[Foundation-l] information sharing

Mon Jun 27 10:37:43 UTC 2005

After Ruth suggested Quarto be held from publication until it was proofread, Anthere wrote:> I frankly do not know what to do. I just know I am all> for the board giving more information to the community> and making it available widely.Angela said :
Perhaps this needs to be done in a less time-intensive way. Couldn't alarge glossy Quarto be published every 6 months instead of every 3,with simple text based reports from the Board given monthly inaddition to the reports I already make athttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings ? When I say simple, Imean the report would be on one page, not split across various wikisand various templates. These reports could be limited to what actuallyhappened, rather than opinions on that, meaning it could be muchshorter than it would be in Quarto, and therefore much quicker andeasier to translate.

----------------------

Why not. What I fear Angela, is duplication of efforts.
Currently, we have 3 sources of information.

* The reports from all meetings. The benefit is that these reports are very straightforward, done in a very timely fashion.
The main four disadvantages is that not everything is done in meetings (far from it), so not everything gets reported.
Secondly, it is not translated. Third, these are only decisions from the board, not from officers. 
Fourth, they do not include personal opinions or thoughts. I do not mean it is wrong, they are only minutes from meetings, and should stay this way.

* The Quarto. It is supposed to be four issues per year. Though, I suspect only probably three this year. As you mention, it is not meant to be done in a timely fashion, but rather 
to generally inform a couple of times a year. It is more a "state of the projects" at a given time. The main disadvantage is that it is slow.

* The main page with news on the Foundation Wiki. It was started more recently. I expect it relies a lot on good will of 1) board members of WMF
2) board members of local chapters, 3) officers and 4) generally involved editors. I wish it to be with a date and signed so that to make it clear where 
the information will come. Advantage : it offers the opportunity to stick to real time events. Disadvantages : 1) it is only a short statement, 2) editors do not feel 
entitled to make reports or do not think of doing some or do not feel like doing them, 3) it is not frequently translated.

If we add a monthly report, I fear we fall somewhere in between Quarto and the Foundation main page... and end up duplicating efforts.
Besides, I do not think it is efficient that *we* do such a report, as the ones having most of the information in their hands are not necessarily us... but those specifically 
involved in an issue. Typically, Dammit or Brion or JeLuF or Kate or Tim (and many more here, I do not want to hurt any one) know much more of the current state of our servers
than us. 

But your idea suggest that we should perhaps mostly improve the Foundation main page greatly and try to increase the number of reports there.
Most of the frame of the Foundation site is set now. 
But we still are very much behind in terms of information available on the website.
If the aim of the newsletter is to get Board information out to peoplein a timely way, then I don't think Quarto is meeting that goal, and Idon't think it should try to. I see Quarto as something lesstime-urgent, and something which ought to be developed by thecommunity, not the Board.I'm copying this to Foundation-l since the the distribution ofinformation from the Board needs to be discussed by more people thanthe very small group on the Quarto list. Angela.

As a side comment, the Quarto is essentially done by the community. Not by the board. Only two pages or the 8 items are focusing on the board and the Foundation activity in itself. Page 1 is the welcome. Page 2 is letter from Jimbo and the board. Page 3 is report about Foundation activity. Page 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are about projects reports, various initiatives on projects or projects wide, interviews, wikimania, local chapters activity, wikipedians meetups, image gallery, press coverage etc... Anyone can participate to those and is welcome to do so. 

Talking about information sharing.... information is not a one way event. 

I think I said it many times already, and will again repeat it, because I feel it is not entering many ears. And reading Cimon candidate statement, I wonder how our efforts to communicate are perceived. Expecting the board to inform you is one thing, but if you are not happy by the way we inform you, please try to help us decipher what you want. There is little I find more perplexing than to read some people find themselves badly informed and when we ask them how to improve things, there is absolutely no comment whatsoever. 

Second, if you expect us to inform you, there is a similar requirement from us toward you. Danny made a good suggestion recently, which could be one way to tell us what you want. Perhaps all this does not concern editors on THIS mailing list, but only editors on the project, who do not read this list. If so, what do you suggest we could do to improve feedback given to us ?

Note finally, that this is not adressed only to editors, but also to officers or informed editors. We hope to receive information from officers. We hope they will help us gather information and we hope they can help us feed back this information to editors. I'll pick up a recent example which reflects pretty well my dismay. There was this deal with KDE. It was discussed on irc whether we should publish a little something on the WMF website. Someone told me "well, just make a report yourself on the matter". Fine, but guys, I promise "Wikimedia will develop an API which will allow developers to integrate Wikimedia content in their programs" means absolutely nothing to me. I do not know what an API is. How can I be expected to report something I just understand nothing about ? I just can't do it. And each time I feel like editors should be informed on a technical matter, please do not answer me "well, you know very well yourself, can't you just check and make a report yourself ?". Well,
 no, I can not. Those who have the information should realise that they are empowered to give it and to help others to understand. Rather than to keep information for themselves. Not expect that others know all of it and will report about it. 

Last point. It would be correct that information be openly and spontaneously provided by officers. I am thinking of possibly suggesting that something like a monthly report or something similar be provided by officers. Even if it to write in it "all is well, nothing to report" or "I have had no time to do anything special this month". It should not be seen as control or police thought or whatever, but only information sharing. It is not efficient/proper that officers do things, in particular with external contacts, with the hat of an officer, without the board knowing, or with only certain board members knowing. First because it could lead us appearing quite stupid in front of potential partners. Second because two people could be doing the same thing, hence losing their time. Currently, this information sharing does not occur very well. Either information is not provided, or only indirectly provided. Indirect source is not good either, because each additional step distort the
 information given. Again, I have mentionned many times that I felt badly informed on some topics, or that only partial information was circulating. I would really like to improve this. Again, no good decision can be taken when information is lacking, and no information will be provided to editors when the information is unknown by the reporter itself.

Anthere

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 