The following views are mine. I'm not affiliated with either the Foundation or those speaking in the name of the communities. This is a volunteer's opinion.
On Tue, 21 Jan 2020 at 04:24, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Leila and Todd, thanks for the constructive comments. > > I think that global consensus is possible, but it's challenging. > To measure the needs of the movement, the organizers of the consultation have to take into consideration all the editors - present and future -, the affiliates, and even the readers. Thousands of regulars, hundreds of thousands of casuals, not counting the millions of readers, who contribute with their donations. The participation of this many people in the consultations would not be feasible. The most that can be expected is a few hundred editors, who voice their opinions, mostly representing the English Wikipedia and Commons. I believe this is what Leila meant. Any of the consensus models can only reflect a local consensus <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus#Levels_of_consensus> at best. Deciding the movement's future based upon this comparatively small selection of contributors would result in a one-sided outcome. The needs of the movement, however, can be measured globally by systematic research and this is what the Foundation has been doing in recent years and now serves as the basis for the recommendations. My personal experience and impressions confirm many of these findings: The movement needs to move forward, to keep up with the times. The start of a new decade is the best time to take that big step. With these fundamental changes, there will be many differing views and visions. Regardless whether those differences are big or small, at this scale, this many participants could only agree to disagree. A simple vote-counting would not be able to establish any kind of consensus besides vetoes, what would only undermine and disrupt the consultation. Wikipedia is not a vote for a good reason. On the other hand, the true model of consensus, which evaluates the merits of the comments is simply unmanageable above a few dozen participants. Neither of these models could achieve consensus or equally consider every community and contributor. The purpose of the consultations is not to struggle seeking global consensus with many differing views, but to gather constructive feedback from the communities. It is clear that the Foundation and the Working Groups are asking for meritable comments, which they can incorporate in their proposals. I remain concerned about the current timeline for this strategy process. I > think that after initial community discussions, a phased approach over a > period of years for !votes and implementation might be best. > Continuous consultations about individual projects and specific implementations would be of great benefit to bridging the gap between the Foundation and the communities. However, only experience will prove the changes beneficial, procrastinating the decision would be just a waste of time and opportunity. It seems to be an easy way out to run votes endlessly, without doing the hard work to achieve the movement's targets, but it leads nowhere, just creates disruption. That's not why we are here. Although I can't vouch for all, I believe we are here to improve the projects we work on and to collaboratively create the world's biggest encyclopedia and knowledge platform, which shows an example of what's possible, that makes us proud. Perhaps an early phase could focus on reviewing our current mechanisms for > all-Wikiverse governance and considering some changes to those mechanisms. > The governance processes haven't seen a significant update since the initial influx of editors, but these processes and the technical tools did not scale with the sudden increase in editor count. A significant technical debt <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt> has been carried along for more than a decade. These processes need significant updates to address the abuse (bullying and occasional harassment) of editors, who aren't protected by the network of supportive editors who have known them for years. Addressing this issue is fundamental to improving diversity and editing experience within the communities. Although the issues faced by Wikipedia are the same as in any online community, many communities - most notably open source communities - have progressed significantly in regards of addressing abuse and conduct issues. Perhaps the strategy process organizers will have some recommendations for > us to consider regarding governance. > > Pine > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) Aron _______________________________________________ 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>
