[Foundation-l] This is not an Advertisement

Thu Dec 28 22:15:06 UTC 2006

> > Maybe you want to start with defining the term "community". It proved
> > to be not so easy... (And no, the community is not just the
> > subscribers to foundation-l)
>
> That is very easy. The   "community" are the users who contribute on all
> Wikimedia projects.
>
> Jeroenvrp

Hmm, I think you may be missing something pretty important.  In fact, the
definition of community is the single most difficult thing to agree upon.
What is my community, your community, etc. does not have answers.  The Board
retreat could not answer it with the 25 people who were there.  The Board
itself cannot agree on the meaning.  Certainly, though, you do not have the
hubris to think that this thing called Wikimedia exists only for editors, to
the exclusion of the millions of people who view it every day?  I view the
orthodox idea that the community consists of, and can only consist of,
editors as being at least as insulting as the opposite would be to Horning.
Millions of people *read* the site, and do not contribute a comma.  And
that's okay!   Generators *and* consumers of free culture must be
incorporated.  If we are philosophically opposed as people who differ on
whether a sound is made when a tree falls in  forest, so be it.

-- 
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101