Re: [Wikimedia-l] Free culture, Mission to empower, and Community Process Steering Committee

[Richard Ames]

Please don't answer these questions (at least to the list).

James - I have put you on moderation.  Please desist with direct questions
to other list members and avoid the use of the personal pronoun 'you'.
Please focus on the purpose of this list --- as listed in the links at the
bottom of every message.

Please address any discussion to the wikimedia-l-owner address (above).

Regards, Richard.

On 3 February 2017 at 15:20, James Salsman  wrote:

> Thyge, Craig, Dan, Rogol, Max, Neil, Mike, Ryan, Pete, Yair, and
> Leigh, here are some questions


...
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[Wikimedia-l] Free culture, Mission to empower, and Community Process Steering Committee

[James Salsman]

Thyge, Craig, Dan, Rogol, Max, Neil, Mike, Ryan, Pete, Yair, and
Leigh, here are some questions I'd like you to answer, neither of
which are rhetorical:

First, what attracts you to the free culture movement?

What freedoms do you personally hold as ideal?

Finally, what does the Foundation's Mission statement mean when it
says to "empower and engage people around the world to collect and
develop educational content"? Does that mean political power?

> The WMF should not be taking political stances
> without input and consensus from the community.

The community has (s)elected the Board of Trustees, and the Board has
delegated policy-making authority to Ms. Maher. If you believe this to
be a mistake then you should run for the Board on that platform and
make your case if and when you are (s)elected. In my view Ms. Maher
has a more reasonable outlook than all of the Board's members I know
enough about to have formed an opinion on put together, and she has
been repeatedly proving it through her commendable actions,
statements, and efforts.

Nothing proves this more than Ms. Maher's message a few minutes ago on
the new strategy process. I take back all my previously stated
reservations. I was especially pleased to see this:

> Community Process Steering Committee [are discussing
> how to] engage more "quiet" members of our community

That is *sorely* needed. Most of our best content creators don't want
to stick their neck out in policy discussions, even on their projects'
noticeboards and often even on talk pages, because of the risk of
harassment, reputation polarization, stereotyping, attracting stalkers
and tag teams, or putting their contributions into the cross-hairs of
organized advocacy efforts.

I would *love* to see a frequent and statistically robust anonymous
channel from content creators to project and Foundation policymakers
consisting of more than just a 20 minute survey every couple years.

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