[Foundation-l] Where we are headed

[Delirium]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy
> that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations. Wikimedia
> will become a functioning non-profit with the usual bureucratic
> processes, some successful fundraising, a few good partnerships here
> and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of infighting among
> volunteers, etc. It will not become the open platform for social and
> technological change that it could be -- the wide network of people
> who are interested in building a free knowledge and free culture
> movement.  And who is to blame for that? Not the people who made it
> so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia in mind and work
> their ass of to do what they can to make it a success. The people who
> are to blame are those who did not participate in turning Wikimedia
> into something else, something larger, when it mattered.
>   

Well, Jimmy Wales has his vision for the future of Wikimedia, and it 
doesn't really match with any of my views of what it should be.  
However, he's in charge and has said in no uncertain terms that he's not 
going to open up a majority of the board to community elections anytime 
in the near future.  So, I don't see what can really be done about 
that.  I'm pretty resigned to the fact that committees, lawyers, and 
other random things seem to spring from nowhere without anyone, 
sometimes even the two elected board members, having heard about them.  
Clearly we aren't in control of the organization, and I don't see how 
that's likely to change.

In general, this doesn't feel like a free-culture organization.  I don't 
require Richard Stallman clones to be heading up all such organizations 
(although at least then there'd be no doubts), but this place feels more 
like, say, Red Hat---a commercial entity involved in free culture and 
making concessions to maintain community support---than it feels like a 
thoroughly free-culture organization like Debian.  For the most part the 
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a fine ISP hosting Wikipedia, but I 
certainly don't feel like they represent me or reflect my values, 
besides the single value of "producing a copyleft encyclopedia", the 
betterment of which strangely rarely seems to be among the various 
proposals I've been seeing lately.  I don't really see what can be done 
about that besides damage control or, if absolutely necessary, a fork.

Now as for damage control---you *do* see people get quite involved when 
it looks like the beaurocracy is intruding into the reason we 
free-content people are here in the first place, Wikipedia.  You'll 
notice the series of WP:OFFICE interventions on en.* attracted 
considerable community "participation".  Failing a WMF that represents 
my interests, I'll at least work for a WMF that serves as an acceptable 
ISP for Wikipedia.

Now perhaps it isn't completely impossible, but I think it'll be a 
continual uphill battle without significant high-level change.  I would 
feel much more comfortable, for example, with a board that consisted of 
Jimbo, Anthere, Angela, and two other prominent community 
representatives chosen by some reasonable election process.  In 
principle, influencing things from the minority is possible (Jimbo 
presumably doesn't want to run everything on 3-2 votes), but it colors 
the whole process.

Which is, incidentally, my main problem with a paid staff.  If they do 
only technical things like file paperwork, that's fine, but I'm quite 
sure there will be a slippery slope there, judging from past experience 
in this organization.

-Mark