Re: [Wikimedia-l] Implementing Katherine's Vision: "Discussing Discussions"

[Pax Ahimsa Gethen]

Chris Schilling gave a talk on harassment with regards to June's Inspire 
Campaign [1], at yesterday's Metrics & Activities meeting [2]. In it, he 
discussed an idea I had about reducing/preventing user page harassment 
[3], which we turned into an RfC [4], and is now being worked out on 
Phabricator [5].


- Pax aka Funcrunch

[1] https://youtu.be/4GHy3BIx3JM?t=16m29s
[2] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_metrics_and_activities_meetings
[3] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Protect_user_space_by_default
[4] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Protect_user_pages_by_default

[5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149445


On 11/18/16 11:35 AM, C. Scott Ananian wrote:

A few weeks ago our Executive Director gave a talk on "Privacy and
Harassment on the Internet" at MozFest 2016 in London.  I encourage you to
read the transcript:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Privacy_and_Harassment_on_the_Internet


Katherine argued that the Wikimedia project can take a lead role in
creating a culture of respect and inclusion online.  I whole-heartedly
agree, and I hope you all do too.  She concluded with:

"We have a lot of work to do. I know that. We know that. As Molly’s story

illustrates, we are not there yet."


I'd like to open a broader discussion on how we get "there": how to
build/maintain places where we can get work done and control abuse and
vandalism while still remaining wide open to the universe of differing
viewpoints present in our projects.  We can't afford to create filter
bubbles, but we must be able to provide users safe(r) spaces to work.

By habit I would propose that this be a technical discussion, on specific
tools or features that our platform is currently missing to facilitate
healthy discussions.  But the "filter bubble" is a social problem, not a
technical one.  Our project isn't just a collection of code; it's a
community, a set of norms and habits, and a reflection of the social
process of collaboration.  A graph algorithm might be able to identify a
filter bubble and good UX can make countervailing opinions no more than a
click away, but it takes human will to seek out uncomfortable truth.

So although my endgame is specific engineering tasks, we need to start with
a broader conversation about our work as social creatures.  How do we work
in the projects, how do we communicate among ourselves, and how do we
balance openness and the pursuit of truth with the fight against abuse,
harassment, and bias.

Let's discuss discussions!

Here are some jumping off points; feel free to contribute your own:

We currently use a mixture of Talk pages, Echo, mailing lists, IRC,
Phabricator, OTRS, Slack, Conpherence, and Google Doc on our projects, with
different logging, publication, privacy/identity, and other
characteristics.  I tried to start cataloging them here:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-November/085542.html


Because of this diversity, we lack a unified code of conduct or mechanism
to report/combat harassment and vandalism.

Matt Flaschen replied in the above thread with an update on the Code of
Conduct for technical spaces:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-November/085542.html

...which should definitely help!  The creation of a centralized reporting
mechanism, in particular, would be most welcome.

I created a proposal for the Wikimedia Developer Summit in January
discussing "safe spaces" on our projects:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149665

Subscribe/comment/click "award token" to support its inclusion in the dev
summit or to start a conversation there.

I have another, broader, proposal as well, on the "future of chat" on our
projects:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149661

Subscribe/comment/click "award token" there if that angle piques your
interest.

It seems that "groups of users" arise repeatedly as an architectural
meta-concept, whether it's a group of collaborators you want to invite to
an editing session, a group of users you want to block or ban, a group of
users who belong to a particular wikiproject, or who watch a certain page.
We don't really have a first-class representation of that concept in our
code right now.  In previous conversations I've heard that people "don't
want  to turn into another facebook" and so have pushed
back strongly on the idea of "friend lists" (one type of group of users) --
but inverting the concept to allow WikiProjects to maintain a list of
"members of the wikiproject" is more palatable, more focused on the editing
task.  From a computer science perspective "friend list" and "member of a
wikiproject" might seem identical--they are both lists of users--but from a
social perspective the connotations and focus are significantly different.
But who administers that list of users?

Perhaps we can build a system which avoids grappling with user groups
entirely.  It was suggested that we might use an ORES-like system to
automatically suggest 

[Wikimedia-l] Implementing Katherine's Vision: "Discussing Discussions"

[C. Scott Ananian]

A few weeks ago our Executive Director gave a talk on "Privacy and
Harassment on the Internet" at MozFest 2016 in London.  I encourage you to
read the transcript:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Privacy_and_Harassment_on_the_Internet


Katherine argued that the Wikimedia project can take a lead role in
creating a culture of respect and inclusion online.  I whole-heartedly
agree, and I hope you all do too.  She concluded with:

"We have a lot of work to do. I know that. We know that. As Molly’s story
> illustrates, we are not there yet."


I'd like to open a broader discussion on how we get "there": how to
build/maintain places where we can get work done and control abuse and
vandalism while still remaining wide open to the universe of differing
viewpoints present in our projects.  We can't afford to create filter
bubbles, but we must be able to provide users safe(r) spaces to work.

By habit I would propose that this be a technical discussion, on specific
tools or features that our platform is currently missing to facilitate
healthy discussions.  But the "filter bubble" is a social problem, not a
technical one.  Our project isn't just a collection of code; it's a
community, a set of norms and habits, and a reflection of the social
process of collaboration.  A graph algorithm might be able to identify a
filter bubble and good UX can make countervailing opinions no more than a
click away, but it takes human will to seek out uncomfortable truth.

So although my endgame is specific engineering tasks, we need to start with
a broader conversation about our work as social creatures.  How do we work
in the projects, how do we communicate among ourselves, and how do we
balance openness and the pursuit of truth with the fight against abuse,
harassment, and bias.

Let's discuss discussions!

Here are some jumping off points; feel free to contribute your own:

We currently use a mixture of Talk pages, Echo, mailing lists, IRC,
Phabricator, OTRS, Slack, Conpherence, and Google Doc on our projects, with
different logging, publication, privacy/identity, and other
characteristics.  I tried to start cataloging them here:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-November/085542.html


Because of this diversity, we lack a unified code of conduct or mechanism
to report/combat harassment and vandalism.

Matt Flaschen replied in the above thread with an update on the Code of
Conduct for technical spaces:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-November/085542.html

...which should definitely help!  The creation of a centralized reporting
mechanism, in particular, would be most welcome.

I created a proposal for the Wikimedia Developer Summit in January
discussing "safe spaces" on our projects:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149665

Subscribe/comment/click "award token" to support its inclusion in the dev
summit or to start a conversation there.

I have another, broader, proposal as well, on the "future of chat" on our
projects:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149661

Subscribe/comment/click "award token" there if that angle piques your
interest.

It seems that "groups of users" arise repeatedly as an architectural
meta-concept, whether it's a group of collaborators you want to invite to
an editing session, a group of users you want to block or ban, a group of
users who belong to a particular wikiproject, or who watch a certain page.
We don't really have a first-class representation of that concept in our
code right now.  In previous conversations I've heard that people "don't
want  to turn into another facebook" and so have pushed
back strongly on the idea of "friend lists" (one type of group of users) --
but inverting the concept to allow WikiProjects to maintain a list of
"members of the wikiproject" is more palatable, more focused on the editing
task.  From a computer science perspective "friend list" and "member of a
wikiproject" might seem identical--they are both lists of users--but from a
social perspective the connotations and focus are significantly different.
But who administers that list of users?

Perhaps we can build a system which avoids grappling with user groups
entirely.  It was suggested that we might use an ORES-like system to
automatically suggest collaborators on an editing project based on some
criteria (like editing history), rather than force you or the WikiProject
to maintain an explicit list.  Perhaps you can implement block lists to
combat harassment based entirely on keywords, not users.  Do we trust the
machine to be more fair and less abusive than us mere mortals? Additional
ideas welcome!   (I don't have a dedicated phab task for this, but
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149665 might be appropriate if you want
to contribute off-list.)


Hopefully this has been enough to prime the pump.

Let's discuss discussions.

Let's live up to the hope placed in us by the Washington Post:

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Funds Dissemination Committee Recommendations for Round 1 2016-2017

[Christophe Henner]

Thank you everyone for the hard work and all the reading you had to go
through :)

Le 18 nov. 2016 10:19 AM, "Frans Grijzenhout"  a écrit :

