Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
It is in usable condition ;-) -Chad On Sep 24, 2009 3:37 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Jonathan Kallay y...@kallay.net: It seems to me that a new Wikipedia-inspired project could help address the many civility/noise... Thoughts? Feature suggestions for LiquidThreads? That's the Wiki-ish forum solution that one day is hoped to be in usable condition ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundatio...@lists.wikime... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com wrote: It is in usable condition ;-) -Chad On Sep 24, 2009 3:37 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Jonathan Kallay y...@kallay.net: It seems to me that a new Wikipedia-inspired project could help address the many civility/noise... Thoughts? Feature suggestions for LiquidThreads? That's the Wiki-ish forum solution that one day is hoped to be in usable condition ... - d. The current testing of LiquidThreads and tweaking of the interface is here and the Dev's (user:werdna) personal wiki: http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/Talk:Main_Page please go and poke around and submit feedback http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/LiquidThreads_Feedback. I expect that this will be brought into usage on the Wikimedia projects progressively but it will be happening sooner rather than later IIRC. -Liam [[witty lama]] wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata ___ foundation-l mailing list foundatio...@lists.wikime... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Exactly. Its certainly closer to realization now than it has been in the past. -Chad On Sep 24, 2009 9:11 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com wrote: It is in usable conditio... The current testing of LiquidThreads and tweaking of the interface is here and the Dev's (user:werdna) personal wiki: http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/Talk:Main_Page please go and poke around and submit feedback http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/LiquidThreads_Feedback. I expect that this will be brought into usage on the Wikimedia projects progressively but it will be happening sooner rather than later IIRC. -Liam [[witty lama]] wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata ___ foundation-l mailing list foundatio...@lists ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/found... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundatio... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: [...] It is open to read worldwide without registration, first time posters have to authenticate their mail address in the from with gmane. ... and to subscribe to foundation-l with nomail AFAIR. Tim ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Austin Hair wrote: A mailing list, however, is different. A mailing list is a conversation. Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other people to contribute and makes it less useful. Then filter this guy. Or filter the threads where his contributions are leading to nothing and read only the others. Or if you read your mailing list as a (pseudo) newsgroup with a comfortable news client, score down him and immediate replies, and read only the other parts of the thread without him and those who fall for every of his statements. If he says something really noteworthy, it will be discussed and quoted over two levels or reply so you will find it. I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l, and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in person. On the contrary, most of them are fairly quiet in real life, and take the time to consider their points and formulate their responses. The difference is that, because of the nature of a mailing list, those who can afford a few hours per day can compose those well-thought-out responses to *every single thread on the list*. Others don't have that, or aren't willing to commit that, and the unfortunate end result is the same as the loudmouth you hate at dinner parties. Pardon? Why would anyone want to read and even answer every thread and every post in every thread? And who needs a few hours to look over the new entries of this list? If there is someone, who floods the list, score him down. Use a scoring threshold so his posts won't be visible in a ordinary thread but where you will read him in a thread that you have marked as interesting. Or kill the uninteresting threads as a whole. Do you really, really think, that you would be able to find the interesting posts in a web board? Web boards have none of the comfortable features of a mailing list processed as a (pseudo) newsgroup. They are huge heaps of words, with rudimentary threading. But they run in a browser, so the point and click generation thinks they can use it. You can't. If we move this list to a web board it won't take a month until you (and/or others) will complain because the board is getting confusing and you never found the really interesting postings. This whole issue is one of information processing. Everyone has to learn how to deal with information in large amounts and on different media. But there have been a few generations of experience we can plug in, there are best practices and web boards are not among them. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 1:36 AM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: For every one of the few people who complain, I'll bet money that there are at least ten who don't speak up on the list, because other people are championing the cause already; for every one of those there's probably another who unsubscribed or stopped paying attention because, well, it's just not worth it for them anymore. Yes. Exactly. I find it ironic that those on this thread who are most keen to retain the status quo are those who are the most prolific posters to it. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone write: who says foundation-l has a bad signal-to-noise ratio? I respond to every single thread and I think it's great. Self evidently they like the way foundation-l runs because they have created it that way. So, saying 'if it aint broke don't fix it' might be correct from their perspective but from the perspective of someone else it sounds more like 'let them eat cake'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake- they cannot see that what works well for them might not be good for the rest of us. -Liam [[witty lama]] -- wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
2009/9/13 Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net: This whole issue is one of information processing. Everyone has to learn how to deal with information in large amounts and on different media. But there have been a few generations of experience we can plug in, there are best practices and web boards are not among them. It's not just information processing. Everywhere conversations take place, that place has a tone. My feeling is, having robust, challenging conversations is important. But does that require the present tone of f-l? From what I've seen on other mailing lists -- Not at all. So why tolerate it, when it causes people to disengage, and discourages them from engaging at all? Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Austin Hair wrote: On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Seems to me that the mailing list is working just fine, despite a few people who complain far too much about the volume of traffic, or about the occasional tendency to irrelevant comments. They need to exercise a little more patience and tolerance. The situation is a classic case of If it ain't broke don't fix it. Sorry, Ray, but I (obviously) disagree. The list has reached a sort of equilibrium, it's true—it could continue operating as it does now for the foreseeable future. It's not particularly uncivil or violent, but neither is it particularly useful for its intended purpose. I think this is key. If the hound-dog won't hunt no more, it ain't no good. For every one of the few people who complain, I'll bet money that there are at least ten who don't speak up on the list, because other people are championing the cause already; for every one of those there's probably another who unsubscribed or stopped paying attention because, well, it's just not worth it for them anymore. I very much identify with this description of people who don't speak up because other people are saying what needs to be said, better than I could say those things. I have no doubt that many of the current active contributors are perfectly content with the status quo, and I understand that. Plenty of meaningful discussion takes place here, and I don't mean to demean that or any of its contributors in any way. I do, however, believe that we should have a forum that's more than just ten busybodies talking about WMF matters amongst themselves. A friend of mine, Charles Matthews, was for a time (I'm not sure if he still is) the single most prolific contributor to the English Wikipedia (behind Rambot, that is). He's a retired academic, and has the time to edit Wikipedia for several hours a day. This is a terrific thing for Wikipedia, since he's a smart guy and makes careful, intelligent edits which only enrich the project. A mailing list, however, is different. A mailing list is a conversation. Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other people to contribute and makes it less useful. I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l, and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in person. On the contrary, most of them are fairly quiet in real life, and take the time to consider their points and formulate their responses. The difference is that, because of the nature of a mailing list, those who can afford a few hours per day can compose those well-thought-out responses to *every single thread on the list*. Others don't have that, or aren't willing to commit that, and the unfortunate end result is the same as the loudmouth you hate at dinner parties. I think all of the above is precisely how I would characterize things in all fairness, if I but had your facility with words and considered thought. So count this as one instance of me speaking out when I thought somebody was saying precisely what I thought needed to be said. I'm encouraged by how the discussion's progressed thus far, and I see promise in some of the proposals (such as moving to a different medium), but at the very minimum there seems to be consensus for limiting the number of posts per-user on a periodic basis. It's a simplistic answer to a complicated problem, but I think it's a good start—maybe we can get people contributing again if they're not so intimidated by the volume and cliquishness. However,... ( ;- ) ) ...here I have to record a very minor note of disagreement. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that it comes on a issue that would penalize the precise kind of strategy of discourse I personally pursue on the list ;-) The first instance where the issue of large volume of postings was brought to my attention was when a certain poster brought to my attention that I had recently been among one of the 20 most voluminous posters. At that time I was so taken aback by this revelation that I went back in time in the mailing list stats and found out that at that time I had in a very short time posted a larger amount of postings than in the previous lifetime of my subscription to that particular mailing list. So my voluminous posting _at that point in time_ was highly not characteristic of my general volume of postings; but was on an issue that I personally thought of high significance, and worthy of discussing in depth. This is the pattern that I have since followed. There are long stretches of time when I don't bother to reply to hardly any posts, because I tend to wait and see if anyone more eloquent will reply making the point that needs to be made, or because I will credit the intelligence of readers
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: A mailing list, however, is different. A mailing list is a conversation. Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other people to contribute and makes it less useful. I think it's great when one smart or entertaining person dominates a conversation. I'm much more interested in hearing from that one person than equally from the 50 participants. If that person is not smart (if my purpose for participating is to learn) or entertaining (if my purpose for participating is to have fun), I complain to whoever is in charge of the venue, or I leave (assuming it's not a conversation I'm required to attend, anyway). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue. skype: node.ue On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: A mailing list, however, is different. A mailing list is a conversation. Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other people to contribute and makes it less useful. I think it's great when one smart or entertaining person dominates a conversation. I'm much more interested in hearing from that one person than equally from the 50 participants. If that person is not smart (if my purpose for participating is to learn) or entertaining (if my purpose for participating is to have fun), I complain to whoever is in charge of the venue, or I leave (assuming it's not a conversation I'm required to attend, anyway). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Mark Williamson node...@gmail.com wrote: People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue. And if the person in charge of the venue considers me to be a net detriment, I hope and expect that I will be asked, privately, to leave, at which point I will comply. There's no need to heckle me on-list. Take your complaints to the people in charge. CC me if you're willing to. I'll abide by the decision of the people in charge. Not by whoever heckles me the loudest. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
How am I heckling you? I'm just stating the facts. There's no need for this to turn into a fight. On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Mark Williamson node...@gmail.com wrote: People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue. And if the person in charge of the venue considers me to be a net detriment, I hope and expect that I will be asked, privately, to leave, at which point I will comply. There's no need to heckle me on-list. Take your complaints to the people in charge. CC me if you're willing to. I'll abide by the decision of the people in charge. Not by whoever heckles me the loudest. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
2009/9/13 Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com: I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l, and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in person. *cough* I am, but consciously try to moderate it. A bit. I'm encouraged by how the discussion's progressed thus far, and I see promise in some of the proposals (such as moving to a different medium), but at the very minimum there seems to be consensus for limiting the number of posts per-user on a periodic basis. It's a simplistic answer to a complicated problem, but I think it's a good start—maybe we can get people contributing again if they're not so intimidated by the volume and cliquishness. Possibly. I'm also asking the Wine guys about just how they keep things sane on a mailing list gatewayed to and from a forum. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 6:51 PM, Erik Zachte erikzac...@infodisiac.com wrote: For the record, I am one of those who did not speak up yet (ref Austin) who would hope some of our power posters felt less need to share every thought with the rest of us. In a public debate few people with a firm stance can be convinced to change their mind, so most polemical posts can only hope to win over undecided onlookers. Changes that that will happen also diminish fast as more and more readers lose interest in a discussion. I even fear that a new point of view after 20 replies on a thread has less change of getting across as many people already went their way. There was a time when I tried to see all sides of debate. Nowadays I tend to selectively read replies from people who might have something to contribute. To me that sounds like a bad signal to noise ratio. I've read whole your email, unlike emails of many others. After a couple of years here, I know well what a number of posters may contribute about some issue and when they may say something interesting to me. There are even some threads which I am not reading and it is not because I think that I won't read there anything new or interesting, but because I think that I don't need to know the content of those threads. But, I've got something on my mind. We don't need a forum for communication, we need user-friendly structured discussion and I think that we may make something like that. Clear wiki pages are not good for that because they are too unstructured and structure has to be made by contributors. But, some wiki-like technology may be a good idea (i.e. some MediaWiki extension). Forums have a kind of that structuring, but it is not enough good. They are too hierarchical and inflexible. What do I want is something like: * Wikimedia projects ** general discussion about Wikimedia projects ** Wikipedia *** general discussion about Wikimedia projects *** New Wikipedias (place for announcing new Wikipedias) *** CheckUser issues (also tagged as Wikimedia Foundation-CheckUser issues) *** Analysis of Wikipedia content (also tagged as Research-Analysis of content-Wikipedia) *** ... * Wikimedia Foundation ** Board *** Ting Chen (also tagged as Wikimedia projects-Wikipedia-Chinese-Contributors-Ting Chen) Ting's lecture during Wikimania 2007 (also tagged as Wikimania-2007-Lectures-Ting; also: Wikimedia-Lectures-Tings lecture during Wikimania 2007) ... * Misc ** Chat about weather ** Chat about science ** Chat about Sarah Palin ** ... And I want to be able to be subscribed via email just on topics interesting to me. So, whenever someone adds a comment or make a new thread about Analysis of content, I want to get email. I also want to get info about newly created categories. In that case, list moderators would have to actively categorize threads, if writers didn't do that well. However, it should be a wik-like model, where contributors should be able to categorize their threads or even particular emails (or whatever the name for that would be). The main benefit from such approach would be possibility to see what has been talked earlier about the same subject; as well as we would have a knowledge database. If someone repeats 5th time the same thing, it would be obviously trolling. In other words, the concept would be similar to FriendFeed categorized discussions. Foundation-l may stay as a proxy to that service for those who are willing to follow everything and email replies to foundation-l would go to a relevant thread. Do similar concepts exist? Did I find hot water? :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 1:03 AM, Philippe Beaudette pbeaude...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: LiquidThreads was developed for that purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why? This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your statement above. LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the latest status. LiquidThreads will be deploying in a small live environment very soon, according to a conversation I had with werdna day before yesterday. Philippe yes, LiquidThreads holds great promise for improved communication (at least, on-Wiki communication). user:Werdna (Andrew Garrett) who is developing it was surprisedhttp://blog.werdn.us/2009/09/so-that-was-wikimania/to note at Wikimania how few people knew that it was being revamped as a matter of priority. Videos of his presentations on the topic at Wikimania can be seen here http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lightning_talks(day two video, starting at 13:30) and herehttp://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:200908271634-Angela_B_Starling-BOF_MediaWiki_Usability_discussion.ogg(starting at 20:00) and I believe it will be live-trialled at the Stratey.wikimedia.org wiki soon. As for the discussion of how to improve foundation-l I must concur with what Lars Aronssen said about how the vast majority of followers of this list lurk. Tim Austin I agree with everything you've said here too. As has been mentioned by Henning Schlottmann a issue with web-based fora (e.g. message boards) is that they are pull based. Yes, this can be seen as a problem and hopefully there are ways to enable more push functionality. However, to reverse the question, one of the major reasons why foundation-l is so despised by many is precisely *because* it is push-based. Everyone.Gets.Every.Single.Message - this just doesn't scale. Thank god for threaded-chat in modern email clients is all I can say. So, whilst having everything appear in your inbox is a good feature to have if you want it, IMO the onus should be on the individual to chose to opt-in to a thread/discussion rather than the email system which forces people to opt-out (or at least tune-out or at worst unsubscribe). A web-based forum allows you to bypass discussions you do not