Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
What is the point of this question. As if money is an issue in matters like
this.

When is it enough, why is it for you to want more and more and in the
process make it less a Wikipedia thing and more something personal to you.
The board decided on a quality team including outside council that is in
their remit.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 3 May 2016 at 06:57, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 6:10 PM, Denny Vrandečić 
> wrote:
>
> > The formal task force was created end of October. This task force
> involved
> > outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding.
> >
>
>
> What were the prime motivations for involving outside legal counsel, and
> how much money did this cost the Foundation?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 6:10 PM, Denny Vrandečić  wrote:

> The formal task force was created end of October. This task force involved
> outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding.
>


What were the prime motivations for involving outside legal counsel, and
how much money did this cost the Foundation?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Anthony Cole]

Fae, I can see no reason for Dariusz to leave the board. He seems to be
decent and intelligent. The Arnnon thing was an error but it was clearly
part of a broader problem. Yes, they all need training but that seems to be
in the works. I hope he stays, and is re-elected if he chooses to run next
time.

Anthony Cole


On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Nick Wilson (Quiddity) <
nwil...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 2:21 AM, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
> > quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The
> > WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for
> > themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they
> > "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail
> > & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance
> > like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement,
> > including major changes at the board level.
> > [...]
> > 3.
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quarterly_Report,_FY_2015-16_Q2_(October-December).pdf=5
>
>
>
> The explanation for this, is at the top of
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews
> : "NB: In a mature 90-day goalsetting process, the “sweet spot” is for
> about 75% of goals to be a success. Organizations that are meeting 100% of
> their goals are not typically setting aggressive goals."
> Note that partial successes are not also represented, if one just checks
> the overview result; it's a simple binary system. See the textual notes for
> details about partial successes within individual goals.
> Plus, not reaching that 75% target of completely-successful goals, is
> perhaps also attributable to the intense and widespread stress of that time
> period...
> Hope that helps.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Nathan]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:56 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> While *some* of research ethics comes from the medical world -
> particularly from the Belmont report and the Western-centric research
> atrocities of the last century - much of it does not. Things like the
> Zimbardo and Milgram experiments have had a marked impact on our
> conceptualisation of appropriate ethics and IRBs, and it is not
> unusual for institutions to even separate out behavioural and social
> studies from medical studies in training, IRB composition and expected
> practices.
>
> And yet the social sciences contain the same duties and
> responsibilities around ethical principles that medical studies do.
> The principles of confidentiality, of transparency to the participant,
> of the participant taking the lead in defining what is and is not
> acceptable. Ethical principles along these lines are a common and core
> part of the IRB process, if you're involving humans, regardless of the
> nature of that involvement. And I note that the current board contains
> (not to single him out, but simply because he is the best example
> Dariusz Jemielniak, full name *Dr*  Dariusz Jemielniak, who is an
> _ethnographer_, one of the social fields of study that pays very close
> attention to these things.
>
> So it is not as simple as "James's experiences were shaped by his
> medical background, other people did not have that". The need for
> ethical principles is enshrined in a lot of fields, including not just
> medicine, but those several other board members have as a background.
> This should have been a known. I agree that there is apparently an
> inadequacy in Board training, but I'm mostly amazed (and disappointed)
> that the people who wrote Denny's statement didn't twig that,
> actually, ethics in these areas are both paramount and much more
> complicated than just "well my legal duty says..." for the
> participants involved.
>
>

Please forgive me if it seemed like I was suggesting that research ethics -
and the centrality of the needs of subjects - were solely sourced from the
medical world. My point is that confidentiality of sensitive information is
an iron law in medicine, where the critical duty is owed to the person who
is the subject of the information. [My familiarity with these laws comes
from the U.S.; I am not specifically trained in the medical confidentiality
regime in Canada, but I suspect its laws are equivalent or stronger.] I
would expect this to be his initial frame of reference when it comes to
respecting the desire of confidentiality from a source providing sensitive
information.

The key point here is that the critical duty that James' owed as a board
member was to the WMF; this duty is is not (solely) a matter of ethics but
a matter of law.  That this was not apparent to all board members upon
joining the board is a flaw in the board training process. I can see how a
misunderstanding or disagreement on the nature of this duty could lead to
difficulty between board members, but it still is a bit of a mystery to me
how it rose to the level of kicking James off the board altogether.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Oliver Keyes]

While *some* of research ethics comes from the medical world -
particularly from the Belmont report and the Western-centric research
atrocities of the last century - much of it does not. Things like the
Zimbardo and Milgram experiments have had a marked impact on our
conceptualisation of appropriate ethics and IRBs, and it is not
unusual for institutions to even separate out behavioural and social
studies from medical studies in training, IRB composition and expected
practices.

And yet the social sciences contain the same duties and
responsibilities around ethical principles that medical studies do.
The principles of confidentiality, of transparency to the participant,
of the participant taking the lead in defining what is and is not
acceptable. Ethical principles along these lines are a common and core
part of the IRB process, if you're involving humans, regardless of the
nature of that involvement. And I note that the current board contains
(not to single him out, but simply because he is the best example
Dariusz Jemielniak, full name *Dr*  Dariusz Jemielniak, who is an
_ethnographer_, one of the social fields of study that pays very close
attention to these things.

So it is not as simple as "James's experiences were shaped by his
medical background, other people did not have that". The need for
ethical principles is enshrined in a lot of fields, including not just
medicine, but those several other board members have as a background.
This should have been a known. I agree that there is apparently an
inadequacy in Board training, but I'm mostly amazed (and disappointed)
that the people who wrote Denny's statement didn't twig that,
actually, ethics in these areas are both paramount and much more
complicated than just "well my legal duty says..." for the
participants involved.


On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:44 PM, Nathan  wrote:
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Justin Senseney  wrote:
>
>> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 5:33 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:
>>
>> > +1 to that question, which is the biggest flag I have here.
>> >
>> > "The highest standards of confidentiality" is nice but, as you note,
>> > people presumably reached out to these individual Board members,
>> > rather than the whole Board, because they felt the individuals could
>> > be trusted a lot better than the Board as a whole. Which in my mind is
>> > totally understandable.
>> >
>> > If people reached out in confidence, demanding that their experiences
>> > and information be turned over to the entire Board - without noting
>> > that as a caveat when first interacting with the source, or without
>> > asking for the source's permission - well, I'd be cagey too. Anyone
>> > who has ever dealt with human subject research would be cagey.
>> >
>> > The perspective of human subjects research makes a lot of sense here.  A
>> lot of research studies are asking the question, can we share data between
>> studies now that we have the "cloud" technology to do it? In every case
>> I've seen, researchers have to explicitly ask for two consents, one to
>> collect the data from the subject, another to share it.  I would expect
>> anyone in the medical profession to operate the way James has.
>>
>> Most internal review boards won't even allow you to ask human subjects for
>> the broad ability to share their data, you have to identify the specific
>> place it will be shared, before you collect it.  In the US, these rules
>> come from Institutional Review Boards.  These IRBs function in a similar
>> way to the Board, by providing an independent level of oversight to medical
>> research, and are given a wide latitude to go as far as halt research
>> studies and punish misconduct, even though they are not medical researchers
>> themselves.
>>
>> I wish the Board had the same respect of confidential data that James has
>> shown, and that Institutional Review Boards throughout the research
>> community have when it comes to human data.  IRB members aren't necessarily
>> medical professionals, they are the same people you would find sitting on
>> any board.  So I think it's reasonable for us to ask the Board to treat
>> confidential data in the same way any IRB would, the same way James has.
>>
>> -Justin
>>
>>
> Justin - many of these elements of current research ethics, enforced in
> some instances by IRBs, have grown in no small part due to the regulatory
> environment around personal health information. The legal framework for
> information held by a corporate board member is very different. It may be
> that James' approach to confidentiality is drawn from his experience as a
> physician, but it perhaps speaks to inadequate board training that he
> discovered the import of the different legal environment only after things
> fell apart.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Nathan]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Justin Senseney  wrote:

> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 5:33 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:
>
> > +1 to that question, which is the biggest flag I have here.
> >
> > "The highest standards of confidentiality" is nice but, as you note,
> > people presumably reached out to these individual Board members,
> > rather than the whole Board, because they felt the individuals could
> > be trusted a lot better than the Board as a whole. Which in my mind is
> > totally understandable.
> >
> > If people reached out in confidence, demanding that their experiences
> > and information be turned over to the entire Board - without noting
> > that as a caveat when first interacting with the source, or without
> > asking for the source's permission - well, I'd be cagey too. Anyone
> > who has ever dealt with human subject research would be cagey.
> >
> > The perspective of human subjects research makes a lot of sense here.  A
> lot of research studies are asking the question, can we share data between
> studies now that we have the "cloud" technology to do it? In every case
> I've seen, researchers have to explicitly ask for two consents, one to
> collect the data from the subject, another to share it.  I would expect
> anyone in the medical profession to operate the way James has.
>
> Most internal review boards won't even allow you to ask human subjects for
> the broad ability to share their data, you have to identify the specific
> place it will be shared, before you collect it.  In the US, these rules
> come from Institutional Review Boards.  These IRBs function in a similar
> way to the Board, by providing an independent level of oversight to medical
> research, and are given a wide latitude to go as far as halt research
> studies and punish misconduct, even though they are not medical researchers
> themselves.
>
> I wish the Board had the same respect of confidential data that James has
> shown, and that Institutional Review Boards throughout the research
> community have when it comes to human data.  IRB members aren't necessarily
> medical professionals, they are the same people you would find sitting on
> any board.  So I think it's reasonable for us to ask the Board to treat
> confidential data in the same way any IRB would, the same way James has.
>
> -Justin
>
>
Justin - many of these elements of current research ethics, enforced in
some instances by IRBs, have grown in no small part due to the regulatory
environment around personal health information. The legal framework for
information held by a corporate board member is very different. It may be
that James' approach to confidentiality is drawn from his experience as a
physician, but it perhaps speaks to inadequate board training that he
discovered the import of the different legal environment only after things
fell apart.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Anthony Cole]

Denny, regarding "The formal task force was created end of October. This
task force involved outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact
finding."

Who was on the task force, besides you and Patricio? What do you mean by
"professional fact finding?"

Regarding, "The official task force, set up by the Trustees, worked under
the standards of keeping confidentiality, obviously. I thought this goes
without saying, but I am explicating it."

This is still ambiguous. Was the new task force expecting James to share
information that was given to him on the understanding he wouldn't share
it?

As a general point, crises always start out messy. That you moved from an
ad hoc inquiry to a formal one is perfectly normal. Characterising the
initial attempt to understand the situation as "unprofessional" and the
next (that excluded James) as "professional", if that's what you're doing,
strikes me as a bit sly.





Anthony Cole


On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 6:56 AM, Fæ  wrote:

> On 2 May 2016 at 23:27, James Heilman  wrote:
> ...
> > On the other hand, I however, had requested multiple times before the
> > November board meeting to see what information those 5 investigation
> board
> > members were looking at. I was denied access to these details. Some of
> the
> > documents contained key information I only become aware of in the last
> > couple of months.
>
> *This* is breathtakingly crappy governance by the WMF board. Trustees
> are trustees, there's no "grade A" trusted trustees and lesser "grade
> B" less trusted trustees.
>
> We are overdue to clear out the self-selected "grade A" trustees that
> have become far too used to claiming that they are irreplaceable and
> have unique talents. There's a vast pool of community members with
> fantastic experience to choose from, and who have absolutely no
> undeclared commercial conflicts of interest, or are seeking to puff up
> the 'tech' side of their resumeés, so they can charge higher fees for
> speaking engagements or attract contracts as special advisors for
> politicians.
>
> Thanks for factually explaining events more clearly James.
>
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Justin Senseney]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 5:33 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> +1 to that question, which is the biggest flag I have here.
>
> "The highest standards of confidentiality" is nice but, as you note,
> people presumably reached out to these individual Board members,
> rather than the whole Board, because they felt the individuals could
> be trusted a lot better than the Board as a whole. Which in my mind is
> totally understandable.
>
> If people reached out in confidence, demanding that their experiences
> and information be turned over to the entire Board - without noting
> that as a caveat when first interacting with the source, or without
> asking for the source's permission - well, I'd be cagey too. Anyone
> who has ever dealt with human subject research would be cagey.
>
> The perspective of human subjects research makes a lot of sense here.  A
lot of research studies are asking the question, can we share data between
studies now that we have the "cloud" technology to do it? In every case
I've seen, researchers have to explicitly ask for two consents, one to
collect the data from the subject, another to share it.  I would expect
anyone in the medical profession to operate the way James has.

Most internal review boards won't even allow you to ask human subjects for
the broad ability to share their data, you have to identify the specific
place it will be shared, before you collect it.  In the US, these rules
come from Institutional Review Boards.  These IRBs function in a similar
way to the Board, by providing an independent level of oversight to medical
research, and are given a wide latitude to go as far as halt research
studies and punish misconduct, even though they are not medical researchers
themselves.

I wish the Board had the same respect of confidential data that James has
shown, and that Institutional Review Boards throughout the research
community have when it comes to human data.  IRB members aren't necessarily
medical professionals, they are the same people you would find sitting on
any board.  So I think it's reasonable for us to ask the Board to treat
confidential data in the same way any IRB would, the same way James has.

-Justin


> if people *did* grant permission, obviously that's an entirely
> different situation. But if they didn't, James was doing entirely the
> right thing by refusing to turn over, wholesale, information
> communicated to him and him alone, to a wider body that was quite
> clearly not trusted by the people making these reports.
>
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 4:03 PM, SarahSV  wrote:
> > On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Denny Vrandečić 
> > wrote:
> >
> >> The protection of any personal or confidential information was, to the
> best
> >> of my knowledge, at all time guaranteed and has not been compromised.
> The
> >> official task force, set up by the Trustees, worked under the standards
> of
> >> keeping confidentiality, obviously. I thought this goes without saying,
> but
> >> I am explicating it.
> >>
> >> Was information passed to people on the task force without the original
> > sources' consent?
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Nick Wilson (Quiddity)]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 2:21 AM, Fæ  wrote:

> [...]

With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
> quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The
> WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for
> themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they
> "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail
> & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance
> like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement,
> including major changes at the board level.
> [...]
> 3.
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quarterly_Report,_FY_2015-16_Q2_(October-December).pdf=5



The explanation for this, is at the top of
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews
: "NB: In a mature 90-day goalsetting process, the “sweet spot” is for
about 75% of goals to be a success. Organizations that are meeting 100% of
their goals are not typically setting aggressive goals."
Note that partial successes are not also represented, if one just checks
the overview result; it's a simple binary system. See the textual notes for
details about partial successes within individual goals.
Plus, not reaching that 75% target of completely-successful goals, is
perhaps also attributable to the intense and widespread stress of that time
period...
Hope that helps.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Fæ]

On 2 May 2016 at 23:27, James Heilman  wrote:
...
> On the other hand, I however, had requested multiple times before the
> November board meeting to see what information those 5 investigation board
> members were looking at. I was denied access to these details. Some of the
> documents contained key information I only become aware of in the last
> couple of months.

*This* is breathtakingly crappy governance by the WMF board. Trustees
are trustees, there's no "grade A" trusted trustees and lesser "grade
B" less trusted trustees.

We are overdue to clear out the self-selected "grade A" trustees that
have become far too used to claiming that they are irreplaceable and
have unique talents. There's a vast pool of community members with
fantastic experience to choose from, and who have absolutely no
undeclared commercial conflicts of interest, or are seeking to puff up
the 'tech' side of their resumeés, so they can charge higher fees for
speaking engagements or attract contracts as special advisors for
politicians.

Thanks for factually explaining events more clearly James.

Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[James Heilman]

WMF staff reached out to a few chosen Board members, including myself,
specifically with a request to maintain confidentiality. They were afraid
of retribution.  We followed with an earnest but incomplete investigation.
In early Oct I pushed for moving the investigation from the initial group
of 4-6 board members to the entire board. Instead another subsection of
five board members were chosen to continue the investigation (a group which
included Denny and Patricio but not myself).

I was involved, along with WMF staff, in preparing a summary of relevant
details and submitted this to this new board group. Additionally Patricio,
and Denny were cc'ed on the majority of my emails regarding the situation
in question, and therefore I had the understanding that they would bring
this information forwards. The information I shared was a full reflection
of what I had learned during my conversations with staff.

As for my willingness to share all communications with the entire board, I
believe I managed to communicate all relevant details without violating the
explicit confidence requested of me by staff members. (Note that in later
conversations I was informed that it may not be legal for board members to
promise confidentiality to individual staff, as our ultimate duty is to the
WMF as a whole).

On the other hand, I however, had requested multiple times before the
November board meeting to see what information those 5 investigation board
members were looking at. I was denied access to these details. Some of the
documents contained key information I only become aware of in the last
couple of months.

That we were not all looking at the same relevant evidence, I would argue,
was one reason why the November board meeting was less than a success.

James Heilman

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:33 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> +1 to that question, which is the biggest flag I have here.
>
> "The highest standards of confidentiality" is nice but, as you note,
> people presumably reached out to these individual Board members,
> rather than the whole Board, because they felt the individuals could
> be trusted a lot better than the Board as a whole. Which in my mind is
> totally understandable.
>
> If people reached out in confidence, demanding that their experiences
> and information be turned over to the entire Board - without noting
> that as a caveat when first interacting with the source, or without
> asking for the source's permission - well, I'd be cagey too. Anyone
> who has ever dealt with human subject research would be cagey.
>
> if people *did* grant permission, obviously that's an entirely
> different situation. But if they didn't, James was doing entirely the
> right thing by refusing to turn over, wholesale, information
> communicated to him and him alone, to a wider body that was quite
> clearly not trusted by the people making these reports.
>
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 4:03 PM, SarahSV  wrote:
> > On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Denny Vrandečić 
> > wrote:
> >
> >> The protection of any personal or confidential information was, to the
> best
> >> of my knowledge, at all time guaranteed and has not been compromised.
> The
> >> official task force, set up by the Trustees, worked under the standards
> of
> >> keeping confidentiality, obviously. I thought this goes without saying,
> but
> >> I am explicating it.
> >>
> >> Was information passed to people on the task force without the original
> > sources' consent?
> >
> > ___
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>



-- 
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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[Wikimedia-l] How might interactive maps be used on Wikipedia?

[Chris Koerner]

Hello,

The Maps team at the Wikimedia Foundation is getting closer to make it
possible to add interactive maps  to
Wikipedia. If you've ever used services like Google Maps or Mapquest you
may be familiar with interactive maps. We’d like to invite editors to have
a conversation on how these maps might be used within articles. We've put
together information on how these maps and their style works from a
technical perspective

– where the data comes from, how maps are styled, how to add an interactive
map, and a few example use cases.


In particular we would like to focus the discussion around three key
questions (open discussion outside these questions is welcome too).


* What types of articles would use interactive maps?

* How do these articles differ in their requirements?

* Are there any classes of articles whose map styling requirement is
fundamentally in conflict with other article classes, thus requiring
multiple styles?

If you are interested, please visit
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps/Conversation_about_interactive_map_use
to learn more and get involved.
-- 
Yours,
Chris Koerner
Community Liaison - Discovery
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Oliver Keyes]

+1 to that question, which is the biggest flag I have here.

"The highest standards of confidentiality" is nice but, as you note,
people presumably reached out to these individual Board members,
rather than the whole Board, because they felt the individuals could
be trusted a lot better than the Board as a whole. Which in my mind is
totally understandable.

If people reached out in confidence, demanding that their experiences
and information be turned over to the entire Board - without noting
that as a caveat when first interacting with the source, or without
asking for the source's permission - well, I'd be cagey too. Anyone
who has ever dealt with human subject research would be cagey.

if people *did* grant permission, obviously that's an entirely
different situation. But if they didn't, James was doing entirely the
right thing by refusing to turn over, wholesale, information
communicated to him and him alone, to a wider body that was quite
clearly not trusted by the people making these reports.

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 4:03 PM, SarahSV  wrote:
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Denny Vrandečić 
> wrote:
>
>> The protection of any personal or confidential information was, to the best
>> of my knowledge, at all time guaranteed and has not been compromised. The
>> official task force, set up by the Trustees, worked under the standards of
>> keeping confidentiality, obviously. I thought this goes without saying, but
>> I am explicating it.
>>
>> Was information passed to people on the task force without the original
> sources' consent?
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[SarahSV]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Denny Vrandečić 
wrote:

> The protection of any personal or confidential information was, to the best
> of my knowledge, at all time guaranteed and has not been compromised. The
> official task force, set up by the Trustees, worked under the standards of
> keeping confidentiality, obviously. I thought this goes without saying, but
> I am explicating it.
>
> Was information passed to people on the task force without the original
sources' consent?
​
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 146, Issue 9

[Stephen Philbrick]

I have some comments on Denny’s summary of events but I would like to
preface my comments by noting that I have Board experience. I served
several years on the Board of an organization of professions, two years on
a governmental board, and (currently) on the board of a non-profit
organization. I am also an active Wikipedian, who understands, but doesn’t
fully buy the message in the guideline “Be Bold” (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold). To oversimplify, one of
the arguments in favor of Be Bold is that errors are (usually) easily
rectified. While generally true in the Wikipedia world, it is not always
true in other worlds, so one ought to take care in other venues, such as
board actions.


I suspect I share an attribute with many board members – when I learn about
a problem, I want to fix it. This typically involves (or should involve)
gathering information so as to make an informed decision or recommendation.

If I were a Board member and multiple employees reached out to say that
there are concerns requiring action, my first instinct would be to attempt
to gather more information. However, my second instinct, which I hope would
take over before the first is acted upon, is to remember that this isn’t
Wikipedia where a bungled attempt at a fix can be reverted easily. One is a
member of a Board, and one has responsibilities very different than a
Wikipedia editor. We may think that Wikipedia has too much bureaucracy, but
sometimes there are good reasons for processes, and one thing one should
not do is start interactions with employees without the knowledge of other
board members, one should not be promising confidentially if one
simultaneously has a responsibility to share some information with fellow
board members.


In other words, an honest and undoubtedly heartfelt intention to address
and solve a problem as quickly as possible turned into a sticky wicket.
Some board members managed to get themselves into a situation where they
now had information they were both obligated to share, and had promised not
to share. Once down that road, there was no “revert” button.


Retrospect, as if often said, is so clear, but in retrospect, the early
indications that there were some concerns by employees should have been
handled differently.


Phil (Sphilbrick)

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 1:43 PM, 
wrote:

> Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
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> than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>1. Account of the events leading to James Heilman's  removal
>   (Denny Vrandečić)
>2. Re: What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal
>   Involved? (Gergo Tisza)
>3. Re: Account of the events leading to James Heilman's  removal
>   (Michel Vuijlsteke)
>4. Re: Account of the events leading to James Heilman's  removal
>   (Adam Wight)
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 02 May 2016 17:10:21 +
> From: Denny Vrandečić 
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James
> Heilman's   removal
> Message-ID:
> <
> cajvtbfddkwgvrvnzoqm9eh-hoxr1xybekcpuk_9_eqozazy...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> In the following I want to present a personal account of events leading to
> James’ removal as a Board member, as I remember them. It was written while
> I was still on the Board, and the Board agreed on having it sent. The text
> was heavily discussed and edited amongst members of the Board, but in the
> end it remains my personal account. I realize that it potentially includes
> post-factum sensemaking, affecting my recollection of events.
>
> October 1 and 2 2015, Dariusz, James, Patricio and I received phone calls
> from a small number of Wikimedia Foundation staff expressing concerns about
> the Foundation. They asked explicitly for confidentiality. I wanted to
> approach the whole Board immediately, but due to considerations for
> confidentiality, the sensitive nature of the topic, and the lack of an HR
> head at the time, the others decided against at this moment. Effectively,
> this created a conspiracy within the Board from then on for the following
> weeks.
>
> With Patricio’s approval, Dariusz and James started to personally collect
> and ask for reports from staff. Unfortunately, this investigation was not
> formally approved by the whole 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Denny Vrandečić]

The protection of any personal or confidential information was, to the best
of my knowledge, at all time guaranteed and has not been compromised. The
official task force, set up by the Trustees, worked under the standards of
keeping confidentiality, obviously. I thought this goes without saying, but
I am explicating it.



On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:44 AM Adam Wight  wrote:

> What Michel said...  This is a very interesting story, but I'm left to
> imagine some crucial, looming details.
>
> I have no first-hand knowledge of what really happened, but your
> description of staff contacting a small number of Board members, and asking
> for confidentiality, strongly indicates that the staff were fearful of some
> sort of retribution, and each chose Board members who they personally
> believed would protect them.  This is an educated guess, based on our siege
> mentality at the Foundation last November.
>
> When the four of you were asked to hand over all information about the
> case, that would naturally include any personal email communications.  If I
> were in your position, I would have respected the agreement of confidence
> with anyone who had contacted me, up to and maybe even beyond a subpoena,
> unless I had the authors' permission to release.  If there is some legal
> reason the Board members are not allowed behave according to this standard,
> we need to make it very clear going forward.  I doubt the staff would have
> had these conversations if this is the case, and they had been informed so.
>
> I'm also concerned that there seems to be a conflation between several
> incidents--the original "Gang of Four" investigation was clearly a huge
> mess and I would hope that apologies were made all around for what happened
> there.  However, protecting some sort of possibly compromising or personal
> information is another thing entirely.
>
> Hoping for more clarity,
> Adam
>
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Michel Vuijlsteke 
> wrote:
>
> > Just to be sure I understand the issue: staff members reached out
> > specifically to the four of you and asked for confidentiality, and then
> the
> > Board demanded 'all documents', presumably including some confidential
> > staff information, and James only very reluctantly shared it?
> >
> > Michel
> > On 2 May 2016 19:10, "Denny Vrandečić"  wrote:
> >
> > > In the following I want to present a personal account of events leading
> > to
> > > James’ removal as a Board member, as I remember them. It was written
> > while
> > > I was still on the Board, and the Board agreed on having it sent. The
> > text
> > > was heavily discussed and edited amongst members of the Board, but in
> the
> > > end it remains my personal account. I realize that it potentially
> > includes
> > > post-factum sensemaking, affecting my recollection of events.
> > >
> > > October 1 and 2 2015, Dariusz, James, Patricio and I received phone
> calls
> > > from a small number of Wikimedia Foundation staff expressing concerns
> > about
> > > the Foundation. They asked explicitly for confidentiality. I wanted to
> > > approach the whole Board immediately, but due to considerations for
> > > confidentiality, the sensitive nature of the topic, and the lack of an
> HR
> > > head at the time, the others decided against at this moment.
> Effectively,
> > > this created a conspiracy within the Board from then on for the
> following
> > > weeks.
> > >
> > > With Patricio’s approval, Dariusz and James started to personally
> collect
> > > and ask for reports from staff. Unfortunately, this investigation was
> not
> > > formally approved by the whole Board. It was also conducted in a manner
> > > that would not secure a professional and impartial process. After a few
> > > weeks, we finally reached out to the rest of Board members. They
> > > immediately recognized the necessity for a separate formal task force
> > which
> > > was set up very quickly.
> > >
> > > The formal task force was created end of October. This task force
> > involved
> > > outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding. The
> first
> > > request of the task force to the Board members was to ask for all
> > documents
> > > and notes pertaining to the case. Unfortunately, although there has
> been
> > > more than a week of time, this has not happened in full.
> > >
> > > The task force presented its result at the November Board meeting,
> where
> > it
> > > was discovered during the second day of the Board meeting that the
> > previous
> > > investigation has not provided all available information. Thus, the
> fact
> > > finding had to be extended into the Board meeting. At the Board meeting
> > > itself, James in particular was repeatedly asked to share his
> documents,
> > > which only happened on the very last day of the retreat and after
> > several,
> > > increasingly vigorous requests. Some members of the Board were left
> with
> > an
> > > impression 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[SarahSV]

Denny, you wrote: "I was particularly worried about James’ lack of
understanding of confidential matters ..." But you seem to be saying that
James wanted to respect the confidentiality that had been promised to staff.

