Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Garfield Byrd]

Pine,

The Wikimedia Foundation Mid Year Financial Statements will be available by
the end of March 2015.

Regards,

Garfield

On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 11:55 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Just following up on this: when will the mid-year WMF financials be
 published with Annual Plan alignment/divergance info? This info is relevant
 for 2015-2016 planning, and to some extent, the strategy update.

 Thanks. (:

 Pine
 On Oct 9, 2014 12:18 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

  Thank you Lila.
 
  Pine
  On Oct 9, 2014 11:50 AM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 
  We are planning to do a review of alignment/divergence with the plan mid
  year. That would be the right time for this discussion as we will have a
  good overview/gap analysis at that time.
 
  On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   Thanks for the detailed comments, Erik.
  
   As someone who spent several volunteer hours reviewing the current
  Annual
   Plan, I would appreciate getting an understanding of how the change of
   emphasis to quarterly reviews affects budgets, hiring plans, and
   fundraising goals. Is that something that you can address or should I
  ask
   Garfield?
  
   Thanks,
   Pine
   On Oct 9, 2014 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
  
On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 10:26 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com
 wrote:
   
 I'm sure a Board member, Lila, or Erik will correct me if I am
   mistaken,
 but my understanding is that there is internal agreement at Board
  level
 that the Product side of the org needs some systemic changes, that
  Lila
was
 chosen with the goal of making those changes, and that some
 changes
  are
 already happening.
   
There's agreement at all levels that we want to continue down the
 path
set by Sue back in 2012 [1] for WMF to truly understand itself as a
technology and grantmaking organization. That path led to where we
 are
today:
   
1) As part of the ED transition, Sue recommended (and the Board
accepted the recommendation) to seek an ED with a strong
technology/product background, and we hired Lila Tretikov as Sue's
successor who matches those requirements.
   
2) In November 2012, I recommended that we prepare for building out
new functions for UX and Analytics, and prepare for dedicated
leadership for Engineering and Product. Sue accepted this
recommendation. I hired Directors for UX and Analytics in 2013,
followed by Community Engagement in 2014, and finally we hired a VP
Engineering last week to complete the process.
   
3) To better account for the need to learn quickly and adjust course
as appropriate, we introduced quarterly reviews in December 2012 [3]
and increasingly reduced the specificity of Annual Plan level
commitments while increasing the focus on metrics and accountability
in the reviews.
   
4) On the technology and product front, many improvements to process
and support infrastructure have been implemented in the last couple
 of
years, including but not limited to:
   
- Development of MediaWiki Vagrant as a standardized dev
 environment,
to reduce failure cases due to developer environment inconsistencies
- Improvements to continuous integration infrastructure for PHP unit
tests and QUnit JavaScript unit tests, and increased focus (but not
nearly enough yet) on automated tests, especially for newly
 developed
features
- Introduction and continued improvement of BetaLabs as a staging
environment for all commits, increased use of automated end-to-end
browser tests and QA testing by humans to catch bugs and regressions
prior to production rollouts
- Introduction and use of various tools for measuring the impact of
features, including EventLogging as a standard instrumentation
framework for measuring feature usage, dashboards for visualizing
usage, WikiMetrics for analyzing editor cohort behavior, Editor
Engagement Vital Signs for understanding system-wide user behavior,
analysis of pageview data using Hadoop (just rolled out), etc.
- Highly specialized automated testing frameworks for specific
projects, e.g. Parsoid round-trip testing and visual diffing (!) to
detect dirty diffs or output problems
- Introduction of design research as a discipline in the UX team
(through hiring of Abbey Ripstra as User Research Lead)  and
incorporation of user studies in a much more systematic way across
products
- Community liaisons dedicated to key products, responding to user
feedback and helping Product Managers understand more complex
community needs
- Continued shortening of release/deployment cycles; significant
improvements to deployment tooling, rewriting our legacy scap
 tools
to increase the ability to monitor and reason about deployments;
introduction of daily SWAT deploys to quickly release fixes, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Pine W]

Just following up on this: when will the mid-year WMF financials be
published with Annual Plan alignment/divergance info? This info is relevant
for 2015-2016 planning, and to some extent, the strategy update.

Thanks. (:

Pine
On Oct 9, 2014 12:18 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thank you Lila.

 Pine
 On Oct 9, 2014 11:50 AM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 We are planning to do a review of alignment/divergence with the plan mid
 year. That would be the right time for this discussion as we will have a
 good overview/gap analysis at that time.

 On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

  Thanks for the detailed comments, Erik.
 
  As someone who spent several volunteer hours reviewing the current
 Annual
  Plan, I would appreciate getting an understanding of how the change of
  emphasis to quarterly reviews affects budgets, hiring plans, and
  fundraising goals. Is that something that you can address or should I
 ask
  Garfield?
 
  Thanks,
  Pine
  On Oct 9, 2014 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 
   On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 10:26 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
  
I'm sure a Board member, Lila, or Erik will correct me if I am
  mistaken,
but my understanding is that there is internal agreement at Board
 level
that the Product side of the org needs some systemic changes, that
 Lila
   was
chosen with the goal of making those changes, and that some changes
 are
already happening.
  
   There's agreement at all levels that we want to continue down the path
   set by Sue back in 2012 [1] for WMF to truly understand itself as a
   technology and grantmaking organization. That path led to where we are
   today:
  
   1) As part of the ED transition, Sue recommended (and the Board
   accepted the recommendation) to seek an ED with a strong
   technology/product background, and we hired Lila Tretikov as Sue's
   successor who matches those requirements.
  
   2) In November 2012, I recommended that we prepare for building out
   new functions for UX and Analytics, and prepare for dedicated
   leadership for Engineering and Product. Sue accepted this
   recommendation. I hired Directors for UX and Analytics in 2013,
   followed by Community Engagement in 2014, and finally we hired a VP
   Engineering last week to complete the process.
  
   3) To better account for the need to learn quickly and adjust course
   as appropriate, we introduced quarterly reviews in December 2012 [3]
   and increasingly reduced the specificity of Annual Plan level
   commitments while increasing the focus on metrics and accountability
   in the reviews.
  
   4) On the technology and product front, many improvements to process
   and support infrastructure have been implemented in the last couple of
   years, including but not limited to:
  
   - Development of MediaWiki Vagrant as a standardized dev environment,
   to reduce failure cases due to developer environment inconsistencies
   - Improvements to continuous integration infrastructure for PHP unit
   tests and QUnit JavaScript unit tests, and increased focus (but not
   nearly enough yet) on automated tests, especially for newly developed
   features
   - Introduction and continued improvement of BetaLabs as a staging
   environment for all commits, increased use of automated end-to-end
   browser tests and QA testing by humans to catch bugs and regressions
   prior to production rollouts
   - Introduction and use of various tools for measuring the impact of
   features, including EventLogging as a standard instrumentation
   framework for measuring feature usage, dashboards for visualizing
   usage, WikiMetrics for analyzing editor cohort behavior, Editor
   Engagement Vital Signs for understanding system-wide user behavior,
   analysis of pageview data using Hadoop (just rolled out), etc.
   - Highly specialized automated testing frameworks for specific
   projects, e.g. Parsoid round-trip testing and visual diffing (!) to
   detect dirty diffs or output problems
   - Introduction of design research as a discipline in the UX team
   (through hiring of Abbey Ripstra as User Research Lead)  and
   incorporation of user studies in a much more systematic way across
   products
   - Community liaisons dedicated to key products, responding to user
   feedback and helping Product Managers understand more complex
   community needs
   - Continued shortening of release/deployment cycles; significant
   improvements to deployment tooling, rewriting our legacy scap tools
   to increase the ability to monitor and reason about deployments;
   introduction of daily SWAT deploys to quickly release fixes, etc.
   - Introduction of various infrastructure tools that help us better
   analyze/profile issues, including logstash for log analysis, increased
   use of graphite for performance metrics collection and various
   front-ends for visualizing those metrics
   - Shift towards loosely coupled services, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[MZMcBride]

Craig Franklin wrote:
That said, welcome Damon!  Certainly, it's a pretty tough job that you've
stepped into, but I'm optimistic that a fresh approach and fresh eyes will
assist the engineering team in pushing through the present difficulties
with software deployments.

