[Foundation-l] Wikimedia "Storyteller" job opening

[Birgitte SB]

----- Original Message ----
> From: MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Mon, March 7, 2011 6:47:35 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia "Storyteller" job opening
> 
<SNIP>
> 
> If someone has the time to break this report down  more completely, I'd
> certainly appreciate it and I imagine others would as  well.
> 

I really do understand what your concerns about  the possible worst case 
scenario are.  However it would be nice if you took a crack at the kind of 
research you are suggesting and post any concerns you have on find specific 
items in the report that you can not correlate to the open discussion.  Posting 
a generalization about how bad the worst case scenario could be and asking 
people to prove to you that this worst case scenario hasn't happened isn't very 
helpful. 


Negatives are difficult prove.  So if avoid asking people to prove they haven't 
incorporated any ideas that were absent from the strategy wiki and switch to 
asking for more information on the origins of particular ideas you haven't been 
able to find the origin of would lead to an all around a better discussion. 
Right now it seems to me like you are asking people to prove to you that the sky 
isn't falling.

I think there is a lot of exaggeration on both sides of this discussion.  
Defending the strategy process as if it were a dream come true and deriding it 
as setting aside the values of openness and transparency are both largely 
inaccurate. Of course the whole process could have been better, more engaging, 
better documented and produced clearer results. That statement will *always* be 
true. 


The last time I can recall that there was a concerted effort to clarify WMF 
priorities and strategy involving paid facilitation was the 2006 retreat in 
Frankfurt involving about 21 Wikimedians. [1] The more recent effort on 
developing the WMF five year plan is much more open and transparent than that 
one around five years ago. I hope that five years from now we will see another 
significant improvement in the process.  The recent effort was neither poor, nor 
was it ideal.  It was a very nice step forward, which is right about where I 
believe we all should set our expectations.  I find the whole "it was 
practically perfect" vs. "it was in opposition to our very values" nature of 
this thread quite problematic. 


Birgitte SB

[1] 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/73086?search_string=report%20frankfurt;#73086