Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
I appreciate the comments of Jan-Bart and DeltaQuad regarding process and openness, although I feel that we're veering off topic a little from the subject of COIs. Since we're veering anyway, I would like to make a distinction between providing openness and providing notice. To the best of my ability to see, Sue's deliberations weren't announced here on Wikimedia-l by anyone from WMF. I appreciate Sue having the discussion in the open, but I think the notice to the community that these deliberations were happening was little to none from what I can tell. Notice to Wikimedia-l and Research-l was provided by me (not anyone from WMF) when I found the proposal's pages a mere two days before Sue's stated wrap-up date of October 14. From my point of view, the absence of notice to the community via this list was a communications shortcoming that I feel is worrisome. I informed a staffer of this on his talk page but he didn't acknowledge my comment, which further heightens my concern about communications gaps, so if someone at WMF could tell me to whom I should address my concern about these communications issues, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
That is not wholly accurate. There was a news brief in the 8th of October issue of *The Signpost*[1] which in addition to individual subscriptions is also sent to wikimedia-l. *WMF to narrow its focus?*: Sue Gardnerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner, the executive director of the WMF, has publishedhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focusher planned recommendation for the WMF's October board meeting. Gardner hopes that by ceas[ing] some activities (or possibly distribut[ing] them to other movement players), the WMF will be able to focus more tightly on high-priority activities that are central to its mandate and mission ... [making the WMF] somewhat less over-mandated and thinly stretched, and therefore better able to plan, predict and execute. Alex [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-10-08/News_and_notes 2012/11/1 ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com I appreciate the comments of Jan-Bart and DeltaQuad regarding process and openness, although I feel that we're veering off topic a little from the subject of COIs. Since we're veering anyway, I would like to make a distinction between providing openness and providing notice. To the best of my ability to see, Sue's deliberations weren't announced here on Wikimedia-l by anyone from WMF. I appreciate Sue having the discussion in the open, but I think the notice to the community that these deliberations were happening was little to none from what I can tell. Notice to Wikimedia-l and Research-l was provided by me (not anyone from WMF) when I found the proposal's pages a mere two days before Sue's stated wrap-up date of October 14. From my point of view, the absence of notice to the community via this list was a communications shortcoming that I feel is worrisome. I informed a staffer of this on his talk page but he didn't acknowledge my comment, which further heightens my concern about communications gaps, so if someone at WMF could tell me to whom I should address my concern about these communications issues, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Pine __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
ENWP Pine, 01/11/2012 10:14: Since we're veering anyway, I would like to make a distinction between providing openness and providing notice. To the best of my ability to see, Sue's deliberations weren't announced here on Wikimedia-l by anyone from WMF. There's nothing strange in this, it's only part of the mailing lists population isn't representative delegitimation saga. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF: conflicts of interest
Of note though, she did freely invite comments on the proposal. Of course its still her decision, but now we at least have the community view on it, whether positive or negative. I also would like to thank Sue for making this as open as it is. --- DeltaQuad - Mobile Tablet English Wikipedia Administrator and CheckUser On Oct 27, 2012 2:11 PM, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, So just as a note from me personally (as a individual WMF Trustee member). What I think is the general idea is that 1) Sue formulates her thoughts on meta rather than privately 2) This is influenced by the public discussion on meta 3) She wraps up at a certain point 4) and sends her final proposition to the board 5) And the board takes her proposition, and the feedback on meta (which she will have included in her proposition) and makes a decision And in this case I think that all of that was done. Its not a community-consensus thing as far as I see. As your Board of Trustees (which also includes your representation) its our task to make that final decision. Having Sue prepare this decision in a public way is a great way of preparing for that decision. Jan-Bart On 27 Oct 2012, at 10:32, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I agree with Denny’s point about COIs in this discussion, and I believe that the same issue has been raised regarding the FDC. I find it helpful when people who have financial interests or other potential COIs disclose that information in their statements on that Meta page and/or in Wikimedia-l depending on where they make their comments, and I would be in favor of a policy requiring that potential conflicts of interest be disclosed in a situation like this. These potential COIs include being a staff member of WMF whose budget or employment would be affected positively or negatively by these proposed changes. In my own case, I'm not a fellow or aspiring fellow, chapter executive, paid researcher, or WMF staff person whose department would be affected by these proposed changes, so I believe that as far as my own comments are concerned, I can speak without a financial interest in the outcome of the discussion. If we operate by consensus instead of by mere vote-counting, and if editors and WMF staff participate in good faith, then hopefully there will be enough balancing and give-and-take negotiation among those with COIs for a supermajority consensus to solidify. The other option is to ask for people who don’t have potential COIs to make a decision based on the opinions and information provided by others. However, this may all be a moot issue since it appears to me that Sue, a few of her chosen associates, and the Board apparently intend to make decisions themselves, so the community discussion on that Meta talk page will be used for discussion but not for finalizing a decision. Someone please correct me if I’m mistaken. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF: conflicts of interest
Hi, So just as a note from me personally (as a individual WMF Trustee member). What I think is the general idea is that 1) Sue formulates her thoughts on meta rather than privately 2) This is influenced by the public discussion on meta 3) She wraps up at a certain point 4) and sends her final proposition to the board 5) And the board takes her proposition, and the feedback on meta (which she will have included in her proposition) and makes a decision And in this case I think that all of that was done. Its not a community-consensus thing as far as I see. As your Board of Trustees (which also includes your representation) its our task to make that final decision. Having Sue prepare this decision in a public way is a great way of preparing for that decision. Jan-Bart On 27 Oct 2012, at 10:32, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I agree with Denny’s point about COIs in this discussion, and I believe that the same issue has been raised regarding the FDC. I find it helpful when people who have financial interests or other potential COIs disclose that information in their statements on that Meta page and/or in Wikimedia-l depending on where they make their comments, and I would be in favor of a policy requiring that potential conflicts of interest be disclosed in a situation like this. These potential COIs include being a staff member of WMF whose budget or employment would be affected positively or negatively by these proposed changes. In my own case, I'm not a fellow or aspiring fellow, chapter executive, paid researcher, or WMF staff person whose department would be affected by these proposed changes, so I believe that as far as my own comments are concerned, I can speak without a financial interest in the outcome of the discussion. If we operate by consensus instead of by mere vote-counting, and if editors and WMF staff participate in good faith, then hopefully there will be enough balancing and give-and-take negotiation among those with COIs for a supermajority consensus to solidify. The other option is to ask for people who don’t have potential COIs to make a decision based on the opinions and information provided by others. However, this may all be a moot issue since it appears to me that Sue, a few of her chosen associates, and the Board apparently intend to make decisions themselves, so the community discussion on that Meta talk page will be used for discussion but not for finalizing a decision. Someone please correct me if I’m mistaken. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF (cleaner version), apology
Just a comment on the discussion: I would find it refreshing if people were not defending funds that apply mostly to themselves. I saw, in discussions of the essay, arguments by researchers saying that more money should go to researchers, by fellows and want-to-be fellows that the fellowship program should not be cut, by chapter associated that funding for supporting the chapters should not be cut, and by people who have been to Wikimania that the money for supporting Wikimania should not be cut. If we remove all arguments of I am an X, and money supporting X should not be cut this discussion would become rather short as of now. One of my favorite 20th century philosophers, a specialist on justice and fairness, has described an interesting concept, and I would very strongly recommend to adopt it during policy and strategic discussions like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance Cheers, Denny 2012/10/26 David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com: I owe a number of good people an apology. I have worked for several self-protecting bureaucracies myself, and it is possible, though not easy, , for individuals to do good work there. I never intended to imply that everyone there is incompetent, though it is certainly my opinion that some of the people assigned to some of the programs I have been involved in have been. I admit that my anger is an inappropriate reflection of my frustration at my inability to work with those in one particular program. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 8:54 PM, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote: One obvious possibility for support is the chapters and the thematic organizations; even if the WMF continues these fellowships as it should, the other bodies in the movement should supplement them--it is good to have more than one source of funds and more than one body deciding on requests. But whether their work can be actually implemented at those levels is another matter. The proposal at meta says the Wikimedia Foundation was never able to resource the fellowships to the point where they could achieve significant impact: I don't think the resource at issue is primarily money, considering that in all recent years we have had not only surpluses, but greater than expected surpluses. The resource which is lacking is sufficient qualified people at the Foundation to work with the fellows and help implement their projects. Rather than get such people--which admittedly would require a change in WMF culture--the WMF staff finds the easiest thing is to not even attempt to make the improvements; it is too troublesome to deal with the good ideas of the community, so the reaction is what one expects of self-protecting incompetent bureaucracies: diminish the flow of good ideas. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Steven Zhang cro0...@gmail.com wrote: In my opinion, the value of fellowships in my opinion is huge, and I feel that ceasing to support projects like the Teahouse would be a real shame. That said, I do feel there are other ways that individual editors could get the support they need to work on critical projects. As long as this remains in some capacity, then I think that could work too. Regards, Steve Zhang Sent from my iPhone On 22/10/2012, at 10:25 AM, Jacob Orlowitz wikioca...@yahoo.com wrote: A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program from past, current, and prospective Fellows, The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been caught in that process: The Community Fellowship program. We would like to express our strong support of this valuable and important program. The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It represents a direct line of support from the WMF to community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained projects. We strongly believe that the Fellowship program is a great way to jump start many projects cheaply, efficiently, and with low-risk. Most importantly, because Fellowship projects are community-organized, there is high potential for their broad community support. We recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation’s allocation of funding must reflect the priorities of the Foundation’s annual and strategic plans, and we understand that the future of the Fellowship program is at risk under the justification that it does not fit within those plans. The Fellowship program of course has a cost, but it is one we believe is well justified by its impact. The
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF (cleaner version), apology
Well, I am a former Fellow e.g. there is no chance that I'll get another Fellowship and I have no connection to the research but wholehartedly agree with thses programmes continuation. And your theory of give us, [insert you definiton here] more money completely breaks down on the Global South support - they don't participate in this discussion, because they have more important thing to do such as earning a living in very harsh conditions. Regards Victoria On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:09 AM, Denny Vrandečić denny.vrande...@wikimedia.de wrote: Just a comment on the discussion: I would find it refreshing if people were not defending funds that apply mostly to themselves. I saw, in discussions of the essay, arguments by researchers saying that more money should go to researchers, by fellows and want-to-be fellows that the fellowship program should not be cut, by chapter associated that funding for supporting the chapters should not be cut, and by people who have been to Wikimania that the money for supporting Wikimania should not be cut. If we remove all arguments of I am an X, and money supporting X should not be cut this discussion would become rather short as of now. One of my favorite 20th century philosophers, a specialist on justice and fairness, has described an interesting concept, and I would very strongly recommend to adopt it during policy and strategic discussions like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance Cheers, Denny 2012/10/26 David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com: I owe a number of good people an apology. I have worked for several self-protecting bureaucracies myself, and it is possible, though not easy, , for individuals to do good work there. I never intended to imply that everyone there is incompetent, though it is certainly my opinion that some of the people assigned to some of the programs I have been involved in have been. I admit that my anger is an inappropriate reflection of my frustration at my inability to work with those in one particular program. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 8:54 PM, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote: One obvious possibility for support is the chapters and the thematic organizations; even if the WMF continues these fellowships as it should, the other bodies in the movement should supplement them--it is good to have more than one source of funds and more than one body deciding on requests. But whether their work can be actually implemented at those levels is another matter. The proposal at meta says the Wikimedia Foundation was never able to resource the fellowships to the point where they could achieve significant impact: I don't think the resource at issue is primarily money, considering that in all recent years we have had not only surpluses, but greater than expected surpluses. The resource which is lacking is sufficient qualified people at the Foundation to work with the fellows and help implement their projects. Rather than get such people--which admittedly would require a change in WMF culture--the WMF staff finds the easiest thing is to not even attempt to make the improvements; it is too troublesome to deal with the good ideas of the community, so the reaction is what one expects of self-protecting incompetent bureaucracies: diminish the flow of good ideas. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Steven Zhang cro0...@gmail.com wrote: In my opinion, the value of fellowships in my opinion is huge, and I feel that ceasing to support projects like the Teahouse would be a real shame. That said, I do feel there are other ways that individual editors could get the support they need to work on critical projects. As long as this remains in some capacity, then I think that could work too. Regards, Steve Zhang Sent from my iPhone On 22/10/2012, at 10:25 AM, Jacob Orlowitz wikioca...@yahoo.com wrote: A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program from past, current, and prospective Fellows, The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been caught in that process: The Community Fellowship program. We would like to express our strong support of this valuable and important program. The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It represents a direct line of support from the WMF to community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained projects. We strongly believe that the
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF (cleaner version), apology
I owe a number of good people an apology. I have worked for several self-protecting bureaucracies myself, and it is possible, though not easy, , for individuals to do good work there. I never intended to imply that everyone there is incompetent, though it is certainly my opinion that some of the people assigned to some of the programs I have been involved in have been. I admit that my anger is an inappropriate reflection of my frustration at my inability to work with those in one particular program. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 8:54 PM, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote: One obvious possibility for support is the chapters and the thematic organizations; even if the WMF continues these fellowships as it should, the other bodies in the movement should supplement them--it is good to have more than one source of funds and more than one body deciding on requests. But whether their work can be actually implemented at those levels is another matter. The proposal at meta says the Wikimedia Foundation was never able to resource the fellowships to the point where they could achieve significant impact: I don't think the resource at issue is primarily money, considering that in all recent years we have had not only surpluses, but greater than expected surpluses. The resource which is lacking is sufficient qualified people at the Foundation to work with the fellows and help implement their projects. Rather than get such people--which admittedly would require a change in WMF culture--the WMF staff finds the easiest thing is to not even attempt to make the improvements; it is too troublesome to deal with the good ideas of the community, so the reaction is what one expects of self-protecting incompetent bureaucracies: diminish the flow of good ideas. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Steven Zhang cro0...@gmail.com wrote: In my opinion, the value of fellowships in my opinion is huge, and I feel that ceasing to support projects like the Teahouse would be a real shame. That said, I do feel there are other ways that individual editors could get the support they need to work on critical projects. As long as this remains in some capacity, then I think that could work too. Regards, Steve Zhang Sent from my iPhone On 22/10/2012, at 10:25 AM, Jacob Orlowitz wikioca...@yahoo.com wrote: A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program from past, current, and prospective Fellows, The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been caught in that process: The Community Fellowship program. We would like to express our strong support of this valuable and important program. The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It represents a direct line of support from the WMF to community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained projects. We strongly believe that the Fellowship program is a great way to jump start many projects cheaply, efficiently, and with low-risk. Most importantly, because Fellowship projects are community-organized, there is high potential for their broad community support. We recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation’s allocation of funding must reflect the priorities of the Foundation’s annual and strategic plans, and we understand that the future of the Fellowship program is at risk under the justification that it does not fit within those plans. The Fellowship program of course has a cost, but it is one we believe is well justified by its impact. The following reasons explain why we think the program is a worthwhile asset to the WMF and one that will ultimately help it succeed in its strategic goals: 1) The program has a track record of producing successful projects, with promising upcoming efforts that would be interrupted by a loss of funding. Most recently a new-editor community called the Teahouse was developed directly through the Fellowship program. The Teahouse, as well as other projects have targeted goals which often match up with those identified by the Foundation as urgent, such as new editor engagement and editor retention. Other projects besides the Teahouse have worked on improving our dispute resolution processes, our small language wiki development, improving the usability of help documentation, and facilitating cross-wiki translation efforts. GLAM/Wikipedian-in-Residence positions were pioneered under the Fellowship program as were studies in long term editor trends through
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
I'm kind sad to see the my personal view of the Wikimedia movement increasingly distant from Sue's view... I believe sister projects are deeply important and potential (we have a Universal Library (Wikisource), a Universal Media Archive (Commons), a Universal Dictionary (Wiktionary), etc.) They are worth some attention and WMF has never given it to them. I believe WMF should understand that his job focus it's not English Wikipedia. There are other Wikipedias and there are other projects. Oh, there are other languages too. I believe the Movement to be deeply international and diverse, and that keeping and enjoying this diversity is hugely hard but hugely important. Both fellowships, attention to developing countries and Wikimania cover that. I believe Wikimania is a awesome occasion to become a WikiMedian, and to fell being part of a Movement. It is wonderful to get new ideas, to talk to people, to understand and learn, and to take back this experience in Chapters and Wikiprojects. Ask anyone who participated in a Wikimania event. I feel that keeping the Fellowhip Program open would be a way to let the community express itself, propose original and innovative ideas and focused projects. I do believe that some of them had an impact (GLAM, anyone?), and will have for years. We just scratched the surface. I regret deeply the distance between WMF and Chapters: they were not allowed to participant in the fundraiser, put in the uncomfortable situation to ask the grants in a burocratic way staying under stricts agreements (ie, California laws AND national laws). It is a complex topic (accountability and so on), but could have be dealt with much better. I believe that money should be much better distributed that centralized, I believe that ''no one, neither the Chapters nor the Foundation, is really entitled to get the money.'' No one really deserve the donations we get as Wikimedia. We did not earn them. They are for Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is a commons, and is common-produced. If we could distribute the money to all the editors around the globe, as a reward, we should do it.. It's impossible, so it's OK, but, still, I hope you get the idea that we are not entitled, we just get them. And we should be aware of that. Aubrey PS: full disclosure: I had in mind to ask for a fellowship about Wikisource, and I'm a chapter member. So there is some personal disappontment, going exactly in the opposite direction of WMF. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
Why when we talk about editor engagement we think exclusively about new editors? How about retaining people, who already made Wikipedia (= the product) and keep maintaining it? Retention of people who have made dozens of edits is about the same as it's ever been. Retention of people who've made a handful of edits has declined substantially since 2005, even though new users still show up at the same rate. I believe sister projects are deeply important All of them have much more popular alternatives doing the same thing they do. For example, PeerWise is vastly more popular than Wikiversity, and is being integrated into thousands of existing institutions' courses far faster than the http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz site can keep up with. On the other hand, the many commercial Commons alternatives are doing fine on their own. It would be more appropriate to reach out to existing non-profit, wiki-like organizations such as PeerWise and simply offer them hosting support than try to pour resources into Wikiversity. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
On 21 October 2012 22:29, Dan Rosenthal swatjes...@gmail.com wrote: The connection is that it is an example of the significantly more negative/hostile environment and failure of en.wp's governance structure that harms editor retention; this is something that could have been studied and reported on by the Fellowship program. Basically, it's a specific example of a broader problem that would be perfect for Fellows to look at, were the program to continue. I was not advocating that the WMF be involved in Malleus's specific debate. As I understand it, the biggest problem with editor retention at the moment is the second edit. By that point, they haven't had any interaction with our governance structure, so that can't really be the cause. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
On 21 October 2012 22:50, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: As I understand it, the biggest problem with editor retention at the moment is the second edit. By that point, they haven't had any interaction with our governance structure, so that can't really be the cause. Anecdotally, I see it turning a lot of smart people with friends into anti-evangelists. I'm not sure how one would measure that, but I do think it's bad enough to be a problem. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 12:10 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Retention of people who have made dozens of edits is about the same as it's ever been. Retention of people who've made a handful of edits has declined substantially since 2005, even though new users still show up at the same rate. Retention of accounts, at least. Since 2005 the need to create accounts in order to do things has significantly increased. I've personally certainly created dozens of accounts since 2005. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 12:10 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Retention of people who've made a handful of edits has declined substantially since 2005, even though new users still show up at the same rate. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 6:30 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: Since 2005 the need to create accounts in order to do things has significantly increased. http://www.informationweek.com/wikipedia-tightens-rules-for-posting/174900789 December 05, 2005 As a result of the incident, Wikipedia no longer accepts new submissions from anonymous contributors, Wales said. A person now has to register with the site before contributing an article. I wonder, what percentage of those newly created accounts with only a handful of edits include an edit which required the creation of an account? If you're going to check, make sure to include deleted edits. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 6:43 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 12:10 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Retention of people who've made a handful of edits has declined substantially since 2005, even though new users still show up at the same rate. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 6:30 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: Since 2005 the need to create accounts in order to do things has significantly increased. http://www.informationweek.com/wikipedia-tightens-rules-for-posting/174900789 December 05, 2005 As a result of the incident, Wikipedia no longer accepts new submissions from anonymous contributors, Wales said. A person now has to register with the site before contributing an article. I wonder, what percentage of those newly created accounts with only a handful of edits include an edit which required the creation of an account? If you're going to check, make sure to include deleted edits. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wsor-june13-enwiki-time-percentage.png Ignoring pre-2003, the percentage of anonymous edits peaked in November of 2005. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
*A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program, from past, current, and prospective Fellows:* * The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been caught in that process: The Community Fellowship programhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships. We would like to express our strong support of this valuable and important program. The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It represents a direct line of support from the WMF to community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained projects. We strongly believe that the Fellowship program is a great way to jump start many projects cheaply, efficiently, and with low-risk. Most importantly, because Fellowship projects are community-organized, there is high potential for their broad community support. We recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation’s allocation of funding must reflect the priorities of the Foundation’s annual and strategic plans, and we understand that the future of the Fellowship program is at risk under the justification that it does not fit within those plans. The Fellowship program of course has a cost, but it is one we believe is well justified by its impact. The following reasons explain why we think the program is a worthwhile asset to the WMF and one that will ultimately help it succeed in its strategic goals: 1) The program has a track record of producing successful projects, with promising upcoming efforts that would be interrupted by a loss of funding. Most recently a new-editor community called the Teahousehttp://enwp.org/WP:TEAHOUSE was developed directly through the Fellowship program. The Teahouse, as well as other projects have targeted goals which often match up with those identified by the Foundation as urgent, such as new editor engagement and editor retention. Other projects besides the Teahouse have worked on improving our dispute resolutionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute%20Resolution%20Improvement%20Projectprocesses, our small language wiki development, improving the usability of help documentationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_Project/Community_fellowship, and facilitating cross-wiki translation efforts. GLAM/Wikipedian-in-Residence positions were pioneered under the Fellowship program as were studies in long term editor trends through Wikimedia Summer of Research. (See the full list of past projectshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Fellows). These projects are of great value and exist in areas that the community had or has not made sufficient advances in on its own. In the works are projects to create a sense of community around the sorely lacking female demographic, to build a game which would ease new editors through the maze of skills needed to be effective, a Wikipedia Library initiative which would outfit our most experienced editors with access to high quality resources through a single sign-on portal, and a Badges experiment to employ a proven approach to recognizing, motivating, and rewarding the efforts of our users. Without the Community Fellowship program, those efforts may stall or collapse. 2) The Fellowship program's core strength is as a laboratory of agile, community-driven creativity and innovation. The program has nurtured projects that require more investment and organization than the community alone can support, but that innovate in areas of importance to both the community and the Foundation. The Fellowship program has the asset of targeted flexibility and cost-effective implementation. Fellowship projects require few if any development resources, substantially reducing their burden on the Foundation. Through its varied portfolio of projects the Fellowship program can address any number of key goals, and do so in a lightweight but meaningful way. 3) The Fellowship program is committed to demonstrating results and making data-driven recommendations that help meet Foundation targets. Fellowship research projects have set and maintained a high standard for reporting results and making actionable recommendations. The Teahouse pilot reports and metrics reports, the dispute resolution survey results, and the template A/B testing projects are excellent examples of this commitment to transparency and accountability. The Foundation has benefitted from these data: results from fellowship projects have been featured at Wikimania. Deputy Director Eric Moeller’s presentation on supporting
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF (cleaner version)
A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program from past, current, and prospective Fellows, The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been caught in that process: The Community Fellowship program. We would like to express our strong support of this valuable and important program. The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It represents a direct line of support from the WMF to community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained projects. We strongly believe that the Fellowship program is a great way to jump start many projects cheaply, efficiently, and with low-risk. Most importantly, because Fellowship projects are community-organized, there is high potential for their broad community support. We recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation’s allocation of funding must reflect the priorities of the Foundation’s annual and strategic plans, and we understand that the future of the Fellowship program is at risk under the justification that it does not fit within those plans. The Fellowship program of course has a cost, but it is one we believe is well justified by its impact. The following reasons explain why we think the program is a worthwhile asset to the WMF and one that will ultimately help it succeed in its strategic goals: 1) The program has a track record of producing successful projects, with promising upcoming efforts that would be interrupted by a loss of funding. Most recently a new-editor community called the Teahouse was developed directly through the Fellowship program. The Teahouse, as well as other projects have targeted goals which often match up with those identified by the Foundation as urgent, such as new editor engagement and editor retention. Other projects besides the Teahouse have worked on improving our dispute resolution processes, our small language wiki development, improving the usability of help documentation, and facilitating cross-wiki translation efforts. GLAM/Wikipedian-in-Residence positions were pioneered under the Fellowship program as were studies in long term editor trends through Wikimedia Summer of Research. (See the full list of past projects). These projects are of great value and exist in areas that the community had or has not made sufficient advances in on its own. In the works are projects to create a sense of community around the sorely lacking female demographic, to build a game which would ease new editors through the maze of skills needed to be effective, a Wikipedia Library initiative which would outfit our most experienced editors with access to high quality resources through a single sign-on portal, and a Badges experiment to employ a proven approach to recognizing, motivating, and rewarding the efforts of our users. Without the Community Fellowship program, those efforts may stall or collapse. 2) The Fellowship program's core strength is as a laboratory of agile, community-driven creativity and innovation. The program has nurtured projects that require more investment and organization than the community alone can support, but that innovate in areas of importance to both the community and the Foundation. The Fellowship program has the asset of targeted flexibility and cost-effective implementation. Fellowship projects require few if any development resources, substantially reducing their burden on the Foundation. Through its varied portfolio of projects the Fellowship program can address any number of key goals, and do so in a lightweight but meaningful way. 3) The Fellowship program is committed to demonstrating results and making data-driven recommendations that help meet Foundation targets. Fellowship research projects have set and maintained a high standard for reporting results and making actionable recommendations. The Teahouse pilot reports and metrics reports, the dispute resolution survey results, and the template A/B testing projects are excellent examples of this commitment to transparency and accountability. The Foundation has benefitted from these data: results from fellowship projects have been featured at Wikimania. Deputy Director Eric Moeller’s presentation on supporting Wikiprojects drew extensively on Fellowship project findings, and E3’s template testing presentation was based substantially on Fellowship research. Fellowship research has been a frequent feature on the Wikimedia blog, and has generated good press for the Foundation. 4) The Fellowship program been instrumental to our
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF (cleaner version)
In my opinion, the value of fellowships in my opinion is huge, and I feel that ceasing to support projects like the Teahouse would be a real shame. That said, I do feel there are other ways that individual editors could get the support they need to work on critical projects. As long as this remains in some capacity, then I think that could work too. Regards, Steve Zhang Sent from my iPhone On 22/10/2012, at 10:25 AM, Jacob Orlowitz wikioca...@yahoo.com wrote: A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program from past, current, and prospective Fellows, The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been caught in that process: The Community Fellowship program. We would like to express our strong support of this valuable and important program. The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It represents a direct line of support from the WMF to community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained projects. We strongly believe that the Fellowship program is a great way to jump start many projects cheaply, efficiently, and with low-risk. Most importantly, because Fellowship projects are community-organized, there is high potential for their broad community support. We recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation’s allocation of funding must reflect the priorities of the Foundation’s annual and strategic plans, and we understand that the future of the Fellowship program is at risk under the justification that it does not fit within those plans. The Fellowship program of course has a cost, but it is one we believe is well justified by its impact. The following reasons explain why we think the program is a worthwhile asset to the WMF and one that will ultimately help it succeed in its strategic goals: 1) The program has a track record of producing successful projects, with promising upcoming efforts that would be interrupted by a loss of funding. Most recently a new-editor community called the Teahouse was developed directly through the Fellowship program. The Teahouse, as well as other projects have targeted goals which often match up with those identified by the Foundation as urgent, such as new editor engagement and editor retention. Other projects besides the Teahouse have worked on improving our dispute resolution processes, our small language wiki development, improving the usability of help documentation, and facilitating cross-wiki translation efforts. GLAM/Wikipedian-in-Residence positions were pioneered under the Fellowship program as were studies in long term editor trends through Wikimedia Summer of Research. (See the full list of past projects). These projects are of great value and exist in areas that the community had or has not made sufficient advances in on its own. In the works are projects to create a sense of community around the sorely lacking female demographic, to build a game which would ease new editors through the maze of skills needed to be effective, a Wikipedia Library initiative which would outfit our most experienced editors with access to high quality resources through a single sign-on portal, and a Badges experiment to employ a proven approach to recognizing, motivating, and rewarding the efforts of our users. Without the Community Fellowship program, those efforts may stall or collapse. 2) The Fellowship program's core strength is as a laboratory of agile, community-driven creativity and innovation. The program has nurtured projects that require more investment and organization than the community alone can support, but that innovate in areas of importance to both the community and the Foundation. The Fellowship program has the asset of targeted flexibility and cost-effective implementation. Fellowship projects require few if any development resources, substantially reducing their burden on the Foundation. Through its varied portfolio of projects the Fellowship program can address any number of key goals, and do so in a lightweight but meaningful way. 3) The Fellowship program is committed to demonstrating results and making data-driven recommendations that help meet Foundation targets. Fellowship research projects have set and maintained a high standard for reporting results and making actionable recommendations. The Teahouse pilot reports and metrics reports, the dispute resolution survey results, and the template A/B testing projects are excellent examples
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF (cleaner version)
One obvious possibility for support is the chapters and the thematic organizations; even if the WMF continues these fellowships as it should, the other bodies in the movement should supplement them--it is good to have more than one source of funds and more than one body deciding on requests. But whether their work can be actually implemented at those levels is another matter. The proposal at meta says the Wikimedia Foundation was never able to resource the fellowships to the point where they could achieve significant impact: I don't think the resource at issue is primarily money, considering that in all recent years we have had not only surpluses, but greater than expected surpluses. The resource which is lacking is sufficient qualified people at the Foundation to work with the fellows and help implement their projects. Rather than get such people--which admittedly would require a change in WMF culture--the WMF staff finds the easiest thing is to not even attempt to make the improvements; it is too troublesome to deal with the good ideas of the community, so the reaction is what one expects of self-protecting incompetent bureaucracies: diminish the flow of good ideas. On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Steven Zhang cro0...@gmail.com wrote: In my opinion, the value of fellowships in my opinion is huge, and I feel that ceasing to support projects like the Teahouse would be a real shame. That said, I do feel there are other ways that individual editors could get the support they need to work on critical projects. As long as this remains in some capacity, then I think that could work too. Regards, Steve Zhang Sent from my iPhone On 22/10/2012, at 10:25 AM, Jacob Orlowitz wikioca...@yahoo.com wrote: A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program from past, current, and prospective Fellows, The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been caught in that process: The Community Fellowship program. We would like to express our strong support of this valuable and important program. The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It represents a direct line of support from the WMF to community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained projects. We strongly believe that the Fellowship program is a great way to jump start many projects cheaply, efficiently, and with low-risk. Most importantly, because Fellowship projects are community-organized, there is high potential for their broad community support. We recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation’s allocation of funding must reflect the priorities of the Foundation’s annual and strategic plans, and we understand that the future of the Fellowship program is at risk under the justification that it does not fit within those plans. The Fellowship program of course has a cost, but it is one we believe is well justified by its impact. The following reasons explain why we think the program is a worthwhile asset to the WMF and one that will ultimately help it succeed in its strategic goals: 1) The program has a track record of producing successful projects, with promising upcoming efforts that would be interrupted by a loss of funding. Most recently a new-editor community called the Teahouse was developed directly through the Fellowship program. The Teahouse, as well as other projects have targeted goals which often match up with those identified by the Foundation as urgent, such as new editor engagement and editor retention. Other projects besides the Teahouse have worked on improving our dispute resolution processes, our small language wiki development, improving the usability of help documentation, and facilitating cross-wiki translation efforts. GLAM/Wikipedian-in-Residence positions were pioneered under the Fellowship program as were studies in long term editor trends through Wikimedia Summer of Research. (See the full list of past projects). These projects are of great value and exist in areas that the community had or has not made sufficient advances in on its own. In the works are projects to create a sense of community around the sorely lacking female demographic, to build a game which would ease new editors through the maze of skills needed to be effective, a Wikipedia Library initiative which would outfit our most experienced editors with access to high quality resources through a single sign-on portal, and a Badges experiment to employ a proven approach
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
This proposal reminds me of management buyout, which Wikipedia defines as form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company from either the parent company or from the private owners. There always been ambiguity to the roles of WMF - does it have right to interfere with Community decisions, especially highly controversial ones? In what form it should communicate with highly dispersed, varied community. I cannot say that I completely agreed with 5 year plan, but at least it have given a clear directions and even (some, not all) achievable goals: attraction of new editors, including women, helping the Global South to access free knowledge. Of course, not all initiatives were working, but at least the was movement in the right direction. I understand that it wasn't easy for the WMF employees, but we all hope that working for a non-profit organisation is not just a day, 9 to 5 job (which are disappearing fast anyway). And now the management found how to end all this - curtail awkward, highly demanding activities on the ground in less civilised world and concentrate on relatively easy, structured work, which can be done in sunny San Francisco - engineering and grant making. I cannot say anything against engineering, this is a cornerstone, although I cannot see how management, Legal etc. engagement with people on the ground have interfered with programmers work and how refocusing will help to create Visual Editor. My worry is about grant making, forgive me, I am not a native speaker, so I can just guess that this means grant distributing. When the chapters started appearing, I thought they will be local WMF, which will build bridges between WMF and local communities. This is not what happened. I don't want to go into details as to why, but Fir WMF had already withdrawn support for the Chapter fundraising through the banner, and now if I understand correctly the Chapters re supposed to fend for themselves completely - they want to do it anyway, but this is a different story. So WMF will collect the money and then will distribute it by the means unknown. As a former member of the Grant Committee I can say that the current process is not very efficient and there is no alternative proposed. And if WMF focus on distributing grants instead of helping directly, it will become incredibly difficult for people with no experience in a highly specific task of grant-writing (=community members) to get their initiatives off the ground, and the money will go to third parties. During the restructuring time WMF will stop supporting really working things such as Wikimania, leaving it to fend for itself, just like chapters. I wonder at what point European Chapters, lead by highly efficient German , will realise that they don't need WMF, buy servers and fork. I can only hope that the Board will not agree with this proposal and WMF will find some other way to reduce work-related stress. Victoria ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
Theo10011 wrote: Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus. I've read (or skimmed) your posts to the talk page and to this list and I'm a bit lost why you seem to be hostile to the document. Were you a big fan of the fellowships or India programs? Do you think Wikimania can't sustain itself? I think you have been pretty vocally critical of programs like these in the past and I would think you would be pleased with the narrowed focus. I am. And I think the Board will be. Is it a perfect plan? No. Is there more work to do? Of course. But I'm sincerely confused about which parts you're upset with and why. If your intent is to rabble-rouse, you're doing it wrong. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
MZMcBride wrote: Theo10011 wrote: Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus. Sorry, one more thing that I think deserves a follow-up e-mail: huge props to Sue for drafting this on-wiki. I know that there were a number of alternate private venues available (such as the office wiki) and it isn't always easy to draft a document, particularly a document like this, in public. In keeping with our values, I hope we continue to encourage everyone to use the public venues whenever possible. Thank you, Sue! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
Narrowing the focus... target locked on Wikipedia... hunf sad... very sad. Thanks board... On 18 October 2012 19:07, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: MZMcBride wrote: Theo10011 wrote: Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus. Sorry, one more thing that I think deserves a follow-up e-mail: huge props to Sue for drafting this on-wiki. I know that there were a number of alternate private venues available (such as the office wiki) and it isn't always easy to draft a document, particularly a document like this, in public. In keeping with our values, I hope we continue to encourage everyone to use the public venues whenever possible. Thank you, Sue! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com +55 11 97 97 18 884 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
