[Foundation-l] and what if...

[Florence Devouard]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Florence Devouard wrote:
>> Birgitte SB wrote:
>>   
>>> I am strongly against collaborating with Westernish governments to help make their censorship more effective. I personally don't think we should help anyone make their censorship more effective.  But if we are to decide we would rather have citizens under censorship able to participate with censorship rather than not participate at all, we should not discriminate with which governments we are willing to help.  
>>>
>>> Personally I don't get censorship, nor the complacency Europeans generally have about living under it.  I don't get it but I can recognize that many other people see it differently and may want to support censorship.  But we can't pick and choose which government's censorship we will support.  This is an international organization and nothing in mission expresses support for western mores over others.  Selectively helping some governments censor would be a disastrous move for WMF to make.
>>>
>>> Birgitte SB
>>>     
>> Hello
>>
>> I did not mean to suggest we should  collaborate with whatever 
>> government. I meant that we could maybe learnt from what happenned and 
>> think about scenarios for different futures, and prepare ourselves for 
>> these different futures.
>>
>> Ant
>>
>>
>>   
> 
> To say again what I already noted in another posting but in
> other words; I really think planning like this should be done
> at board level and in private, not at the mailing list which
> any troll can participate in and get silly ideas from.
> 
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
> 
> 
> P.S. Yes I realize I am here advocating lack of transparency,
> but this is just one of those legitimate cases where such
> lack of transparency is not merely excusable, but a sine qua
> non.


It is not only a question of lack of transparency Jussi (though I fully 
understand your point about the trolls).
There are issues which goes much beyond of the board of WMF.

A long time ago, many years, I noted that everything global was decided 
at the english wikipedia level, and then applied in other languages. And 
I remember I fought for the right of all languages to participate into 
the decision making at the global level.
What you advocate is that every decision at the global level be now 
restricted to the board of WMF, and in private on top. In short, you 
advocate a nice top down organization, whilst the organization itself is 
not willing to take on that role. That's disappointing.

I do not think it will happen. I think what will happen is that either 
issues will not be dealt with, or that issues will be dealt with at the 
local level, without much learning and much global understanding.

But well, fine. Maybe unavoidadable.