--- On Thu, 8/27/09, Kropotkine_113 <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Kropotkine_113 <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to > Wikimedia Foundation > To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <[email protected]> > Date: Thursday, August 27, 2009, 7:53 AM > Thank you very much all of you > (Brigitte SB, Ting Chen, Mickael Snow and > others). > > To close my participation in this thread I just add three > points : > > - My question about the wikimedia membership criterion > wasn't very > important, but just-to-know ; thanks for your > explanations. > > - The communication process on this whole story has been > disastrous ; > this, added to the fact that Wikis, Q&A and help pages > are not > up-to-date or are confused, tranforms a maybe-good-decision > (I have my > own opinion on this point ;)) in a > too-weird-to-be-good-decision ; the > "NOMCOM disapearance in vacuum" is a good example. It > doesn't worth 10Mo > discussion threads, I think you are aware of this. I agree. Inward facing communication has long been a problem for WMF. At times there have been board members that took more leadership in this area regarding various issues, but I can't remember a time when this hasn't been an issue. I think it is mostly a problem of WMF not setting up the expectations accurately. In my personal opinion when communicating with the community; surprises are bad. Even good surprises are bad. Fulfilling expectations on the other hand is good. It seems to be better received by the community when WMF fulfills a modest expectation than when it reveals a wonderful surprise. > > - Even more important point is the cultural gap between > Foundation's > intentions and communication, which are very > "north-american slanted" (I > don't know how to say that), and its perception by a very > multicultural > community. The gap is particularly large concerning > financial/executive > power relations. You have to be very careful about this and > to be very > pedagogic when you report such decisions, because when the > story will > appear in french village pump (for example) it will be hard > tuff for > chapter's members to explain it correctly (if possible). > The answer > often used is : "It's not evil, it's just the way american > people deal > with it every day".. Just let me tell you that's not a > sufficient answer > for many people (like me ;)). I think that a non-used but > very efficient > solution would be to share informations before the official > report and > to work closely with local chapters ; but this is a more > wide problem > and slightly out-of-the-scope of this thread. > I don't completely understand what you are talking about here. What is the "american way" ? And what do you mean by "pedagogic"? Birgitte SB _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
