Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Emeric VALLESPI]

One must have the courage of one's words and assume them.
There is a very simple way of knowing who is lying: can Sylvain publish the
letter in question? I will be really interested to see when he was punished
for "having a girlfriend".
Furthermore, I can't agree more with Craig and as I said, what a shame to
expose all of this here publicly. But be sure that when I'll stop to read
false statements or that I'm providing "alternative facts", I won't need
anymore to write here.

Cheers,
--
Emeric Vallespi



2017-11-24 3:34 GMT+01:00 Craig Franklin :

> Can I suggest to all parties that, as was the case last time this came up
> here, raking this conflict over the coals here on a mailing list where very
> few of us have direct knowledge of the situation, or the power to do
> anything about it in any case, is probably not helpful for anyone?  I am
> especially uncomfortable at the notion of the discussion of people's HR
> records and personal lives in a public forum such as this.
>
> Cheers,
> Craig
>
> On 24 November 2017 at 06:23, Xavier Combelle 
> wrote:
>
> > Emeric,
> >
> > When you say, that no sanction has filed his HR record, you are half or
> > completely lying.
> > The existence of a "rappel à l'ordre" (warning)
> > is an argument which can support fire someone of the staff so it should
> > be in a HR record.
> >
> > In the same way Sylvain never said he is writing his email on behalf of
> > an union of the employees of Wikimedia France
> > but that he is the representative of the the employees of Wikimedia
> > France which is plenty true.
> >
> > From the whole wikimedia france, movement, during the #wmfrgate, it was
> > only you Emeric and the old direction as a whole
> > that your declaration don't match the facts or your subsequent
> > declaration, as it it happened during the #bandeaugate in summer last
> year.
> >
> > I have still to see the said "lies" from your opponent which contradicts
> > other public information (apart the words of you and the old direction)
> >
> > Xavier Combelle
> >
> > Le 23/11/2017 à 20:54, Emeric Vallespi a écrit :
> > > Sylvain,
> > >
> > > I have to answer to your email where you’re especially lying.
> > > You say that you’re writing on behalf of a union section of the
> > employees of Wikimedia France but I’m personally curious to know the
> weight
> > of this union section. My question is actually: who else is represented
> by
> > your email, if not yourself?
> > >
> > > Moreover, you’re saying that you received a « warning » (?) because you
> > had a girlfriend. Is it serious?
> > > Your employer asked you to distinguish professional time and personal
> > time. Indeed, you were reminded that you had to dedicate your work hours
> to
> > the missions that were devoted to you and not to solve problems related
> to
> > your personal life, especially if it interferes with organization’s
> > activities and governance. It is also you who came, on your own, to tell
> us
> > about the complexity of your personal and relationship situation in order
> > to benefit of professional arrangements. The direction never looked for,
> > nor asked, any information on this subject.
> > >
> > > You’re mentioning the cancellation of the letter. Since, to my
> > knowledge, no sanction has been filed to your HR record, I do not really
> > see what have been canceled.
> > > I can understand that supporting your new board of trustees, involved
> in
> > the governance issues and in the criminal complaints filed is critical to
> > show your loyalty.
> > >
> > > Do you know how impatient am I to discover your next fable? I guess the
> > only one never mentioned yet is maybe about a murder or something
> (although
> > a streetfight scenario has already been invented x’D).
> > >
> > > I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the
> > community, which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not
> > deceived by a scenario built from scratch.
> > > Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public
> > accusations still shows that only personal interests and vainness matter
> in
> > this conflict with some people.
> > >
> > > For months, several lies have been told by different people. Because
> the
> > Wikimedia community protect itself and its members by harassing and
> > defaming people who question the probity and integrity of some of its
> > members doesn’t make of this lies the truth.
> > >
> > > Best regards to all of you,
> > > --
> > > Emeric Vallespi
> > >
> > >> On 22 Nov 2017, at 13:37, Sylvain Boissel <
> sylvain.bois...@wikimedia.fr>
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Hi Katherine,
> > >>
> > >> 2017-10-19 23:19 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher :
> > >>
> > >>> [...]
> > >>> We are committed to working with the new Wikimédia France conseil
> > >>> d’administration (governing board) to support the French community as
> > they
> > >>> work to address and resolve these and other 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Craig Franklin]

Can I suggest to all parties that, as was the case last time this came up
here, raking this conflict over the coals here on a mailing list where very
few of us have direct knowledge of the situation, or the power to do
anything about it in any case, is probably not helpful for anyone?  I am
especially uncomfortable at the notion of the discussion of people's HR
records and personal lives in a public forum such as this.

