There is certainly a fair amount of Parkinson's Law involved.
As for why I am writing to this list: I was designated to be Cascadia
Wikimedians' representative to the Wikimedia Summit 2024. That means
both representing any ideas that Cascadia Wikimedians as a group want
brought into the discussions, and keeping the group posted on what I'm
learning and observing. For what it's worth, I did not exactly lobby to
be the person who took on this role: I supported (I'll stick to username
here, not sure how public she is about her real name) Buidhe as the
person to go, but she didn't want to do it. In any case, I felt I should
report back to the broader group about what I observed in today's
meeting, and especially about where I have concerns about the process
and direction.
If you feel that either seeking input or reporting back is not part of
the role of representing the group, then I'm afraid I simply disagree.
JM
On 8/29/2023 9:03 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Joe --
I'm not clear on what you intend to accomplish with sending this email
to us. Not that I don't agree with much that you wrote, but I feel
it's not reaching anyone by posting it to this list.
One point I'll raise here is that all of this talk about a "Wikimedia
movement" means nothing to me. My role in the projects has been to
contribute content, which I've done for almost 21 years, usually
funded out of my own pocket or using public resources: I started with
only the books from my shelves or those my local public library
provided, & today I still rely heavily on both to create content
(although much more useful information has since emerged on the
Internet), the stuff that brings people to Wikipedia (& the other
projects). The Foundation has done little more to help in this
endeavor than keeping the servers online & the software patched.
(A side note here. Many years ago, I mentioned to Danese Cooper the
possibility of providing grants to average contributors like me. Her
response floored me: "And how do you contribute to me?" I was
speechless. Bitch, I am one of hundreds who helped to build the
website that pays your salary. BTW, I didn't miss her when she left a
few months later.)
I'll confess that part of this disconnect between Foundation &
volunteer community is due to the fact we volunteers expected little
more than those two -- running the servers & maintaining the software
-- from the Foundation. On my part, I doubted the Foundation would
ever raise the amount of money that they have. But having this money
allowed the WMF to hire people who then had to find stuff to do to
justify their jobs, & due to the Common Carrier law the staff felt
they had to keep the projects at arm's length. This has given us, on
one hand, the UCoC; on the other, donations to admittedly worthy
causes that have nothing to do with Wikipedia or any Wikimedia
project. As well as led to this interest in this undefined "Wikimedia
movement".
So far I suspect all this "Wikimedia movement" will accomplish is an
excuse to fly people around the world in order to have meetings that
will only produce more meetings that require people to fly around the
world, regardless of what anyone inside or outside of the Foundation
sincerely intended. Oh, & it'll also produce impressive-sounding lines
on their resumes.
I don't know if this is helpful feedback, Joe, but I appreciate the
opportunity to vent here. I can think of less productive places to do
that.
Geoff Burling
en.wikipedia: llywrch
On 2023-08-29 14:30, Joe Mabel wrote:
The following is *not *a "strictly confidential communication."
Still, I'd appreciate that if you want to quote me in a broader
forum, please clear that with me first. Thanks. (The obvious
exception is what I've already said publicly, which I've noted below.)
This morning I attended one of the eight "engagement sessions" for
the 2024 Wikimedia Summit at which I will represent Cascadia
Wikimedians in April. The Summit will probably be the last meaningful
chance for input to the Movement Charter, which will probably
determine a great deal about Wikimedia governance going forward,
including (indirectly, but almost without a doubt) a lot about how
money and resources are allocated. I think the process is
well-intentioned and may well produce positive results, but I have
some concerns.
Before anything else, let me note that relations between the upper
echelons of the WMF and the community of editors and contributors are
tremendously better than it was a decade or so ago, where it seemed
to me to be primarily oppositional. I do think we are now at least
generally trying to pull in the same direction, and that the WMF is
genuinely trying to do what they think is best for the community, and
even has at least a fair understanding of what that entails. I would
not have said any of that in the mid-2010s.
Now the concerns:
1) I raised this one publicly at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump&oldid=796979832#Commons_and_the_upcoming_Wikimedia_Summit,
which you may quote freely.
Because the "community" (vs. Foundation) involvement for the
conference is entirely through affiliates and user groups -- not
through "projects" such as Commons -- there is no overt
representation at the Summit either for projects (such as Commons, or
WikiProjects) or the many users, probably the majority of users,
whose involvement is strictly on-wiki. If you are part of an online
Wikimedia community that has concerns you would like represented in
Berlin in April, you would do well to identify those concerns and
organize them in a way that they can be brought into the discussion
by one or more of us who are already attending. I do not think the
organizers are going to do anything proactive to address this concern.
2) It looks like the tentative intent is to create a Global Council
(https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Content/Global_Council)
that will represent the broader "movement" community. This is clearly
well-intentioned but (a) I think it at least potentially suffers from
exactly the same flaw in terms of omission that I mentioned in the
section above, and the people who are liable to be disenfranchised by
that will not be in the room to discuss it. Also, (b) I fear
something like the UN General Assembly: a "talking shop" with little
or no actual power, thick with bloviators and boondogglers.
3) Related: I think there is a bit too much focus on structures that
correspond to overt money flows (hence that failure to recognize
on-wiki activity). And, I have to say, money is often spent in weird
ways in the WMF world. I do think face-to-face national and
international gatherings can be very valuable, but it's worth
realizing that about 90% of what WMF has ever spent on Cascadia
Wikimedians has been to fly some of us halfway around the world and
put us up in hotels for conferences. When it comes to doing
locally-focused events, where we might be able to do quite a bit with
a small budget, let alone hiring a grant writer of our own, we are
lucky to have a budget for paper plates and cookies, let alone any
publicity, or anyone compensated for their time and effort. I'm
guessing that the drinks-and-food budget for an event at a Portland
bar that Peaceray and I attended a couple of months ago with several
of the C-level WMF people was about the size of the biggest annual
budget Cascadia Wikimedians ever had. (Could be off by a factor of
two, but not more.) What it costto fly half a dozen people from the
Bay Area to Portland dwarfs that annual budget.
4) Combining points 2 and 3: WMF has its own, effective, fundraising.
The only other entity I'm aware of in the Wikimedia world that has a
comparable budget is Wikimedia Deutschland (it's no accident that the
Summit is in Berlin). Money is power. And I have a lot of doubt about
the power of any entity that is set up that does not have its own
source of money. (Cue Billie Holliday's recording of "God Bless the
Child".)
-------
Open to any feedback, especially thoughts on the draft Charter and
things people want me to bring into the discussion in Berlin next
spring.
JM
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