Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Chad]

Exactly. Its certainly closer to realization now than
it has been in the past.

-Chad

On Sep 24, 2009 9:11 AM, "Liam Wyatt"  wrote:

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Chad  wrote: >
It is in usable conditio...
> The current testing of LiquidThreads and tweaking of the interface is here
and the Dev's (user:werdna) personal wiki:
http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/Talk:Main_Page please go and poke
around and submit
feedback . I expect
that this will be brought into usage on the Wikimedia projects progressively
but it will be happening sooner rather than later IIRC.

-Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Liam Wyatt]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Chad  wrote:

> It is in usable condition ;-)
>
> -Chad
>
> On Sep 24, 2009 3:37 AM, "David Gerard"  wrote:
>
> 2009/9/24 Jonathan Kallay :
>
> > It seems to me that a new Wikipedia-inspired project could help address >
> the many civility/noise...
> > Thoughts?
>
>
> Feature suggestions for LiquidThreads?  That's the Wiki-ish forum
> solution that one day is hoped to be in usable condition ...
>
>
> - d.
>
> The current testing of LiquidThreads and tweaking of the interface is here
and the Dev's (user:werdna) personal wiki:
http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/Talk:Main_Page please go and poke
around and submit
feedback . I expect
that this will be brought into usage on the Wikimedia projects progressively
but it will be happening sooner rather than later IIRC.

-Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Chad]

It is in usable condition ;-)

-Chad

On Sep 24, 2009 3:37 AM, "David Gerard"  wrote:

2009/9/24 Jonathan Kallay :

> It seems to me that a new Wikipedia-inspired project could help address >
the many civility/noise...
> Thoughts?


Feature suggestions for LiquidThreads?  That's the Wiki-ish forum
solution that one day is hoped to be in usable condition ...


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[David Gerard]

2009/9/24 Jonathan Kallay :

> It seems to me that a new Wikipedia-inspired project could help address
> the many civility/noise problems of mailing lists, web forums, etc. A
> Thoughts?


Feature suggestions for LiquidThreads?  That's the Wiki-ish forum
solution that one day is hoped to be in usable condition ...


- d.

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[Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Jonathan Kallay]

I started reading the archives of this mailing list today because I 
wanted to run an idea by community members on this topic and wanted to 
see if this list was an appropriate place to do so, so for me this 
thread is serendipitous.

It seems to me that a new Wikipedia-inspired project could help address 
the many civility/noise problems of mailing lists, web forums, etc. A 
Wikimedia-derived variant could be developed specifically for conducting 
discussions and debates, where the participants together share the cost 
of moderation. Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View rule would be replaced 
with appropriate equivalents for civil and productive dialog (stick to 
the topic, be nice, don't be repetitive, etc.), and while users would 
not be able to alter a post they could flag a notably offending post 
with a 'takeback offer' and a reason, which would temporarily hide the 
post and gives the poster a chance to revise and resubmit. 
'Meta-discussion' occurs on a separate page and eliminates the 
he-said/she said noise and disputes/'takeback wars' would be handled by 
the usual automated and community-based processes. To the degree that 
this changes behavior (and I think it has a powerful capacity to do so), 
overall moderation/'takebacks' would decrease over time so moderations 
costs aren't only shared, they decrease in aggregate.

One of the limitations I see is that enjoying the benefits of immediate 
noise reduction through the 'takeback'/revise mechanism requires a 
limited rate of update 'pulls' from an RSS reader or manual visits to 
the conversation's page rather than an immediate push of every message 
to your mail client. In theory this creates a delay that is problematic 
when participating in a 'hot' discussion but in reality there is already 
a practical limit to the speed and scale of a coherent discussion (a 
related issue, by the way, which I think a wiki-like process can 
tackle). Also, the cost of having your post hidden by a takeback offer 
is not fully reversible because the point may be moot by the time you 
get it back up. This provides some of the disincentive to write bad 
posts but also requires some controls to minimize 'false positives.' The 
human challenge would be a)whether or not people could accommodate 
themselves to 'takeback offers' as something other than censorship or 
violence- my sense is that they are more likely to accept it when the 
power to use the mechanism is shared and limited both normatively and 
systematically; b)whether the added 'heat' of participating in non-NPOV 
discussions would be too great for a self-organizing system to handle. 
Again, my sense is that similar mechanisms can work whether the 
collaborative aim is to produce an article with a neutral point of view 
or maintain civil and productive discussions.

Thoughts?

Austin Hair wrote:
 >/ In Buenos Aires I had multiple people ask (even practically beg) me to /
 >/ do something about foundation-l. One person said "fucking moderate /
 >/ foundation-l, already!"—to which I explained why I didn't think that
/>/ moderating individuals was a solution, but had to admit that I didn't
/>/ really have a better one./

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Tim Landscheidt]

Henning Schlottmann  wrote:

> [...]
> It is open to read worldwide without registration, first time posters
> have to authenticate their mail address in the "from" with gmane.

... and to subscribe to foundation-l with "nomail" AFAIR.

Tim


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Milos Rancic]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 6:51 PM, Erik Zachte  wrote:
> For the record, I am one of those who did not speak up yet
> (ref Austin) who would hope some of our power posters felt
> less need to share every thought with the rest of us.
>
> In a public debate few people with a firm stance can be
> convinced to change their mind, so most polemical posts
> can only hope to win over undecided onlookers.
>
> Changes that that will happen also diminish fast as more
> and more readers lose interest in a discussion.
>
> I even fear that a new point of view after 20 replies
> on a thread has less change of getting across
> as many people already went their way.
>
> There was a time when I tried to see all sides of debate.
> Nowadays I tend to selectively read replies from people
> who might have something to contribute.
> To me that sounds like a bad signal to noise ratio.

I've read whole your email, unlike emails of many others. After a
couple of years here, I know well what a number of posters may
contribute about some issue and when they may say something
interesting to me. There are even some threads which I am not reading
and it is not because I think that I won't read there anything new or
interesting, but because I think that I don't need to know the content
of those threads.

But, I've got something on my mind.

We don't need a forum for communication, we need user-friendly
structured discussion and I think that we may make something like
that.

Clear wiki pages are not good for that because they are too
unstructured and structure has to be made by contributors. But, some
wiki-like technology may be a good idea (i.e. some MediaWiki
extension). Forums have a kind of that structuring, but it is not
enough good. They are too hierarchical and inflexible.

What do I want is something like:

* Wikimedia projects
** 
** Wikipedia
*** 
*** New Wikipedias (place for announcing new Wikipedias)
*** CheckUser issues (also tagged as Wikimedia Foundation->CheckUser issues)
*** Analysis of Wikipedia content (also tagged as Research->Analysis
of content->Wikipedia)
*** ...
* Wikimedia Foundation
** Board
*** Ting Chen (also tagged as Wikimedia
projects->Wikipedia->Chinese->Contributors->Ting Chen)
 Ting's lecture during Wikimania 2007 (also tagged as
Wikimania->2007->Lectures->Ting; also: Wikimedia->Lectures->Tings
lecture during Wikimania 2007)
...
* Misc
** Chat about weather
** Chat about science
** Chat about Sarah Palin
** ...

And I want to be able to be subscribed via email just on topics
interesting to me. So, whenever someone adds a comment or make a new
thread about Analysis of content, I want to get email. I also want to
get info about newly created categories.

In that case, "list" moderators would have to actively categorize
threads, if writers didn't do that well. However, it should be a
wik-like model, where contributors should be able to categorize their
threads or even particular "emails" (or whatever the name for that
would be).

The main benefit from such approach would be possibility to see what
has been talked earlier about the same subject; as well as we would
have a knowledge database. If someone repeats 5th time the same thing,
it would be obviously trolling.

In other words, the concept would be similar to FriendFeed categorized
discussions. Foundation-l may stay as a proxy to that service for
those who are willing to follow everything and email replies to
foundation-l would go to a relevant thread.

Do similar concepts exist? Did I find hot water? :)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[David Gerard]

2009/9/13 Austin Hair :

> I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l,
> and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in
> person.


*cough* I am, but consciously try to moderate it. A bit.


> I'm encouraged by how the discussion's progressed thus far, and I see
> promise in some of the proposals (such as moving to a different
> medium), but at the very minimum there seems to be consensus for
> limiting the number of posts per-user on a periodic basis.  It's a
> simplistic answer to a complicated problem, but I think it's a good
> start—maybe we can get people contributing again if they're not so
> intimidated by the volume and cliquishness.


Possibly. I'm also asking the Wine guys about just how they keep
things sane on a mailing list gatewayed to and from a forum.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Mark Williamson]

How am I heckling you? I'm just stating the facts. There's no need for
this to turn into a fight.



On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>
>> People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue.
>>
>
> And if the person in charge of the venue considers me to be a net detriment,
> I hope and expect that I will be asked, privately, to leave, at which point
> I will comply.
>
> There's no need to heckle me on-list.  Take your complaints to the people in
> charge.  CC me if you're willing to.  I'll abide by the decision of the
> people in charge.  Not by whoever heckles me the loudest.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Anthony]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:

> People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue.
>

And if the person in charge of the venue considers me to be a net detriment,
I hope and expect that I will be asked, privately, to leave, at which point
I will comply.

There's no need to heckle me on-list.  Take your complaints to the people in
charge.  CC me if you're willing to.  I'll abide by the decision of the
people in charge.  Not by whoever heckles me the loudest.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Mark Williamson]

People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue.

skype: node.ue



On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Austin Hair  wrote:
>>
>> A mailing list, however, is different.  A mailing list is a
>> conversation.  Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person
>> dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he
>> may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other
>> people to contribute and makes it less useful.
>>
>
> I think it's great when one smart or entertaining person dominates a
> conversation.  I'm much more interested in hearing from that one person than
> equally from the 50 participants.  If that person is not smart (if my
> purpose for participating is to learn) or entertaining (if my purpose for
> participating is to have fun), I complain to whoever is in charge of the
> venue, or I leave (assuming it's not a conversation I'm required to attend,
> anyway).
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[Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Erik Zachte]

For the record, I am one of those who did not speak up yet
(ref Austin) who would hope some of our power posters felt 
less need to share every thought with the rest of us.

In a public debate few people with a firm stance can be 
convinced to change their mind, so most polemical posts 
can only hope to win over undecided onlookers.

Changes that that will happen also diminish fast as more 
and more readers lose interest in a discussion. 

I even fear that a new point of view after 20 replies 
on a thread has less change of getting across 
as many people already went their way.

There was a time when I tried to see all sides of debate. 
Nowadays I tend to selectively read replies from people 
who might have something to contribute. 
To me that sounds like a bad signal to noise ratio.

Erik Zachte




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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Anthony]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Austin Hair  wrote:
>
> A mailing list, however, is different.  A mailing list is a
> conversation.  Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person
> dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he
> may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other
> people to contribute and makes it less useful.
>

I think it's great when one smart or entertaining person dominates a
conversation.  I'm much more interested in hearing from that one person than
equally from the 50 participants.  If that person is not smart (if my
purpose for participating is to learn) or entertaining (if my purpose for
participating is to have fun), I complain to whoever is in charge of the
venue, or I leave (assuming it's not a conversation I'm required to attend,
anyway).
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Austin Hair wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>   
>> Seems to me that the mailing list is working just fine, despite a few
>> people who complain far too much about the volume of traffic, or about
>> the occasional tendency to irrelevant comments.  They need to exercise a
>> little more patience and tolerance.  The situation is a classic case of
>> "If it ain't broke don't fix it."
>> 
>
> Sorry, Ray, but I (obviously) disagree.  The list has reached a sort
> of equilibrium, it's true—it could continue operating as it does now
> for the foreseeable future.  It's not particularly uncivil or violent,
> but neither is it particularly useful for its intended purpose.
>   
I think this is key. If the hound-dog won't hunt no more, it
ain't no good.
> For every one of the "few people" who complain, I'll bet money that
> there are at least ten who don't speak up on the list, because other
> people are championing the cause already; for every one of those
> there's probably another who unsubscribed or stopped paying attention
> because, well, it's just not worth it for them anymore.
>   
I very much identify with this description of people who
don't speak up because other people are saying what
needs to be said, better than I could say those things.
> I have no doubt that many of the current active contributors are
> perfectly content with the status quo, and I understand that.  Plenty
> of meaningful discussion takes place here, and I don't mean to demean
> that or any of its contributors in any way.  I do, however, believe
> that we should have a forum that's more than just ten busybodies
> talking about WMF matters amongst themselves.
>
> A friend of mine, Charles Matthews, was for a time (I'm not sure if he
> still is) the single most prolific contributor to the English
> Wikipedia (behind Rambot, that is).  He's a retired academic, and has
> the time to edit Wikipedia for several hours a day.  This is a
> terrific thing for Wikipedia, since he's a smart guy and makes
> careful, intelligent edits which only enrich the project.
>
> A mailing list, however, is different.  A mailing list is a
> conversation.  Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person
> dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he
> may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other
> people to contribute and makes it less useful.
>
> I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l,
> and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in
> person.  On the contrary, most of them are fairly quiet in real life,
> and take the time to consider their points and formulate their
> responses.  The difference is that, because of the nature of a mailing
> list, those who can afford a few hours per day can compose those
> well-thought-out responses to *every single thread on the list*.
> Others don't have that, or aren't willing to commit that, and the
> unfortunate end result is the same as the loudmouth you hate at dinner
> parties.
>   
I think all of the above is precisely how I would characterize
things in all fairness, if I but had your facility with words
and considered thought. So count this as one instance of
me speaking out when I thought somebody was saying
precisely what I thought needed to be said.
> I'm encouraged by how the discussion's progressed thus far, and I see
> promise in some of the proposals (such as moving to a different
> medium), but at the very minimum there seems to be consensus for
> limiting the number of posts per-user on a periodic basis.  It's a
> simplistic answer to a complicated problem, but I think it's a good
> start—maybe we can get people contributing again if they're not so
> intimidated by the volume and cliquishness.
>   
However,... (   ;- )   )  ...here I have to  record a very minor
note of disagreement.  Perhaps it comes as no surprise
that it comes on a issue that would penalize the precise
kind of strategy of discourse I personally pursue on the
list ;-)

The first instance where the issue of large volume of
postings was brought to my attention was when a
certain poster brought to my attention that I had
recently been among one of the 20 most voluminous
posters. At that time I was so taken aback by this
revelation that I went back in time in the mailing
list stats and found out that at that time I had in
a very short time posted a larger amount of postings
than in the previous lifetime of my subscription to
that particular mailing list. So my voluminous
posting _at that point in time_ was highly not
characteristic of my general volume of postings; but
was on an issue that I personally thought of high
significance, and worthy of discussing in depth.

This is the pattern that I have since followed. There
are long stretches of time when I don't bother to
reply to hardly any posts, because I tend to wait
and see if anyone more eloquent will reply making
the point that needs to be made, or be

Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Brianna Laugher]

2009/9/13 Henning Schlottmann :
> This whole issue is one of information processing. Everyone has to learn
> how to deal with information in large amounts and on different media.
> But there have been a few generations of experience we can plug in,
> there are best practices and web boards are not among them.

It's not just information processing.
Everywhere conversations take place, that place has a tone.

My feeling is, having robust, challenging conversations is important.
But does that require the present tone of f-l? From what I've seen on
other mailing lists -- Not at all. So why tolerate it, when it causes
people to disengage, and discourages them from engaging at all?

Brianna

-- 
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Liam Wyatt]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 1:36 AM, Austin Hair  wrote:

>
> For every one of the "few people" who complain, I'll bet money that
> there are at least ten who don't speak up on the list, because other
> people are championing the cause already; for every one of those
> there's probably another who unsubscribed or stopped paying attention
> because, well, it's just not worth it for them anymore.
>

Yes. Exactly.
I find it ironic that those on this thread who are most keen to retain the
status quo are those who are the most prolific posters to it. I wouldn't be
surprised to see someone write: "who says foundation-l has a bad
signal-to-noise ratio? I respond to every single thread and I think it's
great."

Self evidently they like the way foundation-l runs because they have created
it that way. So, saying 'if it aint broke don't fix it' might be correct
from their perspective but from the perspective of someone else it sounds
more like 'let them eat
cake'- they cannot see
that what works well for them might not be good for the
rest of us.

-Liam [[witty lama]]

-- 
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Henning Schlottmann]

Austin Hair wrote:
> A mailing list, however, is different.  A mailing list is a
> conversation.  Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person
> dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he
> may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other
> people to contribute and makes it less useful.

Then filter this guy. Or filter the threads where his contributions are
leading to nothing and read only the others. Or if you read your mailing
list as a (pseudo) newsgroup with a comfortable news client, score down
him and immediate replies, and read only the other parts of the thread
without him and those who fall for every of his statements. If he says
something really noteworthy, it will be discussed and quoted over two
levels or reply so you will find it.

> I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l,
> and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in
> person.  On the contrary, most of them are fairly quiet in real life,
> and take the time to consider their points and formulate their
> responses.  The difference is that, because of the nature of a mailing
> list, those who can afford a few hours per day can compose those
> well-thought-out responses to *every single thread on the list*.
> Others don't have that, or aren't willing to commit that, and the
> unfortunate end result is the same as the loudmouth you hate at dinner
> parties.

Pardon? Why would anyone want to read and even answer every thread and
every post in every thread? And who needs "a few hours" to look over the
 new entries of this list?  If there is someone, who floods the list,
score him down. Use a scoring threshold so his posts won't be visible in
a ordinary thread but where you will read him in a thread that you have
marked as interesting. Or kill the uninteresting threads as a whole.

Do you really, really think, that you would be able to find the
interesting posts in a web board? Web boards have none of the
comfortable features of a mailing list processed as a (pseudo)
newsgroup. They are huge heaps of words, with rudimentary threading.

But they run in a browser, so the point and click generation thinks they
can use it. You can't. If we move this list to a web board it won't take
a month until you (and/or others) will complain because the board is
getting confusing and you never found the really interesting postings.

This whole issue is one of information processing. Everyone has to learn
how to deal with information in large amounts and on different media.
But there have been a few generations of experience we can plug in,
there are best practices and web boards are not among them.

Ciao Henning


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Ray Saintonge]

Delirium wrote:
> Maybe I'm unusual in treating large mailing lists as if they were
> FidoNet or Usenet discussion forums, but the idea of people being 
> bothered by long threads they don't care about, individuals whose posts 
> they don't like, etc., is strange to me. Isn't that easily handled on 
> the client side? Killfile individual posters, delete/filter entire 
> threads, etc. Do most people use clients where that's unreasonably 
> difficult?
>
> It does require *some* community standards to enable it. For example, it 
> really helps the client-side filtering if people choose meaningful 
> subject lines, and change subject lines when threads have drifted to new 
> topics. But it's a fairly minimal set of things that have to be 
> centrally enforced. It certainly seems easier than trying to come up 
> with a centrally enforced set of standards that will simultaneously make 
> everyone happy!
>   
Yes, and maybe the solution would be a link to a set of instructions 
about how to more effectively manage one's mailing lists.

Ec

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Austin Hair]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Seems to me that the mailing list is working just fine, despite a few
> people who complain far too much about the volume of traffic, or about
> the occasional tendency to irrelevant comments.  They need to exercise a
> little more patience and tolerance.  The situation is a classic case of
> "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

Sorry, Ray, but I (obviously) disagree.  The list has reached a sort
of equilibrium, it's true—it could continue operating as it does now
for the foreseeable future.  It's not particularly uncivil or violent,
but neither is it particularly useful for its intended purpose.

For every one of the "few people" who complain, I'll bet money that
there are at least ten who don't speak up on the list, because other
people are championing the cause already; for every one of those
there's probably another who unsubscribed or stopped paying attention
because, well, it's just not worth it for them anymore.

I have no doubt that many of the current active contributors are
perfectly content with the status quo, and I understand that.  Plenty
of meaningful discussion takes place here, and I don't mean to demean
that or any of its contributors in any way.  I do, however, believe
that we should have a forum that's more than just ten busybodies
talking about WMF matters amongst themselves.

A friend of mine, Charles Matthews, was for a time (I'm not sure if he
still is) the single most prolific contributor to the English
Wikipedia (behind Rambot, that is).  He's a retired academic, and has
the time to edit Wikipedia for several hours a day.  This is a
terrific thing for Wikipedia, since he's a smart guy and makes
careful, intelligent edits which only enrich the project.

A mailing list, however, is different.  A mailing list is a
conversation.  Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person
dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he
may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other
people to contribute and makes it less useful.

I've personally met some of the most prolific posters to Foundation-l,
and not one I can think of is the type to dominate a conversation in
person.  On the contrary, most of them are fairly quiet in real life,
and take the time to consider their points and formulate their
responses.  The difference is that, because of the nature of a mailing
list, those who can afford a few hours per day can compose those
well-thought-out responses to *every single thread on the list*.
Others don't have that, or aren't willing to commit that, and the
unfortunate end result is the same as the loudmouth you hate at dinner
parties.

I'm encouraged by how the discussion's progressed thus far, and I see
promise in some of the proposals (such as moving to a different
medium), but at the very minimum there seems to be consensus for
limiting the number of posts per-user on a periodic basis.  It's a
simplistic answer to a complicated problem, but I think it's a good
start—maybe we can get people contributing again if they're not so
intimidated by the volume and cliquishness.

Austin

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Ray Saintonge]

Henning Schlottmann wrote:
> Mailing lists are push media and they are one stop: the new posts come
> to my own mail folders automatically. Their look and feel is always the
> same: that of my mail program (or web mail operator). Browsing through
> "your" web boards in the morning takes much, much more time than with
> appropriately processes mailing lists.
>
> Moderation and s/n ration: If you read mailing lists as (pseudo)
> newsgroups, which is of course the recommended way of access, every
> reader has the most comfortable options for filtering and scoring. Web
> boards have central, mailing lists individual moderation. You, the
> reader, can filter authors, topics, threads or whatever you want or
> don't want to read. That gives you autonomy and responsibility.
>
> The only real advantage of web boards is that they run in a browser and
> everyone thinks they can use them. Processing and reading mailing lists
> is much more comfortable, but obviously not anyone knows how to do that
> anymore.

Seems to me that the mailing list is working just fine, despite a few 
people who complain far too much about the volume of traffic, or about 
the occasional tendency to irrelevant comments.  They need to exercise a 
little more patience and tolerance.  The situation is a classic case of 
"If it ain't broke don't fix it."

Ec

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Liam Wyatt]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 1:03 AM, Philippe Beaudette <
pbeaude...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

>
> On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>
> >> LiquidThreads was developed for that
> >> purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no
> >> significant
> >> interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team -
> >> why?
> >
> > This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your
> > statement above.
> > LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the
> > latest status.
>
> LiquidThreads will be deploying in a small live environment very soon,
> according to a conversation I had with werdna day before yesterday.
>
> Philippe
>
> yes, LiquidThreads holds great promise for improved communication (at
least, on-Wiki communication). user:Werdna (Andrew Garrett) who is
developing it was
surprisedto note
at Wikimania how few people knew that it was being revamped as a
matter of priority. Videos of his presentations on the topic at Wikimania
can be seen here
(day two
video, starting at 13:30) and
here(starting
at 20:00) and I believe it will be live-trialled at the
Stratey.wikimedia.org wiki soon.

As for the discussion of "how to improve foundation-l" I must concur with
what Lars Aronssen said about how the vast majority of followers of this
list "lurk". Tim & Austin I agree with everything you've said here too. As
has been mentioned by Henning Schlottmann a issue with web-based fora (e.g.
message boards) is that they are "pull based". Yes, this can be seen as a
problem and hopefully there are ways to enable more "push" functionality.
However, to reverse the question, one of the major reasons why foundation-l
is so despised by many is precisely *because* it is push-based.
Everyone.Gets.Every.Single.Message - this just doesn't scale. Thank god for
threaded-chat in modern email clients is all I can say. So, whilst having
everything appear in your inbox is a good feature to have if you want it,
IMO the onus should be on the individual to chose to opt-in to a
thread/discussion rather than the email system which forces people to
opt-out (or at least tune-out or at worst unsubscribe). A web-based forum
allows you to bypass discussions you do not want to engage in freeing your
time/mindspace for discussions that are more relevant to your interests.
And, for those that wish to follow every single thread, there surely must be
an option to be automatically notified every time there is a new posting or
a new thread created.

-Liam [[witty lama]]
-- 
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[jokarwilis2005]

Ya..I think must go on
--Original Message--
From: Philippe Beaudette
Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
ReplyTo: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
Sent: Sep 12, 2009 08:03


On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:

>> LiquidThreads was developed for that
>> purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no  
>> significant
>> interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team -  
>> why?
>
> This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your  
> statement above.
> LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the
> latest status.

LiquidThreads will be deploying in a small live environment very soon,  
according to a conversation I had with werdna day before yesterday.

Philippe

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Sent from my AXIS Worry Free BlackBerry® smartphone
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Philippe Beaudette]

On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:

>> LiquidThreads was developed for that
>> purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no  
>> significant
>> interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team -  
>> why?
>
> This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your  
> statement above.
> LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the
> latest status.

LiquidThreads will be deploying in a small live environment very soon,  
according to a conversation I had with werdna day before yesterday.

Philippe

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Samuel Klein]

Tisza, this is very well put.

On 9/11/09, Tisza Gergő  wrote:

>  - the discussion space is divided by time, not by topic. What little 
> topic-based

Yes.  put another way, 'there is no natural namespace to fill and
revise over time as all useful discussions are traversed'

>  - the moderation is not transparent: if someone claims being censured, there 
> is
>  - the moderation is binary, and consequently too soft: there is no way to 
> flag
>  - topics cannot be raised on multiple lists without splitting the discussion;

I hadn't thought of some of these.

>  - it is hard to include new people (who where not subscribed before) into a
>  discussion bacause the way replying works. (This is actually solved by gmane,
>  - there is no way to see how many people are interested in a thread.
>  - there is no way to determine consensus (even approximately). With many
>  - it just doesn't scale well. Already everyone is complaining about the 
> traffic,


>  I always found it strange that Wikimedia, being one of the greatest 
> facilitators
>  of online collaboration, doesn't have its own cutting edge communication 
> tools.
>  Not only do the mailing lists suck, wiki talk pages are just as bad. I think 
> the
>  logical thing to do would be to take back most of the meta-project
>  communication  to the wikis, eat our own dogfood, and develop a wiki-based
>  communication system that works (preferably in reverse order).

I cannot but agree.


>  LiquidThreads was developed for that
>  purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant
>  interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why?

This may be part of the solution, but there is more to your statement above.
LiquidThreads is receiving more attention now; Erik probably has the
latest status.


>  I think the foundation should invest into reviewing state of the art tools 
> for
>  large-scale constructive/informative discussion (slashdot, stackoverflow,
>  ideatorrent, uservoice come to mind) and adding whatever feature needed to
>  LiquidThreads to make it stick. I think opt-out moderation based on some sort
> of collaborative scoring, some sort of voting or at least ranking method, and
>  thread summaries with a tag or category system are the norm nowadays, and
> of  course there would be need for a bidirectional email gateway.

This would also make [[m:LSS]] much easier to compile :)


>  - set up a clone of foundation-l which is heavily moderated, and where all
>  - make better use of Nabble (or some opensource equivalent), which already
>  - make some of the private lists readable to everyone. If the only reason for
>  their existence is noise, it is enough to control write access strictly.
>  - set up a public waste bin where moderated mails can still be read (thus
>  avoiding the censorship debates) but do not pollute the discussion otherwise.

+4.

Is there a page describing the private lists we use?
[[m:Mailing_lists/overview]] only lists oversight, stewards, and checkuser.

SJ

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Tisza Gergő]

Erik Moeller  writes:
> What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list
> communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more
> productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of
> this list, would you like to see change?

I'll try to gather what I see as a problem, strictly from a technical point of
view (code being law and all that, I think it's still the easier side to attack
the problem from):

- the discussion space is divided by time, not by topic. What little topic-based
division exists (the subject line of the mails) depends on the ability of the
first poster of the thread to choose an informative title, and is hard to fix
afterwards. This, together with the lack of good search, means that there is no
easy way to see whether something was already discussed before (which makes
people reluctant to write about issues that they think might have been raised
before), and it is not easy to make use of insights gathered on this list,
making it a huge sink of time and effort.
- the moderation is not transparent: if someone claims being censured, there is
no way for most people to check whether he just tried to post complete bullshit,
or one of the moderators was indeed overzealous.
- the moderation is binary, and consequently too soft: there is no way to flag
messages as not containing any new information or insight, and this with the
habit of some of the regulars to get into frequent unproductive debates about
semantics and proper etiquette and such makes the signal to noise ratio low.
Also, there is no way to highlight posts, which would make sense in some cases;
e. g. in questions addressed to the foundation, authoritative answers by
board/staff members should stand out.
- topics cannot be raised on multiple lists without splitting the discussion;
there is also no easy way to move a discussion to another place.
- it is hard to include new people (who where not subscribed before) into a
discussion bacause the way replying works. (This is actually solved by gmane,
but it is not widely known, nor 100% reliable.)
- there is no way to see how many people are interested in a thread.
- there is no way to determine consensus (even approximately). With many people
not wanting to spam the list with mails saying only they agree or disagree, it
just devolves into the consensus of the most loud.
- it just doesn't scale well. Already everyone is complaining about the traffic,
and there are scarcely any issues discussed (compare with the number of
proposals on the strategy wiki).

I always found it strange that Wikimedia, being one of the greatest facilitators
of online collaboration, doesn't have its own cutting edge communication tools.
Not only do the mailing lists suck, wiki talk pages are just as bad. I think the
logical thing to do would be to take back most of the meta-project communication
to the wikis, eat our own dogfood, and develop a wiki-based communication system
that works (preferably in reverse order). LiquidThreads was developed for that
purpose, but it seems to have been largely discarded, with no significant
interest from the community, the foundation or the usability team - why?

I think the foundation should invest into reviewing state of the art tools for
large-scale constructive/informative discussion (slashdot, stackoverflow,
ideatorrent, uservoice come to mind) and adding whatever feature needed to
LiquidThreads to make it stick. I think opt-out moderation based on some sort of
collaborative scoring, some sort of voting or at least ranking method, and
thread summaries with a tag or category system are the norm nowadays, and of
course there would be need for a bidirectional email gateway.

That said, a few suggestions that do not require moving away from the current
system, are easy to implement, and might help the situation somewhat:
- set up a clone of foundation-l which is heavily moderated, and where all
letters which do not add new information or insight to the discussion are
discarded. People with a lot of time on their hands could still read the
unmoderated version on the original list.
- make better use of Nabble (or some opensource equivalent), which already
provides a forum interface to foundation-l with abilities to post from the web
interface, postmoderate and collaboratively rank posts and threads:
http://www.nabble.com/WikiMedia-Foundation-f14054.html
- make some of the private lists readable to everyone. If the only reason for
their existence is noise, it is enough to control write access strictly.
- set up a public waste bin where moderated mails can still be read (thus
avoiding the censorship debates) but do not pollute the discussion otherwise.


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Samuel Klein]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Brian  wrote:
>
> Some of us feel that the foundation has become out of our reach.
> That no matter how much we discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be 
> too
> hard,

Is this related to the foundation per se?  This is just a difficulty
of large scale consensus that we all share.

> or there will be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for 
> any
> real change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the
> foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea.

There is no process for one group to convince another group across
projects that they have a good idea.  This is true whether or not one
of the groups is the foundation (and true even when the group doing
the 'convincing' is the foundation).  Let's fix this.

If you wouldn't mind picking a 'good idea' that's been hard to share
recently, that would be a fine place to start.

> should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it
> upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding
> it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of
> their employees in which they are expected to participate in these

This is true.  I think that if you look at the first posts in new
threads over time, you'll find that foundation members do this
regularly [and often struggle to get significant feedback, even to
such excellent posts as detailed project or strategy considerations;
monthly reports; and entire budget proposals].

It is not only the foundation staff, which make up a small minority of
the audience and participants of thelist, who need to work together on
this!  the shyer staff, like the other highly motivated wikimedians
who lurk but don't post, need help finding a voice here.
And the central goals of this list, discussion about new projects,
multilingual and cross-project issues, chapter setup, general
fundraising and outreach, include many things that simply don't get
enough time or attention on the list from any group.


> exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation
> business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like
> we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we
> not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it.

If you start to provide a bit more detail to each of these clauses and
feelings, you may find that this concern falls apart.  There aren't
many people shouting about positive things that need attention; there
are regularly staff asking for input who receive none; and there are
regularly people trying to talk about projects they are working on
with only sporadic interest or feedback.  Finding ways to improve all
of these conversations is critically important, but I think that
starts with recognizing them as conversations, not as one-way
broadcasts which are failing to meet certain standards.

Sue writes:
> I think it's fair to say that some of the staff are a little afraid to engage 
> on foundation-l --- it > can be intimidating, especially for new people. I 
> think the staff feels both an obligation and > a desire to engage with 
> community members, but some tend to do it in forums that feel
> safer and more supportive (which might be on internal-l,

This is not what internal-l was designed for, and one of the great
dangers of proliferating private lists is that they actively divide
communities.  One can create moderated world-readable lists to have a
less intimidating forum; there is no need to also make it hidden.

SJ

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Samuel Klein]

I agree with Tim's initial points.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Tim Starling  wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/
>
> If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly
> authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content

No need to optimize for this until it's a problem...

> via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would

You retain postmoderation for people who use the online forum.  If you
get bothered by spam and wish for more moderation you can move to
reading online.

> There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists
> have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and
> that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both
> directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and
> don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and
> find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous.
>
> Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the
> former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface
> is wishful thinking.
>
> A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance
> towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But
> then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via
> mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain
> that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to

I don't feel that this is a large group at all.  The vast majority of
people who lurk but don't contribute, and don't find the forum useful,
are willing to be creative in the tools they use to participate, but
want a social space where they feel comfortable / where they can find
comfortable discussions.  These are generally people who get along
fine on wikis that include [somewhere] quite dramatic edit wars...
it's not shyness about dealing with spam or trolls that keeps them
from finding the lists useful.


> I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should
> move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose
> what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance
> on private mailing lists.

It would be nice to have something to compare before guessing what the
outcomes would be.  As Milos said, I guess most people would be happy
with 'some user-friendly, free speech-friendly and workable solution'
and might be glad to try something different.

SJ

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Austin Hair]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:15 AM, Henning Schlottmann
 wrote:
> Austin Hair wrote:
>> My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm
>> perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I
>> don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that
>> it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods.
>
> I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is
> distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup
> news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along
> with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most
> comfortable way to read the list.

Yes, but as gmane is simply a mail -> news gateway, the fundamental
operation of the list remains the same.  The content management issues
aren't affected.

Austin

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Everton Zanella Alvarenga]

Henning Schlottmann  writes:

> I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is
> distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup
> news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along
> with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most
> comfortable way to read the list.
> 
> It is open to read worldwide without registration, first time posters
> have to authenticate their mail address in the "from" with gmane.

Cool! I didn't know WMF mailing list was archived by gmane.org, I thought only 
wichtech-l was. I'm posting through gmane for testing. You can access it here: 
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/

I think this could be informed at Foundation-l homepage:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Ciao,

Tom


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Henning Schlottmann]

Austin Hair wrote:
> My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm
> perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I
> don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that
> it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods.

I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is
distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup
news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along
with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most
comfortable way to read the list.

It is open to read worldwide without registration, first time posters
have to authenticate their mail address in the "from" with gmane.

Ciao Henning


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Anthony]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 7:07 PM, Robert Rohde  wrote:
>
> I would suggest that the optimal solution is probably a system that is
> mostly a forum but has a few email features as well rather than
> thinking of it as a gateway primarily designed to be used around
> email.
>

Google Wave promises pretty much all the features I'd like to see in a
perfect discussion forum.  Only real problem is that it also promises 1000
other features that I'd rather not see.  Oh, that and the fact that it
hasn't been released publicly yet!
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Delirium]

Austin Hair wrote:
> In Buenos Aires I had multiple people ask (even practically beg) me to
> do something about foundation-l.  One person said "fucking moderate
> foundation-l, already!"—to which I explained why I didn't think that
> moderating individuals was a solution, but had to admit that I didn't
> really have a better one.

Maybe I'm unusual in treating large mailing lists as if they were 
FidoNet or Usenet discussion forums, but the idea of people being 
bothered by long threads they don't care about, individuals whose posts 
they don't like, etc., is strange to me. Isn't that easily handled on 
the client side? Killfile individual posters, delete/filter entire 
threads, etc. Do most people use clients where that's unreasonably 
difficult?

It does require *some* community standards to enable it. For example, it 
really helps the client-side filtering if people choose meaningful 
subject lines, and change subject lines when threads have drifted to new 
topics. But it's a fairly minimal set of things that have to be 
centrally enforced. It certainly seems easier than trying to come up 
with a centrally enforced set of standards that will simultaneously make 
everyone happy!

-Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Delirium]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> Part of traditional professionalization is also to only make a
> commitment when you feel you can uphold it. So where a casual,
> informal organization is more likely to say "Yeah, sure" and then
> never do anything (FlaggedRevisions and SUL being two examples of this
> happening in the past, with no execution over multiple years), a more
> formal, professional organization will only make the commitment if it
> can allocate resources to keep it. So, as an organization matures, it
> will by definition say "no" more frequently, because saying "yes" too
> often is one of the most common signs of immaturity. We've certainly
> not reached the end point of that process yet.
> 
> But for a _volunteer_ driven organization, it's important to make a
> further transition, not from "yes" to "no" in 9 out of 10 cases, but
> from "yes" (and nothing will happen) to "yes, and here's how _you_ can
> make it happen", except for the truly bad ideas. :-) I think this is
> where we're failing right now -- engaging more people to help us solve
> problems. The strategic planning process is the first attempt to scale
> up the small-room conversations of the past into the largest possible
> meaningful consultation. How do we transform those plans and proposals
> into volunteer workgroups and actions?

