Well....Iberocoopians always have fun ;-)
Sent from my HTC
----- Reply message ----- From: "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Why are we so boring? Date: Tue, Dec 8, 2015 3:36 PM
We are. It's not about particular thread on this list, it's about our existence. Initially I thought it's because the level of our responsibility, but eventually I've realized we are simply boring and nobody bothers about that.
Our meetings and conferences look like the meetings of a regional branch of German Social Democratic Party at the best. In regular occasions they are more like the meetings of a village cell of a communist party from an East European country during the 80s.
This enormous distance between the value of our work and ideals and presenting ourselves to *us* in the range between shiny snake oil merchants and demagogues nobody trusts is quite striking. (OK, there is one more end, thus making a triangle: highly specialized topics which require highly specialized knowledge to participate.)
The distance is also quite striking because the most witty people I ever met are from the Wikimedia movement itself.
It's endemic. From local Wikimedian meetings to Wikimania. The most interesting part of such events is talking with other Wikimedians. Listening talks, lectures and ceremonies is the worst option. Workshops and collective decision making are like gambling: it could be constructive, but it could also be not just wasting time but occult session with the only one goal: to drain the energy from the participants.
On average, I would rather spend two times more time talking with a Wikimedian than listening her or his lecture or talk.
There are some straight forward techniques. For example, we could work on making our talks much better. We could also ask HR professionals how to make our live interaction better.
However, being boring is somehow quite deeply rooted inside of our culture. While trying to become "serious", we lost our ability to be playful. Creativity is something we treat as the least important of our activities.
This is not something which could be fixed quickly. There is no a pill to magically cure it. But we could start thinking about this as a problem and start implementing various ideas to tackle it.
I wouldn't say that our revolution forbids us to dance. (Whenever somebody from Bay Area is DJ-ing, we dance and it's beautiful, no matter how trashy the music is.) But I am sure we can do better. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I confess. I have used many adjectives to describe Wikimedians over the years, but "boring" has never been one of them.
Risker/Anne
On 8 December 2015 at 14:20, Carlos Colina (Maor_X) maorx@wikimedia.org.ve wrote:
Well....Iberocoopians always have fun ;-)
Sent from my HTC
----- Reply message ----- From: "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Why are we so boring? Date: Tue, Dec 8, 2015 3:36 PM
We are. It's not about particular thread on this list, it's about our existence. Initially I thought it's because the level of our responsibility, but eventually I've realized we are simply boring and nobody bothers about that.
Our meetings and conferences look like the meetings of a regional branch of German Social Democratic Party at the best. In regular occasions they are more like the meetings of a village cell of a communist party from an East European country during the 80s.
This enormous distance between the value of our work and ideals and presenting ourselves to *us* in the range between shiny snake oil merchants and demagogues nobody trusts is quite striking. (OK, there is one more end, thus making a triangle: highly specialized topics which require highly specialized knowledge to participate.)
The distance is also quite striking because the most witty people I ever met are from the Wikimedia movement itself.
It's endemic. From local Wikimedian meetings to Wikimania. The most interesting part of such events is talking with other Wikimedians. Listening talks, lectures and ceremonies is the worst option. Workshops and collective decision making are like gambling: it could be constructive, but it could also be not just wasting time but occult session with the only one goal: to drain the energy from the participants.
On average, I would rather spend two times more time talking with a Wikimedian than listening her or his lecture or talk.
There are some straight forward techniques. For example, we could work on making our talks much better. We could also ask HR professionals how to make our live interaction better.
However, being boring is somehow quite deeply rooted inside of our culture. While trying to become "serious", we lost our ability to be playful. Creativity is something we treat as the least important of our activities.
This is not something which could be fixed quickly. There is no a pill to magically cure it. But we could start thinking about this as a problem and start implementing various ideas to tackle it.
