[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: Announcement: New editor engagement experiments team!

[MZMcBride]

Samuel Klein wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 1:06 AM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>> Experiments are acceptable... sometimes.
> 
> MZM, I didn't expect you to become the voice of conservatism!
> 
> I cannot agree with your premise that experiments are somehow
> 'optional' or new.  Experimentation is the lifeblood of any project
> build around being bold and low barriers to participation.  We should
> simply ensure that boldness can be reverted, with fast feedback loops,
> and that experiments are just that, not drastic changes all at once.

You seem to continue to ignore the cost of experimentation. When you unleash
a classroom full of people on Wikipedia who start messing up articles and
performing other actions that need to be reverted, is it Wikimedia
Foundation staff who will be cleaning up the mess? It becomes a whole
different issue when it's not random people messing up articles, but instead
it's Wikimedia Foundation-sponsored contributors. You're far too smart to
not realize this already; why are you ignoring or side-stepping these and
other costs of experimentation?

>> Wikimedia's stated mission is about producing free, high-quality educational
>> content.
> 
> It's funny, you've said this three times so far this thread :-)
> But if you read the mission again, I think you'll find you are mistaken.
> 
> Wikimedia's mission is to *empower and engage people* to develop
> content.  There's nothing about quality, unless you assume that an
> empowered and engaged society will produce high quality materials.
> (As it turns out, in practice if not in theory, we do.)

Imagine a world in which there's a global movement with only mediocre
content to show for it. That should go on a bumper sticker. If the Wikimedia
Foundation is allowed to add "movement" jargon, I think I'm entitled to say
that the goal is to make something high-quality. Fair's fair.

> Our goal is global engagement of creators; and providing
> infrastructure to empower their work.

This sounds great. Is that what's actually happening? Providing
infrastructure that empowers people is fantastic. Build better software and
other tools that allow people to create beautiful and creative and
interesting content.

What you're saying nearly anyone on this list would have difficulty
disagreeing with (which is, I believe, partially why you're saying it). But
"snap back to reality": what's happening right now is a hawkeyed focus on a
boost of the number of contributors. Increasing participation for
statistics' sake. And the associated infrastructure (tool development, staff
allocation, etc.) is equally focused on this goal. And this doesn't even get
into the issue of sister projects (or any project other than the English
Wikipedia, really), which have received no support.

>> At some point this jargon about "the movement" came along and
>> there's a huge focus on "building the movement."
> 
> See above; this isn't new.

The word "movement" is not new. Its prevalence is.

> I do support those who focus on the quality of our existing content.
> But other priorities -- from expanding content scope and formats, to
> expanding the editing community -- also deserve support.

For me and for the people that Wikimedia serves (its readers), it's never
been about the community. I'm reminded of this quote from Risker's user page
on the English Wikipedia: "Our readers do not care one whit who adds
information to articles; they care only that the information is correct."

Your suggestion that there is something more important than the content
simply seems wrong to me. The content is what people come for. The content
is what people return for. The content is king. As iridescent once said,
"without content, Wikipedia is just Facebook for ugly people."

Obviously _a_ focus on the human component is important. Bots aren't writing
articles or writing dictionary definitions or taking and uploading images
(yet!), but content has to be _the_ focus. The primary focus cannot simply
be adding more people to the pile to build a movement. We are not trying to
Occupy Wikipedia; we are trying to build something of educational value for
the future. The idea has always been that even if the movement disappeared
(and with it the Wikimedia Foundation), the content would remain. It has to
be treated with respect and be given due deference in resource allocation
and in the goals that the Wikimedia Foundation makes a priority.

MZMcBride