Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 17:14, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: As moderators of WikimediaIndia-l, could you describe the policy you normally adopt towards moderation? This is not a primer, but one thing I changed today was increasing message size from 40 KB to 240 KB. Ideally mailing lists dont encourage attachments / huge mails, but sometimes like today Bala had to attach since he couldnt upload to commons.If any of you feel the limit of 240 KB is high / low, please comment. Also remember under current setting anything above 240 KB will not come instantly, patience appreciated :) I think its better to mail a list ettiqute every month annoucing list guidelines since there will be lot of newbies to mailing list (like it will prevent invitations to join blah blah etc). I will put a wiki page on this soon. This will also help people aware of general mailing list ettiqute (lets not call it policy :) ) Regards, Srikanth L ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Sundar, Having a house of representative system will help managing things better. You are looking a great number of projects and people - if everything goes well - in the general body, and it would be absolutely chaotic when it comes to discussions. 99% you will not see most people for doing something and will have more action thrillers afterwards. It will be as problematic on management of the chapter. Administrative council can act as the advisory board for the EC and they can be the main link between communities for day to day things and will ensure the community participation going forward. This also adds accountability and transparency between chapter and communities. Since wikimedia.in is hosted on some ones private hosting and thoughts are going around about moving to foundation's hosting, I would rather open this in meta. What do you say? Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis I am the first customer of http://www.netdotnet.com woods are lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and lines to go before I press sleep completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 2:55 AM, BalaSundaraRaman sundarbe...@yahoo.comwrote: Jyotis, (This is my personal view.) I concur with the broad idea behind points 3-7 though specifics need to be worked out to suit the legal entity that the chapter is. In fact, some of these have been addressed in the MoA, I think. However, what is the additional role that you envisage for the administrative council given that a general body of members exists? Also, I suggest that a separate page be opened in wikimedia.in wiki to discuss this. - Sundar Some thoughts around this: 1. Local Representation:All local wikis should elect a respected member of their community for a period of a year (or two) and form an administrative council for the chapter. This could be per language basis or per project basis, based on their community size. I would not exclude English, but would limit the participation to one member in council. for the rest of projects - It could be probably like for every project that has more than 50 (this is just a number, we can look at the real world situations) active people (not including bots) - we can allocate one member per project to the council. other wise, one member per language projects would be enuf. this is just to ensure that we have enuf coverage per project and per language depending on the size of people. 2. Formation of EC: From the administrative council, the EC can be elected in for a term. This election should be by the chapter members / local language wikimedians. 3. Limit on Term in EC: It may also be worth enforcing that no project gets more than one (or at the most 2) consecutive term in EC (if we have enuf representations to fill in all slots). This will ensure that all projects gets it share of EC terms over the years. 4. Communication: A Monthly or quarterly report of the chapter activities should be published by the EC and admin council. Individual representatives are and should be responsible for communication between chapter and projects. Should there be a reason to replace the member by the local community, such a provision should be provided. 5. Removal of member: Inactivity and lose of trust by the general public should be considered as a reason for removal as usual. On the other hand, if the rest of the administrative council members feels against one member, chapter should be able to request for replacement citing proper reasons for it. 6. Funds and Grants: All funds and grants from chapter account probably can be openly discussed and approved on the foundation wiki or meta wiki (like the foundation grant process) 7. Audit and Annual report: End of every financial year, an audit committee for the financial and functional aspects of the chapter's actions should be formed from the administrative council and audit results should be made public along with the annual reports. We can go on like this, but I would leave it open to further discussions. That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted. - George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Hi Jyothis, On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:39 AM, Jyothis Edathoot j...@jyothis.net wrote: Hari, Couldnt help asking, but could you please point out whom are you referring as trolls here and who attacked you (or any member of EC) personally? As far as I see this, community members raised multiple concerns here and other threads about transparency in EC's actions and we, as community members, would expect the EC to clarify things, rather than coming around and calling them trolls and marking it as personal attacks. Such a line of defense is not expected from a person sitting in the secretary post of the current EC. I think Hari was referring to Sudhir Ponappa's trolling on this thread. As far as I can see, he is a single purpose account (SPA) created by miscreant(s) for disruption. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-February/002139.html Praveenp's email, however unfriendly, was not moderated by either Hari or I for the sole reason that he is a member of the community. I respect his intentions but I cannot respect the manner in which he had addressed the email to Arjuna. His response is a personal attack on another member of the community. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-February/002121.html I trust this brings clarity. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-February/002121.html Just to add, you very well know that the concerns that we see here is not something new and has that has been around the time the formation plans were announced. I hope you remember the conversation even we had and the discussions that happened right at the out set in mailing lists. Sorry to say this, but I dont think there was any serious efforts came from forming group to reach out to the communities to fixi things up. Atleast not to my knowledge and I may be wrong. Jyothis, I am first and foremost a Wikimedian and a part of the community who happens to be a member of the Chapter EC.