The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

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The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Sat Dec 14, 2019 3:47 pm

I wasn't sure this needed a new topic, but here we go.

Gobbledegook central
Hi everyone,

I wanted to share an overview of what’s been happening in movement
strategy and where things are at with the recommendations.

== Synthesizing the recommendations, writing group meeting ==
The work to refine the recommendations is advancing well. Members of
the writing group [1] came together in person in Berlin last week and
spent five energetic and successful days consolidating the 89
recommendations. They brought together overlapping ideas from amongst
the previous thematic areas with the aim of creating a coherent set of
recommendations.

A number of common areas for change were reflected in the 89
recommendations, and the writers assessed and clustered them around
these areas. The goal is to outline the overall direction of the
change and present one set that is clearly understood, implementable,
and demonstrates the reasoning behind each.

The clusters also address issues identified in phase 1 as well as
needs surfaced during the conversations with the movement between
March and September of this year. These areas for change include
improving coordination in our movement, skills and leadership
development, distribution of power and decision-making, and enhancing
user experience and infrastructure to help us move toward becoming the
essential support system of the ecosystem of free knowledge.

Beyond this, the group also worked on building a narrative that
outlines a common vision to see: where we’ve come from as a movement;
what is driving us toward change; and where we want to get to as a
movement – the recommendations will put forward a proposal for how we
arrive there.

In a highly collaborative atmosphere, the writers are now busy
refining their work and preparing a document with the synthesized
recommendations and the narrative that can be presented to the
movement. We are quite excited about this progress!

== Movement conversations next year ==
The synthesized recommendations will serve as the basis for the
upcoming round of movement conversations, which will run from
mid-January through February. The facilitated conversations will take
place on-wiki for the Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Spanish, and
Portuguese language communities, on English Wikipedia, Commons, and
Meta-Wiki, as well as through targeted outreach to additional language
communities and affiliate groups. This will be an opportunity for the
movement to review and respond to the recommendations before they are
finalized.[2]

We encourage you to take part and are looking forward to your input
next year, so please stay tuned for more details about how to do so.

Best wishes,
Nicole

P.S.: One of our Resource Allocation working group members and
writers, Daria Cybulska from Wikimedia UK, has written a wonderful
post about her experience, insights and challenges from the last 1.5
years on the process. Please note that this is an externally facing
piece, providing a very broad brush view of our movement. In line with
this, the piece does not go into detail about the complexities of
Wikimedia. Check it out! “Funding utopia when you’re already a free
knowledge utopia.”[3]


[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strateg ... is/Writers
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strateg ... _June_2020
[3] https://medium.com/a-funding-utopia/fun ... a9d8f12c3c

--
Nicole Ebber
Leiterin Internationale Beziehungen
Program Manager Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de

Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der
Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns
dabei! https://spenden.wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills trying to read this drivel.
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Re: Let Me Help Ya, Vig...

Unread post by Randy from Boise » Sat Dec 14, 2019 4:13 pm

Gobbledygook Central wrote: The work to refine the recommendations is advancing well. Members of the writing group came together in person in Berlin last week and spent five energetic and successful days...

The synthesized recommendations will serve as the basis for the upcoming round of [facilitated] movement conversations. This will be an opportunity for the movement to review and respond to the recommendations before they are finalized.
Our peeps had another junket, this time a five day spree in Berlin.

They kicked out some drivel summarizing all the drivel that our hand-selected crowd has spewed forth in previous junkets.

We will then use power-politics (the central control of the debate process by us) to generate the result we have already predetermined, acceptance of this bureaucratic program.

It will be duly adopted. This will empower us to give more millions of dollars to our carefully-selected friends, because it is in the program.

QED.

RfB

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Sat Dec 14, 2019 5:07 pm

I got the gist.
I read it exactly the way you did.

I just can't really believe that real people actually write like this and aren't immediately mocked into silence.
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Re: One Company, One Weltanschauung

Unread post by Randy from Boise » Sat Dec 14, 2019 5:41 pm

Vigilant wrote:
Sat Dec 14, 2019 5:07 pm
I got the gist.
I read it exactly the way you did.

I just can't really believe that real people actually write like this and aren't immediately mocked into silence.
The only people who can successfully cut off the industrial-level output of bureaucratic bullshit are the WMF bosses, and they're equally committed to this document, which will give them five to ten years of carte blanch to do whatever the hell they want and blame it on "the will of the community."

They would still do whatever the hell they want without this program, mind you. But junkets are swell and long documents can be tallied up as evidence that WMF is getting value for their plane tickets and hotel bills and meals allowances.

RfB

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by BrillLyle » Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:26 am

Oh good. Publishing a white paper (?) on another quick publish self publishing platform. Way to go!!!

It never ceases to amaze me that it is seen as a positive to work on things like this externally.

It makes about as much sense as having Art+Feminism's website be the focus of editathons. Way to onboard folks! But I guess it makes clear who the initiative is about (it sure ain't Wikipedia!).

Just skimming both what was posted here and that gobbledegook on Medium made my head hurt.

How about some plain talk and simple solutions?

Like:
- Remove dead weight WMF leadership
- Fix toxic editor community
- And so on...

None of these comments on how North centric everything is. Just spit it out, what you are saying.

Why is the language here so unclear? What a load of crap.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:29 am

BrillLyle wrote:
Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:26 am

Why is the language here so unclear?
This is very common when neither the presenter nor the audience is competent and both are content to hide that fact.
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Re: Let Me Help Ya, Vig...

Unread post by DHeyward » Tue Dec 17, 2019 7:52 pm

Randy from Boise wrote:
Sat Dec 14, 2019 4:13 pm

Our peeps had another junket, this time a five day spree in Berlin.

RfB
The author is based in Berlin. The clear boondoggle indicator would be where/how this was held in Berlin. Levels of Junket 1) Held at WMF office and author commuted from home while other non-Berliners stayed at hotels or telecommuted. 2) Meetings held at hotel while author commuted to hotel from home, no author reimbursement for food, lodging in home city or 3) everyone stayed at same hotel, met at hotel, went on team building excursions, all lodging, food, excursions paid by WMF. I'm thinking option 3 is most likely for WMF while option 1 is reserved for meetings that have a real goal.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by eagle » Sat Dec 21, 2019 2:32 am

I realize that language is a barrier to policy making in an international organization. Successful organization find a way to overcome it. The above proposal does not. First, we hold an "harmonization sprint" in Tunis (of the Global South) where French is a widespread language, but when you read the post-it notes from the meeting, you can see the meetings were in English. Next, the rewrite squad met in Berlin (of the Global North) where German is a widespread language, but I suspect the writing and discussions were in English. The next step is to translate the resulting document into: "Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese." Then, the translated documents will diverge as a result of those "community conversations." This will result in the need for a second "harmonization sprint" (junket) to prepare a new English document that misrepresents the January - February discussions and conclusions. The new English document will then be presented to the WMF Board whose discussions are held in English.

What could possibly go wrong?

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by eagle » Sat Dec 21, 2019 5:12 am

There are many dumb ideas that have survived the "harmonization sprint." I think the only way to kill them is for every member of Wikipediocracy using the public comment period in January-February to file separate comments in "Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese." English is not enough, and we must all speak out with the appropriate language on each public comment forum. I do not have the language skills to do this, but I have Google Translate. While Google Translate is not sufficient for DYK submissions, it may be enough for this:
English: This is a dumb suggestion. Please drop it.
Arabic: هذا اقتراح غبي. يرجى إسقاطه.
French: C'est une stupide suggestion. Veuillez le laisser tomber.
German: Dies ist ein dummer Vorschlag. Bitte lass es fallen.
Hindi: यह एक गूंगा सुझाव है। कृपया इसे छोड़ दें।
Spanish: Esta es una sugerencia tonta. Por favor, déjalo.
Portuguese: Esta é uma sugestão idiota. Por favor, largue.

