Hello everybody, I want to thank everyone for offering their considered thoughts. I mean that genuinely. There are many legitimate views expressed in this thread, many by generous, constructive, wise, and delightful members of our communities. That's good.
And I'm struggling with a process problem (not one of substance) that I don't know how to solve. I truly don't. And it's kind of killing me. We (people who work and volunteer at the WMF) need a way to get feedback. We need a way to be accountable and responsive. We all want that. And I actually believe that we are all working in good faith toward that. *And* the cumulative impact of the way people at the Foundation get this feedback begins to feel like public, collective punishment. And that dynamic, one that we all tend to participate in, is driving talented people away from the foundation. Now some here may not care about that. Some of us think there is no point to the foundation anyway, so it's great that talent wants to walk. Others may believe that I am saying that "we should all just be kind" and that I am terribly polyannish (of course I am, I work in HR) and that I am saying that we should not tell each other difficult truths. But that's a forced false choice. I'm decidedly not saying that we should not tell one another difficult truths. I'm saying that when we add it all up the way we tell each other the truth has damaging effects on many people I talk to—employees, volunteers from around the world, board members... and it hits women and minorities particularly hard. No one single person intends for it to be so. Of course they don't. But add it all up, put it out in public, everyone chimes in, and overall morale goes down the toilet. What do we do? How can we find ways to tell each other difficult truths while remembering that we are talking about and to *people *in public and in large groups? --- As a separate issue and a different interpretation on how this report likely came about... In this report 3/11 fact stories are about issues that have become politicized. (Yes, sadly I included some facts about biographies of women political). If travel is also a political issue now, I think I’m glad they legalized cannabis in this state. But imagine it is October. Sure, Brexit has happened and large portions of the world are closing, not opening. There is a turn away from a global mindset and a turning toward clamping down on freedoms. But a good portion of Americans believe that we don't really have anything to worry about. The Comms team begins writing a report. If Hillary Clinton had won, it's likely that these would not have looked so terribly much like political statements. It may have looked like a normal affirmation of acceptable values (because, 3/11). But America went another direction and now things that could have been considered normalish suddenly look like a shot fired round the world. I'm not saying that this makes any of the legitimate views expressed here invalid. I'm just saying that the context has changed radically. Some of that change now makes acceptable values (valuing the scientific method / valuing climate science, valuing people of other nations, particularly those in distress, valuing biographies about women), look fringe. /a On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > I've written several drafts today in response to this thread, all of which > came out as as rather energetic. > > There are some reputable organizations for which I like and for which the > tone of the "main page" of this report would be appropriate. WMF is not one > of them. I would ask the people who approved the final version of this > publication (particularly those in senior management) to carefully reflect > on whether they are working for the organization that is right for them. If > they want to continue to work for WMF, I would ask them to carefully read > and focus on the WMF mission, and be religious about staying on that > mission when making decisions on behalf of WMF. Outside of WMF it's fine to > engage in many kinds of advocacy, but inside of WMF, this kind of tilt is a > strategic liability both to WMF and to Wikipedia. > > Pine > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
