Talk:Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Coordinate Across Stakeholders

Space[edit]

Throughout this (very long) process, there has been consistent criticism that the proposals are vague and marred by management-speak. Here (in the final version?) there are things like "Create spaces for communication and collaboration". What does this mean? What are "spaces"? The comprehensible proposals look suspiciously like a call for yet more centralisation (would a "Technology Council" be volunteer-based, or another set of Wikimedia employees?), so I'm wary, leaning towards negative. EddieHugh (talk) 19:46, 15 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please look at the recommendation Ensure Equity in Decision-making. The resources will be decentralized into several resource centers in the world and there will be Wikimedia employees in even more stakeholders entities. And the basis for the new government bodies will of course be volunteers.Yger (talk) 09:18, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. The word "volunteers" appears on that page once. "Global Council" appears 17 times, and it "will be composed of both elected and selected members". EddieHugh (talk) 14:11, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The creation of the Technology Council, including decisions on its composition, is to be determined in the Implementation Phase. Since one of its stated aims is to "foster input on decisions and resource allocations that impact communities", it's hard to imagine it functioning without at least a significant volunteer representation --Abbad (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 18 May 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Ask the people behind SuperProtect or FLOW about community input, they didn't give a damn about the unwashed masses to push their unwanted and not ready for prime time pet projects against the community. And Jan, the inventor of SuperProtect ist still in charge at the WMF, despite hies explicitly anti-community actions. Those in charge don't care about community wishes, they just care about petty pet projects (like rebranding, FLOW, MV,...). The community wishes should be the core of the devs work schedule, not futile bling. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 21:26, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sänger: Regarding software, an earlier version of the recommendations analysed the situation like this: "while community members are consulted during late stages of development and for minor design choices, they are almost never involved in choosing and scoping out projects, much less given any real ability to influence those decisions. That often results in detachment or resentment. This is compounded by the unhealthy dynamic where the WMF makes prioritization decisions behind closed doors... To fix this situation, communities need to get a stronger voice in the planning process." This was together with a recommendation to give decision-making power over software deployments to a Council that would represent the editor communities. Interestingly, the WMF's Chief Product Officer responded very positively to the recommendations.

These recommendations appear to have been removed, but they point to the situation being rather different than we might have assumed.

(No idea why Trust and Safety is the way it is, but that seems to be a very different situation than the software issues.) --Yair rand (talk) 22:23, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Yair rand: it wasn't intentionally removed but most specific recommendations were replaced by more abstract ones during the process of synthesizing a hundred detailed recommendations into ten shorter ones (necessary for a document that people are actually willing to read). The motivations behind it are encompassed by Ensure Equity in Decision-making#Enable the empowerment of local communities. The Council is also mentioned in Coordinate Across Stakeholders although that doesn't call out the empowerment aspects. --Tgr (talk) 23:22, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]