Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strategy and its subtypes

[Mardetanha]

it would be great if someone could give us tl;dr version of this mail

Mardetanha

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 5:21 PM, James Hare  wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> Of the many issues, real or perceived, currently under discussion, one of
> them is the matter of strategy: of the Wikimedia Foundation and of the
> movement in general. I’ve been editing Wikipedia since November of 2004 and
> have noticed that the general points of tension have revolved around who
> has authority or responsibility to do what. I will explain what I mean by
> that.
>
> There is no one “strategy.” Or rather, strategy has different components
> to it, and it is important to note and understand these different
> components because they have their own histories and associated arguments.
> There is no possible way I can capture every nuance of this, but when we
> say “strategy” we should think of at least three things: content strategy,
> program strategy, and product strategy.
>
> Content has, almost exclusively, been a prerogative of the communities of
> the various Wikimedia projects, and not that of the Foundation. [1] English
> Wikipedia, for example, argues bitterly over what is notable, what is not
> notable, and what should and shouldn’t be deleted on a given day, but the
> Wikimedia Foundation is not involved in that. While the Wikimedia
> Foundation does fund content creation initiatives from time to time, it
> does not decide, for instance, which monuments are worthy of Wiki Loves
> Monuments, or which artists should be the focus of Art+Feminism. I’m not
> pointing this out because it’s remotely interesting, but because it’s so
> widely agreed upon that the WMF has no editorial authority that we don’t
> even need to talk about it.
>
> There are other areas that we do need to talk about; not necessarily to
> devise a master plan, or to draw lines in the sand, but to at least
> understand who thinks what and where our opinions diverge. This brings me
> to my second point: programs. I am referring to initiatives to get more
> people involved in the Wikimedia projects, to build bridges with other
> organizations, to make Wikimedia as much a part of the offline world as the
> online world. The Wikimedia Foundation did some of the original programs in
> the late 2000s, with mixed success. Chapters came along and also came up
> with programs; GLAM, for instance, was developed outside of the Wikimedia
> Foundation. Over time, the Foundation decided that it was not so interested
> in running programs directly as much as they were interested in funding
> others to carry them out and serving as a sort of central hub for best
> practices. As far as I can tell, as someone who has served on the board of
> a Wikimedia chapter for almost five years, there seems to be a general
> consensus that this is how programs are done. This operating consensus was
> arrived at through a combination of the Wikimedia Foundation’s “narrowing
> focus” and by the enthusiasm of chapters, groups, and mission-aligned
> organizations to carry on outreach work.
>
> Then there is the product strategy, which is the most contentious of them
> all. By “product” I am referring to the subset of technology that readers
> and editors interact with on a day-to-day basis. The sacred workflow. (Much
> of the arguments about technology are out of my depth so I won’t be
> commenting on them; they also include rather arcane infrastructural stuff
> that I don’t think most Wikimedia users or contributors care about.) All of
> our arguments, from the usability initiative to the present day, have
> focused on: who is in charge of the user experience? I have heard different
> things; one perspective holds that “the community” (usually not further
> specified) gets to make the final decision, while I have also heard from
> some that technological matters are purely the prerogative of the Wikimedia
> Foundation. [2] I am not sure what the present-day company line is but I
> suspect it’s somewhere in the middle.
>
> I do not know what the “true” answer is, either. There is a lot to be said
> for treating the user experience as products to be professionally managed:
> there has been tremendous study in the area of how to design user
> experiences, and Wikipedia is notorious for being difficult to edit as a
> newcomer. With this in mind, the Wikimedia Foundation did the best it
> could, with limited resources, and despite some successes managed to create
> some ham-fisted products that did not address the needs of the users and—at
> worst—threatened disruption. This has gotten better in time; the visual
> editor, for example, has made tremendous progress on this front. But not
> every issue is settled. What about the products that need substantially
> more improvement before they can be used at large? What about things that
> we should be working on, but aren’t, or are doing so at a glacial pace
> because we are being stretched too thin? And now that WMF grantees can

[Wikimedia-l] Strategy and its subtypes

[James Hare]

Hello everyone,  

Of the many issues, real or perceived, currently under discussion, one of them 
is the matter of strategy: of the Wikimedia Foundation and of the movement in 
general. I’ve been editing Wikipedia since November of 2004 and have noticed 
that the general points of tension have revolved around who has authority or 
responsibility to do what. I will explain what I mean by that.

There is no one “strategy.” Or rather, strategy has different components to it, 
and it is important to note and understand these different components because 
they have their own histories and associated arguments. There is no possible 
way I can capture every nuance of this, but when we say “strategy” we should 
think of at least three things: content strategy, program strategy, and product 
strategy.

Content has, almost exclusively, been a prerogative of the communities of the 
various Wikimedia projects, and not that of the Foundation. [1] English 
Wikipedia, for example, argues bitterly over what is notable, what is not 
notable, and what should and shouldn’t be deleted on a given day, but the 
Wikimedia Foundation is not involved in that. While the Wikimedia Foundation 
does fund content creation initiatives from time to time, it does not decide, 
for instance, which monuments are worthy of Wiki Loves Monuments, or which 
artists should be the focus of Art+Feminism. I’m not pointing this out because 
it’s remotely interesting, but because it’s so widely agreed upon that the WMF 
has no editorial authority that we don’t even need to talk about it.

There are other areas that we do need to talk about; not necessarily to devise 
a master plan, or to draw lines in the sand, but to at least understand who 
thinks what and where our opinions diverge. This brings me to my second point: 
programs. I am referring to initiatives to get more people involved in the 
Wikimedia projects, to build bridges with other organizations, to make 
Wikimedia as much a part of the offline world as the online world. The 
Wikimedia Foundation did some of the original programs in the late 2000s, with 
mixed success. Chapters came along and also came up with programs; GLAM, for 
instance, was developed outside of the Wikimedia Foundation. Over time, the 
Foundation decided that it was not so interested in running programs directly 
as much as they were interested in funding others to carry them out and serving 
as a sort of central hub for best practices. As far as I can tell, as someone 
who has served on the board of a Wikimedia chapter for almost five years, there 
seems to be a general consensus that this is how programs are done. This 
operating consensus was arrived at through a combination of the Wikimedia 
Foundation’s “narrowing focus” and by the enthusiasm of chapters, groups, and 
mission-aligned organizations to carry on outreach work.

Then there is the product strategy, which is the most contentious of them all. 
By “product” I am referring to the subset of technology that readers and 
editors interact with on a day-to-day basis. The sacred workflow. (Much of the 
arguments about technology are out of my depth so I won’t be commenting on 
them; they also include rather arcane infrastructural stuff that I don’t think 
most Wikimedia users or contributors care about.) All of our arguments, from 
the usability initiative to the present day, have focused on: who is in charge 
of the user experience? I have heard different things; one perspective holds 
that “the community” (usually not further specified) gets to make the final 
decision, while I have also heard from some that technological matters are 
purely the prerogative of the Wikimedia Foundation. [2] I am not sure what the 
present-day company line is but I suspect it’s somewhere in the middle.

I do not know what the “true” answer is, either. There is a lot to be said for 
treating the user experience as products to be professionally managed: there 
has been tremendous study in the area of how to design user experiences, and 
Wikipedia is notorious for being difficult to edit as a newcomer. With this in 
mind, the Wikimedia Foundation did the best it could, with limited resources, 
and despite some successes managed to create some ham-fisted products that did 
not address the needs of the users and—at worst—threatened disruption. This has 
gotten better in time; the visual editor, for example, has made tremendous 
progress on this front. But not every issue is settled. What about the products 
that need substantially more improvement before they can be used at large? What 
about things that we should be working on, but aren’t, or are doing so at a 
glacial pace because we are being stretched too thin? And now that WMF grantees 
can develop code for deployment in production (such as MediaWiki extensions), 
what is the relationship between these projects and the overall product 
strategy of the Wikimedia Foundation? On the Reading half of the equation, who 
gets to