[Foundation-l] Frustration with WMF = WP

[Dominic McDevitt-Parks]

On 2 November 2011 13:54, Kul Wadhwa <kwadhwa at wikimedia.org> wrote:

>
> 2) A conspiracy to push Wikipedia at the expense of the sister projects
>
>
> In regards to #2, there is no conspiracy here. We've been quite open
> about this. Yes, there is more of an emphasis on Wikipedia but it goes
> back to WMF's prioritization of "A rising tide lifts all boats"
> strategy. The more interest in Wikipedia will then hopefully translate
> into more interest on Wikimedia in general and benefit the other
> projects. Therefore, pushing interest in Wikipedia doesn't take away
> from the sister projects, rather, it should hopefully lead to more
> interest in them in the future. Furthermore, the zero-rated Wikipedia
> initiative is focused on developing countries where people have
> limited or no access to the internet, so many of the projects aren't
> well known enough or developed enough in those native languages where
> operators are willing to promote them. If users from developing
> countries discover more ways to access Wikipedia then we're hoping
> that it would then be easier for them to discover the sister projects.
>

Hi,

Can we not refer to people's reasoned complaints as conspiracy theories?
Or, better yet, let's actually respond to the complaints in question if you
are going to post, rather than just replying to the joke someone made?

In general, editors of non-Wikipedia projects have an appreciation for
Wikipedia and its special role within the Wikimedia community and the
Wikimedia Foundation's strategy. This is reflected by Andrew even referring
to is as the "flagship" in his opening post, and I also stated that it was
reasonable that Wikipedia gets extra attention. I mean, we're Wikipedia
administrators; we're not anti-Wikipedia. I don't understand how "A rising
tide lifts all boats" has anything to do with the real concerns within the
community. Does developing things for Wikipedia magically make MediaWiki a
useful platform for building a dictionary? Does it somehow make up for
acting as if those other projects don't exist, like referring to Wikipedia
alone as the project making "a world in which every single human being can
freely share in the sum of all knowledge", as if the others have no
relation to that mission. These are the the sorts of things that are actual
causes of frustration, not merely the fact that Wikipedia gets emphasized.
This criticism is not specific to the mobile team, or even necessarily as
relevant there as it is to some of the WMF's other activities.

Dominic