Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF advanced permissions for employees

[Pine W]

How would you suggest modifying the process so that it is compatible with
community governance? Note that while I'm dissatisfied with the system that
is in place now, I doubt that there will be a perfect solution that is free
from all possible criticism and drama. I would give the current system a
grade of "C-" for transparency and a grade of "F" for its compatibility
with community governance. I don't expect ether grade to get to an "A", but
I would be satisfied with "B" for transparency and "B+" for community
governance.



Pine


On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 11:21 AM, Adrian Raddatz 
wrote:

> Wikimedia isn't a country, the global ban policy isn't a law. Any such
> metaphors are honestly a bit ridiculous. The WMF bans are, for the most
> part, sensitive. And that means that they all need to be, because if you
> have a list of reasons that you can disclose, then any bans without comment
> are going to be on a very short list of quite serious reasons. Plus, the
> ones without a reason would still have the "wikipediocracy-lite" crowd that
> seems to dominate this list in a fuss.
>
> It's also worth noting that the WMF provides some basic details of global
> bans to certain trusted community groups. The issue isn't with disclosure,
> it's with mass disclosure.
>
> On Feb 17, 2017 11:09 AM, "Pine W"  wrote:
>
> > I am glad to hear that WMF global bans are processed through multiple
> > people. Still, I am deeply uncomfortable with the lack of community
> > involvement in this process as well as the lack of transparency. In the
> US
> > we don't trust professional law enforcement agencies to make decisions
> > about who should go to jail without giving the accused the right to a
> trial
> > by a jury of their peers. Unless we have lost faith in peer governance
> > (which would be a radical break with open source philosophy) I think it
> is
> > both unwise and inappropriate to have "the professionals" make these
> > decisions behind closed doors and with zero community involvement in the
> > process.
> >
> > I am in favor of professionals working on investigations, and in
> > enforcement of community decisions to ban *after* those decisions have
> been
> > made by the community through some meaningful due process. I oppose
> letting
> > "the professionals" decide among themselves who should be banned.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF advanced permissions for employees

[Pine W]

As compared to the current system, I'd be much more comfortable with a
hybrid model, where WMF and community representatives share authority for
making a global ban decision.

We have plenty of cases already where community members review highly
sensitive evidence and make administrative decisions based on that
evidence. I would disagree with a notion that community members who have
passed a reasonable community vetting process are untrustworthy or
incompetent by default (there is ample evidence to the contrary), and that
WMF employees are always super-humanly trustworthy and competent by virtue
of their office (remember the previous WMF executive director?). Also note
that people with good intentions sometimes make mistakes, and that
groupthink can be a serious problem. All of these factors should be taken
into consideration when designing a system for global bans.

I don't expect to come up with a system that is 100% transparent (I don't
think that would be legal in some cases), 100% run by the community (that
would put too much of a burden on already overworked volunteers), and 100%
reliable (which is unrealistic). But I'm sure that we can design a system
that is much better than the one that we have today.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF advanced permissions for employees

[Pine W]

AJ,

> "Just because volunteers are competent enough to deal with something
doesn't
> mean that they should be."

Can you clarify that, please?

> "Again, the difference here is between these
> sensitive cases being handled by trained, experienced, legally accountable
> professionals, or by volunteers who are part-time at best."

I am puzzled by your lack of faith in the quality of work of our peers
in the community. Why be so negative? We have produced Wikipedia;
surely that is evidence that volunteers can be highly capable.

Certainly not all volunteers are, of course, and some of them end up
banned for good reason. But in general, I think there is good
reason to have faith in our peers.

I'm not sure how volunteers are not "legally accountable"; perhaps you
could clarify that point.

> How much time are you expecting the community-vetted volunteers to put in
> here? Do we not already have our own responsibilities?

I agree with you that a good use of WMF funds is to pay staff to work on
investigations and enforcement. This can be done in such a way that
there is always some kind of community element in a decision-maker role
regarding whether to ban a member of the community.

In addition to staff resources, I would like to see WMF put more effort into
expanding the population of the volunteer community, particularly long-term
volunteers who gain sufficient knowledge and experience to serve in
higher-skill roles such as CU/OS, technical development, outreach to
GLAM+STEM organizations, and mentorship of new Wikimedians.

> You say that the current
> system is broken, because... why?

I say that the current system is inappropriate (not broken) because
WMF should not be making decisions about who is banned from the community.
The purpose of WMF is to serve and nurture the community, not to rule it.

> The community doesn't deal with it?
> That's a good thing. The community shouldn't need to deal with this stuff.
> It's a blessing, not a curse.

I agree that having staff involved in investigations and enforcement is a
good thing.
But as I said, I find it inappropriate and unwise for WMF to (1) have a
largely opaque
process for making these decisions and (2) exclude the community from
the decision-making process.

> It might be worth explaining some more of the
> bans process publicly, perhaps on a wiki page, to alleviate fears that
it's
> just being used to get rid of people that the Foundation doesn't like.

I agree with you.

I think that global bans are reasonable options in some cases. In terms of
quantity, I would like to see more of them and to see bans initiated more
quickly, such as against undisclosed COI editors who violate the terms of
service.
I would also like to see better technical tools for enforcing bans. But I
want the
community, in some fashion (probably through some kind of committee, as
has been suggested elsewhere in this thread) to make the decision about
whether to impose a global ban, in consultation with WMF.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF advanced permissions for employees

[Pine W]

I'm glad that we're having this discussion, as there are several points
being made that should be considered in the documentation and design of the
global bans system.

I'm trying to think of what next steps would look like for reforming this
system. I'd suggest something like the following:

0. Agreement from WMF to reform the system, and a timeline for doing so.
For example, perhaps there would be agreement to start a "consultation" on
this matter in Q4. The consultation could be designed jointly by
representatives from WMF Legal, WMF SuSa, and community volunteers
(preferably representing a variety of roles and content projects). Note
that for this to work, the designers will need to cooperate with each
other, or the process could descend into protracted disagreements that
would make further progress be very difficult.

1. After the consultation is designed, it can be published for public
input. (That includes input from WMF employees and contractors, individuals
who are associated with Wikimedia affiliate organizations, and individual
community members.)

2. Based on that consultation, the group that was assembled for part 1 can
work together to design a new system. While unanimity is unlikely,
consensus would be preferable. Where the group is uncertain or has internal
disagreements, multiple options can be drafted for the community to
consider in the following phase.

3. Based on the results from phase 2, a community RFC can be conducted. The
RFC should be closed by one or more community stewards.

The biggest downside that I see to this process is that the community
members who volunteer to participate in the consultation design and system
design phases will need to commit dozens of hours of their time, and many
community members who are highly qualified for this kind of work are
already busy with countless other tasks, problems, and projects. So there
will need to be some consideration of how to provide volunteers some relief
from their other responsibilities while they participate in the design
process.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

[Pine W]

Hi Rogol,

When I last spent some time looking at the proposal, I too felt that the
contributions indicated that the policy had far too little community
influence. *However*, if you'll entertain a hypothetical with me for a
moment, let's suppose that the status quo continues and there is
effectively no conduct policy for technical spaces -- in particular,
Phabricator and MediaWiki, unless I am missing a conduct policy that
already applies to them outside of the ToS. If there is no policy, is that
better than the policy that Matthew has been drafting?

I am not saying that I am happy with the process or content of the proposed
policy. On the other hand, I also think there should be something
resembling a civility policy and a system for enforcing it, for Phabricator
and MediaWiki in particular. So if the Code of Conduct that Matthew is
proposing fails in any number of ways (e.g. failing its RfC, failing
through lack of enforcement, etc.), what would you propose be done instead?

I'll note that I'm an admin on the Outreach wiki, where are policies are
few and far between, but fortunately there are few disputes on Outreach,
and most of the problematic behavior that I've seen as an admin involved
clear-cut cases of spam, so I haven't felt a need for us to spend countless
hours drafting and discussing policies. I wonder, are the Phabricator and
Mediawiki spaces generally civil enough that this CoC is disproportionately
weighty as compared to the problems, or would a CoC be a net benefit to
them? What do you (and others) think? I'm not experienced enough in those
spaces to feel like I know enough about them to say one way or the other.
Much as I'm unenthusiastic about the TCoC, I would hope that if there is
not a consensus to implement it, that the consequences and possible
follow-up actions from that decision are carefully considered.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

[Pine W]

Well, WMF will have to deal with this policy too. (:

I'm cautious about using a plurality of comments on this list as a proxy
for an RfC, but if I was WMF and I was looking at the comments on this
thread, I would be giving a lot of thought to fallbacks in case the RfC
either fails to achieve consensus or if there is a consensus against it.

I'm going to do something bold here and ping Maggie. I met her long before
she was promoted to her current exalted position, and I like how she thinks
about problems. I'm not promising to agree with her on this issue, but I'd
be really interested in hearing her thoughts about options if the TCoC does
not achieve consensus. I'm asking for opinions and options,rather than
decisions.While I have mixed feelings about TCoC and the process for its
creation, I also don't want anarchy in Phabricator and MediaWiki, so it
seems prudent to explore alternatives.

A point I should make is that I think that Matthew and others made some
good-faith efforts with the current draft. I would have proposed far less
WMF involvement with the draft, but in principle I tend to think that there
should be some kind of baseline expectation for civil conduct, some
explanations of what that means, and some ways for the community (i.e. not
WMF) to address behavior problems in places like Phabricator and MediaWiki.
Even if this iteration of the TCoC is not adopted, perhaps with some
modifications or revisions and with community leadership, some kind of TCoC
will be adopted at a future date.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

[Pine W]

Let me rephrase and elaborate on that point. Phabricator and MediaWiki
aren't the WMF wiki. I think that WMF employees' proposals, comments,
questions, and suggestions can be welcome for TCoC drafting. However, in
terms of process leadership and in terms of proportion of input, I would
like to see -- and I think that the proposal would be more likely to pass
an RfC on adoption for the whole document -- community leadership of the
process, and a greater proportion of community input.

Pine


On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:36 PM, Erik Bernhardson <
ebernhard...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:14 PM, Pine W  wrote:
> >
> > A point I should make is that I think that Matthew and others made some
> > good-faith efforts with the current draft. I would have proposed far less
> > WMF involvement with the draft
>
>
> One thing I just don't understand here, why should the people that
> participate in technical spaces more than most (because it's their job to
> do so) not be involved?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] February 24: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#8)

[Pine W]

Hi Katherine,

Just to follow up on some of the conversations yesterday on IRC, there were
some questions about which functions (e.g. fundraising, legal, technical
development, governance, communications) fit into which track. I'm thinking
that a number of functions will be shared across multiple tracks. Can you
(or someone involved in coordinating the tracks) share some thoughts about
how that will work?

Thanks,

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

[Pine W]

> * The people in the WMF and the Affiliates are /part of/ of the
communities.
> * Even the people without extensive years of volunteering, or those who
> only started volunteering at the same time as they became professionally
> involved, are part of the communities.
> * It is illogical for us to tell the people who take on highly-active
> roles, that they are no longer able to lead.
> * We (collectively) try to encourage the extremely capable volunteers to
> apply for jobs, and for grants.
> * If Wikimedia Cascadia becomes a well-funded chapter, and you were a
> staffer of it, would you become ineligible to lead proposals that effect
> your area of activity?

The way that I tend to think about this question -- which as I'll explain
in a minute, I know is simplified -- is that by "the community" we mean
people who are not WMF employees or employees of affiliates, and who
contribute to the Wikiverse in some way.

This email is going to sound legalistic at first but I hope you'll read it
all the way through.

The reason behind that thinking (and others may have their own thoughts on
this) is that WMF and affiliate employees are receiving financial and
non-financial compensation from WMF or their affiliate, and they have
strong incentives -- in some cases, legal obligations -- to do what their
employer tells them to do and to comply with their contracts, or else lose
their job and possibly get a bad reference which could impact the
likelihood of them being hired by anyone else. Also, I doubt that many WMF
and affiliate employees would feel that it's permissible and safe for them
to publicly critique the members of their governing boards, which is
another difference between employees and community members.

There are also cultural differences. WMF is organized hierarchically, is
opaque about details of its financial spending (an illustration of this was
the contract with Sue for consulting work which was a surprise when I
learned about it), has chosen to use technical means to override community
RfC decisions (such as with Superprotect), and isn't a membership
organization.

WMF does a lot of valuable work in support of the community, for example by
running servers, handling subpoenas, developing software, and providing
grants to individuals and organizations. Affiliate employees also do very
important work, such as with Wikidata and the Wikipedia in Education
program.

Admittedly, the dichotomy of "community membership" / "employee" is a
simplification. For example, individual grantees and contractors may do
temporary or part-time work for WMF or an affiliate. Affiliates as
organizations have some interest in the health and policies of WMF and
staying on somewhat good terms with WMF, particularly regarding WMF's role
as a grantmaker and provider of trademark licenses.

I think that having WMF and affiliate employees in support roles is
important and valuable. However, one place where problems start to surface
is when WMF or affiliate employees start to tell their communities what to
do. That is not their job. Their job is to support the community and to
implement policy, not to manage the community, and not to create policy
without approval from either their organization's board or from the
community that they serve.

The "community" vs "employee" dichotomy makes it sound like there are no
shades of gray, but there are, and I'd welcome conversations about how to
develop a vocabulary that better illustrates this.

To answer your last question directly: yes, there are initiatives which I
would feel would be inappropriate for me to lead as an affiliate or WMF
employee, for example I would feel OK about *facilitating* community
discussion about a global ban policy but I wouldn't want to create and
impose that policy myself without some kind of community consensus. Also, I
would be much more cautious about what I chose to say about the governance
of WMF and my affiliate employer, because I would have financial and
employment interests that would conflict with my ability to speak candidly,
especially in public.


A brief follow-up to Adrian regarding :
> A lack of other community members participation is perhaps half on a lack
> of advertising, and half on a lack of interest.

From what I can see, Matthew has been thorough about trying to recruit
participation.

I'm trying to leave the door open to approving some kind of TCoC. Perhaps
there will indeed be community consensus to approve the draft that's
currently in the works -- I don't know. I prefer a different process and
some changes to the draft, but with the information that I have it's
impossible for me to predict what the outcome of an RfC on the final
document will be. If it's approved with significant community (i.e. non-WMF
support), I'll learn to accept it or propose amendments at some point. I
realize that there has been good-faith effort in developing that draft, and
I appreciate the effort even if the draft doesn't pass. From my
perspective, a bigger

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

[Pine W]

>now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote

Has that actually happened? I'm hoping that no statement like "the total
document isn't subject to an RfC" was actually made. That would add
needless disagreement to a process that is challenging enough even in the
best of circumstances, and in any case would likely be overridden by the
community.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

[Pine W]

As I'm looking at that talk page, I see a situation which looks like no one
will "win", which is the opposite of how I would like discussions about
policy to go in the ideal world.

Trying to salvage that situation is more than I can take on at this time.
My hunch is that if the RfC is approved, even if I would change parts of
it, it'll be something that I can mostly accept and to which I may propose
amendments to the future. A more difficult web of problems will be the
relationships that are fraying and the accusations that have been going
back and forth. I don't have time to investigate all that now, and even if
I did, I'm not sure that it would do much good.

I think it would be helpful, and would be appropriate, for WMF employees to
*support* conversations like the development of CoCs in places like
Phabricator. But trying to *lead* those conversations is different matter.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF advanced permissions for employees

[Pine W]

As with most things around here, this is more complicated than it may
appear on the surface.

I increasingly think that there are cultural differences between WMF and
some parts of the community that are difficult to bridge, that influence a
variety of the decisions that get made in WMF (such as global ban
practices, and which emails get responses and which don't), and which may
seem obvious from certain perspectives but are more subtle when looking at
them from other angles.

Previous attempts from me and others to align WMF more with the community
have had limited success. I'm more sad than frustrated; there have been
some successes, but fewer than I hoped.

I can't realistically push on every issue that I would like WMF to address,
so I'm not going to push this issue further in the foreseeable future,
though I'm likely to mention it periodically. Hopefully, at some point, WMF
will agree to support community design of a global ban system.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia community in Iraq partners with Asiacell to bring Wikipedia to nearly 12 million subscribers free of mobile data charges

[Pine W]

Forwarding.

Pine


-- Forwarded message --
From: Samantha Lien 
Date: Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 3:28 AM
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia community in
Iraq partners with Asiacell to bring Wikipedia to nearly 12 million
subscribers free of mobile data charges
To: press-rele...@lists.wikimedia.org


This press release is also available online here:

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/
Wikimedia_community_in_Iraq_partners_with_Asiacell_to_
bring_Wikipedia_to_nearly_12_million_subscribers_free_of_mobile_data_charges

*Wikimedia community in Iraq partners with Asiacell to bring Wikipedia to
nearly 12 million subscribers free of mobile data charges*

*Mobile data fees waived for Asiacell customers in Iraq to access
Wikipedia, a free collection of knowledge available in nearly 300 languages*

(Barcelona, Spain) February 28th, 2017 -- Today, Wikimedia community
members in Iraq, the Wikimedia Foundation, and Asiacell, one of Iraq’s
largest mobile operators, announced a new partnership to provide access to
Wikipedia free of mobile data charges to Asiacell’s nearly 12 million
subscribers in Iraq. The partnership was announced today at a press event
hosted by Ooredoo during Mobile World Congress 2017.

The partnership, developed in large part by Iraqi volunteer editor and
Asiacell employee, Sarmad Saeed Yaseen, marks the first Wikipedia Zero
program in Iraq. The program, overseen by the nonprofit Wikimedia
Foundation, addresses one of the greatest barriers to internet access
globally: affordability. In a recent phone survey in Iraq led by the
Wikimedia Foundation, roughly 80% of surveyed participants reported that
mobile data costs limited their use of the internet. About 33% of
participants also reported rarely or never being able to find online
content in their preferred language.

Through the Wikipedia Zero
 program, mobile data
fees are waived for subscribers of participating mobile operators so that
they may read and edit Wikipedia without using any of their mobile data.

Sarmad, who is part of a community of local volunteer Wikipedia editors in
Iraq, started the partnership to extend access to knowledge in his home
country of Iraq. Together, he and his wife, Ravan Jaafar Altaie, have been
active editors (or Wikipedians) since 2008.

“I've always believed that it is better to light a candle than curse the
darkness, so I decided to volunteer in Wikipedia to provide knowledge for
free to my people in their own language,” said Sarmad Saeed Yaseen. “When I
was first introduced to Wikipedia Zero, I felt right away that this could
be the best thing ever to share free knowledge in my country and encourage
the people of Iraq to contribute knowledge and share this with the world on
Wikipedia.”

Wikipedia is an online collection of knowledge written by volunteer editors
from every corner of the globe. Available in nearly 300 languages,
Wikipedia is a place to learn about virtually any topic -- from ancient
history to science to the arts -- in your local language, for free, and
without advertising. Wikipedia editors use reliable sources to support
information that is included in Wikipedia articles, so readers can explore
the sources that verify the facts. Wikipedia is completely non-profit,
independent, and maintained by everyday people around the world.

Wikipedia in Iraq is supported by a local community of volunteer editors in
almost every major city of the country. In 2015, Sarmad and Ravan organized
the first series of workshops in Erbil to teach Iraqi people how to edit
Wikipedia. The workshops led to 600 new articles and more than 12,000 edits
primarily to Arabic and Kurdish Wikipedia. In October 2015, this community
launched the first formalized Wikimedia group from Iraq, the Iraqi
Wikimedians user group 
(a formalized Wikimedia affiliate group that has been recognized by the
global Wikimedia community of editors). Today, the majority of unique
device visits to Wikipedia in Iraq come from mobile devices.

Worldwide, Wikipedia is recognized as an important learning resource, but
it also offers a platform to share knowledge with the world. Edits from any
country contribute to the world’s common knowledge repository, seen by
hundreds of millions of people every month. This allows many to learn from
what just a few people might otherwise know. As more voices contribute to
Wikipedia, it becomes a better representation of the diverse cultures,
history, people, viewpoints, and perspectives of our world.

“Asiacell believes that sharing knowledge is a way to enforce the
interaction among human beings. We strongly believe in contributing in the
global project of Wikipedia. Beside all the modern technologies that we
offer, this partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation is one of the
achievements that we are proud of. We will enable our 12 million subscriber
base to hav

Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Pine W]

I've written several drafts today in response to this thread, all of which
came out as as rather energetic.

There are some reputable organizations for which I like and for which the
tone of the "main page" of this report would be appropriate. WMF is not one
of them. I would ask the people who approved the final version of this
publication (particularly those in senior management) to carefully reflect
on whether they are working for the organization that is right for them. If
they want to continue to work for WMF, I would ask them to carefully read
and focus on the WMF mission, and be religious about staying on that
mission when making decisions on behalf of WMF. Outside of WMF it's fine to
engage in many kinds of advocacy, but inside of WMF, this kind of tilt is a
strategic liability both to WMF and to Wikipedia.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Pine W]

Hi Rogol,

While the values changed, my understanding is that the mission statement
did not.

I think that the entirety of the values statement is educational read (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values/2016_discussion/Synthesis), and I
mean that mostly in a positive way. I am OK with the new values statement,
and not with the annual report.

I would prefer not to be in the position of feeling like 3/4ths of my
emails on this list are criticizing WMF, because I think that the
organization has a noble purpose and that at its best it does a lot of good
for the world. Unfortunately, I am feeling strained in my relationship with
WMF, and this kind of drama is a distraction from other things that all of
us could be doing that would be more beneficial.

Pine


On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 11:22 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
wrote:

> Pine,
>
> Recall that the Foundation have rewritten their values to include "we seek
> to continually improve ourselves, our projects, our communities, our
> world.", see
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values/2016_discussion/Synthesis
>
> The previous version
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Values&oldid=16352103 was all
> about knowledge.
>
> But now, "Our vision is about more than providing universal access to all
> forms of knowledge. It’s about creating an inclusive culture"
>
> WMF has taken on an explicitly political mission, to improve the word not
> merely by the dissemination of knowledge, but by direct intervention.  I do
> not recall that being discussed with the Community, and I wonder what the
> donors think?
>
> "Rogol"
>
> On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 6:26 AM, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > I've written several drafts today in response to this thread, all of
> which
> > came out as as rather energetic.
> >
> > There are some reputable organizations for which I like and for which the
> > tone of the "main page" of this report would be appropriate. WMF is not
> one
> > of them. I would ask the people who approved the final version of this
> > publication (particularly those in senior management) to carefully
> reflect
> > on whether they are working for the organization that is right for them.
> If
> > they want to continue to work for WMF, I would ask them to carefully read
> > and focus on the WMF mission, and be religious about staying on that
> > mission when making decisions on behalf of WMF. Outside of WMF it's fine
> to
> > engage in many kinds of advocacy, but inside of WMF, this kind of tilt
> is a
> > strategic liability both to WMF and to Wikipedia.
> >
> > Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the Code of Conduct in force?

[Pine W]

Rogol,

Please don't assume that Matt thinks that the TCoC is now in effect. Try
asking him, preferably on the relevant talk page.

I'm well aware of the challenges with the TCoC, but let's not make it more
difficult than it is already, OK?

Pine


On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 11:31 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
wrote:

> Matt Flaschen has declared the final amendment to the code of conduct for
> Wikimedia technical spaces approved and although he has not said so
> explicitly, I assume that his current position is that it is now in force.
> Even asuming that is correct, and previous consensus was against that, andI
> there is still signficiant disagreement on this list, it can hardly have
> any practical effect until it is published.  But first --
>
> Does the Community accept that this Code of Conduct is now in force?
>
> "Rogol"
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Pine W]

Hi Anna,

Thanks for chiming in.

As someone who is personally feeling a lot of strain between myself and WMF
-- and I think I'm not the only one -- I would like to figure out how to do
something so that all of us can get on with mission-aligned work instead of
having conversations about what's wrong for the nth time.

I think that problem will take some effort to solve, and it probably won't
be solved in this thread. It's certainly a ripe issue for discussion, and
I'd like to see that happen.

I'd like to hear suggestions about how to make that happen. I can't
continue to participate here tonight, but perhaps others will. When I loop
back here -- hopefully tomorrow, and certainly within a few days -- I'd
like to hear suggestions about how to get better alignment between WMF and
the community. This has been a problem for a long time, and I find it
really frustrating. I know we can do better, and I'm glad you're giving
some thought to this.

Thanks,

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Pine W]

Hi Eric,

Speaking generally, I think that telling stories about Wikimedia content
and platforms, and how content is created, delivered, or used, are all
likely to be compatible with WMF's mission when the stories are written in
an NPOV way. I must have missed the link to Andreas' arctic photography,
but I can imagine how a story about a Wikimedian's work taking photos of
icebergs and arctic wildlife could be written in such a way as to be
compatible with the WMF mission to share knowledge of factual information
(as opposed to analyses of that information or advocacy to take political
action based on that information). Similarly, a story about the use of
Wikimedia resources to assist refugees could likely be written in a way
that is NPOV and compatible with the mission to share knowledge.

WMF, the affiliates, and the communities do good work that is not advocacy,
and informs discussions of public interest, and contributes to the public
good. I think that sharing those stories can likely be done in a way that
is compatible with the WMF mission.

Pine


On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 4:12 PM, Erik Moeller  wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 12:26 PM, Stuart Prior
>  wrote:
>
> > As an example, anthropogenic climate change is a politically sensitive
> > issue, but how can a consensus-driven movement not take into account that
> > 97% of climate scientists acknowledge its existence
> > ?
> > [1] 
> > Accepting a scientific consensus just isn’t a political position.
>
> It isn't, but I think it's still worth thinking about context and
> presentation. There are organizations whose job it is to directly
> communicate facts, both journalistic orgs like ProPublica and
> fact-checkers like Snopes/Politifact. In contrast, WMF's job is to
> enable many communities to collect and develop educational content.
>
> If the scientific consensus on climate change suddenly starts to
> shift, we expect our projects to reflect that, and we expect that the
> organization doesn't get involved in those community processes to
> promote a specific outcome. The more WMF directly communicates facts
> about the world (especially politicized ones), rather than
> communicating _about_ facts, the more people (editors and readers
> alike) may question whether the organization is appropriately
> conservative about its own role.
>
> I haven't done an extensive survey, but I suspect all the major
> Wikipedia languages largely agree in their presentation on climate
> change. If so, that is itself a notable fact, given the amount of
> politicization of the topic. Many readers/donors may be curious how
> such agreement comes about in the absence of top-down editorial
> control. Speaking about the remarkable process by which Wikipedia
> tackles contentious topics may be a less potentially divisive way for
> WMF to speak about what's happening in the real world.
>
> I do think stories like the refugee phrasebook and Andreas' arctic
> photography are amazing and worth telling. I'm curious whether folks
> like Risker, George, Pine, Chris, and others who've expressed concern
> about the report agree with that. If so, how would you tell those
> stories in the context of, e.g., an Annual Report?
>
> Erik
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Pine W]

Rogol,

I don't get the impression that Anna's position is that "everything is all
right and that (WMF doesn't) need our help after all". That comment comes
across to me as inflammatory and unhelpful.

It seems to me that Anna is interested in improving the situation rather
than having a battle with the community. I'd like to let the improvement
process happen. Please have some patience, and let's be grateful that WMF
is trying to make the situation better. I would rather see a thoughtfully
re-designed report in 2 weeks than pour gasoline on the fire and have
another report come out on Monday that also has problems.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the Code of Conduct in force?

[Pine W]

Hi Rogol,

Yes, to a point. But if we tried to have every discussion on this list that
was categorized as "Organizational issues of the Wikimedia Foundation,
chapter organizations", "Planning elections, polls and votes", and "Other
Wikimedia-related issues", this list would be so flooded with traffic as to
be nearly unusable. So discretion is advised in how many new topics one
brings to this list.

If you ask my opinion of "is the TCoC now in force", the answer would be
no, but I don't know that it's a wise use of time to ask that question on
this list in present circumstances. If WMF decides to try to enforce the
TCoC without an RfC on the whole document, then I think it would be fine to
come back to this list for discussion.

The way that you phrase your questions sometimes comes across to me as
having an edge than is more confrontational than I think is necessary, and
I am finding the tone to be a distraction from what is, I think, our mutual
goal of trying to align WMF more with the community. Sometimes carrots work
better than sticks. I have a long list of changes that I would like WMF to
make, but cultural change is a long term process, and sometimes patience
works better than demands.

Pine


On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 12:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
wrote:

> Well, one of us is in the wrong place.  I'm posting to the list described
> as "Discussion list for *the Wikimedia community* and the larger network of
> organizations [...] supporting its work." – my emphasis.  It seems that
> "This mailing list can, for example, be used for: [...]
>
> The initial planning phase of potential new Wikimedia projects and
> initiatives
> Organizational issues of the Wikimedia Foundation, chapter organizations,
> others
> Discussing the setup of local Wikimedia chapters
> Developing and evaluating grant-making programs
> Planning elections, polls and votes
> Discussion of projects that don't already have a mailing list
> Finding ways to raise funds
> Other Wikimedia-related issues
>
> My post relates to items 1,2,5 and 8 on that list.
>
> "Rogol"
>
> On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 6:45 PM, Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
>
> > This list is *a* community but it certainly does not constitute The
> > Community™ nor are we the community affected by this code of conduct.
> >
> > I suggest raising this in venues appropriate to the particular community
> in
> > question, in this case the technical community. Before bringing this
> topic
> > here it would have been far more appropriate to raise your concerns on a
> > more aligned mailing list such as wikitech-l. All of whom would be
> affected
> > by the code of conduct and who have been notified regularly about it.
> >
> > I also suggest you keep in mind that the technical community does have a
> > higher percentage of staff members from many organisations in comparison
> to
> > the number of volunteers. Simply being staff members does not preclude
> them
> > from being a part of that community and does not preclude their ability
> to
> > participate in their own self-governance.
> >
> > It would be hypercritical of us if we as the wikimedia-l list were to
> > parachute into the governance of a community relatively few of us are a
> > part of.
> >
> > Seddon
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 5:30 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> >
> > > This assumes the relevant Community is here now on this very list,
> > > which is an extremely questionable assumption. As has been noted ad
> > > nauseam already. At this point this thread appears hard to distinguish
> > > from forum shopping.
> > >
> > > On 2 March 2017 at 17:16, Rogol Domedonfors 
> > wrote:
> > > > I'm not asking Matt.  I'm asking the Community – here, now, on this
> > very
> > > > list.
> > > >
> > > > "Rogol"
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Pine W  wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Rogol,
> > > >>
> > > >> Please don't assume that Matt thinks that the TCoC is now in effect.
> > Try
> > > >> asking him, preferably on the relevant talk page.
> > > >>
> > > >> I'm well aware of the challenges with the TCoC, but let's not make
> it
> > > more
> > > >> difficult than it is already, OK?
> > > >>
> > > >> Pine
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 11:31 PM, Rogol Domedonfors <
&

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the Code of Conduct in force?

[Pine W]

Hi Rogol,

Sure, I'd be glad to talk with you about this. I think that a more
interactive discussion might be helpful. Would you be willing to meet me on
IRC? If so, could you email me off-list so that we can set up a time and
channel for a meeting?

Thanks,

Pine


On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 2:21 AM, Rogol Domedonfors 
wrote:

> Pine,
>
> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 11:45 PM, you wrote:
>
> > [...]
> >
> > The way that you phrase your questions sometimes comes across to me as
> > having an edge than is more confrontational than I think is necessary,
> and
> > I am finding the tone to be a distraction from what is, I think, our
> mutual
> > goal of trying to align WMF more with the community. Sometimes carrots
> work
> > better than sticks. I have a long list of changes that I would like WMF
> to
> > make, but cultural change is a long term process, and sometimes patience
> > works better than demands.
> >
>
> Unfortunately cultural change is unlikely to happen against a background of
> perpetual unwarranted self-congratulation and complacency.  A clear
> articulation of areas needing improvement and suggestions for ways of
> improving may not always make for comfortable reading, but I make no
> apology for presenting that position.  I would have been happy to have been
> able to be more detailed in my suggestions, but it seems to me that the
> Foundation is, and has been for some time, unable or unwilling to
> acknowledge, let alone respond to or engage with, the attempts by numerous
> community members to initiate a serious engagement.  Perhaps your
> experience in this area has been better, and if so, I would be pleased to
> hear from you what your successes have been and how you have achieved them.
>
> "Rogol"
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Pine W]

Andrew, I somewhat agree. This is a discussion list. The people who are
here tend to be especially well-informed, and discussions can be very
informative and useful. RfCs and surveys have their own limitations, so
getting a "representative slice of community sentiment" is a bit of a
challenge, especially given the number of RfCs and discussions that take
place around the wikiverse.

Pine


On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 3:41 AM, Andrew Lih  wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:46 AM, George William Herbert <
> george.herb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think that the idea of taking the weekend off from the topic is
> > excellent.  We may not have reached universal consensus yet but
> everything
> > we needed to have said was, and it's been acknowledged as received and
> > under consideration.
> >
>
> I truly hope no one takes any discussion here as indicating anything
> approaching “universal consensus.”
>
> Wikimedia-L is a self-selected set of participants who are wiling to
> tolerate the culture on the list. It should not be assumed to be a
> representative slice of community sentiment.
>
> -Andrew
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the Code of Conduct in force?

[Pine W]

Anders,

I agree that there have been some positive developments in the
WMF-community relationship over the last year or so. I think that we hit a
rough patch in the past few months, and I'm hoping that it is behind us.

Figuring out how to gauge community sentiment is a really hard problem.
RfCs and email lists both have issues with the limitations of
self-selection, and even as a regular contributor to this list I think that
consensus on this list among 10 people in a thread is not the same as
consensus among 100 people in an RfC or the tens of thousands in the entire
Wikiverse. I like the idea of surveys with random samples, and ENWP has
tried to get broader representation of people in RfCs using bot invitations
to participate. Broad surveys and dialogues are time-consuming and the
methodology can be challenging. I'm not sure what to suggest to improve our
methods of gauging community sentiment. I think that all of our tools have
limitations. I'd be glad to discuss that in a separate thread if you're
interested; I think of this as being both a research challenge and a
governance challenge .

Pine


On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 11:20 AM, Anders Wennersten  wrote:

> We have 61000 editors  that made more the 5 edits last month and 8800
> making more then 100 edits. Last election to the Board attracted 5500
> voters. These figures gives a magnitude of the numbers in the community.
>
> The number of active on this list are around 50-100, and normal
> participations in meta discussion (except when it was for Visual editor)
> are at best 100-200.
>
> I truly believe we should not be content to say these 100-200 are the
> community or spokespersons for the community. And I admire the approach
> being made by WMF in the strategy project, to actively try to reach out to
> a broader audience then these 100-200
>
> So I believe her has always been an issue of the dialogue between the
> community and WMF, both referring to who is the community and the dialogue
> in itself. But I do see that the approach being taken by WMF now and lately
> does a lot to resolve this issue and and is worth both praise and support
>
> And I do would like to see less of "We the community" by people on this
> list
>
> Anders
>
>
>
>
> Den 2017-03-06 kl. 20:07, skrev Rogol Domedonfors:
>
>> Gerard
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 7:28 AM, you wrote:
>>
>> For Rogol and Pine I have an additional challenge; when the WMF is to
>>> support the community, is their time better spend serving quality or is
>>> their time better spend discussing endless procedures that make us stick
>>> in
>>> the mud as it stifles initiative?
>>>
>>> A fallacious dichotomy, as no doubt you were well aware.  We need to
>> establish working and workable procedures that allow Community and
>> Foundation to engage together in planning at the level of long-term
>> strategy and medium-term technical roadmap so that the WMF are able to
>> deliver quality products that support the mission effectively.  Do you
>> think we have those already?  Or do you think we can do without them?
>>
>> "Rogol"
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

[Pine W]

Commenting generally (i.e. not specifically to Risker), this topic has been
giving me enough of a headache that I would like to see some kind of path
forward, preferably one with the most harmony. I suggest that what should
happen based on my admittedly not-detailed look at the draft's history and
present state is that the whole document should go forward with an RfC.
After that happens, I hope we'll all have enough clarity about the document
to figure out what should happen next.

