[Foundation-l] Show community consensus for Wikilove

[Ray Saintonge]

On 10/29/11 12:40 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> There have been LOADS of opportunities where the community is asked, begged
> to be involved in what will be the way forward. The most obvious
> opportunity has been the Strategy project. At this time the Wikimedia
> Foundation is looking for all sorts of volunteers that are asked to help
> determine what future functionality will be like. Specifically I want to
> mention the need for "language support teams" and volunteers for our mobile
> development.
>
> The position of the WMF as I know it is that it wants very much an involved
> community. To be effective, it is important for the community to be
> involved early in the process. Sadly many people want to be only involved
> at the end of the process. This does not help much and particularly not on
> issues that are not the bread and butter of working on content by the
> existing community.
>
>
People who research and write articles *are* involved in the community. 
They may have a relatively narrow range of topics in which they write, 
and if that's what pleases them then that's where they serve the 
community. For many such people participating in endless political 
wrangles about functionality is anathema. They prefer to control how 
their valuable and limited time is spent. They won't touch it unless and 
until an initiative affects them, but by that time the political debate 
may have long since moved on, and there is no longer any good way of 
affecting policy.

Ray