Sarah


On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Michel Vuijlsteke 
wrote:

> Just to be sure I understand the issue: staff members reached out
> specifically to the four of you and asked for confidentiality, and then the
> Board demanded 'all documents', presumably including some confidential
> staff information, and James only very reluctantly shared it?
>
> Michel
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Adam Wight]

What Michel said...  This is a very interesting story, but I'm left to
imagine some crucial, looming details.

I have no first-hand knowledge of what really happened, but your
description of staff contacting a small number of Board members, and asking
for confidentiality, strongly indicates that the staff were fearful of some
sort of retribution, and each chose Board members who they personally
believed would protect them.  This is an educated guess, based on our siege
mentality at the Foundation last November.

When the four of you were asked to hand over all information about the
case, that would naturally include any personal email communications.  If I
were in your position, I would have respected the agreement of confidence
with anyone who had contacted me, up to and maybe even beyond a subpoena,
unless I had the authors' permission to release.  If there is some legal
reason the Board members are not allowed behave according to this standard,
we need to make it very clear going forward.  I doubt the staff would have
had these conversations if this is the case, and they had been informed so.

I'm also concerned that there seems to be a conflation between several
incidents--the original "Gang of Four" investigation was clearly a huge
mess and I would hope that apologies were made all around for what happened
there.  However, protecting some sort of possibly compromising or personal
information is another thing entirely.

Hoping for more clarity,
Adam

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Michel Vuijlsteke 
wrote:

> Just to be sure I understand the issue: staff members reached out
> specifically to the four of you and asked for confidentiality, and then the
> Board demanded 'all documents', presumably including some confidential
> staff information, and James only very reluctantly shared it?
>
> Michel
> On 2 May 2016 19:10, "Denny Vrandečić"  wrote:
>
> > In the following I want to present a personal account of events leading
> to
> > James’ removal as a Board member, as I remember them. It was written
> while
> > I was still on the Board, and the Board agreed on having it sent. The
> text
> > was heavily discussed and edited amongst members of the Board, but in the
> > end it remains my personal account. I realize that it potentially
> includes
> > post-factum sensemaking, affecting my recollection of events.
> >
> > October 1 and 2 2015, Dariusz, James, Patricio and I received phone calls
> > from a small number of Wikimedia Foundation staff expressing concerns
> about
> > the Foundation. They asked explicitly for confidentiality. I wanted to
> > approach the whole Board immediately, but due to considerations for
> > confidentiality, the sensitive nature of the topic, and the lack of an HR
> > head at the time, the others decided against at this moment. Effectively,
> > this created a conspiracy within the Board from then on for the following
> > weeks.
> >
> > With Patricio’s approval, Dariusz and James started to personally collect
> > and ask for reports from staff. Unfortunately, this investigation was not
> > formally approved by the whole Board. It was also conducted in a manner
> > that would not secure a professional and impartial process. After a few
> > weeks, we finally reached out to the rest of Board members. They
> > immediately recognized the necessity for a separate formal task force
> which
> > was set up very quickly.
> >
> > The formal task force was created end of October. This task force
> involved
> > outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding. The first
> > request of the task force to the Board members was to ask for all
> documents
> > and notes pertaining to the case. Unfortunately, although there has been
> > more than a week of time, this has not happened in full.
> >
> > The task force presented its result at the November Board meeting, where
> it
> > was discovered during the second day of the Board meeting that the
> previous
> > investigation has not provided all available information. Thus, the fact
> > finding had to be extended into the Board meeting. At the Board meeting
> > itself, James in particular was repeatedly asked to share his documents,
> > which only happened on the very last day of the retreat and after
> several,
> > increasingly vigorous requests. Some members of the Board were left with
> an
> > impression that James was reluctant to cooperate, even though it was
> > expected that since he participated in an investigation done in an
> improper
> > manner, that he would be more collaborative to make up for these
> mistakes.
> >
> > Due to that lack of transparency and information sharing, the Board
> retreat
> > in November turned out to be extremely ineffective. If we had all
> > information that was gathered available to the Board in due time, and if
> > that information was gathered more openly in the first place, the Board
> > could have acted more effectively.
> >
> > I was worried that the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Michel Vuijlsteke]

Just to be sure I understand the issue: staff members reached out
specifically to the four of you and asked for confidentiality, and then the
Board demanded 'all documents', presumably including some confidential
staff information, and James only very reluctantly shared it?

Michel
On 2 May 2016 19:10, "Denny Vrandečić"  wrote:

> In the following I want to present a personal account of events leading to
> James’ removal as a Board member, as I remember them. It was written while
> I was still on the Board, and the Board agreed on having it sent. The text
> was heavily discussed and edited amongst members of the Board, but in the
> end it remains my personal account. I realize that it potentially includes
> post-factum sensemaking, affecting my recollection of events.
>
> October 1 and 2 2015, Dariusz, James, Patricio and I received phone calls
> from a small number of Wikimedia Foundation staff expressing concerns about
> the Foundation. They asked explicitly for confidentiality. I wanted to
> approach the whole Board immediately, but due to considerations for
> confidentiality, the sensitive nature of the topic, and the lack of an HR
> head at the time, the others decided against at this moment. Effectively,
> this created a conspiracy within the Board from then on for the following
> weeks.
>
> With Patricio’s approval, Dariusz and James started to personally collect
> and ask for reports from staff. Unfortunately, this investigation was not
> formally approved by the whole Board. It was also conducted in a manner
> that would not secure a professional and impartial process. After a few
> weeks, we finally reached out to the rest of Board members. They
> immediately recognized the necessity for a separate formal task force which
> was set up very quickly.
>
> The formal task force was created end of October. This task force involved
> outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding. The first
> request of the task force to the Board members was to ask for all documents
> and notes pertaining to the case. Unfortunately, although there has been
> more than a week of time, this has not happened in full.
>
> The task force presented its result at the November Board meeting, where it
> was discovered during the second day of the Board meeting that the previous
> investigation has not provided all available information. Thus, the fact
> finding had to be extended into the Board meeting. At the Board meeting
> itself, James in particular was repeatedly asked to share his documents,
> which only happened on the very last day of the retreat and after several,
> increasingly vigorous requests. Some members of the Board were left with an
> impression that James was reluctant to cooperate, even though it was
> expected that since he participated in an investigation done in an improper
> manner, that he would be more collaborative to make up for these mistakes.
>
> Due to that lack of transparency and information sharing, the Board retreat
> in November turned out to be extremely ineffective. If we had all
> information that was gathered available to the Board in due time, and if
> that information was gathered more openly in the first place, the Board
> could have acted more effectively.
>
> I was worried that the confidentiality of the Board would not be
> maintained, and I was particularly worried about James’ lack of
> understanding of confidential matters, a perception also fueled by his
> noncooperation and conduct. Some of his behaviour since unfortunately
> confirmed my worries. I raised this as an issue to the Board.
>
> While discussing the situation, James remained defensive, in my eyes
> answered questions partially, and, while formally expressing apologies,
> never conveyed that he really took ownership of his actions or understood
> what he did wrong. This lead to a malfunctioning Board, and in order to fix
> the situation I suggested James’ removal.
>
> I voted for James’ removal from the Board because of his perceived
> reluctance to cooperate with the formal investigation, his withholding of
> information when asked for, his secrecy towards other Board members, even
> once the conspiracy was lifted, and him never convincingly taking
> responsibility for and ownership of his actions and mistakes. This is why I
> get triggered if he positions himself as an avatar of transparency. The
> whole topic of the Knowledge Engine - although it played a part in the
> events that lead to the November meeting - did not, for me, in any way
> influence the vote on James’ removal. It was solely his conduct during and
> following the November meeting.
>
> I am glad to see that, since James’ removal until I left, the Board has
> been functioning better.
>
> I hope that this account helps a little bit towards renewing our culture of
> transparency, but even more I hope for understanding. The Board consists of
> volunteers and of humans - they cannot react in real-time to events, as 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved?

[Gergo Tisza]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 6:43 PM, Johan Jönsson 
wrote:

> One of the problems here is that much of the information about how the
> Wikimedia sites collect information is so spread out, because different
> parts of the WMF have different solutions for different problems (e.g.
> Analytics or Fundraising). The mentioned
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Cookie_statement is a good way to
> collect all information about cookies


It really isn't. A policy document with very limited edit rights would be a
maintenance nightmare and never up to date. Indeed that document omits most
of the cookies used on the sites. And it never claims to list them all -
while that could be made more clear, the table is actually presented as a
list of examples .
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[Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Denny Vrandečić]

In the following I want to present a personal account of events leading to
James’ removal as a Board member, as I remember them. It was written while
I was still on the Board, and the Board agreed on having it sent. The text
was heavily discussed and edited amongst members of the Board, but in the
end it remains my personal account. I realize that it potentially includes
post-factum sensemaking, affecting my recollection of events.

October 1 and 2 2015, Dariusz, James, Patricio and I received phone calls
from a small number of Wikimedia Foundation staff expressing concerns about
the Foundation. They asked explicitly for confidentiality. I wanted to
approach the whole Board immediately, but due to considerations for
confidentiality, the sensitive nature of the topic, and the lack of an HR
head at the time, the others decided against at this moment. Effectively,
this created a conspiracy within the Board from then on for the following
weeks.

With Patricio’s approval, Dariusz and James started to personally collect
and ask for reports from staff. Unfortunately, this investigation was not
formally approved by the whole Board. It was also conducted in a manner
that would not secure a professional and impartial process. After a few
weeks, we finally reached out to the rest of Board members. They
immediately recognized the necessity for a separate formal task force which
was set up very quickly.

The formal task force was created end of October. This task force involved
outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding. The first
request of the task force to the Board members was to ask for all documents
and notes pertaining to the case. Unfortunately, although there has been
more than a week of time, this has not happened in full.

The task force presented its result at the November Board meeting, where it
was discovered during the second day of the Board meeting that the previous
investigation has not provided all available information. Thus, the fact
finding had to be extended into the Board meeting. At the Board meeting
itself, James in particular was repeatedly asked to share his documents,
which only happened on the very last day of the retreat and after several,
increasingly vigorous requests. Some members of the Board were left with an
impression that James was reluctant to cooperate, even though it was
expected that since he participated in an investigation done in an improper
manner, that he would be more collaborative to make up for these mistakes.

Due to that lack of transparency and information sharing, the Board retreat
in November turned out to be extremely ineffective. If we had all
information that was gathered available to the Board in due time, and if
that information was gathered more openly in the first place, the Board
could have acted more effectively.

I was worried that the confidentiality of the Board would not be
maintained, and I was particularly worried about James’ lack of
understanding of confidential matters, a perception also fueled by his
noncooperation and conduct. Some of his behaviour since unfortunately
confirmed my worries. I raised this as an issue to the Board.

While discussing the situation, James remained defensive, in my eyes
answered questions partially, and, while formally expressing apologies,
never conveyed that he really took ownership of his actions or understood
what he did wrong. This lead to a malfunctioning Board, and in order to fix
the situation I suggested James’ removal.

I voted for James’ removal from the Board because of his perceived
reluctance to cooperate with the formal investigation, his withholding of
information when asked for, his secrecy towards other Board members, even
once the conspiracy was lifted, and him never convincingly taking
responsibility for and ownership of his actions and mistakes. This is why I
get triggered if he positions himself as an avatar of transparency. The
whole topic of the Knowledge Engine - although it played a part in the
events that lead to the November meeting - did not, for me, in any way
influence the vote on James’ removal. It was solely his conduct during and
following the November meeting.

I am glad to see that, since James’ removal until I left, the Board has
been functioning better.

I hope that this account helps a little bit towards renewing our culture of
transparency, but even more I hope for understanding. The Board consists of
volunteers and of humans - they cannot react in real-time to events, as the
Board was never set up to do so. Trustees - myself included - made
mistakes. By opening up about them, I hope that we can facilitate a faster
and more complete healing process, and also have this knowledge and
experience available for future Board members and the community.

Denny
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[ido ivri]

>
> That's great. Please do the right thing and take the initiative to
> step down from the volunteer position of chair, so that someone with a
> history of excellent judgment on trustee governance can take the
> position.


Again, *you* may think it's a good idea. I regard Dariusz to be one of the
better trustees around. Dariusz, I want to echo Sydney's thanks, to you
specifically, for your thoughtful and continuous engagement, and also for
your service (which is usually thankless, to say the least).

Ido
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Funding Citation Hunt

[James Salsman]

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>
> The one reason why we would pay it is because the industry that prevents
>  people from finding citations is morally corrupt


We need randomized anonymous double blind review for anything like this to
be suitable for paid proofreaders.

Frankly, the category selector on https://tools.wmflabs.org/citationhunt/en
seems like a terrible idea. I have confirmed some real-world abuse brought
about by a passing acquaintance to whom I showed Citation Hunt immediately
selecting a category in which they had an clear self-interest in conflict
with improving the encyclopedia. The industry is corrupt because
most everyone is self-interested unless you build complicated
review machines to try to dilute their self interest.


> Libraries are our friends and in this publishers are our enemy.
>

The libraries are our friends because (and to the extent that they) they
pay to support the peer review and related systems which form the basis of
the reliable source criteria. The publishers are our enemy because (and
to the extent that they) they parasitically detract from those systems.

If we ever do get a review system suitable for funding, you can look at
doing so as the logical analog of YouTube, Spotify, and the similar
music content libraries adjusting their royalty payment schedules to cover
smaller performing artists, which they could easily do to return to
supporting the pre-mass piracy e.g. 1970s levels of performing artists.
Volunteer editors are to unsigned folk musicians what publishing company
CEOs are to top-40 musicians and their parasitic management. I am happy to
talk about this in greater detail on the Public Policy list.

Best regards,
Jim
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved?

[Johan Jönsson]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 4:09 PM, Pete Forsyth  wrote:
> Adam,
>
> Thank you for providing an informative and accessible answer to Trillium's
> relevant questions. It's truly heartening to see the organization
improving
> in its ability to communicate its intentions, etc. I hope that when broad
> consensus among staff is reached (as you express in footnote [1]), it will
> become an increasingly high priority to clearly communicate that in public
> fora. It really helps when we can understand what others are trying to do,
> and how it aligns with our own ambitions.
>
> Good stuff. I think this discussion got off to a rough start, but you have
> gotten it back on track, and maybe to resolution.

One of the problems here is that much of the information about how the
Wikimedia sites collect information is so spread out, because different
parts of the WMF have different solutions for different problems (e.g.
Analytics or Fundraising). The mentioned
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Cookie_statement is a good way to
collect all information about cookies, but I've found myself looking for
good ways to make small updates (e.g. "we were thinking about doing this
thing and were going to ask the communities before we started working on
it, but then we started working on something else instead, but here's the
thing that didn't happen"), so there's less risk things don't get
communicated just because there's no big announcement of new changes to
make. I hope  to find a better
solution whenever I get a couple of days when I have nothing that needs my
immediate attention, so that there's a good, natural way to make them.

For anyone who wants to keep track of what's happening with how the WMF
looks at traffic over the last few months, a few links:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ComScore/Announcement
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:ComScore/Announcement
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2016-March/005094.html
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/03/30/unique-devices-dataset/

(I also try to include changes in how we measure traffic in Tech News
, from which most of the stuff
above have been linked.)

//Johan Jönsson
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Really.

We have had a rough patch where management and people in the WMF were at
odds. We have a rough patch where people for all kinds of reason decide to
no longer be a member of the WMF board. It is no wonder that things are not
as they should be as a consequence. When you add the negativity out of much
of the community re the work of the WMF. No is the default answer,
negativity the standard attitude. I think the WMF given such circumstances
does really well.

When you want to stick to the facts, it is also how you present them. When
314 people vote, I find this almost an insignificant number given the size
of our community.

So from your position the glass is half empty, I see it is half full. I
think it can only get better and that is not how I experience your
position. In the mean time I do not see how the "community" helps in this.
For the community the board is very much peripheral to the objective and
imho too much is made of the board. As to Mr Geshuri he is not the only
person who is no longer on the board.

This whole notion of "understanding to the next decimal point" of what
happened makes us a reactive organisation and to put it bluntly that is not
what we need. We need an organisation that is proactive and that will only
happen when there is some trust. This whole drive to get more
"transparency" will only dig us a bigger hole.

So do consider what it is that we are to achieve and what your role is. My
role is simple, I want us to embrace approaches and technology that will
particularly support the other languages. I want us to do a much better job
at understanding what our readers are looking for and it may be well
intentioned but the current approach will not improve things and will only
constrain our ability to achieve our expressed goals.
Thanks,
  GerardM



On 2 May 2016 at 11:21, Fæ  wrote:

> Perhaps we could stick to facts?
>
> In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees
> proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the
> community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no
> confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part
> voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still
> remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee, and have
> not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
>
> With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
> quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The
> WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for
> themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they
> "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail
> & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance
> like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement,
> including major changes at the board level.
>
> It is an easy and lazy response to shout down objections by deriding
> everyone that has a complaint a malcontent or a troll. However after a
> few years of the WMF board failing to improve their self-governance or
> transparency, it's time to actually change things rather than
> accepting soft soap and political position statements that hold nobody
> to account.
>
> Links
> 1.
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Vote_of_no_confidence_on_Arnnon_Geshuri
> 2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35411208
> 3.
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quarterly_Report,_FY_2015-16_Q2_(October-December).pdf=5
>
> Fae
>
> On 2 May 2016 at 06:58, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > The most important thing about the board and the WMF is that they enable
> > what we do. The dependence on them delivering services that are of a high
> > quality is something they deliver. At the same time there is a coterie of
> > "Wikipedians" that want to remake the WMF in their own image. They have
> > proven not to be interested in our projects really. They have been
> > challenged to consider practical things that will deliver much better
> > quality for Wikipedia but it proved not to be what they are interested
> in.
> >
> > Arguably there is a crisis. But the crisis has less to do with the WMF
> than
> > with some in the community. They call themselves the community. IMHO they
> > are malcontents; they have no agenda but single issues that will not help
> > us achieve what the WMF is about.
> > Thanks,
> >GerardM
> >
> > On 1 May 2016 at 23:36, Rogol Domedonfors  wrote:
> >
> >> It seems that the engagement between the Board and the Community has
> broken
> >> down, to the point that there may be a crisis of confidence developing.
> >> Perhaps members of this list would care to express their views at
> >>
> >>
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved?

[Oliver Keyes]

On Monday, 2 May 2016, Brion Vibber  wrote:

> On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Oliver Keyes  > wrote:
>
> > One element I can answer: no, it does not contain flash objects, flash is
> > not a technology included in the Wikimedia stack on account of it barely
> > being classifiable as a technology.
> >
>
> There is one use of Flash in our tech stack: audio output for media
> playback on Internet Explorer when using our JavaScript Ogg playback
> compatibility library.


I'm so sorry :(. 'Ogg' is onomatopoeic then ;)


>
> This is a small shim which does not use cookies or any other type of local
> storage, which is why it is not listed on a page about cookies.
>
> Here's the source code of the Flash component; feel free to review it for
> security:
>
> https://github.com/brion/audio-feeder/blob/master/src/dynamicaudio.as
>
>
> On Sunday, 1 May 2016, Toby Dollmann  > wrote:
> > > 1. Whether, or not, editors of Wikimedia websites", say
> > > "en.wikipedia.org" or "commons.wikimedia.org", can edit if cookies
> > > (broadly construed) are disabled and not stored on client devices.
> >
>
> Like every other site on the world wide web, MediaWiki uses cookies to
> maintain login state. If you disable cookies, login will not work and your
> edits will not be attributed to your account.
>
> Editing "anonymously" without cookies works, but reveals your IP address in
> a permanent public way.
>
>
> > > 2. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects referenced in the
> > > cookie policy include
> > > (i)  Javascript code, or
> >
>
> MediaWiki's ResourceLoader can and does cache JavaScript module code in
> localStorage. This code has no special privileges or abilities because of
> that; it just takes up a tiny bit of space on your disk.
>
>
> > > (ii)  Flash objects
> >
>
> No, no Flash code is stored in cookies or localStorage.
>
>
> > >
> > > 3. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects inserted by the WMF, on
> > > client computers and stored there, have the capability of collecting
> > > extensive personal information of editors, the degree of which not
> > > being explicitly disclosed in advance to users.
> >
>
> No, they are just data until they are executed, at which point they are
> just code, same as code loaded straight from the server. That code can do
> nothing special that it could not already do.
>
> -- brion
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[Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[ido ivri]

Fae,


> Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have
> not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it." After
> many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to
> governance, nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what
> the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works. Knowing the
> history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy
> or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for
> community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to
> "consensus".


Dariusz just remarked: "Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to
reform the Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open
conversation about these ideas soon".

You've been on a board, right? You're aware, then, that changing board
governance procedures and composition is something that takes time, and,
yes, is sometimes an opaque process to start with, as the Board has to
display a policy, or plan, to be commented on. Dariusz and other members
have been actively listening in WMCON Berlin and here, to concerns made by
community members. Do you seriously expect the BoT to just perform a "hard
reset" and redefine itself? This takes time, and patience on behalf
everyone that's involved.


>
> No, I have not forgotten that Arnnon had to resign, thanks for
> pointing that out, and I recall how the WMF board unanimously
> supported him staying just the day before, even though it was
> absolutely obvious that he was not fit to be a trustee, and had he
> stayed the WMF board would have been a ghastly joke in terms of ethics
> for HR, at a time when the WMF's inability to do a professional job of
> HR in terms of the most basic staff morale was becoming a public fact.
>
> Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
> responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
> still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance
> process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the
> resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
>

Now, I'm not defending Dariusz or anyone else in the BoT in particular -
they don't need my defence.
I do wish, however, that your tone sounded just a little less like personal
attacks against BoT members - especially the ones that take the time and
attention to actively speak constantly openly about what's happening.

Contrary to popular opinion, BoT members are human and as such they are
error prone. So c'mon... it's clear to everyone that mistakes were made.
Fixing the procedures that ensure this does not happen again is productive;
pointing fingers isn't.

Ido

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 5:09 PM, 
wrote:

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>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>1. Re: Crisis of Confidence (Dariusz Jemielniak)
>2. Re: Crisis of Confidence (Fæ)
>3. Re: What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal
>   Involved? (Pete Forsyth)
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 09:21:47 -0400
> From: Dariusz Jemielniak 
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence
> Message-ID:
> <
> cadespgudhsqwvgtoegoekckgtd67rtau+paqavhj6w_yc0p...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> 02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ"  napisał(a):
> >
> > Perhaps we could stick to facts?
> >
> > In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees
> > proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the
> > community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no
> > confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part
> > voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still
> > remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
>
> You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the Board.
>
> and have
> > not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> > processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
> >
>
> I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment process
> quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform the
> Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Fæ]

On 2 May 2016 at 15:17, Dariusz Jemielniak  wrote:
...
>> Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
>>
>> responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
>> still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance
>> process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the
>> resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
>
>
> You are correct - the BGC recommended Arnnon, and I personally had not found
> about the controversy when I was reviewing his files. I stated this on the
> list, admitted the mistake, as well as tried to understand and explain how
> it happened. I also proposed the changes to the future recruitment process,
> which have been introduced.
>
> My understanding is that I'm still in this position, as the Board has
> assumed that this mistake was systematic, not personal. However, I am not
> tied to my seat, or to my presence on the Board. If the community recalls
> me, I will step down from either the BGC or the Board in general.
>
> cheers,
>
> dj

That's great. Please do the right thing and take the initiative to
step down from the volunteer position of chair, so that someone with a
history of excellent judgment on trustee governance can take the
position. Ting Chen for example, the only trustee I can recall that
walked away because he felt that trustees should not hold onto their
seats indefinitely, a move that later resulted in trustee positions
becoming time-limited.

As for your presumptions about my bad faith, the current set of
trustees are super glued to their trustee seats, despite the publicly
excruciating results of the Geshuri vote of confidence and the recent
factual revelations about Jimmy Wales' bullying behaviour that would
result in expulsion, were he a representative from most other
organizations. The WMF board can not rely on an /automatic/
presumption of good faith in the context of this terrible history,
until they earn back the respect that their trustee positions deserve
from the Wikimedia Community; especially the WMF trustees that nobody
but fellow trustees got to vote on and have never been held to
account.

Thanks for your replies, even though you are dropping the mic on
further discussion.[1]

P.S. On Sydney's comment, yes Dariusz is a volunteer. There are WMF
paid employees that support the committee that I would expect to do
most of the hard work of drafting versions and collating research. A
chair must be able to delegate, have a basic vision, and ensure that
the right skills are present on the committee to deliver the targets
as part of that vision/conceptual strategy. As for a new plan, I have
not suggested a super duper detailed plan with schedules and gantt
charts, I'm asking for the most simple commitments and meaningful
deadlines in the process to get there. It's not rocket science, this
could easily have been done within a couple of weeks of Geshuri's
departure when it was most urgent and would have demonstrated that the
board is actually interested in listing to the community, acting on
their ethical failures even when they refuse to admit them in public,
and doing a bit more than deflecting their critics.

Links
1. http://news.sky.com/story/1687620/boom-queen-drops-the-mic-on-the-obamas

Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Sydney Poore]

Dariusz*, *

Thank you for continuing to engage with the community.

Responding to highly critical voices in the movement is not fun.

