[Foundation-l] Barnraising

[Florence Devouard]

Except that this one should have gone to foundation-l
hmmm, the oddities of gmane...

At least, now, you guys know that Wikipedia-l is not dead !

ant

Florence Devouard wrote:
> A Barn raising is an event during which a community comes together to 
> assemble a barn for one or more of its households (...). In the past, a 
> barn was often the first, largest, and most costly structure built by a 
> family who settled in a new area. Barns were essential structures for 
> storage of hay and keeping of horses and cattle, which in those days 
> were an inseparable part of farming.
> 
> ----------
> 
> Barn raising occurs when a community actively decides to come to the 
> same place at the same time to help achieve some specific goal. The goal 
> may be of direct interest to a subset of the community or it may be a 
> superordinate goal, of interest to the entire community, such as an 
> international event.
> 
> Make the impossible possible. It's pretty much impossible for one person 
> to raise alone a barn. The main part of the process is taking two framed 
> walls that have been built lying on the ground and raising them to 
> vertical. Thus barn raising demands collaboration in a way that other 
> activities do not.
> 
> Make friends. A barn raising tends to be a situation where you raise the 
> walls of a barn, then you have a big party with everyone who's around. 
> That's where the social aspect of it comes from. Lift some walls, 
> rejoice, have beer, and dance.
> 
> Benefits to the community, and to the individuals involved:
> A typical barn raising generates a sense of accomplishment within a 
> short period of time. This is a collaboration booster, and generates 
> good will.
> 
> The people helping expect to learn about how to raise barns which will 
> help them when it comes to their own barn.
> 
> Barn raising is fun, as a social event! Having a barn to raise does more 
> than just get people together and let them talk. It gives them something 
> to talk about.
> 
> When the entire town helps someone build a barn, then that person is 
> beholden to the entire town, so it creates new and strengthens existing 
> social bonds.
> 
> Asynchronous collaboration liberates us from the need of proximity, but 
> it also weakens the bond. When the work is done, you're drinking alone 
> and you have no one to dance with.
> 
> Wikis thrive on asynchronous, gradual improvement, and barn raising 
> events are rare, but important.
> 
> Barn raising is not church raising. Although often it is valuable to 
> build an immaculate example of some ideal or utopian philosophy, these 
> projects often require a large investment and religious zeal to hold 
> them together. Sure, churches are often beautiful, but they are 
> impractical en masse. Conversely, barns are practical, functional, 
> cheap, full of horseshit, and you don't need to be a hallowed Prophet to 
> make one. Don't we prefer barns to churches here ?
> 
> However, barn raising does requires humility, trust, accountability, 
> commitment, and sacrifice from and among its community.
> 
> Barn raising is not GroupThink. The individual grants the Collective 
> influence over how she acts, but not how she thinks. Each barn raiser's 
> motivation may differ, so it doesn't matter if the community disagrees 
> as to the purpose of the barn, provided that it agrees that a barn is 
> necessary.
> 
> Sources: Wikipedia, Meatball wiki, and some personal tweaks
> 
> ----------
> 
> What does it teach us ?
> 
> It may not matter so much that the entire community does not fully agree 
> with the purpose of the conference. Frankfurt's event may have been a 
> proof of concept. Boston's may have been a PR event. Taipei's may have 
> been an asian reachout. Alexandria will perhaps be an arab and public 
> institutions reachout. And perhaps in the future, London will be a 
> fundraising event; Paris a political event; Antartica a "save the ice 
> event". Who knows ?
> We will never all agree, and that's fine. Wikipedians can be influenced, 
> but no one can tell them what to think. They may participate, or not, 
> they may have different motivations, they may have a different vision, 
> but that is not what is really important.
> 
> What is important is that we collectively agree that an event, which we 
> chose to call Wikimania, is necessary.
> 
> What is important is that we organise this event together.
> What is important is that bids are proposed by wikipedians themselves. 
> What is important is that bids are selected by wikipedians themselves. 
> What is important is that the program, the speakers, the social events 
> be chosen and organized by wikipedians themselves.
> What is important is that the event be meant with wikipedians and 
> wikimedia projects in mind.
> 
> Get to know other participants. Get to make friends with some of them. 
> Fight, sweat, scream, cry with them. Damage your nails on the wood. Get 
> too short nights. Struggle for that hammer. Compete for the jug of 
> water. Disagree with which paint should be put on it.
> 
> But in the end, get the feeling of accomplishment with the others.
> 
> Want to kill the barnraising effort ?
> Make it an event in San Francisco every year, organized by a 
> professional team, with a clear agenda defined by the ED (400 people, 
> must accomodate the press, must be an opportunity to raise money, should 
> involve 3 international big speakers, opportunity to announce new 
> software development). This event might be interesting, but that will be 
> the death of Wikimania.
> 
> This is my vision of what Wikimania is.
> 
> Ant