[diversity-talk] wikipedia parallels

[Serge Wroclawski]

The difference between the Wikimedia Foundation and OSM is quite large.

Wikipedia is a large organization, with millions of dollars and paid
employees. It sets the direction it goes in from the top down, via
funding.

OSMF has decided to stay small over the years. It has made that
position clear through years of not voting for candidates which have
talked about the issue of money or paid employees, until this year.
Such candidates include Kate, and myself. Both of who have run for the
OSMF, and both of which have lost in the past, on this platform.

Despite Kate getting into the OSMF (and maybe being able to change
this), it would be a major sea change for the OSMF to radically change
positions regarding something as fundamental as paid employees, and
probably would require a new amendment to the Articles of Association-
which as you saw this year, is not easy to get through.

The problem with the Strategic Working Group, and the now, "Future
Working Group" is that they tend to be proscriptive. "We should be",
which is actually "You should be"- and no one likes to be told what to
do with their spare time.

Instead, when possible, the energy one might otherwise expend trying
to change everyone's opinion about how they should spend their free
time would be better spent doing the work that needs doing, and then
getting people to agree to it afterwards.

I didn't always hold this view- I still don't think it's optimal for
all things, but after years of tilting at windmills, I've learned to
become more practical in expectations of how the OSMF operates.


- Serge