Which present difficulties are you referring to? If it's issues with
feature/bug prioritization and resource allocation, it's probably more the
Product side of the house, not the Engineering side of the house, that
would need a refresh, I think. That's my vague understanding, anyway.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Pine W]

I'm sure a Board member, Lila, or Erik will correct me if I am mistaken,
but my understanding is that there is internal agreement at Board level
that the Product side of the org needs some systemic changes, that Lila was
chosen with the goal of making those changes, and that some changes are
already happening.

Pine

On Oct 8, 2014 11:08 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 Craig Franklin wrote:
 That said, welcome Damon!  Certainly, it's a pretty tough job that you've
 stepped into, but I'm optimistic that a fresh approach and fresh eyes will
 assist the engineering team in pushing through the present difficulties
 with software deployments.

 Which present difficulties are you referring to? If it's issues with
 feature/bug prioritization and resource allocation, it's probably more the
 Product side of the house, not the Engineering side of the house, that
 would need a refresh, I think. That's my vague understanding, anyway.

 MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Pine W]

Thanks for the detailed comments, Erik.

As someone who spent several volunteer hours reviewing the current Annual
Plan, I would appreciate getting an understanding of how the change of
emphasis to quarterly reviews affects budgets, hiring plans, and
fundraising goals. Is that something that you can address or should I ask
Garfield?

Thanks,
Pine
On Oct 9, 2014 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 10:26 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

  I'm sure a Board member, Lila, or Erik will correct me if I am mistaken,
  but my understanding is that there is internal agreement at Board level
  that the Product side of the org needs some systemic changes, that Lila
 was
  chosen with the goal of making those changes, and that some changes are
  already happening.

 There's agreement at all levels that we want to continue down the path
 set by Sue back in 2012 [1] for WMF to truly understand itself as a
 technology and grantmaking organization. That path led to where we are
 today:

 1) As part of the ED transition, Sue recommended (and the Board
 accepted the recommendation) to seek an ED with a strong
 technology/product background, and we hired Lila Tretikov as Sue's
 successor who matches those requirements.

 2) In November 2012, I recommended that we prepare for building out
 new functions for UX and Analytics, and prepare for dedicated
 leadership for Engineering and Product. Sue accepted this
 recommendation. I hired Directors for UX and Analytics in 2013,
 followed by Community Engagement in 2014, and finally we hired a VP
 Engineering last week to complete the process.

 3) To better account for the need to learn quickly and adjust course
 as appropriate, we introduced quarterly reviews in December 2012 [3]
 and increasingly reduced the specificity of Annual Plan level
 commitments while increasing the focus on metrics and accountability
 in the reviews.

 4) On the technology and product front, many improvements to process
 and support infrastructure have been implemented in the last couple of
 years, including but not limited to:

 - Development of MediaWiki Vagrant as a standardized dev environment,
 to reduce failure cases due to developer environment inconsistencies
 - Improvements to continuous integration infrastructure for PHP unit
 tests and QUnit JavaScript unit tests, and increased focus (but not
 nearly enough yet) on automated tests, especially for newly developed
 features
 - Introduction and continued improvement of BetaLabs as a staging
 environment for all commits, increased use of automated end-to-end
 browser tests and QA testing by humans to catch bugs and regressions
 prior to production rollouts
 - Introduction and use of various tools for measuring the impact of
 features, including EventLogging as a standard instrumentation
 framework for measuring feature usage, dashboards for visualizing
 usage, WikiMetrics for analyzing editor cohort behavior, Editor
 Engagement Vital Signs for understanding system-wide user behavior,
 analysis of pageview data using Hadoop (just rolled out), etc.
 - Highly specialized automated testing frameworks for specific
 projects, e.g. Parsoid round-trip testing and visual diffing (!) to
 detect dirty diffs or output problems
 - Introduction of design research as a discipline in the UX team
 (through hiring of Abbey Ripstra as User Research Lead)  and
 incorporation of user studies in a much more systematic way across
 products
 - Community liaisons dedicated to key products, responding to user
 feedback and helping Product Managers understand more complex
 community needs
 - Continued shortening of release/deployment cycles; significant
 improvements to deployment tooling, rewriting our legacy scap tools
 to increase the ability to monitor and reason about deployments;
 introduction of daily SWAT deploys to quickly release fixes, etc.
 - Introduction of various infrastructure tools that help us better
 analyze/profile issues, including logstash for log analysis, increased
 use of graphite for performance metrics collection and various
 front-ends for visualizing those metrics
 - Shift towards loosely coupled services, addressing the difficulty of
 maintaining and improving our highly monolithic codebase (examples
 include Parsoid, Citoid, Mathoid, and the new Content API in
 development)
 - Introduction of Beta Features framework to stage features for early
 adopters

 5) The changes Lila has pushed for since we started include:

 - Greater focus on quarterly prioritization and a rolling roadmap
 rather than a fiscal year view of the world
 - Increased emphasis on understanding the needs of different user
 personas at all cycles of software development, including through use
 of qualitative and quantitative methods
 - Reducing velocity of user-facing changes (esp. on desktop) to
 increase focus on foundations (platform/process improvements) that
 ultimately will enable us to move faster and more effectively
 - 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Lila Tretikov]

We are planning to do a review of alignment/divergence with the plan mid
year. That would be the right time for this discussion as we will have a
good overview/gap analysis at that time.

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks for the detailed comments, Erik.

 As someone who spent several volunteer hours reviewing the current Annual
 Plan, I would appreciate getting an understanding of how the change of
 emphasis to quarterly reviews affects budgets, hiring plans, and
 fundraising goals. Is that something that you can address or should I ask
 Garfield?

 Thanks,
 Pine
 On Oct 9, 2014 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 10:26 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   I'm sure a Board member, Lila, or Erik will correct me if I am
 mistaken,
   but my understanding is that there is internal agreement at Board level
   that the Product side of the org needs some systemic changes, that Lila
  was
   chosen with the goal of making those changes, and that some changes are
   already happening.
 
  There's agreement at all levels that we want to continue down the path
  set by Sue back in 2012 [1] for WMF to truly understand itself as a
  technology and grantmaking organization. That path led to where we are
  today:
 
  1) As part of the ED transition, Sue recommended (and the Board
  accepted the recommendation) to seek an ED with a strong
  technology/product background, and we hired Lila Tretikov as Sue's
  successor who matches those requirements.
 
  2) In November 2012, I recommended that we prepare for building out
  new functions for UX and Analytics, and prepare for dedicated
  leadership for Engineering and Product. Sue accepted this
  recommendation. I hired Directors for UX and Analytics in 2013,
  followed by Community Engagement in 2014, and finally we hired a VP
  Engineering last week to complete the process.
 
  3) To better account for the need to learn quickly and adjust course
  as appropriate, we introduced quarterly reviews in December 2012 [3]
  and increasingly reduced the specificity of Annual Plan level
  commitments while increasing the focus on metrics and accountability
  in the reviews.
 
