[Foundation-l] Re: An other attempt for Announce-l; central info about wikimedia tech status and info

Wed Aug 17 21:19:02 UTC 2005

Cormac Lawler wrote:
> On 8/17/05, Walter Vermeir . <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> 
>>Crosspost to: foundation-l, wikitech-l
>>
>>At the end of 2002 on my request the mailing list Announce-l was created.
> 
> 
> Hi,
> For what it's worth, a few months ago, partly at my instigation, we
> set up the foundation-news-l list, which was originally to announce
> the publication of the Quarto - possibly with a pared down version of
> its content in a html email, but this idea was booed quite loudly off
> the wikipedia-l list. However, we haven't yet got around to doing
> anything about it or defining it specifically, other than labelling it
> "news from the wikimedia foundation". See:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-news-l
> 
> Would it be an idea to use this mailing list for the purpose you
> propose, or just in a more general way? I'm cross-posting this to the
> quarto-l list to see what people there think.
> 
> Cormac

I am not certain Cormac, though open to any suggestion.
The reason is simply that it will make appear that any communication 
issue is in the hands of the Foundation, rather than in the hands of the 
community itself. I think this is wrong for the following reasons

1) some wikipedians do not want to be recognised at wikimedians, being 
somehow default members of the structure

2) some wikipedians will feel this as an overbearing control of the 
Foundation over communication. This is wrong. In all "democracies" 
(using the word on purpose to reflect Erik Zachte mail), it is important 
that several medias report information. As such, as Michael best put it, 
it is important independant newspapers such as the one on the english 
wikipedia exist. Similarly, an independant announcement mailing list 
could exist, possibly to announce informations that the Foundation feel 
not concerned with, but that the community would

3) as soon as the Foundation is concerned, I feel that there is 
something blocking people. Look at Quarto. To get it done, we have to 
contact people each time. I would love that people feel empowered to 
publish in it about something that matters to them. But they won't do 
it, for whatever reasons. I regret this. Similarly, for the announcement 
of last Quarto, why was it not done ? I still wonder if it was not done 
because nobody was interested in doing so (or had no time to do it), or 
if it was somehow that someone waited silently for me to say "let's go". 
  I do not know. But in no way announcements should have to be always 
pushed by a couple of people. So, if an announcement list have to be set 
up, I do not want people from the board to be involved in it, to avoid 
people saying again that there is no democracy at all. It is so far away 
from what my perception is what we are doing that I wish it to be fully 
independant.

ant