[Foundation-l] We have the problem

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Tue, 10/28/08, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] We have the problem
> To: birgitte_sb at yahoo.com, "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 7:15 AM
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 4:05 AM, Birgitte SB
> <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I must disagree that the systematic problem is that we
> don't care enough.  I would say it is that we cannot
> communicate effectively.  The barriers to communication
> throughout Wikimedia are real and not just due to some lack
> of caring.
> 
> From my experience, a lot of Wikimedians don't know for
> this list.
> When I am the first person who introduces a Wikimedian with
> 2 years of
> experience (and I didn't do that just once) that this
> list exists and
> that it is the right place for talking about general issues
> -- I may
> conclude that we have a [systematic] communication problem.
> 
> If you think about languages as barriers, they are not *so*
> significant to become a "real problem". The most
> of Wikimedians are
> able to read English. Also, there is no need that every
> Wikimedian
> knows English, there is a need for just one or few of them
> per
> community.

I don't think languages alone are the main barrier to communication and I did not mention language in my email.  When someone picks on the exact words someone like Gerard M or Anthere uses in a second languages to dismiss the more general message they write we are not communicating effectively.  When people approach an issue from either a position of condescension or one of mistrust they will not communicate effectively.  I personally struggle to effectively communicate with native English speaking developers.  Communication amoung people who care is a problem outside what languages they speak.

Birgitte SB