Re: [Foundation-l] The High Priests of Wikipedia
something that remains always underrepresented in articles about wikipedia: we are WORLD CHAMPION in [[side tracking]]! 2010/6/8 Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com Okay, okay. Didn't mean to start a discussion about the nature of the Catholic Church. Just meant that it's not what most people think of when you say cult. They think of drink the Kool-Aid, so on and so forth. Steven Walling On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, Dear Teun, I grew up in the mother church. When asked we would say that we were catholic. From inside the church there is no credible outside because they are not part of our community. As a little boy we did not play with the kids of the public primary school (their school was in front of our house). Technically you may be right and I will only concede that because I do no longer consider myself to be of the faith. PS thank you for your wishes.. Thanks, GerardM On 8 June 2010 22:32, teun spaans teun.spa...@gmail.com wrote: The Catholic church is not identical to the Roman Catholic church, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_%28disambiguation%29 live long and prosper, Teun Spaans On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 10:28 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, The Catholic church is not the same as the Vatican. It is not even the hierarchy of the Vatican. It is only the head office. Given the large amount of elderly men, guarded by beautifully dressed highly dedicated Swiss young men, given that they are a law onto themselves, they easily qualify. Thanks, GerardM On 8 June 2010 19:19, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: Wikipedia makes the Vatican look like a coffee clatch They're saying we're so cliquish that we make the Vatican look like a casual coffee work party, not that we are one. Still a mixed metaphor though, considering the Catholic Church hardly meets the definition of a cult. Steven Walling On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 8:05 AM, Aphaia aph...@gmail.com wrote: Of course we don't. As far as I learn from my Wikimania participation, Wikipedian's preferences go rather to beer, not dull caffeine. /me ducks On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 11:43 PM, Bod Notbod bodnot...@gmail.com wrote: For internecine intrigue and power struggles, the Wikipedia makes the Vatican look like a coffee clatch. I had zero idea what a coffee clatch was or is. Google tells me it should probably be klatch. And it is A casual social gathering for coffee and conversation. Well, I could only agree with that if you say any workplace is a coffee klatch. People converse. People drink coffee. But they do work at the same time. I don't think you become one of the top ten websites in the world, raise millions of dollars each year, by drinking caffeine and chatting. User:Bodnotbod. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD ___ 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 ___ 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 ___ 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 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2
Michael Snow wrote: There have been a lot of red herrings brought up on all sides of that issue. Use of images in a context that is on-topic and educational is clearly one of those, although I would suggest that we can do better at supporting reader choice, because it's really the reader we should be putting in control of their own quest for information. I am bound to disagree on the last point there. Our mission is not to make choices or to enable choices by any party, in terms of what is available. We make things available, and they should *be* available. If people want to provide subsets of what we provide, that is their affair. It isn't any part of our mission. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2
Hoi, The WMF has as its strategy to invest in what has the highest impact. Given limited resources that makes sense. It also means that while philosophically as volunteers we do not have to make such choices, the WMF will and does. It is obvious that depending on your point of view, the choices made by the WMF can be fortunate or less so. You are right that it is not in our mission to make choices, but reality is different. The question is what choices to make and what their likely impact is. This brings you to two competing fundamentals; what has the most effect and what is the period to measure those effects. Thanks, GerardM On 9 June 2010 09:12, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: Michael Snow wrote: There have been a lot of red herrings brought up on all sides of that issue. Use of images in a context that is on-topic and educational is clearly one of those, although I would suggest that we can do better at supporting reader choice, because it's really the reader we should be putting in control of their own quest for information. I am bound to disagree on the last point there. Our mission is not to make choices or to enable choices by any party, in terms of what is available. We make things available, and they should *be* available. If people want to provide subsets of what we provide, that is their affair. It isn't any part of our mission. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ 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] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/06/2010 03:28, Aryeh Gregor wrote: I recall reading that IBM improved its participation in the Linux kernel community by getting rid of all internal communications among its kernel developers, meaning they had to use the public project lists to bounce ideas off anyone. I think this idea is key. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJMD083AAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6L4bIIAON6OAXBQTDd8xYycxCX84JV yhRCJBJM76mGCePuKnY7CoGdOi8tPnweLRCDjn2xBBE6N4rbkfjwf/FbeQv2a+YK JO6jg1CHq23QtidNMsJyexufnWuIG+Rjf0AoDFBlWOCW46Fk4GjcAb+gt50EQeL8 POqXJ8AJ2t2UcBJX1CD+ZAuGVU4Nw1IxK1sbSJNjHRE6SJqyRVy4YnJ6Eqiammzk sV7h0Z0EY750etIYErpE7zTShCTlLFdxYzlzAKMlfalIL/BZgYhCsIKSe5AWcVXM 99/40Jx15t0HKcGoleN5oYzZd+hVTlgS3C/NrHlpRGb5A6f1xsF6Dh/+sl7UbhM= =Flfm -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 12:55 AM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com wrote: 2) Make sure that every paid developer spends time dealing with the community. This can include giving support to end users, discussing things with volunteers, reviewing patches, etc. They should be doing this on paid time, and they should be discussing their personal opinions without consulting with anyone else (i.e., not summarizing official positions). Paid developers and volunteers have to get to know each other and have to be able to discuss MediaWiki together. I like the discussing their personal opinions without consulting with anyone else bit, and you bring up a very good point. I don't think (and I don't mean to imply that anyone else does) that anyone's conspiring to keep the community out, or saying leave this to the professionals, we know better. When you're hired onto a team, though, you're wary of saying anything that would cause strife or confusion. This isn't necessarily out of fear of retribution from your employer—it's simply conventional professional ethics, and it's usually not even a conscious thing. (It's also not limited to paid staff—the people we put on the Board specifically for their vocal opinions on things often fall into this, for understandable reasons.) This united front, however, results in the us vs. them mentality that we're all now lamenting. Volunteers are now giving feedback rather than making decisions, as Greg put very well, and we wind up with questionable UI decisions becoming surrogate arguments for the roles of community and staff. I don't think that there's a magic fix for this—it's simply a matter of culture, and making sure everyone involved understands it and can work effectively in it. We can point to the little things, but the systemic problem needs to be addressed. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2
On 6/9/2010 12:12 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: Michael Snow wrote: There have been a lot of red herrings brought up on all sides of that issue. Use of images in a context that is on-topic and educational is clearly one of those, although I would suggest that we can do better at supporting reader choice, because it's really the reader we should be putting in control of their own quest for information. I am bound to disagree on the last point there. Our mission is not to make choices or to enable choices by any party, in terms of what is available. We make things available, and they should *be* available. If people want to provide subsets of what we provide, that is their affair. It isn't any part of our mission. My point has nothing to do with making things unavailable. There are other ways of supporting reader choice. As for the pretense that it's possible to sidestep value decisions about making or enabling choices, just by adopting availability as a default, that's simply wrong. The present situation involving interlanguage links is a perfect illustration of that. Regardless of which interface approach we adopted, the links were going to remain available, there was no thought that they would be deleted or that feature eliminated. The question is how they are going to be available, at what point we are going to present the reader with the choice, and what mechanisms will be used to enable those choices. Those are crucial questions to confront in our work, and they apply to much more than just interlanguage links, important as those are. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Chief of Office of Wikimedia Serbia
Me too -- I'll look forward to seeing you. And congratulations again to Wikimedia Serbia -- we'll do whatever we can to support your work :-) -Original Message- From: Juliana da Costa José juli...@vikimedija.org Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 20:53:00 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Chief of Office of Wikimedia Serbia Hello Sue, hello Filip and Milos, yes I am the woman you met in Berlin and I am positivly surprised that you remembering this short hello after this long goodbye ;). I am very proud to be part of Wikimedia Serbia and will do my best to support this Chapter with my engagement and my ideas. I hope we will meet all in Gdansk. Best Juliana 2010/6/9 Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org On 9 June 2010 10:33, Filip Maljkovic dungod...@gmail.com wrote: It is my pleasure to introduce our new member and Chief of Office of Wikimedia Serbia, Juliana Da Costa José. Congratulations Juliana, and Wikimedia Serbia! Is Juliana the woman I met in Berlin a few years ago, who was then a board member of Wikimedia Deutschland? (I guess I don't actually expect anyone to know if I met her in Berlin, but maybe somebody could confirm if she was on the German board :-) Thanks, Sue ___ 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 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
