Re: [Wikimedia-l] Affiliations Committee 2012 Annual Report
Bence Damokos, 11/05/2013 15:13: Yes, to be fair, since the closing of the report, we had made some progress on this issue (e.g. we've had some user group name templates pre-approved[1] during a meeting in Milan with Stephen from the legal team and had clarified the process and responsibilities for names that don't match those templates for example in the case of thorgs). It remains to be seen if things do go smoother going forward with these improvements, but the goodwill is there on each side. It's a bit weird that the Affiliations Committee is tasked with ensuring that the name matches a single person's POV from a talk page. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Well, perhaps there was extensive consultation from Phillippe and Gayle if it had been planned over a long period of time and I just missed it. If that's the case, I'm sure that one of them will point it out for us first thing on Monday morning, at which point I'd have to start removing egg from my face ;-) Cheers, Craig On 12 May 2013 14:15, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's also worth noting this wasn't a last minute decision at all; its foreshadowed in a number of comments by Philippe going back to seemingly mid-March, and there may be warnings of it earlier. So the WMF staff have been discussing this change internally for at least 6 weeks or so. That's a long time to not think up a better plan for rolling it out. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues
This is a question that came up on the Wikimedia India list, and I suspect the question (and potential solutions) are of interest to several others in our community, esp. from places with shorter copyright terms than the US. Cheers, Achal Original Message Subject:Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 14:51:27 +0530 From: Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi Balasankar, The question you raise is a very important one. The solution, however, is not likely to be to host content in India (I don't speak for the Wikimedia Foundation, but there are sound legal reasons why all Wikimedia content is hosted in the US; mostly liability risk and freedom of expression and this is unlikely to change). The default across Commons and Wikisource, the two projects that host the bulk of public domain content (images, videos, sounds, books) in Wikimedia, is the US copyright term - it's the only yardstick that matters for what qualifies as public domain by virtue of being out of copyright. You are absolutely right, however, in that there's a big difference btw US copyright terms and those of other countries, for instance: For photographs, while the binding limit (Berne/TRIPs) is 25 years from the making of the work, India is life of photographer + 60 years after death, and in the US it is life + 70. For literary works, the binding limit (Berne/ TRIPs) is life + 50 years, whereas in India it is life + 60, whereas in the US it is life + 70 or 120/95 if made on work for hire. (The binding limit is the WTO mandated term that country members - US and India and 150 others - have to follow. As you can see, typically, most countries exceed the limit for reasons of their own, which they are allowed to do, with the US exceeding in far greater amount than India.) In short, there can be a difference of between 10 and 40 years between the time a work goes into the public domain in a country with shorter terms than the US (any number of countries in the non-Anglo-European world) and the US. This seriously affects even 'Indian' works (where India is the first country of publication) because of the copyright protection granted to such works in the US, thus effectively placing them under copyright for our purposes within Wikimedia long after they've gone in to the public domain in their source country. The case to consider here is Golan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_v._Holder A summary of the US Supreme Court decision in this case is - US law trumps international agreements, so the US copyright term holds within US territory, and restores copyright protection to any works that have gone into the public domain by virtue of a shorter copyright term in another country. Because Wikimedia servers are based in the US, Golan applies to us. But your question is an extremely pertinent one, and if we were to find unusual solutions to it, they would seem to lie in: 1) Whether hosting on US servers for a global audience makes any difference, since we do not serve readers only bound by US law (Wikimedia reader numbers bear this out, ie US readership = minority percentage of whole) and whether we specifically have anything special on the basis of which to mount some kind of strategic litigation on the issue of allowing us to exploit the shortest possible route to public domain anywhere in the world for all or some of our readers. 2) Whether hosting on US servers but using publicly audited geolocation to switch off for readers from IP addresses where the material in question is still under copyright is a legally and operationally feasible workaround (connected to whether Wikimedia Tech thinks this is both doable and worth our while to do) 3) Whether, if all fails and there is no getting around this in any way, Commons and Wikisource (if there is sufficient interest in those communities) should be interested in looking at a way of allowing external links to chapter-managed local sites from the US-served base to see the material in question; and if this is something, say, the India chapter wants and is willing to do, whether this route poses any legal risks. In any case, I passed around your question to a few friends for comments and suggestions - as well as to Geoff Brigham at the Wikimedia Foundation, who is not too hopeful for a solution but is very receptive to looking into it and getting back to us - and I'll tell you when I know something. Meanwhile, if you have other ways of looking into creative solutions around this problem (not at all easy to crack, but the benefits are significant) - or if anyone else on this list does - you should. Cheers, Achal On Friday 10 May 2013 10:20 PM, Balasankar Chelamattath wrote: Hi Srikanth, I didnt quite understand what you meant by example. An example for a work which
[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues
Of relevance here: http://www.publicdomainday.org/sites/www.publicdomainday.eu/files/World_copyright-terms.jpg Original Message Subject:Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 14:51:27 +0530 From: Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi Balasankar, The question you raise is a very important one. The solution, however, is not likely to be to host content in India (I don't speak for the Wikimedia Foundation, but there are sound legal reasons why all Wikimedia content is hosted in the US; mostly liability risk and freedom of expression and this is unlikely to change). The default across Commons and Wikisource, the two projects that host the bulk of public domain content (images, videos, sounds, books) in Wikimedia, is the US copyright term - it's the only yardstick that matters for what qualifies as public domain by virtue of being out of copyright. You are absolutely right, however, in that there's a big difference btw US copyright terms and those of other countries, for instance: For photographs, while the binding limit (Berne/TRIPs) is 25 years from the making of the work, India is life of photographer + 60 years after death, and in the US it is life + 70. For literary works, the binding limit (Berne/ TRIPs) is life + 50 years, whereas in India it is life + 60, whereas in the US it is life + 70 or 120/95 if made on work for hire. (The binding limit is the WTO mandated term that country members - US and India and 150 others - have to follow. As you can see, typically, most countries exceed the limit for reasons of their own, which they are allowed to do, with the US exceeding in far greater amount than India.) In short, there can be a difference of between 10 and 40 years between the time a work goes into the public domain in a country with shorter terms than the US (any number of countries in the non-Anglo-European world) and the US. This seriously affects even 'Indian' works (where India is the first country of publication) because of the copyright protection granted to such works in the US, thus effectively placing them under copyright for our purposes within Wikimedia long after they've gone in to the public domain in their source country. The case to consider here is Golan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_v._Holder A summary of the US Supreme Court decision in this case is - US law trumps international agreements, so the US copyright term holds within US territory, and restores copyright protection to any works that have gone into the public domain by virtue of a shorter copyright term in another country. Because Wikimedia servers are based in the US, Golan applies to us. But your question is an extremely pertinent one, and if we were to find unusual solutions to it, they would seem to lie in: 1) Whether hosting on US servers for a global audience makes any difference, since we do not serve readers only bound by US law (Wikimedia reader numbers bear this out, ie US readership = minority percentage of whole) and whether we specifically have anything special on the basis of which to mount some kind of strategic litigation on the issue of allowing us to exploit the shortest possible route to public domain anywhere in the world for all or some of our readers. 2) Whether hosting on US servers but using publicly audited geolocation to switch off for readers from IP addresses where the material in question is still under copyright is a legally and operationally feasible workaround (connected to whether Wikimedia Tech thinks this is both doable and worth our while to do) 3) Whether, if all fails and there is no getting around this in any way, Commons and Wikisource (if there is sufficient interest in those communities) should be interested in looking at a way of allowing external links to chapter-managed local sites from the US-served base to see the material in question; and if this is something, say, the India chapter wants and is willing to do, whether this route poses any legal risks. In any case, I passed around your question to a few friends for comments and suggestions - as well as to Geoff Brigham at the Wikimedia Foundation, who is not too hopeful for a solution but is very receptive to looking into it and getting back to us - and I'll tell you when I know something. Meanwhile, if you have other ways of looking into creative solutions around this problem (not at all easy to crack, but the benefits are significant) - or if anyone else on this list does - you should. Cheers, Achal On Friday 10 May 2013 10:20 PM, Balasankar Chelamattath wrote: Hi Srikanth, I didnt quite understand what you meant by example. An example for a work which is in public domain in India and not in US - Works by Changampuzha Krishnapillai (
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues
Hi Achal, For those cases there is a Wikisource clone called Wikilivres, whose server is in Canada and it is operated by a Canadian citizen. http://wikilivres.ca/ It is not very fast, but it serves as storage for such cases since the Canadian copyright law is quite permissive in that regard (50 years after author/translator death). Then you can link the works from the Wikisource author page to the work page in Wikilivres as some Wikisources do. If you have time, take also a look to the proposed improvements for Wikisource. Thanks! https://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource_vision_development/Applying_the_WS_values David ---User:Micru On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 5:27 AM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: Of relevance here: http://www.publicdomainday.** org/sites/www.publicdomainday.**eu/files/World_copyright-**terms.jpghttp://www.publicdomainday.org/sites/www.publicdomainday.eu/files/World_copyright-terms.jpg Original Message Subject:Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 14:51:27 +0530 From: Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindia-l@lists.** wikimedia.org wikimediaindi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi Balasankar, The question you raise is a very important one. The solution, however, is not likely to be to host content in India (I don't speak for the Wikimedia Foundation, but there are sound legal reasons why all Wikimedia content is hosted in the US; mostly liability risk and freedom of expression and this is unlikely to change). The default across Commons and Wikisource, the two projects that host the bulk of public domain content (images, videos, sounds, books) in Wikimedia, is the US copyright term - it's the only yardstick that matters for what qualifies as public domain by virtue of being out of copyright. You are absolutely right, however, in that there's a big difference btw US copyright terms and those of other countries, for instance: For photographs, while the binding limit (Berne/TRIPs) is 25 years from the making of the work, India is life of photographer + 60 years after death, and in the US it is life + 70. For literary works, the binding limit (Berne/ TRIPs) is life + 50 years, whereas in India it is life + 60, whereas in the US it is life + 70 or 120/95 if made on work for hire. (The binding limit is the WTO mandated term that country members - US and India and 150 others - have to follow. As you can see, typically, most countries exceed the limit for reasons of their own, which they are allowed to do, with the US exceeding in far greater amount than India.) In short, there can be a difference of between 10 and 40 years between the time a work goes into the public domain in a country with shorter terms than the US (any number of countries in the non-Anglo-European world) and the US. This seriously affects even 'Indian' works (where India is the first country of publication) because of the copyright protection granted to such works in the US, thus effectively placing them under copyright for our purposes within Wikimedia long after they've gone in to the public domain in their source country. The case to consider here is Golan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/** Golan_v._Holder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_v._Holder A summary of the US Supreme Court decision in this case is - US law trumps international agreements, so the US copyright term holds within US territory, and restores copyright protection to any works that have gone into the public domain by virtue of a shorter copyright term in another country. Because Wikimedia servers are based in the US, Golan applies to us. But your question is an extremely pertinent one, and if we were to find unusual solutions to it, they would seem to lie in: 1) Whether hosting on US servers for a global audience makes any difference, since we do not serve readers only bound by US law (Wikimedia reader numbers bear this out, ie US readership = minority percentage of whole) and whether we specifically have anything special on the basis of which to mount some kind of strategic litigation on the issue of allowing us to exploit the shortest possible route to public domain anywhere in the world for all or some of our readers. 2) Whether hosting on US servers but using publicly audited geolocation to switch off for readers from IP addresses where the material in question is still under copyright is a legally and operationally feasible workaround (connected to whether Wikimedia Tech thinks this is both doable and worth our while to do) 3) Whether, if all fails and there is no getting around this in any way, Commons and Wikisource (if there is sufficient interest in those communities) should be interested in looking at a way of allowing external links to chapter-managed local sites from the US-served base to see the material in question; and if this is
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues
Hi David, On Sunday 12 May 2013 07:33 PM, David Cuenca wrote: Hi Achal, For those cases there is a Wikisource clone called Wikilivres, whose server is in Canada and it is operated by a Canadian citizen. http://wikilivres.ca/ Thank you - I've seen it, and think it's great. It is not very fast, but it serves as storage for such cases since the Canadian copyright law is quite permissive in that regard (50 years after author/translator death). Then you can link the works from the Wikisource author page to the work page in Wikilivres as some Wikisources do. So while I'm glad there's a relatively central source for such things, I guess there'd be no problem hosting such content on Indian servers, say, for work that's gone into the public domain on the basis of Indian copyright law. My earlier email (and the originating question) was to how to mesh Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource with such work - and whether we could. Hence the interest in the law and its workarounds. If you have time, take also a look to the proposed improvements for Wikisource. Thanks! https://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource_vision_development/Applying_the_WS_values This looks great, and I was wondering if the last point on the list (working with other entities) also includes finding a way to placehold works that have gone out of copyright in other countries, and are hosted on, say, Wikilivres. That is, for people who consider themselves to be working on Wikisource, and are dealing with such works, is there anything you can offer them even if they have to host elsewhere? David ---User:Micru On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 5:27 AM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: Of relevance here: http://www.publicdomainday.** org/sites/www.publicdomainday.**eu/files/World_copyright-**terms.jpghttp://www.publicdomainday.org/sites/www.publicdomainday.eu/files/World_copyright-terms.jpg Original Message Subject:Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 14:51:27 +0530 From: Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindia-l@lists.** wikimedia.org wikimediaindi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi Balasankar, The question you raise is a very important one. The solution, however, is not likely to be to host content in India (I don't speak for the Wikimedia Foundation, but there are sound legal reasons why all Wikimedia content is hosted in the US; mostly liability risk and freedom of expression and this is unlikely to change). The default across Commons and Wikisource, the two projects that host the bulk of public domain content (images, videos, sounds, books) in Wikimedia, is the US copyright term - it's the only yardstick that matters for what qualifies as public domain by virtue of being out of copyright. You are absolutely right, however, in that there's a big difference btw US copyright terms and those of other countries, for instance: For photographs, while the binding limit (Berne/TRIPs) is 25 years from the making of the work, India is life of photographer + 60 years after death, and in the US it is life + 70. For literary works, the binding limit (Berne/ TRIPs) is life + 50 years, whereas in India it is life + 60, whereas in the US it is life + 70 or 120/95 if made on work for hire. (The binding limit is the WTO mandated term that country members - US and India and 150 others - have to follow. As you can see, typically, most countries exceed the limit for reasons of their own, which they are allowed to do, with the US exceeding in far greater amount than India.) In short, there can be a difference of between 10 and 40 years between the time a work goes into the public domain in a country with shorter terms than the US (any number of countries in the non-Anglo-European world) and the US. This seriously affects even 'Indian' works (where India is the first country of publication) because of the copyright protection granted to such works in the US, thus effectively placing them under copyright for our purposes within Wikimedia long after they've gone in to the public domain in their source country. The case to consider here is Golan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/** Golan_v._Holder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_v._Holder A summary of the US Supreme Court decision in this case is - US law trumps international agreements, so the US copyright term holds within US territory, and restores copyright protection to any works that have gone into the public domain by virtue of a shorter copyright term in another country. Because Wikimedia servers are based in the US, Golan applies to us. But your question is an extremely pertinent one, and if we were to find unusual solutions to it, they would seem to lie in: 1) Whether hosting on US servers for a global audience makes any difference, since we do not serve readers only bound by US law (Wikimedia reader numbers bear this out, ie US readership = minority percentage
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed
All, As an update, I'm afraid to announce that we will have to delay the process for some time. As my previous e-mail states, we had intended to start the final renaming process in the week commencing 27 May. However, given the scale of the task, it now is clear that this would interfere with the community elections for the Wikimedia Foundation's Board, FDC and FDC Ombudsperson, which start on 1 June. Voters' accounts would get renamed (and then possibly renamed further at their request), which would mean that the eligible-voter list would be out-of-date and need a huge amount of manual work by the Election Committee. As I'm sure you're all aware, the existing duties of the Committee are already taxing; adding this to their workload at the last minute would be highly unfair to them, and to the community who will wish to vote. Although the finalisation of the Single User Login system is important, I cannot let it disrupt the community's voting. Because of this, I have decided to delay the renaming and the finalisation of SUL. This will not have an impact on existing features, though it will mean that non-global users may be unable to use new tools developed between now and finalisations. Unfortunately, by the time the election is over, I will be focussed entirely on the wider roll-out of VisualEditor, which will continue for some time. I therefore intend to re-start the process in August, following Wikimania. I will let people know the updated schedule closer to the time. Sorry for the disruption to everyone's plans. If you have any questions, please do ask. J. -- James D. Forrester Product Manager, VisualEditor Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 5/11/13 8:01 PM, Seb35 wrote: Thanks a lot for this explanation. On the other side, wikis not only need content producers (here WMF) but also curators (wikignomes) who are sorting the pages, deleting and moving pages, typocorrecting, templating things, helping new users in formatting texts, etc. (I read some of the Florence’s blogposts :) -- and not being admin restricts a lot the possible actions. Yeah ! :-) As a side note, Philippe has apparently restored my admin status (I did not ask any special favor) upon the reason that I am on the Advisory Board. But let me put it this way... I do not buy the argument offered by Sue that But, my understanding is also that occasionally volunteers have overridden decisions made by staff on the Wikimedia Foundation wiki. Sorry Sue... but this is a very poor argument. If there is a problem with ONE or TWO editors (was there at least two ?) then the way to go is to talk with this editor, not to remove all volunteer administrators who have been helping nicely for so many years. In the past, we used to talk about soft security as opposed to hard security. Hard security was about passwords, rights, filters, walls, blocking, deleting and such. Soft security was about conversations, peer reviews, reversions, recent changes, and other collaborative transparent processes. We have been going on for over 10 years primarily relying on soft security. And it did not work so badly in the end. Because for one bad person, and one confused, there were swarms of good people. Is not that sad that staff decided that soft security was no more the way to go, and that implementing hard security to prevent problems with ONE or TWO people was a better way than relying upon dozen of good people and spending a little bit of time discussing with the confused ? The decision made by staff make it appear that volunteers are more an inconvenience than a help. I can not blame a staff member to feel this way if he had to spent some time arguing with a volunteer whilst he had a mandate to do something specific and the volunteer was preventing it (whether a good or bad idea). It can be very annoying ;) However, I feel that management and board should have a slightly higher view on the matter and should realize how much they actually DO NEED the volunteers to BE happy and to FEEL useful and appreciated (See the recent discussion related to Wikimedia Hong Kong) and to reflect whether the long term outcome of the decision to remove admin rights to volunteers on the foundation wiki (and blog if I understood well) is a good idea or not. Alternatively, it might be good to really move as much as possible of the Wikimedia Foundation Wiki to meta (where at least, the community is in charge of who is admin and who is not). Flo PS: however, do note that it is a good idea to remove admin flags from users who quit the community entirely. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Affiliations Committee 2012 Annual Report
Nemo, I'm not sure what you mean by a single person's POV. Are you referring to Stephen? While it is true that WMF Legal did the final writing of some guidelines - a few points: 1. They are guidelines - and AffCom has flexibility if it so desires and finds necessary. 2. They were written based on feedback from non-AffCom folks on talk pages, Milan, and elsewhere - as well as based on input from AffCom. 3. Naming guidelines exist for chapters and other entities - this is nothing new. 4. A final summarizing guideline or document being written by one person with unique skills, such as legal, is also nothing new, unusual, or implies that only their views are represented - that's just not true. - greg aka varnent On 12 May, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: Bence Damokos, 11/05/2013 15:13: Yes, to be fair, since the closing of the report, we had made some progress on this issue (e.g. we've had some user group name templates pre-approved[1] during a meeting in Milan with Stephen from the legal team and had clarified the process and responsibilities for names that don't match those templates for example in the case of thorgs). It remains to be seen if things do go smoother going forward with these improvements, but the goodwill is there on each side. It's a bit weird that the Affiliations Committee is tasked with ensuring that the name matches a single person's POV from a talk page. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed
On 12 May 2013 10:40, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: James Forrester, 12/05/2013 19:20: Sorry for the disruption to everyone's plans. If you have any questions, please do ask. Will you still make the lists and send out the notifications so that people can start planning? Yes. J. -- James D. Forrester jdforres...@gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 5/12/13 8:13 PM, David Gerard wrote: On 12 May 2013 18:47, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote: Alternatively, it might be good to really move as much as possible of the Wikimedia Foundation Wiki to meta (where at least, the community is in charge of who is admin and who is not). This is a good idea anyway. Having the WMF wiki become a staff-controlled operation is not an outlandish or terrible idea - it's the official site of the nonprofit itself, after all. But this was not a good way to do it. That said, there are projects who do much worse. Here's GNOME's attempt to win the XFree86 Memorial Award for Community Management for 2013: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698544 - d. :) Yeah, pretty bad. The main reason I would consider WMF wiki SHOULD NOT be an entirely staff-controlled and operated site is the fact we originally wanted it to be at least in part multilingual. Current staff does not seem to be very interested in that original wish. Some requests for translation are sometimes made but lot's of outdated content is still over there. Sometimes, it does not matter too much. Other times, it is quite unfortunate. Check out for example http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy Important ? yes Should be translated ? I would say yes, as much as possible Should old versions stick there ? I would say vehemently no, should not Still, many languages still display the old version. The staff will hide itself behind the fact that only the English version matters. Which is why Dutch is still the old version: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacybeleid Is that good ? No, I would say it is not serious. Who can help clean that up ? Well... if not the volunteers, then it would have to be the staff job. Except I doubt the staff would consider that to be part of its job. If only because staff does not speak 300 languages. What's the best way to motivate volunteers to help with translation and update of non-English content ? I am not sure, but probably not in removing their admin bit as if they were dangerous people. Right now, I would go as far as saying that WMF on the contrary should look out for more people to help clean up ;) How does that happen right now ? Well, volunteers do ask on meta to get an account for WMF wiki. Where ? Here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request_for_an_account_on_the_Foundation_wiki And guess who is taking care of giving them access ? A volunteer who has the technical means to create them accounts. Oh wait... not any more. Ah, hum. Well, I take it a staff member will do that in the future :) --- Alternatively, the staff, with the official support of their management and the board can decide that the Foundation wiki should not try any more to be translated in other languages and should stick to what it actually is: a US-based non profit company. Translations may be non-official... and on meta. --- The multilingualism we hoped so dearly has always been an issue. It is poorly dealt with on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Poorly dealt with on the Foundation Wiki. Poorly dealt with on OTRS. :( Florence ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 5/12/13 8:26 PM, Thehelpfulone wrote: On 12 May 2013 18:47, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote: Alternatively, it might be good to really move as much as possible of the Wikimedia Foundation Wiki to meta (where at least, the community is in charge of who is admin and who is not). Mostly in charge, there are a few exceptions where adminship has been granted by WMF staff for their work without going through any formal community procedures: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Administrators#Temporary_adminship_or_adminship_by_decree I do not see that as a really problematic issue. Unfortunate, but not really problematic. As long as the appointed admin behave within community rules and does good, there is only damage to our pride and disrespect to the rules. But ... results over rules. Result is what matters. Rules is only a way to get there. A serious problem would be * IF the staff was the one deciding who is admin generally * IF the staff was boldly removing admin access to volunteers Still, if you want to be a bit pointy, you should probably mention that it is unclear why https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Smazeland still needs to be an admin Flo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 12 May 2013 19:44, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote: :) Yeah, pretty bad. The main reason I would consider WMF wiki SHOULD NOT be an entirely staff-controlled and operated site is the fact we originally wanted it to be at least in part multilingual. Current staff does not seem to be very interested in that original wish. Some requests for translation are sometimes made but lot's of outdated content is still over there. Sometimes, it does not matter too much. Other times, it is quite unfortunate. Check out for example http://wikimediafoundation.**org/wiki/Privacy_policyhttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy Important ? yes Should be translated ? I would say yes, as much as possible Should old versions stick there ? I would say vehemently no, should not Still, many languages still display the old version. The staff will hide itself behind the fact that only the English version matters. Which is why Dutch is still the old version: http://wikimediafoundation.**org/wiki/Privacybeleidhttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacybeleid Is that good ? No, I would say it is not serious. Who can help clean that up ? Well... if not the volunteers, then it would have to be the staff job. Except I doubt the staff would consider that to be part of its job. If only because staff does not speak 300 languages. What's the best way to motivate volunteers to help with translation and update of non-English content ? I am not sure, but probably not in removing their admin bit as if they were dangerous people. Right now, I would go as far as saying that WMF on the contrary should look out for more people to help clean up ;) How does that happen right now ? Well, volunteers do ask on meta to get an account for WMF wiki. Where ? Here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/** wiki/Request_for_an_account_**on_the_Foundation_wikihttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request_for_an_account_on_the_Foundation_wiki And guess who is taking care of giving them access ? A volunteer who has the technical means to create them accounts. Oh wait... not any more. Ah, hum. Well, I take it a staff member will do that in the future :) --- Alternatively, the staff, with the official support of their management and the board can decide that the Foundation wiki should not try any more to be translated in other languages and should stick to what it actually is: a US-based non profit company. Translations may be non-official... and on meta. --- The multilingualism we hoped so dearly has always been an issue. It is poorly dealt with on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Poorly dealt with on the Foundation Wiki. Poorly dealt with on OTRS. :( For what it's worth, I did try to get some re-translation organised in early February: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF and asked communications staff at the WMF for their input. To be fair to them they did say that they'd look into it and get back to me but I think they might have been swamped with other things so it was forgotten. -- Thehelpfulone https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Thehelpfulone, 12/05/2013 20:58: For what it's worth, I did try to get some re-translation organised in early February: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF and asked communications staff at the WMF for their input. To be fair to them they did say that they'd look into it and get back to me but I think they might have been swamped with other things so it was forgotten. I don't think staff has ever touched translation on WMF wiki, it's always been done by the almighty heroes Cbrown1023, Aphaia, Az1568 with their gazillion edits and a few others. It's unfair to think they'd have something to say. Meta has the Translate extension, the translators and the community. At this point it's clear that foundationwiki is going to rot, we should just set up all the policies and important documents on Meta for translation and start the work again; we've been stuck for too many years now. Eventually, the links will go where the value is and nobody will care about the wasteland at foundationwiki. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 12.05.2013 20:44, Florence Devouard wrote: The multilingualism we hoped so dearly has always been an issue. It is poorly dealt with on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Poorly dealt with on the Foundation Wiki. Poorly dealt with on OTRS. :( Florence If someone approaches me and asks to write a blog post about the Russian Wikivoyage (where I happen to be an admin) I could do it in two or three languages. (I certainly can survive if nobody does). On the other hand if I only write it in Russian - would it be such a good idea? From what I know, the number of Russian Wikimedians who read the blog on a regular basis is measured by a single digit. Cheers Yaroslav ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 5/12/13 9:28 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote: On 12.05.2013 20:44, Florence Devouard wrote: The multilingualism we hoped so dearly has always been an issue. It is poorly dealt with on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Poorly dealt with on the Foundation Wiki. Poorly dealt with on OTRS. :( Florence If someone approaches me and asks to write a blog post about the Russian Wikivoyage (where I happen to be an admin) I could do it in two or three languages. (I certainly can survive if nobody does). On the other hand if I only write it in Russian - would it be such a good idea? From what I know, the number of Russian Wikimedians who read the blog on a regular basis is measured by a single digit. Cheers Yaroslav Fortunately, we know that numbers is not always what matters ;) Flo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues (David Cuenca)
As Achal pointed out, we will put resources into researching this issue in depth and hopefully finding a solution that may work. It will probably take a month or two to ensure we are looking at all possibilities to see if this is possible. If you have any great ideas, please feel free to send them to me, and I will ensure our team will consider them fully. This will be an interesting project, and I greatly appreciate everyone's interest in finding a lawful solution that ensures the distribution of all materials in the public domain. Geoff ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
That is correct. Because despite your attempts to turn me into the decision making authority here, I wasn't. You don't need to talk to the worker bee who executed, you want to talk to the person who made the decision. That's not me. And she is traveling. And also, you know, I'm working brutal hours right now and yeah, I wanted to try to not be posting this weekend. I had to deal with my mistake in not removing Phoebes rights at the same time and I had to deal with an elections thing. But was I anxious to come wading into a situation where - despite you clearly being told that I wasn't a decision maker - you continue to (for whatever reason) advance the asinine position that someone must be pulling gayles strings and therefore it must be me because I am evil? No, you know, MZ, I didn't come skipping gleefully to that conversation. Let me be clear: I respect the work that you do. But I have zero time for your distortions of the situation when you've been told that it wasn't my decision. You want an explanation? I'm sure that Gayle will offer one. But for the umpteenth time, I was the person pushing the button because someone had to be. So lets leave my motivations out of this okay? I'm spending hundreds of hours per month fighting to support the volunteer community here and your assignations to the contrary are insulting. PB — Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc On May 12, 2013, at 10:06 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Philippe has had time to go back and remove Phoebe's user rights and Philippe has had time to post to this mailing list about the upcoming Wikimedia elections, but he has chosen not to participate in this thread at all about his actions. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Philippe Beaudette wrote: You want an explanation? I'm sure that Gayle will offer one. But for the umpteenth time, I was the person pushing the button because someone had to be. Why did you feel compelled to act here when it wasn't your decision? Was there something preventing Gayle from doing this herself? It's pretty strange to involve yourself in this decision (that wasn't yours) and then turn around and say well why are you pointing at me?! You were raised in a wiki culture, just as I was, where an individual is responsible for the actions of his or her account. You obviously felt an obligation to act here. What remains unclear is why. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
MZMcBride, 12/05/2013 22:45: Why did you feel compelled to act here when it wasn't your decision? Was there something preventing Gayle from doing this herself? Be honest, if Gayle had done this herself you would have said that maybe she hadn't read the documentation on Special:UserRights carefully and it was a mistake. :) It's pretty strange to involve yourself in this decision (that wasn't yours) and then turn around and say well why are you pointing at me?! You were raised in a wiki culture, just as I was, where an individual is responsible for the actions of his or her account. You obviously felt an obligation to act here. What remains unclear is why. To me it's very clear, nobody wanted to take responsibility or blame for the decision(*) so they let someone who's going out of town take the blame, someone in another department press the button, and the top management cover everything with flimsy rhetoric. Next time they could do better, the act could be executed before a longer holiday or be spread across more departments (a third person to send the notification emails, or a deflag squad of 14 staffers as with fusillading). But no worries, the WMF is still a young org and is learning. Nemo (*) Which may have been discussed for several weeks, as Nathan pointed out. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 5/12/13 10:45 PM, MZMcBride wrote: Philippe Beaudette wrote: You want an explanation? I'm sure that Gayle will offer one. But for the umpteenth time, I was the person pushing the button because someone had to be. Why did you feel compelled to act here when it wasn't your decision? Was there something preventing Gayle from doing this herself? It's pretty strange to involve yourself in this decision (that wasn't yours) and then turn around and say well why are you pointing at me?! You were raised in a wiki culture, just as I was, where an individual is responsible for the actions of his or her account. You obviously felt an obligation to act here. What remains unclear is why. MZMcBride Why = contractual agreement with his employer. He may have been raised in the wiki culture, he has obligations as staff. Give Philippe a break MZMcBride. You are obviously unhappy and there are reasons for that; But giving Philippe the bad ride is not the way to go. Take a break, drink a tea, grab chocolate, watch a movie, have a walk. Anything. It is Sunday anyway. Flo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Thanks for clarifying this Phillippe. I must say that I think this discussion is becoming unpleasantly personal (and my initial email on the topic probably didn't help there, I concede). How about we stop pointing fingers at each other and conduct an honest and transparent appraisal of what has happened with a view to learning lessons from it so that it doesn't happen again. I also have to point out that while it's not ideal at all that this happened late on a Friday afternoon when everyone was leaving the office, nor is it reasonable to expect paid staff to snap to and respond on the weekends during their personal time. The damage has been done now, and it's not so urgent an issue that it can't wait until Monday for a response. Cheers, Craig On 13 May 2013 06:23, Philippe Beaudette pbeaude...@wikimedia.org wrote: That is correct. Because despite your attempts to turn me into the decision making authority here, I wasn't. You don't need to talk to the worker bee who executed, you want to talk to the person who made the decision. That's not me. And she is traveling. And also, you know, I'm working brutal hours right now and yeah, I wanted to try to not be posting this weekend. I had to deal with my mistake in not removing Phoebes rights at the same time and I had to deal with an elections thing. But was I anxious to come wading into a situation where - despite you clearly being told that I wasn't a decision maker - you continue to (for whatever reason) advance the asinine position that someone must be pulling gayles strings and therefore it must be me because I am evil? No, you know, MZ, I didn't come skipping gleefully to that conversation. Let me be clear: I respect the work that you do. But I have zero time for your distortions of the situation when you've been told that it wasn't my decision. You want an explanation? I'm sure that Gayle will offer one. But for the umpteenth time, I was the person pushing the button because someone had to be. So lets leave my motivations out of this okay? I'm spending hundreds of hours per month fighting to support the volunteer community here and your assignations to the contrary are insulting. PB — Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc On May 12, 2013, at 10:06 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Philippe has had time to go back and remove Phoebe's user rights and Philippe has had time to post to this mailing list about the upcoming Wikimedia elections, but he has chosen not to participate in this thread at all about his actions. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 05/12/2013 04:42 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: The most he could ask from you is a comment on how frequently you have to be the one pushing the button against the community. Again with this meme! Against the community. *NOBODY* works against the community. Sometimes, we do things that displease part, or most of the community. Sometimes, there are mistakes, flubbed judgment calls, and boneheaded gaffes. By accident, confusion or miscommunication, the community might have been harmed. Occasionally, even, someone acts like a human and does something in anger or stupidity that was clearly wrong in retrospect. But Against the community means seeing the community as an adversary, and acting to undermine or harm it. The very *attitude* necessary to say this is what causes those problems, trying to paint Us vs. Them on what should be collaboration. If you think Philippe - or through him Gayle - did what they did against the community, then you have already have abandoned any pretense of good faith towards the foundation and towards them personally. Unless you can back your assertions of malice, please take them elsewhere. /rant -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 12/05/13 02:48, Sue Gardner wrote: The staff working on the Wikimedia Foundation wiki have jobs they've got to get done, in support of the entire movement. If they spend days or weeks needing to persuade a single community member of the merits of something they want to do on the Foundation wiki, or if they need to modify their plans extensively to accommodate the opinions of a single community member, that reduces the amount of time available for them to do the rest of their work. Which, I repeat, is in the service of the movement overall. So it was a response to a particular conflict? My understanding is that the Wikimedia Foundation staff who work on the Foundation wiki have been grateful (and are grateful) for the help they've gotten from community members in maintaining the Foundation wiki, and that we hope they'll continue to help us. Let's hope so. But in my experience, stripping titles such as administrator from volunteers is an excellent way to get them to leave. It's not really about the technical privileges, these titles are a recognition of good work done, and a symbol of trust, and are one of the few rewards we give to volunteers. Stripping privileges from a volunteer is upsetting, and undermines their core motivation for contributing. So I can appreciate that the conflict needed to be resolved, but I have to wonder whether this was the best way to go about it. -- Tim Starling ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.comwrote: This looks great, and I was wondering if the last point on the list (working with other entities) also includes finding a way to placehold works that have gone out of copyright in other countries, and are hosted on, say, Wikilivres. That is, for people who consider themselves to be working on Wikisource, and are dealing with such works, is there anything you can offer them even if they have to host elsewhere? It might be possible, but it won't be easy, because not only the scans have to be in an external server, also the transcribed text. For that reason I think it is easier just to link to Wikilivres for the needed works. In any case if you find a different way to make it work, please let me know. Cheers, David ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Hello folks, So... I caught bits of this while I was on layover between plane flights, so I've had time to have the multiple reactions that one has (nothing like an 11-hour flight to think about a situation). I've had time to feel defensive, insulted, opened, humbled, curious, thoughtful, regretful, optimistic... This is an earnest “I'm sorry, I'll do better” and I don't perfectly know what that looks like yet, because I (and I suspect like you) go from day to day within in a complex life trying to do the best I can. I'll respond more later, as I've got some scheduled time a way and like all human beings I need it, but will circle back when I return to work next Monday. I was thinking that I would be a very different person if I never made mistakes. :) In fact, contemplation of that is rather funny if any of you know me or the circumstances of my life. I could have done the process differently. I DO sometimes forget we're all on the same side. That's a darned shame. I do it sometimes because part of my job is to deal with how beleaguered some members (not all – I'm trying to find my way back to nuance and ask you to too) because sometimes they ask me for help, because I deal every day with burnout and chaos and challenging interpersonal dynamics, and I see some of the downright abusive messages that no person (staff or admin or user or each and any one of you reading this) should be subject to while pursuing work they love. (I also get to see some of the grateful messages, the way we support one another, not just tear people down. That part is /awesome/.) I find our staff and volunteers that I've worked with remarkable - people who I'm ridiculously grateful to work with and for. And I have no doubt that some of you have experienced staff (myself included) in ways I'm blind to, and I think there's room for all of us to get better. But I wish people could see how, even though it's our job, it can be sometimes just exhausting to try to please so many different voices. Some of you may think that the Foundation doesn't think about the community – and I think we sometimes listen so much that it's a little crazy because, as has been explained to us, the community is not one voice, not one thing, not one person. It's a vast, beautiful, sometimes conflicted, sometimes coordinated people working on this enormous shared endeavor. So it's not that community is not worth listening to, but how and where and to what pieces, and how do we get better at it and how do we amplify the constructive voices and not let deconstructive voices (both within the Foundation and without) tear us down because this work is hard. All our work is hard. I do appreciate the volunteers who have stepped and kept things going when I was personally at capacity. When I read that I need to remember just who pays my salary, I think a whole bunch of things (and have the various reactions I have, where both assume good faith that someone means that and I also look at the possibility that it was meant to be insulting and provoking). And at the end of the day, millions of people do and hundreds of thousands of editors help make that happen. I don't forget that. I do think that I am called to this role because on my best days, it uses me well – it uses my skills and knowledge and abilities in ways that I hope are good for the world. I am not anyone's servant (except perhaps for this cause), and I am deeply listening. So sometimes I forget we're on the same side, and thank you for reminding me. Thank you for the temperate voices, the ones who present a point of view I hadn't considered. As you can likely imagine, I hear more that way. Most people do. Someone mentioned that it's easier to lay good ground than to fix something in retrospect, and that most certainly is very, very true. :) (I really dislike that other people had to answer for me while I was out of commission - and my own fault for doing something on my to-do list the Friday before leaving town. Totally get that.) So...listening, thinking... also tired, but optimistic, and I hope and want to keep doing better. This definitely feels like a bit of trial by fire. Warmest regards, Gayle -- Gayle Karen K. Young Chief Talent and Culture Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415.310.8416 www.wikimediafoundation.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 3:44 PM, Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org wrote: On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 7:15 AM, K. Peachey p858sn...@gmail.com wrote: This is the email that got sent out to everyone, For what it's worth, this didn't get sent out to everyone. I was a bureaucrat and administrator, and have the most edits on that wiki (afaik?), and wasn't notified. Like Huib, I was also in the batch of blog moderator removals and wasn't notified about that either. I'm not very active anymore, so it's not really a huge deal, but it's still bad form to have not gotten any kind of notification at all. I'm going to have to agree with Casey on this. I also received absolutely zero notification or warning as a longtime bureaucrat and administrator that my rights were to be removed on WMF wiki or the foundation's blog. We should have been reached out to directly and have been informed of this decision. Even if there was little about it that we could change. Alex ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Moving forward: a proposal (Re: Community/WMF)
I've started a new thread to step back from the long thread, and look forward towards something that I think we need - or might want - to do. This is not at all the first time of clumsy handling, or conflicting actions and perceptions, leading to tensions and drama between the editing community and foundation. There are some common themes. As noted by Sue and others, WMF and the community may have different low-level priorities and motivators. They have a different structure and legal context. There are different scales and kinds of consequences possible. Even when contemplating the same issue, the processes and input of both may be equally valid but diverge a lot. Last, even when a WMF matter is valid or chosen diligently, the communication aspects of transparency, consultation, and mutual respect can be missing, and it may be perceived as very or grossly inappropriate or a breach of unspoken etiquette. *This has added heat and fuel to many incidents over many years. Not just one or a few matters. It benefits nobody that we give no guidance to reduce or (if able) avoid these confrontations in future, and no one part of the wider Community can draft such guidance in isolation. *I think it's time we addressed it head on. I would like to call on WMF and the Community (in its broadest sense) to set out terms, and organize, a formal consultation, to answer these questions: 1. *What expectations and needs do the Volunteer Community, Chapters, and WMF, have of each other?* 2. *What guidance and guidelines can we agree upon*, that can be given to new staff at WMF/Chapters, or referenced by anyone in the Movement, to understand how to recognize and deal with situations that may impinge on other parts of the Movement? 3. *In particular, what best practices or necessities can be outlined for someone* wishing to broach, consult, and progress an proposal or action that may be seen as unexpected by a subset of the Movement, and, if there must for operational/legal purposes be a done deal, how do we collectively concur these (hopefully uncommon) cases should be approved, handled, and discussed/communicated? I would like the outcome to be a *living document*, like any other major policy, that can be used to *understand how to reduce friction*, and *best practices and understandings of viewpoints, within different parts of our Movement*, and thereby ensuring everyone involved is more aware of these aspects and of best practices in working with other areas and subgroups in our Community. I'd note that policies often contain nuances and don't always imply a single fixed answer exists. Their aim is to reduce the areas of discord, even if it can't be eliminated, by outlining what is mandatory, or preferred, or good practice, or unacceptable, or may be important to know. I see the result as being a policy of that kind. I'd note also that although mainly considering WMF and the volunteer community, it's worth addressing broadly, because other movement subgroups can also have internal decisions capable of this kind of problem. For example, and in principle, OTRS administrators might one day make a unilateral decision to limit or alter some aspect of how OTRS and its team operates, a chapter might make a clumsy or ill-conceived choice affecting WMF or editorial aspects in a given country, or a computer/data/system administrator may make a decision about computer matters, as well. There may be useful guidance applicable to others in the movement. FT2 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Gayle Karen Young wrote: Hello folks, [...] Gayle So what did you want to say? I haven't been able to find any answers to any questions that have been asked by so many people in this thread. -- Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Moving forward: a proposal (Re: Community/WMF)
Afterthought x 3: - WMF and its staff should probably have an explicit understanding that they often need to bend for community approaches and collaboration, and expectations (rather than the other way round). *Rationale: -* WMF needs to ensure that staff know good ways to work with the community. It's not symmetrical: a legal body can have meetings and executive decisions, and everyone understands how they work and their meaning. But the community doesn't have that kind of process and resists being shoehorned if its own (inchoate) ways are not respected. Community expectations probably include transparency, deliberation, and expectation management, ie no (unpleasant+sudden) surprises. Most people know this but somehow it failed here. That was avoidable. Community expectations are nowhere summarized, nor how to meet them, nor what we * collectively* feel should happen when faced with a WMF decision that someone feels must be done. If it can be perceived as lapsed or breached this easily *despite* staff awareness, then we need to set it out, not assume it, for all our good. - The community needs to appreciate that WMF sometimes has to make these decisions. A mature appreciation of WMF role and position would include agreement if possible that the need can arise, which kinds of issues might appropriately need a unilateral decision, and how it should take place. We should agree some kind of reliable guidance however short to say what WMF staff can do or might be expected to have tried doing, and what's needed in communication or action to minimize any discord. - Last, even if there had been transparency and consultation in the recent matter, there is still a sense by some volunteers that the done deal element was in its own right, inappropriate or inept. So transparency and consultation alone may not be all that's needed. What else is needed probably ought to be worked out on Meta so it isn't just limited to list subscribers. FT2 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 5:34 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tom...@twkozlowski.net wrote: So what did you want to say? I haven't been able to find any answers to any questions that have been asked by so many people in this thread. Try and be a bit nicer please. Gayle is still relatively new and this level of scrutiny might be jarring for someone. I'm not sure what the expectation was here, it wasn't going to be a grand plan or a hidden explanation for this action. Sue and Erik gave their versions, so as far as explanations go, if Philippe said he was the button pusher, Gayle could have argued she was merely the one who authorized the button pushing. I kind of like that she didn't take that route. I don't think there's anywhere else to go from here. I suppose now it comes down to futile arguments over levels of culpability. At the most, there was malicious intent against Mz, where his removal alone was the eventual goal, and a policy had to be erected or modified to facilitate that. The rest might have been an amalgamation of inactive users and bystanders who got caught on either side of it. It's sad if it had to come down to that. Admins like THO and Mz, are godsend. At the very least, this was handled poorly. I don't think anyone including the executives would disagree with that one. Perhaps a courtesy note - a thank you, a warning, some time in between - would have made the world of a difference. Maybe the problem itself instead of the person could have been isolated, and talked out. I still have a sneaking suspicion that Gayle didn't realize what she was getting into. I also think that people reading this are missing a lot of the context and history here. Before the removal of his rights, Mz made ~2000 edits on that wiki this year. A lot of them are tedious edits which no one really does from the foundation's side. I think he's been working on his Manana list since 2009[1] for that wiki. For those that might not know him, even a cursory look at Mz's meta or en.wp talk page would reveal that his time is valued as it is in other places. It's filled with people asking for help with bots, db queries, Mediawiki, small hacks and what not, he can certainly do a heck of a lot more than an average technically-inept editor like me can. Mz also has his own charm, and for the people who know him, love him for it. A few staff members though, do seem immune to that exposure and do tend to lock horns occasionally. The two years that I have known Philippe and Mz (and strangely both were among the first people I interacted with), they have had more than a few contentious moments. Philippe might have a tendency to be a bit more prone to control (IMO). I have also seen him discuss issues about staff rights, and who has access where for a long while. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that this removal, and policy change was in the offing. Perhaps, the issue got exacerbated with Zack and Erik's concerns (something about HTML insertions?) about the fundraising infrastructure residing on WMF wiki, who knows. Regards Theo [1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Ma%C3%B1ana ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 7:58 AM, Gayle Karen Young gyo...@wikimedia.org wrote: This definitely feels like a bit of trial by fire. True dat. Now that you have received your initiation, there's nothing left to say but WELCOME TO WIKIPEDIA :) Cheers, Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
So, I took Florence's excellent advice and went for a walk (beautiful day in SF, by the way - absolutely perfect). And I reflected on what I've seen since flipping the switch on things last Friday. Here's where I stand, and I haven't discussed this with anyone else at WMF, including Gayle. At the expense of sounding trite, I think I can safely say Mistakes were made. Gayle was trying to solve a real problem, and she got a lot of advice on how to do that. But the principle role of a staff member in a role such as mine is to advise, I think, and I'm afraid that I didn't offer good advice in this case. I don't think I gave bad advice - rather, I didn't give as good of advice as I could have. What our leadership should be able to expect from staff is that we look at things from a different perspective, and I think I failed to get as far out of my own head and into other peoples' to offer that varying perspective. So when I say that mistakes were made, I include my role in that, through commission or omission, and I sincerely apologize for that. With that said: I'm afraid we're headed toward a precipice. What I'm seeing scares me. I see less and less good faith being offered toward the WMF. One of the arguments that doesn't work for me is seven years ago the WMF didn't make these mistakes - because seven years ago the WMF was paralyzed from lack of strategy and direction. All of that has changed and the WMF is out and aggressively trying things to arrest the editor decline and improve the user experience. And yet, when our talented engineers try a data-driven tactic for something that needs to change, they're lambasted for forgetting the existing community. And yet everyone here knows that if we don't change some things, things will get very very ugly, very very quickly. One of the things that must continue to change is the tone on the wikis, and the tone (in IRC and by email) between staff and volunteers. I know that volunteers are individual and - in addition to several frankly abusive emails I've received this weekend, I've also received absolutely wonderful support from volunteers who reached out to make me smile, laugh, or just remind me why I love this community. But the abusive ones absolutely *must*stop. I have never once, in my entire time at WMF, sent an email that approaches the level of things that I see WMF staff subjected to routinely, and I have to counsel over and over that it's okay, they don't speak for the community, but I see the community tacitly support that behavior (or fail to condemn it), and it's hard to say with a straight face that the people sending abusive mail or making abusive statements in IRC don't speak for the community. So my challenge and my promise: I promise to reflect on the experiences of this weekend and figure out how I could have offered Gayle better advice, given the circumstances, and given the fact that there are some things that are not public about the decision, and unfortunately they can't be. My challenge to the community: think about the tone of what you see happening around you. And if you wouldn't want to see your grandmother asked a question like that, and if it would make you feel defensive to see her questioned in that tone, then step in and make it clear that the tone is unacceptable. Staff members are people too. How about finding one that has done something you appreciate (come on, there must be ONE) and tell them so? You'd be shocked how much gratitude they'll feel, because you may be the first community member EVER to tell them that. Best, pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 6643 phili...@wikimedia.org On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 5:46 PM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.comwrote: On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 7:58 AM, Gayle Karen Young gyo...@wikimedia.org wrote: This definitely feels like a bit of trial by fire. True dat. Now that you have received your initiation, there's nothing left to say but WELCOME TO WIKIPEDIA :) Cheers, Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] UK.Gov passes Instagram Act
Hi everyone! I am sorry for replying to this week-old thread, but I just read it and wanted to take the chance adding a short hint: There is a (relatively new) Wikimedia working group on EU policy [1] with an explicit task force for the orphan works issue: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Orphan_Works It seems like some of you are interested in this topic, so maybe you would like to join them. The working group also set up a letterbox where you can drop any news/link/whatever that you consider relevant: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Letterbox Best Nikolas [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy 2013/5/7 Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org There's also this: http://www.create.ac.uk/blog/2013/05/06/orphans-much-ado-about-what/ -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ On Saturday, 4 May 2013 at 16:32, Luis Villa wrote: On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com(mailto: polime...@gmail.com) wrote: 2013/5/2 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com (mailto:dger...@gmail.com): On 2 May 2013 04:06, shi zhao shiz...@gmail.com (mailto: shiz...@gmail.com) wrote: see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/29/err_act_landgrab/ As usual, Orlowski is trolling for clicks. Here's the actual text: http://niaccurshi.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/orphan-works-enterprise-and-regulatory.html And The Economist POV: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/05/orphan-works Another, more considered, piece, from Andres Guadamuz: http://www.technollama.co.uk/has-the-uk-abolished-copyright-analysis-of-new-orphan-work-legislation -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org (mailto:Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org) Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Nikolas Becker Supervisory Board Wikimedia Deutschland Tel.: +49 (0)151 122 500 63 - Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. Obentrautstr. 72 10963 Berlin Tel.: +49 (0)30-219 158 26-0 www.wikimedia.de ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues (David Cuenca)