I wouldn't say that our revolution forbids us to dance. (Whenever somebody from Bay Area is DJ-ing, we dance and it's beautiful, no matter how trashy the music is.) But I am sure we can do better. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/GuidelinesWikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/GuidelinesWikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I think the term that I would use is "serious". Of course we're serious about the quality of our product. However that can involve plenty of stress and burn-out. We deal with a lot of serious issues: conflicts of interest, harassment, finances, legal compliance, reliability, privacy, safety, and more. My personal experience is that there's little gratitude for good work, and lots of complaints when things go awry. I would like to see us foster an emotional environment that's a bit on the brighter side, and would be interested in others' thoughts about how we can do that.
Pine
Most Wikimedians are very interesting people. However Milos has hit the nail on the head when he says the most interesting things happening at Wikimedia events are 1-1 conversations.
In my view we don't have a "personality" problem (and if we did, we couldn't fix it).
What we have, at least in the offline space, is an *event management* and *meeting skills" problem.
We do not set up events to make anything *apart* from 1-1 conversations effective. Events typically lack goals and focused programmes. Where issues are being discussed, they lack common agreement about what problems are trying to be solved and what voices need to be represented in the solutions. Where skills are being shared, they lack a definition of what it is people need to know and how to teach it to them effectively. And more or less throughout, we have a low level of presentation and/or facilitation skills as we don't actively train people in these.
We are groping towards success in a couple of areas I'm familiar with, e.g. the Wikimedia Conference is more clearly focused year on year. But there is still a long way to go!
Regards,
Chris
On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I think the term that I would use is "serious". Of course we're serious about the quality of our product. However that can involve plenty of stress and burn-out. We deal with a lot of serious issues: conflicts of interest, harassment, finances, legal compliance, reliability, privacy, safety, and more. My personal experience is that there's little gratitude for good work, and lots of complaints when things go awry. I would like to see us foster an emotional environment that's a bit on the brighter side, and would be interested in others' thoughts about how we can do that.
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I also concur that best part of wikimania is get to know other wikimedians and fascinating stories , but nevertheless the workshops are also very useful. in each wikimania we enjoy both. I learnt a lot from them all.
Mardetanha
On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 12:51 AM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Most Wikimedians are very interesting people. However Milos has hit the nail on the head when he says the most interesting things happening at Wikimedia events are 1-1 conversations.
In my view we don't have a "personality" problem (and if we did, we couldn't fix it).
What we have, at least in the offline space, is an *event management* and *meeting skills" problem.
We do not set up events to make anything *apart* from 1-1 conversations effective. Events typically lack goals and focused programmes. Where issues are being discussed, they lack common agreement about what problems are trying to be solved and what voices need to be represented in the solutions. Where skills are being shared, they lack a definition of what it is people need to know and how to teach it to them effectively. And more or less throughout, we have a low level of presentation and/or facilitation skills as we don't actively train people in these.
We are groping towards success in a couple of areas I'm familiar with, e.g. the Wikimedia Conference is more clearly focused year on year. But there is still a long way to go!
Regards,
Chris
On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I think the term that I would use is "serious". Of course we're serious about the quality of our product. However that can involve plenty of
stress
and burn-out. We deal with a lot of serious issues: conflicts of
interest,
harassment, finances, legal compliance, reliability, privacy, safety, and more. My personal experience is that there's little gratitude for good work, and lots of complaints when things go awry. I would like to see us foster an emotional environment that's a bit on the brighter side, and would be interested in others' thoughts about how we can do that.
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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was it fun?
On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 10:56 PM, Mardetanha mardetanha.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I also concur that best part of wikimania is get to know other wikimedians and fascinating stories , but nevertheless the workshops are also very useful. in each wikimania we enjoy both. I learnt a lot from them all.
Mardetanha
On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 12:51 AM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Most Wikimedians are very interesting people. However Milos has hit the nail on the head when he says the most interesting things happening at Wikimedia events are 1-1 conversations.
In my view we don't have a "personality" problem (and if we did, we couldn't fix it).
What we have, at least in the offline space, is an *event management* and *meeting skills" problem.