want to engage in freeing your time/mindspace for discussions that are more relevant to your interests. And, for those that wish to follow every single thread, there surely must be an option to be automatically notified every time there is a new posting or a new thread created. -Liam [[witty lama]] -- wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Henning Schlottmann wrote: Mailing lists are push media and they are one stop: the new posts come to my own mail folders automatically. Their look and feel is always the same: that of my mail program (or web mail operator). Browsing through your web boards in the morning takes much, much more time than with appropriately processes mailing lists. Moderation and s/n ration: If you read mailing lists as (pseudo) newsgroups, which is of course the recommended way of access, every reader has the most comfortable options for filtering and scoring. Web boards have central, mailing lists individual moderation. You, the reader, can filter authors, topics, threads or whatever you want or don't want to read. That gives you autonomy and responsibility. The only real advantage of web boards is that they run in a browser and everyone thinks they can use them. Processing and reading mailing lists is much more comfortable, but obviously not anyone knows how to do that anymore. Seems to me that the mailing list is working just fine, despite a few people who complain far too much about the volume of traffic, or about the occasional tendency to irrelevant comments. They need to exercise a little more patience and tolerance. The situation is a classic case of If it ain't broke don't fix it. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Seems to me that the mailing list is working just fine, despite a few people who complain far too much about the volume of traffic, or about the occasional tendency to irrelevant comments. They need to exercise a little more patience and tolerance. The situation is a classic case of If it ain't broke don't fix it. Sorry, Ray, but I (obviously) disagree. The list has reached a sort of equilibrium, it's true—it could continue operating as it does now for the foreseeable future. It's not particularly uncivil or violent, but neither is it particularly useful for its intended purpose. For every one of the few people who complain, I'll bet money that there are at least ten who don't speak up on the list, because other people are championing the cause already; for every one of those there's probably another who unsubscribed or stopped paying attention because, well, it's just not worth it for them anymore. I have no doubt that many of the current active contributors are perfectly content with the status quo, and I understand that. Plenty of meaningful discussion takes place here, and I don't mean to demean that or any of its contributors in any way. I do, however, believe that we should have a forum that's more than just ten busybodies talking about WMF matters amongst themselves. A friend of mine, Charles Matthews, was for a time (I'm not sure if he still is) the single most prolific contributor to the English Wikipedia (behind Rambot, that is). He's a retired academic, and has the time to edit Wikipedia for several hours a day. This is a terrific thing for Wikipedia, since he's a smart guy and makes careful, intelligent edits which only enrich the project. A mailing list, however, is different. A mailing list is a conversation. Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other people to contribute and makes it less useful. I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l, and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in person. On the contrary, most of them are fairly quiet in real life, and take the time to consider their points and formulate their responses. The difference is that, because of the nature of a mailing list, those who can afford a few hours per day can compose those well-thought-out responses to *every single thread on the list*. Others don't have that, or aren't willing to commit that, and the unfortunate end result is the same as the loudmouth you hate at dinner parties. I'm encouraged by how the discussion's progressed thus far, and I see promise in some of the proposals (such as moving to a different medium), but at the very minimum there seems to be consensus for limiting the number of posts per-user on a periodic basis. It's a simplistic answer to a complicated problem, but I think it's a good start—maybe we can get people contributing again if they're not so intimidated by the volume and cliquishness. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Delirium wrote: Maybe I'm unusual in treating large mailing lists as if they were FidoNet or Usenet discussion forums, but the idea of people being bothered by long threads they don't care about, individuals whose posts they don't like, etc., is strange to me. Isn't that easily handled on the client side? Killfile individual posters, delete/filter entire threads, etc. Do most people use clients where that's unreasonably difficult? It does require *some* community standards to enable it. For example, it really helps the client-side filtering if people choose meaningful subject lines, and change subject lines when threads have drifted to new topics. But it's a fairly minimal set of things that have to be centrally enforced. It certainly seems easier than trying to come up with a centrally enforced set of standards that will simultaneously make everyone happy! Yes, and maybe the solution would be a link to a set of instructions about how to more effectively manage one's mailing lists. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Erik Moeller e...@... writes: What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of this list, would you like to see change? I'll try to gather what I see as a problem, strictly from a technical point of view (code being law and all that, I think it's still the easier side to attack the problem from): - the discussion space is divided by time, not by topic. What little topic-based division exists (the subject line of the mails) depends on the ability of the first poster of the thread to choose an informative title, and is hard to fix afterwards. This, together with the lack of good search, means that there is no easy way to see whether something was already discussed before (which makes people reluctant to write about issues that they think might have been raised before), and it is not easy to make use of insights gathered on this list, making it a huge sink of time and effort. - the moderation is not transparent: if someone claims being censured, there is no way for most people to check whether he just tried to post complete bullshit, or one of the moderators was indeed overzealous. - the moderation is binary, and consequently too soft: there is no way to flag messages as not containing any new information or insight, and this with the habit of some of the regulars to get into frequent unproductive debates about semantics and proper etiquette and such makes the signal to noise ratio low. Also, there is no way to highlight posts, which would make sense in some cases; e. g. in questions addressed to the foundation, authoritative answers by board/staff members should stand out. - topics cannot be raised on multiple lists without splitting the discussion; there is also no easy way to move a discussion to another place. - it is hard to include new people (who where not subscribed before) into a discussion bacause the way replying works. (This is actually solved by gmane, but it is not widely known, nor 100% reliable.) - there is no way to see how many people are interested in a thread. - there is no way to determine consensus (even approximately). With many people not wanting to spam the list with mails saying only they agree or disagree, it just devolves into the consensus of the most loud. - it just doesn't scale well. Already everyone is complaining about the traffic, and there are scarcely any issues discussed (compare with the number of proposals on the strategy wiki). I always found it strange that Wikimedia, being one of the greatest facilitators of online collaboration, doesn't have its own cutting edge communication tools. Not only do the mailing lists suck, wiki talk pages are just as bad. I think the logical thing to do would be to take back most of the meta-project communication to the wikis, eat our own dogfood, and develop a wiki-based communication system that works (preferably in reverse order). LiquidThreads was developed for that purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why? I think the foundation should invest into reviewing state of the art tools for large-scale constructive/informative discussion (slashdot, stackoverflow, ideatorrent, uservoice come to mind) and adding whatever feature needed to LiquidThreads to make it stick. I think opt-out moderation based on some sort of collaborative scoring, some sort of voting or at least ranking method, and thread summaries with a tag or category system are the norm nowadays, and of course there would be need for a bidirectional email gateway. That said, a few suggestions that do not require moving away from the current system, are easy to implement, and might help the situation somewhat: - set up a clone of foundation-l which is heavily moderated, and where all letters which do not add new information or insight to the discussion are discarded. People with a lot of time on their hands could still read the unmoderated version on the original list. - make better use of Nabble (or some opensource equivalent), which already provides a forum interface to foundation-l with abilities to post from the web interface, postmoderate and collaboratively rank posts and threads: http://www.nabble.com/WikiMedia-Foundation-f14054.html - make some of the private lists readable to everyone. If the only reason for their existence is noise, it is enough to control write access strictly. - set up a public waste bin where moderated mails can still be read (thus avoiding the censorship debates) but do not pollute the discussion otherwise. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Tisza, this is very well put. On 9/11/09, Tisza Gergő gti...@gmail.com wrote: - the discussion space is divided by time, not by topic. What little topic-based Yes. put another way, 'there is no natural namespace to fill and revise over time as all useful discussions are traversed' - the moderation is not transparent: if someone claims being censured, there is - the moderation is binary, and consequently too soft: there is no way to flag - topics cannot be raised on multiple lists without splitting the discussion; I hadn't thought of some of these. - it is hard to include new people (who where not subscribed before) into a discussion bacause the way replying works. (This is actually solved by gmane, - there is no way to see how many people are interested in a thread. - there is no way to determine consensus (even approximately). With many - it just doesn't scale well. Already everyone is complaining about the traffic, I always found it strange that Wikimedia, being one of the greatest facilitators of online collaboration, doesn't have its own cutting edge communication tools. Not only do the mailing lists suck, wiki talk pages are just as bad. I think the logical thing to do would be to take back most of the meta-project communication to the wikis, eat our own dogfood, and develop a wiki-based communication system that works (preferably in reverse order). I cannot but agree. LiquidThreads was developed for that purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why? This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your statement above. LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the latest status. I think the foundation should invest into reviewing state of the art tools for large-scale constructive/informative discussion (slashdot, stackoverflow, ideatorrent, uservoice come to mind) and adding whatever feature needed to LiquidThreads to make it stick. I think opt-out moderation based on some sort of collaborative scoring, some sort of voting or at least ranking method, and thread summaries with a tag or category system are the norm nowadays, and of course there would be need for a bidirectional email gateway. This would also make [[m:LSS]] much easier to compile :) - set up a clone of foundation-l which is heavily moderated, and where all - make better use of Nabble (or some opensource equivalent), which already - make some of the private lists readable to everyone. If the only reason for their existence is noise, it is enough to control write access strictly. - set up a public waste bin where moderated mails can still be read (thus avoiding the censorship debates) but do not pollute the discussion otherwise. +4. Is there a page describing the private lists we use? [[m:Mailing_lists/overview]] only lists oversight, stewards, and checkuser. SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: LiquidThreads was developed for that purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why? This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your statement above. LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the latest status. LiquidThreads will be deploying in a small live environment very soon, according to a conversation I had with werdna day before yesterday. Philippe ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Ya..I think must go on --Original Message-- From: Philippe Beaudette Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List ReplyTo: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation Sent: Sep 12, 2009 08:03 On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: LiquidThreads was developed for that purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why? This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your statement above. LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the latest status. LiquidThreads will be deploying in a small live environment very soon, according to a conversation I had with werdna day before yesterday. Philippe ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l Sent from my AXIS Worry Free BlackBerry® smartphone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@... writes: I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most comfortable way to read the list. It is open to read worldwide without registration, first time posters have to authenticate their mail address in the from with gmane. Cool! I didn't know WMF mailing list was archived by gmane.org, I thought only wichtech-l was. I'm posting through gmane for testing. You can access it here: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/ I think this could be informed at Foundation-l homepage: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l Ciao, Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:15 AM, Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: Austin Hair wrote: My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most comfortable way to read the list. Yes, but as gmane is simply a mail - news gateway, the fundamental operation of the list remains the same. The content management issues aren't affected. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
I agree with Tim's initial points. On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: David Gerard wrote: wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/ If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content No need to optimize for this until it's a problem... via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would You retain postmoderation for people who use the online forum. If you get bothered by spam and wish for more moderation you can move to reading online. There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous. Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface is wishful thinking. A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to I don't feel that this is a large group at all. The vast majority of people who lurk but don't contribute, and don't find the forum useful, are willing to be creative in the tools they use to participate, but want a social space where they feel comfortable / where they can find comfortable discussions. These are generally people who get along fine on wikis that include [somewhere] quite dramatic edit wars... it's not shyness about dealing with spam or trolls that keeps them from finding the lists useful. I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance on private mailing lists. It would be nice to have something to compare before guessing what the outcomes would be. As Milos said, I guess most people would be happy with 'some user-friendly, free speech-friendly and workable solution' and might be glad to try something different. SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Some of us feel that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, Is this related to the foundation per se? This is just a difficulty of large scale consensus that we all share. or there will be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea. There is no process for one group to convince another group across projects that they have a good idea. This is true whether or not one of the groups is the foundation (and true even when the group doing the 'convincing' is the foundation). Let's fix this. If you wouldn't mind picking a 'good idea' that's been hard to share recently, that would be a fine place to start. should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of their employees in which they are expected to participate in these This is true. I think that if you look at the first posts in new threads over time, you'll find that foundation members do this regularly [and often struggle to get significant feedback, even to such excellent posts as detailed project or strategy considerations; monthly reports; and entire budget proposals]. It is not only the foundation staff, which make up a small minority of the audience and participants of thelist, who need to work together on this! the shyer staff, like the other highly motivated wikimedians who lurk but don't post, need help finding a voice here. And the central goals of this list, discussion about new projects, multilingual and cross-project issues, chapter setup, general fundraising and outreach, include many things that simply don't get enough time or attention on the list from any group. exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it. If you start to provide a bit more detail to each of these clauses and feelings, you may find that this concern falls apart. There aren't many people shouting about positive things that need attention; there are regularly staff asking for input who receive none; and there are regularly people trying to talk about projects they are working on with only sporadic interest or feedback. Finding ways to improve all of these conversations is critically important, but I think that starts with recognizing them as conversations, not as one-way broadcasts which are failing to meet certain standards. Sue writes: I think it's fair to say that some of the staff are a little afraid to engage on foundation-l --- it can be intimidating, especially for new people. I think the staff feels both an obligation and a desire to engage with community members, but some tend to do it in forums that feel safer and more supportive (which might be on internal-l, This is not what internal-l was designed for, and one of the great dangers of proliferating private lists is that they actively divide communities. One can create moderated world-readable lists to have a less intimidating forum; there is no need to also make it hidden. SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Tim Starlingtstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: Erik Moeller wrote: 2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com: As such, it's time to try something different. What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of this list, would you like to see change? I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads can be moved or locked. Mailing lists, by their nature, have a large potential for abuse by trolls and spammers. It's trivial to impersonate another user, or to continue posting indefinitely despite being blocked. We're lucky that the behaviour we've seen here has been merely inconsiderate, rather than malicious. Discussion on the English Wikipedia continues to function despite hateful users who try every dirty trick they can think of to disrupt the community. We're lucky that foundation-l has only seen the merest hint of a reflection of that turmoil, because the tools we have to deal with abusive behaviour on mailing lists are far less capable than those that have been developed for Wikipedia. Some modern forums have features that can interact very intelligently with email, which to my mind might be the best of both worlds. Such things would still allow the features you mention such as thread locking and removal of abuse from the archive, but would also allow people to continue to receive email copies of posts if that is what they prefer. For example, have a forum where people can subscribe to receive email copies of either all posts or just specific threads of interest. Most systems would require that you then visit the website to post replies (which could be facilitated by including a reply url in any emailed copy), though I do recall once seeing a forum email manager that created a unique reply-to address for each thread/user, hence allowing one to email replies directly onto the forum while still having those replies be subjected to any thread and/or user specific rules that had been put in place. In any event, I think we could probably set up a system that provided more flexible control over threads and users without necessarily sacrificing the convenience of email for people that prefer that approach. And of course, people who don't want email interaction could just use such a web forum as a web forum without enabling any email features. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 1:45 AM, Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Tim Starlingtstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: Erik Moeller wrote: 2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com: As such, it's time to try something different. What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of this list, would you like to see change? I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads can be moved or locked. Mailing lists, by their nature, have a large potential for abuse by trolls and spammers. It's trivial to impersonate another user, or to continue posting indefinitely despite being blocked. We're lucky that the behaviour we've seen here has been merely inconsiderate, rather than malicious. Discussion on the English Wikipedia continues to function despite hateful users who try every dirty trick they can think of to disrupt the community. We're lucky that foundation-l has only seen the merest hint of a reflection of that turmoil, because the tools we have to deal with abusive behaviour on mailing lists are far less capable than those that have been developed for Wikipedia. Some modern forums have features that can interact very intelligently with email, which to my mind might be the best of both worlds. Such things would still allow the features you mention such as thread locking and removal of abuse from the archive, but would also allow people to continue to receive email copies of posts if that is what they prefer. For example, have a forum where people can subscribe to receive email copies of either all posts or just specific threads of interest. Most systems would require that you then visit the website to post replies (which could be facilitated by including a reply url in any emailed copy), though I do recall once seeing a forum email manager that created a unique reply-to address for each thread/user, hence allowing one to email replies directly onto the forum while still having those replies be subjected to any thread and/or user specific rules that had been put in place. In any event, I think we could probably set up a system that provided more flexible control over threads and users without necessarily sacrificing the convenience of email for people that prefer that approach. And of course, people who don't want email interaction could just use such a web forum as a web forum without enabling any email features. -Robert Rohde If an enterprising hacker were to enable fully bidirectional e-mail - liquid threads functionality then I can see this being accepted, but otherwise it seems implausible. Despite all the benefits of forums they don't come close to the global usage habits and convenience of e-mail. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
2009/9/9 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.orgwrote: I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads can be moved or locked. I only find that acceptable if a web-based forum can be found which allows me to email myself every post/reply. Citizendium switched to a web-based forum and I absolutely hated it. I have all my mailing lists accessible in one location. I am not interested in logging in to multiple websites. I'm sure a web-based forum can be made to handle this request. But I haven't seen one that does it yet, only ones that do it partially and half-assedly. wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/ It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from, but so far it works ... surprisingly well! Presumably we could ask Codeweavers for technical pointers. Mostly it's little details, e.g. spam control. The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic! The point is: it has been done and can be done. And that way, those of us (e.g. me) who hate forums and don't want yet another web page to go to can have it all happen in in our email. So I heartily suggest we go to a forum with a fidelitous email gateway. Alternatively, put David Gerard in charge of foundation-l, or someone else who isn't going to complain that the list is a cesspool but not be willing to dictate to us what to do about it. Basically, you've got two choices. The second is to get off the pot. No and hell no ;-p - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Tim Starling wrote: I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads can be moved or locked. Web boards are crap, partly precisely for the reasons you claim as advantage here. Biggest flaw: They use pull protocols, you have to actively go there to look. Further: Access to web boards is proprietary. Each board has different address, format, GUI, options. Mailing lists are push media and they are one stop: the new posts come to my own mail folders automatically. Their look and feel is always the same: that of my mail program (or web mail operator). Browsing through your web boards in the morning takes much, much more time than with appropriately processes mailing lists. Moderation and s/n ration: If you read mailing lists as (pseudo) newsgroups, which is of course the recommended way of access, every reader has the most comfortable options for filtering and scoring. Web boards have central, mailing lists individual moderation. You, the reader, can filter authors, topics, threads or whatever you want or don't want to read. That gives you autonomy and responsibility. The only real advantage of web boards is that they run in a browser and everyone thinks they can use them. Processing and reading mailing lists is much more comfortable, but obviously not anyone knows how to do that anymore. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Brian wrote: This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress? They are not many, they are very few. But they are allowed to speak freely, beyond all reasonable proportions. The majority is silent. Count how many members (lurkers) this list has, and how few people post the majority of messages. The problem is that you don't see the silent majority in an electronic forum. The intelligent and responsible members only post when they have something useful to say, and never just for showing their presence. Posting more than 30 messages per month is not an achievement, but a lack of self-moderation and consideration. More active moderation could improve this list significantly. Serious criticism and whistle-blowing will never be published here anyway, but in other media channels that don't belong to the Wikimedia Foundation. There is no real risk for censorship. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
David Gerard wrote: wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/ It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from, but so far it works ... surprisingly well! If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would be useful as a temporary migration measure, but it wouldn't solve any abuse problem until you removed those features. The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic! There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous. Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface is wishful thinking. A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to entry, with a continuing lack of postmoderation, would only make the traffic higher. I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance on private mailing lists. -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: David Gerard wrote: wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/ It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from, but so far it works ... surprisingly well! If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would be useful as a temporary migration measure, but it wouldn't solve any abuse problem until you removed those features. The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic! There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous. Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface is wishful thinking. A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to entry, with a continuing lack of postmoderation, would only make the traffic higher. I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance on private mailing lists. I agree with every one of Tim's points. There is definitely a disconnect between mailing list participants and wiki participants, and there would definitely be yet another disconnect if we tried to split foundation-l between a mailing list and a web forum. This is not a tightly knit group of 20 people who will migrate to whatever methodology we choose--a hybrid solution may work as a transition, but it's not going to be the same kind of community on the other side. (But then, that's really not what we want anyway.) My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: David Gerard wrote: wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/ It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from, but so far it works ... surprisingly well! If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would be useful as a temporary migration measure, but it wouldn't solve any abuse problem until you removed those features. The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic! There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous. Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface is wishful thinking. A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to entry, with a continuing lack of postmoderation, would only make the traffic higher. I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance on private mailing lists. I would assume that any email delivery of posts from a web forum would be an opt-in feature for those that want it. People who want to use the forum merely as a forum without email would have that option, and I'd suggest that doing so is a more natural default behavior. Such an approach would grow the potential participant base by adding forum users who are put off by email, but hopefully reduce the losses from people who require push-based email delivery in order to stay involved. Accepting posts into the forum via email would never be 100% secure, but one could take steps (such as a per user / thread reply-to addresses) to reduce the opportunities for impersonation. I would suggest that the optimal solution is probably a system that is mostly a forum but has a few email features as well rather than thinking of it as a gateway primarily designed to be used around email. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Austin Hair wrote: My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. I like NNTP too. It has postmoderation, so while you might not be able to authenticate posts, you can at least cancel any that fall outside the rules. It's an open standard which predates the web, and lots of tools and clients have been developed over the years to make use of its many features. It has built-in support for distribution and mirroring. It integrates well with email and lots of organisations run bidirectional gateways. However, it has largely been forgotten. Most internet users have never heard of it and they don't know how to read it, except when they're shown a web gateway. Mobile developers have apparently never heard of it either, despite the fact that its lightweight nature and time-worn support for low-memory systems should make it a perfect fit. For postmoderation to work, most people would have to be using NNTP directly, or a web gateway, instead of an email gateway. We'd have to evangelise the clients, say in a footer in outgoing emails. A quick google search turns up the following NNTP clients for mobile platforms: Java: http://mobilenews.sourceforge.net/ iPhone: http://inewsgroup.googlecode.com/ Windows: http://www.qusnetsoft.ru/ -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Tim Starlingtstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: Austin Hair wrote: My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. I like NNTP too. It has postmoderation, so while you might not be able to authenticate posts, you can at least cancel any that fall outside the rules. It's an open standard which predates the web, and lots of tools and clients have been developed over the years to make use of its many features. It has built-in support for distribution and mirroring. It integrates well with email and lots of organisations run bidirectional gateways. I agree. The mozilla newsgroups are a good example. http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=usenet%3Dmozilla Another benefit is that the mailing list archives can be easily moved to the news server, keeping the history intact. However, it has largely been forgotten. Most internet users have never heard of it and they don't know how to read it, except when they're shown a web gateway. Mobile developers have apparently never heard of it either, despite the fact that its lightweight nature and time-worn support for low-memory systems should make it a perfect fit. For postmoderation to work, most people would have to be using NNTP directly, or a web gateway, instead of an email gateway. We'd have to evangelise the clients, say in a footer in outgoing emails. A quick google search turns up the following NNTP clients for mobile platforms: Java: http://mobilenews.sourceforge.net/ iPhone: http://inewsgroup.googlecode.com/ Windows: http://www.qusnetsoft.ru/ Google groups is a web gateway to NNTP. I've not tried it from a mobile, but I expect it would be usable. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Erik Moeller wrote: Part of traditional professionalization is also to only make a commitment when you feel you can uphold it. So where a casual, informal organization is more likely to say Yeah, sure and then never do anything (FlaggedRevisions and SUL being two examples of this happening in the past, with no execution over multiple years), a more formal, professional organization will only make the commitment if it can allocate resources to keep it. So, as an organization matures, it will by definition say no more frequently, because saying yes too often is one of the most common signs of immaturity. We've certainly not reached the end point of that process yet. But for a _volunteer_ driven organization, it's important to make a further transition, not from yes to no in 9 out of 10 cases, but from yes (and nothing will happen) to yes, and here's how _you_ can make it happen, except for the truly bad ideas. :-) I think this is where we're failing right now -- engaging more people to help us solve problems. The strategic planning process is the first attempt to scale up the small-room conversations of the past into the largest possible meaningful consultation. How do we transform those plans and proposals into volunteer workgroups and actions? I think the two are inherently in conflict, though. As organizations become professionalized, it becomes less appealing to work for them for free, when some people are getting paid to do the same job--- and the volunteers migrate to less-professionalized organizations. It's not absolute, but there's at least some tension. I'll stuff that I wouldn't really want to do, if I had the choice, for an organization that has absolutely no budget and no paid staff, if I believe in their goals and agree it needs to get done. But if an organization has full-time staff who are paid to do the unpleasant things, I'm much more likely to only work-for-free in doing the things I find enjoyable. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Austin Hair wrote: In Buenos Aires I had multiple people ask (even practically beg) me to do something about foundation-l. One person said fucking moderate foundation-l, already!—to which I explained why I didn't think that moderating individuals was a solution, but had to admit that I didn't really have a better one. Maybe I'm unusual in treating large mailing lists as if they were FidoNet or Usenet discussion forums, but the idea of people being bothered by long threads they don't care about, individuals whose posts they don't like, etc., is strange to me. Isn't that easily handled on the client side? Killfile individual posters, delete/filter entire threads, etc. Do most people use clients where that's unreasonably difficult? It does require *some* community standards to enable it. For example, it really helps the client-side filtering if people choose meaningful subject lines, and change subject lines when threads have drifted to new topics. But it's a fairly minimal set of things that have to be centrally enforced. It certainly seems easier than trying to come up with a centrally enforced set of standards that will simultaneously make everyone happy! -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 7:07 PM, Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com wrote: I would suggest that the optimal solution is probably a system that is mostly a forum but has a few email features as well rather than thinking of it as a gateway primarily designed to be used around email. Google Wave promises pretty much all the features I'd like to see in a perfect discussion forum. Only real problem is that it also promises 1000 other features that I'd rather not see. Oh, that and the fact that it hasn't been released publicly yet! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Austin Hair wrote: My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most comfortable way to read the list. It is open to read worldwide without registration, first time posters have to authenticate their mail address in the from with gmane. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com: As such, it's time to try something different. What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of this list, would you like to see change? -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
on 9/8/09 8:18 PM, Nathan at nawr...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think that this sort of moderation has been common in the past, but I think the moderation of Greg Kohs went a bit far - and for the reasons outlined by Greg Maxwell. Nathan I agree with you, Nathan. And I also agree with Mr. Churchill when he said, Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Marc Riddell ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
+1 On 2009-09-09, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: In the thread WMF seeking to sub-lease office space? On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Austin Hairadh...@gmail.com wrote: (to Gregory Kohs) [snip] I've placed you on indefinite moderation with the goal of improving the signal:crazy ratio. With something like 40 posts made to that thread after Mr. Kohs' last I think it is clear that the squelching of a (admittedly, trigger-happy) critic was ineffective at improving the SNB (signal-to-blah) ratio. …while at the same time it increased the scent of idea-centric rather than presentation-centric censorship. This is doubly a concern when moderation is used against someone who made an error that any one of us could have made and jumped to some hasty conclusions. Certainly there are non-profits which are little more than fronts for their operators' private gains, ones started for that purpose, and ones which fall into it after years of normal operation. In some places and at some scales the kind of self-dealing Mr. Kohs was concerned about are arguably the norm. I don't believe that they currently apply to Wikimedia but my confidence is in part derived from that fact that were there any real evidence of such things the critics would be all over it. (I do, however, think Wikimedia has done a worse job than it could have at avoiding the perception of self-dealing) Kohs was gleefully pointing at some supposed evidence of naughty-naughty. He missed a critical detail which made his position laughably wrong. I have no doubt that it was an honest mistake: in the end it only made him look silly. It was a mistake anyone could have made if they didn't begin by assuming good faith but the value of a critic is that they start with a different set of assumptions and values. I'm of the view that the further growth and development of Wikimedia and its family of projects is utterly dependent on having solid, well-considered, and productively-spoken critics. Internet forums are highly vulnerable to groupthink: as we work together we become a family. It's all too easy to avoid thinking critically about your family and about things you've invested time in. It for this reason, under other names, that we invite outsiders to serve on our board. A view from outside of WMF's reality distortion field (and from inside someone else's RDF) is essential. Mr. Kohs is frequently not an ideal critic: by being too prone to extreme positions, and by falling into accusations, he loses credibility. But even an off-the-wall critic can help make an environment more conducive to productive criticism. Someone more moderate may feel more comfortable speaking up when there is a strong critic handy to take the unreasonably extreme positions and the resulting heresy-fire and the existence of someone with an extreme position can help other people find a common ground. I'd prefer that moderation of this list be used as a last resort to maintain civil discourse and not as a tool to impose an external view of the desired traffic volume and especially not in a way which could be construed as prohibiting criticism. Dealing with criticism, including occasional off-the-wall criticism and sometimes outright nutty criticism, is one of the costs of open and transparent governance. I make this post with over a year of consideration: had this kind of (in my view) heavy-handed moderation been effective at improving the discourse on this list, I would be left with little to say. I don't think anyone here can say that it has improved. As such, it's time to try something different. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Sent from my mobile device ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
