After Ruth suggested Quarto be held from publication until it was proofread, Anthere
wrote:> I frankly do not know what to do. I just know I am all> for the board giving
more information to the community> and making it available widely.Angela said :
Perhaps this needs to be done in a less time-intensive way. Couldn't alarge glossy
Quarto be published every 6 months instead of every 3,with simple text based reports from
the Board given monthly inaddition to the reports I already make
athttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings ? When I say simple, Imean the report would
be on one page, not split across various wikisand various templates. These reports could
be limited to what actuallyhappened, rather than opinions on that, meaning it could be
muchshorter than it would be in Quarto, and therefore much quicker andeasier to
translate.
----------------------
Why not. What I fear Angela, is duplication of efforts.
Currently, we have 3 sources of information.
* The reports from all meetings. The benefit is that these reports are very
straightforward, done in a very timely fashion.
The main four disadvantages is that not everything is done in meetings (far from it), so
not everything gets reported.
Secondly, it is not translated. Third, these are only decisions from the board, not from
officers.
Fourth, they do not include personal opinions or thoughts. I do not mean it is wrong, they
are only minutes from meetings, and should stay this way.
* The Quarto. It is supposed to be four issues per year. Though, I suspect only probably
three this year. As you mention, it is not meant to be done in a timely fashion, but
rather
to generally inform a couple of times a year. It is more a "state of the
projects" at a given time. The main disadvantage is that it is slow.
* The main page with news on the Foundation Wiki. It was started more recently. I expect
it relies a lot on good will of 1) board members of WMF
2) board members of local chapters, 3) officers and 4) generally involved editors. I wish
it to be with a date and signed so that to make it clear where
the information will come. Advantage : it offers the opportunity to stick to real time
events. Disadvantages : 1) it is only a short statement, 2) editors do not feel
entitled to make reports or do not think of doing some or do not feel like doing them, 3)
it is not frequently translated.
If we add a monthly report, I fear we fall somewhere in between Quarto and the Foundation
main page... and end up duplicating efforts.
Besides, I do not think it is efficient that *we* do such a report, as the ones having
most of the information in their hands are not necessarily us... but those specifically
involved in an issue. Typically, Dammit or Brion or JeLuF or Kate or Tim (and many more
here, I do not want to hurt any one) know much more of the current state of our servers
than us.
But your idea suggest that we should perhaps mostly improve the Foundation main page
greatly and try to increase the number of reports there.
Most of the frame of the Foundation site is set now.
But we still are very much behind in terms of information available on the website.
If the aim of the newsletter is to get Board information out to peoplein a timely way,
then I don't think Quarto is meeting that goal, and Idon't think it should try to.
I see Quarto as something lesstime-urgent, and something which ought to be developed by
thecommunity, not the Board.I'm copying this to Foundation-l since the the
distribution ofinformation from the Board needs to be discussed by more people thanthe
very small group on the Quarto list. Angela.
As a side comment, the Quarto is essentially done by the community. Not by the board. Only
two pages or the 8 items are focusing on the board and the Foundation activity in itself.
Page 1 is the welcome. Page 2 is letter from Jimbo and the board. Page 3 is report about
Foundation activity. Page 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are about projects reports, various initiatives
on projects or projects wide, interviews, wikimania, local chapters activity, wikipedians
meetups, image gallery, press coverage etc... Anyone can participate to those and is
welcome to do so.
Talking about information sharing.... information is not a one way event.
I think I said it many times already, and will again repeat it, because I feel it is not
entering many ears. And reading Cimon candidate statement, I wonder how our efforts to
communicate are perceived. Expecting the board to inform you is one thing, but if you are
not happy by the way we inform you, please try to help us decipher what you want. There is
little I find more perplexing than to read some people find themselves badly informed and
when we ask them how to improve things, there is absolutely no comment whatsoever.
Second, if you expect us to inform you, there is a similar requirement from us toward you.
Danny made a good suggestion recently, which could be one way to tell us what you want.
Perhaps all this does not concern editors on THIS mailing list, but only editors on the
project, who do not read this list. If so, what do you suggest we could do to improve
feedback given to us ?
Note finally, that this is not adressed only to editors, but also to officers or informed
editors. We hope to receive information from officers. We hope they will help us gather
information and we hope they can help us feed back this information to editors. I'll
pick up a recent example which reflects pretty well my dismay. There was this deal with
KDE. It was discussed on irc whether we should publish a little something on the WMF
website. Someone told me "well, just make a report yourself on the matter".
Fine, but guys, I promise "Wikimedia will develop an API which will allow developers
to integrate Wikimedia content in their programs" means absolutely nothing to me. I
do not know what an API is. How can I be expected to report something I just understand
nothing about ? I just can't do it. And each time I feel like editors should be
informed on a technical matter, please do not answer me "well, you know very well
yourself, can't you just check and make a report yourself ?". Well,
no, I can not. Those who have the information should realise that they are empowered to
give it and to help others to understand. Rather than to keep information for themselves.
Not expect that others know all of it and will report about it.
Last point. It would be correct that information be openly and spontaneously provided by
officers. I am thinking of possibly suggesting that something like a monthly report or
something similar be provided by officers. Even if it to write in it "all is well,
nothing to report" or "I have had no time to do anything special this
month". It should not be seen as control or police thought or whatever, but only
information sharing. It is not efficient/proper that officers do things, in particular
with external contacts, with the hat of an officer, without the board knowing, or with
only certain board members knowing. First because it could lead us appearing quite stupid
in front of potential partners. Second because two people could be doing the same thing,
hence losing their time. Currently, this information sharing does not occur very well.
Either information is not provided, or only indirectly provided. Indirect source is not
good either, because each additional step distort the
information given. Again, I have mentionned many times that I felt badly informed on some
topics, or that only partial information was circulating. I would really like to improve
this. Again, no good decision can be taken when information is lacking, and no information
will be provided to editors when the information is unknown by the reporter itself.
Anthere
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