Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[James Salsman]

Christophe,

Thank you for your kind words. I tried to take the discussion you quoted
off-list with mixed results, and I do not have permission to publish the
resulting thread. The one unresolved question that I think gets to the
heart of the matter is this:

If you urge restraint and limited political advocacy, you are less likely
to achieve your goals, but more likely to be able to get along with people
who are opposed to your goals. Which is more important?

Back in college, we had something called the "reasonable person policy"
which involved stepping back and asking, "is this a question on which
reasonable people might reasonably disagree," and allowing the discussion
if so. I have recently been told that my "AMD petition" post about removing
the closed source aspects of security co-processors which have been used to
eavesdrop was so far off-topic here and on wikitech-l as to deserve a stern
warning, and my attempt to resolve it resulted in the denial of my
permission to publish the off-list thread continuing what you quoted below.
That is clearly a topic on which reasonable people do disagree, and it
meets multiple criteria in the list charter's topic statement. Therefore I
appeal my warning to you, and ask that you ask the Board to endorse the
"AMD petition" because privacy is a necessary aspect of accomplishing the
Mission, even if you believe "empower" means nothing more than to
facilitate or enable.

Best regards,
Jim

On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 1:34 AM Christophe Henner 
wrote:

> Hey,
>
> I love that thread. Touchy topîc and yet an awesome discussion, Thank you
> so much :D
>
> A few month ago, little time after my election, I asked that question on
> Facebook and provided my own answer. And yes, I do believe that saying
> neutral knowledge should be freely accessible by everyone on the planet is
> kind of a really really really really strong political statement.
>
> I also think that "politic" discussion is hard to have as the word politics
> can bare many different meaning. One of them is derived on how we use it
> regarding national politics. We use politics as a word to include all
> politics (economic, social, education, etc.). And political party, or a
> political organization, will tend to adress all of them (or some).
>
> That is not what we are talking about actually. To me, I mean politic as,
> Asaf will love that, in latin (pertaining to public life). We are a
> political organization, we stand for strong values, but we are not
> political in the sense we're aligned with a specific party or candidate.
> And I don't know about the US, but one thing I love with french wikimedian
> is knowing some of them are so fare away from me on the political scale and
> yet share values (if I had time I would love to explain how I believe this
> is an exemple of why our political systems are broken ^^).
>
> So in the end, to me, the question is where do we draw the line when it
> comes to standing up for our values and, related questions, what are those
> values we should stand up for?
>
> But again, as a movement, we have the potential to have a huge impact on
> the world. That is not neutral, that is a force of change and change always
> is poltical.
>
>
>
> Christophe HENNER
> Chair of the board of trustees
> chen...@wikimedia.org
> +33650664739
>
> twitter *@schiste*skype *christophe_henner*
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 12:23 AM, Asaf Bartov 
> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 2:55 PM James Salsman  wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > The question I have been trying to ask, going back years now in fact,
> is
> > > whether "empower" refers to the political power to secure and retain
> > > the freedoms necessary and sufficent to contribute to the mission, or
> > > some other kind of power.
> > >
> >
> > Well, it's your lucky day: you're finally getting an answer!
> >
> > WMF's de-facto interpretation of "empower" in the [[m:Mission]] does
> *not*
> > include "political power to secure and retain the freedoms necessary and
> > sufficient to contribute to the mission".
> >
> > We do not directly solve people's lacking infrastructure (except
> indirectly
> > via partnerships like Wikipedia Zero), we do not provide computers to
> > billions of people who don't have them, we do not teach literacy to the
> > illiterate, we do not feed the poor so that they may contribute, and we
> do
> > not declare war on North Korea to free its poor people from the awful
> > tyranny they suffer under, to enable them to contribute.  The list goes
> on.
> >
> >
> > The concrete ways WMF worked to "empower" have been providing and
> > maintaining the main contribution platforms (the wikis), auxiliary
> > platforms (Tool Labs, Quarry, PAWS, Wikidata Query, etc.), funding for
> > *Wikimedia-related* activities via grants, programmatic resources and
> > mentorship, funding and support for international gatherings of the
> active
> > community, and a few other 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Fæ]

Looking at the archive, 16% of the posts to this single thread were by
Gerard Meijssen. This first and only post from me on this is to agree
with Yaroslav that it has been over-cooked and to point out that a
better forum for this type of extended chatter is Facebook; at least
until someone does something beyond vague opining.

How nice it would be to find well thought out and purposeful emails,
worth putting aside to mull over on a bus ride or train journey.
Instant one liners and two-party argumentative conversation seems to
swamp the handful of pearls to be discovered each month in repetitive
seaweed, and poorly punctuated driftwood.

Of course, this thread is still far more amusing than seeing my
mailbox filled with 20 one-liner empty congratulations that could have
so easily been made on a personal wiki page. But that view could be
down to my age induced irritability and past enhancing rose tinted
spectacles.

Fae

On 7 February 2017 at 21:43, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
> Shouldn't we just freeze this thread? It is not going to do any good.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 9:59 PM, Pete Forsyth  wrote:
>
>> On 02/07/2017 12:07 PM, Bill Takatoshi wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone can go to Recent Changes and send a SurveyMonkey link to the
>>> most recent few hundred editors with contributions at least a year
>>> old, to get an accurate answer.
>>>
>>> Will a respected member of the community please do this? I would like
>>> to know what the actual editing community thinks of the travel ban and
>>> their idea of an appropriate response. I don't want to see community
>>> governance by opt-in participation in obscure RFCs.
>>>
>>> I would offer to do this myself, but I value keeping my real name
>>> unassociated with my enwiki userid.
>>>
>>
>> Conducting a survey can have unforeseen challenges and impacts. A page
>> worth reviewing before running a survey:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Survey_best_practices
>>
>> The Wikimedia Foundation also offers support for those running surveys
>> (which is a different thing from persuading the WMF to run a survey itself):
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Surveys
>>
>> -Pete
>> [[User:Peteforsyth]]
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Shouldn't we just freeze this thread? It is not going to do any good.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 9:59 PM, Pete Forsyth  wrote:

> On 02/07/2017 12:07 PM, Bill Takatoshi wrote:
>
>> Anyone can go to Recent Changes and send a SurveyMonkey link to the
>> most recent few hundred editors with contributions at least a year
>> old, to get an accurate answer.
>>
>> Will a respected member of the community please do this? I would like
>> to know what the actual editing community thinks of the travel ban and
>> their idea of an appropriate response. I don't want to see community
>> governance by opt-in participation in obscure RFCs.
>>
>> I would offer to do this myself, but I value keeping my real name
>> unassociated with my enwiki userid.
>>
>
> Conducting a survey can have unforeseen challenges and impacts. A page
> worth reviewing before running a survey:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Survey_best_practices
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation also offers support for those running surveys
> (which is a different thing from persuading the WMF to run a survey itself):
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Surveys
>
> -Pete
> [[User:Peteforsyth]]
>
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik
> i/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Pete Forsyth]

On 02/07/2017 12:07 PM, Bill Takatoshi wrote:

Anyone can go to Recent Changes and send a SurveyMonkey link to the
most recent few hundred editors with contributions at least a year
old, to get an accurate answer.

Will a respected member of the community please do this? I would like
to know what the actual editing community thinks of the travel ban and
their idea of an appropriate response. I don't want to see community
governance by opt-in participation in obscure RFCs.

I would offer to do this myself, but I value keeping my real name
unassociated with my enwiki userid.


Conducting a survey can have unforeseen challenges and impacts. A page 
worth reviewing before running a survey:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Survey_best_practices

The Wikimedia Foundation also offers support for those running surveys 
(which is a different thing from persuading the WMF to run a survey itself):

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Surveys

-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Bill Takatoshi]

>>> The people who are loudest in their demands for consensus
>>> do not represent the Wikimedia movement.
>>
>> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the
>> Trump administration are not representative of the Wikimedia
>> movement either
>
> Is the Community Process Steering Committee currently
> prepared to "engage more 'quiet' members of our community"
> with a statistically robust snap survey to resolve this question?

Anyone can go to Recent Changes and send a SurveyMonkey link to the
most recent few hundred editors with contributions at least a year
old, to get an accurate answer.

Will a respected member of the community please do this? I would like
to know what the actual editing community thinks of the travel ban and
their idea of an appropriate response. I don't want to see community
governance by opt-in participation in obscure RFCs.

I would offer to do this myself, but I value keeping my real name
unassociated with my enwiki userid.

-Will

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[James Salsman]

>> The people who are loudest in their demands for consensus
>> do not represent the Wikimedia movement.
>
> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the
> Trump administration are not representative of the Wikimedia
> movement either

Is the Community Process Steering Committee currently
prepared to "engage more 'quiet' members of our community"
with a statistically robust snap survey to resolve this question?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

1) I work for free for what I would like to think of as a non-profit 
educational organization. The rest are businesses looking for cheaper labor.
2) We have a number of policies (such as no advertising) to distance the work 
of creating and maintainin content from commercial concerns. Working 
hand-in-hand politically with for-profit companies is just as undermining to 
the supposed purpose of Wikimedia projects.
3)You are the company you keep. All those signatories are from the same narrow 
worldview.


From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of Gerard 
Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2017 7:55:51 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

Hoi,
What is your point? These companies have the same problem we face. Are
companies bad because they are companies?

NB we have it worse because many of our contributors cannot come to our
only office either.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 7 February 2017 at 15:41, Leigh Thelmadatter <osama...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> And yet, here is the amicus brief signed by the Wikimedia Foundation,
> along with, not nearly 100 non-profit organizations but Silicon Valley tec
> companies.
>
>
> http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/06/
> 17-35105%20amicus%20tech%20companies.pdf
>
>
> 
> From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of
> Robert Fernandez <wikigamal...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2017 7:09:07 AM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
>
> >The world is not San Francisco.
>
> That's rather dismissive of those of us who have nothing to do with
> San Francisco.   You complain about the WMF not listening to voices in
> the community but you ignore a large part of that community who
> disagrees with you.
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 7:49 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter <osama...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The
> > people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent
> the
> > Wikimedia movement.
> >
> >
> > The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the Trump
> administration are not representative of the Wikimedia movement either...
> they have been WMF employees and those closest to them. This is maybe why
> most non-profits hire EDs from outside the organization then from within.
> As you show, Gerard, there has been no effort to find out what the movement
> thinks, and that may have been those behind the statement and amicus brief
> just assumed everybody would agree with them. The world is not San
> Francisco.
> >
> >
> > 
> > From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf
> of Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> > Sent: Monday, February 6, 2017 10:51:24 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
> >
> > Hoi,
> > As far as I am concerned, the WMF is not democratic. It does not matter.
> > What does matter is that people only care about their own arguments and
> are
> > not willing to entertain the considerations of others. While to some
> extend
> > policies are worthwhile at the same time they prevent people from
> thinking.
> > The consequence of the conversation being in English and the location of
> > many of the "policies" is that English Wikipedia is over represented. It
> is
> > however less than 50% of our traffic and you would not consider this from
> > the demands put forward by this community. At the same time my perception
> > is that all our communities think they are inherently superior and
> because
> > of their policies refuse to collaborate with others. Wikidata is what I
> > most closely associate with and they refuse to collaborate with non
> > professional communities because there are errors in their work.
> Obviously
> > self reflection is lacking.
> >
> > Similar observations are possible for all the Wikipedia communities I
> know.
> >
> > When we consider the world outside of our movement; we have been quite
> > happy to condemn actions by the Chinese government. Now that the US
> > American negatively impacts the WMF workforce and the ability for people
> to
> > come to the WMF office people object that they are not consulted. Again,
> we
> > are not a democracy and the "policies" have to function in the real
> world.
> > In the real world our director and our board are allowed and do as the
> > situation requires. In the real world two lawyers with experience in this
> > field

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
What is your point? These companies have the same problem we face. Are
companies bad because they are companies?

NB we have it worse because many of our contributors cannot come to our
only office either.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 7 February 2017 at 15:41, Leigh Thelmadatter <osama...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> And yet, here is the amicus brief signed by the Wikimedia Foundation,
> along with, not nearly 100 non-profit organizations but Silicon Valley tec
> companies.
>
>
> http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/06/
> 17-35105%20amicus%20tech%20companies.pdf
>
>
> 
> From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of
> Robert Fernandez <wikigamal...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2017 7:09:07 AM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
>
> >The world is not San Francisco.
>
> That's rather dismissive of those of us who have nothing to do with
> San Francisco.   You complain about the WMF not listening to voices in
> the community but you ignore a large part of that community who
> disagrees with you.
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 7:49 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter <osama...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The
> > people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent
> the
> > Wikimedia movement.
> >
> >
> > The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the Trump
> administration are not representative of the Wikimedia movement either...
> they have been WMF employees and those closest to them. This is maybe why
> most non-profits hire EDs from outside the organization then from within.
> As you show, Gerard, there has been no effort to find out what the movement
> thinks, and that may have been those behind the statement and amicus brief
> just assumed everybody would agree with them. The world is not San
> Francisco.
> >
> >
> > 
> > From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf
> of Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> > Sent: Monday, February 6, 2017 10:51:24 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
> >
> > Hoi,
> > As far as I am concerned, the WMF is not democratic. It does not matter.
> > What does matter is that people only care about their own arguments and
> are
> > not willing to entertain the considerations of others. While to some
> extend
> > policies are worthwhile at the same time they prevent people from
> thinking.
> > The consequence of the conversation being in English and the location of
> > many of the "policies" is that English Wikipedia is over represented. It
> is
> > however less than 50% of our traffic and you would not consider this from
> > the demands put forward by this community. At the same time my perception
> > is that all our communities think they are inherently superior and
> because
> > of their policies refuse to collaborate with others. Wikidata is what I
> > most closely associate with and they refuse to collaborate with non
> > professional communities because there are errors in their work.
> Obviously
> > self reflection is lacking.
> >
> > Similar observations are possible for all the Wikipedia communities I
> know.
> >
> > When we consider the world outside of our movement; we have been quite
> > happy to condemn actions by the Chinese government. Now that the US
> > American negatively impacts the WMF workforce and the ability for people
> to
> > come to the WMF office people object that they are not consulted. Again,
> we
> > are not a democracy and the "policies" have to function in the real
> world.
> > In the real world our director and our board are allowed and do as the
> > situation requires. In the real world two lawyers with experience in this
> > field indicate that action indeed needs to be taken now. Hallelujah.
> >
> > The WMF is not a member organisation. Chapters are. Chapters however do
> not
> > represent our projects and consequently they have no direct impact on the
> > WMF itself. Consensus while admirable does not mean representation. The
> > people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent
> the
> > Wikimedia movement. As it is, the current situation where we have a board
> > that reflects the international composition of our movement does really
> > well. They do consider the thoughts of the community but if anything they
> > are also stifling what we do with too many well meant policies that are
> > seen as law.
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

And yet, here is the amicus brief signed by the Wikimedia Foundation, along 
with, not nearly 100 non-profit organizations but Silicon Valley tec companies.


http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/06/17-35105%20amicus%20tech%20companies.pdf



From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of Robert 
Fernandez <wikigamal...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2017 7:09:07 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

>The world is not San Francisco.

That's rather dismissive of those of us who have nothing to do with
San Francisco.   You complain about the WMF not listening to voices in
the community but you ignore a large part of that community who
disagrees with you.


On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 7:49 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter <osama...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> The
> people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
> Wikimedia movement.
>
>
> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the Trump 
> administration are not representative of the Wikimedia movement either... 
> they have been WMF employees and those closest to them. This is maybe why 
> most non-profits hire EDs from outside the organization then from within. As 
> you show, Gerard, there has been no effort to find out what the movement 
> thinks, and that may have been those behind the statement and amicus brief 
> just assumed everybody would agree with them. The world is not San Francisco.
>
>
> 
> From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of 
> Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 6, 2017 10:51:24 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
>
> Hoi,
> As far as I am concerned, the WMF is not democratic. It does not matter.
> What does matter is that people only care about their own arguments and are
> not willing to entertain the considerations of others. While to some extend
> policies are worthwhile at the same time they prevent people from thinking.
> The consequence of the conversation being in English and the location of
> many of the "policies" is that English Wikipedia is over represented. It is
> however less than 50% of our traffic and you would not consider this from
> the demands put forward by this community. At the same time my perception
> is that all our communities think they are inherently superior and because
> of their policies refuse to collaborate with others. Wikidata is what I
> most closely associate with and they refuse to collaborate with non
> professional communities because there are errors in their work. Obviously
> self reflection is lacking.
>
> Similar observations are possible for all the Wikipedia communities I know.
>
> When we consider the world outside of our movement; we have been quite
> happy to condemn actions by the Chinese government. Now that the US
> American negatively impacts the WMF workforce and the ability for people to
> come to the WMF office people object that they are not consulted. Again, we
> are not a democracy and the "policies" have to function in the real world.
> In the real world our director and our board are allowed and do as the
> situation requires. In the real world two lawyers with experience in this
> field indicate that action indeed needs to be taken now. Hallelujah.
>
> The WMF is not a member organisation. Chapters are. Chapters however do not
> represent our projects and consequently they have no direct impact on the
> WMF itself. Consensus while admirable does not mean representation. The
> people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
> Wikimedia movement. As it is, the current situation where we have a board
> that reflects the international composition of our movement does really
> well. They do consider the thoughts of the community but if anything they
> are also stifling what we do with too many well meant policies that are
> seen as law.
>
> Rules, guidelines even laws are a necessity. But they have a tendency to
> empower those with the loudest voice and they favour the incumbent. The
> current US government has a disdain for the law and as a consequence this
> invalidates the normal use of rules, guidelines and even laws. They are
> invalidated because the attention to what happens is as immediate as the
> pace whereby new ukazes are issued.
>
> If anything we are blessed with a board and a director who seek to inform,
> to connect to our communities and stay as close as possible to our general
> practice. They think and they react to a different world.. Again we face a
> world where much of our accomplishments are squandered to benefit

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Robert Fernandez]

>The world is not San Francisco.

That's rather dismissive of those of us who have nothing to do with
San Francisco.   You complain about the WMF not listening to voices in
the community but you ignore a large part of that community who
disagrees with you.


On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 7:49 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter <osama...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> The
> people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
> Wikimedia movement.
>
>
> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the Trump 
> administration are not representative of the Wikimedia movement either... 
> they have been WMF employees and those closest to them. This is maybe why 
> most non-profits hire EDs from outside the organization then from within. As 
> you show, Gerard, there has been no effort to find out what the movement 
> thinks, and that may have been those behind the statement and amicus brief 
> just assumed everybody would agree with them. The world is not San Francisco.
>
>
> 
> From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of 
> Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 6, 2017 10:51:24 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
>
> Hoi,
> As far as I am concerned, the WMF is not democratic. It does not matter.
> What does matter is that people only care about their own arguments and are
> not willing to entertain the considerations of others. While to some extend
> policies are worthwhile at the same time they prevent people from thinking.
> The consequence of the conversation being in English and the location of
> many of the "policies" is that English Wikipedia is over represented. It is
> however less than 50% of our traffic and you would not consider this from
> the demands put forward by this community. At the same time my perception
> is that all our communities think they are inherently superior and because
> of their policies refuse to collaborate with others. Wikidata is what I
> most closely associate with and they refuse to collaborate with non
> professional communities because there are errors in their work. Obviously
> self reflection is lacking.
>
> Similar observations are possible for all the Wikipedia communities I know.
>
> When we consider the world outside of our movement; we have been quite
> happy to condemn actions by the Chinese government. Now that the US
> American negatively impacts the WMF workforce and the ability for people to
> come to the WMF office people object that they are not consulted. Again, we
> are not a democracy and the "policies" have to function in the real world.
> In the real world our director and our board are allowed and do as the
> situation requires. In the real world two lawyers with experience in this
> field indicate that action indeed needs to be taken now. Hallelujah.
>
> The WMF is not a member organisation. Chapters are. Chapters however do not
> represent our projects and consequently they have no direct impact on the
> WMF itself. Consensus while admirable does not mean representation. The
> people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
> Wikimedia movement. As it is, the current situation where we have a board
> that reflects the international composition of our movement does really
> well. They do consider the thoughts of the community but if anything they
> are also stifling what we do with too many well meant policies that are
> seen as law.
>
> Rules, guidelines even laws are a necessity. But they have a tendency to
> empower those with the loudest voice and they favour the incumbent. The
> current US government has a disdain for the law and as a consequence this
> invalidates the normal use of rules, guidelines and even laws. They are
> invalidated because the attention to what happens is as immediate as the
> pace whereby new ukazes are issued.
>
> If anything we are blessed with a board and a director who seek to inform,
> to connect to our communities and stay as close as possible to our general
> practice. They think and they react to a different world.. Again we face a
> world where much of our accomplishments are squandered to benefit those who
> are the real people / organisations behind the current US government. I am
> happy that I still may vote in the Dutch elections I hope for a different
> outcome in the Netherlands.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On 6 February 2017 at 18:13, Adam Wight <awi...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> As wonderful as it is to see this discussion unfold, showing how many of us
>> care deeply about humanism and the movement's impact in the material 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Christophe Henner]

On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 1:49 PM, Leigh Thelmadatter 
wrote:

> The
> people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
> Wikimedia movement.
>
>
> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the Trump
> administration are not representative of the Wikimedia movement either...
> they have been WMF employees and those closest to them. This is maybe why
> most non-profits hire EDs from outside the organization then from within.
> As you show, Gerard, there has been no effort to find out what the movement
> thinks, and that may have been those behind the statement and amicus brief
> just assumed everybody would agree with them. The world is not San
> Francisco.
>
>


Hi,

I'm sorry but I cannot let that being said.

You are judging a lot of people quickly and harshly. The Wikimedia movement
employees all around the globe ARE wikimedians. They are part of the
movement as much as you and everyone in that thread is.

I am sorry, but your statement is definitly not ok. Being a volunteer
doesn't provide us with a bonus in engagement to our movement. They are
comited and engaged people, we have to respect that.

Second, you also pass judgement regarding our ED discreetly, again judging
without knowing. But Katherine is not where she is by chance but because it
is preceded by a long comitment to our values. Shall I remind you that back
in 2007 in another org, UNICEF, she was working on mediawiki. Looping back
to the first part actually, she was a wikimedian long before being an
employee, and that goes for a lot of the staff, not just her.

Finally, no the world is not San Francisco. And funnily enoug, in the board
there's only one person from San Francisco and two from the US (the second
being Jimmy and he no longer lives in the US). So you are definitly right,
the world is not San Francisco. It's much wider. And being able for the
movement's staff and volunteers to freely travel and exchange is key to our
success. Hence our standing regarding that specific Executive Order as it
prevents us, as an organization, and as a movement, to fullfill our
mission.

I am sorry if my email sounds harsh, but please do keep in mind that you're
passing a judgement on people that work countless hours with a huge
comitment to the movement they belong to.

Christophe
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
I do not care about Mr Trump, I care about what it means for us, for our
community and the employees of the WMF. You are right the world is not San
Francisco. It is why I do not bother you with my thoughts about my opinion
about him.
Thanks,
 GerardM

On 7 February 2017 at 13:49, Leigh Thelmadatter <osama...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> The
> people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
> Wikimedia movement.
>
>
> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the Trump
> administration are not representative of the Wikimedia movement either...
> they have been WMF employees and those closest to them. This is maybe why
> most non-profits hire EDs from outside the organization then from within.
> As you show, Gerard, there has been no effort to find out what the movement
> thinks, and that may have been those behind the statement and amicus brief
> just assumed everybody would agree with them. The world is not San
> Francisco.
>
>
> 
> From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of
> Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 6, 2017 10:51:24 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
>
> Hoi,
> As far as I am concerned, the WMF is not democratic. It does not matter.
> What does matter is that people only care about their own arguments and are
> not willing to entertain the considerations of others. While to some extend
> policies are worthwhile at the same time they prevent people from thinking.
> The consequence of the conversation being in English and the location of
> many of the "policies" is that English Wikipedia is over represented. It is
> however less than 50% of our traffic and you would not consider this from
> the demands put forward by this community. At the same time my perception
> is that all our communities think they are inherently superior and because
> of their policies refuse to collaborate with others. Wikidata is what I
> most closely associate with and they refuse to collaborate with non
> professional communities because there are errors in their work. Obviously
> self reflection is lacking.
>
> Similar observations are possible for all the Wikipedia communities I know.
>
> When we consider the world outside of our movement; we have been quite
> happy to condemn actions by the Chinese government. Now that the US
> American negatively impacts the WMF workforce and the ability for people to
> come to the WMF office people object that they are not consulted. Again, we
> are not a democracy and the "policies" have to function in the real world.
> In the real world our director and our board are allowed and do as the
> situation requires. In the real world two lawyers with experience in this
> field indicate that action indeed needs to be taken now. Hallelujah.
>
> The WMF is not a member organisation. Chapters are. Chapters however do not
> represent our projects and consequently they have no direct impact on the
> WMF itself. Consensus while admirable does not mean representation. The
> people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
> Wikimedia movement. As it is, the current situation where we have a board
> that reflects the international composition of our movement does really
> well. They do consider the thoughts of the community but if anything they
> are also stifling what we do with too many well meant policies that are
> seen as law.
>
> Rules, guidelines even laws are a necessity. But they have a tendency to
> empower those with the loudest voice and they favour the incumbent. The
> current US government has a disdain for the law and as a consequence this
> invalidates the normal use of rules, guidelines and even laws. They are
> invalidated because the attention to what happens is as immediate as the
> pace whereby new ukazes are issued.
>
> If anything we are blessed with a board and a director who seek to inform,
> to connect to our communities and stay as close as possible to our general
> practice. They think and they react to a different world.. Again we face a
> world where much of our accomplishments are squandered to benefit those who
> are the real people / organisations behind the current US government. I am
> happy that I still may vote in the Dutch elections I hope for a different
> outcome in the Netherlands.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On 6 February 2017 at 18:13, Adam Wight <awi...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Dear friends,
> >
> > As wonderful as it is to see this discussion unfold, showing how many of
> us
> > care deeply about humanism and the movement's impact in the material
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

The
people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
Wikimedia movement.


The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the Trump administration 
are not representative of the Wikimedia movement either... they have been WMF 
employees and those closest to them. This is maybe why most non-profits hire 
EDs from outside the organization then from within. As you show, Gerard, there 
has been no effort to find out what the movement thinks, and that may have been 
those behind the statement and amicus brief just assumed everybody would agree 
with them. The world is not San Francisco.



From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of Gerard 
Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 6, 2017 10:51:24 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

Hoi,
As far as I am concerned, the WMF is not democratic. It does not matter.
What does matter is that people only care about their own arguments and are
not willing to entertain the considerations of others. While to some extend
policies are worthwhile at the same time they prevent people from thinking.
The consequence of the conversation being in English and the location of
many of the "policies" is that English Wikipedia is over represented. It is
however less than 50% of our traffic and you would not consider this from
the demands put forward by this community. At the same time my perception
is that all our communities think they are inherently superior and because
of their policies refuse to collaborate with others. Wikidata is what I
most closely associate with and they refuse to collaborate with non
professional communities because there are errors in their work. Obviously
self reflection is lacking.

Similar observations are possible for all the Wikipedia communities I know.

When we consider the world outside of our movement; we have been quite
happy to condemn actions by the Chinese government. Now that the US
American negatively impacts the WMF workforce and the ability for people to
come to the WMF office people object that they are not consulted. Again, we
are not a democracy and the "policies" have to function in the real world.
In the real world our director and our board are allowed and do as the
situation requires. In the real world two lawyers with experience in this
field indicate that action indeed needs to be taken now. Hallelujah.

The WMF is not a member organisation. Chapters are. Chapters however do not
represent our projects and consequently they have no direct impact on the
WMF itself. Consensus while admirable does not mean representation. The
people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
Wikimedia movement. As it is, the current situation where we have a board
that reflects the international composition of our movement does really
well. They do consider the thoughts of the community but if anything they
are also stifling what we do with too many well meant policies that are
seen as law.

Rules, guidelines even laws are a necessity. But they have a tendency to
empower those with the loudest voice and they favour the incumbent. The
current US government has a disdain for the law and as a consequence this
invalidates the normal use of rules, guidelines and even laws. They are
invalidated because the attention to what happens is as immediate as the
pace whereby new ukazes are issued.

If anything we are blessed with a board and a director who seek to inform,
to connect to our communities and stay as close as possible to our general
practice. They think and they react to a different world.. Again we face a
world where much of our accomplishments are squandered to benefit those who
are the real people / organisations behind the current US government. I am
happy that I still may vote in the Dutch elections I hope for a different
outcome in the Netherlands.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 6 February 2017 at 18:13, Adam Wight <awi...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Dear friends,
>
> As wonderful as it is to see this discussion unfold, showing how many of us
> care deeply about humanism and the movement's impact in the material world,
> I'd like to observe that it also demonstrates how underdeveloped our
> movement-wide political processes are.  To my understanding, our tools
> consist of: a small group interested in participating in this mailing list,
> a small group who attends to metawiki, and an infrequent meeting of
> chapters.
>
> It seems that all of these venues are frustrated by a lack of real power,
> and Wikimedia-l in particular has the character of a pirate radio station
> or underground newspaper rather than a place where we can build consensus.
> There's certainly some value in the oppositional and antiestablishment
> perspective that comes out of this arrangement, but perhaps we're missing
> out on the b

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
As far as I am concerned, the WMF is not democratic. It does not matter.
What does matter is that people only care about their own arguments and are
not willing to entertain the considerations of others. While to some extend
policies are worthwhile at the same time they prevent people from thinking.
The consequence of the conversation being in English and the location of
many of the "policies" is that English Wikipedia is over represented. It is
however less than 50% of our traffic and you would not consider this from
the demands put forward by this community. At the same time my perception
is that all our communities think they are inherently superior and because
of their policies refuse to collaborate with others. Wikidata is what I
most closely associate with and they refuse to collaborate with non
professional communities because there are errors in their work. Obviously
self reflection is lacking.

Similar observations are possible for all the Wikipedia communities I know.

When we consider the world outside of our movement; we have been quite
happy to condemn actions by the Chinese government. Now that the US
American negatively impacts the WMF workforce and the ability for people to
come to the WMF office people object that they are not consulted. Again, we
are not a democracy and the "policies" have to function in the real world.
In the real world our director and our board are allowed and do as the
situation requires. In the real world two lawyers with experience in this
field indicate that action indeed needs to be taken now. Hallelujah.

The WMF is not a member organisation. Chapters are. Chapters however do not
represent our projects and consequently they have no direct impact on the
WMF itself. Consensus while admirable does not mean representation. The
people who are loudest in their demands for consensus do not represent the
Wikimedia movement. As it is, the current situation where we have a board
that reflects the international composition of our movement does really
well. They do consider the thoughts of the community but if anything they
are also stifling what we do with too many well meant policies that are
seen as law.

Rules, guidelines even laws are a necessity. But they have a tendency to
empower those with the loudest voice and they favour the incumbent. The
current US government has a disdain for the law and as a consequence this
invalidates the normal use of rules, guidelines and even laws. They are
invalidated because the attention to what happens is as immediate as the
pace whereby new ukazes are issued.

If anything we are blessed with a board and a director who seek to inform,
to connect to our communities and stay as close as possible to our general
practice. They think and they react to a different world.. Again we face a
world where much of our accomplishments are squandered to benefit those who
are the real people / organisations behind the current US government. I am
happy that I still may vote in the Dutch elections I hope for a different
outcome in the Netherlands.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 6 February 2017 at 18:13, Adam Wight  wrote:

> Dear friends,
>
> As wonderful as it is to see this discussion unfold, showing how many of us
> care deeply about humanism and the movement's impact in the material world,
> I'd like to observe that it also demonstrates how underdeveloped our
> movement-wide political processes are.  To my understanding, our tools
> consist of: a small group interested in participating in this mailing list,
> a small group who attends to metawiki, and an infrequent meeting of
> chapters.
>
> It seems that all of these venues are frustrated by a lack of real power,
> and Wikimedia-l in particular has the character of a pirate radio station
> or underground newspaper rather than a place where we can build consensus.
> There's certainly some value in the oppositional and antiestablishment
> perspective that comes out of this arrangement, but perhaps we're missing
> out on the benefits that would come from a fully-developed democracy?
>
> One alternative approach would be that Wikimedians resurrect something like
> a "membership organization" in which you collectively own the WMF and
> directly elect the entire Board.  Then you may find your questions
> answered, and have a path to building lasting consensus around
> movement-wide issues.
>
> Adam
> [[mw:User:Adamw]]
>
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 12:33 AM, Christophe Henner 
> wrote:
>
> > Hey,
> >
> > I love that thread. Touchy topîc and yet an awesome discussion, Thank you
> > so much :D
> >
> > A few month ago, little time after my election, I asked that question on
> > Facebook and provided my own answer. And yes, I do believe that saying
> > neutral knowledge should be freely accessible by everyone on the planet
> is
> > kind of a really really really really strong political statement.
> >
> > I also think that "politic" discussion is hard to have as the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Todd Allen]

And a partridge in a pear tree?

But seriously. This is exactly what I was afraid of with opening the door
to political advocacy.

Todd

On Feb 6, 2017 2:24 PM, "James Salsman"  wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 12:23 PM, Bill Takatoshi 
> wrote:
> >
> > I have no suggestion for what a banner might say, but I would like to
> > see such proposals from others.
>
> I propose: http://i.imgur.com/3Fb8Zrr.png
>
> Sincerely,
> Jim Salsman
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[James Salsman]

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 12:23 PM, Bill Takatoshi  wrote:
>
> I have no suggestion for what a banner might say, but I would like to
> see such proposals from others.

I propose: http://i.imgur.com/3Fb8Zrr.png

Sincerely,
Jim Salsman

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Adam Wight]

Dear friends,

As wonderful as it is to see this discussion unfold, showing how many of us
care deeply about humanism and the movement's impact in the material world,
I'd like to observe that it also demonstrates how underdeveloped our
movement-wide political processes are.  To my understanding, our tools
consist of: a small group interested in participating in this mailing list,
a small group who attends to metawiki, and an infrequent meeting of
chapters.

It seems that all of these venues are frustrated by a lack of real power,
and Wikimedia-l in particular has the character of a pirate radio station
or underground newspaper rather than a place where we can build consensus.
There's certainly some value in the oppositional and antiestablishment
perspective that comes out of this arrangement, but perhaps we're missing
out on the benefits that would come from a fully-developed democracy?

One alternative approach would be that Wikimedians resurrect something like
a "membership organization" in which you collectively own the WMF and
directly elect the entire Board.  Then you may find your questions
answered, and have a path to building lasting consensus around
movement-wide issues.

Adam
[[mw:User:Adamw]]

On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 12:33 AM, Christophe Henner 
wrote:

> Hey,
>
> I love that thread. Touchy topîc and yet an awesome discussion, Thank you
> so much :D
>
> A few month ago, little time after my election, I asked that question on
> Facebook and provided my own answer. And yes, I do believe that saying
> neutral knowledge should be freely accessible by everyone on the planet is
> kind of a really really really really strong political statement.
>
> I also think that "politic" discussion is hard to have as the word politics
> can bare many different meaning. One of them is derived on how we use it
> regarding national politics. We use politics as a word to include all
> politics (economic, social, education, etc.). And political party, or a
> political organization, will tend to adress all of them (or some).
>
> That is not what we are talking about actually. To me, I mean politic as,
> Asaf will love that, in latin (pertaining to public life). We are a
> political organization, we stand for strong values, but we are not
> political in the sense we're aligned with a specific party or candidate.
> And I don't know about the US, but one thing I love with french wikimedian
> is knowing some of them are so fare away from me on the political scale and
> yet share values (if I had time I would love to explain how I believe this
> is an exemple of why our political systems are broken ^^).
>
> So in the end, to me, the question is where do we draw the line when it
> comes to standing up for our values and, related questions, what are those
> values we should stand up for?
>
> But again, as a movement, we have the potential to have a huge impact on
> the world. That is not neutral, that is a force of change and change always
> is poltical.
>
>
>
> Christophe HENNER
> Chair of the board of trustees
> chen...@wikimedia.org
> +33650664739
>
> twitter *@schiste*skype *christophe_henner*
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 12:23 AM, Asaf Bartov 
> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 2:55 PM James Salsman  wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > The question I have been trying to ask, going back years now in fact,
> is
> > > whether "empower" refers to the political power to secure and retain
> > > the freedoms necessary and sufficent to contribute to the mission, or
> > > some other kind of power.
> > >
> >
> > Well, it's your lucky day: you're finally getting an answer!
> >
> > WMF's de-facto interpretation of "empower" in the [[m:Mission]] does
> *not*
> > include "political power to secure and retain the freedoms necessary and
> > sufficient to contribute to the mission".
> >
> > We do not directly solve people's lacking infrastructure (except
> indirectly
> > via partnerships like Wikipedia Zero), we do not provide computers to
> > billions of people who don't have them, we do not teach literacy to the
> > illiterate, we do not feed the poor so that they may contribute, and we
> do
> > not declare war on North Korea to free its poor people from the awful
> > tyranny they suffer under, to enable them to contribute.  The list goes
> on.
> >
> >
> > The concrete ways WMF worked to "empower" have been providing and
> > maintaining the main contribution platforms (the wikis), auxiliary
> > platforms (Tool Labs, Quarry, PAWS, Wikidata Query, etc.), funding for
> > *Wikimedia-related* activities via grants, programmatic resources and
> > mentorship, funding and support for international gatherings of the
> active
> > community, and a few other things.
> >
> > Your aspirational expansive interpretation (which includes paying editors
> > to enable them to contribute, if memory serves) of "empower" has never
> been
> > close to what WMF, under its various leaderships, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Christophe Henner]

Hey,

I love that thread. Touchy topîc and yet an awesome discussion, Thank you
so much :D

A few month ago, little time after my election, I asked that question on
Facebook and provided my own answer. And yes, I do believe that saying
neutral knowledge should be freely accessible by everyone on the planet is
kind of a really really really really strong political statement.

I also think that "politic" discussion is hard to have as the word politics
can bare many different meaning. One of them is derived on how we use it
regarding national politics. We use politics as a word to include all
politics (economic, social, education, etc.). And political party, or a
political organization, will tend to adress all of them (or some).

That is not what we are talking about actually. To me, I mean politic as,
Asaf will love that, in latin (pertaining to public life). We are a
political organization, we stand for strong values, but we are not
political in the sense we're aligned with a specific party or candidate.
And I don't know about the US, but one thing I love with french wikimedian
is knowing some of them are so fare away from me on the political scale and
yet share values (if I had time I would love to explain how I believe this
is an exemple of why our political systems are broken ^^).

So in the end, to me, the question is where do we draw the line when it
comes to standing up for our values and, related questions, what are those
values we should stand up for?

But again, as a movement, we have the potential to have a huge impact on
the world. That is not neutral, that is a force of change and change always
is poltical.



Christophe HENNER
Chair of the board of trustees
chen...@wikimedia.org
+33650664739

twitter *@schiste*skype *christophe_henner*



On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 12:23 AM, Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 2:55 PM James Salsman  wrote:
>
> >
> > The question I have been trying to ask, going back years now in fact, is
> > whether "empower" refers to the political power to secure and retain
> > the freedoms necessary and sufficent to contribute to the mission, or
> > some other kind of power.
> >
>
> Well, it's your lucky day: you're finally getting an answer!
>
> WMF's de-facto interpretation of "empower" in the [[m:Mission]] does *not*
> include "political power to secure and retain the freedoms necessary and
> sufficient to contribute to the mission".
>
> We do not directly solve people's lacking infrastructure (except indirectly
> via partnerships like Wikipedia Zero), we do not provide computers to
> billions of people who don't have them, we do not teach literacy to the
> illiterate, we do not feed the poor so that they may contribute, and we do
> not declare war on North Korea to free its poor people from the awful
> tyranny they suffer under, to enable them to contribute.  The list goes on.
>
>
> The concrete ways WMF worked to "empower" have been providing and
> maintaining the main contribution platforms (the wikis), auxiliary
> platforms (Tool Labs, Quarry, PAWS, Wikidata Query, etc.), funding for
> *Wikimedia-related* activities via grants, programmatic resources and
> mentorship, funding and support for international gatherings of the active
> community, and a few other things.
>
> Your aspirational expansive interpretation (which includes paying editors
> to enable them to contribute, if memory serves) of "empower" has never been
> close to what WMF, under its various leaderships, ever considered
> appropriate.
>
> Now that your years-long query has an answer, perhaps you can stop asking.
>
>A.
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Asaf Bartov]

On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 2:55 PM James Salsman  wrote:

>
> The question I have been trying to ask, going back years now in fact, is
> whether "empower" refers to the political power to secure and retain
> the freedoms necessary and sufficent to contribute to the mission, or
> some other kind of power.
>

Well, it's your lucky day: you're finally getting an answer!

WMF's de-facto interpretation of "empower" in the [[m:Mission]] does *not*
include "political power to secure and retain the freedoms necessary and
sufficient to contribute to the mission".

We do not directly solve people's lacking infrastructure (except indirectly
via partnerships like Wikipedia Zero), we do not provide computers to
billions of people who don't have them, we do not teach literacy to the
illiterate, we do not feed the poor so that they may contribute, and we do
not declare war on North Korea to free its poor people from the awful
tyranny they suffer under, to enable them to contribute.  The list goes on.


The concrete ways WMF worked to "empower" have been providing and
maintaining the main contribution platforms (the wikis), auxiliary
platforms (Tool Labs, Quarry, PAWS, Wikidata Query, etc.), funding for
*Wikimedia-related* activities via grants, programmatic resources and
mentorship, funding and support for international gatherings of the active
community, and a few other things.

Your aspirational expansive interpretation (which includes paying editors
to enable them to contribute, if memory serves) of "empower" has never been
close to what WMF, under its various leaderships, ever considered
appropriate.

Now that your years-long query has an answer, perhaps you can stop asking.

   A.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[James Salsman]

On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 2:15 AM Yair Rand  wrote:

> The Guidelines on Foundation Policy and Political Association
> established by WMF Legal for internal use, specifically bring up the
> issue of "public endorsement or critique" of political policies, listing
> several requirements for doing so, and further requiring that they "should
> protect and advance Wikimedia’s mission “to empower and engage people
> around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free
> license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and
> globally.” Accordingly, we will not support causes unrelated to or
> inconsistent with that mission."


The question I have been trying to ask, going back years now in fact, is
whether "empower" refers to the political power to secure and retain the
freedoms necessary and sufficent to contribute to the mission, or some
other kind of power.

>
The recent blog post says "We strongly urge the U.S. administration to
> withdraw the recent executive order ... closing the doors to many
> refugees." I have yet to hear any arguments regarding how that statement
> specifically protects and advances our mission.


Many people have described how interfering with the travel of existing
employees is substantially more disruptive than restricting the range of
possible employees who have not yet been hired.

I have, on the other hand, heard on this list many arguments by people
> explaining reasons ... that are not directly related to our mission.

That depends on what "empower" means. If our volunteers have less resources
or free time, is their any question that the movement suffers?

Sincerely,
Jim Salsman
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
We do have values and  my arguments are solid  what I find
lacking is any argument whereby you try to convince us what I am missing.
Let me be blunt. I hate the way people abuse political sentiments and try
to convince us that they are enough to not see the facts that are in front
of us. What I find is that we do not care for arguments, only when they are
"our" own are they accepted. "Us" is only the small group "we" belong to.

For me the fact that some policy exists does not mean that it is the final
word on anything. When employees of the Wikimedia Foundation cannot come
and go to the place where their family is, it is the strongest possible
argument that there is a problem. A problem we cannot ignore, a problem we
should not ignore. I positively hate policies because they are used to stop
people from thinking.

You attribute "political positions" to me. That is ok except I am not part
of your USA political system. I cannot vote there but it does affect the
movement I dearly love. So my position is not based on the power plays that
happen in the USA. My position is based on the effect it has on our
movement. Our movement is based on objective facts, sources, equal play for
any position and equal representation of cultures and countries in our
encyclopedia. To be honest we should do better.

PS we can not maintain that what we do has a neutral point of view when
much of the equalities mentioned fail to materialise.
Thanks,
 GerardM

On 5 February 2017 at 12:27, Nathan  wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 5:57 AM, Andrea Zanni 
> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 10:15 AM, Yair Rand  wrote:
> >
> > > "Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park.
> > It
> > > is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to
> > > learn, to share our knowledge with others."
> > >
> >
> > The point is,
> > you are implicitly assuming that a public park or a library,
> > the right to have "a temple for the mind", "a place we can all go to
> think,
> > to learn,
> > to share our knowledge with others",
> > are thing that are not inherently political.
> >
> > You're simply wrong.
>
>
>
> No. As others have, you are attacking an argument that is not being made.
> Yair did not claim that the Wikimedia movement's goals are apolitical; he
> has simply asked that its political activity be restricted to its mission,
> as the WMF's own internal policy evidently requires. While permitting free
> travel for those with valid visas is certainly within that scope, it's
> unclear how free movement for refugees can be.
>
> GerardM claims that "we" have common values, and seems to be utterly
> convinced as to what those values are - and lucky for him, they perfectly
> match his own. I suppose that means there is no place in Wikimedia for
> anyone who would happily support the movement mission but disagrees with
> Gerard's other unrelated political positions. If the WMF's voice continues
> to be used to declare its position on this or that (and there will be many
> opportunities and entreaties to do so), that is the message some will draw.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
When we finally have to pay carbon tax on aviation fuel, it will be non
discriminatory. It may affect us but it is only money. Really your
argument is not about the same thing. When I indicate that our reputation
suffers because of us using dirty data centres, it is our reputation and it
is well deserved.
Thanks,
 GerardM

On 5 February 2017 at 12:39, Mathias Damour  wrote:

> Le 05/02/2017 à 10:45, Gerard Meijssen a écrit :
>
>> Hoi,
>> Yair you are wrong. When our director spoke up against the ukaze of Mr
>> Trump about people visiting our office, the only office of the Wikimedia
>> Foundation, it directly affected our work, our mission. We have WMF
>> employees that cannot come to the office any longer. We have employees
>> that
>> cannot visit their family when there are grave family situations.
>>
>
> I also agree with Mike's post. In another hand, I think that Gerard
> Meijssen's argument is not satisfactory.
> I mean, if one day a substantial carbon tax, which I personally wish for,
> would multiply the cost of plane travels by 2 or 4 times (say, not in a
> day), I hope the WMF would not protest against it (I don't tell about
> supporting it), even if it would "directly affect our work", or actually
> the way we use to work now, with much intercontinental flights for a few
> days of meeting.
>
> --
> Mathias Damour
> [[User:Astirmays]]
>
>
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Mathias Damour]

Le 05/02/2017 à 10:45, Gerard Meijssen a écrit :

Hoi,
Yair you are wrong. When our director spoke up against the ukaze of Mr
Trump about people visiting our office, the only office of the Wikimedia
Foundation, it directly affected our work, our mission. We have WMF
employees that cannot come to the office any longer. We have employees that
cannot visit their family when there are grave family situations.


I also agree with Mike's post. In another hand, I think that Gerard 
Meijssen's argument is not satisfactory.
I mean, if one day a substantial carbon tax, which I personally wish 
for, would multiply the cost of plane travels by 2 or 4 times (say, not 
in a day), I hope the WMF would not protest against it (I don't tell 
about supporting it), even if it would "directly affect our work", or 
actually the way we use to work now, with much intercontinental flights 
for a few days of meeting.


--
Mathias Damour
[[User:Astirmays]]


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Nathan]

On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 5:57 AM, Andrea Zanni 
wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 10:15 AM, Yair Rand  wrote:
>
> > "Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park.
> It
> > is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to
> > learn, to share our knowledge with others."
> >
>
> The point is,
> you are implicitly assuming that a public park or a library,
> the right to have "a temple for the mind", "a place we can all go to think,
> to learn,
> to share our knowledge with others",
> are thing that are not inherently political.
>
> You're simply wrong.



No. As others have, you are attacking an argument that is not being made.
Yair did not claim that the Wikimedia movement's goals are apolitical; he
has simply asked that its political activity be restricted to its mission,
as the WMF's own internal policy evidently requires. While permitting free
travel for those with valid visas is certainly within that scope, it's
unclear how free movement for refugees can be.

GerardM claims that "we" have common values, and seems to be utterly
convinced as to what those values are - and lucky for him, they perfectly
match his own. I suppose that means there is no place in Wikimedia for
anyone who would happily support the movement mission but disagrees with
Gerard's other unrelated political positions. If the WMF's voice continues
to be used to declare its position on this or that (and there will be many
opportunities and entreaties to do so), that is the message some will draw.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Andrea Zanni]

On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 10:15 AM, Yair Rand  wrote:

> "Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It
> is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to
> learn, to share our knowledge with others."
>

The point is,
you are implicitly assuming that a public park or a library,
the right to have "a temple for the mind", "a place we can all go to think,
to learn,
to share our knowledge with others",
are thing that are not inherently political.

You're simply wrong.
A public library is a very political entity, and it's modern one for
several reason: access to knowledge for everyone is something
governments/elites did not want for a very long time.
A true policy of the commons is the same thing.
If you want to bet, we could wait for a year or two and see what the Trump
administrations
will do with federal funds for public libraries and public parks...
Reactionary governments often defund public commons, because reactionary
policy is to privatize (I'm cutting things with the axe here, please bear
with me).

Also, "we can go all to think, learn and share".
Think about that word, *all*: it's not granted, and it's there for a reason.
I often think about Dorothy Counts [1], and how much did it take for her,
at 15, to go to school
and getting harassed by her whole community for days. Just for going to a
white school.

And this is just one of the countless examples in which
humans (thus, politics) didn't believe in a place where "we can go all to
think, learn and share".

I just believe that thinking our values and mission are apolitical is at
best naive,
at worst wrong and dangerous.

Aubrey

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Counts. See also
https://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo/1957/world-press-photo-year/douglas-martin
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Yes we can. Lots of Wikimedians talked about this but do not ignore the
fact that lots of Wikimedians had their reasons for not wanting to ask
attention for Bassel. We did not have a banner and is this our best
practice?

It is extremely unlikely that Bassel is still alive and I am not saying
that a banner would have made a difference but I do know why we do not know
this.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 5 February 2017 at 11:00, Pierre-Selim  wrote:

> I'm really not sure we can say that we have let one of us die in prison!
> Especially that we did not care (lots of wikimedians talked about Bassel
> as soon as they learnt about his situation).
>
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/08/bassel-missing-syria/
>
>
>
> 2017-02-05 10:45 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen :
>
> > Hoi,
> > Yair you are wrong. When our director spoke up against the ukaze of Mr
> > Trump about people visiting our office, the only office of the Wikimedia
> > Foundation, it directly affected our work, our mission. We have WMF
> > employees that cannot come to the office any longer. We have employees
> that
> > cannot visit their family when there are grave family situations.
> >
> > The question is very much in what you call politics and the extend you
> want
> > to excuse politics. When lawyers including the person responsible for
> > prosecuting the law opine that an ukaze is illegal, it loses much of the
> > excuse. There are things we stand for as an organisation; we stand for
> > making our gender gap less. That is also very much political given that
> Mr
> > Trump has it that women should dress like women.. Yair, you can not
> defend
> > the inexcusable. We have values and when these values are threatened,
> when
> > they become political, they are still our values.
> >
> > We have let one of us die in prison [1]. The same argument. I will be
> > honest; I hate this. I have trouble believing that people can argue this
> > way. This was one of us and apparently we do not care.
> >
> > Our reputation is in tatters [2] because of the way our servers are
> > energised. This may be politics for you but it is not to me. I do live
> > below sea level as it is. It is easy to compensate for this; we have the
> > money and when the WMF invests money in green energy and allows people to
> > invest with it to make our foot print smaller and help our readers, I
> will
> > invest from the little that I have.
> >
> > We seek to share the sum of all knowledge and for various reasons we
> could
> > do much better. But to do better we have to want to do better and my
> > experience is that we are not capable to do what is good for us because
> of
> > politics. Internal politics.
> >
> > Everyone may say what they want but politics affect us, they often affect
> > us negatively and for us the one thing that should guide us is how we
> > optimise our mission. When "politics" are required and have us say why
> what
> > a government does negatively impact us, we should and we do. We did so in
> > the past, we did so with China and now we need to do this with the USA,
> > Thanks,
> >   GerardM
> >
> >
> > [1]
> > http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/11/missingbassel-wikidata-as-
> > tool.html
> > [2] https://rankabrand.org/websites/Wikipedia
> >
> > On 5 February 2017 at 10:15, Yair Rand  wrote:
> >
> > > When and how the Wikimedia Foundation should associate itself publicly
> on
> > > policy and political issues is not a new topic, and (as I have quite
> > > recently discovered) official guidelines have been around for nearly
> five
> > > years now. The Guidelines on Foundation Policy and Political
> Association
> > > [1], established by WMF Legal for internal use, specifically bring up
> the
> > > issue of "public endorsement or critique" of political policies,
> listing
> > > several requirements for doing so, and further requiring that they
> > "should
> > > protect and advance Wikimedia’s mission “to empower and engage people
> > > around the world to collect and develop educational content under a
> free
> > > license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and
> > > globally.” Accordingly, we will not support causes unrelated to or
> > > inconsistent with that mission." The document goes on to list several
> > > examples such as anti-war activism and animal rights.
> > >
> > > I think this is an excellent and necessary policy.
> > >
> > > The recent blog post says "We strongly urge the U.S. administration to
> > > withdraw the recent executive order ... closing the doors to many
> > > refugees." I have yet to hear any arguments regarding how that
> statement
> > > specifically protects and advances our mission.
> > >
> > > I have, on the other hand, heard on this list many arguments by people
> > > explaining reasons why they feel very strongly that actions must be
> taken
> > > against a certain country's administration, about how they expect that
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Pierre-Selim]

I'm really not sure we can say that we have let one of us die in prison!
Especially that we did not care (lots of wikimedians talked about Bassel
as soon as they learnt about his situation).

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/08/bassel-missing-syria/



2017-02-05 10:45 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen :

> Hoi,
> Yair you are wrong. When our director spoke up against the ukaze of Mr
> Trump about people visiting our office, the only office of the Wikimedia
> Foundation, it directly affected our work, our mission. We have WMF
> employees that cannot come to the office any longer. We have employees that
> cannot visit their family when there are grave family situations.
>
> The question is very much in what you call politics and the extend you want
> to excuse politics. When lawyers including the person responsible for
> prosecuting the law opine that an ukaze is illegal, it loses much of the
> excuse. There are things we stand for as an organisation; we stand for
> making our gender gap less. That is also very much political given that Mr
> Trump has it that women should dress like women.. Yair, you can not defend
> the inexcusable. We have values and when these values are threatened, when
> they become political, they are still our values.
>
> We have let one of us die in prison [1]. The same argument. I will be
> honest; I hate this. I have trouble believing that people can argue this
> way. This was one of us and apparently we do not care.
>
> Our reputation is in tatters [2] because of the way our servers are
> energised. This may be politics for you but it is not to me. I do live
> below sea level as it is. It is easy to compensate for this; we have the
> money and when the WMF invests money in green energy and allows people to
> invest with it to make our foot print smaller and help our readers, I will
> invest from the little that I have.
>
> We seek to share the sum of all knowledge and for various reasons we could
> do much better. But to do better we have to want to do better and my
> experience is that we are not capable to do what is good for us because of
> politics. Internal politics.
>
> Everyone may say what they want but politics affect us, they often affect
> us negatively and for us the one thing that should guide us is how we
> optimise our mission. When "politics" are required and have us say why what
> a government does negatively impact us, we should and we do. We did so in
> the past, we did so with China and now we need to do this with the USA,
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
>
> [1]
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/11/missingbassel-wikidata-as-
> tool.html
> [2] https://rankabrand.org/websites/Wikipedia
>
> On 5 February 2017 at 10:15, Yair Rand  wrote:
>
> > When and how the Wikimedia Foundation should associate itself publicly on
> > policy and political issues is not a new topic, and (as I have quite
> > recently discovered) official guidelines have been around for nearly five
> > years now. The Guidelines on Foundation Policy and Political Association
> > [1], established by WMF Legal for internal use, specifically bring up the
> > issue of "public endorsement or critique" of political policies, listing
> > several requirements for doing so, and further requiring that they
> "should
> > protect and advance Wikimedia’s mission “to empower and engage people
> > around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free
> > license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and
> > globally.” Accordingly, we will not support causes unrelated to or
> > inconsistent with that mission." The document goes on to list several
> > examples such as anti-war activism and animal rights.
> >
> > I think this is an excellent and necessary policy.
> >
> > The recent blog post says "We strongly urge the U.S. administration to
> > withdraw the recent executive order ... closing the doors to many
> > refugees." I have yet to hear any arguments regarding how that statement
> > specifically protects and advances our mission.
> >
> > I have, on the other hand, heard on this list many arguments by people
> > explaining reasons why they feel very strongly that actions must be taken
> > against a certain country's administration, about how they expect that
> many
> > expected policies on general issues will cause harm in areas that they
> > value. Areas that are not directly related to our mission.
> >
> > I can imagine that some may feel that certain areas of immigration and
> > travel policy may be so closely associated to Wikimedia's functioning
> that
> > action on that front must be taken. I would expect such an issue to be
> > discussed independently of the personal political wishes of those
> arguing.
> > If decisions are made on the basis that the only relevant issue is
> whether
> > any action would further Wikimedia's goals, I would trust that such
> > decisions were sufficiently reasonable.
> >
> > However, if 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Yair you are wrong. When our director spoke up against the ukaze of Mr
Trump about people visiting our office, the only office of the Wikimedia
Foundation, it directly affected our work, our mission. We have WMF
employees that cannot come to the office any longer. We have employees that
cannot visit their family when there are grave family situations.

The question is very much in what you call politics and the extend you want
to excuse politics. When lawyers including the person responsible for
prosecuting the law opine that an ukaze is illegal, it loses much of the
excuse. There are things we stand for as an organisation; we stand for
making our gender gap less. That is also very much political given that Mr
Trump has it that women should dress like women.. Yair, you can not defend
the inexcusable. We have values and when these values are threatened, when
they become political, they are still our values.

We have let one of us die in prison [1]. The same argument. I will be
honest; I hate this. I have trouble believing that people can argue this
way. This was one of us and apparently we do not care.

Our reputation is in tatters [2] because of the way our servers are
energised. This may be politics for you but it is not to me. I do live
below sea level as it is. It is easy to compensate for this; we have the
money and when the WMF invests money in green energy and allows people to
invest with it to make our foot print smaller and help our readers, I will
invest from the little that I have.

We seek to share the sum of all knowledge and for various reasons we could
do much better. But to do better we have to want to do better and my
experience is that we are not capable to do what is good for us because of
politics. Internal politics.

Everyone may say what they want but politics affect us, they often affect
us negatively and for us the one thing that should guide us is how we
optimise our mission. When "politics" are required and have us say why what
a government does negatively impact us, we should and we do. We did so in
the past, we did so with China and now we need to do this with the USA,
Thanks,
  GerardM


[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/11/missingbassel-wikidata-as-tool.html
[2] https://rankabrand.org/websites/Wikipedia

On 5 February 2017 at 10:15, Yair Rand  wrote:

> When and how the Wikimedia Foundation should associate itself publicly on
> policy and political issues is not a new topic, and (as I have quite
> recently discovered) official guidelines have been around for nearly five
> years now. The Guidelines on Foundation Policy and Political Association
> [1], established by WMF Legal for internal use, specifically bring up the
> issue of "public endorsement or critique" of political policies, listing
> several requirements for doing so, and further requiring that they "should
> protect and advance Wikimedia’s mission “to empower and engage people
> around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free
> license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and
> globally.” Accordingly, we will not support causes unrelated to or
> inconsistent with that mission." The document goes on to list several
> examples such as anti-war activism and animal rights.
>
> I think this is an excellent and necessary policy.
>
> The recent blog post says "We strongly urge the U.S. administration to
> withdraw the recent executive order ... closing the doors to many
> refugees." I have yet to hear any arguments regarding how that statement
> specifically protects and advances our mission.
>
> I have, on the other hand, heard on this list many arguments by people
> explaining reasons why they feel very strongly that actions must be taken
> against a certain country's administration, about how they expect that many
> expected policies on general issues will cause harm in areas that they
> value. Areas that are not directly related to our mission.
>
> I can imagine that some may feel that certain areas of immigration and
> travel policy may be so closely associated to Wikimedia's functioning that
> action on that front must be taken. I would expect such an issue to be
> discussed independently of the personal political wishes of those arguing.
> If decisions are made on the basis that the only relevant issue is whether
> any action would further Wikimedia's goals, I would trust that such
> decisions were sufficiently reasonable.
>
> However, if that is not the basis used, and some in the community and WMF
> are willing to have their own independent individual values and goals
> override those of the movement, to harm Wikimedia goals to support their
> own political goals... I would find it very difficult to support such a
> decision. I don't mean to speak too harshly, but the united goals and
> vision of the movement are the _only_ thing that holds this diverse
> community together, the only means by which Wikimedia exists, and if
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[FRED BAUDER]

A blanket ban sweeps in possible contributors and potential employees.

A well-crafted policy, properly administered, generally, would not.

Fred Bauder

On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 04:15:33 -0500
 Yair Rand  wrote:
When and how the Wikimedia Foundation should associate itself 
publicly on

policy and political issues is not a new topic, and (as I have quite
recently discovered) official guidelines have been around for nearly 
five
years now. The Guidelines on Foundation Policy and Political 
Association
[1], established by WMF Legal for internal use, specifically bring 
up the
issue of "public endorsement or critique" of political policies, 
listing
several requirements for doing so, and further requiring that they 
"should
protect and advance Wikimedia’s mission “to empower and engage 
people
around the world to collect and develop educational content under a 
free
license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively 
and

globally.” Accordingly, we will not support causes unrelated to or
inconsistent with that mission." The document goes on to list 
several

examples such as anti-war activism and animal rights.

I think this is an excellent and necessary policy.

The recent blog post says "We strongly urge the U.S. administration 
to

withdraw the recent executive order ... closing the doors to many
refugees." I have yet to hear any arguments regarding how that 
statement

specifically protects and advances our mission.

I have, on the other hand, heard on this list many arguments by 
people
explaining reasons why they feel very strongly that actions must be 
taken
against a certain country's administration, about how they expect 
that many
expected policies on general issues will cause harm in areas that 
they

value. Areas that are not directly related to our mission.

I can imagine that some may feel that certain areas of immigration 
and
travel policy may be so closely associated to Wikimedia's 
functioning that
action on that front must be taken. I would expect such an issue to 
be
discussed independently of the personal political wishes of those 
arguing.
If decisions are made on the basis that the only relevant issue is 
whether

any action would further Wikimedia's goals, I would trust that such
decisions were sufficiently reasonable.

However, if that is not the basis used, and some in the community 
and WMF
are willing to have their own independent individual values and 
goals
override those of the movement, to harm Wikimedia goals to support 
their
own political goals... I would find it very difficult to support 
such a
decision. I don't mean to speak too harshly, but the united goals 
and

vision of the movement are the _only_ thing that holds this diverse
community together, the only means by which Wikimedia exists, and if
outside aims can take priority, we would likely find that many would 
not
appreciate some using Wikimedia as yet another bullet in someone's 
arsenal

to be sacrificed in a political crusade, to say the least.

"Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public 
park. It
is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, 
to

learn, to share our knowledge with others."

Please let us keep it that way.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Foundation_Policy_
and_Political_Association_Guideline
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Yair Rand]

When and how the Wikimedia Foundation should associate itself publicly on
policy and political issues is not a new topic, and (as I have quite
recently discovered) official guidelines have been around for nearly five
years now. The Guidelines on Foundation Policy and Political Association
[1], established by WMF Legal for internal use, specifically bring up the
issue of "public endorsement or critique" of political policies, listing
several requirements for doing so, and further requiring that they "should
protect and advance Wikimedia’s mission “to empower and engage people
around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free
license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and
globally.” Accordingly, we will not support causes unrelated to or
inconsistent with that mission." The document goes on to list several
examples such as anti-war activism and animal rights.

I think this is an excellent and necessary policy.

The recent blog post says "We strongly urge the U.S. administration to
withdraw the recent executive order ... closing the doors to many
refugees." I have yet to hear any arguments regarding how that statement
specifically protects and advances our mission.

I have, on the other hand, heard on this list many arguments by people
explaining reasons why they feel very strongly that actions must be taken
against a certain country's administration, about how they expect that many
expected policies on general issues will cause harm in areas that they
value. Areas that are not directly related to our mission.

I can imagine that some may feel that certain areas of immigration and
travel policy may be so closely associated to Wikimedia's functioning that
action on that front must be taken. I would expect such an issue to be
discussed independently of the personal political wishes of those arguing.
If decisions are made on the basis that the only relevant issue is whether
any action would further Wikimedia's goals, I would trust that such
decisions were sufficiently reasonable.

However, if that is not the basis used, and some in the community and WMF
are willing to have their own independent individual values and goals
override those of the movement, to harm Wikimedia goals to support their
own political goals... I would find it very difficult to support such a
decision. I don't mean to speak too harshly, but the united goals and
vision of the movement are the _only_ thing that holds this diverse
community together, the only means by which Wikimedia exists, and if
outside aims can take priority, we would likely find that many would not
appreciate some using Wikimedia as yet another bullet in someone's arsenal
to be sacrificed in a political crusade, to say the least.

"Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It
is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to
learn, to share our knowledge with others."

Please let us keep it that way.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Foundation_Policy_
and_Political_Association_Guideline
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Nathan]

I did not see many arguing that the WMF must be neutral; the debate is not
about political neutrality, but about political activity outside the
mission of the WMF. Few argue, on the substance or even principle, that the
WMF's statement about the travel ban is wrong or misplaced - merely that
the process of making such statements should include consulting the
community.

But some have claimed that Katherine's free speech right entitles her to
opine on the WMF's behalf without restriction, and multiple others have
recently asked the WMF to get involved in other political or advocacy work
that is outside the scope of the WMF mission. I object to these on the
principle that the WMF is not a vehicle for the general political beliefs
of its employees, management, readers or even volunteers. It has committed
itself to a mission, and its activities and voice should maintain focus on
that mission without allowing itself to be distracted by the worlds many
other problems.

Its  surely easy for those who find nearly complete political and cultural
accord with WMF staffers to be comfortable with their political statements
on behalf of the movement. But the WMF should take care not to court a
backlash from outside the bubble by embracing such activity beyond the
reasonable confines of its raison d'etre.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Erik Moeller]

On Sat, Feb 4, 2017 at 6:58 AM, Mike Godwin  wrote:
> (2) As I put it many times many years ago in the years before and
> after the SOPA/PIPA blackout, there are few POVs *less* neutral than
> the commitment to give all the information in the world to everyone
> for free. We are not a neutral enterprise, and we never have been.

Indeed not. I agree with Mike's entire post. WMF must speak out
against threats that directly impact its ability to serve its mission.
Sometimes it will be able to do so in concert with community action
(as in the case of SOPA/PIPA), sometimes it will be acting on its own
behalf. The WMF blog is exactly the right place for the latter type of
expression.

The revocation of some 60,000 visas [1] and implementation of a travel
ban targeting a religious group is precisely the type of action that
directly impacts WMF's ability to do its work. To frame this simply as
a matter of refugee policy misunderstands the nature of the executive
order [2], which also bars other visa holders from targeted countries.

The WMF is committed to internationalism and diversity through its
policies [3], through its long-standing participation in international
outreach programs like Google Summer of Code, through hosting,
supporting and participating in events all around the world, and --
most importantly -- through its mission and vision statement which are
global in scope and aspiration.

To make clear that it is opposed to this obvious violation of human
rights with all the consequences it has already entailed (regardless
of the possibly temporary suspension of the ban) is _precisely_ what
we should expect from WMF. We should object if it had _not_ issued a
statement. To frame this within the terms of the neutrality of the
encyclopedia is a mistake. The encyclopedia is neutral; the WMF most
definitely cannot be when its ability to do its work is threatened,
_especially_ in the jurisdiction within which it operates.

While I agree that it's important to define the boundaries of WMF's
political expression, I see its statement on EO 13769 as clearly
within any rational such definition that is consistent with its
mission and vision.

Erik

[1] 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/government-reveals-over-10-visas-revoked-due-to-travel-ban/2017/02/03/7d529eec-ea2c-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769

[3] 
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Pluralism,_internationalism,_and_diversity_policy

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[FRED BAUDER]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 13:35:30 +0100
 Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
Well, there were speakers who were not able to attend Wikimanias in 
Haifa
and Cairo, to start with, because of similar bans, and the general 
response
then was "Whatever place we choose, someone is always 
discriminated". I am
not sure whether this is a healthy attitude or not, but I do not see 
why
the US travel ban leads to a statement whereas existing bans say in 
Arab

world, or Armenia-Azerbaijan or whatever do not.

Cheers
Yaroslav


The US ban is fragile, poorly supported in law; the others are 
entrenched and what we do is not likely to influence them.


Fred


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Well, there were speakers who were not able to attend Wikimanias in Haifa
and Cairo, to start with, because of similar bans, and the general response
then was "Whatever place we choose, someone is always discriminated". I am
not sure whether this is a healthy attitude or not, but I do not see why
the US travel ban leads to a statement whereas existing bans say in Arab
world, or Armenia-Azerbaijan or whatever do not.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:08 PM, Andy Mabbett 
wrote:

> On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> > I guess this is referring to
> > .
>
> There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC,
> who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.
>
> I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a
> ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Samuel Klein]

Katherine: Thank you, that was beautifully written.

We all have our work cut out for us to preserve the free sharing of
knowledge and experience across borders, and the very notion of reliable
sources.

Mike, your perspective is deeply welcome.

Sharing the world's knowledge is fundamentally political. It has brought
wikimedia directly into political disagreement with a number of national
policies.  We seem to be in the early stages of an all-out information war
of global scope, and I expect the number of those regimes and policies to
grow. I am proud that the WMF has principled stands on issues of freedom,
access, and communication.

And The WMF does sometimes declare positions that I disagree with; as does
the FSF! This is better than having no principles at all. I am firmly
committed to the projects those foundations support because their goals,
their understanding of how part of the world should work, and the people
involved are all extraordinary.

Sam.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Ting Chen]

Well spoken Mike.

Greetings

Ting


Am 04.02.2017 um 15:58 schrieb Mike Godwin:

I don't respond to Wikimedia-l discussion very often, but I think this
debate comes up often enough that it's worth it for me to explain and
elaborate on my own positions.

(1) I understand WP:NPOV to be a rule/guideline about content,
particularly Wikipedia content. I do not believe it is a rule about
Wikimedia processes, or about the Wikimedia movement's mission.

(2) As I put it many times many years ago in the years before and
after the SOPA/PIPA blackout, there are few POVs *less* neutral than
the commitment to give all the information in the world to everyone
for free. We are not a neutral enterprise, and we never have been.

(3) There is a vision that some members of the community have that WMF
employees (or contractors, or Trustees, or representatives) ought
never speak out and offer an opinion about political issues.
Ironically, some people in our movement would not want a WMF to have a
public opinion about, say, what "extreme vetting" means unless that
opinion itself were "extremely vetted."

(4) I think those who hold the view I summarize as (3) above are
making a mistake. It seems to me that the reason the community and the
Trustees have slowly crafted an evolving process that, when it works
well, results in strong, capable individuals who can speak effectively
both as representatives of our movement and as leaders of it, is that
we all know we can't hold a plebiscite for everything.

(5) We now know more than eve, thanks to events this year and last
year, that the larger, global, shared world of democratic values is
fragile, and that it's better to respond rapidly to rapidly emerging
issues (such as the treatment of Wikimedians of all backgrounds who
want or need to cross borders to participate in our shared, great
work) than it is to wait until our response is untimely, irrelevant,
or even impossible. The mode that seems to work most effectively for
us is to have strong, effective leaders and employees and
representatives who have earned our trust, and who for that reason can
be trusted to respond on our behalf as rapidly and effectively as
necessary to rapidly emerging issues. Without, shall we say, "extreme
vetting."

(6) Sometimes those whom the Trustees and/or the community have chosen
are not up to the job we ask of them, and it is our strength that we
reserve the right to make our unhappiness known, through channels
ranging from this mailing list to Trustee elections to "voting with
our feet." Because our mission, the Wikimedia mission, is
fundamentally a human process it will be imperfect, and its
imperfections will make us unhappy sometimes. But we are adults, and
we live with those imperfections and take some joy at times in
recognizing them and trying to do better.

(7) Given all these considerations, I am proud to be part of the
Wikimedia movement, proud to be a part of the same community as all of
you, even when the community is sometimes contentious.  I hope that in
the long run we agree now -- right now -- is a time when we should
stand behind anyone in our community, from the Trustees and Katherine
on down to every last one of us, who stands up and speaks out for
humane values and humane judgments, because, it seems to me, the
Wikimedia movement is meant to be a humane, outward-looking,
courageous movement that acknowledges self-doubt but also remains
committed to enabling us all to raise our individual and collective
voices in defense of values grounded in generosity, love, and
tolerance.

Thanks for listening.

--Mike Godwin
WMF General Counsel 2007-2010

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Mike Godwin]

I don't respond to Wikimedia-l discussion very often, but I think this
debate comes up often enough that it's worth it for me to explain and
elaborate on my own positions.

(1) I understand WP:NPOV to be a rule/guideline about content,
particularly Wikipedia content. I do not believe it is a rule about
Wikimedia processes, or about the Wikimedia movement's mission.

(2) As I put it many times many years ago in the years before and
after the SOPA/PIPA blackout, there are few POVs *less* neutral than
the commitment to give all the information in the world to everyone
for free. We are not a neutral enterprise, and we never have been.

(3) There is a vision that some members of the community have that WMF
employees (or contractors, or Trustees, or representatives) ought
never speak out and offer an opinion about political issues.
Ironically, some people in our movement would not want a WMF to have a
public opinion about, say, what "extreme vetting" means unless that
opinion itself were "extremely vetted."

(4) I think those who hold the view I summarize as (3) above are
making a mistake. It seems to me that the reason the community and the
Trustees have slowly crafted an evolving process that, when it works
well, results in strong, capable individuals who can speak effectively
both as representatives of our movement and as leaders of it, is that
we all know we can't hold a plebiscite for everything.

(5) We now know more than eve, thanks to events this year and last
year, that the larger, global, shared world of democratic values is
fragile, and that it's better to respond rapidly to rapidly emerging
issues (such as the treatment of Wikimedians of all backgrounds who
want or need to cross borders to participate in our shared, great
work) than it is to wait until our response is untimely, irrelevant,
or even impossible. The mode that seems to work most effectively for
us is to have strong, effective leaders and employees and
representatives who have earned our trust, and who for that reason can
be trusted to respond on our behalf as rapidly and effectively as
necessary to rapidly emerging issues. Without, shall we say, "extreme
vetting."

(6) Sometimes those whom the Trustees and/or the community have chosen
are not up to the job we ask of them, and it is our strength that we
reserve the right to make our unhappiness known, through channels
ranging from this mailing list to Trustee elections to "voting with
our feet." Because our mission, the Wikimedia mission, is
fundamentally a human process it will be imperfect, and its
imperfections will make us unhappy sometimes. But we are adults, and
we live with those imperfections and take some joy at times in
recognizing them and trying to do better.

(7) Given all these considerations, I am proud to be part of the
Wikimedia movement, proud to be a part of the same community as all of
you, even when the community is sometimes contentious.  I hope that in
the long run we agree now -- right now -- is a time when we should
stand behind anyone in our community, from the Trustees and Katherine
on down to every last one of us, who stands up and speaks out for
humane values and humane judgments, because, it seems to me, the
Wikimedia movement is meant to be a humane, outward-looking,
courageous movement that acknowledges self-doubt but also remains
committed to enabling us all to raise our individual and collective
voices in defense of values grounded in generosity, love, and
tolerance.

Thanks for listening.

--Mike Godwin
WMF General Counsel 2007-2010

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Jane Darnell]

I agree absolutely with this. All Wikipedians are political and we
pontificate to the world quite happily while following a complex set of
agreed rules. To believe that Wikipedia has a neutral point of view is like
believing there is no systemic bias in the academic world. The gateway that
anyone must pass in order to keep their edits live on Wikipedia is
navigating the extremely complex web known in our jargon as "reliable
sources". I believe Wikipedia has done a better job overall than academia
in general of expanding this magic list by opening up our "set of rules" to
a worldwide playing field, but this magic list is uneven and a
work-in-progress. Face-to-face meetups have only cemented rankings on our
magic list, not erased them. Where does this magic list stand in the
post-truth world? If we believe in our magic list, we believe in the people
who made it and add to it every day and thus we believe in free passage for
those people to any meetup anywhere in the world. Any threat to that safe
passage is a direct threat to our community, no matter how good your irc,
google hangout, skype call, or facebook group might be.

And meanwhile, we will deal with political issues as they affect us in the
way we deal with all the other random stuff of humanity that pops up
regularly in our projects, whether it is based on "reliable sources",
religious belief, superstition, politics, fear, humor, or all of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bowling_Green_Massacre=next=763427006

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 8:06 PM, Robert Fernandez 
wrote:

> That is an obvious false equivalence.  The issue isn't people rooting
> for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own.  The
> issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission
> can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act
> appropriately.  The free dissemination of factual, neutral information
> and the ability of editors to participate in that dissemination is in
> many contexts a political act and the WMF should recognize this.  To
> contend that Wikimedia activity is, can be, or should be always
> politically neutral is naive and comes from a place of privilege where
> your personal engagement will likely never be threatened by political
> interference.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Nathan  wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault  wrote:
> >
> >> ...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech"  Katherine
> >> Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians
> from
> >> editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no
> >> achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as
> I
> >> see it).
> >
> >
> >
> > I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position
> > didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme
> > vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks,
> that
> > nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in
> > recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free
> > societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people
> > (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why
> taking
> > political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the
> > frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Peter Southwood]

Objective evidence should always override hypothesis, opinion, bullshit and 
propaganda.
Cheers,
P

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Gerard Meijssen
Sent: Friday, February 3, 2017 10:52 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

Hoi,
Let me ask a question. What trumps what; "neutral point of view" or sources. 
When objectively it has been established, given proper scientific practice, 
that certain things are true for instance "the evolution theory", a theory that 
many generations of scientists have established, describing how it works and 
interconnections with observable fact. What do you do when someone says "I do 
not believe it" and asks for a neutral point of view?

What do you say when employees of the Wikimedia Foundation no longer can come 
to their head quarters, do you call it observable fact or do you call it 
politics because it is the consequence of a new president of the United States 
of America?

What am I to think when people call in doubt when we are told by the main man 
of the Wikimedia Foundation that this severely impacts our movement and we are 
told that she can not say so because some volunteers feel that they need to be 
consulted. Well, to be honest, I do not give a fuck and I applaud Katherine 
Maher for speaking out in a timely manner. When someone is to censure her, it 
is the board who can do so and I strongly doubt that this will ever happen.

When someone like Jerry Falwell Jr is to head an education task force. I wonder 
how this is possible. To be honest, I fear for what we will stand for. I fear 
for the relevance of all the science and students in the future of the United 
States. I doubt very much that the United States will remain relevant because 
of this and the unfortunate tendency of "alternative facts".

Really, I am not party to US politics. I am part of the Wikimedia movement and 
there is imho no room for alternative facts. These alternative facts stand in 
contrast to observable facts and scientific practice including the use of 
sources. They have nothing to do with Neutral point of View. At most 
"alternative facts" are not worth more than a paragraph at the bottom that 
includes a rebuttal.
Thanks,
   GerardM

On 3 February 2017 at 20:32, Todd Allen <toddmal...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Before starting down the path of wording banners, let's decide if we 
> want them at all.
>
> Almost every political issue can be tangentially related to Wikimedia 
> projects. The question needs to be if it's a major existential issue. 
> SOPA was such a thing, it was a direct threat to the core mission of 
> Wikimedia.
> In those cases, and in only those cases, should we consider injecting 
> ourselves into politics.
>
> Otherwise, the entire point of Wikimedia is a neutral point of view. 
> We aren't here to inject ourselves into political debates, only to 
> catalog what happens in a strictly neutral fashion. And I'm saying 
> that as someone who largely agrees with the position being put forth here.
>
> If people within Wikimedia want to involve themselves in politics, 
> they have every right to do that. On their own time and their own 
> nickel, and without speaking as a representative of the organization.
>
> It is especially inappropriate that such an undertaking happened 
> without consulting project volunteers. Katherine presumed to speak for 
> all of us, without asking if we even wanted her to. That is totally 
> unacceptable and I'd like to see further discussion of that.
>
> Todd
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 12:23 PM, Bill Takatoshi 
> <billtakato...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 11:11 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen 
> > <list-wikime...@funcrunch.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > I don't think this mailing list should be open to just any and all 
> > > discussion of politics, regardless of viewpoint. What is and isn't 
> > > appropriate to post is a delicate judgment call
> >
> > Again, the Wikimedia-l list Charter says "potential new Wikimedia 
> > projects and initiatives" are on topic. While there is no mention in 
> > the Charter of political discussion. Presumably discussion of facts 
> > and opinions pertaining to proposed initiatives should be encouraged.
> >
> > More than ten proposals for new initiatives have been made in the 
> > past
> > weeks:
> >
> > * make international backups of complete Foundation data (seconded, 
> > no opposition, task created)
> >
> > * relocate the foundation (seconded, controversial)
> >
> > * assist Wikimedia staff with travel difficulties (no second or
> opposition
> > yet)
> >
> > * 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Robert Fernandez]

The same way I would respond any time they do something non-political
I strongly disagree with.

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 7:00 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> You somewhat conveniently avoided addressing Nathan's point. If the
> Wikimedia Foundation issued a political statement with a view that you
> found deeply offensive and strongly disagreed with, how would you respond?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[MZMcBride]

Andy Mabbett wrote:
>On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride  wrote:
>> I guess this is referring to
>> .
>
>There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC,
>who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.
>
>I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a
>ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.

Wikimania has taken place in many countries. In 2011 it was held in
Israel, in 2008 it was held in Egypt, etc. That doesn't make it
appropriate for the Wikimedia Foundation to issue statements about various
national policies. That isn't its role or responsibility.

Simply because tenuous connections can be made doesn't suddenly make them
legitimate reasons for political action on behalf of the Wikimedia
Foundation or the Wikimedia movement. An unwanted pregnancy is a burden
and may reduce the ability of some women to edit Wikipedia. But that
(quite obviously, to me, anyway) does not mean that the Wikimedia
Foundation should be taking a position on abortion rights and access to
contraception. In my opinion, the risk of such political action is pretty
clear: it has a very real possibility to fracture and divide the Wikimedia
community over issues that are unrelated to Wikimedia's mission.

Robert Fernandez wrote:
>That is an obvious false equivalence.  The issue isn't people rooting
>for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own.  The
>issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission
>can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act
>appropriately.

You somewhat conveniently avoided addressing Nathan's point. If the
Wikimedia Foundation issued a political statement with a view that you
found deeply offensive and strongly disagreed with, how would you respond?

Todd Allen wrote:
>I don't think anyone is disputing the facts. I'm certainly not. And I am
>gravely concerned by what's being done, and I entirely oppose it.
>
>However, that doesn't mean I want to see WMF used as a political
>mouthpiece, even when what's being said happens to be things I fully agree
>with.

Agreed.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Todd Allen]

I don't think anyone is disputing the facts. I'm certainly not. And I am
gravely concerned by what's being done, and I entirely oppose it.

However, that doesn't mean I want to see WMF used as a political
mouthpiece, even when what's being said happens to be things I fully agree
with.

Todd
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Let me ask a question. What trumps what; "neutral point of view" or
sources. When objectively it has been established, given proper scientific
practice, that certain things are true for instance "the evolution theory",
a theory that many generations of scientists have established, describing
how it works and interconnections with observable fact. What do you do when
someone says "I do not believe it" and asks for a neutral point of view?

What do you say when employees of the Wikimedia Foundation no longer can
come to their head quarters, do you call it observable fact or do you call
it politics because it is the consequence of a new president of the United
States of America?

What am I to think when people call in doubt when we are told by the main
man of the Wikimedia Foundation that this severely impacts our movement and
we are told that she can not say so because some volunteers feel that they
need to be consulted. Well, to be honest, I do not give a fuck and I
applaud Katherine Maher for speaking out in a timely manner. When someone
is to censure her, it is the board who can do so and I strongly doubt that
this will ever happen.

When someone like Jerry Falwell Jr is to head an education task force. I
wonder how this is possible. To be honest, I fear for what we will stand
for. I fear for the relevance of all the science and students in the future
of the United States. I doubt very much that the United States will remain
relevant because of this and the unfortunate tendency of "alternative
facts".

Really, I am not party to US politics. I am part of the Wikimedia movement
and there is imho no room for alternative facts. These alternative facts
stand in contrast to observable facts and scientific practice including the
use of sources. They have nothing to do with Neutral point of View. At most
"alternative facts" are not worth more than a paragraph at the bottom that
includes a rebuttal.
Thanks,
   GerardM

On 3 February 2017 at 20:32, Todd Allen  wrote:

> Before starting down the path of wording banners, let's decide if we want
> them at all.
>
> Almost every political issue can be tangentially related to Wikimedia
> projects. The question needs to be if it's a major existential issue. SOPA
> was such a thing, it was a direct threat to the core mission of Wikimedia.
> In those cases, and in only those cases, should we consider injecting
> ourselves into politics.
>
> Otherwise, the entire point of Wikimedia is a neutral point of view. We
> aren't here to inject ourselves into political debates, only to catalog
> what happens in a strictly neutral fashion. And I'm saying that as someone
> who largely agrees with the position being put forth here.
>
> If people within Wikimedia want to involve themselves in politics, they
> have every right to do that. On their own time and their own nickel, and
> without speaking as a representative of the organization.
>
> It is especially inappropriate that such an undertaking happened without
> consulting project volunteers. Katherine presumed to speak for all of us,
> without asking if we even wanted her to. That is totally unacceptable and
> I'd like to see further discussion of that.
>
> Todd
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 12:23 PM, Bill Takatoshi 
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 11:11 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > I don't think this mailing list should be open to just any and
> > > all discussion of politics, regardless of viewpoint. What is
> > > and isn't appropriate to post is a delicate judgment call
> >
> > Again, the Wikimedia-l list Charter says "potential new Wikimedia
> > projects and initiatives" are on topic. While there is no mention in
> > the Charter of political discussion. Presumably discussion of facts
> > and opinions pertaining to proposed initiatives should be encouraged.
> >
> > More than ten proposals for new initiatives have been made in the past
> > weeks:
> >
> > * make international backups of complete Foundation data (seconded, no
> > opposition, task created)
> >
> > * relocate the foundation (seconded, controversial)
> >
> > * assist Wikimedia staff with travel difficulties (no second or
> opposition
> > yet)
> >
> > * correct systemic bias said to be responsible for underlying issues
> > (seconded; unclear whether this is controversial)
> >
> > * turn our culture toward more generative and constructive forms of
> > public discourse (no second or opposition yet; clarification questions
> > were asked but have yet been answered)
> >
> > * issue a statement condemning the travel ban (seconded,
> > controversial, statement issued by ED)
> >
> > * call for a general strike (no second yet, controversial)
> >
> > * improve Wikimedia content on pertinent issues (no second or opposition
> > yet)
> >
> > * require community discussion and consensus as a precondition of
> > action (seconded, controversial)
> >
> > * create an alternative 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Todd Allen]

Before starting down the path of wording banners, let's decide if we want
them at all.

Almost every political issue can be tangentially related to Wikimedia
projects. The question needs to be if it's a major existential issue. SOPA
was such a thing, it was a direct threat to the core mission of Wikimedia.
In those cases, and in only those cases, should we consider injecting
ourselves into politics.

Otherwise, the entire point of Wikimedia is a neutral point of view. We
aren't here to inject ourselves into political debates, only to catalog
what happens in a strictly neutral fashion. And I'm saying that as someone
who largely agrees with the position being put forth here.

If people within Wikimedia want to involve themselves in politics, they
have every right to do that. On their own time and their own nickel, and
without speaking as a representative of the organization.

It is especially inappropriate that such an undertaking happened without
consulting project volunteers. Katherine presumed to speak for all of us,
without asking if we even wanted her to. That is totally unacceptable and
I'd like to see further discussion of that.

Todd

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 12:23 PM, Bill Takatoshi 
wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 11:11 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen
>  wrote:
> >
> > I don't think this mailing list should be open to just any and
> > all discussion of politics, regardless of viewpoint. What is
> > and isn't appropriate to post is a delicate judgment call
>
> Again, the Wikimedia-l list Charter says "potential new Wikimedia
> projects and initiatives" are on topic. While there is no mention in
> the Charter of political discussion. Presumably discussion of facts
> and opinions pertaining to proposed initiatives should be encouraged.
>
> More than ten proposals for new initiatives have been made in the past
> weeks:
>
> * make international backups of complete Foundation data (seconded, no
> opposition, task created)
>
> * relocate the foundation (seconded, controversial)
>
> * assist Wikimedia staff with travel difficulties (no second or opposition
> yet)
>
> * correct systemic bias said to be responsible for underlying issues
> (seconded; unclear whether this is controversial)
>
> * turn our culture toward more generative and constructive forms of
> public discourse (no second or opposition yet; clarification questions
> were asked but have yet been answered)
>
> * issue a statement condemning the travel ban (seconded,
> controversial, statement issued by ED)
>
> * call for a general strike (no second yet, controversial)
>
> * improve Wikimedia content on pertinent issues (no second or opposition
> yet)
>
> * require community discussion and consensus as a precondition of
> action (seconded, controversial)
>
> * create an alternative mailing list where discussion topics are
> restricted (no second yet)
>
> * add the names of "a certain country's top political leaders" to this
> list's spam filter (no second yet, controversial)
>
> It is clear that there are multiple people on both sides of the
> political issue, so it might be helpful to focus discussion on support
> or opposition to proposed initiatives. (Did I miss any?)
>
> I would like to see something more substantial than a blog post but
> less extreme than calling for a general strike. Usually when political
> issues impacting Wikimedia come up someone usually proposes banners.
>
> I have no suggestion for what a banner might say, but I would like to
> see such proposals from others.
>
> -Will
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Bill Takatoshi]

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 11:11 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen
 wrote:
>
> I don't think this mailing list should be open to just any and
> all discussion of politics, regardless of viewpoint. What is
> and isn't appropriate to post is a delicate judgment call

Again, the Wikimedia-l list Charter says "potential new Wikimedia
projects and initiatives" are on topic. While there is no mention in
the Charter of political discussion. Presumably discussion of facts
and opinions pertaining to proposed initiatives should be encouraged.

More than ten proposals for new initiatives have been made in the past weeks:

* make international backups of complete Foundation data (seconded, no
opposition, task created)

* relocate the foundation (seconded, controversial)

* assist Wikimedia staff with travel difficulties (no second or opposition yet)

* correct systemic bias said to be responsible for underlying issues
(seconded; unclear whether this is controversial)

* turn our culture toward more generative and constructive forms of
public discourse (no second or opposition yet; clarification questions
were asked but have yet been answered)

* issue a statement condemning the travel ban (seconded,
controversial, statement issued by ED)

* call for a general strike (no second yet, controversial)

* improve Wikimedia content on pertinent issues (no second or opposition yet)

* require community discussion and consensus as a precondition of
action (seconded, controversial)

* create an alternative mailing list where discussion topics are
restricted (no second yet)

* add the names of "a certain country's top political leaders" to this
list's spam filter (no second yet, controversial)

It is clear that there are multiple people on both sides of the
political issue, so it might be helpful to focus discussion on support
or opposition to proposed initiatives. (Did I miss any?)

I would like to see something more substantial than a blog post but
less extreme than calling for a general strike. Usually when political
issues impacting Wikimedia come up someone usually proposes banners.

I have no suggestion for what a banner might say, but I would like to
see such proposals from others.

-Will

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Rogol Domedonfors]

Perhaps the issue has something to do with whether donors expected their
money to be spent on publicising a political stance.  One "privilege" I see
here is the privilege of being able to spend other peoples' money in ways
they did not expect and, possibly, do not support, without recourse.

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Robert Fernandez 
wrote:

> That is an obvious false equivalence.  The issue isn't people rooting
> for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own.  The
> issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission
> can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act
> appropriately.  The free dissemination of factual, neutral information
> and the ability of editors to participate in that dissemination is in
> many contexts a political act and the WMF should recognize this.  To
> contend that Wikimedia activity is, can be, or should be always
> politically neutral is naive and comes from a place of privilege where
> your personal engagement will likely never be threatened by political
> interference.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Nathan  wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault  wrote:
> >
> >> ...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech"  Katherine
> >> Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians
> from
> >> editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no
> >> achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as
> I
> >> see it).
> >
> >
> >
> > I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position
> > didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme
> > vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks,
> that
> > nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in
> > recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free
> > societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people
> > (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why
> taking
> > political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the
> > frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced.
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Robert Fernandez]

That is an obvious false equivalence.  The issue isn't people rooting
for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own.  The
issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission
can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act
appropriately.  The free dissemination of factual, neutral information
and the ability of editors to participate in that dissemination is in
many contexts a political act and the WMF should recognize this.  To
contend that Wikimedia activity is, can be, or should be always
politically neutral is naive and comes from a place of privilege where
your personal engagement will likely never be threatened by political
interference.



On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Nathan  wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault  wrote:
>
>> ...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech"  Katherine
>> Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from
>> editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no
>> achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I
>> see it).
>
>
>
> I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position
> didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme
> vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks, that
> nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in
> recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free
> societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people
> (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why taking
> political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the
> frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced.
> ___
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> 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Nathan]

On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault  wrote:

> ...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech"  Katherine
> Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from
> editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no
> achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I
> see it).



I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position
didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme
vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks, that
nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in
recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free
societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people
(although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why taking
political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the
frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Pax Ahimsa Gethen]

My opinions as a US-American, member of multiple marginalized groups 
(queer/black/trans), and "social justice warrior" (though I prefer 
"mage", being a pacifist):


- Having a truly "neutral point of view" when it comes to anything 
regarding Donald Trump is not really possible.


- I support and applaud Katherine Maher's statement on the WMF blog.

- Independent of the above, I don't think this mailing list should be 
open to just any and all discussion of politics, regardless of 
viewpoint. What is and isn't appropriate to post is a delicate judgment 
call that the moderators will have to make.


- Pax aka Funcrunch


On 2/2/17 5:26 PM, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:

Here is my two cents:
Most of criticism I saw boils down to these ones:
- It's politics and we should not make political statements: It's not just
political anymore, it's a humanitarian crisis. Handcuffing a five-year-old
boy in airport because of the country he was born is inhumane. Let's not
forget Holocaust was made by a democratic regime and it was completely
legal.
- There are worse things going on in other regimes: Yes, we have ISIS,
mullahs in Iran, etc. but look at the impact. This ban caused hate crimes
against Muslims all over the world. Terrorist attacks in Canada, setting
fire mosques in Texas are all because of this simple ban. if humans stay
silent, worse things happen to them. Let's learn from history.
  - People have different opinions, let's respect that: Yes, but Wikimedia
movement has core values such as inclusiveness and we need to stand for
those values when they are under threat. I take the gay rights example. If
someone makes a homophobic comment, they should be banned (per WP:NPA). So
if someone is as homophic AF and they want to be a part of the movement,
they need to park it at the door when they edit because inclusiveness is a
core value. One other core value is simply "Knowledge knows no boundaries"
and we need to stand for that, political or not.
  - People in WMF voted for Trump: If that's true, which I don't know
because anyone from WMF I know were publicly against Trump, It's very
saddening to see someone who works for WMF votes for someone who
practically opposed everything Wikimedia movement stands for. But It's a
personal matter outside the scope of this discussion. WMF can take a stand
when it's related to its values. Like what happened with SOPA and it is
possible that some employees were for SOPA but it was not the reason not to
take the stand. It's the same today as well.

May FSM bless you, Ramen.
Best

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 4:11 AM Gnangarra  wrote:


The WMF has an obligation to respond to any changes where its based that
impact on the movement or potentially impact on the movement, and that
includes staff members or operational activities under taken.

It cant respond to such changes without taking a POV regardless of the
situation its not about the under lying politics.

On 3 February 2017 at 08:26, Natacha Rault  wrote:


Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have
neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view.
The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in
favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as
freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all
political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is
not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to

think

about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French
revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral,
has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes.
That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to
fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite

normal

- not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
speech".
A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF
is making notable efforts in a context  where advertising, non disclosed
paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater
threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter.
I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had
some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to
start a genocide.
This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland
might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach.
We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans
remind us of very dark memories.
  Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent
wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV
(actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the
gender biases as far as I see it)
Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a

tweet!

Neutrality should not mean surrending 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Ivan Martínez]

I may write this biased message from my place of enunciation: a country
that has been threatened for several days directly by the decisions of the
President of the United States.

Only if you were a follower of Trump would you see unnecessary a proactive
defense of potential damage to people both from our community and the
Foundation staff. Personally, reading a statement from Katherine Maher let
me know that in front of threats, people in your movement will react. Let's
not be deluded, Trump's decision-making route over the past few weeks
(outside privacy, airport reviews) will sooner or later lead to a threat to
the Wikimedia Foundation. And we must be prepared.

And please, let's leave the false dilemma that as a Wikimedia movement we
should not take political positions because of Wikipedia neutrality. They
are different things clearly.

2017-02-03 6:08 GMT-06:00 Andy Mabbett :

> On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> > I guess this is referring to
> > .
>
> There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC,
> who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.
>
> I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a
> ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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>



-- 
*Iván Martínez*

*Presidente - Wikimedia México A.C.User:ProtoplasmaKid *

// Mis comunicaciones respecto a Wikipedia/Wikimedia pueden tener una
moratoria en su atención debido a que es un voluntariado.
// Ayuda a proteger a Wikipedia, dona ahora: https://donate.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Andy Mabbett]

On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride  wrote:

> I guess this is referring to
> .

There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC,
who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.

I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a
ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Jane Darnell]

Well I for one am one of those unapologetic Wikipedians who "inject their
national and identity politics into the movement". I'm a fan of the "Be
Bold" concept, bigly.

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:00 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:

> Hi Yair,
>
> I agree with your underlying sentiment. When we look at threats facing the
> Wikimedia movement, I continue to think that the risk of people being able
> to inject their national and identity politics into the movement is pretty
> great. While I may personally agree with many of the views being put
> forward, as you note these types of actions have the very real potential
> to create an unhealthy division among contributors and others.
>
> Wikimedia is a global movement and many people in the world have strongly
> held and diametrically different views about gay rights, abortion, free
> speech, the role of women, etc. Those views should rarely be relevant to
> creating free educational content. I don't think it's appropriate for
> Wikimedia to take stands on these issues. If staff of the current
> iteration of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. want to make such statements and
> take such positions, that is technically their prerogative, absent
> intervention from the Board of Trustees, however it certainly behooves
> other Wikimedian to point out what a bad idea it is.
>
> To put it another way: there are people who work at Wikimedia Foundation
> Inc. who voted for Donald Trump for president. While you may
> disagree with his policies and these staffers' decision to support him for
> president, needlessly and divisively injecting this kind of politics into
> the workplace is neither healthy nor appropriate, in my opinion.
>
> Yair Rand wrote:
> >Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog
> >explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area
> >that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior
> >discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
>
> I guess this is referring to
> .
>
> In terms of various people at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. attempting to speak
> for the Wikimedia movement, there's also .
> I've raised the lack of attribution and the "veneer of authority and
> legitimacy" issue at .
> At least the recent blog post was signed by Katherine. That's better than
> some of these other essays.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Jane Darnell]

+1 to "writing an encyclopedia is a political act" and +1 to the notion
called "freedom of speech", and +1 to "refugee bans remind us of very dark
memories", but mostly +1 to the point about bias on Wikipedia! So I can
also only conclude "Bravo Katherine"!

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:26 AM, Natacha Rault  wrote:

> Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have
> neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view.
> The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in
> favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as
> freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all
> political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is
> not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to think
> about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French
> revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral,
> has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes.
> That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to
> fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite normal
> - not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
> speech".
> A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF
> is making notable efforts in a context  where advertising, non disclosed
> paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater
> threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter.
> I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had
> some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to
> start a genocide.
> This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland
> might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach.
> We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans
> remind us of very dark memories.
>  Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent
> wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV
> (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the
> gender biases as far as I see it)
> Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a tweet!
> Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining silent.
>
> Nattes à chat / Natacha
>
>
>
>
> > Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter  a
> écrit :
> >
> > I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the
> case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible
> threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
> > Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement?
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >> On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand  wrote:
> >>
> >> The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse,
> and
> >> has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or
> another
> >> on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of
> these
> >> contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and
> >> institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly
> >> about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen
> >> substantially, especially on this mailing list.
> >>
> >> While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in
> >> remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage
> such
> >> actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of
> any
> >> given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our
> mission
> >> due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who
> >> use the community to advocate for positions that some may find
> >> unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants
> because of
> >> politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors
> >> representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an
> >> environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by
> >> hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no
> >> return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
> >>
> >> As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's
> >> top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I
> think a
> >> stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is
> >> warranted.
> >>
> >> We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia
> Foundation
> >> itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a
> >> geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect
> the
> >> Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With
> the
> >> WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gergő Tisza]

After the ban was announced, StackOverflow founder Joel Spolsky posted an
impassioned call to arms [1] to Meta Stack Overflow (the StackOverflow
equivalent of MetaWiki/wikimedia-l). The community was not happy and a
closing discussion was started. In the end the orginial post was closed and
Spolsky agreed to rewrite it as a company blog post [2] instead. The
discussion is IMO worth a read:
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/342480/should-the-time-to-take-a-stand-question-be-closed-moved

Another discussion that comes to mind is the straw poll [3] on the proposal
to run a banner campaign to protest the imprisonment of Wikipedian and open
source/content advocate Bassel Khartabil by the Syrian government. (The
proposal was closed as lacking consensus.)

Both of these discussions are about community action, and it makes sense
that the WMF would have more freedom in how it expresses itself when
talking in its own name, on its own blog; still, the discussions might
offer some insight into how community members often view political activism
for specific local concerns that's sort of happening in the name of a
global community.


[1] http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/342440/time-to-take-a-stand
[2]
https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/01/Developers-without-Borders-The-Global-Stack-Overflow-Network/
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_Bassel/Banner/Straw_poll
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
As a movement we have several policies that can be contradictory.

We want to be inclusive, have a neutral point of view but at the same time
we want facts to be supported by sources. For many things there are
contradictory sources and for many things there are additional sources.
With the current USA government denying provable facts, we find for
instance that climate change is corroborated around the world by august
bodies like the KNMI. When the USA puts forward an opinion that clashes
with scientific data / facts, it is just that. At best a footnote on the
subject of Climate change.

We know for a fact that a lot of sources have been bought. I can safely say
this now because I already said it when Mr Obama was still president. It is
a proven fact. When we are to share in the sum of all knowledge, we have to
recognise what is what.

When some people insist on calling this political, they have a problem
because sources and quality of sources are key. When we inform about
"climate change" the fact that the EPA was defanged and declawed does not
change the science and it is part of the article on the EPA. What American
politics have to say about climate change does not touch the subject of
climate change at all.

Advocacy for any opinion is problematic and it is well documented that the
current government calls for "alternative facts". They bring measles,
pollution, women dying of botched abortions back to the USA.

When you talk about abortions, sources are important. What a political
party, a government has to say is an opinion. What Doctors without Borders
has to say is observable fact. What they say is backed by scientific
observations. When people call to leave politics out, they will have to
recognise that a NPOV is about subjects where opinions matter. Where facts,
science is available their opinion does not matter and obviously so because
we are not a platform where an opinions can be found we are an
encyclopaedia when we talk about Wikipedia and we should not politicise
based on any given "alternative facts" that are often proven lies.
Thanks,
 GerardM

On 2 February 2017 at 22:09, Yair Rand  wrote:

> The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and
> has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another
> on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these
> contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and
> institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly
> about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen
> substantially, especially on this mailing list.
>
> While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in
> remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such
> actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any
> given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission
> due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who
> use the community to advocate for positions that some may find
> unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of
> politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors
> representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an
> environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by
> hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no
> return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
>
> As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's
> top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a
> stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is
> warranted.
>
> We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation
> itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a
> geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the
> Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the
> WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our
> Neutrality.
>
> How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over
> the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major
> community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an
> extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous
> ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept
> advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die
> outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently,
> the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that
> directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established
> between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to
> the projects.
>
> Three days ago, the WMF put out a 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Amir Ladsgroup]

Here is my two cents:
Most of criticism I saw boils down to these ones:
- It's politics and we should not make political statements: It's not just
political anymore, it's a humanitarian crisis. Handcuffing a five-year-old
boy in airport because of the country he was born is inhumane. Let's not
forget Holocaust was made by a democratic regime and it was completely
legal.
- There are worse things going on in other regimes: Yes, we have ISIS,
mullahs in Iran, etc. but look at the impact. This ban caused hate crimes
against Muslims all over the world. Terrorist attacks in Canada, setting
fire mosques in Texas are all because of this simple ban. if humans stay
silent, worse things happen to them. Let's learn from history.
 - People have different opinions, let's respect that: Yes, but Wikimedia
movement has core values such as inclusiveness and we need to stand for
those values when they are under threat. I take the gay rights example. If
someone makes a homophobic comment, they should be banned (per WP:NPA). So
if someone is as homophic AF and they want to be a part of the movement,
they need to park it at the door when they edit because inclusiveness is a
core value. One other core value is simply "Knowledge knows no boundaries"
and we need to stand for that, political or not.
 - People in WMF voted for Trump: If that's true, which I don't know
because anyone from WMF I know were publicly against Trump, It's very
saddening to see someone who works for WMF votes for someone who
practically opposed everything Wikimedia movement stands for. But It's a
personal matter outside the scope of this discussion. WMF can take a stand
when it's related to its values. Like what happened with SOPA and it is
possible that some employees were for SOPA but it was not the reason not to
take the stand. It's the same today as well.

May FSM bless you, Ramen.
Best

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 4:11 AM Gnangarra  wrote:

> The WMF has an obligation to respond to any changes where its based that
> impact on the movement or potentially impact on the movement, and that
> includes staff members or operational activities under taken.
>
> It cant respond to such changes without taking a POV regardless of the
> situation its not about the under lying politics.
>
> On 3 February 2017 at 08:26, Natacha Rault  wrote:
>
> > Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have
> > neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view.
> > The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in
> > favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as
> > freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all
> > political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is
> > not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to
> think
> > about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French
> > revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral,
> > has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes.
> > That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to
> > fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite
> normal
> > - not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
> > speech".
> > A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF
> > is making notable efforts in a context  where advertising, non disclosed
> > paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater
> > threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter.
> > I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had
> > some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to
> > start a genocide.
> > This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland
> > might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach.
> > We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans
> > remind us of very dark memories.
> >  Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent
> > wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV
> > (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the
> > gender biases as far as I see it)
> > Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a
> tweet!
> > Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining
> silent.
> >
> > Nattes à chat / Natacha
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter  a
> > écrit :
> > >
> > > I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the
> > case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible
> > threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
> > > Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement?
> > > Sent from my iPhone
> > >
> > >> On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Gnangarra]

The WMF has an obligation to respond to any changes where its based that
impact on the movement or potentially impact on the movement, and that
includes staff members or operational activities under taken.

It cant respond to such changes without taking a POV regardless of the
situation its not about the under lying politics.

On 3 February 2017 at 08:26, Natacha Rault  wrote:

> Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have
> neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view.
> The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in
> favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as
> freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all
> political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is
> not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to think
> about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French
> revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral,
> has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes.
> That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to
> fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite normal
> - not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
> speech".
> A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF
> is making notable efforts in a context  where advertising, non disclosed
> paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater
> threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter.
> I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had
> some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to
> start a genocide.
> This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland
> might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach.
> We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans
> remind us of very dark memories.
>  Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent
> wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV
> (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the
> gender biases as far as I see it)
> Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a tweet!
> Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining silent.
>
> Nattes à chat / Natacha
>
>
>
>
> > Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter  a
> écrit :
> >
> > I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the
> case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible
> threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
> > Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement?
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >> On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand  wrote:
> >>
> >> The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse,
> and
> >> has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or
> another
> >> on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of
> these
> >> contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and
> >> institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly
> >> about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen
> >> substantially, especially on this mailing list.
> >>
> >> While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in
> >> remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage
> such
> >> actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of
> any
> >> given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our
> mission
> >> due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who
> >> use the community to advocate for positions that some may find
> >> unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants
> because of
> >> politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors
> >> representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an
> >> environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by
> >> hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no
> >> return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
> >>
> >> As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's
> >> top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I
> think a
> >> stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is
> >> warranted.
> >>
> >> We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia
> Foundation
> >> itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a
> >> geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect
> the
> >> Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With
> the
> >> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Natacha Rault]

Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have neutrality 
issues from a wikioedian point of view.
The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in favour 
of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as freedom of 
sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all political regimes 
(please remember the globality of the movement, this is not just an american 
issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to think about the influence of 
Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French revolution to understand that an 
encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral, has very concrete political influences 
in major political regime changes.
That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to fulfil 
its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite normal - not to 
say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech". 
A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF is 
making notable efforts in a context  where advertising, non disclosed paid 
editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater threat to 
neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter.
I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had some 
leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to start a 
genocide. 
This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland might 
influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach.
We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans remind us 
of very dark memories.
 Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians 
from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no 
achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see 
it)
Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a tweet! 
Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining silent. 

Nattes à chat / Natacha 




> Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter  a écrit :
> 
> I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the case 
> far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat 
> to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
> Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand  wrote:
>> 
>> The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and
>> has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another
>> on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these
>> contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and
>> institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly
>> about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen
>> substantially, especially on this mailing list.
>> 
>> While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in
>> remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such
>> actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any
>> given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission
>> due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who
>> use the community to advocate for positions that some may find
>> unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of
>> politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors
>> representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an
>> environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by
>> hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no
>> return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
>> 
>> As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's
>> top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a
>> stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is
>> warranted.
>> 
>> We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation
>> itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a
>> geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the
>> Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the
>> WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our
>> Neutrality.
>> 
>> How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over
>> the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major
>> community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an
>> extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous
>> ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept
>> advertising, should lack of funds require it. 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[MZMcBride]

Hi Yair,

I agree with your underlying sentiment. When we look at threats facing the
Wikimedia movement, I continue to think that the risk of people being able
to inject their national and identity politics into the movement is pretty
great. While I may personally agree with many of the views being put
forward, as you note these types of actions have the very real potential
to create an unhealthy division among contributors and others.

Wikimedia is a global movement and many people in the world have strongly
held and diametrically different views about gay rights, abortion, free
speech, the role of women, etc. Those views should rarely be relevant to
creating free educational content. I don't think it's appropriate for
Wikimedia to take stands on these issues. If staff of the current
iteration of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. want to make such statements and
take such positions, that is technically their prerogative, absent
intervention from the Board of Trustees, however it certainly behooves
other Wikimedian to point out what a bad idea it is.

To put it another way: there are people who work at Wikimedia Foundation
Inc. who voted for Donald Trump for president. While you may
disagree with his policies and these staffers' decision to support him for
president, needlessly and divisively injecting this kind of politics into
the workplace is neither healthy nor appropriate, in my opinion.

Yair Rand wrote:
>Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog
>explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area
>that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior
>discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.

I guess this is referring to
.

In terms of various people at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. attempting to speak
for the Wikimedia movement, there's also .
I've raised the lack of attribution and the "veneer of authority and
legitimacy" issue at .
At least the recent blog post was signed by Katherine. That's better than
some of these other essays.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the case 
far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat to 
Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? 
Sent from my iPhone

> On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand  wrote:
> 
> The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and
> has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another
> on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these
> contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and
> institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly
> about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen
> substantially, especially on this mailing list.
> 
> While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in
> remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such
> actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any
> given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission
> due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who
> use the community to advocate for positions that some may find
> unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of
> politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors
> representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an
> environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by
> hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no
> return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
> 
> As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's
> top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a
> stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is
> warranted.
> 
> We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation
> itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a
> geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the
> Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the
> WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our
> Neutrality.
> 
> How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over
> the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major
> community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an
> extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous
> ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept
> advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die
> outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently,
> the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that
> directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established
> between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to
> the projects.
> 
> Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog
> explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area
> that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior
> discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
> 
> It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to
> place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions. While we
> value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able to
> override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other
> volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be spent
> towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
> 
> It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects
> remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if participating
> requires a certain political position.
> 
> It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and moderators
> to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> -- Yair Rand
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

[Andrea Zanni]

Having a global and diverse movement means finding value, albeit implicitly,
in diversity (of language, sex, gender, culture, pov).
The NPOV is not a "null" concept: it means giving weight to different point
of views,
merge them together to find a balanced article on something.

Mostly, we as a movement (and WMF, as staff, is part of that)
can remain apolitical: not when there are things that shake the foundations
of our values and what we believe in.

Daring to build a free, open, collective, diverse, international, neutral
encyclopedia
in a volunteer, auto-organized, bazaar-like way
is one of the *most* political and ideological statement I've ever
encountered in my life.

The MuslimBan can affect volunteers or staff at the WMF, it goes against
everything we believe in.
So, to me, a blogpost in the Wikimedia blog is the minimum we can do.
I, for one, am very proud of our staff and our ED for writing that.

Aubrey

On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 10:09 PM, Yair Rand  wrote:

> The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and
> has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another
> on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these
> contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and
> institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly
> about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen
> substantially, especially on this mailing list.
>
> While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in
> remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such
> actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any
> given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission
> due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who
> use the community to advocate for positions that some may find
> unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of
> politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors
> representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an
> environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by
> hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no
> return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
>
> As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's
> top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a
> stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is
> warranted.
>
> We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation
> itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a
> geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the
> Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the
> WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our
> Neutrality.
>
> How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over
> the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major
> community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an
> extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous
> ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept
> advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die
> outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently,
> the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that
> directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established
> between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to
> the projects.
>
> Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog
> explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area
> that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior
> discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
>
> It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to
> place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions. While we
> value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able to
> override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other
> volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be spent
> towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
>
> It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects
> remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if participating
> requires a certain political position.
>
> It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and moderators
> to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
>
> Thank you.
>
> -- Yair Rand
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
>