Appropriation of the Wikimedia Blog by the WMF - Wikimedia-l

9 Jun 2018

Since Ed Erhart didn't honor my request of posting in this mailing lists to
discuss the plans to appropriate the Wikimedia Blog for the Wikimedia
Foundation [1] (although I would have preferred that he had done it himself
as he is the visible face behind this change, and therefore the burden of
proof is on him to prove to the community that this is the right change), I
am posting to this list with the hope that it can be discussed with people
for whom these things matter.

The Wikimedia Blog [2] has the title "News from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia
movement", and in case you don't know it it is run by the WMF [3]. This
blog has been operating under the existing URL for many years, and I
believe there was a general satisfaction with the way is run, the quality
of the stories, the amount, etc. However, as I mentioned in the Phabricator
ticket [1] I find the idea of moving the blog to the Wikimedia Foundation
site not adequate and not in the spirit of the Wikimedia movement.

I do not find the intention to move the blog to the WMF site to be in the
spirit of the Wikimedia movement because our movement is a diverse field
that is based on the idea of "commons" [4], and I feel that the Wikimedia
Blog is one of those commons. As I see it now the blog sits in the middle
of the community, and although it is run by the WMF, it can be seen as a
shared space between the WMF, the affiliates, and the community. By moving
the blog to the WMF site, the blog would lose its status as a commons and
it would become "the blog of the WMF". I think that if the WMF wants a
blog, they can create a new one, but they should leave the existing blog as
it is, as a shared space.

Intentions like this makes me think that in the WMF there is not enough
"wisdom", that strange quality that I am trying to make important in our
movement without much success [5]. This lack of wisdom is not only present
in the WMF, also in our movement I percieve, if not lack of wisdom, at
least lack of empathy [6]. It saddens me and it makes me stressed.

Issues like this one about the blog make me think that the movement needs
dedicated people that cultivate wisdom and encyclopedic knowledge about the
movement (I might have the former, but not the later), and that we put the
qualities of those people to the service of our community. I feel like a
little kid who wants to play a nice game with his friends, and then he sees
a big bulldozer coming to destroy his playing field. If it is not clear for
you, the "bulldozer" is how I see the "corporate WMF" coming to
destroy the
soul of what I love most.

Tracking these kind of "behind the scenes" events takes me too much time. I
feel that I have reached more than the maximum of my capacity as a
"volunteer" (ha, what a joke of a word), and that I would risk losing my
current job if I am caught again participating in the Wikimedia projects
during my work hours, which I do without restrain. Not only that, it also
takes most of my waking time, specially because the movement has grown so
big that I feel overwhelmed in my capacity as metapedian [7]. I also feel
that it has started affecting my mental health. I do not know if I am the
only one, but as it is right now contributing to the Wikimedia projects is
*very* stressful, and since it is my main activity, I don't have time to
wind down, and since I do it as a "volunteer", I do not have free time to
recover. I also fear that if I would not do it myself nobody else would do
it, and if nobody would take their individual responsibility seriously,
then nobody would care for the good things in this world, and if nobody
would take care of the good things in this world, then we better start
saying goodbye to it RIGHT NOW, because the world is a fucking mess and
nobody is standing up to say the things as they are, or as they should be.

I spent 14 years of my life in the Wikimedia projects with various degrees
of involvement, working for free, and receiving compensation [8], and I
must say that the quality of my work has been exactly the same, my
responsability has been exactly the same, and it never mattered if I hold a
position of "power" or not, I always acted exactly the same, the only thing
that has changed is my "awareness", and my capacity to listen, which allows
me to have more effective conversations that build real consensus [9]. I
say all that because many people in this movement seem to have an issue
with money. Get over it guys. It is just a tool, like a computer, like a
hammer, like whatever tool you want to imagine. You take it, you use it,
and then you forget about it. That is the way it should be done. All the
rest is stories that people have in their heads that are totally wrong and
misinformed.

To go back to the topic of the Wikimedia Blog, I believe that, as one above
the average wise people said, "the best that can come from it is that
nothing happens".
I don't think it is done with bad intentions. I trust Ed as a reputable
member of the community, but I do believe that I am suffering as a result
of his lack of awareness.

So to anyone that feels part of the community and is reading this message,
I would like to ask you to express your view if you really care about all
the things that I am saying here. If you don't have much to say, or you
don't feel that you can't add much to the conversation, a simple "I hear
you, I support you" or something in those lines would make a big difference
for me.

Thank you,
Micru

[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193912
[2] https://blog.wikimedia.org/
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Blog&oldid=17563…
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Micru/Draft_RFC
[6]
https://es.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiviajes:Tabl%C3%B3n_de_anunc…
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapedianism
[8]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_v…
[9]
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:Lexicographical_data#Replacing_…