date:20120201

On 1 February 2012 03:43, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote:
 * Will the names of the candidates be published for the entire Wikimedia
 community to see?  *


 The real names, obviously not. The usernames may be published - IF the
 candidate has no problem with that.

Last time, the chapters decided to keep the process very confidential
in order to allow free and frank discussion of the candidates. It was
felt that it would be good to have confidential discussions, in
contrast to the public ones that are associated with the community
elected seats, because that might attract different candidates than
would stand for the community elected seats (ie. candidates that don't
want lots of discussion about every good and bad quality they have
happening in public - the selection process can involve a much greater
intrusion on privacy than actually serving on the board does).

Was it a conscious decision by the chapters to change that approach? I
was under the impression that you had decided to stick with the same
process we used last time.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?

On 1 February 2012 11:59, Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com wrote:
 Really strange because the title of president and that of
 vice-president belong to the board.

The title President is sometimes used by the chair of the board, but
Vice President is usually an executive, non-board, position. Large
banks, for instance, often have hundreds of VPs - it's a
middle-manager rank.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?

2012-02-01 Thread Thierry Coudray

I have the same problem when I've translated Erik mail about the new
Android app for WMFr members list.  Because in France, a Vice President is
member of board in most of foundations or charities, and almost always it's
a volunteer position.

So to avoid confusion, I have translated as Directeur exécutif adjoint, en
charge de l'ingénierie et du développement des nouveaux produits,  means
Deputy Executive Director in charge of engineering and new products
development

Thierry


2012/2/1 Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com

 Really strange because the title of president and that of
 vice-president belong to the board.

 Do you know that the board should not have any conflict of interests
 and should do the benefit of the overall foundation?

 If the titles of President or Vice-President is in charge of an
 executive person, there is a conflict of interests.

 Ilario

 On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:20 AM, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:
  That's kind of an American thing I think.  Many organizations here have
 Vice Presidents, but instead of having a President have someone with the
 title CEO or Executive Director instead.
 
 

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-- 
Thierry Coudray
Administrateur - Trésorier
Wikimédia France http://www.wikimedia.fr/
Mob. 06.82.85.84.40
http://blog.wikimedia.fr/
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Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?

2012-02-01 Thread Ilario Valdelli

I am speaking about a company environment.

In my company (Swiss based) the CEO has dismissed his role and now
it's VP because he is in the board.

This role has the aim to moderate the board's meeting when the
President is not present or to sign contracts instead of the
President.

Ilario

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 1 February 2012 11:59, Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com wrote:
 Really strange because the title of president and that of
 vice-president belong to the board.

 The title President is sometimes used by the chair of the board, but
 Vice President is usually an executive, non-board, position. Large
 banks, for instance, often have hundreds of VPs - it's a
 middle-manager rank.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

I'm interested in answers to the procedural questions, too.

It's seems like a quixotic process, as laid out on the meta page. The board
members are to be selected by completely unstructured discussion, with
consensus judged by the moderators. The process even seems to allow for the
discussion to reach its conclusion in person, with no permanent records, at
the Chapters Meeting. If the discussion reaches no consensus, or the
consensus determination of the moderators is challenged, a vote will be
held - in public, on a wiki page.

Other than confidentiality, no guidance is provided to the chapters on how
to select their preferred candidate - nor on which chapter representatives
can participate in the discussion on the chapters-wiki. If any chapter
member can participate, doesn't that unduly advantage native English
speakers and their chapters? If only some, how are they to be selected?

Additionally, Beria Lima says that chapters-wiki is mirrored on meta - but
the process page[1] refers to chapters-wiki as confidential, and says that
discussion of candidates' real names should be restricted to that wiki so
that only members can see it.

This whole thing seems pretty ad hoc and amateurish for an organization
that is trying to be more robust and modern about its practices. Is there a
background check? Is there some threshold for participation beneath which
the current Board might refuse to certify the results? Are we really sure
that the chapters represent enough Wikimedians to merit two seats on the
Board selected in such an opaque manner?

[1]: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats
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[Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Fred Bauder

Elsevier is emblematic of an abusive publishing industry. The
government pays me and other scientists to produce work, and we give it
away to private entities, says Brett S. Abrahams, an assistant professor
of genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Then they charge
us to read it. Mr. Abrahams signed the pledge on Tuesday after reading
about it on Facebook.

http://chronicle.com/article/As-Journal-Boycott-Grows/130600/

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works Act
(HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes of
Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
available.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:

Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy, program, or
other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective
author, or the author's employer, assent to such network dissemination.

Defines private-sector research work as an article intended to be
published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government, describing or
interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency and
to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into
an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review
or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding
agency in the course of research.

Fred


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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Fred Bauder

Another article:

http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-See-Published/130403/

 Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works Act
 (HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes of
 Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
 available.

 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:

 Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
 maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy, program, or
 other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
 dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
 consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective
 author, or the author's employer, assent to such network dissemination.

 Defines private-sector research work as an article intended to be
 published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
 such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government, describing or
 interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency and
 to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into
 an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review
 or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
 routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding
 agency in the course of research.

 Fred


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Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?

Not surprisingly, the executive and board positions of the WMF follow U.S.
convention. It's not super typical to mix the executive director
nomenclature with president / vice president, but its common to have vice
presidents reporting to a chief executive (who will often take the title of
President  CEO.).

As for conflicting names with Board titles... In the U.S., its far more
common for boards to have a Chairman (or Chairwoman) and a Vice-Chair, than
president or vice-president (which connote operating roles).

Personally, it would be easier for me to understand the org chart of the
WMF if they picked a particular nomenclature and stuck with it. For years
they've been mixing systems - CTO and executive director, vice president
and a proliferation of Heads of this and that (a highly uncommon
executive title in the U.S., as far as I can tell), directors of some
things and chiefs of other things... It's a bit strange.

On a side-note, it's interesting to see that Erik has been moved out of the
executive section of the staff list and into engineering.[1]

[1]
http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Staff_and_contractorsdiff=nextoldid=78885
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

Hello, I will (try to) answer everyone - so I will send several mails in a
row... please stick with me during the process.

*Excellent; I am pleased to see that the chapters are becoming more
 transparent in this respect.  However, if the plan is to mirror the
 discussion on Meta, why not just have it there in the first place?*


Because not all the discussion will be in meta. Some parts are confidential
and will not be disclose in Meta. I know you people might start scream:
CABAL! but that is a chapters decision, not a community one. We do need
to give them a safe space to work and get a consensus. And some people
might feel better asking some questions in a private wiki.

*I assume that all candidates must identify with the WMF before their
 candidacy is accepted, is that correct?
 *


According with the meta page (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Process)
:

*All candidate statements will have to supply the following information: *

   1. *The name of the nominee*
   2. *The name of the nominating chapter (if applicable)*
   3. *A statement from the chapter in support of the nominee (if
   applicable)*
   4. *A statement from the nominee in support of themselves, accompanied
   by a short CV and confirming they are willing and eligible to take a seat
   on the WMF board. Any candidates with Chapters wiki accounts will have
   those accounts disabled for the duration of the selection process.*

So, no, they don't need to send their document to Phillipe.

* As well, will candidates who are chapter executive members be required to
 take a leave of absence or to resign from their executive position during
 their Board candidacy?
 *


Another question already answered in a document, this time in the
Resolution (
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Bylaws_amendments_and_board_structure):


*Chapter-selected Trustees must resign from any chapter-board, governance,
chapter-paid, or Foundation-paid position for the duration of their terms
as Trustees, but may continue to serve chapters in informal or advisory
capacities.*

*One more question, this time about who will actually be doing the voting.
  Can you clarify exactly who will be voting in this selection process? Will
 it be one representative for each of the 38 chapters, or will more than one
 representative be participating?*


Who will vote? Everyone here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Chapters

Each chapter has a vote, and how they decide their candidates is up to
them. Some held a internal vote, some decide in General Assembly, some have
an internal discussion in ML... you would need to ask each one of the 38 to
know the exact process.
_
*Béria Lima*
http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 03:49, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks for your prompt responses, Beria.  I have a few follow-ups.

 On 31 January 2012 22:43, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote:

  Hi Risker. let's go by question.
 
  *Why is the discussion happening on chapterswiki, instead of in an open
   place where all Wikimedians can at least read the discussion?
   *
 
 
  Everthing that is in Chapters wiki is replicated in meta. All the links
 in
  the Call for Candidates (CfC) are from meta. Everyone can read the
  discussion. So far the only discussion in chapters wiki was the election
  for moderators, and the review of the CfC wording. We are not trying to
  exclude the community - by the contrary - we would be glad to have the
  community involved in the process, not only with questions, but also as
  candidates.
 

 Excellent; I am pleased to see that the chapters are becoming more
 transparent in this respect.  However, if the plan is to mirror the
 discussion on Meta, why not just have it there in the first place?



  *
  *
  
   * Will the names of the candidates be published for the entire
 Wikimedia
   community to see?  *
 
 
  The real names, obviously not. The usernames may be published - IF the
  candidate has no problem with that.
 


 I'm sorry, I have a problem with that.  All other candidates for Board
 seats must publicly disclose their real name in their candidate
 presentation (because the identities of Board members are a matter of
 public record, it is not possible to hold a position on the Board of
 Trustees anonymously or under a pseudonym).

 I assume that all candidates must identify with the WMF before their
 candidacy is accepted, is that correct?

 As well, will candidates who are chapter executive members be required to
 take a leave of absence or to resign from their executive position during
 their Board candidacy?


 
 
   *Will opinions from non-chapter members (who make up 97% of
 Wikimedians)
   be considered?*
  
 
  With questions and suggestions, of course will. But

Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On Feb 1, 2012, at 4:12 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

 Last time, the chapters decided to keep the process very confidential
 in order to allow free and frank discussion of the candidates. It was
 felt that it would be good to have confidential discussions, in
 contrast to the public ones that are associated with the community
 elected seats, because that might attract different candidates than
 would stand for the community elected seats (ie. candidates that don't
 want lots of discussion about every good and bad quality they have
 happening in public - the selection process can involve a much greater
 intrusion on privacy than actually serving on the board does).

FWIW, as I think back to Board conversations in 2008 (it was my first meeting), 
Thomas's comments are quite close to Board's rationale in creating the chapter 
seats in 2008.