> Hi Anne, thank you for this report and for sharing with us the
> deliberations on the requests. We greatly appreciate the constructive and
> thoughtful approach.
> Frans
>
>
>
> *Frans Grijzenhout*, voorzitter / chair
> +31 6 5333 9499  -  http://www.wikimedia.nl/
>
> --
> *Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland*
> *Postadres*: *Bezoekadres:*
> Postbus 167   Mariaplaats 3
> 3500 AD  Utrecht3511 LH Utrecht
> Kamer van Koophandel 17189036
>
>
>
> 2016-11-18 4:23 GMT+01:00 Risker :
>
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> >
> > The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to make
> > recommendations about how to effectively allocate movement funds to
> achieve
> > the Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy.  This is now the
> > 9th round of allocations made by the FDC, and we met in person from
> > November 13-17 in San Francisco to deliberate on 11 proposals submitted
> > this round. We would like to thank all of the participating organizations
> > for the hard work they put into this round’s proposals.
> >
> >
> > Our recommendations for Round 1 2016-2017 on the annual plan grants to
> the
> > Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees have now been posted on Meta.[1]
> The
> > Board will review our deliberations and make a decision by January 1,
> 2017.
> >
> >
> > We received grant requests for approximately USD 3,467,000 this round
> > (including two requests for two-year funding). Before we met, committee
> > members reviewed all of the proposals and documents submitted.  We were
> > assisted in this review with input from the FDC staff assessments which
> > included analysis on impact, finances, and programs, as well as community
> > comments on the proposals.
> >
> >
> > As you may know, there is a formal process to submit complaints or
> appeals
> > about these recommendations. Here are the steps for both:
> >
> >
> > Any organization that would like to submit an appeal on the FDC’s Round 1
> > recommendation should submit it to the Board representatives to the FDC
> by
> > 23:59 UTC on 8 December 2016 in accord with the appeal process outlined
> in
> > the FDC Framework [2]. A formal appeal to challenge the FDC’s
> > recommendation should be in the form of a 500-or-fewer word summary
> > directed to the two non-voting WMF Board representatives to the FDC,
> > Dariusz Jemielniak and Guy Kawasaki. The appeal should be submitted
> > on-wiki, and must be submitted by the Board Chair of a funding-seeking
> > applicant. The Wikimedia Foundation Board will publish its decision on
> this
> > and all recommendations by January 1, 2017.
> >
> >
> > Anyone can file a complaint about the FDC process [3] with the
> Ombudsperson
> > at any time. The complaint should be submitted on wiki, as well. The
> > Ombudsperson will publicly document the complaint, and investigate as
> > needed.
> >
> >
> >
> > On behalf of the FDC,
> >
> >
> > Anne Clin / Risker
> >
> > FDC Chair
> >
> >
> > [1]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_recommendatio
> ns/2016-2017_
> > round_1
> >
> > [2]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Appeals_to_the_Board_on_the_
> > recommendations_of_the_FDC
> >
> > [3]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Complaints_
> > about_the_FDC_process
> > ___
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> > 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor safety and anonymity: ending IP address exposure?

[rupert THURNER]

On Nov 18, 2016 05:09, "Gergo Tisza"  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Nov 12, 2016 at 12:02 PM, Brion Vibber 
> wrote:
>
> > 1) Eliminate IP address exposure for non-logged-in editors. Those
editors
> > should be either given a random, truly anonymous identifier, or
required to
> > create a pseudonym as a login.
> >
>
> I filed https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T133452 for that a while ago
(but
> then never got around to expand it). It >
I am thrilled about this proposal thank you brion and get-go.

Rupert
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Conference 2017: Information on Program Design Process

[Cornelius Kibelka]

Dear Wikimedia friends,

Following Christian’s invitation two weeks ago and Daniela’s and
Wenke’s email some minutes ago, we will now provide you with
information regarding program related next steps of the Wikimedia
Conference 2017 (WMCON17). A more detailed version of this email can
be found on Meta. Please use the talk pages for your questions and
comments.[1]

Together with you, we want to make this Wikimedia Conference a great
experience for all participants. Cornelius Kibelka (Program and
Engagement Coordinator, PEC) and Nicole Ebber (International Advisor,
Curator of WMCON) will work together with the facilitators as well as
the participants to create the conference program in the coming weeks
and months. The conference will have three programmatic tracks:

== 1: Movement Strategy ==

Developing a strategic vision for the future of our movement is one of
the top priorities for 2017. Although the Wikimedia Foundation is
playing the primary coordinating role, this is meant to be a community
process with involvement from across the movement, and all volunteers
interested in engaging in its development are invited and strongly
encouraged to participate. The Wikimedia Conference will serve as one
of the platforms for participation and input from movement affiliates
and allies.


== 2: Movement Partnerships ==

Wikimedia organizations and groups have a wide variety of experiences
and knowledge in working with partners to achieve our mission.
However, we have never talked about what kind of partnerships we can
build nor how an excellent partnership looks like. Being able to
achieve our mission together with movement and external partners has
been the subject of occasional sessions at past WMCONs. This time we
will deepen the conversation, try to develop a joint language and
understanding of partnerships and open up opportunities for peer
sharing and consultation.

== 3: Capacity Building & Learning ==

Based on the experiences of the last Wikimedia Conferences, we will
have again a programmatic track that focuses on shared learning and
buildings capacities among Wikimedia organizations and groups.
Learning sessions will be built according to the needs, wishes,
experiences and knowledge expressed in the registration form.

== How to select the delegates ==

WMCON is all about participation. To make the conference a success it
will be essential for the invited affiliates to deliberately select
their delegates. Participants should come to Berlin to learn and to
share, but also to bring the information and learnings back home. We
are seeking delegates who will be actively engaged before, during and
after the conference and can represent their affiliates. Ideal
delegates are those who are involved in the decision making processes
in the organization, striving to help shape the future of the
movement, partnerships specialists or program leaders[2].

== How to prepare for the registration ==

Registration has opened today and closes on January 8, 2017. In the
months between the registration and WMCON, the PEC will work on the
program with the registered participants. Because we want to build the
program to fit participant needs and experiences, we would like to
learn a little more about your interests in advance. We have published
an overview of the questions[3] that we are using in the registration
form. Please make yourself familiar with these questions, as they can
also help you to select the delegates.

== What’s next ==

We have opened the registration today. Daniela Gentner will be the
main contact for all questions regarding the logistics, you can reach
out to her via wm...@wikimedia.de.

Cornelius Kibelka is your main contact for all questions related to
the program of the Wikimedia Conference. You can contact him via
cornelius.kibe...@wikimedia.de.

We are looking forward to welcoming many of you in Berlin in March next year.

Nicole + Cornelius


[1] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017/Program_Design_Process

[2] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017/Program_Design_Process#How_to_select_the_delegates

[3] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017/Program_Design_Process#Prepare_for_the_registration



-- 
Cornelius Kibelka
Program and Engagement Coordinator (PEC)
for the Wikimedia Conference

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
http://wikimedia.de

Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207

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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Conference 2017: Registration now open

[Daniela Gentner]

Dear Wikimedians,

We are delighted to announce that the registration for the Wikimedia
Conference 2017 [1], which will be held in Berlin from Friday, March
31, through Sunday, April 2, is now open!

Following Christian’s invitation from November 4, we would like to
provide you with important information regarding the eligibility for
participation, participant number regulation, registration procedure,
specifics in regards to the travel and hotel booking as well as the
visa application process.


== Eligibility criteria and participant number regulation ==

The eligibility criteria for participating in the Wikimedia Conference
2017 are aligned to the Affiliates’ Agreements with the Wikimedia
Foundation. Chapters, Thematic Organizations and User Groups must have
shown signs of recent activity (within the last six months) and be
up-to-date on their reporting [2] by the eligibility deadline
(December 1, 2016). Moreover, affiliations need to have been
officially recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation before March 30,
2016. Before registering for the conference, please check the
eligibility and status overview of your affiliate as well as the
participant number regulation on meta [3].


==Registration information==

To make the conference a success, it will be essential for the invited
affiliates to deliberately choose their delegates. Affiliates are
asked to only send delegates that are well-informed in goings-on at
the affiliate, able to confidently answer questions about it and share
experience from their group. They should also be empowered to commit
their group to involvement in proposed projects or initiatives. We
recommend to follow the “How to select the delegates” information,
which is published on meta [4].

Persons, who are selected by their organization to represent them at
the conference, need to register via the registration form [5]. The
registration deadline is Sunday, January 8, 2017. Please note that we
won’t be able to accept and process registrations after this deadline.

We are looking forward to also welcoming members of the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees and staff, the Funds Dissemination
Committee as well as the Affiliations Committee in Berlin. We see a
huge advantage in having their representatives participate on site.
Please also register via the registration link [5].

