[Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Dear members of the WMF Board of Trustees, I’ve been following the recent events silently - from the voting out of James Heilman, to the unfortunate timing of recruiting Arnnon Geshuri and the lack of clear, timely communication around WMF strategy in in general and specifically around the

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Hi Ido, your email is interesting and reveals an important issue: the governance of a no for profit organization is a little bit different from that of a "commercial" company. In my opinion there is an unclear definition of the stakeholders and the definition of the importance of these

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Thanks Ido. For what is worth, and in my personal capacity (I'm not affiliated with Wikimedia Italia any more) I completely second your concern, Discussions are ongoing from months now and BoT seems frozen in silence. People really don't understand why. I would also like to thank you for

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Hi, 2016-02-18 11:44 GMT+01:00 Andrea Zanni : > Thanks Ido. > For what is worth, and in my personal capacity (I'm not affiliated with > Wikimedia Italia any more) I completely second your concern, > Discussions are ongoing from months now and BoT seems frozen in

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

On 18 February 2016 at 09:04, ido ivri wrote: > If any APG-receiving affiliate conducted itself in such a non transparent, > dishonest manner and with lack of clear, timely communication with its > community and stakeholders, it would get seriously reprimanded by the >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Dear Ido. I share your concern about these problems and thanks for exercising your right to voice your concerns. I'm a bit worried about the potentially devastating effects of these problems on the Wikimedia Projects. Personally, I don't want to have any reason to lose confidence in the BoT

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

18.02.2016 7:25 AM "Liam Wyatt" napisał(a): > > > The principle of the WMF being a good role model for its affiliates - > and living up to minimum standards that it sets for those affiliates - > is one of the primary reasons that the FDC recommended the WMF submit > its next

[Wikimedia-l] Another goodbye

so sad to hear you leave the foundation, i can't assimilate all what is happening around me as mutation dans le mouvement but I'm glad to see you so close to us seeeko bonne chance حظ جميل -- *Mohammed Bachounda* Leader Wikimedia Algérie UG ___

[Wikimedia-l] Facebook marketing inside pt.wikipedia

Hello fellows! Since the end of the last year some contributors from pt.wikipedia are discussing regarding the idea of including the promotion of our Facebook Page on site Notice [1] That proposal was started by Teles, a Brazilian steward. He received a lot of local support. The general idea

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [discovery] USA elections in real time - as viewed by Wikipedia users

Very cool! Will it be updated automatically on a daily basis? :) Cheers, Deb -- Deb Tankersley Product Manager, Discovery Wikimedia Foundation On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Yuri Astrakhan wrote: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yurik/US_Politics_Real_Time >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [discovery] USA elections in real time - as viewed by Wikipedia users

It will be updated whenever the page containing the template is re-generated (e.g. the page is changed, or someone does a null-save). I heard that every page is forcefully regenerated if its older than 30 days, but I might be mistaken. We should at some point figure out a way to force-regenerate

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 4:47 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: > There is way too much blaming/bashing/sour expectations > working both ways - we almost forget how unique we are, irrespective of > many slips and avoidable failures we make (and WMF is definitely leading > here,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your questions about KE.

just a quick note... quite a few questions are being answered on the page. On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 6:33 PM, MZMcBride wrote: > Lila Tretikov wrote: > >There are a lot of questions still floating around around the Knowledge > >Engine, in a lot of different places. I want to

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Wow, thank you Ori. +1 to everything you said. That line from Dariusz disappointed me to, but I just chalked it up to just another case of a board member downplaying community/staff concerns and plea for help. On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Ori Livneh wrote: > On Thu,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Indeed - thank you Ori on behalf of the entire technical organization. Dariusz - I'd ask that you consider the assumptions that you listed in your email more closely. Ori, myself and others would be very happy to work with you this. -Toby On Thursday, February 18, 2016, Moiz Syed

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

> > This is happening in spite of -- not thanks to -- dysfunction at the top. > If you don't believe me, all you have to do is wait: an exodus of people > from Engineering won't be long now. I hope you're wrong, Ori. I hope people have the presence of mind, like you say - despite the

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 1:56 PM, Casey Dentinger wrote: > > and in technology we're years behind the curve > > I think this is a reductive view of the technology at WMF. It is true > that many systems have been around in name for a long time, but that > doesn't mean

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 7:47 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: > > We need to get a grip, have more transparency, but also more bidirectional > support, and start thinking about the future (I'm not saying this to sound > as "nothing to watch, move on", but to restore some

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Thank you, Ori. +1 to everything you said. Dariusz, I disagree with you: this *is* a time for "negativity". We have been laboring under significant dysfunction for more than a year now, and are now in crisis. We are losing precious colleagues, time, money, *even more* community trust than we

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

I would like to second what Ori said and add: > and in technology we're years behind the curve I think this is a reductive view of the technology at WMF. It is true that many systems have been around in name for a long time, but that doesn't mean they haven't been evolving under the hood (as

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

I must echo Ori. We have some brilliant, brilliant people who really are doing some fantastic work. The trouble is that as Brandon Harris has already confirmed on the Wikipedia Weekly facebook group. People are looking to leave. Actively. On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 6:33 PM, Ori Livneh

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Second Asaf and Sydney. Please take these concerns seriously. If you truly *respect* us and this movement, please act. On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 10:53 AM, Joseph Seddon wrote: > I must echo Ori. > > We have some brilliant, brilliant people who really are doing some >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Elsevier?