Personally, I'm kind of tired of this topic and would like to move on with
something that is less contentious.

I do want some kind of behavior policy for Phabricator in particular. I'm
not sure that it's this one as it's currently written, but I'm more
concerned at this point about procedure than substance. Whatever the
outcome of an RfC on the whole document is, I'd suggest accepting it and
moving forward from there.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] More politics: "WMF Annual Report"

[Pine W]

Hi Heather,

Thanks for commenting.

The theme of "facts matter" seems good to me, and I generally like Victor's
video. However, the way that this report comes across to me is that it
advocates for certain points of view on issues which, however important
they may be (I happen to think global warming is a very important issue),
are not integral to Wikipedia's mission. Also, I found it strange that the
"front page" of the report has a "Facts matter" section that leads off with
information about refugees and the Earth's temperature trends. On the
whole, that section comes across to me as being off-message. I would
encourage revising the report so that it's more consistent with the themes
and tone of Victor's video.

Social impact in the form of informing public dialogue is a valuable
attribute to Wikipedia, and I would encourage a more neutral approach to
articulating that attribute as has been discussed in this thread. It's
possible to highlight social impact while remaining compatible with NPOV
and staying focused on mission.

Thanks for engaging here.

Pine

Pine


On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 4:50 PM, Heather Walls  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> This has become an interesting and important conversation. First, many
> thanks to everyone as they bring their intellect, experience, and
> thoughtfulness to this topic. And thanks to Zack for many months of work
> organizing a complex project, with a theme that became increasingly
> sensitive due to external public discourse, and especially for making a
> tremendous and honest effort to hear feedback and to respond quickly here.
> I’d also like to thank all the people who helped read, write, edit, and
> consider this report.
>
> We chose this theme in October, and have used it successfully in messaging
> since then. It was part of the December English-language fundraising
> campaign, in emails and banners to donors, and received very positive
> response. It was the theme of a video, shared in December,[1] that became a
> featured video on Commons.[2] We also shared our work and development
> process on this report publicly when we published the Communications
> department’s check-in slides covering the 2nd fiscal quarter (Sep - Dec
> 2016).[3]
>
> Social impact is a very important part of Wikimedia that is hard to
> understand from the outside, but that impact is one of the things that
> makes your work so meaningful, and helps us find contributors and partners
> around the world. As Zack mentioned, our annual reports are created for an
> audience that includes ongoing financial contributors and people new to us.
> They are intended to be timely and relevant to the interests of people who
> are not as deeply involved in Wikimedia as the rest of us. They tell the
> story of what Wikimedians have achieved in the context of the world, and
> are related to topics in international conversations. Some of those stories
> are efforts supported by the Foundation, and many are celebrations of the
> importance and timeliness of independent work of members of the movement.
> Wikimedia is rich and complex, and we revise our theme each year to share
> new facets. The Foundation has been making these since 2008.[4]
>
> Yes, our report was meant to bring up relevant topics for a global
> audience, and to tie important facts to the work of Wikimedians. It was
> meant to focus on the range of things people can learn from Wikipedia, from
> the historical to the social to the controversial. But it was not a
> response to anything that occurred in recent weeks, or in any one country.
> We debated the relationship between the theme and public discourse as that
> discourse changed, but decided that Wikimedia’s relationship with facts
> hadn’t changed. The report is not perfect, and many people have pointed out
> excellent alternative directions we might have taken. We’re listening, and
> we will learn from your suggestions and ideas in our continuing work.
>
> I am proud of the intentions, hard work, experience, and many difficult
> decisions my colleagues on the Communications team and our collaborators
> across the Foundation and community make every day. I hope the abridged
> timeline of events, below, will help make some our process more visible to
> you as well.
>
> -Heather
>
>
> [1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/12/27/not-post-fact-world/
> [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_-_
> FactsMatter2016.webm
> [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%
> 3AWikimedia_Foundation_Communications_Q2_(Oct-Dec_
> 2016)_-_Jan_2017_quarterly_check-in.pdf&page=13
> [4] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
>
> *Our fact criteria:*
> Global, relevant to general readers and to 2016, verifiable, related to the
> work of Wikimedians, surprising or interesting
>
> *2016*
> 13 Oct: Meeting where “Facts Matter” was established, our deadline for a
> full draft was December 15
> 28 Oct: First design review of website mockups.
> 7 Nov: Design team meeting, notes include:

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Status of the Code of Conduct for technical spaces

[Pine W]

I am not sure that I agree with that closure. There have been several
concerns mentioned in the talk page and in email threads, and it's not
clear to me that the document should be moving forward without an RfC on
the whole document. If I had time to look into this further I would be
considering reverting Brion's closure as premature in the absence of an RfC
on the whole document. Unfortunately I'm buried in other issues at the
moment and I would need to do a detailed look at the talk page and its
archives before I felt certain about proceeding with a reversion. Someone
who has the time to read the talk page carefully may wish to contest/revert
the close.

I'm not looking for more reasons to have drama about that document, but I'm
very uncomfortable proceeding with that document without an RfC on the
whole document.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] March 10: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#10)

[Pine W]

Thanks Katherine. It's nice to see how this process is coming along. The
weekly updates are helpful.

If I may highlight a point: I very much like Victor's video. I think it has
good perspective(s) on this ambitious project.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2030.wikimedia.org.webm.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Status of the Code of Conduct for technical spaces

[Pine W]

Looking at the talk page briefly, I'm seeing few objections to the close
and it appears that no one has reverted it, so it's likely to stick. I
remain skeptical of the process (not to say that it's all bad; Matt
certainly did a lot of outreach on mailing lists), but I wouldn't suggest
using this as a template for good policy development methodology.

Since the plan is to move forward with this, I wish for the best. I'm not a
fan of anarchy and there have been a few incidents in technical spaces in
which I felt there were conduct problems. Hopefully this policy will be a
net benefit.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [GLAM] Possible editing outages during April

[Pine W]

FYI

Pine


-- Forwarded message --
From: Whatamidoing (WMF)/Sherry Snyder 
Date: Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: [GLAM] Possible editing outages during April
To: "g...@lists.wikimedia.org" , Wikimedia
Education 


I have the dates for this project now!

First outage:   *Wednesday, 19 April 2017*
Second outage:  *Wednesday, 3 May 2017*

I do not have the time of day yet.  My assumption is that both outages are
likely to happen somewhere between 14:00 and 16:00 UTC (afternoon in Europe
and Africa/morning in the Americas), but the team has not settled on a
particular time.

There will be no editing, uploading, or other ways of contributing during a
critical stage in this process.  The outages will last for about 30 minutes
on each of the two days.

The schedule may change.  It could be postponed literally at the last
second if Ops is not satisfied with the situation.  If you want to check
the schedule to make sure that it has not changed, then check these links:

Official schedule:  https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Switch_Datacenter
More information (draft):  https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Tech/Server_switch_2017

Please share this information, especially with any person who might be
scheduling a workshop during the next few weeks.  If you are scheduling a
workshop on these days, or if you are worried that a delay might affect
your workshop, then feel free to send me information about your plans.





On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 6:01 PM Whatamidoing (WMF)/Sherry Snyder <
ssny...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> This is early warning of some planned server operations, as an outage can
> cause a severe disruption on a short workshop:
>
> In April 2016, the Technology Operations team at the WMF did some work on
> the servers that run Wikipedia and the other wikis.  This resulted in all
> editing being stopped at all wikis for about half an hour on two different
> days.
>
> A similar project is currently expected sometime in April 2017.  I do not
> have specific dates or times yet.  However, I expect the first editing
> disruption to happen during the first half of April and the second to be
> about two weeks afterwards.
>
> They are hoping that the editing outages will be shorter this time
> (perhaps 15 to 30 minutes).  The time of day is undecided; however, it will
> almost certainly be when most of the Ops staff is online (afternoon in
> Europe and Africa/morning in the Americas).
>
> Last year, the official schedule was kept at https://wikitech.wikimedia.
> org/wiki/Switch_Datacenter and the same page may be used again.  *If you
> are scheduling short workshops during April, then please consider checking
> that schedule* or checking with me before you finalize your plans.  If
> you need to reach me, then I am currently subscribed to the GLAM mailing
> list, and you can always leave a note on my talk page at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Whatamidoing_(WMF)
>
>
> --
> Sherry Snyder (WhatamIdoing)
> Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation
>
-- 
Sherry Snyder (WhatamIdoing)
Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation

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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] The Revision Scoring weekly update

[Pine W]

Sharing some good news, both about the progress of ORES and (my primary
inspiration for sharing this email) significant improvements in article
quality thanks to WikiProject Women scientists. The latter has been
designated as the Keilana Effect.

Pine


-- Forwarded message --
From: Aaron Halfaker 
Date: Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] The Revision Scoring weekly update
To: Application of Artificial Intelligence and other advanced computing
strategies to Wikimedia Projects 
Cc: wikitech-l 


Hey folks!

I should really stop calling this a weekly update because it's getting a
bit silly at this point.  :)   But if it were a weekly update, it would
cover the weeks of 42 - 46.

*Highlights:*

   - 3 new models: Finnish Wikipedia (reverted) and Estonian Wikipedia
   (damaging & goodfaith)


   - We estimated and agreed on funding for ORES servers in the next year
   with Operations


   - We published a paper about vandalism detection in Wikidata and a blog
   post about the massive effect of some initiatives on coverage of Women
   Scientists in Wikipedia.


*New development:*

   - We added recall-based threshold metrics to the new draftquality model
   which should help tool devs know what which new page creations to
highlight
   for review[1]


   - We added optional notices for ORES pages which will help us visually
   distinguish our experimental install in WMFlabs from the Prod install (
   ores.wikimedia.org)[2]


   - We added basic language support for Finish (Thanks 4shadoww)[3] and
   deployed a 'reverted' model[4]


   - We lead a discussion in Wikidata about "item quality" that resulted in
   a Wikipedia 1.0 like scale for Wikidata quality[5,6] and designed a
   Wikilabels form to capture the gist of it[7]


   - We enabled the ORES Review Tool on Czech Wikipedia[8]


   - We configured ChangeProp to use our new minified JSON output to save
   bandwidth[9]


   - We extended the Estonian language assets (Thanks Cumbril)[10] and
   deployed the 'damaging' and 'goodfaith' models[11,12]


   - We enabled a testing model for 'goodfaith' on the Beta Cluster to make
   it easier for the Collaboration team to run tests with their new filter
   interface[13]


   - We created a new "precache" endpoint that will allow us to
   de-duplicate configuration with ChangeProp and handle all routing in ORES
   locally[14]


*Resourcing:*

   - We completed a 2 year estimate of ORES resource needs and discussed
   funding (capital expendature) for ORES in the coming fiscal year[15].
This
   will allow us to continue to grow ORES both in number of models and in
   scoring capacity.


*Communications:*

   - Amir improved the KDD paper based on review feedback[16] and got it
   published[17]


   - We published a blob post about our measurements of WikiProject Women
   Scientists[18,19] -- "The Keilana Effect"


   - Thanks to Cumbril's work, the Estonian labeling campaing was
   finished[20]


*Deployments:*

   - In early February, we deployed a new set of translations to Wikilabels
   (specifcally targeting Romanian Wikipedia)[21]


   - In mid-February, we deployed some fixes to ORES documentation and
   response formatting[22]


   - In mid-March, we deployed 3 new scoring models and ORES notices[23]


*Maintenance and robustness:*

   - We fixed a serious issue in the "mwoauth" library that Wikilabels
   depends on[24]


   - We reduced the number of revisions per request that we could receive
   via api.php[25]


   - We investigated a scap issue that broke ORES deployment[26]


   - We fixed a minor issue with JSON minification behavior[27] and
   hard-coding of the location of ORES in the documentation[28]


   - We improved performance of ORES filters on MediaWiki[29]


   - We improved the language describing ORES behavior on
   Special:Contributions[30]


   - We added a notice to the Wikipages that Dexbot maintains about its
   behavior[31]


   - We added notices to ores.wmflabs.org about it's experimental nature[32]


   - We fixed some issues with testing Finnish language assets[33]


   - We fixed some styling issues that resulted from an upgrade of OOJS
   UI[34]


1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T157454 -- Add recall based thresholds
to draftquality model
2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150962 -- Add an optional notice to
ORES main and ui pages
3. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T158587 -- Add language support for
Finnish
4. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T160228 -- Train/test reverted model
for fiwiki
5. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T157489 -- [Discuss] item quality in
Wikidata
6. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Item_quality
7. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T155828 -- Design item_quality form
for Wikidata
8. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T151611 -- Enable ORES Review Tool on
Czech Wikipedia
9. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T157693 -- Use minified JSON format in
ChangeProp
10. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T160193 --

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Board Recruitment Kick-Off: Changes to the Timeline

[Pine W]

Hi Nataliia,

Thanks for the update. An issue that keeps coming to my mind is whether WMF
would get higher-quality Board candidates, and whether candidates would
devote more time to Wikimedia matters, if Board membership was treated as a
part-time job and paid accordingly. Many people who have the kinds of
skills which are desirable for WMF Board membership can be paid (sometimes
very well) for their services. My understanding is that WMF Board
membership is far more involved than once-per-month meetings that might
happen at smaller organizations which might be able to more feasibly get
volunteers for board roles due to the lower time requirements. Personally,
I would rather have many high quality WMF Board members and have them doing
Board work for 8+ hours per week and pay them accordingly, than have
difficulty finding high quality Board members who are willing to invest the
time required to do their jobs well. This might also help with the problems
which were discussed in other threads regarding WMF Board members feeling
like they lack adequate time to do their jobs adequately with the time that
they have; if Board members are paid for their services then I expect that
there will be less difficulty in this regard.

Thanks,
Pine


Pine


On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 9:10 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I have updates about the board recruiting process. As you may recall, March
> 6 was the original deadline for accepting submissions [1], but we need more
> time to develop more solid candidates. Our original deadlines were
> extremely ambitious, thus we decided to extend the deadline by two months.
> Here is an outline of the updated timeline:
>
>
>-
>
>Application and referral submission period (January 23 - May 6)
>-
>
>Application and referral review, proactive candidate recruitment, and
>interviews (January - June 5)
>-
>
>   Initial application review and screenings (January - May)
>   -
>
>   Board Governance Committee
>    Board_Governance_Committee>
>   (BGC) discussions with candidates (January - May)
>   -
>
>   BGC meets and makes short list (May)
>   -
>
>   Second-round interviews (May - June 5)
>   -
>
>  Background check conducted by BGC and Wikimedia Foundation staff
>  -
>
> Criminal and financial background check conducted by outside
> firm
> -
>
> Thorough review of online and public coverage of candidates
> -
>
>Executive Director and BGC meet to determine recommendations and provide
>recommendations to the full Board (June)
>-
>
>Board vote to confirm candidate (July)
>-
>
>Announcement of new candidates (mid-July)
>
>
> We decided to run this search ourselves, rather than going with a
> recruiting firm. If we need additional help, we’ll assess in one month and
> potentially discuss whether we need to look for external firms to support
> our recruitment efforts.
>
> As a reminder, applicants may apply online at:
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us#Wikimedia_Careers. We
> also accept applications and referrals by email at
> board-nominati...@lists.wikimedia.org. The recruitment materials can be
> found at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=55283092 [2].
>
>
> I shall update the Meta page shortly [3].
>
> Please forward this information to people who are potentially interested in
> serving the Wikimedia movement on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
> Trustees.
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_Governance_Committee/Board_Recruitment
> (as of Jan 23)
>  Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_recruitment&oldid=16250784>
> [2]
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2017_Board_
> Recruiting_Candidate_Packet.pdf
> [3]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_Governance_Committee/Board_Recruitment
>
> Best regards,
> antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
>
> *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
> hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
> should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
> advance!*
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 8:44 PM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > We would like to announce that we are officially beginning recruitment
> for
> > two open appointed positions on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
> Trustees.
> > This email will outline the process and timeline for the recruitment.
> >
> > The Board initially began discussions on recruitment in May-June 2016
> [1].
> > After a pause, the Board Governance Committee (BGC) has renewed
> recruitment
> > for its vacant appointed seats and would love to share an update with you
> > today.
> >
> > With support from Anna Stillwell (from the Talent & Culture department)
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Board Recruitment Kick-Off: Changes to the Timeline

[Pine W]

Hi James,

Two points:

1. Intrinsic motivation, at this point, appears to be inadequate for
increasing the population of the Wikimedia volunteer community. I am
skeptical that we should rely on the same mechanism which isn't working in
the volunteer community to fill slots on the WMF Board, which also seems to
be struggling to fill its ranks.

2. I think that there's some grey between fully intrinsic and fully
extrinsic motivation. For example, there are a number WMF employees to
which WMF pays $100,000+ compensation packages. Yet we don't complain that
their motivations are extrinsic and incompatible with the Wikimedia
mission. WMF pays them that level of compensation to encourage them to stay
with WMF instead of working for another organization (probably a for-profit
one) which would likely pay them similar levels of compensation. It seems
to me that if WMF is struggling to attract the quantity and quality of
Board members that it needs, then compensation is a reasonable option to
consider.

Responding to Pete: although it's unusual for nonprofit board members to be
paid, as far as I can see the practice isn't forbidden. I imagine that WMF
Legal could provide guidance about what is and isn't allowed. Whether
whether it's allowed and whether it should actually happen are, of course,
two different questions. A resource that I find instructive is
https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_plus/2015/december/should-board-members-of-nonprofit-organizations-be-compensated,
which provides a list of pros and cons for providing compensation to Board
members. One of the points that they make is along similar lines as Lane's:
that providing compensation could increase the diversity of candidates. A
point that I think is also worth making is that if Board members are
compensated then expectations should be proportionately greater for their
performance and attendance to Board matters; I don't want anything like a
repeat of the situation that happened with Lila in which the WMF Board
seems to have been asleep at the wheel. Given that current Board members
seem to be struggling with their workloads, I think that exploring the pros
and cons of compensating WMF Board members is worth serious consideration.

I like the idea of the Board having its own staff separate from the ED.
This would be similar to how legislative bodies are supported by their own
staff which is separate from the executive branch. If this kind of support
would be adequate to address the problems of Board recruitment (which I
doubt) then I'd say to go for it. It might be worthwhile exploring this
option in tandem with exploring the option of compensating Board members.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Status of the Code of Conduct for technical spaces

[Pine W]

Chris,

That last paragraph assumes that people (1) know where to look and (2) have
hours to spend watching countless channels for announcements. On the other
hand, there's also a problem of burying people in so many announcements,
surveys, and consultations that people start to tune it all out. This is
part of a larger set of communications and "information overload" problems
that I'm hoping that WMF will address, particularly during its next Annual
Plan.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Status of the Code of Conduct for technical spaces

[Pine W]

My point is more or less the same one that you're making. Communications
(too much and too little) and information overload are both challenges. I
don't think there's going to be a silver bullet solution, but I hope that
WMF will invest effort into addressing this set of problems during the next
Annual Plan. Some of this is WMF-specific, but some of it also relates to
how we've organized ourselves in the community through organic growth and
over time we've developed so many channels that one wonders if we would
benefit from some consolidation and pruning.

Pine


On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 2:15 PM, David Gerard  wrote:

> You mean, "how to deal with people who complain they weren't consulted
> then turn around and complain they were excessively consulted"? At
> this point, the appropriate thing would be to put forward a plausible
> solution rather than complain they did the thing you claimed they
> hadn't sufficiently done.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
>
> On 18 March 2017 at 20:39, Pine W  wrote:
> > Chris,
> >
> > That last paragraph assumes that people (1) know where to look and (2)
> have
> > hours to spend watching countless channels for announcements. On the
> other
> > hand, there's also a problem of burying people in so many announcements,
> > surveys, and consultations that people start to tune it all out. This is
> > part of a larger set of communications and "information overload"
> problems
> > that I'm hoping that WMF will address, particularly during its next
> Annual
> > Plan.
> >
> > Pine
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Board Recruitment Kick-Off: Changes to the Timeline

[Pine W]

Christophe,

Thanks for the comments.

I think of WMF Board membership as being similar to ENWP Arbcom or some
event committee memberships in the sense that doing the roles well often
seems to require a near-martyrdom level of commitment. I'd like to see some
ceilings on workloads for volunteers, and that includes the WMF Board if
Board members aren't going to be compensated for their time. One way to
enable those ceilings to be realistic, as we've discussed in this thread,
is to provide support from paid staff for routine work, organizing
communications, preparing reports, writing grant requests, etc. I guess my
priorities in no particular order are that (1) work gets done in a timely
and reasonably high-quality manner, (2) people don't get burnt out. I'm in
favor of using funds to support the community in achieving those goals.

By the way, I'm also aware that taking on roles like WMF Board membership,
ENWP Arbcom, etc. means dealing with a seemingly endless string of
complaints and requests, and I appreciate your making efforts to do a good
job.

Pine


On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 12:36 AM, Christophe Henner 
wrote:

> Hey,
>
> Many topics covered here :)
>
> 1. Paid vs. unpaid: I don't know of the legal situation, but I always felt
> that for a NGO it is better to have a volunteer board. Especially for us as
> our movement is built thanks to volunteers. I fear it would slightly hinder
> our message if trustees were paid. But, when we need a specific expertise,
> then we can pay for it. But not as a trustee, as an expert helping us on a
> specific matter;
>
> 2. Time comitment. So on that, we are actively working on trying to reduce
> the mandatory time board members have to allocate to WMF. Goal is between
> this year and next year to lower it down to what we benchmarked as average
> (and I can't find the number again, I'll dig into that). That work started
> after a discussion with Guy on the fact that the time comitment was so high
> we migh scare away high profiles. So working to get mandatory board time
> down.
> But there's also "non-mandatory" time comitment. I can only speak for me,
> but right now, it takes me from 2h in the day up to 6h, almost everyday. I
> try to have Sundays when I don't work (either for my job or wikimedia). In
> that I do include reading (scanning for some mailing lists) emails.
>
> Right now, I think that the most complicated thing to handle is travel
> times as you need to take almost a week off every time we travel abroad.
> But until we invent teleportation (that would be super cool), I can't see a
> way to change that.
>
> 3. Staff support to the board : We already have some. First, as the
> treasurer and secretary roles are filled by staff members, it unburden
> board members a lot. On top of that, we also benefit from support from each
> department on a needs basis. Travels are taken care of by staff, I'm
> working on slides now, I could ask the communication department to help me
> on that. Anna and Michelle work a lot with Natalia on board recruitement.
>
> To be fair, staff does a lot of heavy lifting for us already.
>
> What is true however is that we don't have one personn fully assigned to
> support the board. But I'm not sure it is needed right now. That might be a
> discussion worth having.
>
> 4. Appointed seats "quality": yes we are looking for great board members.
> And that is also why we need more time than one could expect.
>
>
>
> Christophe HENNER
> Chair of the board of trustees
> chen...@wikimedia.org
> +33650664739
>
> twitter *@schiste*skype *christophe_henner*
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 3:52 AM, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Hi James,
> >
> > Two points:
> >
> > 1. Intrinsic motivation, at this point, appears to be inadequate for
> > increasing the population of the Wikimedia volunteer community. I am
> > skeptical that we should rely on the same mechanism which isn't working
> in
> > the volunteer community to fill slots on the WMF Board, which also seems
> to
> > be struggling to fill its ranks.
> >
> > 2. I think that there's some grey between fully intrinsic and fully
> > extrinsic motivation. For example, there are a number WMF employees to
> > which WMF pays $100,000+ compensation packages. Yet we don't complain
> that
> > their motivations are extrinsic and incompatible with the Wikimedia
> > mission. WMF pays them that level of compensation to encourage them to
> stay
> > with WMF instead of working for another organization (probably a
> for-profit
> > one) which would likely pay them similar levels of compensation. It seems
> > to me that

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations

[Pine W]

As I said, some of this is WMF-specific. For example, WMF could coordinate
its requests for surveys and consultations so that they happen on a
predictable monthly basis instead of sending what feels like 10+
notifications every month for separate consultations and surveys, with some
of those being repeat requests (personally I think a ceiling of 2 requests
per consultation/survey would be appropriate). I'm in favor of
consultations, but there can be too much of a good thing. Information
overload is as much of a problem as lack of communication.

I don't have a solution to this package of problems, but I think it would
be worth researching and trying to refine information flows for greater
efficiency and effectiveness, and to make more effective use of everyone's
time. I imagine that large organizations (e.g. IBM) have people whose jobs
are focused on improving information workflows within their organization,
and I think that WMF and the community could benefit from that kind of
approach to communications and information management.

Pine


On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 3:00 PM, Lodewijk 
wrote:

> (branching this into a new thread as it gets quite off topic)
>
> Pine: Why do you think the solution lies with the Wikimedia Foundation?
>
> Lodewijk
>
> 2017-03-18 22:52 GMT+01:00 Pine W :
>
> > My point is more or less the same one that you're making. Communications
> > (too much and too little) and information overload are both challenges. I
> > don't think there's going to be a silver bullet solution, but I hope that
> > WMF will invest effort into addressing this set of problems during the
> next
> > Annual Plan. Some of this is WMF-specific, but some of it also relates to
> > how we've organized ourselves in the community through organic growth and
> > over time we've developed so many channels that one wonders if we would
> > benefit from some consolidation and pruning.
> >
> > Pine
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 2:15 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> >
> > > You mean, "how to deal with people who complain they weren't consulted
> > > then turn around and complain they were excessively consulted"? At
> > > this point, the appropriate thing would be to put forward a plausible
> > > solution rather than complain they did the thing you claimed they
> > > hadn't sufficiently done.
> > >
> > >
> > > - d.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 18 March 2017 at 20:39, Pine W  wrote:
> > > > Chris,
> > > >
> > > > That last paragraph assumes that people (1) know where to look and
> (2)
> > > have
> > > > hours to spend watching countless channels for announcements. On the
> > > other
> > > > hand, there's also a problem of burying people in so many
> > announcements,
> > > > surveys, and consultations that people start to tune it all out. This
> > is
> > > > part of a larger set of communications and "information overload"
> > > problems
> > > > that I'm hoping that WMF will address, particularly during its next
> > > Annual
> > > > Plan.
> > > >
> > > > Pine
> > > > ___
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> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations

[Pine W]

Gergo, perhaps my point got lost since it was a tangent from the TCoC
discussion. I was intending to address the topic of communication and
information management in general. This topic came up during the course of
the TCoC thread, and I was responding to that. Lodewijk was right to branch
the discussion.

Pine


On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 4:19 PM, Gergő Tisza  wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 3:22 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > As I said, some of this is WMF-specific. For example, WMF could
> coordinate
> > its requests for surveys and consultations so that they happen on a
> > predictable monthly basis instead of sending what feels like 10+
> > notifications every month for separate consultations and surveys
>
>
> You might be looking for https://meta.wikimedia.
> org/wiki/Community_Engagement/Calendar
> In any case, it seems a bit tendentious to raise this in the context of the
> Code of the Coduct, which (as it has been told ad nauseam) was a volunteer
> initiative, organized mostly with resources available to volunteers.
> Feel free though to discuss your preferences on notification frequency with
> the people who complained all along that insufficient effort is being made
> to get the community to participate.
> There is a Hungarian saying about a rabbit and a hat, of which these
> conversations somewhat remind me:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/4bd293/
> til_that_hungary_held_a_contest_to_name_a_danube/d18f4k9/
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations

[Pine W]

Attempting to summon Chris Schilling over here from the other thread. (:

I think that some kind of analysis about optimal use of consultations and
surveys would be beneficial, and I'd welcome seeing something like that in
the next Annual Plan. Perhaps there might even be a consultation or survey
about consultations or surveys, which I know sounds ironic but may be
helpful in figuring out how much is too much or too little, timing,
locations, etc.

Information management is a big deal. We have watchlists, email, social
media channels, Echo, and lots of other tools, but even so -- or perhaps
because -- there are so many channels, it's easy to drown. I imagine that
holds true for both staff and community members, and I'd welcome some
initiatives to improve the situation. Perhaps someone will have some ideas
that they can submit to IdeaLab.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations

[Pine W]

yone.
> > Put
> > > a survey link on talk page for logged in users, and a banner  for IP
> > users.
> > > We get this anyway for fundraising. Before going full scale, test the
> > > survey on a small group, to find out what is wrong with it, fix the
> worst
> > > problems, and be sure to allow comments and feedback.
> > > Cheers,
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > > Behalf Of Lodewijk
> > > Sent: Monday, 20 March 2017 11:04 AM
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations
> > >
> > > Hi Pine,
> > >
> > > it's always easier of course to tell other people what they have to
> > change,
> > > which is why I'm asking the opposite question too :) What can we
> change,
> > on
> > > our end, to make communications easier for the WMF, for community
> members
> > > that want to reach out, for chapters and other affiliates. All these
> are
> > > having a hard time to get useful input from the community.
> > >
> > > There seem very few generally accepted approaches to that:
> > > - using some mailing list, or some kind of forum that serves a part of
> > the
> > > community you think would be most relevant (such as this mailing list,
> > the
> > > wikitech mailing list etc).
> > > - Going all out and doing a full scale consultation/RfC with banners
> and
> > > everything. Gives you lots of comments.
> > > - Doing a broad and translated approach through village pumps etc -
> gives
> > > you a broad reach over languages, but within those languages still
> > reaches
> > > a specific part of the community.
> > >
> > > Those methods are typically either very expensive, or not very
> effective.
> > > And I'm only talking about getting input here, not even about
> 'informing'
> > > everyone.
> > >
> > > So what can we, as a community, change to facilitate better exchange of
> > > ideas, experiences and provide input?
> > >
> > > Best
> > > Lodewijk
> > >
> > > PS: I apologize to the people who read this kind of email for the n'th
> > > time, it's not the first time I talk about this, I guess :)
> > >
> > > 2017-03-20 7:40 GMT+01:00 Pine W :
> > >
> > > > Attempting to summon Chris Schilling over here from the other thread.
> > (:
> > > >
> > > > I think that some kind of analysis about optimal use of consultations
> > > > and surveys would be beneficial, and I'd welcome seeing something
> like
> > > > that in the next Annual Plan. Perhaps there might even be a
> > > > consultation or survey about consultations or surveys, which I know
> > > > sounds ironic but may be helpful in figuring out how much is too much
> > > > or too little, timing, locations, etc.
> > > >
> > > > Information management is a big deal. We have watchlists, email,
> > > > social media channels, Echo, and lots of other tools, but even so --
> > > > or perhaps because -- there are so many channels, it's easy to drown.
> > > > I imagine that holds true for both staff and community members, and
> > > > I'd welcome some initiatives to improve the situation. Perhaps
> someone
> > > > will have some ideas that they can submit to IdeaLab.
> > > >
> > > > Pine
> > > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communicating plans and consultations

[Pine W]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the comments. Would you and Edward be willing to meet with me
(and anyone else who might be interested, such as Lodewijk as well as
someone from WMF Communications) to discuss the current situation and
brainstorm ideas about how to improve it? We could set up a meeting
off-list. Anyone else who wants to participate would be welcome to email
me/us privately to be included in the meeting. After we meet we can come
back to this list with our notes from the meeting and suggestions for
future actions, possibly including a survey and/or consultation about mass
communications and information management.

In terms of scheduling, the earliest that I can realistically schedule a
meeting is in April, so we might be looking at May or June for the
timeframe in which we might come back to this list with notes about future
directions.

Thanks,

Pine


On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 1:58 PM, Chris "Jethro" Schilling <
cschill...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hey Pine,
>
> Had to laugh a little bit about a consultation about consultations, but I
> understand the rationale for it.  Your point is well taken that information
> management is important to think about when there is much going on.
>
> I think the community notification calendar
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement/Calendar>
> that Gergő has mentioned above is a good place to start thinking about
> improvements of managing information.  Anecdotally, some of the issues I
> have seen and heard about are:
>
> * having to follow mailing lists that are too active (like this one),
> * having to follow too many disparate mailing lists,
> * getting pinged too many times from user talk page messages sent through
> Special:MassMessage.
> * Too many consultations focused on overlapping audiences
>
> A centralized calendar can help mitigate some of these issues.  In
> general, the calendar has been used for planning and scheduling purposes,
> but I like the idea of making it more usable to for folks wanting to know
> what consultations are happening.  Lodewijk recently suggested to me that
> some filters and other descriptors (e.g. country, projects targeted) will
> be needed to help users see what is relevant to them.  Building those
> components is one technical challenge, and would be making sure the
> calendar gets used by the relevant consultation audience is another.  We
> would need to think about how to inform people about the calendar without
> also falling back to doing more announcements on the usual channels a la
> "Hey, this new consultation is on the calendar."
>
> One issue I don't have a good answer for right now is how we can solve the
> problem of having too many announcement channels while also being confident
> that when a consultation is announced (by anyone) in some set of approved
> channels, can they expect to get sufficient and representative
> participation?  That might be something we can figure out in a survey about
> consultations generally as you've suggested.
>
> - Chris
>
> Chris "Jethro" Schilling
> I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)>
> Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation
> <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
>
> On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 1:40 AM, Pine W  wrote:
>
>> Attempting to summon Chris Schilling over here from the other thread. (:
>>
>> I think that some kind of analysis about optimal use of consultations and
>> surveys would be beneficial, and I'd welcome seeing something like that in
>> the next Annual Plan. Perhaps there might even be a consultation or survey
>> about consultations or surveys, which I know sounds ironic but may be
>> helpful in figuring out how much is too much or too little, timing,
>> locations, etc.
>>
>> Information management is a big deal. We have watchlists, email, social
>> media channels, Echo, and lots of other tools, but even so -- or perhaps
>> because -- there are so many channels, it's easy to drown. I imagine that
>> holds true for both staff and community members, and I'd welcome some
>> initiatives to improve the situation. Perhaps someone will have some ideas
>> that they can submit to IdeaLab.
>>
>> Pine
>>
>>
>>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 19 March 2017)

[Pine W]

Borrowing an idea from Wikipedia Weekly, I think it would be nice to have a
thread about the good things that are happening around the Wikimedia
universe. If people enjoy this then it can be started (by anyone) on a
weekly basis.

My comment for this week: I enjoyed reading a post from the Wikimedia blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/21/why-i-elements/: "Why I periodically
write about the elements on Wikipedia", by Mikhail Boldyrev.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 26 March 2017)

[Pine W]

Here's a new edition of "What's making you happy this week?"

I'm grateful to see the quantity of people who are interested in
participating in GSOC and Outreachy (
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/outreach-programs-projects/).

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 2 April 2017)

[Pine W]

I'm grateful to hear about the goodwill, hope, and energy at the Wikimedia
Conference in Berlin. I get the impression that most people felt that the
conference was a positive experience.

Many photos of the conference have already appeared on Commons. To
highlight a few:

Hopes for the conference:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2017_%E2%80%93_65.jpg

Ideas:

1.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2017_%E2%80%93_39.jpg

2.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2017_%E2%80%93_40.jpg

3.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2017_%E2%80%93_41.jpg

4.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2017_%E2%80%93_42.jpg

People:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Conference_2017_%E2%80%93_Group_photos

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2016 round 2 voting

[Pine W]

Hello,

Voting is now open in Round 2 of the Commons Picture of the Year 2016
competition:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2016

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 9 April 2017)

[Pine W]

I was glad to hear of the the Initiative for Open Citations (
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/04/06/initiative-for-open-citations/)

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services

[Pine W]

I'm bumping this thread because there has been a somewhat high-profile
incident of misuse of Wikipedia by a corporate entity.

This is not entirely the same as undisclosed paid editing, but it was
certainly a misuse of Wikipedia.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15259400/burger-king-google-home-ad-wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whopper&diff=773807497&oldid=773585358

It seems to me that this kind of behavior, and accompanying waste of
Wikimedia volunteers' time, is likely to continue until WMF Legal cracks
down and starts making it financially painful for organizations to misuse
Wikipedia in all their various creative and inappropriate ways.

