Hi All,
I was not present at this meeting, but gather that it was a weekend that was valued by all that attended. As Chris has already indicated, he does not agree with the remark and I think that all of us disagree with the remar (and that is discounting the fact that the whole statement is taken out of context which makes a big difference)
But in the middle of a heated discussion, things get said. Chris has indicated that one of the ground rules for the workshop was that individual contributions were made on a confidential and non-attributable basis. And I agree that I would be terrible to break this confidentiality as this would severely limit the effectiveness of future sessions within the movement because feel people that they cannot be frank. As a movement we have a tremendous challenge ahead of us in the coming years, and we need open interaction amongst the different entities in order to make progress on these goals. Are we really interested in a movement where all volunteer board members are constantly being politically correct and cannot misspeak (whereas other community members can?). I for one would enjoy an open environment rather than a punishing one which closely resembles some of the political environments we read so much about.
Can we assume that the feedback has already reached the person in question (and the person probably got more than enough feedback during and after the session). Does it really benefit us as a movement to force this person to resign or be publicly shamed?
Jan-Bart de Vreede Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees
PS: whenever Christophe speaks I would be likely to cheer, only to realise minutes later… “What the #(*$& did I just agree with?” ;)
On 07 Apr 2014, at 13:54, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com wrote:
Ok so the quote taken out of context is actually saying the opposite of the original meaning.
The discussion was about "what are the goals of the Wikimedia Organizations?". Why do they exist?
If we look at what Wikimedia Organizations do, mostly, is investing in free knowledge. If that's their main goal, well then we don't have to care about the communities. That was said as a way to shock people and make them think about why Wikimedia Organizations exist and perhaps that they should rethink their goal and their focus. Make organizations think a little more about the communities instead of sheer free knowledge production.
In that same session I did say some pretty radical things, if you take some sentences out of my 10 minutes monologue (yeah I kinda tend to speak a lot :() you could say that I said "let's disband all Wikimedia Organizations".
Taking a single sentence totally out of context can lead, as it is the case here, to change it's true meaning.
No need for any witch hunt here, I can't think of anyone in our community that doesn't value a lot volunteer and community work as we are all part of that community.
Best,
Christophe
On 7 April 2014 13:37, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tomasz@twkozlowski.net wrote:
Chris Keating wrote:
This was exactly because we wanted people to speak freely and not worry about a witch-hunt on an email list if a couple of trolls got hold of some out-of-context quotes.
I wish you answered the question instead of smearing me on a public mailing list, Chris. I have no idea who you are, but I would expect you to adhere to elementary rules of debating, which suggest not to resort to personal attacks.
If you are a Wikipedian, I should not have to explain this to you.
What a shameful comment, Chris.
Tomasz
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