Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2016 Ombudsman Committee

[Thomas Goldammer]

That could indeed happen, James. :)

Apropos, thanks to everyone currently or formerly at WMF who worked with
(and for ;) ) us during that time! It was a pleasure.

And, of course, congrats to the new and remaining members of the OC!

Th.

2016-02-01 20:13 GMT+01:00 James Alexander :

> Thanks Patrick for all your work on this and Congratulations to everyone
> coming on board! Thank you Thogo, PhilKnight, Avraham and Alhen for your
> work over the past years. I know I'll see you all around still :).
>
> James Alexander
> Manager
> Trust & Safety
> Wikimedia Foundation
> (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
>
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 8:13 AM, Tanweer Morshed 
> wrote:
>
> > Thanks Patrick for the announcement. Congratulations to the new members
> as
> > well as the returning members!
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Tanweer
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 10:00 PM, Patrick Earley 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello, everyone.
> > >
> > > I'd like to announce the new and returning members of the 2016
> Ombudsman
> > > Commission (OC), the small group of volunteers who investigate
> complaints
> > > about violations of the privacy policy, and in particular concerning
> the
> > > use of CheckUser and Oversight[1] tools, on any Wikimedia project for
> the
> > > Board of Trustees.
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Amending_the_Scope_of_the_Ombudsman_Commission
> > >
> > > I apologize for the length of the announcement. :)
> > >
> > > The application period for new commissioners for 2016 recently closed.
> > The
> > > Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and
> > > insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work.
> > >
> > > As it has for the past few years, this year’s OC will consist of seven
> > > members, with a two-member advisory team who will guide the new
> > commission.
> > >
> > >
> > > I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2016 OC. First, the new
> > > members are:
> > >
> > > -
> > > User:Alan, who has been a registered Wikimedian for more than three
> > years,
> > > but an anonymous editor since 2006, working primarily across Spanish
> > > language projects. He is a global sysop and global rollbacker, an
> > > administrator on Commons, as well as having been an OTRS volunteer for
> ~3
> > > years. In the past he has served as an administrator and bureaucrat on
> > > Spanish Wikivoyage.
> > >  -
> > >
> > > User:NahidSultan, who has been volunteering on Wikimedia projects since
> > > 2012. He is mostly active on Bengali Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and
> > Meta,
> > > where he holds administrator rights. Besides these roles, he is also
> part
> > > of OTRS, a small wiki monitoring team member and a global
> administrator.
> > > Other than his online contributions to the movement, he is also active
> > > doing Wikimedia work offline, working actively for the Wikimedia
> > Bangladesh
> > > chapter, where he currently serves as a Board member.
> > >  -
> > >
> > > User:Pajz, who has been an active contributor to the Wikimedia projects
> > for
> > > almost a decade. Formerly a bureaucrat on the German-language
> Wiktionary,
> > > he has since mainly focused on contributing to Wikipedia (mostly on
> > topics
> > > from economic theory and copyright law) and helping out on the
> Volunteer
> > > response team ("OTRS team"). He became a Wikipedia administrator and a
> > > Volunteer response team member in 2007, and has served as one of the
> OTRS
> > > administrators.
> > >
> > >  -
> > >
> > > User:Taketa, who has been a Wikimedian since 2008. He mostly works on
> the
> > > Dutch Wikipedia, writing content and organising projects. He was a
> member
> > > of the Dutch Wikipedia Arbitration Committee in 2009/10 and 2012/13.
> > > Currently, he helps as Wikimedia steward, nlwiki bureaucrat, listadmin
> > for
> > > the nlwiki admins and bureaucrats, OTRS volunteer and Wikidata admin.
> > >
> > >
> > > Returning members:
> > >
> > > User:Barras, who is primarily active on the Simple English Wikipedia
> and
> > > Meta. He’s a steward, an Oversighter on Simple English and Meta, and
> > also a
> > > Checkuser on Simple and Meta. Barras joined the OC in 2015.
> > >
> > >
> > > User:Polimerek, who primarily edits Polish Wikipedia (where he is an
> > admin
> > > and former arbitrator), Polish Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons. He also
> > > serves the Wikimedia movement as the president of Wikimedia Poland and
> on
> > > the Grant Advisory Committee. He is a former Checkuser. Polimerek
> joined
> > > the OC in 2014.
> > >
> > >
> > > User:Rubin16, who primarily edits the Russian Wikipedia, where he is a
> > > bureaucrat and administrator. He is formerly a member of their
> > Arbitration
> > > Committee. He is an administrator on Wikimedia Commons and is a Central
> > > Notice and translation admin on Meta. (He is also a translation admin
> on
> > > Commons.) He is a member 

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

[Thomas Goldammer]

2016-01-09 0:40 GMT+01:00 James Heilman :

>
> Our board made the decision to give Lila a
> second chance in the face of staff mistrust.
>

Now that's interesting. Where can I read more about this?

