On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: I disagree with your interpretation, but it still deserves to be said. The talk page has mostly resounding opposition. You are basing a lot of your interpretation that WMF has been the subject of a lot of criticism in the past, and this move might help ameliorate some of the tension. I actually don't recall the fellowship program, presence in the developing world or Wikimania itself, as being subject of criticisms being directed at WMF. The education program is still there, as is the "community advocacy" department, and mostly the same structure that brought you fine ideas like the filter and took away chapter fundraising, so are the initiatives that brought us tools like the AFT and Wikilove/Moodbar. It's highly debatable if any of the area WMF was criticized on, is removed in this move. It is arguably also abandoning duties and expenses it was able to maintain once at a budget of $6-8 million, at the current level of $40 Million. If you look at this in context, first the chapter fundraising ability was taken away so there is just one source of funding, then decisions are being taken to shut down programs which would be absolute in this scenario. I have no idea how properties like reddit still maintain and keep growing. Perhaps, it's because they are not emaciated bodies anemic for constant fresh blood, as WMF seems to have been convinced Wikipedia is. Perhaps, it's also because one is a social website that creates memes and posts funny pictures that their members find and the other is an Encyclopedia, with rules, citations, and all the serious stuff that might require more of a commitment. Not everyone likes to edit an encyclopedia, fewer still do it well, maybe comparing our community with Facebook and reddit is the problem.* As far as "Movement" goes, that's what we actually raise money in the name of, we don't ask to support "an effective, innovative manager of an ecosystem of web-based knowledge references". Movement, I suppose was hard to characterize, in different context it could mean different things, it could be organizing an event on one end of the world one day, doing something like WLM the next or opposing something like SOPA the day after, all the while running the largest, online encyclopedia. Something was needed to bind those common threads, I suppose Movement was the word they chose, I don't like it any more than you do, but it fits. There just doesn't seem to be a lot tying all this together, more and more threads are being cut and manipulated. Last point about fundraising, It was perhaps worth striving to achieve a distant abstract goal that will not be met in the near future like "End world hunger" or "No bombs, No wars", as far as those go, perhaps "Gathering the sum of all human knowledge" is in that same distant vein, not likely to be achieved any time soon or perhaps ever. It might become a bit harder if the larger goal was to be specified, instead of "Support our community", "Support our editors" Jimmy would be asking this year to "help support our FDC grants program and mobile development for the year", for those who know, it should affect the perception at least. The most sanguine of disposition from community members about fundraising should consider, that WMF is actually suggesting to do less while raising more money. Regards Theo (*partially borrowed from something MzMcbride said in a similar context.)

MZMcBride wrote: Sorry, one more thing that I think deserves a follow-up e-mail: huge props to Sue for drafting this on-wiki. I know that there were a number of alternate private venues available (such as the office wiki) and it isn't always easy to draft a document, particularly a document like this, in public. In keeping with our values, I hope we continue to encourage everyone to use the public venues whenever possible. Thank you, Sue! MZMcBride

2012/10/18 Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>om>: That's easy to answer. Apart from the commercial social network sites for the populace being non-educational: Much has already been done, and what we are doing is good enough to most people. Also, they do not perceive Wikipedia as a community to become a part of, but basically as an online encyclopaedia they can use for looking up something they are interested in --- after all, that's what it's supposed to be, isn't it. And then, the situation is quite different for the language communities. German Wikipedia grows constantly by some 400 new articles per day. No change over time. No loss of productivity. So what? Regards, Jürgen.

This proposal reminds me of "management buyout", which Wikipedia defines as "form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company from either the parent company or from the private owners". There always been ambiguity to the roles of WMF - does it have right to interfere with Community decisions, especially highly controversial ones? In what form it should communicate with highly dispersed, varied community. I cannot say that I completely agreed with "5 year plan", but at least it have given a clear directions and even (some, not all) achievable goals: attraction of new editors, including women, helping the Global South to access free knowledge. Of course, not all initiatives were working, but at least the was movement in the right direction. I understand that it wasn't easy for the WMF employees, but we all hope that working for a non-profit organisation is not just a day, 9 to 5 job (which are disappearing fast anyway). And now the management found how to end all this - curtail awkward, highly demanding activities on the ground in less civilised world and concentrate on relatively easy, structured work, which can be done in sunny San Francisco - engineering and "grant making". I cannot say anything against engineering, this is a cornerstone, although I cannot see how management, Legal etc. engagement with "people on the ground" have interfered with programmers work and how "refocusing" will help to create Visual Editor. My worry is about "grant making", forgive me, I am not a native speaker, so I can just guess that this means "grant distributing". When the chapters started appearing, I thought they will be local WMF, which will build bridges between WMF and local communities. This is not what happened. I don't want to go into details as to why, but Fir WMF had already withdrawn support for the Chapter fundraising through the banner, and now if I understand correctly the Chapters re supposed to fend for themselves completely - they want to do it anyway, but this is a different story. So WMF will collect the money and then will distribute it by the means unknown. As a former member of the Grant Committee I can say that the current process is not very efficient and there is no alternative proposed. And if WMF focus on distributing grants instead of helping directly, it will become incredibly difficult for people with no experience in a highly specific task of grant-writing (=community members) to get their initiatives off the ground, and the money will go to third parties. During the "restructuring time" WMF will stop supporting really working things such as Wikimania, leaving it to fend for itself, just like chapters. I wonder at what point European Chapters, lead by highly efficient German , will realise that they don't need WMF, buy servers and fork. I can only hope that the Board will not agree with this proposal and WMF will find some other way to reduce work-related stress. Victoria

