[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff
On Jun 17, 2022, at 9:08 AM, effe iets anders wrote: > How would you propose to measure 'output' in a somewhat objective way? It is > of course easy to identify that our own pet projects don't get the attention > we feel they deserve, but given that the priorities of the WMF are so much > broader than those of you and me personally, that may not be entirely fair. I'm not sure we need an objective measure of output, per se. Lots of measures could be sufficient. If "pet" projects—by which I assume you mean projects that community members are interested in—are not being worked on, then what is being worked on instead? That's essentially my question. (The Phabricator link you provided shows a massive backlog and maybe three or four tasks currently in development.) I'm developing a thesis that Wikimedia Foundation Inc., with a budget of over $150,000,000 USD per year, "has bloated to become unwieldy, unaccountable, and it has little to show for the hundreds of millions of dollars it has wasted and continues to waste." I think the design team is potentially a good case study for this, but first I need to better understand the inputs versus the outputs. I can see the inputs pretty clearly, about 25 staff members and a couple million dollars of donor money being spent per year. What are the outputs for this recurring investment? Is the site user experience improving due to this investment? Are we publishing a lot of useful design research due to this investment? > Especially if you consider that the changes that the WMF comes up with often > meet a lot of pushback from the community. This framing suggests that Wikimedia Foundation Inc. should be pursuing its own agenda and priorities that may not align with the needs or wants of the Wikimedia community. I think that's entirely the wrong framing. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. should be serving the community's needs and we seem to have drifted, over many years, very far from what was an established truth. This is partially what I mean by a lack of accountability. > (as a sidenote: it turns out that the team has been roughly this big for a > while now) Sure, though if we conclude that too much donor money is being spent per year on, for example, design resources, it just means the problem has compounded over the course of many years to be even larger. We could be talking about $6M or $8M or more. That's a lot of money to spend and I'm struggling to understand what the return on investment is. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/ULEUDQ7SOZBMENICPZMYVKWBM7UKNMGE/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff
Hello. I happened to look at <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design> earlier today and I noticed that the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design team is about 24 people these days. I found this very surprising, as that's quite a few people. And it's even more perplexing if you have visited Wikimedia wikis previously, as they're somewhat infamously not known for cutting-edge design. The vast majority of the content is very simple headings, body text, and sometimes thumbnails, all wrapped within a site skin that very infrequently changes. If we assume that each design person's salary is $70,000/year USD, which I think is a very conservative estimate, that's about $1,680,000 of donor money spent per year on just design team salaries. Again, the actual figure is probably much higher. When $1.68M of donor money is spent each year, what are we getting in return? Concretely and specifically, what is the return on this very large amount of money being spent every year? I see the various titles listed such as design researcher and user experience designer, but I can't wrap my head around what all of this money is being spent on, having personally used Wikimedia sites and services for more than 15 years. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/6W2OATORZGI3D33GNPU3QXFM3VBTILFW/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Brand Project: Who are we as a movement?
David Gerard wrote: >https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes/2018-11-9,10,11#Branding > >So this has been dictated from above - the "community consultation" is >window dressing for a decision that's long been made. > >Hence the nonsensical claims of massive community support by fiddling >the numbers, employing literal wiki spammers to do the consulting, >etc. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is bad. There are dozens of examples illustrating why this is true, but this forcible rebranding is a particularly good demonstration of the rot. The people most directly responsible here are Katherine Maher and Heather Walls. They're both subscribed to this mailing list, they both understand that this decision would upset long-time contributors, and they both simply decided to ignore any complaints in favor of attempting to siphon more money from donors and force their "vision" on the broader movement. You don't see either of them defending themselves or their actions here for a reason. They didn't both forget how e-mail works or how the wikis work, they've intentionally chosen to plug their ears and march forward. What's more offensive, in my opinion, than this forcible rebranding effort is that they've spent and will continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on it. It would be bad enough to make this unilateral decision and implement it with the existing bloated staff, but instead they've hired agencies and consultants and wasted additional hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor money on this sham exercise. But don't worry, highly deceptive advertising is back on the projects, in mid-April, to ensure continued funding of this and other charades. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Multi-page advertising on Wikipedia
Hi. I happened to pull up a wiki article on my phone this morning and I got hit with multi-page advertising begging for money from Wikimedia Foundation Inc. It's mid-April, what is going on? This spam is typically confined to late November and December. I don't see any relevant campaign listed at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Calendar>. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donating to Wikipedia
Samuel Klein wrote: >[Some banners are so delightful that they are a welcome improvement to a >page without; and I've occasionally thought we should run some of those, >w/ low probability, continuously year-round.] Which banners are delightful? The ones I've seen this year take up two pages of scrolling on mobile. This isn't cute or endearing; as you and others note, it's alarming to many people. As I imagine I've said previously, I think it's helpful to call this type of behavior what it is: spam or advertising. Calling it "fundraising" or speaking of "banners" makes it a lot easier to brush aside how intrusive and obnoxious this code is and the damaging impact it has. Fæ wrote: >Isn't it about time that the Wikimedia Foundation came to terms that > /plenty/ of money is made through sensible fundraising, without every >year embarrassing the whole Wikimedia Community by promoting the > impression that Wikipedia is about to close down if the public don't > give them enough money to keep their servers powered up over > Christmas? Making 10% more money every year is growth for the sake of > it unless we can understand in an accountable and transparent way > where that extra 10% is needed; preferably right there in the > fundraising banner so folks don't get the impression that Wikipedia is > about to vanish. Yes, absolutely. While there's often talk of "Wikimedia values", it's always been incredible to me to see the exact confines of those values from Wikimedia Foundation Inc. staff who are charged with bringing in money. For years, there have been complaints about this spam being borderline deceitful; in some cases the spam has been outright misleading or wrong. How does tricking people into thinking that Wikipedia will stop surviving if they don't give $5 an acceptable practice? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal
Mike Peel wrote: >I haven't been following this discussion too closely, but my sense is that >a few people on this mailing list have already decided on an >outcome and are seeking “oppose" and "feedback" to legitimize and >validate that predetermined decision. > >Mike >(Seriously - please give more constructive feedback, and engage in >conversation, everyone's working towards the same goals here.) I'm genuinely curious what you think a "Director of Brand" does. Other than leading a rebranding effort, what does that role entail? We're talking about the same organization that hired search engine optimization consultants. For Wikipedia, a site with notoriously incredible search engine results page placement. And even among the sleazy underbelly of search engine optimization consultants, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. partnered with a particularly bad group. We're also talking about the same organization that unilaterally changed its logo in a dramatic "fade to black". Operating in good faith only works bidirectionally. When people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and making bad decisions without community consultation, much less community endorsement, it becomes clear that at least one party is no longer acting in good faith. So, no, I don't think everyone is working toward the same goals here. Should we have a conversation about the neglected sister projects? Absolutely. This isn't it. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal
Andrew Lih wrote: >Folks, it's not clear this email thread is going to register at all as >feedback for this process. Hi. I haven't been following this discussion too closely, but my sense is that a few people within Wikimedia Foundation Inc. have already decided on an outcome and are seeking "support" and "feedback" to legitimize and validate that predetermined decision. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
Benjamin Ikuta wrote: >Thanks for this. > >I'm glad to see I'm not the only one dismayed by the unilateralism and >lack of transparency. My thanks as well. SarahSV on the English Wikipedia writes: > [...] something serious enough to warrant WMF action should not attract >a one-year block on this site only. Anything not serious enough for a >permanent global block by the WMF should be handled by the community or >ArbCom. We therefore need a fuller statement, signed by an individual, as >soon as possible. [...] Well said and agreed. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?
Yaroslav Blanter wrote in part: >This is a paradigm shift. Currently, the editors generally consider that >it is good to have long Wikipedia articles - because long means more >complete. Sometimes there are even proposals (fortunately isolated and >without followup) to delete all short articles even if they describe >notable topics and contain verified information. Clips are almost not in >use. Of course they still need to be made, but this is not such a big >problem - there are plenty of school students who have their own youtube >channel, if they can make clips, everybody can. > >[...] > >I envision it differently. Ideally, we have the Wikipedia as it is now, >but on top of this, every article has a collection of shorter companion >articles, simple and a paragraph or two long, so that each of them can be >read in half a minute, They should not have excessive markup, references, >categories or anything else which can be found in the main article if >needed. References in Wikipedia are required not for the sake of having >references, but as a means to ensure that the information is verifiable - >and if the main article does it the companion articles do not need to. >Some of these companion articles can be in fact clips - there is a >difficulty that clips can not be edited collaboratively, but I am sure >this one can be solved. If anybody wants to solve it. Regarding your subject line, I think <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines> very clearly applies. :-) No, the death of Wikipedia is not imminent. I agree with a few of your points. For example, I agree that it should be easier to edit from a mobile device or tablet. (Though the simple counter-argument has often been that doing research sometimes does require a physically larger working space and that's not really a fact to be ashamed of.) I also agree that we need more and better multimedia within wiki projects. In particular, we need better videos, better animations, and better images. That said, I'm not sure I understand what your concern is with long articles or lots of text. As your post here and my reply hopefully demonstrates, it's possible to have a long text and only interact with a piece of it. In terms of user interface, it is trivial to hide or collapse text if we want to. The default mobile view on Wikipedia collapses most sections of an article and only the introductory paragraphs are expanded. If readers find the default desktop view too overwhelming, we could hide or not even load every paragraph on the initial view. I think we want to be in a position where we have too much information and can hide some of it or filter out the "noise" as needed, instead of being in the opposite position of not having enough content and not being able to adequately serve our readers' needs. Or put more directly, if we have 50,000 words about the early life of Britney Spears, someone who's interested in researching where she was born does not need to read 50,000 words, they hopefully only need to read a few words in an infobox or in the relevant paragraph in a section of an article. Using Wikipedia and Wikidata as sources, we can also expand interactions such as query/answer services that would allow a user to simply ask "Where was Britney Spears born?" and get a direct, sourced answer. The content is still the centerpiece, while we create and adapt how the content is accessed. A large part of what has made Wikipedia successful has been its open license. Readers and editors enjoy and can embrace free content. If a successor project comes along and can use the same free content in a better way, we should welcome that. That isn't the death of Wikipedia, that's a continuation and evolution of it, in my opinion. And we should be open to a better future. The current model of having a very top-heavy Wikimedia Foundation Inc. headquartered in San Francisco is bad. While we never want to conflate change with improvement, there's plenty of room for the latter. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile fundraising ads
James Salsman wrote: >For those of you who have not seen the mobile fundraising banner this >year, and thus are uncertain of what all the fuss is about, here is an >example: > >https://i.imgur.com/wL4Y5dl.png Hi. This type of advertising is noxious and unacceptable. It should be revised or taken down as soon as possible. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Inc. working with Go Fish Digital, a company that whitewashes Wikipedia
Gregory Varnum wrote: >The Wikimedia Foundation entered into a short-term contract with Go Fish >Digital to conduct a search engine optimization (SEO) audit on Wikipedia. >They were contracted to provide information needed by the Audiences >department to improve how our sites communicate with search engines and >services which provide data to devices like artificial intelligence (AI) >assistants. Overall, SEO performance is a strength of our projects, but >we were able to identify areas for improvement, and the audit was helpful >for Audiences to more effectively focus their efforts. During discussions >about Wikimedia values and activities that were held in selecting the >vendor, they did not disclose anything which raised suspicion, and we >failed to identify this specific concern and question them about it more. This is particularly bizarre since Google has, for years, special-cased its handling of Wikimedia wikis. As far as I know, the standard Googlebot crawler is not used for Wikimedia wikis, so it's very strange that a standard "search engine optimization" company would be hired. Go Fish Digital's online reputation management work is very prominently featured on its Web site (gofishdigital.com), so I'm curious how the most basic check by someone in the Audiences or Legal departments missed this. >The Foundation's Legal department received the proposal after it had been >approved by Audiences and drafted a contract for this agreement following >standard procedures. This included a privacy review, which resulted in >the inclusion of extra privacy and security protections in the contract. >Their activities did not involve reputation management services, and they >did not request or receive access to any Wikimedia user data. The >contract concluded last month. Will anyone from the Audiences or Legal departments be commenting on this incident? Will anyone be outlining what steps will be taken to prevent a repeat of this incident? It appears that Go Fish Digital has whitewashed its own site, removing "Wikipedia" from its list of "primary platforms that define your online reputation" at <https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management/>. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Wikimedia Foundation has soft launched!
MZMcBride wrote: >Gregory Varnum wrote: >>After many months of work by over 100 individuals around the organization >>and movement, the Wikimedia Foundation's new website soft launched this >>week! >> >>You can check it out for yourself here (you may need to clear your >>browser's cache): https://wikimediafoundation.org/ > >The English home page inexplicably has German text at the top. I'm >super-confused how nobody has noticed or fixed this yet, given how >prominent it is on the page. It's also now been there long enough that >Google search results are including it. Woof. Ah, I see now. This is just some cruel waste of staff and volunteer time: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742>. You ask for people to point out issues, even providing a link to Phabricator Maniphest, and then gaslight them by closing the tasks and telling them that the very obvious bug is intentional. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Wikimedia Foundation has soft launched!
Gregory Varnum wrote: >After many months of work by over 100 individuals around the organization >and movement, the Wikimedia Foundation's new website soft launched this >week! > >You can check it out for yourself here (you may need to clear your >browser's cache): https://wikimediafoundation.org/ The English home page inexplicably has German text at the top. I'm super-confused how nobody has noticed or fixed this yet, given how prominent it is on the page. It's also now been there long enough that Google search results are including it. Woof. It's very sad that the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. communications department unilaterally decided to move away from MediaWiki to WordPress. And in the process, your team made the site a lot less accessible to edits and changes. Many people, including employees of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. and volunteers, repeatedly raised objections to this decision to move to WordPress and they were ignored. I think this type of behavior by the communications department is really inappropriate, unbecoming, and inconsistent with Wikimedia's values. I also agree with Yair Rand that the focus on "Advocacy" is misplaced. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Inc. working with Go Fish Digital, a company that whitewashes Wikipedia
Mario Gómez wrote: >There, is at least, one user that works for Go Fish Digital with a >sockpuppet account in English Wikipedia and has denied conflict of >interest or paid editing disclosure even if he was asked too, since some >user was suspicious. Should I send this privately? I don't want to incur >in spurious ousting/doxxing. Just to be clear on my end, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of Go Fish Digital's Wikipedia editing, I'm only aware of what the company advertises as a service or product to customers on its Web site, which appears to be directly incompatible with Wikimedia's values. It appears someone at Go Fish Digital or related to them is ch[ao]mping at the bit to be able to advertise its relationship with Wikipedia, according to <https://members.nctech.org/list/member/go-fish-digital-7132>: > [...] > Our clients range from large corporations like GEICO, the New York Times >and Marriott to startups you haven't heard of (yet). ((Hopefully you'll >be able to add Wikipedia here shortly)). > [...] MZMcBride > ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Inc. working with Go Fish Digital, a company that whitewashes Wikipedia
Hi.
Go Fish Digital is a company that whitewashes Wikipedia. From its own site:
>The primary platforms that define your online reputation include:
> [...]
> * Wikipedia
> [...]
>
> With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the
>positive information easy to find. At the same time, we use many
>different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative
>content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether. The end
>result is a positive online reputation because when people search your
>name or brand, they immediately find positive content.
Source: https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been working with this company on search
engine optimization: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198970>. I have a
few questions about this work.
How was this vendor chosen? Which other vendors were considered?
Why is this work being undertaken? At least the English Wikipedia has some
of the best search engine results placement of any site on the Web, so I'm
curious to know who's prioritizing Wikipedia's search engine optimization
and for what reason.
How is it appropriate for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to work with a company
that is, by its own admission, whitewashing Wikipedia? Doesn't this give
Go Fish Digital a ton of legitimization by now being able to say it works
directly with Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("with Wikipedia")?
Is it appropriate to give a company that sells whitewashing Wikipedia
services access to private user data, as was done in
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192893> and
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193052>? The Wikimedia Foundation Inc.
legal department apparently approved this access, but I'm curious to know
why, given the company's role in selling an "Online Reputation Management"
product. This looks bad to me.
MZMcBride
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Identified users
John Erling Blad wrote: >In some cases it would be a lot easier and/or better if it was possible to >identify and not just authenticate an user. This could include such things >as turning on real name for identified users, or limiting elevated rights >to them, thereby avoiding renomination of banned users. Are you familiar with Twitter and Facebook's use of blue checkboxes for "verified" accounts? Are you discussing something similar to that? >In a lot of countries it is now possible to get access to systems with >highly trustworthy identification. This is at least possible in several >European countries, and I bet it will be quite common in the coming years. Sure. A relatively easy option for "identifying" users, which has been discussed previously, is requiring the use of a credit card or a phone number in order to edit. These types of proposals have not been popular. There's also <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Identification_noticeboard>, which has a somewhat interesting implementation and execution history. For users who are well-known public figures, we have OTRS or Twitter or Facebook, where people can send an e-mail or make a post to cross-reference their accounts/identities. >Some pros; >- reclaiming user accounts would be somewhat easier >- real names could be used (no impersonation) >- user verification of various public departments >- proofs of identity for copyright claims I've said this previously elsewhere, but I think the focus should be on: * supporting case-insensitive user names, so that "Brian" and "BRIAN" are the same when logging in; * supporting display name configuration, so that user "__bradley__" can be referred to as such in page histories and elsewhere; and * supporting self-renames, so that it doesn't require another user to change your username, which is just crazy. I see a lot more to gain from these features than I do from focusing on identification. There have also been thoughts around affiliations and groups and better supporting those within MediaWiki. Currently, people often have a personal wiki account and an "official" wiki account, but managing the two can be difficult and tedious. Instead, you could have a way for users to join, for example, the group "Wikimedia Deutschland" and tag their contributions as being part of that group, instead of having "User:Herman" and "User:Herman (WMDE)" wiki accounts. GitHub does this pretty well. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New style banner - A heads up
Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote: >Personally, I really dislike banners that try to pretend to be content. >This one makes it look like the page is an article titled "To all our >readers in the U.S." rather than a page with a banner on it. This type of design is similar to, if not precisely, "native advertising" and it should be shunned as the unethical and completely unwelcome practice that it is. The issue of injecting advertisements into the content area of articles has come up repeatedly on this mailing list and elsewhere. As has the issue of hostilely overtaking the viewing area of an article with an obnoxious pop-up banner demanding money, not unlike ransomware. I believe we're even still setting a cookie to hide advertisements from people who have recently donated money. It doesn't seem like a very far stretch to darkly think of this type of behavior as extortive and pay-to-play. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] James Heilman joins the Board Governance Committee as a volunteer and advisory member
Nataliia Tymkiv wrote: >The BGC believes that in case James is approved by the Board as a Board >member [3] it would also be a good onboarding opportunity for him. > >[...] > >[3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_III_-_MEMBERSHIP In case? Is there doubt regarding his upcoming appointment? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2017/Results MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 11 June 2017)
Pine W wrote: >What's making you happy this week? https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T133410 "Deploy TemplateStyles to WMF production" appears to be nearing resolution. Deploying the TemplateStyles extension <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TemplateStyles> to Wikimedia wikis should allow us to make wiki markup less cluttered and should give a lot more flexibility to regular users to handle various device sizes and constraints using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). A big thanks to Anomie, Tgr, and others who are helping move this task forward. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's set up a Tor onion service for Wikipedia
Cristian Consonni wrote: >I have read several discussions on the topic (going back to 2006) and >what I have understood from those is that the biggest issue with editing >via Tor is sockpuppeting. This Phabricator comment you found seems pretty useful: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71333#728636>. And Faidon posted in November 2014 about the establishment of a Tor relay: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-November/079392.html How does your proposal interact (if at all) with the existing Tor relay set up in late 2014? It's unclear to me whether "Tor onion service" in this context is equivalent to a Tor exit node. I'm fairly sure setting up the latter has been discussed previously on wikimedia-l and/or wikitech-l. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Results of the 2017 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election
matanya moses wrote: >Congratulations to María Sefidari (User:Raystorm), Dariusz Jemielniak >(User:pundit), and James Heilman (User:Doc James) for receiving the most >community support. Subject to a standard background check, they will be >appointed by the Board at their August meeting at Wikimania. For those wondering, two of the people who supported James' removal from the Board of Trustees in December 2015 are still serving: Alice and Jimmy. And the two people who opposed the resolution (Dariusz and James) are now among the three people being reappointed. * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:James_Heilman_Removal * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Former_Board_of_Trustees_members MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timeless: a grant proposal
Isarra Yos wrote: >I'm a bit confused what you're asking. My proposal should be covering >exactly what I aim to achieve. What, specifically, is unclear? Let me >know and I'll do what I can to improve it. The Vector skin was pushed forward as a usability initiative. For better or worse, constantly saying "usability" was effective, because after all, who could be against ideas from a usability initiative? Perhaps this new responsive skin for MediaWiki wikis needs a similar marketing strategy. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations
Gergő Tisza wrote: >In any case, it seems a bit tendentious to raise this in the context of >the Code of the Coduct, which (as it has been told ad nauseam) was a >volunteer initiative, organized mostly with resources available to >volunteers. The subject-space and talk pages have literally hundreds of edits by user names marked with "WMF". Describing this effort as a volunteer initiative is at least misleading, given this context. http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=www.mediawiki=C ode+of+Conduct http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=www.mediawiki=T alk:Code+of+Conduct MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces
Risker wrote: >I am very curious. Why is it that there seems to be so much resistance to >this draft code of conduct? You may find these links helpful: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-February/086595.html https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct#Summary_of_criticisms MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Opening the 2016 Values discussion
Guillaume Paumier wrote: >https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values/2016_discussion/Synthesis > >The discussion on the talk page of the synthesis is open until March 4 >to finalize the language of the descriptions. Thanks for this note. I left some feedback on the talk page: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Values/2016_discussion/Synthesis>. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces
David Gerard wrote: >This is a pretty reasonable presumption regarding technical spaces: if >you *don't* have a code of conduct, it's a reasonable conclusion from >outside that there will be serious unacknowledged problems. Then you and others should have no problem providing specific examples. I'd like to see links to Gerrit changesets and Phabricator tasks where this new policy and its committee would help. If you want to make claims of serious unacknowledged problems, substantiate them with evidence. This is exactly the same burden of proof you would expect from anyone else. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces
Tim Landscheidt wrote: >This is a circular and illogical argument. Just because >someone has good intentions or invested time and effort does >not mean that the path they chose is the right one to take. >And if someone is steering towards a cliff, encouraging peo- >ple to keep pushing the cart to honour the navigator's dedi- >cation is self-destructive. This is basically the <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_fallacy>. This also can partially explain many of the software development-related disputes we've seen with the Wikimedia Foundation. Once a bunch of time, energy, and other resources are devoted to a particular software project, it becomes a lot more difficult to give it up, even if it's doomed. Leila Zia wrote: >Matthew used English Wikipedia as one example to say that the statement >"This is always the case." is not correct. Using English Wikipedia as an >example to negate that statement is not in contradiction with what Matthew >said to you on mediawiki.org. Sure, but that wasn't the contradiction (or hypocrisy) I was discussing. In one case, Matthew is relying on outside behavior and accepted practices on other Wikimedia wikis (re: meatpuppetry, sockpuppetry, etc.). In the other case, Matthew is saying outside policies and practices are irrelevant as those policies are local to that wiki. You both are quite smart enough to see what's happening here. Vi to wrote: >I think methodological objections shouldn't prevail over substantial >objections. >I can agree most of consensus in CoC draft came from WMF >staffers/contractors, but: >*no one was prevented from weighing-in >*lists were filled with invitations to weigh-in >*I think most of us didn't comment just because they agree with the >overall meaning of the draft. >IMHO most of criticism doesn't actually target the draft but rather >increasing influence of WMF in various sectors traditionally >community-driven or unregulated. I'm not commenting nor this influence nor >the objections but I think CoC is just a symbol of another issue. I'll try to summarize the latest criticisms and I'll copy them to the talk page as well, for posterity. Re: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Draft In the most cynical outlook, this is a Wikimedia Foundation-imposed policy. The revision history of the page and activity on the related Phabricator tasks make this pretty clear: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P4985> and <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90908>. The draft text regarding initial committee membership reads: "The first Committee will be chosen by the Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration team." As I pointed out to Pine, there's been a decent amount of discussion regarding whether this proposed committee or this entire document can even apply to Wikimedia Foundation staff. The Wikimedia Foundation Human Resources and Legal teams have weighed in and seem to have attempted to carve out an exemption for employees, since they're (probably rightfully) concerned that this proposed policy and its committee will create HR and Legal headaches. When asked about specific examples that this code of conduct is attempting to address, there has been extreme evasiveness. Problematic behavior in technical spaces (for example, spammers in IRC channels, Phabricator, and Gerrit) are typically quickly resolved. What is this committee intending to work on, exactly? Getting a simple answer to that question has been nearly impossible. And the previous explicit agreements to have a final vote on the document have now been changed by one side. Instead of having a final vote, Matthew and the rest of the people pushing this document forward are trying to claim the ability to use per-section consensus as a basis for overall consensus, even though they specifically told people there would be a final vote and people supported specific sections with this understanding. Yes, it is a cynical outlook to be sure, but if you examine what's happening here, this a proposed policy from Wikimedia Foundation staffers that puts the Wikimedia Foundation in charge of creating a code of conduct committee. That's already a huge red flag. Add to it that the Wikimedia Foundation is trying to exempt itself from its own creation, can't cite what specific problems this new policy/committee is intended to solve, and has now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote, presumably because there's a concern that a final vote would result in rejection of this policy. Bleh. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces
Pine W wrote: >When I last spent some time looking at the proposal, I too felt that the >contributions indicated that the policy had far too little community >influence. *However*, if you'll entertain a hypothetical with me for a >moment, let's suppose that the status quo continues and there is >effectively no conduct policy for technical spaces -- in particular, >Phabricator and MediaWiki, unless I am missing a conduct policy that >already applies to them outside of the ToS. If there is no policy, is that >better than the policy that Matthew has been drafting? The "no conduct policy for technical spaces" argument was debunked here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-November/085573.html Pine W also wrote: >Well, WMF will have to deal with this policy too. (: Sort of. The proposed text currently includes "If a WMF employee or contractor is accused of wrongdoing, or a WMF employee or contractor is reported as being subjected to wrongdoing, the Committee will forward the report to the employee's or contractor’s manager, and to WMF HR in writing." It remains very unclear whether this code of conduct policy can apply to Wikimedia Foundation employees, given comments from the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal and Human Resources departments. > While I have mixed feelings about TCoC and the process for its >creation, I also don't want anarchy in Phabricator and MediaWiki, so it >seems prudent to explore alternatives. Anarchy? Huh? Rogol Domedonfors wrote: >However, since the end of 2015 the drafting of the code has largely been >in the hands of a small group of WMF staff, and they have taken it on >themselves to change that consensus and stated that the code will come >into effect as soon as the last section is agreed, which will be quite >soon. > >Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial >consensus, and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or >will the WMF choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of >any community views on the subject? > >If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the >appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be publicised? It's pretty bizarre that nobody has addressed this. Many people supported specific sections of the proposed document with an explicit understanding that there would be a final vote on the full document later. A few members of Wikimedia Foundation staff then tried to declare that a final vote was not necessary, violating previous statements and agreements. These same staff members have also been involved in closing discussions in which they were active participants or even the initiators of the discussion. This is all noted at <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft>. I think these actions will delegitimize the entire document and any processes or procedures it attempts to implement. Matthew Flaschen wrote: >English Wikipedia policy is clear >(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppetry): >"In votes or vote-like discussions, new users may be disregarded or >given significantly less weight, especially if there are many of them >expressing the same opinion." > >Other wikis have similar conventions and policies, and some other wikis >even formalize this into required edit counts. It's darkly amusing to see you citing the English Wikipedia. When I pointed out to you on mediawiki.org that "it would never be appropriate for the person who began a discussion to then also close that discussion," you replied that "English Wikipedia policies do not apply here." MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] banner proposals
Gerard Meijssen wrote: >We do not care about our own. I do acknowledge that some have other >opinions but I do not have to respect such an opinion. The proof of the >pudding is after all in the eating and we allowed this to happen, no sound >came out of our community that said otherwise. What you're saying is an example of false equivalency (in addition to being polemical hyperbole). Putting up a site-wide advertisement is not equivalent to caring about someone or something. Regarding the pudding, I think the disconnect we're having is that not everyone agrees when it's time for dessert. And even when many people do agree that it's time for dessert, not everyone agrees with having pudding. Or the flavor of the pudding. Or the means used to make and eat it. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation official response re Daily Mail issue
Stephen Philbrick wrote: >Does anyone have a link to the recent Foundation Statement about the Daily >Mail? We are receiving inquires at OTRS, and it would be nice if I see see >our official position. I don't have such a link, but I did forward your e-mail to the various e-mail addresses listed at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee>. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] De-Recognition of Affiliates with Long-standing Non-Compliance
Kirill Lokshin wrote: >It's also worth noting, incidentally, that the table on the reports page >only tracks compliance with annual activity and financial reporting >requirements, and not any other requirements that affiliates may be >subject to under their agreements with the WMF. For reference, since I was curious, there's an index of (some?) chapter agreements here: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter_agreements>. This page may be out of date, though. There are a whole lot of chapter/affiliate-related pages on Meta-Wiki and it's a bit difficult to keep track of them. These two templates are decent attempts: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Affiliates> and <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Affiliations_Committee>. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
Andy Mabbett wrote: >On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: >> I guess this is referring to >> <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/>. > >There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC, >who would not have been able to attend under the current ban. > >I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a >ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so. Wikimania has taken place in many countries. In 2011 it was held in Israel, in 2008 it was held in Egypt, etc. That doesn't make it appropriate for the Wikimedia Foundation to issue statements about various national policies. That isn't its role or responsibility. Simply because tenuous connections can be made doesn't suddenly make them legitimate reasons for political action on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikimedia movement. An unwanted pregnancy is a burden and may reduce the ability of some women to edit Wikipedia. But that (quite obviously, to me, anyway) does not mean that the Wikimedia Foundation should be taking a position on abortion rights and access to contraception. In my opinion, the risk of such political action is pretty clear: it has a very real possibility to fracture and divide the Wikimedia community over issues that are unrelated to Wikimedia's mission. Robert Fernandez wrote: >That is an obvious false equivalence. The issue isn't people rooting >for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own. The >issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission >can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act >appropriately. You somewhat conveniently avoided addressing Nathan's point. If the Wikimedia Foundation issued a political statement with a view that you found deeply offensive and strongly disagreed with, how would you respond? Todd Allen wrote: >I don't think anyone is disputing the facts. I'm certainly not. And I am >gravely concerned by what's being done, and I entirely oppose it. > >However, that doesn't mean I want to see WMF used as a political >mouthpiece, even when what's being said happens to be things I fully agree >with. Agreed. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] guidance from Foundation leadership as to where to draw the line on policy requests?
James Salsman wrote: >I can not in good conscience refrain from asking the Foundation management >and Board to please take an exceptional, public, very visible stand in >response to these extraordinarily exceptional circumstances. > >[...] > >If those of you who find my requests uncomfortable do not know how to >program your email clients to hide them from you, I will gladly help you >off-list. Since you seem to need one, as a general rule, if neither the URL you're sharing nor the contents it leads to contain the word "wiki", it's very likely inappropriate for this mailing list. Your recent medium.com, cnbc.com, and aol.com links all fail this test. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
Hi Yair, I agree with your underlying sentiment. When we look at threats facing the Wikimedia movement, I continue to think that the risk of people being able to inject their national and identity politics into the movement is pretty great. While I may personally agree with many of the views being put forward, as you note these types of actions have the very real potential to create an unhealthy division among contributors and others. Wikimedia is a global movement and many people in the world have strongly held and diametrically different views about gay rights, abortion, free speech, the role of women, etc. Those views should rarely be relevant to creating free educational content. I don't think it's appropriate for Wikimedia to take stands on these issues. If staff of the current iteration of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. want to make such statements and take such positions, that is technically their prerogative, absent intervention from the Board of Trustees, however it certainly behooves other Wikimedian to point out what a bad idea it is. To put it another way: there are people who work at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. who voted for Donald Trump for president. While you may disagree with his policies and these staffers' decision to support him for president, needlessly and divisively injecting this kind of politics into the workplace is neither healthy nor appropriate, in my opinion. Yair Rand wrote: >Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog >explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area >that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior >discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell. I guess this is referring to <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/>. In terms of various people at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. attempting to speak for the Wikimedia movement, there's also <https://policy.wikimedia.org/>. I've raised the lack of attribution and the "veneer of authority and legitimacy" issue at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Public_policy>. At least the recent blog post was signed by Katherine. That's better than some of these other essays. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] news events impacting the Foundation's ability to hire and its employees' ability to travel
Rogol Domedonfors wrote: >Because this mailing list is for discussions about the Wikimedia mission, >Foundation and projects; not for the general discussion of the national >politics of the United States or any other country, however fascinating. Seriously. Where are the mailing list moderators? Richard? Thehelpfulone? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Keeping historical documents related to Wikimedia
Yann Forget wrote: >That completely defeats the point. >Anyone can keep a copy locally, but 1. the file isn't available publicly, >2. nobody really knows where it is available (Google won't say X has a >copy), 3. if the local storage is damaged, the file is lost. > >So I am asking the WMF to have a place to keep such files publicly. It's kind of amusing to read a discussion about preserving historical documents where the author's name includes the word "forget." :-) The problem here is a lot more social than technical. We already have two places that users can upload and manage files: commons.wikimedia.org and meta.wikimedia.org. There's no technical reason that either of these places can't be used, as far as I know. The issue is that some people on these wikis insist that all content be completely free. Depending on the size of the files you want to store and how much you care about presentation, metadata, etc., there are some more obscure places we could stick the files basically indefinitely. We could put them in a Git repository on gerrit.wikimedia.org or maybe github.com, we could stick them in Phabricator at phabricator.wikimedia.org, we could put them on wikimediafoundation.org, we could put them in a user directory on people.wikimedia.org, we could stick them on a server like dumps.wikimedia.org or wikitech.wikimedia.org. Hell, we could even find an obscure Wiktionary or Wikiquote project with reasonable local admins and just stash the files away there. We have plenty of servers and tools at our disposal. If you create a Phabricator Maniphest task with a list of your hard and soft requirements, particularly the amount of storage space you expect to need, we can probably find you a place to stick these files away from the people so intent on deleting them. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Delegation of policy-making authority" resolution
Christophe Henner wrote: >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 :) Hi Christophe, Thank you for your replies in this thread so far. I'm still confused about this resolution and its impact. Were there a lot of regular changes needed to policies, so much so that the Board had a backlog of some kind? If the changes were as small as you suggest, such as punctuation tweaks, I would think these would be quick and easy for the Board to review and approve. If there are regular and more substantive policy changes happening, I'd like to better understand why these changes are happening. And I'd like to better understand why eliminating review and approval by the Board of Trustees for substantive policy changes is a good thing. You mention legal staff and lawyers, but for many people, I don't think it's very comforting to know that you're making it easier for lawyers to make changes to these policies. While I'm sure the legal staff at the Wikimedia Foundation is great, I think there's a lot of benefit to having the somewhat elected (err, selected) Board review and approve policy changes that affect every Wikimedia wiki. Why would we change this? It seems worth pointing out that the Wikimedia Foundation General Counsel position is currently vacant, so when you mention the legal team wanting to make policy changes, many wonder who specifically is wanting to make changes and why. More to the point, while this e-mail thread mentions the legal team, the resolution is far broader than that. The Executive Director could appoint a Wikimedia Foundation intern or even an outside contractor as the responsible party for a global policy now, with the unchecked power to alter, revoke, or change the terms? Anyone who reads through this PDF from November 2016 can see that this is not exactly a theoretical concern: <https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?curid=24446>. There are people who want to enact and enforce their policies across Wikimedia wikis and the Board of Trustees has now greatly expanded the group of people who can alter global policies. This is a pretty big and sudden shift. To Lodewijk's point about consultation and notification, was/is the Board of Trustees planning to announce this seemingly large and significant change to the affected Wikimedia communities? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] "Delegation of policy-making authority" resolution
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 <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/July_4,_2004>; 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 Battles, Guy Kawasaki, Jimmy Wales, Nataliia Tymkiv, and Alice Wiegand --- I wonder how much of this resolution is formalizing what was already happening and how much of this is moving the Wikimedia Foundation in a new direction. After a very tumultuous year at the Wikimedia Foundation, this is certainly a notable development. I also wonder in what ways this abrupt change will alter the relationship between the editing communities and the Board of Trustees. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees seems to be committing itself to downsizing its role and responsibilities. The concern is that a change like this will reduce accountability when policies are set, unset, and changed by someone overseeing a large staff that regularly comes in conflict with an even larger set of editing communities. The Executive Director, of course, is unelected and has been a central point of repeated controversies recently. It's been less than a year since the previous Executive Director resigned after being forced out by her staff. In the context of the recent history, this resolution is all the more puzzling. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Discussion about proposed Technical Code of Conduct (TCC)
Legoktm wrote: >On 11/21/2016 01:36 AM, Adrian Raddatz wrote: >> So, are we unable to enforce these things currently? If someone >>comments on a Phabricator task that user X is a big meanyface, are we >>unable to act currently because there's no code of conduct so how could >>they have known otherwise? > >The current guideline is ><https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bug_management/Phabricator_etiquette>. >It only applies to Phabricator, not all technical spaces, like the >proposed COC. If we disregard these pages: * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct_policy * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy And the many others listed at these places: * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Draft#See_also And if we disregard any application of common sense, then yes, you could argue that a technical code of conduct is needed. When you consider the actual context, however, it becomes pretty clear that this is unnecessary bureaucracy. The repeated concerns about outsized influence by Wikimedia Foundation employees have largely gone ignored. Quim Gil wrote: >The discussion about this CoC is no exception, and we have seen WMF >employees with different opinions and votes at almost every point. If we discount discussions like "Finalize introduction to "Committee" section?" on the talk page, I suppose: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft>. It's plain to see in discussions like this that every support vote came from Wikimedia Foundation employees or employees of another Wikimedia affiliate (WMDE and WMFR). The opposing votes came from volunteers, but three of the four were struck as being too late. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising Update - Big English Fundraiser
Joseph Seddon wrote: >So firstly you can see all of our standard banners here [1]. Those links >will always contain our most current control banner designs and the >control text will be updated regularly through the English campaigns. We >are working to limit the number of banners each reader sees and it is >important to note that readers will only see the large banner once. On >the large banner, the close button is accompanied with explicit text. >The smaller banner doesn’t have the text because of the more limited real >estate but has an “X” around 45% large. Dismissing the banner or using >the remind me later function will hide the banner for a period of 1 week. > >We have worked hard over the years to rephrase many of the areas of >criticism relating to our appeals taking into account both staff and >community feedback. The most recent such change was a small edit from >“small non-profit” to “non-profit”. I’ll be keeping that page up to date >with the changes to our copy through the campaign. We are working with the >Communications team on our new messaging for banners and emails not just >for new ideas but to ensure it remains consistent with overall WMF >messaging. The WMF Legal department also reviews all fundraising messages >to ensure accuracy. > >Finally, I foresee absolutely no reason for us to change our policy of not >showing fundraising banners to logged in users and will definitely >maintain this for the English campaign. This was an excellent reply and read. Thank you! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] How should security of Wikimedia accounts be better?
Fæ wrote: >Do any of the volunteers contributing to this list have ideas for >changes that may make a significant difference to security? When you log in, you're given a user session. This session, along with local Web browser HTTP cookies, allows you to stay logged in and authenticated as you browse and edit a wiki. We've previously discussed the ability for a user to see all of his or her account's active sessions, similar to what other sites (GitHub, Facebook, Google) already allow. This type of interface lets a user see his or her own active sessions, originating IP addresses and User-Agent strings, and sometimes the interface allows destroying all or some sessions (e.g., if you see a session from the time you logged in to a friend's computer). This type of interface can also be used, for better or worse, to track typical behavior of the user, so that if a user often logs in from a specific IP address range (e.g., their home computer in the UK), a user session that comes from a vastly different IP address range (e.g., a mobile device in Australia) can be flagged and reported to the user. Or, in the case of two-factor authentication, a "suspicious" login attempt can be required to go through additional verification. These types of systems are common for Gmail accounts and some credit card accounts. Regarding a user seeing a list of his or her own active sessions and corresponding information, there was, and there likely still is, considerable opposition to this idea. It's akin to a "self-CheckUser" feature (which I think we should separately support) and there were concerns that we would help vandals, sockpuppets, and other bad users. Some links: * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/?curid=117743 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/?curid=156161 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T387 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T29242 MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why don't we have a warrant canary?
James Salsman wrote: >Are there any disadvantages to a warrant canary which would outweigh the >corresponding expected increase in improvements from anonymous editors? This question is presented in such a way that it's difficult to answer, in my opinion. You'll need to provide additional context. Related to your question, below are some data points that may be helpful to you or others. In 2013, the Wikimedia Foundation said: --- The Wikimedia Foundation has not received requests or legal orders to participate in PRISM, to comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), or to participate in or facilitate any secret intelligence surveillance program. --- https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/14/prism-surveillance-wikimedia/ There's also this note from Luis Villa also from 2013: --- 1) We've flat-out denied any sort of involvement in this, and we continue to stand by that denial: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/14/prism-surveillance-wikimedia/ 2) Take with a grain of salt, of course, but our understanding (based on the few gag orders that have been made public) is that we could be forced to not confirm having received a National Security Letter, but we can't actually be forced to lie about it. In other words, if we'd received one we would not be allowed to say "we've received one", but we also could not be forced to deny it - we'd always have the option to remain silent instead. --- https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-August/127380.html I believe there have been similar statements made subsequent to 2013, but I don't know if we have them indexed somewhere. We probably should. There's also this reply from 2016: --- Yeah, sorry about that. I am not subject to a National Security Letter.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2016 (UTC) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_199 MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2015 - 2016 Fundraising Report just published
Joseph Seddon wrote: >Lodewijk: So just as last year, fundraising totals have been posted by >region but there is currently no public data for donations from each >country. It's felt that the regional breakdown at least provides a >compromise between providing a semi-decent view of where our donations >come from while at the same time respecting privacy and other legal >reasons that is associated with releasing country level data. Huh? Like Rupert, I find this comment very confusing. What specific privacy and legal reasons are there for not providing a per-country breakdown of donations? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Clarifications on 2014 Form 990
Patricio Lorente wrote: >We’ve heard your questions and want to address them broadly, as well as >provide more information about the breakdown of Sue’s compensation during >this time. Thank you for this e-mail. >One point of confusion is for the period this compensation covers. This is >reasonable, this confused even some of us involved in preparing this >response. Although the majority of activities reported on the Form 990 >cover the Foundation’s fiscal year (specifically, the six months between >July 1, 2014 - June 30, 2015), the IRS requires that details about >compensation for certain highly-paid individuals are for the full calendar >year in which the fiscal year begins or ends. This parenthetical confused me. Six months from July 2014 to June 2015? >(2) Retention bonus to compensate Sue for lost opportunities during the >transition period: $165,000. This is the key piece that I think most people didn't understand or realize. Was this information published anywhere previously (e.g., in the Board minutes)? I wouldn't expect to see an exact amount, of course, but this is a pretty substantial amount of donor money, so I'd expect at least a "we approved a retention bonus for special advisor Sue Gardner"-type notice somewhere, typically on wikimediafoundation.org. >Sue’s special advisor status with the Foundation ended on May 31, 2016, >and she is no longer on contract with the Foundation or receiving any >compensation from it. I can't help but think about the tempestuous past year that the Wikimedia Foundation has had, including issues with Sue's immediate successor. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [WikimediaMobile] "Among mobile sites, Wikipedia reigns in terms of popularity"
Steven Walling wrote: >It's really great to see Wikipedia highlighted as a source for news and >current events. It's rare that people fully recognize the degree to which >the "encyclopedia" is actually very good at trending news information. >That said, the report paints a rosy picture that, strategically speaking, >may not be cause for celebration. Does the Knight Foundation disclose somewhere in this report that it's a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation? Comparing Wikipedia to sites like BuzzFeed and CNN seems to be a pretty classic case of comparing apples to oranges. >Neglecting to show people the value of the apps will help grow mobile web >traffic in the short term, but in the long run may leave us entirely >dependent on search (i.e. Google) or simply not growing readers, despite >millions of people still coming online via mobile. Can you elaborate on the value of the apps? HTTP is a free and open standard with very wide support. iOS is closed and proprietary. Maybe you can explain how investing resources into the latter aligns with Wikimedia's values? Personally, I say hasten the day that we abolish the horrible "m." from our URLs and MobileFrontend from our servers. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Board update
Patricio Lorente wrote: > When Denny informed the Board that he was stepping down, we began to >consider how we would move forward. We recognize the importance of >filling the two vacancies on the Board, and would like to proceed in a >way that respects the will of the community and responds to existing >Board needs. The Board will be meeting in Berlin during the Wikimedia >Conference on April 22nd and 23rd - during this time we will discuss how >we should fill the open community-nominated and appointed Trustee seats. > > >I look forward to sharing more information with you in late April. April has now come and gone. Is there any new information about filling these two vacancies on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees? In poking around to see if I had missed a post somewhere, I found this on-wiki reply by Patricio from May 4, 2016: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=15578608=15578561>. The reply is vaguely related to the vacant seats; I imagine its contents will be of interest to this list. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal
Tim Starling wrote: >Board members have a duty to act in the interests of the WMF as a >whole, but it does not follow that denying anonymity to whistleblowers >is in the best interests of the WMF. In fact, I think this Lila/KF/KE >case demonstrates the opposite. > >I would encourage the Board to extend the current whistleblower policy >to provide protection to employees making anonymous complaints via >certain intermediaries (such as active Board members), rather than >requiring complaints to be made directly to the Chair of the Board; >and to specify that the forwarding of such anonymous reports by Board >members to the Chair would be permissible. > >If we want to avoid a repeat of this affair, then employees should be >encouraged to communicate serious concerns to the Board as early as >possible. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Whistleblower_policy You mention anonymous complaints and serious concerns, but the current whistleblower policy seems to be pretty clear that it only applies to laws, rules, and regulations. The text of the policy indicates, to me at least, that even alleged violations of other Wikimedia Foundation policies would not be covered by the whistleblower policy. Would you extend the Wikimedia Foundation whistleblower policy to cover regular (i.e., non-legal and non-regulatory) grievances? My understanding is that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees sought out and then appointed a tech-minded chief executive, who came from a tech organization, in order to "transform" the Wikimedia Foundation from an educational non-profit to be more like a traditional tech company. Many employees of the Wikimedia Foundation disagreed with this decision and the chief executive made a series of poor hires who ran amok (looking at you, Damon), but I don't think anything rose to the level of illegal behavior. From my perspective, whether rightfully or wrongfully, the staff mutinied and ultimately successfully deposed the appointed executive director. I don't see how this whistleblower policy or most variations of it that a typical non-profit would enact would really be applicable here. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gender gap on "classical" encyclopedias
Robert Fernandez wrote: >The argument that there is no demand for such articles is itself a stale >one, used to frequently justify gender disparities in all sorts of fields >and media. There is a clear demand for such articles. The media reaction >to Emily Temple-Wood's campaign to write articles about female scientists >is only the most recent and prominent example illustrating that the >audience is there. This is somewhat tangential, but <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Temple-Wood> exists now. I personally find this to be both unfortunate and potentially ominous. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [recent changes]
Anthony Cole wrote: >Google's "info boxes" and their answers at the top of their results, we're >all agreed now, I think, are impacting Wikipedia's page views and, >consequently, our ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers. Google and others have a direct interest in their data being accurate and reliable. We already see that Google has a "report a correction" feature for some of its services. It's in both Wikimedia's interest and re-users' interest for the underlying data source to be update-to-date and correct. Our mission is to spread free educational content to the world and we make our data available for re-use for this purpose. Shouldn't we be applauding Google and others for helping us share our knowledge with the world? As far as threats to direct-to-user fund-raising go, I'd put organizational instability ahead of Google at the moment. The Wikimedia Foundation has repeatedly been in the news lately for ongoing management issues, both in its executive team and in its board of trustees. What size do you think the Wikimedia Foundation should be in terms of yearly budget and number of full-time employees? How much bigger or smaller should the Wikimedia Foundation be than other Wikimedia chapters? Even if we accepted your premise that Google was impacting Wikipedia's page views and the ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers (citations needed, to be sure), are you sure that we're all agreed that this is problematic? If others re-using our content has a side effect of reducing donations to Wikimedia Foundation Inc., donations which are received through questionable and increasingly obnoxious on-site advertisements, you will not find universal agreement that this donor reduction would be terrible. As others have argued previously, small and recurring donations are a means of providing accountability for the entities entrusted with these monetary donations. If potential donors no longer trust the Wikimedia Foundation to manage and distribute this money, no longer donating financially is practical and wise. If Google causes page views to go down and our sites are directly hit less frequently, that actually saves us money, doesn't it? We're theoretically then off-loading some of our hosting costs to Google, Facebook, and others who are downloading and re-uploading our data to the Web, exactly as we mandated that anyone be able to do. With multiple copies of the data on the Web, we're better ensuring that the content lives on in perpetuity. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Executive transition planning
Gergő Tisza wrote: >On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 7:54 AM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: >> Removing a roof without also having a plan for an interim roof is a >>really amateur mistake. > >Not really if the roof was radioactive, and on fire. The roof didn't blow off in a storm; it was structurally unsound. We know this because roof repair has been in discussion for months. We know this because the old roof will be around until the end of March 2016. If the roof were really on fire, I think we would all hope for faster action! >It is entirely a matter of priorities - is it more urgent to fix a >situation that was causing serious unrest amongst staff, and was >escalating quickly, or to compose a nice transition plan? You might >disagree with the board's answer to that question, but there are more >honest ways of criticizing it than attacking them for not doing >everything at the same time. Respectfully, I think you're presenting a false dichotomy here. The board was aware of the issues with the roof since at least November 2015, as I understand it. Is four months really not enough time to develop a transition plan, not for a permanent replacement, but for an interim replacement for the roof? Nobody is saying that the Board of Trustees must do everything at the same time. But at some point in time, the board should exhibit some meaningful leadership of the Wikimedia Foundation. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Executive transition planning
Jimmy Wales wrote: >On 3/5/16 3:07 AM, MZMcBride wrote: >> I don't see it as a sign of strength to abdicate your responsibility in >> this way. > >There are at least two things I disagree with about this remark - one >that seeking the advice and participation and buy-in of those best >placed to give it is in some way "abdicating responsibility". And the >other is that the board's objective should be to give off a "sign of >strength". I think attempting to show strength is a pretty silly >objective for a board to have, and I hope we never have that as our >objective. I'll try to better articulate my views. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the foundation and appoints its Executive Director. It seems very worrying that this body has now admitted that it's so out-of-touch with the workings of the organization that it ostensibly manages that it cannot fulfill one of its most basic duties: appointing an interim Executive Director. What kind of confidence does this instill in employees, editors, and donors? How can you all call yourselves trustees of an organization that you're openly admitting that you all don't understand? Is that not crazy to anyone else? It's not simply about strength and framing it as such misses the point: it's about leadership. It seems very worrying that when pressed to provide real and meaningful leadership of the Wikimedia Foundation, the Board of Trustees passes the buck and erects smoke and mirror arguments such as "but we don't lead the Wikimedia movement!" Nobody is asking the Board of Trustees to lead the Wikimedia movement, you're being asked to manage the non-profit foundation to which you all pledged your support and care. The Board of Trustees is clinically allergic to making decisions. It chooses to be a "traditional" non-profit board when it suits it, holding closed meetings accompanied by the barest possible meeting minutes, which are only published months later. However, when called to act with authority, as a traditional board might act, it demurs and points to everyone else as the people who should be making the decisions. The working theory currently is that the Board of Trustees has always been weak, but that Sue covered or compensated for this weakness by taking on some of the responsibilities that a board would typically have. Drafting a Strategic Plan is probably the best example of this. This is very much a shared responsibility and yet we now sit outside of a Strategic Plan. It lapsed at the end of 2015 and no new plan has taken its place. What are the Wikimedia Foundation targets for 2020? How is it acceptable that neither the board nor the Executive Director have worked on this? To be clear: I don't put much value in a colorful multi-megabyte PDF full of platitudes, smiling faces, and unrealistic goals. However, in talking with many people, the lack of strategy and vision (or in Lila's case, an ever-shifting strategy and vision) for the Wikimedia Foundation is one of the biggest and most often repeated concerns I hear. It's particularly alarming given the enormous budget of the Wikimedia Foundation. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
Patricio Lorente wrote: >Today the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees voted to remove one of >the Trustees, Dr. James Heilman, from the Board. His term ended effective >immediately. > >This was not a decision the Board took lightly. The Board has a >responsibility to the Wikimedia movement and the Wikimedia Foundation to >ensure that the Board functions with mutual confidence to ensure effective >governance. Following serious consideration, the Board felt this removal >decision was a necessary step at this time. The resolution will be >published shortly. > > [...] The minutes from this Board of Trustees meeting have now been posted: --- December 28, 2015 minutes WMF Board minutes * December 28, 2015 * Board of Trustees present: Patricio Lorente (Chair), Alice Wiegand (Vice Chair), Dariusz Jemielniak, Denny Vrandečić, Frieda Brioschi, James Heilman Jan-Bart de Vreede, Jimmy Wales, Stu West, and Guy Kawasaki * Others present for part of the meeting: Geoff Brigham (Secretary and General Counsel), Stephen LaPorte (Legal Counsel) Patricio called the meeting to order at 1:30 PM Pacific time on December 28, 2016. Geoff called roll and confirmed that a quorum was present and able to simultaneously hear the meeting. Patricio called the meeting for the purpose of discussing a resolution to remove James from the Board of Trustees. Patricio introduced the discussion, and asked James to discuss his perspective. At that point in the meeting, James was excused from the discussion and Board members discussed their concerns. Patricio invited James back to the meeting. After a motion by Patricio, seconded by Alice, the Board voted to approve a resolution to remove James from the Board <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:James_Heilman_Removal>, effective immediately. The Board discussed the next steps, and the meeting was concluded. --- From <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/105360>. >This decision creates an open seat for a community-selected Trustee. [...] Hmmm, I only just now noticed your use of community-selected here. I think sometime this year, we should hold a community straw poll on Meta-Wiki about changing the selection to an election. I think the Board of Trustees needs to hear from the Wikimedia editing community about this issue. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Executive transition planning
Brion Vibber wrote: >There's less weakness in admitting a failure honestly, retreating and >regrouping, than in powering through when knowing oneself unprepared. After months of complaints from tenants and from a few neighbors, the landlord of a large building decides to replace the roof of the building. In the process of removing the old roof, the landlord realizes that it's a really big job and that he won't be able to properly replace the roof quickly. Scrambling, he then asks a few of the building tenants to come up with a plan for an interim roof, because whoa, an open roof leaves you susceptible to rain and birds and other problematic elements. And this is a large and expensive building that lots of people rely on, so an interim roof is definitely needed pretty soon. Sure, we can commend the landlord for recognizing that the old roof needed to be replaced. And we can commend him for realizing that he alone can't speedily fix the roof himself; he needs additional help to finish this big job. But that doesn't absolve the landlord of negligence. Removing a roof has very predictable consequences that any landlord should be able to foresee and account for. Removing a roof without also having a plan for an interim roof is a really amateur mistake. Perhaps landlords of smaller buildings could get away with this kind of mistake, but it's unacceptable for a landlord of a large building to be turning to the tenants to ask them to fix the problem. Yes, the tenants were the ones complaining for a new roof, but it's the landlord's responsibility to have the roof replaced in a professional and orderly way. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Executive transition planning
Alice Wiegand wrote:
>We know that our C-level team is doing a great job in managing the
>day-to-day-operations and they all have a deep understandning of our
>culture, challenges and needs. Who, if not them, knows better what is best
>for the organization in this moment. The Board is not best suited to make
>a decision about the interim which can quickly be established and accepted
>in this situation.
>
>Therefor the board empowers the entire C-level-team to come up with a
>solution for the interim question. We leave it up to them how that
>decisions looks like. We trust them to think traditional or outside of the
>box as it fits to our organization, the Wikimedia Foundation. The
>C-level-team needs some time to deliberate and decide. They will present
>their result to the board which has to vote on it. We plan to finalize
>until the end of next week.
Current Wikimedia Foundation "C-levels" based on
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors>:
* Lila Tretikov, Executive Director
* Wes Moran, Vice President of Product
* [vacant], Chief Technology Officer
* Maggie Dennis, Senior Director of Community Engagement (Interim)
* Lisa Seitz-Gruwell, Chief Advancement Officer
* Geoff Brigham, General Counsel
* Katherine Maher, Chief Communications Officer
* Jaime Villagomez, Chief Financial Officer
* Joady Lohr, Vice President of Human Resources (Interim)
Does the "C-level team" in this context include Lila and/or the interims?
My vote is for Geoff Brigham. There's precedent for the General Counsel to
be interim Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, of course. And
Geoff has been around long enough and is trusted to be a good steward of
the Wikimedia Foundation. I don't think an outsider would be a good idea.
I don't see it as a sign of strength to abdicate your responsibility in
this way. This action makes the Board of Trustees, already perceived as
being weak, look even weaker, out-of-touch, and unprepared. You've known
about general discontent with the Executive Director since November 2015
and you really weren't able, by March 2016, to figure out who would serve
as interim Executive Director? This is almost derelict behavior.
I don't think anyone demands perfection from members of the Board of
Trustees, but it is an actual commitment to an organization that has a
very large budget and a large number of staff operating a fairly important
set of Web properties. The fact that nine adults really didn't think
through the consequences of "what comes next after the current Executive
Director?" in order to come prepared with an answer to the most obvious
question ("who will be the interim?") is pretty embarrassing and sad.
MZMcBride
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Transition plans for WMF leadership - Board Reform
Denny Vrandecic wrote: >- the Board members have duties of care and loyalty to the Foundation - >not to the movement. If there is a decision to be made where there is a >conflict between the Movement or one of the Communities with the >Foundation, the Board members have to decide in favor of the Foundation. >They are not only trained to so, they have actually pledged to do so. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is responsible for the appointment of the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director; the Executive Director carries out the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation (which is included in the bylaws) on a day-to-day basis. My understanding is that any decision by the Wikimedia Foundation staff is reviewable by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. In cases of disagreement between the Wikimedia editing community and the Wikimedia Foundation staff, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is the ultimate authority. The physical servers are owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., which is managed by this Board of Trustees. The theory of checks and balances worked a lot better when I thought that some of the Board of Trustees seats were elected, and not simply nominated. Regarding the current situation within the Wikimedia Foundation, you and your nine colleagues are most certainly responsible for ensuring that the Wikimedia Foundation (the corporate entity) can function smoothly. If large numbers of Wikimedia Foundation staff are unhappy with your group's Executive Director appointment, that's very clearly your group's and the Executive Director's problem to immediately resolve. Given the Wikimedia Foundation's current role in keeping the Wikimedia Web properties online, if the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is failing to keep the Wikimedia Foundation running smoothly, it also becomes others' problem to immediately resolve. While I think some of this conversation is interesting and worth having, the house is currently aflame and the Wikimedia movement (including Wikimedia Foundation staff and the Wikimedia editing community) awaits word from the Board of Trustees about whether we'll be putting that fire out or letting it burn. It also seems worth noting that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees can and does enact resolutions that apply to the Wikimedia editing community. Most other Wikimedia movement entities, such as Wikimedia Deutschland or WikiWomen's User Group, do not have this power. The one exception I could think of was that the Wikimedia movement has enacted some global policies at Meta-Wiki, but these have less force and effect than a Board of Trustees resolution. >- the Board members have fiduciary responsibilities. No, we cannot just >talk about what we are doing. As said, the loyalty of a Board member is >towards the organization, not the movement. I think it would be helpful if the Wikimedia Foundation legal team could lay out exactly what can and cannot be made public for legal reasons. I have a feeling that a lot more is being kept private than needs to be. >I currently do not see any body that in the Wikimedia movement that would >have the moral authority to discuss e.g. whether Wikiversity should be >set up as a project independent of the Wikimedia movement, whether >Wikisource would deserve much more resources, whether Stewards have >sufficient authority, whether the German Wikimedia chapter has to submit >itself to the FDC proposal, whether a restart of the Croatian Wikipedia >is warranted, etc. The Wikimedia community, and in particular members of the Wikiversity community, decide whether Wikiversity splits off as a separate project independent of the Wikimedia movement. Or any other group of people can take Wikiversity's content (or software!) and reuse it as they see fit. Whether Wikisource deserves more resources is decided by people volunteering on the project. It's also a matter for the Wikimedia Foundation, in the same way that Wikipedia is. Why would you treat siblings so dissimilarly? Stewards have sufficient authority over the wikis. I don't think anyone has an issue with the stewards, but if so, raise the issue on Meta-Wiki. The current funding structure is such that the German Wikimedia chapter has to submit to whatever rules the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. creates in order to receive money from it. Them's the rules, given how money is donated. Changing how donations are accepted and then redistributed is a huge matter. Are you suggesting we re-open that discussion? The Croatian Wikipedia would be (re)started if LangCom approves it. We have processes for both starting and closing Wikipedias. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, &l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timeline of recent events at the Wikimedia Foundation
GorillaWarfare wrote: >Recent discussion of the Knowledge Engine/Wikimedia Discovery project, >issues with senior leadership, lack of transparency, and the like has been >fairly well spread across several Wikimedia projects and mailing lists, as >well as on Facebook, in the media, and in other venues. > >I just published an attempt to aggregate some of the events that I think >are particularly informative given what's been going on: >http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/ > >I hope it's helpful, and please feel free to suggest changes if it's >incomplete. Thank you very much for creating and publishing this timeline, Molly. I really appreciate that you built the timeline in a way that enables tracking changes and allows for collaborative improvements. Well done! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] What is the Board's HR Committee doing to stem the tide of staff resignations?
Brion Vibber wrote: >As a longtime part of Wikimedia's community and staff, I would really >appreciate some clear answers on what's going on and why we're losing more >and more longtime community and staff members while an ED who needs >management coaching is still in place. Please know that many other longtime Wikimedians are (now) paying close attention. To this mailing list, to blog comments, to the wikis, etc. There's certainly no shortage of places for discussion. :-) I expect the immediate issue to resolve itself in the next few weeks. Non-profits move notoriously slowly and the Wikimedia Foundation is no exception in this regard. My respect for the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation has only grown seeing the restraint and maturity with which you all have acted. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your questions about KE.
Lila Tretikov wrote: >There are a lot of questions still floating around around the Knowledge >Engine, in a lot of different places. I want to answer them fully, >directly and in one central place. To that end, I’m going to be putting >together an FAQ page ><https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine/FAQ> on Meta to ask and >answer questions and - with the help of our staff -- to address them. We >will release answers as we are able to collect and address them, so >depending on the number of questions we get it may take a while, but we >will begin responding during Pacific working hours today. Thank you for starting this page and for taking the lead in responding to questions raised about the proposed Knowledge Engine. >If you have questions, please send them or leave them there. We may >aggregate similar questions, but we will do our best to answer all of them >to your satisfaction. I've e-mailed you privately. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why take grants? (was: Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?)
Lodewijk wrote: >When I'd have to guess, I'd say that we're beyond our 'optimal size' >(budget wise) already. > >Especially the 'small donor' stream is rather sensitive towards tides. As >long as Wikipedia is very popular and visible, we'll be doing well. But >when we have a few more screwups at the WMF (sorry, but I can't really >find a better phrase for the past few months, communication wise at >least), being a credible organisation towards donors might proove harder >than was the case so far. You mean that small donations provide accountability? :-) I agree. I think this is a feature, not a bug. I'd be happy for the Wikimedia Foundation to be about a tenth of the size it is currently: around 30 full-time employees, with additional money allocated for contractors as needed. When people tell me that they want to donate to Wikipedia, I tell them to make an edit. I'd much rather have people truly contributing to free knowledge. The Wikimedia Foundation made a series of choices such headquartering in San Francisco and hiring over 200 full-time employees that make it very unsympathetic to me. It certainly doesn't cost anywhere near $80 million a year to keep the sites online and running. Sam Klein wrote: >It also makes for a very inward-focused and narrow sort of strategy: "How >can we make our few banner projects work better / attract more people" >rather than "how can we make knowledge more accessible to everyone in the >world, including by supporting and enhancing other excellent projects". > >If you start with funders and organizations whose missions are similar to >Wikimedia's, working with them on a grant is a way of making them part of >the community: a successful engagement results in them learning more about >the impact and value of our mission, and supporting or encouraging more >work along those lines with their other grantees. It also builds a >relationship and trust within the circle of similarly-minded organizations >(in this example, grantors; but this applies equally well to other sorts >of partners), which can be drawn on in the future if there were a real >crisis or urgent need. The counter-argument here is that having a large and secure budget gives organizations more opportunities to spend on non-necessities. Does the Wikimedia Foundation need six legal counsels (not including the general counsel and two legal directors), eight community liaisons, or a mobile apps team? I'm sure these are all great people doing excellent work, but when I see how much the Wikimedia Foundation staff has ballooned (and frankly bloated), it makes me sad. If you want diversification, build up the other Wikimedia chapters instead. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?
Lila Tretikov wrote: >I know this request was for the Board, but I took time to explain as much >as I could about the context of this grant and the work it funds as well >as to answer as many questions as possible that I have seen. I realize >many people a curious about what it actually funds, so you will find the >statement of work cut and pasted there. > >https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/15294825 Thank you for this post, Lila. It provides a lot of helpful context and understanding surrounding the Knight Foundation's recent restricted grant. One part of this arrangement still confuses me. In the linked post, you write, "With this grant we brought the idea to the funder and they supported our work with this grant." Why ask for and take the money? The Wikimedia Foundation can raise $250,000 in a few days (maybe hours) by placing ads on a few large Wikipedias soliciting donations. Why take on a restricted grant, with its necessary reporting overhead and other administrative costs? You also write: --- Why should the community and staff support this decision of our board and leadership? I would hope that for staff, the answer to this question is clear. --- This is very aggressive. I'm not sure this type of attitude is aligned with an idealistic, non-profit educational organization. For the general issue, you point out that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is required to approve large (over $100,000) restricted grants. I think the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (copied) should modify its acceptance requirements to mandate that large restricted grants have their grant agreements and other related paperwork publicly published. This would not apply retroactively. Publishing the grant paperwork fits in well well with our transparency principles and values. For the specific issue, who can be contacted at the Knight Foundation to ask about publishing the grant paperwork? Presumably the Knight Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation, having just partnered, share values. Is the Knight Foundation okay with the full grant agreement being published? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?
My guess is that the first step here is to identify who would have access to the Knight Foundation grant application and grant offer paperwork. It's not immediately clear to me who to even ask about this. I'm copying Wes Moran and Katherine Maher of the Wikimedia Foundation on this reply, as he sent the initial wikimedia-l announcement e-mail about this grant and she is listed as the contact in the press release: <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/104437>. Wes and Katherine: do you know what steps need to be taken in order to release the documents surrounding this Knight Foundation grant? Or do you know who at the Wikimedia Foundation would be the best/most appropriate contact to figure this out? Geoff and the legal team? One of the grants-related staff such as Janice? Any help would be appreciated! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?
MZMcBride wrote: >Wes and Katherine: do you know what steps need to be taken in order to >release the documents surrounding this Knight Foundation grant? Or do you >know who at the Wikimedia Foundation would be the best/most appropriate >contact to figure this out? Geoff and the legal team? One of the >grants-related staff such as Janice? Any help would be appreciated! Remembering that similar questions about grant agreements have come previously, I just dug through my e-mail archives and found a 2011 e-mail from Lisa Gruwell. In the e-mail, she's very supportive of the idea of putting grants documents on Meta-Wiki. Copying her as well on this thread as she's still working with the Wikimedia Foundation, though it's not clear to me whether her role has shifted to other focuses. In case anyone is curious, here is Sue's response from October 2011: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2011-October/116339.html MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF trustee Arnnon Geshuri and part in anticompetitive agreements in Google
Florence Devouard wrote: >I hesitate between two interpretations. Either the board is completely >paralyzed and no more able to make any decision as to what they should >do. Or the board has decided not to provide any feedback, which I >consider completely disrespectful to the community and unhealthy >generally. Either way, I consider this lack of responsiveness from the >board an even WORSE consideration than Arnnon being a board member. > >I love you guys... Patricio, Alice, Frieda, Dariusz, Denny, and Jimbo >(*). I love you very much. I know each of you. I value every one of you. >You guys rock in most of what you do and I know it is hard. It is a big >commitment, it is a lot of pressure, it is time-consuming. And I thank >every one of you for your gardianship as well as boldness in taking some >tough decisions. > >But here... I do not understand what you are doing. Please take my vote >as a respectful record of my perplexity. > >(*)Citing community-born members only. Appointed members bring great >perspective, but I do not expect them to know it all about Wikimedia >community. Very well put. Thank you for writing this e-mail. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Monetizing Wikimedia APIs
Pete Forsyth wrote: >Lisa presented some alternative strategies for revenue needs for the >Foundation, including the possibility of charging for premium access to >the services and APIs, expanding major donor and foundation fundraising, >providing specific services for a fee, or limiting the Wikimedia >Foundation's growth. The Board emphasized the importance of keeping free >access to the existing APIs and services, keeping operational growth in >line with the organization's effectiveness, providing room for innovation >in the Foundation's activities, and other potential fundraising >strategies. This reminds me of the Wikimedia update feed service: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_update_feed_service>. The Wikimedia Foundation basically allowed large search engines to access a private faster and dedicated stream of recent changes to Wikimedia wikis for a fee. While Google isn't mentioned on the Meta-Wiki page, I have a vague memory that they were (and maybe still are) involved. Somewhat related, there is also search.wikimedia.org: <https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Search.wikimedia.org>. This service was designed to give Apple a fast and dedicated stream for title prefix searches. Apple's built-in Dictionary application has been the primary consumer of this feed, though I believe it's open to anyone. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
James Alexander wrote: >I think everyone knows there are a lot of legitimate concerns to be >concerned about and certainly Arnnon's actions at Google are legitimate >for question however this whole "google is controlling the board/wmf" >line of thought is turning into a huge and enormous conspiracy theory and >what seems to be a giant school of red herring ><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring>. We haven't quite yet gotten >to "Frieda has 6 letters in her name and you know what else has 6 letters >in it's name? GOOGLE!" but we're getting damn close. If anything the only >concern about google I've heard within the actual WMF is that the >"Knowledge Engine" was a plan to 'compete' against google for traffic (for >the record my personal opinion is that would be a waste of money on >something we could never succeed if true but ALSO that it isn't actually >true at all at this point). A few years ago, the Wikimedia Foundation switched over to the Google Apps platform, which means that most e-mail sent on the wikimedia.org domain is now hosted by Google. Along with e-mail services, Google Apps also includes Google Sheets, Google Docs, etc., which the Wikimedia Foundation now regularly makes use of. The Wikimedia Foundation is quite literally pumping a large portion of its data directly into Google's servers. This applies to Wikimedia Foundation staff, contractors, and Board members. About a year ago, PiRSquared17 began documenting the relationship between Wikimedia and Google: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google>. This page needs additional expansion, but it already mentions the millions of dollars that Google has directly donated to the Wikimedia Foundation and related organizations. (It's not quite clear how Google funded Wikidata, possibly via Wikimedia Deutschland.) Before you try to dismiss the people with concerns about the relationship between Wikimedia and Google as conspiracy theorists and quacks, perhaps we should first have a full accounting of the tangled web that's been woven. My suspicion is that if you or others put in the time to thoroughly document the connection between the two entities, you'd miraculously find more than a single concern about a failed project, as your reply suggested. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Transparency of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
Pine W wrote: >2. While I understand that some Board conversations are best held in >private, for example conversations involving attorney-client privilege, I >continue to believe that there is a misalignment between the democratic >and open-source values of the Wikimedia movement and the limited >information that the community is provided about WMF Board deliberations. >There seems to be an assumption that full and honest discussions are best >held behind closed doors so that people in the room feel comfortable with >voicing their opinions. It seems to me that this is a doctrine which is >contrary to the values of our movement, and I would urge the Board to >change its approach. I would also note that many jurisdictions in the >United States have laws requiring government bodies like city councils >and legislatures to have their meetings in full view of the public unless >there is a specific exemption for a subject that is to be discussed in >private. These governments, in many cases, continue to function >effectively despite the public and sensitive nature of deliberations on >topics like budgets, land use planning, environmental regulations, >appointments of judges, service contracts, and allegations of misconduct >against fellow elected officials. The WMF Board should be a model of >openness and good governance. Now is a good time for the Board to take >meaningful steps toward aligning itself with our collective values. It's pretty simple to get access to Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees meetings. You do it in roughly the same way that you get an appointed seat: by donating a couple million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation: <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Search/Doron_Weber>. By my count, the Board of Trustees has passed six separate resolutions to accommodate the Sloan Foundation's request to have a Board observer. I agree with you that the current lack of openness and transparency surrounding the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is disgraceful and antithetical to Wikimedia's values. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Advisory Board and Board-appointed seats (was: Beyond the Board)
Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: > I've been also thinking about revitalizing our Advisory Board - the way I > would like to see it would be dividing it into (a) community (b) tech and > (c) academic subgroups, available for immediate consulting and feedback. As Adam Wight recently pointed out on wikimediafoundation.org, it's not clear that the Advisory Board currently has any appointees: <https://wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/104459#Current_status.3F>. Relevant Board resolutions: * "Advisory board" (2006) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/98250 * "Amending the Term of Advisory Board Members" (2013) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/98267 There were appointments made in 2014 that carried through until the first Board meeting of 2015. There's no indication that appointments were made for 2015 or now 2016, which seems to mean that the Advisory Board still exists, but without any members currently. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees apparently discussed the Advisory Board in July 2015 at Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City: <https://wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/104529#Advisory_Board>. I think it would be nice to get clarification on the current status of the Advisory Board before discussing ways to improve it. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
Yury Bulka wrote: >MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> writes: >> A few years ago, the Wikimedia Foundation switched over to the Google >>Apps platform, which means that most e-mail sent on the wikimedia.org >>domain is now hosted by Google. >Are you sure? It doesn't look like wikimedia.org's MX point to google's >servers: https://starttls.info/check/wikimedia.org Yes, the Wikimedia Foundation switched to Google Apps around October 2010. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2010-October/108636.html My understanding is that the MX records show where the mail goes initially, before being re-routed to either Google Apps for most staff, contractors, et al.; to OTRS if it's a particular set of addresses; or elsewhere as needed. If you'd like more detail, we can start a new thread. Careful readers will note that the timeline of the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan 2016-17 is living at docs.google.com, not meta.wikimedia.org. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-January/081120.html MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] What happened on the Board of Trustees?
Tobias wrote: >James, a longstanding community member, is accustomed to how we do >things on Wikipedia -- with transparency, an open discourse, but also >endless discussions on talk pages. Other members of the board have less >of a "Wikipedian" background, and are more accustomed to how things work >in companies: board meetings in secret, focus on being effective at the >cost of transparency, with a frank tone on the inside, and a diplomatic >and collective voice to the outside. >These very different conceptions clash, for instance when it comes to >the plans of a "Wikipedia knowledge engine": some prefer early community >involvement and plead openness, others, perhaps scared of the harsh >criticism of early announced and unfinished products by the community, >wish to wait with giving out more information. James is frustrated and >tries to push other board members towards more transparency, which in >turn makes them wary of him and they mutually develop distrust. >The pivotal part of the story then is the question of WMF leadership, >and the fact that there is a lot of discontent among WMF staff with >senior leadership, as indicated by an employee engagement survey. James, >being used to transparent discussions, pushes for a thorough and open >review, and talks to staff members to gain more information. The other >board members, perhaps somewhat in panic, think he will initiate a >public discussion about replacing senior leadership and (perhaps >inadvertently) will cause a major disruption to the entire foundation, >so they decide to call a halt before it's too late and remove him from >the board. > >This is what, given the information publicly available, is in my opinion >at least one likely explanation of what happened. Please take it with a >grain of salt, it /is/ speculation. I intend this to undergo the process >of falsification and encourage anyone involved to call me out on what >they perceive is incorrect. Thank you for taking the time to post this summary. It's very well-written and I think it appropriately captures what most likely happened, given the available evidence. As for action items, I see: * evaluate whether the Wikimedia Foundation bylaws should be changed to make it more difficult (or easier) to remove a Board of Trustees member; * strongly urge the Board of Trustees to be more transparent and communicative, embracing the values that keep our projects running; and * evaluate the process for filling community-selected Board of Trustees seats, perhaps changing the seats to be community-elected. Obligatory reference: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law>! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
Milos Rancic wrote: >Our technology is based on the concept from 1990s, implemented in 2001 >and slightly changed up to the moment. The only major technology which >catches 2005 (Visual Editor) is in alpha or beta stage, depending on >how harsh QA process would be implemented. > >Something should be done with that. While I would be much more happy >with a social and gaming platform, I think anything towards technology >innovation is good, as during the last 15 years our technology >innovation was around zero. The most important Sue's impact on >Wikimedia is financial stability. I expect that the most important >Lila's impact on Wikimedia will be moving it from technologically >passive organization to an active one. I think we should have you use only UseModWiki for a few months and then you can come back and tell us whether we've actually made any improvements to our technology stack since 2001. :-) In parts, our sites certainly look staid, dated, or even boring, but we have a number of cool new features, with more to come, of course. Briefly putting all of this recent drama and in-fighting aside, the most vital part of the Wikimedia Foundation's responsibilities, keeping the sites running fast, reliably, and securely, is being appropriately handled. The world continues to be able to read and contribute to our shared free content and for that I'm grateful. The rest is commentary, as they say. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF trustee Arnnon Geshuri and part in anticompetitive agreements in Google
Austin Hair wrote: >Having waited two days for any kind of meaningful response from either >the Board or from individual trustees, I have to say that Kat's >comments (unsurprisingly) nailed it. > >I mean, seriously, nobody googled him? Since it doesn't seem to have been mentioned in this thread already, one of the trustees, Jimmy Wales, has provided some responses on his English Wikipedia talk page. He directly mentions googling and Google. --- I cannot speak for the entire board. As for myself, I was aware (from googling him and reading news reports) that he had a small part in the overall situation when he was told by Eric Schmidt that Google had a policy of not recruiting from Apple, and that a recruiter had done it, and that the recruiter should be fired, and he agreed to do so. As for your other allegations, that he "helped manage that collusion", the part about some "ugly and humiliating" termination, and chastisement by a Federal Judge, I don't (yet) know anything about that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:41, 8 January 2016 (UTC) --- In response to a request to further expand on Mr. Geshuri's suitability to be a trustee: --- Sure, I'll offer my views when the time is right. At the moment, I'm waiting for a staff report and some board discussion to take place. It would be inappropriate for me to offer a public opinion at this early stage.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:03, 9 January 2016 (UTC) --- There's also: --- I don't think this board has any unhealthy relationship with Google.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:02, 9 January 2016 (UTC) --- Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/699004139>. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
On January 8, 2016, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees issued "a short statement on recent comments by James Heilman". For completeness' sake, I'm pasting the text of that statement into this thread. --- Recently, James Heilman wrote, regarding his removal from the Wikimedia Foundation Board: "It had in part to do with me wanting there to be public discussion on our long term strategy." [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales=next =698553023 diff]. I wrote the following statement, which has been agreed to by the entire board at the time, names below: "The removal of James as a board member was not due to any disagreement about public discussion of our long term strategy. The board unanimously supports public discussion of our long term strategy, has offered no objections to any board member discussing long term strategy with the community at any time, and strongly supports that the Wikimedia Foundation should develop long term strategy in consultation with the community." * Dariusz Jemielniak * Frieda Brioschi * Denny Vrandecic * Patricio Lorente * Alice Wiegand * Guy Kawasaki * Jan-Bart de Vreede * Stu West * Jimmy Wales I would like to add to this, speaking for myself only, that the loss of trust that I felt in James was in no small part due to this kind of statement on his part, in which the thinking of other board members is being misrepresented to the community and to the staff. James apologized to the board for certain actions which he has chosen not to share with the community, which is his right. He asked for a second chance, and the board declined to give it. My own preference, as expressed to him repeatedly, is that he live up to the values of honesty and transparency that are core to our community, and certainly that he not continue to misrepresent what happened.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:31, 8 January 2016 (UTC) --- Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/698800759/698801403>. Obviously a single mailing list thread can't and won't capture all of the information related to this removal, but it seemed remiss to omit an official statement from the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on the subject, especially when we have already included a number of other statements from individual trustees and the Board in this thread. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF trustee Arnnon Geshuri and part in anticompetitive agreements in Google
Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote: >IMO, you should give credit to the Community Tech team. They're the ones >who came up with the wishlist idea and did it, unless I'm totally >mistaken. > >You could also give some credit to the staffers who originally proposed >creating the Community Tech team. It wasn't a top-down proposal. I think I've said this elsewhere, but the idea of having a "Community Tech" team continues to strike me as very strange as it immediately raises the question of what everyone else is working on. "What do you mean there's a Community Tech team? Are there technology teams at the Wikimedia Foundation working on technology not for the Wikimedia community?" Or put another way: every team at the Wikimedia Foundation should be carefully considering the needs of the Wikimedia community and working with it. It's also really not impressive to create a survey and solicit ideas. In my brief skimming, a lot of the proposals listed at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey> aren't even new ideas. I'm happy to give credit when some of these proposals are properly implemented, by whoever takes the time to create a plan of action, write the necessary code, and get it deployed. But for now, it seems pretty silly to try to give credit for essentially having a group of people vote on Phabricator Maniphest tasks. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Changing the subject line
Austin Hair wrote: >On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 5:21 PM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Hello everyone, I would like to put out a friendly reminder that good >> practice is to keep threads on topic within reason, and to create new >> discussion threads for distinct tangents or complete spin off >> discussions. >> >> "Community Tech Team" and "Lila's performance" are interesting, and to >> be fair they deserve their own threads. If your email to this thread >> does not mention the appointment of Arnnon Geshuri as a new WMF >> trustee (see thread title), it is worth considering which thread it >> ought to be posted under, or whether it is time to create a new >> subject line. > >Not exactly coming from the source I would expect, but indeed, please >keep your comments germane to subject line. (Starting new threads is >entirely appropriate, and welcomed.) Unexpected, eh? I'm not sure it's very surprising that the person who started the thread doesn't want to see it derailed by tangents. And that's fair. Though it can be difficult to know when to start a new thread. Plus you have to create a new subject line (naming is hard) and there are no do-overs (you can't move a thread like you can a wiki page). In an ideal world, subject lines would always match the body content and I guess we can strive for that. I'm amused that neither of you seemed to follow your own advice here, starting and continuing a tangential (meta-)discussion without changing the subject line to create a new thread. We'll all strive indeed. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Something
; and half of me assumed it was related to Individual Engagement Grants (IEG). Luckily Meta-Wiki again comes to the rescue: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IEP> and <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IEG>. Maybe we should start selling decoder rings. Acronyms and abbreviations are fine, especially in a long document, but at minimum the first reference should always be spelled out. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
Nathan wrote: >In any case, its irritating to see people providing cover for the Board's >lack of transparency or failure to be forthcoming in a timely manner. The removal resolution was approved on December 28, 2015, according to wikimediafoundation.org. Unlike most Board resolutions, it was publicly posted the same day. The posted Board resolution was accompanied by two separate e-mails to this public mailing list (one from James, one from Patricio) on the same day. What kind of transparency and timeliness are you looking for, exactly? What level of explanation would be satisfactory? >Why not let them make their own excuses? Excuses for what, exactly? The Chair of the Board announced the decision and other remaining Board members have chosen not to publicly discuss the 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 a fuller explanation of the removal. It seems most prudent to wait for that. While this will sound trite, perhaps we could extend a little good faith to the members of the Board, most of whom are long-time trusted and respected Wikimedians and all of whom take their role seriously. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
SarahSV wrote: >On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Pete Forsyth <petefors...@gmail.com> >wrote: >> With this action, eight Trustees with little accountability overruled >> several hundred volunteers and another Trustee who literally earned the >> most support votes of any Trustee in the organization's history. >> >> Any explanation of the reasons should be commensurate, in my view, to >>the points outlined above. > >James was elected by 1,857 people and removed by eight. I hope an >explanation is forthcoming very soon. --- ; Approved: Patricio Lorente, Alice Wiegand, Frieda Brioschi, Jimmy Wales, Stu West, Jan-Bart de Vreede, Guy Kawasaki, Denny Vrandečić, ; Oppose: Dariusz Jemielniak, James Heilman --- This is a somewhat interesting breakdown. I'm also paying close attention to what James posted on this mailing list. In my mind, he's the person likely able to speak most freely about this removal and probably is more familiar with it than most. For now, he seems to have chosen not to say very much. Others involved in the removal likely can't (or maybe won't) say much more, which of course just leaves everyone else to speculate. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board
Todd Allen wrote: >If he were in favor, it would've been a simple resignation. Yes. We're left to presume that James forced a vote here by refusing to step down voluntarily. >I'm not sure why it's surprising he would oppose it. Right, that part isn't surprising. But discounting the unsurprising vote, it was a nearly unanimous decision (8 to 1). I have a good deal of respect for many of the current Board of Trustees members and I have no doubt that all of them understand and appreciate the gravity of removing a colleague. This wasn't a close vote and to me that says quite a bit. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Fund-raising principles and strategy
John Mark Vandenberg wrote: >Some declared fundraising principles, which everyone agrees and >adheres to, would be good. We have: "Resolution:Wikimedia fundraising principles" * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/55954 "Resolution:Developing Scenarios for future of fundraising" * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/98415 We also have: "CentralNotice/Usage guidelines" * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/14516647 James Heilman wrote: > 2) When is it okay to run smaller commercial ads rather than larger >fundraising banners? Never. I would much rather see the WMF become >smaller than to see ads run. We already have advertising on Wikipedia. What if Harvard University, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation were willing pay the Wikimedia Foundation a few million dollars for a short and unobtrusive ad campaign? It doesn't have to be Monsanto or Coca-Cola buying ad space, it could be a like-minded organization that has extra money and supports the Wikimedia Foundation's mission. I agree with John that gift-matching is an activity that we should re-explore. It's not unprecedented, as he notes. If a company like Virgin were willing to triple or quadruple each donation received in exchange for a small logo in a fund-raising ad, doesn't that merit consideration? I also agree with John that greater efficiency, including smarter use of volunteers, would go far toward a more sustainable fund-raising model. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] (no subject)
Rob wrote: >It was a photo of a cup of coffee. It was a mistake that was quickly >acknowledged and corrected. Let's keep things in perspective, please. Agreed. I'd much rather see focus put on Liam's e-mail about the general fund-raising problem, the current solution to which is deploying overly large advertisements on Wikipedia in a few rich countries for several weeks. If we're willing to donate the entire screen space to an ad for the Wikimedia Foundation, it probably makes sense to at least reconsider whether a smaller, less obtrusive paid ad for a company or organization would be better. I imagine many companies and organizations would be willing to pay a premium for a much smaller ad slot, given Wikipedia's level of traffic and the limited supply of ad space that we'd likely be willing to sell. At what point is having horribly large and intrusive ads worse than having much smaller and faster paid ad campaigns? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner (again)
Bohdan Melnychuk wrote: >Yeah ad is the word. We claim Wikipedia being ad-less but actually we >are showing people stuff which only in deep sense is different from ads >but looks exactly the same. Or, actually, in this case it looks worse. I >really have a difficulty recalling a site which shows me so little >content initially because the rest is covered in ads. This all went too >far and I hope that Fundraising guys think of less haunting way of >calling for donation. Yes, it's definitely an advertisement. Adblock and others should treat it as such. I don't think this ad is haunting, though. I'm a little sad that when I clicked the Imgur link, I actually expected worse. 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. Samuel Klein wrote: >I think a more pressing response to this is to reduce the budget to get >some breathing room, increase work through partnerships (which Wikimedia >doesn't have to fund entirely on its own), and increase non-banner revenue >streams. > >It's also key to improve banner effectiveness. How nice it would be to >have a composite that combines measures of the favorability of the banner >among readers (most of whom don't donate anyway), mood setting & meme >propagation, and the reduction in usability of the site (which may have an >effect over months), against the immediate fundraising impact. A banner >that is 5% better with improved favorability among readers may be better >than a banner that is 20% better but with double the unfavorability. > >There are thousands of worthy projects that have expanded their budgets as >far as they could, then expand in-your-face banners as far as they can, >and only stop once their sites are quite difficult to use. It happens >gradually (I'm looking at you, Wikia ;) but the result is the usability >equivalent of linkrot. Let's not let WP end up like that. I don't have much to add to what SJ wrote recently in a related thread. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Redirect blog.wikipedia.org to the Wikimedia Blog
Lodewijk wrote:
>Another reason for doing this, is to cover people who are actually looking
>for the official blog (please note that many volunteers also write at
>blog.wikimedia.org), but who simply confuse wikimedia and wikipedia - not
>entirely uncommon. blog.wikimedia.org is the closest this there is for the
>official wikipedia-blog and until there is a separate, official, wikipedia
>blog, i would be in favor for redirecting this url.
>
>I don't see how this would go at the expense of other blogs. indeed many
>cross-project pages such as meta.wikipedia.org redirect to the right page,
>because it is clear what people were aiming for when they typed the url.
Meta-Wiki began at meta.wikipedia.org. There's a redirect in place from
when it moved to meta.wikimedia.org. There's an unrelated redirect for
commons.wikipedia.org, entirely for convenience, I think. There are not
similar redirects in place for wiktionary.org or other domains.
I agree with you that the search engine optimization arguments are weak
and that redirects are cheap. Would you (Lodewijk) just want
blog.wikipedia.org or would you want the others (blog.wiktionary.org,
blog.wikinews.org, etc.) and would you want both HTTP and HTTPS support?
Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
>We already have some subdomains that are not related to language, biggest
>example: ten.wikipedia.org
Sure, but it's worth nothing that many people strenuously objected to
ten.wikipedia.org (and now 15.wikipedia.org) from being created where they
were created. Putting aside the questionable practice of using a numeral
at the beginning of a hostname, a lot of technical infrastructure assumes
that __.wikipedia.org is reserved for a language code (and for a MediaWiki
wiki). Redirects aren't as bad a violation of this assumption as a full
site would be, however.
>My motivation of this request is that makes access for people who doesn't
>know what's wikimedia easier. Everyone knows wikipedia but less people
>know about wikimedia and the organization behind wikipedia. I had to
>explain this everytime I'm invited by WMF and visa officer asks me "what
>is wikimedia?" it may lead to better recognition of WMF by wikipedia
>readers. I won't make a huge difference. Just a redirect.
The better comparison is shop.wikipedia.org (or store.wikipedia.org). I
think part of the hesitation with this request is that it's likely not
just a (one) redirect, you're likely talking about two redirects for each
domain (HTTP and HTTPS). And then if you want to support other domains,
you're talking about another twenty redirects, probably. Even more if you
wanted, for example, "blog" and "blogs" to both work. This is what
happened with {shop,store}.wikimedia.org. For a period of time, we
supported variants such as shop.wikisource.org and store.wikinews.org and
shop.wikimediafoundation.org. The list was culled in April 2015.
Anyway, we certainly have the technical capacity and capability to add
more redirects. We already support a ton of them (donate.wikipedia.org,
careers.wikipedia.org, textbook.wikipedia.org, etc.), the question is
whether we want to add a small number of redirects to the pile.
MZMcBride
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Redirect blog.wikipedia.org to the Wikimedia Blog
Amir Ladsgroup wrote: >The subject is self-explanatory (also I have this suggestion for >blog.wikiquote.org and other projects as well) > >What do you think? Hi. Why? The request is self-explanatory, but the uses and use-cases are not. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests
Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: >On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 2:37 PM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: >>Or from a different angle: how is the Wikimedia Foundation budget >>allocated? Does the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees currently do >>its own direct allocation, bypassing the FDC? > >I hope you realize that the Board has decided to set up the FDC as an >advisory body :) The FDC is making recommendations to the Board, it is the >Board that makes the allocations. As of know, the Board has not decided to >cede the WMF's initial review to the FDC, and it approves the budget by >itself. Thank you for this context. It definitely helps better understand the current situation and why it is the way it is. It would be nice if we could find a way to link relevant mailing list replies such as this to the round recommendation subpages. It might just be me, but I feel like the important background information is difficult for readers to grasp. I realize that the Funds Dissemination Committee is advisory, but I thought it had been set up by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees as "all large affiliate requests, including us," not "all large affiliate requests, except us." It seems progress has been ebbing and flowing. >However, I want to emphasize that even if just for symbolic reasons it is >important that the WMF serves as a paragon for other organizations in our >movement. For sure. It seems perfectly reasonable to maintain the same standards for yourself that you hold others to. This would likely include guidelines for disaggregated reporting, I think. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests
I should have said this earlier: a big thank you to everyone who worked on this funding round. From reading the Meta-Wiki pages, it's easy to see that there is a lot of data to process and audit and it requires a decent amount of work to issue these important recommendations each round. Michael Peel wrote: >They are organisation-specific remarks. :-) The WMF did not apply to the >FDC this round, hence why there are no amounts requested/allocated, or a >proposal to link to. The FDC felt it necessary to include recommendations >about the WMF anyway. I may be showing my ignorance here, but I'm still confused. The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't go through the Funds Dissemination Committee at all, then? I see a note from the "2013-2014 round2" recommendations saying: "For all future proposals, the FDC strongly emphasizes the need for a complete proposal: the WMF should undergo similar procedures as other entities in the movement." Is it accurate to say that all large Wikimedia affiliates go through the Funds Dissemination Committee except the Wikimedia Foundation? Or from a different angle: how is the Wikimedia Foundation budget allocated? Does the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees currently do its own direct allocation, bypassing the FDC? >It's worth noting that there are two meanings to the word 'project' here >- there are the Wikimedia projects, and then there are projects run by >the Wikimedia organisations (think of, e.g., GLAM or education projects). >It's particularly the latter case that is most relevant to the FDC's >work, and in this case Wikidata falls under both meanings. Sure, there are many senses of the word project, but this doesn't seem to answer the question asked. :-) Wikimedia Deutschland : Wikidata :: Wikimedia Foundation : Wikipedia, right? If one organization is expected to separate out costs for its largest technical project, shouldn't the other be as well? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests
matanya moses wrote: >tl;dr: The FDC’s recommendations for this round of the APG grant >requests have now been published at: >https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/14803740 > >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] > >[...] > >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. Hi. Apologies if these questions have already been asked/answered elsewhere, I did try to skim this thread, the Meta-Wiki page, and its talk page first. The Wikimedia Foundation has a section under "Organisation-specific remarks", but isn't included in the "Funding recommendations" chart and there's no amount requested, amount allocated, or proposal listed for the Wikimedia Foundation. Why is that? If Wikimedia Deutschland is required to separate out costs for Wikidata, does that mean that the Wikimedia Foundation is required to split out costs for Wikipedia and its other projects? I'd be quite curious to know how much money is being spent by the Wikimedia Foundation on Wiktionary or Wikinews or Wikiversity. The report includes this note: > The FDC is appalled by the closed way that the WMF has undertaken both >strategic and annual planning, and the WMF’s approach to budget >transparency (or lack thereof). Sort of inline with the first question, but perhaps more direct: what power does the Funds Dissemination Committee have over the amount of donor money allocated toward the Wikimedia Foundation? Can the FDC only admonish the organization, but not actually withhold funds? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.
Wil Sinclair wrote: >Thanks for bringing me up, MZMcBride; should get a lot more people to look >at those IRC logs I was hoping to bring to everyone's attention. I'm looking forward to your posts about the current and upcoming Wikimedia Foundation strategic plans. That's why you came on IRC, right? Not to stoke drama and violate its social norms regarding public logging, but to have an open discussion about current goals and future goals? Your discussion seems to have started there and yet somehow you became entirely focused on trying to advance some warped version of "free speech" in a couple of IRC channels that you rarely visit. Re-skimming some of the 2014 threads that you precipitated, this seems like pretty classic Wil behavior. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.
Wil Sinclair wrote: >With all due respect, no more of my time will be spent on this forum >whatsoever. > >I'm not at all comfortable with the direction that this thread has >taken. If my asking earnest questions makes anyone feel "unsafe" and >leads to requests to block me (yes, both things were >mentioned/requested and can be found in the archives of this thread), >then all the advice people have been offering me here is spot-on: I >*can* find much more productive things to do with my time. If anyone's wondering what happened to Wil, lately he's been trolling a few Wikipedia-related IRC channels on freenode. Such productivity. :-/ MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect is gone
Brion Vibber wrote: >In other words -- ignore the superprotect red herring! Please look at the >documentation of the product process and give feedback on that, it's much, >MUCH more important: > >https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Product_Development_Process Great news to read that "superprotection" is dead! Erik brought an invaluable amount of good to Wikimedia, but that mis-feature was unequivocally bad. Personally, I think it was more of an albatross than a red herring. ;-) Good riddance. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Histography, a visualization of history powered by Wikipedia
Hi. http://histography.io/ is pretty neat! From <http://cargocollective.com/matanstauber/Histography>: > "Histography" is interactive timeline that spans across 14 billion years >of history, from the Big Bang to 2015. The site draws historical events >from Wikipedia and self-updates daily with new recorded events. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2017 Montreal - scooped by Signpost
Marc A. Pelletier wrote: >I, for one, am immensely grateful that you and your team (and Manilla's >just as much) chose to start such a hard endeavor for the community's >benefit! I really wish that communications and timing had been better >so that neither of your teams ended up wasting any effort too early (no >doubt you'll be contacted for future years as both locations are >desirable and your willingness to host is now known). > >I know that the steering committee contacted our team (tentatively, very >early in the year) in part because they were aware that we were already >fully set to host Wikimania in 2017 with the groundwork for our hosting >having started in 2010, and most of our preparations still usable (and, >I expect, an opportunity to hold the first Wikimania in a Francophone >location played a part). It's clear to me the steering committee >dropped a ball in not noticing that both of your teams had started >working on bids in time to communicate with you. > >That said, this kind of wasted effort is - from what I understand - the >very reason why the process needed changing. Even if three teams bid >for 2017, two of them would necessarily have wasted the tremendous work >that goes into preparing a bid - including the credibility cost of long >talks with venue and sponsors that turn out to a miss and the morale hit >of loosing in a bidding process. I suppose I'm a bit "glad" that the >leak occured before our team was ready to make the official announcement >because - if nothing else - this will prevent that waste to have been >even worse. This reads a bit strangely to me. You seem to suggest that bids can be worked on for many years: in this case, saying that planning for Montreal started in 2010 for an eventual 2017 bid. However, you continue on to write that it's wasted effort if a bid fails in a particular year. Wouldn't failed bids be re-usable in subsequent years? My guess is that sponsors and venues are capable of understanding a bidding process, so long as it's appropriately communicated to them. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Collaboration team reprioritization
Amir E. Aharoni wrote: >Much more importantly, Flow very much does cover basic talk pages. You can >write a title and an OP and get people to reply. This has been working for >many months already. This is my definition of "covering basic talk pages". > >Even more importantly is that you can write a title and an OP and get >people to reply ON THEIR PHONES. This is nearly impossible on the classic >talk pages; on them you are lucky to even manage to read the existing >discussions, and typing a reply requires extra finger-acrobatics. With >Flow it's as easy as on Twitter. I do almost no coding for Mobile >Frontend and apps, but I'm a kind of a volunteer mobile technologies >ambassador in my home wiki, and good mobile support for talk pages is the >#1 request that I hear from veteran editors with regards to using >Wikipedia on their phones. This is another thing that Flow has been doing >for many months already. I think most of the points you raise here are true of LiquidThreads or _any_ prototype of a discussion system. Yes, you get a reply button instead of needing ":: " wikitext. That's great, I agree, but after having watched LiquidThreads rot and then seeing a lot of time, money, and effort put into Flow, I'm pretty dissatisfied with the deliverable being essentially a very intricate proof-of-concept. I think not getting Flow fully deployed to Wikimedia wikis is objectively a large failure to deliver. Consequently, it seems most prudent to be asking what went wrong and how it will be better next time. The underlying reality is that we still need a better on-wiki discussion system and it now looks like neither LiquidThreads nor Flow are going to be it. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
[Wikimedia-l] Collaboration team reprioritization
Forwarding this to wikimedia-l as it doesn't seem to be very technical in nature, but definitely seems worthy of discussion. MZMcBride Danny Horn wrote: >For a while now, the Collaboration team has been working on Flow, the >structured discussion system. I want to let you know about some changes in >that long-term plan. > >While initial announcements about Flow said that it would be a universal >replacement for talk pages, the features that were ultimately built into >Flow were specifically forum-style group discussion tools. But article and >project talk pages are used for a number of important and complex >processes that those tools aren't able to handle, making Flow unsuitable >for deployment on those kinds of pages. > >To better address the needs of our core contributors, we're now focusing >our strategy on the curation, collaboration, and admin processes that take >place on a variety of pages. Many of these processes use complex >workarounds -- templates, categories, transclusions, and lots of >instructions -- that turn blank wikitext talk pages into structured >workflows. There are gadgets and user scripts on the larger wikis to help >with some of these workflows, but these tools aren't standardized or >universally available. > >As these workflows grow in complexity, they become more difficult for the >next generation of editors to learn and use. This has increased the >workload on the people who maintain those systems today. Complex workflows >are also difficult to adapt to other languages, because a wiki with >thousands of articles may not need the kind of complexity that comes with >managing a wiki with millions of articles. We've talked about this kind of >structured workflow support at Wikimania, in user research sessions, and >on wikis. It's an important area that needs a lot of discussion, >exploration, and work. > >Starting in October, Flow will not be in active development, as we shift >the team's focus to these other priorities. We'll be helping core >contributors reduce the stress of an ever-growing workload, and helping >the next generation of contributors participate in those processes. >Further development on these projects will be driven by the needs >expressed by wiki communities. > >Flow will be maintained and supported, and communities that are excited >about Flow discussions will be able to use it. There are places where the >discussion features are working well, with communities that are >enthusiastic about them: on user talk pages, help pages, and forum/village >pump-style discussion spaces. By the end of September, we'll have an >opt-in Beta feature available to communities that want it, allowing users >to enable Flow on their own user talk pages. > >I'm sure people will want to know more about these projects, and we're >looking forward to those conversations. We'll be reaching out for lots of >input and feedback over the coming months. > >Danny Horn >Collaboration team, PM ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Collaboration team reprioritization
Danny Horn wrote: >To better address the needs of our core contributors, we're now focusing >our strategy on the curation, collaboration, and admin processes that >take place on a variety of pages. Many of these processes use complex >workarounds -- templates, categories, transclusions, and lots of >instructions -- that turn blank wikitext talk pages into structured >workflows. There are gadgets and user scripts on the larger wikis to help >with some of these workflows, but these tools aren't standardized or >universally available. I absolutely agree that existing wiki workflows need love. I think anyone who has looked at various wiki request for deletion processes, for example, easily sees and understands the need for a better system. What I'm struggling with here is that Flow seems to have failed to deliver. It hasn't met its goals of covering even basic talk pages and it sounds as though further development work on Flow will now be suspended. From my perspective, after over two years of development, we've basically accomplished creating pages such as "Topic:P0q3m7vwysdezd2m" (I wish I were kidding, that's an actual page title) on development wikis such as mediawiki.org. This is a pretty bleak outcome, in my opinion. Given the failure in addressing basic talk pages, why would anyone trust the Collaboration team to work on and improve more complex workflows? I don't see a track record of success or, alternately, a good explanation for why the previous work has failed and what will be better next time. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect's first birthday
Pine W wrote: *Superprotection by stewards of legally or technically sensitive pages, to prevent damage caused by a hijacked admin account. The theory here is that admin accounts are more numerous than steward accounts, so the liklihood of a successful admin account hijack may be higher. Superprotection would proactively limit possible damage. Admins doing routine maintenance work, or taking actions with community consent, could simply make a request for a temporary lift of superprotect by a steward or ask a steward to make an edit themselves. *Upon community request, superprotection of pages by a steward where those pages are the subject of wheel-warring among local admins. *Superprotection of a page by a steward for legal reasons at the request of WMF Legal, for example if a page is the subject of a legal dispute and normal full protection is inadequate for some compelling reason. And nobody should be in the business of trying to retroactively justify this misfeature's existence, in my opinion. I'm pretty horrified to see that you completely ignored this and instead decided to continue raising completely implausible and absurd scenarios. In the case of a compromised admin account, did you seriously just suggest that stewards would try to go around randomly super-protecting pages instead of simply removing admin rights from the compromised account? I'm boggling pretty hard at your reply here. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Does this article exist in your language?
Romaine Wiki wrote: Does your language Wikipedia have an article about Freedom of Panorama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_panorama? This public right is often not as such recognised, also often unknown or considered naturally, but enables mankind in many countries to freely publicize pictures of modern buildings and public art. I think it would be good if Wikipedia has an article in many many languages about this public right, so that the public can be informed about this subject. Does your language Wikipedia cover this topic? Hi. Yep, it looks like my language Wikipedia (English) has an article. And https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q918113#sitelinks-wikipedia tracks which other Wikipedias have similar articles. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Unsolicieted email from wikimedia research
Filip Maljković wrote: On Sat, Jun 27, 2015 at 11:07 AM, Brian Wolff bawo...@gmail.com wrote: So as part of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Increasing_article_coverage , it appears that unsolicited emails have been sent out encouraging people to translated articles into needed languages. I am all for improving article coverage, etc, but I'm concerned about the use of user account emails to send unsolicited mail that the user has not opted into. I think use of user email addresses for purposes other than the user has agreed to, is not ok. I'm not really fazed by the fact that emails were unsolicited, but by the fact that I got it in French. I don't know whether that was a glitch or a conscious decision, but my knowledge of French is somewhere around fr-0.1, and it made no sense to me why I got it in a language other than English. :) I tend to agree with Brian. I'm not sure spamming people to create articles is a reasonable approach. I'm also not sure how it's appropriate to opt users in to an experiment without their consent. Like Filip, I was confused why I received an e-mail in French. I actually figured it had something to do with imported edits, but I hadn't investigated what the e-mail was about. The text of the e-mail I received is pasted below. MZMcBride Bonjour MZMcBride, L’équipe Recherche de la Fondation Wikimédia (Wikimedia Research) travaille actuellement sur l’identification d’articles populaires et importants[1] dans certaines langues du projet Wikipédia qui n’existent pas encore sur le Wikipédia francophone. Les cinq articles suivants existent dans la version anglophone de Wikipédia et sont considérés comme étant importants pour les autres langues du projet. Au vu de votre historique de contribution à Wikipédia, nous pensons que vous êtes un(e) excellent candidat(e) pour contribuer à ces articles. Démarrer la création de l'un de ces articles serait un premier pas considérable en vue d'élargir les connaissances disponibles en français.[2] Domain privacy https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-r ecommenderto=frfrom=enpage=Domain_privacy Zango (company) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-r ecommenderto=frfrom=enpage=Zango_(company) Closed platform https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-r ecommenderto=frfrom=enpage=Closed_platform Criticism of Second Life https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-r ecommenderto=frfrom=enpage=Criticism_of_Second_Life Online producer https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-r ecommenderto=frfrom=enpage=Online_producer Nous vous remercions d'avance pour votre aide.[3][4] Equipe de Recherche Fondation Wikimédia 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor San Francisco, CA, 94105 415.839.6885 (Office) 1. Nous identifions les articles importants et populaires grâce à un algorithme. Cette sélection d'articles peut être un résultat personnalisé ou aléatoire. Vous pouvez en apprendre davantage sur la personnalisation et les méthodes utilisées pour trouver les articles importants à cette adresse https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Increasing_article_coverage#Metho dology. 2. Les liens pointent vers l’outil de traduction de Wikipédia (ContentTranslation Tool). Cet outil est en cours de développement par l’équipe Language Engineering de la fondation (pour l’instant en version beta dans certaines langues). En savoir plus: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation. 3. Si vous désirez plus d’informations sur ce projet de recherche, vous pouvez lire cette page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Increasing_article_coverage (en anglais), et nous en parler sur sa page de discussion https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Increasing_article_coverage (en anglais de préférence, même si nous trouverons certainement un traducteur si vous nous écrivez en français :). 4. Votre avis est important pour nous. Faites nous part de vos impressions par courriel à l’adresse recommender-feedb...@wikimedia.org. Si vous ne souhaitez plus recevoir de courriel de Wikimedia Research, merci d’envoyer un courriel ayant pour sujet unsubscribe à l’adresse recommender-feedb...@wikimedia.org. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's cool?
MZMcBride wrote: http://nyti.ms/1Bl9VpB This story about an art exhibit opening in New York on Thursday is pretty neat. A Wikipedian has been working for years to create a print version of Wikipedia, described as half utilitarian data visualization project, half absurdist poetic gesture. Hopefully we'll have photos of the project on Wikimedia Commons soon. Victor Grigas delivered! :D https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Print_Wikipedia Someone also reminded me that xkcd's What If? covered a variant of this topic in Updating a Printed Wikipedia https://what-if.xkcd.com/59/. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Can Wikipedia Survive? op-ed
Hi. This op-ed by Andrew Lih appeared in today's New York Times. I'm sending it here in case anyone is interested in reading or discussing it. I enjoyed the piece; congrats to Mr. Lih on getting this published! MZMcBride http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/can-wikipedia-survive.html Can Wikipedia Survive? By Andrew Lih June 20, 2015 WASHINGTON — WIKIPEDIA has come a long way since it started in 2001. With around 70,000 volunteers editing in over 100 languages, it is by far the world’s most popular reference site. Its future is also uncertain. One of the biggest threats it faces is the rise of smartphones as the dominant personal computing device. A recent Pew Research Center report found that 39 of the top 50 news sites received more traffic from mobile devices than from desktop and laptop computers, sales of which have declined for years. This is a challenge for Wikipedia, which has always depended on contributors hunched over keyboards searching references, discussing changes and writing articles using a special markup code. Even before smartphones were widespread, studies consistently showed that these are daunting tasks for newcomers. “Not even our youngest and most computer-savvy participants accomplished these tasks with ease,” a 2009 user test concluded. The difficulty of bringing on new volunteers has resulted in seven straight years of declining editor participation. In 2005, during Wikipedia’s peak years, there were months when more than 60 editors were made administrator — a position with special privileges in editing the English-language edition. For the past year, it has sometimes struggled to promote even one per month. The pool of potential Wikipedia editors could dry up as the number of mobile users keeps growing; it’s simply too hard to manipulate complex code on a tiny screen. The nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia’s operations but is not directly involved in content, is investigating solutions. Some ideas include touch-screen tools that would let Wikipedia editors sift through information and share content from their phones. What has not suffered is fund-raising. The foundation, based in San Francisco, has a budget of roughly $60 million. How to fairly distribute resources has long been a topic of debate. How much should go to regional chapters and affiliates, or to groups devoted to non-English languages? How much should stay in the foundation to develop software, create mobile apps and maintain infrastructure? These tensions run through the community. Last year the foundation took the unprecedented step of forcing the installation of new software on the German-language Wikipedia. The German editors had shown their independent streak by resisting an earlier update to the site’s user interface. Against the wishes of veteran editors, the foundation installed a new way to view multimedia content and then set up an Orwellian-sounding “superprotect” feature to block obstinate administrators from changing it back. The latest clash had repercussions in the election this year for seats to the Wikimedia Foundation’s board of trustees — the most influential positions that volunteers can hold. The election — a record 5,000 voters turned out, nearly three times the number from the previous election — was a rebuke to the status quo; all three incumbents up for re-election were defeated, replaced by critics of the superprotect measures. Two other members will leave the 10-member board at the end of this year. Meanwhile, the foundation’s new executive director, Lila Tretikov, has been hiring developers from the world of open-source technology, and their lack of experience with Wikipedia content has concerned some veterans. Could the pressure from mobile, and the internal tensions, tear Wikipedia apart? A world without it seems unimaginable, but consider the fate of other online communities. Founded in 1985, at the dawn of the Internet, the Well, the self-proclaimed “birthplace of the online community movement,” hosted an influential cast of dot-com luminaries on its electronic bulletin board discussion forums. By 1995, it was in steep decline, and today it is a shell of its former self. Blogging, celebrated a decade ago as pioneering an exciting new form of personal writing, has decreased significantly in the social-media age. These are existential challenges, but they can still be addressed. There is no other significant alternative to Wikipedia, and good will toward the project — a remarkable feat of altruism — could hardly be higher. If the foundation needed more donations, it could surely raise them. The real challenges for Wikipedia are to resolve the governance disputes — the tensions among foundation employees, longtime editors trying to protect their prerogatives, and new volunteers trying to break in — and to design a mobile-oriented editing environment. One board member, María Sefidari, warned that “some communities have become so change
Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's cool?
phoebe ayers wrote: I need a break from thinking about things going wrong. And so per Milos' observation that discussion here is falling off, I thought I'd start an open discussion thread about things going right. What's a cool thing you just discovered or are involved in that is happening in the Wikimedia world? Hi. http://nyti.ms/1Bl9VpB This story about an art exhibit opening in New York on Thursday is pretty neat. A Wikipedian has been working for years to create a print version of Wikipedia, described as half utilitarian data visualization project, half absurdist poetic gesture. Hopefully we'll have photos of the project on Wikimedia Commons soon. Related reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