The hope was to attract/identify Board candidates who could add a lot of value 
to the movement but who, for one reason or another, would NOT typically be 
candidates in election.  That might be because they aren't well-known in the 
editing community that decides elections.  Or as Thomas mentions that they 
wouldn't be interested in going through the sometimes grueling election process.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees


 *Was it a conscious decision by the chapters to change that approach? I
 was under the impression that you had decided to stick with the same
 process we used last time.*


We didn't change the process, Thomas. Last time the Call for Candidates was
also public and in meta, and the timeline and process. All the voting (if
we get to that) will be held in chapters wiki (wich is private) and not in
meta.
_
*Béria Lima*
http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 10:12, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 1 February 2012 03:43, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote:
  * Will the names of the candidates be published for the entire Wikimedia
  community to see?  *
 
 
  The real names, obviously not. The usernames may be published - IF the
  candidate has no problem with that.

 Last time, the chapters decided to keep the process very confidential
 in order to allow free and frank discussion of the candidates. It was
 felt that it would be good to have confidential discussions, in
 contrast to the public ones that are associated with the community
 elected seats, because that might attract different candidates than
 would stand for the community elected seats (ie. candidates that don't
 want lots of discussion about every good and bad quality they have
 happening in public - the selection process can involve a much greater
 intrusion on privacy than actually serving on the board does).

 Was it a conscious decision by the chapters to change that approach? I
 was under the impression that you had decided to stick with the same
 process we used last time.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees


 *The board members are to be selected by completely unstructured
 discussion, with consensus judged by the moderators. The process even seems
 to allow for the discussion to reach its conclusion in person, with no
 permanent records, at the Chapters Meeting. If the discussion reaches no
 consensus, or the consensus determination of the moderators is challenged,
 a vote will be held - in public, on a wiki page.
 *


Before all - as I said before -  the vote will be held in a *private* wiki,
not a public one.

Yes, we do allow people to reach consensus first. Vote is only the last
resource. Why? Because that is how we do things in Wikimedia Projects. In a
community seat might be impossible, but in this case are only 38 opinions
(remember that aren't people we are discussing here, but chapters) and I do
believe that we can reach a consensus.

*Other than confidentiality, no guidance is provided to the chapters on how
 to select their preferred candidate - nor on which chapter representatives
 can participate in the discussion on the chapters-wiki. If any chapter
 member can participate, doesn't that unduly advantage native English
 speakers and their chapters? If only some, how are they to be selected?*


Any chapter person can participate in the discussion held in chapters wiki.
How the chapters select who (or how many people) will speak for them -
again - is up to them. I know that might sound scary to process-lovers
but is how we work on this.

*Is there some threshold for participation beneath which the current Board
 might refuse to certify the results? *


I do really LOVE when you people ask questions that has already been
answered by a document, but let's quote again (again from
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Bylaws_amendments_and_board_structure):


* Chapter-selected members must meet the requirements of applicable state
or federal law for Board membership. In the event that a candidate is
selected who does not meet the requirements of Subsection (A) or other
requirements of these Bylaws, or of applicable state or federal law, the
Board will (i) not approve the selected candidate, (ii) declare a vacancy
on the Board, and (iii) request that the chapters select a new Trustee to
fill the resulting vacancy, subject to this section and to Section 6 below.*



 *Are we really sure that the chapters represent enough Wikimedians to
 merit two seats on the Board selected in such an opaque manner?*


We are representing *Chapters* here, not the community (always good to
remember) and yes, there is enough people in chapters to make that a
representative election.
_
*Béria Lima*
 http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 12:14, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm interested in answers to the procedural questions, too.

 It's seems like a quixotic process, as laid out on the meta page. The board
 members are to be selected by completely unstructured discussion, with
 consensus judged by the moderators. The process even seems to allow for the
 discussion to reach its conclusion in person, with no permanent records, at
 the Chapters Meeting. If the discussion reaches no consensus, or the
 consensus determination of the moderators is challenged, a vote will be
 held - in public, on a wiki page.

 Other than confidentiality, no guidance is provided to the chapters on how
 to select their preferred candidate - nor on which chapter representatives
 can participate in the discussion on the chapters-wiki. If any chapter
 member can participate, doesn't that unduly advantage native English
 speakers and their chapters? If only some, how are they to be selected?

 Additionally, Beria Lima says that chapters-wiki is mirrored on meta - but
 the process page[1] refers to chapters-wiki as confidential, and says that
 discussion of candidates' real names should be restricted to that wiki so
 that only members can see it.

 This whole thing seems pretty ad hoc and amateurish for an organization
 that is trying to be more robust and modern about its practices. Is there a
 background check? Is there some threshold for participation beneath which
 the current Board might refuse to certify the results? Are we really sure
 that the chapters represent enough Wikimedians to merit two seats on the
 Board selected in such an opaque manner?

 [1]: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

Like I said Stuart, we didn't changed the process.
_
*Béria Lima*
http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 13:23, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Feb 1, 2012, at 4:12 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

  Last time, the chapters decided to keep the process very confidential
  in order to allow free and frank discussion of the candidates. It was
  felt that it would be good to have confidential discussions, in
  contrast to the public ones that are associated with the community
  elected seats, because that might attract different candidates than
  would stand for the community elected seats (ie. candidates that don't
  want lots of discussion about every good and bad quality they have
  happening in public - the selection process can involve a much greater
  intrusion on privacy than actually serving on the board does).

 FWIW, as I think back to Board conversations in 2008 (it was my first
 meeting), Thomas's comments are quite close to Board's rationale in
 creating the chapter seats in 2008.

 The hope was to attract/identify Board candidates who could add a lot of
 value to the movement but who, for one reason or another, would NOT
 typically be candidates in election.  That might be because they aren't
 well-known in the editing community that decides elections.  Or as Thomas
 mentions that they wouldn't be interested in going through the sometimes
 grueling election process.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote:


 *Is there some threshold for participation beneath which the current Board
  might refuse to certify the results? *




 I do really LOVE when you people ask questions that has already been
 answered by a document, but let's quote again (again from

 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Bylaws_amendments_and_board_structure
 ):


 * Chapter-selected members must meet the requirements of applicable state
 or federal law for Board membership. In the event that a candidate is
 selected who does not meet the requirements of Subsection (A) or other
 requirements of these Bylaws, or of applicable state or federal law, the
 Board will (i) not approve the selected candidate, (ii) declare a vacancy
 on the Board, and (iii) request that the chapters select a new Trustee to
 fill the resulting vacancy, subject to this section and to Section 6
 below.*



I appreciate your always helpful tone. In this case, I didn't ask what
would happen if someone not legally qualified to be a Board member was
selected by the chapters. I asked a different question, linked a prior one
- if not all chapters participate, or if the discussion is dominated by a
few chapters, or if by some measure the Board determines that the selection
forwarded by the moderators does not sufficiently represent the Chapters,
is there any thought to refusing to certify under these circumstances?




  *Are we really sure that the chapters represent enough Wikimedians to
  merit two seats on the Board selected in such an opaque manner?*
 

 We are representing *Chapters* here, not the community (always good to
 remember) and yes, there is enough people in chapters to make that a
 representative election.


Board members, however they are selected, represent the Wikimedia
Foundation and the whole community or movement. My question is - if the
38 chapters represent only a small portion of the whole of Wikimedia, and
their selections are being made in such a way (and concerns ridiculed, by
the way, as the product of process-lovers), is it really appropriate for
Chapters to continue to have a role in filling Board seats? This isn't
really a process question, per se, so I understand if you (Beria) decline
to weigh in directly.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

Nathan, Is REALLY frustrating when you spend days making a text with a lot
of links to relevant documents and people simply ignore and ask you again
the same thing that is already there. I have enough things to do, answer
things that has already a document to answer isn't one of them.

But let answer you again:

*if not all chapters participate, or if the discussion is dominated by a
 few chapters, or if by some measure the Board determines that the selection
 forwarded by the moderators does not sufficiently represent the Chapters,
 is there any thought to refusing to certify under these circumstances?
 *


If only a handful of chapters participate in the discussion, there is no
consensus among chapters and therefore we will have a vote.If not enough
chapters vote in the determined time, we will prorogue the vote until they
do... and only them we will tell the Board we have a result. We all know
how to identify a consensus, don't worry.

*Board members, however they are selected, represent the Wikimedia
 Foundation and the whole community or movement. My question is - if the
 38 chapters represent only a small portion of the whole of Wikimedia...
 *


I'm sorry but last Chapters Seat Election had more participants than the
Community seats election... if you want to compare, we should get rid of
Community election seats, not the chapters one.

*Is it really appropriate for Chapters to continue to have a role in
 filling Board seats? This isn't really a process question, per se, so I
 understand if you (Beria) decline to weigh in directly.
 *


Change WMF bylaws and the way they select Board members, and you can get
rid of Chapters seats.
_
*Béria Lima*
http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 13:47, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote:

 
  *Is there some threshold for participation beneath which the current
 Board
   might refuse to certify the results? *
 



  I do really LOVE when you people ask questions that has already been
  answered by a document, but let's quote again (again from
 
 
 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Bylaws_amendments_and_board_structure
  ):
 
 
  * Chapter-selected members must meet the requirements of applicable state
  or federal law for Board membership. In the event that a candidate is
  selected who does not meet the requirements of Subsection (A) or other
  requirements of these Bylaws, or of applicable state or federal law, the
  Board will (i) not approve the selected candidate, (ii) declare a vacancy
  on the Board, and (iii) request that the chapters select a new Trustee to
  fill the resulting vacancy, subject to this section and to Section 6
  below.*
 
 
 
 I appreciate your always helpful tone. In this case, I didn't ask what
 would happen if someone not legally qualified to be a Board member was
 selected by the chapters. I asked a different question, linked a prior one
 - if not all chapters participate, or if the discussion is dominated by a
 few chapters, or if by some measure the Board determines that the selection
 forwarded by the moderators does not sufficiently represent the Chapters,
 is there any thought to refusing to certify under these circumstances?



 
   *Are we really sure that the chapters represent enough Wikimedians to
   merit two seats on the Board selected in such an opaque manner?*
  
 
  We are representing *Chapters* here, not the community (always good to
  remember) and yes, there is enough people in chapters to make that a
  representative election.
 

 Board members, however they are selected, represent the Wikimedia
 Foundation and the whole community or movement. My question is - if the
 38 chapters represent only a small portion of the whole of Wikimedia, and
 their selections are being made in such a way (and concerns ridiculed, by
 the way, as the product of process-lovers), is it really appropriate for
 Chapters to continue to have a role in filling Board seats? This isn't
 really a process question, per se, so I understand if you (Beria) decline
 to weigh in directly.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On Feb 1, 2012, at 7:47 AM, Nathan wrote:

 My question is - if the 38 chapters represent only a small portion of the 
 whole of Wikimedia...is it really appropriate for Chapters to continue to 
 have a role in filling Board seats?

I think this is a valuable discussion to have, and it ties in neatly to the 
movement roles discussions about recognition of other associations/entities in 
our movement.  I shared some thoughts on my blog a month ago and asked for 
comments:

http://wikistu.org/2012/01/rfc-geography-and-wikimedia/
(text reproduced below)

We will be discussing this at length in our board meeting starting this Friday. 
 I'd really appreciate some comments on this issue, preferably on the blog 
because of improved threading in comments. 

-s


 RfC: Geography and Wikimedia
 Posted on January 4, 2012
 
 Ahead of our scheduled WMF Board meeting in early February, I’ve been 
 thinking through a really hard and thorny movement-wide issue. Last time I 
 was dealing with a similarly hard issue, I put some rough notes/questions up 
 here and asked for your thoughts and help thinking through the issue. I’d 
 like to try another Request for Comments with a related but bigger issue.
 
 Let me set this up as a thought experiment. Imagine that we can all go back 
 to the beginning of our movement. Imagine that we have a clean slate and can 
 start fresh. But also imagine that we have the benefit of the past 10 years 
 of experience, and with it all the lessons we’ve learned about ourselves and 
 our strengths and weaknesses as a community.
 
 Let’s say our objective is to define the basic structure of a movement that 
 will most effectively help our community pursue our vision over the next 100, 
 200 or even 500 years. Long-term impact is the primary objective.
 
 If we could start over, how would we organize our movement?  In particular 
 I’d love input on three questions:
 
   • Are current political/legal boundaries the best primary organization 
 model for our movement? Or instead would we choose to build things a 
 different way, say around each of our projects, or languages, or some of the 
 passions among our community (e.g. a GLAM Chapter), or other special 
 interests and topics (e.g. arbcom, comcom, translate-l)?
   • Should we give special rights to certain kinds of movement entities 
 (e.g. special rights to pick board seats outside of elections, exclusive 
 access to things like the trademarks, preferred access to donor funds)?
   • Are legal entities worth the effort on a large scale? Our current 
 chapters model is leading us to having a hundred or more legal entities 
 globally. Is this worth all the overhead involved? Or would informal 
 associations and affiliations be fine in many cases?
 Below are some notes that I’ve kept as I try to think through the issue. They 
 aren’t intended to be comprehensive. Feel free to review or ignore as you 
 think through and respond to the above questions.
 
 Thanks.
 
 -s
 
 Background notes
 
 The different kinds of affiliation in our movement:
 – Many editors/contributors have no organizational association. They work on 
 their own, editing articles and making contributions without a great deal of 
 interaction with others in the community.
 – We have many loose, informal affiliations. Talk pages provide a place for 
 editors with a shared interest in a particular article. WikiProjects bring 
 together editors into cross-article collaboration. Village pumps provide 
 another project-based way to build community. Other affiliations include 
 interest groups such as GLAM, projects like Wiki Loves Monuments, and the 
 many groups of volunteers brought together by mailing lists like comcom and 
 translate-l.
 – We have a global Wikimedia Foundation entrusted with the trademarks and 
 with the responsibility to operate the websites and technical/legal 
 infrastructure behind the projects.
 – Finally, we have country-based chapters which receive significant special 
 rights.
 
 We started with geographic chapters in 2003. The model has developed so that 
 these geographic organizations now receive rights unique in our movement 
 including a) exclusive geographic right to use the trademark, b) preferred 
 access to donor funds from the annual fundraiser, and c) the right to appoint 
 two of the ten Trustees on the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
 
 We’ve had one chapter grow into a large organization (Wikimedia Deutschland), 
 and few others hire small numbers of professional staff, and others in 
 varying degrees of development. A number of chapters appear to be defunct, 
 with minimal or no programmatic activity.
 
 There has never been a clear definition of success for a geographic chapter. 
 I ask most chapter members and chapter leaders I meet what their 
 organizational objectives are and I get widely varying answers. Few say they 
 have a role representing or serving the editing community. So it’s not a 
 surprise that when I ask

Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Andrea Zanni

I don't know if it's the case,
but it would be very interesting to have the Foundation
support officialy the campaign (single scholars can do decide to boycott,
of course).
But universal access to universal knowledge is pretty Open Access to me,
and this think is taking momentum,
hopefully will be effective.

Aubrey

2012/2/1 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net

 Another article:

 http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-See-Published/130403/

  Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works Act
  (HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes of
  Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
  available.
 
  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:
 
  Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
  maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy, program, or
  other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
  dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
  consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective
  author, or the author's employer, assent to such network dissemination.
 
  Defines private-sector research work as an article intended to be
  published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
  such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government, describing or
  interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency and
  to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into
  an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review
  or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
  routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding
  agency in the course of research.
 
  Fred
 
 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Chess Pie

Looks like a braindead law.
Does the foundation have a specific position on OpenAccess?

- Original Message -
From: Andrea Zanni zanni.andre...@gmail.com
To: fredb...@fairpoint.net; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Cc: 
Sent: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

I don't know if it's the case,
but it would be very interesting to have the Foundation
support officialy the campaign (single scholars can do decide to boycott,
of course).
But universal access to universal knowledge is pretty Open Access to me,
and this think is taking momentum,
hopefully will be effective.

Aubrey

2012/2/1 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net

 Another article:

 http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-See-Published/130403/

  Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works Act
  (HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes of
  Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
  available.

  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:

  Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
  maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy, program, or
  other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
  dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
  consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective
  author, or the author's employer, assent to such network dissemination.

  Defines private-sector research work as an article intended to be
  published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
  such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government, describing or
  interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency and
  to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into
  an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review
  or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
  routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding
  agency in the course of research.

  Fred

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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Lodewijk

Hi Andrea,

could you perhaps elaborate how exactly the Free Knowledge would benifit
from boycotting non-OA journals? (Not meant sarcastic, I really want to
know)

Also, how would you imagine such support? I could imagine that with any
support by Wikimedia for a boycott, people would assume automatically that
we would start blocking citations of said journals. Or are you thinking
about that Wikimedia related scholars are asked to public Open Access? (I
could imagine this is already the case)

In the past Wikimedia has always taken the stance that if people or
companies want to exercize their copyright within legal limits, we have no
objection to that (although we may challenge some of the legal limits).
Would you propose a standpoint that goes further than that? (because then,
it would imho certainly require much more community discussion before we
take such step)

Best regards,
Lodewijk

No dia 1 de Fevereiro de 2012 17:32, Andrea Zanni
zanni.andre...@gmail.comescreveu:

 I don't know if it's the case,
 but it would be very interesting to have the Foundation
 support officialy the campaign (single scholars can do decide to boycott,
 of course).
 But universal access to universal knowledge is pretty Open Access to me,
 and this think is taking momentum,
 hopefully will be effective.

 Aubrey

 2012/2/1 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net

  Another article:
 
  http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-See-Published/130403/
 
   Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works Act
   (HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes of
   Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
   available.
  
   http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:
  
   Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
   maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy, program,
 or
   other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
   dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
   consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or
 prospective
   author, or the author's employer, assent to such network dissemination.
  
   Defines private-sector research work as an article intended to be
   published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
   such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government, describing
 or
   interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency
 and
   to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered
 into
   an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer
 review
   or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
   routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a
 funding
   agency in the course of research.
  
   Fred
  
  
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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread David Richfield

If I understand the suggestion properly, the idea was not to stop
linking to articles in closed journals, but to find some meaningful
way to support the efforts of the researchers who are boycotting
closed journals (i.e. they are not publishing in them).

-- 
David Richfield
[[:en:User:Slashme]]
+27718539985

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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Gwern Branwen

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 12:27 PM, David Richfield
davidrichfi...@gmail.com wrote:
 If I understand the suggestion properly, the idea was not to stop
 linking to articles in closed journals, but to find some meaningful
 way to support the efforts of the researchers who are boycotting
 closed journals (i.e. they are not publishing in them).

That is actually something we could do: make an intensified effort to
cite the work of the boycotting researchers - to heal their losses
from not publishing in Elsevier journals - and commit to working in
citations of any future boycotters. We wouldn't be banning Elsevier
citations so much as declining to spend our time on adding any new
ones.

Of course, this proposal has the problem that to work, it would
require editors to add a lot of content, rather than delete it. But it
shows that we have a lot of options besides the simple-minded 'ban
Elsevier citations' option.

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

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Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?

2012-02-01 Thread Ryan Kaldari

Many organizations have dozens or hundreds of vice presidents, like Vice 
President of Vending Machines and Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners. 
It's not really analogous to President and Vice President of the U.S. 
for example, which are exclusive positions. Of course I agree that job 
titles are kind of silly, but whatever.


Ryan Kaldari

On 1/31/12 8:17 PM, MZMcBride wrote:

Hi.

Erik took on the temporary title VP of Engineering and Product Development
after Danese left.[1] Just recently it was codified on wmfwiki.[2]

I don't really think much of job titles anywhere, but it seems strange to
have a Vice President without having a President.[3] Mostly just noting for
posterity.

MZMcBride

[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2011-June/054040.html
[2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?diff=78986oldid=78985
[3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors



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Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 3

2012-02-01 Thread Joan Goma

This procedure is unfair for some candidates and is sowing suspiciousness
against chapters.

Last elections I nominated a candidate and also sent questions to be passed
to all candidates.

The situation was absolutely crazy. Some candidates had access to chapters
wiki and could have feedback from the answers of other candidates while
others like the one I nominated didn't. One candidate, Phoebe, published
her answers which honors her and the others not. When the election process
finished nobody told the candidates without access to internal wiki the
results. Still today nobody has told anything to them.  And ofcourse I
don't know the answers to my questions.

