From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] We have the problem
To: birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com, "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 7:15 AM
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 4:05 AM, Birgitte SB
<birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
I must disagree that the systematic problem is
that we
don't care enough. I would say it is that we cannot
communicate effectively. The barriers to communication
throughout Wikimedia are real and not just due to some lack
of caring.
From my experience, a lot of Wikimedians don't know for
this list.
When I am the first person who introduces a Wikimedian with
2 years of
experience (and I didn't do that just once) that this
list exists and
that it is the right place for talking about general issues
-- I may
conclude that we have a [systematic] communication problem.
If you think about languages as barriers, they are not *so*
significant to become a "real problem". The most
of Wikimedians are
able to read English. Also, there is no need that every
Wikimedian
knows English, there is a need for just one or few of them
per
community.
I don't think languages alone are the main barrier to communication and I did not
mention language in my email. When someone picks on the exact words someone like Gerard M
or Anthere uses in a second languages to dismiss the more general message they write we
are not communicating effectively. When people approach an issue from either a position
of condescension or one of mistrust they will not communicate effectively. I personally
struggle to effectively communicate with native English speaking developers.
Communication amoung people who care is a problem outside what languages they speak.
Birgitte SB