Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today
On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:17 AM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.p...@yahoo.comwrote: I really hated the idea of posting limits at first, but must commend the list mods for implementing it. Now that there is a specific cost to replies, I have scaled back on the amount of emails I have sent and prioritized based on discussion. Another possibility would be imposing a throttle on replies to threads, e.g. 5 per thread per day. That's something that I think might have merit, although it's one of those things that's tough to set as a hard-and-fast rule because of time zone differences. -- [[User:Ral315]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
Hoi, When a group of people are to come up with a communal opinion, particularly when this opinion is intended in order to judge a situation, a behaviour, you can no longer dismiss this formed group opinion as just personal and dismiss it as such. Obviously you can, because you do, but in this way you undermine the integrity of the process whereby an arbitration committee comes to its conclusions. Thanks, Gerard 2009/11/30 David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com (snip) Not an actual court of law, but the Wikimedia equivalent (in this instance, a committee convening to deliberate and render a verdict). Obviously, the determination that someone has done something appalling is a personal judgement, so it can't refer to that. It means that we set aside our personal opinions and decline to judge him/her as one judges someone on trial. (snip) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
Gerard Meijssen wrote: Hoi, When a group of people are to come up with a communal opinion, particularly when this opinion is intended in order to judge a situation, a behaviour, you can no longer dismiss this formed group opinion as just personal and dismiss it as such. Obviously you can, because you do, but in this way you undermine the integrity of the process whereby an arbitration committee comes to its conclusions. To what are you referring? I'm not sure that we're on the same page. If you thought that I was challenging the ArbCom's very existence, you misunderstood. Obviously, I have some serious concerns regarding the procedures that have/haven't been followed, but I fully recognize the ArbCom's importance. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today
Ryan Lomonaco wrote: On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:17 AM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.p...@yahoo.comwrote: I really hated the idea of posting limits at first, but must commend the list mods for implementing it. Now that there is a specific cost to replies, I have scaled back on the amount of emails I have sent and prioritized based on discussion. Another possibility would be imposing a throttle on replies to threads, e.g. 5 per thread per day. That's something that I think might have merit, although it's one of those things that's tough to set as a hard-and-fast rule because of time zone differences. I think the better approach is what the moderators have occasionally done in the past, which is to kill a specific thread. And the rest of us can call out those threads as being worthless, as several people have done, or ignore them (Thomas Dalton is right about that at least). But I expect throttling threads would be counterproductive. The beneficial effect of the current moderation is that it creates space for a more inclusive discussion, by restraining post-early-and-often behavior. A per-thread throttle would create an incentive to encourage that behavior, by privileging those who are quickest to respond. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Strategic Planning Office hours
Reminder: Our next strategy project office hours will be: '''20:00-21:00 UTC, Tuesday 1 December'''. Local timezones can be checked at [http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=12day=1year=2009hour=20min=0sec=0p1=0 ]. You can access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net/ and filling in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. Another option is http://chat.wikizine.org. Philippe Beaudette Facilitator, Strategy Project Wikimedia Foundation phili...@wikimedia.org mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454) Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
I think it is germane, because it means the choice we have is to ban a pedophile from the start, before s/he gets a chance to cause any damage, or to wait far too long to ban the pedophile, after much damage has already been done. If the banning process were much simpler, efficient, and effective, and the ability of damage to become widely disseminated minimalized, we could better afford to give people enough rope to hang themselves with. To be extra-safe, let's just ban everyone before they can do any damage. We're too patient with edit warriors and the like, but if you think that any sort of pro-pedophilia editing would be tolerated for any length of time, you're mistaken. Also, please address my point that banning self-identified pedophiles from editing merely entourages pedophile editors to *not* identify themselves as such (thereby increasing the likelihood that problematic activities will be overlooked). My point is that *all* editors should be accepted/rejected on the same terms, with no regard for our personal opinions of them. But clearly you draw a distinction between what is merely our personal opinions of them and what is a legitimate concern which affects our ability to accomplish our goals. I don't think this is the distinction on which we disagree. Rather, I think it's more your other belief that the idea of preemptively banning individuals on the basis that they _might_ engage in misconduct is unconscionable. The Wikimedia Foundation has granted the community the right to decide who can and who cannot access its servers. That means we have the right to ban anyone, for any reason. 1. Suppose that the Hindi Wikipedia voted to ban Pakistani editors. Would that be acceptable? (Note that I'm not remotely equating the exclusion of pedophiles with the exclusion of a nationality; I'm addressing your claim that we have the right to ban anyone, for any reason.) 2. Please direct me to the discussion(s) in which consensus was reached to ban all known pedophiles from editing. And ultimately, the basis that someone _might_ engage in misconduct in the future is the *only* proper basis on which to ban someone. And we base this assessment on past behavior, not hunches. Except, evidently, with pedophiles. However, I will acknowledge that the idea of disabling the e-mail function crossed my mind and might be a valid consideration. Why is that not unconscionable? Pragmatically, it strikes me as a realistic compromise. There obviously are many users who oppose editing by pedophiles, and I believe that this would address one of the main issues (the facilitation of private communication, potentially with children). I don't believe that pedophiles are likely to seek out victims via a wiki (as there are numerous online and offline fora that are far better for making contact with people in a particular geographic area), but I understand why the concern exists. I've addressed the PR issue elsewhere in the thread. Not properly. You're welcome to respond to those posts. Otherwise, we can simply agree to disagree. I'm even more puzzled by the suggestion that they be barred from editing articles related to pedophilia. Provided that their edits don't reflect a pro-pedophilia bias, what's the problem? The problem is that they've admitted to an inability to think rationally about the topic. I certainly agree that pedophiles possess highly abnormal ideas on the subject, but that doesn't preclude them from contributing to relevant encyclopedia articles in a rational manner. By all accounts that I've seen, the editor in question did precisely that. Pedophilia-related articles are heavily monitored, and inappropriate edits (by pedophiles or anyone else) are reverted more promptly than in the majority of articles. I do think some people's opposition is tantamount to approval of pedophilia, but not everyone's. Whose is? Is mine? I don't know. Is it? No, I condemn pedophilia. I'm just curious as to the basis of your above claim. What personal opinions should we set aside? Our condemnation of pedophiles (not pedophilia, mind you, as we certainly mustn't allow any such activities to be promoted on our wikis). I agree that we shouldn't judge him/her as one judges someone on trial. Rather, we should judge him/her as one judges someone applying for a volunteer job, working hand in hand with children, creating an encyclopedia. The hand in hand with children wording seems to conflate physical space with cyberspace. Please see my relevant reply to George William Herbert. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family
I agree with what Phoebe and William have written, and I'll just add a few minor points and then a thought about the process of new project creation. * When dealing with the WMF and Wikimedia community, you might want to avoid the language of business acquisitions; it's extraordinarily unlikely that the WMF will get into purchasing content for subsequent free distribution, if only for the (for us) perverse incentives it will create. * The Strategy wiki is not, in my opinion, a great place to propose new projects. It's aimed at long-term and big picture strategy, so it would be a good place to discuss the process of creating new projects, but it is not necessarily well adapted to considering specific proposals. * The Foundation and the community are not at a place where they can pursue people for project adoption. This is true for a variety of reasons, but the upshot is that you won't find a motivated adopter (someone who will actively court your project or facilitate an adoption) in either group. It might actually be easier to approach this as a new project proposal for the WMF, as opposed to the adoption of an already existing project. While the layout and formal written processes for creating a new project are (a) confusing (b) nonexistent (c) defunct (or some combination of all three), the general concept is fairly straightforward: (1) Demonstrate compatibility (i.e. resolve legal and philosophical issues, if any) (2) Demonstrate an active community (3) Resolve serious complaints / criticism in a community forum, most likely on Meta (may take some agitating for comments over a period of time) (4) Present the successful completion of 1-3 to an available employee of the WMF, like Erik Moeller, or a board member, who can see that hosting arrangements are made. If you can do 1-3, you can probably do 4. The Foundation should really facilitate the entire process, in my opinion, but the absence of their assistance doesn't *necessarily* doom the prospect of a new project. It just means that it won't be easy, and success will require the persistent effort of project advocates. The 4th step is the official approval, but history demonstrates that the actual work involved in step 4 is doable. While Wikiversity is the newest content projects, there are other hosted and distinct projects of other sorts (strategy, chapter projects, etc.) - proving that setting up a new MediaWiki instance with attendant arrangements isn't a major hurdle. Once you've accomplished all the steps, you can import your old wiki into your new wiki and get back to work. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today
