[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: Announcement: New editor engagement experiments team!

[Sue Gardner]

Hey folks,

I sent the note below to the staff and board a few hours ago: sharing
now with everyone :-)

Thanks,
Sue

-- Forwarded message --
From: Sue Gardner 
Date: 20 March 2012 19:17
Subject: Announcement: New editor engagement experiments team!
To: Staff All 


Hey folks,

A couple of changes at the Wikimedia Foundation that I want you to know about.

Everybody knows that reversing stagnating/declining participation in
Wikimedia’s projects is our top priority. To make better progress, as
of April 16 we're going to bring together resources from the Community
and Engineering/Product departments into a new cross-functional team
tasked specifically with conducting small, rapid experiments designed
to improve editor retention. We already know some of the fixes that
will solve the editor retention problem, and we're working to put them
in place. The purpose of *this* team will be to identify the fixes we
don't yet know about.

Separately, Zack has to move back to Missouri for family reasons. When
Zack told me about that, we agreed that it’s an extra impetus for this
new team to be launched now. This means that going forward,  Zack’s
department will focus solely on fundraising, and some members of his
department will move permanently into other groups. There have been
lots of conversations about this over the past few weeks, which have
included everyone affected.

So here’s what we’re going to do:

FUNDRAISING:

Zack will manage fundraising remotely. He’ll continue to be part of
the C-level team, but he’ll do it from Missouri. He’ll travel back to
San Francisco frequently, and he’ll probably be here throughout the
fundraising campaign every year and spend other longer chunks of time
here when needed.

We don’t yet know what the title of Zack’s department will be, or what
Zack’s title will be. Neither Zack nor I care very much about titles,
and we are in the happy position of not particularly needing to
impress anyone -- so, we do not need fancy euphemistic titles. It
would be nice to have titles that are clear and direct and
understandable, and also to have ones that reflect the
creative/storytelling/community aspect of the fundraising team’s work.
So, we are leaving this piece open for the time being, and we’ll just
call the department “fundraising” until and unless we think of
something better. Folks with suggestions should talk with Zack. :-)

EDITOR ENGAGEMENT EXPERIMENTATION:

Reflecting the importance of editor engagement in the Wikimedia
Foundation’s strategy, we will have the following teams directly
focused on it:

 **the Visual Editor group (led by Trevor as lead developer, and by
the soon-to-be hired Technical Product Analyst) which is making the
visual editor;
 **the Editor Engagement group (led by Fabrice Florin as Product
Manager and Ian Baker as ScrumMaster) which is working on medium-term
projects improving Wikimedia’s handling of reputation/identity and of
notifications;
 **the new team focused on rapid experimentation, led by Karyn as
Product Manager and a to-be-hired engineering lead/ScrumMaster,
tentatively titled something like Research & Experimentation, Editor
Engagement Innovation Lab or the Rapid Experimentation Team.

Our thinking is basically this: we know the Visual Editor will help
with editor retention. We know that improving notifications,
messaging, identity and other core features of MediaWiki will help
with editor retention. But there are a handful of other smaller
projects --maybe just simple tweaks, maybe ideas that should become
fully-fledged new features-- that will also help. The purpose of the
new experimentation team will be to conduct many quick experiments,
which will identify a handful of small changes that can either be
accomplished by the team itself, or be queued up as part of our
overall product backlog.

Staff moving from the Community Dept to Engineering and Product
Development (AKA Tech) are: Karyn Gladstone, Maryana Pinchuk, Steven
Walling, and Ryan Faulkner. They will form a team tasked with rapid
experimentation to find policy, product or other changes that will
increase editor retention. Karyn will head product thinking and
maintain the experimentation backlog, reporting to Howie. Alolita will
hire and manage the engineers for this team, and will help interface
them with the rest of the engineering organization. The important
thing to know about this team is that they are being tasked with one
of our absolutely most important objectives: to figure out new ways to
increase editor engagement and retention.

Karyn will report to Howie. Maryana, Ryan Faulker, and Steven will
report to Karyn. The group has never had engineering resources
assigned to it, and it’s clear they need engineering resources.
Therefore, Alolita will work in close partnership with Karyn to
recruit an engineering team --mostly developers but also UI/design
people-- to support the new group. If you have ideas for people we
should be recruiting fo

Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Mid-Year Presentation to the Board, esp. Visual Editor

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Pine,

I made that part of the deck and yes, you're interpreting it correctly. I
put green checkmarks to indicate where something was (more-or-less) on
track, where progress was about where it was supposed to be midway through
the year. That's the basis on which the Visual Editor got a green check.

I did consider using an orange marker of some kind, but there was no
obvious symbol to indicate "on track" or "half done, as expected halfway
through the year." So I just used a green check, to mark those activities
as more-or-less fine. The point of those slides was really to emphasize
where we are *not* on track, which is of course number-of-active-editors.
We had hoped by this point that we would have arrested the slide and
starting bringing the numbers up, but that has not happened. That's the
message those slides are intended to convey.

I would also say: that deck was used in a three-hour verbal presentation to
the Board. Verbally, in person, we were able to convey more nuance and
detail than is in the deck, and I would say the deck doesn't stand alone
particularly well. We wanted to publish it anyway, because there is quite a
bit of useful information in it. But it's not designed so much as a
standalone report: it was really used as the backdrop for a presentation,
in order to kick off a conversation about next year's plan.

Thanks,
Sue
On Mar 3, 2012 10:09 PM, "En Pine"  wrote:

> Clarification: I see that
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=51says
>  in the text, “First opt-in user-facing production usage by December
> 2011, and first small wiki default deployment by June 2012”. However,
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=46doesn’t
>  include those caveats. As someone who’s accustomed to reading
> highly colorful charts and audit reports with carefully chosen visual
> flags, I find it disturbing to have green checks by an item that’s still a
> work in progress and months away from completion. I would like to suggest
> that a more cautionary visual symbol such as the words “in progress” would
> have been more appropriate.
>
>
> From: En Pine
> Sent: Saturday, 03 March, 2012 21:42
> To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: Wikimedia Foundation Mid-Year Presentation to the Board, esp.
> Visual Editor
>
> I appreciated this presentation. It raised many good points about
> successes and challenges. However, I’d like to know why the visual editor
> appears to be checked as a finished item in this presentation, in the
> slides
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=46and
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Mid-Year_Review_February_2012.pdf&page=51.
> This is inconsistent with the latest information that I’m able to find
> about the visual editor.
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor#Status says that the visual
> editor isn't scheduled for an initial rollout until June. Sorry to be
> critical, but I get the impression that this presentation counted the
> chickens several months before they've hatched.
>
> Pine
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Re: [Foundation-l] Chapter Selected Board Seats - Time for questions

[Sue Gardner]

On 1 March 2012 18:27, Béria Lima  wrote:
> Hello people,
>
> So after receive authorization from all candidates, the list of candidates
> + statements are in meta, and you can find it here: http'://
> meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Candidates
>
> Until 14 March is time for questions, so if you have any questions to any
> of the candidates, please put your question in this page:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Candidates/Questions(there
> are already some questions and some answers there)

This is great: I am really happy to see this public process. Thank you
to Béria and the other people coordinating this :-)
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] My public aplogies to Jan-Bart (was Movement roles letter, Feb 2012)

[Sue Gardner]

On 16 February 2012 17:04, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On Feb 16, 2012 3:47 PM, "Thomas Morton" 

> Wikimedians often call me Thomas because that's what I have gmail set to
> call me and they know me mostly from emails. While I don't mind at all, it
> sounds (or looks) strange to me every time.

LOL, I was thinking exactly that as I read Tom Morton's note. I
*always* call you Thomas. And although I try, I have difficulty
calling Michael Peel Mike. I do however correctly address James
Forrester, in person, as Jimbo.

And -- in the event the OP is still here, Joan Gomà, how are you
properly addressed in person? I have heard people say things like
"When does Gomà arrive in Paris" and I have also been using that. But
you should presumably be addressed as Joan -- and presumably with the
J sound pronounced as a Y?

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] My public aplogies to Jan-Bart (was Movement roles letter, Feb 2012)

[Sue Gardner]

On 16 February 2012 12:32, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 16 February 2012 11:27, John Du Hart  wrote:
>
>> Is this really something to get upset over? It's not as if he was calling
>> you stupid, he simply misspelled your name (shortened it, really).
>
>
> People's own names are extremely important to them.

Very true. When I was in school learning journalism, that was the only
way to get an automatic fail: getting someone's name wrong. (Now I say
that, I guess you also failed if you plagiarized or fabricated. But
getting someone's name wrong was the most seemingly-trivial way to
fail.)

While we're on the topic, here's a public service announcement. It's
Bishakha Datta, not Bishaka Datta. The single most-frequently
misspelled name on our lists, AFAICT. Also, Erik Moeller or Erik
Möller with umlaut. Never Erik Moller with no umlaut :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] WMF Board of Trustees meeting agenda

[Sue Gardner]

Just adding to what Phoebe said (and sorry to top-post): my recommendations
are not finalized and have not been submitted formally to the Board. I
don't intend to submit them as-is: they will be shaped by the discussion
that's been happening thus far, by my own evolving views, and by input from
the Board at its meeting. What I am looking for out of the Board meeting is
to get nearer to a consensus WRT what direction we want to take.

Thanks,
Sue
On Jan 30, 2012 8:02 AM, "phoebe ayers"  wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 3:18 PM, En Pine  wrote:
> >
> > Phoebe,
> >
> > On this agenda, could you give more detail about the topic "Paid editing
> discussion"? There is a current discussion on EN at the Village Pump
> regarding, among other things, PR personnel who edit on Wikipedia in ways
> that might violate NPOV and COI policy. It would be good to know if the
> Board is taking up this specific subject. Alternatively, if "paid editing
> discussion" instead is about editors which will be paid by WMF to edit, I
> think the community would want to know that this is will be discussed.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Pine
>
> Pine: the former, I believe; I haven't heard anything about the latter :)
>
> Beria: the calendar is posted here --
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_and_Funds_Dissemination
> As I understand it we are going to try to get quite indepth into the
> recommendations at this meeting, and see if there is consensus to
> date, but not take a final vote.
>
> -- phoebe
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Politico: "Wikimedia foundation hires lobbyists on sopa, pipa"

[Sue Gardner]

On 22 January 2012 08:30, Kim Bruning  wrote:
> Wikimedia foundation hires lobbyists on sopa, pipa
>        http://www.politico.com/morningtech/0112/morningtech377.html
>
> Interesting. Any details?

I thought we had already discussed this here, but maybe it was only
discussed on the SOPA pages on-wiki? Upshot: the Wikimedia Foundation
engaged a DC firm, Dow Lohnes Government Strategies, to help us better
understand SOPA/PIPA. They are the folks who've been advising us over
the past month or so, helping us figure out how big a threat SOPA/PIPA
are, where they came from, what stage they were at, how likely they
were to pass, what kind of response the blackout was getting, and so
forth.

When Geoff or anybody from the Foundation was opining on-list or
on-wiki about SOPA/PIPA, it was with the benefit of the expertise of
the DC firm.

It remains to be determined how or whether we will continue using that
firm (or any other similar firm). We don't have any intention of doing
anything secretive or underhanded.

There is probably more information on enWP's SOPA-related pages.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Canadian consultation on Trans Pacific

[Sue Gardner]

On 7 January 2012 07:47, James Heilman  wrote:
> Hey John. Not sure we why at WMC should be interested? Can you explain
> further...
>
> James Heilman
> Wikimedia Canada

I'm not John, but it's because of the copyright provisions.

If Canada signs onto the Trans Pacific Partnership, it would need to
redo its copyright legislation to conform with it, which would likely
extend Canadian copyright another 20 years, plus putting in place new
measures around enforcement and new infringement penalties.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6225/125/

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

[Sue Gardner]

On 1 December 2011 15:33, Juergen Fenn  wrote:
> Sue, if you are currently not able to give live statistics for technical 
> reasons, perhaps you could announce the current statistics on a static web 
> page for the meanwhile?

Hi Juergen,

I think there's a backup Google spreadsheet. The spreadsheet data
belongs to four different groups -- WM France, WM Deutschland and WM
UK, as well as the Wikimedia Foundation. If the French, Germans and
British are okay publishing the URL, the Wikimedia Foundation
obviously is totally fine with it :-)

Thanks,
Sue





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

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

[Sue Gardner]

There was a brief outage due to that page, Nathan, a few days ago.
(Because of Brandon Harris's AMA on Reddit.)

The intent is to get the page back up, but I don't know when. I'd
guess it might take a week or so, but that's just a guess.

Thanks,
Sue

--
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



On 30 November 2011 18:05, Nathan  wrote:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
>
> What's happening that this is disabled?
>
> ~Nathan
>
> On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:36 PM, Megan Hernandez
>  wrote:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> I just posted an update on the current editor appeal we're running.  Take a
>> look: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Megan
>>
>> --
>>
>> Megan Hernandez
>>
>> Head of Annual Fundraiser
>> Wikimedia Foundation
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[Foundation-l] Fwd: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation

[Sue Gardner]

The campaign for this year is officially launched! Congratulations to
everyone working on it, and fingers crossed for its success.

Thanks,
Sue
-- Forwarded message --
From: "Sue Gardner" 
Date: Nov 15, 2011 2:30 PM
Subject: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation
To: "Susan Gardner" 

Dear Susan,

You are amazing, thank you so much for donating to the Wikimedia Foundation!

This is how we pay our bills -- it's people like you, giving five dollars,
twenty dollars, a hundred dollars. My favourite donation last year was five
pounds from a little girl in England, who had persuaded her parents to let
her donate her allowance. It's people like you, joining with that girl, who
make it possible for Wikipedia to continue providing free, easy access to
unbiased information, for everyone around the world. For everyone who helps
pay for it, and for those who can't afford to help. Thank you so much.

I know it's easy to ignore our appeals, and I'm glad that you didn't. From
me, and from the tens of thousands of volunteers who write Wikipedia: thank
you for helping us make the world a better place. We will use your money
carefully, and I thank you for your trust in us.

Thanks,

*Sue Gardner*
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director

For your records: Your donation on 2011-11-15 was USD 1000.00.

This letter may serve as a record of your donation. No goods or services
were provided, in whole or in part, for this contribution. The Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable corporation with 501(c)(3) tax
exempt status in the United States. Our address is 149 New Montgomery, 3rd
Floor, San Francisco, CA, 94105. U.S. tax-exempt number: 20-0049703

*Opt out option:*

We'd like to keep you as a donor informed of our community activities and
fundraisers. If you prefer however not to receive such emails from us,
please click below and we'll take you off the list:
Opt 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust

[Sue Gardner]

Tinu Cherian, thank you so much for writing this gorgeous, thoughtful
e-mail. I agree with every word you wrote, and I am grateful that you did
it.

One of the things I like best about Wikimedia is that anyone can become a
leader. You become a leader by acting like one: by being compassionate and
good, by reminding us of why we're all here, and calling upon us all to be
our best, wisest, most generous selves. That's what you've done here, and I
think it's really lovely.

While I was reading your e-mail, it reminded me of a famous mail that Brion
sent to this same list, back on Christmas Eve of 2006. It was before I
joined the projects, but lots of people told me about it, and eventually I
looked it up in our archives. It's here:
http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/FH5EqJVBMHtX4RawfKZY -- we used to
call it the eggnog e-mail. It was essentially doing the same thing that you
did in your mail just now: asking us all, despite our disagreements, to
remember that what we're doing here in the Wikimedia projects is awesome,
and that we should remember that we love each other.

You've written the new eggnog e-mail. Thank you!

Sue



On Nov 15, 2011 10:02 AM, "CherianTinu Abraham" 
wrote:

> I am not going the respond inline, as it may confuse many a readers like
> me. I will also try to answer below various questions/comments from
> multiple mails/ people. Some of my comments may be general and not directed
> to anyone in particular.
>
> I didn't mean to offend anyone, whether he is a chapter member or not. I
> reserve my right to free opinion just like anyone does. I didn't either
> intend to undermine the great works of anyone. I am aware that "whipping
> foundation label" is very cool these days, but I am not for it. I may have
> disagreements of some of the "foundation way" or "chapter way" , but I
> express my concerns on issues only.
>
> The reason that I had mentioned that the formation of trust was announced
> in earlier co-ordination meetings was that whosoever had concerns earlier
> could have raised it even then. The fact that Sunil Abraham was made as one
> of the trustees was indeed not mentioned in the meetings, all i meant was I
> think he is well eligible for his contributions as a trustee for the WIPT.
> Does every chapter share every minute things of its proceedings with the
> foundation or the community?
>
> I am not here to say whether hiring Hisham or any foundation staff is right
> to wrong. AFAIK, the foundation encouraged/s community members to apply for
> various positions and I could point to you a lots of examples where active
> community members have been hired. Everywhere possible, whenever eligible
> and qualified candidates from the community are available, they have been
> hired, AFAIK. If I choose to work on a volunteer basis on part time, it is
> my own wish... And if I want work on full time for the movement, without
> worrying about my daily bread, it is also my wish. The choice is strictly
> personal. So is it cool if some people joins the foundation and not when
> some other people ? We, Wikipedians, claim to be open & welcoming and vow
> to not bite the new comers, but in reality we form cabals and resists
> anyone new who comes to the movement, ...hah, ... they are all outsiders !
>
> "Oh I can whip everyone personally, but don't you dare to touch me"
> attitude is also not productive. I am tired of seeing foundation-l used for
> personal grudges and attacks. I am tired seeing sock puppet accounts been
> made to just launch personal attacks on individuals on the mailing
> lists/forums. It is not just one time, but many a times.
>
> So finally it all boils down to funding and money, right ? Who gets the
> bigger share and who gets the smaller share? Is that all we care about ? Is
> that why we are all in the movement? I would have been much personally much
> richer, if I  ( like many others) had put my energy, time and concentration
> elsewhere than putting on a movement that is very close to my/our hearts.
> Our family and friends would have much appreciated if we had spend time
> more with them, instead. But that is my/our choice and I am happy about it.
> We are just doing it because we are just passionate about it.
>
> Regards
> Tinu Cherian
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust

[Sue Gardner]

On 11 November 2011 17:11, Achal Prabhala  wrote:
> Honestly, news reporters in India are confused about *everything*
> related to Wikipedia and Wikimedia :) Even a cursory analysis of news
> coverage will confirm that they routinely mix up what the movement is,
> what the difference between Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation is,
> what the difference between a chapter member and a staff member is, etc.
> And as someone who has been following this from the outset, I can say
> with some confidence that this has nothing to do with the chapter and
> the Foundation in India, rather, just our own complicated terminology
> and insider-language, and a general laziness on the part of Indian news
> media to learn the details. Basically, we'd still get completely whacky
> press coverage even if there was no chapter and no Foundation entity.

FWIW, this is definitely not confined to India :-)

From a brand perspective, the Wikimedia movement is extremely
confusing to reporters: we have Wikimedia, Wikipedia, the sister
projects, MediaWiki, the Wikimedia Foundation, chapter organizations,
school clubs, and projects and activities of all types. And, media are
continually befuddled about how we work: they are used to professional
spokespeople, so they don't understand why X person in the Wikimedia
movement isn't speaking on behalf of the whole movement.

When I joined the Wikimedia Foundation in 2007, I thought this was a
problem that needed to be fixed. Over time though, I've begun to
realize that it's pretty fundamental to our movement's values. We want
to have a movement in which it's easy to participate; in which there
are few barriers to entry; there is minimal rule-making and
rule-enforcement, where people can flexibly wear different hats and
take on different roles, etc.

So yes: I think we are confusing to journalists, and they often get
the story wrong. That's too bad. But on the whole, I think it's a
small price to pay in exchange for a vibrant, creative, productive
movement, and the cure for it (real clarity, lots of rules) would be
worse than the disease.

Thanks,
Sue


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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!

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Re: [Foundation-l] Grant agreements

[Sue Gardner]

It's Lisa Gruwell, MZ. Last I heard, she has been waiting to hear back
from a couple of foundations about recent agreements.