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

[Thomas Goldammer]

First of all, a happy new year to everyone!

Thank you, James, for bringing at least some light into this blurriness.
For some more light, all board members, please do me a favor and explain
briefly how you see the relationship between transparency and our movement,
especially in your work as board members. And of course, please include how
this opinion is in line with your decision in James's case. I'd really like
to know what each of you thinks about that. Thanks. :)

Th.

2016-01-02 1:31 GMT+01:00 James Heilman :

> Dear all
>
> I have been accused of three things:
>
>
>1.
>
>Giving staff unrealistic expectations regarding potential board
>decisions. I have always stated to staff that I only represented 10% of
> the
>board and have never given assurances that I could convince other
> trustees.
>I would be interested in hearing staff weigh in on this accusation but I
>consider it unfounded.
>
>
>
>1.
>
>Releasing private board information. I have not made public, private
>board discussions during my time on the board. I have however pushed for
>greater transparency both within the WMF and with our communities. I
> have
>made myself informed by discussing issues with trusted staff and
> community
>members and used independent judgement.
>
>
>
>1.
>
>Publishing the statement about my removal on Wikimedia-l. I was not
>asked by other board members at any time before its publication to
> produce
>a joint statement or to delay publishing the statement I had put
> together a
>few days prior. The first proposal to collaborate I believe was by
> myself
>here
>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2015-December/080502.html
>I was also not informed that the meeting was going to continue for the
>purpose of producing such a statement.
>
>
> I have always acted in what I believe are the best interests of the
> movement and the WMF.
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Thomas Goldammer]

@Jimmy Wales: The problem is not that James was too fast to publish the
fact that he was ejected. I'm pretty sure if the Board decided to boot you
out, you would have posted something, too. And that's absolutely natural.

The problem is merely that the Board is too slow to publish the reasons for
the decision. If you make such a sweeping decision, even if not planned
ahead at all, you do have the obligation to sit down together immediately
and write that statement - you know that there is that community out there,
and you knew very well what would happen on this mailing list. And it's
really not as if you were a magician who was asked to explain his trick.

Th.

2015-12-30 15:44 GMT+01:00 Nathan :

> "Well, tell that to James. He's the one who went public without warning in
> the middle of the meeting. You are 100% wrong that this is a decision
> *against* the community. I know why I voted the way I did - and it has to
> do with my strong belief in the values of this community and the
> responsibilities of board members to uphold those values. If a board member
> fails the community in such a serious way, tough decisions have to be made
> about what to do.--Jimbo Wales
>  (talk
> ) 20:57, 29
> December 2015 (UTC)"
>
> Comment from Jimmy, both implicitly criticizing James Heilman for revealing
> that he was ejected from the board and suggesting that James failed to
> uphold the values of the community in a serious way. Later on Jimmy tries
> to walk back the criticism as "merely stating a fact."
>
> James responded by pointing out that he was removed from the board and then
> told to leave the room, at which point he posted to the mailing list. The
> complaint that he published the decision while the meeting was ongoing is
> silly, although I can certainly see why the remaining members would have
> preferred to control the narrative themselves.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Thomas Goldammer]

2015-12-29 10:15 GMT+01:00 Isarra Yos :


> It says a lot, but just what that is depends entirely on the context. And
> for community members who voted for him, that context could mean we should
> also no longer have confidence in him elsewhere in the projects, or in the
> board, or have no bearing on either thing whatsoever. Not knowing just
> means there's no indication what to trust.


I'd rather lose the trust and confidence in those 8 Board members than in
him without knowing what was the cause for his disbarment. ;)

Maybe the Board by-laws have to be changed, too. Throwing out a
community-elected member like this, without providing a reason, is no way
to deal with the community who elected this member. It should be mandatory
that the Board provides reasons together with the announcement to avoid
exactly this kind of discussions and speculations, not a day (or more)
later.

And as for no-cause disbarments for community-elected members in a
community-driven environment - uhm... I don't need to delve into that,
everyone can see the problem. The Board should just not be allowed to
disbar community-elected members without a cause, as that undermines the
authority of the community over those seats on the Board.

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

[Thomas Goldammer]

Dear Patricio,

as James is (or was) a community-elected member, it would have been nice to
include reasons why the Board took this decision in the announcement. It
gives (at least me) the impression of deliberate non-openness, and I don't
like it.

Th.

2015-12-29 0:52 GMT+01:00 Risker :

> On 28 December 2015 at 18:29, Patricio Lorente  >
> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > This decision creates an open seat for a community-selected Trustee. The
> > Board is committed to filling this open community seat as quickly as
> > possible. We will reach out to the 2015 election committee
> > <
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Committee
> > >
> > to discuss our options, and will keep you informed as we determine next
> > steps.
> >
> > Patricio Lorente
> >
> > Chair, Board of Trustees
> >
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> >
>
> While you are at it, Patricio, please also publish the names of the two new
> Board-appointed trustees.
>
> Risker/Anne
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board

[Thomas Goldammer]

Pine, the resolution was published, and it does not provide any
information.
https://m.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:James_Heilman_Removal

Matt, why would FL law apply to Board decisions? WMF is based in Cali. Are
they still officially a Florida entity?

Best,
Th.

2015-12-29 1:39 GMT+01:00 Pine W :

> I am hopeful that the resolution, when it is published, will provide us
> with more information.
>
> IMO, speed is less important here than the completeness of the information.
> I'd prefer a more thorough explanation provided tomorrow than a hasty and
> potentially incomplete explanation today.
>
> Thanks,
> Pine
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 4:32 PM, Kevin Gorman  wrote:
>
> > I really, really hope that, as fast as one can be written, a resolution
> > explaining more fully the circumstances of James' departure from the
> board
> > is written and passed.  If there are legal reasons that mean that his
> > departure cannot be more fully explained, that itself needs to be noted -
> > and I hope they're particularly strong reasons.  Without looking up the
> > vote count in the last election: James has the trust of a huge segment of
> > the community, and also has a much stronger sense of direction in how WMF
> > should be steered than many of our trustees have in the past.  His sudden
> > removal (the power mechanism I've cobbled together to have my laptop
> > functional today is hilarious) without further explanation looks way too
> > much like one of only three directly elected trustees spoke up too openly
> > in a way that wasn't welcomed about the directions he thought Wikimedia
> > should go - even though he literally published a platform before he was
> > elected.  The sudden removal of a very well respected community elected
> > trustee has at least the appearance of a board that may not want to be
> > responsive to those who literally create it's only valuable asset.
> >
> > Best,
> > KG
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Tito Dutta  wrote:
> >
> > > Add me as well.​
> > > ​Eager to know what happened.​
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Wikipedia rocked by 'rogue editors' blackmail scam targeting small businesses and celebrities"

[Thomas Goldammer]

Why not make it a bit more difficult for them to do their foul play? Maybe
enwiki needs a stricter rule enforcement system for sources in articles
about promotion-worthy entities like living people, existing
businesses/organizations, etc. Just allow only external, reliable, and
confirmable sources and throw everything else out. Even if it is plausible.
No exceptions. Of course, someone would need to go through all articles in
question... And check the noteworthiness of the entities while you're at
it. :) It's some work, but I think it's worth the efforts.

Why not make it an event, maybe even with a little prize for people who
throw out the most unsourced statements in such articles. ;) But jokes
aside. Seriously, there could be (and I guess is) a large number of
paid-edited promotional pieces of text in enwiki (and certainly other
language versions, too). Get rid of it the hard way, otherwise the problem
won't go away, but grow by the day.

Th.

2015-09-03 2:07 GMT+02:00 James Heilman :

> Yes some interesting comment by Trillium. Where the articles mainly
> promotional? Yes very. A number of them were copied and pasted from press
> releases by the companies in question.
>
> Were a number of the editors from the developing world? Also yes. This is
> because they are willing to work for less and Orangemody was hiring from
> sites like Elance.
>
> I guess the fundamental question is, is Wikipedia a workspace to provide
> employment for those in the developing world who are willing to do PR piece
> work for some unknown PR firm? Or is Wikipedia an encyclopedia.
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
>
> As of July 2015 I am a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation
> My emails; however, do not represent the official position of the WMF
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF has lost its path

[Thomas Goldammer]

I really wonder why it's anyone (except Russavia)'s business why Russavia
was banned. Or in other words, why don't you guys just ask Russavia about
it? If they want to tell you, fine, if not, fine as well... And no, that's
not a speech against openness and transparency. The rules are transparent.
If the owner of the website banned Russavia from editing it, Russavia must
have violated the rules. Or does anyone really suspect WMF of banning
people for fun? I don't and I hope nobody else does, either.

m2c,
Th.

2015-01-20 19:49 GMT+01:00 Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl:

 On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 6:19 PM, Trillium Corsage trillium2...@yandex.com
 
 wrote:

 
  Of course if the WMF indeed tells the individual the particulars, he or
  she could himself or herself choose to make that public. Maybe that's
 what
  the WMF really doesn't want. If it were done that way, there'd be no you
  compromised my privacy complaint basis for the individual.
 

 It is my understanding that the banned users are informed of the reasons
 (and possibly also warned prior to ban, but of course this should not
 always be the case - I can imagine scenarios in which immediate action is
 needed).

 best,

 dariusz pundit


 --

 __
 prof. dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak
 kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego
 i centrum badawczego CROW
 Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego
 http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl

 członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk
 członek Komitetu Polityki Naukowej MNiSW

 Wyszła pierwsza na świecie etnografia Wikipedii Common Knowledge? An
 Ethnography of Wikipedia (2014, Stanford University Press) mojego
 autorstwa http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24010

 Recenzje
 Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
 Pacific Standard:
 http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/killed-wikipedia-93777/
 Motherboard: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/an-ethnography-of-wikipedia
 The Wikipedian:
 http://thewikipedian.net/2014/10/10/dariusz-jemielniak-common-knowledge
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FDC funds allocation recommendation is up

[Thomas Goldammer]

Anders,

the problem is the strong US/EN-centric way the projects are handled by
WMF. That drives people away (especially the more critical/touchy
communities like DE), and it didn't start with the superprotect mess. There
were other serious affronts by WMF (image filter, etc.) to the community
before that, but don't let us delve into that now, everyone following this
list in the last 5 or so years knows what is meant. ;)

Moreover, how is this impact measured? By number of uploads/new articles
etc.? The dewp community has always valued quality much much higher than
quantity. Does WMF even have a decent way of measuring quality for that
impact assessment? So before looking at WMDE's performance to keep the
community alive, one should first look at WMF's and there I see many
shortfalls as well. Nobody can link the editor decline in DE projects to
WMDE's performance alone. There are just too many other factors, including
cultural differences, that need to be taken into account as well.

Th.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Unacceptable -- CheckUser abuse gone uninvestigated

[Thomas Goldammer]

Hello,

just a few remarks from the OC about this case.


2014-08-01 22:19 GMT+02:00 Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com:

 Hi all,

 On 27 May 2014 I received an email back from the OC which basically
 said that because no personal information was divulged, there was no
 breach of the WMF Privacy Policy. It also said that they would inform
 the WMF about the case, and if I had any further information on who
 released such information then I should contact them.


Confirmed.



 On 6 June 2014 I heard back from the OC and they stated that my
 complaint was being forwarded to the Wikimedia Foundation and that
 they had been informed about the possible running of an unnecessary
 CU, in addition to the possible release of CU logs. Additionally, I
 was told that the OC would relay to me once they had it from the
 Board.


Also confirmed.



 1) There was indeed a leak of my CU data. An unknown Commons CU had
 indeed leaked my CU data to another person who was NOT a CU on
 Commons. The information given to this non-CU person included the very
 name of the person who ran the CU on me; information which was so
 sensitive to keep from me, but not sensitive enough that it was able
 to be shared with every Tom, Dick and Harry that wasn't me.


I wonder why the OC never got any information about this from you. So would
you please write us where that information comes from and what exactly
happened? Thanks.




 On 2 July 2014 I was contacted by someone within Legal informing me
 that it was their understanding that the Ombudsman Commission has
 finished its investigation into this matter and has already
 communicated its decision to you.


It had, on the basis of the information we got from you. We can obviously
not base our decision on information that is not relayed to us, like that
mentioned one section above.




 Given this, I am asking very publicly the following questions:

 * (1) on what grounds a CheckUser action was performed on my account
 on Wikimedia Commons?
 * (2) who requested that it be performed on Commons?
 * (3) who fulfilled the request?
 * (4) why is it acceptable for CUs to share actions related to my
 account with non-CUs whilst at the same time actively keeping this
 information from me?
 * (5) why are complaints such as this actively ignored by the WMF Board?


(1) through (3) can only be answered by the Commons community. It is
completely outside the OC's remit to answer this. @ (4): You might want to
discuss this with the OC non-publicly. We are very interested in getting
any available information about this. In general, you are right that it is
not acceptable to share non-public information with non-CUs. However, it is
acceptable to give CU information to stewards (who might not be CU on
Commons), for example, under certain circumstances.

Best regards,
Thogo.
(current member of the OC)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement Sarah Stierch

[Thomas Goldammer]

In fact, a simple note that Sarah has left the WMF would, of course, have
been enough from the WMF side. BUT, the obvious questions would then have
been directed to Sarah in any possible way, most probably. And I guess, she
just doesn't wish to answer those questions right now and I can fully
understand that. That was probably what Frank meant by respecting her
privacy and why he chose to write the letter as he did.

Anyway, sorry to see you go, Sarah. :(

Best regards
Thomas.


2014/1/9 Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net


 On 9 Jan 2014, at 14:32, Katherine Casey fluffernutter.w...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Add me to the list of people who are surprised the WMF has chosen to
 handle
  this in so public and accusatory a manner. It is presumably their right
 to
  sever business relationships with employees, of course, but they
 generally
  don't do so by posting a public notice detailing the employee's alleged
  misconduct.

 It seems to me that this is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t”
 scenario. If there *hadn’t* been a note to this list then I’m sure people
 would have been crying out for one. Personally, I’m glad to see the
 transparency and frankness, but sad to see the news. :-(

 Thanks,
 Mike


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)

[Thomas Goldammer]

Just a general note, could you please all wait for Gayle to get back to her
office? ^^ I think she wanted to address some of the things discussed here
on Monday, which is by San Francisco time. So maybe let it rest for a few
hours now? :)

Th.
p.s. sorry about the empty email, my mouse is broken and clicks randomly.


2013/5/13 Thomas Goldammer tho...@gmail.com



 2013/5/13 Keegan Peterzell keegan.w...@gmail.com

 On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:03 AM, James Alexander jameso...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 12:00 AM, Peter Southwood 
  peter.southw...@telkomsa.net wrote:
 
   Lets get a few things in perspective:
   1. How many community members were abusive/unreasonable/whatever
 beyond
   what might be considered a startle reaction to an apparent attack
 without
   warning?
   2 How many people constitute this community
   Divide answer 1 by answer 2
  
   Consider how much of the response was a snowball effect of frustration
  due
   to a distinct shortage of explanation and direct answers to what
 might be
   considered reasonable questions.
  
   And yes, Welcome to Wikipedia 
  
   Cheers,
   Peter
  
 
  2 is an unreasonable number to divide by when it's such a small cross
  section of the actual community on these lists.
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 That's a bit relative, James.  The active folk on this mailing list make
 for a pretty good cross section of thoughts/feelings/opinions of the
 movement.  I've refrained from this discussion and will continue to do so
 on specifics, because it's politics and that's not something I do on
 Wikipedia/Wikimedia.

 Things have been said in this discussion that I agree with, things have
 been said that I do not agree with.  All in all, my opinion is not needed
 because it has been expressed by others, and I do not feel compelled to
 say
 my side.  This is where we speak and we listen, and it is disheartening to
 read that you feel embarrassed to be from the community when you have to
 explain drama to them.

 These threads bring out the best and the worst in Wikimedians, for
 certain,
 but it's all out of cause of passion.  We're here because we care, no
 matter the pattern or the tone of conversations.  This is a global
 audience, intelligent, collaborative, and willing to learn.  The Wikimedia
 Foundation is global, intelligent, and I assume good faith about
 collaboration and willingness to learn.  Gayle's email reflects her
 opinion
 on getting this concept and working with it in the future, and I'm happy
 with that.

 All in all, I guess I just agree with Phoebe.

 --
 ~Keegan

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)

[Thomas Goldammer]

but will circle back when I return to work next Monday. (Gayle)

Wait for that. Whatever time it actually means. :)

Th.


2013/5/13 Huib Laurens sterke...@gmail.com

 Thomas,

 She is on holiday, she will not be in the office today?

 Huib

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)

[Thomas Goldammer]

Wow, this was definitely a huge brick they dropped there... It seems, the
WMF needs to hire someone (a diplomat) to counsel them about actions
towards the volunteers. (Seriously!)
Well, and when we are at it, the volunteer community might need a diplomat,
too, one who counsels them about actions and role of the WMF, before they
start complaining about any of it. :)

Anyway, nothing would have been lost if Gayle had written to the folks a
few weeks before the actual action was performed, informing that this is
the plan and why. It's not necessary, WMF owns the page and can do just
about everything there, but just for politeness it would have been nice.
And yes, the email that - seemingly selectively - got sent out was not
really diplomatic, either, it sounds much like thanks, bye!. Or was there
any sort of emergency that made an immediate action indispensable? (A soon
explanation by Gayle would certainly be helpful there.)

Th.


2013/5/12 Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org

 On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 7:15 AM, K. Peachey p858sn...@gmail.com wrote:
  This is the email that got sent out to everyone,

 For what it's worth, this didn't get sent out to everyone. I was a
 bureaucrat and administrator, and have the most edits on that wiki
 (afaik?), and wasn't notified. Like Huib, I was also in the batch of
 blog moderator removals and wasn't notified about that either.

 I'm not very active anymore, so it's not really a huge deal, but it's
 still bad form to have not gotten any kind of notification at all.

 --
 Casey Brown (Cbrown1023)

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[Wikimedia-l] RFC about the scope of the Ombudsman Commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

Dear all,

the Ombudsman Commission has started a request for comments on Meta about
its scope:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Scope_of_Ombudsman_Commission

We invite everyone to comment on this proposal (preferably on the page
linked above in order to have all discussions at one place).

For the OC,
Thogo.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New proposal for a wiki Project!

[Thomas Goldammer]

Hi.

Could you explain in more detail (on the wiki page you linked) what
the content would look like and how it would differ from the Incubator
wiki? For example, would original research be allowed?

Best regards,
Thomas.

2013/2/18 Kevin Behrens kevin_behr...@hotmail.de:
 Hello!

 I have started a proposal for a new wiki project: WikiLang 
 (meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiLang). It is about endangered languages and 
 language documentation/decipherment. It is a very important step in order to 
 save our linguistic diversity which is ongoing faster than the extinction of 
 animals. Most of our languages are highly endangered and there are 
 pessimistic estimations that by 2100 90% of them will be extinct. So, please 
 support the project and vote for it and/or give your feedback! (I for myself 
 belong to a language minority and I can tell how important this is.) Thanks a 
 lot!

 Kevin
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

 * How many cases were brought to your attention?

around 30, give or take

 * How many of those did you consider serious enough to warrant
 investigation beyond direct dismissal?

around 10, I'd say

 * How many cases did you take on *proactively* (without a solid complaint)?

none that I would remember

 * In how many cases in total did the committee take action (or advise the
 WMF to take action)?

we requested user rights changes for the committee or asked for
further information we were not able to obtain ourselves several times
(thanks to Philippe for helping us all the time with this!), but we
never asked/recommended the Board to remove CU/steward rights from
anyone.

 * How many emails did you exchange over the past year on your mailing list?

I'd say at least 500. Could also be 1000 or more, I really can't tell
you any exact numbers and I won't count it.

 * Were you able to send a confirmation with the outcome of the case to
 every complainor?

Except for the cases still under investigation, I guess so. We now
usually also send a confirmation when we receive a request (we didn't
do that in the beginning).

 * Was the person complained about informed every time of the fact they were
 under investigation?

If someone did not make any mistake we do not tell them that someone
complained about them. We contacted them only if we had questions to
them or if we deemed it necessary to explain something to them.

 * Is the process accurately described on meta?

Which process do you mean?

 * Do you have steps in place to ensure every single request gets the follow
 up it needs, if not will that be improved?

We are working on developing a better way of keeping track of the
requests at the moment. However, the technical possibilities are
limited, for security and privacy reasons.

 * How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of the
 committee?

I don't know, ask Philippe. ;) I guess some people were not happy
about the time it took to get to a result (I'm not, either.), or about
the result itself. But there is always a way to improve things.


 This information could probably be summarized in a few paragraphs. I
 suspect that the Board already receives such summary (the committee reports
 directly to the board according to the meta
 pagehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission)
 so an extract from that would probably be easiest. Even if that is not the
 case I have the feeling it should be doable to create these numbers
 afterwards for 2011. That is not only a big win for transparancy, but also
 for future candidate members - they would know what they are getting into.
 Finally, it allows people to evaluate if they trust the committee enough to
 send their complaints to. I know several people who in the past (before the
 current committee probably) have sent complaints but felt it was a black
 box and have no idea what happened to them. That can be quite damaging for
 the image and should be avoided.

Sorry if someone gets the impression of a black box, but as we are
investigating privacy violations, we have to be very careful which
information to share and we prefer to share as little as possible. The
committee works very simple, we receive a complaint, which we confirm
to the complainor, then we discuss if a privacy violation can even be
involved. If not, we decline the request and - if possible - we try to
tell the complainor where they can get help for their problem. If
indeed a privacy violation is possible we investigate on this and then
we have a result whether or not there was a breach of the policy and
we give that result to the complainor, explaining them why we think
there was (or not) a breach of the policy. If we do find a breach of
privacy we would have to discuss what we do about it. But as I said,
we never recommended to the Board to remove any rights from a CU or
steward. I hope that such a recommendation will never be necessary,
but of course we are ready for this, *if* it becomes necessary. :)
This whole investigation process can take a while and can involve
contacting the person about whom the complaint was, if we need to ask
them for clarification on the issue, or if we need to tell them how to
avoid such issues in the future. It can also involve us doing checks
on users ourselves to double-check CU results (of course, in such
cases we inform the local CUs why they see us in the log).

However, when we will finally have set up our technical aids to keep
better track of the cases, we will be able to improve on all this.

Th.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

2012/4/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com:
 Transparency and privacy are not mutually exclusive. Obviously, the
 actual content of complaints is usually going to be confidential, but
 that doesn't preclude the process being transparent.

That's why I answered to Lodewijk's questions. I guess the process is
more transparent now.


 You can clearly document the process that you follow. You can publish
 metrics like those Lodewijk suggested (and actual numbers, not just
 guesses). It would be nice to have a page on meta that says how many
 cases are currently at each point in the process and is kept
 up-to-date.

You just volunteered to set up such a page on Meta (for 2012, I mean).
I already described the process we use, so this should be possible for
you to do. Thanks.


 The ombudsmen commission has always felt to me to be the most
 cabalistic of all the committees and groups we have. A lot of people
 don't know it even exists or what it really does. All I tend to hear
 about it is when people are complaining that their emails have gone
 into the black box, never to be seen again.

Well, we are not going to advertise our services to everyone in
person. If the people do not know that we exist, that's not our fault
but the fault of the community. What we are doing is already described
on the Meta page. If someone has sent a complaint and never gets any
answer, then this is of course our fault, and it shouldn't happen. A
little reminder usually does the trick, though. As you know, we are
all not 24/7 OC workers doing nothing else in our lives. It can always
happen that some email gets stuck in spam filters or just gets
overlooked especially on days when you receive a hundred or more
wiki-related emails, which is about every day in the year. I think
what could really help is if we could use the OTRS ticket system for
our work (that's an idea that just now came into my mind)... But I
don't know how secure that is and if it is even possible to set it up
so closed that only the OC members can access those tickets. (Any
suggestions from Philippe about that?)


 Just because it deals with confidential information doesn't mean that
 it shouldn't be held to the same standards of transparency as every
 other part of our movement.

Well, traditionally the transparency of the OC was very low, that's
true. We just took over these traditions from our predecessors, but
that doesn't mean that we can't break with these traditions and set up
some new standards. It just needs to be done, which means some work.
However, don't ever expect that we will publish anything case-related,
including people or wiki projects involved.

Th.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

It was not meant passive-aggressive. ;) I know that his suggestion is
a good one and I wanted to push him to just do it on Meta. Sorry if
you misunderstood that. ^^

Th.

 I thought Thomas's requests and suggestions in this case were quite valid
 and reasonable, and they did not deserve such a condescending and
 passive-aggressive response.

 I'm sure you're all very busy but that's no excuse for not continually
 striving for a higher standard of transparency and accountability (within
 the obvious restrictions that your work imposes).

 Regards,
 Craig Franklin

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

2012/4/23 Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonew...@gmail.com:
 Touché. I believe that if the process is going to be put on Meta we do need 
 actual numbers as opposed to your guesstimations. Hopefully this shouldn't be 
 too difficult to sort out, if you do some searches on Gmail for all the 
 emails that you have received in the last year from the mailing list you 
 should be able to get a better number of the volume of emails that you got 
 overall in the year.

Nope. Thomas should just create the page and format it so we can
easily fill in the numbers for 2012. (If he doesn't want, anyone else
can do that as well, of course. ^^) Let's just begin with this sort of
statistics now, for 2012, and let's not do 2011. It's just too much
work to dig everything out again just for counting some numbers.
Please bear in mind that it's just statistics anyway. It really
doesn't matter if it were 28 or 32 requests (or any other number
around that) in 2011.



 I don't think that OTRS is the necessarily the best option - unless you use 
 it in collaboration with the mailing list, i.e someone sends a complaint to 
 OTRS, the commission discusses on the mailing list and then send out a 
 response to the user. You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets 
 have been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins are technically 
 able to view all the emails in any queues - so that would be another 12ish 
 people plus devs that would be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that 
 they would, but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are 
 checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be some issues with 
 using OTRS.

Hm ok, if that's true, OTRS is clearly not an option. ^^

Th.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

Ok, for the number fans, I did a filter search on my email archive and
I found 660 emails archived that were sent to the OC email address
since we were appointed (I don't think I deleted any, so this should
probably be it). This includes emails sent from within the committee
as well as those sent to us from outside. My estimate was around 500,
so it's not so bad, actually. :) No, you do *not* want me to read all
that stuff again. Let's just keep it at roughly 30 cases, please.

Th.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

2012/4/23 Mike Christie coldchr...@gmail.com:
 This might be a digression, but I'm fairly new to this list and would
 like a clarification.  What's the decision-making process within the
 WMF on issues such as this (a request from the community to document a
 WMF process)?  I understand how processes are implemented (or not),
 and how tasks are done (or not) on en.wikipedia, but I don't yet
 understand the relationship between community requests (or requests
 from individuals in the community) and WMF processes and tasks.  What
 are the expectations for WMF employees' response to a request such as
 this -- presumably they can assess it and say no if they feel that's
 appropriate?  Is it part of their job description to communicate via
 lists such as this, and justify their decisions?

Mike, the ombudsman commission does not consist of WMF employees. We
are just volunteers. We don't get paid for what we are doing. ;) If I
got paid for it, I would happily search all my emails and create all
sorts of statistics the community wants to have, but I didn't
volunteer for being a statistican or doing anything related to that,
so I just won't do it. :) Explaining how we process requests is
something else, and I did already explain that process.

Th.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

Please have a look at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission#Processing.2FReporting

I hope this is sort of satisfying for now? I will not do that for the
2011 term. Already this one cost me more than two hours and it is only
from 1st of February to now. :) If you do the maths you end up at ~20
cases for the 2011 term (5 cases in 3 months = 20 in a year). I think
there were some more than that but not many more. Also included on
that page is the outline of our processing that I gave earlier.

Th.

2012/4/23 Delphine Ménard notafi...@gmail.com:
 Top posting.

 This is getting a bit ridiculous. Frankly, while I see the need for
 *some* statistics, I don't see how the number of emails exchanged is
 in any kind of way relevant to the work this ombudsmen commission, for
 one. Seriously, if they solve a case with 2 emails or 200, I couldn't
 care less. Second, I understand Thomas' reluctance to skim through 600
 emails to give a report that was not part of his mandate in the first
 place, if I am not mistaken.

 Could the interested people, as was asked, draw up a few report
 guidelines on meta as to what they would like to see, and could the
 commission can take just a bit of its time to see what's
 feasible/reasonable and what is not (as per Mike's proposal), and
 agree to issue a report at given intervals so that the black box is
 maybe not so black?

 It seems that something along the lines of X cases, Y accepted, Z
 rejected (reason for them being rejected if possible), solved
 succesfully/not solved and time to solve a case (date it came in, date
 it was solved) would probably answer most of the concerns expressed
 here. If you know you have to do it in advance, then the task should
 be bearable. Let's look forward, and not dwell on what we didn't think
 about before.

 Cheers,

 Delphine



 On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:23 PM, Thomas Goldammer tho...@googlemail.com 
 wrote:
 2012/4/23 Mike Christie coldchr...@gmail.com:
 This might be a digression, but I'm fairly new to this list and would
 like a clarification.  What's the decision-making process within the
 WMF on issues such as this (a request from the community to document a
 WMF process)?  I understand how processes are implemented (or not),
 and how tasks are done (or not) on en.wikipedia, but I don't yet
 understand the relationship between community requests (or requests
 from individuals in the community) and WMF processes and tasks.  What
 are the expectations for WMF employees' response to a request such as
 this -- presumably they can assess it and say no if they feel that's
 appropriate?  Is it part of their job description to communicate via
 lists such as this, and justify their decisions?

 Mike, the ombudsman commission does not consist of WMF employees. We
 are just volunteers. We don't get paid for what we are doing. ;) If I
 got paid for it, I would happily search all my emails and create all
 sorts of statistics the community wants to have, but I didn't
 volunteer for being a statistican or doing anything related to that,
 so I just won't do it. :) Explaining how we process requests is
 something else, and I did already explain that process.

 Th.

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 @notafish

 NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get 
 lost.
 Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org
 Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org

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