On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.netwrote: Ryan Lomonaco wrote: On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:17 AM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.p...@yahoo.com wrote: Another possibility would be imposing a throttle on replies to threads, e.g. 5 per thread per day. That's something that I think might have merit, although it's one of those things that's tough to set as a hard-and-fast rule because of time zone differences. I think the better approach is what the moderators have occasionally done in the past, which is to kill a specific thread. And the rest of us can call out those threads as being worthless, as several people have done, or ignore them (Thomas Dalton is right about that at least). But I expect throttling threads would be counterproductive. The beneficial effect of the current moderation is that it creates space for a more inclusive discussion, by restraining post-early-and-often behavior. A per-thread throttle would create an incentive to encourage that behavior, by privileging those who are quickest to respond. --Michael Snow My reading of it was X replies per person per day in each thread. I agree with you that there should not be a set limit per thread as a whole. -- [[User:Ral315]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 7:53 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: I agree that we often wait far too long to ban disruptive editors, and I also agree that this is not germane to the discussion. I think it is germane, because it means the choice we have is to ban a pedophile from the start, before s/he gets a chance to cause any damage, or to wait far too long to ban the pedophile, after much damage has already been done. If the banning process were much simpler, efficient, and effective, and the ability of damage to become widely disseminated minimalized, we could better afford to give people enough rope to hang themselves with. And I can think of many groups more likely than pedophiles to perform edits reflecting advocacy. But these people aren't near-universally abhorred, so we wouldn't think of barring their participation. If we had a million perfect people begging to contribute to Wikipedia, we could be even more selective with who we allow to edit. But that's not reality. My point is that *all* editors should be accepted/rejected on the same terms, with no regard for our personal opinions of them. But clearly you draw a distinction between what is merely our personal opinions of them and what is a legitimate concern which affects our ability to accomplish our goals. I don't think this is the distinction on which we disagree. Rather, I think it's more your other belief that the idea of preemptively banning individuals on the basis that they _might_ engage in misconduct is unconscionable. The Wikimedia Foundation has granted the community the right to decide who can and who cannot access its servers. That means we have the right to ban anyone, for any reason. And ultimately, the basis that someone _might_ engage in misconduct in the future is the *only* proper basis on which to ban someone. Whether or not they have engaged in misconduct in the past is not something that can be changed. We need to focus on the future when deciding who to allow to edit. However, I will acknowledge that the idea of disabling the e-mail function crossed my mind and might be a valid consideration. Why is that not unconscionable? There's also the issue of negative publicity. I've addressed the PR issue elsewhere in the thread. Not properly. I'm even more puzzled by the suggestion that they be barred from editing articles related to pedophilia. Provided that their edits don't reflect a pro-pedophilia bias, what's the problem? The problem is that they've admitted to an inability to think rationally about the topic. I do think some people's opposition is tantamount to approval of pedophilia, but not everyone's. Whose is? Is mine? I don't know. Is it? It means that we set aside our personal opinions and decline to judge him/her as one judges someone on trial. What personal opinions should we set aside? I agree that we shouldn't judge him/her as one judges someone on trial. Rather, we should judge him/her as one judges someone applying for a volunteer job, working hand in hand with children, creating an encyclopedia. But that means our judgment should be harsher, not more lenient. Were this a trial, it *would* be unfair to judge someone for something they are likely to do, rather than something they have done. But this isn't a trial, and I'm not the one treating it like one - you are. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today
Ryan Lomonaco wrote: My reading of it was X replies per person per day in each thread. I agree with you that there should not be a set limit per thread as a whole. It might be interesting to combine that with a throttled number of replies from one individual to another. At least for me, the lowest-value messages are often ones where two people are arguing with one another, apparently forgetting the interests of the broader audience. With either of those, before creating a firm limit, an interesting step might be notification. E.g.: Dear X: I notice that in the last 24 hours you've sent 5 messages on the topic Pedophilia and the non-discrimination policy, with 4 of them replying to person Y. That might be more than the average list subscriber wants to read. Before you reply again, you might consider taking a break, moving the discussion off-list, or asking list moderators how valualbe they're finding the discussion. Thanks, The Foundation-L Robot My theory here is that the problem may more be lack of awareness than intentional misbehavior, making feedback a reasonable substitute for control. William ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Could someone let me know why we need a bureaucratic process (I mean bureaucratic without the connotative value) to approve new projects when there has been exactly zero proposals since 2006 that actually needed to be approved? (And in fact, there is serious discussion about whether our current projects make sense, a fact which is too easily overlooked) I mean to say that since 2006, and perhaps even further back, there have been no proposals which should have been approved. Why do we need a process to handle something which, in essence, *doesn't happen*? I'd be far more interested in discussing ways we can critically evaluate which of our current projects should remain in the Wikimedia movement, and which should be asked to move outside that movement to continue their development. - -Mike -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAksUJhMACgkQst0AR/DaKHs/tgCgiX8VVLWSmBq+TyGN5ZIpfqSc XYIAn3etuRSG2Q87KoueqLpgAMb38cQJ =YYTH -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family
2009/11/29 Laura Hale la...@fanhistory.com: As some one who has proposed a new project for the WMF (which would really probably be an acquisition if it happened), some changes need to be made: (...) This sort of presupposes that WMF, on the whole, wants to acquire projects. My understanding for several years has basically been that we don't; we build very large-scope projects in house, and gently encourage people who come to us with more specialised projects to either find a way to work them into one of the umbrellas, or to find a more appropriate home elsewhere. So, if WMF is going to begin to acquire projects, it first needs to decide that it wants to do that at all. And *that's* a big step; it'll need discussion and debate, a rethinking of what we conceive of as WMF projects, and how we decide on what is an appropriate use of funds; it's not just something someone in the office can sign off on. Once we have that - if we have that - then we can decide on a policy to handle such cases. That's the sticking-point here; deciding on the merits or demerits of the FH proposal are somewhat secondary to deciding whether we should be thinking about entertaining the proposal at all, and we can't just finesse past that stage. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 10:28 AM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: The hand in hand with children wording seems to conflate physical space with cyberspace. Please see my relevant reply to George William Herbert. There's a known and ancedotally (but not known to be statistically) significant trend of pedophiles attracting victims online. Also, apparently, of them coordinating amongst themselves to pass tips about possible victims in specific areas. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
George William Herbert wrote: There's a known and ancedotally (but not known to be statistically) significant trend of pedophiles attracting victims online. Also, apparently, of them coordinating amongst themselves to pass tips about possible victims in specific areas. I'm well aware. In fact, I produced a children's video about Internet predators for my county's public library and elementary schools. My point is that some measures commonly taken in physical space are ineffective (and possibly even detrimental) in cyberspace. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today
Ryan, You are correct. I apologize for the ambiguity of my suggestion. To restate, I was suggesting that users be restricted to a fixed or variable amount of posts per thread per day. It could also be done by percentages after a certain amount of time or posts, e.g. Post has 50 posts in a day, User X has made 26 of them. Geoffrey From: Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Mon, November 30, 2009 11:43:01 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.netwrote: Ryan Lomonaco wrote: On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:17 AM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.p...@yahoo.com wrote: Another possibility would be imposing a throttle on replies to threads, e.g. 5 per thread per day. That's something that I think might have merit, although it's one of those things that's tough to set as a hard-and-fast rule because of time zone differences. I think the better approach is what the moderators have occasionally done in the past, which is to kill a specific thread. And the rest of us can call out those threads as being worthless, as several people have done, or ignore them (Thomas Dalton is right about that at least). But I expect throttling threads would be counterproductive. The beneficial effect of the current moderation is that it creates space for a more inclusive discussion, by restraining post-early-and-often behavior. A per-thread throttle would create an incentive to encourage that behavior, by privileging those who are quickest to respond. --Michael Snow My reading of it was X replies per person per day in each thread. I agree with you that there should not be a set limit per thread as a whole. -- [[User:Ral315]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today
