> Everyone’s relationship with English Wikipedia, including the Wikimedia > Foundation’s > > "For various reasons, the Foundation and some parts of the communities are > stuck in an uneasy relationship where the Foundation admires but fears the > communities’ power, like a beautiful but dangerous animal – the tiger might > attack you – and the communities, not least English Wikipedia, distrust the > Foundation." > > My experience so far has been that we have a very contentious relationship > with English Wikipedia. The Foundation raises most of the revenue to > support a global movement from English Wikipedia, and it’s often where > volunteers raise most of the concerns and objections to the Foundation’s > work. > > It's painfully affecting volunteers and staff that are trying to maintain > content and code, and make important improvements to all the websites, as > with the launch of Vector 2022 this year. It has made product and > engineering teams very conservative in their approach to rolling out > features, making each change take 12 or 18 months, or years!, to get > valuable features to users. And it impacts our ability to collaborate with > communities on and off English Wikipedia on big goals like knowledge equity > and the movement strategy recommendations. As Yoda noted > <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fear#L>, fear is the path to the dark > side. This is a bummer, and I’d like it to change. > > So how do we break this cycle? What I’m doing now is directly engaging. > Today, for example, I participated in an office hours session to talk about > Vector 2022. Some of the product senior leadership in the recent past have > specifically avoided talking directly with people on English Wikipedia, and > this approach will no longer be applied. Engaging human to human is the > best way I know to help resolve some of the mystery, fear and anger that > are present. However, that will absolutely not fix what’s wrong here. We > need systemic solutions. Today, there’s no way to make lasting and mutually > binding agreements with volunteers, and that isn’t a sustainable way to > create and maintain infrastructure software. My hope is that, with a more > open and direct approach to engage and also through the work of the > Movement Charter Drafting Committee, we will chart out a path for more > lasting, productive collaboration. >
Related to the other thread about English I remembered this. It is good that the WMF talks to English Wikipedia. Many of us just wish WMF leadership would talk directly to the other wikis too. John S.
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