Re: [Wikimedia-l] RFC on wikimedia-l posting limits

[Craig Franklin]

It would be good to conclusively and definitively close the RFC, but I'm
not sure I agree with the notion that less posts is a *bad* thing.  In some
months we've had quite a lot of traffic on this list, a lot of which has
been very low quality and only of interest to a small number of people.  I
do not see that the utility of this list can be measured accurately by
looking solely at volume metrics like the number of posts or the size of
the posts.

Plus, I would also add that a look at the history of the list shows that
posting amounts vary widely anyway.  There were more than twice as many
posts in October 2017 as compared to October 2016, for instance.

Cheers,
Craig

On 7 February 2018 at 22:01, Fæ  wrote:

> On 23 August 2017 at 05:03, John Mark Vandenberg  wrote:
> > Hi list members,
> >
> > The list admins (hereafter 'we', being Austin, Asaf, Shani and I, your
> > humble narrator) regularly receive complaints about the frequent
> > posters on this list, as well as about the unpleasant atmosphere some
> > posters (some of them frequent) create.
> >
> > It is natural that frequent posters will say specific things that more
> > frequently annoy other list members, but often the complaints are due
> > to the volume of messages rather than the content of the messages.
> >
> > We are floating some suggestions aimed specifically at reducing the
> > volume, hopefully motivating frequent posters to self-moderate more,
> > but these proposed limits are actually intending to increasing the
> > quality of the discourse without heavy subjective moderation.
> >
> > The first proposal impacts all posters to this list, and the last
> > three proposals are aimed at providing a more clear framework within
> > which criticism and whistle-blowing are permitted, but that critics
> > are prevented from drowning out other discussions. The bandwidth that
> > will be given to critics should be established in advance, reducing
> > need to use subjective moderation of the content when a limit to the
> > volume will often achieve the same result.
> ...
> >
> > The RFC is at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/
> wikimedia-l-post-limits
> >
> > However please also feel welcome to reply on-list if you wish to
> > express explicit support or opposition to any of the four proposals
> > above (please identify them by number, to ease counting).  We will
> > count votes (here and on the meta RFC) after two weeks, and post a
> > more refined final version back to this mailing list.
> >
> > The list administrators will default to *enacting* all four proposals,
> > but will refrain from enacting any proposal receiving more opposition
> > than support.
> > --
> > John Vandenberg
>
> The RFC has yet to be closed, after being open for over five months.
> Could someone close it or reject it?
>
> In practical reality, the hardline talk about posting limits, seems to
> have resulted in significantly reduced posts to this list. The
> statistics are somewhat worrying, casting doubt on the long term
> future of this list staying active or interesting.
>
> The standard statistics [1] show participation is at a record low. My
> sense of the list is that real content discussions are now minimal,
> with announcements and thankspam outnumbering thoughtful observations
> or critiques.
>
> Picking out one trend to illustrate, here are comparative numbers for
> last month against other Januarys in the last few years, which is a
> simple way to compensate for seasonal variation:
>   2018, 139 posts
>   2017, 370 posts
>   2016, 989 posts
>   2015, 445 posts
>   2014, 571 posts
>
> Rather than increasing negative bureaucracy on the list to stop people
> posting too much, perhaps the list moderators have some views on how
> to positively encourage people to engage with the community here?
>
> Links
> 1. https://stats.wikimedia.org/mail-lists/wikimedia-l.html
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Publicpolicy] Update on FISA 702 reauthorization

[Craig Franklin]

I think, as Geni says, that even that isn't going to provide any effective
barrier.  If the NSA or other US Government spooks want to get into the
servers, they will, regardless of what hardware it's running on, what
software it uses, or what jurisdiction it is located in.  Anything that the
Foundation does to "protect" itself is just going to be security theatre.
Anyone doing anything that the current or future American administrations
might object to should keep that in mind.  I assume that every place I go
on the Internet is already compromised and act accordingly.

Cheers,
Craig

On 21 January 2018 at 19:13, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> What about moving to another country? Still not an option?
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 8:38 AM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
> > 1) still don't see the relevance. If better technology is needed, it's
> > needed - that should be independent of any lobbying preferences. It looks
> > like you're just pushing tangents again.
> >
> > 2) You do realize that the FTC and the FEC are very different
> > organizations? But again, it seems you just used this statement as an
> > opportunity to push a tangent.
> >
> > Please don't do that.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 20, 2018 at 2:43 PM, James Salsman 
> wrote:
> >
> > > > 1) I don't quite see how your question about servers and switches
> > relates
> > > > to Stephen's statement. Could you explain for us mere mortals how you
> > > link
> > > > the two?
> > >
> > > The NSA surveillance which was reauthorized by Congress can not depend
> > > on eavesdropping alone with new HTTPS cyphers. It needs compromised
> > > hardware to work, such as has been included in Dell servers since the
> > > Foundation started purchasing them, and the design of which was
> > > overseen by the Foundation's CTO, who worked then at Intel. This
> > > provides us with the know-how, a teachable moment, and an excellent
> > > opportunity to specify and acquire replacement open source hardware
> > > which doesn't have the DIETYBOUNCE / System Management Mode OOB / iAMT
> > > and related backdoors.
> > >
> > > https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/01/nsa_exploit_of.html
> > >
> > > > 2) I somehow missed the commitment by the WMF to research "FEC
> > > requirements
> > > > of organized advocates for US political candidates' or anything that
> > > > suggests that the WMF may advocate for specific political candidates
> > > (which
> > > > seems a change of course that would be hard to sweep under the rug).
> > > Could
> > > > you quote?
> > >
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_
> > > talk:Conflict_of_interest=prev=815460492#
> > > Note_from_Wikimedia_Legal
> > >
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Slaporte_(WMF)#
> > > Research_topic_request
> > >
> > > ___
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> > > 
> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Craig Franklin]

Can I suggest to all parties that, as was the case last time this came up
here, raking this conflict over the coals here on a mailing list where very
few of us have direct knowledge of the situation, or the power to do
anything about it in any case, is probably not helpful for anyone?  I am
especially uncomfortable at the notion of the discussion of people's HR
records and personal lives in a public forum such as this.

Cheers,
Craig

On 24 November 2017 at 06:23, Xavier Combelle 
wrote:

> Emeric,
>
> When you say, that no sanction has filed his HR record, you are half or
> completely lying.
> The existence of a "rappel à l'ordre" (warning)
> is an argument which can support fire someone of the staff so it should
> be in a HR record.
>
> In the same way Sylvain never said he is writing his email on behalf of
> an union of the employees of Wikimedia France
> but that he is the representative of the the employees of Wikimedia
> France which is plenty true.
>
> From the whole wikimedia france, movement, during the #wmfrgate, it was
> only you Emeric and the old direction as a whole
> that your declaration don't match the facts or your subsequent
> declaration, as it it happened during the #bandeaugate in summer last year.
>
> I have still to see the said "lies" from your opponent which contradicts
> other public information (apart the words of you and the old direction)
>
> Xavier Combelle
>
> Le 23/11/2017 à 20:54, Emeric Vallespi a écrit :
> > Sylvain,
> >
> > I have to answer to your email where you’re especially lying.
> > You say that you’re writing on behalf of a union section of the
> employees of Wikimedia France but I’m personally curious to know the weight
> of this union section. My question is actually: who else is represented by
> your email, if not yourself?
> >
> > Moreover, you’re saying that you received a « warning » (?) because you
> had a girlfriend. Is it serious?
> > Your employer asked you to distinguish professional time and personal
> time. Indeed, you were reminded that you had to dedicate your work hours to
> the missions that were devoted to you and not to solve problems related to
> your personal life, especially if it interferes with organization’s
> activities and governance. It is also you who came, on your own, to tell us
> about the complexity of your personal and relationship situation in order
> to benefit of professional arrangements. The direction never looked for,
> nor asked, any information on this subject.
> >
> > You’re mentioning the cancellation of the letter. Since, to my
> knowledge, no sanction has been filed to your HR record, I do not really
> see what have been canceled.
> > I can understand that supporting your new board of trustees, involved in
> the governance issues and in the criminal complaints filed is critical to
> show your loyalty.
> >
> > Do you know how impatient am I to discover your next fable? I guess the
> only one never mentioned yet is maybe about a murder or something (although
> a streetfight scenario has already been invented x’D).
> >
> > I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the
> community, which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not
> deceived by a scenario built from scratch.
> > Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public
> accusations still shows that only personal interests and vainness matter in
> this conflict with some people.
> >
> > For months, several lies have been told by different people. Because the
> Wikimedia community protect itself and its members by harassing and
> defaming people who question the probity and integrity of some of its
> members doesn’t make of this lies the truth.
> >
> > Best regards to all of you,
> > --
> > Emeric Vallespi
> >
> >> On 22 Nov 2017, at 13:37, Sylvain Boissel 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Katherine,
> >>
> >> 2017-10-19 23:19 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher :
> >>
> >>> [...]
> >>> We are committed to working with the new Wikimédia France conseil
> >>> d’administration (governing board) to support the French community as
> they
> >>> work to address and resolve these and other outstanding issues. The
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation and the new leadership of Wikimédia France are
> already
> >>> cooperating to address the governance-related concerns raised by the
> >>> volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee in the first half of 2017. As
> part
> >>> of this work, we have encouraged them to review how they will
> independently
> >>> handle claims of harassment in the future. The Wikimedia Foundation and
> >>> Wikimédia France share a common goal: a healthy, welcoming, respectful,
> >>> inclusive Wikimedia community in France.
> >>>
> >>> I know I am not alone in my dismay for how these events have unfolded.
> Many
> >>> dedicated, good-faith members of the French community, including
> current
> >>> community members and present and former Wikimédia France board and

Re: [Wikimedia-l] RFC on wikimedia-l posting limits

[Craig Franklin]

Joining the pile-on here.  The focus on nitpicking semantics rather than
substantive issues, passive-aggressive grandstanding ("May I suggest that
you withdraw your original posting"), and the threat to tattletale on
someone to their boss for expressing a perfectly reasonable perspective are
exactly the sort of toxic conduct that is outside of the community's
expectations and outside of what I believe the community wants to see on
this list.

Cheers,
Craig

On 24 August 2017 at 12:05, Robert Fernandez  wrote:

> Agreed.  This sort of thinly veiled threat towards someone, whether the
> Foundation is their employer or not, should be grounds for moderation or
> banning.
>
> On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 4:14 PM, Dan Rosenthal 
> wrote:
>
> > Hey Rogol:
> >
> > "Alternatively,
> > perhaps you would prefer me to ask your line manager whether this is the
> > sort of behaviour that she expects you to exhibit in a public forum."
> >
> > This is the kind of "unconstructive" behavior the list is talking about.
> I
> > fail to see how threatening to tattle to someone's manager, because they
> > disagreed with you about the wording of your posts in public, is either
> > constructive or the "sort of behavior" one would "expect you to exhibit
> in
> > a public forum." But then again, I'd venture to guess you knew that
> > already.
> >
> > Cheers.
> >
> > Dan Rosenthal
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 12:31 PM, Samuel Klein 
> wrote:
> >
> > > Thoughtful, practical, good. Thank you.
> > >
> > > On Aug 22, 2017 9:03 PM, "John Mark Vandenberg" 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi list members,
> > >
> > > The list admins (hereafter 'we', being Austin, Asaf, Shani and I, your
> > > humble narrator) regularly receive complaints about the frequent
> > > posters on this list, as well as about the unpleasant atmosphere some
> > > posters (some of them frequent) create.
> > >
> > > It is natural that frequent posters will say specific things that more
> > > frequently annoy other list members, but often the complaints are due
> > > to the volume of messages rather than the content of the messages.
> > >
> > > We are floating some suggestions aimed specifically at reducing the
> > > volume, hopefully motivating frequent posters to self-moderate more,
> > > but these proposed limits are actually intending to increasing the
> > > quality of the discourse without heavy subjective moderation.
> > >
> > > The first proposal impacts all posters to this list, and the last
> > > three proposals are aimed at providing a more clear framework within
> > > which criticism and whistle-blowing are permitted, but that critics
> > > are prevented from drowning out other discussions. The bandwidth that
> > > will be given to critics should be established in advance, reducing
> > > need to use subjective moderation of the content when a limit to the
> > > volume will often achieve the same result.
> > > --
> > >
> > > Proposal #1: Monthly 'soft quota' reduced from 30 to 15
> > >
> > > The existing soft quota of 30 posts per person has practically never
> > > been exceeded in the past year, and yet many list subscribers still
> > > clearly feel that a few individuals overwhelm the list. This suggests
> > > the current quota is too high.
> > >
> > > A review of the stats at
> > > https://stats.wikimedia.org/mail-lists/wikimedia-l.html show very few
> > > people go over 15 in a month, and quite often the reason for people
> > > exceeding 15 per month is because they are replying to other list
> > > members who have already exceeded 15 per month, and sometimes they are
> > > repeatedly directly or indirectly asking the person to stop repeating
> > > themselves to allow some space for other list members also have their
> > > opinion heard.
> > > --
> > >
> > > Proposal #2: Posts by globally banned people not permitted
> > >
> > > As WMF-banned people are already banned from mailing lists, this
> > > proposal is to apply the same ‘global’ approach to any people who have
> > > been globally banned by the community according to the
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_bans policy.
> > >
> > > This proposal does not prevent proxying, or canvassing, or “meat
> > > puppetry” as defined by English Wikipedia policy.  The list admins
> > > would prefer that globally banned people communicate their grievances
> > > via established members of our community who can guide them, rather
> > > than the list admins initially guiding these globally banned people on
> > > how to revise their posts so they are suitable for this audience, and
> > > then required to block them when they do not follow advice.  The role
> > > of list moderators is clearer and simpler if we are only patrolling
> > > the boundaries and not repeatedly personally engaged with helping
> > > globally banned users.
> > > --
> > >
> > > Proposal #3: Identity of an account locked / blocked / banned by two
> > > Wikimedia 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Wikimédia France - informations sur la situation actuelle

[Craig Franklin]

I am not closely familiar with the issuse at WMFR right now, and I would
suggest that those here that speak French probably already have a strong
view on this, and those who do not probably do not know enough to have an
educated view on what is happening.  With that being said, if WMFR staff
are being harassed, abused, or otherwise threatened by members of the
community, I am glad that the chapter is looking after it's staff and
taking steps to protect them.  Let us just hope that such measures are not
also used to stigmatise or silence those who have offered reasoned
criticisms of the chapter board's actions.

Cheers,
Craig

2017-07-12 9:24 GMT+10:00 Natacha Rault :

> Hi James,
>
> We are working on a translation, but are quite exhausted as recent events
> develop.
>
> Sorry for the delay…
>
> Nattes à chat / Natacha
>
>
> > Le 12 juil. 2017 à 00:47, James Heilman  a écrit :
> >
> > Chris do we have an EN copy of the timeline.
> >
> > 2017-07-11 16:25 GMT-06:00 Chris Keating :
> >
> >> I thought this email from Wikimedia France was worth wider circulation
> >> within the movement.
> >>
> >> Topics covered include:
> >> * How WMFr feels community members are "destabilising and denigrating"
> >> the chapter, and how Wikimedia France is responding by expelling some
> >> of those people from the organisation, threatening them with legal
> >> action, and temporarily closing its email discussion list
> >> * Accusations that Christophe Henner has personally manipulated the
> >> FDC process to cut WMFR's funding
> >> * Also, a statement from WMFR that the WMF is also considering
> >> withdrawing WMFr's chapter agreement
> >>
> >> I recommend reading the whole email in conjunction with this timeline:
> >> https://www.mathisbenguigui.eu/wikimedia-timeline/
> >>
> >> It really is remarkable. I was lost for words on reading it, and I am
> >> sure that you will be as well.
> >>
> >> Frankly, unless there is prompt and wide-ranging change of the
> >> leadership of Wikimedia France, I think that withdrawing WMFR's
> >> chapter agreement is probably by far the best thing that the WMF can
> >> do. I hope a better solution can be reached in the meantime.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Chris
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -- Forwarded message --
> >> From: CA Wikimédia France 
> >> Date: 2017-07-11 21:25 GMT+01:00
> >> Subject: Wikimédia France - informations sur la situation actuelle
> >> To: "M. Chris KEATING" 
> >>
> >>
> >> Chers membres de Wikimédia France,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Depuis plusieurs mois et particulièrement ces dernières semaines,
> >> quelques membres de la communauté wikimédienne ont violemment pris à
> >> partie des salariés de l’association et des membres du conseil
> >> d’administration, et ceci d’une façon irrationnelle, irresponsable, et
> >> à certains titres répréhensible par la loi.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Cette action de déstabilisation et de dénigrement non seulement n’a
> >> aucun fondement sérieux ou légitime, mais elle contrevient aux règles
> >> et valeurs du mouvement Wikimédia.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Face aux excès et aux mensonges de ces détracteurs, devant leur refus
> >> du dialogue et leur mépris des règles qui régissent notre gouvernance,
> >> nous avons pris plusieurs résolutions que nous tenions à porter à
> >> votre connaissance.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> En premier lieu, nous condamnons très fermement les propos diffamants
> >> qui ont été publiquement diffusés et relayés, notamment sur les
> >> réseaux sociaux, et qui portent atteinte au respect des personnes et à
> >> la dignité humaine, en recourant parfois aux parallèles les plus
> >> douteux. C’est indigne, c’est inexcusable, et cela doit être banni de
> >> notre communauté, sauf à perdre le sens de toute valeur et de tout bon
> >> sens.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> La récente consultation menée auprès de l’ensemble de nos membres a
> >> d’ailleurs confirmé l’exaspération et l’incompréhension de beaucoup
> >> d’entre vous quant à ces pratiques de dénigrement qui portent atteinte
> >> à l’image de notre association et de nos projets.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Les violences morales et les dérives de quelques-uns, alors même
> >> qu’ils ont toujours été considérés avec égard, ne sauraient mettre à
> >> mal une œuvre collective dont la bonne marche repose, une fois encore,
> >> sur le respect des personnes et des règles qui encadrent notre
> >> activité.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> A quel titre ces quelques personnes auraient-elles le pouvoir
> >> d’inventer une crise de confiance ou de remettre en cause ces règles ?
> >> Aucun. Sont-elles détentrices d’une autorité supérieure sur notre
> >> collectif, que nous veillons à accompagner le mieux possible ? Non !
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Notre mission première est d’assurer l’intégrité de notre association
> >> et de nos projets ainsi que la protection des salariés (ce qui est une
> >> obligation légale du 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What to do when the WMF is stingy with the community?

[Craig Franklin]

I'm afraid I don't really see the logic in this.  Even if we assume for a
moment that the WMF is sitting on top of an enormous, inexhaustible pile of
cash, it doesn't make sense that it should just splash that money around on
community initiatives without carefully assessing whether it is the best
possible use for that money, and whether additional cash would actually
lead to increased benefits.  I'm quite skeptical about the idea that flying
an additional bunch of people for a holiday in Germany, at considerable
expense to the movement, is really the most cost-effective way to develop
Wikidata.  It seems especially odd to me that one would be upset about an
event like this not being adequately funded, when it appears that the
organisers got 100% of the funding that they requested.

Cheers,
Craig

On 29 June 2017 at 04:39, David Cuenca Tudela  wrote:

> Dariusz,
>
> What is the point of spending the funds frugally if our mission is not
> accomplished? Why do we need to compare an event of this magnitude to a
> small chapter?
>
> The money is there to be used, not to sit on top of it without knowing what
> to do with it. If the WMF doesn't know what to do with it, at least it
> should go back to the community in the form of grants like this one. And if
> that is not feasible, then it should be given back to donnors. And if that
> is not feasible, then we should stop taking so much money because it seems
> that we don't need it. Or do we?
>
> Cheers,
> Micru
>
> On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 8:02 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak 
> wrote:
>
> > hi David,
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 7:52 PM, David Cuenca Tudela 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Recently the review for the Wikidata conference grant application has
> > > started, and I have complained that the funds allocated are insuficient
> > to
> > > cover the needs of the grants. The requested amount for the grants was
> > > 36,000 EUR, but in my opinion that should be at least 72,000 EUR.
> > >
> >
> > You realize that this is pretty much what an annual budget of a small
> > Wikimedia chapter is, right?
> >
> >
> > > I have the feeling that the WMF is sitting on a pile of money just
> giving
> > > breadcrumbs to the community, and the community has to suffer in
> silence
> > > about this stinginess.
> > >
> >
> > The WMF, just as the movement, has a responsibility to our donors, to
> spend
> > the money wisely and frugally. We surely do not always do so, but we try.
> >
> >
> >
> > > Why are there two standards? One standard seems to be that everything
> > that
> > >
> > the WMF needs to allocate can go unsupervised, whereas another standard
> > > seems to apply to community activities where every penny is so
> supervised
> > > that it becomes a pain in the ass to organize anything big.
> > >
> >
> > The WMF's spending is actually reviewed and commented on by the community
> > and the FDC.
> >
> >
> >
> > > The Wikidata Conference needs more funds to be a success and I think
> that
> > > in the grand scheme of things, the money requested is just peanuts
> > compared
> > > to the money that the WMF has collected from donors.
> > >
> >
> > I believe we have a responsibility to treat our donor's contributions
> with
> > respect and care. I don't think that 70k Euro is peanuts, and rarely you
> > will find any foundation or NGO considering such an amount to be
> > insignificant.
> >
> >  best,
> >
> > dariusz
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Non-WMF funding sources for community work

[Craig Franklin]

Well, before we talk about funding the Signpost through the WMF or through
a non-WMF source, lets ask if that is what the folks who actually work on
the Signpost would like?  There's a pretty big assumption here that the
writers there would like to be paid in the manner of a college newspaper,
with all the responsibility that goes with that.

It seems to me that the Signpost has a lot of problems, but they're not the
sort of problems easily fixed by throwing money at them.

Cheers,
Craig

On 8 May 2017 at 16:28, Pine W  wrote:

> A distinction that I see between funding the WMF blog from funding the
> *Signpost
> *is that the former is WMF corporate communications and the latter is
> community journalism. It would be difficult to maintain journalistic
> integrity and independence at the *Signpost *if its staff feel like their
> paychecks (which would probably be similar to what part-time reporters make
> at US college newspapers) are in any way dependent on pleasing WMF. (I'm
> not saying that the *Signpost *should go out of its way to be critical, but
> it should be as independent as realistically possible.)
>
> Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A proposed project, Wikifiction

[Craig Franklin]

It looks like discussion on this died out years ago; a user has recently
removed the rejected tag citing "discussion" (I'm not sure where), but it
looks like this particular idea ran out of steam long ago.

Cheers,
Craig

On 10 May 2017 at 15:28, George Ho  wrote:

> The proposed project, Wikifiction, would collect a lot of information about
> existing fictional material. It should not collect fanfiction or original
> fictional material, which would be disallowed by the proposed project.
>
> Unlike Wikia, Wikifiction would be ad-free and easier to load.
>
> Link: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikifiction_%28In-
> universe_encyclopedia%29
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] Chapter De-Recognition: Wikimedia Philippines

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Kirill,

On 26 April 2017 at 02:31, Kirill Lokshin  wrote:

>
> Having said that, there are certain issues that can prevent a smooth
> transition from a chapter to a user group.  In particular, any individuals
> considered to have personal responsibility for an outstanding compliance
> issue -- which means, generally speaking, the actual signatories of a
> chapter or grant agreement, but could potentially include every member of
> the governing board in the case of an incorporated affiliate -- are not
> eligible to serve as signatories of a new user group agreement until the
> original compliance issue has been resolved.
>

On this point, how would this apply in situations such as WMPH's where the
group has been disendorsed and can no longer move back towards compliance?
I don't see at this point how for instance folks involved with that chapter
might "resolve" any issues in order to participate in a user group down the
road.  Possibly this is a hypothetical situation.

Generally speaking, I do feel that it's probably not helpful for those of
us who are not familiar with the specific situation at hand to be making
public statements laying blame or sharing opinions.  Most of us (myself
included) probably do not know the full story here.

Cheers,
Craig
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing the Hardware donation program

[Craig Franklin]

This is a fantastic idea.  Well done to everyone involved.

Cheers,
Craig

On 17 March 2017 at 15:06, Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce a small new program called
> the Hardware Donation Program.  In a word, it is a program designed to
> donate depreciated (but fully working) hardware from the WMF office to
> community members who would put it to good use.
>
> The program, including instructions on how to apply, is described on Meta,
> here:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_donation_program
>
> Please read the information carefully. I especially encourage you to pay
> attention to the program's design considerations, which determine most of
> the decisions we'll be making.
>
> We currently have approximately 20 laptops ready to be donated.
> Applications are welcome.
>
> The upcoming Wikimedia Conference in Berlin (in about two weeks) would be
> an excellent opportunity to deliver some of those laptops in person to
> approved applications, so if you think you might be interested, I'd
> encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
>
> Please also help spread the word about this program, by forwarding this
> e-mail to other Wikimedia lists you're on, and posting the link to the
> program page on village pumps and *community* (not public) social media
> channels or other communication forms you use.
>
> Special thanks to User:Anntinomy from Wikimedia Ukraine, who had the idea
> of asking about possible donation of older machines from WMF, and inspired
> this program.
>
> Mini-FAQ:
>
> Q: Why are you doing this?
> A: WMF's Office IT determines a lifetime for work machines, and regularly
> replaces older machines.  This creates a stock of older, working machines,
> that are available for donation.  We can donate them locally to San
> Francisco charities, but figure that if we can find low-cost ways to
> deliver them to our own community members, that's so much better.
>
> Q: Am I eligible?
> A: Read the fine program documentation.
>
> Q: If I'm eligible, am I guaranteed a donated laptop?
> A: no.
>
> Q: Once these 20 laptops are donated, will there be others?
> A: yes, eventually.
>
> Q: How can you ensure people would use the machines for Wikimedia purposes?
> A: We can't.  We'll be making a good-effort assessment of the likelihood of
> Wikimedia use, and make a decision to donate (or not) the equipment. Once
> donated, the equipment no longer belongs to WMF. We encourage, but can't
> enforce, reporting on impact achieved using the equipment.
>
> Q: I need a few laptops for my event in two weeks! Can I get them through
> this program?
> A: No. Read the fine program documentation.
>
> Q: I'm really happy about this!
> A: So are we! :)
>
> Q: I'm really angry about this!
> A: So it goes.
>
> Q: I have more questions!
> A: Hit 'Reply'. :)
>
> Cheers,
>
>Asaf
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] AMD petition

[Craig Franklin]

Hi James,

Again, could you clarify how this is related to Wikimedia?  If there's a
direct connection I am not seeing it.

Cheers,
Craig

On 14 March 2017 at 09:49, James Salsman  wrote:

> Recent leaks suggest almost all commercial x86 processors have been
> compromised by closed-source back doors which enable eavesdropping and DRM
> copy protection which in turn inhibits fair use.
>
> On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 4:41 PM Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Jim,
> >
> > Could you clarify the relationship with Wikimedia on this? I'm missing
> the
> > link.
> >
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > 2017-03-13 23:03 GMT+01:00 James Salsman :
> >
> > > Please join me in asking AMD to open-source the PSP (backdoor) in
> > > their chips -- a chance to regain secure x86 hardware.
> > >
> > > https://www.change.org/p/advanced-micro-devices-amd-
> > release-the-source-code-for-the-secure-processor-psp
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Craig Franklin]

On 4 March 2017 at 18:38, Pine W  wrote:

> It seems to me that Anna is interested in improving the situation rather
> than having a battle with the community. I'd like to let the improvement
> process happen. Please have some patience, and let's be grateful that WMF
> is trying to make the situation better. I would rather see a thoughtfully
> re-designed report in 2 weeks than pour gasoline on the fire and have
> another report come out on Monday that also has problems.
>
>
Indeed.  I have to say that for the most part this conversation has been
*exactly* how I think these sometimes difficult discussions should take
place.  Everyone has been respectful, everyone has been willing to give up
a little ground, and we're moving towards a situation that more people are
happy with.  Anna and the Communications folks deserve credit for that.

Cheers,
Craig
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Craig Franklin]

I just wanted to add one last thing; thanks to Zachary McCune as well for
coming and engaging with the community on this.  I imagine that it may have
felt like marching into the jaws of the beast to come and deal with the
criticism, so I have to give him much respect for coming and engaging.  I
hope to see more of this rather than less in the future.

Cheers,
Craig

On 2 March 2017 at 19:09, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net> wrote:

> Hi Anna,
>
> Thanks for offering your thoughts on this (and I mean that sincerely).
> Lord knows that sometimes the temperature on this list and in other venues
> rises to a point where no communication of substance can occur, and all
> that is achieved is that everyone walks away with bruised egos and hurt
> feelings.  Obviously this is not good.
>
> But, let me turn around your email; it's also pretty demoralising for us
> on the other side of the equation when we're described as a bunch who
> 'wants great talent to walk' because we see 'no point to the foundation
> anyway'.  Especially in this particular thread where I see naught but
> respectful yet widespread criticism of the tone of some of the annual
> report.  I *know* you're not trying to shut down the discussion here, or
> retreat into a defensive position with your fingers stick in your ears, but
> that is what it *felt* like reading your email, and that is just as much a
> problem.
>
> I concur with you that the way that the community communicates with the
> Foundation needs to improve.  But from the Foundation's side, you need to
> make it easier for us to communicate in a constructive way.  That includes
> not having discussions around things like values sequestered away on some
> corner at Meta in a densely written essay that might be difficult for
> non-English speakers or those not familiar with the philosophical issues
> around values and corporate ethics to engage fully.
>
> To make this email not all doom-and-gloom, I want to agree with something
> that SJ said; the actual visual presentation and layout of the report is
> fantastic.  Very striking, easy to read, minimalist without being sparse.
> My hat is off to whomever in the Communication team was involved with that
> side of things.
>
> Cheers,
> Craig
>
> On 2 March 2017 at 17:46, Anna Stillwell <astillw...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> We (people who work and volunteer at the WMF) need a way to get feedback.
>> We need a way to be accountable and responsive.  We all want that. And I
>> actually believe that we are all working in good faith toward that. *And*
>> the cumulative impact of the way people at the Foundation get this
>> feedback
>> begins to feel like public, collective punishment. And that dynamic, one
>> that we all tend to participate in, is driving talented people away from
>> the foundation.
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Anna,

Thanks for offering your thoughts on this (and I mean that sincerely).
Lord knows that sometimes the temperature on this list and in other venues
rises to a point where no communication of substance can occur, and all
that is achieved is that everyone walks away with bruised egos and hurt
feelings.  Obviously this is not good.

But, let me turn around your email; it's also pretty demoralising for us on
the other side of the equation when we're described as a bunch who 'wants
great talent to walk' because we see 'no point to the foundation anyway'.
Especially in this particular thread where I see naught but respectful yet
widespread criticism of the tone of some of the annual report.  I *know*
you're not trying to shut down the discussion here, or retreat into a
defensive position with your fingers stick in your ears, but that is what
it *felt* like reading your email, and that is just as much a problem.

I concur with you that the way that the community communicates with the
Foundation needs to improve.  But from the Foundation's side, you need to
make it easier for us to communicate in a constructive way.  That includes
not having discussions around things like values sequestered away on some
corner at Meta in a densely written essay that might be difficult for
non-English speakers or those not familiar with the philosophical issues
around values and corporate ethics to engage fully.

To make this email not all doom-and-gloom, I want to agree with something
that SJ said; the actual visual presentation and layout of the report is
fantastic.  Very striking, easy to read, minimalist without being sparse.
My hat is off to whomever in the Communication team was involved with that
side of things.

Cheers,
Craig

On 2 March 2017 at 17:46, Anna Stillwell  wrote:

> We (people who work and volunteer at the WMF) need a way to get feedback.
> We need a way to be accountable and responsive.  We all want that. And I
> actually believe that we are all working in good faith toward that. *And*
> the cumulative impact of the way people at the Foundation get this feedback
> begins to feel like public, collective punishment. And that dynamic, one
> that we all tend to participate in, is driving talented people away from
> the foundation.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Craig Franklin]

Indeed, I have to agree too. I don't disagree with the notion that the
themes covered (providing educational materials to vulnerable young people,
providing our information in many languages, and  are important, but the
way they come across is pretty preachy and overtly political.  We're not
here to directly solve the problem of climate change or fight visa
revocations, we're about providing free and neutral information to people
in their own languages.  This sort of thing can be pretty exclusionary and
disempowering if you do not agree with the rather unsubtle political
stances being taken.  It also just provides more fuel for those arguing
that Wikipedia is a left-wing advocacy organisation rather than a credible,
neutral, and trustworthy source of bias-free information.

In this case, I'm afraid that if the Communications team wanted to
highlight the interesting work being done by Wikimedians, they have gotten
it wrong, because they've highlighted the causes rather than the
individuals.  I suspect that it is too late to change the 2016 report, but
I hope that they are a little more mindful for the 2017 report.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin


On 2 March 2017 at 10:31, Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote:

> Why should that feature in the WMF's annual report, though?
>
> I also agree that this has been over-politicised, whether intentionally or
> not. :-(
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> > On 1 Mar 2017, at 21:13, Dan Rosenthal <swatjes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Florence -- Trump's executive orders also involved the revocation of
> > non-immigrant visas. I don't think the choice of picture is inappropriate
> > at all.  In fact, I think it highlights just how poorly planned and
> > executed the executive order was in the first place.
> >
> > Whether the sitenotice is a good idea in the first place, separate
> > question.
> >
> >
> > Dan Rosenthal
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 3:54 PM, Nathan <nawr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> It's an unambiguously political statement. Not political in the sense of
> >> "everything we do is political" - but in the sense of opposing the
> policies
> >> of a single national government as promulgated by a head of state and
> >> supported by one political party in a deeply polarized and contentious
> >> political environment. I expect that any WMF official responsible for
> this
> >> report will acknowledge this is true, as there appears to be no way to
> >> honestly claim otherwise. In that case I hope they can provide a well
> >> reasoned and passionate defense of this decision and why the WMF should
> >> continue in this vein.
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[Wikimedia-l] WMF Global Bans

[Craig Franklin]

This is a good point Pete.  I only know the full circumstances of a couple
of the global bans, but in each case it is based on non-public information
that we would not want going public.  Just because each discussion is not
subject to a yes/no decision on Meta, does not mean there is no community
involvement.  Generally though, I want to see more leadership from the
Foundation in working against antisocial users, not less.

I'd additionally add that the circumstances around some of these bans it
may be the case that the Foundation would be criminally negligent in *not*
stepping in and taking action.  In this case running extensive community
consultation where there can only be one result would be a waste of time,
both for the Foundation and also for the community.

The only suggestion for improvement I'd have is that in a situation like we
have currently where Maggie is sitting in two roles that both should play a
separate oversight role in this process, an extra set of eyes is
temporarily empowered to review and approve.  Not that I don't have
complete faith in James, Maggie and Michelle to make a fair and competent
decision, but if it normally requires four separate approvals, transient
staffing issues shouldn't be knocking the requirement down to three (or
two, or one).

Cheers,
Craig



On 18 February 2017 at 06:56, Pete Forsyth  wrote:

> I want to chime in briefly, since I have direct personal experience in
> WMF0-initiated bans.
>
> Not long ago, Support & Safety took an action to exclude somebody for whom
> I, as a volunteer, felt some responsibility. Initially, I felt that there
> was inadequate communication with me, and as a result the action put me in
> a difficult position. I brought the issue to James Alexander's attention.
> He took the time to discuss the issue in some depth; he acknowledged that
> it should have been handled better by WMF, and assured me that the
> experience would inform future efforts. If we're going to be using letter
> grades, I would James and his colleagues an "A" on the debrief, and I am
> confident that he and his colleagues have done/will do better after the
> fact.
>
> There are good reasons for some bans to be handled by volunteers, and good
> reasons for some bans to be handled entirely by professionals. There are
> also some incidents that clearly fall into a grey area where cooperation is
> needed, and it's important that such incidents be handled with a
> sensitivity to their unique qualities, which requires trust in the various
> people involved to judge how much public communication is appropriate.
>
> Final point -- all of this is now very much a departure from the subject
> line and the original topic, which were about permissions *for WMF staff*.
> If discussion on bans continues, I'd suggest introducing a new subject line.
>
> -Pete
>
> [[User:Peteforsyth]]
>
>
>
> On 02/17/2017 11:49 AM, Adrian Raddatz wrote:
>
>> I'm not convinced of the problem. The WMF global bans are designed to step
>> in where community processes would not be appropriate. From their page on
>> Meta: "global bans are carried out ... to address multi-project
>> misconduct,
>> to help ensure the trust and safety of the users of all Wikimedia sites,
>> or
>> to assist in preventing prohibited behavior". The last two reasons should
>> not be dealt with by the community; our volunteers do not have the
>> resources, qualifications, or liability required to deal with them. But
>> perhaps "multi-project misconduct" could be handled by the WMF
>> differently.
>> Instead of imposing a WMF ban, they could build a case for a community
>> ban,
>> and follow that process instead. As I said though, I'm not convinced that
>> there is a problem with how things are done currently. Some things
>> shouldn't be handled by community governance.
>>
>> Adrian Raddatz
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Pine W  wrote:
>>
>> How would you suggest modifying the process so that it is compatible with
>>> community governance? Note that while I'm dissatisfied with the system
>>> that
>>> is in place now, I doubt that there will be a perfect solution that is
>>> free
>>> from all possible criticism and drama. I would give the current system a
>>> grade of "C-" for transparency and a grade of "F" for its compatibility
>>> with community governance. I don't expect ether grade to get to an "A",
>>> but
>>> I would be satisfied with "B" for transparency and "B+" for community
>>> governance.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Pine
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 11:21 AM, Adrian Raddatz 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Wikimedia isn't a country, the global ban policy isn't a law. Any such
 metaphors are honestly a bit ridiculous. The WMF bans are, for the most
 part, sensitive. And that means that they all need to be, because if you
 have a list of reasons that you can disclose, then any bans without

>>> comment
>>>
 are going to be on a very short 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF advanced permissions for employees

[Craig Franklin]

I agree completely with both Robert and Marc.

James, it is my understanding that every global ban must be signed off by
the Legal department.  Is this correct?  If so, not only would this provide
a check against the hypothetical situation of someone being globally banned
in a fit of pique, but it would also confirm the seriousness of whatever it
was that got them banned.  Obviously knowingly proxying for a user whose
conduct has been so reprehensible as to require the intervention of
multiple departments in the WMF is pretty serious business and would lead
to consequences of some sort, and that appears to be the scenario that
James is referring to in the link that Fae provided.

Cheers,
Craig



On 17 February 2017 at 05:55, marc  wrote:

> On 2017-02-16 14:01, Robert Fernandez wrote:
>
>> If WMF staff members are blocking volunteers out of revenge{{cn}}
>>
>
> We would indeed [have bigger problems].  Thankfully, there is absolutely
> no indication that this ever happened beyond vague musings and specious
> allegations made on the basis of "I don't know why that person was banned,
> so it must be because WMF is Evil".
>
> -- Coren / Marc
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Moderation duties

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Richard,

I know that at times keeping on top of a mailing list as "spicy" of this
one must have been a tough job.  It's one that you've done well, in this
subscriber's opinion.  Thanks for your service.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 6 February 2017 at 07:18, Richard Ames <rich...@ames.id.au> wrote:

> I've decided to relieve myself of the moderator job.
>
> The current moderators are listed at the bottom of the listinfo page at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
> Best wishes, Richard.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: stranded travelers offered asylum in Canada

[Craig Franklin]

Agreed.  Most of us are very concerned about the current state of affairs
in the United States, but if you want to discuss that there are plenty of
other venues where such discussion is not grossly off topic.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 30 January 2017 at 09:26, Thyge <ltl.pri...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I hope the above is quite off-topic for this list.
> Regards
> Sir48-Thyge
>
>
> 2017-01-29 23:58 GMT+01:00 James Salsman <jsals...@gmail.com>:
>
> > https://www.yahoo.com/news/canada-offers-temporary-home-
> > those-stranded-trump-order-221401138.html
> >
> > I strongly disagree that Bannon is not a if not the primarily
> > responsible party for both the SSL certificate revocation threats and
> > the travel ban:
> >
> > http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/steve-bannon-personally-
> > overruled-dhs-decision-not-to-include-green-card-holders-in-
> > travel-ban-cnn/
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns in general

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Pine,

Thanks for raising this task.  There is more to a disaster plan than just
smuggling backups of the content itself out though.  The projects have
grown to a size now where they cannot be run by some guy out of his garage
using a backup; we need to think about how we can move or protect things
like server operations, organisational support, and other "real world"
activities in the event that it's no longer possible to continue with
business as usual.

As I said, I hope that there is a document somewhere internally within the
Foundation where they have considered this scenario and how they'd react to
it.  Now might be a good time for them to dust off that document and review
it, just in case.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 28 January 2017 at 18:52, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have created a Phabricator task here:
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T156544
>
> Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Additional information on community health initiative and next steps

[Craig Franklin]

This is excellent news!  I am particularly excited by the idea of a better
suite of blocking tools, which will hopefully save admins from playing a
game of whack-a-mole with particularly tenacious vandals and harassers.

Cheers,
Craig

On 27 January 2017 at 06:37, Danny Horn  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> We have an update on the community health initiative mentioned following
> the Board's Statement on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe
> Spaces.[1]
>
> As Patrick Earley from the Support and Safety team noted on Wikimedia-l
> last month[2], we’ve been developing a community health initiative to help
> address the harassment issues discussed in the Board's statement. We
> believe an important aspect of our efforts to combat harassment is
> providing the volunteer community with better tools to more effectively
> respond to instances of harassment as they arise.
>
> We’re excited to announce that the Craig Newmark Foundation and craigslist
> Charitable Fund have agreed to provide initial funding to help the
> Wikimedia Foundation begin this work. The two seed restricted grants,
> collectively a gift of $500,000, will enable the Foundation to scale up our
> support of these efforts and provide us with the resources to do it right.
>
> In preparing for this work, we’ve been discussing issues with the current
> tools and processes with active administrators and functionaries. These
> discussions have resulted in requested improvements in several key areas
> where admins and functionaries see immediate needs—better reporting systems
> for volunteers, smarter ways to detect and address problems early, and
> improved tools and workflows related to the blocking process.
>
> In the coming months, the Community Tech team, working with the Support and
> Safety team, will be expanding their work on development of these tools.
> The long-term goal for this effort is to build up the toolbox that
> volunteers can use to combat harassment and other disruptive behavior on
> our wikis.
>
> Specifically, there are four areas where we think new tools will help:
>
> 1. Detection - Improve our detection and prevention tools, like
> AbuseFilter, and build new features to detect aggressive behavior.
>
> 2. Reporting - Design ways to report harassment that are less chaotic, more
> respectful of privacy, and less stressful than the current workflow.
>
> 3. Evaluating - Offer admins tools that make evaluating harassment reports
> easier, so that they can make good decisions.
>
> 4. Blocking - When someone is blocked from the site, we can make it more
> difficult for them to return under a different name or IP address.
>
> Of course, these improvements need to be made with the participation and
> support of the volunteers who will be using the tools. We don't want to
> create new systems and workflows that create more work for an already
> overburdened team of wiki administrators. We want to make these tasks less
> grueling and able to more consistently produce effective outcomes.
>
> Work in other areas - such as project policies and better training for
> administrators and functionaries - still needs to be done in order to
> comprehensively tackle the overall issue of harassment and harmful behavior
> on the projects. However, we believe that improving and building better
> tools for volunteers currently most engaged in this effort is a necessary
> first step.
>
> We welcome your feedback on this approach, and invite you to join us in
> thanking Craig and his charitable organizations for their support of this
> initiative!
>
> We’ll be sharing regular updates about the progress of this work in the
> coming months. If you have any questions in the meantime, please reach out
> to us on the talk page of the Meta-Wiki page where you can find more
> information: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_health_initiative
>
> You can also find more details about this announcement in this blog post:
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/26/community-health-initiative-grant
>
> Danny Horn (Product Manager, Community Tech) and Patrick Earley (Manager,
> Support & Safety)
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_noticeboard/November_2016_-_Statement_on_Healthy_Community_Culture,_
> Inclusivity,_and_Safe_Spaces
>
> [2]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-
> December/085668.html
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Delegation of policy-making authority" resolution

[Craig Franklin]

As frustrating as the drama was at the beginning of the year for us, I'd
prefer to get one well considered story from someone like Dariusz, rather
than a mishmash of uncoordinated replies that have some inconsequential
contradictions in them for people to obsess over.  Sometimes too much
communication begins to obscure the message.

Cheers,
Craig

On 21 December 2016 at 13:44, Robert Fernandez 
wrote:

> "My perspective is that the 2015 board was not particularly responsive to
> community (or WMF employees') questions or input, including questions and
> input regarding human resources and governance matters. (For example, I
> still haven't seen a good explanation of why WMF shouldn't undergo a
> governance review in the wake of Doc James' dismissal; WMF has appeared to
> try to brush that issue under the rug rather than address it with the level
> of transparency and rigor that I feel it deserves.)"
>
> Have to agree with Pine here.  Some members like Dariusz Jemielniak went
> out of their way to attempt to address community concerns, but as a whole
> their response to the craziness of the last year seems to be silence and
> platitudes.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 10:14 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Hi Christophe,
> >
> > I wish it was true that the Board is required to answer the community's
> > questions, but that isn't the case. WMF isn't a membership organization,
> > there isn't a policy that requires the Board to be responsive to
> community
> > input and questions, and the community has limited ability to influence
> the
> > Board (though I think it is wise for the Board to listen).
> >
> > My perspective is that the 2015 board was not particularly responsive to
> > community (or WMF employees') questions or input, including questions and
> > input regarding human resources and governance matters. (For example, I
> > still haven't seen a good explanation of why WMF shouldn't undergo a
> > governance review in the wake of Doc James' dismissal; WMF has appeared
> to
> > try to brush that issue under the rug rather than address it with the
> level
> > of transparency and rigor that I feel it deserves.) Thankfully the level
> of
> > responsiveness has improved since 2015, but it's incorrect to say that
> the
> > Board is required to respond to community questions.
> >
> > The vague nature of the resolution as MZMcBride quotes it makes me
> > uncomfortable. I would suggest revising the language of this resolution
> so
> > that it is clearer which kinds of changes the Board will require the
> > Executive Director to submit to the WMF Board for approval. I realize
> that
> > it may seem expedient to grant the Executive Director wide latitude, but
> I
> > feel that the Board should provide more specificity, particularly given
> > what happened when the Board was apparently so lax with the supervision
> of
> > the previous Executive Director.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Pine
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 12:48 AM, Christophe Henner <
> chen...@wikimedia.org
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hey,
> > >
> > > Basically it's making the legal team life's easier when they need to do
> > > small and/or quick changes. They don't have to go through the whole
> > > resolution process to change a comma.
> > >
> > > We're still informed and are talking with staff about those changes.
> > >
> > > As for responsibility, we decided to delegate responsibility, but at
> the
> > > end of the day we still will have to answer the community's question :)
> > >
> > > Have a good day
> > >
> > > Christophe
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Le 20 déc. 2016 6:50 AM, "MZMcBride"  a écrit :
> > >
> > > This is probably of interest to this list.
> > >
> > > https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Delegation_of_policy-
> > making_authority
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Delegation of policy-making authority
> > >
> > > This was approved on December 13, 2016 by the Board of Trustees.
> > >
> > > Whereas, the Board of Trustees has traditionally approved certain
> global
> > > Wikimedia Foundation policies (such as the Privacy Policy and Terms of
> > > Use) as requested during the July 4, 2004 Board meeting
> > > ;
> > >
> > > Whereas, the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director has authority to
> > > conduct the affairs of the Wikimedia Foundation, which includes
> adopting
> > > and implementing policies;
> > >
> > > Resolved, the Board hereby delegates the authority to adopt, alter, and
> > > revoke policies to the Executive Director, who may further delegate
> such
> > > authority to Wikimedia Foundation staff as they deem appropriate;
> > >
> > > Resolved, the Board may continue to review and approve policies for the
> > > Wikimedia Foundation upon request to the Executive Director or as
> > required
> > > by law.
> > >
> > > Approve
> > >
> > >Christophe Henner (Chair), Maria Sefidari (Vice Chair), Dariusz
> > >Jemielniak, Kelly 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] How should security of Wikimedia accounts be better?

[Craig Franklin]

I know it's been said many times, but two-factor authentication, mandatory
for accounts with advanced privileges and optionally available for everyone
else, would seem to be a logical step.  It's not foolproof, but it would go
a long way to making us less of a soft target.

Cheers,
Craig

On 12 November 2016 at 22:22, Fæ  wrote:

> Do any of the volunteers contributing to this list have ideas for
> changes that may make a significant difference to security?
>
> Yesterday saw Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia account getting hacked, in the
> process appearing to promote an organisation.[1] It was not the only
> account compromised. This is being analysed, though as there are
> security issues being examined, the analysis has not been made public
> so far; plus it's the weekend :-)
>
> Over the last few years, there have improvements on account set-up and
> choice of passwords, along with user suggestions for better account
> management. Users can also chose to use committed identities[2] to
> make account recovery easier, and are encouraged to use more secure
> passwords. Two-factor authentication,[3] such as using mobile phone
> text messages, has been suggested a few times by volunteers, and this
> might be a good moment to encourage the WMF to have better facilities
> built into the projects. We could even make two-factor identification
> a requirement for trusted users, such as administrators, important
> bots, and "high profile" accounts, where they may have special rights
> that could cause a fair amount of disruption if a hacked account were
> not identified quickly. Considering that some administrator accounts
> can lie dormant for many months without the actual user monitoring it,
> these could end up being far more disruptive than well-watched
> accounts like Jimmy's.
>
> We may want extra security to remain mostly optional, keeping our
> projects simple to access. Education of new volunteers and trusted
> users may be critical for making it effective, such as avoiding social
> hacking. A clearer understanding of what the community would want to
> see improved would probably help set development priorities.
>
> Links
> 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Compromised
> 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Committed_identity
> 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A new Wikipedia fork: InfoGalactic

[Craig Franklin]

So what you're saying is, Vox Day has created a "safe space" where his
circle of friends can reinforce each other's biases without interference
from the outside world?  Great.

Also, "Starlords".  Good grief.

Cheers,
Craig

On 11 October 2016 at 04:13, David Gerard  wrote:

> "INFOGALACTIC: an online encyclopedia without bias or thought police"
>
> Home page: http://infogalactic.com/info/Main_Page
> Announcement: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/10/project-big-fork-
> infogalactic.html
> Roadmap: http://infogalactic.com/info/Infogalactic:Roadmap
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FW: My final email

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Caitlin,

I know you've already answered Peter's original question, but are you able
to answer John's question as well?

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 17 August 2016 at 19:31, John Mark Vandenberg <jay...@gmail.com> wrote:

> What is https://www.pages04.net/ ?
>
> WMF has given them a copy of (a subset of..?) the donor email list, as
> this link has Peter's email address on the page:
>
> https://www.pages04.net/wikimedia/WMFUnsubscribe/Unsubscribe?spMailingID=
> 52077018=Mzk5NjI0Mzk2ODUS1=OTgyOTg3MDUyS0=
> OTgyOTg3MDUyS0
>
> If you dont want to try that link, the following will give you a
> general idea of the form donors are being directed to:
>
> https://www.pages04.net/wikimedia/WMFUnsubscribe/
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FW: My final email

[Craig Franklin]

Well, he *did* say it was his final email!

I'd imagine the unsubscribe link would get you off the "former donors we
can spam" list without removing you from this august list.

Cheers,
Craig

On 17 August 2016 at 18:52, Peter Southwood 
wrote:

> Is there any way to unsubscribe from these annoying and in my opinion
> misleading spam mails purporting to come from Jimmy Wales without
> unsubscribing from any other Wikimedia mailing lists or e-mail
> notifications?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> From: ji...@wikipedia.org [mailto:don...@wikimedia.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, 17 August 2016 10:01 AM
> To: peter.southw...@telkomsa.net
> Subject: My final email
>
>
>
> Inside this email: fun fact from Wikipedia
>
>
>
>
>   utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=1>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Peter,
>
> When the clock strikes midnight, our email fundraiser will end — but we
> haven't yet hit our goal. Please take one minute to renew your R 50 <
> https://donate.wikimedia.org/?utm_campaign=C1617_Email3;
> utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=2>  donation
> to Wikipedia.
>
> If all our past donors simply gave again today, we wouldn't have to worry
> about fundraising for the rest of the year.
>
> We’re a small nonprofit. We’re independent. We don’t run ads or sell
> services to our readers. Though our size requires us to maintain the server
> space and programming power of a top site, we are sustained by the support
> of our donors who give an average of about R 175. This year, will you take
> one minute to keep our work going?
>
>
>
>   utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=b1> R 50 »
>
>
>
>
>   utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=b2> R 100 »
>
>
>
>
>
>   utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=b3> R 300 »
>
>
>
>
>   utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=b4> Other »
>
>
>
>
>
>   utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=
> 5=50.00> Renew your donation: R 50 »
>
> Thank you,
> Jimmy Wales
> Wikipedia Founder
>
>
>
>   utm_medium=email=Appeal-JimmyQuote_source=
> sp52077018=35.00=en_id=7476197_id=4> DONATE NOW »
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> You are receiving this email at peter.southw...@telkomsa.net as a valued
> donor of the Wikimedia Foundation. If you do not wish to receive any future
> emails from the Wikimedia Foundation, unsubscribe instantly <
> https://www.pages04.net/wikimedia/WMFUnsubscribe/Unsubscribe?spMailingID=
> 52077018=Mzk5NjI0Mzk2ODUS1=OTgyOTg3MDUyS0=
> OTgyOTg3MDUyS0> .
>
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> P.O. ‌Box 98‌204
> Was‌hington, D‌C 200‌90-8204
> United S‌tates of America
>
> enZAC1617
>
>    Mzk5NjI0Mzk2ODUS1/0/OTgyOTg3MDUyS0/1/0>
>
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 2016.0.7752 / Virus Database: 4647/12824 - Release Date: 08/17/16
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2014-2015 now on-wiki

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Greg,

Just to expand a little on what John is saying here, I find it a little odd
that the information to separate out the cost of actually making trademark
applications, and the cost of legal consultants, has not been separated
out.  I confess I'm not that familiar with the rules of Form 990, but in my
experience it would be most irregular to aggregate two expenses as
disparate as that in a general purpose financial statement.

I'm also concerned by the lateness of the filing.  While I'm aware that the
relevant authorities are pretty generous with giving extensions when asked,
filing stuff late is a habit worth kicking.  Otherwise you are very
dependent on the goodwill of whomever you're filing with to avoid
unnecessary penalties.

On a brighter note, I definitely appreciate the work that you're doing to
get this information for us, so thank you for that.

Cheers,
Craig

On 5 June 2016 at 13:09, John Mark Vandenberg  wrote:

> On 5 Jun 2016 05:19, "Greg Varnum"  wrote:
> >
> >
> > John asked about filing and other fees paid by Jones Day, and if the fees
> were separate from consulting costs. Unfortunately, we don’t have an easy,
> quick way to divide the Jones Day expenses into registration fees and legal
> fees, but we can provide more information about where the costs came from.
> Each trademark application costs about $1,000–5,000 (sometimes more),
> including filing fees and attorney’s fees. The cost for each application
> depends on the country’s application fees, the country’s administrative
> hurdles, the breadth of protection we are seeking, whether we can reuse
> materials prepared for previous applications, and whether we encounter
> resistance from trademark offices or other trademark holders.
>
> Your response isnt clear, but it strongly implies the stated US$1.7M stated
> on page p.61 does include the fees paid by Jones Day to relevant government
> bodies around the world.  No surprise there.  But it is surprising that
> Jones Day doesnt provide detailed invoices that separate their own services
> from fees they have paid on the WMF's behalf.
>
> If the WMF doesnt know what the fees cost, the WMF does not know how much
> extra it paid for an external consultant to do the paperwork for them ... ?
>
> How much will it cost for someone to split the 1.7 M bill?
>
> Their relationship with WMF has come a long way since the 'pro bono' work
> that Jones Day did to recommend acquiring a trademark on a public domain
> logo (and somehow convincing many WMF staff that it was a brilliant idea).
>
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation#Legal_representation
>
> > Finally, regarding John's question about non-program service investment
> in Europe (page 35), this represents our foreign currency bank accounts
> with JP Morgan in the UK. The purpose of this holding is to retain
> donations received in EUR, GBP, CAD and AUD in their original currency to
> minimize currency exchange risks.
>
> Do I understand correctly that the 5.2M was to meet minimum account opening
> deposit criteria for four accounts for the four currency.
>
> The money cant be withdrawn while these accounts are open? Is it being
> managed by an investment fund?  If so, which one, or what is the expected
> rate of return on this investment.  Did the WMF have an option for which
> fund was used, or was it stipulated by JP Morgan/ etc?
>
> --
> John
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open and recorded WMF Board meetings

[Craig Franklin]

I imagine that this is the email that Trillium is referring to, for those
who are just joining us:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-February/082566.html

Whether he means that he supported her "dismissal" or supported her
"resignation" is left to the reader.

Cheers,
Craig



On 26 April 2016 at 10:49, Pete Forsyth  wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 2:42 PM, Trillium Corsage  >
> wrote:
> >
> > Jimbo responded to arbitrator GorillaWarfare on this list, basically,
> > "yes, I supported with sadness the decision to dismiss Lila."
>
>
> Wait -- seriously??
>
> I missed this piece until today. But if this is true, it is huge.
>
> Lila's departure was publicly communicated as a resignation -- not as a
> "decision [by the board] to dismiss."
>
> Jimmy Wales has been quite vocal about wanting to defer to the board on
> what should and should not be communicated.
>
> In this instance, did he seriously acknowledge a vote that was kept
> private?
>
> So...Jimmy Wales can share confidential information when it seems
> personally convenient to him, but can withhold it when it seems personally
> convenient to him -- is that the standard?
>
> -Pete
> [[User:Peteforsyth]]
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] User interaction on Wikipedia --call for submissions

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Moushira,

The problem when you use jargon like "ideation" in this context is that
you're essentially excluding anyone who isn't familiar with the particular
terminology used in the field.  Especially so when there are plenty of
plain-English alternatives that can be used in its place.  Note that there
is a whole bunch of thought from experts that that word in particular is a
particularly obnoxious piece of jargon:

* http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/26/pf/corporate-jargon/
* https://hbr.org/2008/08/why-jargon-feeds-on-lazy-minds.html
*
http://www.lifed.com/10-cringeworthy-business-jargon-examples-that-should-be-banned

It's hardly the worst example I've seen out of the WMF, but while we're on
the topic it should be pointed out.  Just because it's used elsewhere, it
doesn't mean that the WMF has to fall into the same trap.

Cheers,
Craig

On 16 March 2016 at 10:07, Moushira Elamrawy 
wrote:

> Hello Fae,
>
> Ideation phase [0], is a term widely used in product and design context.
> Now, I see your point around how volunteers who are not related to these
> fields, might not be familiar with it. Possibly something like, idea
> generation, or brainstorming could have replaced it.
>
> I am not sure though if the factors that you have listed are relevant; I
> think it is a matter of using a word in a certain context where it actually
> fits, without realizing how a broader audience would perceive it.
>
> In any case, thanks for the note :-)
>
> [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation_%28creative_process%29
>
> Moushira
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 1:51 AM, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > On 15 March 2016 at 22:33, Moushira Elamrawy 
> > wrote:
> > ...
> > > The reading team is launching an experiment that supports early
> > engagement
> > > in ideation phase, with a wide variety of users.
> > ...
> >
> > Hi, sorry to target your email with a more general observation,
> > however there seems to be a lot of odd jargon in Wikimedia
> > announcements over the last few months. It would be great to see more
> > 'official' emails aimed at volunteers, written in plain and
> > grammatically complete English. Phrases like "ideation phase" may be
> > frequently used during meetings at the Wikimedia Foundation offices,
> > but are unlikely to be heard in real life by volunteer contributors,
> > and are unlikely to be easily understood outside of corporate America,
> > especially by those without English as their first language.
> >
> > Sorry again about picking at your announcement rather than any other,
> > it just stood out today.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Arbital, another Wikipedia competitor/complement

[Craig Franklin]

They have correctly identified that a lot of our articles on scientific
concepts are jargon-filled babble that is unintelligible to anyone who
isn't already an expert in the field (and if they're an expert, why are
they consulting an encyclopaedia?), but I'm not that confident that
Yudkowsky of all people is going to be able to penetrate that and be able
to explain complex concepts at the level of a layperson.

I will confess that the software looks interesting though.

Cheers,
Craig

On 14 March 2016 at 11:03, David Gerard  wrote:

> Being put together by Eliezer Yudkowsky of LessWrong. Content is
> cc-by-sa 3.0, don't know about the software.
>
> https://arbital.com/p/arbital_ambitions/
>
> Rather than the "encyclopedia" approach, it tries to be more
> pedagogical, teaching the reader at their level.
>
> Analysis from a sometime Yudkowsky critic on Tumblr:
>
> http://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/140995096534/a-year-ago-i-remember-being-baffled-by-eliezer
>
> (there's a pile more comments linked from the notes on that post,
> mostly from quasi-fans; I have an acerbic comment in there, but you
> should look at the site yourself first.)
>
> No idea if this will go anywhere, but might be of interest; new
> approaches generally are. They started in December, first publicised
> it a week ago and have been scaling up. First day it collapsed due to
> load from a Facebook post announcement ... so maybe hold off before
> announcing it everywhere :-)
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: A conversation?

[Craig Franklin]

A few days ago I asked what it was that we as the community could do to
enhance transparency within the Foundation.  This was not what I had in
mind.  Why would Jimmy or anyone else in a position of authority at the WMF
seek to engage with those making criticisms when they'll be subject to acts
like this; private emails posted without permission and shorn of context?
I'm sure that Jimmy will think twice next time before trying to explain his
thinking or give information, and who could blame him?  There might be a
line where it is acceptable to publicise an email without consent (say, if
Jimmy had threatened to punch James in the nose), but IMHO even though
Jimmy comes off as a bit of a jerk in this one, it falls far short of that
line.

I know Pete that you meant well with your actions, but I fear that you may
actually have done quite a bit of damage.

Cheers,
Craig

On 11 March 2016 at 08:24, Leila Zia  wrote:

> Hi Pete,
>
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 9:21 AM, Pete Forsyth 
> wrote:
>
> >
> > I carefully considered whether to publish this email
> > before doing so. I'm confident I'm on solid ethical ground (i.e., didn't
> > violate anyone's rights), and I'm pretty sure the impact on Wikimedia
> will
> > be positive in the end as well.
>
>
> ​It's hard to argue with this statement one way or the other (when you are
> sure, but you cannot prove.) From experience we have seen that Wikimedia is
> a big
> ​ and distributed​
> Movement and the impact of such actions on the Movement is unlikely to be
> noticeable
> ​.​
>
> ​
>
> Specifics about my choice to release the email below:
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 10:18 PM, Erik Moeller 
> wrote:
> >
> > > 2016-03-09 16:56 GMT-08:00 Pete Forsyth :
> > >
> > > > I feel this message can provide important insight into the dynamics
> > > > surrounding James H.'s dismissal, and various people have expressed
> > > > interest in seeing it, so I'm forwarding it to the list. (For what
> it's
> > > > worth, I did check with James H.; he had no objection to my sharing
> > it.)
> >
>
> ​It is problematic that you have checked with James but not Jimmy prior to
> publishing this email. The content of the email does not justify this
> action for me.
>
>
> > Erik,
> >
> > So the "private channel" you mention has never existed between Jimmy
> Wales
> > and myself. There has never been an agreement, either explicit or
> implied,
> > between us about whether our communications are private.
>
>
> There are norms that people follow in online communications. It is expected
> that you check with the sender of the email before publishing his/her
> email. People expect private conversations to stay private, and the
> definition of a private conversation is not complicated in most of the
> people's minds: if a conversation doesn't happen in a public channel, it's
> considered private.
>
> Where I do have a healthy line of communication with someone, I agree with
> > you.
>
>
> ​If you see that you don't have a healthy line of communication with Jimmy,
> you may want to consider not communicating with him at all. Initiating
> and/or participating in conversations about someone when you cannot have a
> healthy conversation with that person won't be beneficial. You will end up
> being in a position that you cannot improve things between the two of you,
> but you will have extra information that you will feel burdened to share
> with others.
>
> I hope you think about what you did here, and you decide to take a
> different course of action in the future.
>
> Best,
> Leila
>
> --
> ​​Leila Zia
> Research Scientist
> Wikimedia Foundation
> ​
>
> >
> > -Pete
> > [[User:Peteforsyth]]
> >
> >
> > -- Forwarded message --
> > From: Pete Forsyth
> > Date: Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 10:49 AM
> > Subject: Re: A conversation?
> > To: Jimmy Wales, James Heilman
> >
> >
> > Jimmy, thanks for following up -- and James, thanks for alerting me of
> this
> > (it went to an old email address I no longer check. Good reminder
> though, I
> > am putting an auto-reply on there.)
> >
> > I see that we have three things under discussion, and I want to reiterate
> > that I strongly urge the first:
> >
> >1. JW and JMH have a private conversation with the support of an
> >independent, skilled facilitator
> >2. JW and JMH have a truly one-on-one conversation
> >3. JW and JMH have a conversation with PF as informal facilitator
> >
> > I appreciate being looped in here, but I want to say very clearly: I
> don't
> > have the professional skills to serve as a facilitator here, even if I
> did
> > I am too involved to do it well, and I also don't really have the
> > bandwidth. However, I'm sure the WMF's HR department could refer you to
> > some excellent people. (I could give referrals, but I'm sure the HR
> > department is better equipped for that.) I think that the value of
> > professional 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open and recorded WMF Board meetings

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Jytdog,

My response was actually more to Oliver than you, but I still would draw a
distinction between "unanimous support" and "majority support".  It might
seem innocuous enough but as Pierre-Selim points out, "majority support" is
actually not a great reflection on an employee, as it presumably means that
some important people want to be rid of them.  Of course, without the
inconsistent messaging from the BoT drawing attention to this point, it
probably would not have become an issue.

I do concur with the general thrust of the rest of your message; that poor
recordkeeping and confusion in the way that the trustees have reacted to
this situation (and the Geshuri situation, and the Heilman situation, and
the search engine situation generally) has made things a lot worse than
they needed to be.

Cheers,
Craig



On 8 March 2016 at 04:16, jytdog <jyt...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Craig, thanks for your reply on this. This is actually not about HR
> matters.  It is about what board members chose to do and say.
>
> It would have made little difference in the RW if they had said "the board
> supports Lila" (and if there was a majority vote for that, the board did
> support Lila) vs "the board unanimously supports Lila".  They chose to
> state the latter.  That has nothing to do with Lila per se, and everything
> to do with the choices individuals made in representing what the board
> actually did.
>
> This is what I meant.  Poor processes poorly executed definitely allowed
> this to happen;  if board votes were accurately recorded in minutes and
> swiftly published, what happened would not be even possible or would be so
> foolish that no one would do it.  But these were still choices that
> individuals made in the context that existed.
>
> These choices and those of other board members  - as individuals  -  have
> created an unbearable set of contradictions that need to resolved.  This is
> what we should focus on.  I hope you can see that the HR angle is a a
> distraction from that, as this has nothing to do with WMF staff per se.
>
> Yes we should also urge the board to develop more rigorous procedures and
> to follow them more closely to make it harder for individuals to make bad
> choices, but there is still resolving what did happen, so that we can go
> forward.
>
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:50 AM, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net>
> wrote:
>
> > To be honest, I consider it unlikely that Patricio or anyone else is
> going
> > to discuss HR matters at length in public, even when they concern Lila,
> and
> > especially when they could potentially be interpreted as negative
> towards a
> > particular identifiable individual.  For legal reasons, it might be the
> > case that the BoT will let Lila have as dignified an exit as possible
> from
> > the organisation, without putting a whole bunch of information into the
> > public domain about how they regarded her performance.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Craig
> >
> > On 7 March 2016 at 16:39, Oliver Keyes <ironho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > +1. I would also very much appreciate Patricio explaining whether the
> > > "full confidence of the board" actually meant the full confidence:
> > > IOW, that a vote was taken and everyone unanimously agreed that Lila's
> > > continuation was the best thing.
> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open and recorded WMF Board meetings

[Craig Franklin]

To be honest, I consider it unlikely that Patricio or anyone else is going
to discuss HR matters at length in public, even when they concern Lila, and
especially when they could potentially be interpreted as negative towards a
particular identifiable individual.  For legal reasons, it might be the
case that the BoT will let Lila have as dignified an exit as possible from
the organisation, without putting a whole bunch of information into the
public domain about how they regarded her performance.

Cheers,
Craig

On 7 March 2016 at 16:39, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> +1. I would also very much appreciate Patricio explaining whether the
> "full confidence of the board" actually meant the full confidence:
> IOW, that a vote was taken and everyone unanimously agreed that Lila's
> continuation was the best thing.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Executive transition planning

[Craig Franklin]

As much as I agree Geoff would probably do a wonderful job, I'm not sure
that as a movement we want him away from the excellent job he's doing in
the Legal team for too long.  Call me cynical, but I expect that the term
of the interim ED will turn out to be lengthy.  Any number of people would
make a good interim ED, but there are less people that would make a good
head of Legal.

Cheers,
Craig

On 5 March 2016 at 13:07, MZMcBride  wrote:

>
> My vote is for Geoff Brigham.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open and recorded WMF Board meetings

[Craig Franklin]

This sounds like an excellent strategy if you're looking to have the board
meetings turn into a rubber stamp for issues that have been discussed and
decided elsewhere.

Rather than solving the transparency problem through gimmicks like wheeling
a video camera into the board room, we should look at reasons why the Board
of Trustees might not feel comfortable being transparent.  The only real
solution will involve cultural change, not just on the WMF side, but also
from the community.  What can *we* as community members do to assist the
WMF in being transparent?

Although, I most certainly agree that the official minutes of meetings
could do with a little more detail.  If brevity is wit, then the existing
minutes are positively Wildean.

Cheers,
Craig

On 3 March 2016 at 16:31, Pine W  wrote:

> Having WMF Board meetings be open and recorded by default would be
> a wonderful step in aligning the Board with the value of transparency.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Armenia candidate for the board

[Craig Franklin]

Andreas,

Unless you have specific evidence that Susanna has been specifically
involved with anything untoward, you are smearing with guilt by association
and creating your own chilling effect, and you would owe Susanna a
retraction and apology.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 3 March 2016 at 09:15, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 8:11 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <pute...@mccme.ru>
>  wrote:
>
> > Susanna is (or was) a researcher, and every researcher in Armenia is a
> > state employee. There are just no non-governmental organizations who
> employ
> > researchers.
> >
> > I do think there is a problem with a potential Armenian board member
> (that
> > is, Turkish and Azeri Wikimedians would basically consider board as not
> > legitimate), but I do not think the fact that she is or was employed by
> the
> > Academy of Sciences is in any way problematic.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Yaroslav
>
>
> Yaroslav,
>
> In and of itself, the fact that Susanna is a government employee doesn't
> worry me either. Present WMF board member Alice Wiegand is a government
> employee too, if you will (she works as an aide to the mayor of a small
> town in Germany, according to her write-up on the WMF website).
>
> The difference between Alice's situation and Susanna's is that the Armenian
> president turned up for the opening of the Wikimedia Armenia office in
> Yerevan.[1] The German president, in contrast, has probably never even
> heard of Alice. He certainly didn't attend when Wikimedia Germany was
> launched, nor did he have members of his cabinet tell the German public on
> national TV that it was their duty to edit the German Wikipedia.
>
> The Armenian Wikipedia initiative is a matter of direct and personal
> interest to the President and government ministers of Armenia, a country
> that suppresses political dissent. It is impossible to escape the
> conclusion that the initiative is directed by them. This will be crystal
> clear to anyone in Armenia who has watched the YouTube video:[2] the
> Armenian Wikipedia will be perceived as a project of the Armenian
> government.
>
> The chilling effect on opposition sympathisers and dissidents who might
> otherwise like to participate in an open encyclopedia project is monstrous.
> The likelihood that the Armenian Wikipedia will flourish under such
> circumstances and develop into a politically neutral reference work is nil.
>
> I don't know Susanna, and in fact until yesterday had never heard of her.
> She may well be a delightful and charming person with a genuine enthusiasm
> for open knowledge. There are after all many encyclopedic topics that have
> no political sensitivity or relevance at all. But she is clearly part of a
> government-sponsored effort to control the Armenian Wikipedia.
>
> Does it make sense to you that we cheer when Wikipedians stand up to the
> government in France, which is a fairly democratic and open country, and
> cheer equally when far more repressive regimes than that of France take
> such an intense interest in their national-language Wikipedia?
>
> What would you say if Putin started to endorse Wikimedia Russia and
> attended its events, and members of his cabinet told the public to edit
> Wikipedia as part of their civic duty?
>
> Andreas
>
> [1]
>
> http://www.armradio.am/en/2015/06/19/president-sargsyan-attends-opening-of-wikimedia-armenia-office-in-yerevan/
> [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zazVM3ldIuw
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] I am going to San Francisco

[Craig Franklin]

My understanding is that the Foundation purchases certain technical and
apps services (cloud email, for instance) from Google.

Cheers,
Craig

On 1 March 2016 at 12:15, Risker  wrote:

>
> I cannot for the life of me imagine what Google sells that the WMF would be
> interested in buying, so I'm finding your example a bit weird.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The reinstatement of James Heilman

[Craig Franklin]

Patricio's email on the topic makes it quite clear that María was appointed
to the seat vacated by James Heilman:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-January/081540.html

And, as we are all aware, James was himself appointed as the result of an
election.  Unless the relevant authorities in Florida have overturned
María's appointment and I have not heard about it, she is sitting in the
seat formerly occupied by James.

I don't disagree that it would be a good thing to have a formally agreed
procedure on how to handle vacancies that might arise in these
community-selected seats, but that doesn't change the reality that we must
deal with here and now.

Cheers,
Craig

On 27 February 2016 at 21:47, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 27 February 2016 at 11:33, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net>
> wrote:
> > While it's nice to think that everyone might be able to kiss and make up,
> > the trustees (particularly Jimmy) and James have been mauling each other
> > politely in public for the best part of two months.  I don't think it's
> > realistic to expect that everything can just go back to the way it was,
> and
> > expect that the BoT would function properly again with James back in
> > place.  Keeping in mind his former position as a community selected
> trustee
> > has already been filled with Maria Sefidari, at any rate.
>
> Correction: Maria Sefidari was a "candidate for community selection",
> she was not selected by the community but appointed using an post
> election invented procedure for political convenience. If Maria wishes
> to become a community selected board member she would need to *win an
> election*, until that time she is in reality an appointed member.
>
> I hope that Maria will run for a proper election at the earliest
> opportunity. She was a good candidate and would be a better
> representative if correctly elected.
>
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The reinstatement of James Heilman

[Craig Franklin]

While it's nice to think that everyone might be able to kiss and make up,
the trustees (particularly Jimmy) and James have been mauling each other
politely in public for the best part of two months.  I don't think it's
realistic to expect that everything can just go back to the way it was, and
expect that the BoT would function properly again with James back in
place.  Keeping in mind his former position as a community selected trustee
has already been filled with Maria Sefidari, at any rate.

This is, of course, assuming that James even wishes to go back.

Cheers,
Craig

On 27 February 2016 at 10:51, Kevin Gorman  wrote:

> Hi all -
>
> I understand that this idea has been discussed on other currently active
> threads, but in my opinion, it deserves a separate thread.  To an informed
> observer, it was pretty obvious why James was removed to begin with, and to
> a casual observer, I'm guessing it's become obvious.  It would be
> unfortunate of events have soured James' relationship with other board
> members to the point that it would be literally unworkable to put him back
> on the board... but it's also become readily apparent that the community
> trusted community selected (and sorry, but that's a bullshit trick,)
> trustee James Heilman wasn't violating his fiduciary duties.
>
> I would go as far as to say that James Heilman was the only trustee who was
> actively and aggressively following his fidicuiary duties, and that if Dr.
> James is willing to accept a reappointment to the board, one of the next
> three board motions that passes should be appointing James Heilman as
> trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation.  His removal wasn't a surprise to him,
> he knew it was coming - but he also knew he was acting in the interests of
> the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> And that's the exact kind of trustee we need.
>
> 
> Kevin Gorman
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Transition plans for WMF leadership - Board Reform

[Craig Franklin]

One could argue that any action that would injure the movement would also
injure the Foundation by definition.  Denny is quite correct that trustees
have a legal obligation to put the Foundation before anything else, however
there's usually a fair bit of latitude in how that obligation is
interpreted.

Cheers,
Craig

On 25 February 2016 at 11:47, SarahSV  wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 6:23 PM, Denny Vrandecic  >
> wrote:
>
> > To make a few things about the Board of Trustees clear - things that will
> > be true now matter how much you reorganize it:
> >
> > - the Board members have duties of care and loyalty to the Foundation -
> not
> > to the movement.
> >
> > ​Hi Denny,
>
> Blue Avocado, the non-profit magazine, offers a somewhat different view.
> They have published a board-member "contract" to give non-profit directors
> an idea of what's expected of them. It includes:
>
> ​
>
> ​"... ​
> I will interpret our constituencies' needs and values to the organization,
> speak out for their interests, and on their behalf, hold the organization
> accountable.
> ​" [1]
>
> Sarah
>
> [1] http://www.blueavocado.org/content/board-member-contract
> ​
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Post mortems

[Craig Franklin]

People will have discussions at a location that is personally convenient
for them.  Unless you're going to reprogram human nature, I don't see that
there's anything to be done about the resulting balkanisation of the
discussion.

Cheers,
Craig

On 22 February 2016 at 09:54, Thyge  wrote:

> I really wonder why wikimedia discussions have migrated to FB. Are we
> applying for a grant?
>
> Thyge
>
> 2016-02-22 0:51 GMT+01:00 Newyorkbrad :
>
> > I too am one of those people who is not to be found on Facebook.  I
> > only have room in my life for one online timesink ... and I already
> > have Wikipedia :)
> >
> > Newyorkbrad
> >
> > On 2/21/16, Risker  wrote:
> > > As has already been explained on this list, many people do not have
> > access
> > > to Facebook.  If this is something germane and useful to a lot of
> people
> > on
> > > this list, perhaps it would be appropriate to ask Jonathan to post it
> > here.
> > >
> > > Risker/Anne
> > >
> > > On 21 February 2016 at 18:34, Anthony Cole 
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> For those not following, I recommend the discussion in response to
> > >> Jonathan
> > >> Cardy's comment here:
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/960989863948845/
> > >>
> > >> Anthony Cole
> > >> ___
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> > >> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Facebook marketing inside pt.wikipedia

[Craig Franklin]

While I appreciate these concerns, I think that the most suitable people to
determine whether this is appropriate for the Portuguese Wikipedia are the
users of the Portuguese Wikipedia.  Perhaps with a veto by the WMF Legal
Team if there's some terms of service related reason this can't happen.

Cheers,
Craig

On 19 February 2016 at 16:28, Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Hey Rodrigo,
>
> I don't know of any example where Site Notice has been used in the past to
> point people to facebook.
>
> Although the intentions behind what is being proposed are good ones, I
> think there are probably issues that surround neutrality and with the very
> different privacy policy of facebook.
>
> Based on those things alone it is not something I would recommend. I would
> be happy to follow up with you further off list if you would like to
> discuss this further.
>
> Regards
>
> --
> Seddon
>
> *Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)*
> *Wikimedia Foundation*
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 1:42 PM, Rodrigo Padula <
> rodrigopad...@wikimedia.org.br> wrote:
>
> > Hello fellows!
> >
> > Since the end of the last year some contributors from pt.wikipedia are
> > discussing regarding the idea of including the promotion of our Facebook
> > Page on site Notice [1]
> >
> > That proposal was started by Teles, a Brazilian steward. He received a
> lot
> > of local support.
> >
> > The general idea is to bring more people from Facebook to access
> Wikipedia
> > through our Facebook page, but what we are doing is redirecting users
> from
> > pt.wikipedia to Facebook and including a free Facebook ads on
> pt.wikipedia.
> >
> > I would like to know if it is ok for the Wikimedia Movement and if this
> > kind of Facebook promotional campaign was proposed and published in other
> > wikipedias/wikimedia projects.
> >
> > [1]
> >
> https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Esplanada/propostas/Inserir_p%C3%A1gina_da_Wikip%C3%A9dia_em_portugu%C3%AAs_do_Facebook_no_sitenotice_%2825nov2015%29
> >
> > Best regards
> >
> > Rodrigo Padula
> > Coordenador de Projetos
> > Grupo Wikimedia Brasileiro de Educação e Pesquisa
> > http://www.wikimedia.org.br
> > +55 21 99326-0558
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

[Craig Franklin]

Yaroslav,

You're correct in that most volunteers don't care directly.  The problem is
that a lot of the BoT's recent difficulties have crossed the line from
"angry encyclopedia people venting on a mailing list" to "serious and
negative attention from the mainstream press".  If there is too much of the
latter, it may create a perception amongst the general public than even if
Wikipedia is a useful resource, that it is incompetent with handling
money.  As a result, donations dry up, and difficult and unpleasant choices
have to be made around budget.

So yes, this sort of thing can influence rank and file editors most
seriously, albeit indirectly.

Cheers,
Craig


On 19 February 2016 at 07:52, Yaroslav M. Blanter  wrote:

>
> To be honest, most volunteers do not care. We understand of course that if
> things would go really wrong, for example, servers stop running, or money
> runs out and ads are introduced, or English Wikipedia admins continue
> resigning/being desysopped without proper replacement, so that we have ten
> active admins, then we are in serious trouble. But as far as things are
> running quasi-normal, we just continue. I was making 50 to 100 edits per
> day five years ago, I am making 50 to 100 edits per day now, I will
> probably still be making 50 to 100 edits per day in five years, unless I
> die or leave because of a serious demotivation - and this demotivation is
> unlikely to be related to WMF. I think staff are way more vulnerable to all
> kinds of events.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Craig Franklin]

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this Michael.  Reading the documents
I've seen, it seemed like (1) to me, but a lot of the assumptions seem to
lean towards (3).  If it is (1), then that is an entirely reasonable thing
for the Foundation to be putting development effort into.  The problem is
that the statements in the grant documents are quite vague, and given the
rest of the shenanigans that the WMF has been involved in lately, people
are quite predictably jumping to the least flattering conclusion.

Cheers,
Craig

On 16 February 2016 at 05:36, Michael Peel  wrote:

>
> > On 15 Feb 2016, at 17:10, Gerard Meijssen 
> wrote:
> >
> > Hoi,
> > The notion that WMF should out google Google is stupid, certainly at that
> > kind of money.
>
> I'm still confused about what kind of 'search engine' is actually being
> proposed here. Is it:
> 1) Wikimedia specific: index all of Wikimedia's content and make that
> easier for users of the sites to find
> 2) Wikimedia + selected others: like (1), but also allow some other
> like-minded sources into the mix
> 3) Google-scale: index everything (duckduckgo-like)
> ... or somewhere on the scale between those points?
>
> A lot of people seem to be assuming (3), others are liking the idea of
> (1), but (2) (or maybe (1) leading to (2)) might be closer to the reality?
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in the Board

[Craig Franklin]

Thankyou Arnnon.  I imagine it can't have been a pleasant decision for you
to make when you obviously feel that you have a lot to contribute, but I
think your decision is in the best interests of the Foundation and of the
movement generally, and for that I am appreciative.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 28 January 2016 at 06:52, Patricio Lorente <patricio.lore...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> Throughout the discussion about the appointment of Arnnon Geshuri to the
> Board of Trustees, the Board has carefully listened to you and discussed
> internally. Earlier today, Arnnon decided to step down from the Board. To
> paraphrase his words, he doesn't want to be a distraction for the important
> discussions that the community and the Foundation need to face in the times
> to come. We want to thank Arnnon for his ongoing commitment and for helping
> us to move forward.
>
> The Board Governance Committee is working to improve and update our
> selection processes before we fill the vacancy left by Arnnon’s departure.
> We are sorry for the distress and confusion this has caused to some in our
> community, and also to Arnnon.
>
> Patricio and Alice
>
> 
>
> Patricio Lorente
> Chair, Board of Trustees
>
> Alice Wiegand
> Vice Chair, Board of Trustees
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Monetizing Wikimedia APIs

[Craig Franklin]

On 16 January 2016 at 22:09, Dariusz Jemielniak  wrote:

> Do we want to charge for knowledge? Of course not. But do we want to be
> able to introduce cool new tools for everyone faster, because e.g. Google
> is willing to pay for their development if they can use it for some time
> earlier as "premium"? I don't know yet. Let's talk
>
Realistically, the only way that I can see that the community would stand
for this is if the tool in question was something that was unquestionably
of use to a large segment of the community as a whole, and if the WMF
clearly did not have the resources to build it themselves without outside
assistance.  But perhaps I'm wrong there.


> I do, however, believe that if we ever decide to do this, with the
> community's backing, any charging should resemble grants a bit (there
> should be a clear time horizon when what we are able to develop as "
> premium" becomes standard and free; if it is also useful for the general
> public).
>
If we're going to go down this road, I agree with this.

Cheers,
Craig
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF trustee Arnnon Geshuri and part in anticompetitive agreements in Google

[Craig Franklin]

I don't disagree that we need an explanation not only of his actions, but
also on how he was selected without this being disclosed to existing
trustees, but even at a show trial it's usually considered necessary to
allow the accused to say a few words in their own defense.  I'll be
reserving my judgement until I hear his side of the story (or he declines
to provide one).

Cheers,
Craig

On 10 January 2016 at 03:51, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ... and the court papers, and the smoking gun documents, and ...
>
> This is the sort of thing that needs some serious explaining. Assume
> good faith, but we're starting from some pretty *startling*
> circumstances and evidence here.
>
>
> - d.
>
> On 9 January 2016 at 09:19, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net>
> wrote:
> > Chris,
> >
> > Thanks for saying that.  I'd also add that while the situation with
> Arrnon
> > looks damning on the face of it, I'm a little disappointed that people
> are
> > breaking out the pitchforks based purely on media reports, before he has
> a
> > chance to present his own side of the story and before Dariusz and the
> > others can properly look into the matter.  I also think that some of the
> > more 'excitable' commentary on this list in the past couple of weeks is
> > more likely to push the trustees away than get us the explanations we
> > want.  Yes, what is happening is deeply concerning, but lets not all lose
> > our heads.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Craig
> >
> > On 9 January 2016 at 19:06, Chris Keating <chriskeatingw...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> > I suspect they need a few days, based on past experiences. To dig into
> >> the
> >> > matter, and prepare an answer
> >>
> >> Quite, and thanks for saying that Lodewijk.
> >>
> >> In my view, the WMF board's top priority has to be the issues about
> >> strategy, leadership and staff morale that are being made public now.
> It is
> >> in everyone's interests that these issues get sorted out and some key
> parts
> >> of the solution have to happen in private.
> >>
> >> I am sure that the Board have invested a huge amount of time and energy
> in
> >> these issues already. Unless you have been on the board of an
> organisation
> >> that's gone through a serious problem it's difficult to appreciate the
> >> pressure this creates. I have, and I would urge everyone to take a deep
> >> breath and  think before emailing. It's worth repeating that Board
> members
> >> are all volunteers with jobs and families and what's more are trying to
> >> coordinate between three different continents.
> >>
> >> In particular hundred-email threads on this list where everyone
> speculates
> >> and demands answers to their particular questions  (and some people
> >> downright stir the shit) are less than helpful - a board member who
> spends
> >> 5 hours a week on WMF business could easily spend that just reading all
> the
> >> emails
> >>
> >> Dariusz has said the Board is looking into the situation with Arnnon,
> which
> >> they were clearly not aware of - that is what needs to happen and yet
> more
> >> emails on this list won't mean that happens any more quickly.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Chris Keating
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing new Wikimedia Foundation Trustees

[Craig Franklin]

Congratulations from me as well to both Kelly and Arnnon.  I wonder if
they'll take the plunge and subscribe here? =)

But without in any way questioning their good faith, dedication and fitness
for the job (and it is good to see another female appointed), I have to say
that I also feel this is a missed opportunity for the WMF.  It is not like
the "white American with a background in the tech sector" is a particularly
under-represented group in our movement.  I believe it will be difficult
for the WMF to realise it's ambitious goals in operating in developing
countries with its current mix of trustees, most of whom are either from
continental Europe or the United States.

Cheers,
Craig



On 6 January 2016 at 12:09, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> Congratulations to Kelly and Arnon in joining the wikiverse at this crucial
> time in our movement's existence. I hope their expertise - respectively in
> Finance and HR - will be able to be put to good use!
>
> However, I do have a concern about diversity...
> Both of these appointees are white Americans from Iowa/Kansas with
> top-pedigree Silicon Valley resumes.
>
> I note that one of the other appointed WMF-board seats is currently also
> occupied by Guy, also Silicon Valley, and one of the recently elected
> community seats is occupied by Denny, who is a manager at Google. They all
> live and work in the same field and within commuting distance to the WMF
> office.
>
> I've always believed that Wikimedia is an education charity that happens to
> exist exists in a technology field. I often note in presentations that I
> give that the Wikimedia vision statement does NOT use the words, Internet,
> or Wiki, or Encyclopedia. But these appointments indicate the Board and WMF
> Executive believe Wikimedia is a technology charity that happens to exists
> in the education field.
>
> These appointments will make a crucial difference to how the new WMF
> strategic direction will go - and clearly the leadership is wanting to make
> us act more like a Californian dot-com and less like a global education
> charity. Less "community consensus building" and more "move fast and break
> things" - is the message I am reading here.
>
> Can the board please address how it accounts for the geographical
> proximity and professional-background similarity between three of the four
> Board-appointed seats? And, whether you would define the WMF as a "tech
> organisation"?
>
> - Liam / Wittylama
>
>
>
>
> --
> wittylama.com
> Peace, love & metadata
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Craig Franklin]

While it's not hard to find a WMF employee who will privately (or
increasingly, not-so-privately) complain of poor morale, I'd be wary of
reading too much into submissions to sites like Glassdoor.  Employees that
are content rarely take the time to report this, so you end up with a
skewed sample consisting largely of the unhappy and demotivated.

Cheers,
Craig

On 5 January 2016 at 05:56, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 7:08 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > If there's a lot of dissatisfaction among the staff, the reasons for that
> > dissatisfaction would be helpful to know.
>
>
>
> Some recurring themes on Glassdoor[1] over the years are –
>
> * Hiring of completely inexperienced staff
> * Incompetent managers
> * Unclear strategy
> * Favouritism
> * Angst-ridden climate
>
> [1]
> https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Wikimedia-Foundation-Reviews-E38331.htm
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Craig Franklin]

I'd like to second this.  Getting to the point of dismissing a trustee,
whether they're community elected or not, is serious business.  There
should be an investigation conducted by an impartial external organisation,
not to lay blame or point the finger, but to recommend changes to make sure
it never happens again.

Cheers,
Craig

On 3 January 2016 at 04:54, Pine W  wrote:

> At this point, confidence in the Board has been weakened enough that no, we
> should not just move on. The confidence issue needs to be addressed. There
> are multiple ways of doing that. One is (far) more openness, as many others
> have suggested. Another is to have an impartial investigation of the facts
> in this case. The high trust of the community in James seems in start
> contrast with the actions of the Board. Perhaps there was a good reason for
> the Board to remove James, but the Board's handling of this situation
> (particularly Jimmy's, which I think has been flatly unacceptable) leaves
> much to be desired. The Board needs to think hard about, and take concrete
> actions to improve, the community and staff confidence in its governance.
>
> Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Craig Franklin]

Jimbo has stated on Jimbo-talk that this was a removal for cause:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales=prev=697407200

He also mentions on that page that he and others tried to talk Heilman into
resigning quietly, but he chose to make the BoT push him:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales=prev=697407110

Given this, it's entirely unsurprising that he didn't see a need to aid the
trustees by announcing his departure on a timetable convenient to them.
I'm actually a little shocked that Patricio and Jimbo didn't see that
coming and seem shocked that it happened.

Cheers,
Craig

On 1 January 2016 at 00:02, John Mark Vandenberg  wrote:

> Can the board please very clearly state whether this removal was for cause,
> or not!?
> On 1 Jan 2016 12:03 am, "Patricio Lorente" 
> wrote:
>
> > Thank you to everyone who responded to my email about the Board’s recent
> > decision. We recognize this is the Board's first removal of a sitting
> > Trustee, and that has led to questions and perhaps some confusion.
> >
> > I wanted to provide you with some additional information in response to
> the
> > discussions on this thread. As many of you know, we did not intend for
> the
> > decision to become public the way it did. We planned to have a discussion
> > and decision in the meeting, but could not be certain of the outcome
> ahead
> > of the final vote. Since the meeting, we have taken our time to work
> > together to make sure the information we share will be accurate,
> > respectful, and informative to the greatest extent possible. At the same
> > time, there is a limit to what the Board can share. We have fiduciary
> > duties, which include Board confidentiality, and we must respect them in
> > this decision as we would in others.
> >
> > I want to be very clear that the Board decision was not about a
> difference
> > of opinion on a matter of WMF direction or strategy between James and the
> > other Trustees. Over the course of the past few months, the Trustees had
> > multiple conversations around expectations for Trustee conduct,
> > responsibilities, and confidentiality. Ultimately, the majority of the
> > Trustees came to the opinion that we were not able to reach a common
> > understanding with James on fulfilling those expectations. We have a duty
> > as a Board to ensure we all abide by our roles and responsibilities as an
> > essential condition for effective governance. I also want to reaffirm
> that
> > this decision was made internally, by the Board, without any outside
> > influence, and according to the process outlined in our Bylaws.
> >
> > Under the Wikimedia Foundation’s Bylaws, and, in accordance with Florida
> > law (where, as a 501(c)(3) charity, the Foundation is registered),
> members
> > of the Board who are selected through community or affiliate elections
> are
> > then appointed to the Board by the existing members. Since all members of
> > the Board are appointed by the Board itself, the Board retains the
> ability
> > to manage its composition as necessary to maintain the working
> environment
> > required to be effective.
> >
> > As someone who was appointed through a community process, I understand
> how
> > important it is to have strong voices from the community on our Board. I
> > want to be absolutely clear that this decision does not change our
> > commitment to engaging with a diverse, talented, opinionated, and
> > representative group of leaders to serve on our Board. It also does not
> > change our commitment to encouraging and hearing different voices on
> > direction and strategy.
> >
> > We are working with the 2015 Elections Committee to fill this vacancy
> with
> > a member of the Wikimedia community. This is a top priority. More
> > information will be available once the Board has had a chance to confer
> > with the 2015 Elections Committee.
> >
> > From our viewpoint, our actions around the removal are concluded. We
> > sincerely hope that James will continue to be an active, constructive
> part
> > of the Wikimedia movement. I personally look forward to continuing
> > collaboration with him.
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> >Patricio
> > --
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Craig Franklin]

I do think though that the longer the promised statement takes, the more
it'll look like spin rather than truth.  I agree that "rushed" is bad, but
"prompt" should still be a goal.  I suppose it doesn't help that
potentially some of the folks at WMF Legal are relaxing on a proverbial
beach on a Christmas getaway, blissfully unaware that this is happening.

Cheers,
Craig

On 30 December 2015 at 16:34, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am not so ready to throw stones (: Perhaps because I have had one-on-one
> conversations with a number of people involved in this situation, and I
> would like to believe that they are all good people.
>
> Reports that are rushed can lead to mistaken conclusions. I'd rather get a
> comprehensive report than a rushed one. I do expect an explanation, soon,
> and I expect it will be provided with the kind of integrity and
> professionalism that I would hope everyone involved in this situation has.
>
> Pine
>
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:20 PM, Comet styles <cometsty...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Well the longer this drags on, the more likelihood of us getting a
> > "false" answer ..it takes seconds to speak the truth, but days to
> > connive a lie..so i doubt we will get the 'truth' or atleast the full
> > truth..
> >
> > On 12/30/15, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net> wrote:
> > > Thanks Brad for spotting this and bringing it here, and also to Jimbo
> for
> > > filling in a few more details.
> > >
> > > Just as an aside, my thinking is that this must have needed to be an
> > > emergency action.  Because if the BoT has been mulling this over for
> > > awhile, it would be very poor governance to not have a strategy for how
> > > this would be communicated, and to only have WMF Legal on the case
> after
> > > the fact.  We already see this thread filling up with a bunch of
> > > speculation that is unhelpful and unhealthy, not just for James but
> also
> > > for the BoT and the movement in general.  I trust that there will be an
> > > explanation forthcoming, not only for why James has been removed in
> this
> > > way, but also for why there was seemingly not any planning for how to
> > deal
> > > with the fallout of that decision.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Craig
> > >
> > > On 30 December 2015 at 03:47, Newyorkbrad <newyorkb...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> I don't think it's been mentioned on this list that Jimmy Wales (one
> > >> of the board members) commented about this matter today on his En-WP
> > >> talkpage.  Since I assume many people on this list don't follow that
> > >> page, I have copied his comment below:
> > >>
> > >> "Hi everyone.  I couldn't possibly agree more that this should have
> > >> been announced with a full and clear and transparent and NPOV
> > >> explanation.  Why didn't that happen?  Because James chose to post
> > >> about it before we even concluded the meeting and before we had even
> > >> begun to discuss what an announcement should say.  WMF legal has asked
> > >> the board to refrain from further comment until they've reviewed what
> > >> can be said - this is analogous in some ways to personnel issues.
> > >> Ideally, you would have heard about this a couple of days from now
> > >> when a mutual statement by James and the board had been agreed. For
> > >> now, please be patient.  Accuracy is critically important here, and to
> > >> have 9 board members posting their own first impressions would be more
> > >> likely to give rise to confusions. -- Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:35, 29
> > >> December 2015 (UTC)"
> > >>
> > >> I'm not endorsing Jimbo's comment -- or the reverse -- as I frankly
> > >> find this whole situation strange and unfortunate.  However, it seems
> > >> relevant and I thought people in this discussion might want to be
> > >> aware of it..
> > >>
> > >> I also agree that the information about the two new board members
> > >> should be circulated promptly.
> > >>
> > >> Newyorkbrad/IBM
> > >>
> > >> On 12/29/15, Steinsplitter Wiki <steinsplitter-w...@live.com> wrote:
> > >> > The removal is not transparent at all.
> > >> >
> > >> > Apart from that James was community elected. A democracy words
> > >> > different.
> > >> >
> > >> > Very 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Craig Franklin]

Thanks Brad for spotting this and bringing it here, and also to Jimbo for
filling in a few more details.

Just as an aside, my thinking is that this must have needed to be an
emergency action.  Because if the BoT has been mulling this over for
awhile, it would be very poor governance to not have a strategy for how
this would be communicated, and to only have WMF Legal on the case after
the fact.  We already see this thread filling up with a bunch of
speculation that is unhelpful and unhealthy, not just for James but also
for the BoT and the movement in general.  I trust that there will be an
explanation forthcoming, not only for why James has been removed in this
way, but also for why there was seemingly not any planning for how to deal
with the fallout of that decision.

Cheers,
Craig

On 30 December 2015 at 03:47, Newyorkbrad  wrote:

> I don't think it's been mentioned on this list that Jimmy Wales (one
> of the board members) commented about this matter today on his En-WP
> talkpage.  Since I assume many people on this list don't follow that
> page, I have copied his comment below:
>
> "Hi everyone.  I couldn't possibly agree more that this should have
> been announced with a full and clear and transparent and NPOV
> explanation.  Why didn't that happen?  Because James chose to post
> about it before we even concluded the meeting and before we had even
> begun to discuss what an announcement should say.  WMF legal has asked
> the board to refrain from further comment until they've reviewed what
> can be said - this is analogous in some ways to personnel issues.
> Ideally, you would have heard about this a couple of days from now
> when a mutual statement by James and the board had been agreed. For
> now, please be patient.  Accuracy is critically important here, and to
> have 9 board members posting their own first impressions would be more
> likely to give rise to confusions. -- Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:35, 29
> December 2015 (UTC)"
>
> I'm not endorsing Jimbo's comment -- or the reverse -- as I frankly
> find this whole situation strange and unfortunate.  However, it seems
> relevant and I thought people in this discussion might want to be
> aware of it..
>
> I also agree that the information about the two new board members
> should be circulated promptly.
>
> Newyorkbrad/IBM
>
> On 12/29/15, Steinsplitter Wiki  wrote:
> > The removal is not transparent at all.
> >
> > Apart from that James was community elected. A democracy words different.
> >
> > Very disappointing.
> >
> >> From: rupert.thur...@gmail.com
> >> Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 16:51:14 +0100
> >> To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
> >>
> >> On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 4:00 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> >> > issue here. This is hardly unusual. Regarding the removal itself, at
> >> > least
> >> > in the United States, it's fairly common for members of a body to be
> >> > able
> >> > to remove/expel one of their own. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of
> >> > Trustees bylaws explicitly allow for removal of a member, with or
> >> > without
> >> > cause. Unlike in older Board resolutions, there's a clear public
> >> > accounting of how each of the Board members voted (as opposed to
> simple
> >> > numeric totals). James posted that he will work with Patricio to
> provide
> >>
> >> like others on this thread i think the WMF bylaws are broken in this
> >> respect. not legally broken, but morally. i'd love to vote for a
> >> trustee, and i'd love to reverse my decision in case a sufficient
> >> party is not happy. if in this case james does not want to have a
> >> public discussion he is free to resign. if the board thinks it cannot
> >> work with james anymore, and is able to remove him without him beeing
> >> ok with it, without public discussion, then i do not find it
> >> transparent.
> >>
> >> best,
> >> rupert
> >>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Quality issues

[Craig Franklin]

Such issues are always going to crop up when you're attempting to describe
the world using Aristotelian propositions.  In a source like Wikipedia, we
can provide some nuance, explain both sides of the issue, the history of
both claims, and let the reader decide.  In a database, we are limited to
saying that Jerusalem either is or is not the capital of Israel.

To be fair, this is not an weakness that is implementation-specific to
Wikidata; it is always going to happen when you try to describe the world
in this way.  It's not something that can be fixed with adding sources, or
by bolting fancy new technical gadgets onto the side of the database.

Cheers,
Craig

On 8 December 2015 at 06:58, Andrea Zanni  wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 9:53 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
> > Hi Yaroslav,
> >
> > Thanks for the background. The "POV pushing" you describe is of course
> what
> > Graham and Ford are examining in their paper.
> >
> > For what it's worth, the Wikidata item for Jerusalem[1] still contains
> the
> > statement "capital of Israel" today.
> >
>
>
> Really, I do not understand the difference between this kind of problem and
> Wikipedia's edit wars or conflicts.
> Wikidata represents knowledge in a structured, collaborative way: both
> features define it, and it seems the op-ed just doesn't like them (either
> one or both).
>
> Aubrey
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner (again)

[Craig Franklin]

On 2 December 2015 at 16:37, MZMcBride  wrote:

> Sadly, other sites can be more obnoxious. Some sites have interstitial
> advertisements that include auto-playing video. The Wikimedia Foundation
> has not yet sunk to that yet.
>

[[WP:BEANS]] comes to mind, don't say that too loudly and give anyone ideas!

Although I have been pleasantly surprised at the content (if not the size)
of the ads so far this year.

Cheers,
Craig
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner (again)

[Craig Franklin]

No, I was referring to the lack of misleading scare messages; the current
one is a little wishy-washy for my taste but at least it's not implying
that the Foundation is in grave financial danger.  Obviously the use of
what might be paid stock art where there is plenty of free alternatives
available on our own projects is not ideal.  The ads themselves are also as
ugly as hell, although I'm sure there's some A/B testing that shows that
such monstrosities extract slightly more cash from the readers that will be
used to justify that.

Cheers,
Craig

On 3 December 2015 at 10:01, John Mark Vandenberg <jay...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3 Dec 2015 10:25 am, "Craig Franklin" <cfrank...@halonetwork.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 2 December 2015 at 16:37, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Sadly, other sites can be more obnoxious. Some sites have interstitial
> > > advertisements that include auto-playing video. The Wikimedia
> Foundation
> > > has not yet sunk to that yet.
> > >
> >
> > [[WP:BEANS]] comes to mind, don't say that too loudly and give anyone
> ideas!
> >
> > Although I have been pleasantly surprised at the content (if not the
> size)
> > of the ads so far this year.
>
> You approve of WMF using stock photos?
>
> --
> John
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Lila,

I very much appreciate your prompt response, but this has been an ongoing
issue for years.  What is required now is not more going around in circles
with "consultation" and "discussions" that don't go anywhere; what is
needed is for the WMF to take action to improve the transparency of its
planning, and review its planning process so that the plans end up having a
closer relation to the actual outcomes.  The ball, as they say, is firmly
in your court.

Cheers,
Craig


On 24 November 2015 at 14:27, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> We fully acknowledge the issue with the shortened AP review this year and
> are committed to the 30 day review going forward. Since the overall issue
> has been noted since as far back as 2012 we are doing a review of our
> process in comparison to the FDC standards to build best practices going
> forward. You can add you comments here to help guide the conversation:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Annual_Plan
>
> Lila
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 8:09 PM, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net
> > wrote:
>
>> I likewise appreciate the strong language on the situation with the WMF;
>> the general opacity and vagueness of public budget plans (especially
>> considering the requirements for affiliate organisations in this area) is
>> something that has been widely noted on this list and elsewhere, and to my
>> mind not answered in a satisfactory way.  It is good to see a fearless FDC
>> that is prepared to "tell it as it is", and make sure that this problem is
>> receiving continued attention.
>>
>> It is my hope that the Foundation will address the issues raised here in a
>> constructive and transparent manner, rather than ignoring them or trying
>> to
>> spin them away.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Craig
>>
>> On 24 November 2015 at 12:04, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Thank you FDC.
>> >
>> > Many of the small and midsized APG requests fared well in this round.
>> That
>> > is nice to see.
>> >
>> > I find it concerning that the larger the organization, the more problems
>> > the FDC  seemed to find with the org's budget and performance management
>> > practices. One would expect the larger organizations to have mature and
>> > robust practices in these areas. Regarding WMF in particular, my
>> concerns
>> > about its budget practices are well documented and I appreciate that the
>> > FDC is also taking note of the persistence of the problems. I hope that
>> WMF
>> > will get serious about its financial transpatency.
>> >
>> > A couple of questions about Wikidata:
>> >
>> > I'm confused about the funding for Wikidata. In one place the FDC says
>> that
>> > "Nonetheless, the FDC is exasperated by the inability of WMDE to to
>> > disaggregate the costs of Wikidata from other projects." and in another
>> > place the FDC says that "We have recommended a reduced amount for WMDE
>> in
>> > this round with the expectation that WMDE will not cut Wikidata or their
>> > other tech development work, but will instead find cost savings
>> elsewhere
>> > in its annual plan." If the FDC wants a disaggregated budget (which is
>> > understandable) then why is the FDC expecting WMDE to dip into its other
>> > funds and/or make cuts elsewhere in order to cover the work in this
>> > proposal that the FDC is declining to fund in this proposal? This
>> > expectation seems to be a bit of a contradiction.
>> >
>> > I'm also wondering how WMDE is able to submit a dedicated request for
>> > restricted funding for Wikidata if the Wikidata project is so integrated
>> > into WMDE's other budgets that the FDC finds the integration to be
>> > problematic. Can the FDC or our colleagues at WMDE explain this?
>> >
>> > Wikidata is a high profile project with a good reputation, and I hope
>> that
>> > the issues can be resolved soon.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> >
>> > Pine
>> > On Nov 23, 2015 14:09, "matanya moses" <mata...@foss.co.il> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Hello Wikimedians,
>> > >
>> > > tl;dr: The FDC’s recommendations for this round of the APG grant
>> requests
>> > > have now been published at:
>> > >
>> >
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round1
>> > >
>> > > The Fu

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests

[Craig Franklin]

I likewise appreciate the strong language on the situation with the WMF;
the general opacity and vagueness of public budget plans (especially
considering the requirements for affiliate organisations in this area) is
something that has been widely noted on this list and elsewhere, and to my
mind not answered in a satisfactory way.  It is good to see a fearless FDC
that is prepared to "tell it as it is", and make sure that this problem is
receiving continued attention.

It is my hope that the Foundation will address the issues raised here in a
constructive and transparent manner, rather than ignoring them or trying to
spin them away.

Cheers,
Craig

On 24 November 2015 at 12:04, Pine W  wrote:

> Thank you FDC.
>
> Many of the small and midsized APG requests fared well in this round. That
> is nice to see.
>
> I find it concerning that the larger the organization, the more problems
> the FDC  seemed to find with the org's budget and performance management
> practices. One would expect the larger organizations to have mature and
> robust practices in these areas. Regarding WMF in particular, my concerns
> about its budget practices are well documented and I appreciate that the
> FDC is also taking note of the persistence of the problems. I hope that WMF
> will get serious about its financial transpatency.
>
> A couple of questions about Wikidata:
>
> I'm confused about the funding for Wikidata. In one place the FDC says that
> "Nonetheless, the FDC is exasperated by the inability of WMDE to to
> disaggregate the costs of Wikidata from other projects." and in another
> place the FDC says that "We have recommended a reduced amount for WMDE in
> this round with the expectation that WMDE will not cut Wikidata or their
> other tech development work, but will instead find cost savings elsewhere
> in its annual plan." If the FDC wants a disaggregated budget (which is
> understandable) then why is the FDC expecting WMDE to dip into its other
> funds and/or make cuts elsewhere in order to cover the work in this
> proposal that the FDC is declining to fund in this proposal? This
> expectation seems to be a bit of a contradiction.
>
> I'm also wondering how WMDE is able to submit a dedicated request for
> restricted funding for Wikidata if the Wikidata project is so integrated
> into WMDE's other budgets that the FDC finds the integration to be
> problematic. Can the FDC or our colleagues at WMDE explain this?
>
> Wikidata is a high profile project with a good reputation, and I hope that
> the issues can be resolved soon.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pine
> On Nov 23, 2015 14:09, "matanya moses"  wrote:
>
> > Hello Wikimedians,
> >
> > tl;dr: The FDC’s recommendations for this round of the APG grant requests
> > have now been published at:
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round1
> >
> > The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to help make
> > decisions about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve the
> > Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy. [1] We met for four
> > days last week in San Francisco to review 11 proposals submitted for this
> > round of funding. [2]
> >
> > The committee has now posted our Round 1 2015-2016 recommendations on the
> > annual plan grants (APG) to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.
> [3]
> > The WMF Board representatives to the FDC (Denny Vrandecic, Jan-Bart de
> > Vreede and Dariusz Jemielniak) will lead the Board in its review of these
> > recommendations. The WMF Board will review the recommendations and then
> > make their decision on them before 1 January 2016.
> >
> > This round, the eleven proposals came from ten chapters and one thematic
> > organisation, totaling requests of approximately $3.8 million USD. Ten
> > affiliates were returning to the APG program, and one was a new
> applicant.
> > This round, one organisation requested a restricted grant to support one
> > particular program. All other grant requests were for general funding.
> >
> > Before we met for our face-to-face deliberations, the FDC carefully
> > reviewed all proposals and supporting documentation (e.g., budgets,
> plans,
> > strategies) in detail, aided by staff assessments and analysis on impact,
> > finances, and programs, as well as community comments on the proposals.
> The
> > committee had long and intense conversations about the proposals
> submitted
> > this round. By listening and carefully considering all available data,
> the
> > committee achieved consensus on all proposal deliberations.
> >
> > In addition to the above, the FDC has also included a recommendation
> about
> > the WMF itself to improve its own level of planning transparency and
> budget
> > detail. The WMF staff were not involved in the conception or writing of
> > this additional recommendation.
> >
> > For your reference, there is a formal process to submit appeals about
> > these 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki-research-l] Quality issues

[Craig Franklin]

Indeed, the things that make a Wikipedia article high quality (such as well
written and engaging prose) are not necessarily the same things that are
useful for a data-driven product like Wikidata.  When Wikidata offers
assistance to another project, and that assistance is not received
enthusiastically because the project feels it will not improve their own
quality metrics; that is not a "black box" communication problem, nor is it
anyone in particular's fault, that is an issue of differing priorities.

Cheers,
Craig

On 20 November 2015 at 23:30, WereSpielChequers  wrote:

> My experience is that pretty much all Wikimedians care about quality,
> though some have different, even diametrically opposed views as to what
> quality means and which things are cosmetic or crucial.
>
> My experience of the sadly dormant death anomaly project
>  was that people
> react positively to being told "here is a list of anomalies on your
> language wikipedia" especially if those anomalies are relatively serious.
> My experience of edits on many different languages is that wikipedians
> appreciate someone who improves articles, even if you don't speak their
> language. Dismissing any of our thousand wikis as a "black box" is I think
> less helpful.
>
> One of the great opportunities of Wikidata is to do the sort of data driven
> anomaly finding that we pioneered with the death anomalies report. But we
> always need to remember that there are cultural difference between wikis,
> and not just in such things as the age at which we assume people are dead.
> Diplomacy is a useful skill in cross wiki work.
>
> 
>
> On 20 November 2015 at 07:18, Gerard Meijssen 
> wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > At Wikidata we often find issues with data imported from a Wikipedia.
> > Lists have been produced with these issues on the Wikipedia involved and
> > arguably they do present issues with the quality of Wikipedia or Wikidata
> > for that matter. So far hardly anything resulted from such outreach.
> >
> > When Wikipedia is a black box, not communicating about with the outside
> > world, at some stage the situation becomes toxic. At this moment there
> are
> > already those at Wikidata that argue not to bother about Wikipedia
> quality
> > because in their view, Wikipedians do not care about its own quality.
> >
> > Arguably known issues with quality are the easiest to solve.
> >
> > There are many ways to approach this subject. It is indeed a quality
> issue
> > both for Wikidata and Wikipedia. It can be seen as a research issue; how
> to
> > deal with quality and how do such mechanisms function if at all.
> >
> > I blogged about it..
> > Thanks,
> >  GerardM
> >
> >
> >
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/11/what-kind-of-box-is-wikipedia.html
> >
> > ___
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> > wiki-researc...@lists.wikimedia.org
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> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect is gone

[Craig Franklin]

Good riddance to a bad mistake.  Hopefully the underlying causes of the
MediaViewer conflict can be addressed before any other incidents of this
nature occur.

Cheers,
Craig
On 06/11/2015 3:36 AM, "Quim Gil"  wrote:

> Superprotect [1] was introduced by the Wikimedia Foundation to resolve a
> product development disagreement. We have not used it for resolving a
> dispute since. Consequently, today we are removing Superprotect from
> Wikimedia servers.
>
> Without Superprotect, a symbolic point of tension is resolved. However, we
> still have the underlying problem of disagreement and consequent delays at
> the product deployment phase. We need to become better software partners,
> work together towards better products, and ship better features faster. The
> collaboration between the WMF and the communities depends on mutual trust
> and constructive criticism. We need to improve Wikimedia mechanisms to
> build consensus, include more voices, and resolve disputes.
>
> There is a first draft of an updated Product Development Process [2] that
> will guide the work of the WMF Engineering and Product teams.[3] It
> stresses the need for community feedback throughout the process, but
> particularly in the early phases of development. More feedback earlier on
> will allow us to incorporate community-driven improvements and address
> potential controversy while plans and software are most flexible.
>
> We welcome the feedback of technical and non-technical contributors. Check
> the Q for details.[4]
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Superprotect
> [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Product_Development_Process
> [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering
> [4]
>
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Product_Development_Process/2015-11-05#Q.26A
>
> --
> Quim Gil
> Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Number of new User Groups

[Craig Franklin]

Hi,

My suggestion is to take care with using the term "limited liability",
because it sounds like this might mean a different thing in my jurisdiction
and in my jurisdiction.  As has been pointed out, volunteers in a user
group may be exposing themselves to significant risk of something goes
badly wrong.  I trust that AffCom advises potential new user groups to seek
independent legal and financial advice prior to setting themselves up or
holding events so that volunteers understand the legal risks that they may
be exposing themselves to.

Cheers,
Craig

On 19 October 2015 at 15:27, Gregory Varnum 
wrote:

> It is limited liability on both parts, meaning that user groups are not
> required to become legal entities, or maintain the higher reporting and
> capacity requirements that chapters and thematic organizations are required
> to maintain.
>
> The considerations that you are mentioning are tied to your activities and
> not your status as a user group. It is a misleading and discouraging to
> others to imply that running a user group in the United States requires all
> of that liability and workload. User groups are not required to become
> legal entities (which Cascadia has opted to do), and can be as simple as a
> student club at a university. In other words, not all user groups are
> alike. The level of liability is tied to the activities the group engages
> in, not the affiliations model.
>
> -greg (User:Varnent)
> Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee
>
> > On Oct 19, 2015, at 12:56 AM, Pine W  wrote:
> >
> > Hi Manuel,
> >
> > Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I
> > think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As
> far
> > as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of
> paperwork
> > that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds
> > and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether
> > there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex
> > operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with
> no
> > paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my
> involvement
> > in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that
> > there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to
> > keep our user group on solid legal ground.
> >
> > Pine
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel <
> > manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Ilario,
> >>
> >> it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body
> to
> >> do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after
> having
> >> fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation
> >> models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
> >>
> >> Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities,
> access
> >> to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the
> Grant
> >> Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this
> we
> >> want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity -
> a
> >> report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
> >>
> >> /Manuel
> >>
> >> --
> >> sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario Valdelli
> <
> >> valde...@gmail.com>:
> >>>
> >>> I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of
> >>> groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
> >>>
> >>> A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
> >>>
> >>> At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and
> the
> >>> development of these groups: they can only born.
> >>>
> >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
> >>>
> >>> Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't
> >>> monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to
> >>> freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
> >> silent.
> >>>
> >>> In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of
> >>> these groups would have a sense.
> >>>
> >>> Kind regards
> >>>
> >>> On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
>  The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
> >> increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it
> >> follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.
> In
> >> 2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far
> this
> >> year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next
> >> year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the
> approval
> >> process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from
> our
> >> perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the
> start,
> >> and not a surprise.
> 
>  Personally, I think further complicating 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing the Wikimedia Affiliates mailing list

[Craig Franklin]

Hi All,

One thing I think that is missing from this discussion is that if people
want to collaborate internally, they will collaborate internally.  If there
isn't a mailing list available to do that, it will simply be done through
other means, be that private email, instant messaging, etcetera.  If
affiliates want a place to communicate with each other without the glare of
publicity, they will have one, and saying "No" to this request won't force
them into some form of radical transparency.

Cheers,
Craig

On 21 October 2015 at 08:00, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> Ow yes, I remember a affiliate specific issue that was not handled
> appropriate by some users from outside any affiliate.
>
> And also this discussion here doesn't give a comfortable feeling (in my
> opinion) to affiliates to do (always) a public discussion. If I as
> affiliate member, want to have feedback from my colleagues, I am not
> waiting for a hostile environment.
>
> The problem here as well is that people with certain tasks, like running an
> affiliate, do have the need for communication with people with the same
> task. That is the basic reason for setting up a mailing list. If you can't
> imagine why people with the same task should communicate internally, it
> certainly should not up to you to decide due a lack of experience.
> Years ago I could not imagine why certain people with a certain task wanted
> to communicate with each other internally, until I came in that position
> myself. If I want feedback in how other affiliates do certain things, I am
> not waiting for other people to scare those affiliates away with their
> messages.
>
> And by the way, having a way to communicate internally (like a closed
> mailing list) does not create a walled garden away from the community.
> The thing that does create a walled garden away from the community is by
> saying that some people are separate because they have a certain task. The
> "we versus them" thoughts.
>
> And what is called a "community" is much much larger than the small amount
> of people on the mailing list, that is typically biased as result of hard
> discussions that occur from time to time.
>
> Romaine
>
>
> 2015-10-19 20:54 GMT+02:00 Ed Erhart :
>
> > You've set up a strawman argument, Greg, and your solution is suboptimal.
> > This is a community issue, as SJ correctly notes, and it should be
> > discussed with the community. Leaving it private "for now" and polling
> the
> > list affiliates (or going back to a virtually unknown Meta page) is going
> > to result in the list staying closed—do we really believe that anyone
> there
> > is going to vote to publicize their own discussions?
> >
> > Are there specific examples of these "affiliate-specific issues"
> occurring
> > in the past? There are very few things that I can think of that should be
> > private, and one of those is privacy issues, which shouldn't be discussed
> > on any mailing lists (open or closed). Leaks can and do happen.
> >
> > If a chapter needs private advice "on discussing an issue with the
> broader
> > community", they might want to look into breaking down the walled garden
> > they're already in.
> >
> > --Ed
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Gregory Varnum <
> gregory.var...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > There has already been discussion amongst some affiliates about this
> > issue
> > > (including one on Meta-Wiki) - which is where this comes from.
> > >
> > > I suggest we leave it private for now and see what the affiliates on
> the
> > > list would like to do.
> > >
> > > I disagree with your sentiment that none of the 10 points require
> > privacy.
> > > One of them is discussing affiliate-specific issues - which might
> include
> > > financial or privacy issues facing an affiliates, an interaction with
> the
> > > WMF, or advice on discussing an issue with the broader community. My
> > > understanding is that there is a fear people may be more reserved in
> > > discussing topics if their comments are up for public discussion.
> > >
> > > If private lists or wikis were a new concept, I think the expectation
> > > might be something more fair to proceed with. However, there are
> several
> > > private lists already in use, and as stated, this is in response to
> > > requests from affiliates. That request included that the list be made
> > > private, which seems reasonable.
> > >
> > > Ultimately, I do not feel comfortable making this decision for the
> > > affiliates, and since they initially requested it be private, I would
> > like
> > > to respect that and allow them to discuss it more.
> > >
> > > I agree that having a discussion about how we achieve transparency is
> > > worth doing. However, starting that discussion (or restarting it I
> > suppose)
> > > by imposing a new measure that was specifically not wanted by the
> target
> > > audience of that resource is not the best way to move things forward.
> The
> > > end result would likely 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] help needed - Arkansas

[Craig Franklin]

This is not an especially helpful response.

Regards,,
Craig

On 14 October 2015 at 20:37, Jane Darnell  wrote:

> Arkansas is considered one of the "fly-over" states. Good luck locating a
> Wikipedian somewhere around there, not to mention a Wikimedian.
>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 7:38 AM, Gnangarra  wrote:
>
> > G'day
> >
> > I have been contacted by an active Wikiproject Spam editor for help
> > (because I've recently been working with an editor here in Perth in a
> > similar situation),  to talk to a user who appears to be linked to the
> > Encyclopedia of Arkansas. The user is just adding links to EOA in the
> > external links section of related articles, another user has asked for
> the
> > links not to be blacklisted as its a good source.
> >
> > In these case the Australian chapter reaches out such editors as a
> personal
> > discussion over a coffee here works very effectively in turning this type
> > of contact into potential programmatic activities.  Being just couple
> miles
> > too far way I was looking for someone closer who would be willing to
> > followup with this on a local level.  As I said in my offer of help I'm
> > happy to support and advise them that goes for who ever takes up the
> reigns
> > but the important part of developing this is impractical from here.
> >
> >
> > on WP discussion
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cals.eoa#Help_offer
> > ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gnangarra#UOA
> >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Encyclopedia_of_Arkansas
> > ​
> >
> > already checked meta there isnt any chapters close by, nearest user group
> > is in North Carolina with a smaller area of interest, and the only
> > experienced editors(10,000+ edits) listed on the en Wikiproject Arkansas
> > havent been active in the last 6 months
> >
> > --
> > ​Gnangarra
> >
> > President Wikimedia Australia
> > WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2017 Montreal - scooped by Signpost

[Craig Franklin]

You could excuse the Perth and Manila bid teams for being very angry at
having wasted a lot of time and energy when the decision was apparently
made behind closed doors weeks ago.  Even if you think the idea of getting
rid of the expensive bid process is a good idea (and I do), the way that
this was not communicated to the community is simply abominable.

Cheers,
Craig

On 4 October 2015 at 08:13, Nathan  wrote:

> Evidently the Signpost has scooped the WMF by revealing that Montreal has
> been selected for the 2017 Wikimania host city in a secret process that
> completed this past August. [1]
>
> It seems like the community could have been looped into this new method
> before it was a done deal.
>
> ~Nathan
>
> [1]
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-09-30/News_and_notes
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2017 Montreal - scooped by Signpost

[Craig Franklin]

I take your point Pine, but "improving communication with the community"
seems to have been a WMF priority for as long as I can remember, yet there
doesn't seem to have been any consistent improvement, as we can see here.
A new approach and direction to how matters like this are communicated is
clearly needed, because the current one doesn't seem to be working at all.

Cheers,
Craig

On 4 October 2015 at 13:25, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sigh. Decisions being made behind closed doors and then being announced
> much later than they should have been is a bit of a WMF pattern that I
> would like to see addressed. My understanding is that Lila is putting some
> emphasis on improved communications in Q2, and I would be interested in
> seeing some specific measures put in place to address the kind of situation
> that seems to have happened again here.
>
> On Sat, Oct 3, 2015 at 8:13 PM, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net>
> wrote:
>
> > You could excuse the Perth and Manila bid teams for being very angry at
> > having wasted a lot of time and energy when the decision was apparently
> > made behind closed doors weeks ago.  Even if you think the idea of
> getting
> > rid of the expensive bid process is a good idea (and I do), the way that
> > this was not communicated to the community is simply abominable.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Craig
> >
> > On 4 October 2015 at 08:13, Nathan <nawr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Evidently the Signpost has scooped the WMF by revealing that Montreal
> has
> > > been selected for the 2017 Wikimania host city in a secret process that
> > > completed this past August. [1]
> > >
> > > It seems like the community could have been looped into this new method
> > > before it was a done deal.
> > >
> > > ~Nathan
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-09-30/News_and_notes
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Departure

[Craig Franklin]

I'm very much saddened to hear this, Garfield.  On previous instances where
I've emailed you to ask for some information or advice on what the
Foundation is doing, you've always been quick with a reply, giving me what
I need, straight out, and with no spin or fluff.

Your departure is a significant loss for the Foundation and for our
movement, but that's offset by the fact that it's going to be a great boon
for the cause of public education in California.  Best wishes for the
future!

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 11 September 2015 at 07:53, Garfield Byrd <gb...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> All,
>
> For the last four years, I’ve led the Wikimedia Foundation’s finance,
> administration, and office IT teams. I've had the opportunity to work
> closely with many of you through collaboration with the Wikimedia
> affiliates. They have been remarkable experiences, and I am grateful for
> all I’ve learned from you during my time here. Therefore it is with some
> sadness that today I am letting you know that I’ve decided to take a new
> opportunity outside the WMF, at a California-based foundation focused on
> public education.
>
> It has been a privilege to work with so many exceptional people over the
> years. I’ve watched the WMF mature and take on many new challenges, and our
> community grow and diversify. Our commitment to our free knowledge mission
> is as strong as ever, and now shared by even more people. While I’ll no
> longer be on staff, I plan to find ways to stay involved in the Wikimedia
> community. I look forward to seeing the movement continue to do its
> important work.
>
> My last day will be September 30. I look forward to staying in touch and
> continuing to support our mission.
>
> Best,
>
> Garfield
>
> --
> Garfield Byrd
> Chief of Finance and Administration
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 415.839.6885 ext 6787
> 415.882.0495 (fax)
> www.wikimediafoundation.org
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
> the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
>
> *https://donate.wikimedia.org <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki Loves Monuments] Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising

[Craig Franklin]

Firstly, I'm delighted to see that a mutually acceptable compromise has
been reached here.  Well done everyone in coming together with the best
interests of the entire movement in mind.

If I can make a suggestion though, I'd suggest that the fundraising team
and the community, particularly the WLM crew, get together *now* and try to
work out how those campaigns are going to be coordinated so that this
doesn't happen again next year, while there are still good vibes in the
air.  Something we're all really bad at as a movement, is procrastinating
on these sort of issues, but if there is a bit of forward planning there's
no reason that everyone can't have their cake and eat it too.

Cheers,
Craig

On 31 August 2015 at 21:02, Megan Hernandez 
wrote:

> Below is a message that Andrea Zanni, President of Wikimedia Italia, and I
> have written together.
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feedback. We would like to fill you
> in on the background work and conversations between Wikimedia Italia and
> WMF.
>
> There was a scheduling problem to solve between two very important
> campaigns for the movement. Wiki Loves Monuments is a major contribution
> campaign and annual effort.  Fundraising campaigns fund the movement and
> the team has a difficult goal this year with quarterly targets to meet.
> Direct communication was needed to work through the issue.
>
> WMIT and WMF have been talking through the situation and many possible
> solutions over the past few weeks. Through very honest and respectful phone
> and email conversations, we were able to reach a mutual understanding of
> the issue and decided to move the fundraising campaign after Wiki Loves
> Monuments. We reached this agreement over the weekend (actually several
> hours before the RfC was posted online), but an immediate reply was not
> sent because we wanted to coordinate an update to the list. Weekend
> coordination is tricky, which is why this email is being sent on Monday.
>
> Postponing the Italian fundraising campaign means for the first time in at
> least 4 years, the fundraising team will not be meeting a target. The team
> will pick up extra work in October to make up for work missed in September.
> It's not possible to do two months of work in one month, so there will need
> to be adjustments later throughout the year to make up for missing the
> September target.
>
> Wikimedia Italia and the WMF fundraising team have collaborated in the past
> on several projects (chapter banner and email campaigns as well as
> fundraising campaigns). We are currently working together on ways to get
> more contributors to WLM in Italy this year and on the upcoming fundraiser.
> We’ll work on communication and will share mutual expertise. We look
> forward to continuing to grow the relationship and working more closely
> going forward.
>
> It’s clear we need a better process to coordinate campaigns. We are a vast
> and complex movement, so communication is key. Together with the Community
> Engagement team, we are thinking of ways to improve and we appreciate your
> effort toward this improvement. Reasonable and respectful communication is
> how we were able to reach a solution, we need to build from this going
> forward.
>
> Thank you to everyone who provided constructive ideas to help solve the
> problem. Best of luck to all the WLM campaigns that launch tomorrow! Thank
> you for all your work on WLM, we’re all looking forward to seeing the new
> contributions this year.
>
>
> Megan Hernandez and Andrea Zanni
>
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > Interesting that this happens just after the RFC is started. Maybe no
> > relevance...
> > Cheers,
> > P
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrea Zanni
> > Sent: Sunday, 30 August 2015 10:21 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List; Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition
> > Cc: Wikimedia Chapters general discussions
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki Loves Monuments] Wiki Loves Monuments in
> > Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising
> >
> > Hello everybody.
> > I'm happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation has decided not to
> run
> > the Fundraising banner in Italy during September.
> >
> > In the last week, the Fundraising Team and Wikimedia Italia's board
> worked
> > hard together to find a common solution. In these very last days, we
> > continued a very honest and direct conversation.
> > I just received the news, and I'm glad to share it with you all.
> >
> > I personally think that the Fundraising Team made a brave move (as they
> > will not likely meet the fundraising goals), and would love to see it
> > welcomed with the respect it deserves.
> >
> > Best regards
> >
> > Andrea
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 8:33 PM, Steinsplitter Wiki <
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New WMF initiative: Community Capacity Development

[Craig Franklin]

As someone who has been telling anyone at the WMF who will listen that this
sort of capacity development is *essential* if community groups are going
to meet the governance requirements of the Foundation and actually achieve
measurable outcomes, I'm enormously pleased that something has finally been
done about this.  Nothing to add at this point except high fives and thanks
all around for everyone who was involved in making this happen.

Cheers,
Craig

On 26 August 2015 at 09:40, Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> {{Nutshell|WMF Community Engagement Team is allocating staff time and
> funding to deliberate capacity-development projects with interested
> communities in six capacity areas: community governance; conflict
> management; on-wiki technical skills; new contributor engagement and
> growth; partnerships; communications}}
>
> ==Details==
> This is a new way of partnering with WMF: through two way conversations
> (rather than top-down planning), WMF will work with specific emerging
> communities to explore obstacles for community growth and explore and pilot
> solutions together.
>
> The first phase of this work consisted of a series of in-depth interviews
> with individuals from 16 specific emerging communities to gather
> information about existing and missing capacities.  Reviewing those
> interviews in aggregate, we came up with six capacities it seems useful to
> work together on.
>
> We prepared a page per such capacity, detailing challenges and possible
> approaches to build that capacity. We welcome your  feedback! Contributions
> to those pages can be done in the following ways:
>
> * Sign up on the sidebar of each capacity subpage if you want to implement
> certain practices described,
> * Provide more links to resources,
> * Expand the Potential Solutions section with new ideas.
>
> These pages, including your contributions, will serve as the basis for
> specific conversations with specific communities to develop plans or
> projects to build capacity.
>
> During this initial pilot period, we intend to pursue projects in two or
> three capacities at most, which will be chosen according to community
> interest, scale of community, and scale of readership.  We expect some of
> the specific actions we take in these projects would create resources
> [re-]usable by other communities as well.
>
> ==Join the Conversation==
> We invite you all to read through the capacity pages, and specifically, to
> see if the challenges described resonate with you and your community.  If
> they do, have an on-wiki discussion about it with your community, and if
> there's general interest, sign up on the capacity pages and we'll have a
> conversation about what might be some possible next steps.
>
> Find the six capacity pages on Meta, here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development
>
> Looking forward to fruitful engagement,
>
>Asaf Bartov
>Sati Houston
>Community Engagement department
> --
> Asaf Bartov
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
> https://donate.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki Loves Monuments] Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising

[Craig Franklin]

It has been my experience that site banners are the best way to reach
casual readers who are not already integrated into the projects and
existing communication channels.  This is why the Fundraising team run
banners, rather than begging for money through Facebook and targeted talk
page messages, I would imagine.  The communications channels you're
referring to are excellent for reaching existing contributors, but when
you're trying to reach new or casual contributors, a big banner at the top
of articles can't be beat.

Cheers,
Craig

On 19 August 2015 at 05:18, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Romaine Wiki romaine.w...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Hi Antanana,
 
  And I forgot to mention, this same issue existed in 2014 as well, with
 also
  there the downside effects.
 
  This subject is of banners has been discussed internally with the local
  Wiki Loves Monuments team, after I tried to gave some insights in the
  matter. I think this is done so because me and others have always thought
  and assumed that it is possible to find a solution with understanding of
  both sides. With these outcomes I think I can safely say that that
  assumption and thought can't be considered realistic.
 
  I think it would be better in future to have the community decide somehow
  how they perceive this matter. After all, they create the content of
  Wikipedia and bear the bunt as result of it.
 
  Romaine
 
 
 It seems like there are other communication channels you could take
 advantage of - other types of banners, bot-distributed talk page messages,
 WMF-assisted mass e-mail campaigns, social networking messages (FB,
 Twitter, etc.) and so on. Is it really true that having to share banners
 with fundraising will result in an unavoidable loss of 90% of contributors?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect's first birthday

[Craig Franklin]

On 12 August 2015 at 14:41, Bohdan Melnychuk bas...@yandex.ru wrote:

 ... It has a trail of bad usage it is connected with. ...


I'm not sure I agree with that.  There are two known uses.  The first one,
where a software tool was locked in over the consensus of the community was
a bad usage I'll agree; if anything the hamfisted way that the whole
situation was handled just made matters much worse.  The second use,
locking a page on Wikidata where serious outages were being caused to
another project, strikes me as a far more reasonable use of the tool.  The
fact that that usage seems to have been largely unknown until today, and
didn't garner any controversy, seems to indicate to me that the community
doesn't find it to be a troubling case.

I'm all for having a discussion over the community's expectations on when
this tool will be used, but let us not walk down a path of hyperbole and
exaggeration.

Cheers,
Craig
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation quarterly reviews for April-June 2015

[Craig Franklin]

Indeed, as Kirill says, the grants process is owned by the WMF (albeit one
hosted on Meta), not by the community, so I'm not sure why the Meta
community needs to get involved.  It actually seems to me that the
foundation wiki would be a better home for processes like this so that
community bureaucracy can be avoided, but since the events of a couple of
years ago that seems like it's not a plausible option in the short term.

I do have to say I'm a bit disappointed that a lot of the negative feedback
that certain aspects of the friendly space policy got from the GAC seem to
have been handwaved away; with its feeble provisions for enforcement, it
seems like the sort of policy you have when you want to look like you're
doing something about a problem, without actually taking responsibility, or
addressing the difficult root causes that caused the issue in the first
place.  If saying no to harassment in WMF processes isn't worth upturning
a few apple carts over, then what is?  I do hope that the Community
department will have a change of heart and take a much harder line against
offwiki harassment, starting from here.

On a completely different note, I do hope that the legal team will share
their protocol for appearance (or threat of it) at events by banned users.
I've been given softly-softly unofficial advice before on the expectations
if globally banned users show up at a community event, but it would be good
if this could be made available for everyone that wants to hold an event
where there is a chance that banned or otherwise problematic individuals
might show up, so as to ensure a consistent approach.

Cheers,
Craig





On 20 July 2015 at 07:15, Kirill Lokshin kirill.loks...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 
  1. Will the friendly-space expectations (policy?) for grants spaces on
  Meta be proposed as an RfC on Meta? The documentation on the rollout plan
  doesn't mention and RfC. My understanding is that the right way to
  implement a policy change like this on Meta is for it to go through an
 open
  and transparent RfC process, and that the implementation decision is
  ultimately the community's to make. The experience would inform further
  discussions about (1) a project-wide friendly space policy on Meta, and
 (2)
  a wider consultation on a friendly space amendment to the ToS that the
 WMF
  Board may eventually ratify.


 I don't see any reason why an RFC would be required (or appropriate) here.
 The grantmaking process is a WMF function, and the associated pages on meta
 are managed by the WMF grantmaking team; they are free to impose
 requirements (such as compliance with a friendly space standard) on anyone
 participating in that process (whether as an applicant or as a commenter or
 reviewer).

 Kirill
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cebuano and Waray-waray Wikipedias among Top 10

[Craig Franklin]

There is already a consensus on enwiki (please, hold your rotten tomatoes)
that projects like this which have inflated article counts due to extensive
botting rather than through having a lively community not be included on
the main page.  I think a lot of the comments here about a huge article
count attracting communities to curate that content are somewhat
disingenous, it seems that despite having lots of articles there is only
one active user on Waray Wikipedia, who is responsible for more than 99% of
total edits.  As Milos has alluded to, number of articles is a poor
metric for understanding how useful a particular project is to speakers of
that language.

Speaking here as a speaker of a minority language myself, I understand the
temptation of quickly creating lots of articles to have some sort of
demonstrable impact, and I believe there is a place for some bot generation
of articles on any project.  But after hitting Random a few times on
Waray, and seeing what came back, I'm not really sure how this is a more
useful resource for speakers of the language than just going into Wikidata
with the interface set to Waray.  I believe the time honoured, if slower
way of creating a Wikipedia, lovingly handcrafting it article by article,
is far more likely to lead to a positive impact for people.

Cheers,
Craig



On 7 July 2015 at 07:55, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Indeed, as Josh points out, there are also costs (even if only perceived or
 reputational costs) to populating a tiny Wikipedia with next to no active
 editors with hundreds of thousands of bot-generated stubs.  Is having stubs
 on all French communes in Cebuano better than having nothing in Cebuano?
 Probably, yes.  And by increasing pageviews (which is measurable), one
 increases the likelihood of organic conversion of readers into editors
 (which is *still* the most effective way to make Wikipedians, albeit not
 the easiest to directly control).

 But, again as Josh says, that increase in *editorship* is yet to be
 attained.  The Waray Wikipedia (btw, Waray-Waray is, it turns out,
 objectionable to Waray speakers, and is mildly derogatory) is still largely
 edited by *one* committed individual, User:JinJian[1], as the stats plainly
 show.  Given that the bot was run *with* JinJian's consent, there can be no
 objection to its operation.

 As Milos suggests, there seems to be an emotional response to those
 Wikipedias appearing in the top 10 view.  This should be divorced from
 those communities' sovereign decisions to run or not run the bot.  If the
 top 10 inclusion truly bothers people, and there's a strong consensus that
 Wikipedias largely populated by bot-generated stubs should not be
 included, a discussion could be had on what this view *should* mean,
 precisely, if not plainly the top 10 Wikipedias by article count.  And
 whatever refined definition is agreed upon (e.g. thresholds like a minimum
 number of active editors, or some formula involving the article depth
 figure, or whatever) can then be made the basis for the list, or indeed,
 for a different list, that would be more satisfying for those who are
 displeased with being under these Wikipedias on the list.

A.

 [1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaWAR.htm#wikipedians

 On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 2:04 PM, Josh Lim jamesjoshua...@yahoo.com wrote:

  I can probably speak for those communities.  On the whole, the logic
  behind the Lsjbot experiment was simple: build it and they will come.
 
  So far though, this hasn’t happened.  We from the Tagalog Wikipedia were
  also approached for this experiment, but we know what happens when
  bot-generated articles are made: the community is overwhelmed.  Out of
 that
  fear, we declined to participate.
 
  One of the concerns some editors in the Philippines have (and these are
  sentiments I share) is that these two Wikipedias turn us into a
  laughingstock, willing to increase article numbers at any cost.  At one
  point, the Cebuano Wikipedia was described as a Wikipedia of French
  communes, not content relevant to Cebu or Cebuanos.  I don’t think we’d
  like that with other Wikipedias in the Philippines or elsewhere.
 
  Regards,
 
  Josh
 
   Wiadomość napisana przez WereSpielChequers 
 werespielchequ...@gmail.com
  w dniu 6 lip 2015, o godz. 04:52:
  
   These are fascinating experiments, I hope that the Waray-waray and
  Cebuano
   communities will at some point report back to the wider community as to
  how
   this worked out. My fear is that too fast a growth rate could overwhelm
   whatever community we have in those languages leading to burn out of
   existing editors dealing with too many newbies at once, my suspicion is
   that this will vary by language depending on such variables as the
 ratio
  of
   PC users to smartphone users, and the ease with which editors can
 access
   the necessary character sets.
  
   We have long known that bot creation of stubs that are of interest to
   speakers of a 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Voting system (was: Results of 2015 WMF Board elections)

[Craig Franklin]

I think this is dancing around the perceived problem.  You can either have
open, democratic, and fair elections with a result that represents the will
of the electorate, or you can have a group of people who are diverse in
terms of nationality, gender, ethnicity, etcetera.  Not both.  And I don't
think that tinkering with the formula for election and board composition is
really going to do anything to address that.

Seeing the candidates that stood, I think that the real problem is the lack
of female candidates for us to elect.  And that is a cultural problem,
exacerbated by the fact that unfortunately Wikimedia projects can be quite
a hostile place for women, and understandably many women don't want to make
themselves targets for harassment.  Once there is a more even number of men
and women running, I think that this particular problem will take care of
itself.

Cheers,
Craig

On 7 June 2015 at 04:58, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm happy with S/N/O and with the election winners, but concerned about the
 diversity of the Board. I wonder if rethinking the entire board structure
 is in order, for example we could have:

 1. One seat per continent, elected by the whole voting community
 2. Two affiliate seats chosen by all affiliates including user groups.
 3. Two appointed seats with non-renewable terms.

 Thoughts?

 Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Towns

[Craig Franklin]

Indeed.

Unfortunately I'm just heading out so i can't waffle at length, but there
are two active projects in Australia in Fremantle and Toodyay.

Cheers,
Craig
On 01/05/2015 7:45 AM, K. Peachey p858sn...@gmail.com wrote:

 I believe Wikimedia AU  did some work with this type of stuff…

 On Friday, May 1, 2015, d...@bisharat.net wrote:

  What is the status of the Wiki Towns effort? I first heard of it at
  Wikimania 2012, but looking at the list of actual projects, it appears to
  have had limited appeal. Noting also that in a couple of cases there were
  controversies.
 
  I tracked down a Wikitown email list, but no reply to an inquiry there.
 
  TIA for any info,
 
  Don Osborn
  Sent via BlackBerry by ATT
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Craig Franklin]

I do think that it's doesn't particularly match up for the Foundation to
base itself in one of the most expensive cities in the world, citing the
local talent pool, when a lot of the tech staff are being recruited
elsewhere and are working remotely.  I did feel that a lot of the
motivation to moving to SF in the first place was because for some high
level staff, leading a tech-based organisation in SF looked better on the
old CV than leading a tech-based organisation in Flint, Gary, or East St.
Louis would.

With that said, I concede that it's probably much too late to unscramble
this particular egg, as relocating now would probably end up costing more
than would be saved by moving to a lower cost centre, which is unfortunate.

Regards,
Craig Franklin

On 10 April 2015 at 01:47, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi Fae,

 We have 215 staff in total, with a hub of activity in San Francisco and
 other staff in several other states and 18 countries.  So I agree talented
 people can be found globally and WMF does hire the best talent it can find
 wherever they are located.  At this point adding offices in other locations
 add cost without any benefits to the community or the Wikimedia
 Foundation.  We also do not have the luxury of Mozilla's $300 million
 budget that can support a London office or Microsoft's billions to have a
 globally distributed workforce with offices.  So we are not closing the
 door to anything. Based on our test project of trying to develop centers of
 activity in other parts of the United States there is no need for
 additional offices. We do need and will continue to hire a globally
 distributed staff of talented people to support our global community of
 talented volunteers.

 Regards,

 Garfield

 On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 2:19 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

  On 9 April 2015 at 01:16, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote:
   ... The advantages of having good access to talented people and
   organizations WMF interacts with far outweigh any advantages to moving
  to a
   lower cost location outside of the San Francisco market area.
 
  I find the world-view expressed here slightly odd to read, perhaps
  because I am more European than American in background.
 
  My background includes working for long periods with many companies in
  the U.S. (such as Microsoft) and we managed to do that perfectly with
  a handful of employees in a Seattle office, and most developers and
  internal operations such as HR, finance etc. in Europe (very few of
  these people ever had a need or desire to talk directly with customers
  or partner organizations). It was easy enough for me to visit the U.S.
  a couple of times a year when there was a lot going on there, and work
  on a daily basis within a lively virtual team spread out in offices
  across London, Paris and New York.
 
  Talented people can be found in many places including San Francisco,
  and though Google is incredibly important, there many other critically
  important potential open knowledge partners without headquarters in SF
  (Europeana springs to mind). Even Mozilla has a very nice office to
  work with here in London. The idea that having all functions in SF has
  advantages that far outweigh all other considerations seems to
  over-egg the case, perhaps it would be a good thing to leave the door
  open a crack for alternative ways of working to be possible in a far
  future.
 
  Fae
 
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 --
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 Chief of Finance and Administration
 Wikimedia Foundation
 415.839.6885 ext 6787
 415.882.0495 (fax)
 www.wikimediafoundation.org

 Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
 the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!

 *https://donate.wikimedia.org https://donate.wikimedia.org/*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

[Craig Franklin]

Hello,

Might I suggest that if folks want to continue talking about this, they
rename this thread, as it is no longer about Kourosh Karimkhany, and it is
just creating background noise for those of us who have no desire to
discuss the whole Wikipedia Zero freedom thing yet again?

Cheers,
Craig

On 5 April 2015 at 21:07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hoi,
 Research is not what we compete with. Research is not encyclopaedic either.
 The research I refer to compared a set of subjects and compared those in
 several sources... Then again why bore you with information you already
 could know..

 Cherry picking an article from Brittanica is wonderful, it proves your
 point, it however fails to convince.

 Your God or mine, the fact is that Wikipedia is a most relevant source.
 Given your complaint about the John Dee article, there is an opportunity
 for you. You claim to know the subject matter.
 Thanks,
GerardM

 On 5 April 2015 at 12:06, Lilburne lilbu...@tygers-of-wrath.net wrote:

  On 05/04/2015 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
 
  Hoi,
  Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an
  encyclopaedia. It is not original research.
 
 
  One can indeed engage in original research by cherry picking the sources.
 
 
   Studies have indicated that
  Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors.
 
 
  Nonsense. Reliability has only ever been checked in the case of well
  established scientific
  knowledge (where it was found to have 30% more errors), and highly
  disputed content.
  It has not been checked over the millions of articles that are neither of
  the above.
 
  Take the WP article on John Dee and compare it to the Britannica article.
  The Britannica
  article is both readable and well rounded. The WP article is a rambling
  mess that tries
  to present Dee the Mathematician, Scientist and natural philospher, but
 is
  thwarted
  at every turn by those that want John Dee to be foremost the magician and
  conjuror.
 
  Perhaps in the end Dee the mathematician wins out, but it is a close run
  thing, and
  one has to pour over the stilted language and mish mash of thought
  processes to
  get there.
 
  Ironically enough many of the sources used to promote Dee the magician
 are
  instead
  promoting Dee the mathematician.
 
   I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed,
  people
  do care about Wikipedia Zero.
 
 
  God help us if that is the case. Fortunately there are far more
  informative and reliable
  sites about then wikipedia. Unfortunately they tend not to be on the
 first
  page of a
  search engine's results.
 
 
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Join the Wikimedia strategy consultation

[Craig Franklin]

On 24 February 2015 at 09:40, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 Philippe Beaudette wrote:
 Five years ago, I was part of the work on a strategic plan for the
 Wikimedia movement.  Much has changed since then.  Now, I’m back...and
 we’re working on strategic direction again.  :-)

 Hi.

 I distinctly remember you swearing not to be involved in the next
 strategic plan. I may even have logs of such statements. What has changed?

I'm guessing that Philippe's boss has informed him that he's going to be
working on it whether he likes it or not ;-)

Cheers,
Craig
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [treasurers] Accounting software for thematic orgs

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Pine,

That's great to hear, I was really pleased with how Xero worked for our
organisation and I hope it's just as good for you.  If you (or any other
user group) need a hand with it, please feel free to drop me a line as I've
a few years experience with it now.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 16 February 2015 at 15:59, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Treasurers and other finance people,

 I realize that we had this discussion some months ago about accounting
 software. I just wanted to follow up by letting you know that Cascadia
 decided to go with Xero as we start. Your advice was helpful and I greatly
 appreciate it.

 I hope to meet many of you at the Wikimedia Conference in Germany this
 year.

 Regards,

 Pine
 (now Executive Director for Cascadia Wikimedians User Group)
 On Aug 20, 2014 4:12 AM, Richard Symonds 
 richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:

 Hi Pine,

 I started off doing the accounts at WMUK several years ago and looked at a
 fair few different systems, including open source.

 Initially we used Gnucash, I believe, but because no-one else used it -
 including our auditors - it was not very useful when we needed to create
 year end accounts. I also considered CiviCRM after viewing a talk from the
 Swedish chapter in 2012. However, the talk was not encouraging - CiviCRM
 needs a *lot *of work to be useable as an accounting system. I would not
 therefore recommend Gnucash or CiviCRM or any other open source system:
 you
 will find it almost impossible to find an accountant who uses them, and
 also almost impossible to find a CiviCRM developer who is also an
 accountant! Your auditors will not know how to use the data and will not
 have the programs to access it, so in the end you will have to pay extra
 for the free software.

 In short: open source programs are good for small charity accounts, but
 the
 moment you start hiring staff (of any sort), or have fixed assets or
 non-cash donations, the system does not scale and as a result you will
 incur large overheads trying to get it to work. You might run into a
 problem with CiviCRM if you need to generate invoices for a conference you
 run in three or four years time - will your system be able to handle it,
 or
 will you need to upgrade everything at much greater cost?

 We also looked at Quickbooks, Sage, and a few others. In the end, we
 picked
 Sage - not because it was cheap, or because it was ethical - but because
 it
 is the UK standard and practically all UK accountants know how to use it.
 It has a huge support network, and it is scalable from a self-employed
 person up to an organisation with many thousands of employees. Sage is not
 used much in the USA though, so Quickbooks may be a better idea for you.

 My advice to you would be:

- Plan for the future - ten year's time. Your solution needs to be
scalable with little fuss.
- Use something that has a proven track record - don't got for anything
like a startup, because you need it supported in future and you can't
 take
the risk.
- Cloud-based is good, but the Treasurer really needs to understand
what's happening - things should go through him where possible.
- Don't be afraid to spend money if money needs to be spent.
- Don't be afraid to ask the WMF directly for their advice. They know
their stuff and it'd be good if your accounts were run on a similar
 system
to theirs - cheaper in the long run, and you've got someone to turn to
 if
it all breaks.

 I hope this helps! Feel free to drop me an email if you have any more
 specific questions.





 Richard Symonds
 Wikimedia UK
 0207 065 0992

 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
 Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
 Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A
 4LT.
 United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
 movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
 operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).

 *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
 over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*


 On 20 August 2014 10:57, Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch
 wrote:

  Hi Pine,
 
  you may want to evaluate CiviCRM.
  It is not perfect but supports accounting (rather than just recording
  donations as before) about a year.
  The advantage of CiviCRM is the fact that it integrates membership
  management, mailings, donors management and that it can be used
  centrally by all the committee members.
 
  The setup and customization is not so easy with CiviCRM but there are
  plenty of people in the movement who gathered some experience with that.
 
  /Manuel
 
  --
  Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
  Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there some Wikimedia project to host contents based on original research?

[Craig Franklin]

Wikisource should only be used for material that has already been published
elsewhere, it sounds like what's being attempted here is original
publishing.

One option may be simply to set up your own MediaWiki installation and host
such material there.  You can therefore set your own licencing rules for
the content, and make your own rules about what is and is not allowed.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 5 January 2015 at 23:42, Richard Symonds 
richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:

 This sounds like a Wikisource idea - do we have any wikisourcerers who can
 give their thoughts?

 Richard Symonds
 Wikimedia UK
 0207 065 0992

 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
 Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
 Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
 United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
 movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
 operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).

 *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
 over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

 On 5 January 2015 at 13:30, Sucheta Ghoshal sucheta.ghos...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Hi all,
 
  A few of my friends and I have been planning to document the history of
  counterculture in Bengali art and literature. These friends are also
  working in that domain professionally, and have access to a huge
 repository
  of texts, images, and other relevant details that they are willing to
 make
  available digitally in the form of free contents. We wish to have the
  contents as wikis, and, pictures and video snippets that might be
 involved
  - as properly licensed free materials. Now, the concern is if there is
 some
  Wikimedia Project that would host contents that are based on such an
  enormous amount of original research. Wikipedia is certainly not the
  appropriate place. And, as there exist no earlier works on this
 particular
  domain on the internet, references would be negligible. I was thinking
  about Wikibooks, instead. I am not entirely sure if that fits either,
 but I
  assume it fits better than Wikipedia, at least. The last option is to
 host
  it ourselves with the MediaWiki setup, and I am considering it very much.
  But, the idea essentially is to make people edit and enrich it with as
 much
  inputs as possible. It would be really helpful, in that case, if it could
  be placed in one of the Wikimedia projects. Suggestions, of every kind,
  would be deeply appreciated.
 
  Best,
  Sucheta
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Our final email

[Craig Franklin]

On 19 December 2014 at 10:12, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:


 The fundraising rules also need to make explicit that lying is flatly
 unacceptable. Having the first rule be don't lie might be the easiest
 solution here, though it's shocking that this needs to be written down.
 The fundraising teams, past and present, regularly lie to our readers in
 an effort to extract donations. Specific examples of lying include calling
 Sue Gardner the Wikipedia Executive Director, calling Brandon Harris a
 Wikipedia programmer, and repeatedly making manipulative and misleading
 suggestions that continued donations keep the projects online.

 The Wikimedia Foundation recently raised $20 million. Assuming a generous
 $3 million to keep the projects online per year, that's over six _years_
 that the projects could continue operating before needing to ask for money
 again. Contrast with e-mails and in-site donation advertising that
 suggest that the lights will go off soon if readers don't donate today.

Please add my name to the list of people who are troubled by what's been
said and done in the latest round of fundraising.

I think that most of us, even if we feel some distaste for begging for
money, realise the importance and necessity of engaging in fundraising.
The fact that we're asking for money is not the problem.  The problem is
that in order to maximise the amount of revenue gained, the Fundraising
team has engaged in a misleading scare campaign.  In the short term, that
means that a few more dollars will flow into the Foundation's coffers, but
in the long term it just damages the brand and the entire movement.

It is very disappointing that the responses from the WMF to these entirely
reasonable concerns so far have been either:

a) Silence
b) Completely ignoring the point (The fundraiser has been very successful
because we've received more money, and those who are not aware that they've
been mislead are not upset!)
c) Semantic word games (Well, in a technical sense what we've said is not
a lie, depending on how you look at it)

The solution that I'd like to see for next time is less focus on A/B
testing that has its sole purpose of maximising the amount of revenue
raised, and more of a view to alternative ways to raise money.  Imagine a
world in which we gave our readers a positive message that we already had
enough money to keep the lights on thanks very much, but needed more to
build cool new tools, improve the quality of the project content, and
implement more innovative projects to meet our movement's goals.

Regards,
Craig Franklin
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

[Craig Franklin]

Am I the only one that sees the irony in asking folks not to pick on the
Commons community, then immediately asserting that enwp is the source of
all drama?

Cheers,
Craig Franklin
On 12/12/2014 4:56 PM, Pipo Le Clown plecl...@gmail.com wrote:

 As you said, the first issue of Commons is demotivating contributors. And
 this thread is actually doing a good job at it...

 STOP the Commons bashing. Stop calling Commons contributors anal
 retentive or fussy neckbeards.

 I'm an european. In Europe, one does not call another nazi, as Americans
 do. It's insulting. Do you see people coming to Wikimedia-l when an
 american contributor calls someone a nazi (because they do) ?

 No. There are places on projects to deal with those kind of situations
 (even if they do not work properly imo).

 As there are places on Commons to discuss about the scope, the way we
 should handle copyright, etc. Nobody is preventing you to go to this places
 and start a discussion, share your thoughts and your wishes.

 To be clear: Wikimedia is not only ENWP. Other wikipedias and projects are
 using Commons every day. But the drama always come from ENWP...

 On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:47 AM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com
 
 wrote:

  On Thu Dec 11 2014 at 12:40:09 PM Pipo Le Clown plecl...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
   I'm on the road every two weekends, and processing pictures the rest of
  the
   time on my free time. I've provided around 8000 pictures to Commons,
 and
   helped to have pictures for articles like Cristiano Ronaldo, Roy
 Hogdson
  or
   Greig Laidlaw...
  
   Just to read that I'm a fascist and an anal retentive because someone
   proposed a fucking picture of KitKat for deletion ? It was not even
   deleted, the discussion is still going on. And even if it was, the
 right
   place to go would have been COM:UDR, with a strong rationale, where
  people
   would have discuss it in a civilised manner. Not in this echo
 chamber...
  
   So yes, one could say that the thread was accusatory from the start,
 and
   quickly went to vicious. One could also say that this is a fucking
   disgrace.
  
   Pleclown
  
 
  To be crystal clear: I didn't link to the DR or mention the nominator
  because I don't actually care much about the individual instance.
  Commons is going to do what it's going to do, and whomever nominated it
 or
  comments in support of deletion is just doing what the policies of
 Commons
  is telling them to do.
 
  The problem is a general one with the goals of Commons, what the
 community
  focuses (and doesn't focus on), as I said. I think it should be clear
 that
  the purpose of discussing it on Wikimedia-l as opposed to Commons is talk
  about whether Commons is doing a good job of serving as the media
  repository for other projects. Not about whether the nominator was
 correct
  in this individual case or something like that.
 
 
  
   On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:51 PM, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote:
  
Okay, guys, let's all take a step back and remember [[WP:Civility]].
(Yeah, I know that's a Wikipedia pillar, but can't we all at least
 get
on board with that one?)
   
The tone of this thread was accusatory from the start, and quickly
went to vicious. Maybe everyone can try it again with a bit of AGF.
   
Austin
   
   
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:30 PM, James Alexander 
 jameso...@gmail.com
wrote:
 On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 P.S. Stephen, you are young and handsome, in fact rather dishy to
 my
 ageing eyes. Good for you. Keep in mind that your fellow
 volunteers
 might not have been born so lucky, and that being young and pretty
  all
 too soon passes into memory, sigh.


 Fæ, this is not acceptable for the list (or for that matter on
 wiki).
 Stephen's neckbeard comment certainly wasn't helpful either but
 it's
  no
 excuse.

 James
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia France] WikiCheese crowdfunding - Let's photograph 'em all

[Craig Franklin]

Forget that, I'd like WMUK to fly me to Scotland so that I can, uh,
research and write about various types of whisky.

Cheers,
Craig

On 25 November 2014 at 18:59, Jon Davies jon.dav...@wikimedia.org.uk
wrote:

 And next the wine project? Count me in.

 On 24 November 2014 at 18:22, Christophe Henner 
 christophe.hen...@gmail.com
  wrote:

  Good news everyone,
 
  Cheese articles are gonna get improved!
 
  As french, it was dreadful for us to see so few illustrations of cheese
 on
  Wikipedia. This is about to change.
 
  A group of french Wikimedians, lead by Pierre-Yves Beaudouin, designed a
  project to photograph many cheeses, up to 200 for the moment.
 
  This project is perticular as we aim to have it found through a french
  crowdfunding platform, KissKissBankBank.
 
  Of course Wikimedia France could have funded it itself, but we wanted to
  use the project as a way to get the larger audience aware of their
 ability
  to contribute and to give a fun image of contributing.
 
  The project in few words iss follow :
  * 10 cheeses per session
  * During the session the cheeses are photographed and their articles
  improved
  * During the sessions experimented wikimedian would train new editors
  * At every session every participant would enjoy eating good cheese too
 
  If you want to read more, or even contribute, about the project you can
 go
  on KissKissBankBank :
  http://www.kisskissbankbank.com/fr/projects/wikicheese
 
 
  If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot them on or off list.
 
  All the best,
 
  --
  Christophe
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 --
 *Jon Davies - Consultant to Wikimedia UK*.  Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169
 tweet @jonatreesdavies

 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
 Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
 Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
 United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
 movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
 operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
 Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990.

 Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Craig Franklin]

I'm going to second Liam's comment here, it is disappointing that we're
discussing this here but the Foundation is not coming to the party and
explaining why they are doing these things.  They're creating an
information void, and a void *will* be filled somehow; if the WMF is not
proactive in filling it with the real story, it'll be filled with rumours
and misinformation, the sort of stuff that inhibits the movement from
achieving its goals.  I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a
reasonably prompt answer to the sort of questions being posed here in a
respectful fashion.

I've copied in Megan Hernandez, the Director of Online Fundraising in the
hope of getting a comment, just in case she's not aware of this discussion.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 27 November 2014 at 21:44, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote:


 This notwithstanding, I think the issue *yet again*, is a lack of
 communication with the relevant community members when a decision is taken
 that affects them. In this case, at minimum, the French OTRS team - who are
 apparently receiving complaints that Wikipedia is affected by a virus!

 So can I reiterate my reqeust from the other day:
 If you're going to change something, tell the affected people before you
 change it (or as soon as possible afterwards). Please don't wait for the
 public to raise concerns with volunteers, who then complain to the WMF,
 before offering an explanation.

 And on that note, regarding the fundraising concerns from last week, have
 the Dutch or Russian communities received responses to their questions yet?


 -Liam


 On 27 November 2014 at 11:35, Delphine Ménard notafi...@gmail.com wrote:

  You know, I think I'll pass on the actual content of the message that
 talks
  about Commercial not being a Monster and The Bad. (and yes I know,
  these are in a negative sentence but... seriously?).
 
  This banner looks like an obituary I find. Where are the cool banners on
  green leafy foresty background? Those were the days ;)
 
  I know that a lot of thought goes into crafting the best messages for
  fundraising banners, I also know that the testing is thorough, and
  decisions are made with real data. But sometimes I find we might be
  forgetting the number of people we actually scare *away* with things like
  this. Not sure that's data we can acquire, but looking at this banner I
 am
  losing faith in my fellow French if they really respond to something like
  this more than they do to positive and cheerful looking messages).
 
  *sigh*
 
  Delphine
 
  On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 11:44 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:
 
   David Gerard wrote:
   Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
  
   Probably. Or the year before. Or the year before that. I did say
  (again)
   in the subject line. ;-)
  
   There are various discussions popping up across Wikimedia about these
   banners. It didn't help that a bug earlier this week caused logged-in
   users to be hit with them as well. Talk about eating your own dog food.
  
   The French Wikipedia held what appears to be a straw poll with
   overwhelming denouncement of the banner. It's also been repeatedly
   described as a phishing attempt. Complaints and confusion aren't
 uncommon
   during any annual fundraiser, but I think we can and should hold
  ourselves
   to a higher standard when begging people for money.
  
   As pointed out on Meta-Wiki's Wikimedia Forum by Jules78120,
   https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines is
 pretty
   clear that the (primary) goal is that banners be as unobtrusive as
   possible. I wrote this in May 2011, I believe deliberately outside of
  the
   annual fundraising that takes place in December so that we could have a
   calm and reasonable discussion about appropriate CentralNotice usage.
  Sigh.
  
   MZMcBride
  
  
  
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FDC funds allocation recommendation is up

[Craig Franklin]

On 23 November 2014 at 22:30, pajz pajzm...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 23 November 2014 at 11:25, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

  Having carefully read through some of the FDC rationales I thought
  they were appropriately strategic and made it pretty obvious exactly
  what those chapters that did not get what they were hoping for, need
  to change in order to bid more successfully.
 

 I am not entirely sure about this. My concern is essentially that it is
 unclear to me how the FDC determines the extent of the cuts it makes and
 which item(s) of the budget get(s) cut by what amount of money. For
 instance, when to Committee suggests to reduce the allocation to WMDE by
 EUR 360,000 vis-à-vis what they requested (-30%), it is not clear to me how
 the Committee arrived at that amount of money.


Just noting here that I think this is an excellent point.  It's not
entirely clear in some cases why the allocation has been cut by a specific
amount.  I can appreciate that the FDC has good reasons for not giving an
entity what it has asked for, but at the same time it should be able to
explain clearly how they arrived at the reduced figure.

The other danger of across the board cuts like this, especially where the
rationale is not clear,  is that entities may start to inflate their
requests, factoring an expected 10% or 20% to be shaved off the top by the
FDC, thus leaving them with the figure that they *really *want.  If the
rationale is clearly explained, this will probably be less of a factor.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Fundraiser] fundraising blocked in Russia

[Craig Franklin]

I do agree with MZMcBride here.  I can understand being cautious, and I can
understand not having time to put out a detailed message in advance.  But I
simply cannot understand not being bothered to send off even a brief note
after the fact, explaining why.  What should have taken all of two minutes
to do was not done, with the result of a great deal of needless hassle for
our colleagues in Russia.  I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that
at least a notification would be made.  A great deal of progress has been
made on repairing the difficult relationship between the Foundation and the
community, and it would be a shame if that was undone through more moments
of carelessness like this one.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin



On 14 November 2014 11:16, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 Geoff Brigham wrote:
 In that context, we feel that laws in Russia offer a number of possible
 interpretations. So, out of an abundance of caution, we are not taking
 donations from Russia right now.  If we feel the situation changes, we'll
 let people know.
 
 As Lisa also said, this does and will not have any impact at all on how
 the WMF continues to support the Russian language Wikipedia, and its
 sister projects. We pool our funding and make our budget decisions
 independently from the geographical source, if any, of the funding.

 Right, you (or Lisa) could've said these paragraphs on the Wikimedia blog
 or this mailing list or Meta-Wiki or anywhere really and I think you
 would've saved yourself trouble. Transparency is an inherent part of
 Wikimedia and community members appropriately place great value in it.

 We hear your point on transparency and advance notice, and it is a fair
 one. That said, sometimes we will need to quickly pause fundraising
 operations in different places while we gain clarity around how best to
 operate.  We are making numerous decisions every day to respond to a wide
 variety of issues and considerations. I would like to commit to advance
 notice, but I don't think that will always be possible given the need for
 flexibility and speed at times. Nevertheless, I am reflecting on how to
 better address an issue like this in the future.

 I have to imagine that you discuss these types of issues among Wikimedia
 Foundation employees using e-mail. I don't really accept the need for
 flexibility and speed at times. You're not faster than e-mail; you can
 shoot a note to a mailing list. There's even a dedicated
 fundrai...@lists.wikimedia.org mailing list. :-)

 MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Fundraiser] fundraising blocked in Russia

[Craig Franklin]

I'm sure that you're correct here Joseph, but this is another example I
think where the Foundation should have notified the relevant chapter
*before* taking the action, so that they would be ready when the questions
started rolling in.

Unfortunately, I think we're getting back to the bad old days of chapter
and user group press contacts being the last people to find out about
potentially controversial issues like this.

Regards,
Craig Franklin
(personal view only)


On 13 November 2014 10:07, Joseph Seddon josephsed...@gmail.com wrote:

 I would hate to preclude any answer from the foundation. However the laws
 that govern the foundation are that of the US. Given the previous and
 renewed ongoing palaver with Ukraine and the presence of economic sanctions
 and the increasing likelihood of on top of what is already present, I
 imagine this related to that.

 Im not sure of what legal risks accepting such donations would expose the
 foundation to. However such precautions have been made in the past relating
 to unrest.

 Its no slight on the country or its individuals, just a precautionary
 measure.

 Seddon
  On 12 Nov 2014 19:48, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote:

 rubin.happy, 12/11/2014 18:48:

 We received some alerts from our users that donations are now blocked
 when user is from Russia:
 http://habrastorage.org/files/31b/b1f/ec9/31bb1fec9b9e45abb6ac4babcc2371
 84.png


 Thanks for the information. Everyone can see the same warning by clicking
 the Russia link in https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give
 Through what channels are donations blocked? Did anyone try sending a
 wire to the EU (SEPA) account (IBAN GB54CHAS60924241034640), or a PayPal
 donation?

 Nemo

 P.s.: ROTFLOL Please email don...@wikimedia.org for more information on
 how to make a bank transfer to the Wikimedia Foundation. In case someone
 forgets there is an ocean between Europe and USA.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Craig Franklin]

I think the first lesson here is: if you're going to talk about a
harmonious community, don't quote divisive political figures in support of
your argument :-)

That said, welcome Damon!  Certainly, it's a pretty tough job that you've
stepped into, but I'm optimistic that a fresh approach and fresh eyes will
assist the engineering team in pushing through the present difficulties
with software deployments.

Regards,
Craig Franklin

On 7 October 2014 11:02, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello and welcome, Damon.

 One thing I've long appreciated about the Wikimedia movement is that it is
 not political, and indeed the flagship project is explicitly neutral. This
 distinction has become a little more nuanced as the movement has taken
 political positions that are congruent with the overall mission, but I
 think it remains the case that Wikimedians have been able to avoid
 entanglements with general political issues. This has been especially the
 case with most deeply controversial and current political debates.

 So while I agree with your sentiment, that leaders must model values such
 as courage and integrity, I think it would have been better expressed
 without the ringing endorsement of Che Guevara. As you say, we should
 choose our words carefully and ensure that our language is positive and
 inclusive. This is obviously an area where we can all make progress.

 ~Nathan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board of Trustee elections

[Craig Franklin]

I think the issue is that the employee vote is now a significant proportion
of the electorate.  When this was originally set up, nobody complained too
loudly about giving WMF staff the vote simply because their numbers were
small and they were too small a constituency to sway the result on their
own.  The number of voters choosing to exercise their suffrage is
decreasing, while the number of staff are increasing.  While this
illustrates a problem all on its own, it also means that WMF staff who may
not be participants on the projects may now have enough pull to decide a
closely fought election.

I know it's too late to change the rules for this year, but I'd really
recommend getting rid of the complex criteria for the next election, and
dialing it back to a simple X number of edits, or Y number of patches
rule.  Not only would this be simpler to administer and easier to
understand, but I would imagine most of the WMF staff who care enough to
actually vote would probably qualify through those criteria anyway.  A few
worthy folk might miss out on the chance to lodge a ballot, but then
that's going to be the case in any situation other than complete and
universal suffrage.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 5 October 2014 18:04, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Itzik,

 If I understand you correctly, you are asking about whether WMF and
 thematic organization bylaws should allow employees to vote in trustee
 elections for their own orgs.

 I can see how this could create interesting conflict-of-interest problems.

 However, in all non-autocratic republics that I know about, government
 employees can vote as any other citizens can. I'm also of the view that WMF
 operates like a university, and a modest amount of staff involvement in
 selecting their supervisors in that environment is ok.

 Pine
 On Oct 5, 2014 12:41 AM, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel 
 it...@wikimedia.org.il
 wrote:

  Hey,
 
  Don't worry, we indeed have a lot of time till the next elections, but as
  this issue had been raised during the last elections - and we decided
 that
  we can't change the rules few weeks before the elections, now I want to
  raise the discussion enough time before.
 
  According to the current rules  [1], in order to influence and vote in
 the
  elections, you need to be active editor, developer or WMF
 staff/contractor.
 
  Last year this issue concern some of us. The foundation is not small
  organizations as it been before, and by comparison, the number of people
  participating in the elections every year is not high.
 
  For example, last elections there were 1809 valid votes. By comparison,
 the
  number of WMF staff this days is 218, what makes there voting power 12%
 of
  the total voters last year. This consider to be a great amount of power
  when we are talking about elections (In the last election you would have
  around 650 votes in order to be elected...)
 
  Wikimedia thematic organizations staff and contractors for example don't
  have the same privilege to vote only because they are employees of the
  movement, only if they are editors as well. The question - what make the
  WMF staff different, and if this is not a little bit problematic that the
  staff have such power to decide on their direct board, but in general -
 the
  board of the whole movement.
 
  Do we need to give the same privilege also to all the staff in our
  movement?
  Should we limited the elections to staff (both WMF and chapters) that are
  active editors or developers as additional to their work in the movement?
 
  I'll be happy to hear yours input.
 
  [1]
 
 
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Vote_Questions
 
  [2]
 
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Results
 
 
 
  *Regards,Itzik Edri*
  Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel
  +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il
  Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
  sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps regarding WMF-community disputes about deployments

[Craig Franklin]

I think you've hit the nail on the head here.  It's not about MediaViewer
at all, it's about two things:

#1: The frustration of some volunteers that they feel their views are not
being adequately considered in major deployments of new software.
#2: A lack of confidence and faith in the WMF Engineering team to deliver
quality software.

The second is the more dangerous one at this point.  After the catastrophic
aborted launch of the Visual Editor, complete with numerous bugs that
should have been picked up in even a cursory unit testing scheme or
regression testing scheme prior to being deployed to a productive
environment, there's not a good deal of faith left.  The technical problems
with MediaViewer were not as serious, but since a significant portion of
the power user base was expecting a failure, they jumped on the flaws that
it did have, and here we are.  To be honest, if Erik were to turn water
into wine at this point, people would still complain, and loudly, that he
had provided them with red when they wanted white.

I'm not sure that the solutions that have been offered; a new deployment
process, or a tech council, are going to be sufficient to correct the real
problem, which at this point is largely one of perception.  Similarly, I
don't think that the WMF adopting a complete hands-off approach as some
seem to be demanding is going to lead to anything other than stagnation as
individual communities squabble indecisively over what changes should be
made.  I do know that if it's not fixed, that pretty much every major
deployment of new features is going to follow this same pattern, which is
obviously highly undesirable.

What I'd suggest is that we leave the emotional hostility at the door and
try to be reasonable.  Neither side is going to get exactly what they want,
and that is to be expected.  To be honest, some of the invective that has
been directed at Foundation staff has been completely over the top; phrases
like Taliban diplomacy or honest-to-god comparisons to the Nazis don't
move us towards a solution or make one seem like someone that can be
intelligently reasoned with, they only harden feelings on both sides and
make a suitable arrangement being found less likely.  No employee should be
made to receive that sort of harassment in the course of their job, no
matter how much you disagree with them.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin








On 1 September 2014 16:31, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Hoi,
 The argument is not at all about the MediaViewer. It is only the latest
 flash point. Consequently the notion of how hard it is to set a default on
 or off is not relevant really.

 When you read the Wikipedia Signpost you read about one of the major German
 players and it is found necessary to mention that his tools environment
 was ended and it became WMF labs. For me it gives the impression of sour
 grapes and a sense of failure because volunteers do not decide the agenda
 and feel angry/frustrated about that.

 Consequently my conclusion that it is not about the MediaViewer at all. The
 next thing that comes along will be the next flash point. This is because
 it is emotions that speak and not arguments.
 Thanks,
  GerardM


 On 1 September 2014 08:11, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  On Aug 31, 2014 11:46 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
  
   Just in terms of the amount of everyone's time that MediaViewer,
   Superprotect
   and related issues are absorbing, this situation is a net negative for
  the
   projects.
   Also, the amount of emotional hostility that this situation involves is
   disheartening.
   Personally, I would like to see us building on each other's work
 instead
  of
   feuding,
   and I'm getting MediaViewer issue fatigue.
  
   WMF's principal argument against letting projects make local decisions
   about
   configurations of MediaViewer seems to be that having a multitude of
 site
   configurations is impractical for site maintainability and development
 of
   new
   features. The Technical Committee would be in a good position to make
  global
   decisions on a consensus basis.
  
   Pine
 
  I've heard the argument that it is difficult to maintain and develop for
  having different default states of this setting across different
 projects,
  and frankly, I'm not buying it, unless the setting is intended to be
  removed completely.
 
  Could someone explain to me how having a different default state for the
  setting has much, or any, impact?
 
  - Martijn
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] editor retention initiatives

[Craig Franklin]

I agree with this wholeheartedly.  When I think back to when I was new on
Wikipedia, pretty early on I got an honest-to-god personal message from
someone to thank me for correcting a typo (
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lankiveildiff=5647166oldid=5629943
).
 It made me feel like this was a community of nice people that I wanted to
collaborate on things with, and was probably instrumental in me sticking
around.

The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos
and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above.  It will be
solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative community
that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up
with.  Template welcomes and messages that have all the warmth of a form
letter enclosed in a utility bill won't make a lasting improvement in the
long run.  The intention behind things like the thank button are great,
but they should be seen as at most an enabler, rather than as the actual
solution to our problems.

Cheers,
Craig





On 26 August 2014 10:09, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote:

 Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of
 personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and
 encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this
 is personally. It cannot be effectively done with  wikilove messages ,
 and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template
 welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web
 personalizedadvertisements.  What works is to show that you actually read
 and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write
 something specific.


 On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
 
  There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support
 the
  three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic
  communities.
 
  Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user
  retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
 
  Regards
  Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com ha scritto:
 
   Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation
   initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors?  I am only
   aware of the one project, Task Recommendations, to try to encourage
   editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEgt=60m20s
  
   I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as
   constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the
   total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming
   active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would
   be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is
   applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has
   not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to
   be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met
   through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the
   Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
  
   Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is
   interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more
   inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might
   provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to
   edit more?
  
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Superprotect user right, Comming to a wiki near you

[Craig Franklin]

Erik,

I'll be writing a longer post on the Meta RFC later, but can you confirm
whether the idea is to superprotect key interface pages like
[[Mediawiki:common.js]] on a permanent basis, or will this feature only be
used to lock pages temporarily in the case of wheel warring or other
circumstances like what happened on de.wp?

Thanks,
Craig Franklin


On 10 August 2014 23:27, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi folks,

 Admins are currently given broad leeway to customize the user
 experience for all users, including addition of site-wide JS, CSS,
 etc. These are important capabilities of the wiki that have been used
 for many clearly beneficial purposes. In the long run, we will want to
 apply a code review process to these changes as with any other
 deployed code, but for now the system works as it is and we have no
 intent to remove this capability.

 However, we've clarified in a number of venues that use of the
 MediaWiki: namespace to disable site features is unacceptable. If such
 a conflict arises, we're prepared to revoke permissions if required.
 This protection level provides an additional path to manage these
 situations by preventing edits to the relevant pages (we're happy to
 help apply any urgent edits) until a particular situation has calmed
 down.

 Thanks,
 Erik
 --
 Erik Möller
 VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Research Committee

[Craig Franklin]

I've spent a half hour or so going through this, and it looks like Nathan
is on the money here.  If RCOM is as inactive as it seems (except where it
concerns the research of RCOM members) then it is no great surprise that
external parties eventually try to do an end-run around it.  Unless an
explanation for this inactivity can be provided, I think that in its
current form RCOM should be disbanded or at least radically retooled,
because clearly it's not only ineffective, it's also preventing potentially
legitimate research from going ahead.

Cheers,
Craig


On 17 July 2014 11:06, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 And... unsurprisingly, Aaron has reverted the changes I referred to above.
 Not with any explanation, of course, other than not true. Looking at the
 list of reviewed projects (where the review appears to constitute a small
 handful of questions on the talkpage), the RCOM has reviewed a total of 10
 projects in its history. I'm excluding the one where Aaron himself is a
 co-investigator.

 That might sound like a substantial amount, but in 2013 and 2014 the rate
 so far is 1 (one) per *year*. Meanwhile, the AfD request languished for 7
 months without a peep from Aaron or someone on RCOM. Since we're on the
 subject, let's look at the research index and see what we can see.

 # There is a Gender Inequality Index that has no comments from RCOM,
 posted a month ago.
 # We have Modeling monthly active editors submitted by Aaron himself.
 This is worth looking at[1] as evidently an example of what an RCOM member
 considers sufficient description of a research project. Specifically,
 nothing at all.
 # Number of books read by WikiWriters a page written by a high school
 student that should have been deleted but hasn't been, suggesting the
 submissions may not be closely monitored...
 # Use of Wikipedia by doctors submitted both to RCOM and to IEG in March,
 no comment by RCOM.
 # Chinese Wikivoyage, created in January, no comment by RCOM.
 # SSAJRP program - extensively documented, posted in October 2013, no
 comment from RCOM and no RCOM liaison. This research is ongoing.
 # Gender assymetry, posted in September 2013, no comment from RCOM.
 # Dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, August 2013, no comment or
 participation from RCOM.

 I'm sure the list could go on, because the pattern is perfect - virtually
 the only projects to get participation from either Dario or Aaron are those
 managed by WMF staff members (and most often, Aaron himself is the
 investigator). But the inactivity of RCOM is not news to the WMF. In
 December of last year, Dario posted to rcom-l [2] that The Research
 Committee as a group with a fixed membership and a regular meeting schedule
 has been inactive for a very long time. He then stated that ...the
 existence of a fixed-membership group with a recognized authority on any
 possible matter related to Wikimedia research and associated policies has
 ceased to be a priority. Another member of RCOM, WMF employee Jonathan
 Morgan, said in June on meta I'm not sure what RCOM's mandate is these
 days. When asked in March how many projects RCOM had actually approved, it
 took Aaron four months to reply.[3]

 So it is factually incorrect to suggest in documentation that RCOM approval
 is required for anything; it's clear that RCOM as a body does not actually
 exist. It may be argued that the approval of one of the two involved WMF
 employees is required. If that's the case, then at least based on public
 evidence they have been doing an absolutely woeful job of keeping up with
 this labor. I'll admit it's possible that all of the communication has been
 via e-mail, and in actuality Aaron and Dario have been very busy providing
 feedback to non-WMF researchers. If that's the case, or of I'm missing some
 other function that RCOM fulfills, I'd love to hear about it. Otherwise it
 appears that RCOM is primarily an obstacle to prevent non-WMF researchers
 from conducting research, a strange policy indeed.

 [1]
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Modeling_monthly_active_editors
 [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/rcom-l/2013-December/000600.html
 [3]

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Research_talk%3ASubject_recruitmentdiff=9220467oldid=9220082
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lets delete everything from commons (was The tragedy of Commons)

[Craig Franklin]

Pardon me if this has already been covered, but as I understand it the
problem is not the legal status of the files in Israel, the problem is with
the legal status of the files in the United States, where the Israeli
Government may still have some copyright protections.  So while the
contents of the letter are nice, they don't address the problem.

It seems to me that rather than insisting that the files are permitted to
remain, a more fruitful avenue might be to use WMIL's contacts with the
Israeli Government to licence these images anywhere where copyright might
still exist under a very free licence like CC-0.  That way even if URAA or
some future copyright shenanigans places these images back under copyright,
they're usable by anyone.  This ought to satisfy even the most dogmatic
Commons admin that the images are indeed free.

Cheers,
Craig


On 22 June 2014 17:30, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il wrote:

 The story continues.

 WMIL uploaded a letter from the Ministry of Justice, addressed to the
 Commons Community, which confirm that the government don't have interest on
 this photos. And not surprising, he was deleted from Commoms by the same
 person who deleted all the photos so far:

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ministry_of_Justice%27s_of_Israel_response_to_copyrights_issue.jpg

 Hard not to feel that the reason to this massive deletions and this kind of
 behavior does not cross the boundaries of URAA enforcement to probably more
 personal views...

 The original letter can be found on Hebrew Wikipedia:

 https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:%D7%AA%D7%92%D7%95%D7%91%D7%AA_%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%93_%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%98%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F_%D7%96%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D.jpg

 Itzik


 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ministry_of_Justice%27s_of_Israel_response_to_copyrights_issue.jpg


 On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 2:34 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote:

  Hi,
 
  Some Commons contributors like to ask impossible requirements, and
  threaten to delete files if these are not met. We have now a case of
  famous pictures from the government of Israel and Israel Defense
  Forces.
 
 
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Matanya#Files_and_pages_that_were_deleted_by_User:Fastily_that_I_am_aware_of_them
 
 
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Beba_Idelson_Ada_Maimon1952.jpg
 
 
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Abba_Hushi_1956.jpg
 
 
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aharon_Meskin_-_Ben_Gurion_-_Israel_Prize1960.jpg
 
 
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Avraham_Shlonsky_1952.jpg
 
  These are famous and valuable pictures, including two featured
  pictures on the Hebrew Wikipedia. These files have already been
  deleted and restored 3 times. When the URAA issue was not convincing
  enough, a new reson for deletion was advanced: that publication
  details were not given. Anyone with 2 bits of common sense can
  understand that these famous pictures were published soon after they
  were taken. There is no reasonable doubt about that. In addition,
  publication is not a requirement for being in the public domain in
  Israel.
 
  After I restored these images, I was threatem by LGA, who is a
  delete-only account:
 
 
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems#User:Yann
  There, more contributors argue on this issue.
 
  By asking absurb requirements about publication details, these
  contributors threaten the project as a whole. If insisting, it will
  lead people to upload pictures like these locally instead of Commons.
  Then the idea of a central repository for all Wikimedia projects is
  gone.
 
  Instead of looking for a reason to destroy these files, they should
  try to find a reason to keep them.
 
  Regards,
 
  Yann
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lets delete everything from commons (was The tragedy of Commons)

[Craig Franklin]

Russavia,

I am aware that that is the issue (and I was talking about the original
problem images, not this letter).  I'm a bit confused though about the
parody/satire angle, my understanding is that a CC licence does not
extinguish things such as moral rights that are not related to copyright.
 Also, I do find it a bit odd that the Israeli Ministry of Justice would be
comfortable disclaiming any copyright to the image within Israel per their
letter, but would be uncomfortable licencing them in other jurisdictions
under a licence that does essentially the same thing.  We can but only ask,
and see what they say; if they say no for the reasons you outline then
nothing has been lost.  I do agree that the Australian Commonwealth is
behind the curve as well here, but in my experience and with some
honourable exceptions, most federal bureaucrats still conflate these issues
with the unrelated matter of FOI law.

But, I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that if these images *are*
useful, a more productive course of action than arguing about it on a
mailing list would probably be to identify what steps can be taken in good
faith to move them from a disputed copyright situation to a situation where
everyone is comfortable that there are no problems with re-use.  If all the
energy that had gone into these threads and the various tit-for-tat
nominations on Commons had gone into that instead, we'd probably already be
halfway there.

Cheers,
Craig




On 22 June 2014 20:26, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote:

 Craig, et al

 On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Craig Franklin
 cfrank...@halonetwork.net wrote:
  Pardon me if this has already been covered, but as I understand it the
  problem is not the legal status of the files in Israel, the problem is
 with
  the legal status of the files in the United States, where the Israeli
  Government may still have some copyright protections.

 You are misunderstanding completely the issue. There is no evidence
 that Israel has a PD exemption for such government works, as we see
 for say, Russia,[1] which allows for letters such as this to exist on
 Commons.[2]

  It seems to me that rather than insisting that the files are permitted to
  remain, a more fruitful avenue might be to use WMIL's contacts with the
  Israeli Government to licence these images anywhere where copyright might
  still exist under a very free licence like CC-0.  That way even if URAA
 or
  some future copyright shenanigans places these images back under
 copyright,
  they're usable by anyone.  This ought to satisfy even the most dogmatic
  Commons admin that the images are indeed free.

 I have told someone that what needs to occur is for the GPO to release
 their claims over copyright worldwide in relation to URAA. The reason
 for this, is the same reason that the Israeli Government would NEVER
 CC-0 licence their materials -- because it opens them up to parody,
 satire and other uses that they might not agree with -- and we need to
 protect re-users who wish to use materials for such purposes. That's
 the same reason that the Australian Commonwealth Parliament refuses to
 CC photos of MPs, in case you weren't aware.

 Cheers

 Russavia

 [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-RU-exempt
 [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_letter_to_FIFA.jpg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Moderation of messages sent to this list

[Craig Franklin]

On 22 June 2014 09:53, Dan Rosenthal swatjes...@gmail.com wrote:

 I might point out that I've perhaps needled GerardM more than most people
 on this list (and even been moderated for it once years ago), but I find
 his posts about WikiData interesting and I read them when I can. I think
 Thomas Morton has a very good point though -- so if I may make a request:

  Whether the topic is Wikidata, or Wil, or Wikipediocracy, or pedophilia,
 or whatever the drama was with Russavia, or Commons admins, or whatever it
 is that raises hackles; can we all just be real for a second, and stop
 feigning innocence/ignorance when we're trolling, being snarky, or posting
 innocent questions that just so happen to cover a controversial topic, or
 using misleading/distorted data to ask a pointed question? Seriously, this
 list is becoming less like foundation-l and more like foxnews-l.

 (To clarify this is not directed at Tomasz -- I'm just taking advantage of
 his post to GerardM as being tangentially related.)

 Dan

 Dan Rosenthal


Agreed.  The who, me? level of passive-aggressive snark on the list is
way out of hand.  I'm glad the list moderators are taking a hard line
against it, and hopefully it will result in some useful communication
happening on this list again.  If you don't want to be moderated, then cut
the sarcasm and the personal attacks, it's not hard.

Regards,
Craig
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please rename this list to shitfight-l, and give us a list where civil discussion about wikimedia can take place

[Craig Franklin]

I must agree with the frustration over the quality of discussion on this
mailing list lately, but I did want to make clear my appreciation to the
list admins, who have decided to avoid playing semantic word games over
what is and is not appropriate, and started moderating people who want to
use this list for personal abuse, trolling, and other inappropriate
discussions.  This list has an unfortunate but not undeserved reputation as
a bit of a sewer, but that doesn't mean we should lower our expectations on
user conduct.  From this subscriber at least, your attempts to clean up
this place are very much appreciated, and I hope they continue.

Cheers,
Craig


On 16 June 2014 15:43, Dennis Pierri dennis6...@gmail.com wrote:

 Buddy I would support more common sense, some people on the list just
 don't think twice before hitting send, that's the way you start a wildfire.
 This has become an unmoderated forum full of people who seemingly doesn't
 remember that there are better ways or places to say to another I hate
 you.
 Really everyone should ask themselves before hitting send some of  this
 questions:
 Does this serves a good purpose?
 Is it going to do any good?
 Will it cause unnecessary conflict?
 It is written in a proper and polite way?
 Being emotional and eager to say something is not so good here, it's a
 mail list, you can take your time, be as polite as possible, and use your
 common sense, or else this will get worse.

 Dennis Pierri

 On 16/06/2014, at 00:01, Jasper Deng jas...@jasperswebsite.com wrote:

  I would support increased moderation too, except that sockpuppetry on
 email
  lists is trivial (do we really want to go into the mess of implementing
  CheckUser for email headers?).
 
 
  On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 
  rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  But this behaviour that you are saying is so Wikimedia Movement, the
 name
  is totally correct. And expect a block, because they are free, but they
  need to act in the name of the community, to stop 'trolls'. ;)
 
 
  On 16 June 2014 00:51, Dennis Pierri dennis6...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Agreed, this list has seen too much personal confrontation, fights and
  general shit and nothing really productive lately, by the way, be
  ready for the shit storm from those who feel alluded.
 
  On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 10:33 PM, billinghurst billinghu...@gmail.com
 
  wrote:
  I am looking for a productive mailing list that discusses matters of
  importance to the Wikimedia community. That the people on such a list
  can
  have these discussions politely, respectfully, and with concern for
  others
  in that the words that say, and attitudes taken.  I want to see
  announcements, I want to see a higher quality of conversation on what
  should be a flaglist in the mailing list space of Wikimedia.
 
  We don't have it. One gets to the point of utter frustration with this
  list, and it is time that the backstabbers, frontstabbers,
  bitchfighters,
  venal, conceited, etc. need a place to kill each other with as much
  venom
  as possible, but not under the more impressive and specific name of
  wikimedia-l. So please rename this list, and take all its people to
  something befitting the behaviour seen.  Then please produce a clean
  list
  for those who don't have to have the antics of these unbearable,
  egotistical, and apparently intolerant and chauvinistic people, and
  please
  don't let them join that list.  They can have their shithole and revel
  in
  it. They know who they are and they would feel ashamed if they had a
  modicum of interest outside of themselves.
 
  If that is not possible, then those of who us who want a higher
 quality
  discussion will unsubscribe, and be unrepresented and unheard. Another
  win
  for the trolls, and a sad reflection on the direction.
 
  Regards, Billinghurst
 
 
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 ,
  mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
 
 
 
  --
 
  Dennis Pierri
 
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  --
  Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton
  rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com
  +55 11 979 718 884
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms

[Craig Franklin]

Indeed.  The thing that I like about this is that it shows these PR firms
are aware of our rules and the controversy around paid editing.  If they
now get busted, they can hardly say that they didn't know.

Regards,
Craig Franklin


On 13 June 2014 00:17, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 10:11 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 
 
  Re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PRSTATEMENT
 
  The statement is a nice read and it's hardly objectionable. I'd expect
  nothing less from a group of public relations folks, all of whom have a
  very vested interest in presenting themselves as good guys.
 
  However, my gut feeling here is that this statement is a sham. My
  (cynical) read of this statement is basically agencies such as ours keep
  getting caught editing on behalf of clients and it turns into a real
  shit-storm, so we'll say we'll play by the rules now, even though we'll
  really just hire contractors and subcontractors to do our dirty work.
 
  These public relations firms are paid millions of dollars to ensure that
  their clients look good on the Internet. Wikipedia is a major player on
  the Internet, but Wikipedia's purpose is not to make these clients look
  good, it's to have objective and neutral educational content about
 notable
  entities. Both public relations firms and Wikipedia are served by better,
  more accurate articles, but only one side is being paid millions of
  dollars each year to ensure that the information makes clients look good.
 
  It also seems a bit strange that these companies feel it appropriate to
  use the English Wikipedia as their hosting platform for this statement.
  This probably needs further thought and consideration. It isn't as though
  any of these companies would have difficulty buying hosting elsewhere to
  post their essays and statements about how they're now reformed.
 
  About the general trend, this practice is not novel. As I wrote in May
  2012, the current approach by (particular) paid editors is a radical
  transparency approach, it seems. The idea is that if you do everything
  out in the open, you can't later be punished because everyone was aware
 of
  what you were doing and who you were doing it for. It remains an open
  question whether this approach is working well or benefitting Wikipedia.
 
  MZMcBride
 
 
 
 One reason to think its legit and not a smokescreen? Signing on to the
 statement substantially increases the potential costs of being caught
 violating WP policies. Clients hiring bare knuckles PR experts may not have
 a high regard for the importance of our site policies. If news gets blasted
 out that a firm said We'll abide by these principles, we promise! and
 then publicly fails to do so, clients might care about that more.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media

[Craig Franklin]

As someone who usually wears a suit and tie to Wikimedia events when I go
(Hong Kong last year was the exception to that for the most part, way too
humid), my advice to people would be to wear whatever the hell you feel
comfortable in, subject to the normal standards of decency and the local
climate.  If you feel comfortable in a hoodie, then wear one.  If you feel
comfortable in a tie and monocle, then go right ahead.  Picking on people
for their choice of clothes at a conference seems awfully petty to me.
 Ultimately, you'll contribute more and be able to absorb more from others
if you're not worrying about how tight your tie is or fretting over whether
you'll be asked to leave for violating a dress code.

Cheers,
Craig That Guy In A Suit Franklin


On 8 June 2014 15:50, Peter Southwood peter.southw...@telkomsa.net wrote:

 And I associate hoodies with people wanting to keep their heads warm.

 -Original Message-
 From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
 wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of edward
 Sent: 07 June 2014 04:37 PM
 To: Wikimedia Mailing List
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media

 On 07/06/2014 15:18, Fæ wrote:
  So good luck to pizza stained t-shirts, wear them with pride.

 See my previous post. I thought the point was not that they had pizza
 stained t-shirts, but rather that the Wikipedian who was interviewed
 (Kevin) was explicitly dividing his kin into those who wear such stained
 shorts, and those who dress in a 'chill' way, which as Mr McBride explains,
 means 'cool and hip'.

  these [i.e.  volunteers wearing hoodies] are the people most likely to
 make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia
 movement.

 I don't see what the 'hoodie' bit has to do with it.  I associate
 'hoodies' with people who want to remain anonymous, possibly to escape the
 attention of police, government agents or other responsible members of the
 enforcement community charged with keeping the world safe from terrorism or
 violence. Why would such people make a meaningful difference to open
 knowledge within the Wikimedia movement?

 I'm puzzled.

 , E



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ASBS results

[Craig Franklin]

A big congratulations to Patricio and Frieda, I know it's been a long time
between drinks for Frieda in particular but I'm very comfortable and
confident that both of you will do an excellent job.  A massive thanks is
also due to Alice Wiegand; around about the time that you joined the BoT it
started to become more responsive to community expectations, more
transparent, and all around effective as a governance group.  I am sure
that this is not a coincidence.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin


On 4 June 2014 02:17, Alice Wiegand me.ly...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks to the organizers and facilitators for setting up the process.
 And congratulations to Frieda and Patricio. I wish both of you every
 success, strength and support for your work on the Board!

 Alice.



 On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 3:03 PM, Frieda Brioschi ubifri...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Wow, I'm breathless :-
 
  ..I've many to thank:
  * thank you voters for your choice, I'll do my best
  * thank you Wikimedia Italia for your support, it was really important to
  me
  * thank you Patricio, Alice and Anders, it was great sharing this
  experience with you
  * thank you Chris, Lorenzo and James for your work
 
  I'm looking forward to begin and I'll need your feedback, input and idea
 to
  make this adventure perfect.
 
  Frieda
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Wil,

I think the advice in this thread from John and Dariusz is excellent, and
well worth taking on board.

Energy is good, and disruption to shake us out of our status quo is good.
 But at the moment, your communication style is swamping this list and
that's getting people's backs up.  The issues that you are raising, like
child protection, are important issues that need to be discussed, but
they're not going to get the attention they deserve if you come rampaging
in like a bull trying to solve all of our problems at once.

I'm sorry if this sounds blunt, but I'd much rather see your time here be
spent positively and productively, rather than wasted with bickering and
recrimination.

Cheers,
Craig


On 29 May 2014 17:19, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl wrote:

 hi Wil,

 reading through this thread is already a challenge :) I want to write that
 I really appreciate your enthusiasm and energy. It is really awesome that
 you care about Wikimedia and that you do not shy away from a discussion.

 As several participants have pointed out, some of the veterans may find it
 slightly amusing when a newcomer starts with a critique, before learning
 about how (and that) the community has worked out a given problem before.
 Moreover, getting your understanding of Wikimedia movement from
 Wikipediocracy mainly (rather than from different project's Village Pumps,
 AfDs, RFCs, RfAs, and actual editing and discussing with other editors)
 skews your view. I don't think anyone is suggesting you should stop reading
 critical views on Wikimedia, but you simply may choose to make your own
 opinion after you've taken part in the movement, too.

 I do not think anyone is proposing banning you from the list. People are,
 in my view, politely suggesting that you just slow down a little, take a
 breath, and use your energy (which, again, is awesome and precious!) to
 participate on Wikimedia projects. Just to get the feel of it, or to be
 able to more fully pinpoint the areas, where we so deeply need to change
 for the better (and, with no irony, there are many).

 If you choose to gather more material for reflection, and post less
 frequently, your voice may actually be heard better.

 best,

 dariusz pundit



 On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:05 AM, Wil Sinclair w...@wllm.com wrote:

  As I mentioned to Sam, I have just one more thing to say here before I
  let you guys deliberate on whether to block me.
 
  I've been getting tons of private emails from people who say that they
  don't want to see me blocked, but that they are afraid to say that on
  the list, because they feel like they might be intimidated or
  ostracized.
 
  That's right: *afraid*
 
  I think we should all let that sink in for a moment. . .
 
 
 
  . . . Now, is that OK? Is that how we want our community to function?
  I'm talking to each and every one of you out there, not the few dozen
  that seem to be only people posting here (and I seem to have a strong
  lead  at the moment ;) ). If you are tired of being afraid or worn out
  by the rough and tumble discourse here, then keep your chin up. There
  are a lot more of you out there than you might think; I'm hearing from
  many of them now. Wikipedia can change- but only with your help.
 
  ,Wil
 
 
 
 
  On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 5:46 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote:
   Hello all,
  
   Lila: Thank you kindly for these recent notes.  It is wonderful to
   hear your thoughts on your first weeks.
  
   Wil: Working through public, logged forums is a fine principle; one
   that I try to follow myself.  It helps avoid misunderstandings.
  
  
   Pete Forsyth writes:
   I'd like to suggest that Wil's access to this email list be blocked,
 at
   least as a temporary measure... I suspect that consensus among
   active Wikimedians would be pretty strong at this point.
  
   Pete: That is a wholly uncalled for suggestion; reckless, if you
   would. Please be kind. As you can see from the comments of others,
   there is no such consensus, mainly just requests to slow down.
  
  
   Erik Moeller writes:
   As a reminder, this list has an official soft limit of 30 posts per
  [month]
  
   Wil Sinclair writes:
   just for guidance here- should I not publicly respond to those
   who have publicly address me or talked about my actions or words
  
   I find it helpful to quote and briefly respond to many posts of
   interest in a thread, in a single reply (as I did here). And I try to
   make 5 edits to a project for every post, to keep a balanced
   perspective...
  
   Sam
  
   (PS: Victor, the A. Dewey Wikireader Project always makes me smile.
   Thank you for mentioning it here.  :-)
  
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