Thats a great idea! The exchanges were the biggest clog previously, and this seems like a reasonable warning to use. From: William Pietri will...@scissor.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Mon, November 30, 2009 11:57:21 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Housekeeping: One user on moderation today Ryan Lomonaco wrote: My reading of it was X replies per person per day in each thread. I agree with you that there should not be a set limit per thread as a whole. It might be interesting to combine that with a throttled number of replies from one individual to another. At least for me, the lowest-value messages are often ones where two people are arguing with one another, apparently forgetting the interests of the broader audience. With either of those, before creating a firm limit, an interesting step might be notification. E.g.: Dear X: I notice that in the last 24 hours you've sent 5 messages on the topic Pedophilia and the non-discrimination policy, with 4 of them replying to person Y. That might be more than the average list subscriber wants to read. Before you reply again, you might consider taking a break, moving the discussion off-list, or asking list moderators how valualbe they're finding the discussion. Thanks, The Foundation-L Robot My theory here is that the problem may more be lack of awareness than intentional misbehavior, making feedback a reasonable substitute for control. William ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family
On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Mike.lifeguard mike.lifegu...@gmail.com wrote: I mean to say that since 2006, and perhaps even further back, there have been no proposals which should have been approved. Why do we need a process to handle something which, in essence, *doesn't happen*? Does it not happen because there's no process, or is there no process because it doesn't need to happen? I don't actually think there's any consensus one way or the other, though the end result -- inertia, and some confusion on the part of well-meaning people who would like to start more projects -- is the same. Also, not all proposed projects are similar -- some are closer to what we're already doing than others. For instance, a group of researchers Wikimedians at WikiSym this year had an idea I've been meaning to write up, for a reference commons that would support the existing WMF projects (similar projects have been proposed before); this would be a separate, tool-server-like project. Another example: lots of people have worked on producing versions of Wikipedia for children, and there's been talk of making a larger effort. Assuming a project like that had merit, would this kind of project also fall under the doesn't need to happen list for you? Or are you mostly talking about proposals for new wikis for x topic, which have dominated the new projects page historically? I'd be far more interested in discussing ways we can critically evaluate which of our current projects should remain in the Wikimedia movement, and which should be asked to move outside that movement to continue their development. I totally agree, though I think the questions I posed are also applicable to this discussion, perhaps with a more general focus: what sort of content do we want to host under WMF auspices? What sort of projects? I don't like the term wikimedia movement (at all), but it could be useful for talking about the miscellany of projects related to us out in the world that aren't necessarily hosted on wikimedia.org. But that's different from asking what projects *should* be directly hosted by Wikimedia. (Clearly, the answer is to get rid of the ever-problematic wikipedia and concentrate on the rest of them :P) -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family
Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral...@gmail.com wrote: I don't see how that would be an issue. Notability is not a foundation policy, it's a community guideline that was enacted by editors of the English Wikipedia. Other projects within the WMF family would not necessarily be subject to the same standards, in the same way that the Spanish Wikipedia does not allow fair use images while the English Wikipedia does. This is an excellent point that gets to the heart of the divergence problems between Wikipedia's and Wikimedia's respective purposes. The difference though is that Wikimedia serves Wikipedia - not the other way around. Wikipedia's success itself came largely from being able to confine its scope and its mission toward dealing with issues of substance and not so much ideas about fluff - popular as that fluff may be. But I agree that Wikimedia is not so encumbered with principles as Wikipedia, and thus it can take on projects that deal with non-encyclopedic content. (In fact this unencumberance allows for some degree of allowance for non-encyclopedic content on even Wikipedia - see Commons for example). You have to understand the objection here though - which is that we inevitably find that Wikipedia will conflict with any other Wikimedia projects if their priorities are too different. Wikipedia is more than just Wikimedia's flagship project, and its encyclopedic and journalistic principles have a priority that far exceeds its own wiki. -Stevertigo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] volunteering outreach