Chapters elected board members means that the chapters are who have to
appoint them but doesn't mean that this doesn't affect and is of interest
of the entire community.

Chapters would do a favor to themselves if they publish the candidatures,
and keep questions to candidates and discussion publicly. Otherwise this is
only creating division and suspiciousness among chapters and communities
and among communities with chapters and communities without chapters.

If someone want to have private conversations everybody has freedom of
speach to talk to everybody trough private means. But WMF means belong to a
common, free and open project and must not be transformed in a privative
asset.

I think that we must try to keep everything free and open by default. Only
kept private when there are very strong reasons like legal requirements and
this is not the case. It is ridiculous that we have gone to strike against
SOPA and we are accepting to transform in privative the informations about
a process that affects all the movement.





 Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 13:21:14 -0200
 From: B?ria Lima berial...@gmail.com
 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed
seats on the WMF Board of Trustees
 Message-ID:
caa2xhjdsoth2v+bnn7xwbnn-m91gxwohlpmtnxypfa-0yum...@mail.gmail.com
 
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

 Hello, I will (try to) answer everyone - so I will send several mails in a
 row... please stick with me during the process.

 *Excellent; I am pleased to see that the chapters are becoming more
  transparent in this respect.  However, if the plan is to mirror the
  discussion on Meta, why not just have it there in the first place?*
 

 Because not all the discussion will be in meta. Some parts are confidential
 and will not be disclose in Meta. I know you people might start scream:
 CABAL! but that is a chapters decision, not a community one. We do need
 to give them a safe space to work and get a consensus. And some people
 might feel better asking some questions in a private wiki.

 *I assume that all candidates must identify with the WMF before their
  candidacy is accepted, is that correct?
  *


 According with the meta page (
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Process)
 :

 *All candidate statements will have to supply the following information: *

   1. *The name of the nominee*
   2. *The name of the nominating chapter (if applicable)*
   3. *A statement from the chapter in support of the nominee (if
   applicable)*
   4. *A statement from the nominee in support of themselves, accompanied
   by a short CV and confirming they are willing and eligible to take a seat
   on the WMF board. Any candidates with Chapters wiki accounts will have
   those accounts disabled for the duration of the selection process.*

 So, no, they don't need to send their document to Phillipe.

 * As well, will candidates who are chapter executive members be required to
  take a leave of absence or to resign from their executive position during
  their Board candidacy?
  *


 Another question already answered in a document, this time in the
 Resolution (

 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Bylaws_amendments_and_board_structure
 ):


 *Chapter-selected Trustees must resign from any chapter-board, governance,
 chapter-paid, or Foundation-paid position for the duration of their terms
 as Trustees, but may continue to serve chapters in informal or advisory
 capacities.*

 *One more question, this time about who will actually be doing the voting.
   Can you clarify exactly who will be voting in this selection process?
 Will
  it be one representative for each of the 38 chapters, or will more than
 one
  representative be participating?*
 

 Who will vote? Everyone here:
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Chapters

 Each chapter has a vote, and how they decide their candidates is up to
 them. Some held a internal vote, some decide in General Assembly, some have
 an internal discussion in ML... you would need to ask each one of the 38 to
 know the exact process.
 _
 *B?ria Lima*
 http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

 *Imagine um mundo onde ? dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
 livre acesso

Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?

2012-02-01 Thread phoebe ayers

Someday, I can only aspire to be a Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners :)

Sidenote: indeed, on our board we use the terminology Chair 
Vice-Chair, not president.

cheers,
phoebe

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 Many organizations have dozens or hundreds of vice presidents, like Vice
 President of Vending Machines and Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners. It's
 not really analogous to President and Vice President of the U.S. for
 example, which are exclusive positions. Of course I agree that job titles
 are kind of silly, but whatever.

 Ryan Kaldari


 On 1/31/12 8:17 PM, MZMcBride wrote:

 Hi.

 Erik took on the temporary title VP of Engineering and Product
 Development
 after Danese left.[1] Just recently it was codified on wmfwiki.[2]

 I don't really think much of job titles anywhere, but it seems strange to
 have a Vice President without having a President.[3] Mostly just noting
 for
 posterity.

 MZMcBride

 [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2011-June/054040.html
 [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?diff=78986oldid=78985
 [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors



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Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?

2012-02-01 Thread Erik Moeller

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote:
Many organizations have dozens or hundreds of vice presidents, like Vice
President of Vending Machines and Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners.

Heh. I've certainly been in the VP of Odds and Ends role before. :)

A little bit of context. As Stu and Kaldari mentioned, the VP title is
fairly common in the US, where it's actually often situated below the
C-level in the org. The reason Sue and I agreed on the title VP of
Engineering/Product for the engineering department has more to do with
the organizational vocabulary in this part of the world, where that
title does carry a very specific meaning relative to the CTO title.
You can read more about the differences in these posts:

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/want-to-know-difference-between-a-cto-and-a-vp-of-engineering/
http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engineering.html
http://falseprecision.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engin.html

Right now, we don't have a CTO, but we do have three Lead Architects
in the engineering department (Mark, Brion, and Tim). We may choose to
ultimately create a CTO role again, but it would probably be different
from the way we've treated that role in the past (as architectural
lead/visionary and process/delivery manager combined into one person).
We may also need to split the product/engineering responsibilities if
scale requires it.

--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] IRC office hours with the localization team, on International Mother Language Day

2012-02-01 Thread Steven Walling

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to give some advance notice about IRC office hours with the
localization team [1] at the Wikimedia Foundation, which will be aptly held
on International Mother Language Day.[2]

Date: 2011-02-21
Time: 18.00 UTC
Venue: #wikimedia-office

As usual, more logistical info and time conversion links are available on
Meta.[3] For a taste of what the localization team has been up to, I highly
recommend the blog posts they've been writing regularly.[4]

Thanks, and we'll talk to you later this month!

-- 
Steven Walling,
Wikimedia Foundation

1. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Localisation_team
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day
3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
4.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/c/technology/features/internationalization-and-localization/
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Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 3

2012-02-01 Thread Marco Chiesa

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 7:17 PM, Joan Goma jrg...@gmail.com wrote:
This procedure is unfair for some candidates and is sowing suspiciousness
against chapters.

Please read
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws#ARTICLE_IV_-_THE_BOARD_OF_TRUSTEES
section 3D

Chapter-selected Trustees. Two Trustees will be selected by chapters
in even-numbered years according to a procedure approved by a majority
of the chapters and approved by the Board. Amendments to this
procedure also must be approved by a majority of the chapters and
approved by the Board.

Last elections I nominated a candidate and also sent questions to be passed
to all candidates.

The situation was absolutely crazy. Some candidates had access to chapters
wiki and could have feedback from the answers of other candidates while
others like the one I nominated didn't. One candidate, Phoebe, published
her answers which honors her and the others not. When the election process
finished nobody told the candidates without access to internal wiki the
results. Still today nobody has told anything to them. And ofcourse I
don't know the answers to my questions.

The bylaws do not say that the chapters have to vote candidates, but
to select board members. This means that the rules are different from
those of an election.

Chapters elected board members means that the chapters are who have to
appoint them but doesn't mean that this doesn't affect and is of interest
of the entire community.

I don't know Catalan, I know that in Spanish elegido means both
elected and selected, but in English the difference is clear.

Chapters would do a favor to themselves if they publish the candidatures,
and keep questions to candidates and discussion publicly. Otherwise this is
only creating division and suspiciousness among chapters and communities
and among communities with chapters and communities without chapters.

There are a number of reasons to keep the discussion closed. First,
chapters may propose for a seat someone who is not interested (let's
say I suggest Barck Obama), or the non-selected candidate does not
want to be publicly known as a loser. But I agree it would be good if
the Chapters gave a report saying: We considered 10 people, 3 of them
declined the offer, and among the other 7 we though Alice and Bob were
the best choice because of this and this.

I think that we must try to keep everything free and open by default. Only
kept private when there are very strong reasons like legal requirements and
this is not the case. It is ridiculous that we have gone to strike against
SOPA and we are accepting to transform in privative the informations about
a process that affects all the movement.

Privacy is a right too.
Cruccone

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Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 3

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 1:49 PM, Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com wrote:


 Please read
 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws#ARTICLE_IV_-_THE_BOARD_OF_TRUSTEES
 section 3D

 Chapter-selected Trustees. Two Trustees will be selected by chapters
 in even-numbered years according to a procedure approved by a majority
 of the chapters and approved by the Board. Amendments to this
 procedure also must be approved by a majority of the chapters and
 approved by the Board. 


This is the second time on a thread on this subject today that someone has
responded with a link to the bylaws. This is the way things are is not an
effective response to here's how I think things should be. And now that
we've had the link posted several times, it would be nice if no one else
felt the urge to point out the obvious.
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Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 3

On Feb 1, 2012, at 10:55 AM, Nathan wrote:

 This is the way things are is not an effective response to here's how I 
 think things should be. 

+1
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Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 3

2012-02-01 Thread Milos Rancic

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 19:17, Joan Goma jrg...@gmail.com wrote:
 The situation was absolutely crazy. Some candidates had access to chapters
 wiki and could have feedback from the answers of other candidates while
 others like the one I nominated didn't. One candidate, Phoebe, published
 her answers which honors her and the others not. When the election process
 finished nobody told the candidates without access to internal wiki the
 results. Still today nobody has told anything to them.  And ofcourse I
 don't know the answers to my questions.

As the most of those issues depend on MediaWiki features and
moderators, it will be changed this time. No candidate would have
access to the list and wiki, and candidates will have as equal as
possible treatment (it's not possible to control what would 100-150
members of chapters list share with whom).

 Chapters would do a favor to themselves if they publish the candidatures,
 and keep questions to candidates and discussion publicly. Otherwise this is
 only creating division and suspiciousness among chapters and communities
 and among communities with chapters and communities without chapters.

 If someone want to have private conversations everybody has freedom of
 speach to talk to everybody trough private means. But WMF means belong to a
 common, free and open project and must not be transformed in a privative
 asset.

 I think that we must try to keep everything free and open by default. Only
 kept private when there are very strong reasons like legal requirements and
 this is not the case. It is ridiculous that we have gone to strike against
 SOPA and we are accepting to transform in privative the informations about
 a process that affects all the movement.

Agreed.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Chessie

Finding people not well known to editors: great.
Finding people shy of 'grueling' public election process: ok...

