Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric

2020-10-19 Thread Yuri Astrakhan 
I second that. It always amazed me that the community that has built the
entire site does not have the majority in deciding the future of the site,
and this seems to make it even less so.

On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 2:03 PM Brion Vibber  wrote:

> From what I've read in the thread above I agree with Yair, and would add
> that this feels like a big power grab against the community.
>
> I believe that Wikimedia Foundation must reject these proposed bylaws
> changes to preserve our open, democratic nature, and hold elections to fill
> all seats.
>
> -- brion
> former CTO
> current software architect
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 5:12 PM Asaf Bartov  wrote:
>
>> Hello.  With my list-moderator hat, I am relaying two messages from Jimmy
>> Wales, sent from an address he apparently hadn't used before,  that were
>> unintentionally caught by the mailing list filters and could not be let
>> through.  I paste them below.
>>
>>Asaf
>>
>> -- Forwarded message --
>> From: Jimmy Wales 
>> To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Cc:
>> Bcc:
>> Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:12:55 +0100
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation
>> Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
>> On 10/7/20 6:32 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>>
>> The replacement of an explicit voting process with an unspecified process
>> +
>> schedule seems unnecessarily vague.
>>
>> I agree that the vagueness is not good.  To make sure everyone is aware:
>> there has been no discussion and I'm unaware of anyone
>> on the board who would be in favor of *removing* elections.  I think the
>> current wording here is awkward and may have been designed
>> to not be super prescriptive about how exactly we might move to a process
>> with a community-driven and community-approved "rubric"
>> combined with elections.  To remedy this defect seems quite easy - a
>> future
>> revision should explicitly include as much detail as is possible,
>> and certainly should mandate elections.
>>
>> -- Forwarded message --
>> From: Jimmy Wales 
>> To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Cc:
>> Bcc:
>> Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:13:08 +0100
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation
>> Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
>> On 10/7/20 10:03 PM, Yair Rand wrote:
>>
>> (Another minor point: The change from the description of the appointed
>> seats from "non-community-selected, non-chapter-selected" to
>> "non-community-sourced" seems to imply that the Board is prohibited from
>> filling these seats with any community members. Previously, there have
>> been
>> community members in these seats.)
>>
>> I think this is a very good "catch".  I'm sure that wasn't the intention
>> of
>> the rewording.  I didn't
>> write it and of course I can't speak for anyone else.  I can say that
>> there
>> has been no discussion
>> at the board level of anyone suggesting that we should not be able to
>> select community members
>> for these seats.
>>
>> Indeed, my personal view is that as we pursue board expansion, it is
>> crucial that we try as hard as
>> we can find to fill the appointed seats with as many deeply experienced
>> community members (who
>> have other relevant skills) as we possibly can.
>>
>> In terms of this proposal, I think that a minor change to clarify this
>> minor point is a great idea!
>>
>> I think the ambiguity probably arose with the change from "selected" to
>> "sourced" - a change that, itself,
>> deserves great scrutiny.
>>
>> ===
>>
>> (end of Jimmy's two messages.  Future posts from Jimmy's new address
>> should
>> go through.)
>>
>>Asaf
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> 
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric

2020-10-19 Thread Brion Vibber 
>From what I've read in the thread above I agree with Yair, and would add
that this feels like a big power grab against the community.

I believe that Wikimedia Foundation must reject these proposed bylaws
changes to preserve our open, democratic nature, and hold elections to fill
all seats.

-- brion
former CTO
current software architect

On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 5:12 PM Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> Hello.  With my list-moderator hat, I am relaying two messages from Jimmy
> Wales, sent from an address he apparently hadn't used before,  that were
> unintentionally caught by the mailing list filters and could not be let
> through.  I paste them below.
>
>Asaf
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Jimmy Wales 
> To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:12:55 +0100
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation
> Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
> On 10/7/20 6:32 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>
> The replacement of an explicit voting process with an unspecified process +
> schedule seems unnecessarily vague.
>
> I agree that the vagueness is not good.  To make sure everyone is aware:
> there has been no discussion and I'm unaware of anyone
> on the board who would be in favor of *removing* elections.  I think the
> current wording here is awkward and may have been designed
> to not be super prescriptive about how exactly we might move to a process
> with a community-driven and community-approved "rubric"
> combined with elections.  To remedy this defect seems quite easy - a future
> revision should explicitly include as much detail as is possible,
> and certainly should mandate elections.
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Jimmy Wales 
> To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:13:08 +0100
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation
> Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
> On 10/7/20 10:03 PM, Yair Rand wrote:
>
> (Another minor point: The change from the description of the appointed
> seats from "non-community-selected, non-chapter-selected" to
> "non-community-sourced" seems to imply that the Board is prohibited from
> filling these seats with any community members. Previously, there have been
> community members in these seats.)
>
> I think this is a very good "catch".  I'm sure that wasn't the intention of
> the rewording.  I didn't
> write it and of course I can't speak for anyone else.  I can say that there
> has been no discussion
> at the board level of anyone suggesting that we should not be able to
> select community members
> for these seats.
>
> Indeed, my personal view is that as we pursue board expansion, it is
> crucial that we try as hard as
> we can find to fill the appointed seats with as many deeply experienced
> community members (who
> have other relevant skills) as we possibly can.
>
> In terms of this proposal, I think that a minor change to clarify this
> minor point is a great idea!
>
> I think the ambiguity probably arose with the change from "selected" to
> "sourced" - a change that, itself,
> deserves great scrutiny.
>
> ===
>
> (end of Jimmy's two messages.  Future posts from Jimmy's new address should
> go through.)
>
>Asaf
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Important: Server switch on October 27

2020-10-19 Thread Trizek 
[Sorry for cross-posting]

Read this message in another language
 •
Please help translate to your language


The Wikimedia Foundation  tests the
switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure
that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a
disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology
department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can
reliably switch from one datacenter to the other. It requires many teams to
prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on *Tuesday,
October 27 2020*.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki
, all editing
must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and
we are working to minimize it in the future.

*You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of
time.*

   - You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27.
   The test will start at 14:00 UTC
    (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET,
   10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00
   NZDT on Wednesday October 28).
   - If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error
   message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we
   can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until
   everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit.
   But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

*Other effects*:

   - Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links
   might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is
   already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual.
   Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
   - There will be code freezes for the week of October 26, 2020.
   Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at
wikitech.wikimedia.org
.
Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more
notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30
minutes before this operation happens. *Please share this information with
your community.*

-- 

Benoît Evellin - Trizek (he/him)

Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation 
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