  4) On the technology and product front, many improvements to process
  and support infrastructure have been implemented in the last couple of
  years, including but not limited to:
 
  - Development of MediaWiki Vagrant as a standardized dev environment,
  to reduce failure cases due to developer environment inconsistencies
  - Improvements to continuous integration infrastructure for PHP unit
  tests and QUnit JavaScript unit tests, and increased focus (but not
  nearly enough yet) on automated tests, especially for newly developed
  features
  - Introduction and continued improvement of BetaLabs as a staging
  environment for all commits, increased use of automated end-to-end
  browser tests and QA testing by humans to catch bugs and regressions
  prior to production rollouts
  - Introduction and use of various tools for measuring the impact of
  features, including EventLogging as a standard instrumentation
  framework for measuring feature usage, dashboards for visualizing
  usage, WikiMetrics for analyzing editor cohort behavior, Editor
  Engagement Vital Signs for understanding system-wide user behavior,
  analysis of pageview data using Hadoop (just rolled out), etc.
  - Highly specialized automated testing frameworks for specific
  projects, e.g. Parsoid round-trip testing and visual diffing (!) to
  detect dirty diffs or output problems
  - Introduction of design research as a discipline in the UX team
  (through hiring of Abbey Ripstra as User Research Lead)  and
  incorporation of user studies in a much more systematic way across
  products
  - Community liaisons dedicated to key products, responding to user
  feedback and helping Product Managers understand more complex
  community needs
  - Continued shortening of release/deployment cycles; significant
  improvements to deployment tooling, rewriting our legacy scap tools
  to increase the ability to monitor and reason about deployments;
  introduction of daily SWAT deploys to quickly release fixes, etc.
  - Introduction of various infrastructure tools that help us better
  analyze/profile issues, including logstash for log analysis, increased
  use of graphite for performance metrics collection and various
  front-ends for visualizing those metrics
  - Shift towards loosely coupled services, addressing the difficulty of
  maintaining and improving our highly monolithic codebase (examples
  include Parsoid, Citoid, Mathoid, and the new Content API in
  development)
  - Introduction of Beta Features framework to stage features for early
  adopters
 
  5) The changes Lila has pushed for since we started include:
 
  - Greater focus on quarterly prioritization and a rolling roadmap
  rather than a fiscal year view of the world
  - Increased emphasis on 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Pine W]

Thank you Lila.

Pine
On Oct 9, 2014 11:50 AM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 We are planning to do a review of alignment/divergence with the plan mid
 year. That would be the right time for this discussion as we will have a
 good overview/gap analysis at that time.

 On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

  Thanks for the detailed comments, Erik.
 
  As someone who spent several volunteer hours reviewing the current Annual
  Plan, I would appreciate getting an understanding of how the change of
  emphasis to quarterly reviews affects budgets, hiring plans, and
  fundraising goals. Is that something that you can address or should I ask
  Garfield?
 
  Thanks,
  Pine
  On Oct 9, 2014 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 
   On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 10:26 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
  
I'm sure a Board member, Lila, or Erik will correct me if I am
  mistaken,
but my understanding is that there is internal agreement at Board
 level
that the Product side of the org needs some systemic changes, that
 Lila
   was
chosen with the goal of making those changes, and that some changes
 are
already happening.
  
   There's agreement at all levels that we want to continue down the path
   set by Sue back in 2012 [1] for WMF to truly understand itself as a
   technology and grantmaking organization. That path led to where we are
   today:
  
   1) As part of the ED transition, Sue recommended (and the Board
   accepted the recommendation) to seek an ED with a strong
   technology/product background, and we hired Lila Tretikov as Sue's
   successor who matches those requirements.
  
   2) In November 2012, I recommended that we prepare for building out
   new functions for UX and Analytics, and prepare for dedicated
   leadership for Engineering and Product. Sue accepted this
   recommendation. I hired Directors for UX and Analytics in 2013,
   followed by Community Engagement in 2014, and finally we hired a VP
   Engineering last week to complete the process.
  
   3) To better account for the need to learn quickly and adjust course
   as appropriate, we introduced quarterly reviews in December 2012 [3]
   and increasingly reduced the specificity of Annual Plan level
   commitments while increasing the focus on metrics and accountability
   in the reviews.
  
   4) On the technology and product front, many improvements to process
   and support infrastructure have been implemented in the last couple of
   years, including but not limited to:
  
   - Development of MediaWiki Vagrant as a standardized dev environment,
   to reduce failure cases due to developer environment inconsistencies
   - Improvements to continuous integration infrastructure for PHP unit
   tests and QUnit JavaScript unit tests, and increased focus (but not
   nearly enough yet) on automated tests, especially for newly developed
   features
   - Introduction and continued improvement of BetaLabs as a staging
   environment for all commits, increased use of automated end-to-end
   browser tests and QA testing by humans to catch bugs and regressions
   prior to production rollouts
   - Introduction and use of various tools for measuring the impact of
   features, including EventLogging as a standard instrumentation
   framework for measuring feature usage, dashboards for visualizing
   usage, WikiMetrics for analyzing editor cohort behavior, Editor
   Engagement Vital Signs for understanding system-wide user behavior,
   analysis of pageview data using Hadoop (just rolled out), etc.
   - Highly specialized automated testing frameworks for specific
   projects, e.g. Parsoid round-trip testing and visual diffing (!) to
   detect dirty diffs or output problems
   - Introduction of design research as a discipline in the UX team
   (through hiring of Abbey Ripstra as User Research Lead)  and
   incorporation of user studies in a much more systematic way across
   products
   - Community liaisons dedicated to key products, responding to user
   feedback and helping Product Managers understand more complex
   community needs
   - Continued shortening of release/deployment cycles; significant
   improvements to deployment tooling, rewriting our legacy scap tools
   to increase the ability to monitor and reason about deployments;
   introduction of daily SWAT deploys to quickly release fixes, etc.
   - Introduction of various infrastructure tools that help us better
   analyze/profile issues, including logstash for log analysis, increased
   use of graphite for performance metrics collection and various
   front-ends for visualizing those metrics
   - Shift towards loosely coupled services, addressing the difficulty of
   maintaining and improving our highly monolithic codebase (examples
   include Parsoid, Citoid, Mathoid, and the new Content API in
   development)
   - Introduction of Beta Features framework to stage features for early
   adopters
  
   5) The changes Lila has 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Pine W]

Hi Lila,

May I request a Tech Talk about efficiency and quality of Wikimedia
software development? It would be interesting to have you, Erik and Damon
as presenters.

Thanks,

Pine
On Oct 7, 2014 9:07 AM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Are you in? Or are you out? That is the question.


 Lila

 P.S. If you'd like to talk about operational efficiency and quality of
 software manufacturing -- please start a thread on that. We are deep into
 working on that here, so would be happy to share the love!

 On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 7:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:

  On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   Because of that, I am very happy to see somebody with courage and
   integrity in the top management. Such person has much larger potential
   to create the momentum and build community enthusiasm again.
  
 
 
  Is someone saying I have courage and integrity all it takes to convince
  you that they are indeed possessed of those qualities? Every politician
  says that. I'd reserve judgment and wait to see their performance.
 
  Besides, what has been lacking is not courage. Creating the
 Superprotection
  feature, pressing ahead with the Flow concept in the face of massive
  community skepticism and rolling out a very poorly implemented
 VisualEditor
  undoubtedly took courage of a sort.
 
  What's been lacking is an ability to convince the community through
  argument rather than the exercise of power, an ability to understand the
  community's needs and concerns, and sheer old-fashioned engineering
  competence – something the VisualEditor signally failed to demonstrate.
 
