[Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[Samuel Klein]

Greg,

This makes two home runs in one month -- you get a prize.

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 4:00 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 2:03 PM,  <susanpgardner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Austin, think about who "everyone" is.  The folks here on foundation-l are not representative of readers.
>
> I think the people here are speaking up for the sake of the readers,
> and for the sake of preserving the best of the existing design
> principles used on the site.  I know I am.

Yes.  We are skilled at these trade-offs as a community (by which I
mean, those who care to do the work that must be done -- build up all
parts of the sites, tell the world about them, greet the folks who
join in, plan for the needs of those who read, write, draw, film,
code, tag, and share).  We may not yet have a deep bench of UI gods,
but we have much to be proud of, and care a lot about such things.

And we do not fear change -- we love new points of view.  This list
and those like it are some of the best groups I know of to vet and
smooth such work once it is done.

> a point needs to be made clear:
>
> This community is who made the sites. I don't just mean the articles.
> I mean the user interfaces, the PR statements, the fundraiser
> material, _everything_.  ...

Just so.  And the community runs the sites each day, and sees to most
change that hits the site.  Case in point: the new skin is one part of
UI work, and a big chunk rolled out all at once, but much more is done
each week step by step, niche by niche, with no fuss.


> We have an existence proof that the community is able to manage the
> operation of the sites at a world class level. Certainly there are
> many things which could have been done better, more uniformly, more
> completely, or with better planning... but the community has a proven
> competence in virtually every area that the foundation is now
> attempting to be directly involved in.

The foundation can serve as a sure core of work and a hub for large
tasks, but it is small next to the community as a whole.  More raw
work still gets done (in press and grants and style-work and thoughts
on how to reach new groups) through the community and chapters.


> I guess the real power comes from that fact that
> every issue can be attacked by a custom small group from a nearly
> infinite set, plus a little crowd input.  Whatever it is, it clearly works.

It works as long as those small groups feel they can/should dive in
and claim that work as their own.
This takes love, trust (for the skills new groups bring, and for their
own lore and views and sense of the world), and the will to share (a
call to share the joy of work on a big task, not just to "say one's
piece" and move on).

> I think it's unfortunate that the foundation has an apparent
> difficulty in _contributing_ without _commanding_.

It seems to be hard at times, and a cinch at times.  We talk most
about the times when it is hard -- as we should; they need the most
work.  But we can learn from both.


> There are areas
> where the community's coverage is inadequate or inconsistent, and I
> think that dedicated staff acting as gap-fillers could greatly improve
> the results. But not if the price of those contributions is to exclude
> or pigeonhole the great work done by the broad community, either
> directly by "we reached a decision"-type edicts, or indirectly by
> removing the personal pride and responsibility that people feel for
> the complete site.

Right.


Erik writes:
> I would suggest the following approach:
< 1) That we return to the default-expanded state for now...
< 2) That we prototype the system above...
>
< by implementing 1), we can do 2) on a timeline that makes sense
without a false urgency.

+1

SJ

--
Samuel Klein        identi.ca:sj        w:user:sj        Kat: tag, you're it