[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Café online meeting for January 2020 with focus on the 2030 strategy

[Pine W]

Hello colleagues,

The February 2020 Wikimedia Café meetup will occur on 15 February 2020
at 8:30 AM PST / 11:30 AM EST / 4:30 PM UTC / 10 PM IST. The date is
earlier than usual in the month due to scheduling constraints.

This month's meetup will focus on the 2030 strategy recommendations,
and will be divided into two discussions of one hour each.

More information regarding the agenda and links to strategy documents
are available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Café.

As usual, the meeting style for the Café will emphasize discussion
rather than presentation. People are welcome to participate as
listeners only if they prefer.

Please see the page on Meta for more information about the Café.
Please watch the page for any updates, particularly to the schedule or
the agenda. Signing up for the meeting is optional, but is helpful to
the organizers so that we can estimate how many people will attend.
Signing up for the meeting also informs us who we should notify
individually if there are significant changes.

If there are any problems with connecting to the meeting or if you
have any questions or comments then please write on the Meta talk
page.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Recommendations and community conversations launching next week

[Peter Southwood]

A big part of the problem is when these things are implemented, and people ask 
questions because they don't know what is going on, they are often met by 
complete absence of response from anyone at WMF, or in the case of the 
strategy, whoever it was that published the stuff for comment. I agree that 
there is an unreasonable expectation for instant response, but really it does 
not take much planning to ensure that someone is available to answer immediate 
questions, which would probably prevent most situations from going critical. 
Then someone presents a boilerplate non-answer from a group username and the 
shit hits the fan. Sure, we have our drama queens. By now the WMF should have 
noticed the pattern, and made a plan to work within the reality. Really poor PR 
demonstrating a lack of understanding of the audience.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Aron Manning
Sent: 04 February 2020 13:56
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Recommendations and community 
conversations launching next week

On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 08:57, Chris Keating 
wrote:

> In part this is because people were very angry about the issue at the time,
> and that anger was dealt with very poorly at the time.
>

While MediaViewer's introduction wasn't prepared appropriately and
superprotect was an inconsiderate, rushed and authoritarian solution to
stop the wheel-warring, it is a fundamental issue of the community that
such disagreements are always dealt with anger, combative actions and
rushed decisions.
The parallels with last year's Fram debacle are strong both on WMF's and
the communities' side: no conversation, drama, wheel-warring again,
immediately. This is how "collegial discussion" of differences should
happen?

I see this as a fundamental issue, that's strongly related to why so much
harassment (and lesser forms of incivility) are part of our everyday
editing experience (I'm talking about less-known members of the community,
who aren't protected by their established status, not us). Those
differences can't be dealt with anger, but only with level-headed, honest
and just moderation.


On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 11:23, Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> In the Strategy discussions, I have experienced and witnessed several times
> that defenders of the "strategy synthesis/recommendations" do not want to
> talk about an issue. They say things like:
>

With experience in projects on this scale, one can understand that not all
questions can be answered. While I wish the working group members would
have engaged more in the discussions (kudos to the few, who did, thank you
for showing an example to follow), it is very de-motivating to read
negative comments written in a matter of minutes, that reject months of
work with the strike of a few buttons, without making any effort to think
about solutions to the problem and realizing how hard (impossible, in fact)
it is to implement solutions that satisfy every individual's every need and
concern.

This is disrespectful to the hard work put into these recommendations and
damaging to the motivation of the volunteers and staff members, who gave
their time out of goodwill and -faith, and takes away from their time and
energy to improve the recommendations. What I find disheartening about this
is that most of the negative comments come from users, who opposed the 2017
Movement Direction
,
which is the basis for the current recommendations. Although the first name
is especially *not* representative of the "not constructive" comments, I
would hope that who don't understand or share this vision, would express
their "concerns" with less drama, respecting the work of those, who can
imagine a future with a more friendly and diverse editing culture.

Imagine, how helpful it would be if I were to approach users with
authority, to ask them to assume good faith and treat newcomers with
respect. It would cause some discord, which would turn into angry
responses, which would eventually result in my de facto ban. As it did on
enwiki. Fortunately, the consultations are a more civil atmosphere and
there is space for negative comments, to a certain extent.


> * "this feels like défa vu"

* "you are not constructive"
> * "we must look forward, not backward"
> * "we don't want to talk about details now, we leave that for later"
>

I don't know exactly what was implied with "déja vu" and fortunately, I
haven't met the last response, that I strongly disagree with. The concern
about some feedback not being constructive is, however, very valid, that
I've reflected on above. Responses that give alternative solutions,
highlight questions worth focusing on and generally *add* something to the
proposals, can be incorporated into the proposals and many of those were
included in the new iterations. The primary purpose 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Recommendations and community conversations launching next week

[Chris Keating]

Hi Aron,


>
> I see this as a fundamental issue, that's strongly related to why so much
> harassment (and lesser forms of incivility) are part of our everyday
> editing experience (I'm talking about less-known members of the community,
> who aren't protected by their established status, not us). Those
> differences can't be dealt with anger, but only with level-headed, honest
> and just moderation.
>
>
I entirely agree with this. In fact, this is why the movement strategy
recommendations put emphasis on creating shared expectations (through the
movement charter) as well as methods of conflict resolution.

Chris
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Recommendations and community conversations launching next week

[Aron Manning]

On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 08:57, Chris Keating 
wrote:

> In part this is because people were very angry about the issue at the time,
> and that anger was dealt with very poorly at the time.
>

While MediaViewer's introduction wasn't prepared appropriately and
superprotect was an inconsiderate, rushed and authoritarian solution to
stop the wheel-warring, it is a fundamental issue of the community that
such disagreements are always dealt with anger, combative actions and
rushed decisions.
The parallels with last year's Fram debacle are strong both on WMF's and
the communities' side: no conversation, drama, wheel-warring again,
immediately. This is how "collegial discussion" of differences should
happen?

