[Foundation-l] thoughts on leakages

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
As it is best to be a "deep throat", you will not learn much of the
motivations. It is quite clear to me that it is more likely that your head
will be bitten off then you will be praised for spoiling the trust that you
were given. In my opinion rightly so because by doing this, a person that
leaks is detrimental to openness. Detrimental because the resulting spin put
on things is negative and feeds the arguments of those who want to stop
leaks.

What I can say for myself is that there is another aspect that makes it hard
for people to know what is going on. This has everything to do that it is
HARD, BLOODY HARD to communicate with people within the organisation when
you are not at least on internal lists. First of all, it is getting better,
this has nothing to do with the new position of Erik, but more with the
emergence of an actual organised body of people that are the WMF
organization.

For those who want more openness, they have to work within the system to
achieve this. It will be hard work, but if they believe in openness, the
result is the reward.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On Jan 9, 2008 9:13 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I am sure everyone knows that, but maybe it is worth putting it in words.
>
>
> It has been mentionned several times that information provided on
> private lists was leaked publicly.
>
> Arguably, private lists are populated by individuals who care about the
> projects, who want to help, and who are trusted.
>
> Once information starts leaking, it may imply three things
>
> 1) There is information worth being known.
> It is possibly fine. Some information is good to share. Other
> information is best kept confidential, at least for a while.
>
>
> 2) Trusted people feel that this information should be public, or at
> least in part more public than it actually is.
> This suggests that the core community may not fully agree on where the
> treshold for confidentiality is located. Another interpretation is that
> they feel confidentiality would normally be fine, but object with the
> decisions taken. So, it may be either protest against the process, or
> against the result.
>
> 3) They give info to third parties, instead of asking if they can
> publish, or instead of forwarding the information themselves, which
> suggest they fear backslash, and that freedom of speech is losing a bit
> of ground.
>
>
> I found interesting that the only action points suggested have been to
> 1) decrease information proposed to private lists or to 2) decrease
> number of people on the private lists or to 3) create more private
> private lists.
>
> No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
>
> Ant
>
>
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