[Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Sue Gardner]

Sorry for top-posting, Brian. (I'm walking home, am on my Blackberry.)

I don't feel super-comfortable posting on behalf of the staff, but I think it's fair to say that some of the staff are a little afraid to engage on foundation-l --- it can be intimidating, especially for new people. I think the staff feels both an obligation and a desire to engage with community members, but some tend to do it in forums that feel safer and more supportive (which might be on internal-l, in structured or semi-structured IRC conversations, etc.). I think that's not necessarily ideal, but it's very human and understandable.

I don't think the answer to the problem is to focus on reducing the level of negativity -- I think that's backwards-looking and hard to do helpfully. But I think that if we aim to be generous and kind with each other, when that is appropriate, that could/would create a virtuous cycle of its own :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu>

Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 20:29:09 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation


On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for
> brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a
> cesspool.
>

Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would
like to see on foundation-l.

My take on foundation-l is that the foundation doesn't take it very
seriously. They recognize the potential of a mailing list and like the
possibilities, but in practice there are too many people being overly
critical of the foundation here for it to be useful to them. Also, the
topics of discussion often seem like useless jabs that aren't really in the
direction of progress. People are just itching to find the foundation doing
something wrong so they can start a riot.

This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in
backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress? Some of us feel
that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we
discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will
be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real
change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the
foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea.

Sue recently posted a couple of articles to foundation-l that were cookbooks
for how to shut people that you perceive to be unproductive out of your
community. That was obviously a flawed e-mail to send. Of course we are all
aware of people who want to discuss the color of the bike shed. Discussing
the difference between red and blue is not, in fact, a priori bad, and there
should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it
upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding
it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of
their employees in which they are expected to participate in these
discussions. This is, after all, the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list.
And yet with dozens of employees the Foundation's voice is but a whisper
here.

To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The
Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but
they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable
exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation
business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like
we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we
not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it.

I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I
think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This
list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed
it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider
whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If
nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both
increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also
let the community know that it takes what they say seriously.
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