On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 09:14:14AM -0400, Sydney Poore wrote:
>
> We know that our core contributors are a homogeneous group and could be
> introducing biases into WMF, both in content and policy decisions.
The bias is towards the concept of openness and an acceptance of
otherness.
There are 2 approaches here:
* We can run this bias to self destruction (due to its tendency to
water itself down to nothing over time)
* We can strongly keep re-invigorating this bias, so that it
remains operational. This requires a little oomph from time to
time. As the saying goes: the price of openness and freedom is
eternal vigilance, and all that.
My personal preference is to hold to the vigilant approach, and
continuously work to provide an anti-bias bias.
> We can start from the premise that WMF is an international organizations
> that needs to find ways for people of all cultures to work to together.
Um, Hi, Person from 2 or 3 of those cultures here (depending on
how you count) O:-)
I've had hilarious situations where people accused me of having a
united states bias[1], and modifying stuff I'd written to be "more
international"... at which point they rewrote it from a united states
bias. ;-)
As soon as you "go down to common fundamentals" you -more often
than not- don't actually go down to fundamentals, but rather you
end up reaffirming your own personal fundamentals (and thus
biases) instead. It's a psychology thing, possibly with a topping
of epistemology.
The only solution that I've ever known to work at all is to
stay frosty, stay on your toes, and find (partial) consensus with
your peers (those who are already present), and work to find more
new peers from outside that circle.
It is absolutely impossible to predict the way of thinking of
people whom you have no interaction with. Don't try to get in
their head, don't try to speak FOR them. Instead, work out how to
engage with them, then do so.
So don't make an Ass Of U and ME (ASSUME). Do Actually Start
Kommunicating (ASK)!
Incidentally, from a "interacting with people outside your peer
group" perspective. most forms of (innocious!) filtering are
*disasterous* [2].
sincerely,
Kim Bruning
[1] This was patently impossible, as I had never
set foot in the americas at that point in time.
[2] http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk
ps I'm blessed with many different sets of biases:
* Commonwealth/Kiwi point of view.
* Orange/Cloggy point of view.
* Expat point of view. (Expats tend to have more in common with
each other than with host nation or nation of origin.)
(See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kim_Bruning for
illustration)
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