G'day all :-) I mentioned in a previous post ( http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-November/056092.html) that I was personally interested in getting some external advice from Volunteering Australia ( http://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/html/s01_home/home.asp ) about good practice, and learning a bit more about how other large volunteer organisations manage things - I'm going to be popping in to Volunteering Australia in the next couple of weeks or so to have a meet and greet sort of chat - I've been very clear that I'm just a volunteer who enjoys contributing to wikimedia projects, and I hope they may be able to offer some interesting ideas, as well as answer a few questions I've got - I've copied Jay from the foundation in on this too, as well as the australian chapter list really just to let folk know :-) Having chatted about this a little with Witty Lama following the aussie chapter AGM, I'm pleased that he's coming along too - I'll update this thread following the chat with any interesting news or ideas :-) cheers, Peter, PM. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
Anthony wrote: Right, because the only two possible solutions are to ban everyone and to ban no one. Obviously not. Likewise, we have more possible outcomes than banning all known pedophiles and banning no known pedophiles. Also, please address my point that banning self-identified pedophiles from editing merely entourages pedophile editors to *not* identify themselves as such (thereby increasing the likelihood that problematic activities will be overlooked). If that were true, then we wouldn't have banned any self-identified pedophiles, and we won't every ban another one, and this whole conversation is pointless. So...you're justifying the status quo by its existence? Pedophile editors already have plenty of reasons to not identify themselves as such. Agreed, and I doubt that many do. I don't think they're going to change just because what they're doing is bannable. In fact, I think in the vast majority of cases these editors fully expect to eventually be banned Including the ones that make no on-wiki mentions of their pedophilia? - the only question is how much we put up with before banning them. How much non-wiki-related behavior we put up with? And looking at the edits of whatshisname, I think he fits in that category. I'll bring it up again - this wasn't his first block, or even his first indefinite block. And I'll once again note that his past blocks had nothing to do with pedophilia and have no connection to this ban. There is no dispute that the editor caused considerable on-wiki disruption via the continual creation of numerous inappropriate redirects and disambiguation pages, and if it had been up to me, he probably would have been banned back then. But he wasn't, and none of that is remotely relevant to the matter at hand (the rationale behind this ban and others like it). And according to Ryan, and I assume the Arb Com checked this, he's been banned from quite a few other sites for the way he talks about his pedophilia (including LiveJournal for creating the 'childlove community'). There is no assertion that he engaged in any comparable conduct at Wikipedia. Had he not been blocked indefinitely by Ryan for being a pedophile, I'm fairly certain he would have been blocked by someone else for some other reason, possibly related to pedophilia, possibly not. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised. And you yourself claimed, in the paragraph directly prior to this one, that if you think that any sort of pro-pedophilia editing would be tolerated for any length of time, you're mistaken. So which is it? To what pro-pedophilia editing are you referring? The editor in question apparently has engaged in none at Wikimedia wikis (the context of my statement), and as soon as an administrator discovered that he engaged in it elsewhere, he was banned. I see a difference between whether or not you have the right to do something, and whether or not it's in your best interest to do so. When you asked me whether or not banning Pakistani editors is acceptable, I answered based on the latter. Had you asked whether or not the Hindi Wikipedia had a right to ban Pakistani editors, well, I would have responded with sure, they have that right, until the WMF decides to take it away from them. To be clear, you're stating that while you would regard such an act as inappropriate, you believe that the Hindi Wikipedia currently is empowered by the Wikimedia Foundation to ban Pakistani editors if it so chooses. Correct? Please direct me to the discussion(s) in which consensus was reached to ban all known pedophiles from editing. We're having one of them right now, I guess. And so far, no one has been bold enough to try to overturn the de facto ban. Try unblocking one of the blocked pedophiles, if you'd like. We have more than a de facto ban; we have some sort of ArbCom ruling. You and I both know that it's foolhardy, futile and disruptive to defy such a decision. No, pedophiles are assessed based on their past behavior as well. If whatshisname didn't post all over the Internet bragging about being a pedophile, he never would have been banned (for being a pedophile, anyway). Perhaps by behavior you mean on-wiki behavior. But handcuffing yourself with that rule is pointless. It treats Wikipedia like a game, and only promotes trolling. I don't mean on-wiki behavior, but I do mean behavior directly related to the wikis. If, for example, someone states on a message board that he/she intends to vandalise Wikipedia, I'm not suggesting that this should be ignored on the technicality that it was posted off-wiki. Likewise, if a pedophile conveys an intention to use Wikipedia as a venue for contacting potential victims, ban away. You (and others) take this a step further by assuming that self-identified pedophiles will commit on-wiki misconduct (or that the likelihood is high enough to treat it as a certainty) and that permanently blocking their
