[Foundation-l] Controversial content software status

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 2:41 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5 March 2012 18:21, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There are people in this movement who are happy with this status quo, and
>> who say they will fork if anything changes.
>> Let them.
>

There has never been a genuine confrontation on Wikimedia sites between
people for radical change and those defending the Status Quo Ante. There
have however been (and I trust will ever be -- A "status quo") of people
who feel there can be no give and take. And those who philosophically
accept they will never be happy with things as they are on Wikimedia,
but think the attempt to bridge the gap itself is a worthwhile effort, for all
that follows from it, the joy and the misery. Sometimes it is difficult to
know who those people are, because there is a natural ebb and flow. Land
now, waters rushing in the next moment. Between those sides you have
to decide where your boat belongs. Aground and unmovable, or afloat
and moving with the waves that wash back and forth.

>
> You have that backwards. You are demanding the board enact something
> precisely because the overwhelming majority of the people who *do the
> actual work* won't put up with it.
>
> However, you are convinced that filtering is the key to far greater
> usefulness to, and acceptance by, the public.
>
> This suggests that what you should do is start a fork, filtered
> according to your vision.
>
> If you are correct that this is what the public really wants, your
> project will be a huge success. You could be the next Jimmy Wales!
>
>
> - d.
>

Let's be fair. Wikimedia could well turn more prudish, and that would
be quite natural. But forcing a boat up a mountain, rather than letting
it sail isn't quite what we do here. Yet oceans with geological timescales
yield high grounds where you can find ancient seafloors, and (if you
can imagine it?) high mountains with sharp edges, are turned into
rounded curves by the glaciers passing over them, with time.

If you are right about the direction Wikimedia should move, all you
have to do is wait.

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]