Hoi, Nina Simon wrote a blog post [1] that I think has a lot of merit for what we could do to gain relevance. Nina is big in the GLAM world and the museum she works for has an approach that will have a big effect when we consider it carefully and implement it in the best way we can. Thanks, GerardM
[1] http://museumtwo.blogspot.nl/2018/02/are-participant-demographics-most.html
On 19 February 2018 at 01:26, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Caitlin, thanks for sharing this.
My general thoughts are below. These are not directed at Caitlin or anyone else in particular.
I think that the document does a generally good job of outlining trends and asking questions. I think that I agree with about 95% of what's in the document. I agree especially strongly that there should be more emphasis on improving the user experience for those who wish to contribute content using mobile devices.
My most significant concern is with the question that the document asks staff: "How will the Wikimedia Foundation assert and balance leadership of the Wikimedia movement with its role fostering a robust volunteer culture?" WMF's role is that of a public service organization, not a central management agency, and "assert(ing)" leadership is the opposite of what WMF should do. Wikimedia's culture is collective rather than monarchical. Staff and Board members should be trained to understand that their role is to serve the public interest, and not to manage or supervise the community.
Leadership of individual projects, initiatives, and teams happens in many ways inside and outside of WMF, and leadership skills are important. However, I believe that leadership of the entire movement is not and should not be WMF's role. WMF can be the facilitator, but should not be the manager. In the recent past we had a vivid demonstration of what happens when there are governance problems in WMF.
I think that good questions would be:
- How can WMF better align its internal priorities with those of the
community? There has been progress on this during the past few years, and I would like to see continued progress.
- How can WMF evolve such that if WMF became dysfunctional or inoperable,
the remaining organizations and people in the Wikimedia ecosystem could continue to thrive?
I also would like to see questions about the governance and financial transparency of the Wikimedia Foundation, for example by asking questions such as "Should WMF decentralize some of its current functions?", "Should WMF become a membership organization?", and "Should WMF increase its financial transparency?"
After reading the document, I'm left wondering how to make progress on some of the issues that the document outlines. We've known about some of these issues for years, and in a number of cases WMF has funded efforts to address them, but in multiple cases we have had limited success.
Even when we have agreement about the nature of challenges and that we'd like to address them, we don't necessarily know how to address them effectively. I think that the document does a good job of asking us questions that we should explore, and probably will continue to explore for many years.
We need considerably more human resources than we have now on many fronts, including more contributors in diverse languages, contributors with the skills and tools improve the visual experience of Wikimedia content, and contributors who can protect the sites from interference from people who harm the integrity of the information on Wikimedia sites. I am not sure how we make that happen, or that it will happen. I fear that it will only happen after AI takes over a considerable number of jobs that humans do today, so that there is a significant increase of global unemployment and under-employment of people who have the skills and the will to contribute to Wikimedia. I hope that I'm wrong.
I realize that this email sounds a bit pessimistic. I think that there are numerous significant challenges for us. I am hoping for the best. In the short term we are doing okay, and we continue to numerous incremental successes. In the long term, I am worried.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe