[Wikimedia-l] Strange, surprising, bold and unnecessary - reply to the WMF board statement

[Tom Morris]

I think the failure of the WCA process thus far has shown an enormous
lack of connection between chapter bureaucracy and what editors
actually care about.

Wikimedians have a rightful distaste for off-wiki bureaucracy. The
distinct lack of formal bureaucracy and organisation (we, of course,
create our own bureaucracy - see http://enwp.org/WP:WTF ) is one of
the chief things about Wikimedia projects that a lot of us like. I've
sat on far too many committees in my life. I have kept a small eye on
the WCA discussions and have yet to see compelling reasons to think
that it would do anything to actually directly help the projects. I'm
sure if I pulled 10 random admins from English Wikipedia and asked
them what the WCA is, they wouldn't be able to tell me, or they'd give
me a cynical answer like "it's an empire-building project for
political players in chapters".

Whether that's right or wrong, the WCA hasn't made a case to the
people who actually matter: the people who hit 'edit' every day on the
projects.

The same will be true for other thematic organizations and so on.
These organisations will exist in political limbo - supported by
chapter bureaucrats and the Foundation - until their importance and
worth is actually sold to editors.

Sell us, the editors, on why these things are necessary, and the
process of getting approval from the WMF Board will be easy because
the political winds will shift in your favour. What exactly are
Chapters trying to do now that they are failing at that necessitates
the creation of the WCA?

-- 
Tom Morris
<http://tommorris.org/>