Thanks Ting for some very interesting thoughts and for giving a few ideas of alternative set up of the movement. It ought to be a good input to the session"re-imagine Wikipedia movement" on Saturday at the Chapter Meeitng
My reflection is that you are discussing a more decentralized approach, thinking todays is too centralized.
But I do not see that you discuss the real radical decentralized model. Skip WMF and the Board, and let each project take care of it self including steering and financing. And as all info and software is free this can be realty momentary, if wished, the only hindrance is the use of the Logo
I have in my mind worked through this for my pet project: Wikipedia for Swedish language And as far as I can see it would be doable. The cost for running that project on completely separate servers would be very moderate and the operations and board for WMSE is already a good way in professionalization and would probably be able to handle, both the issue of server operations and getting financing, a few million dollar/year would probably be enough to run both chapter and servers
But would I as a committed contributer like this scenario. No (at least not for now). I am very happy that software is developed in one place to ensure it is not getting out of date. And I am happy all servers are run by one organization, bot to ensure quality but also good interconnection between the servers/project. Wikidata (as commons) also shows there are opportunistic in getting the project more integrated. Also I am very impressed in the professional way WMF runs the funding activities, and to be honest I know that even a rich country like Sweden is an net receiver of fundings from the people in US (shame on us swedes). So I have no interest of having the funding more decentralized (besides utilizing some local sponsors better).
And I would be unhappy if the divergence between project became too big, POV paid editing etc we will be stronger as a totality if we abide to the same base guidelines
So I question your urge and need to decentralize. For am as a contributer the most important part is that I know my inputs is securely stored and will not be misused by actors like google or plain advertising. And for this reason I believe in a centralized structure as about today (for now)
Anders
Ting Chen skrev 2014-04-10 13:23:
Hello dear all,
now the second mail