[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal Counsel

Thu Jun 15 16:08:58 UTC 2006

Delphine Ménard wrote:

>>Treating the user community as the enemy is going to seriously cause
>>problems in the future if it is not addressed right away.  And some
>>recent comments on this mailing list have made me feel like just that.
>>    
>>
>
>In the end, I find it rather amusing that it is always the *poor
>community* (of which I feel a member, just in case that is not clear)
>that is being treated as an ennemy. After threads on end on the
>subject, it rather looks to me as the Foundation is the one that's
>considered the ennemy.
>
>I believe I have always been an advocate of stronger separation (read:
>make sure everybody knows exactly what they have to do, what they are
>responsible for) AND better communication and collaboration.
>
>It seems to me an easy exercise to talk of *the community* when nobody
>seems to have a real understanding of who/what *the community* is. Is
>it you? Is it me? Is it us? And if it is us, who is *us*?
>
>
>
>Delphine
>  
>
I hope this last comment doesn't get out of context here.  I was not 
trying to imply that you, Delphine, are considering the group of users 
contributing to Wikimedia projects to be the enemy.  However, I have 
seen this sort of attitude in many different situations, where indeed 
this is the case in terms of actions and words spoken by those in 
leadership or authority positions.  This is the same as police officers 
seperating themselves from the citizens they serve, never trusting a 
person that comes under their gaze and thinking everybody is a criminal 
suspect just waiting to do them in. Or perhaps a fast-food burger 
restraunt employee who doesn't reall care about the customers and does 
all kinds of things like serve frozen patties and spit into their 
drinks.  This is a danger in almost any situation and something to 
constantly be under guard to watch for and avoid if possible.

As far as who is "The Community", I hope I answered that in my previous 
post, and you did respond to that somewhat, Delphine.  Thanks.  I was 
trying to note that there have been some situations where the Village 
Pump on en.wikipedia was considered to be the final word, especially for 
setting preceedence.  While some issues do seem to come up on 
en.wikipedia before they hit other projects and languages simply because 
of the sheer size of that community, other approachs and solutions to 
some of those problems have come up on the other projects (including 
other languages) where the solution is quite a bit different in the 
environment of those other projects.  And bottom-up solutions to many of 
the problems for Wikimedia projects can be found, where micromanagement 
is not necessary.

Here is a summary of what I consider the "community" to watch for:

1) Editor/Contributors of Wikimedia projects, including all sister 
projects and in all languages, and projects like Meta, Commons, etc.
2) Software developers for MediaWiki software and related systems that 
help run the interfaces and equipment hosting Wikimedia projects.
3) Volunteer system administrators of the physical equiment (not always 
the same as #2, although there is some significnat overlap here)
4) Readers and consumers of information produced by Wikimedia projects

That is a very tall order to fill, to take care of all of these groups, 
and in that sense you are correct that the board represents much more 
than just the Wikimedia editor/contributors, who are likely to be the 
most vocal and active of the above four categories in term of policy 
decisions.  I've seen Wikipedia quoted in my dead-tree local newspaper 
(by the newspaper editor!), so the influence of readers is much more 
diverse and widespread than most people even on this list are willing to 
admit.  Obviously some decisions are going to, by necessity, be made 
that one of these groups, the editor/contributors, are not going like or 
approve of.

A "fifth" component of the community that may or may not be established 
but also watch for is the professional staff that is likely to develop 
with the Wikimedia Foundation.  There already are some employees of the 
WMF, and they will have a very different perspective on how things 
should operate as well based on their own experiences and dealings with 
the rest of the Wikimedia community.  The WMF board is also going to be 
made aware of the needs of this group as well, although how much weight 
each group is given is going to be up to the temperment of the members 
of the WMF board.

I am not implying that the current board is out of touch.  Far from it. 
 Just that this is something to be ever vigiliant about and to remember 
and watch for, to see that it doesn't get unbalanced.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning