Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Erik Moeller writes: > What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list > communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more > productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of > this list, would you like to see change? I'll try to gather what I see as a problem, strictly from a technical point of view (code being law and all that, I think it's still the easier side to attack the problem from): - the discussion space is divided by time, not by topic. What little topic-based division exists (the subject line of the mails) depends on the ability of the first poster of the thread to choose an informative title, and is hard to fix afterwards. This, together with the lack of good search, means that there is no easy way to see whether something was already discussed before (which makes people reluctant to write about issues that they think might have been raised before), and it is not easy to make use of insights gathered on this list, making it a huge sink of time and effort. - the moderation is not transparent: if someone claims being censured, there is no way for most people to check whether he just tried to post complete bullshit, or one of the moderators was indeed overzealous. - the moderation is binary, and consequently too soft: there is no way to flag messages as not containing any new information or insight, and this with the habit of some of the regulars to get into frequent unproductive debates about semantics and proper etiquette and such makes the signal to noise ratio low. Also, there is no way to highlight posts, which would make sense in some cases; e. g. in questions addressed to the foundation, authoritative answers by board/staff members should stand out. - topics cannot be raised on multiple lists without splitting the discussion; there is also no easy way to move a discussion to another place. - it is hard to include new people (who where not subscribed before) into a discussion bacause the way replying works. (This is actually solved by gmane, but it is not widely known, nor 100% reliable.) - there is no way to see how many people are interested in a thread. - there is no way to determine consensus (even approximately). With many people not wanting to spam the list with mails saying only they agree or disagree, it just devolves into the consensus of the most loud. - it just doesn't scale well. Already everyone is complaining about the traffic, and there are scarcely any issues discussed (compare with the number of proposals on the strategy wiki). I always found it strange that Wikimedia, being one of the greatest facilitators of online collaboration, doesn't have its own cutting edge communication tools. Not only do the mailing lists suck, wiki talk pages are just as bad. I think the logical thing to do would be to take back most of the meta-project communication to the wikis, eat our own dogfood, and develop a wiki-based communication system that works (preferably in reverse order). LiquidThreads was developed for that purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why? I think the foundation should invest into reviewing state of the art tools for large-scale constructive/informative discussion (slashdot, stackoverflow, ideatorrent, uservoice come to mind) and adding whatever feature needed to LiquidThreads to make it stick. I think opt-out moderation based on some sort of collaborative scoring, some sort of voting or at least ranking method, and thread summaries with a tag or category system are the norm nowadays, and of course there would be need for a bidirectional email gateway. That said, a few suggestions that do not require moving away from the current system, are easy to implement, and might help the situation somewhat: - set up a clone of foundation-l which is heavily moderated, and where all letters which do not add new information or insight to the discussion are discarded. People with a lot of time on their hands could still read the unmoderated version on the original list. - make better use of Nabble (or some opensource equivalent), which already provides a forum interface to foundation-l with abilities to post from the web interface, postmoderate and collaboratively rank posts and threads: http://www.nabble.com/WikiMedia-Foundation-f14054.html - make some of the private lists readable to everyone. If the only reason for their existence is noise, it is enough to control write access strictly. - set up a public waste bin where moderated mails can still be read (thus avoiding the censorship debates) but do not pollute the discussion otherwise. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-
Why should all Wikimedians have the same culture and ideas and way of thinking as you? Why should Wikimedians who have a culture be excluded from setting up a chapter? Besides that I think you're paraphrasing way too much. The grant request only suggested that this kind of costs are just costs that have to be made to work efficiently. The chapter asked the Foundation to pay for it the first year, so that they could focus on useful stuff. I hope they will be able to generate these and other funds themselves from next year onwards. Lodewijk 2009/9/11 Thomas Dalton > 2009/9/11 Jennifer Riggs : > > However the word and concept of "frugality" differs significantly across > > cultures. In my experience with many non-Western cultures, asking people > > to bring lunch from home or spend their own money for it would not only > > exclude participation, it would insult people. If the purpose is to > > encourage participation and commitment to a newly forming organization, > > it seems it would be very important not to insult people. > > If we were talking about meetings with people from outside the > Wikimedia movement, I would agree with you, but I really can't see how > it can be insulting not to provide food at a meeting of Wikimedians > when the people attending the meeting and the people organising the > meeting are exactly the same people. If people are only willing to set > up a chapter if the WMF buys them lunch once a month, I don't want > those people setting up a chapter. > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: > This is effectively the only cross-project list at the moment. And it > is the canonical place to raise certain important issues and > announcements. > > It has become popular to disparage this list as a poor place to have > serious discussions about the foundation -- and to do the disparaging > in private, where it can't possible lead to consensus to change this. > Let's please stop doing that, and instead fix the list and its norms, > or devise replacements and alternatives, so that we can all agree on > where to have open, welcoming discussions -- that are comfortable for > almost everyone, including non-native English speakers; that draw > input from the core audience (people who care about Foundation > issues). > > Please don't view this as a problem that someone else must identify > and cope with. If you are reading this list, you can help fix it. A reminder that there's ongoing discussion on meta about what to do. Please add to it! http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l -- phoebe ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Brian wrote: > > Some of us feel that the foundation has become out of our reach. > That no matter how much we discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be > too > hard, Is this related to the foundation per se? This is just a difficulty of large scale consensus that we all share. > or there will be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for > any > real change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the > foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea. There is no process for one group to convince another group across projects that they have a good idea. This is true whether or not one of the groups is the foundation (and true even when the group doing the 'convincing' is the foundation). Let's fix this. If you wouldn't mind picking a 'good idea' that's been hard to share recently, that would be a fine place to start. > should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it > upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding > it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of > their employees in which they are expected to participate in these This is true. I think that if you look at the first posts in new threads over time, you'll find that foundation members do this regularly [and often struggle to get significant feedback, even to such excellent posts as detailed project or strategy considerations; monthly reports; and entire budget proposals]. It is not only the foundation staff, which make up a small minority of the audience and participants of thelist, who need to work together on this! the shyer staff, like the other highly motivated wikimedians who lurk but don't post, need help finding a voice here. And the central goals of this list, discussion about new projects, multilingual and cross-project issues, chapter setup, general fundraising and outreach, include many things that simply don't get enough time or attention on the list from any group. > exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation > business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like > we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we > not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it. If you start to provide a bit more detail to each of these clauses and feelings, you may find that this concern falls apart. There aren't many people shouting about positive things that need attention; there are regularly staff asking for input who receive none; and there are regularly people trying to talk about projects they are working on with only sporadic interest or feedback. Finding ways to improve all of these conversations is critically important, but I think that starts with recognizing them as conversations, not as one-way broadcasts which are failing to meet certain standards. Sue writes: > I think it's fair to say that some of the staff are a little afraid to engage > on foundation-l --- it > can be intimidating, especially for new people. I > think the staff feels both an obligation and > a desire to engage with > community members, but some tend to do it in forums that feel > safer and more supportive (which might be on internal-l, This is not what internal-l was designed for, and one of the great dangers of proliferating private lists is that they actively divide communities. One can create moderated world-readable lists to have a less intimidating forum; there is no need to also make it hidden. SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
I agree with Tim's initial points. On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Tim Starling wrote: > David Gerard wrote: >> wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/ > > If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly > authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content No need to optimize for this until it's a problem... > via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would You retain postmoderation for people who use the online forum. If you get bothered by spam and wish for more moderation you can move to reading online. > There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists > have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and > that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both > directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and > don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and > find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous. > > Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the > former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface > is wishful thinking. > > A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance > towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But > then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via > mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain > that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to I don't feel that this is a large group at all. The vast majority of people who lurk but don't contribute, and don't find the forum useful, are willing to be creative in the tools they use to participate, but want a social space where they feel comfortable / where they can find comfortable discussions. These are generally people who get along fine on wikis that include [somewhere] quite dramatic edit wars... it's not shyness about dealing with spam or trolls that keeps them from finding the lists useful. > I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should > move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose > what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance > on private mailing lists. It would be nice to have something to compare before guessing what the outcomes would be. As Milos said, I guess most people would be happy with 'some user-friendly, free speech-friendly and workable solution' and might be glad to try something different. SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list
This is effectively the only cross-project list at the moment. And it is the canonical place to raise certain important issues and announcements. It has become popular to disparage this list as a poor place to have serious discussions about the foundation -- and to do the disparaging in private, where it can't possible lead to consensus to change this. Let's please stop doing that, and instead fix the list and its norms, or devise replacements and alternatives, so that we can all agree on where to have open, welcoming discussions -- that are comfortable for almost everyone, including non-native English speakers; that draw input from the core audience (people who care about Foundation issues). Please don't view this as a problem that someone else must identify and cope with. If you are reading this list, you can help fix it. SJ (Who has also received off-list comments recently, from people who aren't native english speakers and have never posted here, about how this is not an effective place for them to take part in important Wikimedia or foundation discussions.) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Jennifer Riggs wrote: > The discussion about a budget line item being appropriate in one context > and not in the next has been very interesting to me. And especially in > this case as it involves the provision of food, which is one of the most > deeply held cultural norms in many communities. > > Frugality is certainly a consideration for the WMF. I can say with my > staff hat on that while we do get generous grants from foundations to > help support your amazing work, everyone here also thinks about the $5 > that was donated by a student and feels a responsibility to that student. > > However the word and concept of "frugality" differs significantly across > cultures. In my experience with many non-Western cultures, asking people > to bring lunch from home or spend their own money for it would not only > exclude participation, it would insult people. If the purpose is to > encourage participation and commitment to a newly forming organization, > it seems it would be very important not to insult people. > > In many cultures I've worked in, if you didn't bring cigarettes, you > couldn't get a goat to listen to you. These may seem to be extreme > cases, but I'm thinking about WMF and the Wikimedia movement as truly > global. So I don't think we should dismiss this concept just because > currently we aren't working with any people who require cigarettes > before thinking about editing a Wikipedia. > > I have no idea what the cultural norms for providing food at initial > meetings are in Portugal or many other places. I just add my crumb to > the discussion as a reminder that if we are wearing limited cultural > lenses when we create policy, it will forever limit us to working within > communities who are interested and able to live within those restrictions. > > Jennifer Riggs Thanks Jennifer for your comment. I hope that people go a little easy in their responses to this e-mail, so that we don't accidentally discourage Foundation staffers from replying to this list. I have some questions, Jennifer, if you don't mind: * The idea of tailoring funding to cultural norms is valid, in theory, but I personally have a hard time understanding what major cultural distinctions separate Portugal from other European chapters in this regard. Does allowing for cultural norms in funding grants require that the grant-makers familiarize themselves with the relevant norms? (I was originally going to ask if you were aware of characteristics unique to Portugal on this, but you've written that you are not). * I'm curious about the process of distributing funding like this in general, and what criteria for a pre-existing structure or evidence of community support you look for ahead of making grants - and in the same vein, what sort of follow up is planned to ensure funding is spent and appropriately. If I'm wrong please let me know, but is it accurate that the chapter is in its earliest stages, with no chapter agreement, no review or involvement from ChapCom, limited organizing activity on wiki and no legal structure for bearing responsibility for money? * Was there a series of off-wiki exchanges with the Portuguese chapter folks about the best way to utilize funding, and whether face to face meetings were appropriate for an extended series of planning meetings? * Will the reaction to this grant will influence future grants, whether similar requests and grants will be publicized in the future (and to what extent)? What type of engagement the Foundation would like with the community on the issue of community funding? Hopefully this doesn't come across as entirely critical; I haven't seen other finalized grants, don't know anything about the behind-the-scenes communication, or even whether extenuating circumstances (such as all founding members in fact living in different cities) make the funding level more appropriate than it seems on face value. Thanks, Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-
2009/9/11 Jennifer Riggs : > However the word and concept of "frugality" differs significantly across > cultures. In my experience with many non-Western cultures, asking people > to bring lunch from home or spend their own money for it would not only > exclude participation, it would insult people. If the purpose is to > encourage participation and commitment to a newly forming organization, > it seems it would be very important not to insult people. If we were talking about meetings with people from outside the Wikimedia movement, I would agree with you, but I really can't see how it can be insulting not to provide food at a meeting of Wikimedians when the people attending the meeting and the people organising the meeting are exactly the same people. If people are only willing to set up a chapter if the WMF buys them lunch once a month, I don't want those people setting up a chapter. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-
The discussion about a budget line item being appropriate in one context and not in the next has been very interesting to me. And especially in this case as it involves the provision of food, which is one of the most deeply held cultural norms in many communities. Frugality is certainly a consideration for the WMF. I can say with my staff hat on that while we do get generous grants from foundations to help support your amazing work, everyone here also thinks about the $5 that was donated by a student and feels a responsibility to that student. However the word and concept of "frugality" differs significantly across cultures. In my experience with many non-Western cultures, asking people to bring lunch from home or spend their own money for it would not only exclude participation, it would insult people. If the purpose is to encourage participation and commitment to a newly forming organization, it seems it would be very important not to insult people. In many cultures I've worked in, if you didn't bring cigarettes, you couldn't get a goat to listen to you. These may seem to be extreme cases, but I'm thinking about WMF and the Wikimedia movement as truly global. So I don't think we should dismiss this concept just because currently we aren't working with any people who require cigarettes before thinking about editing a Wikipedia. I have no idea what the cultural norms for providing food at initial meetings are in Portugal or many other places. I just add my crumb to the discussion as a reminder that if we are wearing limited cultural lenses when we create policy, it will forever limit us to working within communities who are interested and able to live within those restrictions. Jennifer Riggs foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote: > Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of foundation-l digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > >1. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) >2. Re: Use of moderation (Austin Hair) >3. Re: Do we have a complete set of WMF projects? (Mike.lifeguard) >4. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Pharos) >5. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) >6. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) >7. Re: Do we have a complete set of WMF projects? (David Gerard) >8. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Chad) >9. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) > 10. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Gerard Meijssen) > 11. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) > > > -- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:41:07 +0100 > From: Thomas Dalton > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List > > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > 2009/9/10 Sue Gardner : >> Hi Thomas! >> >> Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26 >> proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find >> it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop. > > The proposals are up, but not the details of which were accepted and > which weren't. It would be useful to have that information when > considering what to request funding for in future. > > > > -- > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:06:20 -0500 > From: Austin Hair > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List > > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:15 AM, Henning Schlottmann > wrote: >> Austin Hair wrote: >>> My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm >>> perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I >>> don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that >>> it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. >> I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is >> distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup >> news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along >> with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most >> comfortable way to read the list. > > Yes, but as gmane is simply a mail -> news gateway, the fundamental > operation of the list remains the same. The content management issu
Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list
The problem becomes more serious when several people tell me that they either unsubscribe from this list or do not dare any more to give input in discussions because of these people (not defining anybory, but more in general the group of people being harsh and posting a lot). That is currently the case and a complaint I have heard several times. To me, that means we crossed some lines which we should not have. I'm confident you have a thick skin and can handle it all, but please realize that not everybody is as experienced as you are, not everybody is as fluent in English and not everybody is as bold to speak up. Some people need a somewhat more stimulating and constructive environment for that. -- Lodewijk 2009/9/10 Ray Saintonge > > > Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:46:36 -0400 > > From: Anthony > > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list > > > > There needs to be place for dozens of back-and-forth-over-minor-details > > discussion. Long detailed emails have their place, but after they are > > posted there needs to be room for a question and answer session. > Limiting > > these Q&A sessions so that each person can merely make a single comment > and > > then receive a single response severely limits the ability of people to > > engage in useful discussion, and forcing people to have any back and > forth > > discussions off-list severely limits the usefulness of the list for > > brainstorming and for refining ideas. > > > > If you want a separate list for long, well-thought-out emails, I'm fine > with > > that. But we need a place for brainstorming and refining ideas. We need > a > > place for back-and-forth discussion. > > > > Am I in the minority in believing that? > > > > > This issue of moderation comes up with great regularity, though not > always about the same individuals. Anthony and Thomas have > well-established credentials as pains in the ass ... so too has a shot > of penicillin. I have frequently disagreed with them, but even when my > personal opinion has been that they have reached their most idiotic I > have never sought to throttle them. I have a much easier option: the > delete key on my keyboard. > > To those who consider them trolls: Why are you feeding them with > requests for moderation? Has that oft repeated simple advice never had > any effect upon you? If you view them as part of the problem, must you > too become a part of the problem by promoting an equally inane series of > messages about moderation? > > The protection of free speech does not begin with laws on the matter, > but with our own personal responses to what we regard as objectionable. > > Ec > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 22:21, Thomas Dalton wrote: > 2009/9/10 Gerard Meijssen : >> Hoi, >> I think it is not reasonable to judge others by how you do things. Please >> remember that there are different cultures where things are done in >> different ways. I am sure there are things in the history of the WMUK that >> you do not wish onto others.. Everyone has to deal with the local >> environment. This is one reason why we have different chapters ... > > Nonsense. If British Wikimedians can afford their own food, so can > Portuguese Wikimedians. They can bring a packed lunch from home if > they want - they would be eating anyway. Once in a while does not harm, I have to agree with Thomas on this one. As a matter of fact, the amount is irrelevant to me, it's the whole idea of having face to face meetings 12 (twelve!) times in a year that I find incredible. In a country like Australia, or even the US where getting people together even just once might cost that kind of money, I would have found the expense justified. In a country like Portugal, I am sorry, I don't. Cultural differences may exist, but there is no chapter that I know of which does a monthly face to face meeting of their board (heck, if Wikimedia France had that kind of money, we would!). And if they do, they manage to get the funds together, as Thomas puts it, especially for the meals. If anything, this helps measure the commitment of people to making the chapter work. What happened to volunteers eating sandwiches and fruits while sitting in a café with free wifi? So yeah, I must say that I would have brought down this grant to around 1000 USD for a first face to face meeting in order to get things going, and would have only included legal fees, renting rooms and travel, for example. 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 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
2009/9/10 Gerard Meijssen : > Hoi, > I think it is not reasonable to judge others by how you do things. Please > remember that there are different cultures where things are done in > different ways. I am sure there are things in the history of the WMUK that > you do not wish onto others.. Everyone has to deal with the local > environment. This is one reason why we have different chapters ... Nonsense. If British Wikimedians can afford their own food, so can Portuguese Wikimedians. They can bring a packed lunch from home if they want - they would be eating anyway. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
Hoi, I think it is not reasonable to judge others by how you do things. Please remember that there are different cultures where things are done in different ways. I am sure there are things in the history of the WMUK that you do not wish onto others.. Everyone has to deal with the local environment. This is one reason why we have different chapters ... Thanks, GerardM 2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton > 2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton : > > 2009/9/10 Pharos : > >> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page: > >> > >> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance > > > > Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't > > suggest it would contain such info. > > I must say, I am amazed that this was approved: > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/WM_PT/Start-up > > WMUK managed to get set up without paying for any meals and all > meetings have taken place in pubs or rooms we've got hold of for free. > Paying nearly $3,500 for that out of charitable donations is patently > ridiculous. > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
2009/9/10 Chad : > I hadn't read that either. Ridiculous, I agree. I doubt people are donating > to the WMF for them to send the money to the Portuguese chapter for > their lunches. > > The only part of that budget that makes sense to me is the legal fees, and > they're certainly not a back-breaking amount either. I have no objection, in principle, to travel and admin costs - WMUK paid for them out of our first membership fees. We didn't travel that much, though - I think there was one face-to-face meeting to actually sign things, everything else was done online. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote: > 2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton : >> 2009/9/10 Pharos : >>> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page: >>> >>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance >> >> Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't >> suggest it would contain such info. > > I must say, I am amazed that this was approved: > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/WM_PT/Start-up > > WMUK managed to get set up without paying for any meals and all > meetings have taken place in pubs or rooms we've got hold of for free. > Paying nearly $3,500 for that out of charitable donations is patently > ridiculous. > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > I hadn't read that either. Ridiculous, I agree. I doubt people are donating to the WMF for them to send the money to the Portuguese chapter for their lunches. The only part of that budget that makes sense to me is the legal fees, and they're certainly not a back-breaking amount either. -Chad ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Do we have a complete set of WMF projects?
2009/9/10 Brion Vibber : > IMO we need to do that for the projects we already have before we take > on new obligations! Oh yesss. > We still have very poor software support for: > * Commons -- We need a sane upload and post-upload workflow (eg review > and deletion), and a clean system for handling structured metadata > (descriptions, authorship, licence info). > Some of this is being worked on now with Michael Dale's video & media > work, and the Ford Foundation grant will let us put more resources into > the workflow & metadata side, so this is the one I worry the least about. :) Categories as tags with arbitrary Boolean queries? Huh? Huh? Huh? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton : > 2009/9/10 Pharos : >> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page: >> >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance > > Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't > suggest it would contain such info. I must say, I am amazed that this was approved: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/WM_PT/Start-up WMUK managed to get set up without paying for any meals and all meetings have taken place in pubs or rooms we've got hold of for free. Paying nearly $3,500 for that out of charitable donations is patently ridiculous. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
2009/9/10 Pharos : > There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page: > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't suggest it would contain such info. > Since 26 were accepted in total, I guess this list in not quite > complete yet; but still it makes for very useful reading. They may still be waiting to hear back from the other chapters. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote: > 2009/9/10 Sue Gardner : >> Hi Thomas! >> >> Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26 >> proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find >> it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop. > > The proposals are up, but not the details of which were accepted and > which weren't. It would be useful to have that information when > considering what to request funding for in future. There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance Since 26 were accepted in total, I guess this list in not quite complete yet; but still it makes for very useful reading. Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos) Wikimedia NYC-personal view > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Do we have a complete set of WMF projects?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Brion Vibber wrote: > IMO we need to do that for the projects we already have before we take > on new obligations! > > We still have very poor software support for:... Thanks Brion, it is good to know that the tech team is aware of these issues and will be expending energy to improve how the software supports the non-Wikipedia projects. I'm looking forward in particular to seeing how the grant money will be spent for improving Commons' software, and what ideas may come about for giving Wikibooks some in-software structure. - -Mike -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqpURcACgkQst0AR/DaKHsIRwCgyQTVbLBnmfvs5VUrPzCO3+0U hO8An1O/WILU6r3++zuZ1TqGXKiZcKFX =28Ym -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:15 AM, Henning Schlottmann wrote: > Austin Hair wrote: >> My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm >> perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I >> don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that >> it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. > > I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is > distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup > news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along > with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most > comfortable way to read the list. Yes, but as gmane is simply a mail -> news gateway, the fundamental operation of the list remains the same. The content management issues aren't affected. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
2009/9/10 Sue Gardner : > Hi Thomas! > > Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26 > proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find > it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop. The proposals are up, but not the details of which were accepted and which weren't. It would be useful to have that information when considering what to request funding for in future. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list
> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:46:36 -0400 > From: Anthony > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list > > There needs to be place for dozens of back-and-forth-over-minor-details > discussion. Long detailed emails have their place, but after they are > posted there needs to be room for a question and answer session. Limiting > these Q&A sessions so that each person can merely make a single comment and > then receive a single response severely limits the ability of people to > engage in useful discussion, and forcing people to have any back and forth > discussions off-list severely limits the usefulness of the list for > brainstorming and for refining ideas. > > If you want a separate list for long, well-thought-out emails, I'm fine with > that. But we need a place for brainstorming and refining ideas. We need a > place for back-and-forth discussion. > > Am I in the minority in believing that? > > This issue of moderation comes up with great regularity, though not always about the same individuals. Anthony and Thomas have well-established credentials as pains in the ass ... so too has a shot of penicillin. I have frequently disagreed with them, but even when my personal opinion has been that they have reached their most idiotic I have never sought to throttle them. I have a much easier option: the delete key on my keyboard. To those who consider them trolls: Why are you feeding them with requests for moderation? Has that oft repeated simple advice never had any effect upon you? If you view them as part of the problem, must you too become a part of the problem by promoting an equally inane series of messages about moderation? The protection of free speech does not begin with laws on the matter, but with our own personal responses to what we regard as objectionable. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009
Hi Thomas! Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26 proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop. Thanks, Sue On 09/09/2009, Thomas Dalton wrote: > Once again, thank you for this. One question: > > 2009/9/9 Sue Gardner : >> Jennifer worked with Sue, Erik Moeller and Veronique to review and >> evaluate proposals submitted through the Chapters Funding Request >> process. Twenty-six of thirty proposals received were approved. >> Recipients will be posting descriptions of their events and lessons >> learned on Meta, linked from >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants > > I emailed Jennifer shortly after the requests were approved asking if > the details of what was and wasn't approved would be made public and > was told it would once the chapters had all been contacted and had had > a chance to accept the grants. As far as I can see, that information > has yet to be made public. Has that plan changed or is there just a > delay? > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Do we have a complete set of WMF projects?
On 9/9/09 9:41 AM, David Gerard wrote: > As Erik points out, at a certain point we have to actually write new > code to support new ideas. Else "projects we could do at Wikimedia" > becomes "projects we can do with a wiki engine." IMO we need to do that for the projects we already have before we take on new obligations! We still have very poor software support for: * Commons -- We need a sane upload and post-upload workflow (eg review and deletion), and a clean system for handling structured metadata (descriptions, authorship, licence info). Some of this is being worked on now with Michael Dale's video & media work, and the Ford Foundation grant will let us put more resources into the workflow & metadata side, so this is the one I worry the least about. :) * Wiktionary -- Really needs to be rebuilt as a structured system. It's very hard to query Wiktionary or extract its data usefully, and there's a lot of duplicated manual work maintaining it. There was some third-party work done in this direction (Ultimate Wiktionary/WiktionaryZ/OmegaWiki) which was very interesting but never got the community buy-in to push that work back towards the live Wiktionary. * Wikibooks -- We still have very poor native support for multiple-page "books" or "modules", which complicates navigation, search, authoring, and downloading. Tools like the Collection extension are making it easier to download a batch of related pages for offline reading, but someone still needs to build those collections manually and they don't provide other navigation aids. * Wikinews -- Workflow on Wikinews has been aided by tools like FlaggedRevs but is still a bit awkward. Native support for things like exporting feeds of news articles is still missing, leading to a lot of workarounds and manual effort being expended. * Wikisource -- better native support for side-by-side translations, annotations, and extracting/citing primary source material from the other sites like Wikipedia would be very helpful. -- brion ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Henning Schlottmann writes: > I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is > distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup > news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along > with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most > comfortable way to read the list. > > It is open to read worldwide without registration, first time posters > have to authenticate their mail address in the "from" with gmane. Cool! I didn't know WMF mailing list was archived by gmane.org, I thought only wichtech-l was. I'm posting through gmane for testing. You can access it here: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/ I think this could be informed at Foundation-l homepage: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l Ciao, Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A branded copy of Wikipedia lanuched today in Poland
Marcin Cieslak, 10/09/2009 15:31: > - "Copyright 1995-2009 Wirtualna Polska" notice at the bottom Only after a visible «Historia i autorzy Tekst udostępniany na licencji Creative Commons: uznanie autorstwa, na tych samych warunkach, z możliwością obowiązywania dodatkowych ograniczeń. Zobacz szczegółowe informacje o warunkach korzystania. Zasady ochrony prywatności O Wikipedii Informacje prawne» Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] A branded copy of Wikipedia lanuched today in Poland
Here: http://wikipedia.wp.pl/ you will find a branded copy of Polish Wikipedia, launched today by Wirtualna Polska (wp.pl), an online portal which is a subsidiary of Telekomunikacja Polska (which in turn is a subsidiary of France Telecom) - a result of the recent Orange - WMF agreement. Visible changes: - skin is obviously different - no editing allowed - no source view - "Witamy w Wikipedii WP" - the banner says "Welcome to WP Wikipedia" - article history link points to the plwiki history page - no red links visible - "Copyright 1995-2009 Wirtualna Polska" notice at the bottom Official press release[1] (excerpts): "Wirtualna Polska has developed a special web portal that offers access to the selected information and services of Wirtualna Polska as well as Wikipedia articles in an innovative way. A combination of news articles presented within thematic services of Wirtualna Polska - informational, business, educational, technical, entertainment - with encyclopedic resources of Wikipedia enables Internet users to expand and update their knowledge." Bartłomiej Krawczyk, WP project manager, said [square brackets are mine]: "Wirtualna Polska consists of tens of specialised Web portals, cooperating with the most important news outlets countrywide and abroad. This makes Wirtualna Polska a huge source of information. That potential combined with the current offering of Wikipedia, containing over 633 thousand articles enables Internet use to a wholly new extent. (...) " "We have limited the possibility of accessing editing options [of Wikipedia] because not every Internet user is interested in adding their own articles to the encyclopedia or in updating existing ones. What is important is that all changes and new definitions in [ Polish ] Wikipedia are visible on the Wirtualna Polska website. Wikipedia.wp.pl is an example of a new business model. It combines expansion of the content of [ Wirtualna Polska's ] portal through a direct connection with Wikipedia articles with the financial support for the Wikimedia Foundation, including advertisement revenue." [2] There is also a mention about two-way cross-linking of the WP and Wikipedia content on the WP website. It even goes on to say "articles in the free encyclopedia will be linking to the related WP stories". A press release stresses out that all advertising on the site has been specifically approved by the Wikimedia Foundation. One of the news websites has published a note titled "Wirtualna Polska has >>acquired<< Wikipedia" and specifically mentions the lack of editing possibility as well as the advertising that might be put on the site[3]. [1] http://media.netpr.pl/PressOffice/PressRelease.149390.po [2] http://webinside.pl/artykul.php?id=6275 -- << Marcin Cieslak // sa...@saper.info >> signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Do we have a complete set of WMF projects?
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:23 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: > > Great idea. Where's the right place to suggest this on the Incubator? > That's a project where I have regrettably not gotten to know any of > the local policies yet. Here is the main project discussion: http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:Community_Portal However I think a meta discussion would be more widely visited. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Do we have a complete set of WMF projects?
On 9/8/09, Brian wrote: > On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Erik Moeller wrote: > > > 2009/9/8 Michael Peel : > > > What could be the cause of this recent dearth of new projects? > > > > Certainly the process for getting a new project underway is so complex > > and exhausting that it's not something that many people will be likely > > to engage in - especially considering that project ideas are often > > proposed by people who aren't currently very active Wikimedians. > > Perhaps we need to set up a formal system for long-time Wikimedians to > > adopt ideas they're excited about, to help push them to approval? That would be a nice idea. Three steps : propose a process and find supporters (somewhat defined on meta, can be refined), find an established Wikimedian to mentor/adopt it (define a new process and people willing to mentor), work towards approval (define a new process involving the incubator). > > I do think that project adoption is something that we should explore > > in the right circumstances; it's not something we've ever done but IMO > > we should be open to it. I don't think OpenStreetMap or OpenLibrary > > want or need to be adopted. ;-) But there may be other smaller > > semi-successful projects that would like to join our project family, > > and that would make sense as part of it. Yes. Rodovid and Wikikids come to mind as projects that have asked at one point, though they may no longer have such an interest. Rodovid is certainly the largest multilingual project to make such a request... but afaict there simply wasn't a clear way for that to be considered at the time. > > For example, as of a few weeks ago, there's now a fledgling community > > of people on Wikimedia Commons who add annotations to images, because > > a volunteer developed a cool image annotation tool. The entire > > community of people adding categories to Wikipedia articles could only > > form after the categorization functionality was developed. Yes and yes. I remember the people who wondered if articles would ever be usefully categorized, or if it was just a cute side project that would never impact wikipedia. And the fascinating debates about the meta-category structure... which might [have] serve[d] as material for an entire thesis in librarianship. > > That is not to say that I think there should be no new blank-slate > > wikis, or wikis with custom software, for specific purposes. But I > > would also not see the fact that no new top-level Wikimedia project > > has been created in recent years as a sign of stagnation - wonderful It is a sign of stagnation. The ecosystem is nowhere near saturated with free knowledge projects; WP is dazzlingly successful; we or others should at least be considering similar projects to cover every type and format of knowledge, and for every audience -- in our case, to explicitly say 'out of scope [yet]' if nothing else. But as you note, there are other signs of growth which counterbalance it. Brian writes: > I propose expanding the notion of the Wikimedia Incubator to include > entirely new projects that are very, very easy to create. They don't need to > be approved by the WMF - they just need to demonstrate their value by > attracting a community and creating great content. This would be more like > the Apache Incubator, but even more open. This gives people an easy way to > prototype their ideas for new projects, to advertise them, and over time > will give an overview of what kinds of projects and approaches to projects > are likely to succeed and likely to fail. Great idea. Where's the right place to suggest this on the Incubator? That's a project where I have regrettably not gotten to know any of the local policies yet. SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