A quote from
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/clever-burger-king-ad-attempts-to-hijack-google-home-devices-2017-04-12:
“Burger King saw an opportunity to do something exciting with the emerging
technology of intelligent personal assistant devices,” a Burger King
spokesperson said. I would like for WMF to make Burger King feel that their
misuse of WIkipedia was inappropriate and for WMF to hit them where it
counts -- in their checkbook -- and with enough force that corporations
will decide that messing with Wikipedia is both ethically wrong and
financially not worth the risk. WMF needs to change marketers' thinking
from the idea that messing with Wikipedia is "an opportunity" to "a big
risk." I would like to see WMF Legal get energized about cracking down on
these kinds of situations, and I'd be happy to have WMF make an expensive
example of Burger King to deter misconduct by others.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services

[Pine W]

I tend to think along James' lines more than Risker's.

Responding to Risker:

It seems to me that the key point that you're missing is that Burger King
altered Wikipedia content in order to execute this campaign. This wasn't a
simple case of an organization reusing existing Wikipedia content; the
organization appears to have altered Wikipedia content to suit their
purposes regardless of an obvious conflict of interest with Wikipedia's
purpose of being an educational resource rather than an advertising
platform.

It seems to me that entities of varying sizes -- from a start-up brand that
wants to make itself look important by having a Wikipedia article, to large
corporations and government officials -- will continue to alter Wikipedia
content in ways that are inappropriate and do a disservice to our readers
(including advertising, inserting "alternative facts" for medical and
political content, and eliminating negative information that certain people
and organizations find inconvenient) and cost editors' and administrators'
collective time and attention, until there is a financial price that is put
on this kind of behavior that is large enough to deter them. I don't see
why we should stand idly by as our products' quality and trustworthiness
are degraded and our resources are diverted. I'm hoping that WMF's
enforcement actions in this domain would more than pay for themselves
through financial penalties that WMF extracts from the wrongdoers.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 16 April 2017)

[Pine W]

I was glad to learn about the progress on the Commons app for Android (
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/04/13/commons-android-app-improvements/)
and on internal search (
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/04/10/searching-wikipedia/)

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wiki-research-l] New guide for organizing Edit-a-thons at science conferences

[Pine W]

Forwarding a resource.

Pine


-- Forwarded message --
From: Jonathan Morgan 
Date: Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 10:23 AM
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] New guide for organizing Edit-a-thons at science
conferences
To: Wiki Research-l 


I just ran across a new-ish (Feb 17) resource for people interested in
running editathons for scientists, developed by the Simons Foundation. You
can read the blog post[1] and download the guide in PDF form[2].

The guide provides a well-organized and comprehensive set of practical tips
for organizing, publicizing, and running editathons and is tuned to the
needs and interests of science SMEs.

Forwarding because I know there are many folks on this list who are
involved in this sort of work and/or could be.

Cheers,
Jonathan

1.
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/education-outreach/crowdsourcing-expertise/
2.
http://simonsfoundation.s3.amazonaws.com/share/sciencesandbox/
CrowdsourcingExpertise_4.7.17.pdf

--
Jonathan T. Morgan
Senior Design Researcher
Wikimedia Foundation
User:Jmorgan (WMF) 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services

[Pine W]

I'm bumping this thread in the hope that there will be official comments
from WMF regarding their willingness to take a more assertive legal
approach to addressing and deterring promotionalism and other inappropriate
changes to Wikipedia content by people and organizations who have conflicts
of interest, whether or not those conflicts are disclosed.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services

[Pine W]

>
> Has there been a recent substantial discussion by the community surrounding
> promotional/biased editting paid or otherwise, which had an outcome
> resulting in a specific request for assistance or increased action by the
> WMF?
>

Aside from the conversation on this list, I'm aware of the discussion on
Jimbo's talk page. If WMF Legal or the WMF Board wants to take the position
that it would like to see a community RfC or some other such discussion, I
imagine that such can be arranged, and I can see how that might be
beneficial. Of course, anyone is free to initiate such an on-wiki
discussion.


>
> If there hasn't, I do not see grounds for you to be expecting an official
> response from Legal to a list whose conversation has for the most part
> consisted of about 6 people?
>

I'm not sure why you would be telling other people to whom they can
initiate requests and the conditions under which they can be made. I
already have a dim view of WMF's customer service; please don't dig the
hole any deeper.

Many others, I am sure, would rightly complain if the Foundation
> unilaterally made decisions in this area.


That is possible if WMF were to do something particularly novel, so your
sense of caution here is well taken. I would hope that WMF would discuss
its plans with the community and have a conversation before actually
initiating novel actions.


> But please be realistic, this is
> a coffee table discussion.


I have mixed views on this. Wikimedia-l is not a quiet back room with only
a few people around, but it's true that a consensus here among a small
number of people who speak up in a particular discussion demonstrates a
lower level of consensus than an RfC with hundreds of participants. It's
not clear to me that there is consensus on which tools are appropriate for
which exact circumstances, and some discussions happen in multiple venues.


> The views expressed here are valid but the right
>
thing to do would be to further the conversation on wiki and have a proper
> community conversation.


I don't think that there is a single definition of a "proper" community
conversation.

I have no objection to having an on-wiki RfC (and I can see how a
sophisticated and well-attended one might produce detailed guidance that
would be helpful), but neither do I want this thread to be trivialized.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!

[Pine W]

On the subject of Jimbo being exempt from term limits, my belief is that
Jimbo's seat should become a standard community-chosen seat, and no one
should be exempt from term limits. I am particularly mindful of the
governance problems that have happened while Jimbo has been on the WMF
Board, and WMF's refusal to have an external inquiry into those problems by
a third party who would make a public report. I am also mindful of WMF's
clashes with the community (such as SuperProtect) that have happened while
Jimbo has been on the WMF Board. Given the totality of the circumstances, I
believe that Jimbo's seat should become a standard community-chosen seat so
that the community has a chance to express its level of confidence in
whether Jimbo should remain on the WMF Board.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [PRESS] Turkish authorities block Wikipedia

[Pine W]

Now on the front page of the New York Times website:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/world/europe/turkey-purge-wikipedia-tv-dating-shows.html

Wikipedia was mentioned, but not highlighted, by the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39759050

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Data centre switchover to Eqiad

[Pine W]

Forwarding.

Pine


-- Forwarded message --
From: zppix e 
Date: Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 11:08 AM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Data centre switchover to Eqiad
To: Wikipedia mailing list , Wikimedia
developers , Coordination of technology
deployments across languages/projects 


Hello,  as you may or may not already know there will be a datacentre
switch back to Eqiad, WMF's main data centre, on May 3rd at approximately
14:00 UTC. For approximately 20-30 minutes you will NOT be able to save
edits to any WMF project. If you have any questions feel free to reply back
to this email, or ask on IRC on freenode channel #wikimedia-tech. If there
any major issues that occur during this time please report them to
#wikimedia-tech on freenode!

Thanks,
Zppix
Volunteer Developer for WMF
www.enwp.org/User:Zppix
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 30 April 2017)

[Pine W]

I'm happy to see the development of the Commons Photographers User Group
.

Personal background story (feel free to skip reading this):

The first DSLR I touched was easy to use with the automatic settings for
indoor photography in good lighting. Based on this limited experience, I
concluded that photography with a DSLR was easy. Some time later I bought
my own first DSLR, and quickly got lost. The menus were not intuitive to me
as a DSLR newbie, there were new terms like "aperture" and "f-stop", the
manual was written for someone who already had good technical knowledge of
how cameras work, and my lens wouldn't focus like I wanted. Wikipedia has
some helpful articles about photography concepts, but what would have
helped me a lot is spending time with an experienced photographer. After a
few years of trial and error, and asking questions of more knowledgeable
people, I'm happy with my skill level as a photography hobbyist in a
variety of situations. I hope that the new user Commons Photographers group
will facilitate knowledge exchange, improve camaraderie, and consider ways
to improve access to equipment -- especially for photographers in
situations where resources are scarce and potential for valuable
open-source contributions are very high.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Security: phishing attack via Google Docs

[Pine W]

There are reports of a "sophisticated" phishing attack on Google Docs users 
today. I believe that many WMF staff, Wikimedia affiliate staff, and individual 
Wikimedians make use of Google apps, so I'm forwarding this news to Wikimedia 
lists. Victims of this attack may have had their data accessed.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/technology/google-docs-phishing-attack/
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/3/15537064/google-docs-phishing-attack-fixed
Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Non-WMF funding sources for community work

[Pine W]

Hi folks,

I'd like to ask for your thoughts about (1) whether it would be a good
idea, and if so (2) how, to get non-WMF funding sources for community work
which WMF can't, won't, or shouldn't fund, and could benefit from paid
human resources.

Two areas that I have in mind that could benefit from paid human resources
for community work are

(1) the *Signpost*, which seems to me like it requires enough skilled work
to produce on a weekly
basis that its staff should be paid in a manner similar to the staff of US
college weekly newspapers. (For a time I was a regular *Signpost*
contributor, but no longer. I know how much work was involved in doing a
good job with creating and publishing the *Signpost* weekly.)

and

(2) conflict of interest work, in three domains: (a) education of COI
editors, particularly those who express interest in abiding by community
norms and policies; (b) reviews of changes that have been made or proposed
in a manner consistent with the spirit of community norms of policies; and
(c) investigations of potential COI problems such as undisclosed paid
editing.

Perhaps there are other areas which would also benefit from additional paid
human resources, but which WMF can't, won't, or shouldn't fund.

Let me repeat the questions that I asked at the top of this email. (1) How
would people feel about non-WMF funding for these kinds kind of work, if
funding can be found? (2) If funding for these kinds of work would be
beneficial, how might the funding be possible to obtain it without WMF
involvement?

A third question which will need some thought, if there aren't a lot of
objections to the concept and if funding can be found, is "who should
administer the funding?" WMF shouldn't, and my initial thought is that
setting up a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization would be a good way to
go. I suggest waiting to think about this question for the moment, and
first focusing on the two other questions.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Non-WMF funding sources for community work

[Pine W]

I don't think that WMF project grants would be a suitable funding source
for *Signpost *work, for multiple reasons. I consider the *Signpost *to be
"content", and WMF shouldn't fund content if it wants to maintain its
immunity to lawsuits regarding user-contributed content. Also, there would
be a conflict of interest between the journalistic role of the *Signpost *and
the WMF; the *Signpost *should have significant financial, legal, and
managerial independence from WMF.

Project grants could be a good source of funding for some work that
addresses COI, although I think it would be good to keep in mind that WMF
shouldn't be creating (or editing) content directly. I would be wary of
using WMF funds to pay people to decide whether or not certain edits are
appropriate. I think that training materials, and software tools to detect
edits that look promotional or controversial, could be developed with WMF
funds. I'd want someone who isn't reporting to WMF to make the decisions
about the appropriateness of edits that are flagged for review (whether
flagged by humans or technical tools, and whether or not self-reported by
COI editors who request review). If a process leads to a community (i.e.
not WMF and not COI editor) decision that edits are incompatible with
community policies and norms, then at that point the matter could be (1)
addressed directly by the reviewer such as by declining a proposed edit or
reverting an edit, (2) referred to site administrators for community
interventions such as warnings or blocks, and/or (3) referred to WMF for
legal action using WMF resources. That's a long way of saying that I think
that there are important technical and legal roles that WMF can have in
helping to identify and deter COI editing, but WMF's roles should be be
carefully separated from and in alignment with the community's roles.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 7 May 2017)

[Pine W]

I was happy to see the final WMF list of GSoC 2017 and Outreachy Round 14
projects.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine

-- Forwarded message --

Hello,

Please join me in welcoming Wikimedia's accepted candidates for Google
Summer of Code 2017 and Outreachy Round 14!

Google Summer of Code 2017

   1.

   Alexander Jones, Texas, United States, Implement Thanks support in
   Pywikibot  - John Mark
   Vandenberg
   2.

   Amrit Sreekumar, Kerela, India, Improvements to ProofreadPage Extension
   and Wikisource  - Yann
   Forget, Tpt
   3.

   Feroz Ahmad, New Delhi, India, Add a "hierarchy" type to the Cargo
   extension  - Yaron Koren,
   Nischayn22
   4.

   Harjot Singh Bhatia, New Delhi, India, Adding Data storage feature and
   upgrading Quiz extension  -
   Marielle Volz, Sam Reed
   5.

   Harsh Shah, India, Build a similar to @NYPLEmoji bot for Commons images
   - Dereckson, Ariel
   6.

   Keerthana S, India, Automatic editing suggestions and feedbacks for
   articles in Wiki Ed Dashboard 
   - Sage Ross, Jonathan Morgan
   7.

   Sejal Khatri, India, Provide enhanced usability for Wikimedia Programs &
   Events Dashboard managed by Wiki Education foundation <
   https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161929> - Sage Ross, Jonathan Morgan
   8.

   Siddhartha Sarkar, India, Single Image Batch Upload <
   https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161670> - Basvb

Outreachy Round 14

   1.

   Ela Opper, Tel Aviv, Israel, "Remind me of this article in X days"
   MediaWiki notification  -
   Matthew Flaschen and Moriel Schottlender
   2.

   Medha Bansal, New Delhi, India, WikiEduDashboard: Allow Programs &
   Events Dashboard to make automatic edits on connected wikis <
   https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161568>- Jonathan Morgan, Sage Ross
   3.

   Sonali Gupta, Rajasthan, India, Document process for creating new Zotero
   translator and getting it live in production <
   https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161191> - Marielle Volz


We would like to encourage accepted candidates to introduce themselves on
this thread, share with us where they are coming from and give a brief
overview of the project they will be working on.

We’re so proud of the contributions they have made so far to our community,
and we look forward to having a wonderful time working with them over the
summer! Also, a huge shout-out to the project mentors for their enthusiasm
and commitment!

Thank you to Sumit and Anna for coordinating this round along with me!
Best,
Srishti

--
Srishti Sethi
Developer Advocate
Technical Collaboration team
Wikimedia Foundation

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:SSethi_(WMF) 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Non-WMF funding sources for community work

[Pine W]

A distinction that I see between funding the WMF blog from funding the
*Signpost
*is that the former is WMF corporate communications and the latter is
community journalism. It would be difficult to maintain journalistic
integrity and independence at the *Signpost *if its staff feel like their
paychecks (which would probably be similar to what part-time reporters make
at US college newspapers) are in any way dependent on pleasing WMF. (I'm
not saying that the *Signpost *should go out of its way to be critical, but
it should be as independent as realistically possible.)

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Non-WMF funding sources for community work

[Pine W]

During my time at the *Signpost*, there were large fluctuations in the
supply of people who had the time, willingness, and skills to write regular
features for the *Signpost* and work on the publication process. As far as
I know, the labor supply is still the biggest problem. The discussion on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost supports
that view, although there is also some discussion about technical problems
with the publication process.

I think that the labor supply problem could be partially addressed by
making at least some Signpost work into part-time paid work.

However, I'm not sure that anyone with the required financial resources
would be willing to fund this work. I think that is the biggest step that
would need to be addressed.

If work on the *Signpost* isn't funded and if volunteer availability
continues to be limited at best, then unfortunately the *Signpost* may
become a shadow of its former self, or fade into memory indefinitely. I
would be sorry to see either of those outcomes. I think that the *Signpost*
performed a valuable community service as a reliable weekly or semi-weekly
publication with a variety of informative and interesting content.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] May 12: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#16)

[Pine W]

Hi Katherine,

Thanks for sharing this update.

I have two general questions, not directed at anyone in particular, but
perhaps you or someone from the strategy leadership could comment.

1. The five themes articulate grand visions, but I wonder how realistic it
is that progress toward these visions could be provided with the necessary
resources.

For example, there have been many initiatives on growing communities over
the years, and it's unclear to me if any of these initiatives have led to
significant and sustained increases in content contributors (who are human
resources).

Changing focus to financial resources, I think that there is significant
room for improvement in the design and speed of our interfaces but
financial resources for design, engineering, and research paid staff have
been insufficient to close the gap between Wikipedia and other online
destinations such as Facebook and Google. My impression is that Wikipedia
is 10 to 15 years behind Facebook and Google in terms of our ease of use.

My question is, how could we dramatically expand our human and financial
resources so that we could have a realistic hope of achieving the goals
articulated in the strategy themes?

2. It seems to me that the Wikimedia universe has always had some tension
between priorities, such as privacy and transparency. I see similar tension
in these themes between the goal of having "projects flourish from the
healthy community we cultivate together" and the goal of "upholding our
standards for verifiable, neutral and comprehensive knowledge." The
verifiability and neutrality of content are frequently in dispute, and it
seems likely to me that this will always be the case. I am wondering how we
reconcile our goals of verifiable and neutral information, supporting the
value of freedom of expression, and cultivating healthy communities. I've
struggled with these questions myself and I don't think that there are
definitive answers, but perhaps someone involved in the strategy process
could talk about how to address situations where strategy goals are in
tension with each other.