We do not set up events to make anything *apart* from 1-1 conversations effective. Events typically lack goals and focused programmes. Where issues are being discussed, they lack common agreement about what problems are trying to be solved and what voices need to be represented in the solutions. Where skills are being shared, they lack a definition of what it is people need to know and how to teach it to them effectively. And more or less throughout, we have a low level of presentation and/or facilitation skills as we don't actively train people in these.
We are groping towards success in a couple of areas I'm familiar with, e.g. the Wikimedia Conference is more clearly focused year on year. But there is still a long way to go!
Regards,
Chris
On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I think the term that I would use is "serious". Of course we're serious about the quality of our product. However that can involve plenty of
stress
and burn-out. We deal with a lot of serious issues: conflicts of
interest,
harassment, finances, legal compliance, reliability, privacy, safety, and more. My personal experience is that there's little gratitude for good work, and lots of complaints when things go awry. I would like to see us foster an emotional environment that's a bit on the brighter side, and would be interested in others' thoughts about how we can do that.
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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First of all, it's obvious that the part of our movement already suffers from the "old grey man" illusion, although the most of us are not old nor grey.
That's typical modernist paradigm, which brought many achievements to our civilization, but also removed decision-making power from the majority of population: women + minorities consist definitely more than 50% of population.
We have to move from that point. Yes, it's hard as our main product is of modernist nature, but I think we are clever enough to overcome it.
Participation in Wikimedia movement requires a lot of time. That's the reason why we have to have fun while working on it. Otherwise, anyone not willing not to have fun during significant portion of their everyday life wouldn't be excited to be with us. And there are many reasons why we need them.
And not just that. I am sure I am not the only Wikimedian significantly demotivated to work on important things for our movement just because we are boring. It's exhausting to work on various issues if the only set of benefits is consisted of "Thanks! This is important!" and similar more or less elaborate variants. I want to be eager to do those things, to expect fun after spending time on doing "important things". Although my beard is partially grey, I definitely don't strive to be an "old grey man", emotionally fulfilled exclusively by the fact that I did something important.
Think about what we are offering to any of us, as well as to newcomers: * You are working on an epochal project. * You have to have all "serious" qualities to do that. * If you are suffering from OCD, you'll find that it's extremely fun to correct typos and categorize pages. * You could become a member of your own local organization and spend a lot of time arguing with other people suffering from OCD. You know, it's a kind of fulfilling. * We are more and more important and you'll find it's fun to participate in official ceremonies and cocktails with important people. * <put your own idea here>
Basically, we tell us and newcomers that we have to work an unpaid and boring part time job because we'll be more successful in doing other boring things. It is important, but it works for just a small part of population. And, of course, it's not fun.
* * *
But let's go to the brighter side... From your responses, including a couple of them sent to me privately, I'd conclude the next and call for action.
* There is one thing I missed while writing this. Obviously, some Wikimedians do have fun anyway. It could be because of different cultural expectations, but also because some of you know and practicing something the rest of us don't. So, please, share with us how you have fun during Wikimedia meetings and conferences! Let's start here, then we could create a Meta page for sharing ideas.
* There are a number of fixable things and they are related to what Chris said: event management and meeting skills. I think we are mature enough to find a way how to get and share the knowledge on those topics.
If WMF requires from chapters and other affiliate groups to develop strong formal procedures, it could also at least offer help in making our events and meetings more interesting.
If contemporary progressive companies all over the world are able to make things a bit more shiny with all of those "team buildings" and similar bullshits, I am sure it would be much easier to achieve that inside of our, mostly volunteering environment. Mostly, we are not here to do boring things; we are here to have a kind of fun, no matter how weird it could look like. So, it shouldn't be hard to get positive outcome if we implement some of the contemporary straight-forward HR and organizational methods.
* Software. How hard is to implement XMPP-based web chat? I see a number of contemporary free software web platforms offering it. Yes, we are a decade late, but it's better sooner than later anyway. Other social features? Any *really* *interesting* and educational game around? And, of course, opt-in only because we have "old grey men" which would be offended by the idea that serious work could be also fun and social.
