Hi Theo, thank you for documenting my experience on meta, clearly a
rookie mistake on my part, I hadn't revisited that page since and just
now saw Sarah S note. I'm not giving up but I'm still figuring out the
best way/area to contribute. I'll definitely reach out for guidance in
navigating WMF :)
G. White had a good/well articulated point too, specifically the <<..
framing our response as a whole-of-organisation *technology*, *policy
and curation project *that is needed as a result of organisational
growth. >> For a global organization of this scale that’s built
primarily on people & technology, the demands on a 170-employee must
be enormous, so a holistic approach including technology, policy and
curation is sensible. I can’t speak for the technology part I have
little expertise there, but the reason I started this topic was to
make the case for the “people’s” part – specifically around
*accountability* and *representation* (women and others). This idea is
not novel, far from it, but in my sense the latter is highly
contingent on the former. it would seem this is a small part of a
larger conversation. :)
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 09:59:33 +0530
From: Theo10011 <de10...@gmail.com>
To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects
<gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Accidental Troll Policy - beyond gender gap
Message-ID:
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Hi Sylvia
I share some of your concerns and agree with your insightful observations.
My comments are inline-
On Sat, May 11, 2013, Sylvia Ventura <sylvia.vent...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Theo, thank you for the thorough response. You bring up very valid
> points, specially around privacy standards across countries/continents with
> a very different political and cultural makeup. And not something likely to
> change unless supremacy over wikipedia is given to one specific entity or
> state (nah). And losing our Freedom of Speech is not up for question.
>
> A coupe of thoughts on the comment <<that internet itself promotes
> anonymity>> that might have been the case in the early days, but as more of
> our 'real lives' activity migrates online and replaces the physical world;
> internet has become the 'repository' of knowledge, but also goods and
> services, it's increasingly the place where 'untangle assets' get traded
> and human interactions take place
> (social/professional/commercial/financial/legal…). As we create our online
> trail, so is our personal profile. It's just a matter of time before we
> access everything about anyone with a simple email address (Google already
> pulls chunks of info from linkedin twitter, quora, etc to feed your G+ ID …
> and so does rapportive on email) It's already possible to spot the fake
> (ID) from the real.
>
Yes, agreed. Those are some smart observations. I generally agree with your
concerns above and also fear that as corporations get larger, our privacy,
and its value might be getting smaller. As more devices get networked
together, our digital footprint increases several folds- our phones,
televisions, PCs and the information retained in them, all converge at some
point. From a privacy stand-point, the future does seem to have a bleak
outlook.
I only have a minor disagreement with the last statement. As Thomas already
pointed out, merely spotting a fake ID doesn't really have the same
limitations. The entire system is predicated on the idea that the user in
question chooses to be honest. The system is only effective for those who
choose to be bound by it. A user can choose to provide a false email
address, a false name, or a completely fictitious identity, and the only
way to discern would be to physically visit them and ask to see their
papers - which seems an even more draconian interpretation of the original
thought.
>
> More and more you see these "vetting" mechanisms use cross pollination of
> personal data (i.e. signing up to Airbnb to book room with your Facebook
> account or google account). As far as anonymity is concerned I think we're
> beyond the 'point of no return'. This if from a North American perspective
> of course, but Europe will soon join us with different levels of
> implementation (the trade off is always Access vs Privacy and that's a
> though sell), and so will the rest of the planet. This sounds a bit
> Orwellian and a bit depressing I agree, and that's why it is SO VERY
> important to get Wikipedia and sister projects to thrive and grow and be a
> strong space, repository of human knowledge, human history, representing *
> all* voices.
>
>
An insightful thought. We do trade ease vs. privacy more and more; perhaps
not directly related, but we do have a unified login across all projects
and languages - one login can be used automatically across all Wikimedia
projects. And now, we have an upcoming initiative whereby remaining
accounts across all projects would be unified under one login(SUL). It
would certainly promote access (which we already have), even force it, but
who knows if we might have traded something for it along the way.
Going back slightly to the original issue you mentioned about Meta. I
looked for your username across meta, and only found this mention[1]. But
it doesn't link to a user account, instead and goes to a red-link in the
main namespace for Slv[2]. I see Sarah also left a message on the
associated talk page without realizing that it wasn't a user talk page.
Now, working off the assumption that this was the issue your encountered,
it only means that you didn't technically create or log-in to your account
on Meta, and instead created an article perhaps. Mediawiki divides things
between namespace and a userspace (lets call it your profile - "user:<your
ID>"). The namespace is reserved for articles only, which on Meta means-
essays, policy pages, stroopwafel addiction pages, discussions pertaining
to multiple projects or languages (more or less). An admin would delete
anything that they deem doesn't fit into the description of the project,
but they hardly ever ban a user outright for that misunderstanding. Meta
community is actually pretty lax and gives more leeway for new users.
The biggest difference between a friendly and a new environment, is
familiarity with other users. Interacting with other users and admins makes
a great deal of difference for new users. I would suggest that you don't
abandon Meta yet, and consider engaging again. As far as Meta goes, if you
ever have any issues or queries, please feel free to leave a message on my
talk page there [4], I would do my utmost to help when I can.
Regards
Theo
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen%27s_Collaborative/Blogs/Coordinators
[2]http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slv&action=edit&redlink=1
[3]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Slv
[4]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Theo10011
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