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 1:46 AM, Geoff Brigham gbrig...@wikimedia.orgwrote: As Achal pointed out, we will put resources into researching this issue in depth and hopefully finding a solution that may work. It will probably take a month or two to ensure we are looking at all possibilities to see if this is possible. If you have any great ideas, please feel free to send them to me, and I will ensure our team will consider them fully. This will be an interesting project, and I greatly appreciate everyone's interest in finding a lawful solution that ensures the distribution of all materials in the public domain. Well, this was interesting to note. In stark contrast to the other thread, this email was disappointing for the wrong reasons, maybe it's for me alone. It took about 70 emails and 3 threads, and 2 days of waiting to get a reply from the concerned staff members, but I believe Achal forwarded this to Wikimedia-l less than 12 hours before you responded on a Sunday and agreed to devote a month's resources to it. I don't think more than 2-3 people responded to the issue either on this list or the Indian one. I guess that's the sole difference of the position he occupies, speaking of which, the advisory board appointments seem indefinite, and the list doesn't seem to have been updated - for the past 2 years I have only seen Achal identify himself as that. As far as I know Mr. Prabhala has not even logged in to an existing wikisource project, or uploaded anything on commons beyond anything relevant to the last grant. I ask because this issue was brought up a couple of years ago on the same list[1] and received a lot more attention locally than this time. Completely regardless of the issue itself, I know of several individuals, and committees waiting for answers from the legal department, and actually expect to wait weeks. I barely see you respond directly on a list these days, and you are agreeing to devote a month's resources at his behest alone so quickly. Glad to be reminded how somethings change and somethings stay the same. And speaking for me alone, it's disappointing to note the difference in tone above vs. the one being employed on the other thread. -Theo [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-August/004080.html ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Hi Philippe, your message just reminds me a recent message I sent here and a general feeling about sometimes the wiki community only stressing the negative aspects and mistakes we all do (contractors, staff, volunteers etc.) * Highlight the positive aspects and multicultural comparisons http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-April/125361.html I must tell it can also be difficult for the community to realise the amount of work done by WMF professionals (and it is really difficult to share this), summed up with this environment of distrust makes the situation be like we are seeing here in this most recent wikidrama, that can be solved with some patience and, as you are doing here, messages after a little walk away from the computer no thursty to be the last voice. :) It is curious this agressive nature of the momevement seems also to happen in soem other local communities - at least is what I see at the Portuguese Wikipedia and some volunteers more involved with offline activities (no visual editor or similar initiatives will solve that ;). My best wishes for this particular case and I hope you and other colleagues will be treated with respect. I know how hard it is after working hard and beeing kicked in the ass all the time, sometimes by the very same people, who work hard as volunteers, but put themselves as gods because of that. (and hey, it is even harder when you also worked for years as a volunteer) Tom On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 10:03 PM, Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org wrote: So, I took Florence's excellent advice and went for a walk (beautiful day in SF, by the way - absolutely perfect). And I reflected on what I've seen since flipping the switch on things last Friday. Here's where I stand, and I haven't discussed this with anyone else at WMF, including Gayle. At the expense of sounding trite, I think I can safely say Mistakes were made. Gayle was trying to solve a real problem, and she got a lot of advice on how to do that. But the principle role of a staff member in a role such as mine is to advise, I think, and I'm afraid that I didn't offer good advice in this case. I don't think I gave bad advice - rather, I didn't give as good of advice as I could have. What our leadership should be able to expect from staff is that we look at things from a different perspective, and I think I failed to get as far out of my own head and into other peoples' to offer that varying perspective. So when I say that mistakes were made, I include my role in that, through commission or omission, and I sincerely apologize for that. With that said: I'm afraid we're headed toward a precipice. What I'm seeing scares me. I see less and less good faith being offered toward the WMF. One of the arguments that doesn't work for me is seven years ago the WMF didn't make these mistakes - because seven years ago the WMF was paralyzed from lack of strategy and direction. All of that has changed and the WMF is out and aggressively trying things to arrest the editor decline and improve the user experience. And yet, when our talented engineers try a data-driven tactic for something that needs to change, they're lambasted for forgetting the existing community. And yet everyone here knows that if we don't change some things, things will get very very ugly, very very quickly. One of the things that must continue to change is the tone on the wikis, and the tone (in IRC and by email) between staff and volunteers. I know that volunteers are individual and - in addition to several frankly abusive emails I've received this weekend, I've also received absolutely wonderful support from volunteers who reached out to make me smile, laugh, or just remind me why I love this community. But the abusive ones absolutely *must*stop. I have never once, in my entire time at WMF, sent an email that approaches the level of things that I see WMF staff subjected to routinely, and I have to counsel over and over that it's okay, they don't speak for the community, but I see the community tacitly support that behavior (or fail to condemn it), and it's hard to say with a straight face that the people sending abusive mail or making abusive statements in IRC don't speak for the community. So my challenge and my promise: I promise to reflect on the experiences of this weekend and figure out how I could have offered Gayle better advice, given the circumstances, and given the fact that there are some things that are not public about the decision, and unfortunately they can't be. My challenge to the community: think about the tone of what you see happening around you. And if you wouldn't want to see your grandmother asked a question like that, and if it would make you feel defensive to see her questioned in that tone, then step in and make it clear that the tone is unacceptable. Staff members are people too. How about finding one that has done something you
[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues (David Cuenca)
* Hi Theo, Thank you for your email. I'm truly sorry that you feel this way. I have been thinking for some time about the issue of finding alternative solutions to Golan-type issues, and frankly I have not been too optimistic in the past. I think it is an important issue to our mission, however, and I would like to take a closer look to make sure there is not a better solution out there. Achal did contact me about it. Although I have tremendous respect for Achal, his contact was not the reason for my desire to look into this further with the community. As General Counsel, I tend to exercise my own independent judgment. I have received a number of inquiries and I am aware of the past discussions, and, to be honest, the issue has been bugging me for some time: I’m not at all sure there is a solution but I would like to look more closely, especially given the ongoing community concern and available resources the coming month. If you - or any other community member - had contacted me directly, that, in addition to the community discussions, would have been important to me as well. If the community feels this is a bad use of my resources, I am more than willing to reconsider, but I don’t believe that is what people are saying. It is true that I do not post substantive statements on wikimedia-l anymore. I focus on my team leaving more detailed and comprehensive responses on wikilegal [1], our legal blogs [2], or on the wikis [3]. From my point of view, these venues allow for a more comprehensive development of sometimes difficult legal issues, serve as a more permanent source for future reference and cross-links, and allow for greater community participation on the issue at hand. I do try to announce and cross-link to important legal postings via announce-l and wikimedia-l. I was surprised to hear that individuals and committees are waiting weeks for responses from Legal. We try to be as responsive as possible. Sometimes people ask tough questions, and it takes time for us to figure out the issue with the individual or committee at issue. But we stay in close contact with those people, often sharing our thinking or drafts and incorporating their feedback. With AffCom, for example, we have been quite interactive as we try to figure out the naming issue and other legal issues. Sometimes the discussion takes longer than we all would like, but our practice, I believe, is to stay responsive and interactive as we work out the solutions with our community members. If you want to discuss with me offline or on the telephone, I will be more than happy to do so (as I would with anybody in our community). Take care, Geoff [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal [2] http://blog.wikimedia.org/c/legal/ [3] See, e.g., http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Thematic_Organizations#Thoughts_regarding_the_naming_of_thematic_organizations * -- Forwarded message -- From: Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com Date: Sun, May 12, 2013 at 6:42 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues (David Cuenca) To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 1:46 AM, Geoff Brigham gbrig...@wikimedia.org wrote: As Achal pointed out, we will put resources into researching this issue in depth and hopefully finding a solution that may work. It will probably take a month or two to ensure we are looking at all possibilities to see if this is possible. If you have any great ideas, please feel free to send them to me, and I will ensure our team will consider them fully. This will be an interesting project, and I greatly appreciate everyone's interest in finding a lawful solution that ensures the distribution of all materials in the public domain. Well, this was interesting to note. In stark contrast to the other thread, this email was disappointing for the wrong reasons, maybe it's for me alone. It took about 70 emails and 3 threads, and 2 days of waiting to get a reply from the concerned staff members, but I believe Achal forwarded this to Wikimedia-l less than 12 hours before you responded on a Sunday and agreed to devote a month's resources to it. I don't think more than 2-3 people responded to the issue either on this list or the Indian one. I guess that's the sole difference of the position he occupies, speaking of which, the advisory board appointments seem indefinite, and the list doesn't seem to have been updated - for the past 2 years I have only seen Achal identify himself as that. As far as I know Mr. Prabhala has not even logged in to an existing wikisource project, or uploaded anything on commons beyond anything relevant to the last grant. I ask because this issue was brought up a couple of years ago on the same list[1] and received a lot more attention locally than this time. Completely regardless of the issue itself, I know of several individuals, and committees waiting for answers
