Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Katie Chan]

On 25/04/2012 23:50, Casey Brown wrote:


I'm not advocating for anything in particular -- I could care less if
the ombudsman commission made an OTRS queue. It's entirely up to them.
:-)


I knew this was going to happen LOL. When I said "you", I wasn't aiming 
it at anyone in particular but making a general statement. Apology for 
any confusion.


KTC

--
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- Heinrich Heine

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Casey Brown]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Katie Chan  wrote:
> Of course it's all very well believing in the good work and ethics of those
> currently with those type of rights. However it's a different issue entirely
> to assume there will never be a bad apple. If that's your attitude, then it
> have to follow that you believe the ombudsman commission is superfluous.

I'm not advocating for anything in particular -- I could care less if
the ombudsman commission made an OTRS queue. It's entirely up to them.
:-)

I'm just bringing up the issues with both sides, and making it clear
that *someone* will almost always have access to something, no matter
what. It's important that all sides of the issue are brought up before
choosing the best solution. :-)

Also, Philippe pointed out that there might be logs of who accesses
lists with the master password. So, while they can still access the
lists with the password, it might not be anonymous.

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[John Vandenberg]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Pedro Sanchez  wrote:
>..
>
> It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been
> doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
>
> And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios.  "And how about one of
> the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is
> anyone working on a solution for this?"

Good governance is not built on blind trust.

It is important to be able to periodically check that there hasnt been abuse.

The OTRS admins are doing great work, and enwp oversight and arbcom
have moved under OTRS despite the lack of an audit trail, but I will
continue to ask for one because I believe it is important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Katie Chan]

On 25/04/2012 03:52, Pedro Sanchez wrote:


It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been
doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).

And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios.  "And how about one of
the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is
anyone working on a solution for this?"


On 25/04/2012 20:35, Casey Brown wrote:
>
> Nothing will ever be perfect though. For example, the mailman mailing
> list that they currently use can easily be accessed by anyone with the
> root mailman password. The list of people with that password is very
> small -- and is mostly restricted to sysadmins and high-level staffers
> -- but there are still people who can hypothetically access it without
> anyone knowing. It's more an issue of minimizing risk than eliminating
> it.
>

The main difference is the target of an ombudsman commission 
investigation are generally not (if at all) sysadmin, but CU, 
bureaucrat, admin, abcom & oversight. Out of the 12 OTRS admin, 5 are 
oversighter with 3 CU, and multiple bureaucrat & admins. Having the main 
potential target of your investigation able to access your primary 
communication channel used to discuss such investigation without audit 
record is just not a good idea.


Of course it's all very well believing in the good work and ethics of 
those currently with those type of rights. However it's a different 
issue entirely to assume there will never be a bad apple. If that's your 
attitude, then it have to follow that you believe the ombudsman 
commission is superfluous.


KTC

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- Heinrich Heine

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Casey Brown]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 9:06 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> Is there an auditable log of these actions?  i.e. one that OTRS admins
> cant doctor?

As Rjd said, there isn't.

Nothing will ever be perfect though. For example, the mailman mailing
list that they currently use can easily be accessed by anyone with the
root mailman password. The list of people with that password is very
small -- and is mostly restricted to sysadmins and high-level staffers
-- but there are still people who can hypothetically access it without
anyone knowing. It's more an issue of minimizing risk than eliminating
it.

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Huib Laurens]

Phillipe,

We are now to day's futher.

Still no responds from you on or off list, or any responds at all from the
foundation.

best,

Huib

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Bod Notbod  wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 03:52, Pedro Sanchez  wrote:
>
> > It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been
> > doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
>
> I'm going to suggest a "benefit of the doubt response" and wonder
> aloud whether it's more to do with what we've come to expect.
>
> Most of us start as editors and we become aware that our every
> contribution is logged and publicly available for scrutiny. That is of
> tremendous use to us as editors.
>
> So maybe it's just that we all started in that environment and see the
> value of that and then we tend to carry over those thoughts into every
> aspect of what happens on the wikis.
>
> It may not be achievable, desirable or necessary to have access to
> that level of monitoring/review for everything else (I know nothing of
> OTRS and/or ombudsmen), I'm just suggesting why these questions may
> arise: a cultural thing, if you like.
>
> Bodnotbod
>
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-- 
Kind regards,

Huib Laurens
WickedWay.nl

Webhosting the wicked way.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Bod Notbod]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 03:52, Pedro Sanchez  wrote:

> It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been
> doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).