How does either lead to hiding candidate names? not doing background checks?  

Not publishing what kinds of questions are asked?


As others said, this feels very strange.


On 2/1/12, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:
 The hope was to attract/identify Board candidates who could add a lot of
 value to the movement but who, for one reason or another, would NOT
 typically be candidates in election.  That might be because they aren't
 well-known in the editing community that decides elections.  Or as Thomas
 mentions that they wouldn't be interested in going through the sometimes
 grueling election process.


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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread David Gerard

On 1 February 2012 17:12, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote:

 could you perhaps elaborate how exactly the Free Knowledge would benifit
 from boycotting non-OA journals? (Not meant sarcastic, I really want to
 know)
 Also, how would you imagine such support? I could imagine that with any
 support by Wikimedia for a boycott, people would assume automatically that
 we would start blocking citations of said journals. Or are you thinking
 about that Wikimedia related scholars are asked to public Open Access? (I
 could imagine this is already the case)


I can't see this flying. If the most evil person in the world
publishes a work that it's appropriate to cite in an educational
article, then we cite it. Elsevier are a giant sucking vampire tick on
science and knowledge itself, and if we were looking for an enemy
they'd be an excellent candidate, but there's lots more evil people
out there.

But, as Gwern suggests, papers by researchers who have joined the
boycott would be fertile ground for new content for the projects.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov

I am highly perplexed why we have a *public call for candidates* when the
rest of the process remains so private.

Alex



2012/2/1 Chessie derby_...@yahoo.com

 Finding people not well known to editors: great.
 Finding people shy of 'grueling' public election process: ok...

 How does either lead to hiding candidate names? not doing background
 checks?

 Not publishing what kinds of questions are asked?


 As others said, this feels very strange.


 On 2/1/12, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:
  The hope was to attract/identify Board candidates who could add a lot of
  value to the movement but who, for one reason or another, would NOT
  typically be candidates in election.  That might be because they aren't
  well-known in the editing community that decides elections.  Or as Thomas
  mentions that they wouldn't be interested in going through the sometimes
  grueling election process.


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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Andrea Zanni

2012/2/1 Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org

 Hi Andrea,

 could you perhaps elaborate how exactly the Free Knowledge would benifit
 from boycotting non-OA journals? (Not meant sarcastic, I really want to
 know)


Hi Lodewijk,
thanks for the engaging question ;-)
Boycotting non-OA journals is not what I had in mind (as others explained),
here the aim is to point as Elsevier as an example of a wicked system.
Free knowledge could benefit from a renewed scholarly publishing world,
in which every research would be open to the public to be read and studied,
and the datasets of that research would be open to be tested again.
Scientific research is the cutting/bleeding edge of human inquiry, and you
perfectly understand how it would be important to have results of that
inquiry to be available to anyone who wants to access it.


 Also, how would you imagine such support? I could imagine that with any
 support by Wikimedia for a boycott, people would assume automatically that
 we would start blocking citations of said journals. Or are you thinking
 about that Wikimedia related scholars are asked to public Open Access? (I
 could imagine this is already the case)


This is more difficult.
I don't have many concrete ideas, but if Wikimedia related scholars could
add their name to the boycott list, and WMF would say that clear and loud,
that would be a small but significant step. Many others could follow.
Boycott citations to important articles or journals is not really a good
move (it's complicated): better would be for any editor to check if there
is an open access article which provide similar results, but this would be
very time-consuming, I think, and not always effective.



 In the past Wikimedia has always taken the stance that if people or
 companies want to exercize their copyright within legal limits, we have no
 objection to that (although we may challenge some of the legal limits).
 Would you propose a standpoint that goes further than that? (because then,
 it would imho certainly require much more community discussion before we
 take such step)

 I would like to point out that Open Access and in general Open Science are
movements wants science results open and available for all.
Traditional copyright is not the main enemy: the enemy is a publishing
system that exploit the work of researchers (which write, review, and buy
articles) and public funds (through universities and libraries) with a very
too high profits. The system is wicked because there is a monopoly of few
huge publishers which decide prices of journals, which force you to buy
journals you don't want (the bundle system).
Moreover, the are the Impact Factor issues, and the fact that these
publishers agree with SOPA, ACTA, etc.

I would like also to hear from Daniel, our beloved Wikimedian In Residence
for Open Access :-)

Aubrey



 Best regards,
 Lodewijk

 No dia 1 de Fevereiro de 2012 17:32, Andrea Zanni
 zanni.andre...@gmail.comescreveu:

  I don't know if it's the case,
  but it would be very interesting to have the Foundation
  support officialy the campaign (single scholars can do decide to boycott,
  of course).
  But universal access to universal knowledge is pretty Open Access to
 me,
  and this think is taking momentum,
  hopefully will be effective.
 
  Aubrey
 
  2012/2/1 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 
   Another article:
  
   http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-See-Published/130403/
  
Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works
 Act
(HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes
 of
Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
available.
   
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:
   
Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy,
 program,
  or
other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or
  prospective
author, or the author's employer, assent to such network
 dissemination.
   
Defines private-sector research work as an article intended to be
published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government,
 describing
  or
interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency
  and
to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered
  into
an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer
  review
or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a
  funding
agency in the course of research.
   
Fred
   
   
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Thomas Morton


 *if not all chapters participate, or if the discussion is dominated by a
  few chapters, or if by some measure the Board determines that the
 selection
  forwarded by the moderators does not sufficiently represent the Chapters,
  is there any thought to refusing to certify under these circumstances?
  *


 If only a handful of chapters participate in the discussion, there is no
 consensus among chapters and therefore we will have a vote.If not enough
 chapters vote in the determined time, we will prorogue the vote until they
 do... and only them we will tell the Board we have a result. We all know
 how to identify a consensus, don't worry.


I'm not sure you've answered the question being asked; which is - will the
current board be able to scrutineer the selection process and ultimately
veto the recommendation the moderators pass along?

He's not asking about how the moderators decision is made.

This is important because all elections of this form - particularly private
ones should be scrutineered.



 *Board members, however they are selected, represent the Wikimedia
  Foundation and the whole community or movement. My question is - if the
  38 chapters represent only a small portion of the whole of Wikimedia...
  *


 I'm sorry but last Chapters Seat Election had more participants than the
 Community seats election... if you want to compare, we should get rid of
 Community election seats, not the chapters one.


Umm; I recall there were more than 38 participants in the discussion and
overall process. ;) And one would imagine that individual chapter board
members would have a unified approach (based on their chapters decision)
meaning there are 38 opinions to consider.

However, this whole process is a bit confusing for me because it seems that
those with access to chapters wiki have the ability to discuss candidates.
And only limited information about those candidates can be passed to the
wider chapter.

Essentially, then, this is a chapter board member discussion. Fine, I have
nothing against my own chapters board members and I am sure they will act
fairly and with clarity. But it is hard to act on behalf of the chapter
when we can't even see the process, full candidate information and
discussion...

Tom
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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Kim Bruning

On Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 12:53:23PM -0500, Gwern Branwen wrote:
 Of course, this proposal has the problem that to work, it would
 require editors to add a lot of content, rather than delete it. But it
 shows that we have a lot of options besides the simple-minded 'ban
 Elsevier citations' option.


Coulw we start a WikiJournal of some sort? (Akin to WikiNews in
operation, perhaps?)

sincerely,
Kim Bruning

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Benjamin Lees

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:23 AM, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:
 The hope was to attract/identify Board candidates who could add a lot of 
 value to the movement but who, for one reason or another, would NOT typically 
 be candidates in election.  That might be because they aren't well-known in 
 the editing community that decides elections.  Or as Thomas mentions that 
 they wouldn't be interested in going through the sometimes grueling election 
 process.

How is this different from the rationale for the expertise seats?

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 16:44, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'll give my personal view on the question, and invite others on the board
 to jump in.  I think the difference between the specific expertise seats
 and the appointed seats is subtle but important.

 My sense is that the WMF Board specific expertise seats are more focused
 on board operations and governance.  so the Board might do a
 self-assessment and identify that it needs someone with financial/audit
 oversight experience to serve as Board Treasurer, and then go out and find
 it. That's me.  It's also reactive and designed to fill in the gaps.  So we
 as Board decided a few years ago that we lacked sufficient insight and
 perspective from outside North America and Europe, so we sought out and
 were incredibly luck to find Bishakha.

 The opportunity for the two seats appointed by movement organizations like
 the chapters is broader.  Many more people are involved in identifying and
 surfacing potential candidates, so it has the potential to cast a wider and
 more thoughtful net.  And there is less constraint to meet specific
 governance needs, which frees up the process to focus on the people and
 perspectives that can have the most positive impact on our movement's
 pursuit of the mission.

 -


This is well and good, but it gives the impression that the current three
elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
the movement, and that the opaque selection and appointment process for the
chapter seats is somehow more representative of the movement.  It
concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 22:17, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
 This is well and good, but it gives the impression that the current three
 elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
 the movement, and that the opaque selection and appointment process for the
 chapter seats is somehow more representative of the movement.  It
 concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
 members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

I didn't get that impression at all.

The board doesn't just need to be representative of the community. It
also needs to be capable of running the WMF as well as possible. We
need to balance those two goals. Having a couple of chapter-selected
seats is a good way of doing that.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 17:22, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 1 February 2012 22:17, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
  This is well and good, but it gives the impression that the current three
  elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
  the movement, and that the opaque selection and appointment process for
 the
  chapter seats is somehow more representative of the movement.  It
  concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
  members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

 I didn't get that impression at all.

 The board doesn't just need to be representative of the community. It
 also needs to be capable of running the WMF as well as possible. We
 need to balance those two goals. Having a couple of chapter-selected
 seats is a good way of doing that.

 _



In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no
basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more
effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF than
would community-elected Wikimedians.

I would think that direct appointment of those with specific skill sets
would be how the board ensure it is capable of running the WMF as well as
possible.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:17 PM, Risker wrote:

 it gives the impression that the current three
 elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
 the movement  It
 concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
 members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

Anne, my personal view is that elections capture the input of a certain subset 
of our community:  those editors who are fairly active and who are interested 
in governance issues.  That subset of our editors is an important part of our 
community.

