Erik Moeller wrote:
All of us at WMF care and follow discussions like this, especially clearly laid out and well thought-out analysis like Aryeh's original post. We don't always agree. :-) I know Danese is planning to weigh in, so I won't write too much at this time, but will point to this post from a couple of months ago where I laid out my view on some (not all) of these topics.
In general, I think most of us are in favor of more public communications, including public lists, participation in public IRC channels, wikis, etc. I don't agree with unrealistic suggestions (e.g. face-to-face meetings have very real and very serious productivity advantages that we don't want to lose), but we've generally been trending in this direction. Finally, most of these decisions aren't made by "executive fiat" -- Wikimedia is a very collaborative organization, and virtually all the decisions about how/where to communicate and work have been made by the people doing the work.
I realize that management styles can and will differ, but here's the breakdown for posts by Danese to wikitech-l since she was hired in late January / early February:
Feb 2010: 0 Mar 2010: 5 Apr 2010: 0 May 2010: 0 Jun 2010: 2 Jul 2010: 1 Aug 2010: 2
That's ten posts to the central Wikimedia development mailing list in seven months. Are you suggesting Danese is just a very quiet person?
And while I have these tabs open, your stats for the same time period, Erik:
Feb 2010: 0 Mar 2010: 3 Apr 2010: 1 May 2010: 0 Jun 2010: 0 Jul 2010: 1 Aug 2010: 1
That would be six posts in seven months.
Do you think this is acceptable? Do you think it leaves anyone on the outside (or on the inside) with the perception that the Wikimedia technical executive team is concerned with being engaged with the community? When you contrast Danese's stats or your stats with Brion's or Tim's, what do you think the underlying message is?
MZMcBride