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On 11/05/2013 05:57 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
tl;dr: I’d appreciate thoughts from the Wikimedia technical community at large whether the designation of individual technical contributors as "architects" should be meaningful, and if so, how to expand it beyond the original triumvirate (Brion, Tim & Mark), e.g. by transitioning to a community-driven process for recognizing architects.
Since this thread is about architecture and governance it makes sense to step back and look at the architecture and governance of our technical project(s).
In my humble opinion any step formalizing community roles should help separating concepts that are still tangled:
1. Wikimedia Foundation professional titles and roles vs open source community roles.
2. MediaWiki open source project meritocracy vs Wikimedia movement meritocracy.
For instance, the nomination of a MediaWiki release team with Mark & Markus was very helpful in these directions.
Open source community roles include admins, +2, release team members and, it seems, architects. The handling and discussion about community roles should be driven by the the open source project, not by the WMF.
The architecture of MediaWiki and the architecture of the Wikimedia infrastructure are different things. The meritocracy of the MediaWiki project and the meritocracy of Wikimedia tech should be different things.
Yes, there is a big overlap but the differences are relevant. If we talk about software architecture and community roles in this open source project, a thread like this could refer to "Architectural leadership in the MediaWiki project" and could be driven by the current community architects.
I hope this doesn sound too abstract or beyond the point of the thread because I believe it is at the core of the question. I don't have an opinion between the options suggested by Erik, because these questions come first:
Do the three architects consider themselves assuming this role as WMF employees or as community members?
Do they consider their roles to be part of a MediaWiki centric meritocracy or a Wikimedia centric meritocracy?
What is their opinion about moving forward their current team of three?
Because these three long-term contributors have earned their community reputation and are clearly smart, the chances are that many of us would agree with any common answer they would agree with themselves.
- -- Quim Gil Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil