[Foundation-l] We have the problem

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
I have been listening an watching and I agree with much of what you say.
What i find is that even though I am interested in the meta running of the
WMF and its projects and communities, I both do not have the time nor the
inclination to involve me in all of it. I am looking for a platform for the
things that I care for, the things I spend my time on.

When you look at things several meta projects / committees exist that work
to the benefit of all. The language committee, the Betawiki project,
Wikivoices now becoming a meta effort are all examples of this. They are
mosty single issue efforts but their impact is high. I think this is rightly
so because they walk their talk. I think they are a success because they
have a limited scope and they attract people that share a need.

When you talk in terms of all singing and dancing council, you talk about
people who are to be involved in EVERYTHiNG. I feel uncomfortable with this
notion as it feels like yet another talking shop first and foremost. Compare
this with how Betawiki works for instance; a new extension is seen as being
relevant and the people at Betawiki do triage on the software; they make it
fit the Betawiki environment. A good example is the software Jan-Bart spoke
about at the WikiMedia Conferentie Nederland from the UNESCO, Siebrand spend
a lot of time on it already.

If I were to start something new, it would be a "council for language
support" call it "Wikilanguage". There are several issues that currently do
not have a home. if anything issues are talked about at many places and it
is hard to get sufficient focus and attention to make a difference. At this
moment there are three issues with Unicode support that I am aware off. The
Javanese would like to have a Wikisource but Unicode does not (yet) support
the Javanese script, the support for SignWriting is not even on the Unicode
map yet. For Ripuarian several characters are currently not in Unicode. Only
a third of the languages we support in MediaWiki have basic localisation
support how can we support the other two thirds better?

There are many people who care about languages or who care about issues with
their language. The language committee is because of its charter NOT the
place for these issues, so who is to address them? Should we wait for a
council? Or should we as is suggested just get people together and make an
impact ?  Having such a Wikilanguage as part of a council sure, why not, but
this is an effort where people do when they do it is not that lack of
visibility is a reason for disqualification. Yes, such a Wikilanguage should
be open to everyone; when we get things done, more people will come and more
issues will find a home.

The most important message comming from such a "wikilanguage" is that we
care about these language issues.
Thanks,
       GerardM


PS Yes, we need people helping us localise the UNESCO extension, and all
other extensions too. :)

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem is a systematic one, and thus very serious. While I have
> some clue about the problem, I don't pretend to give the full answer
> about causes, present problems, consequences and possible solutions.
> It should be analyzed by the whole (at least "meta") community not
> just because I am not able to gather all data, but because the whole
> community, or, at least, the significant part of it has to participate
> in the finding solution and implementing it.
>
> The worst method which may be applied in the situations when some
> serious problem exists is to lie ourselves and to say that everything
> is fine, that we just need to interpret data differently.
>
> == Present problems ==
>
> - Communication at this list, as well as other common communication
> channels (except blogs!), tends to decline. I am sending this message
> after two days without any email. While it may be explained with
> weekend days or so, it is definitely not so usual. One day without
> emails is usual just for holidays.
>
> - All groups -- global and local -- tend to close itself. If it is not
> in the sense of delaying incorporation of new members, it is in the
> sense of making a group of persons which are self-sufficient and which
> don't need communication with external part of the community.
>
> - At the project level, especially Wikipedia level, we are not anymore
> in the edit war phase. Actually, edit war phase looks now as super
> healthy phase for the present phase. Present phase is full of much
> more intelligent destructive persons at the projects, and even
> supported by the whole and relevant communities. At the other side,
> people who are willing to deal with such problems don't get enough
> support from the upper levels.
>
> - When one community gets into the ill situation, even we do the right
> things at the right moments -- years (yes, years, one or two, at
> least) have to pass to put that community in the better position. As a
> steward I have some clue what is going on inside of some communities
> and, if my examples -- and there are, I think enough of examples --
> are representative, I have to say that we have very significant
> problems in the most of the communities. Healthy community is an
> exception; bad relations inside of the community is the rule.
>
> - Except the German (and probably Swiss and Polish) chapter, our
> chapters are not more than the groups of Wikipedians which have a
> formal organization in their countries and which don't know what to do
> with it. This is especially important because Wikipedia is not anymore
> "a miracle", but "an ordinary thing" of everyday life. Like an
> ordinary journalist doesn't have some special need to make news about
> Google or IBM, an ordinary journalist doesn't have a special need to
> make news about Wikipedia. During the first year of Wikimedia Serbia,
> I didn't have to call any journalist, they called me. Today, any media
> appearance has to be organized. Every chapter needs a PR strategy now.
> And it is just about PR. What about other things? How many chapters
> are able to fund some project? I think two: German and Swiss. And, as
> far as I am introduced, we have more than 20.
>
> - The situation with the software is a chaotic one. There are a lot of
> basic and near-to-basic functionalities which we don't have, while we
> have tons of extensions which are really not necessary (in comparison
> with the first two groups). The worst thing here is that we don't have
> systematic thinking about what do we need and how to help to various
> projects. At the other side, WMF has enough money to fund fundamental
> software needs.
>
> - Communication between projects are at the positive zero. Yes, there
> are some communication, but it is more than very poor. At the other
> side, I don't see systematic work toward making the communication
> better. Without communication, we have separate projects hosted at WMF
> servers, nothing more.
>
> - Besides all of those reasons, I may clearly see decadency inside of
> the Wikimedian community. The same decadency which was characteristic
> of all big societies at the end of the golden era. Bureaucracy is an
> excuse for not doing things and keeping present positions; openness
> toward new things is around zero; glorifying of "ol' good days" is
> more and more common; there are more and more bizarre things; and so
> on.
>
> I am sure that I may gather other present problems, as well as I am
> sure that others may add more problems here. The list above is
> consisted just of things which came into my mind during writing this
> email.
>
> == Causes ==
>
> As I said at the beginning of this email, causes of those problems are
> not particular. I don't think that any particular group is responsible
> for the present systematic problem inside of the Wikimedia community.
> At the other side, all of us are responsible for that problem. And
> this is the worst thing: when all and no one are responsible, such
> problems tend not to be solved.
>
> At the other side, I may list some of the issues which caused this problem:
>
> - WMF tends to work on their issues, related usually just to gathering
> money. Presently, we have global financial crisis and I realize why it
> is a priority, but I also think that Wikimedia is one of the last
> institutions of the modern world which would loose will for support. A
> great part of the planet understands the significance of Wikimedia
> projects and they are willing to help.
>
> - At the other side, WMF is not willing to interfere into the
> community issues. As the community (or the communities) was not driven
> well in the previous years, today WMF Board is the only body able to
> make significant changes at the level of the global community.
>
> - While transparent work is something desirable, the most of Wikimedia
> community bodies are not working transparently. It seems that one
> thing is to add as Erik's or Sue's duties to report to the community
> about their work; while the completely other thing is to demand it
> from volunteers (while I think that no one demanded it from
> committees, stewards and other groups).
>
> - Efforts to increase communication inside of the community are
> partialized. When I was trying some time ago to realize which
> Wikimedia body has the goal related to communication between projects,
> I realized that we have ComCom, ComProj, as well as a number of not
> official communication channels, like Wikizine, Wikipedia Weekly, Not
> the Wikipedia Weekly and so on are.
>
> - In relation to WMF position, we don't have any meta body which is
> able to make some community-wide decision. Solving problems at some
> community is a matter of personal initiative of some persons. Solving
> problems in which two or more communities are involved is science
> fiction for us.
>
> As for the previous section, I am sure that others may add here more
> issues.
>
> == Consequences ==
>
> - 2008 is the year of Wikipedia stagnation [1]. I am sure that we may
> get some more precise data from other statistics, but Alexa's
> statistics are informative enough. We are not even at the beginning of
> stagnation (we were in that position at the end of the last year), we
> are now in very obvious stagnation.
>
> This may be explained by different reasons, including the fact that we
> reached our reasonable top and that we are not able to go further
> anymore. If this is the only visible part of our stagnation, it could
> be interpreted like that. But, it is not. We have other projects which
> didn't reach their top and they are also in stagnation: Wikinews is at