Having seats appointed by movement organizations like the chapters offers a 
chance to involve of another subset of our community:  those who are interested 
enough in governance issues to get involved in the leadership / decision-making 
of movement organizations. That's also an important subset of our community.

But, to your point, neither of these two subsets alone nor the combination of 
the two fully represents our movement.  Many groups are excluded.  For example, 
the silent majority of 75,000+ active editors who haven't historically voted 
in elections. Or our 475 million readers. etc., etc., etc.

Governance and suffrage in an online community is really, really hard.  I don't 
think we have the perfect system.  Our current board structure was put in place 
less than 4 years ago.  The one thing I know is that it will change as we try 
new things to make it better.  I want us to continue improving it.  And I for 
one am open to absolutely any suggestion for how we can do that.

-s
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 1 February 2012 16:44, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'll give my personal view on the question, and invite others on the board
 to jump in.  I think the difference between the specific expertise seats
 and the appointed seats is subtle but important.

 My sense is that the WMF Board specific expertise seats are more focused
 on board operations and governance.  so the Board might do a
 self-assessment and identify that it needs someone with financial/audit
 oversight experience to serve as Board Treasurer, and then go out and find
 it. That's me.  It's also reactive and designed to fill in the gaps.  So we
 as Board decided a few years ago that we lacked sufficient insight and
 perspective from outside North America and Europe, so we sought out and
 were incredibly luck to find Bishakha.

 The opportunity for the two seats appointed by movement organizations like
 the chapters is broader.  Many more people are involved in identifying and
 surfacing potential candidates, so it has the potential to cast a wider and
 more thoughtful net.  And there is less constraint to meet specific
 governance needs, which frees up the process to focus on the people and
 perspectives that can have the most positive impact on our movement's
 pursuit of the mission.

 -


 This is well and good, but it gives the impression that the current three
 elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
 the movement, and that the opaque selection and appointment process for the
 chapter seats is somehow more representative of the movement.  It
 concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
 members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

In the 2011 community board election, less than 3400 users voted.[1]

In the 2012 chapter board election, 39 chapters consisting of more
than 4000 identified people will be voting.[2]

Unfortunately neither process captures a large percentage of the
active Wikimedian community.

1. see bottom of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/Results/en

2. see members column of
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters#Existing_chapters

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 22:36, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
 In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
 Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no
 basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more
 effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF than
 would community-elected Wikimedians.

Chapter board members, since they serve on boards themselves, are
obviously going to know more about what the board needs than the
general community. They also have long and detailed discussions about
who to select, rather than just having a simple vote. Additionally,
having chapter-selected seats helps the WMF and chapters work better
together.

 I would think that direct appointment of those with specific skill sets
 would be how the board ensure it is capable of running the WMF as well as
 possible.

Of course, but that wouldn't be at all representative and would make
the existing board too powerful. It's all about balance.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 22:38, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote:
 In the 2011 community board election, less than 3400 users voted.[1]

 In the 2012 chapter board election, 39 chapters consisting of more
 than 4000 identified people will be voting.[2]

Those 4000 people won't be voting, though. The chapter boards who they
elected will be voting on their behalf. That's not the same thing. (It
was said above that some chapters might let their membership decide
how the chapter will vote, but if the chapters really are using the
same process as last time that isn't an option because the list of
candidates is confidential - you can't vote if you don't know who the
options are.)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

(personal opinion); no, 39 chapter people voted. Hands up everyone who
voted for their chapter's trustees because they trusted their judgment in
appointing members of the WMF Board?

The rhetoric is most certainly not like that in the UK. Trustee elections
tend to be scoped as and this is what [candidate] plans to do to extend
the wikimedia movement in the UK; how they feel about wider governance
issues, last time, at least, didn't come into it. It is incredibly risky to
say that just because a group of individuals is trusted to run GLAM events
in a nation, we trust them to vote on board members - or we appointed them*
*for that reason.

On 1 February 2012 22:38, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
  On 1 February 2012 16:44, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  I'll give my personal view on the question, and invite others on the
 board
  to jump in.  I think the difference between the specific expertise seats
  and the appointed seats is subtle but important.
 
  My sense is that the WMF Board specific expertise seats are more focused
  on board operations and governance.  so the Board might do a
  self-assessment and identify that it needs someone with financial/audit
  oversight experience to serve as Board Treasurer, and then go out and
 find
  it. That's me.  It's also reactive and designed to fill in the gaps.
  So we
  as Board decided a few years ago that we lacked sufficient insight and
  perspective from outside North America and Europe, so we sought out and
  were incredibly luck to find Bishakha.
 
  The opportunity for the two seats appointed by movement organizations
 like
  the chapters is broader.  Many more people are involved in identifying
 and
  surfacing potential candidates, so it has the potential to cast a wider
 and
  more thoughtful net.  And there is less constraint to meet specific
  governance needs, which frees up the process to focus on the people and
  perspectives that can have the most positive impact on our movement's
  pursuit of the mission.
 
  -
 
 
  This is well and good, but it gives the impression that the current three
  elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
  the movement, and that the opaque selection and appointment process for
 the
  chapter seats is somehow more representative of the movement.  It
  concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
  members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

 In the 2011 community board election, less than 3400 users voted.[1]

 In the 2012 chapter board election, 39 chapters consisting of more
 than 4000 identified people will be voting.[2]

 Unfortunately neither process captures a large percentage of the
 active Wikimedian community.

 1. see bottom of
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/Results/en

 2. see members column of
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters#Existing_chapters

 --
 John Vandenberg

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 17:38, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:17 PM, Risker wrote:

  it gives the impression that the current three
  elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
  the movement  It
  concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
  members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

 Anne, my personal view is that elections capture the input of a certain
 subset of our community:  those editors who are fairly active and who are
 interested in governance issues.  That subset of our editors is an
 important part of our community.

 Having seats appointed by movement organizations like the chapters offers
 a chance to involve of another subset of our community:  those who are
 interested enough in governance issues to get involved in the leadership /
 decision-making of movement organizations. That's also an important subset
 of our community.

 But, to your point, neither of these two subsets alone nor the combination
 of the two fully represents our movement.  Many groups are excluded.  For
 example, the silent majority of 75,000+ active editors who haven't
 historically voted in elections. Or our 475 million readers. etc., etc.,
 etc.

 Governance and suffrage in an online community is really, really hard.  I
 don't think we have the perfect system.  Our current board structure was
 put in place less than 4 years ago.  The one thing I know is that it will
 change as we try new things to make it better.  I want us to continue
 improving it.  And I for one am open to absolutely any suggestion for how
 we can do that.


I do agree that governance and suffrage is hard; however, it shouldn't
intentionally be designed to give a disproportionate representation (and
essentially double suffrage) to one subset of the community over another.
Chapter members have the opportunity to influence five seats on the Board;
those who are unable (for many variations of unable) to be chapter
members are only able to influence three seats.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Theo10011

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:

 In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
 Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no
 basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more
 effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF than
 would community-elected Wikimedians.


Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as
well. They are selected through even a more private process for seemingly
unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am surprised
why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on
every new appointment?

The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting
process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.

Regards
Theo
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the
process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members - it's open
to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would wager,
selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.

(personal opinion, etc)

On 1 February 2012 23:17, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:

  In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
  Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no
  basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more
  effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF than
  would community-elected Wikimedians.


 Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as
 well. They are selected through even a more private process for seemingly
 unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am surprised
 why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on
 every new appointment?

 The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting
 process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.

 Regards
 Theo
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 18:17, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:

  In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
  Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no
  basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more
  effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF than
  would community-elected Wikimedians.


 Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as
 well. They are selected through even a more private process for seemingly
 unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am surprised
 why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on
 every new appointment?

 The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting
 process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.



The appointed members of the Board are chosen for their specific expertise
and skill-set.  The Board does publicly identify the slots it is trying to
fill when looking for appointees, and the qualifications that they
require.

The chapter-selected seats...nobody knows what criteria are being used,
what specific expertise is being sought, what skill-set is being selected
for.  The end result, as best I can see from the first two rounds, is the
same people who could easily have run for election, because they're well
known and widely active in the community.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Joan Goma

 Yo are right but those figures tell us that chapters are in a very strong
position if they where able to mobilize their 4000 affiliates in the
community board elections. I wonder how many of the 3400 participants in
the community elections were also affiliated to some chapter.

*
*

 *John Vandenberg* jayvdb at gmail.com 
 foundation-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BFoundation-l%5D%20Call%20for%20nominations%3A%20chapter-appointed%20seats%20on%0A%20the%20WMF%20Board%20of%20TrusteesIn-Reply-To=%3CCAO9U_Z56154XQMhH4PO1SEmq6Yv1y6P_c3L0rVU%2BcXsc3X5rUA%40mail.gmail.com%3E

 *Wed Feb  1 22:38:29 UTC 2012*

 In the 2011 community board election, less than 3400 users voted.[1]

 In the 2012 chapter board election, 39 chapters consisting of more
 than 4000 identified people will be voting.[2]

 Unfortunately neither process captures a large percentage of the
 active Wikimedian community.



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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread geni

On 1 February 2012 20:14, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:

 Coulw we start a WikiJournal of some sort?

Been floated from time to time thus not going to happen

 (Akin to WikiNews in
 operation, perhaps?)

No. If were actually going to launch a journal we would do it in a
conventional manner. Partly so wikipedia will view it as a reliable
source and partly because in some way wikinews acts as a terrible
warning.

-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

that is a bit OT but...

*It is difficult to get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in
 Africa, and the only approved chapter for the entire continent is 8,000
 kilometres away.*


Create one in your country! :D That is basicaly what we are doing in
IberoCoop - help groups from all over Latin World with guidance and help.
And IF they want to became a chapter, we help them (talk with ChapCom
members, each month we have a new request from a Latin Chapter ;) )

I know isn't easy in Africa, but isn't easy either in Latin America, and we
are doing it.
_
*Béria Lima*
http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 20:59, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov 
alexandrdmitriroma...@gmail.com wrote:

 
  Having seats appointed by movement organizations like the chapters offers
  a chance to involve of another subset of our community:  those who are
  interested enough in governance issues to get involved in the leadership
 /
  decision-making of movement organizations. That's also an important
 subset
  of our community.
 
 
  The existing chapter presence is a barrier to entry. It is difficult to
 get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in Africa, and the only
 approved chapter for the entire continent is 8,000 kilometres away.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

Risker, there are SEVERAL documents in meta with the guidelines used to
elect the Chapter seats. Say that nobody knows is a bit offensive.
_
*Béria Lima*
http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 21:26, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 1 February 2012 18:17, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:

  On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
   Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no
   basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more
   effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF
 than
   would community-elected Wikimedians.
 
 
  Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as
  well. They are selected through even a more private process for seemingly
  unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am surprised
  why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on
  every new appointment?
 
  The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting
  process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.
 
 

 The appointed members of the Board are chosen for their specific expertise
 and skill-set.  The Board does publicly identify the slots it is trying to
 fill when looking for appointees, and the qualifications that they
 require.

 The chapter-selected seats...nobody knows what criteria are being used,
 what specific expertise is being sought, what skill-set is being selected
 for.  The end result, as best I can see from the first two rounds, is the
 same people who could easily have run for election, because they're well
 known and widely active in the community.

 Risker/Anne
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Theo10011

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:56 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:


 The appointed members of the Board are chosen for their specific expertise
 and skill-set.  The Board does publicly identify the slots it is trying to
 fill when looking for appointees, and the qualifications that they
 require.


Do you know what any of those criteria are? The voted members also have
certain expertise and skill-sets, and then they go through a voting
process.



 The chapter-selected seats...nobody knows what criteria are being used,
 what specific expertise is being sought, what skill-set is being selected
 for.  The end result, as best I can see from the first two rounds, is the
 same people who could easily have run for election, because they're well
 known and widely active in the community.


Again, I can't speak on the specifics of the election process. Beyond that,
the chapter elected members, give their presentation, are nominated by a
chapter, and most of their expertise, are known to the individuals voting
for them. This seems similar to community elected members. I can not speak
about the need for privacy, ideally as much as can be public, should be. I
can understand requests to have certain amount of information made public,
but there also needs to be a safe place to discuss these issues.

Regards
Theo
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Theo10011

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the
 process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members - it's open
 to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would wager,
 selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.


What?

Chapters by definition have to have a board, and be open to membership. The
decision taken by the board and representatives, is usually vetted
internally, it is representative of the entire chapter; as much as the
community elected members are representative of the entire community,
beyond just the individuals that voted. The community elected members
aren't called, the community-who-voted board members.

Regards
Theo



 (personal opinion, etc)

 On 1 February 2012 23:17, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:

  On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
   Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no
   basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more
   effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF
 than
   would community-elected Wikimedians.
 
 
  Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as
  well. They are selected through even a more private process for seemingly
  unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am surprised
  why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on
  every new appointment?
 
  The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting
  process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.
 
  Regards
  Theo
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

You're misunderstanding; I'm saying the Board of Trustees nominations
happening on the chapters wiki is open merely to the representatives of
chapters, not to the thousands of members apparently taking part. Please do
list those chapters who have an internal vote of the membership before
voting on the Chapter Representatives for the Board of Trustees; I would
imagine it's going to be *rather* small, particularly if you're not
actually allowed to tell your members who is running or anything about them.

On 1 February 2012 23:40, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the
  process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members - it's
 open
  to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would wager,
  selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.
 

 What?

 Chapters by definition have to have a board, and be open to membership. The
 decision taken by the board and representatives, is usually vetted
 internally, it is representative of the entire chapter; as much as the
 community elected members are representative of the entire community,
 beyond just the individuals that voted. The community elected members
 aren't called, the community-who-voted board members.

 Regards
 Theo


 
  (personal opinion, etc)
 
  On 1 February 2012 23:17, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
  
In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF,
Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is
 no
basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any
 more
effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF
  than
would community-elected Wikimedians.
  
  
   Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as
   well. They are selected through even a more private process for
 seemingly
   unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am
 surprised
   why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on
   every new appointment?
  
   The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting
   process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.
  
   Regards
   Theo
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the
 process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members - it's open
 to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would wager,
 selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.

I'll take your wager :P

Chapter board members are *constantly* swimming in both local and
wider movement governance issues.  The members of chapters should be
looking for board members who are able to effectively represent them
in those waters.

-- 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

Wikimedia Portugal held votes between their members to 2008 and 2010
elections. I know WMFR, WMUK and WMAR do the same, and the list can go on...
_
*Béria Lima*
 http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 21:42, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 You're misunderstanding; I'm saying the Board of Trustees nominations
 happening on the chapters wiki is open merely to the representatives of
 chapters, not to the thousands of members apparently taking part. Please do
 list those chapters who have an internal vote of the membership before
 voting on the Chapter Representatives for the Board of Trustees; I would
 imagine it's going to be *rather* small, particularly if you're not
 actually allowed to tell your members who is running or anything about
 them.

 On 1 February 2012 23:40, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:

  On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:
 
   No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the
   process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members - it's
  open
   to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would wager,
   selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.
  
 
  What?
 
  Chapters by definition have to have a board, and be open to membership.
 The
  decision taken by the board and representatives, is usually vetted
  internally, it is representative of the entire chapter; as much as the
  community elected members are representative of the entire community,
  beyond just the individuals that voted. The community elected members
  aren't called, the community-who-voted board members.
 
  Regards
  Theo
 
 
  
   (personal opinion, etc)
  
   On 1 February 2012 23:17, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:
  
On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
   
 In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the
 WMF,
 Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there
 is
  no
 basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any
  more
 effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the
 WMF
   than
 would community-elected Wikimedians.
   
   
Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board
 as
well. They are selected through even a more private process for
  seemingly
unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am
  surprised
why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised
 on
every new appointment?
   
The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a
 voting
process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.
   
Regards
Theo
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

Oh, agreed. But what I'm interested in is not should be, but whether the
rhetoric in internal chapter elections is usually dominated by, or even
includes, mention of the wider governance issues.

I think chapters have a crucial role to play in movement governance, and
that trustees of each chapter should be at the forefront of that. But are
they selected with that role in mind?

On 1 February 2012 23:44, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:
  No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the
  process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members - it's
 open
  to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would wager,
  selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.

 I'll take your wager :P

 Chapter board members are *constantly* swimming in both local and
 wider movement governance issues.  The members of chapters should be
 looking for board members who are able to effectively represent them
 in those waters.

 --
 John Vandenberg

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

And how will that work this year if, as I am understanding it, virtually
all the information about the candidates will be hidden?

On 1 February 2012 23:44, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote:

 Wikimedia Portugal held votes between their members to 2008 and 2010
 elections. I know WMFR, WMUK and WMAR do the same, and the list can go
 on...
 _
 *Béria Lima*
  http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

 *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
 livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
 construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


 On 1 February 2012 21:42, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  You're misunderstanding; I'm saying the Board of Trustees nominations
  happening on the chapters wiki is open merely to the representatives of
  chapters, not to the thousands of members apparently taking part. Please
 do
  list those chapters who have an internal vote of the membership before
  voting on the Chapter Representatives for the Board of Trustees; I would
  imagine it's going to be *rather* small, particularly if you're not
  actually allowed to tell your members who is running or anything about
  them.
 
  On 1 February 2012 23:40, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org
  wrote:
  
No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the
process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members -
 it's
   open
to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would
 wager,
selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.
   
  
   What?
  
   Chapters by definition have to have a board, and be open to membership.
  The
   decision taken by the board and representatives, is usually vetted
   internally, it is representative of the entire chapter; as much as the
   community elected members are representative of the entire community,
   beyond just the individuals that voted. The community elected members
   aren't called, the community-who-voted board members.
  
   Regards
   Theo
  
  
   
(personal opinion, etc)
   
On 1 February 2012 23:17, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote:
   
 On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the
  WMF,
  Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there
  is
   no
  basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any
   more
  effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the
  WMF
than
  would community-elected Wikimedians.


 Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the
 board
  as
 well. They are selected through even a more private process for
   seemingly
 unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am
   surprised
 why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised
  on
 every new appointment?

 The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a
  voting
 process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.

 Regards
 Theo
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 Oh, agreed. But what I'm interested in is not should be, but whether the
 rhetoric in internal chapter elections is usually dominated by, or even
 includes, mention of the wider governance issues.

 I think chapters have a crucial role to play in movement governance, and
 that trustees of each chapter should be at the forefront of that. But are
 they selected with that role in mind?

In my experience, yes the chapter boards are comprised of people who
are suitable for making these decisions.  Some individuals on some
chapter boards may not be, but each board is a group of people, and
each chapter has rules which ensure that their decisions are a
majority of their board.

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 1 February 2012 23:44, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com wrote:
 Wikimedia Portugal held votes between their members to 2008 and 2010
 elections. I know WMFR, WMUK and WMAR do the same, and the list can go on...

Really? If I had known WMPT had breached confidentiality like that at
the time, I would have voided your vote...

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Cristian Consonni

2012/2/2 Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org:
 Oh, agreed. But what I'm interested in is not should be, but whether the
 rhetoric in internal chapter elections is usually dominated by, or even
 includes, mention of the wider governance issues.

 I think chapters have a crucial role to play in movement governance, and
 that trustees of each chapter should be at the forefront of that. But are
 they selected with that role in mind?

Well, for WM-IT all assemblies are open to public and we always tried
to have them at least audio-streamed if we technically could (but that
would be in Italian, though).

Anyway, from the results of the least chapter and community seats
election my opinion is that the former are *wyyy* more
en.wiki-centered than the first.

I am surely highly biased, but I think people in the chapters having
to confront with their local reality (here included local
legislation), with the WMF and the communities of the projects (for
events, meetups, etc.) have more opportunities to gain a global
governance perspective than others.
Both in the sense of the whole Wikimedia world from editors up to
the WMF staff and the WMF Board, but also in the sense of a better
perception of the diversity of the conditions and characteristics of
the different parts of the Wikimedia movement around the world.

Cristian
WM-IT

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 2 February 2012 00:06, Cristian Consonni kikkocrist...@gmail.com wrote:
 Anyway, from the results of the least chapter and community seats
 election my opinion is that the former are *wyyy* more
 en.wiki-centered than the first.