Or just cut and paste the entire block and post it on each language's discussion.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Ming » Sat Dec 21, 2019 3:55 pm

Vigilant wrote:
Sat Dec 14, 2019 5:07 pm
I got the gist.
I read it exactly the way you did.

I just can't really believe that real people actually write like this and aren't immediately mocked into silence.
They aren't so mocked because the people for whom they have any respect also speak this way. It's the commonplace language of business self-importance, and when those using it have nothing substantial to contribute, this is the vacuity you get.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by BrillLyle » Sat Dec 21, 2019 4:00 pm

This type of empty content nested in a shiny patois reminds me of this McKinsey presentation I once saw when I worked as a word processor at an investment bank. It was so sparkly and slick, but when it was looked at with a critical eye for facts and content, well, its reason for being evaporated into thin air. Plus the presentation probably cost a fortune to generate, to make it look like it did. What is that saying about polishing a turd?!?

I live by the keep it simple, stupid mantra. And believe that if you can't explain something clearly to someone who is not familiar with the context, it's an absolute fail.

My sister works in tech and when she describes her job I zone out and get very annoyed. Tech sectors are really bad at this, as the jargon is part of the comfort -- and justification for existence. After all, if you create a world, however rickety, it exists!

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Tue Jan 14, 2020 7:40 pm

Let the goobledegook flow!
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 94089.html

Some of the responses are less than enthusiastic.

The looks like the point where the new WMF power players plow teh communitah under.
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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Osborne » Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:39 pm


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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:50 pm

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 94115.html

I wonder how many people on en.wp understand just how hard they're about to get railroaded around this garbage.
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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Zoloft » Tue Jan 21, 2020 10:27 am

Vigilant wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:50 pm
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 94115.html

I wonder how many people on en.wp understand just how hard they're about to get railroaded around this garbage.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Osborne » Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:25 pm

Zoloft wrote:
Tue Jan 21, 2020 10:27 am
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
George Orwell
That's also the present reality of Wikipedia, hardly any imagination necessary.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:05 am

As expected, teh communitah can go fuck itself.

This entire page should be read. Hilarity abounds!!


And it can go fuck itself in the mailing list too.

Very polite, but very clear.

en.wp editors, your opinion on how things should be done means shit.
Digital sharecroppers for life, yo!
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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:16 am

What: Build a house.

How: By gathering stakeholders to ensure the emplacement of structural elements that support the building integrity and aesthetic value of the house, that can withstand environmental factors while adhering to all applicable building codes. ...

None of that tells me anything about the house we're building. And that's not really a parody. I just rewrote a sentence from the Plan Infrastructure Scalability "how".
I'm rather noticing the same thing. After reading most of these proposals, I'm still left with the question "So, what is it you actually plan to do?" The proposals themselves certainly don't answer it, except in the most general, fuzzy terms that could turn out to mean anything. For example, several proposals advocate a "Global Code of Conduct". Is that the one we actually asked for during the consultation, clearly laying out what the WMF should and should not do when interacting with the communities? Or something else, which the community clearly found objectionable? I don't know, because it doesn't say what it would be. These aren't proposals, they're proposing to one day have proposals. If this is the final version for comment and feedback, it should be concrete and detailed, with very specific steps on implementation in the "How" sections, not fuzzy language which could turn out to mean just about anything.
The language is incomprehensible

