Anna, you are talking about a decade old problems, which are not yet addressed.
There are two exceptions: (1) Board largely stopped making shame transfer statements; and (2) For the last couple of years, every interaction with the staff has given impression to me that I deal with competent professionals.
Although it wouldn't be that significant advancement for an average organization, having in mind the complexity of the Wikimedia movement, I have to say that I am in a way content. It was relaxing to me to realize that, for example, the latest visit do Ghana addressed everything basically needed.
However, those old problems are still here. Numerous tries to solve them properly have been mostly implicitly undermined. Sometimes because of lack of support, sometimes because of making more or less visible barriers. And it's not about community which blocks it, but about those in power.
It is extremely important to understand that position of power brings more responsibility. The position of power doesn't need to be "absolute" (i.e. Board members; yes, I know it's not absolute, that's why I used quotes); in many cases, it's very relative and it's sometimes hard to distinguish (who has more power on English Wikipedia: a WMF employee or an ArbCom member). However, in the most of the cases, it's very visible: an ordinary Wikipedia editor, not willing to be organized in a chapter or a user group, has power to vote few times per year and power to *edit*. While the first power is very relative, only real power which that editor has is to edit.
That leads to sticking with the only real power and alienation from all other segments of the Wikimedia movement. An average active editor of Wikimedia projects most likely have very negative opinion towards anyone else than the fellow editors.
Making equation between Board, staff and community is false because it's about very different levels of responsibility. Urging to the community to do something won't be treated serious as long as they have to abandon their rights (even it's about abandoning practically non-existent rights) as long as all of their power -- to elect the guardians of their community -- is mostly about broken promises. And the system has been made in the way that the promises will be always broken.
The story of WMF (both, Board and staff) reminds me a lot of the story of US Democratic Party and the centrist parties all over the Europe: forcing business as usual as long as it is possible, no matter if it's been done by ignoring the voices, searching for pseudoscientific conclusions based on techniques that work when you want to sell marketing services, but not so much when you want to address the concerns of the population you lead.
Fortunately, we are not in the position that "everything has been lost" and we could change it. But that would be possible just if there is political will inside of the WMF to do that.
Last year this time we've witnessed the revolution, the power of staff to replace ED. Around the end of the event, I was assured that the staff will be the stakeholder that would lead the change. If there were changes during the last year, they are invisible.
Long time ago -- at the beginning of this century -- we've invented large scale constructive participatory democracy. Instead of using it, instead of nurturing it, developing it, those in power neglected it at the best, and actively obstructed it at the worst.
There are methods and models how to do that. I have my own preferences, but I -- and the majority of editors, I am sure -- would be quite fine with anything which works. And, no, limiting editors to the decision of which image would be the first on the article about toilet paper orientation is not one of the viable models. No, limiting them to make decisions about the rules for deciding which image would be the first in any article is neither a viable model.
On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 8:50 PM, Anna Stillwell astillwell@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello,
I'd like to talk beyond this particular instance or these particular protagonists.
I'd like to talk about culture. We've created a culture that is hard on people, somewhat punishing of them. We engage in a good deal of public shaming.
We need to find a way to turn our culture toward more generative and constructive forms of public discourse. If we fail, smart, good, healthy Wikimedians will go away and not add their knowledge to our projects.
It’s not even about whose at fault anymore, because we all are. When I talk to people across the movement, they're all pretty clear that someone other than themselves is the responsible party:
- “It’s the dysfunctional board.”
- “No, no. it’s the “toxic communities”.
- “Of course not, its the obtuse staff”.
First, this is not healthy and it is not true. We have smart, brilliant, competent people throughout our movement. I’ve met brilliant, generative, empathic community members who have performed a deep service by adding their knowledge. I’ve met brilliant staff members that are advancing ideas that can have tremendously positive impacts on our projects. I’ve met brilliant board members who are thinking about the future in a very serious way.
Second, it does us no good to shift the blame around and work against each other. We have to find ways to support each other in solving problems because we have a lot of important problems to solve together.
We face so many challenges, not least of which is a world that seems to think that closed societies and ignorance and divisions are better than open societies, coursing with knowledge and constructive unity. Of the many challenges we face together: being collectively diminishing of one another and divisive should not be one of them.
Sorry, I just can’t keep quiet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_DvGP6Y4jQ on this any more.
/a
On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 10:39 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Does anyone doubt that the English Wikipedia's longstanding, pervasive, counter-factual, systemic bias towards supply side trickle-down austerity libertarian objectivist economics due at least in part to early influence of editors attracted to Jimmy Wales' former public positions isn't at least partially responsible for the situation Romaine describes below?
Would it be better to move the Foundation out of the U.S., fix the bias, or both?
https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer/status/808003564291244033
Sincerely, Jim Salsman
---- forwarded message ---- Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2017 04:33:53 +0100 From: Romaine Wiki romaine.wiki@gmail.com To: Wikimedia wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns in general
Today I was reading in the (international) news about websites with knowledge on the topic of climate change disappear from the internet as result of the Trump administration. The second thing I read is that before something can be published about this topic, the government needs to approve this.
Do you realise what the right word for this is? censorship. Even if it is only partially.
Luckily there are many scientists working on getting all the data abroad, out of the US to ensure the research data is saved, including on servers in the Netherlands where Trump (hopefully) has no reach.
In the past week I was reading about the Internet Archive organisation, who is making a back up in Canada because of the Trump administration. I did not understood this, you may call me naive, but now I do understand, apparently they have some visionary people at the Internet Archive.
I miss a good answer to this situation from the Wikimedia Foundation.
Trump is now promoting harassment and disrespect, already for some time,
What signal is given to the rest of the world if an America based organisation is spreading the thought of a harassment free Wikipedia and the free word, while the president of the US is promoting harassment, disrespect and censorship on a massive scale.
This is just the first week of this president!
I am 100% sure everyone in the Wikimedia movement is willing to make sure Wikimedia faces no damage whatsoever, including in WMF, but to me this still starts to get concerning.
If we as Wikimedia movement think that free knowledge, free speech, freedom of information, etc are important, I would think that the location where the organisation is based is that country where liberty is the largest, I do not know where this is but it is definitely not the US.
To my impression WMF is stuck in the US, so I do not believe they would actually move when the danger grows.
But I think it is possible to make sure risks are spread over the world. Certainly as we are an international movement that intends to cover the knowledge of the whole humanoid civilisation.
To come to a conclusion, I think WMF and the Wikimedia movement should think about a back-up plan if it actually goes wrong.
If you do not agree with me: that is perfectly fine, that's your right and should be protected.
Thank you.
Romaine
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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
-- "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret Fuller
Anna Stillwell Director of Culture Wikimedia Foundation 415.806.1536 *www.wikimediafoundation.org http://www.wikimediafoundation.org* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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