[Foundation-l] Volunteer Appreciation

Fri Apr 24 18:20:07 UTC 2009

Steven,

You're welcome.  There's also this, which I still long to turn into a
proper report with excerpts and screenshots :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/Retro

You are right that wikipedia has a website-product as one of its major
outputs.  And the focus on this important large-scale product has
helped channel energies into a common goal.  But I wouldn't say that
any set of products alone embodies the essential idea.  If we can get
every person on earth connected to an overview of the world's
knowledge, contributing the things they have to teach, and reviewing
the things they care about, the ongoing process and project that
involves would be more important to me (and to my view of WM) than the
constellation of products -- web & mobile references, search &
question interfaces, offline & printed collections, talmudically
annotative widgets -- that would exist.

If you see WM as a collection of static products, then sure, you could
find other ways to produce that... and you implicitly are embracing
certain limitations on scale.

If you see it as a community of 100k people, more like the fabled
city, laying its Foundations within a community 10,000 times larger --
well, then you have your own culture, an engine for future growth, a
destination for those not yet part of it.  Describing a city by its
monuments is fine for a tourist guide [and to attract new residents],
but those monuments don't define it, nor are the reason for its reason
for existence or (one hopes) its most lasting legacy.

SJ

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Steven Walling
<steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:
> SJ, thanks for sharing the nostalgia.wikipedia.org link. I've been a
> Wikimedian for four years, and not once stumbled across that. You learn
> something new every day...
>
> As for the "educational products" phrase, my feeling is yes, the community
> on-wiki doesn't tend to think of the projects *literally* as products. But,
> from my experience, the use of the phrase is simply part of a larger trend
> of referring to websites and families of sites as a product. As in, the
> point of a primarily Web-based institution being to deliver the site/sites
> as a product to visitors. That spirit has already been something that marks
> Wikimedia projects as different from most wikis I think, whether or not we
> literally refer to them that way.
>
> [[User:Steven:Walling]]
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 12:51 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Welcome, Jennifer.  The current foundation-l traffic isn't quite as
>> vibrant an intro to the community today as it was in 2005 or so.  I
>> hope you will share your thoughts, even unformed!
>>
>> For a historical taste, don't forget to visit the nostalgia wiki:
>> http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org
>> ...and even  http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiPedia
>>
>> Trends across the life of the projects are important; a lot of us
>> spend time reflecting on what was best, whether changes since then
>> have been good or bad for coherence, growth, quality, and fun.  I
>> wonder in particular why we haven't developed new projects lately -
>> there are many out there that fit naturally into the original
>> wikiethos, and the newer foundation mission.
>>
>> SJ
>>
>> ps - It is disconcerting to hear Wikipedia and sibs referred to as
>> 'educational products' and materials.   I mean, do we have products? I
>> don't think the projects see themselves as such; though there are
>> occasional products that emerge (such as 3D wiki globes... TC/Theo:
>> can we get another run of those?!)
>>
>> pps - A general note - it would be nice to see links to people's user
>> accounts when they are introduced, whether they are advisors, staff,
>> friends of the wiki, or Editors of Unusual Size...
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Jennifer Riggs <jriggs at wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>> > This being Volunteer Appreciation week in the US, I thought it was a
>> > great chance for me to post to this list and post a Wikimedia blog
>> > http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/04/20/volunteer-appreciation/. I want to
>> > thank everyone for being so welcoming. I am very excited about this
>> > organization and this job working to support such an amazing group of
>> > volunteers!
>> >
>> > I've been reading along on some important community issues discussed
>> > here and am learning so much. I look forward also to hearing
>> > perspectives on the list about issues around diversifying and further
>> > globalizing Wikimedia's free educational products and material. I am
>> > very volunteer-centric when it comes to my big thinking about direction,
>> > activities and products. So, I will be relying on you to help frame the
>> > Foundation's volunteer support in a way that will be most beneficial in
>> > your efforts to achieve our community's goals.
>> >
>> > I look forward to meeting you as individuals as I go.
>> > Jennifer Riggs - CPO Wikimedia Foundation
>> >
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>>
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