Thank you Maciej for your email. All these discussions are coming from a place of care and genuine concern for the movement. I know those are hard discussions, and it is important we have them as candidly as possible. At the end of the day we all care very deeply.
I am quoting one sentence from your email: “We believe this is not a temporary phenomenon, but a structural shift and we are acting to mitigate this.” We are in deep agreement on that diagnosis. Where we seem to disagree is on what follows from it. Your email reads to me as saying that we are doing what we need to do. Yet the examples you give are: - public consultation on the Annual Plan, as we have done for many years; - attending a movement global private meeting like we’ve been doing for 20 years; - discussions at Wikimania, as we have had for 25 years. Those are all highly valuable. But they are also all existing mechanisms. So my questions are simply these: - If this is truly a structural shift, do we think our response should look fundamentally different from business as usual? - Do you think the current level of Board engagement reflects the urgency described in your own email? - Compared to the 2017 Movement Strategy, with more than 100 community discussions over six months and a very significant organisational investment across all Wikimedia organisations, do you think the effort dedicated to addressing this structural shift is below, on par with, or above that? I know these are uncomfortable questions. I’ve been on the receiving end of them myself. But they need to be asked and answered collectively. And I’ll leave you with one final question. If, in three years, we have lost half our readership, fundraising is under real pressure, and we look back at this moment, will you feel that we collectively went above and beyond to address the challenge, or that we responded largely through the mechanisms we already had? 10 years ago someone told to me that we are anything but temporary stewards of the movement, and what matters is our legacy. Are we upholding that responsibility properly? That is the question I keep asking myself. Christophe PS: as for tomorrow evening it would be great to have more people from the Foundation than just you ^^ On Sun, Jul 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM Wikipedysta Nadzik < [email protected]> wrote: > Dear Christophe and all, > > Many of the trustees and WMF leadership have been following these threads > and have had similar conversations with other community members (both > on-wiki > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-2027> > and in other spaces > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-2027/Collaboration#Co-created_Community_spaces>) > about the change we need to deliver Wikimedia's mission with the internet > at an inflection point. You yourself were present, together with many > executives and Trustees, for the Wikimedia Futures Lab > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Futures_Lab/Events>. > > You'll see in our annual plan > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-2027> > that > we've been tracking these global trends. Wikipedia is seeing declines in > pageviews > <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/03/10/engaging-and-reengaging-wikipedia-readers/> > and > referral traffic from Google, and unprecedented increases in bot traffic. > We believe this is not a temporary phenomenon, but a structural shift and > we are acting to mitigate this. The world needs us all to evolve and adapt. > We are looking forward to continuing the conversation at Wikimania where > the organisers have created lots of discussion spaces on the agenda > <https://wikimedia.eventyay.com/wm/wikimania2026/schedule/> and on-wiki > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Board_of_Trustees/Community_and_Affiliate_Liaisons> > for > those not able to attend. > > We are also happy to meet you at the call you are organising > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:This_is_not_a_meeting>, in our > continued commitment to talking to Wikimedia volunteers where they gather, > not only in spaces created by the Foundation. Talk to you soon! > > Thanks, > *Maciej Nadzikiewicz (User:Nadzik)* > Community & Affiliates Liaison of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of > Trustees > > pt., 3 lip 2026 o 21:23 Christophe Henner via Wikimedia-l < > [email protected]> napisał(a): > >> I love this discussion, thank you all for speaking up. :) >> >> One note on "the community can just do it," I do think it's the right >> direction, so please read the next couple of paragraphs as a friendly >> amendment (just to make sure everyone's on the same page) rather than a >> pushback. >> >> "The community can just do it," feels very appealing right now: because >> we are missing ownership and leadership, self-organizing is kinda the only >> option with that vacuum. It probably is the best tool we have to >> rebuild/respark the ownership we are missing. >> >> That being said, a couple of comments: >> >> 1. Community means staff too, to me. Many of the people the movement pays >> are also among its most committed contributors, so let us not run this as >> volunteers versus the Foundation/paid staff. I know it sometimes reads >> simplistic, but we're all in the same boat, or at least we should be. >> >> 2. At this scale the work will need people with dedicated time on it. >> Because the Foundation is not taking leadership doesn't mean it doesn't >> have a responsibility. The Foundation owns most of the resources in the >> movement, and if we, as a movement, are to change/evolve, we need those >> resources. It can't rely only on volunteers. However, I'm not saying we >> need X, Y or Z, just that we will need people with dedicated time at some >> point. >> >> Brooke, to your comment on the Foundation being a service organisation, I >> would agree if the Foundation was being supportive. But it's neither >> leading the change nor being supportive on that topic, in my opinion. And >> don't anyone get me wrong, I do know how hard it is first hand to do either >> (or both), but I also know it can happen. And I hope they'll take the first >> opportunity to join in the discussion. >> >> Speaking of opportunities, I've started a second thread with an >> invitation to meet next week. It's a bit of last minute notice, but I'd >> love to keep the momentum :) >> >> >> -- >> Christophe >> >> >> On Fri, 3 Jul 2026 at 00:10, Samuel Klein via Wikimedia-l < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Dear Nada, excellent framing. It is entirely in our control to fix >>> outreach, build welcoming and forgiving environments, make strides with >>> less-resource languages and communities. >>> >>> Christophe, thanks again for persisting in this thread (and planning a >>> range of activities around Wikimania!) I see many people engaged with >>> these topics who don't want to engage in discussion about angst over >>> current problems, but are deeply enthusiastic about, and actively engaged >>> in, building new things / working on new possibilities. >>> >>> Brooke writes: >>> > Wikimedia is a participatory system... We have to put in the work >>> ourselves. >>> >>> Absolutely. The civilized netizen's first duty is to be always >>> prepared to rewrite <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco> anything >>> truly important from scratch. >>> >>> Galder writes: >>> >>>> One correction: I'm not a trustee! >>>> >>> >>> But we surely trust you, including to make the world's best Txikipedia. >>> >>> We have many good ideas and talented people in the community. We do >>> need persistent spaces to discuss and make plans, in part because in >>> the last growth spurt we fragmented communication channels across hundreds >>> of pages, sites, lists, and apps. Recombining many of those streams would >>> be good for coherence and continuity. >>> >>> But our wikis are better suited to experimenting, reverting, and >>> iterating than distilling large-scale consensus. Quick decisions by >>> ~sortition (or by the first few people to turn up) help polish the roughest >>> edges. Having spaces that push back against the iron law >>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy> of oligarchy and >>> preserve freedom to experiment is essential, even when simultaneously >>> waiting for delayed consensus. >>> >>> Our strongest shared identity is as people committed to building >>> freely-licensed knowledge together, in every language, accessible to the >>> entire world. More people care about this today than ever before. We simply >>> have to make space for it again. >>> >>> 𝐖♡, SJ >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines >>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >>> Public archives at >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/RJV4EYFT53SYRNXZPOMP54CXTRGWLNB3/ >>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines >> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> > Public archives at >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/UZBRT3CYMTTGU47QIT2NKACDWIBSGRW7/ > > >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > > > > -- > *User:Nadzik <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nadzik>* >
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