Well speaking only for myself, I love tacking things seriously and I'm probably a boring guy. However I seems to have a lot of very fun memories of all the wikimedia related time I spent.
Selective memory, or somehow dullness might be fun too :) 2015-12-10 16:17 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic <mill...@gmail.com>: > First of all, it's obvious that the part of our movement already > suffers from the "old grey man" illusion, although the most of us are > not old nor grey. > > That's typical modernist paradigm, which brought many achievements to > our civilization, but also removed decision-making power from the > majority of population: women + minorities consist definitely more > than 50% of population. > > We have to move from that point. Yes, it's hard as our main product is > of modernist nature, but I think we are clever enough to overcome it. > > Participation in Wikimedia movement requires a lot of time. That's the > reason why we have to have fun while working on it. Otherwise, anyone > not willing not to have fun during significant portion of their > everyday life wouldn't be excited to be with us. And there are many > reasons why we need them. > > And not just that. I am sure I am not the only Wikimedian > significantly demotivated to work on important things for our movement > just because we are boring. It's exhausting to work on various issues > if the only set of benefits is consisted of "Thanks! This is > important!" and similar more or less elaborate variants. I want to be > eager to do those things, to expect fun after spending time on doing > "important things". Although my beard is partially grey, I definitely > don't strive to be an "old grey man", emotionally fulfilled > exclusively by the fact that I did something important. > > Think about what we are offering to any of us, as well as to newcomers: > * You are working on an epochal project. > * You have to have all "serious" qualities to do that. > * If you are suffering from OCD, you'll find that it's extremely fun > to correct typos and categorize pages. > * You could become a member of your own local organization and spend a > lot of time arguing with other people suffering from OCD. You know, > it's a kind of fulfilling. > * We are more and more important and you'll find it's fun to > participate in official ceremonies and cocktails with important > people. > * <put your own idea here> > > Basically, we tell us and newcomers that we have to work an unpaid and > boring part time job because we'll be more successful in doing other > boring things. It is important, but it works for just a small part of > population. And, of course, it's not fun. > > * * * > > But let's go to the brighter side... From your responses, including a > couple of them sent to me privately, I'd conclude the next and call > for action. > > * There is one thing I missed while writing this. Obviously, some > Wikimedians do have fun anyway. It could be because of different > cultural expectations, but also because some of you know and > practicing something the rest of us don't. So, please, share with us > how you have fun during Wikimedia meetings and conferences! Let's > start here, then we could create a Meta page for sharing ideas. > > * There are a number of fixable things and they are related to what > Chris said: event management and meeting skills. I think we are mature > enough to find a way how to get and share the knowledge on those > topics. > > If WMF requires from chapters and other affiliate groups to develop > strong formal procedures, it could also at least offer help in making > our events and meetings more interesting. > > If contemporary progressive companies all over the world are able to > make things a bit more shiny with all of those "team buildings" and > similar bullshits, I am sure it would be much easier to achieve that > inside of our, mostly volunteering environment. Mostly, we are not > here to do boring things; we are here to have a kind of fun, no matter > how weird it could look like. So, it shouldn't be hard to get positive > outcome if we implement some of the contemporary straight-forward HR > and organizational methods. > > * Software. How hard is to implement XMPP-based web chat? I see a > number of contemporary free software web platforms offering it. Yes, > we are a decade late, but it's better sooner than later anyway. Other > social features? Any *really* *interesting* and educational game > around? And, of course, opt-in only because we have "old grey men" > which would be offended by the idea that serious work could be also > fun and social. > > * The level of our culture is the most complex one. Bad news is the > fact that there are no howtos for making a culture more fun. Good news > is that it's not hard to have fun and to spread it around yourselves. > And that should help. And, yes, everything above counts in changing > the culture from being boring to being fun. > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > -- Pierre-Selim _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