I see this as a fundamental issue, that's strongly related to why so much
harassment (and lesser forms of incivility) are part of our everyday
editing experience (I'm talking about less-known members of the community,
who aren't protected by their established status, not us). Those
differences can't be dealt with anger, but only with level-headed, honest
and just moderation.


On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 11:23, Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> In the Strategy discussions, I have experienced and witnessed several times
> that defenders of the "strategy synthesis/recommendations" do not want to
> talk about an issue. They say things like:
>

With experience in projects on this scale, one can understand that not all
questions can be answered. While I wish the working group members would
have engaged more in the discussions (kudos to the few, who did, thank you
for showing an example to follow), it is very de-motivating to read
negative comments written in a matter of minutes, that reject months of
work with the strike of a few buttons, without making any effort to think
about solutions to the problem and realizing how hard (impossible, in fact)
it is to implement solutions that satisfy every individual's every need and
concern.

This is disrespectful to the hard work put into these recommendations and
damaging to the motivation of the volunteers and staff members, who gave
their time out of goodwill and -faith, and takes away from their time and
energy to improve the recommendations. What I find disheartening about this
is that most of the negative comments come from users, who opposed the 2017
Movement Direction
,
which is the basis for the current recommendations. Although the first name
is especially *not* representative of the "not constructive" comments, I
would hope that who don't understand or share this vision, would express
their "concerns" with less drama, respecting the work of those, who can
imagine a future with a more friendly and diverse editing culture.

Imagine, how helpful it would be if I were to approach users with
authority, to ask them to assume good faith and treat newcomers with
respect. It would cause some discord, which would turn into angry
responses, which would eventually result in my de facto ban. As it did on
enwiki. Fortunately, the consultations are a more civil atmosphere and
there is space for negative comments, to a certain extent.


> * "this feels like défa vu"

* "you are not constructive"
> * "we must look forward, not backward"
> * "we don't want to talk about details now, we leave that for later"
>

I don't know exactly what was implied with "déja vu" and fortunately, I
haven't met the last response, that I strongly disagree with. The concern
about some feedback not being constructive is, however, very valid, that
I've reflected on above. Responses that give alternative solutions,
highlight questions worth focusing on and generally *add* something to the
proposals, can be incorporated into the proposals and many of those were
included in the new iterations. The primary purpose is to incorporate the
feedback and it is understandable, that there's no capacity to respond to
everything and even feedback that found its way into the recommendations,
won't necessarily be answered. That's how projects of this size work.
Obviously, constructive comments will be answered first - that's rewarding
and helpful to the process -, rather than effortless "I don't agree with
this" responses, which is in fact not constructive, but very similar to the
stonewalling
 patterns
that often weigh heavily on discussions in the community.

It is understandable, that every change awakens our basic fear of
unpredictability. The future is unpredictable, what we can do is to give
our best in manifesting every change. Instead of theorizing about what
might be the result of the recommendations. To move forward we need to
explore new possibilities, and if it's not giving the expected results, we
need to move even further, until the desired results are accomplished. The
best result is seldom the first result. We could learn from the success of
SpaceX about how to 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Recommendations and community conversations launching next week

[Ziko van Dijk]

Hello,
I strongly agree with what Chris wrote.
In the Strategy discussions, I have experienced and witnessed several times
that defenders of the "strategy synthesis/recommendations" do not want to
talk about an issue. They say things like:
* "this feels like défa vu"
* "you are not constructive"
* "we must look forward, not backward"
* "we don't want to talk about details now, we leave that for later"
This kind of reactions do not contribute to an atmosphere in which I feel
that my concerns are taken seriously.
Kind regards
Ziko








Am Di., 4. Feb. 2020 um 08:57 Uhr schrieb Chris Keating <
chriskeatingw...@gmail.com>:

> >
> > Superprotect is now over five years old. Superprotect's removal is now
> over
> > four years old. It was a mistake, and it was explicitly acknowledged as
> > such: the then-ED of the WMF said it had "set up a precedent of
> > mistrust". Almost all of the people involved in it are no longer
> affiliated
> > with the Wikimedia Foundation, and in fact, plenty of the staff members
> at
> > the Wikimedia Foundation were hired *after* superprotect was removed.
> >
> > I don't think bringing up superprotect in this discussion is especially
> > relevant or helpful.
>
>
> I sort of want to agree with this, but actually I think it goes a bit
> deeper.
>
> If you ask questions about the relationship between the WMF and the
> community, sooner rather than later someone will talk about Superprotect.
> If you ask any of the 1,000 people who signed the petition against
> Superprotect, most of whom are still active one way or another, then
> Superprotect will probably be the first thing out of their mouths, even
> though it happened 6 years ago. It's sufficiently ingrained in peoples'
> minds that asking these people not to talk about Superprotect is like a
> British person asking someone from the USA not to talk about the Boston Tea
> Party.
>
> In part this is because people were very angry about the issue at the time,
> and that anger was dealt with very poorly at the time.
>
> In part it's because people perceive there is nothing to prevent an
> identical situation recurring. In some ways I think this perception is
> unfair, for all the reasons you mention. But it still exists, and in part
> it exists because of things the WMF has not done.  The Foundation's
> expectations about how it interacts with the community remain fairly
> unclear and fairly undocumented, from the Board level down. I recall there
> have been some written statements of how the WMF now handles product
> features, though I think this didn't come the ED or less the Board. I don't
> believe there was ever a written review publilshed of Superprotect, while
> there are written reviews and statements lessons learned from many other
> situations that had much less impact. In short, the WMF is not seen as
> having put the issue to bed in a way that results in everyone involved
> moving on.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,