Blog Entry

Today, The New York Times wrote about our work with the Wikimedia Foundation.

Noam Cohen speaks at Wikimania 2009. Photograph by Beatrice Murch.

Noam Cohen, who wrote the article, is someone who deeply understands the Wikimedia movement. (He has more edits on Wikipedia than I do.) In past articles about Wikipedia, he’s ably and concisely captured the different nuances, which is not easy.

I’m not sure he had the opportunity to do that this time. It’s a short article, and the point he’s making is somewhat subtle. Or maybe I’d just like to think that, since I’m featured in the piece. Regardless, I’d like to at least expand on my part of the story. At best, I’ll be able to clarify some points (or at least give my opinion about them). At worst, I’ll tell some entertaining stories about how I ended up in the article.

Last week was Wikimania, which is the annual gathering of Wikimedians from all over the world. This year’s conference was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As anyone who has ever traveled for work knows, unless you are planning to take some time off, you don’t generally have time for sight-seeing. I knew that this trip was going to be particularly tight, as it was going to be our first opportunity to discuss the Wikimedia strategic planning process in person with the wider community.

Given these constraints, I decided to focus on two non-work items: Eating Argentinian beef, and seeing the Madres de Plaza de Mayo march. One of my best friends, Sarah, has studied and worked with the Madres for practically her entire adult life, and I wanted to pay my respects to their moving cause while I was there.

So last Thursday morning, when Noam first approached me about the strategic planning process and asked me if I would set aside some time to talk to him, I responded, “Do you want to go see the Madres this afternoon?”

He gamely agreed. That afternoon, he, I, and Philippe Beaudette, the strategic planning process’s brilliant facilitator, set out to the Plaza de Mayo. Along the way, we had a long, engaging conversation about our backgrounds, about the strategic planning process, and about Wikimedia in general.

Noam turned out to be a well-meaning provocateur. He asked hard-hitting questions, some of which seemed to be out of left field, but he was also fair. I really enjoyed chatting with him (which made me nervous; I’m not sure if that’s a good thing when talking to a journalist), and we ended up talking long after our walk.

The Mothers of the Disappeared march at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. Photograph by Eugene Eric Kim.

Noam opens his article with an off-the-cuff remark I made while watching the Madres. I was a bit put off by the tourist spectacle at the Plaza de Mayo, even more so because I was actively participating in it. I also learned something about the Madres I didn’t know before. In the mid-1980s, they had split into two factions. A small faction had decided to work actively with the government (and accept a monetary settlement) to bring attention to its cause. The remaining Madres had decided never to accept any help from the government until it fully admitted its wrongdoing.

It was clear to all bystanders that these two factions were not friendly with each other. When we learned the reason for this, we all nodded our heads in understanding. “Money changes everything,” I said to Noam.

And therein lies the point of Noam’s article. “Professionalization” means that, among other things, money is involved. And money is often a signal that things are about to change.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In this case, it’s a necessary thing. The Wikimedia projects have long surpassed what is possible without significant resources. Technical infrastructure is the most obvious need, and many would argue that there are many others. The question is what, and how much? The project is lucky to have a large, grassroots community of individual donors and a growing base of foundation donors. Does the supply meet the demand? Or, could supply even be surpassing demand?

Blue Oxen Associates principal, Eugene Eric Kim, at Wikimania 2009. Photograph by Beatrice Murch.

This is a critical question for the strategic planning process, but while we explore it, we’re also living it. The reality is that the Wikimedia Foundation and its network of chapters already exist, that these organizations all have a budget, and that our work is currently part of that budget.

That brings me to my rather cryptic quote at the end of Noam’s article: “It is important to me that my participation have a beginning and an end.”

I don’t want to assume that where Wikimedia currently is at is where it necessarily wants to be. We’re in the midst of a great experiment. We will deliver what is expected of us, but we are going to make mistakes along the way. The question in my mind is not so much how well we do this time around, but how well the community learns from this process and what it does with that learning afterward.

Bureaucracies form to help movements scale, but the nature of bureaucracy is to seek self-sustenance, which sometimes comes at the expense of the original mission. As one of the “professionals” involved in this whole endeavour, I don’t want to be a part of that. The key to avoiding this trap is to stay self-aware, to constantly ask ourselves the kinds of questions that Noam asks in his article.

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