Thyge, Craig, Dan, Rogol, Max, Neil, Mike, Ryan, Pete, Yair, and
Leigh, here are some questions I'd like you to answer, neither of
which are rhetorical:
First, what attracts you to the free culture movement?
What freedoms do you personally hold as ideal?
Finally, what does the Foundation's Mission statement mean when it
says to "empower and engage people around the world to collect and
develop educational content"? Does that mean political power?
The WMF should not be taking political stances
without input and consensus from the community.
The community has (s)elected the Board of Trustees, and the Board has
delegated policy-making authority to Ms. Maher. If you believe this to
be a mistake then you should run for the Board on that platform and
make your case if and when you are (s)elected. In my view Ms. Maher
has a more reasonable outlook than all of the Board's members I know
enough about to have formed an opinion on put together, and she has
been repeatedly proving it through her commendable actions,
statements, and efforts.
Nothing proves this more than Ms. Maher's message a few minutes ago on
the new strategy process. I take back all my previously stated
reservations. I was especially pleased to see this:
Community Process Steering Committee [are discussing
how to] engage more "quiet" members of our community....
That is *sorely* needed. Most of our best content creators don't want
to stick their neck out in policy discussions, even on their projects'
noticeboards and often even on talk pages, because of the risk of
harassment, reputation polarization, stereotyping, attracting stalkers
and tag teams, or putting their contributions into the cross-hairs of
organized advocacy efforts.
I would *love* to see a frequent and statistically robust anonymous
channel from content creators to project and Foundation policymakers
consisting of more than just a 20 minute survey every couple years.