I think the two are inherently in conflict, though. As organizations 
become professionalized, it becomes less appealing to work for them for 
free, when some people are getting paid to do the same job--- and the 
volunteers migrate to less-professionalized organizations.

It's not absolute, but there's at least some tension. I'll stuff that I 
wouldn't really want to do, if I had the choice, for an organization 
that has absolutely no budget and no paid staff, if I believe in their 
goals and agree it needs to get done. But if an organization has 
full-time staff who are paid to do the unpleasant things, I'm much more 
likely to only work-for-free in doing the things I find enjoyable.

-Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[John Vandenberg]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Tim Starling wrote:
> Austin Hair wrote:
>> My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm
>> perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I
>> don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that
>> it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods.
>
> I like NNTP too. It has postmoderation, so while you might not be able
> to authenticate posts, you can at least cancel any that fall outside
> the rules. It's an open standard which predates the web, and lots of
> tools and clients have been developed over the years to make use of
> its many features. It has built-in support for distribution and
> mirroring. It integrates well with email and lots of organisations run
> bidirectional gateways.

I agree.  The mozilla newsgroups are a good example.

http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=usenet%3Dmozilla

Another benefit is that the mailing list archives can be easily moved
to the news server, keeping the history intact.

> However, it has largely been forgotten. Most internet users have never
> heard of it and they don't know how to read it, except when they're
> shown a web gateway. Mobile developers have apparently never heard of
> it either, despite the fact that its lightweight nature and time-worn
> support for low-memory systems should make it a perfect fit.
>
> For postmoderation to work, most people would have to be using NNTP
> directly, or a web gateway, instead of an email gateway. We'd have to
> evangelise the clients, say in a footer in outgoing emails.
>
> A quick google search turns up the following NNTP clients for mobile
> platforms:
>
> Java: http://mobilenews.sourceforge.net/
> iPhone: http://inewsgroup.googlecode.com/
> Windows: http://www.qusnetsoft.ru/

Google groups is a web gateway to NNTP.  I've not tried it from a
mobile, but I expect it would be usable.

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Tim Starling]

Austin Hair wrote:
> My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm
> perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I
> don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that
> it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods.

I like NNTP too. It has postmoderation, so while you might not be able
to authenticate posts, you can at least cancel any that fall outside
the rules. It's an open standard which predates the web, and lots of
tools and clients have been developed over the years to make use of
its many features. It has built-in support for distribution and
mirroring. It integrates well with email and lots of organisations run
bidirectional gateways.

However, it has largely been forgotten. Most internet users have never
heard of it and they don't know how to read it, except when they're
shown a web gateway. Mobile developers have apparently never heard of
it either, despite the fact that its lightweight nature and time-worn
support for low-memory systems should make it a perfect fit.

For postmoderation to work, most people would have to be using NNTP
directly, or a web gateway, instead of an email gateway. We'd have to
evangelise the clients, say in a footer in outgoing emails.

A quick google search turns up the following NNTP clients for mobile
platforms:

Java: http://mobilenews.sourceforge.net/
iPhone: http://inewsgroup.googlecode.com/
Windows: http://www.qusnetsoft.ru/

-- Tim Starling


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Tim Starling  wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/
>>
>> It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way
>> gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from,
>> but so far it works ... surprisingly well!
>
> If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly
> authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content
> via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would
> be useful as a temporary migration measure, but it wouldn't solve any
> abuse problem until you removed those features.
>
>> The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic!
>
> There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists
> have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and
> that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both
> directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and
> don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and
> find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous.
>
> Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the
> former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface
> is wishful thinking.
>
> A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance
> towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But
> then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via
> mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain
> that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to
> entry, with a continuing lack of postmoderation, would only make the
> traffic higher.
>
> I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should
> move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose
> what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance
> on private mailing lists.

I would assume that any email delivery of posts from a web forum would
be an opt-in feature for those that want it.  People who want to use
the forum merely as a forum without email would have that option, and
I'd suggest that doing so is a more natural default behavior.  Such an
approach would grow the potential participant base by adding forum
users who are put off by email, but hopefully reduce the losses from
people who "require" push-based email delivery in order to stay
involved.

Accepting posts into the forum via email would never be 100% secure,
but one could take steps (such as a per user / thread reply-to
addresses) to reduce the opportunities for impersonation.

I would suggest that the optimal solution is probably a system that is
mostly a forum but has a few email features as well rather than
thinking of it as a gateway primarily designed to be used around
email.

-Robert Rohde

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Austin Hair]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Tim Starling  wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/
>>
>> It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way
>> gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from,
>> but so far it works ... surprisingly well!
>
> If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly
> authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content
> via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would
> be useful as a temporary migration measure, but it wouldn't solve any
> abuse problem until you removed those features.
>
>> The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic!
>
> There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists
> have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and
> that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both
> directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and
> don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and
> find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous.
>
> Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the
> former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface
> is wishful thinking.
>
> A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance
> towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But
> then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via
> mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain
> that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to
> entry, with a continuing lack of postmoderation, would only make the
> traffic higher.
>
> I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should
> move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose
> what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance
> on private mailing lists.

I agree with every one of Tim's points.

There is definitely a disconnect between mailing list participants and
wiki participants, and there would definitely be yet another
disconnect if we tried to split foundation-l between a mailing list
and a web forum.  This is not a tightly knit group of 20 people who
will migrate to whatever methodology we choose--a hybrid solution may
work as a transition, but it's not going to be the same kind of
community on the other side.  (But then, that's really not what we
want anyway.)

My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm
perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I
don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that
it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods.

Austin

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Tim Starling]

David Gerard wrote:
> wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/
> 
> It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way
> gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from,
> but so far it works ... surprisingly well!

If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly
authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content
via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would
be useful as a temporary migration measure, but it wouldn't solve any
abuse problem until you removed those features.

> The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic!

There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists
have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and
that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both
directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and
don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and
find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous.

Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the
former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface
is wishful thinking.

A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance
towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But
then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via
mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain
that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to
entry, with a continuing lack of postmoderation, would only make the
traffic higher.

I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should
move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose
what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance
on private mailing lists.

-- Tim Starling


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Lars Aronsson]

Brian wrote:

> This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in 
> backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress?

They are not many, they are very few. But they are allowed to 
speak freely, beyond all reasonable proportions.

The majority is silent. Count how many members (lurkers) this list 
has, and how few people post the majority of messages. The problem 
is that you don't see the silent majority in an electronic forum. 
The intelligent and responsible members only post when they have 
something useful to say, and never just for showing their 
presence. Posting more than 30 messages per month is not an 
achievement, but a lack of self-moderation and consideration.

More active moderation could improve this list significantly. 
Serious criticism and whistle-blowing will never be published here 
anyway, but in other media channels that don't belong to the 
Wikimedia Foundation. There is no real risk for censorship.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Everton Zanella Alvarenga]

2009/9/9 Robert Rohde :

> Some modern forums have features that can interact very intelligently
> with email, which to my mind might be the best of both worlds.  Such
> things would still allow the features you mention such as thread
> locking and removal of abuse from the archive, but would also allow
> people to continue to receive email copies of posts if that is what
> they prefer.

I just wrote about Google Group solution at meta

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l#Possible_solutions

where a person can use email or Web interface, as they want. You can
even rank every post and every comment (people with a lot of negative
votes could think twice about their posts/emails).

For sure there are other (better) technical solutions, but this is
easy to implement and I think it's worth trying.

Regards,

Tom

-- 
http://blogdotom.wordpress.com/sobre

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Henning Schlottmann]

Tim Starling wrote:

> I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and
> instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be
> postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads
> can be moved or locked.

Web boards are crap, partly precisely for the reasons you claim as
advantage here. Biggest flaw: They use pull protocols, you have to
actively go there to look. Further: Access to web boards is proprietary.
Each board has different address, format, GUI, options.

Mailing lists are push media and they are one stop: the new posts come
to my own mail folders automatically. Their look and feel is always the
same: that of my mail program (or web mail operator). Browsing through
"your" web boards in the morning takes much, much more time than with
appropriately processes mailing lists.

Moderation and s/n ration: If you read mailing lists as (pseudo)
newsgroups, which is of course the recommended way of access, every
reader has the most comfortable options for filtering and scoring. Web
boards have central, mailing lists individual moderation. You, the
reader, can filter authors, topics, threads or whatever you want or
don't want to read. That gives you autonomy and responsibility.

The only real advantage of web boards is that they run in a browser and
everyone thinks they can use them. Processing and reading mailing lists
is much more comfortable, but obviously not anyone knows how to do that
anymore.

Ciao Henning


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[David Gerard]

2009/9/9 Anthony :
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Tim Starling wrote:

>> I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and
>> instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be
>> postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads
>> can be moved or locked.

> I only find that acceptable if a web-based forum can be found which allows
> me to email myself every post/reply.  Citizendium switched to a web-based
> forum and I absolutely hated it.  I have all my mailing lists accessible in
> one location.  I am not interested in logging in to multiple websites.
> I'm sure a web-based forum can be made to handle this request.  But I
> haven't seen one that does it yet, only ones that do it partially and
> half-assedly.


wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/

It started as a mailing list, then the forum was set up with a two-way
gateway. The forum is where most of the posters actually post from,
but so far it works ... surprisingly well!

Presumably we could ask Codeweavers for technical pointers. Mostly
it's little details, e.g. spam control.

The main thing Wine found is that the forum promptly had 10x the traffic!

The point is: it has been done and can be done. And that way, those of
us (e.g. me) who hate forums and don't want yet another web page to go
to can have it all happen in in our email.

So I heartily suggest we go to a forum with a fidelitous email gateway.


> Alternatively, put David Gerard in charge of foundation-l, or someone else
> who isn't going to complain that the list is a cesspool but not be willing
> to dictate to us what to do about it.  Basically, you've got two choices.
> The second is to get off the pot.


No and hell no ;-p


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Brian]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 1:45 AM, Robert Rohde  wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Tim Starling
> wrote:
> > Erik Moeller wrote:
> >> 2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell :
> >>> As such, it's time to try something different.
> >>
> >> What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list
> >> communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more
> >> productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of
> >> this list, would you like to see change?
> >
> > I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and
> > instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be
> > postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads
> > can be moved or locked.
> >
> > Mailing lists, by their nature, have a large potential for abuse by
> > trolls and spammers. It's trivial to impersonate another user, or to
> > continue posting indefinitely despite being blocked. We're lucky that
> > the behaviour we've seen here has been merely inconsiderate, rather
> > than malicious.
> >
> > Discussion on the English Wikipedia continues to function despite
> > hateful users who try every dirty trick they can think of to disrupt
> > the community. We're lucky that foundation-l has only seen the merest
> > hint of a reflection of that turmoil, because the tools we have to
> > deal with abusive behaviour on mailing lists are far less capable than
> > those that have been developed for Wikipedia.
>
> Some modern forums have features that can interact very intelligently
> with email, which to my mind might be the best of both worlds.  Such
> things would still allow the features you mention such as thread
> locking and removal of abuse from the archive, but would also allow
> people to continue to receive email copies of posts if that is what
> they prefer.
>
> For example, have a forum where people can subscribe to receive email
> copies of either all posts or just specific threads of interest.  Most
> systems would require that you then visit the website to post replies
> (which could be facilitated by including a reply url in any emailed
> copy), though I do recall once seeing a forum email manager that
> created a unique reply-to address for each thread/user, hence allowing
> one to email replies directly onto the forum while still having those
> replies be subjected to any thread and/or user specific rules that had
> been put in place.
>
> In any event, I think we could probably set up a system that provided
> more flexible control over threads and users without necessarily
> sacrificing the convenience of email for people that prefer that
> approach.  And of course, people who don't want email interaction
> could just use such a web forum as a web forum without enabling any
> email features.
>
> -Robert Rohde
>
>
If an enterprising hacker were to enable fully bidirectional e-mail <->
 liquid threads functionality then I can see this being accepted, but
otherwise it seems implausible. Despite all the benefits of forums they
don't come close to the global usage habits and convenience of e-mail.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Robert Rohde]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Tim Starling wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>> 2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell :
>>> As such, it's time to try something different.
>>
>> What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list
>> communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more
>> productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of
>> this list, would you like to see change?
>
> I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and
> instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be
> postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads
> can be moved or locked.
>
> Mailing lists, by their nature, have a large potential for abuse by
> trolls and spammers. It's trivial to impersonate another user, or to
> continue posting indefinitely despite being blocked. We're lucky that
> the behaviour we've seen here has been merely inconsiderate, rather
> than malicious.
>
> Discussion on the English Wikipedia continues to function despite
> hateful users who try every dirty trick they can think of to disrupt
> the community. We're lucky that foundation-l has only seen the merest
> hint of a reflection of that turmoil, because the tools we have to
> deal with abusive behaviour on mailing lists are far less capable than
> those that have been developed for Wikipedia.

Some modern forums have features that can interact very intelligently
with email, which to my mind might be the best of both worlds.  Such
things would still allow the features you mention such as thread
locking and removal of abuse from the archive, but would also allow
people to continue to receive email copies of posts if that is what
they prefer.

For example, have a forum where people can subscribe to receive email
copies of either all posts or just specific threads of interest.  Most
systems would require that you then visit the website to post replies
(which could be facilitated by including a reply url in any emailed
copy), though I do recall once seeing a forum email manager that
created a unique reply-to address for each thread/user, hence allowing
one to email replies directly onto the forum while still having those
replies be subjected to any thread and/or user specific rules that had
been put in place.

In any event, I think we could probably set up a system that provided
more flexible control over threads and users without necessarily
sacrificing the convenience of email for people that prefer that
approach.  And of course, people who don't want email interaction
could just use such a web forum as a web forum without enabling any
email features.

-Robert Rohde

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Erik Moeller]

2009/9/8 Brian :
> Some of us feel
> that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we
> discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will
> be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real
> change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the
> foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea.

Really? Can you give examples of stuff that used to be easy that's
become harder now, and where consensus has been ignored where it would
have been swiftly acted upon in the past?

I do believe that much like in Wikipedia itself, we're past the low
hanging fruit phase right now when it comes to WMF's objectives. It's
one thing to set up a MediaWiki instance and call it Wiktionary, it's
another to actually design software for supporting a multilingual
dictionary and thesaurus. And so it goes with virtually every major
challenge we're facing today. The "easy stuff" at this point is only
easy in that it is obvious (yes, MediaWiki usability sucks), not in
that it is easy to fix.

Part of traditional professionalization is also to only make a
commitment when you feel you can uphold it. So where a casual,
informal organization is more likely to say "Yeah, sure" and then
never do anything (FlaggedRevisions and SUL being two examples of this
happening in the past, with no execution over multiple years), a more
formal, professional organization will only make the commitment if it
can allocate resources to keep it. So, as an organization matures, it
will by definition say "no" more frequently, because saying "yes" too
often is one of the most common signs of immaturity. We've certainly
not reached the end point of that process yet.

But for a _volunteer_ driven organization, it's important to make a
further transition, not from "yes" to "no" in 9 out of 10 cases, but
from "yes" (and nothing will happen) to "yes, and here's how _you_ can
make it happen", except for the truly bad ideas. :-) I think this is
where we're failing right now -- engaging more people to help us solve
problems. The strategic planning process is the first attempt to scale
up the small-room conversations of the past into the largest possible
meaningful consultation. How do we transform those plans and proposals
into volunteer workgroups and actions?

[ And yes, that's a bit off-topic for the thread, but I think pretty
on-topic for the list. ;-) ]

-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Milos Rancic]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:44 AM, Austin Hair wrote:
> I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for
> brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a
> cesspool.  Please feel free to ignore the initial thoughts I banged
> out as a starting point and refactor as you will.  If there's
> consensus on a better model, I'll happily implement it; even if there
> isn't, at least getting more people's thoughts on the matter is a
> start.

Let's try something different: As a list moderator, make a working
group to make a proposal (ask foundation-l participants to join you
and make some selection). When your group make a proposal, put it on
public discussion. And after changing the proposal according to
reasonable suggestions, implement it. I think that three months are
enough for this task.

Without any model, all of us may talk about everything: Tim suggested
forum, I would suggest that we should wait until Google Wave becomes
reality. And we may continue to talk about everything endlessly.

At the other side, I think that the vast majority of us would be happy
with some user-friendly, free speech-friendly and workable solution.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Anthony]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Tim Starling wrote:

> I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and
> instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be
> postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads
> can be moved or locked.
>

I only find that acceptable if a web-based forum can be found which allows
me to email myself every post/reply.  Citizendium switched to a web-based
forum and I absolutely hated it.  I have all my mailing lists accessible in
one location.  I am not interested in logging in to multiple websites.

I'm sure a web-based forum can be made to handle this request.  But I
haven't seen one that does it yet, only ones that do it partially and
half-assedly.

Anyway, I've already made my proposal.  Create a separate mailing list for
low traffic well-thought-out posts, and leave this one here for writing
what's on your mind without worrying about what percentage of subscribers
are going to like it.

Alternatively, put David Gerard in charge of foundation-l, or someone else
who isn't going to complain that the list is a cesspool but not be willing
to dictate to us what to do about it.  Basically, you've got two choices.
The second is to get off the pot.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Philippe Beaudette]

On Sep 8, 2009, at 10:37 PM, Tim Starling wrote:

> I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and
> instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be
> postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads
> can be moved or locked.


+me - and I would also point that for those who wish to be tied to  
email many web-based forums will send you email messages


Philippe

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Tim Starling]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell :
>> As such, it's time to try something different.
> 
> What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list
> communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more
> productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of
> this list, would you like to see change?

I think we should stop using this outdated technology altogether and
instead switch to a web-based forum, where comments can be
postmoderated (i.e. removed after posting), and unproductive threads
can be moved or locked.

Mailing lists, by their nature, have a large potential for abuse by
trolls and spammers. It's trivial to impersonate another user, or to
continue posting indefinitely despite being blocked. We're lucky that
the behaviour we've seen here has been merely inconsiderate, rather
than malicious.

Discussion on the English Wikipedia continues to function despite
hateful users who try every dirty trick they can think of to disrupt
the community. We're lucky that foundation-l has only seen the merest
hint of a reflection of that turmoil, because the tools we have to
deal with abusive behaviour on mailing lists are far less capable than
those that have been developed for Wikipedia.

-- Tim Starling


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Austin Hair]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:29 PM, Brian wrote:
> Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would
> like to see on foundation-l.

You're right, it doesn't.  I don't see it as my place to dictate, and
I'm looking for most of the input to come from others.

