[Foundation-l] Priorities and opportunities

[Samuel Klein]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 11:20 PM, Philippe Beaudette
<pbeaudette at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On Sep 26, 2009, at 9:32 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>
>> Do you think we will be in a position to run a second usability
>> project of similar scope, two years from now, entirely from within the
>> community?
>
> Are you sure that's the best option?

We should be capable of such a thing as a community, in terms of
knowledge, experience, and process.  That does not mean there is no
place for the outside input or guidance you devilishly advocate.

> doing anything that's entirely from within the community brings
> its own unique set of challenges.

Yes.

That said, there are degrees of community nature.  Many contractors we
have worked with were already Wikipedians to a small degree.

Imagine that we succeed in helping every person in the world learn,
and in engaging most of them to share what they know with others.
Then we will be a global community with few boundaries.   At which
point you can ask: How much of a project requires engaging people who
would not otherwise do it, and how much can we accomplish by
coordinating those already gladly doing to such work?

An example that does not cross the community/outsider boundary:
translating a given set of documents.   Requesting translations can
feel like pulling teeth, asking favors of people who would rather do
something else.  But every day there are ten times as many people
enthusiastically handling translation requests to create or improve
Wikipedia articles.  This is a question of finding and directing
existing interest, and sharing the underlying drive and vision for why
it matters.

SJ