Thanks,
Sue



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



On 23 October 2011 11:05, MZMcBride  wrote:
> MZMcBride wrote:
>> Sue Gardner wrote:
>>> Oh. I can speak to this, at least a little. The Wikimedia Foundation has a
>>> policy of publishing our grant applications when the grantmaking institution
>>> is okay with it. We don't do a lot of grant applications, and of the ones we
>>> do, I am guesstimating that two-thirds of the grantmakers have said it's
>>> fine with them for us to publish, and about a third have asked us not to.
>>> Some grantmaking institutions are very happy to publish, because they
>>> believe the sector as a whole benefits from transparency about how things
>>> work. (IIRC Hewlett is an example of that.)
>>>
>>> I do not know where they get published: I'll ask.
>>>
>>> But, some of the grant we receive are unsolicited gifts, in which case there
>>> is no application, and nothing to publish. I think for example that our
>>> recent grant from the Indigo Trust in the UK is an example of that.
>>>
>>> I assume, MZ, that you're mostly interested in the Stanton grant, and I
>>> don't remember their position on this issue. I do know they're not
>>> publicity-seeking, and they don't welcome grant applications that they
>>> haven't solicited. So they might be an example of a foundation that doesn't
>>> want its agreements publicized: I don't remember.
>>>
>>> We can find out :-)
>>
>> That would be great. Thanks. :-)
>>
>> It's mostly the large grants that I'm interested in, the ones that have the
>> power to shape a significant portion of Wikimedia's short-term future.
>> Personally, the applications (assuming there are any) are completely
>> unimportant to me. I can't imagine they're much more than "we'd like X money
>> to fulfill Y portions of our mission", though perhaps I'm wrong. But the
>> grant agreements ("we'll give you X money over Y months to do Z") are the
>> piece that has me curious.
>>
>> Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. There's no rush on this, but I'd
>> most certainly appreciate it if you could take a look or ask someone to.
>
> Bumping this, so I don't forget. I think having public grant agreements
> wherever possible is critically important, particularly with large grants
> that have the potential to drastically (or dramatically) shape the future of
> Wikimedia, at least short-term.
>
> Is there a particular staff member that I can talk to about this? There are
> some grant-specific people, aren't there?
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Grant agreements

[Sue Gardner]

Oh. I can speak to this, at least a little. The Wikimedia Foundation has a
policy of publishing our grant applications when the grantmaking institution
is okay with it. We don't do a lot of grant applications, and of the ones we
do, I am guesstimating that two-thirds of the grantmakers have said it's
fine with them for us to publish, and about a third have asked us not to.
Some grantmaking institutions are very happy to publish, because they
believe the sector as a whole benefits from transparency about how things
work. (IIRC Hewlett is an example of that.)

I do not know where they get published: I'll ask.

But, some of the grant we receive are unsolicited gifts, in which case there
is no application, and nothing to publish. I think for example that our
recent grant from the Indigo Trust in the UK is an example of that.

I assume, MZ, that you're mostly interested in the Stanton grant, and I
don't remember their position on this issue. I do know they're not
publicity-seeking, and they don't welcome grant applications that they
haven't solicited. So they might be an example of a foundation that doesn't
want its agreements publicized: I don't remember.

We can find out :-)

Thanks,
Sue
 On Oct 14, 2011 5:41 PM, "MZMcBride"  wrote:

> Philippe Beaudette wrote:
> > Point of clarification (and this is to help someone else answer, because
> i
> > don't know)... MZ, are you talking about grants such as Stanton, where
> the
> > WMF is the recipient, or grants such as to the chapters, where the WMF is
> > the granting partner?
>
> I was talking about Stanton-type grants. Sorry for the confusion.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial Content

[Sue Gardner]

On 10 October 2011 11:56, Möller, Carsten  wrote:
> Sue wrote:
>> It is asking me to do something.
>> But it is not asking me to do the specific thing that has
>> been discussed over the past several months, and which the Germans
>> voted against.
>
> I may translate:
> As the German community has voted against filters,
> I was ordered to circumvent this vote by making some adjustments to the 
> wording.
>
> That will not work. The vote was very clear agaist all image filters.
> The referendum was a farce, as we clearly see.
>
> Sorry, somebody is playing games with us.


Truly, Carsten, nobody is playing games with you. The Board's
discussion was sincere and thoughtful.

This is how the system is supposed to work. The Board identified a
problem; the staff hacked together a proposed solution, and we asked
the community what it thought. Now, we're responding to the input and
we're going to iterate. This is how it's supposed to work: we mutually
influence each other.

I'm not saying it isn't messy and awkward and flawed in many respects:
it absolutely is. But nobody is playing games with you. The Board is
sincere. It is taking seriously the German community, and the others
who have thoughtfully opposed the filter.

The right thing to do now is to accept the olive branch, and work with
the Wikimedia Foundation to figure out a good solution. You want to
train the Wikimedia Foundation that listening to you is the path to a
successful outcome :-)

Thanks,
Sue



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Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial Content

[Sue Gardner]

On 9 October 2011 09:31, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 9 October 2011 17:19, Sue Gardner  wrote:
>> Nobody wants civil war.
>
> I'm sure they don't actively want one, but it seems the board do
> consider one an acceptable cost.

It may seem that way, but it's not actually true. The Board's
conversation yesterday was thoughtful and serious: the Board members
take very seriously the concerns expressed by editors, and they don't
want to alienate them. We discussed Achim Raschka for example
specifically: he's a 70K-edit editor on the German Wikipedia with I
think 100+ good and featured articles. The last thing the Board wants
is for people like Achim to leave the projects.


>> Please read Ting's note carefully. The Board is asking me to work with
>> the community to develop a solution that meets the original
>> requirements as laid out in its resolution. It is asking me to do
>> something. But it is not asking me to do the specific thing that has
>> been discussed over the past several months, and which the Germans
>> voted against.
>>
>> The Board is hoping there is a solution that will 1) enable readers to
>> easily hide images they don't want to see, as laid out in the Board's
>> resolution [1], while 2) being generally acceptable to editors. Maybe
>> this will not be possible, but it's the goal. The Board definitely
>> does not want a war with the community, and it does not want people to
>> fork or leave the projects. The goal is a solution that's acceptable
>> for everyone.
>
> But what happens in the event that such a goal cannot be achieved?
> Ting has made it very clear that they intend some kind of image filter
> to be implemented on all projects, regardless of community wishes. I
> hope the community will come around and accept some kind of filter,
> but if they don't then the WMF needs to accept that it has failed, do
> so gracefully, and not try to start a war that in cannot possibly win
> and will cause a great deal of damage.
>
> I think that if the WMF made it clear that they will not implement any
> kind of image filter on a project if there is overwhelming opposition
> to it, the relevant communities would be much more willing to engage
> in constructive dialogue.

Yes, I hear you. The Board didn't specifically discuss yesterday what
to do if there is no acceptable solution. So I don't think they can
make a statement like this: it hasn't been discussed. I hear what
you're saying here, but my hope is that even in the absence of such a
statement, people will be willing to join with the Wikimedia
Foundation to engage seriously on the topic and figure out a solution
that works.

I need to run -- I've got a meeting in the office with Ting, JB and
Kat. But thank you, Thomas, for your comments here -- I think they're
constructive. I would love for people on this list to help others
understand what's happening here. The Wikimedia Foundation does not
want a war: it is hoping for a solution here that is acceptable for
everyone. If the folks here can help editors understand that, that
would be a service to everyone, I think.

Thanks,
Sue





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Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial Content

[Sue Gardner]

On 9 October 2011 08:50, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 9 October 2011 16:31, church.of.emacs.ml
>  wrote:
>> On 10/09/2011 04:56 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>> If the WMF picks a fight with the community on something the
>>> community feel very strongly about (which this certainly seems to
>>> be), the WMF will lose horribly and the fall-out for the whole
>>> movement will be very bad indeed.
>>
>> +1.
>>
>> (And I say that, not being opposed to the image filter itself)
>
> Indeed. I'm not in against the filter. In fact, I'm very much in
> favour of it. I am, however, very much against civil war.

Nobody wants civil war.

Please read Ting's note carefully. The Board is asking me to work with
the community to develop a solution that meets the original
requirements as laid out in its resolution. It is asking me to do
something. But it is not asking me to do the specific thing that has
been discussed over the past several months, and which the Germans
voted against.

The Board is hoping there is a solution that will 1) enable readers to
easily hide images they don't want to see, as laid out in the Board's
resolution [1], while 2) being generally acceptable to editors. Maybe
this will not be possible, but it's the goal. The Board definitely
does not want a war with the community, and it does not want people to
fork or leave the projects. The goal is a solution that's acceptable
for everyone.

Thanks,
Sue

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content
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Re: [Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia

[Sue Gardner]

The Wikimedia Foundation first heard about this a few hours ago: we don't
have a lot of details yet. Jay is gathering information and working on a
statement now.

It seems obvious though that the proposed law would hurt freedom of
expression in Italy, and therefore it's entirely reasonable for the Italian
Wikipedians to oppose it. The Wikimedia Foundation will support their
position.

The question of whether blocking access to Wikipedia is the best possible
way to draw people's attention to this issue is of course open for debate
and reasonable people can disagree. My understanding is that the decision
was taken via a good community process. Regardless, what's done is done, for
the moment.

Thanks,
Sue
On Oct 4, 2011 1:33 PM, "Risker"  wrote:
> Rather than try to respond to a specific post in this fast moving thread,
my
> belief is that the WMF is likely trying to work directly with members of
the
> Italian Wikipedia community primarily right now rather than keeping up
with
> mailing lists. While I do look forward to seeing some communication on
this
> issue, that community needs to be the focus.
>
> (As an aside, kudos to Milos' rapid response and ability to organize his
own
> local community in support of the concerns of our Italian counterparts.)
>
> Risker
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Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters

[Sue Gardner]

On 30 September 2011 09:15, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Risker  wrote:
>> Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about
>> in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to
>> others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing
>> the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the
>> US/not from the US. The implication of your post is "if you're a woman from
>> the US, your opinion is invalid.



I just want to point out quickly that I am not American, and my
position on all these issues is actually a very Canadian one. Ray and
Risker and other Canadians will recognize this.

Canada doesn't really feel itself to have a fixed national identity.
We makes jokes about the fact that that IS our identity -- that we are
continually renegotiating and stretching the boundaries of what it
means to be Canadian. We believe our culture is the aggregation and
accumulation of all the views and experiences and attitudes of our
citizenry. Each wave of immigration --the French and the British, the
Chinese, the Italians, the Indians, the Jamaicans, and so forth-- has
influenced what Canada is, and how it understands itself.

That's what I'm used to, as a Canadian -- it's normal for me to listen
to minorities and find ways to incorporate their perspectives into
mine.

Thanks,
Sue





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Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters

[Sue Gardner]

On 30 September 2011 03:47, WereSpielChequers
 wrote:
> Re David's point that "The trouble with responding on the blog is that
> responses seem to be being arbitrarily filtered". I can relate to that, it
> isn't just an annoying delay, there are posts which have gone up with
> timestamps long after my post. I don't know whether that was me not knowing
> how to do blog replies or something else. But the solution is in our hands,
> I've now posted my blog response in
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner#Your_blog_post where
> really it should have gone in the first place.


http://suegardner.org/comment-policy/

All the comments people posted thus far have been approved. It just
takes some time, since I sometimes sleep, or have meetings and so
forth. I'll check to see if there's a way to note that for commenters
pre-posting: I'm sure most people don't notice the comments policy.

But thanks, WereSpielChequers --- I saw your note on my talkpage :-)

Thanks,
Sue





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Re: [Foundation-l] Welcoming Jon Davies as our new Chief Executive

[Sue Gardner]

On 27 September 2011 10:30, Chris Keating  wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Wikimedia UK is very pleased to announce that after a very thorough
> recruitment process we have appointed Jon Davies as our first Chief
> Executive, starting next Monday.



Fabulous! Welcome to Jon, and congratulations to the UK Board -- this
is an important day for Wikimedia UK :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter - magical flying unicorn pony that s***s rainbows

[Sue Gardner]

On 22 September 2011 02:21, Tobias Oelgarte
 wrote:
> You must be an asshole to claim that we have many sock puppets inside
> this votes. It's an open attack against the community.

Please let's try not to demonize and insult each other.

These are hot issues, and I know it's tempting to believe that people
who disagree with us are stupid or evil, but they're not. We are all
here for the same reason -- we want to make the world a better place
by making information freely available for everyone. Everybody here is
smart and thoughtful and committed to that mission, and the
conversations work better when we engage each other with that in mind.

Thanks,
Sue



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Re: [Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter - magical flying unicorn pony that s***s rainbows

[Sue Gardner]

On 21 September 2011 12:37, Bjoern Hoehrmann  wrote:
> * Sue Gardner wrote:
>>> Yes we put the "vulva" on the main page and it got quite some attention.
>>> We wanted it this way to test out the reaction of the readers and to
>>> start a discussion about it. The result was as expected. Complains that
>>> it is offensive together with Praises to show what neutrality really is.
>>> After the discussion settled, we opened a Meinungsbild (Poll) to
>>> question if any article/image would be suitable for the main page
>>> (Actually it asked to not allow any topic). The result was very clear.
>>> 13 supported the approach to leave out some content from the main page.
>>> 233 (95%) were against the approach to hide some subjects from the main
>>> page.
>>
>>Can you point me towards that poll?
>
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Beschränkung_der_Themen_für_den_Artikel_des_Tages

Thanks, Björn. That's so interesting: I hadn't known about that poll.

Can someone help me understand the implications of it?

Does it mean basically this: deWP put the Vulva article on its front
page, and then held a poll to decide whether to i) stop putting
articles like Vulva on its front page, because they might surprise or
shock some readers, or ii) continue putting articles like Vulva on the
front page, regardless of whether they surprise or shock some readers.
And the voted supported the latter.

If I've got that right, I assume it means that policy on the German
Wikipedia today would support putting Vulva on the main page. Is there
an 'element of least surprise' type policy or convention that would be
considered germane to this, or not?

I'd be grateful too if anyone would point me towards the page that
delineates the process for selecting the Article of the Day. I can
read pages in languages other than English (sort of) using Google
Translate, but I have a tough time actually finding them :-)

Thanks,
Sue



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Re: [Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter - magical flying unicorn pony that s***s rainbows

[Sue Gardner]

On 21 September 2011 11:10, Tobias Oelgarte
 wrote:
> Am 21.09.2011 19:36, schrieb Kanzlei:
>> Am 21.09.2011 um 19:04 schrieb Tobias 
>> Oelgarte:
>>
>>> Don't you think that we would have thousands of complaints a day if your
>>> words would be true at all? Just have a look at the article [[hentai]]
>>> and look at the illustration. How many complaints about this image do we
>>> get a day? None, because it is less then one complain in a month, while
>>> the article itself is viewed about 8.000 times a day.[1] That would make
>>> up one complainer in 240.000 (0,0004%). Now we could argue that only
>>> some of them would comment on the issue. Lets assume 1 of 100 or even 1
>>> of 1000. Then it are still only 0,04% or 0,4%. That is the big mass of
>>> users we want to support get more contributers?
>>>
>>> [1] http://stats.grok.se/en/201109/hentai
>> Your assumtion is wrong. The 8.000 daily are neither neutral nor 
>> representative for all users. Put the picture on the main page and You get 
>> representative results. We had that in Germany.
> Yes we put the "vulva" on the main page and it got quite some attention.
> We wanted it this way to test out the reaction of the readers and to
> start a discussion about it. The result was as expected. Complains that
> it is offensive together with Praises to show what neutrality really is.
> After the discussion settled, we opened a Meinungsbild (Poll) to
> question if any article/image would be suitable for the main page
> (Actually it asked to not allow any topic). The result was very clear.
> 13 supported the approach to leave out some content from the main page.
> 233 (95%) were against the approach to hide some subjects from the main
> page.


Can you point me towards that poll?

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter

[Sue Gardner]

On 16 September 2011 02:14, Fae  wrote:
> What a strange assumption from Peter. I don't believe for one minute
> that WMF would commission a global referendum and then ignore the
> results. If there has been an official statement along these lines I
> would love to be pointed to it.


Yikes, this is a very fast-moving thread. I haven't read it all yet,
but I wanted to jump in and say that yes, there has not yet been an
official statement responding to the referendum results. There will
be, but there isn't yet.

Currently, the referendum team is still doing some analysis of the
results -- there are some questions we are hoping to get answered
around language breakdown. And I am currently reading lots and lots of
write-in comments.

If I had to guess, I would image there will be a statement within
about two weeks. But that's not a commitment, just an estimate.

Thanks,
Sue





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Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked

[Sue Gardner]

On 12 September 2011 18:15, geni  wrote:
> On 12 September 2011 23:45, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>> Now: what do we need to do to make Wikinews better and more useful?
>> What are the costs and technical or other work involved?
>
> Very little. Mostly wikinews is misstargeted. Yet another website
> rewriting AP reports is never going to draw crowds. Wikinews needed
> original research and never really had very much of it. It is also
> operating in an extremely crowded market where as wikipedia had the
> field pretty much to itself when it started.


On the English Wikinews [1] at least, it's seemed to me that part of
the issue is that different editors are working on different genres of
news. Some do celebrity coverage, others do investigative work or
collaborative coverage of breaking events, etc. Those are quite
different value propositions that appeal to different types of
readers, and I would think that Wikinews has simply never produced
enough critical mass of any one genre, sufficient to create and
maintain a large readership that wants that genre.

Jimmy said once that part of the reason Wikipedia works so well is
because everybody knows what an encyclopedia article is supposed to
look like. I think that's true, and I think Wikinews has suffered in
comparison, because there are many different types of news, not just
one.

Thanks,
Sue


[1] the only one I personally can read

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Re: [Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced

[Sue Gardner]

On 10 September 2011 01:40, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 10 September 2011 09:34, Yann Forget  wrote:
>> 2011/9/10 Philippe Beaudette :
>
>>> I do not yet have a full feed that meets our needs for analysis beyond
>>> what's already done.
>
>> We should have started by this before organizing a "referendum".
>
>
> I've asked only twice now, here goes for a third time:
>
> What was the process of coming up with the questions? Who did this? As
> much detail as possible please.


I wrote the questions, with Phoebe and SJ, in Boston at the Wikipedia
in Higher Ed conference.

It's not a secret -- I wrote about it here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AImage_filter_referendum%2FResults%2Fen&action=historysubmit&diff=2880100&oldid=2880046

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Draft Terms of Use forReview

[Sue Gardner]

On 8 September 2011 19:01, Phil Nash  wrote:

> There's a major difference between online harassment, and robust debate,
> although most of us can tell where we draw our own lines.

Oh yikes, Phil, please don't misunderstand me! The conversations we
were having were about one or two people who have been repeatedly
harassing large numbers of Wikimedians for years. I am not talking
about editors who engage in discussions and get a bit rude; I am
talking about people who are probably seriously mentally ill.

This is not a backdoor attempt to enforce kindness. We're just trying
to support and protect editors against really very egregious
behaviour.

Thanks,
Sue




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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Draft Terms of Use for Review

[Sue Gardner]

On 8 September 2011 17:28, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> As I am speaking as a steward, I have to say that it's very good news
> for us. Instead of being harassed because not dealing with harassment,
> since the implementation of ToS that would be WMF's job. That's really
> good news for stewards!


The purpose of the new TOS is to support the community, not to take
over its work.

Geoff and members of the Community department have been speaking
recently with community members who are concerned about harassment on
the wikis, about what kinds of actions we might collectively take to
help prevent it. Making it clear that harassment is against the rules
seems like an obvious step, and indeed I've seen research that
suggests an inverse relationship between sites that have a TOS that
prohibits harassment, and incidents of harassment on those sites. [1]

Explicitly and publicly forbidding harassment on the wikis is a pretty
basic and straightforward thing to do.

Thanks,
Sue

[1] I wish I had that study at hand, but I don't. I found it, I think,
through a Google Scholar search related to danah boyd. The researcher
was an expert in online harassment, either at Berkman or maybe MIT.





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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
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardener, Wikipedia's leading editor - wikileaks

[Sue Gardner]

On 6 September 2011 01:49, Marcin Cieslak  wrote:
>>> Jimmy Wales  wrote:
>> I was mentioned in a leaked US diplomatic cable - with my name spelled
>> wrong!
>>
>> http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/11/08SANTIAGO1015.html
>
> What about this:
>
> Reference id: 09TELAVIV982
> Origin: Embassy Tel Aviv
> Time: Mon, 4 May 2009 10:30 UTC
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> (...)
>
> Ha'aretz reported that Sue Gardner, Wikipedia's leading editor, who



I did recently make some significant improvements to the article about
the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature. But really: to characterize me
as Wikipedia's leading editor --- that seems a bit much ;-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedians team up to make European Cultural Heritage Accessible to the World

[Sue Gardner]

On 5 September 2011 22:54, Lodewijk Gelauff  wrote:
> Wikimedians team up to make European Cultural Heritage Accessible to the
> World
> Volunteers from 16 European Countries Have Uploaded 15,000 Images and
> Counting
> Amsterdam, September 6, 2011--- Wikimedians from 16 European countries
> announced the first-ever Pan-European Wiki Loves Monuments contest, a
> photography contest, running throughout the month of September, focused on
> capturing and sharing images of important monuments and buildings in Europe.
> Since its September 1st launch, more than 1000 images have been uploaded
> from a few of the most active countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands,
> Poland and Spain.
>
> ___
> Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately
> directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia
> Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

This is wonderful Lodewijk. Seriously great work from everybody: it's
impressive. And it's a good quote from you :-)

(Also, I am testing the reply auto-forward to foundation-l, which has
never yet worked for me the way I understood it wanted to work.
Historically, I've made several unsuccessful attempts to reply to
announce-l, which only you have seen, because you are its moderator.
So worst case scenario, at least you will see this note :-)

Thanks,
Sue


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415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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[Foundation-l] Wikimania: thank you to our hosts :-)

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I don't know if anyone has made a post-Wikimania thread yet thanking our
hosts --- if so, I'm sorry to duplicate, but I've missed it.