The current discussion on the German Wikipedia surfaced what I think of as a major issue. People perceive the language of the recommendations as incomprehensible. Part of the problem is the terrible translation from English to German, but even for me as someone who moved to the US more than ten years ago, large parts of the English original are simply difficult to understand. Someone on the German Wikipedia thinks this might be an attempt to trick the community into something, someone else got reminded of texts produced by the former East German government that tried to leave people in the dark about its real intentions. I strongly disagree, as I know that the people who drafted these recommendations tried their very best and I find such allegations highly unfair. I guess people are not taking into account that a good portion of the working group members aren't native English language speakers, yet had to come up with recommendations about how to solve complex issues. With that being said, the purpose of a strategy document is to provide direction and clarity. If parts of our community don't think it's even worth engaging in this process because the language of the text is incomprehensible, then something needs to be fixed. If the community doesn't understand what the recommendations mean, how is it supposed to provide feedback? Any suggestions on how to proceed? --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 11:21, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
And the sealioning... Damn!
Hi Llywrch, could I invite you to share this valuable feedback on the Evaluate, Iterate and Adapt Talk page? It would be super helpful for further refining the recommendation and making it more concrete. Thanks for taking the time to review the recommendations and engaging in these discussions, it's appreciated. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 02:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)


L O FUCKING L

God damn!
This is going to be so great!
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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by eagle » Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:36 pm

Since there is no meaningful opportunity for community input, I strongly suggest that we terminate and postpone any further discussion of the 2030 strategy until noon on December 31, 2029. That will give the WMF 12 hours for discussion and implementation, without torturing us in the meantime. (This would include terminating any further staff or WMF Board discussion as well.)

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Fri Feb 07, 2020 1:38 am

eagle wrote:
Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:36 pm
Since there is no meaningful opportunity for community input, I strongly suggest that we terminate and postpone any further discussion of the 2030 strategy until noon on December 31, 2029. That will give the WMF 12 hours for discussion and implementation, without torturing us in the meantime. (This would include terminating any further staff or WMF Board discussion as well.)
I suspect nobody here really believes this is ultimately going to amount to anything, which is understandable since none of their previous attempts to produce a "strategic plan" ever amounted to anything.

There are some amusing tidbits on the relevant talk pages, though — several of the threads amount to "you guys don't really know what you're doing," "the language you're using is completely opaque," and of course, "what do we even mean when we use terms like 'freedom of knowledge,' 'knowledge freedom,' and 'free knowledge'" (all of which apparently mean different things). I kind-of enjoyed this thread, for example, but there are several of them like that scattered throughout the 13 talk pages in question.

I guess if we really wanted to be "helpful," we could post a linked list of the 13 talk pages in the hopes that our readers will have a look at them, see just how bad the situation is, and maybe do something about it. So, because we're nothing if not helpful:

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:30 am

Another thing I noticed was this interesting (and almost incomprehensible) graphic they're using to describe and illustrate the "knowledge ecosystem" that they're working in, at least as they conceive it. It took me a few minutes to identify it, but it's actually a Euler diagram (T-H-L), showing how they see themselves relating to other organizations, companies, people, "stakeholders," and so on:

Image

I'm not saying it's a bad graphic at all; in fact, it's a fairly good graphic by their (previous?) standards, but it does vaguely remind me of the Inflatable Bubble Bump Suits they give little kids to wear in order to take out their aggressiveness against other kids in relative safety.

Image


Now, as for the actual content of the diagram, the main thing I'm struck with is that they see themselves very much as a GLAM organization, which I suspect represents quite a bit of wishful thinking on their part — i.e., they want to be part of a club that overall doesn't really want them as a member, and generally sees them as, at best, an irritant, and at worst an "existential threat."

