Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Thanks Erik. I am going to be discussing this in private with the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee before making further comments here. Pine ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Thank you for this Erik, we look forward to receiving on Commons the other 25 weeks (half a years worth) of reports -- especially the reports from the weeks the 3 seminars were held. There will certainly be lots to look at, and I noted on one report: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Timothy_Sandole_Memo_April_22-26.pdf Monday, April 22 - Researched offensive realism and the concept, 'buck passing' (3 hours). - Wrote a draft on buck passing in MS Word. Coded/authored the stub, Buck passing, on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing (6 hours). Does anyone believe for one minute that https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buck_passingdiff=551697085oldid=549480580took 6 hours to draft? And anywhere between 0 and 3 hours to research? This would have taken one no more than 10 minutes to do -- research books relating to buck passing and find one (5 minutes), copy and paste a quote from the book (as was done here) (2 minutes), do wikimarkup/references (not HTML) (2 minutes), hit save (1 minute). Voila! Seriously, this is a disgrace, particularly given this was some 7 months into the project. There is no way that 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for an entire year was spent on this full-time position, and the above is just plain evidence of that. Comment from anyone at the WMF welcome. Russavia On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 4:36 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: I have a copy of the weekly memos as well, and we've asked for his permission to release them. This is now done: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Belfer_Center_Campus_Wikipedian_Reports I've not scrutinized or touched the reports except for converting docx to PDF (thank you, LibreOffice command line options). These are all the ones Sara has, I'll double-check with Timothy that there weren't any others. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
On 22 March 2014 09:40, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: ... Does anyone believe for one minute that https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buck_passingdiff=551697085oldid=549480580took 6 hours to draft? And anywhere between 0 and 3 hours to research? ... Correction to link (missing space): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buck_passingdiff=551697085oldid=549480580 The point made by Russavia on *extremely* poor value for charitable monies is well made, especially as it now appears that the Wikimedia Foundation had a duty of care in the form of line management or oversight of this work. There are unimpressive direct links to Google books as a source citations, against Wikipedia best practices. Were this my research student I would wonder if they were surfing Google books and as a result only reading partial quotes, rather than getting the original out of the library and ensuring they have checked the entire source material and understood what the author intended. These are understandable beginner mistakes, but when burning $50,000+ a year grant money, I would expect WMF officially endorsed paid editing to be first class examples. Fae ___ 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] OpenStreetMap iD editor usability study: Looking for test persons
-- Forwarded message -- From: Jan B antof...@gmail.com Date: Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 1:15 PM Subject: [OSM-talk] iD usability study: Looking for test persons To: t...@openstreetmap.org Hi, I want to inform you of a usability study of the iD editor that I'm currently planning to execute for my Master's thesis in cartography at TU Vienna. The goal is to test the usability of iD by having volunteer test persons complete a number of beginner tasks on it. From the tests I will draw conclusions that will hopefully help improving the usability of iD. I'm looking for test persons who are not familiar with editing with iD yet. The test is supposed to take place in or around Hamburg, Germany. So if you'll happen to be around Hamburg in April by any chance, you are invited to take part in the test. If you're interested, please take a look at the pre-test online survey, in which I ask you a few questions and in which the procedure is explained in more detail, too. http://cartography.tuwien.ac.at/limesurvey/index.php/216311/lang-en Of course I will make the results available to the community as soon as the research is completed. Feel free to ask me any questions you have; looking forward to exciting test sessions. Cheers jan ___ talk mailing list t...@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk -- Etiamsi omnes, ego non ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Erik, In Liam's email to the list he mentioned: We did get to dilute the worst of the original job description so it wasn't so blatant a paid editing role but our suggestions that the position be 'paused' until the community could help was rejected because of a deadline that had been set by Stanton/Harvard apparently. Can you please provide the original JDF so the rest of the community has the opportunity to look at it. I understand this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy with simply getting a few reports from Sandole, a heap of spin from the WMF and then move on; as we do on Wikipedia projects, we present information and let the readers make their own minds up. I also had a question relating to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding_Principles#Independence but given you weren't involved in this (perhaps the only person in management at the WMF who wasn't!), I will leave my question for Sue to answer when she gets back. Anyway, I would welcome the community being able to peruse the original JDF, that at least Liam and LoriLee was privvy too, at the earliest opportunity. Cheers Russavia ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Russavia, First, I write here in my capacity as a volunteer and a member of the community you claim to speak on behalf of, clearly not as a staffer of the Foundation (not that engineering has anything to do with programs like this anyways). On 03/22/2014 09:00 AM, Russavia wrote: I understand this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy with simply getting a few reports from Sandole Whether or not you have a point about that position having been badly considered or having a been a waste of money -- and I'd be inclined to think that it was at least a little of both -- you've squarely crossed the line between asking legitimate questions and pointless harassment. Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been appointed to speak for the number one stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. You've made your point and raised the issue, and now the information for informed judgment is being published. How about you let the /rest/ of the community examine it and reach its own conclusions? Because, right now, you seem more interested in stoking the fires of your vendetta by harping on what you /want/ that conclusion to be than any actual interest in figuring out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again if it was a problem. -- Coren / Marc ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Marc A. Pelletier wrote: Whether or not you have a point about that position having been badly considered or having a been a waste of money -- and I'd be inclined to think that it was at least a little of both -- you've squarely crossed the line between asking legitimate questions and pointless harassment. Yes, think of the employees! How dare you ask very acute questions! How dare you ask any questions at all! It's harassment, and it's even worse than that! It's pointless harassment! Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been appointed to speak for the number one stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc. And if you can point me to where Russavia said he was speaking of behalf of the community, and not on behalf of himself, it would be appreciated. Otherwise, if you think community members can only speak their mind if they have been appointed by the rest of the Wikimedia contributors, this needs to be added to our mailing list guidelines. Or maybe we should get rid of the mailing lists altogether to avoid such misunderstandings in the future. You've made your point and raised the issue, and now the information for informed judgment is being published. How about you let the /rest/ of the community examine it and reach its own conclusions? How about you stop telling people what to do? You're not Russavia's boss, so just stop, and do it fast. Thanks. 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Marc A. Pelletier wrote: Russavia, [...] You've made your point and raised the issue, and now the information for informed judgment is being published. How about you let the /rest/ of the community examine it and reach its own conclusions? Because, right now, you seem more interested in stoking the fires of your vendetta by harping on what you /want/ that conclusion to be than any actual interest in figuring out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again if it was a problem. Yes, this. ^^^ In general, just being a bit kinder would go a long way here. Erik and others have been incredibly accommodating to your research requests and the primary response I've seen from the interrogators is now do this! Chill out. MZMcBride ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
On 3/22/2014 7:42 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski wrote: Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been appointed to speak for the number one stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc. It was one single donor's money that was spent on this position, not money from the general pool of donations, which I believe is the point Marc was trying to make. Moreover, that donor specifically wanted the money spent on this position. It's not like the Wikimedia Foundation had the option to spend the money on other, better program opportunities. As such, it seems clear that the donor in question is in the best position to evaluate whether the funds achieved their intended purpose. We don't really have good information in this case to do that for them, and imposing our ideas of what should be done with someone else's money is just wishful thinking. At the same time, it is clear that there are legitimate concerns with this project from the perspective of good editing practices and conflicts of interest. This is a good argument that it would have been better for the Wikimedia Foundation not to participate in the transaction, and gives reason to be leery of such pass-through arrangements in general. And in terms of organizational philosophy, it's also why the foundation focuses on fundraising from the general public rather than restricted gifts from individual donors. Looking at this from an audit committee perspective, the information so far suggests that the foundation could more carefully screen such gifts for alignment with our values, but at this point I haven't seen indications that this rises to the level of misuse of donor funds. --Michael Snow ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
As important as this issue is let's remember that the big picture mission is to have high quality content that is easy and free to access. WMF management has a lot to handle in addition to this investigation and the Sandole situation shouldn't consume such a large portion of management's time that other priorities get neglected. For example I heard that WMF is very close to finally appointing a new ED and they're also working on VE, Flow, mobile, grants, legal issues, the Annual Plan, and a million other things that we also care about. I may have more to say about the Sandole situation after I hear back from Arbcom. Pine ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Coren / Marc (cc'ing to your personal email as well) Odder's blog post was posted 3 weeks ago, and my analysis was posted 24 hours ago, and many English Wikipedia admins have said they have seen either and/or both. Yet, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsdiff=prevoldid=524972499is still there. It's already been established that there is massive copyvio in there, and I think it is absolutely unacceptable for a copyvio to still be in this article under the circumstances. Could you please be so kind as to: 1) Revert the article back to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsoldid=524953814 2) Revdel all edits going back to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsoldid=524953814to ensure that the copyright violation is hidden from public view as is best practice 3) Perhaps you could leave a message on the article talk page, and perhaps also leave messages at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_International_relations- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Russia and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_United_Statesadvising them that this article which is rated as top importance for 2 of these projects have had to be revdelled back to November 2012 (a year and a half) and that they may wish to work on the article given the circumstances. I have more examples of copyvios as well, so if you like I would be happy to send them through to you for you to action. Would that be ok with you? Cheers Russavia ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been appointed to speak for the number one stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc. It was one single donor's money that was spent on this position, not money from the general pool of donations, which I believe is the point Marc was trying to make. Moreover, that donor specifically wanted the money spent on this position. It's not like the Wikimedia Foundation had the option to spend the money on other, better program opportunities. As such, it seems clear that the donor in question is in the best position to evaluate whether the funds achieved their intended purpose. We don't really have good information in this case to do that for them, and imposing our ideas of what should be done with someone else's money is just wishful thinking. At the same time, it is clear that there are legitimate concerns with this project from the perspective of good editing practices and conflicts of interest. This is a good argument that it would have been better for the Wikimedia Foundation not to participate in the transaction, and gives reason to be leery of such pass-through arrangements in general. And in terms of organizational philosophy, it's also why the foundation focuses on fundraising from the general public rather than restricted gifts from individual donors. Looking at this from an audit committee perspective, the information so far suggests that the foundation could more carefully screen such gifts for alignment with our values, but at this point I haven't seen indications that this rises to the level of misuse of donor funds. Eh, that is not the point in my mind. If A wants to assist his relative B's work, and, for administrative reasons, they want to engage WMF as a middle man to make it appear as if there is no direct financial flow, then it's not for A to evaluate whether the funds achieved their intended pur- pose. Organizations that distribute funds according to the deposi- tors' wishes are called banks and they have to ensure their compliance with relevant regulations. WMF should make it very clear that it doesn't engage in any fishy transactions. Tim ___ 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] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
On 03/22/2014 02:45 PM, Russavia wrote: It's already been established that there is massive copyvio in there, and I think it is absolutely unacceptable for a copyvio to still be in this article under the circumstances. It's unacceptable under /any/ circumstances, but I don't see an obvious copyright violation, nor can I find a place where you pointed out one? Where was that established? -- Coren / Marc ___ 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] [feature suggestion] Be able to include/exclude certain page fragments based on the geographic area
It was intended not just to challenge the US government, but to be an example for elsewhere,and it has been that. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:40 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.w...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Seb35 seb35wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: Le lundi 10 mars 2014 21:03:20 (CET), Yuri y...@rawbw.com a écrit : On 03/10/2014 11:30, Seb35 wrote: Another point of view is that the knowledge doesn't (shouldn't) depend in any way of the local government -- possibly it can be viewed differently from a culture to another but that's a cultural question not related to censorship. snip I understand your intention with this system, but I find it's not a good response to the problem; I find a better response is to encourage and help the free speech associations, like what was done during SOPA/PIPA. I absolutely agree with your sentiment, as I'm sure most do, but I'm willing to challenge the English Wikipedia SOPA/PIPA blackout as a good example. The community took its content hostage (IMO :) ) in order to prove a point to the US Congress, despite the English Wikipedia serving the world. We've had two years to learn since SOPA/PIPA with other communities. I spoke about it at Wikimania 2012 in a panel discussion and I still don't think that reaction was appropriate. Knowledge is, as you said, not dependent on government. I don't think the WMF (spoken as a volunteer) or Wikimedians should support community responses to censorship with censorship ourselves. We've had two years to learn since SOPA/PIPA with other communities. Sorry, Yuri, I understand it's best intentions, but education is the magic bullet. -- ~Keegan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ 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 -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ 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
