On 13 Aug 2014, at 21:12, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 12:57 PM, Marc A. Pelletier
<marc(a)uberbox.org>
wrote:
There is no such thing as "the
community"; we have a huge collection of
communities joined loosely over a number of ambigously shared principles
that often - but not always - move in more or less the same direction.
Anyone who claims to speak for "the community" is - put simply - full of
shit.
So very true! All of the arguments that claim knowledge of what "the
community" wants, or what "the readers" want, need to be regarded with a
strong dose of skepticism, or put aside entirely.
{{citation needed}}
There are some community members who spend a lot of time thinking about what "the
community" and "the readers" may want, who actually have a good
understanding of what is needed to support those stakeholders. There are others that say
that their views represent the community/readers when they don't. A distinction needs
to be made there - don't confuse the former with the latter.
Additionally: there is no guarantee that what has worked well in the past will continue to
work well in the future. The internet is always changing and improving, and a lot of
organisations that dominated a decade ago now only exist in historical record. Wikimedia
really needs to match the current state of the art, otherwise it will likely also cease to
exist. I'd like to see the Wikimedia community leading the way with the internet's
development, but right now it feels like it's lagging by about a decade, and the WMF
is having to play a leading role to keep it relevant. If the Wikimedia community can catch
up with the current state of the internet, that would be great, but if it can't then
supporting the WMF while it does so would make a lot of sense.
Thanks,
Mike