  Jimmy Wales acknowledged that there have been huge problems. Recently, a
  Wikipedian quoted the following to him on his talk page:
 
  *“The Foundation has a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now has
  spent millions on software development without producing anything that
  actually works; the feeling is that the whole operation is held together
  with the goodwill of its volunteers and the more stupid Foundation
 managers
  are seriously hacking them off”,*
 
  Wales replied[1] (my emphasis),
 
  *“Other than the extreme nature of the comment (‘without producing
  ANYTHING’ is too strong) why do you think I would disagree with that?
 This
  is precisely the point of the new CEO and new direction – to radically
  improve the software development process. That statement, while too
 strong,
  is indeed an accurate depiction of what has gone wrong. I’ve been
  frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of
  inadequate software not developed with sufficient community consultation
  and without proper incremental rollout to catch showstopping bugs.”*
  I don't want to be unduly churlish to Damon, who deserves his welcome
 here
  like any new team member, but given the above background I personally
 would
  have appreciated an intimation from Damon that he is aware of the
 problems
  to date, that roll-outs will be handled more competently on his watch,
 and
  that the community will not be presented with substandard software again.
 
  [1]
 
 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=nextoldid=623290066
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Craig Franklin]

I think the first lesson here is: if you're going to talk about a
harmonious community, don't quote divisive political figures in support of
your argument :-)

That said, welcome Damon!  Certainly, it's a pretty tough job that you've
stepped into, but I'm optimistic that a fresh approach and fresh eyes will
assist the engineering team in pushing through the present difficulties
with software deployments.

Regards,
Craig Franklin

On 7 October 2014 11:02, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello and welcome, Damon.

 One thing I've long appreciated about the Wikimedia movement is that it is
 not political, and indeed the flagship project is explicitly neutral. This
 distinction has become a little more nuanced as the movement has taken
 political positions that are congruent with the overall mission, but I
 think it remains the case that Wikimedians have been able to avoid
 entanglements with general political issues. This has been especially the
 case with most deeply controversial and current political debates.

 So while I agree with your sentiment, that leaders must model values such
 as courage and integrity, I think it would have been better expressed
 without the ringing endorsement of Che Guevara. As you say, we should
 choose our words carefully and ensure that our language is positive and
 inclusive. This is obviously an area where we can all make progress.

 ~Nathan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[David Gerard]

On 8 October 2014 13:52, Craig Franklin cfrank...@halonetwork.net wrote:

 I think the first lesson here is: if you're going to talk about a
 harmonious community, don't quote divisive political figures in support of
 your argument :-)


Objection! Assumes the existence of a non-divisive topic for
Wikipedians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars


- d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Milos Rancic]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 4:36 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:
 Is someone saying I have courage and integrity all it takes to convince
 you that they are indeed possessed of those qualities? Every politician
 says that. I'd reserve judgment and wait to see their performance.

That's good for the beginning. If a politician says that he or she has
courage and integrity that defines his or her attitude. At this
moment of time our movement is in the process of waking up and we need
that kind of attitude.

What would be bad -- again from the perspective of what a politician
says -- is the construction like This is great community and I would
like to join your path!

Both constructions are positive in general, but presently we need the
attitude of change, not the flattering attitude.

The second good thing is that we can keep him accountable for what he
said, like you are doing that with your politician. (Counting that we
have much more influence on WMF structures than average voter on the
state structures.)

 Besides, what has been lacking is not courage. Creating the Superprotection
 feature, pressing ahead with the Flow concept in the face of massive
 community skepticism and rolling out a very poorly implemented VisualEditor
 undoubtedly took courage of a sort.

That isn't courage, but despair to show that something has been done.
In this context, courage is to have a vision (which includes
community), make the plan (which includes community), do the job
(which includes community) and implement the features in acceptable
way for the community.

Those three features you mentioned are different issues.

Superprotection clearly needs political decision, i.e. particular
communities should be asked about such actions.

VisualEditor is good and needed feature in theory, while, as you
mentioned, poorly implemented. Obviously, it needs polishing and more
QA work.

However, in relation to Flow, I think that such features should be
discussed and pushed if necessary. Counting, of course, that they've
been well implemented, without significant problems. We need *really*
new features, capable to introduce different paradigm into our daily
work.

It's obviously on the new management to find a way how to overcome
previous issues.

 What's been lacking is an ability to convince the community through
 argument rather than the exercise of power, an ability to understand the
 community's needs and concerns, and sheer old-fashioned engineering
 competence – something the VisualEditor signally failed to demonstrate.

From my perspective, what we didn't have last years is actually
courage to do new things. From what I heard from the first hand, and
besides low level features like Parser is, Flow is the first real
innovation in wiki software since talk pages themselves. The sum of
all previous innovations gave the impression that the world is going
into one direction, while we are waiting in the early 2000s.

The reason for that is exactly cowardice on all levels of power
structure in our movement. Basically, as somebody gets some
permissions, he or she becomes much more afraid of doing anything
which would endanger his or her position. And as it goes up, the level
of cowardice was just growing.

The product of that process is that sometimes things can't be
prolonged anymore, something has to be done because any reason. Then
we get forced implementations, promoting bizarrely insignificant
features as great achievements, confronting with the Wikipedia
communities or other parts of the movement. That's despair, not
courage.

And that's why we need people of courage and integrity in the top
managerial positions. Those capable to work well under community
pressure till the product is done. Damon sad that he is such person
and I am very happy to hear that. That's good starting point. We'll
see the product of that, of course.

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 6:07 PM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 Are you in? Or are you out? That is the question.

If the military allegory is the right thing to make, imagine that you
are a general of Napoleon's army in Moscow. Your army conquered almost
everything in the most important part of the world, but it's
exhausted. That's the present state of the morale in our communities.
You need now firefighters, not court-martial.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Lila Tretikov]

Yes Pine, you may. Let's give Damon a bit of time to settle in and we can
arrange that.

We are also in the midst of working through documenting and exposing our
product development process, which would help set up parameters for success
of projects.

Lila

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 11:14 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Lila,

 May I request a Tech Talk about efficiency and quality of Wikimedia
 software development? It would be interesting to have you, Erik and Damon
 as presenters.

 Thanks,

 Pine
 On Oct 7, 2014 9:07 AM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  Are you in? Or are you out? That is the question.
 
 
  Lila
 
  P.S. If you'd like to talk about operational efficiency and quality of
  software manufacturing -- please start a thread on that. We are deep into
  working on that here, so would be happy to share the love!
 
  On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 7:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
   On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  
Because of that, I am very happy to see somebody with courage and
integrity in the top management. Such person has much larger
 potential
to create the momentum and build community enthusiasm again.
   
  
  
   Is someone saying I have courage and integrity all it takes to
 convince
   you that they are indeed possessed of those qualities? Every politician
   says that. I'd reserve judgment and wait to see their performance.
  
   Besides, what has been lacking is not courage. Creating the
  Superprotection
   feature, pressing ahead with the Flow concept in the face of massive
   community skepticism and rolling out a very poorly implemented
  VisualEditor
   undoubtedly took courage of a sort.
  
   What's been lacking is an ability to convince the community through
   argument rather than the exercise of power, an ability to understand
 the
   community's needs and concerns, and sheer old-fashioned engineering
   competence – something the VisualEditor signally failed to demonstrate.
  
   Jimmy Wales acknowledged that there have been huge problems. Recently,
 a
   Wikipedian quoted the following to him on his talk page:
  
   *“The Foundation has a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now
 has
   spent millions on software development without producing anything that
   actually works; the feeling is that the whole operation is held
 together
   with the goodwill of its volunteers and the more stupid Foundation
  managers
   are seriously hacking them off”,*
  
   Wales replied[1] (my emphasis),
  
   *“Other than the extreme nature of the comment (‘without producing
   ANYTHING’ is too strong) why do you think I would disagree with that?
  This
   is precisely the point of the new CEO and new direction – to radically
   improve the software development process. That statement, while too
  strong,
   is indeed an accurate depiction of what has gone wrong. I’ve been
   frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of
   inadequate software not developed with sufficient community
 consultation
   and without proper incremental rollout to catch showstopping bugs.”*
   I don't want to be unduly churlish to Damon, who deserves his welcome
  here
   like any new team member, but given the above background I personally
  would
   have appreciated an intimation from Damon that he is aware of the
  problems
   to date, that roll-outs will be handled more competently on his watch,
  and
   that the community will not be presented with substandard software
 again.
  