--- On Tue, 9/8/09, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: From: Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 6:05 PM In the thread WMF seeking to sub-lease office space? On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Austin Hairadh...@gmail.com wrote: (to Gregory Kohs) [snip] I've placed you on indefinite moderation with the goal of improving the signal:crazy ratio. With something like 40 posts made to that thread after Mr. Kohs' last I think it is clear that the squelching of a (admittedly, trigger-happy) critic was ineffective at improving the SNB (signal-to-blah) ratio. …while at the same time it increased the scent of idea-centric rather than presentation-centric censorship. This is doubly a concern when moderation is used against someone who made an error that any one of us could have made and jumped to some hasty conclusions. Certainly there are non-profits which are little more than fronts for their operators' private gains, ones started for that purpose, and ones which fall into it after years of normal operation. In some places and at some scales the kind of self-dealing Mr. Kohs was concerned about are arguably the norm. I don't believe that they currently apply to Wikimedia but my confidence is in part derived from that fact that were there any real evidence of such things the critics would be all over it. (I do, however, think Wikimedia has done a worse job than it could have at avoiding the perception of self-dealing) Kohs was gleefully pointing at some supposed evidence of naughty-naughty. He missed a critical detail which made his position laughably wrong. I have no doubt that it was an honest mistake: in the end it only made him look silly. It was a mistake anyone could have made if they didn't begin by assuming good faith but the value of a critic is that they start with a different set of assumptions and values. I'm of the view that the further growth and development of Wikimedia and its family of projects is utterly dependent on having solid, well-considered, and productively-spoken critics. Internet forums are highly vulnerable to groupthink: as we work together we become a family. It's all too easy to avoid thinking critically about your family and about things you've invested time in. It for this reason, under other names, that we invite outsiders to serve on our board. A view from outside of WMF's reality distortion field (and from inside someone else's RDF) is essential. Mr. Kohs is frequently not an ideal critic: by being too prone to extreme positions, and by falling into accusations, he loses credibility. But even an off-the-wall critic can help make an environment more conducive to productive criticism. Someone more moderate may feel more comfortable speaking up when there is a strong critic handy to take the unreasonably extreme positions and the resulting heresy-fire and the existence of someone with an extreme position can help other people find a common ground. I'd prefer that moderation of this list be used as a last resort to maintain civil discourse and not as a tool to impose an external view of the desired traffic volume and especially not in a way which could be construed as prohibiting criticism. Dealing with criticism, including occasional off-the-wall criticism and sometimes outright nutty criticism, is one of the costs of open and transparent governance. I make this post with over a year of consideration: had this kind of (in my view) heavy-handed moderation been effective at improving the discourse on this list, I would be left with little to say. I don't think anyone here can say that it has improved. As such, it's time to try something different. I agree completely with Mr. Maxwell (we seem to have too many Gregory's on this topic) about the usefulness of critics and inappropriateness of using moderation to suppress criticism. When Mr. Kohs was first moderated, I was not at all concerned. I had just previously contacted him off-list to try and influence him to alter the tone of his emails while still continuing to share his substantive message. He complained to me of the moderation as suppression right away. I dismissed him, saying he had given plenty of reason for being moderated by the style of his emails and that I saw no reason to believe he was being suppressed as I was sick enough of his style to stop reading him for this reason alone. I told him that he could expect his messages to passed on through moderation if he altered his tone, and if he proved to maintain this change he should expect to be taken off moderation. I was confident in my understanding of how we all felt here to set these expectations solely from my own speculation. I thought Mr. Kohs was making
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 6:05 PM, Gregory Maxwellgmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: I'd prefer that moderation of this list be used as a last resort to maintain civil discourse and not as a tool to impose an external view of the desired traffic volume and especially not in a way which could be construed as prohibiting criticism. Dealing with criticism, including occasional off-the-wall criticism and sometimes outright nutty criticism, is one of the costs of open and transparent governance. I make this post with over a year of consideration: had this kind of (in my view) heavy-handed moderation been effective at improving the discourse on this list, I would be left with little to say. I don't think anyone here can say that it has improved. As such, it's time to try something different. I agree, Greg. Moderation obviously doesn't solve the underlying problem; it's unevenly applied, and seldom fair to the parties involved. I try to avoid it, and limit moderation to cases of blatant incivility and/or ridiculousness. A fair bit of trolling is put up with, as long as there's a purpose—Anthony has this down to an art. In Buenos Aires I had multiple people ask (even practically beg) me to do something about foundation-l. One person said fucking moderate foundation-l, already!—to which I explained why I didn't think that moderating individuals was a solution, but had to admit that I didn't really have a better one. I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a cesspool. Please feel free to ignore the initial thoughts I banged out as a starting point and refactor as you will. If there's consensus on a better model, I'll happily implement it; even if there isn't, at least getting more people's thoughts on the matter is a start. As for Greg Kohs, what finally got him moderated was the way he reacted to the ongoing thread once his hasty conclusions were proven, er, misguided. Being nasty and uncivil isn't the only way to find yourself moderated; few people are interested in having a thread be drawn out for another week after it's descended to the point of absurdity. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
2009/9/8 Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com: In Buenos Aires I had multiple people ask (even practically beg) me to do something about foundation-l. One person said fucking moderate foundation-l, already!—to which I explained why I didn't think that moderating individuals was a solution, but had to admit that I didn't really have a better one. I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a cesspool. Please feel free to ignore the initial thoughts I banged out as a starting point and refactor as you will. If there's consensus on a better model, I'll happily implement it; even if there isn't, at least getting more people's thoughts on the matter is a start. Thanks Austin -- I have a lot of sympathy for your task here, and I really appreciate you trying to come up with solutions that will help foundation-l improve. Personally, I use foundation-l because it's our most accessible public channel for information-sharing and dialogue -- but that doesn't mean I like it much; I don't. I'm sure we all know plenty of people who unsubscribed long ago, either because they don't like the generally negative tone here, and/or because they find the signal-to-noise ratio too low to suit them. I assume that becomes (or long ago, became) a self-reinforcing cycle, with an increasing number of constructive/positive people leaving or falling silent, ceding the mailing list to negativity. It may sound like I am being really critical of the people who _are_ active here: I actually don't intend to be. I think tough questions and constructive criticism, done in good faith and with an open heart, are a service to us all. But I also believe we've lost our balance a little, and it would be good to have some more appreciation and warmth amidst the other stuff. So I will do my bit by appreciating Austin. Thanks for making the page :-) -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a cesspool. Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would like to see on foundation-l. My take on foundation-l is that the foundation doesn't take it very seriously. They recognize the potential of a mailing list and like the possibilities, but in practice there are too many people being overly critical of the foundation here for it to be useful to them. Also, the topics of discussion often seem like useless jabs that aren't really in the direction of progress. People are just itching to find the foundation doing something wrong so they can start a riot. This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress? Some of us feel that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea. Sue recently posted a couple of articles to foundation-l that were cookbooks for how to shut people that you perceive to be unproductive out of your community. That was obviously a flawed e-mail to send. Of course we are all aware of people who want to discuss the color of the bike shed. Discussing the difference between red and blue is not, in fact, a priori bad, and there should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of their employees in which they are expected to participate in these discussions. This is, after all, the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list. And yet with dozens of employees the Foundation's voice is but a whisper here. To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it. I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also let the community know that it takes what they say seriously. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:29 PM, Brianbrian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would like to see on foundation-l. You're right, it doesn't. I don't see it as my place to dictate, and I'm looking for most of the input to come from others. I do, however, hope we can all agree on a bare minimum of a civil forum for anyone interested to discuss Wikimedia Foundation issues. As a practical matter, improving the signal:blah ratio makes the forum more accessible—to community members, to trustees, to WMF Inc. staff (who, often new to the community, may feel intimidated jumping in). To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it. That's what I'm hoping we'll improve. I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also let the community know that it takes what they say seriously. I agree, but also assert that this isn't going to happen as long as 95% of the traffic comes from 1% of subscribers and an extremely high percentage of the overall volume is spent disputing minor points of semantics and prose. Volume is a problem, and it may not be one we can solve, but maybe we can put more effort into the art of pith? Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Sorry for top-posting, Brian. (I'm walking home, am on my Blackberry.) I don't feel super-comfortable posting on behalf of the staff, but I think it's fair to say that some of the staff are a little afraid to engage on foundation-l --- it can be intimidating, especially for new people. I think the staff feels both an obligation and a desire to engage with community members, but some tend to do it in forums that feel safer and more supportive (which might be on internal-l, in structured or semi-structured IRC conversations, etc.). I think that's not necessarily ideal, but it's very human and understandable. I don't think the answer to the problem is to focus on reducing the level of negativity -- I think that's backwards-looking and hard to do helpfully. But I think that if we aim to be generous and kind with each other, when that is appropriate, that could/would create a virtuous cycle of its own :-) -Original Message- From: Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 20:29:09 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a cesspool. Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would like to see on foundation-l. My take on foundation-l is that the foundation doesn't take it very seriously. They recognize the potential of a mailing list and like the possibilities, but in practice there are too many people being overly critical of the foundation here for it to be useful to them. Also, the topics of discussion often seem like useless jabs that aren't really in the direction of progress. People are just itching to find the foundation doing something wrong so they can start a riot. This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress? Some of us feel that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea. Sue recently posted a couple of articles to foundation-l that were cookbooks for how to shut people that you perceive to be unproductive out of your community. That was obviously a flawed e-mail to send. Of course we are all aware of people who want to discuss the color of the bike shed. Discussing the difference between red and blue is not, in fact, a priori bad, and there should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of their employees in which they are expected to participate in these discussions. This is, after all, the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list. And yet with dozens of employees the Foundation's voice is but a whisper here. To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it. I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also let the community know that it takes what they say seriously. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Sep 8, 2009, at 10:37 PM, Tim Starling wrote: I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads can be moved or locked. +me - and I would also point that for those who wish to be tied to email many web-based forums will send you email messages Philippe ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Erik Moeller wrote: 2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com: As such, it's time to try something different. What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of this list, would you like to see change? I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads can be moved or locked. Mailing lists, by their nature, have a large potential for abuse by trolls and spammers. It's trivial to impersonate another user, or to continue posting indefinitely despite being blocked. We're lucky that the behaviour we've seen here has been merely inconsiderate, rather than malicious. Discussion on the English Wikipedia continues to function despite hateful users who try every dirty trick they can think of to disrupt the community. We're lucky that foundation-l has only seen the merest hint of a reflection of that turmoil, because the tools we have to deal with abusive behaviour on mailing lists are far less capable than those that have been developed for Wikipedia. -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.orgwrote: I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads can be moved or locked. I only find that acceptable if a web-based forum can be found which allows me to email myself every post/reply. Citizendium switched to a web-based forum and I absolutely hated it. I have all my mailing lists accessible in one location. I am not interested in logging in to multiple websites. I'm sure a web-based forum can be made to handle this request. But I haven't seen one that does it yet, only ones that do it partially and half-assedly. Anyway, I've already made my proposal. Create a separate mailing list for low traffic well-thought-out posts, and leave this one here for writing what's on your mind without worrying about what percentage of subscribers are going to like it. Alternatively, put David Gerard in charge of foundation-l, or someone else who isn't going to complain that the list is a cesspool but not be willing to dictate to us what to do about it. Basically, you've got two choices. The second is to get off the pot. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:44 AM, Austin Hairadh...@gmail.com wrote: I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a cesspool. Please feel free to ignore the initial thoughts I banged out as a starting point and refactor as you will. If there's consensus on a better model, I'll happily implement it; even if there isn't, at least getting more people's thoughts on the matter is a start. Let's try something different: As a list moderator, make a working group to make a proposal (ask foundation-l participants to join you and make some selection). When your group make a proposal, put it on public discussion. And after changing the proposal according to reasonable suggestions, implement it. I think that three months are enough for this task. Without any model, all of us may talk about everything: Tim suggested forum, I would suggest that we should wait until Google Wave becomes reality. And we may continue to talk about everything endlessly. At the other side, I think that the vast majority of us would be happy with some user-friendly, free speech-friendly and workable solution. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
2009/9/8 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: Some of us feel that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea. Really? Can you give examples of stuff that used to be easy that's become harder now, and where consensus has been ignored where it would have been swiftly acted upon in the past? I do believe that much like in Wikipedia itself, we're past the low hanging fruit phase right now when it comes to WMF's objectives. It's one thing to set up a MediaWiki instance and call it Wiktionary, it's another to actually design software for supporting a multilingual dictionary and thesaurus. And so it goes with virtually every major challenge we're facing today. The easy stuff at this point is only easy in that it is obvious (yes, MediaWiki usability sucks), not in that it is easy to fix. Part of traditional professionalization is also to only make a commitment when you feel you can uphold it. So where a casual, informal organization is more likely to say Yeah, sure and then never do anything (FlaggedRevisions and SUL being two examples of this happening in the past, with no execution over multiple years), a more formal, professional organization will only make the commitment if it can allocate resources to keep it. So, as an organization matures, it will by definition say no more frequently, because saying yes too often is one of the most common signs of immaturity. We've certainly not reached the end point of that process yet. But for a _volunteer_ driven organization, it's important to make a further transition, not from yes to no in 9 out of 10 cases, but from yes (and nothing will happen) to yes, and here's how _you_ can make it happen, except for the truly bad ideas. :-) I think this is where we're failing right now -- engaging more people to help us solve problems. The strategic planning process is the first attempt to scale up the small-room conversations of the past into the largest possible meaningful consultation. How do we transform those plans and proposals into volunteer workgroups and actions? [ And yes, that's a bit off-topic for the thread, but I think pretty on-topic for the list. ;-) ] -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
