2024 talk:Program/Let’s disagree together! Exploring a controversial topic

Shortlisted topics

In order to get a feeling of what are the hot topics, I had a poll on a shortlist of five topics (with two opposing hypothetical points of view in each). For documentation, I'm listing them here with the result, ranked by interest:

1. Community vs organizations (58% interest)
   • The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia affiliates are parasites that live off the work of the community
   • People in affiliates are part of the community like online volunteers, and the Wikimedia Foundation provides the essential infrastructure for the Wikimedia projects. They are as critical to the Wikimedia vision as online volunteers.
2. The money we raise (42% interest)
   • We should raise more funds, because there are a lot of things to do (software development, new projects, support to community) and too little money
   • We already have too much money, and we should scale fundraising down
3. Structures of power (37% interest)
   • Wikis works with “diffuse power”: e.g. communities where who is responsible for what is messy and ambiguous. This is how we are and every structure in the movement, including the Wikimedia Foundation, should work like this.
   • Communities are too messy. To further the Wikimedia missions, we need organisations with a clear decision-making structure and responsibilities.
4. Our role in describing the world (37% interest)
   • Our job, on wiki projects, is describing the world as it is, including all its biases.
   • Wiki projects are a great opportunity for reshaping the narrative of our world, and we should take it.
5. Activism and Wikimedia projects (32% interest)
   • As one of the most visited websites of the world it is our responsibility to inform people on, and promote, important topics like Human Rights, sustainable development goals, or enforcing the right to self-define your gender identity.
   • Neutrality is an important pillar for all Wikimedia projects. We follow published and peer-reviewed sources, and must not engage in activism or take sides.

The numbers are based on 19 responses. The final choice was the "Community vs organizations" topic. - Laurentius (talk) 12:23, 4 July 2025 (UTC)