hi, On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com > wrote:
> > Now what do we aim to achieve? Keeping you happy or making sure we have a > public ??? > simply put: both. We need readers just as much as we need the free labor of editors/volunteers. I don't think it makes any sense to have a discussion about the "wasted millions". First, in software development there is always some inevitable waste, just because of the nature of this endeavor. Second, many projects which start with mixed reception are getting better (and I have high hope that the visual editor is one of them!). Third, for an IT organization of this caliber and traffic, as well as the budget, there are impressive results in many areas (including, but not limited to, mobile website - at least for viewers, as editing is a different story). The real problem here, in my view, is creating an organizational framework that will allow to incorporate the community much more into planning, early development, alpha and beta testing, and finally implementation of all new features and tools (in a way which does not rely on IT schedules only, but also on feedback from the communities). It is up to WMF to create and provide such framework, as our community as a whole does not have any institutionalized representation or voice (which is part of the issue; one the one hand it is easy to discard whatever people from the community say, as they are random individuals, and on the other it must be deeply frustrating to never be sure what the community reaction will be). Some people are suggesting stewards as the good group to start with - I'm afraid stewards are not the best ones to go to. Stewards act mainly as highly trusted, experienced individuals. They do not represent their local communities in any way. Also, they do not necessarily have the best skills for the task, and they do not form a cooperating team, in general. One of the unbearable signs of bureaucracy is setting up committees, but here a volunteer-driven, democratic task force could actually make some sense, perhaps. Look at it this way - we elect admins, crats, checkusers, oversighters, stewards. All these roles are only technical. Perhaps at some point we should think of community representation as well (and not in the sense of leadership, but in the sense of liaisons, testers, people responsible for smoother communication). My experience within the FDC has shown that volunteer-driven bodies are quite effective at such tasks, when provided with necessary organizational support. best, dariusz "pundit" -- __________________________ prof. dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