I think I can understand why they'd want to think of themselves as a GLAM organization, at least from a strictly practical perspective, but as far as actual relationships with other organizations are concerned (given that organizations are also groups of real people), they probably belong more with "tech companies" or even traditional media entities.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Bezdomni » Fri Feb 07, 2020 9:42 am

The middle schools bubble, overlapping {no-where}, is also my personal favorite. (Get 'em hooked young.) :XD
los auberginos

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Re: Kremlinology

Unread post by Randy from Boise » Fri Feb 07, 2020 2:47 pm

Midsize Jake wrote:
Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:30 am
Another thing I noticed was this interesting (and almost incomprehensible) graphic they're using to describe and illustrate the "knowledge ecosystem" that they're working in, at least as they conceive it. It took me a few minutes to identify it, but it's actually a Euler diagram (T-H-L), showing how they see themselves relating to other organizations, companies, people, "stakeholders," and so on:

Image
Of course, this renders ideas into colorful gibberish. Let's see what can be deconstructed.

The author contends that the "Wikimedia Movement" consists of seven primary components. In declining order of graphic size, these are.

1. Readers
2. Donors
3. Editors
4. Projects
5. Volunteer Developers
6. The WMF
7. A vast network of tiny Affiliates

Donors are, it seems to me, a double-count of readers — unless this refers to large, institutional donors, in which case the size of the image on the graphic does not reflect the actual (small) size or (tiny) impact of the group.

Similarly "projects" should rightfully be a subset of editors, as should the vast network of (money sucking) affiliates — better understood as "Wikipedia Clubs."

The interesting thing to me is the place forecast for "Volunteer Developers," which have been previously disregarded if not outright rejected by the (barely competent on a whole) paid engineers of WMF.

Does this signal a potential change of course?

============

The primary interest groups outside of the movement as seen as follows:

1. The "Free Knowledge World," consisting of advocates of open source, open data, and open education
2. So-called "Knowledge Stewards," including Galleries, Museums, and Libraries; Universities; academic journals; digital media; Government actors; and secondary schools (there is a notation for "middle schools" but nothing for "high schools," which seems erroneous)
3. Human Rights Organizations, including the EFF and other digital rights groups
4. Tech companies, including an itty bitty circle for little ol' Google and other search engines and retail sellers, social networks, and mobile carriers
5. Philanthropic actors, explicitly naming the Sloan Foundation and the Craig Newmark Foundation
6. Social Development organizations, meaning essentially United Nations-related groups
7. and way off to the side, the creative community with "Philosophers" comically depicted as more impactful than Artists, Writers, and "Makers."

============

Inside the Tech bubble are the following named companies:

Mobile Carriers: Telenor, Digicel, and Airtel
Social Networks: WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat
Search and Retail: Facebook, Google, Amazon, YouTube
Tech Companies: Microsoft, Apple

============

Does this mean anything at all? Maybe just a demonstration of priorities. I thought the Mobile Carrier list was particularly weird and potentially meaningful.

RfB

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Poetlister » Fri Feb 07, 2020 4:36 pm

Midsize Jake wrote:
Fri Feb 07, 2020 1:38 am
I suspect nobody here really believes this is ultimately going to amount to anything, which is understandable since none of their previous attempts to produce a "strategic plan" ever amounted to anything.
Surely it's trivial to produce a good strategic plan. You just post RfCs on EN-WP, Commons, Meta and a few other places, and let crowdsourcing do the work. After all, you can build a great encyclopaedia like that, so a strategy should be a doddle by comparison.
"The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly" - Nietzsche

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Re: Kremlinology

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Fri Feb 07, 2020 8:55 pm

Randy from Boise wrote:
Fri Feb 07, 2020 2:47 pm
...and secondary schools (there is a notation for "middle schools" but nothing for "high schools," which seems erroneous)
Middle schools are roughly the US equivalent of grades 6-8, right? So that would be in keeping with standard mind-cult thinking, as in, "gotta get them while they're young" and before they start to pick up critical-thinking skills.

Still, they need a presence in the grade 9-12 "space" too, if only to continue supporting the recruits they've picked up during the Middle School phase. So in that sense it is a little odd, I suppose.

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Re: The WMF spirals into incomprehensibility

Unread post by Vigilant » Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:02 am

Hello, John. John, hello. You're the one soul I would come up here to collect myself.

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