On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:38 PM Steven Walling <steven.wall...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel <scannopo...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> +1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + >> staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear >> results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & >> process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are >> allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard >> for people to participate, leading to even more inequality. >> >> It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives >> are not even a good aim to begin with. >> >> cheers, >> scann > > > 100% this. > > The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that > they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most > limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we > include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, > multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to > review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the > intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of > people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a > manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a > perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When > possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and > consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never > less than five."[1] > > The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong > leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do > things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. > This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really > knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're > trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who > is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by > perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of > people. It's turtles all the way down. > > 1: > https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manual.html > > I think that means we need to acknowledge some culpability for this phenomena - in environments like this list, folks learn that no decision is too benign to spark controversy and any actually controversial decision is guaranteed to garner a vitriolic backlash. Combine that with the normal tendencies of bureaucracies, magnified by the special nature of the WMF, and the result is explosive growth in distributed decision-making organs. Accurate insights from SJ and others, if not necessarily new, but unlikely to lead to change because all the incentives that led to this place remain.
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