Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
Sue and all: On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 7:38 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: There are no special WMF policies related to this. It might seem that perhaps there should be, but I have thought about it a lot and I believe it'd be a bad idea. This is something I've also thought about a lot. I'd like to offer a different perspective. In part that's because the on-wiki policies/practices/guidelines/conventions are numerous and ever-evolving, and so copying or mirroring or summarizing them, and keeping that updated, would be a lot of work for the WMF. The community guidelines are extremely complex, yes. I consider that an argument *in favor* of adopting simpler rules for staff, that exceed community rules. For a general idea, here are the kind of rules that could be implemented for staff: * Staff will not edit Wikipedia, at all * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries around their editing with their supervisor * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries with XYZ people in the Community department * Staff will not edit Wikipedia under accounts that are unconnected to their real name * Staff will not edit Wikipedia on behalf of paying clients Any one of these rules would *reduce* the amount of confusion a staff member might have about what is or isn't OK, not increase it. They would of course remain subject to Wikipedia's rules as well, but these would help them stay out of the kind of grey area that might get them in trouble. -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 11:21 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: The community guidelines are extremely complex, yes. I consider that an argument *in favor* of adopting simpler rules for staff, that exceed community rules. For a general idea, here are the kind of rules that could be implemented for staff: * Staff will not edit Wikipedia, at all * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries around their editing with their supervisor * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries with XYZ people in the Community department Any policies like that would increase disconnect between WMF and community, not decrease it. It would disincentivize hiring from the community (because it's risky), and would disincentivize community members from applying to join the staff (because they'd have to give up a loved hobby). It would reduce the likelihood of managers to encourage people to become editors (because it's dangerous) and instead encourage a more corporate mentality towards the site and its users. In short, I think these are truly counterproductive suggestions, and I'm 100% supportive of Sue's original point. We have to accept that people will come in conflict with normal community guidelines, and we should encourage people to get involved in Wikipedia, because understanding the thing you support is key to supporting it well. The COI stuff is scary because it sets of people's alarm bells around integrity and ethics, but it shouldn't be as scary. A COI edit of an article about yourself is an entirely different ball o' wax than an edit on behalf of a paying client. Like Sue said, everyone was new once, and it takes people a while to learn the ropes. And even those of us who've been around for a while sometimes do things we shouldn't - we're all human. That's why we have community policies. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The rules, IMO, are pretty simple: - Make it clear when you're acting in an official capacity; - Be especially mindful when editing WMF-related topics, since WMF has a conflict-of-interest about itself. - When getting involved, it's understood that you'll make mistakes - that's fine. Be bold. :-) Follow community norms and best practices. Cheers, 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 11:57 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 11:21 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: The community guidelines are extremely complex, yes. I consider that an argument *in favor* of adopting simpler rules for staff, that exceed community rules. For a general idea, here are the kind of rules that could be implemented for staff: * Staff will not edit Wikipedia, at all * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries around their editing with their supervisor * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries with XYZ people in the Community department Any policies like that would increase disconnect between WMF and community, not decrease it. As a former staff member who actively sought out (and received very little) guidance on how to approach my approach to Wikipedia editing during my tenure, I very strongly disagree. (My volunteer edits dropped sharply during the time I was employed by WMF.[1] A significant contributing factor was not knowing under what circumstances I would have cover from my employer if I encountered resistance to my volunteer editing.) It would disincentivize hiring from the community (because it's risky), I would like to avoid naming names in this thread, but surely you can see the risks associated with the approach you *have* taken? Leaving the Belfer Center situation aside, this year there has been significant media coverage of a prominent staff member whose employment ended abruptly over paid editing that, on the face of it, violated no publicly known policy. And last year, a staff member who was hired specifically for their skills in community engagement was banned by English Wikipedia for harassment -- and as far as I know, remains on the payroll. If connection with the community was a consideration in setting your policy, your policy has had some dramatic failures. and would disincentivize community members from applying to join the staff (because they'd have to give up a loved hobby). Responsibility typically comes with sacrifices. Leaving that responsibility up to individual staff members, rather than engaging with it at an organizational level, does not seem to have been an effective approach. It would reduce the likelihood of managers to encourage people to become editors (because it's dangerous) You expect managers to encourage their staff to become editors? That strikes me as a strange expectation. But again: my strong contention is that guidelines that *exceed* Wikipedia's policies in clarity, make it *less* dangerous to edit, not more dangerous. and instead encourage a more corporate mentality Corporate mentality sound to me like an appeal to an emotional response from a community that is not always sympathetic to capitalism. But many policies and approaches taken by corporations have been evolved throughout history because they are effective and worthwhile -- not because they are corporate and evil. Guidelines around how to interact with a community you exist to serve seems like an especially important area. Why is the Wikimedia Foundation trying to reinvent the wheel here? Or maybe a better analogy -- why is the Wikimedia Foundation's position that wheels actually aren't all that important after all? understanding the thing you support is key to supporting it well. On this part we agree 100%. My concerns are not about the goal, but about the path you have taken to try to reach it. The COI stuff is scary because it sets of people's alarm bells around integrity and ethics, but it shouldn't be as scary. A COI edit of an article about yourself is an entirely different ball o' wax than an edit on behalf of a paying client. No. Simply, no. Like Sue said, everyone was new once, and it takes people a while to learn the ropes. And even those of us who've been around for a while sometimes do things we shouldn't - we're all human. I do not hear anybody saying that simple human mistakes are inexcusable. -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] [1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/supercount/index.php?user=Peteforsythproject=en.wikipedia ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
Yes. Our employees in wmno are recruited externally, and could never hve done their job or learnt to know the projects If it wasn,t for: A - editing from a wmno account in order to give community information about events, etc. B - editing from a private account, under full name, to learn how to edit and write on the Wikipedia, in order to commumicate to the outside world how Wikipedia works and what it is about. This whole thing, by the way, just illustrates how impractible and difficult COI regulation has become. If the community ban third-party paid editing, and force employee-editors to state their affiliation at their user page, the normal rules on npov and sources would do the rest of the job. And spare us of all these investigations of each other. Erlend Bjørtvedt Wmno Den torsdag 17. april 2014 skrev Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org følgende: On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 11:21 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.comjavascript:; wrote: The community guidelines are extremely complex, yes. I consider that an argument *in favor* of adopting simpler rules for staff, that exceed community rules. For a general idea, here are the kind of rules that could be implemented for staff: * Staff will not edit Wikipedia, at all * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries around their editing with their supervisor * Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate boundaries with XYZ people in the Community department Any policies like that would increase disconnect between WMF and community, not decrease it. It would disincentivize hiring from the community (because it's risky), and would disincentivize community members from applying to join the staff (because they'd have to give up a loved hobby). It would reduce the likelihood of managers to encourage people to become editors (because it's dangerous) and instead encourage a more corporate mentality towards the site and its users. In short, I think these are truly counterproductive suggestions, and I'm 100% supportive of Sue's original point. We have to accept that people will come in conflict with normal community guidelines, and we should encourage people to get involved in Wikipedia, because understanding the thing you support is key to supporting it well. The COI stuff is scary because it sets of people's alarm bells around integrity and ethics, but it shouldn't be as scary. A COI edit of an article about yourself is an entirely different ball o' wax than an edit on behalf of a paying client. Like Sue said, everyone was new once, and it takes people a while to learn the ropes. And even those of us who've been around for a while sometimes do things we shouldn't - we're all human. That's why we have community policies. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The rules, IMO, are pretty simple: - Make it clear when you're acting in an official capacity; - Be especially mindful when editing WMF-related topics, since WMF has a conflict-of-interest about itself. - When getting involved, it's understood that you'll make mistakes - that's fine. Be bold. :-) Follow community norms and best practices. Cheers, Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe -- *Erlend Bjørtvedt* Nestleder, Wikimedia Norge Vice chairman, Wikimedia Norway Mob: +47 - 9225 9227 http://no.wikimedia.org http://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:24 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: As a former staff member who actively sought out (and received very little) guidance on how to approach my approach to Wikipedia editing during my tenure, In other words, you were expected to apply good judgment. It would have been nice if you had been given explicit assurances that editing Wikipedia while you're on staff (obviously primarily outside of work time) is perfectly fine, because it is. :) I would like to avoid naming names in this thread, but surely you can see the risks associated with the approach you *have* taken? Leaving the Belfer Center situation aside, .. which, if anything, could have been avoided had everyone who was part of the project been a bit more experienced with Wikimedia norms and practices. this year there has been significant media coverage of a prominent staff member whose employment ended abruptly over paid editing that, on the face of it, violated no publicly known policy. When money and undisclosed side contracts are involved, things get a lot more complicated - shocking, I know. Hard cases make bad law. We should default to openness, to encouraging participation in our community, and to forgiving mistakes. That is the right thing to do for an organization that is, needs to be, and will remain anchored in the community. On this, you and I seem to be about as far apart as we can be, so we will have to agree to disagree. This is why in threads like the Belfer one I encourage people to stay cool and not let this stuff get to their heads, because this is the kind of moral panicky BS we need to stay the hell clear of. 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 08:46, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: ... On this, you and I seem to be about as far apart as we can be, so we will have to agree to disagree. This is why in threads like the Belfer one I encourage people to stay cool and not let this stuff get to their heads, because this is the kind of moral panicky BS we need to stay the hell clear of. Staying cool is something we can all agree with. However when long term senior managers of the Foundation respond to respectfully written whistle-blowing messages such as Russavia's or Tomasz' previous blog post by deriding them as raising moral panicky [Bull Shit], you are putting these words in the mouths of your CEO and Board of Trustees. If this is the vulgar way that the Foundation wishes to be publicly represented, I would be very surprised. This is not the first time that Erik has been sarcastic and rude in an apparent attempt to close down discussion in public responses to whistle-blowers. Perhaps Sue or one of the Trustees would like to say something about their expectation for exemplary and mellow behaviour towards the Wikimedia Community from their senior management team? Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
Hi everyone, Just to share what we do at Wikimedia France. Employees are allowed to edit Wikimedia Projects from personnal accounts. When they do as Wikimedia France employees, they use their professional accounts, that stays they're employed by WMFr. We do not look at what they do on their personal time with their personal account. The Wikimedia Project policies are there to prevent any bad behavior. We believe our role is to empower our local community. To help it meet-up, conceive projects and run projects. We want our employees to support local volunteers. If we want them to do that efficiently, we need them to understand what editing Wikimedia projects means. Moreover, I don't know how it is in other countries, but in France, as an employer, it is really hard to forbid an employee to do a specific activity on their free time. Best, -- Christophe On 17 April 2014 10:08, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2014 08:46, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: ... On this, you and I seem to be about as far apart as we can be, so we will have to agree to disagree. This is why in threads like the Belfer one I encourage people to stay cool and not let this stuff get to their heads, because this is the kind of moral panicky BS we need to stay the hell clear of. Staying cool is something we can all agree with. However when long term senior managers of the Foundation respond to respectfully written whistle-blowing messages such as Russavia's or Tomasz' previous blog post by deriding them as raising moral panicky [Bull Shit], you are putting these words in the mouths of your CEO and Board of Trustees. If this is the vulgar way that the Foundation wishes to be publicly represented, I would be very surprised. This is not the first time that Erik has been sarcastic and rude in an apparent attempt to close down discussion in public responses to whistle-blowers. Perhaps Sue or one of the Trustees would like to say something about their expectation for exemplary and mellow behaviour towards the Wikimedia Community from their senior management team? Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:46 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:24 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: As a former staff member who actively sought out (and received very little) guidance on how to approach my approach to Wikipedia editing during my tenure, In other words, you were expected to apply good judgment. It would have been nice if you had been given explicit assurances that editing Wikipedia while you're on staff (obviously primarily outside of work time) is perfectly fine, because it is. :) I think I've been misunderstood on this point -- perhaps my fault. I want to be very clear -- I don't feel wronged on this front, it isn't a big deal to me. I brought this up only in order to comment on your assertion that giving staff broad license, and no guidance above and beyond Wikipedia policy, would tend to *strengthen* volunteer engagement, which I think is backwards. One of the dynamics that was initially challenging for me, personally and professionally, was that some editors I had known for some time as a volunteer -- and others who I was just meeting -- began to defer to my judgment. The disposition of community members toward me changed noticeably. I did not want to be inappropriately overbearing, and among all the things I was trying to accomplish in my work, that was a puzzle I did not have time to apply much thought to. Some guidance from WMF management could have helped with that situation. (The lack of it did not, in the long run, constitute a big problem.) But Erik, it seems to me that you're operating from a premise that guidelines or rules inherently tend to discourage activity. I think that premise is flawed. I would like to avoid naming names in this thread, but surely you can see the risks associated with the approach you *have* taken? Leaving the Belfer Center situation aside, .. which, if anything, could have been avoided had everyone who was part of the project been a bit more experienced with Wikimedia norms and practices. Agreed. We should default to openness, to encouraging participation in our community, and to forgiving mistakes. That is the right thing to do for an organization that is, needs to be, and will remain anchored in the community. Agreed. On this, you and I seem to be about as far apart as we can be, so we will have to agree to disagree. This is why in threads like the Belfer one I encourage people to stay cool and not let this stuff get to their heads, because this is the kind of moral panicky BS we need to stay the hell clear of. I have to confess -- I am having a lot of trouble parsing your last paragraph. What is the point where we are so far apart? And (as I think Fae has asked) what is the moral panicky BS and how does it relate to this discussion? I think you've left aside the more significant points I raised -- but it's late here, so maybe you're planning to come back to it tomorrow. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 1:08 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: This is not the first time that Erik has been sarcastic and rude in an apparent attempt to close down discussion in public responses to whistle-blowers. Please. You are making a mockery of every whistleblower on the planet; it's disgraceful. Russavia's original post cites examples such as editing about a coffeeshop or a school. They're frivolous examples, pointless, trollish, part of a sequence of behavior to mix the occasional legitimate concern with wild insinuations and conjecture. You tend to join these types of threads with cheerful and seemingly limitless energy to attempt to whip up tiny shitstorms. This has turned far too many conversations into the Fae/Russavia traveling circus, with both of you demanding individual explanations from the Board for why someone pooped. I have a ton of respect for Pete and I'm not discounting the merits of a conversation about how such editing should be handled, but I am cautioning very strongly against overreacting, because it can introduce very pernicious long term effects into our movement. 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 09:40, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 1:08 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: This is not the first time that Erik has been sarcastic and rude in an apparent attempt to close down discussion in public responses to whistle-blowers. Please. You are making a mockery of every whistleblower on the planet; it's disgraceful. Russavia's original post cites examples such as editing about a coffeeshop or a school. They're frivolous examples, pointless, trollish, part of a sequence of behavior to mix the occasional legitimate concern with wild insinuations and conjecture. You tend to join these types of threads with cheerful and seemingly limitless energy to attempt to whip up tiny shitstorms. This has turned far too many conversations into the Fae/Russavia traveling circus, with both of you demanding individual explanations from the Board for why someone pooped. Erik, you are not helping anyone by writing derisory nonsense and continuing to attack long term Wikimedians in this thread. Nobody has made wild insinuations, nobody has demanded explanations from the board for why someone pooped. I expect Foundation senior managers to behave in a civil and respectful way when writing on governance failures and representing the Foundation and our movement. Senior managers are paid to do precisely this. I am paid precisely nothing to read the nonsense you are now spouting. If you cannot behave yourself, please leave responses to other managers in the Foundation or check with Sue before pressing send. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 09:46, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: Every time I see Fae or Russavia in a from: line, I dread opening the email. Fae, posts like this, where any actual point you have is buried under a mountain of your overwhelming bitterness, with you tag-teaming with Russavia on *his* overwhelming bitterness, are precisely what we were discussing earlier this week on wikimediauk-l, and why you're moderated on that list, and why Russavia's moderated on wikimediaau-l. Please, stop. Just stop. Look at your life and what sort of benighted creature you're turning into. Ask yourself (don't tell us, we really, really don't care any more) how you got here. - d. ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
David, I am not a creature, nor am I am a part of a conspiracy with Russavia. Your actions against both Russavia and myself, with no process for appeal, say more about the direction our open movement is taking in putting up barriers to whistle-blowing rather than accepting this is part of a healthy and transparent open culture. My response on this thread for Erik's unacceptable public behaviour as a Foundation senior manager have nothing whatsoever to do with Wikimedia UK or the wikimediauk-l list, so your using your authority on a different list to punish me is bizarre. Fae On 17 April 2014 09:58, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2014 09:46, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: Every time I see Fae or Russavia in a from: line, I dread opening the email. Fae, posts like this, where any actual point you have is buried under a mountain of your overwhelming bitterness, with you tag-teaming with Russavia on *his* overwhelming bitterness, are precisely what we were discussing earlier this week on wikimediauk-l, and why you're moderated on that list, and why Russavia's moderated on wikimediaau-l. Please, stop. Just stop. Look at your life and what sort of benighted creature you're turning into. Ask yourself (don't tell us, we really, really don't care any more) how you got here. - d. -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 10:41, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: My response on this thread for Erik's unacceptable public behaviour as a Foundation senior manager have nothing whatsoever to do with Wikimedia UK or the wikimediauk-l list, so your using your authority on a different list to punish me is bizarre. I felt that saying you'd desist in querulous behaviour on one list and immediately starting up on another didn't constitute something that would predict less obnoxious behaviour. My main point stands: nobody cares any more. But go ahead, make the list a toxic waste dump, I can't stop you here. - d. ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
Same practice here, through spontneous reflection independent of wmfr. Seemes that this is at least natural for a chapter. I believe wmf employees should also be encouraged to contribute to the projects. Erlend Wmno Den torsdag 17. april 2014 skrev Christophe Henner christophe.hen...@gmail.com følgende: Hi everyone, Just to share what we do at Wikimedia France. Employees are allowed to edit Wikimedia Projects from personnal accounts. When they do as Wikimedia France employees, they use their professional accounts, that stays they're employed by WMFr. We do not look at what they do on their personal time with their personal account. The Wikimedia Project policies are there to prevent any bad behavior. We believe our role is to empower our local community. To help it meet-up, conceive projects and run projects. We want our employees to support local volunteers. If we want them to do that efficiently, we need them to understand what editing Wikimedia projects means. Moreover, I don't know how it is in other countries, but in France, as an employer, it is really hard to forbid an employee to do a specific activity on their free time. Best, -- Christophe On 17 April 2014 10:08, Fæ fae...@gmail.com javascript:; wrote: On 17 April 2014 08:46, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org javascript:; wrote: ... On this, you and I seem to be about as far apart as we can be, so we will have to agree to disagree. This is why in threads like the Belfer one I encourage people to stay cool and not let this stuff get to their heads, because this is the kind of moral panicky BS we need to stay the hell clear of. Staying cool is something we can all agree with. However when long term senior managers of the Foundation respond to respectfully written whistle-blowing messages such as Russavia's or Tomasz' previous blog post by deriding them as raising moral panicky [Bull Shit], you are putting these words in the mouths of your CEO and Board of Trustees. If this is the vulgar way that the Foundation wishes to be publicly represented, I would be very surprised. This is not the first time that Erik has been sarcastic and rude in an apparent attempt to close down discussion in public responses to whistle-blowers. Perhaps Sue or one of the Trustees would like to say something about their expectation for exemplary and mellow behaviour towards the Wikimedia Community from their senior management team? Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com javascript:; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe -- *Erlend Bjørtvedt* Nestleder, Wikimedia Norge Vice chairman, Wikimedia Norway Mob: +47 - 9225 9227 http://no.wikimedia.org http://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 12:49, Erlend Bjørtvedt erl...@wikimedia.no wrote: Same practice here, through spontneous reflection independent of wmfr. Seemes that this is at least natural for a chapter. I believe wmf employees should also be encouraged to contribute to the projects. There seems some confusion. There are two real recommendations here, none involves stopping employees of any Wikimedia organization from being editors. 1. The examples Russavia has identified show instances of outright conflict of interest. Some edits state they are editing knowing they have a conflict of interest but have not bothered to propose changes so that others without a conflict can chose to implement them. It is recommended that the Foundation direct its employees to never edit where there is a conflict of interest relating to their employment. 2. Using pseudonyms or anonymous accounts which obscure that the editor is an employee, and may be making edits related to their employment, is bad practice as it goes against our movement's commitment to simple transparency and openness. It is recommended that the Foundation direct its employees and contractors to ensure their interest is declared clearly and consistently so that the Wikimedia Community is never seen to be misled. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
I can't think of a better justification for IAR than this thread. On Apr 17, 2014 8:04 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2014 12:49, Erlend Bjørtvedt erl...@wikimedia.no wrote: Same practice here, through spontneous reflection independent of wmfr. Seemes that this is at least natural for a chapter. I believe wmf employees should also be encouraged to contribute to the projects. There seems some confusion. There are two real recommendations here, none involves stopping employees of any Wikimedia organization from being editors. 1. The examples Russavia has identified show instances of outright conflict of interest. Some edits state they are editing knowing they have a conflict of interest but have not bothered to propose changes so that others without a conflict can chose to implement them. It is recommended that the Foundation direct its employees to never edit where there is a conflict of interest relating to their employment. 2. Using pseudonyms or anonymous accounts which obscure that the editor is an employee, and may be making edits related to their employment, is bad practice as it goes against our movement's commitment to simple transparency and openness. It is recommended that the Foundation direct its employees and contractors to ensure their interest is declared clearly and consistently so that the Wikimedia Community is never seen to be misled. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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 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] COI editing by WMF staff
Sue, Thank you for your response, it is appreciated. Indeed we are all n00bs at some stage, and we all make COI mistakes, and I can admit to making this mistake myself twice early on. But we all learn pretty quickly that COI editing is frowned upon, and can cause problems later on. I would like to echo pretty much what Pete Forsyth has stated, and wholeheartedly agree that the WMF should go above and beyond what we would expect other organisations to adhere to on our projects. Whilst, Pete's suggestions on possibly policies certainly do go above and beyond what is expected in the community, they would be quite difficult to implement. So how about a simple WMF policy that states something along the lines of: Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism, removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials. Such a directive for WMF people would be easy to make, easy to implement, easy to enforce, and would demonstrate that the Wikimedia Foundation itself is at the forefront, and setting an example for other organisations and leading by example. Comments welcome Sue. 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 4/17/2014 7:37 AM, Russavia wrote: So how about a simple WMF policy that states something along the lines of: Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism, removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials. To illustrate how silly this can get on some level, consider the fact that justifiably or not, the media and the general public often treat the content of Wikimedia projects as if it reflects on the reputation of the Wikimedia Foundation. Thus when broadly construed, any edit to any article could in a sense be charged with a conflict of interest because it's an effort to make the Wikimedia Foundation look better. So basically staff would not be allowed to edit at all, and the second part of this policy would amount to no more than a limited exception under which all edits have to be made, or at the very least vetted, by the legal department. That in turn would lead to an atmosphere in which staff edits must be considered authoritative and cannot be challenged or altered by the community, which I really don't think is the direction we should go. The occasional deference Pete was concerned about is already a distortion of the normal editing dynamic, and not something we want to try and spread more widely. --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
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Indonesia and Humanitarian Open Street Map receive ALL VOICES GRANT
Dear all, We are happy to inform you that Wikimedia Indonesia and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT OSM) just received the news that our proposal submitted to Making All Voices Count grant program was accepted. We got £ 31,000 worth of grant to work on growing open content in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The proposal was submitted last year and co-written by Wikimedia (Siska Doviana, Ivonne Kristiani, John Vandenberg) and HOT OSM (Kate Chapman and Yantisa Akhadi). We are so excited because this is our first big collaboration project together and out of 500 proposals worldwide (well, seven countries) only 28 received funding, and we are one of them. We also realized that we just became internationally competitive in grant seeking. Thank you to them, and back to work for us! Official page from Making All Voices Count: http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/project/open-content-in-kalimantan-wikipedia-openstreetmap-for-transparency/ Cheers, -- *Isabella Apriyana* *Wakil Sekretaris Jendral* *(Deputy Secretary General)Wikimedia Indonesia* Seluler +628889752858/ +6281213700084 Surel isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi Support us to free the knowledge! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 16:25, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: To illustrate how silly this can get on some level, consider the fact that justifiably or not, the media and the general public often treat the content of Wikimedia projects as if it reflects on the reputation of the Wikimedia Foundation. Thus when broadly construed, any edit to any article could in a sense be charged with a conflict of interest because it's an effort to make the Wikimedia Foundation look better. So basically staff would not be allowed to edit at all, and the second part of this policy would amount to no more than a limited exception under which all edits have to be made, or at the very least vetted, by the legal department. That in turn would lead to an atmosphere in which staff edits must be considered authoritative and cannot be challenged or altered by the community, which I really don't think is the direction we should go. The occasional deference Pete was concerned about is already a distortion of the normal editing dynamic, and not something we want to try and spread more widely. We also have ample real-world evidence that there is literally no limit to the querulousness of banned users. Going to great effort to carefully craft a stick for them to wield strikes me as not a productive pastime. - d. ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 10:37 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.comwrote: Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism, removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials. Before people go too far along these lines, consider whether whatever policy you propose would result in stupidity like my having to code AnomieBOT with a blacklist of pages it's not allowed to do its bot work on. There's not a sharp divide between community and staff, some of us are both and would like to remain both. From my purely personal perspective, I've often felt that concerns over COI and paid editing in and of themselves are often grossly overblown. COI is a problem when it leads to POV violations and the like, and it can be difficult for people to respect POV and other policies when they have a COI. But it's not *impossible* to make good edits despite a COI and raising a fuss over COI absent any concern with the actual edits made seems like trying to cause trouble rather than doing something productive. For example, others are blasting Victor (whom I may have met, but if I have it slipped my mind in the middle of all the other people I've met) for https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zack_Exleydiff=506286326oldid=504412402. That's utterly silly: Victor took a freely-licensed photograph of someone with an existing Wikipedia article, uploaded it to Commons, and changed the article to use it. This is **exactly what we want people to do**. Why does that change just because Victor works for WMF? ___ 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 Indonesia and Humanitarian Open Street Map receive ALL VOICES GRANT
This is fantastic news! HOT OSM is one of the really valuable openly licensed projects out there, and I've been really interested to see how it might fit in with working with Wikipedia. Do let us know how it goes! Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On 17 April 2014 16:55, Isabella Apriyana isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id wrote: Dear all, We are happy to inform you that Wikimedia Indonesia and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT OSM) just received the news that our proposal submitted to Making All Voices Count grant program was accepted. We got £ 31,000 worth of grant to work on growing open content in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The proposal was submitted last year and co-written by Wikimedia (Siska Doviana, Ivonne Kristiani, John Vandenberg) and HOT OSM (Kate Chapman and Yantisa Akhadi). We are so excited because this is our first big collaboration project together and out of 500 proposals worldwide (well, seven countries) only 28 received funding, and we are one of them. We also realized that we just became internationally competitive in grant seeking. Thank you to them, and back to work for us! Official page from Making All Voices Count: http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/project/open-content-in-kalimantan-wikipedia-openstreetmap-for-transparency/ Cheers, -- *Isabella Apriyana* *Wakil Sekretaris Jendral* *(Deputy Secretary General)Wikimedia Indonesia* Seluler +628889752858/ +6281213700084 Surel isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi Support us to free the knowledge! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 17:05, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) bjor...@wikimedia.org wrote: For example, others are blasting Victor (whom I may have met, but if I have it slipped my mind in the middle of all the other people I've met) for https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zack_Exleydiff=506286326oldid=504412402. That's utterly silly: Victor took a freely-licensed photograph of someone with an existing Wikipedia article, uploaded it to Commons, and changed the article to use it. This is **exactly what we want people to do**. Why does that change just because Victor works for WMF? It doesn't, unless you're a banned editor looking to troll. - d. ___ 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] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
+1 Yann 2014-04-16 2:02 GMT+05:30 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: On 15 April 2014 21:08, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote: It's a difficult question. I'm in favour in general, and I think it's a good idea to support projects that we use and need the money. The problem I have with it (and that is absent in your points above) is in how far we have the moral right to spend the money donors gave us on other projects. In the case of CC, OSM or Freenode, we prevail upon these organisations' resources considerably; it's akin to outsourcing infrastructure. We use their stuff to a degree that I think it's an obviously right thing, and defensible as such, to support them financially. - d. ___ 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] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
2014-04-16 2:10 GMT+05:30 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com: (...) 2) We need a free toolchain that we can build upon and digitize / gather / curate / format / publish knowledge with. There are currently major gaps in this toolchain -- core projects and collaborations rely on non-free tools or non-free hosted service. Every time we use or work to interoperate with such tools and services, we should also support replacing them with free ones. (That support can include everything from publicity and matchmaking to in-kind support to funds) Free efficient OCR software is a great need for Wikisource and its contributors. That's an important gap in the free toolchain to build a free online library. (...) SJ Regards, Yann ___ 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] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
I think Steven's interpretation here is pretty sound - yes, it's legitimate for us to do this, but we should be a bit cautious :-) Infrastructure tools yes, GIMP probably not. Andrew. On 17 April 2014 04:10, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 12:50 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On the software side, we have Ubuntu Linux (itself highly indebted to Debian) / Apache / MariaDB / PHP / Varnish / ElasticSearch / memcached / Puppet / OpenStack / various libraries and many other dependencies [2], infrastructure tools like ganglia, observium, icinga, etc. Some of these projects have nonprofits that accept and seek sponsorship and support, some don't. One could easily expand well beyond the software we depend on server-side to client-side open source applications used by our community to create content: stuff like Inkscape, GIMP and LibreOffice (used for diagrams). And there are other communities we depend on, like OpenStreetMap. Speaking personally, I think we should consider doing this kind of thing on rare occasions and where there is a critical dependency. There are two questions that I think are relevant: 1). Do they *really *need our help? Organizations like Ubuntu and Puppet are in fact supported by for-profit companies as well as through a FOSS community. There are other examples here, like Redis and Vagrant. They surely do not need our money to survive. However, something like MariaDB might, since they're in fact asking us. 2). Would Wikimedia projects be fine, if these other organizations/products perished? Seems like we really depend on MariaDB having strong support in the future, as an open source infrastructure requirement. We moved to Maria in part because Oracle is a terrible terrible steward of open source, including MySQL. There are other great FOSS databases out there, but switching to something like PostgreSQL or a non-relational database (I troll) would be infinitely more painful. It's in our self-interest as an organization and for the survival of Wikimedia projects that our database engine is a healthy open source product. Products you mentioned which don't pass this test include things like GIMP, Inkscape, and LibreOffice. It feels like it would be wasteful of donor money to support something most of our users don't really depend on/we don't depend on internally at the WMF. We'd essentially be making an investment in these open source products, not ensuring a critical piece of our toolkit survives. Steven ___ 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 -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
Brad Jorsch (Anomie), 17/04/2014 18:05: From my purely personal perspective, I've often felt that concerns over COI and paid editing in and of themselves are often grossly overblown. When something is proclaimed heresy, it's unsuprising that inquisitions are set up. Historically the solution is to disband/divest the central authority (e.g. the Roman pope). Nemo ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 17:05, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) bjor...@wikimedia.org wrote: For example, others are blasting Victor (whom I may have met, but if I have it slipped my mind in the middle of all the other people I've met) for https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zack_Exleydiff=506286326oldid=504412402 . Nobody has blasted Victor. In fact I feel very confident saying that every single person in this thread agrees this was a constructive edit. If anybody disagrees, please speak up. As I see it, the reason edits like Victor's was brought up is very clear: to highlight the contrast between that edit, and the kinds of edits that have led to WMF staff getting reportedly fired, or banned from editing by the volunteer-run ARBCOM with language that is more typical of what a Human Resources department would be expected to use. This thread was opened with an invitation for the WMF to comment generally on staff editing (and I agree that focusing on COI probably does miss a few other important things). To my eyes, that commentary has been dissatisfying so far, but I think there's room for more discussion, especially if we can all keep our cool, as Erik recommends, and focus on the broader themes. On that point, I want to be really clear: a policy for employees is a delicate thing, and my examples before were only intended to suggest that there is room for worthwhile discussion -- NOT to open a collaborative process using an email list to draft a policy. A policy document would probably be a little longer than a sentence or two (I think this much is obvious, but perhaps not.) I think my own statement of ethics is a little closer to the type of thing I'd expect the Wikimedia Foundation to adopt, guiding (among a few other things) its staff's approach to editing Wikipedia and other projects: http://wikistrategies.net/statement-of-ethics/ -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 15:37, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism, removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials. Such a directive for WMF people would be easy to make, easy to implement, easy to enforce, and would demonstrate that the Wikimedia Foundation itself is at the forefront, and setting an example for other organisations and leading by example. Easy to enforce? By whom? The foundation? Tracking all edits by foundation staff is not a good use of foundation time. Admins? We have better things to do with our time. The wider community? Not many have much awareness of that level of meta policy. You are trying to write and drama generator but not one people have time for. -- geni ___ 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] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
On 17 April 2014 17:36, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: I think Steven's interpretation here is pretty sound - yes, it's legitimate for us to do this, but we should be a bit cautious :-) Infrastructure tools yes, GIMP probably not. Inkscape, however ... we have such a huge proportion of Commons SVGs made in Inkscape that it's been seriously considered at times to use Inkscape on the server as WMF's SVG renderer. Or Yann's suggestion of better OCR. Software gets into grey areas like this. - d. ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 9:53 AM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2014 15:37, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: Such a directive for WMF people would be easy to make, easy to implement, easy to enforce, Easy to enforce? By whom? The foundation? Tracking all edits by foundation staff is not a good use of foundation time. IMO if we talk about enforcement we are getting *very* far off track. When one takes a job with an organization, one usually gets some guidance about what is expected. I assume good faith on the part of the people who choose to work for the WMF. Shouldn't we all? The need for enforcement may come up from time to time (I prefer not to keep belaboring specific examples) but it is very far from the main point. I do think that enforcement, at times when it *does* happen to come up, is generally much easier to pursue when broad principles have already been clearly expressed and agreed to. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 18:03, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: I assume good faith on the part of the people who choose to work for the WMF. Shouldn't we all? I think this statement seriously neglects the context of this discussion. - d. ___ 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 Indonesia and Humanitarian Open Street Map receive ALL VOICES GRANT
That is great news. A wonderful sounding project. And I'm thrilled to hear that you all are becoming expert at getting this type of international grant. Well done! Sydney Poore Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedian in Residence at Cochrane Collaboration On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 11:55 AM, Isabella Apriyana isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id wrote: Dear all, We are happy to inform you that Wikimedia Indonesia and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT OSM) just received the news that our proposal submitted to Making All Voices Count grant program was accepted. We got £ 31,000 worth of grant to work on growing open content in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The proposal was submitted last year and co-written by Wikimedia (Siska Doviana, Ivonne Kristiani, John Vandenberg) and HOT OSM (Kate Chapman and Yantisa Akhadi). We are so excited because this is our first big collaboration project together and out of 500 proposals worldwide (well, seven countries) only 28 received funding, and we are one of them. We also realized that we just became internationally competitive in grant seeking. Thank you to them, and back to work for us! Official page from Making All Voices Count: http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/project/open-content-in-kalimantan-wikipedia-openstreetmap-for-transparency/ Cheers, -- *Isabella Apriyana* *Wakil Sekretaris Jendral* *(Deputy Secretary General)Wikimedia Indonesia* Seluler +628889752858/ +6281213700084 Surel isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi Support us to free the knowledge! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi ___ 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] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 8:10 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: Seems like we really depend on MariaDB having strong support in the future, as an open source infrastructure requirement. We moved to Maria in part because Oracle is a terrible terrible steward of open source, including MySQL. Yes, this is part of the reason why I'm considering a donation to them - they're definitely in start-up mode, and we want them to survive. We can continue to handle these kinds of gifts as a very rare, discretionary thing for now (and I may want to move forward with MariaDB because a) they asked, b) they need support, c) we need them to survive), and focusing (per other comments in this thread) more on how we can build systems around grants for tools that directly support content contributors. 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
I feel like I've given the WMF's position pretty clearly upthread, so I'll try not to repeat myself. I believe that policies like the one described here would do more harm than good, for reasons including those given by others in this thread. To the suggestion that the WMF ought to hold staff to a higher standard of on-wiki conduct than is generally required by the community: I can see how that might seem like a good idea, but I believe it would actually have the overall negative effect of discouraging staff participation in the projects. The solution would be worse than the problem. The WMF contains a widely-varying level of on-wiki expertise. That's always been the case, and I'm sure it always will be. It seems unrealistic to expect new non-Wikipedian staff to walk in the door and immediately become excellent Wikipedians, and it seems equally unrealistic to expect seasoned Wikipedians on the staff to never make mistakes on-wiki. I want WMF staff to feel encouraged to learn and explore and contribute on the projects, just like everyone else. I don't expect them to get special leniency just for being staff, but neither do I expect or want them to be held to an unattainably high standard. I am also not interested in giving anybody a special stick with which to beat them. To repeat what I said before: internal WMF staff policies are developed and set and enforced by the WMF, based on what we think is best and informed by our experiences. The community makes rules governing community conduct, and the WMF makes rules governing staff conduct. The WMF alone makes determinations about what happens when or if WMF standards are violated. It's pretty simple. Thanks, Sue Sue, Thank you for your response, it is appreciated. Indeed we are all n00bs at some stage, and we all make COI mistakes, and I can admit to making this mistake myself twice early on. But we all learn pretty quickly that COI editing is frowned upon, and can cause problems later on. I would like to echo pretty much what Pete Forsyth has stated, and wholeheartedly agree that the WMF should go above and beyond what we would expect other organisations to adhere to on our projects. Whilst, Pete's suggestions on possibly policies certainly do go above and beyond what is expected in the community, they would be quite difficult to implement. So how about a simple WMF policy that states something along the lines of: Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism, removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials. Such a directive for WMF people would be easy to make, easy to implement, easy to enforce, and would demonstrate that the Wikimedia Foundation itself is at the forefront, and setting an example for other organisations and leading by example. Comments welcome Sue. 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 ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 5:25 PM, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: On 4/17/2014 7:37 AM, Russavia wrote: So how about a simple WMF policy that states something along the lines of: Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism, removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials. To illustrate how silly this can get on some level, consider the fact that justifiably or not, the media and the general public often treat the content of Wikimedia projects as if it reflects on the reputation of the Wikimedia Foundation. Thus when broadly construed, any edit to any article could in a sense be charged with a conflict of interest because it's an effort to make the Wikimedia Foundation look better. So basically staff would not be allowed to edit at all, and the second part of this policy would amount to no more than a limited exception under which all edits have to be made, or at the very least vetted, by the legal department. hehe, micheal, _that_ one seems far reached. but i must admit, few people at the wikimedia foundation really seem to believe wikipedia is theirs. and the volunteers spend their time to make the foundation justify WMFs expenses to the U.S. tax authorities, and/or WMF to look good. they even put the foundation logo on a blog.wikimedia.org, instead of the wikimedia logo. but at the baseline you are of course right. and i appreciate russavia bringing up the topic and fully support what sue, erik, christophe were writing, just to name a few comments going this direction. i do not agree with pete forsyth, and everybody who thinks WMF and its employees needs special treatment. and i liked the two core messages, just to repeat it: 1. what zack did was not ok by that times rules, is not ok according to current rules, and most probably will never ever be ok. Independent if he works for WMF or not. and, pete, adding a rule does not make the existing rules simpler. throwing away (aka _delete_) rules makes it simpler. 2. if an organisations employee or officer does not volunteer in the movement, it will lead to disconnecting the organization from the voluntary movement. this is valid for WMF, chapters, thematic orgs. rupert. ___ 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 Indonesia and Humanitarian Open Street Map receive ALL VOICES GRANT
Congrats! Eager to see what great things are built. On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Isabella Apriyana isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id wrote: Dear all, We are happy to inform you that Wikimedia Indonesia and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT OSM) just received the news that our proposal submitted to Making All Voices Count grant program was accepted. We got £ 31,000 worth of grant to work on growing open content in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The proposal was submitted last year and co-written by Wikimedia (Siska Doviana, Ivonne Kristiani, John Vandenberg) and HOT OSM (Kate Chapman and Yantisa Akhadi). We are so excited because this is our first big collaboration project together and out of 500 proposals worldwide (well, seven countries) only 28 received funding, and we are one of them. We also realized that we just became internationally competitive in grant seeking. Thank you to them, and back to work for us! Official page from Making All Voices Count: http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/project/open-content-in-kalimantan-wikipedia-openstreetmap-for-transparency/ Cheers, -- *Isabella Apriyana* *Wakil Sekretaris Jendral* *(Deputy Secretary General)Wikimedia Indonesia* Seluler +628889752858/ +6281213700084 Surel isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi Support us to free the knowledge! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 10:28 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.comwrote: i do not agree with pete forsyth, I accept Sue's recent statement -- she's right, the final call about what kind of policy the organization will or won't have rests with the organization. and everybody who thinks WMF and its employees needs special treatment. I do not agree with this characterization of my words -- but I'm happy to move on. 1. what zack did was not ok by that times rules, is not ok according to current rules, and most probably will never ever be ok. I agree with that statement. (By the way: It may be known to some that Zack and I have not always seen eye-to-eye; but I respect him and what he has done for the movement, and I am trying, as always, not to let any personal feelings influence how I proceed.) Let me be specific about the problem I see, because there have been many misunderstandings in this thread. I do think it is safe to assume that User:Wikitedium is Zack Exley. In February 2010, either shortly before or during his application for a top level executive position as Chief Community Officer, Zack created[1] a user page with the following content: Mainly, I just fix typos when I come across them. I depend on Wikipedia and I'm happy I can help improve it in at least a small way. That was absolutely false as a description of how User:Wikitedium had operated in the preceding four years. The user account's edits had been almost entirely devoted to expanding content related to Zack Exley and his career. It was a bad decision to create that user page -- specifically, a bad decision for somebody seeking to set the direction for how the Wikimedia Foundation would build its relationship to community. After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. In my view, another bad decision. And now, close to 24 hours after all this has been brought up, neither Zack, nor anybody at the WMF, has addressed this on the wiki. Now, this is looking to me like a *really* bad decision. The WMF's position has been made clear, that it's Wikipedia's rules and norms that should be followed. I still maintain that's not the best way to go about it, but if that's what remains -- so be it. The Wikipedia policies and processes around a situation like this are very clear.[2] -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Wikitediumoldid=343275678 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 Apr 2014, at 20:01, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: The WMF's position has been made clear, that it's Wikipedia's rules and norms that should be followed. It sounds like this is something that needs to be made clearer in the WMF's staff handbook (presumably such a thing exists?) to avoid doubt and confusion in the future. Thanks, Mike ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley . 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection? Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic transparency. Pete ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 15:23, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection? Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic transparency. Actually, it meets the requirements of the project. It's not perfect, but we have administrators who don't even give that much disclosure to their own alternate accounts (or that they edit without logging in), and nobody's getting the pitchforks out for them. If you don't like the edits made by the account, work on-wiki to address the issues. You know how to start an AfD for any articles you think are about non-notable subjects, you know how to un-peacock an article. If one really wants to push the COI envelope, one could say that users who are former employees of an organization shouldn't be editing articles related directly to the organization or its employees (salaried or contract), though. Indeed, one of the biggest COI issues we have on English Wikipedia is former employees trying to use our articles to bring problems to light about organizations. The disclosure was made. Incidentally, that's all that would need to be done even at the farthest reaches of the proposed terms of use amendment. Risker ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
I haven't read this thread, but I'll explain my editing history as Wikitedium: First of all, I listed my user name as soon as I started at Wikipedia. It's still listed here on my (out of date) staff/contractor page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley I did start an article about myself a long time ago. I didn't know there was a policy against it. I wasn't an active editor and knew virtually no policies. I created the article because right wing media personalities were doing hit pieces on me and the Republican party was sending out emails asking people to write letters to the editor about me featuring lots of false facts. So I saw Wikipedia as an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit where I could set the record straight. Later I learned it was against policy and FELT REALLY BAD. As for the other edits on projects I was involved with. My personal opinion is that those kinds of edits are vital to the future of Wikipedia. I want everyone to add everything they're working on to Wikipedia -- and then all their critics to come and add what they know. I'm saddened every time I go looking for something I expect to be in Wikipedia and find nothing -- and am forced to rely on the organization's own site or whatever. OK -- I think that's all you need from me. Now enjoy yourselves as you continue to grind Wikipedia to a whining halt. On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 2:39 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2014 15:23, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection? Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic transparency. Actually, it meets the requirements of the project. It's not perfect, but we have administrators who don't even give that much disclosure to their own alternate accounts (or that they edit without logging in), and nobody's getting the pitchforks out for them. If you don't like the edits made by the account, work on-wiki to address the issues. You know how to start an AfD for any articles you think are about non-notable subjects, you know how to un-peacock an article. If one really wants to push the COI envelope, one could say that users who are former employees of an organization shouldn't be editing articles related directly to the organization or its employees (salaried or contract), though. Indeed, one of the biggest COI issues we have on English Wikipedia is former employees trying to use our articles to bring problems to light about organizations. The disclosure was made. Incidentally, that's all that would need to be done even at the farthest reaches of the proposed terms of use amendment. Risker ___ 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 -- Zack ___ 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 Indonesia and Humanitarian Open Street Map receive ALL VOICES GRANT
Congratulations, WMID and HOT OSM! Where can one read more about the project? The link provided was not enough for me to get a sense for what the grant actually funds, and it would be interesting to learn from, and perhaps applicable elsewhere too. Thanks, Asaf On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Tomasz Finc tf...@wikimedia.org wrote: Congrats! Eager to see what great things are built. On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Isabella Apriyana isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id wrote: Dear all, We are happy to inform you that Wikimedia Indonesia and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT OSM) just received the news that our proposal submitted to Making All Voices Count grant program was accepted. We got £ 31,000 worth of grant to work on growing open content in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The proposal was submitted last year and co-written by Wikimedia (Siska Doviana, Ivonne Kristiani, John Vandenberg) and HOT OSM (Kate Chapman and Yantisa Akhadi). We are so excited because this is our first big collaboration project together and out of 500 proposals worldwide (well, seven countries) only 28 received funding, and we are one of them. We also realized that we just became internationally competitive in grant seeking. Thank you to them, and back to work for us! Official page from Making All Voices Count: http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/project/open-content-in-kalimantan-wikipedia-openstreetmap-for-transparency/ Cheers, -- *Isabella Apriyana* *Wakil Sekretaris Jendral* *(Deputy Secretary General)Wikimedia Indonesia* Seluler +628889752858/ +6281213700084 Surel isabella.apriy...@wikimedia.or.id Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi Support us to free the knowledge! http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi ___ 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 -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 20:49, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: OK -- I think that's all you need from me. Now enjoy yourselves as you continue to grind Wikipedia to a whining halt. It's important to note that threads like this are pretty much entirely raised by people who aren't actually allowed to do so directly any more. You'd think there was some sort of correlation or something. - d. ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
Carry on. Asume good faith. Edit the Wikipedia. Controbute as you can. Avoid pov. Erlend bjørtvedt Oslo Den torsdag 17. april 2014 skrev Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org følgende: I haven't read this thread, but I'll explain my editing history as Wikitedium: First of all, I listed my user name as soon as I started at Wikipedia. It's still listed here on my (out of date) staff/contractor page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley I did start an article about myself a long time ago. I didn't know there was a policy against it. I wasn't an active editor and knew virtually no policies. I created the article because right wing media personalities were doing hit pieces on me and the Republican party was sending out emails asking people to write letters to the editor about me featuring lots of false facts. So I saw Wikipedia as an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit where I could set the record straight. Later I learned it was against policy and FELT REALLY BAD. As for the other edits on projects I was involved with. My personal opinion is that those kinds of edits are vital to the future of Wikipedia. I want everyone to add everything they're working on to Wikipedia -- and then all their critics to come and add what they know. I'm saddened every time I go looking for something I expect to be in Wikipedia and find nothing -- and am forced to rely on the organization's own site or whatever. OK -- I think that's all you need from me. Now enjoy yourselves as you continue to grind Wikipedia to a whining halt. On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 2:39 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.comjavascript:; wrote: On 17 April 2014 15:23, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.comjavascript:; wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.orgjavascript:; wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com javascript:; wrote: After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection? Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic transparency. Actually, it meets the requirements of the project. It's not perfect, but we have administrators who don't even give that much disclosure to their own alternate accounts (or that they edit without logging in), and nobody's getting the pitchforks out for them. If you don't like the edits made by the account, work on-wiki to address the issues. You know how to start an AfD for any articles you think are about non-notable subjects, you know how to un-peacock an article. If one really wants to push the COI envelope, one could say that users who are former employees of an organization shouldn't be editing articles related directly to the organization or its employees (salaried or contract), though. Indeed, one of the biggest COI issues we have on English Wikipedia is former employees trying to use our articles to bring problems to light about organizations. The disclosure was made. Incidentally, that's all that would need to be done even at the farthest reaches of the proposed terms of use amendment. Risker ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe -- Zack ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe -- *Erlend Bjørtvedt* Nestleder, Wikimedia Norge Vice chairman, Wikimedia Norway Mob: +47 - 9225 9227 http://no.wikimedia.org http://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us ___ 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] I'm back
For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it decadence. So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :) ___ 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] I'm back
Great to have you back :-) On 17 Apr 2014 21:48, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it decadence. So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :) ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: I haven't read this thread, but I'll explain my editing history as Wikitedium: Thanks for the explanation. I think it would have helped if you'd read the actual criticisms, but I understand this is a long thread. false facts. So I saw Wikipedia as an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit where I could set the record straight. Later I learned it was against policy and FELT REALLY BAD. To recap the email thread -- i think everybody has pretty much agreed that your edits from 2006 to 2010 were not inconsistent with normal newbie behavior -- maybe not ideal, but also not the subject of anybody's strong criticism of you. My criticism is of the actions you took with this account as of February 2010 forward. Anyway -- thank you for adding the disclosure to your Wikitedium user page.[1] I respect Risker's more knowledgeable assessment of the sockpuppetry policy; while the Conflice of Interest guideline was not observed, I see that there was no outright violation of policy (or at least, there hasn't been since the disclosure was made in May 2012, after using the Wikitedium account several more times, and with its inaccurate user page intact.[2]) I do personally believe this is a bad approach for a senior executive in charge of community relations to take, and unnecessarily impacts the relationship between WMF and the rest of the community; but clearly there are diverse views about that, and since it's in the past I don't see much point in further discussion. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Wikitediumdiff=604639660oldid=604635644 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Zackexleydiff=491298197oldid=412480944 ___ 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] I'm back
Welcome back, Milos :-) Erik -Original Message- From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Milos Rancic Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014 22:48 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] I'm back For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it decadence. So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :) ___ 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] I'm back
Welcome back Milos! I knew this day would come, and I look forward to meeting you again and discussing language, philosophy and Wiki stuff. David -- David Richfield [[:en:User:Slashme]] +49 176 72663368 ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
Yes - *assume good faith *because it can make all the difference in any relationship. Or - if one finds assuming good faith seems naive, try acknowledging that people do the best they can with the information they have at any given moment; Or - if acknowledging people do the best they can doesn't work, allow that we humans (each and every one of us) make many mistakes in a life time; Or - if you have never made any mistakes, please let me know how in the world you managed to avoid them :-) Take care, Amy On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 1:31 PM, Erlend Bjørtvedt erl...@wikimedia.nowrote: Carry on. Asume good faith. Edit the Wikipedia. Controbute as you can. Avoid pov. Erlend bjørtvedt Oslo Den torsdag 17. april 2014 skrev Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org følgende: I haven't read this thread, but I'll explain my editing history as Wikitedium: First of all, I listed my user name as soon as I started at Wikipedia. It's still listed here on my (out of date) staff/contractor page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley I did start an article about myself a long time ago. I didn't know there was a policy against it. I wasn't an active editor and knew virtually no policies. I created the article because right wing media personalities were doing hit pieces on me and the Republican party was sending out emails asking people to write letters to the editor about me featuring lots of false facts. So I saw Wikipedia as an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit where I could set the record straight. Later I learned it was against policy and FELT REALLY BAD. As for the other edits on projects I was involved with. My personal opinion is that those kinds of edits are vital to the future of Wikipedia. I want everyone to add everything they're working on to Wikipedia -- and then all their critics to come and add what they know. I'm saddened every time I go looking for something I expect to be in Wikipedia and find nothing -- and am forced to rely on the organization's own site or whatever. OK -- I think that's all you need from me. Now enjoy yourselves as you continue to grind Wikipedia to a whining halt. On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 2:39 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com javascript:; wrote: On 17 April 2014 15:23, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com javascript:; wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org javascript:; wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com javascript:; wrote: After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection? Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic transparency. Actually, it meets the requirements of the project. It's not perfect, but we have administrators who don't even give that much disclosure to their own alternate accounts (or that they edit without logging in), and nobody's getting the pitchforks out for them. If you don't like the edits made by the account, work on-wiki to address the issues. You know how to start an AfD for any articles you think are about non-notable subjects, you know how to un-peacock an article. If one really wants to push the COI envelope, one could say that users who are former employees of an organization shouldn't be editing articles related directly to the organization or its employees (salaried or contract), though. Indeed, one of the biggest COI issues we have on English Wikipedia is former employees trying to use our articles to bring problems to light about organizations. The disclosure was made. Incidentally, that's all that would need to be done even at the farthest reaches of the proposed terms of use amendment. Risker ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe -- Zack ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe -- *Erlend Bjørtvedt* Nestleder, Wikimedia Norge Vice chairman, Wikimedia Norway Mob: +47 - 9225 9227 http://no.wikimedia.org http://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us
Re: [Wikimedia-l] I'm back
On 17 April 2014 21:47, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: For those who care, I'm back. This is obviously connected to the fact that tonight I drank the bottle of Jelen Pivo that I brought back from Belgrade! My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. Hope all is well with you now. -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: snip In February 2010, either shortly before or during his application for a top level executive position as Chief Community Officer, Zack created[1] a user page with the following content: Mainly, I just fix typos when I come across them. I depend on Wikipedia and I'm happy I can help improve it in at least a small way. That was absolutely false as a description of how User:Wikitedium had operated in the preceding four years. The user account's edits had been almost entirely devoted to expanding content related to Zack Exley and his career. It was a bad decision to create that user page -- specifically, a bad decision for somebody seeking to set the direction for how the Wikimedia Foundation would build its relationship to community. After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. In my view, another bad decision. And now, close to 24 hours after all this has been brought up, neither Zack, nor anybody at the WMF, has addressed this on the wiki. Now, this is looking to me like a *really* bad decision. snip There is one incorrect fact and one bad faith assumption in what you've written. Zack described his activity on his userpage; you have no way to assume that all of his minor typo fixes were made under the Wikitedium account. Personally, I often don't login when I'm making very minor edits. Moreover, edits summarized as typo actually form a large portion of the Wikitedium account contributions. So wrong all around here, Pete. The incorrect fact, which you have not acknowledged, is your assertion that Zack never disclosed his connection to the other account. I suppose it might be slightly challenging to connect Wikitedium to Zack Exley, rather than the other way around. He did disclose it. While it was two years after he was hired by the WMF, the Wikitedium account was editing at the rate of a handful of edits per year. Incidentally, the Zackexley account has made less than 15 edits ever. You haven't mentioned it on this list, but you actually accused Zack of violating the sockpuppetry policy on his talk page, and you threaten to pursue further action. But the most cursory review of the sockpuppetry policy, which I assume you performed before making an accusation, reveals that even if he had not disclosed the Wikitedium account he would hardly have violated any part of the rules. Perhaps your personal feelings have indeed influenced your behavior here. You may want to reconsider further involvement. Hopefully we can drop discussing Zack and move on to whatever this thread is supposed to be about. ___ 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] I'm back
Welcome back. JP aka Amqui 2014-04-17 15:07 GMT-06:00 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com: Welcome back Millosh! Luckily I feel like you never left, because your FB commentary is often so interesting :P ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On 17 April 2014 22:05, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: You haven't mentioned it on this list, but you actually accused Zack of violating the sockpuppetry policy on his talk page, and you threaten to pursue further action. But the most cursory review of the sockpuppetry policy, which I assume you performed before making an accusation, reveals that even if he had not disclosed the Wikitedium account he would hardly have violated any part of the rules. Perhaps your personal feelings have indeed influenced your behavior here. You may want to reconsider further involvement. +1 Hopefully we can drop discussing Zack and move on to whatever this thread is supposed to be about. This is basically the action: bitter querulousness. - d. ___ 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] COI editing by WMF staff
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 2:14 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2014 22:05, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: You haven't mentioned it on this list, but you actually accused Zack of violating the sockpuppetry policy on his talk page, and you threaten to pursue further action. But the most cursory review of the sockpuppetry policy, which I assume you performed before making an accusation, reveals that even if he had not disclosed the Wikitedium account he would hardly have violated any part of the rules. Perhaps your personal feelings have indeed influenced your behavior here. You may want to reconsider further involvement. +1 I did acknowledge that I had missed that, in my response to Erik, in my response to Zack and Risker, and also in the notes I've left on both user accounts' talk pages. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-April/071203.html(email to Zack/Risker not yet archived) My understanding of the sock puppet policy is apparently not perfect. But I stand my my personal and professional understanding of what the best practices are for disclosure, for somebody in a leadership position in the Wikimedia movement. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ 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] I'm back
Hasn't been the same without you. Welcome. *Philippe Beaudette * \\ Director, Community Advocacy \\ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. T: 1-415-839-6885 x6643 | phili...@wikimedia.org | : @Philippewikihttps://twitter.com/Philippewiki On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 2:09 PM, JP Béland lebo.bel...@gmail.com wrote: Welcome back. JP aka Amqui 2014-04-17 15:07 GMT-06:00 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com: Welcome back Millosh! Luckily I feel like you never left, because your FB commentary is often so interesting :P ___ 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] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
This would be an interesting discussion to have in the next movement strategy process. I can see the attraction of doing this, but much better to think about it alongside questions like what are our collective goals, how much money do we want to have and the like. Regards, Chris On 15 Apr 2014 20:51, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks, I'd be interested in hearing broader community opinions about the extent to which WMF should sponsor non-profits purely to support work that Wikimedia benefits from, even if it's not directed towards a specific goal established in a grant agreement. This comes up from time to time. One of the few historic precedents I'm aware of is the $5,000 donation that WMF made to FreeNode in 2006 [1]. But there are of course many other organizations/communities that the Wikimedia movement is indebted to. On the software side, we have Ubuntu Linux (itself highly indebted to Debian) / Apache / MariaDB / PHP / Varnish / ElasticSearch / memcached / Puppet / OpenStack / various libraries and many other dependencies [2], infrastructure tools like ganglia, observium, icinga, etc. Some of these projects have nonprofits that accept and seek sponsorship and support, some don't. One could easily expand well beyond the software we depend on server-side to client-side open source applications used by our community to create content: stuff like Inkscape, GIMP and LibreOffice (used for diagrams). And there are other communities we depend on, like OpenStreetMap. So, should we steer clear of this type of sponsorship altogether because it's a slippery slope, or should we try to come up with evaluation criteria to consider it on a case-by-case basis (e.g. is there a trustworthy non-profit that has a track record of accomplishment and is in actual need of financial support)? I could imagine a process with a fixed giving back annual budget and a community nominations/review workflow. It'd be work to create and I don't want to commit to that yet, but I would be interested to hear opinions. MariaDB specifically invited WMF to become a sponsor, and we're clearly highly dependent on them. But I don't think it makes sense for us to just write checks if there's someone who asks for support and there's a justifiable need. However, if there's broad agreement that this is something Wikimedia should do more of, then I think it's worth developing more consistent sponsorship criteria. Thanks, Erik [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Freenode_Donation [2] Cf. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upstream_projects -- 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
[Wikimedia-l] 10 years of wikimedia-l
Hello everyone! So, to change the subject entirely, I just discovered that this is the 10 year anniversary of foundation-l/wikimedia-l! Foundation-l was founded in April 2004, and was renamed to wikimedia-l two years ago: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/ Foundation-l was originally an offshoot from wikipedia-l, which is where the first discussions about policies and issues on the projects were held. It was proposed as a separate list in order to discuss Wikimedia-wide issues. Over the years, we have had debates on every subject under the sun. We've gone through high points, hammering out constructive policies and debates, sharing our experiences as encyclopedists and free culture enthusiasts; and we've gone through low points, with allegations of bad behavior flying left and right and people belaboring points beyond all reason. Sometimes -- usually, in fact -- it's both at once, in different threads. The list has been a place to send ideas, manifestos, and information as well as a place to discuss with others who share our passions. We've debated the list and its place a lot over the years. We have talked about moderation, but rarely done anything with it. We've implemented posting limits (still in place: 30 posts/person/month); enforced posting limits; forgotten to enforce posting limits; talked about stricter or weaker limits. We've split sub-topic lists out; we've merged lists back together. We've debated the cost in time and energy of each email, the burden that being subscribed to the list means, how impossible to keep up it is. We've tried summaries, filters, translations. We've talked about languages, and tried many times (unsuccessfully to date) to make the list truly multilingual. We've called each other out on bad behavior, and every once in a while we've remembered to praise each other too. The list has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia Foundation from the days when we celebrated raising $50,000 in the fundraiser and held the first board elections to today. And it has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia movement, across languages and communities, and of the projects, as they changed from rather odd novelties to a core part of the internet. People on the list have come and gone. Sometimes, for months or years at a time, someone will post on nearly every thread and every subject. Usually they eventually taper off, and then someone new will take their place, making the rest of the subscribers wonder how do they have so much time?! For those who have been subscribed for a long time, these names are recognizable because of their many posts and their (in)famous dedication to the list. (Wouldn't it be fun if we could get those folks all together in person, for a Wikimania panel or something?) Many subscribers never post; others are able to find a balance. It is a truism that those who rarely post often send the most thoughtful mails. People have used the list to join the movement, to get to know others. They've also used the list to quit the movement, sometimes loudly and angrily, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes silently; it is always sad when this happens. Sometimes, people have used the list to return (welcome back!) The list can be endlessly irritating. It's a source of conversation: wow, the list is blowing up right now, can you believe it?! It also can be a source of connection with other people who we may only know through their emails, and a source of joy and inventive new ideas. It is disconnected from the on-wiki communities, but is connected too. It serves as a place to share with people across our movement, when there are few general channels to do so. It is thousands of mails in thousands of in-boxes, over many years. The list is ours, our commons, ours to take care of and to try to make better. Happy anniversary, Wikimedia-l. -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ 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] 10 years of wikimedia-l
This made my day. Thank you, Phoebe. -Kat On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 3:13 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: Hello everyone! So, to change the subject entirely, I just discovered that this is the 10 year anniversary of foundation-l/wikimedia-l! Foundation-l was founded in April 2004, and was renamed to wikimedia-l two years ago: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/ Foundation-l was originally an offshoot from wikipedia-l, which is where the first discussions about policies and issues on the projects were held. It was proposed as a separate list in order to discuss Wikimedia-wide issues. Over the years, we have had debates on every subject under the sun. We've gone through high points, hammering out constructive policies and debates, sharing our experiences as encyclopedists and free culture enthusiasts; and we've gone through low points, with allegations of bad behavior flying left and right and people belaboring points beyond all reason. Sometimes -- usually, in fact -- it's both at once, in different threads. The list has been a place to send ideas, manifestos, and information as well as a place to discuss with others who share our passions. We've debated the list and its place a lot over the years. We have talked about moderation, but rarely done anything with it. We've implemented posting limits (still in place: 30 posts/person/month); enforced posting limits; forgotten to enforce posting limits; talked about stricter or weaker limits. We've split sub-topic lists out; we've merged lists back together. We've debated the cost in time and energy of each email, the burden that being subscribed to the list means, how impossible to keep up it is. We've tried summaries, filters, translations. We've talked about languages, and tried many times (unsuccessfully to date) to make the list truly multilingual. We've called each other out on bad behavior, and every once in a while we've remembered to praise each other too. The list has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia Foundation from the days when we celebrated raising $50,000 in the fundraiser and held the first board elections to today. And it has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia movement, across languages and communities, and of the projects, as they changed from rather odd novelties to a core part of the internet. People on the list have come and gone. Sometimes, for months or years at a time, someone will post on nearly every thread and every subject. Usually they eventually taper off, and then someone new will take their place, making the rest of the subscribers wonder how do they have so much time?! For those who have been subscribed for a long time, these names are recognizable because of their many posts and their (in)famous dedication to the list. (Wouldn't it be fun if we could get those folks all together in person, for a Wikimania panel or something?) Many subscribers never post; others are able to find a balance. It is a truism that those who rarely post often send the most thoughtful mails. People have used the list to join the movement, to get to know others. They've also used the list to quit the movement, sometimes loudly and angrily, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes silently; it is always sad when this happens. Sometimes, people have used the list to return (welcome back!) The list can be endlessly irritating. It's a source of conversation: wow, the list is blowing up right now, can you believe it?! It also can be a source of connection with other people who we may only know through their emails, and a source of joy and inventive new ideas. It is disconnected from the on-wiki communities, but is connected too. It serves as a place to share with people across our movement, when there are few general channels to do so. It is thousands of mails in thousands of in-boxes, over many years. The list is ours, our commons, ours to take care of and to try to make better. Happy anniversary, Wikimedia-l. -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ 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 -- Your donations keep Wikipedia free: 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] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
There are two kind of situations I can imagine where donating money without a grant request would make sense to me (aside from facilitating a fundraising): * There is a specific need, a conference we could support, a developer event or something we could help out with. There is a clear goal, and it is one-time. We have a clear benefit. For example: helping OTRS to become less messy. * Setting the right example and therefore have an even wider impact when it comes to using free software. I think it is defensible if we agree on a 'software fee' for the software Wikimedia movement organizations are using, and then donate based on the number of employees/servers/computers/whatever running that software. Something you could calculate, and an example that could (and might) be followed as 'the right thing to do' by other organizations. I would not be in favor of 'just donating money' - i think we should be able to explain at all time why we are donating, and why that specific amount. We owe that to our donors, and we owe that to the volunteers whose grants are being rejected/reduced. Best, Lodewijk 2014-04-17 23:39 GMT+02:00 Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com: This would be an interesting discussion to have in the next movement strategy process. I can see the attraction of doing this, but much better to think about it alongside questions like what are our collective goals, how much money do we want to have and the like. Regards, Chris On 15 Apr 2014 20:51, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks, I'd be interested in hearing broader community opinions about the extent to which WMF should sponsor non-profits purely to support work that Wikimedia benefits from, even if it's not directed towards a specific goal established in a grant agreement. This comes up from time to time. One of the few historic precedents I'm aware of is the $5,000 donation that WMF made to FreeNode in 2006 [1]. But there are of course many other organizations/communities that the Wikimedia movement is indebted to. On the software side, we have Ubuntu Linux (itself highly indebted to Debian) / Apache / MariaDB / PHP / Varnish / ElasticSearch / memcached / Puppet / OpenStack / various libraries and many other dependencies [2], infrastructure tools like ganglia, observium, icinga, etc. Some of these projects have nonprofits that accept and seek sponsorship and support, some don't. One could easily expand well beyond the software we depend on server-side to client-side open source applications used by our community to create content: stuff like Inkscape, GIMP and LibreOffice (used for diagrams). And there are other communities we depend on, like OpenStreetMap. So, should we steer clear of this type of sponsorship altogether because it's a slippery slope, or should we try to come up with evaluation criteria to consider it on a case-by-case basis (e.g. is there a trustworthy non-profit that has a track record of accomplishment and is in actual need of financial support)? I could imagine a process with a fixed giving back annual budget and a community nominations/review workflow. It'd be work to create and I don't want to commit to that yet, but I would be interested to hear opinions. MariaDB specifically invited WMF to become a sponsor, and we're clearly highly dependent on them. But I don't think it makes sense for us to just write checks if there's someone who asks for support and there's a justifiable need. However, if there's broad agreement that this is something Wikimedia should do more of, then I think it's worth developing more consistent sponsorship criteria. Thanks, Erik [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Freenode_Donation [2] Cf. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upstream_projects -- 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 ___ 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] 10 years of wikimedia-l
Thank you Phoebe, this is one of those threads that are really nice to read. It's been less than a year on here for me, and still I think I've seen just about every type of post you mention - the sure sign of a vigorous and healthy list. And now nostalgia can be added to [[List of topics covered on the wikimedia-l mailing list]] :) Here's to the next 10 years! Chris On Thu, 17 Apr 2014, phoebe ayers wrote: Hello everyone! So, to change the subject entirely, I just discovered that this is the 10 year anniversary of foundation-l/wikimedia-l! Foundation-l was founded in April 2004, and was renamed to wikimedia-l two years ago: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/ Foundation-l was originally an offshoot from wikipedia-l, which is where the first discussions about policies and issues on the projects were held. It was proposed as a separate list in order to discuss Wikimedia-wide issues. Over the years, we have had debates on every subject under the sun. We've gone through high points, hammering out constructive policies and debates, sharing our experiences as encyclopedists and free culture enthusiasts; and we've gone through low points, with allegations of bad behavior flying left and right and people belaboring points beyond all reason. Sometimes -- usually, in fact -- it's both at once, in different threads. The list has been a place to send ideas, manifestos, and information as well as a place to discuss with others who share our passions. We've debated the list and its place a lot over the years. We have talked about moderation, but rarely done anything with it. We've implemented posting limits (still in place: 30 posts/person/month); enforced posting limits; forgotten to enforce posting limits; talked about stricter or weaker limits. We've split sub-topic lists out; we've merged lists back together. We've debated the cost in time and energy of each email, the burden that being subscribed to the list means, how impossible to keep up it is. We've tried summaries, filters, translations. We've talked about languages, and tried many times (unsuccessfully to date) to make the list truly multilingual. We've called each other out on bad behavior, and every once in a while we've remembered to praise each other too. The list has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia Foundation from the days when we celebrated raising $50,000 in the fundraiser and held the first board elections to today. And it has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia movement, across languages and communities, and of the projects, as they changed from rather odd novelties to a core part of the internet. People on the list have come and gone. Sometimes, for months or years at a time, someone will post on nearly every thread and every subject. Usually they eventually taper off, and then someone new will take their place, making the rest of the subscribers wonder how do they have so much time?! For those who have been subscribed for a long time, these names are recognizable because of their many posts and their (in)famous dedication to the list. (Wouldn't it be fun if we could get those folks all together in person, for a Wikimania panel or something?) Many subscribers never post; others are able to find a balance. It is a truism that those who rarely post often send the most thoughtful mails. People have used the list to join the movement, to get to know others. They've also used the list to quit the movement, sometimes loudly and angrily, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes silently; it is always sad when this happens. Sometimes, people have used the list to return (welcome back!) The list can be endlessly irritating. It's a source of conversation: wow, the list is blowing up right now, can you believe it?! It also can be a source of connection with other people who we may only know through their emails, and a source of joy and inventive new ideas. It is disconnected from the on-wiki communities, but is connected too. It serves as a place to share with people across our movement, when there are few general channels to do so. It is thousands of mails in thousands of in-boxes, over many years. The list is ours, our commons, ours to take care of and to try to make better. Happy anniversary, Wikimedia-l. -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ 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 Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart Antoine de Saint Exupery ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 2:39 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2014 15:23, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more responsibly, yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page, or disclose his connection to it. That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection? Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic transparency. Actually, it meets the requirements of the project. I disagree. One directional links is not sufficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOCK#Alternative_account_notification Except when doing so would defeat the purpose of having a legitimate alternative account, editors using alternative accounts should provide links between the accounts. ... Links on both the main and alternative account user pages The links between the accounts language has been in place since December 2004, when it started out as only a recommendation. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sock_puppetryoldid=8795768 It's not perfect, but we have administrators who don't even give that much disclosure to their own alternate accounts (or that they edit without logging in), and nobody's getting the pitchforks out for them. Pitchforks come out regularly when the community feels that the accounts should have been linked, and an autobio is often a trigger. Thankfully admins dont often write auto-bios. If there are enwp admins who are still, in 2014, using undisclosed accounts they havent told arbcom about, they should be very careful and have a very good reason. btw, there are 345 hits for Use of multiple accounts prefix:Wikipedia: on enwp, and 18,000 without quotes. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearchprofile=advancedsearch=%22Use+of+multiple+accounts%22+prefix%3AWikipedia%3Afulltext=Searchns0=1ns9=1ns11=1profile=advanced Many of them are arbcom cases ;-) If you don't like the edits made by the account, work on-wiki to address the issues. You know how to start an AfD for any articles you think are about non-notable subjects, you know how to un-peacock an article. Tags have been added to [[Zack Exley]]. And I have started two AFDs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/New_Organizing_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Judith_Freeman If one really wants to push the COI envelope, one could say that users who are former employees of an organization shouldn't be editing articles related directly to the organization or its employees (salaried or contract), though. Indeed, one of the biggest COI issues we have on English Wikipedia is former employees trying to use our articles to bring problems to light about organizations. The disclosure was made. Incidentally, that's all that would need to be done even at the farthest reaches of the proposed terms of use amendment. The paid contributions terms of use amendment doesnt cover self-promotion, which is the larger proportion of COI problems. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#Proposed_amendment The language of the amendment is pretty loose. It talks about 'you' and 'your user page', without stating which page(s) are being referred to. It should say 'the user page(see FAQ section 123) of all accounts you contribute with', otherwise it is encouraging throw away accounts for each paid contribution. It also doesnt clearly state how the amendment will apply to paid contributions from before the amendment being approved.IMO it should; the community will probably extract that information anyway if there is a hint of problems, as they have always done, so this amendment may give a false sense of security if it says it only applies to post-amendment payments. -- John Vandenberg ___ 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] I'm back
Glad to read you again my friend. Kindly regards. El abr 17, 2014 3:48 p.m., Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com escribió: For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it decadence. So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :) ___ 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] I'm back
Welcome back :-) Sent from Samsung Mobile Original message From: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Date: 17/04/2014 23:47 (GMT+02:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] I'm back For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it decadence. So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :) ___ 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] I'm back
Hoi, Interested in your old haunts at the language committee ? Any way, wb ! Thanks, Gerard On 17 April 2014 22:47, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it decadence. So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :) ___ 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