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 8:28 PM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Try and be a bit nicer please. Gayle is still relatively new and this level of scrutiny might be jarring for someone. Comments like these have always bothered me. Gayle isn't some random secretary or new run-of-the-mill employee. She is a C-level staff member who has been here for more than a year and made a policy decision that people have feedback on. While the feedback may not have come in the nicest form, it is still valid and we can't just ignore it because it wasn't nice enough. As a high level staff member in charge of your own department, you need to deal with it -- this is one thing that comes with the job, unfortunately. It's an insult to Gayle to assume that she will not be able to handle criticism or answer people's responses. A C-level staff member needs to be able to handle this scrutiny, even high level scrutiny, when they were the one that made the call, and I'm sure she's more than capable of doing that. [Note that I'm speaking generally -- I personally think Gayle can handle criticism and she seems very nice. She also probably had no idea this would create dramz. My comment is directed towards the general omg think of the staff member! response to criticism that is systemic in our movement.] On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org wrote: With that said: I'm afraid we're headed toward a precipice. What I'm seeing scares me. I see less and less good faith being offered toward the WMF. This is something that bothers me too. The situation is always framed as poor WMF. Yes, it is true that bad faith is assumed on both sides, but I don't really think the community (including the chapters) is the only one doing that. A lot of the reason the community responds with such little faith or with such outrage at the actions of the Wikimedia Foundation is because they do not afford them any good faith either -- the community is simply acting on the defensive. Many decisions are just handed out, are half-baked, or are handled behind closed doors, so people have no idea how to respond and feel no ownership. If people have no control over a situation, the only way to respond is to point fingers and complain. We all work on things together -- there aren't many areas that are exclusively community or WMF. If you don't let the community do anything to fix a problem or constructively contribute to bettering the situation, you're going to find yourself stuck with a lot of bad faith and complaining. Take the WMFwiki policy decision for example -- was it really necessary to discuss everything behind closed doors? Did the action need to be taken two hours before the work week ended and before the decision maker would be out of reach? We're always painting the Wikimedia Foundation as the victim, but we're forgetting that they definitely have their share of the blame. I realize that we're all human, but, at the end of the day, the Foundation *should* be held to a higher standard -- they are being paid to learn from their mistakes, get things done correctly, and handle criticism. If something is going to be controversial, it should not be done on a Friday before work ends and then say no one can respond until Monday when someone critiques it. [Again: I'm speaking more generally. I don't personally care that much about the WMFwiki issue, since I'm not active much anymore.] We definitely have an agency issue here. The volunteers and the community should not be viewed as a lone aggressor -- they're who the Foundation ultimately report to: Staff = ED = Board = Community. The readers and donors are clear stakeholders, but the community is at the top of the pyramid. The Foundation is not completely innocent, but when things go wrong, we can't just call the community out for complaining and then ignore the reason for that complaint. -- Casey Brown (Cbrown1023) caseybrown.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Casey Brown, 13/05/2013 07:05: [...] [Note that I'm speaking generally -- I personally think Gayle can handle criticism and she seems very nice. She also probably had no idea this would create dramz. My comment is directed towards the general omg think of the staff member! response to criticism that is systemic in our movement.] Still, omg think of the staff member! seems to be the point Gayle and Philippe make on this thread. If history teaches something, I guess the board will soon approve a resolution to request the development of a Personal Communitymember Filter to AT LAST hide all that offensive content in our community. MediaWiki-mailman integration offers some challenges, but our commitment to openness will swiftly help, shutting down more mailing lists in favour of wiki discussions. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
* I'm just going to top post here because responding to you in line won't be helpful to anybody.The staff ARE held to a higher standard, they are held to a higher standard day in and day out. If you don't think they are then you're blind. They get attacked at a level that is NOTHING compared to what they do or dish out NOTHING. They hold back because they're staff and they should hold back. Can the foundation get better? Of course it can, is every single thing Philippe said still true? Yes, in fact I'd probably be harsher about it. I'm sometimes embarrassed to be from the community when I read the mailing list and, less often, on wiki. Even I have to sit down on my hands, calm down, have a cup of tea and then go on damage control explaining to other staff members that we need to get better but that the community isn't nearly as bad as it seems sometimes. I have to remind myself that I'm not lying when I tell them that it isn't the entire community yelling at them, just a dozen or two on a mailing list and that they don't represent everyone. There is no doubt that the Foundation can get better in many areas, but I will 100% stand by my statement that the way that some portions of the community (that tend to congregate on the mailing lists and certain areas on wiki) is embarrassing and insane. Given some of the statements that are made I'm not actually sure staff SHOULD respond to those people, yet they still do in the end because they're staff, and they're held to a higher standard. Is it true that some of this is 'the wiki way' and they should 'get used to it' because 'that's how we treat ourselves'? I'd say that 99%+ of the wiki isn't anywhere near as bad though I sadly admit that some of it is though most realize that's bad. The lack of civility on wiki has been a long running problem we have all known about, yet for some reason some people have decided that targeting the staff is fair game. In the US, and most countries I know, employers have a legal obligation to ensure a healthy working environment both physical and emotional. The working environment for our staff is NOT always emotionally healthy. * * * *James* * On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 10:05 PM, Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org wrote: On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 8:28 PM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Try and be a bit nicer please. Gayle is still relatively new and this level of scrutiny might be jarring for someone. Comments like these have always bothered me. Gayle isn't some random secretary or new run-of-the-mill employee. She is a C-level staff member who has been here for more than a year and made a policy decision that people have feedback on. While the feedback may not have come in the nicest form, it is still valid and we can't just ignore it because it wasn't nice enough. As a high level staff member in charge of your own department, you need to deal with it -- this is one thing that comes with the job, unfortunately. It's an insult to Gayle to assume that she will not be able to handle criticism or answer people's responses. A C-level staff member needs to be able to handle this scrutiny, even high level scrutiny, when they were the one that made the call, and I'm sure she's more than capable of doing that. [Note that I'm speaking generally -- I personally think Gayle can handle criticism and she seems very nice. She also probably had no idea this would create dramz. My comment is directed towards the general omg think of the staff member! response to criticism that is systemic in our movement.] On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org wrote: With that said: I'm afraid we're headed toward a precipice. What I'm seeing scares me. I see less and less good faith being offered toward the WMF. This is something that bothers me too. The situation is always framed as poor WMF. Yes, it is true that bad faith is assumed on both sides, but I don't really think the community (including the chapters) is the only one doing that. A lot of the reason the community responds with such little faith or with such outrage at the actions of the Wikimedia Foundation is because they do not afford them any good faith either -- the community is simply acting on the defensive. Many decisions are just handed out, are half-baked, or are handled behind closed doors, so people have no idea how to respond and feel no ownership. If people have no control over a situation, the only way to respond is to point fingers and complain. We all work on things together -- there aren't many areas that are exclusively community or WMF. If you don't let the community do anything to fix a problem or constructively contribute to bettering the situation, you're going to find yourself stuck with a lot of bad faith and complaining. Take the WMFwiki policy decision for example -- was it really necessary to discuss everything behind closed doors? Did the action need to be taken two hours
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 10:32 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.comwrote: Casey Brown, 13/05/2013 07:05: [...] [Note that I'm speaking generally -- I personally think Gayle can handle criticism and she seems very nice. She also probably had no idea this would create dramz. My comment is directed towards the general omg think of the staff member! response to criticism that is systemic in our movement.] Still, omg think of the staff member! seems to be the point Gayle and Philippe make on this thread. If history teaches something, I guess the board will soon approve a resolution to request the development of a Personal Communitymember Filter to AT LAST hide all that offensive content in our community. MediaWiki-mailman integration offers some challenges, but our commitment to openness will swiftly help, shutting down more mailing lists in favour of wiki discussions. Nemo Au contraire, I feel we should all earn some kind of barnstar just for participating in this discussion/situation. You know, it's kind of the ultimate Wikimedian tempest: arguing over who gets to add users and delete pages on what is quite possibly the world's most boring wiki[1]... It's also a quintessentially Wikimedian debate because there's all this subtext -- assumed but not articulated -- that isn't minor at all: about community ownership versus corporate control, about who has authority to make decisions in what sphere, about the role volunteers play in the organization, over what personal reputation means on the projects, over what admin rights mean, what kind of work environment the staff have, etc.. I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and guess that Gayle wasn't intending to start a debate on all these big important topics, or even perhaps to comment on them at all. I'm also gonna say from experience that it's often damn hard to wade into these waters and take an action *without* touching off a debate on all these subjects. As someone said upthread, the golden rule does help, as does practice working with the wiki way, and knowing all the personal ins and outs of Wikimedia and our arcane culture. But *even that* doesn't always save someone from making an unpopular decision, or from screwing up or not thinking through all the ways they might be wading into a minefield -- and that goes for all of us, staff, board, community alike. Hey, ask me how I know. Sheesh, being part of the world's biggest collaborative project is hard sometimes. -- phoebe 1. I exempt, of course, the internal wiki at my workplace, which has won the crown many years running. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