Really? How do you work that out? The current occupants of the chapter
seats are one English Wikipedian and one German Wikipedians (50%
en.wiki), the community seats are two English Wikipedians and one
German/Chinese Wikipedian (67% en.wiki). (Judging by their biographies
at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees )

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

See 1st message in this thread MZ.
_
*Béria Lima*
http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*


On 1 February 2012 21:56, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 Béria Lima wrote:
  Risker, there are SEVERAL documents in meta with the guidelines used to
  elect the Chapter seats. Say that nobody knows is a bit offensive.

 SEVERAL pages on Meta-Wiki? It's a wonder they haven't been memorized by
 all
 members of the Wikimedia community.

 It's fair to say that there are resources available regarding chapter seats
 on Meta-Wiki (and provide links!); it isn't really fair to suggest that
 anyone be familiar with the tangled mess that is Meta-Wiki. I've been
 editing there for quite some time and I still regularly discover pages and
 processes (or get frustrated with not being able to find them and create my
 own).

 I've always found the chapter seats poorly explained and often
 misunderstood. If there are resources on Meta-Wiki (or even
 wikimediafoundation.org) that can clarify some of this to me and others,
 I'd
 certainly appreciate links. :-)

 MZMcBride



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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

2012-02-01 Thread Daniel Mietchen

I think that skipping non-OA sources is not a valid option, though
encouragement of the use of relevant OA sources is.

One way to achieve that could be by highlighting the OA-ness of
cited references, as is now common practice in the Research section of
the Signpost (most recent example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-01-30/Recent_research#References
).

So far, this flagging is done manually, but at least for publishers
that use the same Creative Commons license for all the articles they
publish, it would be easy to modify citation templates like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_journal to include the OA
icon for all DOIs belonging to the prefixes listed at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Open_Knowledge_Foundation_Germany/Open_Access_Catalogue/OA_publishers/DOI_prefixes_entirely_OA
. Things get a bit more complicated on the journal level, especially
in the case of hybrid OA journals, in which some articles are OA,
others not, and even the OA ones may be under different licenses.

What else can we do? Well, the usual stuff: assessing and improving
existing articles around OA and starting new ones, or putting OA
materials to new uses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Open_Access
has recently been started with precisely these goals.

We can also highlight content that we reuse from OA sources, as per
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Open_Access_File_of_the_Day
, or we can see to OA-related topics or files being more
systematically considered for the various options of featuring.

As for any other article, the entries on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Works_Act
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier
should strive to neutrally state the facts - they speak for
themselves. That said, I am certainly supportive of closer interaction
between the OA and Wikimedia communities - not by chance one of the
core aspects of my Wikimedian in Residence project (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedian_in_Residence_on_Open_Science
).

Such interaction can take place in multiple ways, e.g. via an
Open-Access policy of the Foundation (currently being developed by
RCOM at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Committee/Areas_of_interest/Open-access_policy
), via removal of weasel words in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Criticism ,
via collaboration with scholarly journals (e.g. as per
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/January_2012/Contents/Open_Access_report#Topic_Pages_at_PLoS_Computational_Biology
),
via translation of OA-related articles (cf.
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/January_2012/Contents/Tool_testing_report#Documentation_of_DYKs_and_other_temporarily_featured_content
), or by mutually showcasing OA an wiki matters at wiki and OA events
(e.g. as per
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-01-30/Recent_research#Briefly
or
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedian_in_Residence_on_Open_Science/Events
) .

With regards to boycotting Elsevier, I do not think that would easily
fall within the mission of the Foundation (or even individual
chapters), but of course, individual Wikimedians are free to join.

I haven't joined the anti-Elsevier pledge and have no intention to do
so anytime soon, for two main reasons:
- Elsevier is neither the only nor the fiercest opponent of Open
Access, just the biggest one
- I have already signed a (rather moderate) Open Access pledge last year (cf.
http://www.openaccesspledge.com/?page_id=2 ) and a more strict one
last month (cf. http://www.researchwithoutwalls.org/451 ). In both
cases, it applies to all non-OA publishing rather than just one
publisher, and in the latter case, I specifically mention
compatibility with reuse on Wikipedia as a criterion for me to get
involved.

Stressing the reuse aspects of OA is an area that I can well imagine
being championed by the Wikimedia community or by the Foundation: Much
of Gold OA is reusable on Wikipedia (e.g. all PLoS or Hindawi journals
but not Nature Communications or Scientific Reports, nor Living
Reviews or Scholarpedia), some of Green OA (e.g. all of Nature
Precedings, some of arXive, though not visibly so) and basically
nothing of traditionally published materials (exceptions being the odd
human genome paper released directly into the Public Domain).

It is thus not surprinsing to see that a ranking of publishers by
number of pages on Wikimedia Commons that mention one of their DOIs
sees several OA publishers ahead of Elsevier and other large non-OA
publishers (cf. http://toolserver.org/~dartar/cite-o-meter/?commons=1
; prototype; loads slowly and is not entirely up to date). I am
involved in work on a tool that automatically uploads to Commons audio
and video files from suitably licensed OA articles (cf.
http://wir.okfn.org/2012/01/18/project-introduction-open-access-media-importer-for-wikimedia-commons/
).

OA publishers - namely PLoS - have been pushing the idea of openly

Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov

2012/2/1 Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com

 that is a bit OT but...


Not at all, it is a statement of fact. The continent of Africa is scarcely
represented in terms of Chapters, despite being the world's largest
geographically and second most populous geographically.


 *It is difficult to get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in
  Africa, and the only approved chapter for the entire continent is 8,000
  kilometres away.*
 

 Create one in your country! :D That is basicaly what we are doing in
 IberoCoop - help groups from all over Latin World with guidance and help.
 And IF they want to became a chapter, we help them (talk with ChapCom
 members, each month we have a new request from a Latin Chapter ;) )

 I rather expected you to say that. Currently the number of people on Meta
who have expressed an interest (two to three years ago) does not excede 10.
I daresay with help from ChapCom something could be done, though.

Notwithstanding, that would leave another 54 unrepresented countries. My
point is that African residents are disenfranchised virtually totally from
the selection. That's nearly 15% of the world's population (though not of
its readers/editors).


 I know isn't easy in Africa, but isn't easy either in Latin America, and we
 are doing it.



I am sure it is not easy to create a Chapter anywhere, and that Latin
America presents its own challenges. I suspect Africa is particularly
demanding with regards to languages spoken, compared to Latin America.


 On 1 February 2012 20:59, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov 
 alexandrdmitriroma...@gmail.com wrote:

  
   Having seats appointed by movement organizations like the chapters
 offers
   a chance to involve of another subset of our community:  those who are
   interested enough in governance issues to get involved in the
 leadership
  /
   decision-making of movement organizations. That's also an important
  subset
   of our community.
  
  
   The existing chapter presence is a barrier to entry. It is difficult to
  get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in Africa, and the only
  approved chapter for the entire continent is 8,000 kilometres away.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Bence Damokos

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 1:13 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote:

 On 2 February 2012 00:06, Cristian Consonni kikkocrist...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Anyway, from the results of the least chapter and community seats
  election my opinion is that the former are *wyyy* more
  en.wiki-centered than the first.

 Really? How do you work that out? The current occupants of the chapter
 seats are one English Wikipedian and one German Wikipedians (50%
 en.wiki), the community seats are two English Wikipedians and one
 German/Chinese Wikipedian (67% en.wiki). (Judging by their biographies
 at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees )

 He was talking about the election, not necessarily the result. But in any
case, that is still a 33% difference.
I think the community elections are sometimes perceived as en.wikipedia
centric, even if the actual voter turnout could suggest otherwise. (I
haven't been able to find voter statistics per project, so the perception
might actually be correct even if the people who win are at least partially
international.)

Anyhow, the nice chart at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Board_of_Trustees does suggest
that editors of the English Wikipedia or people of an Anglo-Saxon
background tend to occupy around half of the elected seats at any time;
while the majority of the appointed seats seem to be held by people who fit
this category. At least this is a general perception, of course many of
them edit other projects, live in different countries and speak languages,
but you can't help if people have a perception that the chapter selected
seats might not be as en.wiki centric (although, there is a good chance
that we simply continue the pattern of choosing an English and a
non-English native speaker trustee).

Best regards,
Bence
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread Bence Damokos

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 1:42 AM, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov 
alexandrdmitriroma...@gmail.com wrote:

 2012/2/1 Béria Lima berial...@gmail.com

  that is a bit OT but...
 

 Not at all, it is a statement of fact. The continent of Africa is scarcely
 represented in terms of Chapters, despite being the world's largest
 geographically and second most populous geographically.

 
  *It is difficult to get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in
   Africa, and the only approved chapter for the entire continent is 8,000
   kilometres away.*
  
 
  Create one in your country! :D That is basicaly what we are doing in
  IberoCoop - help groups from all over Latin World with guidance and help.
  And IF they want to became a chapter, we help them (talk with ChapCom
  members, each month we have a new request from a Latin Chapter ;) )
 
  I rather expected you to say that. Currently the number of people on Meta
 who have expressed an interest (two to three years ago) does not excede 10.
 I daresay with help from ChapCom something could be done, though.

 Notwithstanding, that would leave another 54 unrepresented countries. My
 point is that African residents are disenfranchised virtually totally from
 the selection. That's nearly 15% of the world's population (though not of
 its readers/editors).


Unfortunately, readers and editors from Africa represent only 1% and 0.6%
respectively of the total traffic to Wikimedia sites (
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerCountryOverview.htm
;
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryTrends.htm
).
However, it is good news that we have a chapter in South Africa
(technically still working on being incorporated) and one in Kenya (to be
approved by the Board soon). Together they could represent 5% of the votes
for chapter selected seats if they finish their founding process on time.

Best regards,
Bence
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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

2012-02-01 Thread cyrano


Excuse my ignorance, I haven't read the 50 mails yet, but how should the
candidate be chosen? By community vote? By chapter's members ? (do you
need registering ?). Will the WMF chose among them? Sorry if I missed
the relevant docs, I'm new to this.

Also, can I present myself as a candidate? Can I vote?

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Re: [Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

On 2 February 2012 01:53, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote:

 Excuse my ignorance, I haven't read the 50 mails yet, but how should the
 candidate be chosen? By community vote? By chapter's members ? (do you
 need registering ?). Will the WMF chose among them? Sorry if I missed
 the relevant docs, I'm new to this.

 Also, can I present myself as a candidate? Can I vote?

You should at least read the first email...

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Re: [Foundation-l] Journal Boycott