I just want to comment on one particular point made by Pete.
On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 8:27 PM Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Institutional memory is important BOTH to staff of
WMF, AND to the
volunteer community.
I think both you and I, Michael, have blurred these two issues to some
degree. It would be possible for (a) WMF to fully and privately document
the relevant history (which could be a function of top-down leadership
and/or staff culture), and for (b) volunteers to fully and publicly
document relevant history (growing out of volunteer culture, presumably
with some input from staff).
Whereas this is correct as a general statement, in practice, volunteers
can not
document the institutional history. This documentation can not be a
bottom-up process similar to writing a Wikipedia article. For a very simple
reason: There are many viewpoints at every particular event, and the
documentation of volunteers will inevitably reflect one of the points.
Sure, one person can write an analysis of a particular incident from their
point of view, or even a book on the history of Wikipedia. This person can
be a knowledgeable volunteer having general trust of the community or it
could be a user under a site ban. However, a collective product will
inevitably face the necessity of choice. In writing a Wikipedia article, we
use reliable sources to select material (and when reliable sources clash,
we usually face a disaster). Here, we are talking about the events which no
reliable sources describe in detail. An organization can document them on a
basis of performed investigation. A single person can document them on the
basis of their memory and experience. But I do not see how any grassroot
collaboration could be possible here. Any attempt to document these things
from the volunteer side would lead to projects similar to V-ocracy (which
already happened in some languages).
Best regards
Yaroslav
_______________________________________________
> 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(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe