[Wikimedia-l] Re: Movement Charter Drafting Committee elections are now open!

[Samuel Klein]

Risker writes:
> To the best of my knowledge, the Elections Committee has had no
involvement in the MCDC election,
> and there's no indication at all that the Board asked them to assist or
to manage the election.
> I would really like to see a couple of stewards acting as scrutineers for
this election, simply because they are
> really experienced at identifying the kinds of problems that turn up on
elections like this

I do hope there are scrutineers of that sort.  Can someone involved w/ the
process advise on how that is happening?

I'd like to see us have an explicit standing group that keeps up with all
of these large-scale selection processes, shares best practices from a
range of variations implemented on different projects, and can discuss them
publicly in a number of languages. Running polls + votes is broadly useful,
so we should expand the pool of people fluent in their implementation.

It is good to have staff support and complement this work, but it would be
a loss five times over (in cost, delay, warmth, capacity, communal
knowledge) to remove this work from active community maintenance and
oversight.

On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 4:28 AM Chris Keating 
wrote:

>
> Agreed.  Is this something that the Election Committee
>> ,
>> as a standing committee not tied to a single election, can help with?   SJ
>>
>>
> I would like the answer to this to be 'yes', but the Elections Committee
> doesn't seem to do anything except supervise the community elections to the
> Board (which are, in effect, now run by WMF staff). They did not, for
> instance, appear to be particularly involved in the work that led to the
> changes to the Board election structure. They do not publish any
> information about what they are doing, and they don't appear to be
> particularly responsive to inquiries even when there is a Board election
> on. Making the elections committee a 'standing' committee does not appear
> to have resulted in anything changing, and suggests this committee is not
> the right group to take any further changes forward.
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-- 
Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529 4266
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Movement Charter Drafting Committee elections are now open!

[Guettarda]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 4:26 AM Todd Allen  wrote:

> Sorry I couldn't get back to you until now, as I didn't see this.
>
> Both you and Gerard's response share the same deficiency: Lack of detail.
> This is basically marketese "sounds good" speak, but without any detail.
> Sure, that stuff sounds good, but that's not anything to vote on. How do
> you plan to actually do that stuff? What particular steps will you take to
> reach those goals?
>
> Plans are detailed, not feel-good "We think this stuff sounds nice".
> Exactly what is it you are proposing to do? That is what the proposal is
> missing. Otherwise, you're basically asking us to write you a blank check.
> What EXACTLY are you proposing to do, step by step and detail by detail?
>

I feel like this is what the movement charter drafting committee is
supposed to do - translate these into something practical. I think that's
the point - to have community-selected people actually draft the movement
charter. It's better to have this process led by a group other than WMF
(deserved or not, there are a lot of people in the community who have
limited trust in WMF).

On one hand, limiting candidates to a 400-word statement makes it
impossible for people to address specifics in their candidate statements.
On the other hand, with 70 candidates, there's far too much to read even
after you've eliminated the candidates you can "quick-fail".

I wish there was space and time for a Q with the candidates where people
could ask specific questions of them. (Of us - just to be clear, I'm one of
those 70 candidates.) I don't think anyone expected this level of interest
in volunteering to do a vast, and almost certainly thankless task. But we
did.

