Namaskar, Tito.
Thank you for your thoughtful letters (acknowledging seeing your open
letter as well).
While I do not have an immediate solution to all the issues raised in your
letter(s), you may be happy to know that The Board of Trustees
has recently approved a new Board Committee called the "Community Affairs
Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Committe>",
which is tasked to strategically work, together with WMF staff, on many of
the issues raised in your letter. Here is the Committee's Charter
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Affairs_Committee_Charter>.
If you carefully examine the Committee's responsibilities, you will see
that one of them is already addressing one of the main issues raised in
your letter -- prioritizing community-related consultations (which we have
already started to tackle).
The committee will soon have open Office Hours, which are meant to offer
a venue for the community to regularly meet & engage with Board Trustees.
This is the first time in the history of our movement when we will be
experimenting with something of the sort, and we believe it could be yet
another step in our efforts to facilitate better communications and
relationships with the community at large. I am also hoping it will lead to
alleviating some (though probably not all) of the stress that you
mentioned. The CAC will be meeting this week, and will share more details
about the office hours (and an answer to your open letter) as soon as we
can.
Finally, while big issues may take time to address and implement, I would
like to assure you that both our WMF staff and the full board (and
naturally CAC members in particular), are all committed to addressing
existing issues and improving our best practices as a movement. We all want
the same thing -- to ensure our continued growth and success in a
productive and positive way, which includes not only better community
health, but also systematically addressing the needs of all our
stakeholders during this global pandemic, and beyond.
Thank you again for your thoughtful letters and for all that you do for our
movement, and stay safe!
Warmly,
Shani (on behalf of the CAC).
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/>
Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 14:36, টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta <trulytito(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Namaskara,
I believe that it is a shared feeling that there are too many important
processes going on simultaneously or starting one after another, asking,
reminding and re-reminding for community inputs/involvement. This is not
only adding stress on the community, but the community input process is
also becoming ineffective gradually.
This is also alarming during the pandemic when people are already
stressed for various reasons.
We are currently having the Strategy2030 implementation process, at the
same time Wikimedia Board redesign process, and at the same time new grants
relaunch process, at the same time several other things such as UCoC, A2K
needs-assessment and various other things etc. In case you are not getting
a lot of response, I believe one of the major reasons is: there are just
too many things.
Thinking from a volunteer’s perspective, an editor gets an hour or two in
a day and has very limited time to make contributions to a Wikimedia
project such as Wikidata or Wikisource.
FOMO: We can’t really say that all the processes and RfCs are optional and
no one is forcing anything. There is a concept called “FOMO (Fear of
Missing Out)”. If there is an important process like Strategy2030, Board
redesign, grants redesign or some A2K RfC is going on, there will
definitely be a sense of guilt inside a Wikimedian that they did not
participate. More importantly, all these need maximum participation.
Think of this: If you want to put a Wikimedia central notice or banner,
you don’t go directly and put the banner. Isn't it so? But you go through a
process, discuss on a central noticeboard, where the Meta-Wiki
stewards/admins align things, place things in the queue and eliminate
excessiveness.
Let’s think of a situation when you open a Wiki(m/p)edia page and you see
there are four or five banners covering everything at the top asking for
inputs on various things. So many banners — how bad it would look like.
Unfortunately, something similar is happening with the community input
process now.
== Solution process ==
To ensure a) care towards the community, b) that we get the best inputs
for the most important processes, here are a few suggestions (I believe
collectively we can find a more detailed and better process)
* There should be a central body ensuring that there are not too many
overlapping things for a particular community, project or zone. Currently,
all the things are simultaneous, without noting or caring that there are
several other things.
* Please do a community health check: I am seeing everywhere there is not
much response/involvement these days. I believe Community involvement and
Community health need some serious study.
* During a pandemic, make a priority list, and please postpone/stop the
things which are not really urgent.
I am sending this email too to Wikimediaindia-l, I am more comfortable at
my home-mailing-list. I hope the message will be relayed if you think it
makes sense.
Wishing you a Happy Ugadi (Kn: ಯುಗಾದಿ, Te: ఉగాది), Pahela Baishakh (Bn:
পহেলা বৈশাখ, As: ৰঙালী বিহু) or greetings for your new year/festival.
Regards.
User:Titodutta
(Message sent in a volunteer capacity)
PS: You may also see a similar email sent “Open letter to Wikimedia
Foundation Board: COVID-19: Exceptional Situation Needs Exceptional
Measures”
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2021-April/014955.ht…
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