I feel compelled to express my agreement with MZMcBride. I find his questioning pertinent. I wish the quality of content were at the core of the WMF. I feel disappointed by the direction it is choosing, and by the elusiveness of Samuel Klein whose wisdom I used to respect greatly. What happened, Samuel?
Le 24/03/2012 12:52, MZMcBride a écrit : > Samuel Klein wrote: >> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 1:06 AM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: >>> Experiments are acceptable... sometimes. >> MZM, I didn't expect you to become the voice of conservatism! >> >> I cannot agree with your premise that experiments are somehow >> 'optional' or new. Experimentation is the lifeblood of any project >> build around being bold and low barriers to participation. We should >> simply ensure that boldness can be reverted, with fast feedback loops, >> and that experiments are just that, not drastic changes all at once. > You seem to continue to ignore the cost of experimentation. When you unleash > a classroom full of people on Wikipedia who start messing up articles and > performing other actions that need to be reverted, is it Wikimedia > Foundation staff who will be cleaning up the mess? It becomes a whole > different issue when it's not random people messing up articles, but instead > it's Wikimedia Foundation-sponsored contributors. You're far too smart to > not realize this already; why are you ignoring or side-stepping these and > other costs of experimentation? > >>> Wikimedia's stated mission is about producing free, high-quality educational >>> content. >> It's funny, you've said this three times so far this thread :-) >> But if you read the mission again, I think you'll find you are mistaken. >> >> Wikimedia's mission is to *empower and engage people* to develop >> content. There's nothing about quality, unless you assume that an >> empowered and engaged society will produce high quality materials. >> (As it turns out, in practice if not in theory, we do.) > Imagine a world in which there's a global movement with only mediocre > content to show for it. That should go on a bumper sticker. If the Wikimedia > Foundation is allowed to add "movement" jargon, I think I'm entitled to say > that the goal is to make something high-quality. Fair's fair. > >> Our goal is global engagement of creators; and providing >> infrastructure to empower their work. > This sounds great. Is that what's actually happening? Providing > infrastructure that empowers people is fantastic. Build better software and > other tools that allow people to create beautiful and creative and > interesting content. > > What you're saying nearly anyone on this list would have difficulty > disagreeing with (which is, I believe, partially why you're saying it). But > "snap back to reality": what's happening right now is a hawkeyed focus on a > boost of the number of contributors. Increasing participation for > statistics' sake. And the associated infrastructure (tool development, staff > allocation, etc.) is equally focused on this goal. And this doesn't even get > into the issue of sister projects (or any project other than the English > Wikipedia, really), which have received no support. > >>> At some point this jargon about "the movement" came along and >>> there's a huge focus on "building the movement." >> See above; this isn't new. > The word "movement" is not new. Its prevalence is. > >> I do support those who focus on the quality of our existing content. >> But other priorities -- from expanding content scope and formats, to >> expanding the editing community -- also deserve support. > For me and for the people that Wikimedia serves (its readers), it's never > been about the community. I'm reminded of this quote from Risker's user page > on the English Wikipedia: "Our readers do not care one whit who adds > information to articles; they care only that the information is correct." > > Your suggestion that there is something more important than the content > simply seems wrong to me. The content is what people come for. The content > is what people return for. The content is king. As iridescent once said, > "without content, Wikipedia is just Facebook for ugly people." > > Obviously _a_ focus on the human component is important. Bots aren't writing > articles or writing dictionary definitions or taking and uploading images > (yet!), but content has to be _the_ focus. The primary focus cannot simply > be adding more people to the pile to build a movement. We are not trying to > Occupy Wikipedia; we are trying to build something of educational value for > the future. The idea has always been that even if the movement disappeared > (and with it the Wikimedia Foundation), the content would remain. It has to > be treated with respect and be given due deference in resource allocation > and in the goals that the Wikimedia Foundation makes a priority. > > MZMcBride > > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
