Hi Arun,
//Compared to the huge amount of subscribers this list has, the number of
participants has probably not exceeded 20 in the last one year//
Even for WMF's FDC proposal in Meta, only a handful of people participated.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/…
Does that mean there is no one in the Wikimedia movement globally? :)
//This indicates that the discussions taking place here are really not
conducive for any sort of community participation.//
Mailing lists and Meta are places where community meets to discuss few
issues but the real work takes place outside these place. For a veteran
like you, I shouldn't be explaining these things.
Only less than 5% of very active contributors can grasp these
organizational issues and participating in these discussions are not their
priority.
//Lets continue to blame CIS, WMF, US dollars, fat salaries, vested
interests, experiments and everyone else for what is our collective failure
to set an example of how a community works. //
First of all, we haven't failed. Activity in most of the Indian Wikipedia
projects are business as usual or the problems they face are expected.
I have tried to explain the problems we face and the strategies we should
adopt at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Community_Consultation_2014#Opin…
Please feel free to discuss there.
Coming to the blaming part, I am not blaming anyone either. When we
introspect, we can only do a context based holistic analysis.
Let WMF and CIS try doing what they are doing in any mature community like
Wikimedia Germany and let us see how those communities respond :)
//If we are looking at any sort of unity, lets first pick out our own
faults before pointing the finger at others.//
Chapter's governance issues and community's unity need not be one and the
same.
I feel as a community we can still move forward if we discuss things in a
productive way instead of washing dirty linen in public.
Ravi