I think the idea that Aryeh Gregor brought up is incredible. We should follow the strategy use by IBM in helping develop Linux. Open all discussion to the Wikimedia community will bring the power of Wikipedia's collaborative process to the operations of of Wikimedia. Volunteers would get involved in all aspects of Wikimedia from advertising to programing. We have build the greatest encyclopedia in the world now we can build the greatest non profit. I recall reading that IBM improved its participation in the Linux kernel community by getting rid of all internal communications among its kernel developers, meaning they had to use the public project lists to bounce ideas off anyone. James Heilman, MD ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com wrote: It's not specific to Wikimedia, it's practically universal in open-source development. To get it to happen, you need pushing from the top: formally stating it as part of people's job duties (so they don't feel they have to do real work instead), and forcing them to engage by only giving them public media to discuss things in with their co-workers. I recall reading that IBM improved its participation in the Linux kernel community by getting rid of all internal communications among its kernel developers, meaning they had to use the public project lists to bounce ideas off anyone. Here's the reference for that: Dan Frye's keynote reflecting on IBM's 10+ years of experience with Linux was easily one of the best of the day. IBM's experience has certainly not been 100% smooth sailing; there were a lot of mistakes made along the way. As Dan put it, it is relatively easy for a company to form a community around itself, but it's much harder - and more valuable - to join an established community under somebody else's control. A number of lessons learned were offered, starting with an encouragement to get projects out into the community early and to avoid closed-door communications. IBM discovered the hard way that dumping large blocks of completed code into the kernel community was not going to be successful. The community must be involved earlier than that. To help in that direction, IBM prohibited the use of internal communications for many projects, forcing developers to have their discussions in public forums. http://lwn.net/Articles/383945/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
IBMs decision to get rid of all internal communication sounds to me as a very good practice for us. It also fits in well with the wikipedia culture of consensus in decision making. Following this comm. strategy involves the large volunteer community, and taps on the vast knowledge of our community. thank you, Aryeh, for bringing this up. teun It's not specific to Wikimedia, it's practically universal in open-source development. To get it to happen, you need pushing from the top: formally stating it as part of people's job duties (so they don't feel they have to do real work instead), and forcing them to engage by only giving them public media to discuss things in with their co-workers. I recall reading that IBM improved its participation in the Linux kernel community by getting rid of all internal communications among its kernel developers, meaning they had to use the public project lists to bounce ideas off anyone. It's also worth pointing out that a good way *not* to engage with the community is to not touch preexisting code that volunteers are familiar with. All the Usability Initiative stuff was created separately: a new skin, and all other functionality in extensions. There's mostly no technical reason for this; at least some could have been integrated with the existing code. Putting most of your code in a directory called UsabilityInitiative is a good way of signaling this is ours, not yours, whether that was the intent or not. If it had touched code that volunteers were familiar with, they would have been more engaged from the start, because they'd have stronger opinions on the changes and no presumption that they shouldn't touch it. ___ 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
[Foundation-l] Office Hour for Friday, June 11, featuring Mike Godwin
Hey everyone! On Friday, June 11, the Office Hour will once again be hosted by Mike Godwin, Legal counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, who you can read about at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Mikegodwin Office hours are from 2230 to 2330 UTC (3:30 PM to 4:30 PM PST). If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat using a web browser: First is using the Wikizine chat gateway at http://chatwikizine.memebot.com/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi. Type a nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and #wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join. Also, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It should be all right. Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other relevant email lists you happen to be on. -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] WMF investment strategy
subject was: Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2 On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, The WMF has as its strategy to invest in what has the highest impact. Where is this stated? Who decides what has the highest impact? From the 2009-10 Annual Plan and it's FAQ[1], we see that strategy development (the five year plan), outreach and communications were key areas of investment. I assume we can expect a new Annual Plan shortly, which will outline the investment strategy for 2010 and 2011. Will it be based on the Emerging strategic priorities page on the strategy wiki? 1. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2009-2010_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers 2. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Emerging_strategic_priorities -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Office Hour for Friday, June 11, featuring Mike Godwin
On 10 June 2010 01:13, Cary Bass c...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hey everyone! On Friday, June 11, the Office Hour will once again be hosted by Mike Godwin, Legal counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, who you can read about at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Mikegodwin As interesting as Mike is, this will be the fourth time (judging by http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours, which I'm assuming is up-to-date) that we've heard from him. Could we hear from some other staff members soon? It seems Erik hasn't answered questions once. Frank, who I know is doing a lot of fantastic and little-known work, has only appeared once. Sue has only appeared once, and that was nearly a year ago. I think Danese has now been in her job long enough for it not to be /too/ unfair to inflict us on her. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Office Hour for Friday, June 11, featuring Mike Godwin
Thanks Thomas. I'm happy to do office hours -- Cary can schedule me in any time I'm free, via James. (I can probably do it pre-Wikimania, I think.) -Original Message- From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:26:31 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Office Hour for Friday, June 11, featuring Mike Godwin On 10 June 2010 01:13, Cary Bass c...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hey everyone! On Friday, June 11, the Office Hour will once again be hosted by Mike Godwin, Legal counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, who you can read about at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Mikegodwin As interesting as Mike is, this will be the fourth time (judging by http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours, which I'm assuming is up-to-date) that we've heard from him. Could we hear from some other staff members soon? It seems Erik hasn't answered questions once. Frank, who I know is doing a lot of fantastic and little-known work, has only appeared once. Sue has only appeared once, and that was nearly a year ago. I think Danese has now been in her job long enough for it not to be /too/ unfair to inflict us on her. ___ 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] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2
phoebe ayers wrote: I adore the word pellucid. But Gerard is right: simply put we can't and don't do everything. We don't make every piece of information available to every single person in the world -- yet. I do admit that many actors in the wikimedia universe have been forced to retreat into more comfortable positions to defend, the front line contributors are quite happy to fight the good fight, and total informational availability. You or no specific contributor need not be in the front line, but I do say to every body in the front line, personally I am shoulder to shoulder with you. Back to back. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.comsimetrical%2bwikil...@gmail.com wrote: It's not specific to Wikimedia, it's practically universal in open-source development. To get it to happen, you need pushing from the top: formally stating it as part of people's job duties (so they don't feel they have to do real work instead), and forcing them to engage by only giving them public media to discuss things in with their co-workers. Hi Aryeh, First, let me state from the outset: I think it's great to work out in the open, and I find that the people I'm working with at WMF are at the leading edge of community collaboration on a number of fronts (compared to peers at typical tech companies or even non-profits). Feel Free to ping me on IRC, email about anything I'm working on right now (that goes for others as well). Note also: in the spirit of this conversation, I didn't run this by anyone at WMF, and I'm still using my @wikimedia.org address anyway (and I'm only a contractor). We'll see if I get in any hot water for that ;-) Just so you know, part of my job here (besides work on Pending Changes) is to work on development process at WMF, so this thread is pretty relevant to my day job here. As you know, any time you want to compel someone to do something, there's always the carrot and the stick. One thing I don't like about the way you've phrased that is that is that you seem to be advocating the stick. Am I reading that right? One undertone that I've witnessed everywhere is that people in open source