Beside the highly critical voices on the mailing list, there are many
people who read this list and
appreciate communication from you.
Warm regards,
Sydney Poore
User:FloNight

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:17 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak 
wrote:

> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have
> > not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> > processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it."
>
>
> I'm not sure if it is typical for the bodies such as Board to issue
> official apologies - but for my part, I definitely apologize for all
> shortcomings of the procedure I've been involved in, mistakes in oversight,
> etc.
>
>
>
> > After
> > many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to
> > governance,
>
>
> Again, you seem not to have noticed that we nearly immediately amended the
> recruitment procedure in a way that will make repeating a mistake unlikely.
>
>
>
> > nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what
> > the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works.
>
>
> How governance works? In fact, it would be nice to have this conversation
> as well, sure. The problem is that there are multiple demands from the
> community, and there are also external needs for the Board to address.
> We're out of bandwidth. Is the governance talk top priority now? Maybe. But
> I'm not convinced that it is more important than the ED search, or the
> expert seat fulfilment, or comments on strategy/plan, better enculturation
> and on-boarding of external Board members, and so on.
>
>
>
> > Knowing the
> > history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy
> > or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for
> > community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to
> > "consensus".
> >
>
> Well, not engaging with a person who clearly assumes extremely bad faith is
> a privilege I'm going to exercise. Feel free to keep on writing of course,
> just excuse me for not getting involved in replies to you in this thread
> for a while.
>
>
>
> > Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
> >
> responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
> > still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance
> > process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the
> > resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
> >
>
> You are correct - the BGC recommended Arnnon, and I personally had not
> found about the controversy when I was reviewing his files. I stated this
> on the list, admitted the mistake, as well as tried to understand and
> explain how it happened. I also proposed the changes to the future
> recruitment process, which have been introduced.
>
> My understanding is that I'm still in this position, as the Board has
> assumed that this mistake was systematic, not personal. However, I am not
> tied to my seat, or to my presence on the Board. If the community recalls
> me, I will step down from either the BGC or the Board in general.
>
> cheers,
>
> dj
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Sydney Poore]

Hello Fae,

From my perspective, Dariusz is committed to improving the governance of
Board. But, he is in a volunteer position, and is limited in the percentage
of his time that he can devote to WMF Board business.

Even if he personally was devoting 60 hours a week to reforming the Board,
it would be impossible to have a new plan in place this soon.

Sydney



Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Fæ  wrote:

> Hi Dariusz,
>
> Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have
> not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it." After
> many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to
> governance, nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what
> the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works. Knowing the
> history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy
> or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for
> community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to
> "consensus".
>
> No, I have not forgotten that Arnnon had to resign, thanks for
> pointing that out, and I recall how the WMF board unanimously
> supported him staying just the day before, even though it was
> absolutely obvious that he was not fit to be a trustee, and had he
> stayed the WMF board would have been a ghastly joke in terms of ethics
> for HR, at a time when the WMF's inability to do a professional job of
> HR in terms of the most basic staff morale was becoming a public fact.
>
> Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
> responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
> still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance
> process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the
> resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
>
> On 2 May 2016 at 14:21, Dariusz Jemielniak  wrote:
> > 02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ"  napisał(a):
> >>
> >> Perhaps we could stick to facts?
> >>
> >> In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees
> >> proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the
> >> community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no
> >> confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part
> >> voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still
> >> remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
> >
> > You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the
> Board.
> >
> > and have
> >> not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> >> processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
> >>
> >
> > I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment
> process
> > quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform
> the
> > Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open
> conversation
> > about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).
> >
> > I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I
> > don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I
> > really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a
> mission-driven,
> > knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate
> > employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that
> > delivers visionary results.
> >
> > We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the
> > answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more
> > accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process
> > (which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and
> > that should provide sensible community's feedback.
> >
> > Dj
> > ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved?

[Brion Vibber]

On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> One element I can answer: no, it does not contain flash objects, flash is
> not a technology included in the Wikimedia stack on account of it barely
> being classifiable as a technology.
>

There is one use of Flash in our tech stack: audio output for media
playback on Internet Explorer when using our JavaScript Ogg playback
compatibility library.

This is a small shim which does not use cookies or any other type of local
storage, which is why it is not listed on a page about cookies.

Here's the source code of the Flash component; feel free to review it for
security:

https://github.com/brion/audio-feeder/blob/master/src/dynamicaudio.as


On Sunday, 1 May 2016, Toby Dollmann  wrote:
> > 1. Whether, or not, editors of Wikimedia websites", say
> > "en.wikipedia.org" or "commons.wikimedia.org", can edit if cookies
> > (broadly construed) are disabled and not stored on client devices.
>

Like every other site on the world wide web, MediaWiki uses cookies to
maintain login state. If you disable cookies, login will not work and your
edits will not be attributed to your account.

Editing "anonymously" without cookies works, but reveals your IP address in
a permanent public way.


> > 2. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects referenced in the
> > cookie policy include
> > (i)  Javascript code, or
>

MediaWiki's ResourceLoader can and does cache JavaScript module code in
localStorage. This code has no special privileges or abilities because of
that; it just takes up a tiny bit of space on your disk.


> > (ii)  Flash objects
>

No, no Flash code is stored in cookies or localStorage.


> >
> > 3. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects inserted by the WMF, on
> > client computers and stored there, have the capability of collecting
> > extensive personal information of editors, the degree of which not
> > being explicitly disclosed in advance to users.
>

No, they are just data until they are executed, at which point they are
just code, same as code loaded straight from the server. That code can do
nothing special that it could not already do.

-- brion
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Dariusz Jemielniak]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Fæ  wrote:

> Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have
> not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it."


I'm not sure if it is typical for the bodies such as Board to issue
official apologies - but for my part, I definitely apologize for all
shortcomings of the procedure I've been involved in, mistakes in oversight,
etc.



> After
> many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to
> governance,


Again, you seem not to have noticed that we nearly immediately amended the
recruitment procedure in a way that will make repeating a mistake unlikely.



> nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what
> the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works.


How governance works? In fact, it would be nice to have this conversation
as well, sure. The problem is that there are multiple demands from the
community, and there are also external needs for the Board to address.
We're out of bandwidth. Is the governance talk top priority now? Maybe. But
I'm not convinced that it is more important than the ED search, or the
expert seat fulfilment, or comments on strategy/plan, better enculturation
and on-boarding of external Board members, and so on.



> Knowing the
> history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy
> or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for
> community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to
> "consensus".
>

Well, not engaging with a person who clearly assumes extremely bad faith is
a privilege I'm going to exercise. Feel free to keep on writing of course,
just excuse me for not getting involved in replies to you in this thread
for a while.



> Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
>
responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
> still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance
> process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the
> resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
>

You are correct - the BGC recommended Arnnon, and I personally had not
found about the controversy when I was reviewing his files. I stated this
on the list, admitted the mistake, as well as tried to understand and
explain how it happened. I also proposed the changes to the future
recruitment process, which have been introduced.

My understanding is that I'm still in this position, as the Board has
assumed that this mistake was systematic, not personal. However, I am not
tied to my seat, or to my presence on the Board. If the community recalls
me, I will step down from either the BGC or the Board in general.

cheers,

dj
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved?

[Pete Forsyth]

Adam,

Thank you for providing an informative and accessible answer to Trillium's
relevant questions. It's truly heartening to see the organization improving
in its ability to communicate its intentions, etc. I hope that when broad
consensus among staff is reached (as you express in footnote [1]), it will
become an increasingly high priority to clearly communicate that in public
fora. It really helps when we can understand what others are trying to do,
and how it aligns with our own ambitions.

Good stuff. I think this discussion got off to a rough start, but you have
gotten it back on track, and maybe to resolution.

-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 12:21 AM, Adam Wight  wrote:

> Hi Trillium,
>
> These are great questions to ask, thank you for keeping the privacy
> conversation on track!
>
> As a technical employee of the Wikimedia Foundation who would have been
> involved if we were planning significant changes to expand or limit
> tracking, I can confirm that nothing rotten is in the wings.  In fact, the
> situation is better now than ever before (in my 4 years here).  There are
> internal accountability reforms under way to help us make strong guarantees
> about our users' privacy.  A brief investigation into assigning readers
> long-term unique identifiers--in lay person terms the gateway to dystopian
> tracking--opened and was immediately shut again.[1]  Data retention (what
> user data we collect and for how long) policy work is being tightened up,
> and done in public.[2] In Fundraising, we've found a way to measure
> aggregate data about our banner delivery without collecting information
> which lets us correlate anything else about readers.[3]
>
> While I feel good about what's happening now, it would be nice to have
> longer-term assurances that we won't go collectively nuts in the
> unforeseeable future.  I'm not sure what that assurance might look like,
> though...  Democratic stewardship of our shared resources?  Anyway, please
> do keep a critical eye on cookies and their brethren, and if you find
> anything out of joint I'm sure there will be plenty of allies left within
> the Foundation to help set it right.
>
> Regards,
> Adam Wight
> [[mw:User:Adamw]
>
>
> [1] Sorry, there was an all-staff internal discussion but I don't think
> this was published.  The idea at the time was to get our house in order and
> decide whether to start a public conversation about unique IDs.  There
> turned out to be many strong critics of the plan and no real supporters as
> far I could tell, and the initiative was abandoned, to my knowledge.  The
> motivation for the project was to get a better estimate of our unique
> visitor counts (a count of their devices, to be precise).  We've settled on
> the less accurate "last visited" measurement instead, which is described
> here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/03/30/unique-devices-dataset/
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines
> [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lightening_banner_history.pdf
>
> On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:
>
> > It seems like you can either deny James's knowledge of the
> technical/legal
> > overlap or ask him questions, but probably not both :p.
> >
> > One element I can answer: no, it does not contain flash objects, flash is
> > not a technology included in the Wikimedia stack on account of it barely
> > being classifiable as a technology.
> >
> > On Sunday, 1 May 2016, Toby Dollmann  wrote:
> >
> > > > It's certainly possible that this is only 'obvious' to me because of
> my
> > > > knowledge of outside organizations or law but it doesn't surprise me.
> > >
> > > Your reply is not obvious to me. I understand that your employment is
> > > exclusively with WMF and you do not appear to be particularly
> > > qualified (or experienced) in law.
> > >
> > > Treating the cookie statement as an explanation / extension of WMF's
> > > privacy policy and noting the poster's concern that the WMF legal team
> > > have amended certain descriptors for locally stored objects (not
> > > cookies) of indeterminate (theoretically infinite) persistence, would
> > > you clarify the following technical /legal aspects relating to cookies
> > > and their usage on Wikimedia.
> > >
> > > 1. Whether, or not, editors of Wikimedia websites", say
> > > "en.wikipedia.org" or "commons.wikimedia.org", can edit if cookies
> > > (broadly construed) are disabled and not stored on client devices.
> > >
> > > 2. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects referenced in the
> > > cookie policy include
> > > (i)  Javascript code, or
> > > (ii)  Flash objects
> > >
> > > 3. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects inserted by the WMF, on
> > > client computers and stored there, have the capability of collecting
> > > extensive personal information of editors, the degree of which not
> > > being explicitly disclosed in advance to users.
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Fæ]

Hi Dariusz,

Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have
not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it." After
many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to
governance, nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what
the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works. Knowing the
history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy
or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for
community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to
"consensus".

No, I have not forgotten that Arnnon had to resign, thanks for
pointing that out, and I recall how the WMF board unanimously
supported him staying just the day before, even though it was
absolutely obvious that he was not fit to be a trustee, and had he
stayed the WMF board would have been a ghastly joke in terms of ethics
for HR, at a time when the WMF's inability to do a professional job of
HR in terms of the most basic staff morale was becoming a public fact.

Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance
process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the
resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?

Thanks,
Fae

On 2 May 2016 at 14:21, Dariusz Jemielniak  wrote:
> 02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ"  napisał(a):
>>
>> Perhaps we could stick to facts?
>>
>> In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees
>> proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the
>> community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no
>> confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part
>> voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still
>> remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
>
> You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the Board.
>
> and have
>> not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
>> processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
>>
>
> I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment process
> quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform the
> Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open conversation
> about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).
>
> I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I
> don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I
> really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a mission-driven,
> knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate
> employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that
> delivers visionary results.
>
> We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the
> answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more
> accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process
> (which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and
> that should provide sensible community's feedback.
>
> Dj
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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> 

-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Dariusz Jemielniak]

02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ"  napisał(a):
>
> Perhaps we could stick to facts?
>
> In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees
> proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the
> community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no
> confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part
> voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still
> remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,

You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the Board.

and have
> not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
> processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
>

I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment process
quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform the
Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open conversation
about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).

I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I
don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I
really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a mission-driven,
knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate
employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that
delivers visionary results.

We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the
answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more
accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process
(which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and
that should provide sensible community's feedback.

Dj
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence

[Fæ]

Perhaps we could stick to facts?

In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees
proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the
community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no
confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part
voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still
remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee, and have
not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance
processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.

With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The
WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for
themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they
"missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail
& Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance
like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement,
including major changes at the board level.

It is an easy and lazy response to shout down objections by deriding
everyone that has a complaint a malcontent or a troll. However after a
few years of the WMF board failing to improve their self-governance or
transparency, it's time to actually change things rather than
accepting soft soap and political position statements that hold nobody
to account.

Links
1. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Vote_of_no_confidence_on_Arnnon_Geshuri
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35411208
3. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quarterly_Report,_FY_2015-16_Q2_(October-December).pdf=5

Fae

On 2 May 2016 at 06:58, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:
> Hoi,
> The most important thing about the board and the WMF is that they enable
> what we do. The dependence on them delivering services that are of a high
> quality is something they deliver. At the same time there is a coterie of
> "Wikipedians" that want to remake the WMF in their own image. They have
> proven not to be interested in our projects really. They have been
> challenged to consider practical things that will deliver much better
> quality for Wikipedia but it proved not to be what they are interested in.
>
> Arguably there is a crisis. But the crisis has less to do with the WMF than
> with some in the community. They call themselves the community. IMHO they
> are malcontents; they have no agenda but single issues that will not help
> us achieve what the WMF is about.
> Thanks,
>GerardM
>
> On 1 May 2016 at 23:36, Rogol Domedonfors  wrote:
>
>> It seems that the engagement between the Board and the Community has broken
>> down, to the point that there may be a crisis of confidence developing.
>> Perhaps members of this list would care to express their views at
>>
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Crisis_of_confidence
>> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Affiliate-selected Board seats voting started

[Laurentius]

Il giorno dom, 01/05/2016 alle 22.24 -0400, Benjamin Lees ha scritto:
> This is still going on, right?

Yes. The voting closes on Saturday.

Lorenzo


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved?

[Adam Wight]

Hi Trillium,

These are great questions to ask, thank you for keeping the privacy
conversation on track!

As a technical employee of the Wikimedia Foundation who would have been
involved if we were planning significant changes to expand or limit
tracking, I can confirm that nothing rotten is in the wings.  In fact, the
situation is better now than ever before (in my 4 years here).  There are
internal accountability reforms under way to help us make strong guarantees
about our users' privacy.  A brief investigation into assigning readers
long-term unique identifiers--in lay person terms the gateway to dystopian
tracking--opened and was immediately shut again.[1]  Data retention (what
user data we collect and for how long) policy work is being tightened up,
and done in public.[2] In Fundraising, we've found a way to measure
aggregate data about our banner delivery without collecting information
which lets us correlate anything else about readers.[3]

While I feel good about what's happening now, it would be nice to have
longer-term assurances that we won't go collectively nuts in the
unforeseeable future.  I'm not sure what that assurance might look like,
though...  Democratic stewardship of our shared resources?  Anyway, please
do keep a critical eye on cookies and their brethren, and if you find
anything out of joint I'm sure there will be plenty of allies left within
the Foundation to help set it right.

Regards,
Adam Wight
[[mw:User:Adamw]


[1] Sorry, there was an all-staff internal discussion but I don't think
this was published.  The idea at the time was to get our house in order and
decide whether to start a public conversation about unique IDs.  There
turned out to be many strong critics of the plan and no real supporters as
far I could tell, and the initiative was abandoned, to my knowledge.  The
motivation for the project was to get a better estimate of our unique
visitor counts (a count of their devices, to be precise).  We've settled on
the less accurate "last visited" measurement instead, which is described
here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/03/30/unique-devices-dataset/
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines
[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lightening_banner_history.pdf

On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> It seems like you can either deny James's knowledge of the technical/legal
> overlap or ask him questions, but probably not both :p.
>
> One element I can answer: no, it does not contain flash objects, flash is
> not a technology included in the Wikimedia stack on account of it barely
> being classifiable as a technology.
>
> On Sunday, 1 May 2016, Toby Dollmann  wrote:
>
> > > It's certainly possible that this is only 'obvious' to me because of my
> > > knowledge of outside organizations or law but it doesn't surprise me.
> >
> > Your reply is not obvious to me. I understand that your employment is
> > exclusively with WMF and you do not appear to be particularly
> > qualified (or experienced) in law.
> >
> > Treating the cookie statement as an explanation / extension of WMF's
> > privacy policy and noting the poster's concern that the WMF legal team
> > have amended certain descriptors for locally stored objects (not
> > cookies) of indeterminate (theoretically infinite) persistence, would
> > you clarify the following technical /legal aspects relating to cookies
> > and their usage on Wikimedia.
> >
> > 1. Whether, or not, editors of Wikimedia websites", say
> > "en.wikipedia.org" or "commons.wikimedia.org", can edit if cookies
> > (broadly construed) are disabled and not stored on client devices.
> >
> > 2. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects referenced in the
> > cookie policy include
> > (i)  Javascript code, or
> > (ii)  Flash objects
> >
> > 3. Whether, or not, the locally stored objects inserted by the WMF, on
> > client computers and stored there, have the capability of collecting
> > extensive personal information of editors, the degree of which not
> > being explicitly disclosed in advance to users.
> >
> > 4. Whether, or not, the WMF is aware that a certain "toxic and
> > juvenile .. problem" [reff#1] WMF sysop (now banned) with extensive
> > knowledge of WMF's checkuser process, the cookie policy and its
> > internals has achieved remarkable technical capability to closely
> > impersonate other editors and get them blocked by a network (aka "porn
> > crew") of surviving cooperative "community appointed" sysops favorably
> > still disposed to him/her. That this problem person (who has also
> > threatened legal action against WMF) extensively uses mobile Wikipedia
> > via "millions of IPs" [ref#2] in multiple languages, including several
> > some fairly obscure ones, for abusive purposes which are 'obviously'
> > related to WMF_legal's recent subject edit.
> >
> > Toby
> >
> > [ref#1] "I should be clear - the problem is not the abuse of me, but
> > the toxic and juvenile