[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

[Brad Patrick]

Here, here.  Notwithstanding Dear Leader's statement ( ;-), Jimbo) , the 
words might not be perfect, but I think Delphine's sentiment here is 
exactly right.  From my perspective, what happens in the office to keep 
the servers running, bills paid, and all of the rest of the stuff that 
never touches the online space (much less in other languages and 
projects) could not be more separate than the day-to-day goings on of 
the projects.  I grasp how utterly challenging it is to reach across the 
divide, really.  How we do so is going to be the great challenge of the 
next chapter of WMF's existence.  If I understand what I think Jimbo 
meant, he meant that the reins of the organization were NOT going to be 
tossed over to venture capitalists who would treat it as a private 
company, that the people WMF turns to for assistance will come from both 
inside and outside the community, and that the community must always be 
respected as the source of everything we do.  Making the connection to 
people in lands very distant from those of us here in the office (see 
Anthere's marvelous discussion about her Abuja experience) mean there is 
much work to be done by WMF both for those who love WMF projects (and 
already self-identify as "involved") and those who have never heard of 
us before.

Governance, however, is still a Real World Issue.  I think as this 
dynamic, international system matures, WMF will continue to do what it 
must to secure itself so the projects can continue to exist in the Real 
World, and evolve to support the language-of-origin and 
project-of-origin affinities users and editors develop. 

I continue to remain deliriously optimistic that these are great 
challenges to have.  "What seems to be the trouble?"  "We have so many 
projects and so many volunteers in so many languages we are having a 
hard time keeping up."

WMF just has to do more.

-Brad

Delphine Ménard wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> Delphine Ménard wrote:
>>     
>> One of the most worrying trends I have seen is a tendency for people to
>> think of "the Foundation" as being completely apart from "the
>> Community".  That way lies madness, I think.
>>     
>
> The funny thing is that I am one of those people who think that the
> Foundation *is* apart from the community.
>
>   

> I am, however, a strong advocate of both "The Foundation"
> (organisation with roots in the very real world) trying to understand
> "the community" and "the community" (a large body of volunteers who
> work towards a same goal of free knowledge for all in somewhat virtual
> environment) trying to understand "The Foundation", in order to work
> together efficiently. Trying is actually not the right word, we need
> to succeed, or we'll stall.
>
> Acknowledging differences is the best way of using them to build
> synergy. Ignoring them builds gaps and traps rather than bridges.
>
>
> Delphine
> PS. We might phrase it a tad differently, but I have a tendancy to
> believe that we agree, here, though.
>