Teemu, As a followup: We would love to be more aligned with Open Access publishers, but at this point, we have yet to find a demonstrably *repeatable* and *scalable* model of programming which we could promote to the entire movement and the Open Access community. When OA publishers already set

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [discovery] USA elections in real time - as viewed by Wikipedia users

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 9:02 AM, Yuri Astrakhan wrote: > It will be updated whenever the page containing the template is > re-generated (e.g. the page is changed, or someone does a null-save). I > heard that every page is forcefully regenerated if its older than 30

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

For a few 2015 accomplishments by the product/technical teams you can see them listed here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Wikimedia_Foundation_Product_and_Technology_Highlights On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 10:56 AM, Casey Dentinger wrote: > I would like to

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 2:54 PM, Asaf Bartov wrote: > All this makes it a time for looking "the negative" in the eye and taking > decisive action, so that the healing can begin. It is not a time for > concentrating on the still-wonderful aspects of this movement's work.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

On Feb 18, 2016 12:08 PM, "Dariusz Jemielniak" wrote: > > When I refer to being constructive, I speak of exactly seeking decisive > actions and moving forward, instead of gathering around a lying body and > kicking :) What is the board doing, going forward, to stem the tide of

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [discovery] USA elections in real time - as viewed by Wikipedia users

Gergo, good to know, thanks. Graph extension itself does not know how long the data is valid - it simply gets a URL from which to get the pageviews (or any other) data. At this point, only the person who writes the graph template knows how long its valid for. We could add an extra attribute to

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Hi Dariusz, I want to share with you the following relatively scattered thoughts and leave it to you to decide how to continue engaging with us. :-) I hope you find them helpful: * BoT has been too silent, given the state of matters. I'm much more worried about our volunteers when I say this,

[Wikimedia-l] What is the Board's HR Committee doing to stem the tide of staff resignations?

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 12:26 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Brion Vibber > wrote: > >> What is the board doing, going forward, to stem the tide of staff >> resignations? >> > > We have started with an engagement

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

On 2016-02-18 21:20, Leila Zia wrote: Hi Dariusz, I want to share with you the following relatively scattered thoughts and leave it to you to decide how to continue engaging with us. :-) I hope you find them helpful: * BoT has been too silent, given the state of matters. I'm much more

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

I disagree Yaroslav, 1- This affects Wikipedia indirectly. When downtime goes up alongside with editing time, we will lose users. New users won't stay, etc. it damages new user retention and therefore, the viability of the project in the long term. 2- Wikipedia is up because of its editors but

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Outcomes from the Consultation on Wikimedia movement conferences/Wikimania

On 18 Feb 2016 00:24, "Chris Schilling" wrote: > > > > > 3) I am still really unsure who is owning this process, either within the > > WMF or in general. Generally, I think clear responsibility and > > accountability *eases* difficult conversations and so far as I can

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Outcomes from the Consultation on Wikimedia movement conferences/Wikimania

Hello Chris (or Jethro)! Thanks for taking time to reply. > Is it the WMF's view that Wikimania in its current form is > > > broken and change is needed - if so who represents that view to the > > community? (Or if not, what *is* the WMF's view?) > > > It is fair to say that our team does view

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

That's most helpful, thank you both. On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Pharos wrote: > Thanks, Ellie and Chris, this historical experience should be very helpful > for future discussions! > > Best, > Pharos > > On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Chris Schilling

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Yaroslav, You're correct in that most volunteers don't care directly. The problem is that a lot of the BoT's recent difficulties have crossed the line from "angry encyclopedia people venting on a mailing list" to "serious and negative attention from the mainstream press". If there is too much

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

Thanks, it is a step in the right direction indeed. Although a bit more breakdown would be helpful, I'm guessing this also highly fluctuates year by year. Some observations: A huge amount of money goes into flying WMF around the world (321k resp. 383k), which doesn't even take into account (I'm

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

There are certain things that affect many volunteers directly. A slightly off-topic example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T59608#1637250 The fact that: > "the WMF education team has no engineering resources" ...affects volunteers. Sincerely, Yury Bulka (Wikimedia Ukraine) Craig Franklin

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

The first thing that happens when you split up something like Wikimania in multiple events is you multiple the cost of WMF attendance because they need to deliver the same messages multiple times, an alternative decision to restrict who goes where you run into the issue of regions being treated

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

I mostly agree with a lot of the thoughts here about whether or not it would be more cost effective to do one event or multiple events, at least organizationally. There are two things that cross my mind when we talk about this: First, maybe one of the bigger drivers of cost is the time of year

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [discovery] USA elections in real time - as viewed by Wikipedia users

This is going to be a fun one to watch over the next many months. Thank for the link Yuri On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 8:48 PM, Yuri Astrakhan wrote: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yurik/US_Politics_Real_Time > > Thanks Dario Taraborelli for the idea. > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

On 2016-02-18 7:18 PM, Risker wrote: June-July-August is the most expensive period for just about everywhere in the world; March, April, September and October tend to be much less expensive in lodging, travel and direct conference costs. Maybe we need to rethink*when* we are holding Wikimania

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

Chris & Ellie: I don't think I would include 'WMF Travel/Accomodation' or general Wikimedia PR in the Wikimania overhead. * Staff have a budget for travel to events of all kinds; the Board has a budget for its meetings wherever they are held; and similarly the few committees that meet in person

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Yury, this is a very important example, but indeed off-topic. It deserves a separate thread, but not before addressing the current main crisis, which all others stem from. At this point, it is inconceivable that there is still such a "disconnect" between what WMF employees & volunteers accross

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board

Dear Chris and all, What sorts of candidates are you looking for? How are you directing your search / how can we best help get the word to people who might be good candidates? What do you see as the skills or other qualities the a Trustee needs, or that would be effective on the Board? The FAQ

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board

SJ, Can you please contact any Wikimedia chapter and ask them to request nominations? There are two criteria for nominations - one is that their name has to be posted on the nomination page, and the other is that a Wikimedia chapter has to support their nomination. <

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board

Hmm, Lane, I think you may be missing SJ's point. He's asking what the group that is going to select candidates has put on its wishlist for candidates. What skills are they seeking? Are they looking for a certain geographic representation? The "traditional duties of a board member" that you

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

I have to disagree. money for WMF employee attendance is still WMF money... still coming from donations. I find it very interesting that so much more is spent on employee attendance then volunteer attendance. > From: meta...@gmail.com > Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 20:06:28 -0500 > To:

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Hi Shani, Thanks for your post to the mailing list. I appreciate your comments directed at the BoT. Hopefully the collective voices will make an impact. Warm regards, Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedian in Residence at Cochrane Collaboration On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 8:37 PM, Shani

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Outcomes from the Consultation on Wikimedia movement conferences/Wikimania

> > > 4) I don't see a 55-47 vote on a menu of 3 options as being a > particularly > > > strong indication of community consensus. Indeed, it's pretty clear > there > > > isn't a consensus, and it would be a shame if people proceeded on the > basis > > > that "There was a consultation and the

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board

Risker, I think Lane understood SJ's question, and stated that it's outside his group's mandate. I sympathize with Lane's position. I agree with SJ's concern about what kind of candidates should be considered, but I do not think it would be appropriate for a group of three to set the tone of what

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board

Well, I was interpreting SJ's question to be directed to everyone who is involved in this election, not just the three election coordinators. Having said that, during the last community (s)election, the Election Committee deliberately was far more descriptive in identifying what was being sought

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What is the Board's HR Committee doing to stem the tide of staff resignations?

Brion Vibber wrote: >As a longtime part of Wikimedia's community and staff, I would really >appreciate some clear answers on what's going on and why we're losing more >and more longtime community and staff members while an ED who needs >management coaching is still in place. Please know that many

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board

Good points, thanks for clarifying. Agreed. -Pete On Feb 18, 2016 9:29 PM, "Risker" wrote: > Well, I was interpreting SJ's question to be directed to everyone who is > involved in this election, not just the three election coordinators. > > Having said that, during the last

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board

Lane writes: > Can you please contact any Wikimedia chapter and ask them to request > nominations? Ok. I take it they have already been emailed directly? And each chapter can handle this however they like? > Get any chapter to make any request for whatever kind of person they > would nominate,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Facebook marketing inside pt.wikipedia

Hey Rodrigo, I don't know of any example where Site Notice has been used in the past to point people to facebook. Although the intentions behind what is being proposed are good ones, I think there are probably issues that surround neutrality and with the very different privacy policy of

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

> Dariusz Jemielniak writes: > I know of people who are overwhelmed with negativity on the list. I myself > feel it, too, although I am determined not to reduce my participation or > liaising with the communities. The negativity is not going to magically go away, especially not when

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

People will leave despite how much they love a place, its mission, and its volunteers at the point it becomes too painful for them to stay. And no one can make that decision for them. While the support of one's colleagues goes a very long way, it is necessary but not sufficient. I have been

[Wikimedia-l] (no subject)

Thank you Ido and +1 to your message. I would also +1 to Yaroslav's message, but I want to note, that though most volunteers would not care about smth (seemingly) far away like WMF and its troubles, they WOULD care about backlogs of bugs that are piling up, lack of strategic approach to

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

Also, +1 to Ori. On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 11:16 PM, Gayle Karen Young wrote: > People will leave despite how much they love a place, its mission, and its > volunteers at the point it becomes too painful for them to stay. And no one > can make that decision for them. While