> the same level for years; Wikibooks is in stagnation; Wikiversity
> shows that it has some improvement for the last two months or so --
> after years of stagnation.
>
> At the other side, stagnation for us means growing, too: we have more
> articles every day. But, if we want to keep us inside of this kind of
> "growing", we have to work extremely clever. We have to automatize a
> lot of things which we are doing by hand, at least. However, I don't
> see such moves.
>
> - The worst and the most possible consequence of a stagnation is a
> decline. I am not anymore so hard "at the field" and I am not able to
> see how the things are going on. However, when I went to the article
> about France (related to one of the previous topics at this list), I
> realized that during 2006 the article had around 1000 edits per ~4
> months. Unlike then, the last 1000 edits were made for one year
> (between November 2007 and October 2008).
>
> But, the article about France is just the top of the iceberg. It is
> one of ~1000 articles about which the community will take care "up to
> the last moment". I am wondering do we have not maintained articles
> now -- which were maintained fairly well during 2006 or so.
>
> Again, it could be the consequence of the fact that we have now much
> more articles than we had in 2006. But, the real number about we
> should take care in this situation is the number of articles per (very
> active) editor. If the number is growing (in the case of bigger
> projects) -- we are in the problem: we wouldn't have enough of
> volunteers to keep the projects.
>
> - World is changing very fast. Position of Wikipedia as the only
> source of particular informations is not anymore untouchable. There
> are projects, wiki projects -- even MediaWiki based -- which have
> better informations about particular topics than Wikipedia. I see that
> as a positive tendency. Simply, it is not possible -- as well as it is
> not necessary -- to gather all kinds of people at one project. Of
> course, while the knowledge is license-compatible.
>
> But, when people introduced in medicine, linguistics, Star Wars,
> OpenOffice and so on; when they make relevant sources of informations
> in their fields; when they cover the most of relevant fields --
> Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects wouldn't be so relevant.
>
> And this relevancy is not in the sense of seeking for the best
> possible information about some issue -- Wikipedia, as any other
> encyclopedia, is just a starting point -- it is about seeking for the
> general information. Why should Google, or any search engine, prefer
> Wikipedia about the encyclopedic informations about OpenOffice at the
> time when OpenOffice wiki would have better encyclopedic informations
> about it?
>
> The second problem with that is decline of number of readers and,
> consequently, of editors. Again, about 10 millions of articles someone
> should take care. Do we have some relevant approximation about how
> many editors are enough for keeping projects consistent? What is the
> line for which we have to fight?
>
> And, the third problem here is a possibility of creation of the real
> Wikipedia competitor. No one of the previous general purpose wiki
> encyclopedias are not real Wikipedia (and Wikimedia) competitors.
> Wikinfo has different POV-related policy, Citizendium has different
> organization, Knol is much more Citizendium competitor than Wikipedia
> competitor; there are, of course, a number of projects which cover
> specific topics, too.
>
> While we may debate about is concurrency a good thing or not (in this
> case I think it is not because of wasting efforts two times for the
> same thing in open and generally transparent environment), it is not a
> question here. The real question is, again, related to decline of
> number of maintainers of more than 10 millions of articles.
>
> - The last question related to the consequences is: Have we finished
> the job? Looking from the point of view of one historian from the
> future, I am sure that he would say that we did a great job and that
> we have our place in the history. But, do we think that we finished
> it? Are there some issues which we haven't done and we are able to do?
> While I have a long list of what do I think that we haven't done, this
> is not the question just for me, but to all of us.
>
> If the answer is that we have finished the most important part of the
> job, we may conclude that should keep Wikimedia projects and that we
> should start to work on other sides to achieve other goals. If the
> answer is not, then we should try to move things forward, out of the
> stagnation and possible decline.
>
> == Possible solutions ==
>
> I was thinking to list possible solutions, general and particular,
> here. However, I don't think that particular solutions have the place
> here.
>
> - This is the systematic problem. It is not up to some particular
> bodies to work on their own hand and to hope for the best. The only
> Wikimedian body which is able make a real influence is the Board.
> However, much wider consensus is needed; much more people than ~10
> board members should be included into marking problems, thinking about
> them and solving them.
>
> - I was very loud about WikiCouncil a couple of months ago. Without
> community and Board support it was doomed to failure. Also, while I
> have to say that I met some great persons during that process, I have
> to say that we didn't choose each other as a group members, but we had
> been put together. Such group has to have a couple of persons with
> strong initiative to survive.
>
> The point here is: no WikiCouncil (or whichever body which is working
> on the community regulation) -- no community. Yes, a number of
> communities with different interests exist and will exist, but any
> kind of cooperation on a lot of not solved global issues is and will
> be just a nice dream. And, without solving not solved issues, we have
> come in this position.
>
> - After that, I was thinking that making a new role, global sysop
> role, would be able to help in the process of communication between
> communities. As I mentioned a couple of times, it was the main idea
> behind my action (besides it is a very useful thing). People should be
> interested in volunteering. Saying to someone that they should just
> volunteer is not so motivating action. However, it didn't pass because
> of some number of things. Even it had a lot of support, even some
> redefined proposal would have much more support, I concluded that 80%
> of support is science fiction for any kind of such proposals.
>
> - One more possible solution is to gather people interested in this
> issue somewhere and to see their production after a couple of months
> or so. However, again, it seems to me that there are not so much
> persons interested in solving this problem. It is maybe a too hard
> problem for thinking about; maybe the most of Wikimedians don't see
> this as a problem -- I don't know. (I just know that the problem will
> be more and more visible.)
>
> There is one more problem with this approach: I don't think that we
> have couple of months. If nothing would happen during the next couple
> of months, the situation will be changed. While changed situation is
> not the end of the world, we would have to redefine our goals. To be
> honest, I think that we came into the situation when just the group of
> professionals (at least in the sense of time which they need to spend)
> is needed.
>
> And, of course, maybe someone has some other ideas...
>
> [1] - http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/wikipedia.org
>
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