Dear fellow GKD list members,
First, thanks to all those who've written to me saying encouraging
things about our new briefing on the Development Gateway. Thought I'd
briefly respond to the post on Tuesday from John on the Bank's Gateway
team, building on what others have written already.
Whilst that post and the new FAQs on the site are helpful in increasing
transparency around the Gateway's aims and approaches, I'm disappointed
that many of the key points I raised have been dealt with in the form of
vague statements, not substantive arguments or specific pledges. Major
examples include: - translation/localisation strategy - displacement
of/competition with other sites.
Some other bits seem to have been just been cut and pasted from my
briefing almost verbatim without actually giving any evidence or reason
to believe it is so, ie: the taxonomy of topic and sub-topic pages has
evolved over time, in order to capture cross-cutting themes such as
gender and ensure a more holistic view of development. This is
absolutely NOT the perception of many experienced site designers who
know about development issues.
The response posted on this list is also actively misleading in some
places. Ie. where it states that the Gateway team has adopted a series
of needed changes into its technology, editorial policy, and governance
structure. These include: appointing an external Editorial Advisory
Committee; and establishing a multi-stakeholder Gateway Foundation. As
spelled out in my briefing, it is welcome that the Bank is planning to
introduce such bodies, but unfortunate that they will only be ready
AFTER the launch and will therefore not be able to take any of the key
decisions on the project's design. This is confirmed by a close reading
of the new FAQs on the Gateway site.
It is also stated that the Gateway team has been open and frank in
response to feedback. Whilst there have certainly been opportunities for
dialogue, they have often ended without agreement or proper explanation.
The Gateway's newsletter (which the Bretton Woods Project suggested they
should launch, to keep people informed after the end of the
e-consultation on this list) is often shockingly biased, shedding a
positive light on the project and ignoring critical opinions.
The memo also argues that flexibility remains to change the site's
design, taxonomy etc. But it is flexibility only within tight
boundaries. Given the evolution of the site over its 18 month planning
period to date, I don't think we can expect dramatic changes between
(current) prototype 3.0 and (1 July launch) prototype 3.1, or probably
thereafter.
Other recent contributors to this list have said that the Gateway
project will go ahead, whatever criticism is received. That's true. But
I know from the people who read my briefing in draft (and others) that
there are still many people who feel strongly against the Gateway. And
there are many open questions/much to play for, ie:
- Will a sufficient range of people post to the site to make the Gateway
a real diverse, live community? - Will the Topic Guides content editing
system be able to cope if they do? - Will the site display information
in a sufficiently helpful way to make users (including people at the
coal face of poverty reduction) come back, or will they prefer more
targeted sites and portals? - Will funders be persuaded to contribute
to the Gateway portal and Foundation, and on what terms?
If we keep the debate alive I believe we can still succeed to press the
Bank to refocus their efforts, improve what they can achieve with the
Gateway and leave space for others to do other things which they cannot
do. If they don't, we and others will work to contest and delegitimise
the Gateway, whilst building up other sites.
Alex Wilks
Bretton Woods Project
A Tower of Babel on the Internet? The World Bank's Development
Gateway is at:
www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/knowledgebank/index.html
***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership***
To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type:
subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd
Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at:
http://www.globalknowledge.org
