[Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Sun, 4/27/08, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community
To: effeietsanders at gmail.com, "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008, 11:58 AM


 [3] Perhaps this simply means that the foundation does not wish to address
the specific needs of the projects, and instead wants to be a
self-sustaining pillar handling funds and professional relations with other
organizations.  Perhaps we need a separate concept, if not a body, to
represent the core social and practical needs of the projects is needed. I
don't know., and I'm on the fence about proposals I have seen for the
latter.  But avoiding stagnation should be foremost on everyone's minds,
and
this board restructuring and shift away from public board deliberations feel
like steps in the wrong direction.


 This is clearly the answer in my mind. However I feel this line was crossed about a year ago not just the other day. (Where have you been!)  The WMF is an outward looking organization indifferent to the small successes and failures of the wikis.  And more worried about preventing large failures than facilitating large successes.  As far as the stagnation and restriction that you talk about, I believe it comes more from the OTRS/meta-minded Wikimedians rather than the board (I recognize this group also does a great deal of good and plain tedious stuff that no-one else does). And it is not as though WMF takes a strong role in leading that group. I can actually see the rejection of the Volunteer Council as being the board reigning the momentum in that direction in a bit. (While there were other ideas, Milos posted a great deal about top-down governance in regards to the Council)  

Honestly I have given up on the WMF doing anything positive with a inward-looking looking focus (outside the work of the developers of course).  But I also don't believe all the wiki's are in the trouble that you describe.  I think the autonomy of the wiki's will pull them through. And while they would be better off with a best-case WMF focused on their development, they may be better off that the current WMF is indifferent.  The only good thing about the politicking and power-plays within WMF is that they have hardly touched the wikis.

Birgitte SB


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