Re Angela's mention of the "community" discussing and deciding things.
Just how many folks are subscribed to Foundation-l? What percentage of them actually contribute to Foundation-l when a new project is proposed, or a question is raised? I've spent a lot of time on a lot of lists (founded and moderated one for three years), and this one is, well, quite inactive. And not only that, it's sometimes not very civil (e.g. "Do it yourself").
Communities are groups of individuals with common interests who unite to further those interests. They have to contribute. They have to be helpful. Do the subscribers to Foundation-l contribute? Are they helpful? A more basic question: do they even have common interests?
All the Best, Marshall
Marshall Poe, Ph.D. The Atlantic Monthly 600 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington, DC 20037 202-266-6511 mpoe@theatlantic.com _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
"Poe, Marshall" MPoe@theatlantic.com wrote in message news:E1DA5D7A2C3FD34484C3102E6AA616E801FBDAAE@amcmail... [snip]
... And not only that, it's sometimes not very civil (e.g. "Do it yourself").
To be brutally fair, that is the whole point of a wiki. Most websites, you have to petition the webmaster to change anything, assuming the so-and-so is still alive and receiving email. On a wiki, you can dive in and do it yourself. Whether your ego survives the ensuing sh*st*rm is an entirely separate problem :-)
You Know You've Been Doing Too Much Wiki When...you find yourself looking for the "Edit this..." link on some other website, like, say, microsoft.com or Mugglenet :-)
Whether your ego survives the ensuing sh*st*rm is an entirely separate problem :-)
And whether your ego is strong enough to be willing to do things that you know will open up a sh*st*rm ..... is also part of this ;). Or in other words .... it is not for the faint of heart.
Waerth/Walter
Poe, Marshall wrote:
Re Angela's mention of the "community" discussing and deciding things.
Just how many folks are subscribed to Foundation-l? What percentage of them actually contribute to Foundation-l when a new project is proposed, or a question is raised? I've spent a lot of time on a lot of lists (founded and moderated one for three years), and this one is, well, quite inactive. And not only that, it's sometimes not very civil (e.g. "Do it yourself").
Communities are groups of individuals with common interests who unite to further those interests. They have to contribute. They have to be helpful. Do the subscribers to Foundation-l contribute? Are they helpful? A more basic question: do they even have common interests?
One difficulty in identifying what the "community" is is that Wikipedia is now so large that there's no monolithic community. I would say most Wikipedians aren't subscribed to this mailing list, or indeed to any of the Wikipedia mailing lists. Some people participate in community discussions in other locations, like Wikipedia:Village_pump on the English Wikipedia, and others stick to only discussing within particular topic areas and sets of articles they happen to be interested in. Many people have opinions or ideas for specific meta-type issues, but only a relatively small subset is interested in keeping abreast of all of them, and that subset is who tends to be on these mailing lists sort of by definition.
Which leads to an interesting organizational problem. =]
-Mark
Poe, Marshall wrote:
Re Angela's mention of the "community" discussing and deciding things.
Just how many folks are subscribed to Foundation-l? What percentage of them actually contribute to Foundation-l when a new project is proposed, or a question is raised? I've spent a lot of time on a lot of lists (founded and moderated one for three years), and this one is, well, quite inactive. And not only that, it's sometimes not very civil (e.g. "Do it yourself").
Communities are groups of individuals with common interests who unite to further those interests. They have to contribute. They have to be helpful. Do the subscribers to Foundation-l contribute? Are they helpful? A more basic question: do they even have common interests?
All the Best, Marshall
Hi
When I look at it overall, I can't say there is one area from which most of the significant information/feedback is coming. Generally, I assume that there is an important number of editors registered to this list, enough to get a significant and interesting feedback. However, I also know that
1) there are not enough editors subscribed to it to be certain information given through this ml will be reliably passed along in all projects. So we need other channels for information.
2) there are not enough editors subcribed to it for it to be a reliable subset of opinion of all editors. So, we need more subsets before making a decision.
3) many of its subscribers do not read all mails.
4) many readers dare not participate to it (ie, there is a perception of a very large room, in which it is tough to speak aloud).
For all these reasons, you must be aware that this list is only one amongst many channels of discussion. Many discussions occur on irc as well. Many on other lists or even "private" lists. Once a small group has recognised a common interest, they also start private email and private irc channels. Add to this meta, and our subgroups here and there (such as for me the french community).
Keep in mind that a very small percentage of our participants is actually really interested and willing to do things for the Foundation. In most cases, people just do not care AT ALL. As long as things are running, they are happy. They will just pop their heads when the website is running slow, or when we put a fundraising banner at the top of their favorite pages. Otherwise, they happily contribute to articles and are quite glad to leave the administration stuff to others to take care of.
And this is probably fine :-)
For a newcomer, it implies two things. If you want to participate to Foundation issues, you must dig up your way (sometimes the hard way) in the current subset taking care of it. And if you are very careful, you will notice after a while that many of those actually doing things do not participate to this list. You can also try to get the help of a god-mother to get you in the labyrinthus. But mostly, you have to get noticed in being bold in doing things, so that you begin to get involved in internal matters. And this list is one of the place where we can notice people. If there is ONE interest in it, that might be this one.
The other point is that "Community discuss and decide things", but the project is now to large for the "community" to be a simple entity. It is rather a set of moving subentities, each having a common interest of a sort. It is a slow and sometimes difficult process to navigate between all these subsets. But when a board takes a decision, it has to. It has to try to really jaudge the amount of support and opposition on a certain issue, so as to try to take the best choice between what the editors would prefer and what is strategically, economically and socially best. Editors often complain how slow this process is, but I think there are no other way. For example, we can see the last proposals for new projects. We will not react to them because we first need people feedback. If a project really interest the editors, we will know soon enough. A person will say "yeah, good idea", another will approve, one will write us privately, a next begin a vote... and the ball will get rolling; We can sometimes help the ball running or trying to slow it down, but generally, once an idea gets a supportive community and a champion, it is likely to succeed. Otherwise not. Observe this process happening during a couple of months, and you will understand better I think.
Ant
Poe, Marshall wrote:
Re Angela's mention of the "community" discussing and deciding things.
Just how many folks are subscribed to Foundation-l? What percentage of them actually contribute to Foundation-l when a new project is proposed, or a question is raised? I've spent a lot of time on a lot of lists (founded and moderated one for three years), and this one is, well, quite inactive. And not only that, it's sometimes not very civil (e.g. "Do it yourself").
The Foundation doesn't have significant human resources at its disposal. It provides hosting, and then relies on the work of interested but otherwise unaffiliated volunteers to promote the formation of a community, which will then do the required work.
This is the nature of the organisation: if you don't do it, who will? Enthusiasm is valuable, not ideas. An industrious, maybe even entrepreneurial attitude is required to found a successful wiki project. Enthusiasm rarely comes from the upper management -- their enthusiasm is thinly spread and probably biased towards their Wikipedia background. That's why you have to have it yourself.
Communities are groups of individuals with common interests who unite to further those interests. They have to contribute. They have to be helpful. Do the subscribers to Foundation-l contribute? Are they helpful? A more basic question: do they even have common interests?
Yes they contribute, but no, they don't have common interests. The Wikimedia community is really a diverse set of communities, each working on their own project and only occasionally contributing the Foundation as a whole or to its management. The Board is unsure of its mandate as a decision making body, and the Wikimedia community lacks the cohesiveness required to make its own decisions.
That's why if you want to start a new project, you have to make your own community. You have to identify people with common interests and draw them together. Then you have to be prepared to start work with or without the Board's approval.
A quick introduction since I gather you don't know who I am: I'm mainly interested in Wikipedia, which I've been contributing to since before Wikimedia was invented. I know the three most active Board members pretty well, thanks to IRC. I'm not interested in any Wikimedia project, active or proposed, other than Wikipedia and MediaWiki.
-- Tim Starling
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org