[Foundation-l] Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline

[Milos Rancic]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 11:05 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> First, when you argue that only a couple of chapters are active and
> doing things, you actually miss all the discussions happening on
> chapters hosted lists. The overal wikimedia mouvement is not limited to
> lists hosted by WMF, nor to wikis hosted by WMF btw (the French Chapter
> wiki is very active). So, I guess your figures are slightly biaised
> because you lack some information to make it truely complete. There has
> obviously been a transfer of discussions from public WMF lists to
> chapter lists.
> I'm not saying that's good or bad. That's just a fact. Transfer. And a
> consequence of it is balkanization.

There was some problem in communication :) (and related to the other
thread). I didn't say that just a couple of chapters are active, I
don't think that the only activity of chapters are related to PR and
gathering money. What I did say is something else: A lot of things may
be done without chapters, even a cooperation at high enough levels,
like cooperation with universities is. Chapters are needed for making
fulfilling some "real needs": a place for Wikimedians, funds,
infrastructure.

While I am not sure that any chapter has a PR strategy (if it has, it
would be very good to share with other chapters), I think that just
two of chapters are able to fund some projects. If some other chapters
are able to fund some projects, they are not showing this. (And, yes,
I missed that WM FR has some infrastructure; which would make the
initial list of three chapters wider for one more. Which raises the
second question: Signals that some chapter has some infrastructure
should be sent. WM CH, WM DE and WM PL are sending such signals. For
the first time I heard now from you that WM FR hosts some lists; and
it is about Wikimedia Taiwan or Wikimedia Israel about whom I don't
have any clue. And, yes, again, I used too strong words in the first
email.)

And both of the issues (PR and funds) are very important. I explained
why PR is important in the first email of the other thread: we need
more contributors and we are not anymore a miracle. And for funds: I
am working in the company which took a lot of funds from EU (note, I
am living and working in non-EU country, which has less access to EU
funds than any EU country). Bureaucracy needed for that is small part
of time of one person (of course, educated in that issue). Any EU
chapter with staff has a possibility to take significant funds for
projects (significant = a good part of WMF budget). This would make
possible a lot of things: it is not related to the amount of money, it
is related to the fact that today any Wikimedia-related project
proposal which assumes money -- assumes asking limited WMF staff.

And for the end of this issue: I didn't blame anyone for inactivity or
whatever. All of us are doing the best which we are able to do in
relation to our free (and not so free) time. The problems are of such
type that we need to think how to make things differently, to be able
to function.

> However, the public and internal lists suffers three damages.
>
> First damage: because of leaks, everything slightly confidential or even
> controversial is no more discussed. Neither on public, nor on private
> lists. Consequence: decrease of list volume
>
> Second damage: the staff of WMF grew larger and does not discuss much on
> lists. So, many topics which used to be discussed on lists are now
> discussed in office. Consequence: decrease of list volume
>
> Third damage: internal lists are quite cabalistic :-)
> Just consider internal-l and see how many new members joined in 2006 ?
> in 2007 ? in 2008 ? I think by and large, most people who joined in 2008
> are staff members. Or previous members who were at risk of being removed
> because they stopped being staff or board members.
> Proposition of new names is looked with serious suspicion. New blood is
> now extremely rare, and does not replace those who become inactive.
> Consequence: decrease of list volume

I am trying to say that the most serious problem is significantly less
number of new participants. There are a number of reasons why it is
so: confidential issues shouldn't be discussed publicly, people feels
better if they are talking privately, WMF staff has its own
dynamics... If the product of those reasonable tendencies is good --
we have a system which works fine. If the product is not good -- we
have systematic problem. I think that we are much closer to the second
scenario than to the first. It doesn't mean, of course, that
confidential issues should be discussed publicly etc., but it means
that we need to think about it and try to solve it.