broader problem that would be perfect for Fellows to look at, were the program to continue. I was not advocating that the WMF be involved in Malleus's specific debate.
While I agree completely with what you say, Dan, I think it would be a good idea to start the discussion with a coherent definition and/or description of the English Wikipedia's "governance structure".
And, a discussion of the work environment of the Project is very much worth it's own thread.
Marc Riddell