[Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

[Brion Vibber]

On 8/27/09 6:43 PM, Birgitte SB wrote:
> I agree. Inward facing communication has long been a problem for
> WMF.
> At times there have been board members that took more leadership in this
> area regarding various issues, but I can't remember a time when this
> hasn't been an issue. I think it is mostly a problem of WMF not setting
> up the expectations accurately. In my personal opinion when
> communicating with the community; surprises are bad. Even good surprises
> are bad.

Indeed, good surprises are *worse* than bad surprises, because the 
resulting confusion can taint how the community perceives a project, 
plan, or person introduced this way.

Rest assured that we're talking internally about how we can improve 
coordination between the board, staff, communications team, and other 
key parts of the community on these sorts of decisions and 
announcements, and I hope we'll all be much better prepared for the next 
good surprise!

We are still in the middle of our big annual conference, so please bear 
with us if we're a little slow and distracted in responding to 
everything just yet.

>  Fulfilling expectations on the other hand is good. It seems to
> be better received by the community when WMF fulfills a modest
> expectation than when it reveals a wonderful surprise.

Under promise, over deliver. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
CTO & Senior Software Architect, Wikimedia Foundation