communities that have a clear organizational owner is that there is a very uneven distribution of people who want a peer-to-peer relationship versus a customer-vendor relationship. This makes it really difficult to work out in the public, because some people seem to prefer the trappings of a peer-to-peer relationship (let me in on your early thinking, publish your roadmaps, work in the fishbowl), where others prefer the trappings of the customer-vendor relationship (the customer is always right, the customer is the boss). Some will even go so far as to want a customer-to-peer relationship, which is clearly not sustainable. To be really clear here, most of my impressions on this topic come from my previous work experience (been doing the corporate open source thing for a while), and only in a limited way with this community, but I've seen hints that the WMF=community relationship has some of the same traits. From the vantage point of the vendor in this case, the problem is compounded by the cognitive bias Erik pointed to (belief that the group you're a member of is diverse, whereas other groups are not). The net result of different expectations in the community is that, from the vendor point of viewer, it looks like the community is demanding a customer-to-peer relationship, since that is the average opinion of a pretty large and diverse group. That's why I'm generally pretty careful about using the term the community, because for those not used to working out in the open, it's really scary to get mixed up in public conversations. One thing to consider about the IBM example is that IBM is a company of about 400,000 employees, and was probably in the middle of their we're spending $1 billion/year on Linux year when they instituted that policy. They could probably stand to be a little inefficient in the name of insinuating themselves in the community. We're not working with that sort of cushion. As someone who currently works from Seattle (and worked on a distributed team in my last job), I also know that long distance collaboration (even in the same timezone as SF) has its disadvantages from an efficiency perspective. Most people have a strong preference for face-to-face communication for collaboration for good reason...it's high bandwidth. Even people who are really good at doing it take some time to figure out how to be effective using only email and IRC; forcing people who aren't good at it is really a productivity hit. My recommendation is to strive to make it incredibly compelling for WMF staff to work out in the community. That means adhering to WP:BITE and WP:GOODFAITH in spades, and reminding each other that we're all on the same team here. It means making sure that it actually feels like it's increasing our productivity to do it, rather than feeling like a drag. That's not to say the burden needs to be solely on you all, but I think forcing employees to work in the community is some customer-vendor thinking at play. Don't get me wrong: I think it's an incredibly good idea for us to figure out how to all work together better, and clearly a big part of that is going to be strengthening our working relationship with non-employees. It wasn't that long ago I was a non-employee Wikipedian, and may be one again soon. I share your goal. We have an amazingly diverse community with (very importantly) a fantastic volunteer work ethic, and I think we
Re: [Foundation-l] WMF investment strategy
Hi John, Yes, the 2010-11 plan is rooted in the strategy. We're wrapping it up in the office today -- it goes to the Board tonight, and, post-approval, will be published within a few weeks. Maybe I can do IRC office hours once it's published -- it'd be a good meaty topic :-) Thanks, Sue -Original Message- From: John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:19:41 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Foundation-l] WMF investment strategy subject was: Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2 On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, The WMF has as its strategy to invest in what has the highest impact. Where is this stated? Who decides what has the highest impact? From the 2009-10 Annual Plan and it's FAQ[1], we see that strategy development (the five year plan), outreach and communications were key areas of investment. I assume we can expect a new Annual Plan shortly, which will outline the investment strategy for 2010 and 2011. Will it be based on the Emerging strategic priorities page on the strategy wiki? 1. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2009-2010_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers 2. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Emerging_strategic_priorities -- John Vandenberg ___ 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] WMF investment strategy