* The level of our culture is the most complex one. Bad news is the fact that there are no howtos for making a culture more fun. Good news is that it's not hard to have fun and to spread it around yourselves. And that should help. And, yes, everything above counts in changing the culture from being boring to being fun.
Well speaking only for myself,
I love tacking things seriously and I'm probably a boring guy. However I seems to have a lot of very fun memories of all the wikimedia related time I spent.
Selective memory, or somehow dullness might be fun too :)
2015-12-10 16:17 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
First of all, it's obvious that the part of our movement already suffers from the "old grey man" illusion, although the most of us are not old nor grey.
That's typical modernist paradigm, which brought many achievements to our civilization, but also removed decision-making power from the majority of population: women + minorities consist definitely more than 50% of population.
We have to move from that point. Yes, it's hard as our main product is of modernist nature, but I think we are clever enough to overcome it.
Participation in Wikimedia movement requires a lot of time. That's the reason why we have to have fun while working on it. Otherwise, anyone not willing not to have fun during significant portion of their everyday life wouldn't be excited to be with us. And there are many reasons why we need them.
And not just that. I am sure I am not the only Wikimedian significantly demotivated to work on important things for our movement just because we are boring. It's exhausting to work on various issues if the only set of benefits is consisted of "Thanks! This is important!" and similar more or less elaborate variants. I want to be eager to do those things, to expect fun after spending time on doing "important things". Although my beard is partially grey, I definitely don't strive to be an "old grey man", emotionally fulfilled exclusively by the fact that I did something important.
Think about what we are offering to any of us, as well as to newcomers:
- You are working on an epochal project.
- You have to have all "serious" qualities to do that.
- If you are suffering from OCD, you'll find that it's extremely fun
to correct typos and categorize pages.
- You could become a member of your own local organization and spend a
lot of time arguing with other people suffering from OCD. You know, it's a kind of fulfilling.
- We are more and more important and you'll find it's fun to
participate in official ceremonies and cocktails with important people.
<put your own idea here>
Basically, we tell us and newcomers that we have to work an unpaid and boring part time job because we'll be more successful in doing other boring things. It is important, but it works for just a small part of population. And, of course, it's not fun.
But let's go to the brighter side... From your responses, including a couple of them sent to me privately, I'd conclude the next and call for action.
- There is one thing I missed while writing this. Obviously, some
Wikimedians do have fun anyway. It could be because of different cultural expectations, but also because some of you know and practicing something the rest of us don't. So, please, share with us how you have fun during Wikimedia meetings and conferences! Let's start here, then we could create a Meta page for sharing ideas.
- There are a number of fixable things and they are related to what
Chris said: event management and meeting skills. I think we are mature enough to find a way how to get and share the knowledge on those topics.
If WMF requires from chapters and other affiliate groups to develop strong formal procedures, it could also at least offer help in making our events and meetings more interesting.
If contemporary progressive companies all over the world are able to make things a bit more shiny with all of those "team buildings" and similar bullshits, I am sure it would be much easier to achieve that inside of our, mostly volunteering environment. Mostly, we are not here to do boring things; we are here to have a kind of fun, no matter how weird it could look like. So, it shouldn't be hard to get positive outcome if we implement some of the contemporary straight-forward HR and organizational methods.
- Software. How hard is to implement XMPP-based web chat? I see a
number of contemporary free software web platforms offering it. Yes, we are a decade late, but it's better sooner than later anyway. Other social features? Any *really* *interesting* and educational game around? And, of course, opt-in only because we have "old grey men" which would be offended by the idea that serious work could be also fun and social.
- The level of our culture is the most complex one. Bad news is the
fact that there are no howtos for making a culture more fun. Good news is that it's not hard to have fun and to spread it around yourselves. And that should help. And, yes, everything above counts in changing the culture from being boring to being fun.
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