<CPOV> wikimedia-l weirdness

[Johanna Niesyto]

yes and no, geert. it is also harder now than 2009 as wikipedia meta-sites
grow. 2/3 of wikipedia (de wikipedia?) are meta sites and i guess people
get tired in meta work or at least not attracted to wikipedia. who likes
bureaucracy?

there were projects like the teahouse and so on - but sadly they could'nt
change wp overall cultures. still, there new ideas and initiatives - here i
cologne just opened the first regional community space. i cross my fingers
that this will help not only foster the well established community but also
to interact with the outside. neverthless i find it hard to see how the
de-community reacted somewhat harshly on ideas leonhard brought up (see
comments
https://netzpolitik.org/2014/kommentar-wie-die-kluft-zwischen-wikipedia-und-wikimedia-zum-autorenschwund-beitraegt/).
he came up with the idea of paid community managers in order to reduce
the gap between wm and wp. it's just an idea that can be developed, also
against the backdrop of wp-bureaucracy that is needed and also against the
backdrop of links between wm and wp. these users might be voted by
community, might be part of the community, might be....

wp is getting instutionalized: while the number of wp-users scales down,
the number of de-chapter-members increases: 2004 they had only about 60
members ("vereinsmitglieder"), 2011 1.250 member and 2013 10.100 members
(see p. 26 https://www.wikimedia.de/images/a/a0/Wmde_jb_2013_RZ_web.pdf).
in order to preserve the public domains on the net we need these (symbolic)
actors that also speak politically resp. express the political idea of
wikipedia.

the gap between wp and wm is another central problem in my mind - not only
in terms of wp-governance as mentioned above but also in terms of open
culture politics. the german chapter is very much in favor of interacting
with cultural institution, civil society and last but not least lobbying
political institutions. however they face the challenge to activate their
members to join their political activities.

to me this is not only about public affairs and the 'big' politics - there
are minimal politics (marchart) which have to be made visible. and
honestly, it doesn't help to hide politics and to put the social in the
foreground as jimmy wales does (see interview
http://transnationalspaces.net/2013/03/27/interview-with-jimmy-wales/).
let's see it as a chance that  at least the german chapter emphaszises the
political dimension.


On 29 May 2014 15:26, Geert Lovink <geert at xs4all.nl> wrote:

> Sad and predicable or not, I hope the overall attitude towards initatives
> such as CPOV will change. Maybe CPOV itself has died but the critical
> engagement of people towards Wikipedia hasn't changed, I noticed over the
> years. The harsh way beginners are scared off by a small insider's group of
> White male engineers remains the core 'cultural' issue. Jimmy Wales has
> cultivated and reproduced that small circle and the old guard is now part
> of the problem called 'Wikipedia governance', despite numerous efforts to
> change that very culture, from inside, and outside (such as the CPOV
> network). Correct analysis? Geert
>
>
> On 29 May 2014, at 3:03 PM, Joseph Reagle <joseph at reagle.org> wrote:
>
> > On 05/29/2014 06:43 AM, nathaniel tkacz wrote:
> >> it's sad and predictable.
> >
> > How can anything so weird be thought predictable? (Unless you are taking
> > Theresa Preston-Werner's meddling at GitHub as the new normal?)
> >
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-- 
johanna niesyto | venloer str. 227-231 | 50823 koeln
tel.: 0049 (0)221  453 963 22 | mobil: 0049 (0)178  4154386
twitter: @elkeschmidt | blog: transnationalspaces.net
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