   [1]
  
  
 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=nextoldid=623290066
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[phoebe ayers]

Every once in a while something happens in our Wikimedia-verse -- this
thread, for instance, or getting into a political discussion with
someone at an event -- that reminds me that I can violently disagree
on matters of politics with some of my dearest friends in Wikimedia.
Of course Wikimedians are deeply and clearly political when it comes
to free knowledge and copyright law -- but after that it's often a
mystery to me how people feel about various issues, and sometimes a
surprise to find that we agree or disagree.

And that is one of the things that I love about this community -- the
fact that regardless of whether we would vote for different people or
come down on different sides in almost anything else, we can agree
about our love of getting an encyclopedia edited and sharing free
knowledge. It's lovely :)

Now, let's get back to fighting about something that matters, like
Oxford commas and reference formats!

-- phoebe

p.s. welcome, Damon!




On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 8:54 AM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@gmail.com wrote:
 Well said, Craig. Because Che Guevara means for me: I'm out.
 Ziko

 Am Mittwoch, 8. Oktober 2014 schrieb Craig Franklin :

 I think the first lesson here is: if you're going to talk about a
 harmonious community, don't quote divisive political figures in support of
 your argument :-)

 That said, welcome Damon!  Certainly, it's a pretty tough job that you've
 stepped into, but I'm optimistic that a fresh approach and fresh eyes will
 assist the engineering team in pushing through the present difficulties
 with software deployments.

 Regards,
 Craig Franklin

 On 7 October 2014 11:02, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com javascript:; wrote:

  Hello and welcome, Damon.
 
  One thing I've long appreciated about the Wikimedia movement is that it
 is
  not political, and indeed the flagship project is explicitly neutral.
 This
  distinction has become a little more nuanced as the movement has taken
  political positions that are congruent with the overall mission, but I
  think it remains the case that Wikimedians have been able to avoid
  entanglements with general political issues. This has been especially the
  case with most deeply controversial and current political debates.
 
  So while I agree with your sentiment, that leaders must model values such
  as courage and integrity, I think it would have been better expressed
  without the ringing endorsement of Che Guevara. As you say, we should
  choose our words carefully and ensure that our language is positive and
  inclusive. This is obviously an area where we can all make progress.
 
  ~Nathan
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-- 
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
at gmail.com *

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Milos Rancic]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 6:44 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:
 The community has heard a lot from the WMF about courage, honesty,
 integrity and leadership – and rather too much of the latter of late: let's
 remember that the Wikimedia Foundation's values[1] speak of *community-led*
 projects.

For the last 6-7 years we got financial and organizational stability.
We are now financially stable worldwide movement. That's great
achievement.

The price which we paid for that is quite large. Most importantly, we
lost the momentum along with the initial enthusiasm.

In the ideal world, we wouldn't have lost the momentum. In the ideal
world, community would be capable to fix the holes made by leadership
and management.

However, we are not living in the ideal world. Besides some drawback,
the positive thing of not living in the ideal world is it's inherent
feature that you can change it.

Because of that, I am very happy to see somebody with courage and
integrity in the top management. Such person has much larger potential
to create the momentum and build community enthusiasm again.

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 3:02 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
 So while I agree with your sentiment, that leaders must model values such
 as courage and integrity, I think it would have been better expressed
 without the ringing endorsement of Che Guevara. As you say, we should
 choose our words carefully and ensure that our language is positive and
 inclusive. This is obviously an area where we can all make progress.

Nathan, the fact that Damon is likely a trot who quotes Che Guevara is
as good as the fact that Jimmy is an objectivist (or, at least, was at
the time of creation of Wikipedia). You can't be a fundamentalist
here. And as long as the ideology is dominantly secular, it's bringing
to us not just diversity, but people with stronger motivation, which
we badly need.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote:

 Because of that, I am very happy to see somebody with courage and
 integrity in the top management. Such person has much larger potential
 to create the momentum and build community enthusiasm again.



Is someone saying I have courage and integrity all it takes to convince
you that they are indeed possessed of those qualities? Every politician
says that. I'd reserve judgment and wait to see their performance.

Besides, what has been lacking is not courage. Creating the Superprotection
feature, pressing ahead with the Flow concept in the face of massive
community skepticism and rolling out a very poorly implemented VisualEditor
undoubtedly took courage of a sort.

What's been lacking is an ability to convince the community through
argument rather than the exercise of power, an ability to understand the
community's needs and concerns, and sheer old-fashioned engineering
competence – something the VisualEditor signally failed to demonstrate.

Jimmy Wales acknowledged that there have been huge problems. Recently, a
Wikipedian quoted the following to him on his talk page:

*“The Foundation has a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now has
spent millions on software development without producing anything that
actually works; the feeling is that the whole operation is held together
with the goodwill of its volunteers and the more stupid Foundation managers
are seriously hacking them off”,*

Wales replied[1] (my emphasis),

*“Other than the extreme nature of the comment (‘without producing
ANYTHING’ is too strong) why do you think I would disagree with that? This
is precisely the point of the new CEO and new direction – to radically
improve the software development process. That statement, while too strong,
is indeed an accurate depiction of what has gone wrong. I’ve been
frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of
inadequate software not developed with sufficient community consultation
and without proper incremental rollout to catch showstopping bugs.”*
I don't want to be unduly churlish to Damon, who deserves his welcome here
like any new team member, but given the above background I personally would
have appreciated an intimation from Damon that he is aware of the problems
to date, that roll-outs will be handled more competently on his watch, and
that the community will not be presented with substandard software again.

[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=nextoldid=623290066
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Lila Tretikov]

Are you in? Or are you out? That is the question.


Lila

P.S. If you'd like to talk about operational efficiency and quality of
software manufacturing -- please start a thread on that. We are deep into
working on that here, so would be happy to share the love!

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 7:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote:

  Because of that, I am very happy to see somebody with courage and
  integrity in the top management. Such person has much larger potential
  to create the momentum and build community enthusiasm again.
 


 Is someone saying I have courage and integrity all it takes to convince
 you that they are indeed possessed of those qualities? Every politician
 says that. I'd reserve judgment and wait to see their performance.

 Besides, what has been lacking is not courage. Creating the Superprotection
 feature, pressing ahead with the Flow concept in the face of massive
 community skepticism and rolling out a very poorly implemented VisualEditor
 undoubtedly took courage of a sort.

 What's been lacking is an ability to convince the community through
 argument rather than the exercise of power, an ability to understand the
 community's needs and concerns, and sheer old-fashioned engineering
 competence – something the VisualEditor signally failed to demonstrate.

 Jimmy Wales acknowledged that there have been huge problems. Recently, a
 Wikipedian quoted the following to him on his talk page:

 *“The Foundation has a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now has
 spent millions on software development without producing anything that
 actually works; the feeling is that the whole operation is held together
 with the goodwill of its volunteers and the more stupid Foundation managers
 are seriously hacking them off”,*

 Wales replied[1] (my emphasis),

 *“Other than the extreme nature of the comment (‘without producing
 ANYTHING’ is too strong) why do you think I would disagree with that? This
 is precisely the point of the new CEO and new direction – to radically
 improve the software development process. That statement, while too strong,
 is indeed an accurate depiction of what has gone wrong. I’ve been
 frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of
 inadequate software not developed with sufficient community consultation
 and without proper incremental rollout to catch showstopping bugs.”*
 I don't want to be unduly churlish to Damon, who deserves his welcome here
 like any new team member, but given the above background I personally would
 have appreciated an intimation from Damon that he is aware of the problems
 to date, that roll-outs will be handled more competently on his watch, and
 that the community will not be presented with substandard software again.