Cheers,
Craig

On 24 November 2017 at 06:23, Xavier Combelle 
wrote:

> Emeric,
>
> When you say, that no sanction has filed his HR record, you are half or
> completely lying.
> The existence of a "rappel à l'ordre" (warning)
> is an argument which can support fire someone of the staff so it should
> be in a HR record.
>
> In the same way Sylvain never said he is writing his email on behalf of
> an union of the employees of Wikimedia France
> but that he is the representative of the the employees of Wikimedia
> France which is plenty true.
>
> From the whole wikimedia france, movement, during the #wmfrgate, it was
> only you Emeric and the old direction as a whole
> that your declaration don't match the facts or your subsequent
> declaration, as it it happened during the #bandeaugate in summer last year.
>
> I have still to see the said "lies" from your opponent which contradicts
> other public information (apart the words of you and the old direction)
>
> Xavier Combelle
>
> Le 23/11/2017 à 20:54, Emeric Vallespi a écrit :
> > Sylvain,
> >
> > I have to answer to your email where you’re especially lying.
> > You say that you’re writing on behalf of a union section of the
> employees of Wikimedia France but I’m personally curious to know the weight
> of this union section. My question is actually: who else is represented by
> your email, if not yourself?
> >
> > Moreover, you’re saying that you received a « warning » (?) because you
> had a girlfriend. Is it serious?
> > Your employer asked you to distinguish professional time and personal
> time. Indeed, you were reminded that you had to dedicate your work hours to
> the missions that were devoted to you and not to solve problems related to
> your personal life, especially if it interferes with organization’s
> activities and governance. It is also you who came, on your own, to tell us
> about the complexity of your personal and relationship situation in order
> to benefit of professional arrangements. The direction never looked for,
> nor asked, any information on this subject.
> >
> > You’re mentioning the cancellation of the letter. Since, to my
> knowledge, no sanction has been filed to your HR record, I do not really
> see what have been canceled.
> > I can understand that supporting your new board of trustees, involved in
> the governance issues and in the criminal complaints filed is critical to
> show your loyalty.
> >
> > Do you know how impatient am I to discover your next fable? I guess the
> only one never mentioned yet is maybe about a murder or something (although
> a streetfight scenario has already been invented x’D).
> >
> > I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the
> community, which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not
> deceived by a scenario built from scratch.
> > Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public
> accusations still shows that only personal interests and vainness matter in
> this conflict with some people.
> >
> > For months, several lies have been told by different people. Because the
> Wikimedia community protect itself and its members by harassing and
> defaming people who question the probity and integrity of some of its
> members doesn’t make of this lies the truth.
> >
> > Best regards to all of you,
> > --
> > Emeric Vallespi
> >
> >> On 22 Nov 2017, at 13:37, Sylvain Boissel 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Katherine,
> >>
> >> 2017-10-19 23:19 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher :
> >>
> >>> [...]
> >>> We are committed to working with the new Wikimédia France conseil
> >>> d’administration (governing board) to support the French community as
> they
> >>> work to address and resolve these and other outstanding issues. The
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation and the new leadership of Wikimédia France are
> already
> >>> cooperating to address the governance-related concerns raised by the
> >>> volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee in the first half of 2017. As
> part
> >>> of this work, we have encouraged them to review how they will
> independently
> >>> handle claims of harassment in the future. The Wikimedia Foundation and
> >>> Wikimédia France share a common goal: a healthy, welcoming, respectful,
> >>> inclusive Wikimedia community in France.
> >>>
> >>> I know I am not alone in my dismay for how these events have unfolded.
> Many
> >>> dedicated, good-faith members of the French community, including
> current
> >>> community members and present and former Wikimédia France board and

[Wikimedia-l] Experimental onion service for all Wikimedia projects set up by Alec Muffett

[Cristian Consonni]

Hi all,

Some months ago, the idea of setting up an onion service for Wikimedia
projects was discussed on this list[1] and as a proposal in IdeaLab on
Meta[2].

Today, Alec Muffett announced on Twitter[3] that he created «as an
experiment» a series of read-only mirrors of all the Wikimedia projects.
He will be running them for some time.

The service is reachable with a Tor-enabled browser at the following
address:
https://www.qgssno7jk2xcr2sj.onion/
































If you want to try out the service, first visit the addresses listed in
this page and add exceptions for the SSL certificates:
https://gist.github.com/alecmuffett/3da587fde6aef90ba3e49e8858fafdae

(this is one of the limits of having a non-official service)

Alec Muffett is the author of the Enterprise Onion Toolkit (EOTK)[4], a
FLOSS project which "does for Onions what LetsEncrypt does for SSL",
that is providing a simple way to transform websites in Onion services
(which are accessible only and contained within the Tor network). Alec
used EOTK for creating this demo. He was also behind the onion service
for Facebook[5].

IMO this service, even with its current limitations, is quite awesome
and I am very happy to see it. It is exactly the kind of proof of
concept that I wanted to create with my proposal. So now there's that.

Enjoy!

Cristian

[1]: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-June/087708.html
[2]:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/A_Tor_Onion_Service_for_Wikipedia
[3]:https://twitter.com/AlecMuffett/status/933739816038076419
[4]: https://github.com/alecmuffett/eotk
[5]:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/facebook-offers-hidden-service-to-tor-users/

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Xavier Combelle]

Emeric,

When you say, that no sanction has filed his HR record, you are half or
completely lying.
The existence of a "rappel à l'ordre" (warning)
is an argument which can support fire someone of the staff so it should
be in a HR record.

In the same way Sylvain never said he is writing his email on behalf of
an union of the employees of Wikimedia France
but that he is the representative of the the employees of Wikimedia
France which is plenty true.

From the whole wikimedia france, movement, during the #wmfrgate, it was
only you Emeric and the old direction as a whole
that your declaration don't match the facts or your subsequent
declaration, as it it happened during the #bandeaugate in summer last year.

I have still to see the said "lies" from your opponent which contradicts
other public information (apart the words of you and the old direction)

Xavier Combelle

Le 23/11/2017 à 20:54, Emeric Vallespi a écrit :
> Sylvain,
>
> I have to answer to your email where you’re especially lying.
> You say that you’re writing on behalf of a union section of the employees of 
> Wikimedia France but I’m personally curious to know the weight of this union 
> section. My question is actually: who else is represented by your email, if 
> not yourself?
>
> Moreover, you’re saying that you received a « warning » (?) because you had a 
> girlfriend. Is it serious?
> Your employer asked you to distinguish professional time and personal time. 
> Indeed, you were reminded that you had to dedicate your work hours to the 
> missions that were devoted to you and not to solve problems related to your 
> personal life, especially if it interferes with organization’s activities and 
> governance. It is also you who came, on your own, to tell us about the 
> complexity of your personal and relationship situation in order to benefit of 
> professional arrangements. The direction never looked for, nor asked, any 
> information on this subject.
>
> You’re mentioning the cancellation of the letter. Since, to my knowledge, no 
> sanction has been filed to your HR record, I do not really see what have been 
> canceled.
> I can understand that supporting your new board of trustees, involved in the 
> governance issues and in the criminal complaints filed is critical to show 
> your loyalty.
>
> Do you know how impatient am I to discover your next fable? I guess the only 
> one never mentioned yet is maybe about a murder or something (although a 
> streetfight scenario has already been invented x’D).
>
> I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the 
> community, which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not deceived 
> by a scenario built from scratch.
> Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public accusations 
> still shows that only personal interests and vainness matter in this conflict 
> with some people.
>
> For months, several lies have been told by different people. Because the 
> Wikimedia community protect itself and its members by harassing and defaming 
> people who question the probity and integrity of some of its members doesn’t 
> make of this lies the truth.
>
> Best regards to all of you,
> --
> Emeric Vallespi
>
>> On 22 Nov 2017, at 13:37, Sylvain Boissel  
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Katherine,
>>
>> 2017-10-19 23:19 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher :
>>
>>> [...]
>>> We are committed to working with the new Wikimédia France conseil
>>> d’administration (governing board) to support the French community as they
>>> work to address and resolve these and other outstanding issues. The
>>> Wikimedia Foundation and the new leadership of Wikimédia France are already
>>> cooperating to address the governance-related concerns raised by the
>>> volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee in the first half of 2017. As part
>>> of this work, we have encouraged them to review how they will independently
>>> handle claims of harassment in the future. The Wikimedia Foundation and
>>> Wikimédia France share a common goal: a healthy, welcoming, respectful,
>>> inclusive Wikimedia community in France.
>>>
>>> I know I am not alone in my dismay for how these events have unfolded. Many
>>> dedicated, good-faith members of the French community, including current
>>> community members and present and former Wikimédia France board and staff
>>> members, have experienced distress and anxiety over recent months. Those
>>> outside of the community have watched with dismay as our peers and friends
>>> have found themselves disoriented, distressed, alienated, or at odds with
>>> one another. And yet we also know that many in France now feel a renewed
>>> sense of purpose for building the healthy and welcoming community we all
>>> desire.
>> As the representative of the local branch of the labor union
>> ASSO-Solidaires at Wikimédia France, I wanted to thank you and the WMF
>> staff members who took part in the site visit in Paris in July  (namely
>> Katy Love, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Alphos OGame]

Good evening Émeric, good evening all.

Allow me to reply. Oh wait, that's right, I don't need you to allow the
publication of emails on this mailing list - this sure comes as a change,
and a welcome one too !

I won't be speaking of any member of the community, whether volunteer or
employee, it is not the purpose of this email.

You shockingly ask of a union representative the identities of other
unionized workers. It may come as a surprise to you, but, at least in
France, whether one is unionized or not is part of their private life, and
should in no circumstance be divulged by anyone other than themselves,
should they feel the desire to. That desire can't be coerced, and nobody
should rob someone else of their private life or its divulgation.
Aside from that, *in the unlikely event* the union section comprises a
single person, or roughly 10% of all Wikimédia France employees, that would
still be a feat, and more than the national average of about 5% in the
private sector and just under 10% overall ; but union sections MUST (RFC
2119) be composed of at least two people, per article L2142-1 of french
Labour Law. So there's at least two employees in that section, which is at
least 20% (give or take), way above the national average.

Lastly, I'd like to address your accusations of lying.
It seems to me that the only answer you ever provide to any criticism is
that it's all a lie. In other words, you're quick to slap everyone with
Kellyanne Conway's motto, "fake news", but you lack her talent and, as
she's had dips on it, the element of surprise.
I've faced them before myself, when I tried to explain to the rest of the
members an email YOU sent to discussions@, the non-public mailing list of
Wikimédia France, and its subtext. Specifically, the email I sent on May
6th was rejected, and I was told on May 7th by a representative of the
Board of Trustees (of which you were chairman) it was all a "web of
ravings" ("marasme de spéculations") that was based on former members' side
of the story — former members which, by the way, I hadn't had any
meaningful contact in a few years — ; when in fact, it was solely based on
YOUR version of the story, using basic reasoning skills.
As it turns out, and as a few people can attest, a good amount of what I "
*raved*" in my email turned out to not just be generally true, but rather
accurate as well.
So forgive me to say, but I feel you lack proper footing to decide on who's
lying and who's not.

Really, the whole story is, for lack of a better word, and even though
Donald Trump has already used it, "sad" ; and it would be best for the
former Board of Trustees, if not to apologize to the people involved, to at
least lay low about it.

Happy Thanksgiving dinner to the ones who have it, and happy
nondenominational evening to the ones who don't.

Alphos
Member of WMFr, despite the odds


2017-11-23 20:54 GMT+01:00 Emeric Vallespi :

> Sylvain,
>
> I have to answer to your email where you’re especially lying.
> You say that you’re writing on behalf of a union section of the employees
> of Wikimedia France but I’m personally curious to know the weight of this
> union section. My question is actually: who else is represented by your
> email, if not yourself?
>
> Moreover, you’re saying that you received a « warning » (?) because you
> had a girlfriend. Is it serious?
> Your employer asked you to distinguish professional time and personal
> time. Indeed, you were reminded that you had to dedicate your work hours to
> the missions that were devoted to you and not to solve problems related to
> your personal life, especially if it interferes with organization’s
> activities and governance. It is also you who came, on your own, to tell us
> about the complexity of your personal and relationship situation in order
> to benefit of professional arrangements. The direction never looked for,
> nor asked, any information on this subject.
>
> You’re mentioning the cancellation of the letter. Since, to my knowledge,
> no sanction has been filed to your HR record, I do not really see what have
> been canceled.
> I can understand that supporting your new board of trustees, involved in
> the governance issues and in the criminal complaints filed is critical to
> show your loyalty.
>
> Do you know how impatient am I to discover your next fable? I guess the
> only one never mentioned yet is maybe about a murder or something (although
> a streetfight scenario has already been invented x’D).
>
> I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the
> community, which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not
> deceived by a scenario built from scratch.
> Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public accusations
> still shows that only personal interests and vainness matter in this
> conflict with some people.
>
> For months, several lies have been told by different people. Because the
> Wikimedia community protect itself and its 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Gabriel Thullen]

Dear Sylvain,

Thank you for your message and thank you for showing us that our Wikimedia
employees are white collar workers, and as such they also have the right to
be part of an organized labor movement. For those who do not know me well,
I am a board member of the Geneva public sector labor union association (11
different labor unions), so I strongly encourage initiatives like the
French one.

I am also a strong believer in settling disputes through negotiations and
discussions between the different parties involved. A local labor union
branch is a great way to ensure that the employees can voice their
grievances. This whole unfortunate situation might have been avoided if the
employees had been able to express their distress, and if they could have
received the support of a larger labor union used to dealing with this type
of management issues.

Once again, thank you Sylvain for telling us about this. I now hope that
you will all forgive me for preaching about labor unions...

Best regards
Gabe

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 10:39 PM, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> On Nov 23, 2017 2:55 PM, "Emeric Vallespi" 
> wrote:
>
> 
>
> the Wikimedia community protect itself and its members by harassing and
> defaming people who question
>
>
> I cannot imagine why anyone would attempt to defame you, when they cannot
> hope to surpass the eloquence and thoroughness of your own writing.
>
> —Sam.
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Samuel Klein]

On Nov 23, 2017 2:55 PM, "Emeric Vallespi" 
wrote:



the Wikimedia community protect itself and its members by harassing and
defaming people who question


I cannot imagine why anyone would attempt to defame you, when they cannot
hope to surpass the eloquence and thoroughness of your own writing.

—Sam.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Emeric Vallespi]

Sylvain,

I have to answer to your email where you’re especially lying.
You say that you’re writing on behalf of a union section of the employees of 
Wikimedia France but I’m personally curious to know the weight of this union 
section. My question is actually: who else is represented by your email, if not 
yourself?

Moreover, you’re saying that you received a « warning » (?) because you had a 
girlfriend. Is it serious?
Your employer asked you to distinguish professional time and personal time. 
Indeed, you were reminded that you had to dedicate your work hours to the 
missions that were devoted to you and not to solve problems related to your 
personal life, especially if it interferes with organization’s activities and 
governance. It is also you who came, on your own, to tell us about the 
complexity of your personal and relationship situation in order to benefit of 
professional arrangements. The direction never looked for, nor asked, any 
information on this subject.

You’re mentioning the cancellation of the letter. Since, to my knowledge, no 
sanction has been filed to your HR record, I do not really see what have been 
canceled.
I can understand that supporting your new board of trustees, involved in the 
governance issues and in the criminal complaints filed is critical to show your 
loyalty.

Do you know how impatient am I to discover your next fable? I guess the only 
one never mentioned yet is maybe about a murder or something (although a 
streetfight scenario has already been invented x’D).

I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the community, 
which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not deceived by a 
scenario built from scratch.
Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public accusations still 
shows that only personal interests and vainness matter in this conflict with 
some people.

For months, several lies have been told by different people. Because the 
Wikimedia community protect itself and its members by harassing and defaming 
people who question the probity and integrity of some of its members doesn’t 
make of this lies the truth.

Best regards to all of you,
--
Emeric Vallespi

> On 22 Nov 2017, at 13:37, Sylvain Boissel  
> wrote:
> 
> Hi Katherine,
> 
> 2017-10-19 23:19 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher :
> 
>> [...]
> 
>> We are committed to working with the new Wikimédia France conseil
>> d’administration (governing board) to support the French community as they
>> work to address and resolve these and other outstanding issues. The
>> Wikimedia Foundation and the new leadership of Wikimédia France are already
>> cooperating to address the governance-related concerns raised by the
>> volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee in the first half of 2017. As part
>> of this work, we have encouraged them to review how they will independently
>> handle claims of harassment in the future. The Wikimedia Foundation and
>> Wikimédia France share a common goal: a healthy, welcoming, respectful,
>> inclusive Wikimedia community in France.
>> 
>> I know I am not alone in my dismay for how these events have unfolded. Many
>> dedicated, good-faith members of the French community, including current
>> community members and present and former Wikimédia France board and staff
>> members, have experienced distress and anxiety over recent months. Those
>> outside of the community have watched with dismay as our peers and friends
>> have found themselves disoriented, distressed, alienated, or at odds with
>> one another. And yet we also know that many in France now feel a renewed
>> sense of purpose for building the healthy and welcoming community we all
>> desire.
> 
> As the representative of the local branch of the labor union
> ASSO-Solidaires at Wikimédia France, I wanted to thank you and the WMF
> staff members who took part in the site visit in Paris in July  (namely
> Katy Love, Winifred Olliff, Stephen Laporte and James Baldwin) for hearing
> the distress of the staff members at a time when Wikimédia France's board
> plainly refused to discuss with the staff.
> 
> I also wanted to confirm that things are getting better with the new board
> elected in September.
> 
> I cannot speak about what my coworkers went through without asking them
> first, but I can share an example from my own story: in February, I was
> issued a « rappel à l'ordre » (warning) by the former direction and
> board, accusing
> me of disloyalty to the chapter because I had a girlfriend. It was
> cancelled this month by the new board, and this is a huge relief to me.
> 
> Best regards,
> Sylvain.
> 
> -- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Education] non-technical community wish: Invitational essay authorship contest

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Saluton,

To my mind, this whole discussion doesn't make any sense as it is all 
grounded on suspect hypotheses.


First, what do you call an essay? I think that for such a work the 
author must instill selfness in it. As say Montaigne 
 "c’eſt moy 
que ie peins ". If you 
take that into consideration, how might you even begin to consider that 
there are any consensual ordering possible? Actually, a "commissioned 
essay" sounds more like an oxymoron than anything else.


Concerning the proposed subject, I would advise any person considering 
answering such a tricksy question to first question its premises. You 
might even explore the strict opposite question: can any institution 
ever give enough to a person for all the time dedicated into integrating 
its expectations? All this time that nothing will ever give back, and 
not spent in other life experiences that the said institution might not 
care about but that would be far more enjoyable.


So, to answer the last question, that's not simply your dichotomy which 
is false, it's the whole underlying premise set your are pushing that is 
total nonsense. No, you can not provide a well-order 
 relation on any set for any 
property.


Moreover you seems to think that it suffices to drop money to achieve 
attracting "the best possible essay" in the scope of your nonsense 
contest. But what if "the best" essay writer in the pool you are 
targeting will be on the contrary repelled by such a contest?


Now, I'm not against fostering the idea of writing orignal essays around 
and within the Wikimedia movement. Currently, I don't think we have a 
clear dedicated project for that, although I come across some of them 
which are usually stored on Meta 
, in user namespaces 
, or on Wikibooks 
(for example A Lecture on the Limits of Human Knowledge 
). 
So maybe a dedicated project for essays might make some sense.


Eseete,
mathieu

Le 22/11/2017 à 19:05, James Salsman a écrit :

Thanks, Lucas. I am happy to discuss the idea.

I believe that there is strong evidence against the proposition that
the best editors are skilled in writing articles but not essays.

LiAnna and Tighe, do you have any reasons to believe that editors
skilled in composing both articles and essays are not superior to
editors skilled in articles only? Is there a false dichotomy in
believing that one or the other could be preferable to both?

Best regards,
Jim


On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 6:18 PM, Lucas Teles  wrote:

Maybe you should first discuss any contest like this with community and
then come with a suitable idea.

Your willingness to invest on this is something valuable and should be used
on a project that fits with WMF goals.

Teles

Em ter, 21 de nov de 2017 às 14:19, Tighe Flanagan 
escreveu:


To echo LiAnna and Wiki Education's take, the Wikimedia Foundation's
education team support activities that get students to contribute to
Wikimedia projects as part of their learning. While the contexts may vary
from country to country and classroom to classroom, the students contribute
according to Wikimedia project norms (neutrality, citations, etc). This
type of proposed assignment/competition seems out of scope and we could not
support it on our end either.

Best,
Tighe

--
Tighe Flanagan
Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
tflana...@wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org

On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 11:52 AM, LiAnna Davis  wrote:


On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 1:27 AM, James Salsman 

wrote:

I offer $50 USD first prize and $25 for the runner-up for the best
twelve paragraph essay on the topic of whether college students are
likely to pay more in income taxes over their lifetime than the
present value of the entire amount of their college tuition, room, and
board expenses.

This contest is open only to the top 50% of participants in the
Wikimedia Education Program or WikiEd Foundation's student editors.

If there are any objections to this contest, please let me know. If
there are any reasons it shouldn't be communicated to the eligible,
please let me know. I ask both foundations to match my award, taking
the prizes to $150 and $75 if they agree. Thank you!



No. At the Wiki Education Foundation, we focus on teaching students to
write neutral, fact-based encyclopedia articles instead of essays; our
asking them to write essays would be counterproductive given the mission

of

our program, our organization, and the Wikimedia movement. We will not
support this effort, and ask that you do not reach out to them on your

own.

LiAnna


--
LiAnna Davis
Director of Programs;