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

[Tomasz Ganicz]

2013/2/6 Tom Morris <tom at tommorris.org>:
> 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".
>

Well, I think your division of wikimedians bureaucrats and editors is
a bit weird, at least regarding WCA members and very en-Wikipedia
centered. Actually vast majority of WCA members are active editors of
various Wikimedia projects. Probably you can't find to many edits of
them on English Wikipedia, but take a look (at least sometimes) on
other Wikimedia projects. Wikipedias in other languages, Wikimedia
Commons, Books, News etc..

See for example Ziko edit history in Wikimedia Commons:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ziko

Take 10 random English Wikipedia admins and ask them what the FDC is -
I guess the result will be similar to the question regarding WCA.

Or ask them what is the difference between "Human Resources
Administrator" and "Director of Human Resources", and what these
people are actually doing which benefit directly Wikimedia projects...



-- 
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz