[Foundation-l] Wikimedia "Storyteller" job opening

[MZMcBride]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> On 6 March 2011 23:54, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>> So... that's a no? There's no record of who wrote what? I think people in
>> the community are interested to know how much of the strategic plan came
>> from various stakeholders, both the ideas and the actual pieces of the
>> report. If you feel that it's unfair to ask for attribution, I guess we'll
>> just have to agree to disagree.
> 
> How cares who wrote what? What matters is who came up with what and
> who thought it was a good idea. I don't know if that information is
> available in any easily accessible way, but it will all be on the
> strategy wiki if you wish to search for it.

Most of the final report was posted to the wiki by a Wikimedia intern:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/AJ_WMF_Intern

I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say "that information ...
will all be on the strategy wiki." Some of the content is, but most of the
actual edits to write this report don't seem to be. I'm probably just
missing something. Do you have links?

I think it's important to know who wrote what because it complements
Wikimedia's values and it speaks to the success of the "Wikimedia way." The
"Wikimedia way" is touted throughout the final strategic plan ("we did it
differently, we did it with the community, etc."). But that doesn't quite
match reality, does it? For better or worse, the "Wikimedia way" failed
here: the community (whatever that is) chose not to write the report. The
community chose not to engage in the final and most important steps (i.e.,
producing something substantive that could be a guidepost for the future).

Wikimedia's values (of transparency, openness, and attribution) were
seemingly set aside as the report was compiled. Is that okay? I think the
same reasons that every wiki article has a page history apply to why every
section of this report should have clear attribution history. Completely
anonymous stakeholders writing large swaths of Wikimedia's plan, and then
saying it was a community effort? I don't know, that doesn't seem quite
right to me.

Here are three accounts belonging to people from Bridgespan that were in
some way involved in the creation of the final report (I think):
* http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Laura231
* http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Sarah476
* http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/TylerT

The more I look at this whole process, the more confusing it becomes to me.
I doubt this obfuscation is intentional, but trying to figure out where
anything came from seems nearly impossible. Even when you can find a
specific edit, it's cloaked behind an unrelated account.

I don't think this report matches the values of the Wikimedia community.
Looking at this from a broad angle, I think anyone who has ever been
involved in a Wikimedia-related discussion would say that coming to a
consensus among such a large and varied group of people is nearly
impossible, which makes this unified report all the more dubious in my mind.
How was a cohesive, unified report able to be compiled when the community
was involved? I don't see many possibilities here.

If someone has the time to break this report down more completely, I'd
certainly appreciate it and I imagine others would as well.

MZMcBride