I'm going to suggest a "benefit of the doubt response" and wonder
aloud whether it's more to do with what we've come to expect.

Most of us start as editors and we become aware that our every
contribution is logged and publicly available for scrutiny. That is of
tremendous use to us as editors.

So maybe it's just that we all started in that environment and see the
value of that and then we tend to carry over those thoughts into every
aspect of what happens on the wikis.

It may not be achievable, desirable or necessary to have access to
that level of monitoring/review for everything else (I know nothing of
OTRS and/or ombudsmen), I'm just suggesting why these questions may
arise: a cultural thing, if you like.

Bodnotbod

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Pedro Sanchez]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 8:06 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown  wrote:
>
> Is there an auditable log of these actions?  i.e. one that OTRS admins
> cant doctor?
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>
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It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been
doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).

And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios.  "And how about one of
the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is
anyone working on a solution for this?"


Pedro Sánchez
http://drini.mx
@combinatorica

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Rjd0060]

There is no such log within the OTRS software.
Admin actions are logged by the OTRS admins on the OTRS wiki.  Yes, these
are manual edits.  There has never (that I know of) been an issue with the
OTRS admins accessing queues they shouldn't.  While of course it is
possible for them to, as others have explained, I'm not sure it is a
realistic concern that needs a solution.  It would be ideal if the OTRS
software logged all actions ... I wonder if this is changed at all in the
new version, which hopefully will be set up for Wikimedia soon (
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22622).

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 9:06 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown 
> wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone
> >  wrote:
> >> 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.
> >
> > Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets.
> > This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there
> > are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are
> > definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia
> > registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless
> > they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they
> > needed to for some reason.
>
> Is there an auditable log of these actions?  i.e. one that OTRS admins
> cant doctor?
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>
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-- 
Ryan
User:Rjd0060
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown  wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone
>  wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets.
> This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there
> are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are
> definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia
> registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless
> they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they
> needed to for some reason.

Is there an auditable log of these actions?  i.e. one that OTRS admins
cant doctor?

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thehelpfulone]

On 24 April 2012 01:00, Casey Brown  wrote:

> Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets.
> This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there
> are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are
> definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia
> registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless
> they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they
> needed to for some reason.
>
> --
> Casey Brown
> Cbrown1023


Oh of course, what I intended in my previous email was to highlight the
fact that OTRS admins *technically *have the ability to view private emails
that may even be discussing actions that they themselves have done in their
capacities as oversighters or checkusers. I completely trust the integrity
of the OTRS admins (yes I even trust you ;-) ) to not do anything they
shouldn't do, but I see the importance in giving advance warning about who
could *potentially *view emails if an OTRS queue for the
Ombudsman commission was created.
-- 
Thehelpfulone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
English Wikipedia Administrator
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Casey Brown]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone
 wrote:
> 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.

Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets.
This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there
are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are
definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia
registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless
they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they
needed to for some reason.

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Lodewijk]

Just for the record: the reason I asked for the number of emails is not
because of an exact number: but for people to understand how much of a
workload it is (and appreciate it!). For that number I only care about the
order of magnitude in the end - the important numbers are indeed the number
of cases etc.

Thank you very much Thomas Goldammer for your effort of providing this
data. I appreciate your help in answering the questions.

Lodewijk

El 23 de abril de 2012 15:46, Delphine Ménard escribió:

> 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 
> wrote:
> > 2012/4/23 Mike Christie :
> >> 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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>
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>
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> lost.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[James Forrester]

On 23 April 2012 18:56, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 23 April 2012 17:50, Risker  wrote:
>>> I am very surprised that it would require going through 600 emails to
>>> find out how many cases the OC has dealt with over the past year. If
>>> they don't have that information somewhere, then they can't have been
>>> doing a good job. There is no way they can do their job properly
>>> without knowing what cases they've received...
>>
>> I don't think your correlation is correct.  Simply because they have not
>> maintained a list of case dispositions (not required or expected to this
>> point, and more particularly very difficult to do when there's no
>> confidential place for them to retain it) does not mean that they have
>> failed to do the job properly.
>
> How can you make sure you don't forget any cases if you don't keep a
> record of them?

I'm confused. It's trivially obvious that you can keep a record of
what you're working on at a given time without keeping a centralised
overview record based on time periods. In what way is this not clear?

In my experience, the Ombudsmen do excellent work, but I think some
(additional) community reporting is probably a good thing. To echo the
suggestion  up-thread, why don't we take this to meta for
discussion about what we want to see from them (and what's reasonable,
of course!)?

J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Dalton]

On 23 April 2012 17:50, Risker  wrote:
>> I am very surprised that it would require going through 600 emails to
>> find out how many cases the OC has dealt with over the past year. If
>> they don't have that information somewhere, then they can't have been
>> doing a good job. There is no way they can do their job properly
>> without knowing what cases they've received...
>
> I don't think your correlation is correct.  Simply because they have not
> maintained a list of case dispositions (not required or expected to this
> point, and more particularly very difficult to do when there's no
> confidential place for them to retain it) does not mean that they have
> failed to do the job properly.

How can you make sure you don't forget any cases if you don't keep a
record of them?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Risker, 23/04/2012 18:50:

I don't think your correlation is correct.  Simply because they have not
maintained a list of case dispositions (not required or expected to this
point, and more particularly very difficult to do when there's no
confidential place for them to retain it) does not mean that they have
failed to do the job properly.


Well, personally I find it difficult to manahe such a number of requests 
in a collaborative way without a shared todo list. As Thogo said, the 
commission is looking for a way to self-organize in a more efficient way 
as the requests are scaling up compared to the past.




I note the plan to create accesses to CRMs for "community" uses in Q3 of
the draft Engineering annual plan.  I'd encourage the Ombudsman Committee
to ask that they be put at the front of the line for access to this
software.


I'm not sure we need new software, probably some suggestions by similar 
bodies would be enough (ArbComs, committees of all sorts, chapters' 
boards... we have lots of them).
However, you're right that 
 is 
very important and deserves more attention.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Bence Damokos]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 6:41 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2012/4/23 Delphine Ménard :
> > 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.
>
> I am very surprised that it would require going through 600 emails to
> find out how many cases the OC has dealt with over the past year. If
> they don't have that information somewhere, then they can't have been
> doing a good job. There is no way they can do their job properly
> without knowing what cases they've received...
>
Knowing _what_ cases they have received is entirely different from keeping
track of _how many_ they have received. I assume they could very easily
ascertain if a given complaint is a duplicate of an already solved case,
but would have to do some work to count up the previous cases.


Best regards,
Bence

>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Risker]

On 23 April 2012 12:41, Thomas Dalton  wrote:

> 2012/4/23 Delphine Ménard :
> > 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.
>
> I am very surprised that it would require going through 600 emails to
> find out how many cases the OC has dealt with over the past year. If
> they don't have that information somewhere, then they can't have been
> doing a good job. There is no way they can do their job properly
> without knowing what cases they've received...
>
>

I don't think your correlation is correct.  Simply because they have not
maintained a list of case dispositions (not required or expected to this
point, and more particularly very difficult to do when there's no
confidential place for them to retain it) does not mean that they have
failed to do the job properly.

I note the plan to create accesses to CRMs for "community" uses in Q3 of
the draft Engineering annual plan.  I'd encourage the Ombudsman Committee
to ask that they be put at the front of the line for access to this
software.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Dalton]

2012/4/23 Delphine Ménard :
> 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.

I am very surprised that it would require going through 600 emails to
find out how many cases the OC has dealt with over the past year. If
they don't have that information somewhere, then they can't have been
doing a good job. There is no way they can do their job properly
without knowing what cases they've received...

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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 :
> 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  
> wrote:
>> 2012/4/23 Mike Christie :
>>> 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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>
>
> --
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>
> NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get 
> lost.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Delphine Ménard]

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  wrote:
> 2012/4/23 Mike Christie :
>> 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]

2012/4/23 Mike Christie :
> 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]

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

[Mike Christie]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Craig Franklin  wrote:
> 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

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?

I don't have a strong opinion on this particular request -- I spent
years as a corporate ombudsman and so I understand the concerns about
privacy and confidentiality, but the request seems reasonable.
However, if Thomas feels that it's not as important as other tasks
that he has been given to do, what's the expectation -- that he should
post an explanation, but is not obliged to do the task?

I suppose this is a special case of a general question: presumably WMF
employees have two masters -- the decisions of the board, which should
trickle down into directives to each group and employee, and
prevailing consensus in the communities, which may occasionally
conflict with those directives, or which may lead to vocal minority
dissent.  I have seen a couple of examples of this in practice but I
don't have a clear idea of how those conflicts ought to be resolved.

Mike

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

2012/4/23 Thehelpfulone :
> 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]

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

[Thehelpfulone]

On 23 Apr 2012, at 13:02, Thomas Goldammer  wrote:

>> 
>> 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.

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.

> 
>> 
>> 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?)

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.

> 

Thehelpfulone
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Craig Franklin]

>
> Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:02:29 +0200
> From: Thomas Goldammer 
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission
> Message-ID:
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> > 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.
>

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 Thomas Dalton :
> 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 Dalton]

On 23 April 2012 11:06, Thomas Goldammer  wrote:
> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Philippe Beaudette]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:49 AM, Huib Laurens  wrote:

> On my behalve a letter has been send to the foundation and the same letter
> has ben send by fax. How formal do you wish to get it?
>
> Nor I or the person that sended this communication on my behalf got a
> responds about the complaint self, we only got the responds "We don't think
> any office action is needed".
>
> Best,
>
> Huib


Bearing in mind that it's nearly 4AM, but I'm not aware of that letter.  If
such a letter was sent, of course, we'll increment that to "1" from zero. :)

pb
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Philippe Beaudette, 23/04/2012 12:20:

That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l.  For a
formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.


What's a "formal complaint" then? I don't see anywhere instruction about 
how to file one and all ways I can think of don't seem adequate.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Huib Laurens]

On my behalve a letter has been send to the foundation and the same letter
has ben send by fax. How formal do you wish to get it?

Nor I or the person that sended this communication on my behalf got a
responds about the complaint self, we only got the responds "We don't think
any office action is needed".

Best,

Huib

On Monday, April 23, 2012, Philippe Beaudette 
wrote:
U> That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l.  For a
> formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.
>
> pb
> ___
> Philippe Beaudette
> Director, Community Advocacy
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>
> phili...@wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Etienne Beaule wrote:
>
>> Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint.  Let's say 1.
>>
>> Ebe123
>>
>>
>> On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette"  wrote:
>>
>> > On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >>> * 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.
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > To my knowledge, none.
>> >
>> > pb
>> >
>> > ___
>> > Philippe Beaudette
>> > Director, Community Advocacy
>> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>> >
>> > 415-839-6885, x 6643
>> >
>> > phili...@wikimedia.org
>> >
>> > 
>> > ___
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>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Kind regards,

Huib Laurens
WickedWay.nl

Webhosting the wicked way.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Lodewijk]

Exactly, I was referring to formal complaints which probably have the
intention to reaching out to the board.

In any case, I think it would be very helpful if the information Thomas has
provided could be summarized in a short report on meta so that it is also a
template for the future. Perhaps some of the numbers can even be made more
precise (number wizards probably can extract the number of emails more
easily etc - although I realize now that most likely your mailing list has
no archive :) ).

The process I referred to is everything that happens between the receipt of
a complaint about privacy violation and the final action decision taken by
the committee. I.e. "1. Confirm receipt of the complaint. 2. Register
complaint for tracking purposes. 3. Decide if the complaint falls within
scope of the committee..." etc.  That would complainors give an idea what
is going to happen with their complaint and what they can expect. Currently
the description is quite vague on meta :)

Thanks for all the answers so far!

Lodewijk

El 23 de abril de 2012 12:20, Philippe Beaudette
escribió:

> That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l.  For a
> formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.
>
> pb
> ___
> Philippe Beaudette
> Director, Community Advocacy
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>
> phili...@wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Etienne Beaule  >wrote:
>
> > Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint.  Let's say 1.
> >
> > Ebe123
> >
> >
> > On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette" 
> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >>> * 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.
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > To my knowledge, none.
> > >
> > > pb
> > >
> > > ___
> > > Philippe Beaudette
> > > Director, Community Advocacy
> > > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> > >
> > > 415-839-6885, x 6643
> > >
> > > phili...@wikimedia.org
> > >
> > > 
> > > ___
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> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Philippe Beaudette]

That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l.  For a
formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.

pb
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phili...@wikimedia.org



On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Etienne Beaule wrote:

> Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint.  Let's say 1.
>
> Ebe123
>
>
> On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette"  wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer
> > wrote:
> >
> >>> * 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.
> >>
> >
> >
> > To my knowledge, none.
> >
> > pb
> >
> > ___
> > Philippe Beaudette
> > Director, Community Advocacy
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> >
> > 415-839-6885, x 6643
> >
> > phili...@wikimedia.org
> >
> > 
> > ___
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> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Etienne Beaule]

Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint.  Let's say 1.

Ebe123


On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette"  wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer
> wrote:
> 
>>> * 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.
>> 
> 
> 
> To my knowledge, none.
> 
> pb
> 
> ___
> Philippe Beaudette
> Director, Community Advocacy
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> 
> 415-839-6885, x 6643
> 
> phili...@wikimedia.org
> 
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Philippe Beaudette]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer wrote:

> > * 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.
>


To my knowledge, none.

pb

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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
> page)
> 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

[Lodewijk]

Hi Thomas,

of course the privacy of those involved needs to be guarantueed. But
questions I had in mind were:

* How many cases were brought to your attention?
* How many of those did you consider serious enough to warrant
investigation beyond direct dismissal?
* How many cases did you take on *proactively* (without a solid complaint)?
* In how many cases in total did the committee take action (or advise the
WMF to take action)?
* How many emails did you exchange over the past year on your mailing list?
* Were you able to send a confirmation with the outcome of the case to
every complainor?
* Was the person complained about informed every time of the fact they were
under investigation?
* Is the process accurately described on meta?
* Do you have steps in place to ensure every single request gets the follow
up it needs, if not will that be improved?
* How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of the
committee?

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
page)
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.

Best,

Lodewijk

El 23 de abril de 2012 01:51, Thomas Goldammer escribió:

> Hi all,
>
> Well, I think an annual report is a good idea. However, there is not
> much we are allowed to report, for obvious reasons. I can tell you
> that we had a number of requests (about 30, depending on what you
> count as request), some of which were pretty difficult to deal with
> and therefore took a while (or are still pending). We cannot tell you
> which projects (or even people) were involved or what the results
> were. Sometimes, the language barrier was a bit hindering, so I pretty
> much appreciate the effort to maintain a level of language diversity
> within the committee, also for future committee searches.
>
> However, I want to point out that at least half of the requests that
> came to us, had nothing to do with the privacy policy and were
> therefore not dealt with in detail. We always tried to direct the
> people to the right place where they could get help for their
> individual problem, but we do not know if they actually got help. In
> most of these cases, the problem was more of a sort an arbcom would be
> able to deal with. I (personally) still very much support the idea of
> creating a Global Requests Committee, the proposal for which was
> developed last year, but has not yet been created, for whatever
> reason. This body could handle such and similar requests and some
> other things and it would ease our work as we could just give such
> cases to this body.
>
> Best regards,
> Thogo.
>
> 2012/4/23 Philippe Beaudette :
> > 
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
> nemow...@gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask
> the
> >> commission whether they reached them.
> >
> >
> >
> > I think this is an excellent idea.  Although I'd encourage you to
> position
> > it as "this is what the community would like to see going forward" - it's
> > not fair to hold a past commission to metrics they didn't know they had.
>  :)
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Thomas Goldammer]

Hi all,

Well, I think an annual report is a good idea. However, there is not
much we are allowed to report, for obvious reasons. I can tell you
that we had a number of requests (about 30, depending on what you
count as request), some of which were pretty difficult to deal with
and therefore took a while (or are still pending). We cannot tell you
which projects (or even people) were involved or what the results
were. Sometimes, the language barrier was a bit hindering, so I pretty
much appreciate the effort to maintain a level of language diversity
within the committee, also for future committee searches.

However, I want to point out that at least half of the requests that
came to us, had nothing to do with the privacy policy and were
therefore not dealt with in detail. We always tried to direct the
people to the right place where they could get help for their
individual problem, but we do not know if they actually got help. In
most of these cases, the problem was more of a sort an arbcom would be
able to deal with. I (personally) still very much support the idea of
creating a Global Requests Committee, the proposal for which was
developed last year, but has not yet been created, for whatever
reason. This body could handle such and similar requests and some
other things and it would ease our work as we could just give such
cases to this body.

Best regards,
Thogo.

2012/4/23 Philippe Beaudette :
> 
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask the
>> commission whether they reached them.
>
>
>
> I think this is an excellent idea.  Although I'd encourage you to position
> it as "this is what the community would like to see going forward" - it's
> not fair to hold a past commission to metrics they didn't know they had.  :)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Philippe Beaudette]

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:

>
> If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask the
> commission whether they reached them.



I think this is an excellent idea.  Although I'd encourage you to position
it as "this is what the community would like to see going forward" - it's
not fair to hold a past commission to metrics they didn't know they had.  :)

pb
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Philippe Beaudette]

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Béria Lima  wrote:

> Can you explain why you request another year from them  instead of running
> a new process, Philippe?
> _
> *Béria Lima*
>
>
Hi Beria -

It's a good question, and a fair one.

The truth is, there were a couple of factors:  first, did I believe the
current commission was doing a good job?  No, I actually think they're
doing an *exceptional* job.  Second, was there a desire from among
themselves for change?  Yes, Pundit wanted to be a steward, but when
Christine and I were scouting for this committee, we had anticipated
someone rotating off and had another commissioner who was already trained
and participating.  So the commission was stable.

Then, what is the cost and benefit of the search?  On the benefit side,
there's the ability to form a new commission with all the myriad benefits
that flow from that.  But on the contra side, I sort of felt like stability
is something good right now: systems are changing everywhere, and maybe
keeping this one with a core group of stable people who are doing a good
job is a good idea.  I continue to believe that is true.

In addition, running a search is costly: in time for volunteers and staff.
 This is a secondary consideration - obviously, if the preceding had not
been true, we'd have made the staff time to run the search.  But when I
looked at the realities of my transition to a new team, to not having
Christine to help, and at Maggie's workload, there was a definite savings
in "time beyond the norm" that would have been used to run this search.

They're hard:  it's more than just asking for volunteers.  We put together
the commission with an eye toward diversity of gender, project, language,
and geography, and we needed Wikimedians who are above reproach: this folks
are the ultimate arbiters of the checkuser tool, and they have to be
unblemished.  So much as a whiff of an issue around privacy, and things
could get very uncomfortable... so we did a lot of deep diving into
backgrounds.  It's a very very time intensive process, and we could frankly
use the time other places.

Finally, I continue to believe that we should stick with traditions that
make sense, but give them enough flexibility to change with circumstances:
so re-appointing the commission this time was partially intended to set
that as a possible solution going forward.  That said, in order to prevent
a "permanent committee", I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would
ever reappoint a full commission more than one time. But, I wanted to have
reappointment in my (or whomever's) list of tools for the future if need
be.

Hope that gives you some insight into my thinking.

pb
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Lodewijk, 22/04/2012 23:58:

As an unrelated sidenote, I still hope the committee will public an annual
report of her activities in summary (as I suggested a few members
privately).


If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask 
the commission whether they reached them.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Lodewijk]

Hi Anne,

it was however common procedure to ask publicly for applications before
making a decision on who are the best candidates. Maybe they are the best
there are - maybe not, we'll never know.

As an unrelated sidenote, I still hope the committee will public an annual
report of her activities in summary (as I suggested a few members
privately).

Best,

Lodewijk

El 22 de abril de 2012 21:46, Risker  escribió:

> Without commenting on the quality of the work of the Ombudsmen, I'll just
> point out that there has never been a vote for this position.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On 22 April 2012 15:43, Etienne Beaule  wrote:
>
> > Still, a vote for new members should of been done.
> >
> > Ebe123
> >
> >
> > On 12-04-22 4:29 PM, "Richard Symonds"  >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at
> > > least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...
> > >
> > > Richard
> > > On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima"  wrote:
> > >
> > >> Can you explain why you request another year from them  instead of
> > running
> > >> a new process, Philippe?
> > >> _
> > >> *Béria Lima*
> > >>
> > >> *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
> > >> livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
> > >> construir esse sonho. *
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette 
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and
> > >>> undramatically.  The ombudsman commission is such a committee.
>  Charged
> > >>> with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser
> > tool,
> > >>> the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism
> and
> > >>> efficiency.  The commission is appointed under the auspices of the
> > Board,
> > >>> who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
> > >> took
> > >>> it on.
> > >>>
> > >>> Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the
> ombudsmen
> > >> the
> > >>> ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All,
> with
> > >> the
> > >>> exception of one, have chosen to do so.  The one who has not is
> Pundit,
> > >> who
> > >>> has accepted a position as a steward.  Dweller, who was an advisory
> > >> member
> > >>> of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
> > >>>
> > >>> It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
> > >> extremely
> > >>> remiss in sending out the notification.  There was no lapse of
> > >> commission,
> > >>> and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
> > >>>
> > >>> Best wishes,
> > >>> pb
> > >>> ___
> > >>> Philippe Beaudette
> > >>> Director, Community Advocacy
> > >>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> > >>>
> > >>> 415-839-6885, x 6643
> > >>>
> > >>> phili...@wikimedia.org
> > >>> ___
> > >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > >>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >>> Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > >>>
> > >> ___
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> > >> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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> > >>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Risker]

Without commenting on the quality of the work of the Ombudsmen, I'll just
point out that there has never been a vote for this position.

Risker/Anne

On 22 April 2012 15:43, Etienne Beaule  wrote:

> Still, a vote for new members should of been done.
>
> Ebe123
>
>
> On 12-04-22 4:29 PM, "Richard Symonds" 
> wrote:
>
> > I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at
> > least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...
> >
> > Richard
> > On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima"  wrote:
> >
> >> Can you explain why you request another year from them  instead of
> running
> >> a new process, Philippe?
> >> _
> >> *Béria Lima*
> >>
> >> *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
> >> livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
> >> construir esse sonho. *
> >>
> >>
> >> On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette 
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and
> >>> undramatically.  The ombudsman commission is such a committee.  Charged
> >>> with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser
> tool,
> >>> the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and
> >>> efficiency.  The commission is appointed under the auspices of the
> Board,
> >>> who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
> >> took
> >>> it on.
> >>>
> >>> Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen
> >> the
> >>> ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with
> >> the
> >>> exception of one, have chosen to do so.  The one who has not is Pundit,
> >> who
> >>> has accepted a position as a steward.  Dweller, who was an advisory
> >> member
> >>> of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
> >>>
> >>> It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
> >> extremely
> >>> remiss in sending out the notification.  There was no lapse of
> >> commission,
> >>> and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
> >>>
> >>> Best wishes,
> >>> pb
> >>> ___
> >>> Philippe Beaudette
> >>> Director, Community Advocacy
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> >>>
> >>> 415-839-6885, x 6643
> >>>
> >>> phili...@wikimedia.org
> >>> ___
> >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> >>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >>>
> >> ___
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> >>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Etienne Beaule]

Still, a vote for new members should of been done.

Ebe123


On 12-04-22 4:29 PM, "Richard Symonds" 
wrote:

> I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at
> least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...
> 
> Richard
> On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima"  wrote:
> 
>> Can you explain why you request another year from them  instead of running
>> a new process, Philippe?
>> _
>> *Béria Lima*
>> 
>> *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
>> livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
>> construir esse sonho. *
>> 
>> 
>> On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette  wrote:
>> 
>>> A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and
>>> undramatically.  The ombudsman commission is such a committee.  Charged
>>> with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool,
>>> the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and
>>> efficiency.  The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board,
>>> who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
>> took
>>> it on.
>>> 
>>> Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen
>> the
>>> ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with
>> the
>>> exception of one, have chosen to do so.  The one who has not is Pundit,
>> who
>>> has accepted a position as a steward.  Dweller, who was an advisory
>> member
>>> of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
>>> 
>>> It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
>> extremely
>>> remiss in sending out the notification.  There was no lapse of
>> commission,
>>> and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
>>> 
>>> Best wishes,
>>> pb
>>> ___
>>> Philippe Beaudette
>>> Director, Community Advocacy
>>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>>> 
>>> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>>> 
>>> phili...@wikimedia.org
>>> ___
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>>> 
>> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Huib Laurens]

Yeah, they are doing a very good job...

One year a go with all the "abigor" drama everybody told go to the
umbutsman commision, and they never responded...

I'm happy to see that we keep the failing commite with the same people yet
another year.

Best,

Huib
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Richard Symonds]

I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at
least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...

Richard
On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima"  wrote:

> Can you explain why you request another year from them  instead of running
> a new process, Philippe?
> _
> *Béria Lima*
>
> *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
> livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
> construir esse sonho. *
>
>
> On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette  wrote:
>
> > A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and
> > undramatically.  The ombudsman commission is such a committee.  Charged
> > with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool,
> > the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and
> > efficiency.  The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board,
> > who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
> took
> > it on.
> >
> > Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen
> the
> > ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with
> the
> > exception of one, have chosen to do so.  The one who has not is Pundit,
> who
> > has accepted a position as a steward.  Dweller, who was an advisory
> member
> > of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
> >
> > It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
> extremely
> > remiss in sending out the notification.  There was no lapse of
> commission,
> > and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > pb
> > ___
> > Philippe Beaudette
> > Director, Community Advocacy
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> >
> > 415-839-6885, x 6643
> >
> > phili...@wikimedia.org
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Béria Lima]

Can you explain why you request another year from them  instead of running
a new process, Philippe?
_
*Béria Lima*

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a
construir esse sonho. *


On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette  wrote:

> A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and
> undramatically.  The ombudsman commission is such a committee.  Charged
> with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool,
> the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and
> efficiency.  The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board,
> who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I took
> it on.
>
> Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen the
> ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with the
> exception of one, have chosen to do so.  The one who has not is Pundit, who
> has accepted a position as a steward.  Dweller, who was an advisory member
> of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
>
> It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been extremely
> remiss in sending out the notification.  There was no lapse of commission,
> and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
>
> Best wishes,
> pb
> ___
> Philippe Beaudette
> Director, Community Advocacy
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>
> phili...@wikimedia.org
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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[Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[Philippe Beaudette]

A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and
undramatically.  The ombudsman commission is such a committee.  Charged
with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool,
the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and
efficiency.  The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board,
who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I took
it on.

Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen the
ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with the
exception of one, have chosen to do so.  The one who has not is Pundit, who
has accepted a position as a steward.  Dweller, who was an advisory member
of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.

It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been extremely
remiss in sending out the notification.  There was no lapse of commission,
and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.

Best wishes,
pb
___
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

415-839-6885, x 6643

phili...@wikimedia.org
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