 [1]

 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=nextoldid=623290066
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[Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Damon Sicore]

wikimedia-l,

On arrival I was asked to describe a few leadership principles and
practices I live out.  In my response I included a statement about courage,
honesty, and integrity [1]. These principles are not effective without
applying them.  To succeed, one must transfer these leadership principles,
to a vast number of people, enabling them to be more successful.

I’ve found the best method to teach others is to demonstrate [3].

Effective leaders demonstrate correct behavior and they demonstrate
leadership by acting with courage, honesty, and integrity.  This is what I
expect from myself and from those around me who share our mission.   Here’s
a quote from Ernesto 'Che’ Guevara, a person who's ability to lead is
unquestionable:

'One of the great educational techniques is example.  Therefore, the chiefs
must constantly offer the example of a pure and devoted life.  Promotion of
the soldier should be based on valor, capacity, and a spirit of sacrifice;
whoever does not have these qualities in high degree ought not to have
responsible assignments, since he will cause unfortunate accidents at any
moment.'  —Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960) p. 90 [4].

We are not soldiers, but we are revolutionaries.  And as revolutionaries
supporting the Wikimedia mission we must consistently demonstrate the
behaviors that maximize our ability to build the software required to
fulfill our mission.  This is important because our users and contributors
are watching us as leaders.  They are watching our demonstration.  And if
we are to support them we must treat them with respect.   If we don't, they
will leave.

Che's policy when asking for help from their community was to always be
courteous, considerate, and just.  He emphasized that food, supplies, and
help from the community should be exchanged for fair compensation.
Always.  He continues:

'The conduct of the guerrilla fighter will be subject to judgment whenever
he approaches a house to ask for something.  The inhabitants will draw
favorable or unfavorable conclusions about the guerrilla band according to
the manner in which any service or food or other necessity is solicited and
the methods used to get what is wanted.  The explanation by the chief
should be detailed about these problems,  emphasizing their importance;  he
should also teach by example.'

Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with respect
and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
Please join me.

While I'm normally on IRC all the time, this last week has been special as
I'm migrating machines and devices.  Beginning this week I will have a
client on 24-7; however, I will be online for a dedicated IRC Office Hour
on Oct 9, 1-2pm PDT.   I would love to hear your thoughts here or in IRC.


All my best,

Damon
VPE, Wikimedia Foundation

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2014-10
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactic_%28method%29
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28teaching%29
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_%28book%29
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Anna Stillwell]

I'll join you. Pledge made.
/a

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 1:43 PM, Damon Sicore dsic...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 wikimedia-l,

 On arrival I was asked to describe a few leadership principles and
 practices I live out.  In my response I included a statement about courage,
 honesty, and integrity [1]. These principles are not effective without
 applying them.  To succeed, one must transfer these leadership principles,
 to a vast number of people, enabling them to be more successful.

 I’ve found the best method to teach others is to demonstrate [3].

 Effective leaders demonstrate correct behavior and they demonstrate
 leadership by acting with courage, honesty, and integrity.  This is what I
 expect from myself and from those around me who share our mission.   Here’s
 a quote from Ernesto 'Che’ Guevara, a person who's ability to lead is
 unquestionable:

 'One of the great educational techniques is example.  Therefore, the chiefs
 must constantly offer the example of a pure and devoted life.  Promotion of
 the soldier should be based on valor, capacity, and a spirit of sacrifice;
 whoever does not have these qualities in high degree ought not to have
 responsible assignments, since he will cause unfortunate accidents at any
 moment.'  —Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960) p. 90 [4].

 We are not soldiers, but we are revolutionaries.  And as revolutionaries
 supporting the Wikimedia mission we must consistently demonstrate the
 behaviors that maximize our ability to build the software required to
 fulfill our mission.  This is important because our users and contributors
 are watching us as leaders.  They are watching our demonstration.  And if
 we are to support them we must treat them with respect.   If we don't, they
 will leave.

 Che's policy when asking for help from their community was to always be
 courteous, considerate, and just.  He emphasized that food, supplies, and
 help from the community should be exchanged for fair compensation.
 Always.  He continues:

 'The conduct of the guerrilla fighter will be subject to judgment whenever
 he approaches a house to ask for something.  The inhabitants will draw
 favorable or unfavorable conclusions about the guerrilla band according to
 the manner in which any service or food or other necessity is solicited and
 the methods used to get what is wanted.  The explanation by the chief
 should be detailed about these problems,  emphasizing their importance;  he
 should also teach by example.'

 Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with respect
 and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
 only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
 respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
 treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
 Please join me.

 While I'm normally on IRC all the time, this last week has been special as
 I'm migrating machines and devices.  Beginning this week I will have a
 client on 24-7; however, I will be online for a dedicated IRC Office Hour
 on Oct 9, 1-2pm PDT.   I would love to hear your thoughts here or in IRC.


 All my best,

 Damon
 VPE, Wikimedia Foundation

 [1]
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2014-10
 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactic_%28method%29
 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28teaching%29
 [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_%28book%29
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 Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Senior Learning and Org Dev Lead
Wikimedia Foundation
415.806.1536
*www.wikimediafoundation.org http://www.wikimediafoundation.org*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Sydney Poore]

Hi Damon and welcome!

I appreciate your call to action to treat everyone with respect and
dignity. And your desire to be inclusive!

Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with respect
and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
Please join me. --Damon Sicore

Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence at
Cochrane Collaboration.

Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 4:43 PM, Damon Sicore dsic...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 wikimedia-l,

 On arrival I was asked to describe a few leadership principles and
 practices I live out.  In my response I included a statement about courage,
 honesty, and integrity [1]. These principles are not effective without
 applying them.  To succeed, one must transfer these leadership principles,
 to a vast number of people, enabling them to be more successful.

 I’ve found the best method to teach others is to demonstrate [3].

 Effective leaders demonstrate correct behavior and they demonstrate
 leadership by acting with courage, honesty, and integrity.  This is what I
 expect from myself and from those around me who share our mission.   Here’s
 a quote from Ernesto 'Che’ Guevara, a person who's ability to lead is
 unquestionable:

 'One of the great educational techniques is example.  Therefore, the chiefs
 must constantly offer the example of a pure and devoted life.  Promotion of
 the soldier should be based on valor, capacity, and a spirit of sacrifice;
 whoever does not have these qualities in high degree ought not to have
 responsible assignments, since he will cause unfortunate accidents at any
 moment.'  —Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960) p. 90 [4].

 We are not soldiers, but we are revolutionaries.  And as revolutionaries
 supporting the Wikimedia mission we must consistently demonstrate the
 behaviors that maximize our ability to build the software required to
 fulfill our mission.  This is important because our users and contributors
 are watching us as leaders.  They are watching our demonstration.  And if
 we are to support them we must treat them with respect.   If we don't, they
 will leave.

 Che's policy when asking for help from their community was to always be
 courteous, considerate, and just.  He emphasized that food, supplies, and
 help from the community should be exchanged for fair compensation.
 Always.  He continues:

 'The conduct of the guerrilla fighter will be subject to judgment whenever
 he approaches a house to ask for something.  The inhabitants will draw
 favorable or unfavorable conclusions about the guerrilla band according to
 the manner in which any service or food or other necessity is solicited and
 the methods used to get what is wanted.  The explanation by the chief
 should be detailed about these problems,  emphasizing their importance;  he
 should also teach by example.'

 Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with respect
 and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
 only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
 respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
 treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
 Please join me.

 While I'm normally on IRC all the time, this last week has been special as
 I'm migrating machines and devices.  Beginning this week I will have a
 client on 24-7; however, I will be online for a dedicated IRC Office Hour
 on Oct 9, 1-2pm PDT.   I would love to hear your thoughts here or in IRC.


 All my best,

 Damon
 VPE, Wikimedia Foundation

 [1]
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2014-10
 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactic_%28method%29
 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28teaching%29
 [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_%28book%29
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Emily Blanchard]

Thank you Damon!  This is indeed a powerful message and I am looking
forward to working with you.




Emily Blanchard
Talent Acquisition Team
Wikimedia Foundation
eblanchard@wikimedia. eblanch...@gmail.comorg
Follow us on Twitter @wikimediaatwork
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
Become a Contributor:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse
Join Us: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us
Developers Join the Fun: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Communication


*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share inthe
sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!*

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 2:02 PM, Sydney Poore sydney.po...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Damon and welcome!

 I appreciate your call to action to treat everyone with respect and
 dignity. And your desire to be inclusive!

 Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with respect
 and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
 only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
 respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
 treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
 Please join me. --Damon Sicore

 Sydney Poore
 User:FloNight
 Wikipedian in Residence at
 Cochrane Collaboration.

 Sydney Poore
 User:FloNight
 Wikipedian in Residence
 at Cochrane Collaboration

 On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 4:43 PM, Damon Sicore dsic...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:

  wikimedia-l,
 
  On arrival I was asked to describe a few leadership principles and
  practices I live out.  In my response I included a statement about
 courage,
  honesty, and integrity [1]. These principles are not effective without
  applying them.  To succeed, one must transfer these leadership
 principles,
  to a vast number of people, enabling them to be more successful.
 
  I’ve found the best method to teach others is to demonstrate [3].
 
  Effective leaders demonstrate correct behavior and they demonstrate
  leadership by acting with courage, honesty, and integrity.  This is what
 I
  expect from myself and from those around me who share our mission.
  Here’s
  a quote from Ernesto 'Che’ Guevara, a person who's ability to lead is
  unquestionable:
 
  'One of the great educational techniques is example.  Therefore, the
 chiefs
  must constantly offer the example of a pure and devoted life.  Promotion
 of
  the soldier should be based on valor, capacity, and a spirit of
 sacrifice;
  whoever does not have these qualities in high degree ought not to have
  responsible assignments, since he will cause unfortunate accidents at any
  moment.'  —Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960) p. 90 [4].
 
  We are not soldiers, but we are revolutionaries.  And as revolutionaries
  supporting the Wikimedia mission we must consistently demonstrate the
  behaviors that maximize our ability to build the software required to
  fulfill our mission.  This is important because our users and
 contributors
  are watching us as leaders.  They are watching our demonstration.  And if
  we are to support them we must treat them with respect.   If we don't,
 they
  will leave.
 
  Che's policy when asking for help from their community was to always be
  courteous, considerate, and just.  He emphasized that food, supplies, and
  help from the community should be exchanged for fair compensation.
  Always.  He continues:
 
  'The conduct of the guerrilla fighter will be subject to judgment
 whenever
  he approaches a house to ask for something.  The inhabitants will draw
  favorable or unfavorable conclusions about the guerrilla band according
 to
  the manner in which any service or food or other necessity is solicited
 and
  the methods used to get what is wanted.  The explanation by the chief
  should be detailed about these problems,  emphasizing their importance;
 he
  should also teach by example.'
 
  Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with
 respect
  and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
  only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
  respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
  treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
  Please join me.
 
  While I'm normally on IRC all the time, this last week has been special
 as
  I'm migrating machines and devices.  Beginning this week I will have a
  client on 24-7; however, I will be online for a dedicated IRC Office Hour
  on Oct 9, 1-2pm PDT.   I would love to hear your thoughts here or in IRC.
 
 
  All my best,
 
  Damon
  VPE, Wikimedia Foundation
 
  [1]
 
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2014-10
  [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactic_%28method%29
  [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28teaching%29
  [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_%28book%29
  ___
  Wikimedia-l mailing 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Milos Rancic]

From Bay Area hipsters to revolutionaries in less than five months. That's
the change!

Welcome!
 On Oct 6, 2014 10:43 PM, Damon Sicore dsic...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 wikimedia-l,

 On arrival I was asked to describe a few leadership principles and
 practices I live out.  In my response I included a statement about courage,
 honesty, and integrity [1]. These principles are not effective without
 applying them.  To succeed, one must transfer these leadership principles,
 to a vast number of people, enabling them to be more successful.

 I’ve found the best method to teach others is to demonstrate [3].

 Effective leaders demonstrate correct behavior and they demonstrate
 leadership by acting with courage, honesty, and integrity.  This is what I
 expect from myself and from those around me who share our mission.   Here’s
 a quote from Ernesto 'Che’ Guevara, a person who's ability to lead is
 unquestionable:

 'One of the great educational techniques is example.  Therefore, the chiefs
 must constantly offer the example of a pure and devoted life.  Promotion of
 the soldier should be based on valor, capacity, and a spirit of sacrifice;
 whoever does not have these qualities in high degree ought not to have
 responsible assignments, since he will cause unfortunate accidents at any
 moment.'  —Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960) p. 90 [4].

 We are not soldiers, but we are revolutionaries.  And as revolutionaries
 supporting the Wikimedia mission we must consistently demonstrate the
 behaviors that maximize our ability to build the software required to
 fulfill our mission.  This is important because our users and contributors
 are watching us as leaders.  They are watching our demonstration.  And if
 we are to support them we must treat them with respect.   If we don't, they
 will leave.

 Che's policy when asking for help from their community was to always be
 courteous, considerate, and just.  He emphasized that food, supplies, and
 help from the community should be exchanged for fair compensation.
 Always.  He continues:

 'The conduct of the guerrilla fighter will be subject to judgment whenever
 he approaches a house to ask for something.  The inhabitants will draw
 favorable or unfavorable conclusions about the guerrilla band according to
 the manner in which any service or food or other necessity is solicited and
 the methods used to get what is wanted.  The explanation by the chief
 should be detailed about these problems,  emphasizing their importance;  he
 should also teach by example.'

 Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with respect
 and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
 only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
 respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
 treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
 Please join me.

 While I'm normally on IRC all the time, this last week has been special as
 I'm migrating machines and devices.  Beginning this week I will have a
 client on 24-7; however, I will be online for a dedicated IRC Office Hour
 on Oct 9, 1-2pm PDT.   I would love to hear your thoughts here or in IRC.


 All my best,

 Damon
 VPE, Wikimedia Foundation

 [1]
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2014-10
 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactic_%28method%29
 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28teaching%29
 [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_%28book%29
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 Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Rachel diCerbo]

Hear, hear! Thank you for this intention, Damon. I'm in!

-rachel

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 1:43 PM, Damon Sicore dsic...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 wikimedia-l,

 On arrival I was asked to describe a few leadership principles and
 practices I live out.  In my response I included a statement about courage,
 honesty, and integrity [1]. These principles are not effective without
 applying them.  To succeed, one must transfer these leadership principles,
 to a vast number of people, enabling them to be more successful.

 I’ve found the best method to teach others is to demonstrate [3].

 Effective leaders demonstrate correct behavior and they demonstrate
 leadership by acting with courage, honesty, and integrity.  This is what I
 expect from myself and from those around me who share our mission.   Here’s
 a quote from Ernesto 'Che’ Guevara, a person who's ability to lead is
 unquestionable:

 'One of the great educational techniques is example.  Therefore, the chiefs
 must constantly offer the example of a pure and devoted life.  Promotion of
 the soldier should be based on valor, capacity, and a spirit of sacrifice;
 whoever does not have these qualities in high degree ought not to have
 responsible assignments, since he will cause unfortunate accidents at any
 moment.'  —Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960) p. 90 [4].