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 10:49 AM, susanpgard...@gmail.com wrote: Hi John, Yes, the 2010-11 plan is rooted in the strategy. We're wrapping it up in the office today -- it goes to the Board tonight, and, post-approval, will be published within a few weeks. Maybe I can do IRC office hours once it's published -- it'd be a good meaty topic :-) That would be fantastic Sue! I think it would be helpful to have a discussion about strategy before the annual plan is finalised as I suspect there are many people in the community who haven't been following the strategy project (I know I haven't). Now is a good time for everyone to review the strategy wiki content! I'm a bit concerned about the lack of translations on some of the key pages on the strategy wiki. e.g. 11 translations of the Task force/Recommendations page; 9 of the Emerging strategic priorities page, and 2 of the first strategy priorities page Expand reach within large, well-connected populations. Reading through the pages relating to strategic priorities, I am disheartened by the focus on Wikipedia, such as using research about Wikipedia as a basis for decision making, and Wikipedia being the subject of the priorities. More troubling is the use of this diagram, where many other projects as referred to as supporting content. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMFCurrent_WMF_projects.png It appears that the uploader, TylerT, was engaged by the WMF as a consultant. We recently had WMF board members saying similar things about Commons and Wikisource on foundation-l, and retractions soon followed. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057926.html This focus on Wikipedia seems to be a systemic problem. Maybe the WMF needs an advisory board consisting of people who are focused on developing the other projects. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
Rob Lanphier wrote: So, I'll start chipping in my work at the page Erik has started: http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_Development_Process_Ideas You all really just don't get it, do you? Part of the problem is that the usability wiki is viewed as a walled garden. Your solution is to create a page there for others to add comments? Meta-Wiki is the Wikimedia community's wiki. Go there and create a dialogue. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 7:08 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Rob Lanphier wrote: So, I'll start chipping in my work at the page Erik has started: http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_Development_Process_Ideas You all really just don't get it, do you? Part of the problem is that the usability wiki is viewed as a walled garden. Your solution is to create a page there for others to add comments? Meta-Wiki is the Wikimedia community's wiki. Go there and create a dialogue. Um, ok: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_Development_Process_Ideas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] WMF investment strategy
Yeah, I hear you, John. I wouldn't characterize it myself as a systemic problem, but I think I get the gist of what you're saying. I have my own opinions, but I don't think I'll post them here (at least, not tonight, and not while walking down the street). They'd be easier to talk through in a realtime back-and-forth rather than in a mailing-list post, so with luck we'll be able to talk at office hours, if James can set me up to do that in the next few weeks. Thanks, Sue -Original Message- From: John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:58:48 To: susanpgard...@gmail.com; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] WMF investment strategy On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 10:49 AM, susanpgard...@gmail.com wrote: Hi John, Yes, the 2010-11 plan is rooted in the strategy. We're wrapping it up in the office today -- it goes to the Board tonight, and, post-approval, will be published within a few weeks. Maybe I can do IRC office hours once it's published -- it'd be a good meaty topic :-) That would be fantastic Sue! I think it would be helpful to have a discussion about strategy before the annual plan is finalised as I suspect there are many people in the community who haven't been following the strategy project (I know I haven't). Now is a good time for everyone to review the strategy wiki content! I'm a bit concerned about the lack of translations on some of the key pages on the strategy wiki. e.g. 11 translations of the Task force/Recommendations page; 9 of the Emerging strategic priorities page, and 2 of the first strategy priorities page Expand reach within large, well-connected populations. Reading through the pages relating to strategic priorities, I am disheartened by the focus on Wikipedia, such as using research about Wikipedia as a basis for decision making, and Wikipedia being the subject of the priorities. More troubling is the use of this diagram, where many other projects as referred to as supporting content. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMFCurrent_WMF_projects.png It appears that the uploader, TylerT, was engaged by the WMF as a consultant. We recently had WMF board members saying similar things about Commons and Wikisource on foundation-l, and retractions soon followed. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057926.html This focus on Wikipedia seems to be a systemic problem. Maybe the WMF needs an advisory board consisting of people who are focused on developing the other projects. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Fwd: change of registered TMs in Persian wikipedia
Forwarded on behalf of a non-list-member. The question pertains to translation of trademarks within articles; to my knowledge, there's nothing wrong with us doing so, and I think this is done in many Wikipedias. But I'll defer to the list on this question. -- Forwarded message -- From: Amir sarabadani ladsgr...@gmail.com Date: Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:58 PM Subject: change of registered TMs in Persian wikipedia To: foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org Hello, I'm one of Persian wikipedia users.for making pages same name of trademarks (e.g. films ,games.etc.) we have several choices: 1-we use same name and same alphabetical with trademark(e.g. Google--Google) 2-we same name but Persian Script(e.g. Call of duty--کال آو دیوتی/KAL AV DIUTI/) 3-we translate it(Prince of Persian--شاهزاده ایرانی /SHAHZADE IRANI means Prince of Persia) Users of Persian wikipedia (with consequence) use third way usually but I think change of trademarks is crime and maybe create legal problem for the Foundation Please tell us what we do or maybe i think wrong please tell me. Thanks and best wishes -- Amir ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: change of registered TMs in Persian wikipedia
I think the immediate question would be this: Ignoring the question of trademark infringement for the moment, what way would the Persian Wikipedia WANT to do it? Is there a standard that is used for non-trademarked things when there is no Persian word in existence to describe the title? For example, hypothetically, lets say water had no direct Persian equivalent. Would users prefer option 1 (water in English script) or option 2 (Persian script that phonetically spells out water)? It would make sense to me that where Option 3 exists, it would be the preferred option, but what about when it doesn't? -Dan On Jun 10, 2010, at 1:09 AM, Ryan Lomonaco wrote: Forwarded on behalf of a non-list-member. The question pertains to translation of trademarks within articles; to my knowledge, there's nothing wrong with us doing so, and I think this is done in many Wikipedias. But I'll defer to the list on this question. -- Forwarded message -- From: Amir sarabadani ladsgr...@gmail.com Date: Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:58 PM Subject: change of registered TMs in Persian wikipedia To: foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org Hello, I'm one of Persian wikipedia users.for making pages same name of trademarks (e.g. films ,games.etc.) we have several choices: 1-we use same name and same alphabetical with trademark(e.g. Google--Google) 2-we same name but Persian Script(e.g. Call of duty--کال آو دیوتی/KAL AV DIUTI/) 3-we translate it(Prince of Persian--شاهزاده ایرانی /SHAHZADE IRANI means Prince of Persia) Users of Persian wikipedia (with consequence) use third way usually but I think change of trademarks is crime and maybe create legal problem for the Foundation Please tell us what we do or maybe i think wrong please tell me. Thanks and best wishes -- Amir ___ 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] Fwd: change of registered TMs in Persian wikipedia
The best option according to us (Malayalam Wikipedians - http://ml.wikipedia.org) is to use the second option for the article titles . That is, transliterate the keyword to your language. There is no copyright issue attached with that, I suppose. We do that throughout our daily life. For example, local language News Paper, TV reports, and so on. According to me translating (third option) the book name,film name, or company name and so on is a bad idea from Encyclopedic point of view. You can have translated articlke titels if there is a translated version of the book/film available in your language. For example, in malayalam wikipedia we have an article about Imitation of the Christ http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_of_Christ_%28book%29. In this article, the information about the original book is provided. Please note that the article title is the transliteration of the original title of the book. We also have another article for the translated version of this book ( ക്രിസ്തുദേവാനുകരണംhttp://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%87%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A3%E0%B4%82) to Malayalam. This article provides information about the translated version of the original book. Hope this helps. Shiju On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 7:09 AM, Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral...@gmail.comwrote: Forwarded on behalf of a non-list-member. The question pertains to translation of trademarks within articles; to my knowledge, there's nothing wrong with us doing so, and I think this is done in many Wikipedias. But I'll defer to the list on this question. -- Forwarded message -- From: Amir sarabadani ladsgr...@gmail.com Date: Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:58 PM Subject: change of registered TMs in Persian wikipedia To: foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org Hello, I'm one of Persian wikipedia users.for making pages same name of trademarks (e.g. films ,games.etc.) we have several choices: 1-we use same name and same alphabetical with trademark(e.g. Google--Google) 2-we same name but Persian Script(e.g. Call of duty--کال آو دیوتی/KAL AV DIUTI/) 3-we translate it(Prince of Persian--شاهزاده ایرانی /SHAHZADE IRANI means Prince of Persia) Users of Persian wikipedia (with consequence) use third way usually but I think change of trademarks is crime and maybe create legal problem for the Foundation Please tell us what we do or maybe i think wrong please tell me. Thanks and best wishes -- Amir ___ 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
