[Foundation-l] It is high time we decided upon global Wikimedianprinciples

Wed Aug 6 13:09:27 UTC 2008

Hoi,
I am really interested to learn how you come to the conclusion that most
projects are quite mature. If anything given the statistics that are
available to us all I would come to exactly the other conclusion.

   - For most languages the localisation is still abysmal
   - Most projects have so little content, new content or changed content
   that they hardly make a dent in butter
   - More then half of our projects, probably two thirds are not involved in
   issues that have to do with the Wikimedia Foundation, without their presence
   we do not have a clue what we can do for these people these projects.

When you talk about freedom, you have to appreciate that freedom exists in
relation to others. When communities exist of single individuals or small
groups that dominate by pressing their point of view. Several of these
"freedoms" effectively prevent many other legitimate people joining these
projects because they do not recognise themselves in what should be their
project .

While I agree with you that freedom is an important ingredient for the well
being of projects and communities, many projects do not have the size and
the basic set of values that you would recognise as essential for the
success of those projects.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Renata St <renatawiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I may be hopelessly naive about this, but my general experience would
> > seem to suggest that there's not really a need for this, because folks
> > who are attracted to Wikimedia projects tend to share our (deep down)
> > core values.  If not, our various communities tend to push them in
> > that direction fairly strongly.
> >
> > Attempting to impose en.wikipedia's worldview on things like this is
> > probably doomed to failure, in my opinion... it's almost the online
> > version of pushing a colonialist agenda.
> >
> >
> Totally agree that this is not necessary - much paperwork, discussion,
> !voting, etc and very very little actual benefit.
>
> Most projects are quite mature and settled their own rules, standards, etc.
> Coming in as a "big boss from foundation" and telling to change things
> around will only cause resentment.
>
> I think the only global principle that's true to all projects is FREEDOM.
> Both in $ and (c) sense. So give the projects another freedom: decide its
> own policies.
>
> Renata3
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