[Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

[Milos Rancic]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 00:59, Michael Snow <wikipedia at frontier.com> wrote:
> The resolutions are more a reflection of what issues the board is able
> to reach a consensus on, as opposed to what it is interested in. From my
> experience, there was a fair bit of discussion about various concerns
> involving, say, Wikinews or Wikiversity, but we had difficulty agreeing
> on what the solutions were, and sometimes whether interventions were
> necessary or even what the problems were. I don't mean to suggest that
> the board lacks the ability to deal with other issues and focuses on
> Wikipedia as a result - I think it reflects the uncertain position of
> the community generally, which hasn't coalesced much around any
> particular answer to those questions. I do hope the board continues
> working on some of those issues.

Board is filled with a bunch of amateurs (not derogatory meaning!) --
including yourself in the past and hypothetically including myself if
I passed last election -- which position is the product of political
will (community, chapters, Board will itself).

Any sane body -- which is aware that it is there because of political
will and not because of their expertise (no, Stu and Jan-Bart are not
in the Board as experts when they act as apologists of Jimmy's
deletion of artworks on Commons [1][2]) -- knows that it should
delegate responsibilities to those who know the matter better.

However, Wikimedia Foundation Board acts dilettantish whenever one of
the Board member (or a friend of that Board member) has strong
position toward some issue.

For example, Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic has been rejected by the
Board, although relevant international institutions (and reality, as
well) recognize it as a separate language [3]. Just after long
discussion (in short period of time) between two Board members and
Language committee, it was threw under the carpet as "waiting" [4]
with the excuse to wait for non-existent initiative to create North
African Arabic Wikipedia (it was my initiative at the end, just to end
with grotesque Board's dilettantism, by claiming that their members
are better introduced in linguistic diversity than relevant
international bodies and Language committee as well; which I see as
humiliating for the Board, but Board members don't think so).

I didn't want to open this issue; but the flow of discussion --
claiming that Board *really* knows what it is doing -- forced me to
give it as an example.

While I am sure that at least Arne cares about German Wikipedia and
Bishakha cares about Hindi Wikipedia -- collectively, Board reacts
just if someone points to their POV related to English Wikipedia.
Everything else, including Serbian Wikipedia in 2005 and including
Kazakh Wikipedia in 2011, are just safari-like care about interesting
and strange species. Yes, Board cares when some project dares to
question Jimmy's authority, like when Wikinews did it well and
Wikiversity badly.

If the Board members would be more honest in their intentions, not to
hide behind demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV
by right-wing US" and similar phrases with similar opposite meanings,
we could start to have real discussion. Not to mention that it is
obvious that some of the motivations of some of the Board members are
not even politically motivated, but very personally (and "very" has
the meaning inside of the phrase).

[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058026.html
[2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057795.html
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWikipedia_Tunisian&action=historysubmit&diff=2744156&oldid=2741178
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWikipedia_Tunisian&action=historysubmit&diff=2748151&oldid=2744156