Re: [Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family
Hoi, You might have waved a red rag, time to hoist the pirate flag... What nonsense. Wikipedia is the Wikimedia Foundation's biggest project and indeed it gets most of the attention and most of the tender loving care. HOWEVER, there are other projects that are most definitely not encyclopaedic and that are massively important, relevant even succesful. Not just Commons, but also projects like Wiktionary, Wikinews... These projects are successful despite the lack of focussed attention given to Wikipedia. This will be partially remedied with the Commons project. Similar projects could and should be considered for the other projects. The best argument I have heard so far why this is not done is that the WMF lacks the resources to do this and do this well at this time. It has been argued in the past that projects like Wiktionary would do better outside the WMF. This might be true, personally I am not sure. Thanks,, GerardM 2009/12/1 stevertigo stv...@gmail.com Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral...@gmail.com wrote: I don't see how that would be an issue. Notability is not a foundation policy, it's a community guideline that was enacted by editors of the English Wikipedia. Other projects within the WMF family would not necessarily be subject to the same standards, in the same way that the Spanish Wikipedia does not allow fair use images while the English Wikipedia does. This is an excellent point that gets to the heart of the divergence problems between Wikipedia's and Wikimedia's respective purposes. The difference though is that Wikimedia serves Wikipedia - not the other way around. Wikipedia's success itself came largely from being able to confine its scope and its mission toward dealing with issues of substance and not so much ideas about fluff - popular as that fluff may be. But I agree that Wikimedia is not so encumbered with principles as Wikipedia, and thus it can take on projects that deal with non-encyclopedic content. (In fact this unencumberance allows for some degree of allowance for non-encyclopedic content on even Wikipedia - see Commons for example). You have to understand the objection here though - which is that we inevitably find that Wikipedia will conflict with any other Wikimedia projects if their priorities are too different. Wikipedia is more than just Wikimedia's flagship project, and its encyclopedic and journalistic principles have a priority that far exceeds its own wiki. -Stevertigo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 9:25 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: The hand in hand with children wording seems to conflate physical space with cyberspace. How about collaborating with children? That's accurate, but I'm not quibbling over terminology. As I explained to George, my point is that some measures commonly taken in physical space are ineffective in cyberspace. Wikipedia's strong culture of pseudonymity and anonymity makes protecting anyone, or detecting anyone, a nearly lost cause if they have any clue and sense of privacy. Unlike real life, we can't make guarantees with anything approaching a straight face. However - there's a difference between being unable to effectively screen people by real world standards, and not having a policy of acting when we do detect something. One is acknowledging cultural and technical reality - because of who and where we are, we couldn't possibly do better than random luck at finding these people. The other is disregarding any responsibility as a site and community to protect our younger members and our community from harm, if we find out via whatever means. Witch hunts looking for people don't seem helpful or productive to me. But if they out themselves somewhere else and are noticed here, then we're aware and on notice. The question is, entirely, what do we do then. Do we owe the underaged users a duty to protect them from known threats? Do we owe the project as a whole a duty to protect it from disgrace by association? -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:28 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: I think it is germane, because it means the choice we have is to ban a pedophile from the start, before s/he gets a chance to cause any damage, or to wait far too long to ban the pedophile, after much damage has already been done. If the banning process were much simpler, efficient, and effective, and the ability of damage to become widely disseminated minimalized, we could better afford to give people enough rope to hang themselves with. To be extra-safe, let's just ban everyone before they can do any damage. Right, because the only two possible solutions are to ban everyone and to ban no one. Also, please address my point that banning self-identified pedophiles from editing merely entourages pedophile editors to *not* identify themselves as such (thereby increasing the likelihood that problematic activities will be overlooked). If that were true, then we wouldn't have banned any self-identified pedophiles, and