[1] I empathize with your position that the Chapter has been unable to send timely reports and communication to the community at large. We can definitely do much better. But let me assure you that there is a large effort that goes behind writing every note to the India discussion list as the members of the ExecComm work as a team in order to build consensus amongst themselves in order to present a unanimous face to the community. Yes, there are occasional disagreements which are resolved through discussion. It's true that we need to make our communications process more efficient. We have had a discussion over this in the past on the EC list where you suggested something that was not legally possible without Chapter registration. It is disappointing to see that you have taken a confrontational approach rather than coming forward to try and help us overcome these teething issues. Each and every member of the ExecComm is responsible to the body as a whole. Therefore, as a part of the Chapter formation process we delegated tasks amongst ourselves and reported back to the ExecComm with detailed emails. Since September 2010, we have had approximately 600 threads of discussion amongst the EC which have been *permanently archived* in Wikimedia servers. These discussions have ranged from the arranging Wikipedia meetups, discussions with our consultant, meetings with the Registrar and various functionaries around Karnataka and outside for organizational support and more. If it helps, starting up and running a non-profit organization in India is very different from elsewhere in the world (saying so because I think you live somewhere outside this country), there are many laws and rules which the EC must adhere to. Please understand that we have all worked very hard and expended a lot of time and energies over the past year to make this organization a reality. None of us have any personal or vested interests beyond the sheer pleasure that comes with working for an organization with a mission which is in harmony with our own ideas for a better world. To clarify further, I was not a part of the initial team that was formed to seed the Chapter. My former attempt at registering a chapter in Ahmedabad is documented here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_India/bylaws/historic Please rest assured that more details will be available to you shortly. Now coming to the role of the Chapter: my understanding is that the ExecComm has no business being the direct representatives of the community. We are a bunch of volunteers who have made the efforts to organize ourselves into a formal entity which can be used for co-ordinating and supporting volunteer efforts around the country for outreach and community building exercises. My allegiance is solely to the principles on which the Wikimedia Movement (and the English Wikipedia project, for that matter) was founded - to spread free knowledge and make the total sum of human knowledge available to each and
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Achal, Good points. Thank you. To have additional mods, it is fairly a simple process to add them in mailman. I would suggest that atleast as a start, we can ask people here to nominate themselves for the positions and we can pick two. Would be great if they are already familiar with the work. *Please note* that it is not a title, but a daily work that comes your way. About the chapter issues, I dont think we need to say more that what Tinu and many others have already mentioned about. While not counting out the efforts that were made by the existing EC on building this out, Transparency is the primary issue that echoes thru. It is probably worth remembering that chapter is just a support system and has no control over the projects or its actions. It is neither an administrative power nor a place for people who just want to have a title on their business card or get their expenses covered. Chapter will be answerable to every single paisa spent to the community and community should stand up and demand for the clarity and visibility on things. If the chapter cannot do it, trust me, it will not last for ever. Probably the interim EC should not have re-elected themselves behind closed doors. Instead, they should have probably opened the memberships and conducted the election for the first official EC. However, my vision about the future of EC is slightly different from what we have now. Unlike many other chapters around the world, Indic chapter have a unique challenge: Many different language Wikimedia projects, ranging from highly active to dead, (and more on the way) rolls up under its umbrella. To deal with this, we can probably take a page out of our democracy itself and consider building a representative assembly style administration system for our future. Some thoughts around this: 1. *Local Representation:*All local wikis should elect a respected member of their community for a period of a year (or two) and form an administrative council for the chapter. This could be per language basis or per project basis, based on their community size. I would not exclude English, but would limit the participation to one member in council. for the rest of projects - It could be probably like for every project that has more than 50 (this is just a number, we can look at the real world situations) active people (not including bots) - we can allocate one member per project to the council. other wise, one member per language projects would be enuf. this is just to ensure that we have enuf coverage per project and per language depending on the size of people. 2. *Formation of EC:* From the administrative council, the EC can be elected in for a term. This election should be by the chapter members / local language wikimedians. 3. *Limit on Term in EC:* It may also be worth enforcing that no project gets more than one (or at the most 2) consecutive term in EC (if we have enuf representations to fill in all slots). This will ensure that all projects gets it share of EC terms over the years. 4. *Communication: *A Monthly or quarterly report of the chapter activities should be published by the EC and admin council. Individual representatives are and should be responsible for communication between chapter and projects. Should there be a reason to replace the member by the local community, such a provision should be provided. 5. *Removal of member: *Inactivity and lose of trust by the general public should be considered as a reason for removal as usual. On the other hand, if the rest of the administrative council members feels against one member, chapter should be able to request for replacement citing proper reasons for it. 6. *Funds and Grants: *All funds and grants from chapter account probably can be openly discussed and approved on the foundation wiki or meta wiki (like the foundation grant process) 7. *Audit and Annual report:* End of every financial year, an audit committee for the financial and functional aspects of the chapter's actions should be formed from the administrative council and audit results should be made public along with the annual reports. We can go on like this, but I would leave it open to further discussions. Thanks. Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis I am the first customer of http://www.netdotnet.com woods are lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and lines to go before I press sleep completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Dear Achal, The below email seems to be trying to address too many things. I'll try to answer some of those. I appreciate your continued interest in the Chapter activity, considering that you were the one who started this out by putting together the initial team. It is probably unfair to say that the chapter hasn't communicated much on time in just the last one month right after it has got registered legally, when the information that flowed right from the time the EC was formed (by you) haven't gone out appropriately and on time. This has been more or less the case for almost two years from there. The leadership has changed in last month. Is that why only the last month's updates are being targeted? And the attack on EC has been either overreactions, emails from trolls and personal attacks. Like many observed on the list, it has been everything else but civil. I personally feel that some etiquette has to be maintained on this list. Be it when you're sending the entire mail digests copied while responding back, or when people are sending bulky attachments or bulky HTML email (and when that gets filtered out by the spam filter and put into moderation - blame the mods who've been looking after this list for like 6 years now!) This also applies to those who've been writing making personal attacks on a public mailing list. I do not see why we should be pushing for more admins on this mailing list when the present admins are active and have maintained this list for all these years. However, since both of the mods who've been helping out as community members here have now ended up in the Executive Committee, I feel that we should probably add two more people. Like Delphine said, moderating lists is more of janitor work. We'd be more happy if people (who aren't trolls) volunteer for this. I'd personally prefer someone outside the Indian Wikimedia community or the Chapter to also be on the moderator list among the two we add. That would probably help where otherwise people have been just jumping into presumptions about moderation when just the Indians are involved. From my own experience, the spam filter's doings have been attributed to us many a times and distrust has prevailed since then. We *do not* selectively moderate emails on this open list. It is deeply saddening when you read the kind of emails coming in during last couple of weeks, and seeing the appalling interest of few in continuing it rather than putting up a note pointing out to the etiquette. - HPN On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: Couldn't agree more. I think that there is/ has been a lot of needless noise. It's not productive to cast insinuations against the chapter or foundation (or community for that matter) as a whole. I do think, however, that communication from the chapter regarding the last set of meetings (and changes then on) have not been communicated very well. If, for instance, some of the basic questions were to be addressed, I suspect that there would be much less basis for this kind of distracting and unhelpful noise. As far as I am concerned, I have fairly simple question: I still don't know why one set of the India chapter leadership (scroll down: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India/MoA-ChapComVer) was suddenly replaced by another (as detailed here: http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Announcements/Communication_from_the_Executive_Committee_regarding_first_meeting_on_January_22,_2011 ). Not being on the EC, I am aware that there might well have been good reasons to reshuffle of the chapter leadership team; I would merely like to know what these reasons were. And also how you decided to change the structure, who stood for elections to various posts, etc. - as I would expect from any Wikimedia community body. Perhaps this is something that the chapter can consider in this instance, and in the future. As for Praveen's email, thanks for the explanations, Delphine, Anirudh, others. However, Anirudh, while the point about moderation/spam filters makes sense, mailman does generate emails (on a daily/per instance basis) to the admins of a list to check/approve messages caught in the filter. So I would imagine that for a message to stay unanswered/unresolved for three days indicates that the burden of administration on WikimediaIndia-l deserves to be shared by more than two people from the Wikimedia India chapter. Specifically, and to follow up on the intent expressed in previous messages (from Jyothis, Salman, Delphine and others), how can we help to immediately create a process whereby two non-chapter community members from India might be added as Admins to WikimediaIndia-l? Hari and Anirudh, I would imagine that the instant you can facilitate this process, there will be sufficient uptake from the community to fill these two slots - many thanks in advance for considering this request from us seriously. Good wishes, Achal On Sunday 13
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Hari, Couldnt help asking, but could you please point out whom are you referring as trolls here and who attacked you (or any member of EC) personally? As far as I see this, community members raised multiple concerns here and other threads about transparency in EC's actions and we, as community members, would expect the EC to clarify things, rather than coming around and calling them trolls and marking it as personal attacks. Such a line of defense is not expected from a person sitting in the secretary post of the current EC. Just to add, you very well know that the concerns that we see here is not something new and has that has been around the time the formation plans were announced. I hope you remember the conversation even we had and the discussions that happened right at the out set in mailing lists. Sorry to say this, but I dont think there was any serious efforts came from forming group to reach out to the communities to fixi things up. Atleast not to my knowledge and I may be wrong. No one has said that the list mods has not done there job. If the community feels that the current mods are getting swamped and more mods are needed, I would assume that it is up to them, as it is their list. just my opinion, rest of my fellow community members may disagree and correct me if I am wrong. Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis I am the first customer of http://www.netdotnet.com woods are lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and lines to go before I press sleep completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 3:33 PM, Hari Prasad Nadig hpna...@gmail.comwrote: Dear Achal, The below email seems to be trying to address too many things. I'll try to answer some of those. I appreciate your continued interest in the Chapter activity, considering that you were the one who started this out by putting together the initial team. It is probably unfair to say that the chapter hasn't communicated much on time in just the last one month right after it has got registered legally, when the information that flowed right from the time the EC was formed (by you) haven't gone out appropriately and on time. This has been more or less the case for almost two years from there. The leadership has changed in last month. Is that why only the last month's updates are being targeted? And the attack on EC has been either overreactions, emails from trolls and personal attacks. Like many observed on the list, it has been everything else but civil. I personally feel that some etiquette has to be maintained on this list. Be it when you're sending the entire mail digests copied while responding back, or when people are sending bulky attachments or bulky HTML email (and when that gets filtered out by the spam filter and put into moderation - blame the mods who've been looking after this list for like 6 years now!) This also applies to those who've been writing making personal attacks on a public mailing list. I do not see why we should be pushing for more admins on this mailing list when the present admins are active and have maintained this list for all these years. However, since both of the mods who've been helping out as community members here have now ended up in the Executive Committee, I feel that we should probably add two more people. Like Delphine said, moderating lists is more of janitor work. We'd be more happy if people (who aren't trolls) volunteer for this. I'd personally prefer someone outside the Indian Wikimedia community or the Chapter to also be on the moderator list among the two we add. That would probably help where otherwise people have been just jumping into presumptions about moderation when just the Indians are involved. From my own experience, the spam filter's doings have been attributed to us many a times and distrust has prevailed since then. We *do not* selectively moderate emails on this open list. It is deeply saddening when you read the kind of emails coming in during last couple of weeks, and seeing the appalling interest of few in continuing it rather than putting up a note pointing out to the etiquette. - HPN ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Hi Jyothis I believe Sudhir Ponappa for one sounded aggressive, designation of a troll is not that far-fetched. You can check with Casey as a neutral observer if that comment was worth moderation or not. I would also include the post on the other thread by praveenp which is responsible for this thread and this entire line of questioning as another example. I hope, I don't need to quote and point out what I am talking about. If anyone on this list has any concerns about the chapter, please feel free to take them up. I feel that this list is being overtaken by issues of chapter accountability. I don't like that this list is being used primarily for chapter relations. There are other issues too, besides the Indian chapter in India. Second, I have been keeping out for the most part on this entire Chapter accountability thing, one thing that seems rather strange is the repeated accusation of miscommunication. I have been a subscriber to this list for a while now, the registration happened a month ago and they've already been accused of miscommunication, chair-shifting and so on. What happened to assuming good faith? is a month enough of a time to justify this questioning? Jyothis, I think you as a steward should be the voice of reason in this, feel free to ask questions directly and if the chapter doesn't reply then it should reflect on them, but please don't let this list be overtaken by these questions. There are others things besides the chapter. Theo10011 On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:39 AM, Jyothis Edathoot j...@jyothis.net wrote: Hari, Couldnt help asking, but could you please point out whom are you referring as trolls here and who attacked you (or any member of EC) personally? As far as I see this, community members raised multiple concerns here and other threads about transparency in EC's actions and we, as community members, would expect the EC to clarify things, rather than coming around and calling them trolls and marking it as personal attacks. Such a line of defense is not expected from a person sitting in the secretary post of the current EC. Just to add, you very well know that the concerns that we see here is not something new and has that has been around the time the formation plans were announced. I hope you remember the conversation even we had and the discussions that happened right at the out set in mailing lists. Sorry to say this, but I dont think there was any serious efforts came from forming group to reach out to the communities to fixi things up. Atleast not to my knowledge and I may be wrong. No one has said that the list mods has not done there job. If the community feels that the current mods are getting swamped and more mods are needed, I would assume that it is up to them, as it is their list. just my opinion, rest of my fellow community members may disagree and correct me if I am wrong. Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis I am the first customer of http://www.netdotnet.com woods are lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and lines to go before I press sleep completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 3:33 PM, Hari Prasad Nadig hpna...@gmail.comwrote: Dear Achal, The below email seems to be trying to address too many things. I'll try to answer some of those. I appreciate your continued interest in the Chapter activity, considering that you were the one who started this out by putting together the initial team. It is probably unfair to say that the chapter hasn't communicated much on time in just the last one month right after it has got registered legally, when the information that flowed right from the time the EC was formed (by you) haven't gone out appropriately and on time. This has been more or less the case for almost two years from there. The leadership has changed in last month. Is that why only the last month's updates are being targeted? And the attack on EC has been either overreactions, emails from trolls and personal attacks. Like many observed on the list, it has been everything else but civil. I personally feel that some etiquette has to be maintained on this list. Be it when you're sending the entire mail digests copied while responding back, or when people are sending bulky attachments or bulky HTML email (and when that gets filtered out by the spam filter and put into moderation - blame the mods who've been looking after this list for like 6 years now!) This also applies to those who've been writing making personal attacks on a public mailing list. I do not see why we should be pushing for more admins on this mailing list when the present admins are active and have maintained this list for all these years. However, since both of the
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
*Aniruth said: * At this point of time, *we don't feel the need for having more list administrators*, however list subscribers who are interested in keeping a check on the spam filter as moderators can write an email to either list admins. This type of reply is not expected from a moderator, even after keeping one member's mail under moderation for more than 3 days because of the busy schedule of the moderators. Since current moderators are very busy, I assume already few community members offered their help to support them. Also since this is not a Wikimedia India Chapter specific mailing list it is not good to have both the moderators from the EC. *Theo1011 said* I have been a subscriber to this list for a while now, the registration happened a month ago and they've already been accused of miscommunication, chair-shifting and so on. In case you are not a subscriber during 2010 March, read this mail thread. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-March/000474.html So the issue not new. Shiju On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 5:42 AM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Jyothis I believe Sudhir Ponappa for one sounded aggressive, designation of a troll is not that far-fetched. You can check with Casey as a neutral observer if that comment was worth moderation or not. I would also include the post on the other thread by praveenp which is responsible for this thread and this entire line of questioning as another example. I hope, I don't need to quote and point out what I am talking about. If anyone on this list has any concerns about the chapter, please feel free to take them up. I feel that this list is being overtaken by issues of chapter accountability. I don't like that this list is being used primarily for chapter relations. There are other issues too, besides the Indian chapter in India. Second, I have been keeping out for the most part on this entire Chapter accountability thing, one thing that seems rather strange is the repeated accusation of miscommunication. I have been a subscriber to this list for a while now, the registration happened a month ago and they've already been accused of miscommunication, chair-shifting and so on. What happened to assuming good faith? is a month enough of a time to justify this questioning? Jyothis, I think you as a steward should be the voice of reason in this, feel free to ask questions directly and if the chapter doesn't reply then it should reflect on them, but please don't let this list be overtaken by these questions. There are others things besides the chapter. Theo10011 On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:39 AM, Jyothis Edathoot j...@jyothis.net wrote: Hari, Couldnt help asking, but could you please point out whom are you referring as trolls here and who attacked you (or any member of EC) personally? As far as I see this, community members raised multiple concerns here and other threads about transparency in EC's actions and we, as community members, would expect the EC to clarify things, rather than coming around and calling them trolls and marking it as personal attacks. Such a line of defense is not expected from a person sitting in the secretary post of the current EC. Just to add, you very well know that the concerns that we see here is not something new and has that has been around the time the formation plans were announced. I hope you remember the conversation even we had and the discussions that happened right at the out set in mailing lists. Sorry to say this, but I dont think there was any serious efforts came from forming group to reach out to the communities to fixi things up. Atleast not to my knowledge and I may be wrong. No one has said that the list mods has not done there job. If the community feels that the current mods are getting swamped and more mods are needed, I would assume that it is up to them, as it is their list. just my opinion, rest of my fellow community members may disagree and correct me if I am wrong. Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis I am the first customer of http://www.netdotnet.com woods are lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and lines to go before I press sleep completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 3:33 PM, Hari Prasad Nadig hpna...@gmail.comwrote: Dear Achal, The below email seems to be trying to address too many things. I'll try to answer some of those. I appreciate your continued interest in the Chapter activity, considering that you were the one who started this out by putting together the initial team. It is probably unfair to say that the chapter hasn't communicated much on time in just the last one month right after it has got registered
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Hoi, As someone who is interested in how India and its projects are doing, the India mailing list is a treasure to me. I am afraid that the current type of bickering will have people move away, first from the mailing list and potentially away from our projects. The objective of both this list and the chapter is the opposite; it should function as an enabling force. As more responsibility is shared more will get done and the potential and power of the chapter and the movement grows Thanks, GerardM http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2011/02/indian-growing-pains.html On 11 February 2011 12:44, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Hari and Anirudh, As moderators of WikimediaIndia-l, could you describe the policy you normally adopt towards moderation? Do you only block obvious spam or other messages, and if so on what basis? I am naturally curious since a message from Praveen that you only just released seems to have been sent in 3 days ago. Furthermore, I think we'd benefit from understanding how people may apply to become administrators on this list. In light of Anirudh's recent appointment to administrator of this list, is there an open process by which other members might apply? (Foundation-l seems to have three administrators, though I would imagine that there is nothing stopping WikimediaIndia-l from having more than three). Please note that I don't ask with persecutory intent, but merely to clear gaps in my own understanding, which might be a problem that other people on this list face as well. Since WikimediaIndia-l is such an important place for all kinds of conversations that cut across the movement in India, it's in all our interests to know exactly how it is managed. Best regards, Achal ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Hello Everyone: I'm using Bala's email because I think he's done a great job of summarizing the various issues on this thread. 1) Why was the election held without informing others of the agenda (the EC answered that it was a required step to formalise the organisation per registration rules, ) This is correct - while the MoA (apologies, Pradeep) requires this to have been done post registration - maybe we were wrong in not communicating this earlier or in a more transparent manner but this ties in to point two below. 2) Why was the delay in communication about the 22 Jan meeting (the EC answered that as a formal org now, they cannot issue communiques without first having the paperwork in place) Having been bitten more than once with the legal complexities around the registration of the Chapter, we wanted to play safe on this and dot all the i's and cross all the t's before making a public statement. 3) Why were the leadership designations changed among the EC members. (This hasnt been answered as far as i know) It isn't that the designations were changed, so to speak. Post registration, we had to elect office bearers and during this election, these posts changes. Hence. 4) Why was Praveen's mail moderated ( clearly answered; because it got caught in the spam filters due to an embedded HTML) This would be my assumption too - good faith holds. That said, yes, I think it would be nice to have a wider representation of admins and that this is clearly the India list and not the India Chapter list. Thank you. Best, Gautam http://social.prathambooks.org/ ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Hi, On Monday 14 February 2011 09:23 AM, Bala Jeyaraman wrote: Hari, As the situation has worsened to the levels that EC is now been accused of being here for swindling money (auctioning off membership) and selective moderation in the mailing list (unfairly in both counts IMO), please be blunt and do clear the air without niceties. The basic questions raised about EC are the following: Actioning off membership is a satiric or exaggerated reply to the mail which has an entirely non-related subject (bank account) from original thread. 1) Why was the election held without informing others of the agenda (the EC answered that it was a required step to formalise the organisation per registration rules, ) 2) Why was the delay in communication about the 22 Jan meeting (the EC answered that as a formal org now, they cannot issue communiques without first having the paperwork in place) More than that, why no mentioning about Jan 22 meeting and about new names in the thread which discussing chapter's transparency (Jan last week). I believe chapter do not need to wait until finishing paperwork for sharing information with community. 3) Why were the leadership designations changed among the EC members. (This hasnt been answered as far as i know) 4) Why was Praveen's mail moderated ( clearly answered; because it got caught in the spam filters due to an embedded HTML) I am pretty much satisfied with 1, 2 and 4. But 3 hasnt been answered and people are now accusing you of being a sekret cabal. I am a new member to the list and as someone uninvolved, my humble suggestions to clear the air are: 1) Answer no 3 and any other questions people have been asking 2) Bluntly define the chapter's role - not the MoA/constitution etc (people are under the impression that the chapter can get involved in deletion discussions in commons) I think Bala misread that mail. Somebody asked me to share any Idea which chapter can run, I said many images originated from India deleted in commons because there is no proper source or license for many images. And if we've proper agreement with any museum or art gallery (most of them are under central or state govts) like Tropenmuseum project, that will be useful. Once chapter initiate such process, I am sure interested people will join and take hold. 3) Get some non EC moderators to the mailing list immediately to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. regards Bala Praveen ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
I think Bala misread that mail. Somebody asked me to share any Idea which chapter can run, I said many images originated from India deleted in commons because there is no proper source or license for many images. And if we've proper agreement with any museum or art gallery (most of them are under central or state govts) like Tropenmuseum project, that will be useful. Once chapter initiate such process, I am sure interested people will join and take hold. Oops. sorry about that :-). I misunderstood that you were asking for intervention in deletion discussions. My bad. On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 11:30 AM, praveenp me.prav...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On Monday 14 February 2011 09:23 AM, Bala Jeyaraman wrote: Hari, As the situation has worsened to the levels that EC is now been accused of being here for swindling money (auctioning off membership) and selective moderation in the mailing list (unfairly in both counts IMO), please be blunt and do clear the air without niceties. The basic questions raised about EC are the following: Actioning off membership is a satiric or exaggerated reply to the mail which has an entirely non-related subject (bank account) from original thread. 1) Why was the election held without informing others of the agenda (the EC answered that it was a required step to formalise the organisation per registration rules, ) 2) Why was the delay in communication about the 22 Jan meeting (the EC answered that as a formal org now, they cannot issue communiques without first having the paperwork in place) More than that, why no mentioning about Jan 22 meeting and about new names in the thread which discussing chapter's transparency (Jan last week). I believe chapter do not need to wait until finishing paperwork for sharing information with community. 3) Why were the leadership designations changed among the EC members. (This hasnt been answered as far as i know) 4) Why was Praveen's mail moderated ( clearly answered; because it got caught in the spam filters due to an embedded HTML) I am pretty much satisfied with 1, 2 and 4. But 3 hasnt been answered and people are now accusing you of being a sekret cabal. I am a new member to the list and as someone uninvolved, my humble suggestions to clear the air are: 1) Answer no 3 and any other questions people have been asking 2) Bluntly define the chapter's role - not the MoA/constitution etc (people are under the impression that the chapter can get involved in deletion discussions in commons) I think Bala misread that mail. Somebody asked me to share any Idea which chapter can run, I said many images originated from India deleted in commons because there is no proper source or license for many images. And if we've proper agreement with any museum or art gallery (most of them are under central or state govts) like Tropenmuseum project, that will be useful. Once chapter initiate such process, I am sure interested people will join and take hold. 3) Get some non EC moderators to the mailing list immediately to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. regards Bala Praveen ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Beauty lies in the eyes of the beer holder ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Jyotis, (This is my personal view.) I concur with the broad idea behind points 3-7 though specifics need to be worked out to suit the legal entity that the chapter is. In fact, some of these have been addressed in the MoA, I think. However, what is the additional role that you envisage for the administrative council given that a general body of members exists? Also, I suggest that a separate page be opened in wikimedia.in wiki to discuss this. - Sundar Some thoughts around this: 1. Local Representation:All local wikis should elect a respected member of their community for a period of a year (or two) and form an administrative council for the chapter. This could be per language basis or per project basis, based on their community size. I would not exclude English, but would limit the participation to one member in council. for the rest of projects - It could be probably like for every project that has more than 50 (this is just a number, we can look at the real world situations) active people (not including bots) - we can allocate one member per project to the council. other wise, one member per language projects would be enuf. this is just to ensure that we have enuf coverage per project and per language depending on the size of people. 2. Formation of EC: From the administrative council, the EC can be elected in for a term. This election should be by the chapter members / local language wikimedians. 3. Limit on Term in EC: It may also be worth enforcing that no project gets more than one (or at the most 2) consecutive term in EC (if we have enuf representations to fill in all slots). This will ensure that all projects gets it share of EC terms over the years. 4. Communication: A Monthly or quarterly report of the chapter activities should be published by the EC and admin council. Individual representatives are and should be responsible for communication between chapter and projects. Should there be a reason to replace the member by the local community, such a provision should be provided. 5. Removal of member: Inactivity and lose of trust by the general public should be considered as a reason for removal as usual. On the other hand, if the rest of the administrative council members feels against one member, chapter should be able to request for replacement citing proper reasons for it. 6. Funds and Grants: All funds and grants from chapter account probably can be openly discussed and approved on the foundation wiki or meta wiki (like the foundation grant process) 7. Audit and Annual report: End of every financial year, an audit committee for the financial and functional aspects of the chapter's actions should be formed from the administrative council and audit results should be made public along with the annual reports. We can go on like this, but I would leave it open to further discussions. That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted. - George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture From: Jyothis Edathoot j...@jyothis.net To: Wikimedia India list wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sun, February 13, 2011 11:59:49 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l Achal, Good points. Thank you. To have additional mods, it is fairly a simple process to add them in mailman. I would suggest that atleast as a start, we can ask people here to nominate themselves for the positions and we can pick two. Would be great if they are already familiar with the work. Please note that it is not a title, but a daily work that comes your way. About the chapter issues, I dont think we need to say more that what Tinu and many others have already mentioned about. While not counting out the efforts that were made by the existing EC on building this out, Transparency is the primary issue that echoes thru. It is probably worth remembering that chapter is just a support system and has no control over the projects or its actions. It is neither an administrative power nor a place for people who just want to have a title on their business card or get their expenses covered. Chapter will be answerable to every single paisa spent to the community and community should stand up and demand for the clarity and visibility on things. If the chapter cannot do it, trust me, it will not last for ever. Probably the interim EC should not have re-elected themselves behind closed doors. Instead, they should have probably opened the memberships and conducted the election for the first official EC. However, my vision about the future of EC is slightly different from what we have now. Unlike many other chapters around the world, Indic chapter have a unique challenge: Many different language Wikimedia projects, ranging from highly active to dead, (and more on the way) rolls up under its
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
My last message has only 112 kb even with that embedded image. A 112 kb message is not bulky in these days. Some people told me that mail man will not block any message if there is nothing to load from outside. I remember once I used donate to wikipedia image in all my message, but never get any problem in any list. If thats also true for this list, please increase maximum message size for the list (500 kb or atleast 300 kb?). I saw Jyothis' messge to other thread was also under moderation for about 14 hrs (probably because he quoted me :D). On Saturday 12 February 2011 02:44 PM, Anirudh Bhati wrote: Hi Achal, On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com mailto:aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: As moderators of WikimediaIndia-l, could you describe the policy you normally adopt towards moderation? Thank you for the email. You can review the Wikimedia mailing lists administration page for information about the role of list admins and mods. Here is a link which you can review: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Administration Do you only block obvious spam or other messages, and if so on what basis? The spam filter on default catches spam and other bulky messages (including ones that have image(s) embedded in them.) I think Delphine's email contains a nice explanation. List mods can moderate trolls and other problem users who willfully cause or contribute to disruption on the mailing list. I am naturally curious since a message from Praveen that you only just released seems to have been sent in 3 days ago. Furthermore, I think we'd benefit from understanding how people may apply to become administrators on this list. I understand the source of curiosity and would like to clarify that Praveen's email was caught in the filter because it had an image embedded in it. In light of Anirudh's recent appointment to administrator of this list, is there an open process by which other members might apply? (Foundation-l seems to have three administrators, though I would imagine that there is nothing stopping WikimediaIndia-l from having more than three). There is no formal process for appointment of list administrators. The usual practice on Wikimedia lists is for the founder of a mailing list to appoint admins and mods whom s/he can trust with keeping the lists running as smoothly as possible. At this point of time, we don't feel the need for having more list administrators, however list subscribers who are interested in keeping a check on the spam filter as moderators can write an email to either list admins. Please note that I don't ask with persecutory intent, but merely to clear gaps in my own understanding, which might be a problem that other people on this list face as well. Since WikimediaIndia-l is such an important place for all kinds of conversations that cut across the movement in India, it's in all our interests to know exactly how it is managed. For more information, please review the following pages: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Overview Best regards, Achal Best, Anirudh Bhati ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Hello everybody. I am a Wikipedian who is very interested in translation. I am helping with English to Kannada, but I am also learning chapter language. What is this? For eg. *Anirudh:* At this point of time, we don't feel the need for having more list administrators, however list subscribers who are interested in keeping a check on the spam filter as moderators can write an email to either list admins. *Translation:* Can all the ordinary members of this list please keep out of my business? I would prefer to continue censoring this list with my best friend HPN. After all, I am the EC of the India chapter and I have an unlimited Wikimedia Foundation sponsored travel budget which I regularly use to go to Frankfurt, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Berlin, etc. etc. and I would really like to get back to my travel now and stop worrying about stupid issues but if any of you slaves feels like doing my dirty work while I travel then of course I welcome that with open arms. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
I have no idea what's been happening lately on the mailing list. Please keep it civil, this is getting rude and inappropriate for a national list. It would be archived and viewed by many others, please do bear that in mind. User:Theo10011 On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 12:37 AM, Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org wrote: On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Sudhir Ponappa ponappasud...@yahoo.com wrote: Hello everybody. I am a Wikipedian who is very interested in translation. I am helping with English to Kannada, but I am also learning chapter language. What is this? For eg. Thank you for helping the thread by providing an example of a message that would require moderation! Rude personal attacks such as these are the perfect examples of what should be moderated on a mailing list. -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
spelling mistake :- There were 2-3 people who were in the same boat. So one was on the road 20 days in a month, some people like traveling and others do not. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal शिरीष अग्रवाल My quotes in this email licensed under CC 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com 065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3 8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Couldn't agree more. I think that there is/ has been a lot of needless noise. It's not productive to cast insinuations against the chapter or foundation (or community for that matter) as a whole. I do think, however, that communication from the chapter regarding the last set of meetings (and changes then on) have not been communicated very well. If, for instance, some of the basic questions were to be addressed, I suspect that there would be much less basis for this kind of distracting and unhelpful noise. As far as I am concerned, I have fairly simple question: I still don't know why one set of the India chapter leadership (scroll down: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India/MoA-ChapComVer) was suddenly replaced by another (as detailed here:http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Announcements/Communication_from_the_Executive_Committee_regarding_first_meeting_on_January_22,_2011). Not being on the EC, I am aware that there might well have been good reasons to reshuffle of the chapter leadership team; I would merely like to know what these reasons were. And also how you decided to change the structure, who stood for elections to various posts, etc. - as I would expect from any Wikimedia community body. Perhaps this is something that the chapter can consider in this instance, and in the future. As for Praveen's email, thanks for the explanations, Delphine, Anirudh, others. However, Anirudh, while the point about moderation/spam filters makes sense, mailman does generate emails (on a daily/per instance basis) to the admins of a list to check/approve messages caught in the filter. So I would imagine that for a message to stay unanswered/unresolved for three days indicates that the burden of administration on WikimediaIndia-l deserves to be shared by more than two people from the Wikimedia India chapter. Specifically, and to follow up on the intent expressed in previous messages (from Jyothis, Salman, Delphine and others), how can we help to immediately create a process whereby two non-chapter community members from India might be added as Admins to WikimediaIndia-l? Hari and Anirudh, I would imagine that the instant you can facilitate this process, there will be sufficient uptake from the community to fill these two slots - many thanks in advance for considering this request from us seriously. Good wishes, Achal On Sunday 13 February 2011 02:41 AM, Theo10011 wrote: I have no idea what's been happening lately on the mailing list. Please keep it civil, this is getting rude and inappropriate for a national list. It would be archived and viewed by many others, please do bear that in mind. User:Theo10011 On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 12:37 AM, Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org mailto:li...@caseybrown.org wrote: On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Sudhir Ponappa ponappasud...@yahoo.com mailto:ponappasud...@yahoo.com wrote: Hello everybody. I am a Wikipedian who is very interested in translation. I am helping with English to Kannada, but I am also learning chapter language. What is this? For eg. Thank you for helping the thread by providing an example of a message that would require moderation! Rude personal attacks such as these are the perfect examples of what should be moderated on a mailing list. -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
Dear Hari and Anirudh, As moderators of WikimediaIndia-l, could you describe the policy you normally adopt towards moderation? Do you only block obvious spam or other messages, and if so on what basis? I am naturally curious since a message from Praveen that you only just released seems to have been sent in 3 days ago. Furthermore, I think we'd benefit from understanding how people may apply to become administrators on this list. In light of Anirudh's recent appointment to administrator of this list, is there an open process by which other members might apply? (Foundation-l seems to have three administrators, though I would imagine that there is nothing stopping WikimediaIndia-l from having more than three). Please note that I don't ask with persecutory intent, but merely to clear gaps in my own understanding, which might be a problem that other people on this list face as well. Since WikimediaIndia-l is such an important place for all kinds of conversations that cut across the movement in India, it's in all our interests to know exactly how it is managed. Best regards, Achal ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Moderation policy on WikimediaIndia-l
HI Achal, On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Hari and Anirudh, As moderators of WikimediaIndia-l, could you describe the policy you normally adopt towards moderation? Do you only block obvious spam or other messages, and if so on what basis? I am naturally curious since a message from Praveen that you only just released seems to have been sent in 3 days ago. I'm not privy to the settings on this list, but here is what I think happened. This list is not moderated per ante, or the moderators would have to approve all of our messages, whether we're subscribed or not. So it's probably only auto-moderated through the spam filter, which means that messages that the mailman spam filter considers spam are put on hold. This is where the moderators come into play. They have to review messages and decide what is spam and what is not. Being an admin on many other wikimedia mailing lists, I can tell you from my own experience that on an open subscription list (like this one), the amount of spam is usually important, but that very few people actually try to write to the list while not subscribed. Which means that as an admin, you probably only need to check every few days to make sure nothing got caught that shouldn't have been. Now, Praveen's email has an image embedded in it... and that, my friend, is very quickly considered spam by mailman (the software). So my take is that his email (although he is a member of this list) was considered spam and held for moderation by the software. The mods checking in a fews days later released the message, hence the delay. So I would not see any act of moderation from anyone human in this delayed message...in an ideal world, it should not have been blocked in the first place, but mailman's spam filter is a killer. Furthermore, I think we'd benefit from understanding how people may apply to become administrators on this list. In light of Anirudh's recent appointment to administrator of this list, is there an open process by which other members might apply? (Foundation-l seems to have three administrators, though I would imagine that there is nothing stopping WikimediaIndia-l from having more than three). In such country/chapter-related lists, the usual practice is to have anyone interested to say I'll moderate, and given they are not a famous troll, give them the tools. Now, let's face it, moderation is a big word, unless the list is really heated and personal attacks fly around all the time. The moderator work usually involves more janitor work (see above the spam explanation) than real moderation and can become really not fun. So you need motivated people who are not just trying to make it look as if they'll be doing anything. :P This said, experience tells me that 3/4 moderators is a good number, so that when/if moderation needs to occur, mods can exchange between themselves as to whether moderation is needed on a particular topic/of a particular individual. More people, in my experience, usually leads to stagnation, as mods expects the other mods will have cleared the spam and checked the messages held and don't bother looking at the queue (been there, done that). Cheers, Delphine -- @notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l