Hoi,
It would be good.. The thing is that we are so many communities. All of
them have their place and all of them have their relevance. Sociology
indicates that the "own" group is the most important of all. It is why
there is so little room to understand what is important for another, it is
why typically only the biggest groups are catered for.
It goes so far that Wikipedians are unwilling to consider that their effort
(any Wikipedia) provides only a subset of the knowledge that is available
to us all. It is why there is so little time to provide GLAM's with the
data that makes it obvious why their contribution is so valuable to us. It
is how they justify the real money they invest in open content..
We should be thankful for what is done and consider how we can get the most
out of the information that is available to us all. It starts with the
realisation that there is more that we can share.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 23 May 2015 at 09:27, David Cuenca Tudela <[email protected]> wrote:
> During this Wikimedia Conference 2015 there was a paradigm shift in the way
> problems are expressed. It was highlighted that the wikimedia movement is
> not only about gathering and sharing knowledge, but also about the people
> behind it, about finding ways to enhance the togetherness that is created
> by participating in our sites, no matter which ones they are in the
> present, and no matter which they will be in the future.
>
> There was a lot of blindness in the past from my side and from a lot of
> people I met during the years. Our movement is not only a "knowledge
> movement" or a "open movement", it is above a "social movement" which
> depends very much on the strength of our social connections to advance and
> thrive. The most obvious connection is between contributor and reader, it
> is the most singular one which differentiates us from other platforms like
> facebook, however it is far from being the only one.
> Contributor-to-contributor is another key one which has been
> underestimated, and it is the salt and pepper of the community.
>
> There have been attempts to improve the atmosphere of those relationships,
> however they have failed because humans are social creatures mostly in
> person, and online relationships work best once you know the person you are
> communicating with. With strangers it might work too, but there is a lot of
> work to do at the personal level to improve the empathy, the goodwill, and
> of course, to assume good faith.
>
> I am not aware of any attempts to show contributors how they can be better
> persons online with online strangers, perhaps it is something that can be
> practiced and learned. There is the common tendency to think that the fault
> is always in others, but very seldom one seeks to dig deep into oneself and
> try to find inner peace. I believe that with a strong inner peace conflicts
> would be less, the atmosphere would improve, and the so-called "editor
> decline" would be a problem of the past.
>
> That goodwill can be cultivated at upper levels too. Sometimes there are
> decisions that must be taken to improve our sites, and some of them have
> created a lot of drama which maybe could have been minimized by enabling
> expression spaces, where there can be some real communication happening,
> that is, bidirectional, and not to force any ideas, just to foster
> understanding.
>
> In the wikimedia movement there is a serious lack of said expression
> spaces. For instance, during the WMCON 15, it was the first time that user
> groups representatives seated down together, also with some WMF employees,
> to discuss user groups in an open manner. I think it is a big step forward
> which paves the way in other areas too.
>
> Problems of the past like VE deployment schedule, and the upcoming Commons
> reform could profit of the "sit-and-talk" approach. It is costly, it takes
> time, however in the end there are more smiles, less drama, and the general
> feeling that besides of the you and me, there is a we, which is created
> together.
>
> I would like to propose the creation of a user group for each area of
> interest that we have problems with, so users can participate in the
> problem solving approaches. That is of course only half the way, the other
> half way is even more difficult which involves *using* those spaces
> constructively, and also involving more and more users in this other kind
> of "contribution" which is so radically different from the "click-and-type"
> contribution.
>
> There is for instance the need to create roads for users to progress in the
> movement, to bring users from "casual reader" to a "wise wikimedian"
> status. Such a wise people already exist in our movement, it is a pity that
> we don't enable more knowledge transfer between the "elders" and newcomers,
> because when one of our wise wikimedian (digitally) dies, it leaves behind
> a big gap which is very big to fill up again.
>
> I dream of a movement like that, wise, and which enables people to grow to
> the very best of their abilities. And not only that, I dream of growing
> myself with all of you together and finding countless friends along the
> way. What a good way to finish one's life that to have been able to do
> every day what one loves with people who does the same. This is pure joy
> and I want more of it :)
>
> Micru
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