The community you're talking about is the editor community, which is a tiny
fraction of the overall community, but attempts to speak with authority over
the entirety of it. The vocal portion of the editor community that speaks
with this authority is even a minor fraction of the editor community. We're
talking about .001% of the entire community that holds the entire movement
hostage (5167 people voted in the last election, and there's 430 million
monthly active readers).
The reader community is massive and has no voice, except their complaints
across the internet. The WMF can and should be the voice for the reader
community.
In my experience, the WMF lacks the ability (or perhaps maturity?) to
be that voice. Every time someone invokes the readers, usually they do
it to re-assert their personal opinions on the manner, because they're
losing an argument. After all, its not like the readers are going to
rise up and object that their voice is being appropriated. If it was
possible for computer programmers to know what there users wanted
magically, without gathering any evidence, computer programming would
be an entirely different field. As far as I know, misunderstanding
user requirements is one of the top reasons software projects fail.
WMF has certainly severely misjudged the requirements of the editor
community at times, why would they be any better at the reader
community?
I've also volunteered my time for the past 10 years, but as an engineer. I
care about Wikimedia more as a reader than as an editor and my experience as
a reader is not great and the editor community is the primary reason for
this. The WMF's hesitation to make change is heavily based on the pitchforks
and torches lit by this community.
Blame is easy to throw around. You can just as easily say that the
problem is due to the WMF viewing the community as a problem to be
worked around, creating an antagonistic relationship that degrades
everyone's interests.
--
-bawolff