In addition to the core-conference, pre-conference Learning Days on
Wednesday and Thursday, March 29-30, are organized by the WMF Learning
and Evaluation team [6]. Should you be interested in participating in
these Learning Days, you can indicate your interest in the
registration form as well. There is also a Boards Training Workshop
[7] organized by Frans Grijzenhout (chair of Wikimedia Nederland) and
Tim-Moritz Hector (chair of Wikimedia Deutschland), invitations for
this workshop are sent via the chairs mailing list.

For the purpose of helping affiliates to check that only their
selected representatives have registered and enable participants to
connect before the conference and stay involved afterwards, we will
publish all participants’ names on the meta page [8] shortly after
registration.

Further information on the registration process can be retrieved from meta [9].


==Hotel and travel booking==

The Wikimedia Conference will take place at the Mercure Hotel Berlin
Tempelhof Airport[10] in Berlin’s neighbourhood Neukölln. A high
number of hotel rooms, which are conveniently located on the levels
above the conference venue,  have been reserved for the conference
participants. All rooms include Wifi, breakfast and have their own
bathroom.

Representatives of affiliates with an annual plan grant (group 1) will
need to book and pay for their hotel rooms as well as travel
individually. The hotel booking form and price information can be
found on meta [11].

Affiliates, which don’t receive funding via an annual plan grant
(group 2), will be supported by WMDE for their hotel needs and WMF for
their travel booking.

Members of the WMF Board, FDC, AffCom or WMF staff (group 3) receive
travel and hotel booking support by the WMF Travel department.

We advise you to check meta [3] to which group you belong to.


==Visa information==

In case you are in need of a visa, WMDE will assist you with the
application process. All relevant information and necessary steps to
undertake are described on meta [12].

Wikimedia Deutschland is looking forward to welcoming you in Berlin in March!

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us any time via
wm...@wikimedia.de should you have any questions or comments.


Best regards,

Wenke and Daniela
Organizing Team WMCON

Wikimedia Deutschland
wm...@wikimedia.de


[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports
[3] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017/Eligibility_Criteria
[4] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017/Program_Design_Process#How_to_select_the_delegates
[5] 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Editor safety and anonymity: ending IP address exposure?

[C. Scott Ananian]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 11:09 PM, Gergo Tisza  wrote:

>
> the ability to claim recent anonymous edits when you register.
>

Here, here.  I'm sure my IP address is lying around in lots of places in
the wikidump because I forgot to log in or my cookie expired and I never
noticed.  Automating the task of claiming those edits once you log in would
go far toward preventing accidental IP exposure.

I might also suggest thinking of this in terms of architectural change.  We
have been too casual about IP information inside mediawiki.  What if we
took as a first step factoring out all IP-related code from the core db and
pushing it into a separate db.  So instead of "IP edits" we have some sort
of automatically-generated pseudonym *but also recorded the IP address
associated with this pseudonym in a separate database* -- perhaps this
function is actually in an extension, not in core mediawiki.  Now we
preserve all our abilities to track down sock puppets or do IP blocks, but
at the cost of one indirection.

We can then take steps to further protect/limit/purge this IP address
database independent of the core mediawiki database, and we don't have
"hidden gotchas" in the core code because the core code doesn't manipulate
IPs any more.  And folks who do routine tasks like processing archive dumps
of the core db don't stumble across IPs.
  --scott

-- 
(http://cscott.net)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] (no subject)

[C. Scott Ananian]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:30 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> As a reminder: IRC is governed by Freenode. Channels can have their own
> rules, and there are widely varying systems of internal governance for
> Wikimedia IRC channels. I think it's important to note that WMF and the
> Wikimedia community are guests on Freenode, and I'm uncomfortable with the
> proposition to extend a WMF policy into IRC channels without explicit
> consent from the ops of those channels; it seems to me that the TCC would
> be a per-channel opt-in on IRC, not a WMF blanket standard.
>
> Speaking more generally, I am wary of WMF encroachment into what I should
> be fundamentally community-governed spaces. I have not heard a lot of
> objections from the community to the proposed technical code of conduct,
> and I've heard some arguments for and against the rationale for having it;
> my main concern is that I would prefer that the final document be ratified
> through community-led processes.
>

I agree that changes here should involve heavy community participation,
which is a reason I'm trying to initiate broader discussion.

We have been moderately successful in "outsourcing" real time chat to a
third-party (IRC and Freenode) in the past, but it does leave us out of
control of what may become a fundamental technology for our platform.
Certainly we could simply embed a web-based IRC client in talk pages, for
instance.  That would continue the status quo. It's certainly one point in
the possible solution space, and I'm not foreclosing that.  I just think we
should discuss discussions holistically.  What are the benefits of
disclaiming responsibility for real time chat?  What are the benefits of
the freenode conduct policy?  What are the disadvantages?

We could also "more tightly integrate chat" without leaving IRC or
Freenode.  For the [[en:MIT Mystery Hunt]] many teams build quite elaborate
IRC bots that layer additional functionalities on top of IRC.  Matt's email
mentioned a "central reporting place".  We could certainly allow IRC
channels to opt-in to a WMF code of conduct and opt-in to running a WMF bot
providing a standardized and consistent reporting mechanism/block
list/abuse logger.  That's another point in the solution space.

My personal dog in the race is "tools".  I totally love community-led
processes.  But I am concerned that WMF is not providing the communities
adequate *tools* to make meaningful improvements in their social
environments.  Twitter rolled out a new suite of anti-abuse features this
week (https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/15/twitter-online-abuse-mute-features/)
so sadly the WMF platform is now behind twitter in terms of providing a
healthy working environment for our contributors.  We need to step up our
game.  As you note, the first step is this discussion involving the
community to take a broad look at discussions on our platform and determine
some basic social principles as well as architectural planks and
commonalities.  Hopefully we can then follow that up with an aggressive
development effort to deploy some new tools and features.  I believe this
will be an iterative process: our first tools will fall short, and we'll
need to continue "discussing discussions", revisiting assumptions, and
building improved tools.

But we can't allow ourselves to stand still.
 --scott

-- 
(http://cscott.net)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Funds Dissemination Committee Recommendations for Round 1 2016-2017

[Frans Grijzenhout]

Hi Anne, thank you for this report and for sharing with us the
deliberations on the requests. We greatly appreciate the constructive and
thoughtful approach.
Frans



*Frans Grijzenhout*, voorzitter / chair
+31 6 5333 9499  -  http://www.wikimedia.nl/

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2016-11-18 4:23 GMT+01:00 Risker :

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
>
> The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to make
> recommendations about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve
> the Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy.  This is now the
> 9th round of allocations made by the FDC, and we met in person from
> November 13-17 in San Francisco to deliberate on 11 proposals submitted
> this round. We would like to thank all of the participating organizations
> for the hard work they put into this round’s proposals.
>
>
> Our recommendations for Round 1 2016-2017 on the annual plan grants to the
> Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees have now been posted on Meta.[1] The
> Board will review our deliberations and make a decision by January 1, 2017.
>
>
> We received grant requests for approximately USD 3,467,000 this round
> (including two requests for two-year funding). Before we met, committee
> members reviewed all of the proposals and documents submitted.  We were
> assisted in this review with input from the FDC staff assessments which
> included analysis on impact, finances, and programs, as well as community
> comments on the proposals.
>
>
> As you may know, there is a formal process to submit complaints or appeals
> about these recommendations. Here are the steps for both:
>
>
> Any organization that would like to submit an appeal on the FDC’s Round 1
> recommendation should submit it to the Board representatives to the FDC by
> 23:59 UTC on 8 December 2016 in accord with the appeal process outlined in
> the FDC Framework [2]. A formal appeal to challenge the FDC’s
> recommendation should be in the form of a 500-or-fewer word summary
> directed to the two non-voting WMF Board representatives to the FDC,
> Dariusz Jemielniak and Guy Kawasaki. The appeal should be submitted
> on-wiki, and must be submitted by the Board Chair of a funding-seeking
> applicant. The Wikimedia Foundation Board will publish its decision on this
> and all recommendations by January 1, 2017.
>
>
> Anyone can file a complaint about the FDC process [3] with the Ombudsperson
> at any time. The complaint should be submitted on wiki, as well. The
> Ombudsperson will publicly document the complaint, and investigate as
> needed.
>
>
>
> On behalf of the FDC,
>
>
> Anne Clin / Risker
>
> FDC Chair
>
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_recommendations/2016-2017_
> round_1
>
> [2]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Appeals_to_the_Board_on_the_
> recommendations_of_the_FDC
>
> [3]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Complaints_
> about_the_FDC_process
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