On Oct 20, 2012 6:36 PM, "Mono" <monomium(a)gmail.com> wrote: > The WMF should spend less time thinking about what to do and more time > doing it. That means they can't do everything under the moon. But everyone > knows that big things need to happen. Well said. That is precisely why these changes are being proposed: taking some things off the table will help us get shit done. It's not the only part of being able to more rapidly ship new products, by far, but being clear about our scope as an organzation will go a long way. On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 5:01 AM, Виктория <mstislavl1(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > This proposal reminds me of "management buyout", which Wikipedia defines as > > "form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large > > part or all of the company from either the parent company or from the > > private owners". > > > There always been ambiguity to the roles of WMF - does it have right to > > interfere with Community decisions, especially highly controversial ones? community. it but at > > least the was movement in the right direction. > > > I understand that it wasn't easy for the WMF employees, but we all hope > > that working for a non-profit organisation is not just a day, 9 to 5 job > > (which are disappearing fast anyway). And now the management found how to ground > > in less civilised world and concentrate on relatively easy, structured > > work, which can be done in sunny San Francisco - engineering and "grant > > making". > > > I cannot say anything against engineering, this is a cornerstone, although "grant > > distributing". > > > When the chapters started appearing, I thought they will be local WMF, > > which will build bridges between WMF and local communities. This is not > > what happened. I don't want to go into details as to why, but Fir WMF had banner, different > > story. > > > So WMF will collect the money and then will distribute it by the means > > unknown. As a former member of the Grant Committee I can say that the > > current process is not very efficient and there is no alternative proposed. it highly During > > the "restructuring time" WMF will stop supporting really working things > > such as Wikimania, leaving it to fend for itself, just like chapters. > > > I wonder at what point European Chapters, lead by highly efficient German , > > will realise that they don't need WMF, buy servers and fork. > > > I can only hope that the Board will not agree with this proposal and WMF > > will find some other way to reduce work-related stress. > > > Victoria > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

I'm kind sad to see the my personal view of the Wikimedia movement increasingly distant from Sue's view... I believe sister projects are deeply important and potential (we have a Universal Library (Wikisource), a Universal Media Archive (Commons), a Universal Dictionary (Wiktionary), etc.) They are worth some attention and WMF has never given it to them. I believe WMF should understand that his job focus it's not English Wikipedia. There are other Wikipedias and there are other projects. Oh, there are other languages too. I believe the Movement to be deeply international and diverse, and that keeping and enjoying this diversity is hugely hard but hugely important. Both fellowships, attention to developing countries and Wikimania cover that. I believe Wikimania is a awesome occasion to become a WikiMedian, and to fell being part of a Movement. It is wonderful to get new ideas, to talk to people, to understand and learn, and to take back this experience in Chapters and Wikiprojects. Ask anyone who participated in a Wikimania event. I feel that keeping the Fellowhip Program open would be a way to let the community express itself, propose original and innovative ideas and focused projects. I do believe that some of them had an impact (GLAM, anyone?), and will have for years. We just scratched the surface. I regret deeply the distance between WMF and Chapters: they were not allowed to participant in the fundraiser, put in the uncomfortable situation to ask the grants in a burocratic way staying under stricts agreements (ie, California laws AND national laws). It is a complex topic (accountability and so on), but could have be dealt with much better. I believe that money should be much better distributed that centralized, I believe that ''no one, neither the Chapters nor the Foundation, is really entitled to get the money.'' No one really deserve the donations we get as Wikimedia. We did not earn them. They are for Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is a commons, and is common-produced. If we could distribute the money to all the editors around the globe, as a reward, we should do it.. It's impossible, so it's OK, but, still, I hope you get the idea that we are not entitled, we just get them. And we should be aware of that. Aubrey PS: full disclosure: I had in mind to ask for a fellowship about Wikisource, and I'm a chapter member. So there is some personal disappontment, going exactly in the opposite direction of WMF.