Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Proposed amendment to the Wikimedia Terms of Use
Hi everyone, This email is also available on meta : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#It.27s_all_for_show Over the last few hours people asked me to re-share my mail from January regarding paid editing and to even elaborate on it : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-January/069717.html I won't elaborate on that. This amendment is all for show. This is the kind of amendment that is not enforceable. It's only use is that some board of trustees will be able to get in front of the press and vigorously claim Paid editing is bad!. Will it prevent people to edit without disclosing anything? No. Will it encourage companies to embrace our values and improve articles in fields they're experts in? No. Will it prevent biased volunteers to edit? No. So if we look at what our main issues are (increasing the number of editors, increasing quality) I don't see any way where this amendment will help us in any of this cases. And this is an issue we've had for 7 to 9 years, our projects didn't collapse. I'm really not sure why it is needed to have such amendment now. So, I don't care if this amendment is approved in the end, or not, as it will be useless and non-enforceable. Instead I'll keep on working with other people on proposing real solutions. Though I do have a quick question for the legal team, is it ok for a hosting organization to enforce rules that have an editorial inpact on the services it hosts? I mean, lawyers have been trying for years to sue Wikimedia organizations and prove that WMF has some level of editorial control over Wikipedia. If WMF is the one deciding how a specific set of editors must behave when editing, couldn't they use that to prove that WMF does, indeend, have some editorial power? Much alike an editor-in-chief chooses who's published in its paper and how they're credited. Best, Christophe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Proposed amendment to the Wikimedia Terms of Use
I don't really understand how this is a response to my question, but thanks for the pointer anyway. It doesn't explain why we would want one rule for all projects, it doesn't explain why we want it to be 'enforcable' in the first place. I'm answering also here to keep the discussion streamlined. Best, Lodewijk 2014-02-21 0:12 GMT+01:00 Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org: On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 3:46 AM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: Maybe I missed something, but could you please explain why the Terms of Use would be the best place to make this kind of decisions? As I understand it, the Terms of Use are Wikimedia-wide, and I'm not 100% certain this is the kind of rule we'd want to apply on all projects the same way. The community (both language and project) might want to derive from it - either way. Hi, Lodewijk - Geoff responded to this general concern here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#Yes.2C_I_believe_it_will Hope that helps answer the question. Luis -- 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 Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Proposed amendment to the Wikimedia Terms of Use
Hoi, When people make information available that fits in the notability requirements of Wikidata and, when the information is factually correct, then I do not think that anyone really cares if the person uploading it is gets paid for it or not. Please explain to me why I should care. As it is the one thing that Wikidata lacks is data. A lot of data is being added that conforms to the notability requirements and is highly structured. I applaud its inclusion in Wikidata because at some stage we will have the bandwidth to link such information in the tapestry that is Wikidata. Wikidata is hard to understand for many people and I do welcome people who have something to add, something that is of value. When their data is limited in scope, it is better than not having data in the first place. When Wikidata is found to be limited in scope (and it is) it is all the more reason for people with opposing views / data to find their way and enrich Wikidata's content so that a more balanced, neutral view will emerge. Thanks, GerardM On 21 February 2014 00:22, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Is there a way to incorporate the local policy by reference into the TOU, something like The Wikimedia Foundation requires that all users being paid to contribute follow the disclosure, conflict or related applicable policy on each project where said users contribute.? Might that be a solution to establishing a binding policy with legal weight, without superseding local intentions? I tried to answer this on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#question_about_incorporating_local_policy_.28from_Wikimedia-l.29 Hope that clarifies a bit, given the relevant history. Luis P.S. We're replying to things on meta, since that is where the banners are directing people to go, and because it helps keep a history of the conversation in one place. -- 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 Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Proposed amendment to the Wikimedia Terms of Use
Hi, As people seems to follow the conversation here, I paste the discussion I'm having with Geoff here too, otherwise people can participate directly on meta : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#It.27s_all_for_show d. If so, sorry I missed those changes. Hi everyone, Over the last few hours people asked me to re-share my mail from January regarding paid editing and to even elaborate on it : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-January/069717.html I won't elaborate on that. This amendment is all for show. This is the kind of amendment that is not enforceable. It's only use is that some board of trustees will be able to get in front of the press and vigorously claim Paid editing is bad!. Will it prevent people to edit without disclosing anything? No. Will it encourage companies to embrace our values and improve articles in fields they're experts in? No. Will it prevent biased volunteers to edit? No. So if we look at what our main issues are (increasing the number of editors, increasing quality) I don't see any way where this amendment will help us in any of this cases. And this is an issue we've had for 7 to 9 years, our projects didn't collapse. I'm really not sure why it is needed to have such amendment now. So, I don't care if this amendment is approved in the end, or not, as it will be useless and non-enforceable. Instead I'll keep on working with other people on proposing real solutions. Though I do have a quick question for the legal team, is it ok for a hosting organization to enforce rules that have an editorial inpact on the services it hosts? I mean, lawyers have been trying for years to sue Wikimedia organizations and prove that WMF has some level of editorial control over Wikipedia. If WMF is the one deciding how a specific set of editors must behave when editing, couldn't they use that to prove that WMF does, indeend, have some editorial power? Much alike an editor-in-chief chooses who's published in its paper and how they're credited. Best Schiste (talk) 08:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Hi Schiste. Thanks for your comments. I actually think the amendment may have a positive effect, and I summarize some of the reasons here. Your question on hosting liability is a smart one. Hosting companies can set out general rules in their terms of use, even when those rules affect the content of the site. Also this proposed amendment simply explains how to disclose an affiliation without any regulation on the content itself. (The terms already prohibit misrepresentation of an affiliation.) The proposed amendment thus would not affect our hosting liability exemption. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC) I've read the FAQ and I fail to find the positive outcome. However I can clearly see the possible harm to our project. The projects where created on the belief that anyone could help improve our knowledge. I still do believe that strongly. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone, no exclusion.Our job, as a community was to make sure the edits where ok. Now we're shifting toward making sure the editors are ok.How can we be surprized that we're loosing contributors when we have that stance? Do you believe that asking people that are paid editing to display their affiliations is going to : * Stabilize infrastructure * Increase participation * Improve quality * Increase reach * Encourage innovation I don't believe it will. Actually it's a rather conservative move that will make some companies, that would be ready to participate in good faith, feel targeted and marked and hinder their wish to participate. Thus preventing new contributors to join our projects and not increasing the quality of the projects. It will, and the question has been asked on my Facebook feed once already, make researchers and GLAM partners ponder weither they should or not display their affiliation. And, I'm sure you know it, incertainity, fear and doubt are the things you try to avoid when negociating partnerships. So, at best this change will actually not change anything as paid editing will still happen under the hood and no one will be able to check everyone's affiliation. And at worse we'll lose potential partners, or make the work of volunteers negotiating those partnerships harder, and make it even harder to innovate with companies to find new ways to increase our reach, participation and quality. But perhaps our core values (everyone can edit) and the movement strategic orientation (the five points above) have changed. If so, sorry I missed those changes. Schiste (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC) -- Christophe On 21 February 2014 16:28, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, When people make information available that fits in the notability requirements of Wikidata and, when the information is factually correct, then I do not think that anyone really cares if the person uploading it is gets
[Wikimedia-l] Announcing Anna Torres Adell as new Wikimedia Argentina ED
Dear movement fellows, I'm pleased to announce that Wikimedia Argentina has a new Executive Director. Please welcome Anna Torres Adell to our movement! Anna was born in Barcelona but settled in Buenos Aires a couple of years ago. She is a licentiate in Political Science for the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and has post-graduate studies in International Cooperation; Management and Control of Public Policies; and Local Development and the Social Economy. She developed an interest on international cooperation and social matters since her teens, helping establish an educational NGO in Guatemala when she was just over 20. She has since lived and worked in Spain, México, Guatemala and Argentina. Before joining us at Wikimedia Argentina, Anna was the ED of PROEM Foundation, an organization aimed at coaching small businesses. Anna's track record also includes working with AECID, the Spanish agency for international cooperation, and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She has extensive knowledge and experience in the five dimensions that we cared the most when recruiting: commitment with the social goal of free knowledge, working with volunteers, administration, program management and funding. Selecting Anna was not easy, but not because we couldn't find the right person: We had just too much good EDs we wanted to hire! Thankfully we could choose from an important pool of candidates and proceed to evaluate thoroughly each one of them. We received over 100 applications, of which not less than half were pertinent. We gave all of them a score and made successive filtering stages before arriving to the eight people we interviewed in person over the last days. As you may have read on this list back in January, our decision to hire a new ED has to do with Osmar leaving us to return to his home country. Let me highlight that this good news could not have been possible without Osmar's work and commitment. Not only he helped designing the work description for his replacement, but he also participated in the recruiting and hiring process. We are extremely grateful to all what he has done to advance our mission in Wikimedia Argentina, and while we are certainly saddened to see him go we know that both he and us are doing everything possible to leave the organization on track and in good hands. Programmatic work will not suffer from this leadership change; if any, we as Board will ensure it gets reinforced. Anna will formally start working with us on March 1, and throughout all of that month Osmar will continue with us in Benedict fashion as ED emeritus to ensure that all the necessary knowledge, proceedings and contacts are transferred from one administration to another. We are glad to have achieved this level of stability as an organization, and we'd love to spread the word about this happy and smooth transition in the WikimediaConference with whoever wants to hear us :). We asked Osmar to be one of our representatives in Berlin as his last act of service, so it will also be a nice opportunity for you to meet him. In the meantime, please welcome Anna to the Wikimedia movement and to this mailing list! Best regards, *Galileo Vidoni* Presidente A. C. Wikimedia Argentina ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing Anna Torres Adell as new Wikimedia Argentina ED
Welcome Anna Torres Adell :) On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: Dear movement fellows, I'm pleased to announce that Wikimedia Argentina has a new Executive Director. Please welcome Anna Torres Adell to our movement! Anna was born in Barcelona but settled in Buenos Aires a couple of years ago. She is a licentiate in Political Science for the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and has post-graduate studies in International Cooperation; Management and Control of Public Policies; and Local Development and the Social Economy. She developed an interest on international cooperation and social matters since her teens, helping establish an educational NGO in Guatemala when she was just over 20. She has since lived and worked in Spain, México, Guatemala and Argentina. Before joining us at Wikimedia Argentina, Anna was the ED of PROEM Foundation, an organization aimed at coaching small businesses. Anna's track record also includes working with AECID, the Spanish agency for international cooperation, and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She has extensive knowledge and experience in the five dimensions that we cared the most when recruiting: commitment with the social goal of free knowledge, working with volunteers, administration, program management and funding. Selecting Anna was not easy, but not because we couldn't find the right person: We had just too much good EDs we wanted to hire! Thankfully we could choose from an important pool of candidates and proceed to evaluate thoroughly each one of them. We received over 100 applications, of which not less than half were pertinent. We gave all of them a score and made successive filtering stages before arriving to the eight people we interviewed in person over the last days. As you may have read on this list back in January, our decision to hire a new ED has to do with Osmar leaving us to return to his home country. Let me highlight that this good news could not have been possible without Osmar's work and commitment. Not only he helped designing the work description for his replacement, but he also participated in the recruiting and hiring process. We are extremely grateful to all what he has done to advance our mission in Wikimedia Argentina, and while we are certainly saddened to see him go we know that both he and us are doing everything possible to leave the organization on track and in good hands. Programmatic work will not suffer from this leadership change; if any, we as Board will ensure it gets reinforced. Anna will formally start working with us on March 1, and throughout all of that month Osmar will continue with us in Benedict fashion as ED emeritus to ensure that all the necessary knowledge, proceedings and contacts are transferred from one administration to another. We are glad to have achieved this level of stability as an organization, and we'd love to spread the word about this happy and smooth transition in the WikimediaConference with whoever wants to hear us :). We asked Osmar to be one of our representatives in Berlin as his last act of service, so it will also be a nice opportunity for you to meet him. In the meantime, please welcome Anna to the Wikimedia movement and to this mailing list! Best regards, *Galileo Vidoni* Presidente A. C. Wikimedia Argentina ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Victor Grigas* Storyteller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTVAmstteM Wikimedia Foundation vgri...@wikimedia.org https://donate.wikimedia.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing Anna Torres Adell as new Wikimedia Argentina ED
Welcome, Anna. We will very pleased in work together, as Mexico and Argentina are working since three years. Best regards. 2014-02-21 15:49 GMT-06:00 Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com: Dear movement fellows, I'm pleased to announce that Wikimedia Argentina has a new Executive Director. Please welcome Anna Torres Adell to our movement! Anna was born in Barcelona but settled in Buenos Aires a couple of years ago. She is a licentiate in Political Science for the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and has post-graduate studies in International Cooperation; Management and Control of Public Policies; and Local Development and the Social Economy. She developed an interest on international cooperation and social matters since her teens, helping establish an educational NGO in Guatemala when she was just over 20. She has since lived and worked in Spain, México, Guatemala and Argentina. Before joining us at Wikimedia Argentina, Anna was the ED of PROEM Foundation, an organization aimed at coaching small businesses. Anna's track record also includes working with AECID, the Spanish agency for international cooperation, and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She has extensive knowledge and experience in the five dimensions that we cared the most when recruiting: commitment with the social goal of free knowledge, working with volunteers, administration, program management and funding. Selecting Anna was not easy, but not because we couldn't find the right person: We had just too much good EDs we wanted to hire! Thankfully we could choose from an important pool of candidates and proceed to evaluate thoroughly each one of them. We received over 100 applications, of which not less than half were pertinent. We gave all of them a score and made successive filtering stages before arriving to the eight people we interviewed in person over the last days. As you may have read on this list back in January, our decision to hire a new ED has to do with Osmar leaving us to return to his home country. Let me highlight that this good news could not have been possible without Osmar's work and commitment. Not only he helped designing the work description for his replacement, but he also participated in the recruiting and hiring process. We are extremely grateful to all what he has done to advance our mission in Wikimedia Argentina, and while we are certainly saddened to see him go we know that both he and us are doing everything possible to leave the organization on track and in good hands. Programmatic work will not suffer from this leadership change; if any, we as Board will ensure it gets reinforced. Anna will formally start working with us on March 1, and throughout all of that month Osmar will continue with us in Benedict fashion as ED emeritus to ensure that all the necessary knowledge, proceedings and contacts are transferred from one administration to another. We are glad to have achieved this level of stability as an organization, and we'd love to spread the word about this happy and smooth transition in the WikimediaConference with whoever wants to hear us :). We asked Osmar to be one of our representatives in Berlin as his last act of service, so it will also be a nice opportunity for you to meet him. In the meantime, please welcome Anna to the Wikimedia movement and to this mailing list! Best regards, *Galileo Vidoni* Presidente A. C. Wikimedia Argentina ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Atentamente:Iván MartínezPresidenteWikimedia México A.C.wikimedia.mx http://wikimedia.mxImagina un mundo en donde cada persona del planeta pueda tener acceso libre a la suma total del conocimiento humano. Eso es lo que estamos haciendo http://es.wikipedia.org. * ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Ukraine -- is everyone safe?
Well just to answer that particular mail by Galio (below) that bothered me: As far as I see Dennis mail was only a call for help since in Venezuela there is also a Chapter and also wikipedians in danger right now. He didn't do in the most calm way but I can completely understand his aggravation because the situation he is in. There is no request to discuss politics or policies or anything. Actually the only thing the Venezuelans ask is to #PrayForVenezuela https://twitter.com/search?q=%23PrayForVenezuela. Your mail in the other hand sounded to me like Venezuela and their wikipedians where of no importance. But anyway, let's go back to track. _ *Béria Lima* *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos* On 20 February 2014 13:02, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: Please refrain from using this list for political claims. The purpose of this thread was to know if our WMUA fellows are safe. Thanks, Galileo Vidoni Presidente A. C. Wikimedia Argentina El 20/02/2014 12:53, Dennis Pierri dennis6...@gmail.com escribió: In Venezuela we are going through the same situation! We students are being brutally repressed by government forces just for peacefully protesting, they've killed several students in cold blod, and they infiltrate our parades to generate destruction and chaos just to try and justify their actions. Every mayor city in Venezuela is protesting against the so called son of Chavez, Cuban-controlled dictator Nicolás Maduro and his destructive economical and political policies. CNN en espanol (along with other international mass media) is making wide coverage of the situation because no national mass media is allowed to do so, they even took of air NTN24 (a Colombian news channel) for giving coverage of the situation. The only channel allowed to give coverage of the situation is the government controlled channel VTV, they only report what the government can use to their favor and very often twist stories to fit their purposes. Venezuela wants liberty and democracy, we are fighting for it, please help us by staying well informed, look for several sources not only one, and by giving us moral support! Dennis Pierri On 20/02/2014, at 09:03, Laura Hale la...@fanhistory.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Bohdan Melnychuk bas...@yandex.ru wrote: Some WMUA members stay on barricades. Other help in hospitals. IDK if right now but they do regularly. --Base I've blogged about this issue at http://wikinewsreporter.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/ukrainian-civil-unrest-and-sochi-reporting/ . The people I've dealt with in the chapter have been awesome all things considered in trying to support the movement by providing free information while at the same time trying to deal with everything that is going on around them. Sincerely, Laura Hale -- twitter: purplepopple ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Ukraine -- is everyone safe?
Terrible to see indeed. Please know that many are thinking of you. I wish you a swift resolution and control of your own streets. On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 8:30 AM, Bohdan Melnychuk bas...@yandex.ru wrote: Some WMUA members stay on barricades. Other help in hospitals. IDK if right now but they do regularly. --Base 20.02.2014 15:25, Tomasz W. Kozlowski написав(ла): The BBC reports that at least 22 people have died today in Kiev, Ukraine, as result of the violent clashes between the opposition and the government forces. I have briefly visited Maidan Nezalezhnosti in March 2012 on my way to a Wiki Loves Monuments workshop; the city of Kiev and the square itself were beautiful, and it is absolutely terrible to witness the events that are happening there now. My thoughts are with Wikimedia Ukraine, which I know has at least a few members living in the city of Kiev, and with other Wikimedia contributors living in that city, as well as in the rest of Ukraine. Please let us know if everyone is safe, and if there is any way we can help you. Stay safe! Залишайтеся в безпеці! Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Quarterly reviews of high priority WMF initiatives
Minutes and slides from Wednesday's quarterly review of the Foundation's Mobile Contributions team are now available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/Mobile_contributions/February_2014 On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 6:49 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks, to increase accountability and create more opportunities for course corrections and resourcing adjustments as necessary, Sue's asked me and Howie Fung to set up a quarterly project evaluation process, starting with our highest priority initiatives. These are, according to Sue's narrowing focus recommendations which were approved by the Board [1]: - Visual Editor - Mobile (mobile contributions + Wikipedia Zero) - Editor Engagement (also known as the E2 and E3 teams) - Funds Dissemination Committe and expanded grant-making capacity I'm proposing the following initial schedule: January: - Editor Engagement Experiments February: - Visual Editor - Mobile (Contribs + Zero) March: - Editor Engagement Features (Echo, Flow projects) - Funds Dissemination Committee We'll try doing this on the same day or adjacent to the monthly metrics meetings [2], since the team(s) will give a presentation on their recent progress, which will help set some context that would otherwise need to be covered in the quarterly review itself. This will also create open opportunities for feedback and questions. My goal is to do this in a manner where even though the quarterly review meetings themselves are internal, the outcomes are captured as meeting minutes and shared publicly, which is why I'm starting this discussion on a public list as well. I've created a wiki page here which we can use to discuss the concept further: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews The internal review will, at minimum, include: Sue Gardner myself Howie Fung Team members and relevant director(s) Designated minute-taker So for example, for Visual Editor, the review team would be the Visual Editor / Parsoid teams, Sue, me, Howie, Terry, and a minute-taker. I imagine the structure of the review roughly as follows, with a duration of about 2 1/2 hours divided into 25-30 minute blocks: - Brief team intro and recap of team's activities through the quarter, compared with goals - Drill into goals and targets: Did we achieve what we said we would? - Review of challenges, blockers and successes - Discussion of proposed changes (e.g. resourcing, targets) and other action items - Buffer time, debriefing Once again, the primary purpose of these reviews is to create improved structures for internal accountability, escalation points in cases where serious changes are necessary, and transparency to the world. In addition to these priority initiatives, my recommendation would be to conduct quarterly reviews for any activity that requires more than a set amount of resources (people/dollars). These additional reviews may however be conducted in a more lightweight manner and internally to the departments. We're slowly getting into that habit in engineering. As we pilot this process, the format of the high priority reviews can help inform and support reviews across the organization. Feedback and questions are appreciated. All best, Erik [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
