[Foundation-l] Instant Commons : INCORRECT

[Anthere]

Board candidate platform...

Sigh

Ant


Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 6/7/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>I'd like that you make the effort to recognise that we are acting in
>>good faith
> 
> 
> This is not about good or bad faith, Florence. Of course the SP
> committee is acting in good faith - I never denied this. The point is
> that a 5000 EUR project that was essentially OK'd by Kennisnet in
> February is still not ready to go by June. The point is that at this
> organizational efficiency, we need not even dream of realizing any
> real grant proposals that are brought to us from the outside. I'd like
> _you_ to make the effort to recognize that the organization needs to
> fundamentally change in the way it does things if it does want to
> fulfill its charitable mission.
> 
> I am very, very concerned that our promises about helping children in
> Africa are going to sound rather cynical when actual African projects
> (and InstantCommons is one) do not happen because the organization is
> so ineffective. _Especially_ in an all-volunteer organization, the
> approach which is currently taken -- a small group of people must make
> all the critical decisions, and new members are only recruited if
> there is consensus _within_ that group (_and_ ideally the Board) -- is
> not scalable. And it's certainly not scalable for a top 16 website
> with over a million registered users and hundreds, thousands of
> potential "special projects". Not to mention other projects besides
> Wikipedia which are badly in need of innovative thinking and creative
> partnerships. Not to mention that we're supposed to be multilingual.
> 
> I have not seen a single announcement on this mailing list for an open
> SP-related meeting. Most of the discussions you need to have can be
> open without leaving a permanent record on the web -- publish edited
> logs or summaries where confidential information is concerned. You can
> accept advisors without even voting on them. And the core voting
> members should be those who do the most work of actually planning,
> coordinating and realizing projects as this becomes visible in a
> larger group.
> 
> The notion that every contract has to be between the Wikimedia
> Foundation and another organization is also unnecessary -- contracts
> can be between volunteers and grant-giving organizations, if the
> grants are small and having the contracts managed by Wikimedia only
> adds unnecessary bureaucratic overhead. This way, Wikimedia adds
> organizational credibility for volunteers who deserve it.
> 
> This could have been done with Kennisnet in February or March. Don't
> be overly afraid of  outcomes -- just dissociate yourself from
> projects which fail, and highlight those that succeed. And for
> Christ's sake, don't worry all the time about legal risks. Legal risks
> can be addressed as a project develops. Wikipedia is an insanely bad
> idea from a legal point of view and would never have been started
> through _any_ process which we are actually using in our organization
> to start things.
> 
> Build _many_ relationships with people you can trust, instead of
> building _few_ relationships with people you'd like to take out for
> dinner.
> 
> 
>>We are under no obligation to spend hours studying
>>your proposals
> 
> 
> How about you start _trusting_ me, Gerard and other volunteers when we
> come to the Foundation and say: "This here is a moderately cool
> project that these people over there are willing to pay for, but
> they'd like to get an OK from the Foundation." Again, I ask: Why could
> the SP committee not simply have sent the authorization to Kennisnet,
> and let the contract side of things be handled between Gerard and
> them? Again, not a single valid reason has been given for excluding a
> person like Gerard from the committee. This is not about him
> personally -- it's about the _process_.
> 
> You accuse me of assuming bad faith. Yet you are treating me as an
> outsider after 5 years of working with and around Wikipedia which has
> included more "special projects" than I care to mention (which pay my
> salary, I might add). There are large grants I am associated with
> which I wouldn't bring even anywhere _near_ the Foundation because of
> its current state. Your point above seems to be accurately
> summarizable as: "Erik, please be nice to us, because otherwise we'll
> just ignore your ideas."
> 
> Not a single part of my e-mails was personal criticism, an assumption
> of bad faith, or deliberately insulting. I have been very careful to
> focus on the issues, using InstantCommons as an example of failure. I
> am doing this publicly not to humiliate you but because I know from
> experience that otherwise I will just be silently ignored. Instead of
> actually trying to resolve the problems I pointed out, you posted a
> new thread with the upper case title "INCORRECT", accusing me of
> spreading false information. When the information turned out to be
> correct, you accuse me of not being nice. How about, instead of
> accusing me of something, you try to actually answer to my points
> above? How is the Foundation going to scale to the size of problems it
> faces?
> 
> I would be very happy to serve with you on SP and to work with you to
> reorganize it in such a fashion that it can handle grants and projects
> efficiently and effectively. The question is, do you acknowledge the
> problems there are, and do you want my help to solve them? Or are you
> hoping to pull a miracle CEO out of your hat who will solve global
> hunger?
> 
> Kennisnet is just one random (if important) organization from the
> Netherlands we happen to have a good working relationship with. There
> are thousands of Kennisnets out there, thousands of organizations and
> companies and institutions who would be happy to support us in a
> myriad different ways. Heck, some of them have already sent the
> Foundation product samples.
> 
> I have no doubt that the SP committee will initiate a dozen or half
> dozen projects from within its own ranks in the coming months.
> However, Wikimedia's ambition is not "to start a dozen or half dozen
> interesting projects". Wikimedia's ambition is:
> 
>    "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access
> to the sum of
>     all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
>    http://wikimediafoundation.org/
> 
> The first version of this statement was drafted by Jimmy and me at the
> WOS 2004. I would say it's about time we get serious about it, or drop
> the rhetoric. Wikimedia is turning into a "who likes who" club rather
> than an organization centered around goals, objectives, and
> qualifications. Jimmy says he doesn't want the organization to be run
> like a college club. Then it's time to get rid of the bullshit
> politics. Get Gerard and me on SP. Let us identify other people who
> can help. Allow us to bring our existing collaborations into the WMF.
> And let's broaden and open up the organization in ways which will
> amaze us all.
> 
> This is not about "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like
> a nail" philosophy, about applying wiki ideology to areas where there
> are "tried and tested" ways of doing things which are preferable. This
> is about learning from great thinkers like Douglas Engelbart, Ted
> Nelson, Howard Rheingold, Frederic Vester, and Tim Berners-Lee. This
> is about running Wikimedia in accordance with the laws of
> thermodynamics: only open systems are survivable. The last thing our
> planet needs is more politics and more bureaucracy. What it does need
> is smart people collaborating, building global networks, and
> overlooking their personal differences, before our civilization
> collapses under its own weight.
> 
> Erik