It was such an amazing Wikimania! I want to say thanks to everyone who
helped make it happen --- the site selection jury, the Israeli chapter, the
local planning team, the program committee, the people who worked on
scholarships, all the presenters, and everyone else who contributed. I
_think_ the key people were Deror, Harel, Itzik and Tomer, so thank you to
you four especially (as well as whoever else I have inadvertently missed).

Among the highlights for me:

* Yochai Benkler was seriously awe-inspiring.

* I was thrilled like I am every year to see old friends and to put faces to
names (FloNight, finally!) that I've only previously known on-wiki.

* The WikiChix lunch is always a highlight for me, and I am so happy to see
it grow every year. There was lots of energy and useful information-sharing
this year: it was great :-)

* This year I did less media than in previous years, so I was able to attend
a lot of talks. I still missed plenty that I wished I'd seen, but I saw a
lot of good stuff. In general, it seemed to me that there's a lot of good
thinking happening around editor retention issues -- it is great to see
people, in addition to naming and exploring the challenges, starting to move
towards solutions.

* It was lovely to finally meet Angela and Tim's gorgeous baby :-)

* And this year the closing party was AWESOME. I don't think Wikimedians are
generally renowned for the excellence of our parties, but this one was
super-fun. There was lots of energy on the dance floor, and I laughed out
loud to see Topher, James Owen and Andrew Garrett wearing garlands of
flowers and dancing on speakers. (In retrospect I wonder if I imagined that
part. It's possible I did :-)

All in all, it was beautifully managed and enormously fun: my thanks to the
Haifa organizers, who made it look easy :-)

Thanks,
Sue
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Re: [Foundation-l] Alec Conroy

[Sue Gardner]

Yeah, Alec wrote me just before he left. I hope he doesn't mind me saying
this here: he told me he was scrambling his Wikimedia and GMail passwords,
and that he won't be back. (He did say he's going to continue to donate,
which is great; he just won't be active on-wiki.)

I have mixed feelings about him leaving. I don't know everything he did
on-wiki, but I know enough to respect his contributions, and I also found
his e-mails (both on-list and off) enormously thoughtful and valuable. I am
sad he's left and I'm going to miss him personally: I liked him a lot, and I
benefited from his ideas and opinions. So, I can't help but hope he changes
his mind and comes back.

OTOH though, I want to respect his right to make whatever decision is best
for him -- his hard work for the movement was a gift, not an obligation. If
he chooses to come back, I'd be thrilled. If he doesn't, I will just be
grateful for the contributions he made when he was active :-)

Thanks,
Sue
On Aug 12, 2011 11:10 AM, "Nemo"  wrote:
> Well, he called it "EnWP Burnout", but Wikimedia is not only en.wiki.
> It's quite natural to take a pause after such an activity peak, but I
> expect and hope that he'll soon come back and find other (less
> frustrating) way to contribute in one of the places when you can
> actually make a difference. Too bad there's no chapter he can join (I
> suppose), but there are still many options.
>
> Nemo
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Seat and Donations (SPLIT from: EFF & Bitcoins)

[Sue Gardner]

On 24 June 2011 10:22,   wrote:
> There is only one thing I think wrong with the consensus narrative above. The 
> description "Matt added so much value it was worth the risk". More accurately 
> it would read "Matt added so much value it was worth the *cost*".


Thank you, Brigitte -- I think you've nailed it. To recap:

The board had open seats it wanted to fill, and Matt had great
qualifications and was willing to serve. The board then talked through
all the various issues. Was inviting Matt to join the right decision?
Board members researched and met him and weighed the pros and cons and
decided yes. Would inviting Matt to join create perception problems?
Probably not among external stakeholders because donors serving on
boards is fairly normal in non-profit land, but yes among community
members, because the community is (appropriately) a fierce defender of
the independence of the projects. Should the board do what it thinks
is best for the organization and the movement, even if its
decisions/actions are unpopular? The board decided yes. Should the
board try to separate the grant announcement from the Matt
announcement to mitigate community anger? No, because that would be
disingenuous. And, it might actually increase anger rather than
mitigating it.

Those kinds of deliberations are exactly the job of the board, and I
believe board members handled them well, and came to the right set of
decisions.

But as Brigitte says, there was a cost: some community members'
confidence in the board of trustees was eroded. The fact that all
three elected board members were re-elected to their seats after this
suggests that either the erosion was not very serious, or that
community members' approval of the board in general over the past two
years offset their concern about this specific issue. But having said
that, even just the fact that we are talking about it here means the
cost was not zero. So yes, Brigitte, you're right.

Without beating a dead horse, I'd like to say a few additional quick things:

1) I do realize that some people's trust in the board was eroded here.
But in direct contradiction to that, I find myself hoping that upon
reflection, people's trust in the board might actually be strengthened
by it. If I were a community member, I would tend to want to be
vigilant about the board, always assessing their competence and
commitment and values. The fact that the board did a thoughtful
evaluation here and came to a responsible conclusion would reassure
me, rather than the opposite.

2) I want to say that I have been really enjoying this conversation.
Discussions on this list have a tendency to sometimes devolve into
snark and accusations, and this one has been the opposite. Personally,
I really appreciate people's serious, non-flamey engagement on this
issue -- I feel like I've ended up with a much better, more nuanced
understanding of where you're coming from. Thank you :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Seat and Donations (SPLIT from: EFF & Bitcoins)

[Sue Gardner]

On 23 June 2011 13:59, Dan Rosenthal  wrote:
>
> On Jun 23, 2011, at 4:09 PM, Sue Gardner wrote:
>
>> It seems to me like you're characterizing Matt-joining-the-board as
>> problematic, while at the same time saying Matt himself is a good
>> board member. That seems contradictory to me.
>
> I'm not sure it is. I think what Joseph is saying is that Matt is a good 
> board member in that he is a qualified candidate, he is obviously suitable to 
> handle > the pressures of the board, he brings knowledge, expertise, contacts 
> etc. In terms of qualifications, he is a very good candidate. However based 
> on> the timing and the perception of quid pro quo, that does not equate 
> to him being a problem-free board member, or even a good choice.  In a grossly
> exaggerated example to show where I think the difference in the two aspects 
> above lies, pretend it wasn't Matt, but it was say, Steve Jobs. Certainly,  > 
> Steve's got a great many qualities that would serve the board well. But his 
> appointment would create an instant perception that the board is no longer >  
> independent and is subject to the influences of outside entities, whether 
> they be private, public, corporate, financial, whatever. When that is 
> combined  > with the timing of the grant, it makes that perception that much 
> stronger.


Right, but the board did not appoint Steve Jobs. If the board had
appointed Steve Jobs, then people might have reasonably said 'hey,
there are problems with this: was the right decision made here?' But
that's not what happened.

I am still confused by the argument here.

* I agree that there are people who shouldn't be put on the board.

* I agree that money is a complicating factor. Money is good: it
enables us to do important work. And yet it can also be a negative
influence, if we allow it to persuade us to do things that we
shouldn't do.

* But in this instance, we did not do anything we shouldn't have, and
we got both a chunk of money and a great new board member. That is a
win all round.




> The lesson to be learned from this, I guess, is that even if you have a good 
> process and a good outcome, sometimes the community doesn't necessarily see 
> it that way, and a greater deal of proactive engagement could be helpful in 
> those cases. Less abstractly, I remember there being some talk on this list 
> about the seat and donations at the time Matt's appointment was first 
> announced, but what I don't remember (please correct me if I'm wrong on this) 
> is the WMF publicly addressing community concerns about the grant timing 
> beyond "no, the seat wasn't bought." As a result, it's now June 2011 and the 
> topic is reoccurring.  Broadly speaking this is something that we need to 
> work on.



Yeah, I dunno. What I see happening here is this: the Board weighed a
bunch of pros and cons, and ended up making exactly the right
decision. Even with the advantage of hindsight, I don't hear anybody
arguing that the wrong decision was made. So I continue, I guess, to
fail to understand what went wrong here. Maybe there are people who
feel like money is inherently corrupting, and that the Board should
bar from consideration anyone who has donated (although I have not
heard that argument, I can imagine in theory that someone could make
it). And maybe there are people who feel like they would like to have
a better understanding of how the board arrived at this decision, in
which case they could presumably just ask the board members to talk
about it :-)

I need to run: I'm going into a conference call :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Seat and Donations (SPLIT from: EFF & Bitcoins)

[Sue Gardner]

On 23 June 2011 05:05, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
> I honestly that Matt's appointment was a fantastic thing. He is someone with
> a lot of knowledge and I wouldn't have battered a eyelid if his appointment
> had been made at any other time.


> At the end of the day, things have moved on without incident but lets not
> simply ignore this issue. I think that there is something to be learnt and
> its that care really does need to be taken when repeating a venture like
> this. Bad faith in the world may bite us next time.


I find it so interesting that you would say this Joseph (this and the
rest of your mail). I'm kind of hesitant to reply, because I don't
want to kick up a hornet's nest, but I'll take a shot anyway

It seems to me like you're characterizing Matt-joining-the-board as
problematic, while at the same time saying Matt himself is a good
board member. That seems contradictory to me.

Matt's a good board member. A number of us --I think me, Michael Snow,
Jimmy, Stu-- all had met Matt, back before the board decided to invite
him to join, and all thought he would be good. We thought it was
terrific that the Omidyar Network was willing to offer us both a chunk
of cash, and the time & attention of an experienced person who looked
like he would have a lot to contribute. So the board made a thoughtful
informed decision to invite Matt to join it.

That's all good. There's nothing there to be ashamed of.

It could have played out differently. Let's imagine that the exact
same thing had happened, except let's say that for whatever reason,
the Board had not wanted to invite Matt to join. Maybe he wanted to
put advertising on the projects, or in some other way had an
ideological view that was incompatible with ours. In that case the
Board would have turned him down, and that would have been the end of
it. Again, the Board would have been displaying good judgement, and
everything would have played out fine.

So I guess the part of your mail that I don't understand is when you
say "there is something to be learnt" and "care really does need to be
taken when repeating a venture like this."  It sounds like you're
suggesting something bad happened here, and that's actually not the
case IMO. Because again, if you believe that reasonable people could
agree that upon investigation, back when the decision was made, it
looked fairly likely that Matt would turn out to be a good board
member (which happily turned out to be true), then I don't see a
problem. The Board displayed good judgement, and their decision has
been validated over time as correct. It's the job of the Board to
evaluate complicated circumstances, consider our options, weigh the
pros and cons of each, and ultimately make decisions that it thinks
are in the best interests of the projects. That's what they did here:
it was perfect -- exactly as it should be.

So I don't understand what's to be learned from this?  Care was
exercised and the right outcome achieved: it was a good process and a
good outcome. If you think I'm wrong please tell me why :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Amicus Brief Filed in Golan v. Holder: Fighting for the Public Domain

[Sue Gardner]

On 22 June 2011 18:24, Alec Conroy  wrote:

>
> I tend to think any time we can be seen standing next to the the
> Librarians, we come off looking good.  The most we can associate those
> two-- ALA, WMF; ALA, WMF;  The more we do that, the more outsiders
> will "get" us as a legitimate social institution, rather than see us
> as "just another website" paid for by reader donation.
>

I'm particularly pleased about that part too, Alec, for exactly the
reason you give. They're our natural allies, and having that be
publicly visible helps people understand us better :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?

[Sue Gardner]

On 3 June 2011 11:22, Risker  wrote:
> Sue, the one thing that comes to mind is that the Foundation does have the
> right to restrict access to private or non-public information and can decree
> that a specific individual is banned from any position that permits access
> to such information. (The data belongs to the WMF and therefore access to it
> can be controlled by the WMF.) It is possible that this could extend as far
> as use of the "email this user" feature for editors who have been shown to
> abuse it, because those "non-public" emails travel through the WMF servers.
> Again the WMF has the right to decree whether or not this is appropriate use
> of WMF equipment.  Neither of these issues are project-specific; they are
> global in scope.
>
> I tend to agree with Kirill Lokshin about the ability of the WMF as a
> service provider to restrict access to its property in a general sense, for
> the very small number of individuals who have repeatedly abused their access
> across several projects, or more directly by affecting Wikimedians by taking
> "wiki-disputes" into other areas; my estimate would be that we're probably
> talking fewer than a dozen people altogether over the past 10 years who
> might meet this level of abuse.


Thanks Risker and everybody else.

I'm going to need to duck out of this conversation -- I'm going into a
long meeting. But so you know: we're talking about this here at the
Foundation, and about the related issue of trolls/stalkers. Basically:
how should bad actors be handled, and what are the Foundation's
responsibilities and most useful role.

This discussion is helpful, and if it continues, please know that a
number of us here are paying attention :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?

[Sue Gardner]

On 3 June 2011 10:38, Scott MacDonald  wrote:
>
>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-
>> boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Sue Gardner
>> Sent: 03 June 2011 18:11
>> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?
>>
>> On 3 June 2011 10:00, Risker  wrote:
>>
>> > I too would like to see the development of a process for global
>> banning of
>> > users who have created serious problems on either the global or the
>> > multiple-project level.
>>
>> Is there something the Foundation could do to support that happening?
>>
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>
> Sue,
>
> The first thing you could do is simply decree that the user known as
> poetlister is not welcome on any project controlled by the Foundation. This
> would be a precedent, but one in fairly unique circumstances (I'm sure
> Newyorkbrad is a better place to update you on them that I am. But I have no
> doubt you'll agree the need for a ban.)
>
> Then, if people don't like the precedent of a decree, charge the communities
> to develop an agreeable mechanism with appropriate checks and balances, to
> handle any future cases - with the caveat that there must be some provision
> that can global ban people such as this.
>
> Scott

Responding to Scott, and also MZMcBride earlier... I don't think the
Wikimedia Foundation could successfully make decrees to permanently
ban editors from all projects. It might be the right solution in some
cases, and many editors might welcome it, but it's not our appropriate
role and lots of editors would oppose it on principle for that reason.
And it doesn't scale. So whether or not it's the right thing to do, it
wouldn't work.

Having said that, the current situation seems pretty bad to me. I'm
not talking specifically about Poetlister, who I don't know much
about, but I've certainly seen a number of situations in which a bad
actor is banned from one wiki and reinvents himself on a smaller wiki
and continues to cause problems (as well as other variations on that
theme). IMO this is a known vulnerability of the small wikis.

But it's complicated, right. Because the small wikis obviously are
autonomous. And yet, all the wikis are interdependent, and their
choices affect each other.

I am wondering if the Wikimedia Foundation could facilitate or support
some kind of multiple-wiki convening (virtual or F2F) to help editors
share information and work towards policy on this. And yes, there is
also the technical piece of work that MZMcBride mentioned.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?

[Sue Gardner]

On 3 June 2011 10:00, Risker  wrote:

> I too would like to see the development of a process for global banning of
> users who have created serious problems on either the global or the
> multiple-project level.

Is there something the Foundation could do to support that happening?

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Re: [Foundation-l] User talk page email notification

[Sue Gardner]

On 14 May 2011 08:48, MZMcBride  wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>> Email notification for user talk page changes is now enabled on all wikis.
>
> Fantastic! Thanks. :-)

Yep -- this is really great. Thanks Tim & everyone :-)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolution: Openness

[Sue Gardner]

On 12 April 2011 12:02, David Gerard  wrote:
>
> I just tried editing an article on en:wp on my shiny new BlackBerry
> 9300. (Which can browse Wikipedia just fine.) It was ridiculously
> annoying and I'm not sure I'd bother fixing typos I spotted in casual
> reading.
>
> (At least Vector worked in that version of the BlackBerry browser ...)
>
> Does anyone here edit any of the WMF wikis, or any other wiki, on
> their phone much? What's it like, and what's the phone?


I edit, infrequently, from my Droid Pro. It's actually not too
gruesome, because the whole phone is optimized for text input. (The
Pro is the so-called Blackberry killer, the one with the excellent
physical keyboard.)

It's not fun, due mostly to the small screen size, but it's possible.
I do quick time-sensitive wiki-tasks from it and I occasionally fix
typos, but I would never attempt a complicated article edit.

Stepping back a bit -- for anyone who doesn't know, mobile is a
second-level priority for the Wikimedia Foundation right now (behind
Rich Text Editor and new editor retention). You can read more here:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_Whitepaper. Gist is, we
want to support both low-end and high-end phones and connections, and
do some experimentation with mobile contribution mechanisms -- minor
edits, image uploads, article ratings, and that kind of thing.
Basically the kind of thing Quim Gil was talking about, below

>> On 12 April 2011 19:46, Quim Gil  wrote:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/App_Features_&_Roadmap

> * "Share this" like WikiNews does.
> * Watch an article - simple way to get readers progressively involved.
> * Patrol a new article - could be suggested by the app.
> * Geotag an article - maybe there is a way to offer suggestions.
> * Assess the relevance / importance of an article - app could suggest
> * Upload and embed a picture to a page - implementation might be tricky.
> * Add a comment in the discussion page - rather than applying templates
> directly.
> * Let SuggestBot to suggest me a mobile task - (with some fine tuning of
> the bot this could be a stand-alone mobile app in itself)
> * Spellchecking - highly automated, engine tbd.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolution: Openness

[Sue Gardner]

On 9 April 2011 20:21, Andrew Garrett  wrote:

> I don't mean to minimise the importance of keeping our established
> users happy and free from harassment, but I want to caution against
> the biases that we will undoubtedly have in considering our focus.
>
> Anecdotally, we tend to hear a lot more about established users
> picking up and leaving, because these are our friends — we work with
> them, chat with them on IRC, and whatever else. But for every story we
> hear about an established user leaving because of harassment, there
> are ten new-ish users who encounter the same hostile environment and
> stop editing without all the pomp and ceremony that necessarily
> accompanies the departure of a popular or well-known member of the
> community.
>
> So let's make sure we deal with the factors that make our overall
> editing environment conducive to hostile conduct. I don't want to see
> us fall into the trap of thinking only about long-term established
> users who are harassed in the long term, rather than the newer users
> who don't get a chance to be harassed in the long term because they
> pick up and leave straight away.


Thanks Andrew: this is an important comment and I'm glad you made it.
We do all see the world from where we sit, and we interact with the
people we already know ... so, experienced editors will be more
exposed to the kinds of concerns shared by other experienced editors,
and those concerns will instinctively resonate more for them.

This isn't a problem necessarily, it just means that we all need to
try hard to imagine the world through other people's eyes, to listen
to what other people say, and to not over-generalize from our own
experiences and the experiences of our friends.

To that end .. with help from others on the staff, a few weeks ago
I took a crack at creating a framework for understanding the kinds of
problems faced by editors at various stages of their 'life-cycle.'
You can see it in this Google spreadsheet here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aq_nhKkb7L-OdG5uWlJLT25TZkZ3MzdSeUNqZnZqY2c&hl=en&authkey=CP3O_PgO
-- it's publicly viewable but not editable.

There's also this spreadsheet, which people may find interesting:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aq_nhKkb7L-OdFdzTG1KTUxVeXBOS0hhdWZMVmtxNUE&hl=en&authkey=CNK2oI8G
-- it's a documentation of all the decline theories I know about it,
tested against the available research. Also publicly viewable, also
not editable.

Both of these are just first stabs... probably they will want to be
moved to wiki pages and further fleshed out. But not by me: my
table-making skills aren't up to the task :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Outdated manual

[Sue Gardner]

On 9 April 2011 01:14, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> May someone update manual in which it is written that Wikipedia is the
> fifth site by traffic? For the most of 2010 and whole 2011 it has varied
> between 6th and 8th place [1].
>
> Repeating that it's on the 5th place says about us one or both of the
> next two things:
>
> * We are out of reality.
> * We are using false information in our PR.

The top five websites as measured by comScore global unique visitors,
the industry standard for internet audience measurement, are: Google,
Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Wikimedia. That's February 2011 data, the
most recent available.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimedia ZA] Wikimedia ZA APPROVED!

