On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 11:05 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
First, when you argue that only a couple of chapters are active and doing things, you actually miss all the discussions happening on chapters hosted lists. The overal wikimedia mouvement is not limited to lists hosted by WMF, nor to wikis hosted by WMF btw (the French Chapter wiki is very active). So, I guess your figures are slightly biaised because you lack some information to make it truely complete. There has obviously been a transfer of discussions from public WMF lists to chapter lists. I'm not saying that's good or bad. That's just a fact. Transfer. And a consequence of it is balkanization.
There was some problem in communication :) (and related to the other thread). I didn't say that just a couple of chapters are active, I don't think that the only activity of chapters are related to PR and gathering money. What I did say is something else: A lot of things may be done without chapters, even a cooperation at high enough levels, like cooperation with universities is. Chapters are needed for making fulfilling some "real needs": a place for Wikimedians, funds, infrastructure.
While I am not sure that any chapter has a PR strategy (if it has, it would be very good to share with other chapters), I think that just two of chapters are able to fund some projects. If some other chapters are able to fund some projects, they are not showing this. (And, yes, I missed that WM FR has some infrastructure; which would make the initial list of three chapters wider for one more. Which raises the second question: Signals that some chapter has some infrastructure should be sent. WM CH, WM DE and WM PL are sending such signals. For the first time I heard now from you that WM FR hosts some lists; and it is about Wikimedia Taiwan or Wikimedia Israel about whom I don't have any clue. And, yes, again, I used too strong words in the first email.)
And both of the issues (PR and funds) are very important. I explained why PR is important in the first email of the other thread: we need more contributors and we are not anymore a miracle. And for funds: I am working in the company which took a lot of funds from EU (note, I am living and working in non-EU country, which has less access to EU funds than any EU country). Bureaucracy needed for that is small part of time of one person (of course, educated in that issue). Any EU chapter with staff has a possibility to take significant funds for projects (significant = a good part of WMF budget). This would make possible a lot of things: it is not related to the amount of money, it is related to the fact that today any Wikimedia-related project proposal which assumes money -- assumes asking limited WMF staff.
And for the end of this issue: I didn't blame anyone for inactivity or whatever. All of us are doing the best which we are able to do in relation to our free (and not so free) time. The problems are of such type that we need to think how to make things differently, to be able to function.
However, the public and internal lists suffers three damages.
First damage: because of leaks, everything slightly confidential or even controversial is no more discussed. Neither on public, nor on private lists. Consequence: decrease of list volume
Second damage: the staff of WMF grew larger and does not discuss much on lists. So, many topics which used to be discussed on lists are now discussed in office. Consequence: decrease of list volume
Third damage: internal lists are quite cabalistic :-) Just consider internal-l and see how many new members joined in 2006 ? in 2007 ? in 2008 ? I think by and large, most people who joined in 2008 are staff members. Or previous members who were at risk of being removed because they stopped being staff or board members. Proposition of new names is looked with serious suspicion. New blood is now extremely rare, and does not replace those who become inactive. Consequence: decrease of list volume
I am trying to say that the most serious problem is significantly less number of new participants. There are a number of reasons why it is so: confidential issues shouldn't be discussed publicly, people feels better if they are talking privately, WMF staff has its own dynamics... If the product of those reasonable tendencies is good -- we have a system which works fine. If the product is not good -- we have systematic problem. I think that we are much closer to the second scenario than to the first. It doesn't mean, of course, that confidential issues should be discussed publicly etc., but it means that we need to think about it and try to solve it.