[Foundation-l] Regarding Berkman/Sciences Po study

Sat Dec 10 14:53:30 UTC 2011

On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Mike Christie <coldchrist at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not a fan of me-too posting, but I am breaking that rule to reinforce
> the point that there are those who, like Gregory and me, did not see any
> problem with the survey.  Those who don't like it are, naturally, posting
> to comment; those who found no issues with it are probably not.  I would
> not like to see anyone deducing what the majority opinion is from these
> comments.  Having said that, the opposition that has been expressed is
> quite rational, and I think the proposed changes to the banner are
> sensible, but to me it was unproblematic as originally designed.
>
> Mike
>

Agree with Mike on almost all points, except that all the opposition
has been quite rational. Some of it hasn't been.

While you wouldn't guess it from the outside, many of the most vocal
Wikipedians are actually quite conservative and risk-averse when it
comes to the project, and there is also (and this won't be surprising)
a very strong anti-authoritarian streak that manifests itself as
pushback against independent decision-making on the part of the
WMF.[1] There is some irony in that what appears to have been the most
key discussion about this particular event took place in secret on
internal-l, even while critics on that list blasted the research
project for not including the whole community. The rejection of
leadership and the insistence on involving everyone in everything has
its benefits, but also fairly significant drawbacks - with the upshot
that we're inconsistent and, to outsiders, confused about what we
want.

~Nathan

[1]Jimmy made some of these points well in a post on his talkpage on
this issue. Hopefully he doesn't mind that I reproduce it here:

"Well, I'm unaware of the Foundation being secretive about anything,
so it seems like an easy enough thing to ask them. But I'd like to
challenge the assumption here that everyone needs or has a right to be
informed about every detail of everything affecting the website at all
times. That's just not generally a good use of the Foundation's time
and resources, and it also reinforces what I think is a very unhealthy
conservativism in the community about change. We need to break out of
the idea that every software feature (for example) needs get
"consensus" support (defined as high as 70% in some people's minds!)
for even some very major software changes. We need to break the idea
that the Foundation needs to get permission to run banners in support
of research projects. We really need to break the idea, which is
preposterous nonsense, that if we don't scream bloody murder and get
out the pitchforks, that the Foundation is going to start running paid
advertising soon. Not every slope is slippery, and most things are
better handled by getting informed before protesting.--Jimbo Wales
(talk) 1:34 pm, Yesterday (UTC−5)"