we won't every ban another one, and this whole conversation is pointless. Pedophile editors already have plenty of reasons to not identify themselves as such. It's only the most bold and/or irrational ones that are going to do it anyway. I don't think they're going to change just because what they're doing is bannable. In fact, I think in the vast majority of cases these editors fully expect to eventually be banned - the only question is how much we put up with before banning them. And looking at the edits of whatshisname, I think he fits in that category. I'll bring it up again - this wasn't his first block, or even his first indefinite block. And according to Ryan, and I assume the Arb Com checked this, he's been banned from quite a few other sites for the way he talks about his pedophilia (including LiveJournal for creating the 'childlove community'). Had he not been blocked indefinitely by Ryan for being a pedophile, I'm fairly certain he would have been blocked by someone else for some other reason, possibly related to pedophilia, possibly not. And you yourself claimed, in the paragraph directly prior to this one, that if you think that any sort of pro-pedophilia editing would be tolerated for any length of time, you're mistaken. So which is it? 1. Suppose that the Hindi Wikipedia voted to ban Pakistani editors. Would that be acceptable? No. (Note that I'm not remotely equating the exclusion of pedophiles with the exclusion of a nationality; I'm addressing your claim that we have the right to ban anyone, for any reason.) I see a difference between whether or not you have the right to do something, and whether or not it's in your best interest to do so. When you asked me whether or not banning Pakistani editors is acceptable, I answered based on the latter. Had you asked whether or not the Hindi Wikipedia had a right to ban Pakistani editors, well, I would have responded with sure, they have that right, until the WMF decides to take it away from them. I don't foresee the WMF stepping in and forcing us to unban pedophiles. That isn't going to happen. And it shouldn't happen, because banning pedophiles, unlike banning Pakistanis, is the right thing to do. 2. Please direct me to the discussion(s) in which consensus was reached to ban all known pedophiles from editing. We're having one of them right now, I guess. And so far, no one has been bold enough to try to overturn the de facto ban. Try unblocking one of the blocked pedophiles, if you'd like. I don't particularly like this sort of mob rule. It often makes the wrong decisions, even if in this case, it's making the right one (I'll save us the trouble and respond for you with your I don't think it is and my that's not my problem). I'd much prefer the WMF to step in and lay down the rules. But I've long ago given up hope of anything sensible like that happening. And ultimately, the basis that someone _might_ engage in misconduct in the future is the *only* proper basis on which to ban someone. And we base this assessment on past behavior, not hunches. Except, evidently, with pedophiles. No, pedophiles are assessed based on their past behavior as well. If whatshisname didn't post all over the Internet bragging about being a pedophile, he never would have been banned (for being a pedophile, anyway). Perhaps by behavior you mean on-wiki behavior. But handcuffing yourself with that rule is pointless. It treats Wikipedia like a game, and only promotes trolling. However, I will acknowledge that the idea of disabling the e-mail function crossed my mind and might be a valid consideration. Why is that not unconscionable? Pragmatically, it strikes me as a realistic compromise. Why are you willing to be pragmatic when it comes to blocking e-mail, but not when it comes to blocking editing? I agree that we shouldn't judge him/her as one judges someone on trial. Rather, we should judge him/her as one judges
Re: [Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy
George William Herbert wrote: Wikipedia's strong culture of pseudonymity and anonymity makes protecting anyone, or detecting anyone, a nearly lost cause if they have any clue and sense of privacy. Unlike real life, we can't make guarantees with anything approaching a straight face. However - there's a difference between being unable to effectively screen people by real world standards, and not having a policy of acting when we do detect something. One is acknowledging cultural and technical reality - because of who and where we are, we couldn't possibly do better than random luck at finding these people. The other is disregarding any responsibility as a site and community to protect our younger members and our community from harm, if we find out via whatever means. Witch hunts looking for people don't seem helpful or productive to me. But if they out themselves somewhere else and are noticed here, then we're aware and on notice. The question is, entirely, what do we do then. Do we owe the underaged users a duty to protect them from known threats? In my view, we're doing nothing of the sort (and constructing a false sense of security by claiming otherwise). I doubt that many pedophiles will seek to recruit victims via our wikis, but if this occurs, these account bans are highly unlikely to counter it to any significant extent. Do we owe the project as a whole a duty to protect it from disgrace by association? I see the potential for negative publicity stemming from the perception that we seek to create the illusion of improved safety and integrity. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