 We are not soldiers, but we are revolutionaries.  And as revolutionaries
 supporting the Wikimedia mission we must consistently demonstrate the
 behaviors that maximize our ability to build the software required to
 fulfill our mission.  This is important because our users and contributors
 are watching us as leaders.  They are watching our demonstration.  And if
 we are to support them we must treat them with respect.   If we don't, they
 will leave.

 Che's policy when asking for help from their community was to always be
 courteous, considerate, and just.  He emphasized that food, supplies, and
 help from the community should be exchanged for fair compensation.
 Always.  He continues:

 'The conduct of the guerrilla fighter will be subject to judgment whenever
 he approaches a house to ask for something.  The inhabitants will draw
 favorable or unfavorable conclusions about the guerrilla band according to
 the manner in which any service or food or other necessity is solicited and
 the methods used to get what is wanted.  The explanation by the chief
 should be detailed about these problems,  emphasizing their importance;  he
 should also teach by example.'

 Call to action:  Let's renew our commitment to treat everyone with respect
 and dignity.  Let's lead by example by choosing our words carefully with
 only positive intentions.  Open source requires a healthy community, and
 respectful interactions are a sign of a healthy community.   I pledge to
 treat everyone with respect and use respectful and inclusive language.
 Please join me.

 While I'm normally on IRC all the time, this last week has been special as
 I'm migrating machines and devices.  Beginning this week I will have a
 client on 24-7; however, I will be online for a dedicated IRC Office Hour
 on Oct 9, 1-2pm PDT.   I would love to hear your thoughts here or in IRC.


 All my best,

 Damon
 VPE, Wikimedia Foundation

 [1]
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2014-10
 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactic_%28method%29
 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28teaching%29
 [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_%28book%29
 ___
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 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
 Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
 mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe




-- 

Rachel diCerbo
Director of Community Engagement (Product)
Wikimedia Foundation
Rdicerb (WMF) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Rdicerb_%28WMF%29
@a_rachel https://twitter.com/a_rachel
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Nathan]

Hello and welcome, Damon.

One thing I've long appreciated about the Wikimedia movement is that it is
not political, and indeed the flagship project is explicitly neutral. This
distinction has become a little more nuanced as the movement has taken
political positions that are congruent with the overall mission, but I
think it remains the case that Wikimedians have been able to avoid
entanglements with general political issues. This has been especially the
case with most deeply controversial and current political debates.

So while I agree with your sentiment, that leaders must model values such
as courage and integrity, I think it would have been better expressed
without the ringing endorsement of Che Guevara. As you say, we should
choose our words carefully and ensure that our language is positive and
inclusive. This is obviously an area where we can all make progress.

~Nathan
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[Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Tim Davenport]

Here's hoping that the problem of bureaucratic degeneration is addressed by
our comrades in San Francisco. Che Guevarra is most illuminating on this
matter in his Feb. 1963 article Against Bureaucratism, published in
translation by Ocean Press in The Che Reader in 2005. (
https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/02/against-bureaucratism.htm)

Tim Davenport
Corvallis, OR



Bureaucratism, obviously, is not the offspring of socialist society, nor
is it a necessary component of it. The state bureaucracy existed in the
period of bourgeois governments with its retinue of hangers-on and lackeys,
as a great number of opportunists — who made up the “court” of the
politicians in power — flourished in the shade of the government budget. In
a capitalist society, where the entire state apparatus is at the service of
the bourgeoisie, the state bureaucracy's importance as a leading body is
very small. The main thing is that it be permeable enough to allow
opportunists to pass through, yet impenetrable enough to keep the people
trapped in its nets. Given the weight of the “original sins” in the old
administrative apparatus and the situations created after the triumph of
the revolution, the evil of bureaucratism began to develop strongly. If we
were to search for its roots today, we would have to add new motives to the
old causes, coming up with three fundamental reasons.

One is the lack of inner motivation. By this we mean the individual's lack
of interest in rendering a service to the state and in overcoming a given
situation. It is based on a lack of revolutionary consciousness or, at any
rate, on acquiescence in things that are wrong. We can establish a direct
and obvious relationship between the lack of inner motivation and the lack
of interest in resolving problems. In this case, whether the weakness in
ideological motivation is due to an absolute lack of conviction or to a
certain dose of desperation in the face of repeated insoluble problems, the
individual or group of individuals take refuge in bureaucratism, filling
out papers, shirking their responsibility, and establishing a written
defense in order to continue vegetating or to protect themselves from the
irresponsibility of others.

Another cause is the lack of organization. Attempting to destroy
“guerrillaism” without sufficient administrative experience has produced
dislocations and bottlenecks that unnecessarily curb the flow of
information from below, as well as the instructions or orders emanating
from the central apparatus. Sometimes, the former or the latter take the
wrong course; other times, they are translated into poorly formulated,
absurd instructions that contribute even more to the distortion.

The lack of organization is fundamentally characterized by the weakness of
the methods used to deal with a given situation. We can see examples in the
ministries, when attempts are made to solve problems at an inappropriate
level or when problems are dealt with through the wrong channels and get
lost in the labyrinth of paperwork. Bureaucratism is like a ball and chain
weighing down the type of official who is trying as best he can to solve
his problem but keeps crashing time and again into the established way of
doing things, without finding a solution

The third cause, a very important one, is the lack of sufficiently
developed technical knowledge to be able to make correct decisions on short
notice. Not being able to do this meant we had to gather many experiences
of little value and try to draw some conclusion from them. Discussions
became endless and no-one had sufficient authority to settle things. After
one, two, or more meetings, the problem remained until it resolved itself
or until a decision had to be made willy-nilly, no matter how bad it might
be. The almost total lack of knowledge, which as I mentioned earlier was
made up for by a long series of meetings, led to “meetingitis” — basically
a lack of perspective for solving problems. In these cases bureaucratism —
the brake that endless paper shuffling and indecision place on society's
development — becomes the fate of the bodies affected.

These three fundamental causes, one by one or acting together in various
combinations, affect the country's entire institutional life to a greater
or lesser degree. The time has come to break away from these malignant
influences.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Andreas Kolbe]

The community has heard a lot from the WMF about courage, honesty,
integrity and leadership – and rather too much of the latter of late: let's
remember that the Wikimedia Foundation's values[1] speak of *community-led*
projects.

---o0o---

Our community is our biggest asset

We are a community-based organization. We must operate with a mix of staff
members, and of volunteers, working together to achieve our mission.


We support community-led collaborative projects, and must respect the work
and the ideas of our community. We must listen and take into account our
communities in any decisions taken to achieve our mission.

---o0o---

Instead of peacock statements about courage, integrity etc., it would make
a nice change to hear about competence and ability from the WMF, and to see
*that* demonstrated, along with a readiness to listen and serve rather than
*lead*.

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 2:02 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello and welcome, Damon.

 One thing I've long appreciated about the Wikimedia movement is that it is
 not political, and indeed the flagship project is explicitly neutral. This
 distinction has become a little more nuanced as the movement has taken
 political positions that are congruent with the overall mission, but I
 think it remains the case that Wikimedians have been able to avoid
 entanglements with general political issues. This has been especially the
 case with most deeply controversial and current political debates.

 So while I agree with your sentiment, that leaders must model values such
 as courage and integrity, I think it would have been better expressed
 without the ringing endorsement of Che Guevara. As you say, we should
 choose our words carefully and ensure that our language is positive and
 inclusive. This is obviously an area where we can all make progress.

 ~Nathan
 ___
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