[Foundation-l] Where we are headed. (was Wikimedia main office)

[Robin Shannon]

On 27/05/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> How? Previous public Wikimedia meetings have led nowhere and done
> nothing other than highlight how few people in the communities are
> interested in _doing_ anything - as opposed to debating on mailing
> lists.

I apologise if i came across preachy or whiney or anything and i
appreciate being on the board can't be easy what with constant howls
of cabals and whatnot by the tinfoil hat brigade. What i am perhaps
getting at here is asking if anyone knows/cares if the majority of
wikimedians agree (or even know about) the current direction being
taken by the foundation. That is making the foundation more than a
body who provides servers, bandwidth, developer support, and deals
with legal issues arising from writing the world's biggest and best
encyclopedia, dictionary, source of free books, news, and open content
repository (did i miss any?).

Tim Starling has said before (and i apologise if i am misquoting him)
that we basicly got lucky with the idea of a wiki encylopedia and that
we should really just stick to what we are good at. I have always
disagreed with this point of view but lately have been coming around
to it, because you know what what, the results of what the average
wikimedian does have been hugely successful but other things we've
tried or talked about trying just don't seem to live up to its
success. I just don't think it is our role to deal with the problems
of Africa and any of the other projects envisioned.

That is not to say that all the amazing idealism and good intentions
constantly shown are a bad thing TM. I am just throwing this out there
as an idea but perhaps we should have to separate but linked
organisations. One non-profit organisation whose only charge is to own
and buy servers/bandwidth, support devs and to provide the legal
backing for wikimedia this would be as small and lean as possible
(though would presumably hire at least one lawyer and accountant). The
other would be a more traditional charity and would be charged with
overseeing and sponsoring wikimania, getting grants for special
projects and trying to get wikipedia on to mobile phones and all the
other cool stuff people want to do. People would be able to choose to
which of the organisations they would like to donate. Perhaps two
organisations is too radical but perhaps some kind of internal
breakdown of the foundation into core functions and non-core
functions. I dunno. I'm just throwing this out there as an idea to
start a conversation because I appreciate that although the foundation
has worked hard to try to be inclusive, there are a large number of
people (or at least i get the feeling that there are anyway) who feel
like the foundation is going in a direction contrary to where they
would like it to go.

Then again maybe i'm misinterpreting the wikimedian community (i only
subsist in a very small bit of it) and everyone is quite happy with
what the foundation is doing and where it is heading. I dunno.

paz y amor,
-rjs.

> Nice idea... how about you suggest how that might happen? There are
> currently two community representatives on the Board, though it's
> increasingly obvious that the community are not using either Anthere
> or myself to get anything to happen. Anything that does happen comes
> through private mailing lists and an increasing number of internal
> processes that even Board members don't always have access to.
>
> Angela

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