I only started following WMF stuff more closely around 2 years ago, but I don't remember it being this permanent state of crisis as it is now, with an ever increasing - now, apparently at an accelerating pace too - detachment from the onwiki communities. This is tiresome and distracting for those of us who are volunteers at the Wikimedia projects, but it's certainly painful too for the WMF staff.
What's going on with the WMF?
Paulo
Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com escreveu no dia segunda, 9/09/2019 à(s) 07:59:
It crosses my mind that I would think that some of the WMF office staff would also be getting tired of crisis, conflict, and unwelcome surprises. These types of problems are unlikely to ever be fully prevented, but I would think that the parade of difficulties in the past few months would also be testing the patience of at least some people inside of WMF who might like to not have a new earthquake to deal with on what seems like a biweekly basis.
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
On Sun, Sep 8, 2019, 17:59 Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The broad proposal was clearly rejected. The community has not authorized the Wikimedia Foundation to let any organization speak under Wikipedia's name. If a formal RfC is to be held to make a final decision (perhaps
with
the question subdivided, per Pine), I recommend delaying it for a while
so
we might have a chance for some respite from permanent crisis mode.
The summary, in my opinion, is not adequate, and skips many of the most significant arguments. (The talk page itself skips some, after the WMF
had
a large portion of the talk page moved to a different page, including a string of "strong oppose"s. Those who participated in the removed
sections
were not counted in the WMF's count, for some reason.)
I do not understand what is going on within the Foundation regarding
KPIs,
but I get the impression that groups were required to establish metrics
of
some kind, without any actual oversight on how those metrics would work. Thus, we get things like the branding proposal's "anything less than 1800 users posting statements in opposition will be considered strong support, 1800-2700 will be considered substantial support, 2700-3600 opposed will
be
considered moderate support". Similar things have been happening
elsewhere,
eg, for the WMF's "Space" project. (Speaking of which, holding a
discussion
on a private off-wiki forum is not a valid method of community decision making, for branding or otherwise.)
-- Yair Rand
בתאריך שבת, 7 בספט׳ 2019 ב-20:54 מאת Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com
>:
I too think that an RfC is a good option here. I suggest having
multiple
questions in the RfC. Questions could include, "What should the organization that is currently known as the Wikimedia Foundation be named?", "Should there be a unifying brand for the online projects such
as
Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons?", "If there is a unifying
brand
for the online projects then what should it be?", "Should there be a unifying brand for affiliates?", and "If there is a unifying brand for affiliates then what should it be?"
Overall I think that the report on Meta <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_researc...
makes for good reading as background information for an RfC.
I want to caution against trying to make too many big decisions at
once.
There is already a strategy process underway which has consumed a considerable number of volunteer hours, and the community has precious little capacity relative to normal operational demands without this
ongoing
strategy process being piled on top of everything else that people want
the
community to do. There seems to be infinite demand for free skilled
labor,
but a finite supply of that same labor. I encourage both WMF and the community to think carefully about which questions to prioritize so
that
we
are not all overstretched and a significant number of problems slip
through
the cracks because collectively there were not adequate human resources
to
thoughtfully address so many questions in a narrow period of time and develop consensus regarding how to move forward.
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