Ian





>
> Regards,
>
> Todd Allen
>
> On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 2:34 PM Kaarel Vaidla 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Todd,
>>
>> Thank you for the feedback!
>>
>> While working on the consolidation of the recommendations coming from the
>> working groups, the writers put a lot of effort into ensuring conciseness
>> of expression for the final recommendations. In some cases it meant that
>> the text became so condensed that It can indeed be somewhat difficult to
>> follow. Regarding the passage related to the Movement Charter, as a
>> non-native English speaker, I do not feel that this is really the case.
>>
>> We do not have a different presentation of the recommendation, but have
>> been using the same text. Perhaps you can point to what exactly is unclear
>> for you in the respective passage, so it could be clarified:
>>
>>
>>- Create a Movement Charter to:
>>   - Lay the values, principles
>>   
>> 
>>  and
>>   policy basis for Movement structures, including the roles and
>>   responsibilities of the Global Council, regional and thematic hubs
>>   
>> ,
>>   as well as other existing and new entities and decision-making bodies,
>>   - Set requirements and criteria for decisions and processes that
>>   are Movement-wide to be legitimate and trusted by all stakeholders, 
>> e.g. for
>>  - Maintaining safe collaborative environments,
>>  - Ensuring Movement-wide revenue generation and distribution,
>>  - Giving a common direction on how resources should be
>>  allocated with appropriate accountability mechanisms.
>>  - Defining how communities work together and are accountable to
>>  each other.
>>  - Setting expectations for participation and the rights of
>>  participants.
>>
>>
>> Wishing you a great continuation to your week!
>> Kaarel
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 8:50 AM Gerard Meijssen <
>> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hoi,
>>> Dear Todd, thank you for the invite to read up on this document full of
>>> "buzzwords and fury, signifying nothing". I did just that and not find what
>>> you suggested, what I found is a determined effort to bring more equity and
>>> diversity (you can look up the words in Wiktionary or any other dictionary
>>> of your choice). That is a boon for all of us and a necessary departure
>>> from the predominantly text based, English dominated culture we have.
>>>
>>> At this stage children of nine will not use Commons to find pictures for
>>> their schooling because whatever structure is English and search does not
>>> translate for "hond", "kat"of "eenhoorn". It is an example of how a more
>>> diverse and equitable movement leads to different priorities and
>>> effectively leads to more inclusion. Something we need to firmly support.
>>> Thanks,
>>>GerardM
>>>
>>> On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 at 23:48, Todd Allen  wrote:
>>>
 So, you linked to this:
 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: 100$ million dollars and still obsolete

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Amir,

thanks for this detailed analysis. What do you think should be done? Is
there any role for volunteers who are not developers and do not write code?

Best
Yaroslav

On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 2:11 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:

> Well, if we need to have better support for multimedia, first we need to
> give some attention to the existing system that is basically falling apart.
> Let me give you some examples.
>
> Thumbor, the software that builds small sizes of the images is on
> deprecated infrastructure, on EOL python version (python2), uses an
> extremely old fork of the upstream and does not have an owner. And this is
> a pretty critical software, if it goes down, virtually no image can be
> shown in all of Wikipedia (including all SVG files). Because of that, we
> can't move it to a newer infrastructure (kubernetes), make it use a more
> modern python version or upstream code, to make it use a more modern
> version of svg converter to fix countless svg bugs the current system has
> [1]. It in itself is blocking adding more features on all of Wikipedia. For
> example, as a certified science nerd, I want to add support for chemical
> markup files (.bxr, etc.) that would enrich our chemistry articles [2] but
> well, it's blocked on thumbor being unmaintained.
>
> The old video player, kultura, is still in production and used quite
> heavily. The replacement media player exists but has some bugs that are
> rather easy to fix and unblock further rolling out. But because no one is
> on this task, it's basically a group of volunteers (including yours truly)
> struggling to find the time to work on it. [3]. It would give a slightly
> more modern look to our media player.
>
> This is mostly fixed but worth mentioning, the image table in commons was
> bigger than 300GB compressed (and 600GB uncompressed), it would take 15
> hours to take a simple backup and basically a ticking bomb given how
> heavily it is used. Commons went readonly and caused a big outage so
> technically it was a bomb that exploded already once. The problem was
> metadata of pdf files and djvu files were massive, the pdf files got fixed
> by Tim Starling and I (I did it in my volunteer capacity) which in turn
> reduced 200GB from it. And now we are working on fixing djvu. [4] Again in
> volunteer capacity. This work is actually blocking redesign of the image
> table to make it more useful [5] or practically any change that would
> impact size of tables in commons.
>
> The problems have passed the point of blocking improvements and adding
> more features, they are reaching the point of actually bringing down our
> systems and bleeding to the rest of our systems. And it all boils down to
> not having a dedicated team on multimedia but in all fairness, it's not
> something you can fix overnight. You need to grow, hire, plan, etc. etc.
>
> Best
> [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193352#5984544
> [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18491
> [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T248418
> [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T275268
> [5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T28741
>
> On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 1:08 PM Juergen Fenn  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Am 16.10.21 um 16:25 Uhr schrieb Yaroslav Blanter:
>> >
>> > In a few years, there will be tools for editing video. If by that time
>> > we are not ready to incorporate video at full scale to Wikimedia
>> > projects, we will be where AOL is now.
>>
>>
>> We already _are_ there. When we tried to relaunch German Wikiversity
>> almost ten years ago we sadly had to shrug and decline offers to bring
>> converted classroom scenarios to Wikiversity because Commons did not
>> accept mp4 videos and we could not include frames from YouTube where it
>> all happens. Period. That was the end of online learning with Wikimedia.
>> (Fair enough, there were more reasons why we did not succeed.)
>>
>> BUT: When we incorporate multimedia content at full scale it should be
>> clear that Wikimedia is NOT YouTube. We won't accept everything. We need
>> high qualitity educational content. Only.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Jürgen.
>> ___
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>
>
>
> --
> Amir (he/him)
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Movement Charter Drafting Committee elections are now open!

[Chris Keating]

> Agreed.  Is this something that the Election Committee
> ,
> as a standing committee not tied to a single election, can help with?   SJ
>
>
I would like the answer to this to be 'yes', but the Elections Committee
doesn't seem to do anything except supervise the community elections to the
Board (which are, in effect, now run by WMF staff). They did not, for
instance, appear to be particularly involved in the work that led to the
changes to the Board election structure. They do not publish any
information about what they are doing, and they don't appear to be
particularly responsive to inquiries even when there is a Board election
on. Making the elections committee a 'standing' committee does not appear
to have resulted in anything changing, and suggests this committee is not
the right group to take any further changes forward.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Movement Charter Drafting Committee elections are now open!

[Todd Allen]

Sorry I couldn't get back to you until now, as I didn't see this.

Both you and Gerard's response share the same deficiency: Lack of detail.
This is basically marketese "sounds good" speak, but without any detail.
Sure, that stuff sounds good, but that's not anything to vote on. How do
you plan to actually do that stuff? What particular steps will you take to
reach those goals?

Plans are detailed, not feel-good "We think this stuff sounds nice".
Exactly what is it you are proposing to do? That is what the proposal is
missing. Otherwise, you're basically asking us to write you a blank check.
What EXACTLY are you proposing to do, step by step and detail by detail?

Regards,

Todd Allen

On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 2:34 PM Kaarel Vaidla  wrote:

> Dear Todd,
>
> Thank you for the feedback!
>
> While working on the consolidation of the recommendations coming from the
> working groups, the writers put a lot of effort into ensuring conciseness
> of expression for the final recommendations. In some cases it meant that
> the text became so condensed that It can indeed be somewhat difficult to
> follow. Regarding the passage related to the Movement Charter, as a
> non-native English speaker, I do not feel that this is really the case.
>
> We do not have a different presentation of the recommendation, but have
> been using the same text. Perhaps you can point to what exactly is unclear
> for you in the respective passage, so it could be clarified:
>
>
>- Create a Movement Charter to:
>   - Lay the values, principles
>   
> 
>  and
>   policy basis for Movement structures, including the roles and
>   responsibilities of the Global Council, regional and thematic hubs
>   
> ,
>   as well as other existing and new entities and decision-making bodies,
>   - Set requirements and criteria for decisions and processes that
>   are Movement-wide to be legitimate and trusted by all stakeholders, 
> e.g. for
>  - Maintaining safe collaborative environments,
>  - Ensuring Movement-wide revenue generation and distribution,
>  - Giving a common direction on how resources should be allocated
>  with appropriate accountability mechanisms.
>  - Defining how communities work together and are accountable to
>  each other.
>  - Setting expectations for participation and the rights of
>  participants.
>
>
> Wishing you a great continuation to your week!
> Kaarel
>
> On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 8:50 AM Gerard Meijssen 
> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> Dear Todd, thank you for the invite to read up on this document full of
>> "buzzwords and fury, signifying nothing". I did just that and not find what
>> you suggested, what I found is a determined effort to bring more equity and
>> diversity (you can look up the words in Wiktionary or any other dictionary
>> of your choice). That is a boon for all of us and a necessary departure
>> from the predominantly text based, English dominated culture we have.
>>
>> At this stage children of nine will not use Commons to find pictures for
>> their schooling because whatever structure is English and search does not
>> translate for "hond", "kat"of "eenhoorn". It is an example of how a more
>> diverse and equitable movement leads to different priorities and
>> effectively leads to more inclusion. Something we need to firmly support.
>> Thanks,
>>GerardM
>>
>> On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 at 23:48, Todd Allen  wrote:
>>
>>> So, you linked to this:
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Ensure_Equity_in_Decision-making#Establish_a_common_framework_for_decision-making
>>>
>>> What does any of that mean? Right now, it is a document full of
>>> buzzwords and fury, signifying nothing. Is there a buzzword-to-English
>>> translation of it available?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Todd Allen
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 4:02 AM Kaarel Vaidla 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Hello everyone,

 Voting for the election for the members for the Movement Charter
 drafting committee is now open. In total, 70 Wikimedians from around the
 world are running for seven seats in these elections.

 As recommended by the Movement Strategy recommendations, the goal is to
 assemble a Drafting Committee that will draft a Movement Charter to ensure
 a common framework for decision making in the Wikimedia movement
 .
 The committee will consist of 15 members in total: The online communities
 vote for 7 members, 6 members will be selected by the Wikimedia affiliates
 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Movement Charter Drafting Committee elections are now open!

[Bodhisattwa Mandal]

Hi,

IMHO, for a person to be in a committee which will shape the movement
charter, he/she needs to be experienced enough to have a broad
understanding of the movement. Newcomers without any insight of the
historical context will not be able to draft a charter effectively. Also,
popular elections don't properly judge the weightage of different
candidates; it puts every candidate to the same level, which they are not.
It would be absolutely unfair to put a Wikimedian with 10-15 years of
experience and having a good standing with the larger community and a
complete newcomer who is almost unknown to the community on the same ballot
box. It was not at all necessary to bring all the 70 candidates to the same
table. A certain threshold could be determined first and then candidates
could be filtered out before election. Plus, drafting movement charter is
not a capacity building program for newcomers, it will shape the future of
the movement, so quality control was necessary. I am not sure if these
points will be taken into consideration while (s)electing the committee
members, but if not, I am sure, it will frustrate many Wikimedians who care
about the movement.

Regards,
Bodhisattwa

On Tue, 19 Oct 2021 at 11:24, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> I still believe that a screening phase where people with limited support below
> a certain threshold can quit the race or be removed is the best way to
> have a functional ballot... to me it's just simpler this way. Even at
> real-life elections you need to show some signatures to access the race.
>
> If, after weeks of debate, a person get 1/5th of the support of an average
> candidate, it simply does not have a real chance. I point out again here,
> this would not be an additional phase, it's just something that can be done
> in parallel to the presentation of the candidates. For example, at the nth
> support signature, you enter the ballot.
>
> For some reasons, some people assume that "plurality" means that everybody
> can join, but a crowded ballot is just chaotic. For n places to be
> selected, you should not give more than 2n-3n candidates on a final ballot,
> IMHO. Especially if you want to use certain electoral methods.
>
> I tried to revise all 70 profiles and it was really boring. So after a
> while, I just put 10 names I kinda liked and that's it, I probably missed
> some of them. I also had negative feedback... which went wasted but could
> have also helped. Maybe in this scenario, the old method of
> "positive-neutral-negative" tipping box per each candidate could have also
> worked better than a STV ranking.
>
> In any case with the other election I could more or less predict the
> probable final output (gender balanced, with actual limited chance for
> so-called GS), here it's almost impossible, the vote will be diluted so
> much and I really cannot focus on all the candidates. This ould probably
> mean that bugs of UI (fixed display of candidates, problem of selecting
> from menu if initial letter has an unusual accent...) might influence the
> outcome more than usual.
>
> Alessandro
>
>
> Il martedì 19 ottobre 2021, 06:41:56 CEST, Anupam Dutta <
> anupamdutt...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> To me, a slightly better approach would have been to divide the 70
> candidates into 7 blocks of 10 each, chosen in a random way, but the block
> remaining fixed. Then force the voter to visit each block and view the
> candidates ( so that nobody has any undue advantage). After that, the voter
> will have the choice to choose any or all or none..
>
> (Disclaimer : I am one of the candidates).
>
> Anupamdutta73
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 08:55 effe iets anders 
> wrote:
>
> Just for quick context: I was mostly trying to say that any *simple*
> system may have benefits in the scenario when you don't have the resources
> to make a complex system work properly (read: userfriendly). A 7-member
> district was intended as shorthand for "out of these 70 people, pick 7
> favorites". That does not allow as much nuance as ranking, but it also has
> much less mental load. There are more systems that would have been easier
> on the voter, most likely. I fear that with the 'rank these 70 people into
> an order of 70' will scare away too many participants.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 7:40 PM Risker  wrote:
>
> 
> I am curious what is meant by a "7-member district".  Lodewijk, could you
> explain in more detail?
> 
>
>
> Risker/Anne
>
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