on 4/8/11 3:35 PM, Ting Chen at [email protected] wrote: > Dear community, > > on the IRC board meeting at April 8th 2011 the board approved > unanimously the following resolution: > > > > We, the Wikimedia Foundation Board, believe that the continued health of > our project communities is crucial to fulfilling our mission. The > Wikimedia projects are founded in the culture of openness, > participation, and quality that has created one of the world's great > repositories of human knowledge. But while Wikimedia's readers and > supporters are growing around the world, recent studies of editor trends > show a steady decline in the participation and retention of new editors. > > As laid out in our five-year Strategic Plan, and emphasized by these > findings, Wikimedia needs to attract and retain more new and diverse > editors, and to retain our experienced editors. A stable editing > community is critical to the long-term sustainability and quality of > both our current Projects and our movement. > > We consider meeting this challenge our top priority. We ask all > contributors to think about these issues in your daily work on the > Projects. > We support the Executive Director in making this the top staff priority, > and recommend she increase the allocation of Foundation resources > towards addressing this problem, through community outreach, > amplification of community efforts, and technical improvements. > And we support the developers, editors, wikiprojects and Chapters that > are working to make the projects more accessible, welcoming, and > supportive. > > The Board resolves to help move these efforts forward, and invites > specific requests for Foundation assistance to do so. We welcome and > encourage new ideas to help reach our goals of > [[strategy:Openness|openness and broader participation]]. > > We urge the Wikimedia community to promote openness and collaboration, by: > * Treating new editors with patience, kindness, and respect; being aware > of the challenges facing new editors, and reaching out to them; and > encouraging others to do the same; > * Improving communication on the projects; simplifying policy and > instructions; and working with colleagues to improve and make friendlier > policies and practices regarding templates, warnings, and deletion; > * Supporting the development and rollout of features and tools that > improve usability and accessibility; > * Increasing community awareness of these issues and supporting outreach > efforts of individuals, groups and Chapters; > * Working with colleagues to reduce contention and promote a friendlier, > more collaborative culture, including more thanking and affirmation; and > encouraging best practices and community leaders; and > * Working with colleagues to develop practices to discourage disruptive > and hostile behavior, and repel trolls and stalkers. > > > ;Resources > : > [[strategy:Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary|Wikimedia_Movement_Strate > gic_Plan_Summary]] > : [[strategy:Editor_Trends_Study|2011 Editor Trends Study]] > ([[strategy:March_2011_Update|Executive Director's summary]], > [[strategy:Openness|ideas]]) >
Thank you, all, for this. This resolution is great news; and a great commitment of support for the Wikipedia Project, as well as for the individual Community Members who are at the heart of it. Marc Riddell, Ph.D. Clinical Psychology/Psychotherapy _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