Thank you,

Pine


On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 1:25 PM, Katherine Maher 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> *Summary: Cycle 2 discussions have started on Meta-Wiki and a wiki near
> you![1]*
>
> The core team and working groups have completed reviewing the more than
> 1800 thematic statements we received from the first discussion. They have
> identified 5 themes that were consistent across all the conversations -
> each with their own set of sub-themes.[1] To be clear, these are not the
> final themes! They are just an initial working draft of the core concepts.
> There are more conversations yet to come.
>
> Starting this week, you are invited to join the online and offline
> discussions taking place on these 5 themes. This round of discussions will
> take place between now and June 12th.[2] You can discuss as many as you
> like; we ask you to participate in the ones that are most (or least)
> important to you.
>
> For each theme, we are asking five questions. These questions are intended
> to help us understand the impact of these potential themes and the
> tradeoffs we will have to make. To succeed in any strategic venture, we
> must not only declare what we will do, but also what we will not! If you
> have research and other citable data related to your opinions, please
> include them! Finally, we ask that you participate in an honest and
> respectful manner.
>
> Each theme has a page on Meta-WIki with more information about the theme
> and how to participate in that theme's discussion. Here are the five major
> themes, and their brief descriptions:
>
> *== Healthy, inclusive communities == [3]*
> By 2030, the Wikimedia volunteer culture will be fun, rewarding, and
> inclusive for both existing contributors and newcomers. We will welcome new
> volunteers to our movement and mentor them to ensure that they have a great
> experience and continue to engage in the projects. People from every
> background will feel included in an ecosystem of unique groups and
> organizations that deepen connections with each other. As a result, our
> movement will grow both in size and in character, as our projects flourish
> from the healthy community we cultivate together.
>
> *== The augmented age == [4]*
> By 2030, the Wikimedia movement will collaborate with learning machines to
> help our volunteers be much more creative and productive. We will use
> prediction and design to make knowledge easy to access and easy to use with
> novel, humanized, intelligent interfaces. Volunteers will collaborate with
> machine translators to deepen the quality and quantity of content in more
> languages – at a heightened pace and scale. We will curate knowledge in
> structured and interactive formats that enhance and reflect the way people
> learn and contribute — beyond the browser, the app, and the encyclopedic
> format. We will embrace technological innovation as the most viable path
> t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Passing of vi:User:Lê Thy

[Pine W]

Thank you for sharing this news, Minh.

I always struggle with what to say, if anything, when we lose one of our
colleagues. Each of us has limited time in our one life, and sometimes I
find it helpful to be reminded that our work of sharing the world's
knowledge is for everyone including those who come after us. We are
creating a multi-generational project of humanity's knowledge. I like to
think that all of us who contribute in the spirit of the projects have
portions of ourselves that will live on in Wikimedia, passed on from
generation to generation.

THIS IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA
by Catherine Munro
"One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge,
where lies
The deep rock of our past,
in which we must delve
The well of our future,
The clear water
we must leave untainted
for those who come after us,
The fertile earth,
in which truth may grow
in bright places,
tended by many hands,
And the broad fall of sunshine,
warming our first steps
toward knowing
how much we do not know."

Rest in peace, Lê Thy.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Funds Dissemination Committee Recommendations - Round 2 of 2016-17

[Pine W]

For what it's worth, there has been previous discussions of having external
reviews of WMF spending, such as a peer review from a similar institution.
I think that this is a good idea. This also fits in with my long-standing
hope that WMF will become more transparent with its financial expenditures.

Pine


On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 9:13 AM, Risker  wrote:

> On 16 May 2017 at 11:52, rupert THURNER  wrote:
>
> > Why the amount is missing for the WMF?
> >
> > Rupert
> >
> >
> >
> Hello Rupert -
>
> The Funds Dissemination Committee is not tasked with recommending funding
> for the Wikimedia Foundation; the committee only reviews and provides
> feedback on the draft annual plan.
>
> Risker/Anne
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>
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 14 May 2017)

[Pine W]

I was glad to read in the WMF Blog
 of
an initiative by Wikimedia Canada and several partners to support Atikamekw
Wikipedia . I feel
that documenting, preserving, and sharing rare and/or endangered languages
are particularly good use cases for Wiktionary, Wikipedia, and Wikidata.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Funds Dissemination Committee Recommendations - Round 2 of 2016-17

[Pine W]

Thanks for clarifying. I was thinking that you were referring to both the
request column and the recommendation column.

Perhaps WMF, affiliate, and community finances will be discussed as a part
of the strategy process, probably not so much during the goal-setting phase
but more during the follow-up when I hope that SMART goals will be
designated and the questions of "how do we get there from here?" will be
addressed.

Pine


On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 12:21 PM, rupert THURNER 
wrote:

> To be clear I did only suggest to list a number for the activities the fdc
> gives a comment. I e. Fill out the first column and put a not applicable in
> the recommended money column.
>
> On May 17, 2017 04:25, "Pine W"  wrote:
>
> > For what it's worth, there has been previous discussions of having
> external
> > reviews of WMF spending, such as a peer review from a similar
> institution.
> > I think that this is a good idea. This also fits in with my long-standing
> > hope that WMF will become more transparent with its financial
> expenditures.
> >
> > Pine
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 9:13 AM, Risker  wrote:
> >
> > > On 16 May 2017 at 11:52, rupert THURNER 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Why the amount is missing for the WMF?
> > > >
> > > > Rupert
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > Hello Rupert -
> > >
> > > The Funds Dissemination Committee is not tasked with recommending
> funding
> > > for the Wikimedia Foundation; the committee only reviews and provides
> > > feedback on the draft annual plan.
> > >
> > > Risker/Anne
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2015-2016 now on-wiki

[Pine W]

Every time the subject of WMF's level of financial opacity/transparency
comes up I am disappointed. I think that my views on this matter are well
known, so rather than repeat them in detail for the nth time I will say
again that I object to WMF's limited transparency and believe that it is
very inconsistent with the practices that I would expect of a well-governed
charity.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#18)

[Pine W]

Hi Katherine,

I'm going to do something bold here and respond in public to your comment
about the changes at WMF since last year.

Standard disclaimer: this reflects only my own views.

I seem to have a long memory for things that have gone badly at WMF over
the years and for longstanding points of contention between communities and
WMF. As you can probably tell from my recent email about WMF financial
matters, I'm also dissatisfied with some things in the here and now.
However, my perception as an outsider is that WMF is in a much better place
than it was when you took over the ED role, and that there are a number of
aspects of the organization which are headed in good directions. My
perception is that WMF was close to chaos when you took over, and that the
situation improved remarkably quickly within the first few months. Also,
there have been remarkably few breakdowns since you took over, and I'm
grateful for that as well. While I have a number of differences of opinion
with you, I think it's only fair to say that you've done a lot of good in
your first year, and I'm hopeful for more ahead. I wish you a second
successful year.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chief Communications Officer search & job description

[Pine W]

Hi Joady,

Thank you for publishing this. Overall I like this draft. I would like to
offer two comments.

1. My impression is that WMF Communications is largely used to support
fundraising, readership, and sometimes legal or advocacy topics. The
department seems to be externally focused. I would like to see work by WMF
Communications and/or WMF Community Engagement on developing a systematic
"internal" communications system among content contributors and WMF
departments. There are currently many internal communications flows, and
while I think that there have been some noticeable improvements over the
past few years (I particularly want to acknowledge the WMF Community
Liaisons), there is a long way to go in systematizing and optimizing these
communications flows. So instead of looking for a chief communications
officer whose main strength is in marketing, sales, PR, or other forms of
external communication, I would encourage WMF to seek a chief
communications officer who has a track record of facilitating long-term
improvement of internal communications in complex and diverse environments.

2. For the line in the JD draft which currently reads "A clear, effective
communications style, including experience guiding messaging for major
organizations, political candidates, or movements", I would encourage
considerable caution about hiring someone into this role who has had a
background in political campaigns. I would prefer that the individual have
no affiliation with any political party. I can think of some organizations
which are not aligned with a specific political party and which support
civil rights issues which are likely to be largely compatible with WMF's
mission, but I would still be very cautious about hiring someone who has
any background in politics. Keeping in mind WMF's recent and controversial
annual report, I think it is particularly important to hire a chief
communications officer who can guide communications and the WMF
organization away from involvement in political matters to the maximum
extent possible while still supporting freedom of expression in the limited
circumstances in which constraints on freedom of expression would impede
Wikimedians' ability to communicate freely about matters of important
public interest.

Thank you,

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chief Communications Officer search & job description

[Pine W]

Risker,

> Your point #1, with respect to improving internal communication, is
> primarily handled by other departments within the WMF (Learning, Human
> Resources), with Communications as a resource rather than the primary
> messager.

If WMF wants to have a different department lead efforts on internal
communication (my impression is that currently no one is actually leading
efforts in a holistic way) that would be OK with me. My impression is that
as WMF is already strong on external communication, and I think that WMF
should hire for what it needs rather than what it already has. If WMF would
like to have someone outside of the Communications Department take the lead
role -- and actually does assign somebody with relevant experience to work
on this as one of their primary responsibilities -- then perhaps hiring an
external communications expert into the chief communications officer role
would still be OK.

> Your point #2 is pretty much irrelevant; some of the best
> communications leaders work for political campaigns, and they're usually
> "hired guns" rather than true believers.
There are a few exceptions, but
> again, it's irrelevant, and not ethical to screen directly for political
> affiliation - and possibly illegal to do so.

Hmm. I don't know what percentage of political campaign communications
leaders are "hired guns", but I'm not sure that this is a risk that I would
want to take. That said, I hadn't considered your point that screening out
candidates with work histories in politics might be considered an illegal
practice; thanks for bringing that up. I'll defer to WMF HR and WMF Legal
on that. I wonder whether screening out all paid jobs for political parties
or campaigns (regardless of which affiliation or campaign was involved)
would trigger the same kind of legal scrutiny as screening out one party or
another (which I'm fairly certain would be a violation of U.S. employment
laws). Perhaps this could get into such complicated legal territory and
provide enough opportunities for lawsuits that it would be best to do as
you suggest rather than risk lengthy and expensive litigation. I disagree
that this issue is "irrelevant", but thanks for pointing out that this kind
of screening may have its own kind of risks which I hadn't considered.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Video demos of upcoming changes to edit review / RC patrol

[Pine W]

I'd like to highlight two videos (some people may have already seen these)
that demo upcoming changes to edit review / RC patrol that take advantage
of ORES. I feel that that the changes look promising, and I hope that RC
patrollers, Teahouse hosts, newbie adopters, and others will find that the
changes make their work easier. I also hope for improved retention of
good-faith contributors.

0. A succinct overview by Joe Matazzoni (WMF):
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANew-feature_demo%E2%80%94smart_Recent_Changes_filtering_with_ORES.webm

1. A more extensive overview, also by Joe, including valuable context, from
the WMF Metrics Meeting for May 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAGwQdLyFb4 between 15:00 and 28:15.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 28 May 2017)

[Pine W]

I'm perceiving an increase in the number of mentions of Wikidata in ways
that make me think that Wikidata may eventually become an equal of
Wikipedia in terms of impact on the Internet in general, and perhaps even
surpass Wikipedia. Also, I'm looking forward to the improvements for RC
patrol.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 28 May 2017)

[Pine W]

:)

Pine


On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 2:24 PM, Andy Mabbett 
wrote:

> On 31 May 2017 at 21:16, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > I'm perceiving an increase in the number of mentions of Wikidata in ways
> > that make me think that Wikidata may eventually become an equal of
> > Wikipedia in terms of impact on the Internet in general, and perhaps even
> > surpass Wikipedia.
>
> I haven't been in any doubt about this, for some time.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 4 June 2017)

[Pine W]

I enjoy seeing this photo that was selected as the Commons Picture of the
Day to mark World Environment Day on 5 June:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polar_bear_(Ursus)_maritimus_female_with_its_cub,_Svalbard_(2).jpg

I went to the photographer's talk page on Commons to learn more about him.
He says that he is a resident of Germany, has a Ph.D. in biology, and
enjoys photographing the Arctic.

The photo was taken in Svalbard, which has a nice page on Wikivoyage here
. On that page I learned that
"Svalbard's visitors come mostly to experience Arctic nature at its rawest
and most powerful. The islands have untouched glaciers and craggy
mountains, but also polar bears, caribou, a peculiar short legged reindeer,
polar foxes, whales, seals and walruses. Svalbard is renowned for its
variety of birds, including Arctic Terns, Arctic Fulmar and Puffins. Whales
can be spotted off the coastlines particularly during late summer. Humpback
whales, Orcas, Beluga whales, and Narwhals all frequent the ocean waters
near Svalbard."

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Changes to Product and Technology departments at the Foundation

[Pine W]

Hi Toby,

Thanks for sharing the reorg information. From my perspective as an
outsider, this sounds good.

I have a question about the sentences "The biggest change is that all of
our work in fiscal year 2017-2018 will be structured and reported in
programs instead of teams (you can see how this works in our proposed
2017-2018 Annual Plan). This will help us focus on the collective impact we
want to make, rather than limiting ourselves to the way our organization is
structured."

I would like to see WMF move fully to project-based budgeting (there are a
variety of names for similar approaches), and the change that you describe
here sounds like a step in that direction. Will WMF move fully to
project-based budgeting by the time of the 2018-2019 Annual Plan? That
would involve each project (such as "redesign of www.wikimediafoundation.org")
having a project budget, and the collection of chosen projects with their
budgets would constitute the Annual Plan. (The methodology for choosing
projects varies among organizations that do this kind of budgeting; I would
imagine that WMF could use its values, the outcomes of the strategy
process, and the annual Board guidance about the budget as major factors in
selecting projects.)

Thanks,

Pine


On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 2:12 PM, Toby Negrin  wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> We have made some changes to our Product and Technology departments which
> we are excited to tell you about. When Wes Moran, former Vice President of
> Product, left the Wikimedia Foundation in May, we took the opportunity to
> review the organization and operating principles that were guiding Product
> and Technology. Our objectives were to improve our engagement with the
> community during product development, develop a more audience-based
> approach to building products, and create as efficient a pipeline as
> possible between an idea and its deployment. We also wanted an approach
> that would better prepare our engineering teams to plan around the upcoming
> movement strategic direction. We have finished this process and have some
> results to share with you.
>
> Product is now known as Audiences, and other changes in that department
>
> In order to more intentionally commit to a focus on the needs of users, we
> are making changes to the names of teams and department (and will be using
> these names throughout the rest of this update):
>
>-
>
>The Product department will be renamed the Audiences department;
>-
>
>The Editing team will now be called the Contributors team;
>-
>
>The Reading team will be renamed the Readers team.
>
> You might be asking: what does “audience” mean in this context? We define
> it as a specific group of people who will use the products we build. For
> example, “readers” is one audience. “Contributors” is another. Designing
> products around who will be utilizing them most, rather than what we would
> like those products to do, is a best practice in product development. We
> want our organizational structure to support that approach.
>
> We are making five notable changes to the Audiences department structure.
>
> The first is that we are migrating folks working on search and discovery
> from the stand-alone Discovery team into the Readers team and Technology
> department, respectively. Specifically, the team working on our search
> backend infrastructure will move to Technology, where they will report to
> Victoria. The team working on maps, the search experience, and the project
> entry portals (such as Wikipedia.org) will join the Readers team. This
> realignment will allow us to build more integrated experiences and
> knowledge-sharing for the end user.
>
> The second is that the Fundraising Tech team will also move to the
> Technology department. This move recognizes that their core work is
> primarily platform development and integration, and brings them into closer
> cooperation with their peers in critical functions including MediaWiki
> Platform, Security, Analytics, and Operations.
>
> The Team Practices group (TPG) will also be undergoing some changes.
> Currently, TPG supports both specific teams in Product, as well as
> supporting broader organizational development. Going forward, those TPG
> members directly supporting feature teams will be embedded in their
> respective teams in the Audiences or Technology departments. The TPG
> members who were primarily focused on organizational health and development
> will move to the Talent & Culture department, where they will report to
> Anna Stillwell.
>
> These three changes lead to the fourth, which is the move from four
> “audience” verticals in the department (Reading, Editing, Discovery, and
> Fundraising Tech, plus Team Practices) to three: Readers, Contributors, and
> Community Tech. This structure is meant to streamline our focus on the
> people we serve with our feature and product development, increase team
> accountability and ownership over their work, allow Community Tech to
> ma

[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 11 June 2017)

[Pine W]

I have a soft spot for Wikiquote. I realize that it's a lesser-known
project, but I find it interesting. I agree with some quotes more than
others, but almost all of them make me think.

"If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the
unforeseen, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even
in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which
leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever
it may lead."
-- Carl von Clausewitz ,
Prussian general and military theorist

"Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come
again."
-- Captain Jean-Luc Picard ,
in the *Star Trek: The Next Generation *episode "The Inner Light".

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Changes to Product and Technology departments at the Foundation

[Pine W]

James: thanks for asking; I'm copying that question to the Wikitech list.
While we're on that topic, what's happening to multimedia? I believe that
at one time there was a multimedia team, and I could understand how pairing
multimedia with maps in the same team could make sense. If multimedia is
separate, it would be good to know where that's being housed now; I believe
that there's work happening with 3D files for Commons, and I vaguely recall
hearing about improvements to the Commons upload wizard.

Pine


On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 8:07 AM, James Heilman  wrote:

> Looks like a reasonable change. Glad to see the degree of internal input
> that went into it.
>
> Does maps also include other rich content like graphs, charts, heat maps
> and other forms of data visualization?
>
> Best
> James
>
> On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 8:44 AM, Toby Negrin 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Jan --
> >
> > Thanks for the question. We'll be making a more specific announcement
> this
> > week about the future of the discovery projects. Sadly we don't have a
> lot
> > of new information for maps in particular and will need to do a bit more
> > scenario planning before we talk to the community.
> >
> > As far as focus, most of our "reading" features are actually content
> > created by editors that is consumed by readers and maps is no different.
> > While we don't have specifics as far as the roadmap, both authoring and
> > consumption features are totally in scope.
> >
> > Hope this helps to provide some information (if not clarity :) about how
> we
> > are approaching this.
> >
> > -Toby
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Jan Ainali  wrote:
> >
> > > 2017-06-07 23:12 GMT+02:00 Toby Negrin :
> > >
> > > >
> > > > The team working on maps, the search experience, and the project
> entry
> > > > portals (such as Wikipedia.org) will join the Readers team. This
> > > > realignment will allow us to build more integrated experiences and
> > > > knowledge-sharing for the end user.
> > > >
> > > Does maps going to readers mean that there will be less focus on
> editors
> > > tools for adding maps to articles and more focus on the readers
> > possibility
> > > to interact with the maps? If so, what is actually in the pipeline for
> > > maps?
> > >
> > > /Jan
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>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] James Heilman joins the Board Governance Committee as a volunteer and advisory member

[Pine W]

Thank you, Nataliia and James.