I do, however, hope we can all agree on a bare minimum of "a civil
forum for anyone interested to discuss Wikimedia Foundation issues."
As a practical matter, improving the signal:blah ratio makes the forum
more accessible—to community members, to trustees, to WMF Inc. staff
(who, often new to the community, may feel intimidated jumping in).

> To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The
> Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but
> they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable
> exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation
> business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like
> we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we
> not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it.

That's what I'm hoping we'll improve.

> I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I
> think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This
> list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed
> it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider
> whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If
> nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both
> increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also
> let the community know that it takes what they say seriously.

I agree, but also assert that this isn't going to happen as long as
95% of the traffic comes from 1% of subscribers and an extremely high
percentage of the overall volume is spent disputing minor points of
semantics and prose.  Volume is a problem, and it may not be one we
can solve, but maybe we can put more effort into the art of pith?

Austin

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Sue Gardner]

Sorry for top-posting, Brian. (I'm walking home, am on my Blackberry.)

I don't feel super-comfortable posting on behalf of the staff, but I think it's 
fair to say that some of the staff are a little afraid to engage on 
foundation-l --- it can be intimidating, especially for new people. I think the 
staff feels both an obligation and a desire to engage with community members, 
but some tend to do it in forums that feel safer and more supportive (which 
might be on internal-l, in structured or semi-structured IRC conversations, 
etc.). I think that's not necessarily ideal, but it's very human and 
understandable.

I don't think the answer to the problem is to focus on reducing the level of 
negativity -- I think that's backwards-looking and hard to do helpfully. But I 
think that if we aim to be generous and kind with each other, when that is 
appropriate, that could/would create a virtuous cycle of its own :-)

-Original Message-
From: Brian 

Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 20:29:09 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation


On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Austin Hair  wrote:

> I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for
> brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a
> cesspool.
>

Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would
like to see on foundation-l.

My take on foundation-l is that the foundation doesn't take it very
seriously. They recognize the potential of a mailing list and like the
possibilities, but in practice there are too many people being overly
critical of the foundation here for it to be useful to them. Also, the
topics of discussion often seem like useless jabs that aren't really in the
direction of progress. People are just itching to find the foundation doing
something wrong so they can start a riot.

This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in
backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress? Some of us feel
that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we
discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will
be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real
change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the
foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea.

Sue recently posted a couple of articles to foundation-l that were cookbooks
for how to shut people that you perceive to be unproductive out of your
community. That was obviously a flawed e-mail to send. Of course we are all
aware of people who want to discuss the color of the bike shed. Discussing
the difference between red and blue is not, in fact, a priori bad, and there
should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it
upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding
it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of
their employees in which they are expected to participate in these
discussions. This is, after all, the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list.
And yet with dozens of employees the Foundation's voice is but a whisper
here.

To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The
Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but
they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable
exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation
business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like
we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we
not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it.

I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I
think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This
list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed
it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider
whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If
nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both
increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also
let the community know that it takes what they say seriously.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Brian]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Austin Hair  wrote:

> I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for
> brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a
> cesspool.
>

Austin, your page says nothing about the kinds of conversations you would
like to see on foundation-l.

My take on foundation-l is that the foundation doesn't take it very
seriously. They recognize the potential of a mailing list and like the
possibilities, but in practice there are too many people being overly
critical of the foundation here for it to be useful to them. Also, the
topics of discussion often seem like useless jabs that aren't really in the
direction of progress. People are just itching to find the foundation doing
something wrong so they can start a riot.

This is unfortunate - why are so many people more interested in
backwards-looking criticism than forward-looking progress? Some of us feel
that the foundation has become out of our reach. That no matter how much we
discuss and try to reach consensus it will just be too hard, or there will
be a lack of interest in our consensus at the foundation, for any real
change to happen. You practically have to get a grant on behalf of the
foundation anymore in order to convince them you've got a good idea.

Sue recently posted a couple of articles to foundation-l that were cookbooks
for how to shut people that you perceive to be unproductive out of your
community. That was obviously a flawed e-mail to send. Of course we are all
aware of people who want to discuss the color of the bike shed. Discussing
the difference between red and blue is not, in fact, a priori bad, and there
should be some of that. More generally however the foundation should take it
upon themselves to increase the level of discourse on these lists by seeding
it with great topics, and, more importantly, allocating time from each of
their employees in which they are expected to participate in these
discussions. This is, after all, the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list.
And yet with dozens of employees the Foundation's voice is but a whisper
here.

To me, this is the thing that has gone most wrong about this list. The
Foundation just isn't here. They may be subscribed, and they may read, but
they do not participate. They do not lead by example (with a few notable
exceptions) by raising the level of discourse, and most all of Foundation
business is conducted either in person, or in private e-mails. We feel like
we have to shout in order to get their attention, and that not only do we
not know what they are up to, but we have no say in it.

I have seen it said several times that this list has too much traffic. I
think that's an overgeneralization - it has too much negative traffic. This
list can handle as much productive traffic as the foundation cares to seed
it with. Rather than having that conversation over private e-mail, consider
whether it could benefit from the voices of a few community members. If
nobody replies that's fine because by sending it the foundation has both
increased the level of transparency in its thinking and operations and also
let the community know that it takes what they say seriously.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Sue Gardner]

2009/9/8 Austin Hair :

> In Buenos Aires I had multiple people ask (even practically beg) me to
> do something about foundation-l.  One person said "fucking moderate
> foundation-l, already!"—to which I explained why I didn't think that
> moderating individuals was a solution, but had to admit that I didn't
> really have a better one.
>
> I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for
> brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a
> cesspool.  Please feel free to ignore the initial thoughts I banged
> out as a starting point and refactor as you will.  If there's
> consensus on a better model, I'll happily implement it; even if there
> isn't, at least getting more people's thoughts on the matter is a
> start.

Thanks Austin -- I have a lot of sympathy for your task here, and I
really appreciate you trying to come up with solutions that will help
foundation-l improve.

Personally, I use foundation-l because it's our most accessible public
channel for information-sharing and dialogue -- but that doesn't mean
I like it much; I don't.  I'm sure we all know plenty of people who
unsubscribed long ago, either because they don't like the generally
negative tone here, and/or because they find the signal-to-noise ratio
too low to suit them.   I assume that becomes (or long ago, became) a
self-reinforcing cycle, with an increasing number of
constructive/positive people leaving or falling silent, ceding the
mailing list to negativity.

It may sound like I am being really critical of the people who _are_
active here: I actually don't intend to be.  I think tough questions
and constructive criticism, done in good faith and with an open heart,
are a service to us all.  But I also believe we've lost our balance a
little, and it would be good to have some more appreciation and warmth
amidst the other stuff.

So I will do my bit by appreciating Austin. Thanks for making the page :-)







-- 
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] Use of moderation

[Austin Hair]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 6:05 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I'd prefer that moderation of this list be used as a last resort to
> maintain civil discourse and not as a tool to impose an external view
> of the desired traffic volume and especially not in a way which could
> be construed as prohibiting criticism.  Dealing with criticism,
> including occasional off-the-wall criticism and sometimes outright
> nutty criticism, is one of the costs of open and transparent
> governance.
>
> I make this post with over a year of consideration: had this kind of
> (in my view) heavy-handed moderation been effective at improving the
> discourse on this list, I would be left with little to say.  I don't
> think anyone here can say that it has improved. As such, it's time to
> try something different.

I agree, Greg.  Moderation obviously doesn't solve the underlying
problem; it's unevenly applied, and seldom fair to the parties
involved.  I try to avoid it, and limit moderation to cases of blatant
incivility and/or ridiculousness.  A fair bit of trolling is put up
with, as long as there's a purpose—Anthony has this down to an art.

In Buenos Aires I had multiple people ask (even practically beg) me to
do something about foundation-l.  One person said "fucking moderate
foundation-l, already!"—to which I explained why I didn't think that
moderating individuals was a solution, but had to admit that I didn't
really have a better one.

I've created http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l for
brainstorming of how to make this list a little bit less of a
cesspool.  Please feel free to ignore the initial thoughts I banged
out as a starting point and refactor as you will.  If there's
consensus on a better model, I'll happily implement it; even if there
isn't, at least getting more people's thoughts on the matter is a
start.

As for Greg Kohs, what finally got him moderated was the way he
reacted to the ongoing thread once his hasty conclusions were proven,
er, misguided.  Being nasty and uncivil isn't the only way to find
yourself moderated; few people are interested in having a thread be
drawn out for another week after it's descended to the point of
absurdity.

Austin

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Tue, 9/8/09, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:

> From: Gregory Maxwell 
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 
> Date: Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 6:05 PM
> In the thread "WMF seeking to
> sub-lease office space?"
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Austin Hair
> wrote:
> (to Gregory Kohs)
> [snip]
> >  I've placed you on indefinite
> > moderation with the goal of improving the signal:crazy
> ratio.
> 
> With something like 40 posts made to that thread after Mr.
> Kohs' last
> I think it is clear that the squelching of a (admittedly,
> trigger-happy) critic was ineffective at improving the SNB
> (signal-to-blah) ratio.
> 
> …while at the same time it increased the scent of
> idea-centric rather
> than presentation-centric censorship.
> 
> This is doubly a concern when moderation is used against
> someone who
> made an error that any one of us could have made and jumped
> to some
> hasty conclusions.
> 
> Certainly there are non-profits which are little more than
> fronts for
> their operators' private gains, ones started for that
> purpose, and
> ones which fall into it after years of normal operation. In
> some
> places and at some scales the kind of self-dealing Mr. Kohs
> was
> concerned about are arguably the norm.  I don't
> believe that they
> currently apply to Wikimedia but my confidence is in part
> derived from
> that fact that were there any real evidence of such things
> the critics
> would be all over it.  (I do, however, think Wikimedia
> has done a
> worse job than it could have at avoiding the perception of
> self-dealing)
> 
> Kohs was gleefully pointing at some supposed evidence of
> naughty-naughty. He missed a critical detail which made his
> position
> laughably wrong. I have no doubt that it was an honest
> mistake: in the
> end it only made him look silly. It was a mistake anyone
> could have
> made if they didn't begin by assuming good faith but the
> value of a
> critic is that they start with a different set of
> assumptions and
> values.
> 
> I'm of the view that the further growth and development of
> Wikimedia
> and its family of projects is utterly dependent on having
> solid,
> well-considered, and productively-spoken critics. Internet
> forums are
> highly vulnerable to groupthink: as we work together we
> become a
> family. It's all too easy to avoid thinking critically
> about your
> family and about things you've invested time in. It for
> this reason,
> under other names, that we invite outsiders to serve on our
> board. A
> view from outside of WMF's reality distortion field (and
> from inside
> someone else's RDF) is essential.
> 
> Mr. Kohs is frequently not an ideal critic: by being too
> prone to
> extreme positions, and by falling into accusations, he
> loses
> credibility. But even an off-the-wall critic can help make
> an
> environment more conducive to productive criticism. Someone
> more
> moderate may feel more comfortable speaking up when there
> is a strong
> critic handy to take the unreasonably extreme positions and
> the
> resulting heresy-fire and the existence of someone with an
> extreme
> position can help other people find a common ground.
> 
> I'd prefer that moderation of this list be used as a last
> resort to
> maintain civil discourse and not as a tool to impose an
> external view
> of the desired traffic volume and especially not in a way
> which could
> be construed as prohibiting criticism.  Dealing with
> criticism,
> including occasional off-the-wall criticism and sometimes
> outright
> nutty criticism, is one of the costs of open and
> transparent
> governance.
> 
> I make this post with over a year of consideration: had
> this kind of
> (in my view) heavy-handed moderation been effective at
> improving the
> discourse on this list, I would be left with little to
> say.  I don't
> think anyone here can say that it has improved. As such,
> it's time to
> try something different.
> 

I agree completely with Mr. Maxwell (we seem to have too many Gregory's on this 
topic) about the usefulness of critics and inappropriateness of using 
moderation to suppress criticism.   When Mr. Kohs was first moderated, I was 
not at all concerned.  I had just previously contacted him off-list to try and 
influence him to alter the tone of his emails while still continuing to share 
his substantive message. He complained to me of the moderation as suppression 
right away.  I dismissed him, saying he had given plenty of reason for being 
moderated by the 

Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Erik Moeller]

2009/9/8 Gregory Maxwell :
> As such, it's time to try something different.

What do you suggest? Are there models from other mailing list
communities that we should experiment with to create a healthier, more
productive discussion culture? What, based on your own experience of
this list, would you like to see change?
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Marc Riddell]

on 9/8/09 8:18 PM, Nathan at nawr...@gmail.com wrote:

> I don't think that this sort of moderation has been common in the
> past, but I think the moderation of Greg Kohs went a bit far - and for
> the reasons outlined by Greg Maxwell.
> 
> Nathan

I agree with you, Nathan. And I also agree with Mr. Churchill when he said,
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it
takes to sit down and listen."

Marc Riddell


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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Nathan]

I don't think that this sort of moderation has been common in the
past, but I think the moderation of Greg Kohs went a bit far - and for
the reasons outlined by Greg Maxwell.

Nathan

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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Milos Rancic]

+1

On 2009-09-09, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
> In the thread "WMF seeking to sub-lease office space?"
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Austin Hair wrote:
> (to Gregory Kohs)
> [snip]
>>  I've placed you on indefinite
>> moderation with the goal of improving the signal:crazy ratio.
>
> With something like 40 posts made to that thread after Mr. Kohs' last
> I think it is clear that the squelching of a (admittedly,
> trigger-happy) critic was ineffective at improving the SNB
> (signal-to-blah) ratio.
>
> …while at the same time it increased the scent of idea-centric rather
> than presentation-centric censorship.
>
> This is doubly a concern when moderation is used against someone who
> made an error that any one of us could have made and jumped to some
> hasty conclusions.
>
> Certainly there are non-profits which are little more than fronts for
> their operators' private gains, ones started for that purpose, and
> ones which fall into it after years of normal operation. In some
> places and at some scales the kind of self-dealing Mr. Kohs was
> concerned about are arguably the norm.  I don't believe that they
> currently apply to Wikimedia but my confidence is in part derived from
> that fact that were there any real evidence of such things the critics
> would be all over it.  (I do, however, think Wikimedia has done a
> worse job than it could have at avoiding the perception of
> self-dealing)
>
> Kohs was gleefully pointing at some supposed evidence of
> naughty-naughty. He missed a critical detail which made his position
> laughably wrong. I have no doubt that it was an honest mistake: in the
> end it only made him look silly. It was a mistake anyone could have
> made if they didn't begin by assuming good faith but the value of a
> critic is that they start with a different set of assumptions and
> values.
>
> I'm of the view that the further growth and development of Wikimedia
> and its family of projects is utterly dependent on having solid,
> well-considered, and productively-spoken critics. Internet forums are
> highly vulnerable to groupthink: as we work together we become a
> family. It's all too easy to avoid thinking critically about your
> family and about things you've invested time in. It for this reason,
> under other names, that we invite outsiders to serve on our board. A
> view from outside of WMF's reality distortion field (and from inside
> someone else's RDF) is essential.
>
> Mr. Kohs is frequently not an ideal critic: by being too prone to
> extreme positions, and by falling into accusations, he loses
> credibility. But even an off-the-wall critic can help make an
> environment more conducive to productive criticism. Someone more
> moderate may feel more comfortable speaking up when there is a strong
> critic handy to take the unreasonably extreme positions and the
> resulting heresy-fire and the existence of someone with an extreme
> position can help other people find a common ground.
>
> I'd prefer that moderation of this list be used as a last resort to
> maintain civil discourse and not as a tool to impose an external view
> of the desired traffic volume and especially not in a way which could
> be construed as prohibiting criticism.  Dealing with criticism,
> including occasional off-the-wall criticism and sometimes outright
> nutty criticism, is one of the costs of open and transparent
> governance.
>
> I make this post with over a year of consideration: had this kind of
> (in my view) heavy-handed moderation been effective at improving the
> discourse on this list, I would be left with little to say.  I don't
> think anyone here can say that it has improved. As such, it's time to
> try something different.
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

-- 
Sent from my mobile device

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[Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Gregory Maxwell]

In the thread "WMF seeking to sub-lease office space?"
On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Austin Hair wrote:
(to Gregory Kohs)
[snip]
>  I've placed you on indefinite
> moderation with the goal of improving the signal:crazy ratio.

With something like 40 posts made to that thread after Mr. Kohs' last
I think it is clear that the squelching of a (admittedly,
trigger-happy) critic was ineffective at improving the SNB
(signal-to-blah) ratio.

…while at the same time it increased the scent of idea-centric rather
than presentation-centric censorship.

This is doubly a concern when moderation is used against someone who
made an error that any one of us could have made and jumped to some
hasty conclusions.

Certainly there are non-profits which are little more than fronts for
their operators' private gains, ones started for that purpose, and
ones which fall into it after years of normal operation. In some
places and at some scales the kind of self-dealing Mr. Kohs was
concerned about are arguably the norm.  I don't believe that they
currently apply to Wikimedia but my confidence is in part derived from
that fact that were there any real evidence of such things the critics
would be all over it.  (I do, however, think Wikimedia has done a
worse job than it could have at avoiding the perception of
self-dealing)

Kohs was gleefully pointing at some supposed evidence of
naughty-naughty. He missed a critical detail which made his position
laughably wrong. I have no doubt that it was an honest mistake: in the
end it only made him look silly. It was a mistake anyone could have
made if they didn't begin by assuming good faith but the value of a
critic is that they start with a different set of assumptions and
values.

I'm of the view that the further growth and development of Wikimedia
and its family of projects is utterly dependent on having solid,
well-considered, and productively-spoken critics. Internet forums are
highly vulnerable to groupthink: as we work together we become a
family. It's all too easy to avoid thinking critically about your
family and about things you've invested time in. It for this reason,
under other names, that we invite outsiders to serve on our board. A
view from outside of WMF's reality distortion field (and from inside
someone else's RDF) is essential.

Mr. Kohs is frequently not an ideal critic: by being too prone to
extreme positions, and by falling into accusations, he loses
credibility. But even an off-the-wall critic can help make an
environment more conducive to productive criticism. Someone more
moderate may feel more comfortable speaking up when there is a strong
critic handy to take the unreasonably extreme positions and the
resulting heresy-fire and the existence of someone with an extreme
position can help other people find a common ground.

I'd prefer that moderation of this list be used as a last resort to
maintain civil discourse and not as a tool to impose an external view
of the desired traffic volume and especially not in a way which could
be construed as prohibiting criticism.  Dealing with criticism,
including occasional off-the-wall criticism and sometimes outright
nutty criticism, is one of the costs of open and transparent
governance.

I make this post with over a year of consideration: had this kind of
(in my view) heavy-handed moderation been effective at improving the
discourse on this list, I would be left with little to say.  I don't
think anyone here can say that it has improved. As such, it's time to
try something different.

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