[Sue Gardner]

On 27 March 2011 11:50, Austin Hair  wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Anirudh Bhati  wrote:
>> -- Forwarded message --
>> From: Lourie Pieterse 
>> Date: Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 11:44 AM
>> Subject: [Wikimedia ZA] Wikimedia ZA APPROVED!
>> To: WikimediaZA 
>>
>> The chapter just got approved by the WMF!
>>
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Approval_of_Wikimedia_South_Africa
>
> Congratulations, you guys—you worked hard for it and it paid off.
>
> Austin

Congratulations! And nice to meet some of the South African
Wikimedians here in Berlin :-)

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[Foundation-l] (OT) Wael Ghonim TED talk on the Egyptian Revolution

[Sue Gardner]

This is not 100% off-topic, since he talks about Wikipedia off the
top. But it's worth watching regardless of that: it is a really
lovely, inspiring talk.

http://www.ted.com/talks/wael_ghonim_inside_the_egyptian_revolution.html

Thanks,
Sue

Some text from his Wikipedia article below:

In January 2011, Ghonim persuaded Google to allow him to return to
Egypt, citing a "personal problem".[12] Ghonim had been running a
Facebook fanpage about Mohamed ElBaradei, which was being used to
promote democracy and organize protests in Cairo.[13] Ghonim
disappeared on 27 January during the nationwide unrest in Egypt. His
family told Al-Arabiya and other international media that he was
missing. Google also issued a statement confirming the disappearance.
Many bloggers like Chris DiBona and Habib Haddad campaigned in an
attempt to identify his whereabouts.

On 5 February 2011, Mostafa Alnagar, a major Egyptian opposition
figure[14], reported that Wael Ghonim was alive and detained by the
authorities and to be released 'within hours'.[15] On 6 February 2011,
Amnesty International demanded that the Egyptian authorities disclose
where Ghonim was and to release him.[16]

Ghonim was released on 7 February, after 11 days in detention. Upon
his release, he was greeted with cheers and applause when he stated:
"We will not abandon our demand and that is the departure of the
regime."[17]

The same day, Ghonim appeared on the Egyptian channel DreamTV on the
10:00 pm programme hosted by Mona El-Shazly. In the interview he
praised the protesters and mourned the dead as the host read their
names and showed their pictures, eventually rising, "overwhelmed," and
walking off camera. The host followed.[18][19] In the interview, he
also urged that they deserved attention more than he did, and calling
for the end of the Mubarak regime, describing it again as 'rubbish'.
He also asserted his allegiance to Egypt, saying that he would never
move to the United States, the homeland of his wife.[20][21] Becoming
a symbol of the revolution in Egypt,[22] Ghonim stated that he is
"ready to die" for the cause.[23] "At the end ..., he gathered himself
for a few seconds and tried to make the most of the platform
[El-Shazly] had given him. 'I want to tell every mother and every
father who lost a child, I am sorry, but this is not our mistake,' he
said. 'I swear to God, it’s not our mistake. It’s the mistake of every
one of those in power who doesn’t want to let go of it.'"[18]

On 9 February, Ghonim addressed the crowds in Tahrir Square, telling
the protesters: "This is not the time for individuals, or parties, or
movements. It's a time for all of us to say just one thing: Egypt
above all."[24]


--

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
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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia "Storyteller" job opening

[Sue Gardner]

On 1 March 2011 15:54, SlimVirgin  wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 16:41, Pronoein  wrote:
>
>> Le 01/03/2011 18:31, Michael Snow a écrit :
>> > On 3/1/2011 12:57 PM, Pronoein wrote:
>> >> If there is such a minority of ethical concerns, it could be one of the
>> >> reasons that volunteers are leaving the boat.
>> > Based on the one survey of former contributors that has been conducted
>> > (see
>> > http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Former_Contributors_Survey_Results),
>> > this doesn't figure highly enough to demonstrate the kind of significant
>> > minority you suggest. Rather, the concerns of those surveyed are
>> > overwhelmingly about how rulebound, overly complex, and unfriendly their
>> > work in the community seemed to be. Perhaps somebody would care to go
>> > back through the full survey responses and see if they can identify
>> > comments that fit the "I was being exploited" line you're pushing here.
>>
>> Michael, I wouldn't underestimate the "I'm being exploited" feeling for
> people either leaving, or failing to join up. In Wikipedia's early years, we
> were exploiting ourselves, as it were. But the more of a corporate structure
> the Foundation assumes, the greater the sense that we're working for
> something in which we have no input. There will be a tipping point that
> differs for each individual, and they may not even express it in those
> terms.

Ah, Sarah, I don't think that's particularly fair. Bear in mind we've
just published a strategic plan that 1,000+ Wikimedians helped create.
I'm not denying that some Wikimedians may feel alienated from the
Wikimedia Foundation: I'm sure it is true for some. But "something in
which we have no input" is, IMO, not a fair characterization.

Thanks,
Sue



>
> Sarah
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Re: [Foundation-l] lost in moderation

[Sue Gardner]

On 24 February 2011 12:15, Pedro Sanchez  wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Fred Bauder  wrote:
> I just promised her to post here as she's puzzled that was rejected by
> moderation (unfairly if you ask her).
>
> I try to explain that sue's blog it's a personal blog and therefore
> she can't expect the same level of tolerance and opennes as the places
> (blogs, lists, etc) that are officially wikimedia something


I rejected her post because I thought it was a bit rude, actually.
There were a number of false and bad-faith assumptions in it, and the
overall tone was snarky. I could've posted and rebutted, or posted and
waited for other people to rebut, but I decided not to bother.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay)

[Sue Gardner]

On 23 February 2011 10:07, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 3:00 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>> Sue Gardner wrote:
>>> I spent some time this weekend on New User Contributions on the
>>> English Wikipedia, reading the talk pages of new people who'd been
>>> trying to make constructive edits. I was trying to imagine the world
>>> through their eyes --- what their early experiences felt like. Some
>>> had welcome templates and some didn't, and many also had templates
>>> added that were probably intimidating for new people (warnings and
>>> corrections of various kinds, mostly).
>>
>> You should try gaining the other perspective: thousands of edits each hour
>> from people all over the world, a decent-sized percentage of which are
>> purely malicious and another decent-sized percentage of which are completely
>> clueless.

yeah -- I actually did both. And yes, I have sympathy for Recent
Changes / new article patrollers too. it was an interesting
experiment. I used Twinkle to nominate an article for speedy deletion
(or something like that, I don't remember exactly) and immediately
felt awful about deterring the poor newbie, who was maybe misguided,
but not a vandal.

What I learned from that: some Wikimedians --like me-- are likely
better psychologically suited to new editor _rescue_ type work, rather
than deletions/reversions. (If you've read Nicholson Baker's New York
Review of Books article on Wikipedia, he describes the addictive
nature of New Article Rescue Squad really well.) Those people should
be encouraged to rescue/support/guide new editors.

It also made me wonder if patrollers find themselves over time
starting to dehumanize new people, as a kind of coping mechanism, or
just because they feel beleagured. The experience, for me, felt a bit
like a videogame.  (And yeah, I am a person who, when playing Pikmin,
felt terrible when I didn't rescue all the little guys before
nightfall, and the predator bug ate them. LOL.)

To belabour the videogame analogy a little further: Zack Exley and I
were talking about new article patrol as being a bit like a
first-person shooter, and every now and then a nun or a tourist
wanders in front of the rifle sites. We need patrollers to be able to
identify nuns and tourists, so that they don't get shot :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay)

[Sue Gardner]

On 22 February 2011 12:02, Erik Moeller  wrote:
> IMO every single Wikimedia project would benefit from dedicated
> community effort to 1) catalog the most widely used templates on talk
> pages, 2) systematically improve them with an eye on the impact they
> can have on whether people feel their work is valued and the
> environment in which they're contributing is a positive and welcoming
> one. This is something that anyone can help with, right now.

+1 :-)

I spent some time this weekend on New User Contributions on the
English Wikipedia, reading the talk pages of new people who'd been
trying to make constructive edits. I was trying to imagine the world
through their eyes --- what their early experiences felt like. Some
had welcome templates and some didn't, and many also had templates
added that were probably intimidating for new people (warnings and
corrections of various kinds, mostly).

So yes, I think efforts to make templates and bot notices friendlier
would be time well spent.

I also wonder if we do any templating that's meant to be purely
encouraging good behaviour. Like, "Your edits to [x] article were
constructive and useful: thank you for helping Wikipedia," or "You
have just made your 100th edit: congratulations." That kind of thing.
Does anyone know: do we do much of that? And if not, should we?

Thanks,
Sue

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[Foundation-l] Executive Director Trip Report: Stockholm, London, Dubai, Delhi

[Sue Gardner]

am and Bangalore-- but never the north.)

To that end, I spent four days in each of Delhi and Mumbai, plus I
participated in a 10-day silent meditation retreat in Karnal, just
north of Delhi. Mumbai included a Dharavi tour, from the woman who
conducts them for Omidyar Network: she was great and I definitely
recommend the tour if you ever have the opportunity. I’m really
grateful to the people who helped me with advice and connections while
I was planning the trip: Bishakha, Achal, and Surya Mantha and Jayant
Sinha of Omidyar Network.

I will leave you with a couple of impressions from the retreat:

My retreat was staged by what I’d characterize as the McDonald’s of
Buddhist meditation retreats: the India-based Dhamma Institute. It
offers a retreat experience that’s cheap, convenient and consistent.
There are several hundred courses annually across India and around the
world -- they’re managed on a kind of franchise model, with the agenda
and basic parameters and standards set centrally.

In general, describing my experience I would borrow from Daniel
Kahneman who distinguishes between the remembering self and the
experiencing self: I’ll say that although I am extremely pleased I did
the course, I was mostly unhappy while I did it. Which is fine: it was
good for me :-)

If you’re considering a Dhamma retreat, it might be worth knowing that
1) you will probably lose some weight, because the food sucks and
there isn’t much of it; 2) it isn’t really conducive to thinking
broadly and reflectively: it is more about developing the ability to
maintain focus for hours at a time. Also 3) sitting unmoving for 14
hours a day is incredibly physically painful!  On the upside, you do
come away more disciplined, defragged, and feeling oddly refreshed.
And the ‘silent’ aspect is heaven for introverts: chatting is banned!
So is eye contact! Yay!

I will say that I laughed out loud watching the other participants in
the retreat struggle to maintain discipline. It was pretty easy for
me, since only one other female participant spoke English, and she was
super-disciplined. But the Hindi-speaking women starting chatting in
our residence on about Day 7, and on Day 8 I came across one of them
sitting under a tree, eating what looked like a muffin (!). On Day 9,
women were openly sharing snacks with each other, and when I came out
of the meditation hall in the afternoon, I stumbled across a lady
surreptitiously smoking a cigarette, LOL.

In closing, I want to thank everyone who helped me plan and carry out
a pretty complicated trip. My deepest thanks of course go to James,
who was --of course!-- invaluable. Thanks also to Moka for handling
the media piece, and Bishakha, Achal, Surya and Jayant for helping me
plan my holiday :-)

Appendix: some media links (this is just a partial list: just the
stuff I caught, or ComCom did)

http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.355444/hon-lat-anvandarna-forma-wikipedias-strategi
(“She lets users shape the Wikipedia approach”)

http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.355080/wikipedia-lever-pa-folks-givmildhet
(“Wikipedia lives on people’s generosity”)

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/wikipedia-efterlyser-kvinnor-1.1214533
(“Wikipedia calls for women”)

http://svt.se/2.22620/1.2243917/wikipedia_efterlyser_kvinnor
(“Wikipedia calls for women”)

http://www.svd.se/naringsliv/nyheter/wikipedia-efterlyser-kvinnor_5722887.svd
(“Wikipedia calls for women”)

http://www.kb.se/aktuellt/nyheter/2010/Wikipedia-pa-KB-/ (“Wikipedia
at the National Library”)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00c4pp1/Business_Weekly_The_Euro_in_Crisis/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00c4pm9/Business_Daily_Wikipedia/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11894901

http://www.e24.se/toppjobb/karriar/hon-siktar-hogst_2474135.e24

http://dubaieye1038.com/category/podcasts/tonight-with-richard-dean/
(Pod-Cast 2010-12-05)





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
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner Insight Interview

[Sue Gardner]

I just clicked it and yeah, it's the Mark Oppenheim interview, from
about a year ago :-)

--
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



On 10 January 2011 20:56, Sue Gardner  wrote:
> I haven't clicked the link, and I don't remember anything called Insight.
> But if it's a very long interview with a man named Mark Oppenheim then yeah,
> it's very old. Mark is a recruiter we use, who interviewed me a year or so
> ago for a series he does on non-profit management.
>
> So it's probably that one :-)
>
> Sent from my phone: please forgive any typos or terseness.
>
> On Jan 10, 2011 7:31 PM, "Lodewijk"  wrote:
>> but she also mentions that one person is running the communications
>> departnemt, only two staffers working from external (amsterdamand sydney)
>> and that she's in the middle of the strategy process. That sounds more
>> like
>> begin 2010 to me.
>>
>> 2011/1/11 Abbas Mahmoud 
>>
>>> Actually, some of the facts aren't outdated: Sue talked about our
>>> Wikipedia
>>> for Schools project -- which is a very recent project.
>>>
>>> According to YouTube, the video was uploaded on December 2010!
>>>
>>> > From: lodew...@effeietsanders.org
>>> > Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:46:21 +0100
>>> > To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner Insight Interview
>>> >
>>> > nice link, but does anyone know when this was taped? The facts seem
>>> rather
>>> > outdated (at least a year old?)
>>> >
>>> > Lodewijk
>>> >
>>> > 2011/1/10 Abbas Mahmoud 
>>> >
>>> > >
>>> > > Sorry for that. The correct links are as follows:
>>> > > [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPSvmKls6I[2]
>>> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ra_wA0Zbp4[3]
>>> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07RQFPS9UaU[4]
>>> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPfP018xZqQ
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>> > > > From: abbas...@hotmail.com
>>> > > > To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> > > > Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:21:03 +
>>> > > > Subject: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner Insight Interview
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > > Hi guys,
>>> > > > Check the following videos of Sue's interview with Insight:
>>> > > >
>>> > >
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPSvmKls6Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ra_wA0Zbp4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07RQFPS9UaUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPfP018xZqQ
>>> > > > Cheers,
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > > --
>>> > > > Feel free to contact me:
>>> > > > Abbas Mahmood
>>> > > > Tel: +254722215101
>>> > > > Facebook: abbas...@hotmail.com
>>> > > > Skype: abbasjnr
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > > ___
>>> > > > foundation-l mailing list
>>> > > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> > > > Unsubscribe:
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>> > >
>>> > > ___
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>>> > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> > > Unsubscribe:
>>> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>> > >
>>> > ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner Insight Interview

[Sue Gardner]

I haven't clicked the link, and I don't remember anything called Insight.
But if it's a very long interview with a man named Mark Oppenheim then yeah,
it's very old. Mark is a recruiter we use, who interviewed me a year or so
ago for a series he does on non-profit management.

So it's probably that one :-)

Sent from my phone: please forgive any typos or terseness.
On Jan 10, 2011 7:31 PM, "Lodewijk"  wrote:
> but she also mentions that one person is running the communications
> departnemt, only two staffers working from external (amsterdamand sydney)
> and that she's in the middle of the strategy process. That sounds more
like
> begin 2010 to me.
>
> 2011/1/11 Abbas Mahmoud 
>
>> Actually, some of the facts aren't outdated: Sue talked about our
Wikipedia
>> for Schools project -- which is a very recent project.
>>
>> According to YouTube, the video was uploaded on December 2010!
>>
>> > From: lodew...@effeietsanders.org
>> > Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:46:21 +0100
>> > To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner Insight Interview
>> >
>> > nice link, but does anyone know when this was taped? The facts seem
>> rather
>> > outdated (at least a year old?)
>> >
>> > Lodewijk
>> >
>> > 2011/1/10 Abbas Mahmoud 
>> >
>> > >
>> > > Sorry for that. The correct links are as follows:
>> > > [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPSvmKls6I[2]
>> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ra_wA0Zbp4[3]
>> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07RQFPS9UaU[4]
>> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPfP018xZqQ
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > > From: abbas...@hotmail.com
>> > > > To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > > > Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:21:03 +
>> > > > Subject: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner Insight Interview
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > Hi guys,
>> > > > Check the following videos of Sue's interview with Insight:
>> > > >
>> > >
>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPSvmKls6Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ra_wA0Zbp4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07RQFPS9UaUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPfP018xZqQ
>> > > > Cheers,
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > --
>> > > > Feel free to contact me:
>> > > > Abbas Mahmood
>> > > > Tel: +254722215101
>> > > > Facebook: abbas...@hotmail.com
>> > > > Skype: abbasjnr
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > ___
>> > > > 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
>> > >
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Re: [Foundation-l] Shopping-enabled Wikipedia pages

[Sue Gardner]

Ah, Erik, thank you so much for writing this. I'd just been about to
write something similar: you beat me to it :-)

Thanks,
Sue

On 05/12/2010, Erik Moeller  wrote:
> 2010/12/4 Milos Rancic :
>> Personally, I think that this is a good opportunity to get money from
>> payed ads. It is not even on Wikimedia servers.
>
> As I said on wikien-l, the current Amazon.com use is not part of any
> official relationship. We're concerned about the degree to which the
> Amazon.com pages resemble Wikipedia pages. The content use itself is
> clearly permitted, and we're not opposed to commercial use per se. On
> the contrary, free licenses encourage this kind of experimentation by
> anyone.
>
> The potential issue with this kind of commercialization is that it
> creates confusion about the "Wikipedia" brand and what it stands for.
> Wikipedia is currently understood to be one of the few mainstream
> sources of information that isn't commercialized, and which aims to
> provide a neutral and inclusive view of any given topic. A third party
> adding single-vendor shopping ads into the content, while the way the
> content is presented closely resembles Wikipedia, threatens to
> undermine that perception, as Amazon.com visitors may assume that this
> is something that's part of our operating model.
>
> This is why we're first and foremost concerned about the risk of
> identity confusion here, about the impact of such confusion on how
> Wikipedia is perceived, and about finding ways to reduce that risk.
> We'll continue our exploration of this issue and will let you know as
> things develop. It may also well be that this turns out to be a
> short-lived experiment on Amazon.com's part.
>
> In general, our relationship with businesses is shifting from
> revenue-focused trademark licensing agreements to mission-focused
> partnerships closely aligned with our strategic plan. For example,
> we're trying to find the best possible partners to distribute very
> large numbers of offline copies of Wikimedia content (e.g. on low-end
> mobile phones used in the developing world, or as part of computing
> projects targeting disadvantaged communities).
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, 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
>


-- 
Sue Gardner
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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

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Re: [Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

[Sue Gardner]

On 22 November 2010 05:00, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 22 November 2010 11:10, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
>> Glad to read this question here, have often wondered about this myself.
>> User:Emelian1977, an African American PhD student named Brenton Stewart,
>> conducted a survey of Black American Wikipedians in 2008. I can only find a
>> short write-up of his study online:
>
>
> Post of the year. This is incredibly important and I advise forwarding
> it everywhere.


You're right, David. It's a fabulous, informative post that raises
important issues. Thanks, Andreas.
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

[Sue Gardner]

On 18 November 2010 05:47, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> Sue mentioned tech-centricity of Wikimedia community. I would say that
> it is a good enough explanation for less women and less African
> Americans in Wikimedian community. But, disproportion in the case of
> African Americans is much bigger than disproportion in the case of
> American women. Note, also, that not all American women inside of
> Wikimedia community have tech background. So, logical question is:
> Are there numbers which confirm that there are significantly less
> African Americans with tech jobs than American women?

Yes: click the link I sent.

African-Americans make up 7.1% of tech company employees nationwide;
women make up 22.7%.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

[Sue Gardner]

On 17 November 2010 15:39, George Herbert  wrote:
> Ah, bueno.  I was unaware of the Kartika version; excellent that the
> Foundation's already figured it out and was working on it.
>
> Thanks, Philippe and MzMcBride.  Good job to whoever thought it up
> earlier and did the test run.
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 3:32 PM, Philippe Beaudette
>  wrote:
>> We tested Kartika earlier this week, and it did very very well.  So we're 
>> putting together a campaign based around editor appeals, and many of the 
>> folks we have are not ... well, people who look like me.  So I'm very happy 
>> about that.
>>

Yep, it's good.

Side note, but one of the things I really liked about the Truth In
Numbers documentary was the face it gave to the Wikimedia movement. It
was really lovely to see dozens (hundreds?) of people from around the
world -- multiple ethnicities, accents, locations. I don't know how
representative those people actually were/are of the general editor
population, but seeing them was inspiring nonetheless.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

[Sue Gardner]

On 17 November 2010 13:35, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
>> For some time I am a bit puzzled by the fact that I don't know any
>> African American Wikimedian. For some time just because I am living in
>> a European country without African population, so everything seemed to
>> me quite normal for a long time.

Oh gosh, I want to jump in here too, super-fast. Good question, Milos :-)

I think the answer to this question is complicated, but known/knowable.

Essentially I think it's fairly obvious that US Wikimedians are
disproportionately male and disproportionately white -- like Phoebe,
that's definitely been my own anecdotal experience in meeting
Wikipedians, and although the people we meet face-to-face may not be
perfectly representative of all Wikipedians, we don't have any reason
to think the actual US Wikimedia editor population is dramatically
different from the people we happen to meet.

I would attribute the maleness and whiteness mostly to the
tech-centricity of the Wikimedia community. We know it's a
tech-centric group, presumably because editors were in the beginning
early adopter types, and continuing because the editing interface is
still relatively non-user-friendly.

And we know that the tech community in general (in the United States)
skews male, white and Asian ... And that that is self-reinforcing over
time. In fact, this research
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_14383730?nclick_check=1&forced=true
found that blacks, Latinos and women are losing ground in (Silicon
Valley) tech, not gaining it.

I would expect that all the factors that skew tech community
demographics, have a big overlap with the factors that skew Wikimedia
community demographics. There's lots of good research and thinking
about that. (For example, the book Unlocking the Clubhouse has lots of
good thinking about gender, and some about African-Americans and
Latino-Americans.) There is lots of available information.

> We *do* know -- both anecdotally and statistically, based on the
> readership to editorship conversion rates -- that all Wikipedians are
> outliers: we are all unusual in some way. It is not common to both
> want to participate in a wiki project and then to expend significant
> amounts of time doing so, and we more or less know the general reasons
> why someone does become a Wikipedian. These motivations, from what I
> can tell, cut across nationality and gender and all other possible
> categories: and I've been wondering if we've been going about this
> diversity discussion rather the wrong way for a long time -- if we
> should focus not on why so few people out of the general population
> participate, but rather who is likely to make a good Wikipedian and
> how we can encourage them, in all circumstances.*

I agree with Phoebe. Wikimedians are unusual in many ways. There's
probably no point in Wikimedia trying to recruit general-population
"women" or "African-Americans" or "Latino-Americans." We are likelier
to succeed if we aim to recruit women, African-Americans and
Latino-Americans who share some of the common Wikimedia
characteristics -- like, a base level of good comfort with technology,
a passion for learning, love of language/words/text, unusually high
intelligence, a good base level of self-confidence, sufficient leisure
time and inclination to volunteer, and so forth.

My two cents, written fast :-)
Sue

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[Foundation-l] Looking for stories of readers affected by Wikipedia

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

Megan Hernandez on the staff is looking out for me, for stories of
readers whose lives have been impacted by Wikipedia or the other
projects. (Donors often send us stories like that, and I am often
looking for stories to tell people about the projects. So I've asked
her to send good ones to me.)

I was writing her a set of criteria for the kinds of stories I want,
and it occurred to me that you might yourselves have some good stories
of exactly this kind. So I am sending along the criteria here too :-)
If you have stories that fit many/all of these criteria, please send
them to me, onlist or off. And please forgive my cross-posting to
several lists at once.

Thanks,
Sue

* Ideally, they'd be along the theme of "how Wikipedia made my life
better." This might be an anecdote, or bigger-picture (ie, 'how
Wikipedia makes my life better every day').

* Ideally, they would be stories of people who
pre-exposure-to-Wikipedia would have had circumscribed access to
information. Because they grew up in a small town with no library,
because their school didn't stock certain kinds of books, because
materials in their language are of limited availability, because their
government limits access to certain types of information -- in
general, because their economic/political/socio-cultural circumstances
somehow impede(d) easy access to information.

* Ideally, the information that Wikipedia gives them is important, and
directly, immediately useful. Like, it helped them better understand a
health issue they were having, or it equipped them to do some
important task better; it helped them understand a new situation or
some aspect of themselves, or enabled them to solve an important
problem. Maybe it helped them get a job they otherwise couldn't have
gotten, or enabled them to avoid some specific danger or risk.

* And/or, the information fed a general curiosity and desire to
understand the world better. It got them interested in going to
college which nobody in their family had done before, it helped them
develop a more thoughtful position on a public policy issue, it
stimulated them to travel or read more widely, or to question
assumptions they had been making.

* Ideally, their lives are better today because of the information
they are exposed to via Wikipedia. Maybe this would be better in some
really specific way -- like, "Three months later I persuaded my doctor
to let me try the new treatment, and it worked." Or, it might be much
more general.

* It is fine if the information they found on Wikipedia might
otherwise have been kept from them, either deliberately or through
lack of easy opportunity. It is fine if the information is considered
risky or controversial in some way.

--
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

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Re: [Foundation-l] The Signpost – Volume 6 Issue 4 4 – 1 November 2010

[Sue Gardner]

On 1 November 2010 20:28, Wikipedia Signpost
 wrote:

>
> Single page view
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single


Hey, is the Signpost also sent to the Announce mailing list? If not,
could it be?

It's always full of useful information, and I could imagine people who
would want to read it, but not all of foundation-l.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Five-year WMF targets exclude non-Wikipedia projects

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

Sorry to have been absent from this discussion thus far: I didn't
realize Sam was going to post the targets when he did, and so I am
playing a little catch-up here.

Below are some questions and answers re the targets that might be
helpful for the discussion. (Erik wrote most of this, and I've just
now added a few bits.)  If you read this and there are still issues
that you want addressed, please just say so :-)

Thanks,
Sue



http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Five-year_targets

What’s the purpose of these five-year targets?

The July 2015 targets approved by the Board represent [[big hairy
audacious goal]]s for Wikimedia. They are intended to reflect
Wikimedia’s core mission -- “to empower and engage people around the
world to collect and develop free educational content and to
disseminate it effectively and globally” -- and to capture it in terms
of concrete, ambitious outcomes that are very hard --but ideally not
impossible-- to achieve.

The development of very ambitious five-year targets is intended to
help inspire and focus energy across the Wikimedia movement, in
connection with the priorities identified through Wikimedia’s
strategic planning process. They’re also intended to help persuade
people who aren’t yet active members of the Wikimedia movement (for
example, readers who don’t yet edit or donate, grant-making
institutions, “GLAM” organizations) to get involved and support us.

How do you expect these targets to be used?

These targets will be part of the printed “summary” version of the
strategy plan that we will distribute internally and to external
interested parties -- e.g., Wikipedia Academy attendees, grant-making
institutions, etc. We will give out the document, including the
targets, so that people understand where the Wikimedia movement is
focusing its energy, and how they can help.

The targets will also help us, we hope, to focus our own work, and
measure whether we’re being successful. In the context of an overall
Wikimedia dashboard, we can begin to highlight if key performance
indicators are significantly deviating from our expectations -- e.g.
if overall article growth flattens, or the number of editors declines.

Are these the only targets used by the Wikimedia Foundation?

No. These five targets are called out as very ambitious long-term
outcomes which, if we achieve them together, will indicate that
Wikimedia has made great strides in serving its mission. They are
intentionally high level, focused on information and the people who
develop and receive it, as opposed to operations.

There are other key performance indicators which we must examine on an
ongoing basis, including but not limited to:
 * engagement and retention of the editor community
 * site uptime and load times in different geographies
 * financial health of the Wikimedia movement
 * availability of secure off-site copies of all data
 * number and quality of multimedia files in all our projects
 * number and quality of information in Wikimedia’s other projects
 * demographic composition of the editor community
 * our collective ability to develop and operationalize innovative technology

The Wikimedia report-card, at http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/ ,
is our primary instrument for tracking key performance indicators; its
formats and the indicators which are included are still evolving. The
Wikimedia report-card is much more detailed than the five-year
targets: it tracks more information at a more granular level, more
frequently.

How were these targets developed?

The development of five-year targets was the last major piece of work
that needed to be concluded before the strategy project wrapped up.

To that end, the targets were developed primarily by the staff of the
Wikimedia Foundation (mainly Sue Gardner, Erik Moeller, and Barry
Newstead), for Board approval. The first source for material was the
discussions held on the strategy wiki, focused on performance
indicators and goals (e.g.,
<http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities>).
Another source was the set of internal metrics that the Wikimedia
community has used for a long time, including “number of articles” and
“active editors”, as well as first baseline estimates for gender
participation and country-of-origin breakdown that have been
established more recently through surveys, log analysis, and other
methods.

People’s general views about target-setting, as well as their
assessment of the value of different possible measures, were surfaced
through surveys of foundation-l and internal-l readers, Advisory Board
members, Board members and staff members [1]. That helped shape both
our general approach to target-setting, and the actual measures and
numbers we wanted to use. Once a draft set of targets was created, Sue
gave it to the Board, where it was discussed at some length and then
approved.

[1] See Sue’s blog post at
<http://suegardner.org/2010/08/16/how-wikimedia-will-measu

Re: [Foundation-l] CHANGE TO OFFICE HOURS

[Sue Gardner]

They're not exactly technical issues: I just have a headache :-(

Sorry for the short notice. James will get me rescheduled pretty soon
-- meanwhile, please enjoy Barry :-)

Thanks,
Sue


On 31/08/2010, Philippe Beaudette  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Due to some technical issues, Sue will not be doing office hours
> today.  Taking her place will be Barry Newstead, the Chief Global
> Development Officer for the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Same time and location.  :)
>
> pb
>
>
>
> On Aug 31, 2010, at 5:06 AM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
>
>> Just a reminder this is in about 11 hours :)
>>
>> Philippe
>>
>> On Aug 30, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation,
>>> will be having office hours this Tuesday (Aug 31)  at 23:00 UTC
>>> (16:00 PT, 19:00 ET) on IRC in #wikimedia-office.
>>>
>>> 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,
>>> which you can click to accept.
>>>
>>> Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other
>>> relevant email lists you happen to be on.
>>>
>>> 
>>> Philippe Beaudette  
>>> Head of Reader Relations
>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>
>>> phili...@wikimedia.org
>>>
>>> Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
>>> the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!
>>>
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>>>>
>>
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415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Internal-l] Pre-Strategy Finalization Goals Survey (Community)

[Sue Gardner]

closely matches your view:

   - Perfection is the enemy of the good. I would rather see us using
   imperfect measures than no measures at all;
   - Imperfect measures are a waste of time and energy. I would rather see
   us wait until we have good measures, rather than using measurements that are
   available today, but not very good;
   -  Don't know / not sure.


Below is a list of measures the Wikimedia Foundation is considering putting
in place.   For each, please rate its importance.
 Not important Somewhat important Important Critical Don't know / not
sure Global unique visitors to all Wikimedia Foundation properties per
month
according to comScore  Total number of active volunteer editors (>=5
edits/month) to all Wikimedia projects  Retention of active
volunteers  Demographics
of active volunteers (i.e., age, gender, nationality)  Reader-submitted
quality assessment results ("rate this article on a scale of one to
five")  Number
of articles/media objects/resources in different languages  Uptime of
all key services  Availability of secure off-site copies of all
Wikimedia project data and underlying software infrastructure  Site
performance in different geographies  Financial stability as measured by
months of cash on hand, size of reserves, number of donations annually
 Number
of community-originating gadgets, tools, and MediaWiki extensions in
production use in Wikimedia projects  Regular availability of up-to-date
snapshots and archives of all public data to researchers

 There are some areas in which the Wikimedia Foundation would like to track
progress, but it isn't easy to figure out what to measure, or how to measure
it. For each item below, please indicate whether it seems to you to be: 1)
IMPORTANT: definitely worth the effort to define and track, or 2) LESS
IMPORTANT: probably not worth the effort to define and track.
 Important Less Important Don't know / not sure  Measure of Reach: Reach of
Wikimedia content among people with no or limited connectivityMeasure of
Quality: Expert article assessmentsMeasure of innovation: Number of
community-originating gadgets, tools, and MediaWiki extensions in production
use in Wikimedia projectsAssessment of research community health:
Thriving environment of research and dialog regarding the social and
technical aspects of Wikimedia content and communities

 Are there other measures that you think are important and should be
tracked, that are not listed here? If so, please write them in.

 Are there any other comments or input you would like to provide with regard
to the goal-setting for the strategy plan? If so, please write it in.

 Any comments on this survey? If so, please write them in.

 Is there anything else you'd like to say? If so, please write it in.

   Powered by Google Docs <http://docs.google.com> Report
Abuse<https://spreadsheets2.google.com/reportabuse?formkey=dHR2NU5OLUlNR3hCcFBrN3JLUU1YQXc6MA&source=https%253A%252F%252Fspreadsheets2.google.com%252Fviewform%253Fformkey%253DdHR2NU5OLUlNR3hCcFBrN3JLUU1YQXc6MA>-
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Terms<http://www.google.com/google-d-s/terms.html>


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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!

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Re: [Foundation-l] Comments about Wikipedia on Reddit

[Sue Gardner]

On 6 August 2010 01:25, Nikola Smolenski  wrote:
> Not sure if this is the right list, however, at
> http://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/cxq4i/who_here_actually_contributes_to_wikipedia/
> a number of people are reporting on their Wikipedia experiences, so I
> believe reading them may offer useful insights.

Yes -- that's a really interesting thread Nikola -- lots about
deletionism and notability. Thanks for posting it.



-- 
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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!

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Re: [Foundation-l] Umberto Eco's interview

[Sue Gardner]

On 4 August 2010 01:37, Ilario Valdelli  wrote:
> The Italian project w...@home supported by Italian chapter and the
> Wikinotizie has organized an interview some months ago with Mr.Umberto
> Eco who is a philosopher and literary critic known outside Italy for
> the novel "The Name of the Rose".
>
> A translation can be found here:
> http://it.wikinews.org/wiki/Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco/Traduzione
>
> The reaction of the Italian network has been very positive
> (http://stats.grok.se/it.n/201006/Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco).

It's a lovely interview, Ilario. Congratulations :-)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions forPotentially-Objectionable Content

[Sue Gardner]

I've been posting quite a bit today, so I think I'll stop for a while. (I'd 
hate to trigger the limits ;-)

But Alec, thanks for _your_ note, and don't worry about expressing skepticism 
(even if it was mostly hyperbole to make a point).  Vigilance is healthy :-)

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: Alec Conroy 
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:19:01 
To: ; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing 
List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions forPotentially-Objectionable 
Content

Hi Sue--
Thank you so so much for that reply, it was really really appreciated.

> I also wanted to say -- you know in your post where you speculate about why 
> this is
> happening now, is it because of the fundraising, has someone offered board 
> members jobs,
> etc.  (I know you were mostly non-serious about the jobs.)  That is a totally 
> legitimate set of
> questions.

Well, I think you're being way too charitable with me-- I'm not sure
even I consider those questions legitimate.   Thus, I did try to
inject a lot of silliness  (e.g. Extraterrestrials and fundamentalist
financiers) into those sorts of scenarios because I didn't want to
convey any genuine-conspiracy-theory of ulterior motives-- I just
kinda wanted to express a vague sense of exasperation and confusion
and not-knowing-what-to-think-or-who-to-trust.  Because, ya know, when
you care about an movement and things get rough, your mind does go
through all kinds of scenarios to try to make sense of it, and maybe
sharing those crazy thoughts will help you recognize and intercept
them when they occur in others. :)

If my concerns seemed legitimate, then I probably owe you and anyone
else involved a big apology for accidentally making it seem even
remotely legitimate.  A far better description would be "an
illegitimate, unfounded concern that crossed my mind cause I couldn't
make sense of what was going on."

I passed it on because in the hope it might be a little helpful just
to see where some of our thoughts are going.   The downside in even
expressing stuff like that is it sort of involves distrusting a group
of total strangers, most of whose names I don't even know without
looking them up, all because they agreed to do work for my all-time
favorite non-profit.   Raw deal for ya'll.

It doesn't get said enough, but thank you to all who have done such a
wonderful job running things all these years.   I never could have
done your jobs one-tenth as well as you all have.   In particular,
last year's fundraising work was just phenomenal, and I really do
apologize for even suggesting, in passing, and in theory, that that
work might somehow really be tied to anything negative.   I had no
basis for such a statement, I didn't sincerely believe it then, I
still don't.

Thanks again for reply :)
Alec
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Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions forPotentially-Objectionable Content

[Sue Gardner]

Sorry to top-post.

Google and Flickr actually handle this quite differently though, I think, 
Andreas.  Going from memory -- I think that Google defaults to a "moderate" 
setting, but allows users to easily switch to an unfiltered setting. As long as 
they allow cookies, users don't need to be registered, and there's no other 
impediment to switching that I'm aware of.

Flickr also defaults to moderate, but in order to get unfiltered results you 
need to be registered, and I think you might also have to make some kind of 
statement about how old you are.  So, you can't see unfiltered results on 
Flickr without jumping through some hoops. And, users in a small number of 
countries (going from memory I think they include Singapore, India, Korea and 
Germany) do not have the option to see unfiltered results.

Plus, I believe that certain types of content are disallowed entirely 
throughout Flickr, although I don't know what they are or how that is policed.

So the devil is very much in the details :-)

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: Andreas Kolbe 
Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:28:33 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for
Potentially-Objectionable Content

Thanks Alec. I wouldn't like to see Wikipedia fork either. 

Excirial's suggestion -- which I understand to mean enabling readers to 
self-censor the type of content that offends them, or that they don't want 
their children to see -- strikes me as the way we can have our cake and eat it.

It's also in line with what people like google, YouTube and flickr are doing. 
If you want to see certain types of content, you are asked to set up an 
account, and/or change your default preference.

In practice, this could mean --

- That I don't see images I don't want to see in Wikipedia articles. 

- That I can click on a grayed image if, in an exceptional case, I do want to 
see it.

- That I can set up my child's Wikipedia account in such a way that my child 
can NOT click to display the image I don't want them to see.

- That I can set up my or my child's Wikipedia account in such a way that 
Wikipedia will not display articles I do not want it to display.

- That IPs are shown a mildly "censored" version, and that seeing the 
uncensored version of Wikipedia requires registering an account and setting the 
preferences up accordingly.

This requires a lot of thought and work behind the scenes to categorise 
content. But it is surely the best approach to make Wikipedia the encyclopedia 
for everyone. 

And that's an encyclopedia that can happily host the goatse image, too, for 
those who want to see it. 

A.

--- On Sat, 24/7/10, Alec Conroy  wrote:

> From: Alec Conroy 
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for 
> Potentially-Objectionable Content
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 
> Date: Saturday, 24 July, 2010, 15:47
> I have no idea whether anything in
> here is productive or just
> reiteration of the same old themes.   I
> doubt it will be coherent or
> persuasive, but this discussion is too important not to try
> to say
> something.   Opinions were solicited, so
> here's such an opinion.
> 
> I don't really know if a discussion at this point is wise,
> particularly from me and my verbosity.  :).  So
> skip if skeptical, and
> abort if you start finding my words, well, unproductive.
> :)
> -Alec
> 
> 
> > What I find not convincing is the slogan "No
> censorship". I think this
> > is a bad argument.
> 
> Okay, I think that's my cue.   I'm
> definitely in "No Censorship" camp,
> so let my try to explain why that argument has such pull
> for some of
> us.
> 
> -
> 
> To begin with, please consider that  NOTCENSORED has
> been the law of
> the land for many years and Wikipedia has prospered under
> it.   It's
> not a new idea.
> 
> What's new is this idea that "potential offensiveness" is a
> threat to
> us, and thus,  a valid criterion for making editorial
> decision.   That
> would be a huge deviation from our very successful status
> quo.
> 
> Maybe you think it would be a good change, maybe you think
> would be a
> bad change,  but I think we can all agree it would be
> a very
> CONTROVERSIAL change among Wikimedians.
> 
> And when you stop and think about it, of course any such
> proposal is
>_bound_  to be very very controversial among those
> very individuals
> who are already deeply invested in a NPOV/NON-CENSORED
> project.
> 
> After all, we've spent years explaining NPOV / NOTCENSORED
> to Muslims
> over Muhammad images, for example, and to Christians over
> Piss-Christ.
>   We've defended racist imagery, we've defended
> neo-nazi hate-sites.
> We've committed to not-censored, we've worked for
> NOTCENSORED, we've
> offended totally innocent people so wikipedia could be
> NOTCENSORED,
> and it was even theoretically  possible somebody might
> have died over
> NOTCE

Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions forPotentially-Objectionable Content

[Sue Gardner]

Alec, thanks for making that post. I know people have had these discussions for 
a long time (I've read lots of them), but I really appreciate you writing a 
long explanation of what you think.

The "no censorship" people don't tend to want to lay out their full position -- 
because they already have, and because I think they think it's obvious. And a 
lot of it is obvious. But it's better, I think, to have a full, thoughtful 
conversation, even if it's exhausting. Because it _is_ a critical issue, as you 
know.  So I appreciate you doing it.  (David Gerard did something similar on 
his blog the other day: I appreciated that too.)

I also wanted to say -- you know in your post where you speculate about why 
this is happening now, is it because of the fundraising, has someone offered 
board members jobs, etc.  (I know you were mostly non-serious about the jobs.)  
That is a totally legitimate set of questions.  But -- I don't know if you've 
read the 2010-11 plan.  In it, we lay out the new revenue strategy, which 
focuses on "many small donations," and calls for a shift away from a "balanced 
approach," which includes grants and large gifts and earned income.  (We will 
still do some of that, but much less.). That new approach is not an accident: 
it's a deliberate attempt, by me and the board, after lots of thinking, to 
reduce the likelihood that we'll need or want to compromise due to the 
attitudes or desires of funders.  We want the Wikimedia Foundation to be 
oriented towards readers and editors. 

I want Wikipedia --everyone, I think, wants Wikipedia-- to be independent.  
That's not a guarantee that we won't make mistakes.  But we want our mistakes 
to be honest ones, made by us, rather than being unhappy compromises that we 
get forced into by others.  I know that is obvious to you: I'm saying it so you 
know it's obvious to me too :-)

Thanks,
Sue
-Original Message-
From: Alec Conroy 
Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 10:47:00 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for
Potentially-Objectionable Content

I have no idea whether anything in here is productive or just
reiteration of the same old themes.   I doubt it will be coherent or
persuasive, but this discussion is too important not to try to say
something.   Opinions were solicited, so here's such an opinion.

I don't really know if a discussion at this point is wise,
particularly from me and my verbosity.  :).  So skip if skeptical, and
abort if you start finding my words, well, unproductive. :)
-Alec


> What I find not convincing is the slogan "No censorship". I think this
> is a bad argument.

Okay, I think that's my cue.   I'm definitely in "No Censorship" camp,
so let my try to explain why that argument has such pull for some of
us.

-

To begin with, please consider that  NOTCENSORED has been the law of
the land for many years and Wikipedia has prospered under it.   It's
not a new idea.

What's new is this idea that "potential offensiveness" is a threat to
us, and thus,  a valid criterion for making editorial decision.   That
would be a huge deviation from our very successful status quo.

Maybe you think it would be a good change, maybe you think would be a
bad change,  but I think we can all agree it would be a very
CONTROVERSIAL change among Wikimedians.

And when you stop and think about it, of course any such proposal is
_bound_  to be very very controversial among those very individuals
who are already deeply invested in a NPOV/NON-CENSORED project.

After all, we've spent years explaining NPOV / NOTCENSORED to Muslims
over Muhammad images, for example, and to Christians over Piss-Christ.
  We've defended racist imagery, we've defended neo-nazi hate-sites.
We've committed to not-censored, we've worked for NOTCENSORED, we've
offended totally innocent people so wikipedia could be NOTCENSORED,
and it was even theoretically  possible somebody might have died over
NOTCENSORED.

We did this because Wikipedia successfully convinced us that an
uncensored encyclopedia was a wonderful thing. And we've grown very
attached to it and the principles it espoused.

Maybe we do need a "potentially non-offensive" project in addition.
But if there is to be a "Brave New Encyclopedia" that promises freedom
from potential offense, shouldn't it be started as a NEW project with
a NEW userbase and a NEW editing community that's committed to these
NEW principles?

I'm skeptical that that a "potential offfense" can actually work, even
as its own project.  But, no harm in trying.  Meanwhile, our
Wikipedia, the "NPOV/NOTCENSORED" Wikipedia, does work!   And It
continues to work!

Wikipedia ain't broke-- don't fracture the community into bits by
trying to impose a "fix".
--

Some say:  "What's the difference between deleting offensive material
and deleting anything else?   REALLY, isn't ANY deletion, on some
leve

Re: [Foundation-l] 2010-11 Annual Plan Now Posted to Foundation Website

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Florence,

I know Veronique plans to respond to your note, but I have two seconds
right now, so I will add a quick comment below.


On 23 July 2010 11:18, Florence Devouard  wrote:
> 2) You are maybe aware that some chapter members (deeply) regret that
> chapters are not listed as revenu sources in the annual plan and I hope
> that this will be fixed in the future.
> But meanwhile... are the revenus to be collected by the chapters and
> transferred to the Wikimedia Foundation counted in the current annual
> plan ? or were they not listed at all as WMF is not yet sure practical
> solutions will be found to transfer money from chapters to the WMF ?
> Or if the money coming from chapters are listed, is it counted as
> "donations below 10K" or as "donations above 10K" ?


I had no idea that the chapters had a view on their inclusion / lack
of inclusion in the annual plan -- interesting!

Yes, there is some 'plug' in the plan for chapters revenues.  It is a
ballpark figure -- Veronique will tell us how much.  It's based on the
assumption that chapters will continue to fundraise, and that their
ability to raise money will increase over time.  At the same time,
that is balanced against the Foundation's reluctance to count on the
money too much, because it is far from guaranteed.  Basically: we
don't have information about chapters' plans/goals/targets (if they
have them), and it's not uncommon for chapters to have difficulty
transferring money to the Foundation.  So for 2010-11, we have a plug,
in community giving (since the money originates as small donations).
My hope and my expectation is that as time goes on, the chapters'
--and everyone's-- ability to plan and predict will increase, and we
will work out the money-transferring difficulties, which will enable
the Foundation to be able to be confident relying on the chapters'
fundraising as part of our targets.

Sorry this note is kind of choppy: I'm replying fast as I run out the door :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy etc - merging data

[Sue Gardner]

Sorry -- is there a question outstanding?  I know Nathan posted some questions 
about the annual plan (which I think Veronique'll answer, and if she she 
doesn't I will).  If there was something else, I think it slipped right past me.

Thanks,
Sue

--Original Message--
From: Thomas Dalton
Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
ReplyTo: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy etc - merging data
Sent: 17 Jul 2010 07:05

On 17 July 2010 13:53, Lodewijk  wrote:
> I'd rather not speculate about what happens or the intent before someone
> from the WMF who is responsible for this clarifies the statement. I hope we
> all can hold ourselves from guessing and seeking logic until that moment.

This is foundation-l... your hope is misplaced!

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Re: [Foundation-l] Money, politics and corruption

[Sue Gardner]

Yeah, Casey is correct --- basically, what I was saying is that there are other 
avenues than public mailing lists, and that there are people ready and willing 
to pay attention if something is wrong.

Thanks,
Sue
--Original Message--
From: Casey Brown
Sender: Casey Brown
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Cc: Sue Gardner GMail
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Money, politics and corruption
Sent: 14 Jul 2010 18:20

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
 wrote:
> Anyone? Looks like it applies only to employees.
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Policy
> "entity with whom Wikimedia Foundation Inc has a business relationship"
> includes chapters?
>

I'm sure she was mentioning it in spirit -- basically "you can see
we're interested in whistleblowers and have this protection/policy
already in place for our employees; anyone else should feel free to
report any issues they think exist as well".

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Foundation-l] Money, politics and corruption

[Sue Gardner]

I _try_ to create a monthly report, but we do fall behind.  Nobody at the 
Foundation is happy about that, but they are a pain to produce. We'll probably 
try to figure out a better, easier way to do it, this year.

(And hello Oliver, and welcome to foundation-l!)

Just to be clear, I have no idea what Milos is talking about, either with 
regard to the chapters or the Wikimedia Foundation.  I believe one of the board 
members plans to follow up with him offline.

A couple more bits of information:

* We don't currently have good audit procedures confirming that the chapters 
have met their commitments. That's normal, because Wikimedia is still pretty 
young. But what I believe Thomas said is also true: most organizations have 
pretty strong audit procedures, plus procedures for what to do when commitments 
aren't being met. For example, I believe the (U.S.) Corporation For Public 
Broadcasting publishes the results of its (third-party) audits of compliance at 
NPR and PBS stations. For example, it tracks how many minutes of sponsorship 
are broadcast per hour, in order to assess whether stations are complying with 
agreed-upon maximums. If a station exceeds its sponsorship maximums, there are 
repercussions -- although I don't know what they are.

* Anyone who has information about malfeasance or misfeasance inside Wikimedia 
should take a look at our Whistleblower Policy, which lays out process for 
escalation to authorities.  The policy is intended to cover serious and actual 
problems (rather than for example rumour or worries), but it's probably better 
to overreport than underreport.  And it is good to have a confidential avenue. 
I can tell you our Whistleblower Policy has worked well for us in the past: I'm 
glad it exists.

* For those interested in the scholarships, here's a quote from mail Sara sent 
me the other day:

"1) As of tonight, we have 70 Wikimania Scholarship recipients from 39 
countries (6 continents). Each scholarship covers roundtrip travel, 
registration, and accommodations for one recipient.Approximate funding on 
travel, registration, and accommodations for these 70 people is $110,000.* The 
program is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2010. The recipients were 
selected by a committee of volunteers, out of about 2,500 applicantions. They 
were selected primarily on the basis of their participation in the Wikimedia 
projects or other free knowledge and educational initiatives, and also on their 
efforts to help grow community in underrepresented regions.This is compared to 
58 recipients in 2009 whose travel and registration cost ~$93,000, and was 
funded by four funders.*As we are processing last-minute refunded tickets, and 
accommodations and registration still need to be charged back to us, $110K is 
only an approximate number at this time.2) Thanks to the scholarships committee 
and Gdansk team who dedicated so much time and attention to this program.3) 
Thanks to chapters that offered direct support for Wikimedians to attend 
Wikimedia. (I don't know which ones specifically, just that some have supported 
their members).4) Thanks to the Open Society Institute and the Soros 
Foundations, which are sponsoring several Wikimedians from Central Asia, the 
Caucuses, and the Balkans."

Sorry for the formatting on that note from Sara -- it's just a copy-and-paste 
out of my Blackberry. I'm at the airport in Newark: just about home :-)

Thanks,
Sue
-Original Message-
From: oliver keyes 
Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:12:53 
To: 
Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Money, politics and corruption


"Sue doesn't send out a monthly report" - Sue is the Executive Director of the 
fastest growing non-profit foundation in the United States, a foundation which 
has just announced a doubling of its staff, trial direct expansion to two more 
nations and the gradual relocation of server resources. You think she has the 
time for a monthly report?
  
_
http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/19780/direct/01/
Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now
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[Foundation-l] "The problem with Wikipedia..."

[Sue Gardner]

"The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in theory. It could
never work in practice."

I've seen that quote attributed to Jimmy, and also to Miikka Ryokas,
quoted by Noam Cohen in his NY Times story about Virginia Tech. But
neither of them, I think, originated it.

Does anyone have a good attribution for first use of that quote?  (I'm
using it in a presentation and want to attribute if I can.)

Thanks,
Sue




-- 
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

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[Foundation-l] Floating a notion: permanent Wikimania committee?

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

For several years now, people have occasionally floated the notion
that there should be a permanent Wikimania oversight committee –
basically, a group of people responsible for giving some coaching and
guidance and oversight to the local planning team each year.  Over the
years, support has been offered each year by people like Phoebe, James
Forrester, Delphine (Delphine both in her staff role and as a
volunteer) and SJ … but there has never (AFAIK) been a formal
oversight committee.  I think there probably should be.

I've been talking about this idea with a few people over the past
several months.  Based on those conversations, I'd propose a mixed
committee of volunteers and staff, with a small membership – let's
say, five or so people.  Ideally the people would remain on the
committee for several years, and would have experience with past
Wikimanias.  The role of the committee would be to provide coaching
and guidance for the local planning team (“here is how we've done it
in past years, here's what usually works, here are some problems you
should watch out for”) … and also to provide oversight to the local
team, and help them course-correct if they're having problems.
Essentially, the committee would be responsible for helping to ensure,
in partnership with the local team, that every Wikimania is a success.

I want to reiterate that I (and I think we all) see Wikimania as a
volunteer-led event.  The Wikimedia Foundation plays a fairly small
role --- it is its biggest sponsor, and it supports it in various
ways.  But Wikimania is a community event, which I don't think should
change.

I'd like to throw this out for discussion, and also ask people to
self-nominate if they're interested in being on such a committee.  If
everyone interested will be at Gdansk, the best next step may be to
arrange a face-to-face meeting there to figure out how best to do
this.  And I warn Phoebe via this note (although I'm sure she can
anticipate it), I will be aiming to pull her in to help think it
through, since she has been one of the most consistently-active
planners/organizers, at pretty much every Wikimania so far.

I'm interested in everyone's views on this, and I'd be particularly
interested in hearing from the people who've been involved in past
Wikimanias, and also from the Haifa people, to hear if this'd be
useful for them for 2011.

Thanks,
Sue

-- 
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

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Re: [Foundation-l] Chief of Office of Wikimedia Serbia

[Sue Gardner]

On 9 June 2010 10:33, Filip Maljkovic  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

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Re: [Foundation-l] Subscription to the Wikimedia Announcements list for foundation-l

[Sue Gardner]

On 2 June 2010 19:35, James Alexander  wrote:
> Sending this separately so it isn't in the hiring announcement thread :) Per
> Ignore All Rules (which I guess doesn't really exist here so I'm ignoring
> it's absence to) I went ahead and subscribed foundation-l to
> WikimediaAnnouncements-l . So assuming the list admins are getting a "click
> here to confirm email" that was from me.


Thanks James.  I think there may be something wonky with the announce
list.  I'm pretty sure foundation-l has already been subscribed (or at
least, a subscription has been attempted) -- and although I am a
subscriber, I didn't get the announcement.  So something is probably
awry...

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: Announcing new Chief Global Development Officer and new Chief Community Officer

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

Forwarding from the announce list, since it does not yet auto-forward :-)

Thanks,
Sue

-- Forwarded message --
From: Sue Gardner 
Date: 2 June 2010 19:08
Subject: Announcing new Chief Global Development Officer and new Chief
Community Officer
To: wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org


Hi folks,

I am really happy to announce two important new Wikimedia Foundation
hires.  Zack Exley will be Wikimedia's new Chief Community Officer,
and Barry Newstead will be our Chief Global Development Officer.  Both
will start just before Wikimania, and will join us in Gdansk.

There will be a press release going out tomorrow, but the news isn't
confidential: please feel free to tell whoever you like.

Zack Exley will be our new Chief Community Officer.  Zack joins
Wikimedia from the Chicago-based firm Thoughtworks where he oversaw
strategy and technology projects for organizations like Obama For
America, Rock the Vote, and Global Zero.

Zack has a long history of mobilizing people and facilitating them
reaching their goals.  During the nineties, he worked as a labour
organizer and software developer.  In 2002, he joined MoveOn.org as
director of organizing, where he ran mobilization and fundraising
campaigns – and in the same period, helped the Howard Dean campaign
with its online fundraising.  Zack left MoveOn.org to become online
communications and organizing director for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards U.S.
presidential campaign, where he ran the team that raised $125 million
online for Kerry, and also oversaw online-to-offline organizing
efforts responsible for mobilizing hundreds of thousands of field
volunteers.  In 2005, he led internet strategy and online fundraising
for the UK Labour Party's 2005 election campaign, and since 2005 he
has acted as a senior strategist and advisor helping many
mission-driven organizations advance their fundraising and
mobilization goals, including the American Civil Liberties Union,
Amnesty International, the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP), the International Rescue Committee and
Greenpeace USA.

Zack grew up in Connecticut and has also lived in Kenya, China and the
United Kingdom. He has an BA in Economics from the University of
Massachusetts.

As Chief Community Officer, Zack will be responsible for developing
the Wikimedia Foundation's relationships with key constituencies
including readers, editors and donors.  This will include our work
aimed at recruiting new editors (including the public policy project)
and supporting community health, as well as fundraising. The people
who will report to Zack are Philippe, Cary, Frank, Rand, Rebecca and
Sara, plus their direct reports.

Zack currently lives in Kansas City: he'll be relocating to the Bay
Area in July.

Barry Newstead will be our Chief Global Development Officer.  Some of
you know Barry from Buenos Aires or Berlin, where he attended
Wikimania and the chapters meeting, respectively.  He comes to us from
the strategy consultancy firm The Bridgespan Group, where he has spent
the past year leading the Bridgespan team supporting Wikimedia with
its strategic planning process.  For the past six years, Barry has led
Bridgespan's work in education innovation and social technology, which
mainly consisted of working with CEOs on strategy development,
organizational development and leadership issues.  Prior to joining
Bridgespan, he spent eight years at The Boston Consulting Group, where
he worked with global clients in the financial services, media and
energy sectors on global strategy, organizational restructuring,
change management and post-merger integration.

Barry was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and raised in Toronto,
Canada.  He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Western
Ontario, and a master's degree in public policy from the John F.
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In this new role with us, Barry will be our Chief Global Development
Officer (CGDO), the position formerly known as the Chief (Global)
Programs Officer.  As CGDO, Barry will be responsible for our
activities focused specifically on increasing readership and
supporting editor self-organization in the Global South, for our
messaging to the general public and the media, and for our activities
aimed at supporting and developing chapters. The people who will
report to him are Jay and his direct report Moka, plus Kul, plus a
number of new hires dedicated to supporting new activities that have
come out of the strategic plan.  You'll hear more about that in coming
months, once Barry has joined us.

We are really lucky that Barry got engaged in our work, and is willing
to now join us.  His extensive background in organizational
development particularly will be useful to us, as we all collectively
further evolve our thinking about how to structure Wikimedia as an
international movement. He'll also be terrific with the global
develo

Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2011 announcement

[Sue Gardner]

On 11 May 2010 11:50, phoebe ayers  wrote:

> The Wikimania jury has selected Haifa, Israel as the location for
> Wikimania 2011.

Congratulations to the Haifa team!  I attended Wikimedia Israel's
Wikipedia Academy last year; it was terrific, and I'm confident
they'll do a great job with Wikimania.

And thanks to the jury and its moderators: Mariano, Austin, Mako,
Teemu, Delphine, James, Joseph, Stu, Phoebe, James & Cary.  I know we
all appreciate your hard work.  (James definitely had some late
nights, and I will be curious to see if he volunteers for the jury
again next year ;-)

Thanks,
Sue






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-- 
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

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Sue Gardner]

Yeah. I don't remember exactly what Ting said, and even if I did, I wouldn't 
comment on it.  But FWIW to your point, Ting's not in a chapters-selected seat; 
Ting was elected by the Wikimedia community.

--Original Message--
From: David Gerard
To: Sue Gardner GMail
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is 
happening
Sent: 9 May 2010 4:21 PM

On 10 May 2010 00:04, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.


Ting's statements on the role of the Board (that it should regulate
project content) will also take some digesting. I doubt chapters
outside the US put people forward for the Board thinking this would
mean the Board supporting content removal to appease Fox News.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Sue Gardner]

Yeah, Pryzkuta, I know there are lots of debates happening everywhere; that's a 
good thing --- obviously talking about all this stuff is good, and people 
should use whatever mechanisms work for them. All the discussions are good, and 
everybody is bringing useful stuff to the table.

Re Jimmy, my understanding is that he has voluntarily relinquished the ability 
to act globally and unlilaterally, in an attempt to bring closure to that 
thread of discussion, because he thinks it's a distraction from the main 
conversation.  Which is, the projects contain, and have contained, material 
which many people (different groups, for different reasons) find objectionable. 
The main question at hand is: what, if anything, should be done about the 
inclusion in the projects of potentially objectionable material.  Should we 
provide warnings about potentially objectionable material, should we make it 
easy for people to have a "safe" view if they want it, should we make a "safe" 
view a default view, and so forth.

My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of Jimmy's 
authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the importance of 
that question -- I realize that many people are angry about what's happened 
over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less angry.   But I 
think Jimmy's goal --which I support-- is to enable people to now move on to 
have the more important conversation, about how to resolve the question of 
objectionable material.

To recap: it's a big conversation, and it's happening in lots of places. That 
may need to happen for a while. I would like to see us move into a synthesis 
phase, where we start talking in a focused way, in a few places, about what we 
should do to resolve the question of objectionable material.  I think the 
thread by Derk-Jan is a step towards that.  But it may be that we're not ready 
to move into a synthesis phase yet: people may still need to vent and 
brainstorm and so forth, for a while.

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: Przykuta przyk...@o2.pl
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 00:16:02 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l]
Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the d
iscussion ishappening


> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
> 
Sue - everywhere - mailing lists, IRC channels, village pumps... 

We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without 
communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard. The biggest fire (RfC 
flame) is here: 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flag

400 votes - 400 users 

Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present 
and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah)

Yes... We have bigger problems, but... maybe not. This is real trouble.

przykuta

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Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Sue Gardner]

e of that controversial image 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer)
>> 4: Do filters understand per page labeling ? Or do they cache the first RDF 
>> file they encounter on a website and use that for all other pages of the 
>> website ?
>> 5: Is there any chance the vocabulary of ICRA can be expanded with new 
>> ratings for non-Western world sensitive issues ?
>> 6: Is there a possibility of creating a separate "namespace" that we could 
>> potentially use for our own labels ?
>>
>> I hope that you can help me answer these questions, so that we may continue 
>> our community debate with more informed viewpoints about the possibilities 
>> of content rating. If you have additional suggestions for systems or 
>> problems that this web-property should account for, I would more than 
>> welcome those suggestions as well.
>>
>> Derk-Jan Hartman
>
>
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[Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I'm aiming to stay on top of this whole conversation -- which is not
easy: there is an awful lot of text being generated :-)

So for myself and others --including new board members who may not be
super-fluent in terms of following where and how we discuss things--,
I'm going to recap here where I think the main strands of conversation
are happening.  Please let me know if I'm missing anything important.

1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
That's mostly happened here and on meta.

2) There is a strand about a proposed new Commons policy covering
sexual content: what is in scope, how to categorize and describe, etc.
 This policy has been discussed over time, and is being actively
discussed right now.  It is not yet agreed to, nor enforced.  I gather
it (the policy) reaffirms that sexual imagery needs to have some
educational/informational value to warrant inclusion in Commons,
attempts to articulate more clearly than in the past what is out of
scope for the project and why, and overall, represents a tightening-up
of existing standards rather than a radical change to them. It's here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content

3) There is a strand about content filtering (and, I suppose, other
initiatives we might undertake, in addition to new/tighter policy at
Commons).  This discussion is happening mostly here on foundation-l,
where it was started by Derk-Jan Hartman with the thread title
[Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia.  AFAIK it's not
taking place on-wiki anywhere.
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195663

I also think that if people skipped over Greg Maxwell's thread
[Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff) -- it might be
worth them going back and taking a look at it.  I'm not expressing an
opinion on Greg's views as laid out in that note, and I think the
focus of the conversation has moved on a little in the 12 hours or so
since he wrote it.  But it's still IMO a very useful recap/summary of
where we're at, and as such I think definitely worth reading.  Few of
us seem to gravitate towards recapping/summarizing/synthesizing, which
is probably too bad: it's a very useful skill in conversations like
this one, and a service to everyone involved :-)
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195598.

Let me know if I'm missing anything important.

Thanks,
Sue



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Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

[Sue Gardner]

On 7 May 2010 16:07, Kim Bruning  wrote:
> On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 12:30:18PM -0700, Michael Snow wrote:
>> announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to
>> release the following statement:
>>
>
> Just to be sure:
> Are there no other statements that have been made by the board
> or are being planned to be made by the board on this subject?
>
> sincerly,
>        Kim Bruning

Kim, the board (and I) have been talking about this for the past
couple of days, and we'll continue to talk about it over the next
couple of weeks.  I think it's fairly likely there will be some kind
of statement or statements at the end of that.  I'm expecting that
over the next few weeks, we all will be paying attention to the
conversations on Commons and elsewhere, including here.

Thanks,
Sue





-- 
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office

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Re: [Foundation-l] How to make unstoppable petty complaint afeature?

[Sue Gardner]

I said something to someone in the office today, that I think might be worth 
sharing here. It's just an observation from my past life as a journalist, but 
it feels germane.

In newsrooms, it is very very common for experienced senior editors to be curt 
and gruff --- in general, but particularly with new news staff.  It's a cliche 
you see all the time in TV and movies -- e.g., the Lou Grant type character.

I think it's inherent to the work. Experienced editors have seen it all: they 
are a little tired, a little jaded, a little cynical.  They talk in shorthand 
among each other, and they're impatient with newcomers. That's understandable 
and it's forgiveable.

The trick is, I think, to create a healthy mix. Wikimedia needs experienced 
editors who have good judgment and can recognize patterns and coach and guide 
the inexperienced. It also needs a regular influx of new people who can bring 
fresh perspectives and new insights, and relieve experienced people of grunt 
work they're tired of doing.  Good newsrooms have a healthy mix of both, and we 
need that too.

I hear you Nathan, when you say you're loathe to expose new people to our 
current culture -- I know our public outreach staff sometimes feel that way 
too. But I think it's essential: we need to bring in new people and help them 
get through their early days with us, in order to ensure an overall healthy 
balance.  We're a bit out of kilter now, but I think with some effort on 
everybody's part, we can rebalance into good health.

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: Nathan 
Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 22:46:44 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] How to make unstoppable petty complaint a
feature?

It's not just changes that draw petty, sarcastic and juvenile replies
for Wikipedians. We have a pervasive problem of burnout, wherein our
more experienced contributors became jaded and disillusioned and make
a practice of appalling behavior. Two recent cases in point... I don't
need to explain the Tanthalas situation more than just to mention it
as an example, but the second case is, I think, more serious. An
administrator replies to a plea for help from a new contributor, who
has uploaded his own work several times and tried to release it under
public domain. Rather than explain, the administrator uses what
appears to be his boilerplate response - snide, condescending, and
perfectly tailored to send this new contributor away with a bad taste
of the entire project. [1][2]

Unfortunately this type of interaction isn't even unusual. In some
respects it appears to be the norm, in fact, and there doesn't seem to
be any effective way of addressing this problem. I can no longer
recommend people to become involved in editing, because frankly I
refuse to subject friends and colleagues to the risk of this type of
treatment. Perhaps the Foundation should put some effort into this
issue before soliciting new participants who are likely to be shocked
at the editing culture.


Nathan

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fastily#SYS_logo.png
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sfan00_IMG#Fair_use

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Re: [Foundation-l] Flagged Protection update for April 29

[Sue Gardner]

(Sorry for top-posting: Blackberry.)

I just want to add a brief note supporting what William's saying.  Yes -- it 
definitely takes more time to respond to angry or hostile-seeming mails.  Trust 
gets impaired, and so the respondent spends time trying to figure out whether 
the person's really angry, or just curt... maybe asking other people if they 
have any insight and then framing a very careful reply and rereading it for 
tone before hitting send.  Essentially, it's just easier and faster to have 
open conversation if the tone is constructive all round.

So yes: hostility costs money.  One answer to that is F2F meetings.  Spending 
in-person time together definitely builds trust and friendliness. Once we know 
each other as human beings, online interactions are faster, easier, with less 
friction.

I for example have now met Thomas Dalton in person three or four times, which 
is good. I like him much more now than I used to :-)

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: William Pietri 
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:23:13 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Flagged Protection update for April 29

On 04/30/2010 05:37 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> On 1 May 2010 01:32, William Pietri  wrote:
>
>> You should keep in mind that it definitely takes me more time and more
>> energy to deal with non-nice requests.
>>  
> Really? How does me adding more words to my emails save you time?
>

It's not the quantity of words, but the choice of them.

When I am dealing with a polite message, I can write a quick reply. With 
a prickly one, I have to do more drafts, so I can get past my first 
reaction, a mainly negative one, and produce something positive in tone 
and substance. I also need more time between messages, so that my 
irritation in one doesn't slop over onto some undeserving correspondent.

As long as we're on the topic of etiquette, I find it frustrating when 
people pick out one particular bit to reply to and ignore the broader 
point. I add that only because I'm not sure if this was part of your 
intentional policy against niceness, or a more accidental sort.

Hoping that is useful,

William


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Re: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Philippe Beaudette becomes Headof Reader Relations

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Nemo,

One answer is "Cary's work has overlap with everybody's work."  Seriously: 
shortly after I arrived at Wikimedia, Cary and I had a conversation about 
whether everybody on the staff should coordinate their 
activities/communications with Wikimedians through Cary, since Cary's title is 
Volunteer Coordinator. We quickly decided that no, that didn't make sense: 
Cary can't, and doesn't want to, be a bottleneck for staff working with 
volunteers: everybody on the staff needs to be working with all kinds of 
volunteers, all the time.  

More specifically; yes, Philippe will be working with OTRS with the goal of 
helping create and disseminate messaging. I don't think that'll interfere with 
Cary's work. If it does, Cary and Philippe will flag it, and we'll figure it 
out.

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: "Federico Leva (Nemo)" 
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:10:23 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Philippe Beaudette becomes Head
 of Reader Relations

Sue Gardner, 14/04/2010 08:11:
> His
> first focus will be to work with Wikimedia volunteers to establish and
> maintain systems enabling them to provide good service to readers who
> have inquiries, complaints and comments.  A lot of this will involve
> taking existing FAQ material, cleaning it up, and making it publicly
> available to readers.  That'll involve some writing and synthesizing
> work, and also coordinating with volunteers to have material
> translated and localized.

«readers who have inquiries, complaints and comments» often write to 
OTRS. Will Philippe work also on OTRS? If this is the case, how will his 
role be distinct from Cary's?

Nemo

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[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Philippe Beaudette becomes Head of Reader Relations

[Sue Gardner]

As I'm sending this, I'm wondering: have we actually started an
announce-only list? If so, and if someone reminds me, I will post this
there too :-)


Hi folks,

I'm delighted to tell you that Philippe Beaudette will be staying with
the Wikimedia Foundation following the completion of the strategy
project this summer.  This makes me really happy: Philippe has been
doing terrific work, and I'm delighted he's agreed to stay on with us.

In his new role, Philippe will become the Wikimedia Foundation's
first-ever Head of Reader Relations.  As such, he will act as an
advocate for readers inside the projects and within the staff.  His
first focus will be to work with Wikimedia volunteers to establish and
maintain systems enabling them to provide good service to readers who
have inquiries, complaints and comments.  A lot of this will involve
taking existing FAQ material, cleaning it up, and making it publicly
available to readers.  That'll involve some writing and synthesizing
work, and also coordinating with volunteers to have material
translated and localized.

Philippe's background makes him ideal for this role.

He has been a long-time member of the Wikimedia volunteer community,
both as an administrator on several sites, and as a volunteer for
OTRS, where he successfully resolved some particularly difficult
complaints regarding biographies of living people.  He's very familiar
with Wikimedia project policies and practices.

Outside Wikimedia, Philippe has significant customer service
experience, including running a large customer contact centre for
Convergys Corporation, a global firm specializing in relationship
management.  He also helped many organizations, including two of the
world's largest insurance providers, develop customer service
environments, while working for Siebel.  He also has a background in
American electoral politics, including working as Deputy Campaign
Manager, Operations Manager and Technology Director on a number of
state and federal campaigns, as well as for the non-profit Progressive
Alliance Foundation.

He has worked in the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

All of this, in my view, makes Philippe ideal to handle reader
relations for us: he's got lots of experience managing complex
stakeholder relationships with tact and sensitivity, and creating
systems that scale.

Both Philippe and I expect his role will evolve once the Chief Global
Program Officer (CGPO) arrives.  I thank Philippe for his flexibility
and trust in taking this on and relocating to San Francisco, despite
that lack of certainty :-)

Philippe will report to me until the CGPO arrives, whereupon he'll
report to that person. He's in the midst of beginning his move to San
Francisco now (with a side trip to Berlin for the chapters meeting).

You might wonder why this job wasn't posted and boarded. Generally, I
do aim to post and board all jobs; I think it helps the Wikimedia
Foundation to surface the best-possible candidates, to be fair in our
hiring, and to be seen to be fair.  In this instance though, I decided
it was better not to. Philippe has done a great job over the past nine
months, we are undoubtedly going to need the kinds of skills and
experiences he brings to us, and I didn't want him to start
job-hunting as his work on the strategy project came to a close.
Given that, and given that the job may evolve when the CGPO arrives,
posting and boarding -in this particular context- seemed
inappropriate.

Philippe has been a great addition to our team in the time he's been
with us, and I look forward to his continued contributions. Please
join me in welcoming and congratulating him.

Thanks,
Sue


-- 
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!

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[Foundation-l] New jobs posted: Chief Development Officer and Chief Global Program Officer

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

Heads-up that the Chief Development Officer (fundraising) and Chief
Global Program Officer positions have been posted to the Foundation
wiki.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Chief_Development_Officer
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Chief_Global_Program_Officer

Both roles will remain open until they are filled: please scour your
own networks for good candidates, and feel free to share the position
descriptions widely.   Recruiting for both positions is being handled
by m/Oppenheim Associates: you can contact Lisa Grossman at
lisag(at)moppenheim.com with inquiries, nominations and/or CVs.  Or
you can ask me questions here.

Thanks,
Sue







-- 
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Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

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[Foundation-l] Great news! Google gives Wikimedia USD 2 million

[Sue Gardner]

Hi all,

I am delighted to tell you that Google is giving Wikimedia a grant of
USD 2 million.  It will come to us via the Google Fund at the Tides
Foundation, which handles all of Google's philanthropic activity, and
it is completely unrestricted.

We'll be putting out a press release tomorrow, but I wanted to tell
you beforehand.  This is really great news.  It's important to us
financially, of course, but I see it as equally important from a
symbolic perspective.  I believe that Wikimedia and Google are natural
allies and partners --- we both want to help provide people everywhere
around the world with information.  It seems natural to me that Google
would want to support Wikimedia's work, and I am happy they are doing
it.

You probably know that Google and Wikimedia -–both editors and
Wikimedia Foundation staff-- have, from time to time, collaborated on
projects together.  (For example, the Google team has created
functionality inside the Google Translate Toolkit that enables editing
and uploading of translated articles to Wikipedia.)  This grant will
not be channeled specifically towards Google-related activities: it
will go into our general operating revenues. Having said that, I look
forward to Google and Wikimedia continuing to do good work together.

The press release is below.  It will go out tomorrow morning , but you
don't need to keep this news confidential.  Feel free to tell your
friends :-)

Thanks,
Sue Gardner




Wikimedia Foundation announces $2 million grant from Google
Donation will support capacity investments in Wikipedia and other free
knowledge projects

EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:00AM PST, February 17 2009

SAN FRANCISCO, CA February 17, 2009 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the
non-profit that operates Wikipedia, today announced that it has
received a $2 million (USD) grant from the Google Inc. Charitable
Giving Fund of Tides Foundation. This is the Wikimedia Foundation's
first grant from Google. The funds will support core operational costs
of the Wikimedia Foundation, including investments in technical
infrastructure to support rapidly-increasing global traffic and
capacity demands. The funds will also be used to support the
organization's efforts to make Wikipedia easier to use and more
accessible.

"Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the internet," offered
Google co-founder Sergey Brin. "This vast repository of
community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is
online."

Wikipedia founder and Wikimedia Foundation board member, Jimmy Wales,
also commented on the Google gift. "We are very pleased and grateful.
This is a wonderful gift, and we celebrate it as recognition of the
long-term alignment and friendship between Google and Wikimedia. Both
organizations are committed to bringing high quality information to
hundreds of millions of individuals every day, and to making the
Internet better for everyone."

The two organizations have a long-standing working relationship. Most
recently, Google and the Wikimedia Foundation have partnered to
support translation of Wikipedia content into key languages with
relatively small Wikipedia editions. Google's Translation Toolkit
supports direct online translation of Wikipedia articles, and has been
used by Google in Wikipedia translation pilot projects with speakers
of Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili.

Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, offered:
"It is wonderful that Google has stepped forward as a major supporter
of a global, non-profit information commons. With this generous grant,
we will be able to fund additional operations and development work to
increase access and contributions to our free knowledge projects
globally."

Wikimedia's support comes primarily from individual donations made by
regular users of Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation completed its
2009-10 fundraiser in January. During the drive, 240,000 individuals
donated more than $8 million, representing three quarters of its
planned revenue for the fiscal year.

-- 
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!

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[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Danese Cooper joins Wikimedia as CTO

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I'm delighted to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation's new Chief
Technical Officer is Danese Cooper, an experienced technology manager
and open-source evangelist. Danese will start with Wikimedia on
February 4, 2010.

As you know, we've been searching for a CTO since last fall, when
Brion announced his decision to leave Wikimedia for StatusNet. We were
looking for someone with plenty of leadership experience and a deep
understanding of open source technology, who could lead our technical
staff, evangelize on behalf of Mediawiki, and set up systems and
processes to help our staff and Wikimedia technology volunteers work
successfully together. Danese fits the bill on all counts: I'm very
happy she'll be joining us.

Danese has a wealth of experience in open source technology. Most
recently, she developed open source strategy for the tech start-up
REvolution Computing. Prior to that, she was Senior Director of Open
Source Strategies at Intel from 2005 until 2009, and Chief Open Source
Evangelist at Sun Microsystems from 1999 to 2005. In those roles, she
led or supported major open source initiatives, including Sun's
OpenOffice.org application suite, the Java platform, JXTA, NetBeans,
GridEngine, OpenSolaris and Intel's Channel Software Operations and
Moblin platform initiatives. Prior to working at Sun, she managed
technology teams at Symantec and at Apple Computing for a total of
nine years.

Danese is a Board member at the Open Source Initiative, the non-profit
organization that maintains the Open Source Definition and approves
open source software licenses. She is also a member of the Apache
Software Foundation, and serves on a Special Advisory Board for
Mozilla. Danese has lived and traveled internationally, particularly
in developing countries, and speaks several languages, including
French and Moroccan Arabic.

As CTO, Danese will be responsible for ensuring Wikipedia and the
other Wikimedia projects run reliably and perform well from a
technical standpoint. She will also be responsible for supporting the
development of Wikimedia's open source software stack including
MediaWiki, and for creating technical strategy and technical projects
to drive increases in Wikimedia projects' reach, quality and
participation. Her background as an evangelist will be particularly
important, because the health of the Wikimedia volunteer developer
community is critical to Wikimedia's ability to successfully serve
people in multiple geographies and languages.

All technical staff and contractors will report to Danese. Initially,
Danese will focus on filling some key staffing gaps, and on leading
the stabilization of Wikimedia's technology infrastructure: ensuring
predictable and secure operations and backups, improving monitoring,
APIs and database dumps, and establishing an additional US-based data
centre to give us safe fail-over capability. She has an important job
and lots to do: I ask you all to join me in welcoming and supporting
her.

Danese will begin her work February 3. Until June 30, Danese has a
standing one day/week commitment to support the code review process of
the SETI Institute.

Finally, I want to thank the Walker Talent Group
(www.walkertalentgroup.com) for its pro bono work helping recruit
Danese, as well as Advisory Board member Roger McNamee for introducing
Wikimedia to Walker. Their help is much appreciated.

Sue Gardner
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation




-- 
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office

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

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Re: [Foundation-l] WSJ on Wikipedia

[Sue Gardner]

I agree with you, David.

The usability work is a necessary precondition to bringing in new editors. It's 
essential for us to remove obvious, simple usability barriers that are impeding 
people who want to help.

But it's not the whole story, and I suspect that social barriers to 
participation will in the end prove much more difficult to overcome, compared 
with technical barriers. 

Basically, there are a lot of people who would like to contribute to Wikipedia, 
but who find us impenetrable.  

We know that new people's edits are increasingly reverted. Sometimes the 
reversions come without explanation; other times, they are explained curtly, 
unkindly, or using language (eg in templates) that newcomers don't understand.  
The net effect is that new people end up discouraged, and they don't stay.

In order to bring in and retain new editors, we need to make it possible for 
people to edit productively, without needing to develop deep expertise in our 
policies and practices.  Frank Schulenburg's "bookshelf" project will create a 
series of orientation materials for new people: that will help some. But there 
is lots of other work that needs to happen, in my opinion: we need to encourage 
friendliness, we need to make the editing experience more supportive and 
enjoyable for everyone (not just new people), and we need to simplify policies 
and practices to make it easier for new people to engage easily and usefully.

People who want to help do some of this work should engage on the strategy 
wiki: there's a task force focused on community health that will be looking at 
these issues.  I can't post the URL (I'm on my Blackberry and between meetings) 
-- but if nobody posts it within the next few hours, I'll do it once I'm back 
at my laptop.

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: David Moran 
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:28:24 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] WSJ on Wikipedia

Getting back to the content of the article: I get that inclusionism vs
deletionism is a tired way to talk about divisions between camps of editors,
and that everyone rolls their eyes when you start talking about it, but
yeah, it's real.  Every single person I know who was once a producing
contributor but who has now left the project (including me these days,
functionally--my monthly edit numbers have gone from quadruple to single
digits) did so because of having the same kind of arguments with the same
people over and over again about what deserved to be in the encyclopedia.
Which is anecdotal and statistically insignificant, I know.  But it is
undeniable that Wikipedia, as a system, encourages (by its relative ease vs
the alternatives) the removal of content, rather than the creation of good
content, or the polishing of bad or mediocre content, the latter of which is
a dreary chore.  To an extent, the destruction of content is as healthy and
vitally necessary a part of the Wikipedia ecosystem as its reverse.

I think a lot of attention is paid to the way the technical interface is
hostile to newbies, and making that more user-friendly and democratic is
certainly a concern that needs to be addressed.  But I think the tendency of
older users, or certain editorially minded users, to squat on the project
and bludgeon newer users with policy pages rolled up into sticks is just as
much if not more responsible for driving away the new users we need to
replenish our ranks.

FMF


On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Steven Walling wrote:

> So the content of the WSJ article may be behind a paywall, but I just did a
> cursory search of the researcher's 2009 Ph.D. thesis which was a
> quantitative
> analysis  of Wikipedia in
> several languages.
>
> I didn't see any of the graphs from the piece or any conclusions in the
> thesis which are equivalent to the statements made in the Journal, so this
> must be new research.
>
> Steven
>
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Michael Snow  >wrote:
>
> > Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > > books are available for years the copy of
> > > the day may be available in a library, but how about last years copy of
> > the
> > > WSJ ? Do you really think the WSJ can be found in every USA library ??
> > >
> > I don't know about "every" library, but libraries are about more than
> > just books, and librarians are not unaware of the wonders of databases
> > in our modern digital age. For those of us that use libraries, I
> > encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the collections your
> > library may be able to provide access to online. I've certainly relied
> > on my library privileges for such sources many times in the course of
> > editing Wikipedia, particularly news archives (including the Wall Street
> > Journal).
> >
> > --Michael Snow
> >
> > ___
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundati

Re: [Foundation-l] How to make a puzzle globe

[Sue Gardner]

Yes, correct Delphine. There's only the one :-)

--Original Message--
From: Delphine Ménard
Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Cc: effeietsand...@gmail.com
ReplyTo: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] How to make a puzzle globe
Sent: 1 Nov 2009 2:27 PM

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 21:56, effe iets anders  wrote:
> is this the same as the one in the Office?

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 22:13, Philippe Beaudette
 wrote:
> It is.

It is actually _the_ one at the office, I don't think there are two of
these, are there?

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

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[Foundation-l] Report to the Board August 2009

[Sue Gardner]

Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Covering: August 2009
Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

MILESTONES FROM AUGUST
* Engagement of recruiters to fill new positions and vacancies: Chief
Development Officer, vacant Board “expertise” seat, and Chief
Technical Officer
* Wikimania 2009: scholarships finalization, staff attendance and
presentation preparations, preparations for board meeting
* Soft-launch of the Strategic Planning Project

KEY PRIORITIES FOR SEPTEMBER
* Strategic Development Process
* Communications Campaign Kick-off
* Finalization of Office Move details
* Meetings with donor prospects

THIS PAST MONTH

REACH

In August 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation sites held steady as the
fifth most-popular web property in the world with 307 million global
unique visitors, according to comScore Media Metrix.

WIKIMANIA BUENOS AIRES

The fifth annual Wikimedia conference, Wikimania 2009, took place in
Buenos Aires, Argentina from August 26 to 28. The conference hosted
more than 500 Wikimedians and supporters from around the world. Talks
and workshops gave attendees new insights into the Wikimedia projects,
other free knowledge efforts, and the challenges and opportunities
facing the movement.

Wikimania 2009 was attended by 57 Wikimedians on scholarships funded
by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Wikimedia Germany, the Open
Society Institute and the Wikimedia Foundation. The dollar value of
those scholarships totalled approximately USD 100,000. This
represented huge growth from Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria, which a
total of nine people attended via scholarships, funded by OSI and
totalling USD 10,000. More on the scholarships process later in this
report.

Twenty Wikimedia Foundation staff traveled to Buenos Aires to
participate at Wikimania. Staff who attended were: Brion Vibber, Cary
Bass, Erik Moeller, Erik Zachte, Eugene Eric Kim, Frank Schulenburg,
James Owen, Jay Walsh, Jennifer Riggs, Kul Takanao Wadhwa, Mark
Bersgma, Naoko Komura, Nimish Gautam, Philippe Beaudette, Rand
Montoya, Rob Halsell, Sara Crouse, Sue Gardner, Tim Starling and
Tomasz Finc. Staff participated in the conference as workers (e.g.,
supporting the Board meeting and press conference), as panelists,
workshop leaders and speakers, and as participants. At the close of
the conference, Sue gave a keynote talk on the Wikimedia Foundation:
The Year in Review and The Year Ahead. In it, she focused on some of
the challenges facing Wikimedia, including flagging participation
trends and a need for more openness and friendliness to new people,
and pointed to the strategy project as a way for all Wikimedians to
participate in charting our course for the next five years.

The following presentations were given by Foundation staff members
(see links for videos and, in most cases, slides):

The Year in Review and the Year Ahead - Sue Gardner
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:112

NIH Wikipedia Academy 2009 - Frank Schulenburg and Jay Walsh:
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:334

Wikimedia Technical Infrastructure - Rob Halsell
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:103

Scaling Up the Wikimedia Movement - Erik Moeller
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:298

What can Wikimedia learn from the Red Cross? - Jennifer Riggs
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:207

Wikimedia in Numbers - Erik Zachte
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:144

Collaborative Video on Wikipedia - Michael Dale
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:332

Wikipedia Usability Initiative - Naoko Komura
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:237

Documenting best practices in public outreach - Frank Schulenburg
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:335

The Wikimedia tech community organized a separate "codeathon" running
in parallel to the main event. See the summary provided by Brion
Vibber here:
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:86

Related blog post by Domas:
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/traffic-reduction/

Note the generally excellent video coverage of Wikimania 2009, thanks
to the local team, who received some help from the Wikimedia tech
community to get the videos to Commons. Additional videos can be found
here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania_2009_presentations
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule

The Wikimedia Foundation expresses its heartfelt appreciation to the
local planning team, and everyone else who helped make Wikimania 2009
such a successful and enjoyable event.

STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS

In August, the Strategic Planning Project soft-launched with a Call
For Proposals asking Wikimedians to develop and share proposals aimed
at helping the movement better achieve its goals. Since then, over 350
proposals were submitted on the strategy wiki, all of which

Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions)for English Wikipedia.

[Sue Gardner]

Greg, I really don't want to reply to the specifics of this conversation -- 
Brion and Erik and others are much more deeply involved, and therefore better 
situated to respond.

But I will say this: I know some people have speculated, or asked, if the 
Wikimedia Foundation is deliberately holding up implementation of FlaggedRevs 
in English Wikipedia, because the staff doesn't want it, or thinks it's a bad 
idea. For the record: we are not.

I personally am worried that an aggressive deployment of FlaggedRevs may act as 
a barrier to new participants. The statistics for new editors on the German 
Wikipedia seem to suggest that their implementation has in fact caused a 
decline in new editors.  I find that worrying.  But I realize that 1) there may 
be other factors at play on the German Wikipedia, affecting participation, that 
are unrelated to FlaggedRevs, 2) the implementation of FlaggedRevs for English 
is quite different from the implementation on the German Wikipedia, and 3) the 
English community has made a decision, which it has every right to do.  To be 
super-clear: the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation is not deliberately holding 
up rollout of FlaggedRevs on the English Wikipedia because of concerns about 
whether it's a good idea.

WRT to your point about relative priorities: the Wikimedia Foundation has 
gotten funding from the Stanton Foundation and the Ford Foundation,  that's 
specifically earmarked for usability work. That is good: usability is a 
critical priority. We can't reallocate that funding to other technical work: 
it's restricted to the purpose for which it was given.

I hear your frustration about the slowness of implementation and I sympathize. 
But I don't want you to believe FlaggedRevs is being deliberately held up: it 
isn't.

Thanks,
Sue
-Original Message-
From: Gregory Maxwell 

Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:59:44 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions)
for English Wikipedia.


On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Erik Moeller  wrote:
>>> and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on
>>> participation.
>> Please help me understand the implications of this statement.
>
> It simply means that
>
> a) we want to make sure that for the production roll-out, the user
> interface is not insane and appropriate to the specific en.wp
> configuration that's been proposed;

Aren't our volunteers qualified to contribute to this?

> b) we'll want to track participation metrics after the roll-out to see
> what the impact of this technology is.

I'm not sure what after the fact analysis has to do with the
deployment schedule.

> Accusations of "obstructionism" don't help; I understand where these
> come from, but it's a massive case of assume bad faith. Please stop
> it.

"Bad faith" — I don't think those words means what you think they mean.

I don't think anyone at the WMF is acting in bad faith.  Surely if you
intended to harm Wiki(p|m)edia you could come up with something better
than this.

My leading hypothesis were either that the staff was incredibly
overloaded with new initiatives like usability and strategywiki that
there simply hasn't been time to even make a simple configuration
change; ghat WMF's priorities have become so warped due to petitioning
by niche interests that it can't complete a simple request for its
largest project, or that the WMF staff has decided that it knows
better than hundreds of contributors and that it needed to act
paternalistic and protect the community against its own decision by
ignoring it.  I am not the only person to harbor these concerns, for
example see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions&diff=316628512&oldid=316625478
.

All off of these can be supported by the facts in front of me; None of
them reflect very positively on Wikimedia's staff, but neither require
even an ounce of bad faith.

If "assume good faith" has become a code-word for "pretend everything
is done perfectly; ignore problems; provide no criticism" then it's an
aspect of our culture that needs to be eliminated.

I felt the latter hypothesis was supported by your statement that
"we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on
participation".   Even with your clarification I can't help but
understand that when I ask 'Why is FOO being delayed'  and you respond
(in part) 'Because we are concerned that it will harm things'  that
you aren't saying that you're intending to obstruct the deployment...

Extracting the purest (strawman?) form of statement: "It has not been
done yet, in part, because we think what the community decided may
harm participation. However, we aren't working with the community to
ameliorate this harm" is pretty much the definition of obstruction.

This is precisely the thing I was talking about when I said that I'm
concerned that Wikimedia is treating the contributors as 'users'
rather t

Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet

[Sue Gardner]

2009/9/28 Brion Vibber :
> I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome
> years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm
> going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on
> the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites.

Obviously I've talked with Brion in person, so he knows this, but I
will say it publicly too: he will be hugely, enormously, massively
missed.

What Michael says is true: people have a right to pursue their dreams
and goals and personal development wherever it takes them, and I too
am happy that Brion will continue to be moving forward the free
culture agenda and helping to build a better ecosystem of projects and
organizations. I've got an account on identi.ca which I haven't yet
used: perhaps my first use of it will be congratulate Brion on his new
job :-)

IMO Brion is the single most central figure in the Wikimedia movement,
second only to Jimmy.  His work with us should be honoured and
celebrated.  We'll be doing some of that inside the staff within the
next few weeks, and I expect the Board will plan something for him
too.  But we'll need to be creative: after all, there is already a
Brion Vibber Day.  New ideas are welcome :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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[Foundation-l] Report to the Board July 2009

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I've been holding up release of this report, waiting on comScore data.
 It's still pending, so I will just re-release with it, once it's
available.  Enjoy :-)

Thanks,
Sue

Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Covering:   July 2009
Prepared by:    Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Prepared for:   Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

MILESTONES FROM JULY
   1. Hiring concluded for the Strategic Planning Project
   2. New fiscal year begins
   3. First Wikipedia Academy in the United States

KEY PRIORITIES FOR AUGUST
   1. Prepare for and attend Wikimania 2009 and associated Board
of Trustees meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina
   2. Beta roll-out of first usability improvements
   4. Begin planning process to seek funding for new data center
   5. Meetings with donor prospects

THIS PAST MONTH

STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS

During July, two members of the Wikimedia Advisory Board, Wayne
Mackintosh and Benjamin Mako Hill, separately visited the office to
share their expertise and help influence the strategy planning
project.  Discussions included possibilities for community support
structures, outreach and partnership models as well as sharing of
learnings from the free software and open source movements.  Several
proposals based on these conversations will be posted to the strategic
planning project pages.  Thomas de Souza Buckup, a Brazilian
Wikimedian, also visited the office of the Wikimedia Foundation, and
held meetings with staff.

Eugene Eric Kim and Philippe Beaudette joined the Wikimedia Foundation
staff to fill the Project Manager and Facilitator positions for the
Foundation's collaborative strategy development project.

Eugene was announced as the Project Manager for the strategy project.
Eugene is principal and co-founder of Blue Oxen Associates
<http://blueoxen.com/>, a San Francisco-based socially-conscious
consulting firm that focuses on understanding and improving how people
collaborate. He's worked at all levels of the collaborative process,
from strategy development to facilitation.  His past clients have
included People for the American Way, NASA, the Institute for
International Education, Socialtext, and the Sierra Club. Eugene is
also a long-time member of the Wiki community. He is the co-author of
PurpleWiki, he spoke at the first Wikimania conference in Frankfurt,
he was a keynote speaker at WikiSym 2006, and he was one of the
instigators of the first RecentChangesCamp.

Philippe Beaudette joined the Wikimeda Foundation as Facilitator for
the strategy project. Philippe is a trusted member of the Wikimedia
volunteer community.  He's a three-year member of the Board of
Trustees Election Committee, a two-year trusted administrator for the
English Wikipedia, and has twice been granted temporary administrator
status for meta for election-related activities.  He has also been a
volunteer for OTRS, and has helped the Wikimedia Foundation in the
development of a grant proposal. Outside Wikimedia, Philippe has a
background in American electoral politics, where he has worked as
Deputy Campaign Manager, Operations Manager and Technology Director on
a number of state and federal campaigns, as well as for the non-profit
Progressive Alliance Foundation.  He has also worked as a technology
consultant in the for-profit sector in the United States, Italy and
the United Kingdom.

The strategy project also intended to hire a Research Analyst and
interviewed a number of candidates, but has since reconsidered that
role, and will rededicate those resources to other work in the
project. That may possibly include efforts to bring in external
expertise of various kinds, and/or to bring in the perspectives of
developing countries.

Eugene and Philippe started working on the strategic planning process
in mid July. They've been working closely with Bridgespan and senior
Foundation staff on the details of the process. They've also been
holding weekly brown bag discussions and IRC office hours. Finally,
they launched the strategic planning Wiki
<http://strategy.wikimedia.org/>, and they're encouraging people to
submit proposals for what they think the movement should be working on
over the next five years.  The Bridgespan Group worked throughout July
to build the fact base <http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fact_base>
for the strategic planning process, supported by individual
Wikimedians and Wikimedia Foundation staff.

TECHNOLOGY

MediaWiki contract developer Andrew Garrett worked on modernizing the
LiquidThreads discussion forum extension and solicited feedback from
users and the Usability Initiative team on the user interface. The
Foundation hopes to start deploying LiquidThreads in some isolated
areas in the next couple of months to get real-world usage feedback;
in the long term this should help clear up many of the usability
problems with th

Re: [Foundation-l] strategic planning process update

[Sue Gardner]

2009/9/23 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen :
> Sue Gardner wrote:
>
> 
>
> .
> Let me just say as a board election candidate who in the final
> tally didn't get the nod from the voters, that I personally think
> your grasp of what is relevant and vital to the eventual full
> expression of our missions potential is nothing short of phenomenal.
>
> Even decisively sharpest in focus in my mind is the fact that you
> can see so clearly even though you are a person who wasn't
> brought up "in house". I hope you will excuse my mention of the
> fact in the context of my noting my high approval of your vision.
>
> Honestly, I personally had a few doubts when your appointment
> was initially announced; they quickly receded towards a "wait and
> see" attitude. Now I am quite willing to state for the record, that I
> for one think the Foundation awesomely got its ducks in a row when
> it chose you to lead the foundation. Make of that what you will.

Wow, Jussi-Ville; I like it, thank you :-)

Wikimedia is not always a tremendously warm culture, and I am
sometimes guilty of feeling a little under-appreciated.  This mail
made me happy.   I don't even care if you've already changed your
mind: it was super-kind, and I thank you for it :-)

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Re: [Foundation-l] strategic planning process update

[Sue Gardner]

2009/9/22 Eugene Eric Kim :
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Pavlo Shevelo  
> wrote:
>> "Who will decide what the strategy will be, and what will be the
>> decision-making process?"
>>
>> this page explains nothing about (or explains in no detail if somebody
>> prefers) how main stakeholder - Foundation will make decision about
>> said strategy. The huge, extremely intensive (and effective, if we
>> will do our best) Earth-wide pipeline for proposal preparation - it's
>> good. But what will be in the very end? How Foundation will decide
>> what idea is good enough to stand behind it (and to put money in it)?
>
> Sorry for taking so long to respond, Pavlo. I'm not sure I'm the right
> person to respond to this. I'll do my best, you can tell me if you
> think it's clear, and hopefully other folks from the Foundation will
> jump in.

I just saw this thread; I'm happy to jump in.

What Eugene says is all accurate -- let me expand a little.

Essentially, the purpose of the project is to develop a strategy for
the Wikimedia movement, not just for the Wikimedia Foundation.  What
that means is that no single entity will be able to approve and drive
forward the whole thing: individual players will drive forward the
pieces that compel and engage and inspire them.

So for example:

* If it looks like it makes sense to stage a lot of events aimed at
broadening participation in developed countries, the chapters would
logically take the lead on that.

* If it looks like it would make sense to conduct a massive awareness
campaign in India, that would probably be moved forward in partnership
between the Wikimedia Foundation and what might be -by then- an
approved, new Indian chapter.

* If it looks like a very strong focus on mobile makes sense, I expect
that would be something driven forward by the tech staff at Wikimedia,
in partnership with individual volunteer devs, and possibly supported
by relationships with for-profit firms such as Orange.

* If there is a simple thing that looks sensible, and one person wants
to, and is able to, achieve it by him or herself, they would just do
that. They wouldn't need to wait for anyone's goahead.

You see what I mean?  Essentially, the goal is that each player will
make its own decisions based on its own context -- its own capacity,
its skills and abilities and interests, its own goals and priorities.
People will be able to do that however they want, in whatever process
works for them.

With regards to the Wikimedia Foundation, as Eugene said, if the
process works well, it (the process) will deliver to the Board a set
of high-level recommendations in key areas.  By that time work will
have been done, especially in the later stages of the task force work,
to try to ensure the recommendations are synched up with each other
and make sense together as much as possible --- but there will
probably be a few areas in which incompatible (mutually exclusive)
recommendations are submitted.  The Board of Trustees will then work
to resolve whatever contradictions are present, and to prioritize the
work it wants to get done. And then, if all has gone well, it will
approve the strategy plan.

Hope that helps.  And -- Board members should please speak up here
also, especially if there are nuances to their understanding that
differ from mine or Eugene's.

Thanks,
Sue





-- 
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

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Re: [Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the French cultural authorities

[Sue Gardner]

tions most of whom do not have the
> technical, legal and financial infrastructure to deal with them
> * collaborate with free content sites such as Wikipedia - more on this.
> http://david.monniaux.free.fr/pdf/rapport_culture.pdf (scanned version)
> http://david.monniaux.free.fr/pdf/rapport_culture_ocr.pdf (OCR version)
>
> The cultural services are reluctant to release pictures under free
> licenses. When I met them, they expected that it would be possible to
> "negotiate" with Wikipedia and get an exemption from this requirement. I
> explained to them that freedom was not negotiable. It was, I think, very
> surprising to them that Wikipedia, an amateurish organization, would
> dare say that to the Government!
>
> I proposed a way out: release lower resolution pictures under free
> license, keep high resolution pictures (those suitable for art books,
> posters and so on) proprietary. The suggestion has been retained by the
> commission - even though they still seem to toy with this idea of
> "negotiation".
>
> In the meantime, the National Library of France (www.bnf.fr) announced
> it was entering negotiations with Google for digitizing their content.
> This would announce a sharp change in policies since when Jean-Noël
> Jeanneney was head of the library - Jeanneney had written a book
> denouncing Google's hold on the world.
>
> I seized the occasion to make our point of view heard. On Wednesday
> September 16, I published in op-ed column in the national daily
> Libération, explaining that our cultural policies on were
> counterproductive - rather than fight the "American cultural invasion"
> as their proponents suggest, they actually reinforce this invasion by
> making French content invisible on the Web - because it is kept proprietary.
>
> *** This is, I think, the first time such ideas were exposed in the
> mainstream media. ***
>
> Since the report called for renewed contacts between the Ministry and
> free content sites, I wrote to them thanking the Minister for sending
> the report and telling them that we are at his disposal for further
> discussion with his services.
>
> We are trying to keep up the "buzz" on these issues - see the Heritage
> Day email.
>
> Just to avoid misconceptions:
>
> I do not expect that anything will change soon in the policies of French
> cultural institutions. It is extremely difficult to change the policies
> of large, traditional organizations unless there is a strong political
> will to do so - and I do not think that putting up free content online
> is a national priority.
>
> My foremost goal is to get the ideas of free content and free access
> across, to the common public and to the people in charge.
>
> This is not so easy, because there are many misconceptions about what
> Wikipedia is about. For instance, contrary to what is often implied by
> the media, Wikipedia is not a free-for-all where anybody can do anything
> anytime - but many people believe it and thus are horrified by such a
> pandemonium, and because of this, they simply won't listen to what we
> say. Simply overcoming such misinformation is already considerable work.
> It took us years to be considered respectable enough to be heard by
> officials, and to get a short op-ed printed in the press. This means
> that in the meantime, myself and others (Florence Devouard, Pierre
> Beaudouin, and so on) had to go to many meetings, whose outcome many
> often just have been that people that did not know us would then see
> that we are not dangerous anarchist teenagers or raving idealists, but
> sensible, responsible folks.
>
> --
> http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
> http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
> http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre
> http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres
>
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-- 
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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