This appointment continues a trend of decisions and steps from the BGC
since Nataliia took the committee chair role that I think are good.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] June 2017 agenda of the Board of Trustees

[Pine W]

Hi Stephen,

Can board agendas, as well as slides and docs which are not security or
privacy sensitive, be published 2 weeks in advance of meetings, please?
This will allow community members to provide comments and ask questions
ahead of board meetings that the board can take into consideration when the
meeting occurs.

Thanks,
Pine

Pine


On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 10:24 AM, Stephen LaPorte 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The agenda for the next Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees meeting on
> June 16, 2017 is now available on Meta Wiki: https://meta.wikimedia.
> org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_agenda_2017-06
>
> Best,
> Stephen
>
> --
> Stephen LaPorte
> Senior Legal Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> *NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and
> ethical reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for,
> community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.
> For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
> .*
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] June 2017 agenda of the Board of Trustees

[Pine W]

I think that given how far in advance WMF Board meetings are planned, it
should be possible to know the agenda and have the materials available for
publication 2 weeks in advance.

If some last minute item comes up, it can easily be amended to the agenda.
Similarly, if for some reason an agenda item is dropped or tabled for a
future meeting, that can be done as well.

It is not my goal to box the Board into an unreasonably tight set of
constraints. I think it should be possible to achieve the benefits of
advance notification while maintaining a little flexibility to accommodate
changes. Naturally, those changes should be publicized when they become
known.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 18 June 2017)

[Pine W]

Someone who has a quadcopter created a serene 4K video of Lac de Salanfe in
Valais, Switzerland. The video is now linked from the Wikidata entry page
for the reservoir (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q680375) and Wikipedia
pages in English , French
, and Russian

.

If you watch the video, I recommend watching it in full screen mode.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine

-- Forwarded message --
From: Oleksiy Muzalyev 
Date: Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 6:15 AM
Subject: [OSM-talk] experimental video of the lake Lac de Salanfe for the
OSM & Wikidata
To: Talk Openstreetmap 


Good afternoon,

I filmed a short, 8:25, 4K video [1] of the lake Lac de Salanfe [2] last
weekend for its Wikidata page [3].

For the first time I used a 3D flying while filming an aerial footage. It
starts at 6:33. The difference with usual aerial filming is that a quad
moves not just on a flat plane in the air with a constant altitude, but in
three dimensions.

The idea is to fly following a relief of an geographical area and by this
creating its three-dimensional representation for including it as a part of
a video.

This lake is located at an elevation of 1925 m, so the air is a bit
rarefied. The quad which I used weighs less than 500 grams. It has got a
modular design. I plan to upgrade some of its components, especially
switching to the digital ESCs, so that the aerial footage would be
smoother. This time it was just an experiment.

It is possible to view the same video on Youtube [4] too.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lac-de-Salanfe.webm

[2] http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/157401

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac_de_Salanfe

[3] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q680375

[4] https://youtu.be/yYgFr3QajlE


With best regards,

Oleksiy
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Pine W]

Hi Katherine,

Thanks for the update.

My impression is that the strategy process is time intensive for the staff
and the consultants involved, and I am concerned that extending the
timeline like this will result in significant extra costs on top of what
was already understood to be an expensive process, and my impression from
your email is that the benefit from this extension will primarily go to the
relatively small number of users, staff, and other stakeholders who are
deeply involved in some affiliates.

How much is this timeline extension projected to cost, and from what source
are the funds being drawn?

Could you elaborate on the benefits of this timetable change for people who
are not involved with affiliates?

I am mindful of the many things that would be good to do in the Wikiverse
that aren't being done due to financial and HR constraints, and I am
concerned that this extension of the timeline will cost a lot of money (it
wouldn't surprise me if the number was five or six figures) that could
instead have been used for any number of other good projects.

Could you also discuss what measures are being taken to control costs in
the strategy process?

Thank you,

Pine


On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:55 PM, Katherine Maher 
wrote:

> Hi y'all!
>
> *Summary: Cycle 2 has concluded, and we are sharing a revised plan for
> Cycle 3 based on your feedback.*
>
> Thank you to everyone that participated in Cycle 2![1] A quick overview of
> participation:
> - More than 50 Wikimedia groups, including:
> -- Art+Feminism User Group
> -- WikiDonne's User Group
> -- Wikimedia Ghana User Group
> -- Wikimedia Poland
> - More than 1,000 individual participants
> - Nearly 2,300 statements
>
> In addition to the weekly summaries already available on Meta-Wiki,[2] we
> will also be posting a final report in the coming weeks.
>
> Over the past few weeks I’ve heard from many of you with feedback,
> concerns, and excitement regarding the movement strategy. Thank you, truly,
> to everyone that has reached out to share your thoughts. They have been so
> helpful in understanding your perspectives and needs.
>
> Some things I’ve heard:
>
> - Curiosity around how the findings from the different tracks will come
> together
> - Request from affiliates for more time to engage more deeply in these
> topics
> - Passionate and divergent ideas from non-editors who support our vision
> - A desire to get as many endorsements from around the movement on the
> strategic direction as possible
>
> I asked the strategy team for help in responding to this feedback, so we
> could improve the process based on what you were telling us. After
> discussions with the team and community advisors, we have decided to move
> to a more flexible schedule, and change the timeline. This will provide
> more time for discussions in your own communities. We also hope you will
> use the time to deeply consider the research emerging from the New Voices
> track,[3] and incorporate it into the way you are thinking about our future.
>
> Here is the new proposed timeline:
>
> -  July: Complete Cycle 3. Integrate insights from New Voices. Draft the
> strategic direction.
> -  August: Share the strategic direction. Wikimania! Finalize the
> direction.
> -  September: Sign on! Confirm support from around the movement.
>
> As July approaches, we will share more information about opportunities to
> participate in drafting the strategic direction[4] and engage with New
> Voices content.[3]
>
> Thank you for your patience as we worked through these improvements, and
> again, thank you for the feedback!
>
> *On a related note*
>
> As you have hopefully noticed, Wikimania is a part of the strategy process
> and it is coming up soon! (I’m so excited!) A draft program schedule has
> been posted[5]. The schedule includes five keynote sessions from great
> speakers such as Esra'a Al Shafei [6] and Evan Prodromou,[7] more than 100
> community-submitted talks, and two days of hackathon and pre-conference
> activities. Early bird pricing for registration ends on July 10 and the
> deadline for booking accommodations in the hotel is June 30, so if you have
> not done so already - please register today![8]
>
> Bene habeas (Latin translation: “May it be well for you”)
> Katherine
>
> PS. A version of this message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki.[9]
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
> movement/2017/Cycle_2
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
> movement/2017/Sources
> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
> movement/2017/Cycle_2/Reach
> [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
> movement/2017/Participate
> [5] https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programme
> [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esra%27a_Al-Shafei
> [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Prodromou
> [8] https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration
> [9] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
> movement/2017/Updat

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Pine W]

Thanks for the updates, Dariusz and Nat.

I thought I'd mention that in the past my impression is that the Advisory
Board was the body to which people were "retired" after serving
high-profile roles, and the AB performed little to no actual work. It
sounds like your plan is to reverse both of those patterns, which I think
could be good.

Pine


On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 1:31 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak 
wrote:

> Hello! The Advisory Board (AB) and its role was indeed among the BGC
> priorities for this year [1]. And I have been working with the former AB
> members on a concept for how the AB’s work should be organized. The concept
> they came up though needs to be clarified and improved, especially on how
> the AB internal coordination will be organized [2]. The group will work on
> this with minimal overhead from the Board of Trustees and without
> staff/budget support at first. The BGC believes that the AB can be used as
> a practical path for prospective members of the Board Board of Trustees,
> and to formalize relationships between high-profile experts, and staff and
> the Board members. We shall answer with more details soon.
>
> We have not made any announcements, as we're in the process, which I ope is
> understandable - there is no formal constitution of the body yet.
>
> Dariusz & Nat
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_Governance_Committee/Minutes_2016-07-08#Advisory_Board
> [2]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_Governance_Committee/Minutes_13-04-2017
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 6:49 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
> wrote:
>
> > Craig
> >
> > Thanks for your thoughtful response.  There are two gneral issues around
> > the Advisory Board that members of the Community might be interested in.
> >
> > Firstly, it seems that after having lapsed in 2015, the Advisory Board
> has
> > been reconstituted, but there has been no announcement to the Community,
> > and indeed the Community was given no opportunity to engage with the
> > process of reconstitution (for example, by way of suggesting new members
> or
> > new processes).  In particular, we in the Community do not know who the
> new
> > Advisory Board members are, or what the new remit of the Advisory Board
> is,
> > or whether and how to engage with those members.
> >
> > Secondly, as a consequence there are no established channels for
> engagement
> > between the Advisory Board and the Community.  As a member of the new
> > Avdvisory Board, you may wish to encourage your colleagues to establish
> > appropriate opportunities and rules of engagement for yourself and your
> > fellow members to engage with the Community.
> >
> > You mentioned "tradtions".  I am sorry to say that my personal view is
> that
> > the relationship between the Board of Trustees and the wider Foundation
> on
> > the one hand and the Community of contributors and consumers on the other
> > has "traditionally" been less than satisfctory.  I hope that this is one
> > tradition that your advice will be helpful in overturning.
> >
> > "Rogol"
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 4:43 PM, Craig Newmark 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Rogol, I'm on the advisory board, and actively involved in related
> > issues,
> > > but have hesitated posting in respect for Community traditions (as I
> > learn
> > > them) and also, as a large effort emerges in journalism regarding
> > reliable
> > > sources.
> > >
> > > Specifically, the latter involves the News Integrity Initiative
> centered
> > at
> > > the City University of NY, graduate journalism department.
> > >
> > > That's to say, I hesitate until I learn the respectful way to talk
> about
> > > this, and until the NII has a lot more to say.
> > >
> > > Additional constraint per the ethics of funding nonprofit journalism,
> per
> > > the American Press Institute: when I say something, I need to be
> > > transparent while also Doing No Harm.  (The latter is surprisingly
> > > difficult.) To that effect, I gotta disclose that I provide significant
> > > funding to the NII as well as WMF.
> > >
> > > I'd appreciate your advice, and that of anyone interested in this
> > subject.
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > >
> > > Craig Newmark, founder craigslist
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 7:10 AM, Rogol Domedonfors <
> > domedonf...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > This Board was fomed in 2007 to advise the  Wikimedia Foundation, and
> > was
> > > > required to be renewed annually.  No resolution was made to do so in
> > > 2015,
> > > > so by the beginning of 2016 it had lapsed.  This status is reflected
> at
> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Board but the corresponding
> > > page
> > > > at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board is seriously
> > out
> > > of
> > > > date (it was written when the board was still in existence).  Just
> > about
> > > a
> > > > year ago, Dariusz assured me that "it is one of the BGC's priorities
> to
> > > > revise and re-ignite the Advisory 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Pine W]

This thread is going in many directions, and I'm enjoying reading the
conversation.

If I may go back to some questions that I asked in my earlier post, I would
like to hear from Katherine (or someone else at WMF, perhaps Anna):

* How much is this timeline extension projected to cost, and from what
source are the funds being drawn? (Note that this doesn't assume that the
decision was a bad one, but I very much want to know the source of the
funds and how much is likely to be drawn from it.)

* Could you elaborate on the benefits of this timetable change for people
who are not involved with affiliates? We've seen some responses from
Strainu and Yaroslov (thank you both!) and I would like to hear WMF's
perspective.

* Could you also discuss what measures are being taken to control costs in
the strategy process?

Thanks,

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 25 June 2017)

[Pine W]

I like a tool for Wikidata that Hay created which is called VizQuery. More
information about it is below.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine

-- Forwarded message --
From: Hay (Husky) 
Date: Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 4:10 PM
Subject: [Wikidata] A visual way to query Wikidata
To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." <
wikid...@lists.wikimedia.org>


Hey everyone,
i've made a tool that allows you to query Wikidata in a visual way
without using SPARQL. It's called VizQuery:

http://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/vizquery/

The possibilities of using Wikidata to do interesting queries are
endless, and the current query service allows for very powerful
queries indeed. However, i feel that for the general public,
especially those who are not that technical, it might be a bit
overwhelming and difficult for them to learn a complex language such
as SPARQL. To make people familiar with the concept of queries i
believe a somewhat less intimidating approach might be useful, hence
this tool.

VizQuery is only capable of doing a subset of possible queries. It's
basically simple triples, variables (prefixed with '?') and literals
(between "quotes"). You can do pretty powerful queries with only those
things though. For example, here's a query with vegetarians who are
married to a vegetarian:

http://bit.ly/2sydpmW

Under the hood VizQuery uses Ruben Verborgh's SPARQL.js library to
convert between JSON and SPARQL, so theoretically every SPARQL query
you could do in the regular query service can be done in VizQuery.
However, many queries won't work because the visual interface only
supports a subset of options: it's pretty hard to create user-friendly
GUI representations of many of the complex SPARQL features. :)

Anyway, i'd like to hear what you think. Bugs, feature request and
pull requests are also welcome on my Github page:
https://github.com/hay/wiki-tools

Kind regards,
-- Hay

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Pine W]

Thanks for the updates.

My perspective is that a functioning advisory board could be nice to have,
and I hope that its scope and methods of work could be articulated
somewhere such as in a charter. I think that such an arrangement would help
everyone to know their roles and have realistic expectations.

My impression is that the AB is a less time-sensitive concern than several
other issues that are on the Board's agenda, and I would suggest "not
stressing" about the AB, although one benefit to having a functional and
well-designed AB is that the AB might be able to help the Board a bit with
some of the other issues.

Pine


On Tue, Jun 27, 2017 at 10:32 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
wrote:

> Hello! Please find my answers inline.
>
> >> What is the status of the Avisory Board?
>
> There is no active Advisory Board at the moment, but the Board has approved
> inviting new members for the year. I have added a template to the page on
> Wikimedia Foundation site about it not being accurate at the moment. Thank
> you for noticing this.
>
> >> Has it been reconstiuted, and if so, when, and who are its new members?
>
> The Board has resolved to set up the Advisory Board during its meeting on
> June 16, 2017. The invitation letter will be sent tonight. As Dariusz
> mentioned already, the BGC discussion resulted in a proposal to the Board
> [2] to set up the Advisory Board on a lightweight structure (without budget
> and staff support at first), relying on the most active core of the former
> Advisory Board members, and a few individuals selected by the Board of
> Trustees based on the recommendation of the Governance Committee. So,
> basically it will consist of people mentioned here [3], but only those who
> took part in discussions about the AB role and strategy discussions and
> only after they accepted the invitation to join.
>
> >> If it has not been reconstituted, what is the status of Florence's
> record?
>
> As far as I know, Florence has indeed worked with the former AB members as
> a group on their input to the Strategy process. Although the  Advisory
> Board has not been active for a few years, we are still very thankful for
> their perspective.
>
> >> If and when the Advisory Board is reconstituted, will input from the
> Community for potential members be welcome, and if so how will it be
> gathered? Once the Board is in operation again, is it expected that it will
> interact with  the Community, and if so, what will the mechanism be for
> that interaction.
>
> That’s for the AB to work on and come up with a suggestion to the
> BGC/Board. The first task of the AB will be working on internal
> coordination, other questions may follow.
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_Governance_Committee/Minutes_2016-07-08#Advisory_Board
>
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_Governance_Committee/Minutes_13-04-2017
> [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board#Former_members
>
> Best regards,
> antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
>
> *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
> hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
> should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
> advance!*
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
> wrote:
>
> > This Board was fomed in 2007 to advise the  Wikimedia Foundation, and was
> > required to be renewed annually.  No resolution was made to do so in
> 2015,
> > so by the beginning of 2016 it had lapsed.  This status is reflected at
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Board but the corresponding
> page
> > at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board is seriously out
> of
> > date (it was written when the board was still in existence).  Just about
> a
> > year ago, Dariusz assured me that "it is one of the BGC's priorities to
> > revise and re-ignite the Advisory Board" and indeed the BGC minutes for
> > April published a couple of days ago at
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_
> > Governance_Committee/Minutes_13-04-2017
> > show that the BGC took a paper (not made public) from Dariusz on the
> > subject and agreed to "submit a formal proposal to the Board".  No Board
> > resoultion on the subject has yet been published.
> >
> > Rather confusingly, shortly after the BGC meeting, Florence wrote a page
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/
> > 2017/Sources/WMF_Advisory_board
> > recording the Advisory Board's opinions on matters arising in the current
> > movement strategy process.  So it would seem that within a fortnight of
> the
> > BGC meeting, an entity called the Advisory Board was already in existence
> > again.
> >
> > What is the status of the Avisory Board?  Has it been reconstiuted, and
> if
> > so, when, and who are its new members?  If it has not been reconstituted,
> > what is the status of Florence's record?  If and when the Advisory Board

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Pine W]

Hi Anna,

>> * How much is this timeline extension projected to cost, and from what
>> source are the funds being drawn? (Note that this doesn't assume that the
>> decision was a bad one, but I very much want to know the source of the
>> funds and how much is likely to be drawn from it.)
>
>
>We've got this covered, Pine. We are fiscally managing this process and all
>of our contracts well. Thank you for your concern.

Please answer my question: how much is this timeline extension projected to
cost,
and from what source are the funds being drawn?


>> * Could you elaborate on the benefits of this timetable change for people
>> who are not involved with affiliates? We've seen some responses from
>> Strainu and Yaroslov (thank you both!) and I would like to hear WMF's
>> perspective.
>>

> The benefits of the change in the timetable are that 4/4 stakeholder
groups
> told us that this was a meaningful exercise, that they are earnestly
> engaged in thinking about the future, and that they need more time for
> translation and conversation on this important subject. 3/4 tracks are non
> affiliates (on-wiki, new voices, experts).

> We agreed with them. These are meaningful conversations. We are learning a
> lot and we need to hear what people have to say and they need more time to
> say it.

OK, that makes sense.

>
> * Could you also discuss what measures are being taken to control costs in
> the strategy process?
>

> We have plenty of measures in place to monitor costs (e.g., we don't need
> to control them because they are not out of control, we are within our
> budget). Also, describing financial metrics at any lower level of detail
> would be a waste of the strategy budget since we are within it.

