Comment by Macha
3 years ago
They've built several GUI editors, and a more forum like discussion experience (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Flow/Bac_%C3%A0...) which the community on larger wikis has pretty forcefully rejected
3 years ago
They've built several GUI editors, and a more forum like discussion experience (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Flow/Bac_%C3%A0...) which the community on larger wikis has pretty forcefully rejected
Gee, Flow was awful. :) The little "Reply" button they've made now is cool, but as Kunal Mehta (User:Legoktm) pointed out the other day, they knew even then that was all that was required:
"Back in 2014, we had a very clear list of how to fix talk pages. Yet the mw:Talk pages project only started in 2019."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
Which reminds me: 3 of the 6 community candidates shortlisted for the Wikimedia board this year supported election compass statement #5:
"WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever."
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_electio...
That is a fascinating thing to me - I have noticed that a lot of people arguing that the WMF is out of control and needs to cool it are editors.
It really feels like there is a fundamental disconnect between project contributors and the team making decisions at the foundation level. Of course, I expect to some degree that there will be disagreements, and that is why a foundation needs to exist, but the last couple of years its seemed a lot like people are just being stonewalled.
Ultimately, the communications gap is by far the most concerning part of it for me, even to the point where I would suggest the donation campaign is a symptom rather than the cause.
The culture war aspect of it, sure. On the one hand you have people coming into the Wikimedia C-suite who have had little to no affinity with the "encyclopedia" part of Wikipedia at all in their professional lives – people coming from pure tech, political, government or NGO backgrounds who wouldn't dream of volunteering their time on Wikipedia. They often stay only a year or two and are replaced by others like them. So the culture of the places they come from defines them much more than the culture of Wikipedia as built over twenty years.
They bring management consultants' jargon that alienates volunteers because to them it sounds phony. They want to do things top-down, because that is what they are used to, and what they feel they have to do make "their mark" which will look good on their CV when they move on in a couple of years' time to another job that hopefully pays them more. Meanwhile, the volunteers are there year after year, observing fads coming and going while often not getting the services they would actually like.
Above all, there is a such a growth in talk fests and bureaucracy. Grand plans and strategies are developed over years ("By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us") and then everything moves at a glacial pace. "Strategy started 7 years ago and yet we still havent even reached the implementation of anything" said one long-time volunteer on the mailing list the other day who felt like the WMF is actually moving things backwards:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list...
Even editors usually loyal to the Foundation – former board members – are beginning to voice gentle complaints. "Bureaucracy is defeating us":
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list...
Their pleas are falling on deaf ears.