Hoi,
You assume that people get to know the Wikimedia Foundation through
Wikipedia. A common assumption but it is wrong in that the Wikimedia
Foundation is there not only for Wikipedia but also for Wikipedia.
There are other project and when people consider things it is most
often seen in the light of what is good for Wikipedia must be good for
the rest. Well, suprise that is a fallacy.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 6/1/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Erik Moeller <eloquence(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte
<erikzachte(a)infodisiac.com>
wrote:
Later we got closed wikis and private board chats
as a side affair. Recent
statements like the ones quoted above give the
impression that both board
members find the Wikimedia community has become a
pain in the neck at times,
better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.
No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an
open meeting about
the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on
(we created a
separate meeting specifically to discuss the
ExecCom). For arguing for
the open meeting, Angela and myself received little
but scorn from the
existing group of people who were likely to serve on
these committees.
(Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the
time.) The
community members from the outside who joined hardly
participated at
all.
This wasn't a small number of people, something like
70 in the main
meeting. See the logs at:
http://scireview.de/wiki/com2/channel.log
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_committee/February_11%2C_2006_open…
Note that to this day, the second log contains a
claim by Jimbo that I
"deeply misrepresented" him during the ExecCom
meeting, without any
actual elaboration of why or how that is the case. I
will not repeat
some of the other things that have been said.
You will also note that in the end, it was mostly me
and another small
group of people arguing. I know you were there, but
there are many
people who are on this list who weren't. Now we are
given the usual
round of whining: "I don't like IRC!" "I wasn't
informed!" "My cat ate
my homework!"
Participating in these meetings, for me, has not
exactly been an
exercise in gaining popularity or favor; rather the
opposite. Taking a
stand against a prevailing line of thinking strains
relations with
people, and that should not be done unless there is
a clear benefit.
This was a crucial meeting where a case could have
been made, by the
community, for organizing and structuring Wikimedia
in an open and
participatory fashion. There are very few people who
were willing to
actually make that case.
For the "inside people" this is easy to explain: as
we see with
adminship on Wikipedia, open and accountable models
are quickly
subjected to constant harassment by self-appointed
"accountability
activists". Having your private little clubs and
mailing lists (some
of which, as we have heard, even the Board doesn't
know about or have
access to) makes things so much easier. Why put up
with the hassle of
an open meeting when you can have a closed one?
As for the outside people, perhaps their lack of
participation is
because they don't care about "organizational
stuff," perhaps it's
because Wikimedia has historically been so opaque
that people have
expected that it needs to stay that way. Whatever
the reason, people
like myself frankly lose the motivation to invest
time in a lost
cause.
Just like Wikipedia has to deal with vandalism and
trolls for allowing
anyone to edit, an open organization would have to
deal with
incompetence and maliciousness in return for rapid
growth and network
benefits. Rather than invent the organizational
equivalent of wiki
processes -- something which would require a lot of
creative thinking
from the brightest minds of Wikimedia -- it's much
more convenient to
say: "wiki and organization are different things and
need to be kept
separate." And, guess what, the lawyers agree!
There is virtually no active pressure or demand from
the actual
community for openness, participatory processes and
transparency
within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there
are very little.
The committees which have been formed are useful,
but they pick and
choose their members on a case by case basis (or
perhaps I should say
"face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership
application to
the Special Projects committee. At least during the
transitional
phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than
it was at the time
we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.
A process whereby every committee holds open, widely
announced
meetings and where advisor status is granted
instantly without
bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not
seem to be practiced
by any of the committees.
Even a trivial idea like putting a couple of new
community-elected
members on the Board has been proposed years ago but
never
implemented. But, then again, has there been any
pressure from the
community for such change to hapepn? Hardly at all.
When a couple of
"big shot" outside people are appointed to Board
positions and the
Board remains otherwise as it is, sure, there will
be the usual round
of whining. But during the processes that actually
matter, the people
who whine later tend to be conspicuously absent.
So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the
very philosophy
that made WP a success is not applicable to
organizations. Wikimedia
will become a functioning non-profit with the usual
bureucratic
processes, some successful fundraising, a few good
partnerships here
and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of
infighting among
volunteers, etc. It will not become the open
platform for social and
technological change that it could be -- the wide
network of people
who are interested in building a free knowledge and
free culture
movement. And who is to blame for that? Not the
people who made it
so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia
in mind and work
their ass of to do what they can to make it a
success. The people who
are to blame are those who did not participate in
turning Wikimedia
into something else, something larger, when it
mattered.
Erik
_______________________________________________
Without knowing the full history, or many details at
all, I can understand both sides of this. It is a
difficult issue. Right now, the people who will end
up with access to the system, will simply be those who
have made themselves known to the people with access.
This is generally how the world works, and there has
been some discusion about the problems with this in
the Checkuser thread as well. Within an organization
like WMF, this leads to a few problems in my eyes.
One you miss out on the qualified, experienced
people's input who do not happen to have a political
bent. And most importantly you skew the whole
organization away from the diverse and global feel.
That saddens me sitting here in the US, so I imagine
is really upsets the more "diverse" people around.
This is also the reason there is the blurry line
between en.WP and WMF that has been brought up here.
Because most people only get access to the latter is
through the former.
That said it is much easier to get things done when
they are kept closed. I cannot imagine how a truly
open system would work, and can easily believe it
would not work well. I am not so much of an idealist
as I once was to insist on principles. I understand
the need for pragmatism. However, I would like
encourage everyone to take a minute to examine where
we are. Examine what are the criteria for information
being put in a public area vs. a closed one. Be sure
things are pushed to open areas whenever it is
practical. Make a real effort to recruit more people
in from smaller languages instead of just waiting for
them to show up here. I think more recruiting should
be done period. For needed skill sets, etc. I have
never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities
for anything besides money and trust. I believe the
communities have much more to offer.
Honestly I trust you all, I don't need to read all the
discussions to feel comfortable here. However, I
think that by doing things as you are, you are
overwhelming yourselves and missing out on the
experience available in the wider communities. I
think anyone who reads this list must get the feeling
many people are simply overwhelmed with what they have
taken on. The idea seems to be this will be fixed by
hiring professionals, but the further that route is
followed the more closed this will become. Or else we
will have major retention problems. I can not imagine
having my *job* open to the critique of all of you.
The email where it was misunderstood that BradP was a
paid employee is the tip of the iceberg. I would
suggest putting out a call for volunteers for specific
tasks, and ask for resumes(which is a good example of
something that *should* be kept closed). Look for
people with actual experience and that can work
together so no one is overwhelmed. And whenever
possible people you do *not* already know well.
Seriously on a wiki a through read of someone
contributions can tell you most all the things you
would learn from a solid acquaintance.
I truly believe if there is not a effort made to keep
everything as open as possible now, there will be when
the chapters come into thier own. So I am not too
concerned. Although it would be better from a
practical standpoint, if the middle ground could be
found now.
Birgitte SB
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