I disagree with that assessment. Simply because expenses are within
budget don't mean that all expenses which were charged to the budget
are reasonable and accurate, and I am disappointed to hear that WMF's
standards for its finances are so lax. This convinces me all the more
that my original request is important for WMF to answer: please discuss
what measures are being taken to control costs in the strategy process.
The level of detail that I now think WMF should provide is much higher
than the level of detail with which I previously would have been satisfied.
My level of concern here is high enough that I am asking the WMF
Audit Committee chair, Kelly, to comment on this situation. Something seems
very wrong here, and I am concerned about WMF's financial integrity.

Pine


On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 8:33 PM, Anna Stillwell 
wrote:

> Hello Pine,
>
> Good evening. In line.
>
> On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 7:40 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > This thread is going in many directions, and I'm enjoying reading the
> > conversation.
> >
> > If I may go back to some questions that I asked in my earlier post, I
> would
> > like to hear from Katherine (or someone else at WMF, perhaps Anna):
> >
>
> First, some context... a good deal of this has been iterative by design. We
> had an overarching idea of where we were headed (e.g. a shared direction
> first, roles and responsibilities second), but then we knew we would learn
> to refine or course correct based on what we hear.
>
> We've been hearing to extend the timeline on all fronts--organized groups
> and affiliates (e.g., time for conversation), on wiki (e.g., time for
> translation and conversation) and new voices and experts (e.g., "we've seen
> all of the data but our communities have yet to see and reflect upon
> it")... so that is the background reasoning.
>
>
> > * How much is this timeline extension projected to cost, and from what
> > source are the funds being drawn? (Note that this doesn't assume that the
> > decision was a bad one, but I very much want to know the source of the
> > funds and how much is likely to be drawn from it.)
> >
>
> We've got this covered, Pine. We are fiscally managing this process and all
> of our contracts well. Thank you for your concern.
>
>
> > * Could you elaborate on the benefits of this timetable change for people
> > who are not involved with affiliates? We've seen some responses from
> > Strainu and Yaroslov (thank you both!) and I would like to hear WMF's
> > perspective.
> >
>
> The benefits of the change in the timetable are that 4/4 stakeholder groups
> told us that this was a meaningful exercise, that they are earnestly
> engaged in thinking about the future, and that they need more time for
> translation and conversation on this important subject. 3/4 tracks are non
> affiliates (on-wiki, new voices, experts).
>
> We agreed with them. The

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Pine W]

I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can
approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have
posted previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent,
and out of respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday
to send that response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF staff
to feel like they need to think about this or respond to it during a
holiday weekend. There will be time enough for more discussion after the
holiday. I'm not trying to close off discussion, but I thought that I
should explain why I'm planning to wait a few days before responding to
staff.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 2 July 2017)

[Pine W]

Cascadia Wikimedians User Group is getting near to finishing the reports
and accounting for a WMF grant. I'm hoping that the current grant will be
"closed" in mid-July and that the organization will move forward later this
year with a new plan for outreach activities.

Additionally, I had a conversation with two people last week who liked a
Wikiemdia-related idea that I've been contemplating. I hope to have another
conversation with them in the future when my schedule is more accommodating.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Better public reporting for WMF $1m or $2m+ projects

[Pine W]

Hmmm. The talk about contracting procedures reminds me to say that my
feeling is that there should be a requirement that WMF and affiliate
contract awards over a certain dollar amount must be openly bid. Perhaps
$100,000 could be the floor.

Pine
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Changes in the Contributors Team

[Pine W]

Forwarding. This email may be of interest to folks are interested in
translations, language engineering, and contributors' interfaces.

Pine


-- Forwarded message --
From: Trevor Parscal 
Date: Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 12:46 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Changes in the Contributors Team
To: Wikimedia developers 


Wikimedia Developers,


With the change to a new annual plan and fiscal year, we’ve made some
changes to how the Contributors team, formerly known as the Editing
department, is organized. I believe these changes will help us better serve
our communities and make judicious use of donor funds, by making our teams
more capable of taking on large projects while maintaining production
software. I also believe these changes will better support for our staff by
helping many of them who have been wearing many hats for a long time
achieve greater focus.


The first and most significant change is that the Language and
Collaboration teams have merged to become the Global Collaboration team.
Runa Bhattacharjee, who has managed the Language team since 2014, will
manage the new combined team. Roan Kattouw, who has led and managed the
Collaboration team for the past two years, has now taken off his people
manager hat, and is now focused on being the Lead Engineer of the new team.
By merging, this new team will have the ability to incorporate engineering,
design, QA and community engagement more fluidly, meeting the specific
needs of each project and allowing team members to share their individual
expertise to a greater number of products.


Additionally, as Toby mentioned last month, the Dan Garry has joined the
team responsible for editing tools like VisualEditor, allowing James to
step away from his 5-year stint as the Product Manager for VisualEditor and
focus on leading product for Contributors. With this change comes a new
name for the VisualEditor team, which is now (back to being called) the
Editing team.


It will likely take some time for these changes to fully propagate through
all the wikis and development tools and many staff are currently in
transitional roles. If you have any questions about these changes, please
let me know and I’ll do my best to help you.


Thanks,

Trevor Parscal

--
- Trevor
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Pine W]

Having had time to reflect further on this matter, I'm having difficulty
with writing a comprehensive reply in a civil tone.

Rather than try to address multiple topics at once, I'd like to start by
following up on a single topic. I'm hoping that this
will help to keep the conversation focused and civil.

> Regarding costs, as has been previously stated by the Foundation and
Board, the Board approved a spending resolution
> last year for expenses related to the movement strategy of up to $2.5
million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June
> 2017) and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018).

Thanks for providing the project budget number, which is a good place to
start. How much is the timeline extension projected
to cost, and from what source are the funds being drawn? I imagine that an
analysis of the cost of the extension was done
before the extension was authorized, and that a funding source was
identified. I hope that WMF can provide that information
and that only a few minutes of staff time will be necessary to publish it.

I'm hoping that we can address this topic first, and then move on to other
issues that have come up.

Thanks,

Pine


On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can
> approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have
> posted previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent,
> and out of respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday
> to send that response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF staff
> to feel like they need to think about this or respond to it during a
> holiday weekend. There will be time enough for more discussion after the
> holiday. I'm not trying to close off discussion, but I thought that I
> should explain why I'm planning to wait a few days before responding to
> staff.
>
> Pine
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 9 July 2017)

[Pine W]

It's good to hear of progress with the Structured Data on Commons program,
such as in the email below.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine

-- Forwarded message --
From: Alex Stinson 
Date: Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 10:00 AM
Subject: [Commons-l] Welcome Amanda Bittaker as the Program Manager for
Structured Commons
To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." <
wikid...@lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <
common...@lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Amanda Bittaker 


Hi Wikidata and Commons Communities,

I’m excited to let you all know that Amanda Bittaker (cc'ed) has joined the
Audiences (formerly Product) team at the Wikimedia Foundation as the
Program Manager for the Structured Data on Commons program. She will be
working closely with teams from the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikidata team
at Wikimedia Deutschland, and the communities to complete the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation grant [1], expanding the capabilities of Commons to make
it easier for people and institutions to find, share, and reuse Commons
content.

Many people may have met Amanda already. She joined the Foundation in
November 2014, working with the Learning & Evaluation team to help wiki
program organizers’ design, manage, and evaluate their programs. During
that time, she also partnered with engineers to build program tools such as
the Program and Events Dashboard[2] and the Global Metrics Magic Button [3].

Before joining the Foundation, Amanda worked in the international
development industry for five years, doing finance, program design,
monitoring, and evaluation. She spent two years in South America. Once upon
a time she also ran and oversaw programs at a nonprofit bicycle education
space that operated entirely by general consensus, which taught her a lot
about collaborative and transparent program management.

She is eager to work on Structured Data on Commons, helping our communities
make Commons as useful as possible, and helping to make transitions in
processes and workflows as smooth as possible.  Amanda is based in San
Francisco in the US.  You can find her on the wikis or at Wikimania or the
Wikimania hackathon in Montreal.  She can converse pretty well in English
and Spanish, and would like to practice her French more, but it is still
very basic.

Cheers,
Alex

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data/Sloan_Grant
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs_%26_Events_Dashboard
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Learning_patterns/How_to_
use_the_global_metrics_magic_button
-- 
Alex Stinson
GLAM-Wiki Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
Twitter:@glamwiki/@sadads

Learn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other
Wikimedia projects partner with cultural heritage organizations:
http://glamwiki.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Pine W]

Hi WMF folks,

I'm still waiting for a reply to this question.

Pine


On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 11:14 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> Having had time to reflect further on this matter, I'm having difficulty
> with writing a comprehensive reply in a civil tone.
>
> Rather than try to address multiple topics at once, I'd like to start by
> following up on a single topic. I'm hoping that this
> will help to keep the conversation focused and civil.
>
> > Regarding costs, as has been previously stated by the Foundation and
> Board, the Board approved a spending resolution
> > last year for expenses related to the movement strategy of up to $2.5
> million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June
> > 2017) and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018).
>
> Thanks for providing the project budget number, which is a good place to
> start. How much is the timeline extension projected
> to cost, and from what source are the funds being drawn? I imagine that an
> analysis of the cost of the extension was done
> before the extension was authorized, and that a funding source was
> identified. I hope that WMF can provide that information
> and that only a few minutes of staff time will be necessary to publish it.
>
> I'm hoping that we can address this topic first, and then move on to other
> issues that have come up.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pine
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>
>> I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can
>> approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have
>> posted previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent,
>> and out of respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday
>> to send that response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF staff
>> to feel like they need to think about this or respond to it during a
>> holiday weekend. There will be time enough for more discussion after the
>> holiday. I'm not trying to close off discussion, but I thought that I
>> should explain why I'm planning to wait a few days before responding to
>> staff.
>>
>> Pine
>>
>>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Looking for your thoughts on the Wikimedia Foundation election cycle

[Pine W]

Hi Rogol,

I think that suggesting a change of vocabulary is a good idea. I suggest
that you place that feedback on the page that Joe linked.

You might also mention -- although I'm not sure whether that page is the
best place for this suggestion, but adding it wouldn't hurt --
that WMF could transition itself to be a membership organization with
direct elections.

Also, I suggest that we keep in mind that the decision about terminology is
probably made made much higher up in the
WMF hierarchy than Joe's level. Let's try to be civil to staff who are
communicating decisions that trickle down from higher up in
the hierarchy.

Pine


On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 12:57 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
wrote:

> Joe,
>
> You don't mean "election" when it comes to the Board, unless you mean
> "election to the position of being considered for appointment by the
> Board".  Unless and until those positions are either truly directly elected
> by the Community, or the Board commits itself to appointing whomsoever the
> Community nominates irrespective of the Board's own view of their fitness
> for the post – which would be a violation of their duty as Trustees –
> please avoid the misleading term "election" and replace it by "nomination",
> or "selection", or "pre-election", or some other term that correctly
> reflects the fact that the only body with power to appoint a Board member
> is the Board itself.
>
> "Rogol"
>
> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 8:47 PM, Joe Sutherland  >
> wrote:
>
> > Um. I of course mean "election", not "meeting". :)
> >
> > Joe
> >
> > --
> > *Joe Sutherland*
> > Community Advocate
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > On 14 July 2017 at 12:46, Joe Sutherland 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello all!
> > >
> > > The Support and Safety team is looking for your thoughts on the recent
> > > Wikimedia Foundation elections cycle - that is, the Board of Trustees
> > > elections in April/May, and the Funds Dissemination Committee meeting
> in
> > > May/June.
> > >
> > > What do you think went well, and what do you think could have gone
> > better?
> > >
> > > I'd love your thoughts, either on this email thread or on the dedicated
> > > Meta-Wiki page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> > > elections/2017/Post_mortem
> > >
> > > Feel free to email me privately if you'd like to.
> > >
> > > Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, good or bad. :)
> > >
> > > best,
> > > Joe
> > >
> > > --
> > > *Joe Sutherland*
> > > Community Advocate
> > > Wikimedia Foundation
> > >
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[Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 16 July 2017)

[Pine W]

Today some of the Seattle-area Wikimedians met for our annual Wiknic
 picnic. This year we met
at Gas Works Park , which has
an interesting history. Today, besides the industrial structures, the site
features grassy areas and a hill with beautiful views of the surrounding
areas. While we Wikimedians were there, other people were flying kites,
throwing a Frisbee, reenacting Medieval combat
 with armor and various
prop weapons, and enjoying the views.

I took several photos at the park, and I'm hoping that at least one of them
will become a featured picture on Commons and/or English Wikipedia.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] July 14: Strategy update - New Voices research, events, and interviews (#21)

[Pine W]

I have a few comments here. These aren't directed personally to Katherine;
this is more like "Pine thinking out loud".

I have am grateful for the depth and breadth of discussions that are
happening in the strategy process. The depth and breadth are more extensive
than I anticipated.

I am uncertain about how the end product will look -- I think that everyone
is -- and I continue to be cautious about spending so much money and time
on developing strategic goals and a strategic plan. Still, I am hopeful
that the end product will be useful.

However, there is still the matter of the financing of the extension of the
grant, and so far the lack of answers about how much it is costing and the
other matters that I raised in my previous emails. I am hoping that WMF
will choose to be cooperative with these inquiries. It seems to me that WMF
should make efforts to set a good example of financial transparency.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost – Volume 13, Issue 6 – 15 July 2017

[Pine W]

I'd like to say "thank you" to the folks who contribute to the *Signpost*,
especially those who are trying to revive it with a very small number of
people filling multiple roles. I know that many hours of volunteer time go
into each issue, and I feel that the *Signpost *is a valuable community
institution.

Pine


On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 6:52 PM, Wikipedia Signpost <
wikipediasignp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> News and notes: French chapter woes, new affiliates and more WMF team
> changes
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/News_and_notes
>
> Featured content: Spectacular animals, Pine Trees screens, and more
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/Featured_content
>
> In the media: Concern about access and fairness, Foundation expenditures,
> and relationship to real-world politics and commerce
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/In_the_media
>
> Recent research: The chilling effect of surveillance on Wikipedia readers
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/Recent_research
>
> Op-ed: Why Task Forces are Dying in 2017
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-07-15/Op-ed
>
> Gallery: A mix of patterns
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/Gallery
>
> Humour: The Infobox Game
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/Humour
>
> Traffic report: Film, television and Internet phenomena reign with some
> room left over for America's birthday
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/Traffic_report
>
> Technology report: New features in development; more breaking changes for
> scripts
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/Technology_report
>
> Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 3 wrap-up
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2017-07-15/Wikicup
>
>
> Single-page view
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single
>
>
>
> https://facebook.com/wikisignpost
>
> https://twitter.com/wikisignpost
>
>
> --
> Signpost team
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki-research-l] [Announcement] Voice and exit in a voluntary work environment

[Pine W]

This sounds like a great project. Forwarding.

Pine


On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 10:32 AM, Leila Zia  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> With the start of the new fiscal year in Wikimedia Foundation on July
> 1, the Research team has officially started the work on Program 12:
> Growing contributor diversity. [1] Here are a few
> announcements/pointers about this program and the research and work
> that will be going to it:
>
> * We aim to keep the research documentation for this project on the
> corresponding research page on meta. [2]
> * Research tasks are hard to break down and track in task-tracking
> systems. This being said, any task that we can break down and track
> will be documented under the corresponding Epic task on Phabricator.
> [3]
> * The goals for this Program for July-September 2017 (Quarter 1) are
> captured on MediaWiki. [4] (The Phabricator epic will be updated with
> corresponding tasks as we start working on them.)
> * Our three formal collaborators (cc-ed) will contribute to this
> program: Jérôme Hergueux from ETH, Paul Seabright from TSE, and Bob
> West from EPFL. We are thankful to these people who have agreed to
> spend their time and expertise on this project in the coming year, and
> to those of you who have already worked with us as we were shaping the
> proposal for this project and are planning to continue your
> contributions to this program. :)
> * I act as the point of contact for this research in Wikimedia
> Foundation. Please feel free to reach out to me (directly, if it
> cannot be shared publicly) if you have comments/questions about the
> project in the coming year.
>
> Best,
> Leila
>
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Final/Programs/Technology#Program_
> 12:_Grow_contributor_diversity
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Voice_and_exit_
> in_a_voluntary_work_environment
> [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T166083
> [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Technology/
> Goals/2017-18_Q1#Research
>
> --
> Leila Zia
> Senior Research Scientist
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Pine W]

Hi WMF folks,
I'm still waiting. The issue of financial transparency isn't going away, and 
the silence here is getting to be a point of concern.
Pine
 Original message From: Pine W  Date: 
7/14/17  11:31 AM  (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 
23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19) 
Hi WMF folks,

I'm still waiting for a reply to this question.

Pine



On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 11:14 PM, Pine W  wrote:
Having had time to reflect further on this matter, I'm having difficulty with 
writing a comprehensive reply in a civil tone.

Rather than try to address multiple topics at once, I'd like to start by 
following up on a single topic. I'm hoping that this
will help to keep the conversation focused and civil.

> Regarding costs, as has been previously stated by the Foundation and Board, 
> the Board approved a spending resolution
> last year for expenses related to the movement strategy of up to $2.5 million 
> over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June
> 2017) and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018).

Thanks for providing the project budget number, which is a good place to start. 
How much is the timeline extension projected
to cost, and from what source are the funds being drawn? I imagine that an 
analysis of the cost of the extension was done
before the extension was authorized, and that a funding source was identified. 
I hope that WMF can provide that information
and that only a few minutes of staff time will be necessary to publish it.

I'm hoping that we can address this topic first, and then move on to other 
issues that have come up.

Thanks,

Pine



On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pine W  wrote:
I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can 
approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have posted 
previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent, and out of 
respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday to send that 
response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF staff to feel like 
they need to think about this or respond to it during a holiday weekend. There 
will be time enough for more discussion after the holiday. I'm not trying to 
close off discussion, but I thought that I should explain why I'm planning to 
wait a few days before responding to staff.

Pine






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