[Wikimedia-l] Moving forward: a proposal (Re: Community/WMF)

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

FT2, 13/05/2013 01:59:
> [...]
> This is not at all the first time of clumsy handling, or conflicting
> actions and perceptions, leading to tensions and drama between the editing
> community and foundation. [...]

I don't know if that's the actual problem,

>
> I would like the outcome to be a *living document*, like any other major
> policy, that can be used to *understand how to reduce friction*, and *"best
> practices" and understandings of viewpoints, within different parts of our
> Movement*, and thereby ensuring everyone involved is more aware of these
> aspects and of "best practices" in working with other areas and "subgroups"
> in our Community. [...]

nor if this may help, even if it was possible to write such a document. 
I thought yes after reading https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Patience and 
remembering http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/CommunityMayNotScale «community 
standards and unwritten rules stop working», which may suggest to make 
rules written.
	But Clifford Adams notes on that page: «I wonder if it is the community 
focus that is not scaling». Indeed, what's the focus/scope of 
foundationwiki now? I don't have the slightest idea, after the recent 
facts. Perhaps the WMF does, but it completely failed to communicate it: 
[[Wikimedia:Welcome]] has never been updated; roles are now more unclear 
than ever.
We also have a precedent: for a while people tried to establish 
standards for Internal-l, and mostly failed; then they started wondering 
*why* did Internal-l even exist, and again failed to answer; conclusion, 
they just decided to stop communicating and now hardly look at each 
other. Lovely.
	So the two concrete suggestions to which I came while writing this are:
1) Decide who at WMF is in charge of WMF wiki (Comms would seem the most 
obvious? it's all LCA department anyway), define its scope and 
communicate it; decide roles and technologies in consequence. If 
[[Wikimedia:Welcome]] hadn't been so outdated, maybe community members 
would have understood what was expected from them; etc.
2) Appoint Clifford Adams to the advisory board and start using the AB 
at last? ;-) Sunir Shah too (already noted several times on this list).

Nemo