[Foundation-l] Re: What "community" ?

[Tim Starling]

Poe, Marshall wrote:
> Re Angela's mention of the "community" discussing and deciding things.
> 
> Just how many folks are subscribed to Foundation-l?  What percentage of
> them actually contribute to Foundation-l when a new project is proposed,
> or a question is raised?  I've spent a lot of time on a lot of lists
> (founded and moderated one for three years), and this one is, well,
> quite inactive.  And not only that, it's sometimes not very civil (e.g.
> "Do it yourself").

The Foundation doesn't have significant human resources at its disposal.
It provides hosting, and then relies on the work of interested but
otherwise unaffiliated volunteers to promote the formation of a
community, which will then do the required work.

This is the nature of the organisation: if you don't do it, who will?
Enthusiasm is valuable, not ideas. An industrious, maybe even
entrepreneurial attitude is required to found a successful wiki project.
Enthusiasm rarely comes from the upper management -- their enthusiasm is
thinly spread and probably biased towards their Wikipedia background.
That's why you have to have it yourself.

> Communities are groups of individuals with common interests who unite to
> further those interests.  They have to contribute.  They have to be
> helpful.  Do the subscribers to Foundation-l contribute?  Are they
> helpful?  A more basic question: do they even have common interests?

Yes they contribute, but no, they don't have common interests. The
Wikimedia community is really a diverse set of communities, each working
on their own project and only occasionally contributing the Foundation
as a whole or to its management. The Board is unsure of its mandate as a
decision making body, and the Wikimedia community lacks the cohesiveness
required to make its own decisions.

That's why if you want to start a new project, you have to make your own
community. You have to identify people with common interests and draw
them together. Then you have to be prepared to start work with or
without the Board's approval.

A quick introduction since I gather you don't know who I am: I'm mainly
interested in Wikipedia, which I've been contributing to since before
Wikimedia was invented. I know the three most active Board members
pretty well, thanks to IRC. I'm not interested in any Wikimedia project,
active or proposed, other than Wikipedia and MediaWiki.

-- Tim Starling