Personally, I don't find it an offensive post. I also agree with Gmaxwell
that it was quoted selectively. I certainly won't be voting for Oscar.
I do think that a mass email might not have been the wisest move, however. I
do agree with the sentiments of the email. I also appreciate getting the
email, as the only list I follow is this one. The English Wikipedia does
have a low voter turnout.
Chris - Ta bu shi dayu
The message is no mystery, I posted it in advance on wikien-l.
> Unfortunately many people don't see posts on the lists.
>
> Oscar, I find it amusing that you've quoted it so selectively and
> imply that the rest of the body reflects your selection. It doesn't of
> course, but that would weaken your argument. It also amuses me that
> there would be any question about who sent it: All, save a few, went
> out with my name on them. And all would have told you who sent them by
> simply looking for the username that sent the message.
>
> For those who care to see the actual message rather than a
> misrepresentation, you can see it at
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-July/076652.html
>
> The message I sent in email just had a slightly personalized into
> sentence, the rest was pretty much the same.
>
> It's been an interesting cultural experiment, if nothing else.
>
> I've received over a hundred positive responses, messages spanning
> from casual "thanks" to some which absolutely glowed with praise.
>
> I've hand held easily a dozen people through the voting process...
> Some who would have been otherwise unable to vote because of mistakes
> we made. The email uncovered numerous process errors, for example: A
> great many, potentially a majority of, currently active En Wikipedians
> couldn't see the site notice and were totally unaware of the election.
>
> I have received a grand total of clearly four negative responses, all
> from people I would have considered usual suspects... people I've had
> past disagreements with, and would have excluded from the mailing if I
> hadn't considered it important to avoid allowing my personal choices
> to bias the selection.
>
> The facts are that:
>
> 1) That under 5% of the recently active eligible English Wikipedians
> had participated in the election thus far. (My email said 'under 16%'
> but I was trying to be conservative as there is room to argue over
> what constitutes recently, and the real numbers are just far too
> embarrassing).
>
> 2) The board appointed election com. has made several serious and
> impacting errors in the handling of the election which has resulted in
> low turnout. Some of these errors have discriminated against the
> English Wikipedia community although no doubt unintentionally so. I
> have personally, found the election com. to be unable to address most
> issues because they are over worked.
>
> 3) As mentioned above, the responses have been overwhelming and
> intensely positive.
>
> As such, I am convinced that my actions were correct. They were my
> actions alone, made with no one's permission, assistance, or advice
> but my own, so if you'd like to yell at me and tell me that I can't do
> it... that is your decision. But I will not care what you think. My
> reply will be that you are misinformed, because a small angry group on
> a malling list does not carry more truth than hundreds of personal
> messages.
>
>
Dear Wikimedians,
Please join me in welcoming Mike Godwin as our new General Counsel and
Legal Coordinator.
As General Counsel and Legal Coordinator, Mike will be responsible for
handling the day-to-day legal needs of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well
as coordinating pro bono legal help worldwide. Additionally, he will be
responsible for evaluating the Foundation’s policies and operating
procedures, and assisting the Board of Trustees with legal concerns.
Mike comes to us from Yale Law School and the Yale Department of
Computer Science, where he was working as a Research Fellow, supervising
student research projects involving law and technology.
Mike is an accomplished attorney with over 17 years of experience in
legal policy development and advocacy concerning technology, privacy and
the internet. Most notably, he was the first Staff Counsel for the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to educating the
public about civil liberties relating to technology, and acted as a
defender of those liberties. He also served as Counsel to two Washington
D.C.-based nonprofits, specifically Public Knowledge and The Center for
Democracy and Technology.
We are confident that Mike’s expertise will be a valuable asset to the
Wikimedia Foundation, and that he will play a central role in helping
the Foundation tackle the many unique challenges it faces.
Mike will be working from his office in the Washington, DC, area. If you
would like to volunteer with the Wikimedia Foundation in a legal
capacity, we encourage you contact Mike directly by email at
mgodwin(a)wikimedia.org.
Please help me extend a warm welcome to Mike.
Florence Devouard
Chair Wikimedia Foundation
*
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-June/030946.html
(Welcome Sue)
So if I compare the WMF board to a bunch of Nazis, does this mean that this
thread ends?
Chris - Ta bu shi da yu
On 7/3/07, Florence Devouard <anthere(a)anthere.org> wrote:
> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> Please join me in welcoming Mike Godwin as our new General Counsel and
> Legal Coordinator.
Hi,
I see there is now a "meta-l" list:
http://mail.lists.wikipedia.be/mailman/listinfo/meta-l_lists.wikipedia.be
Could it be transferred to the standard lists.wikimedia.org ? IMO it
makes more sense to have all the Wikimedia lists at one place.
Perhaps it is worth having a discussion about what the role of such a
list is, too? (when should one post to meta-l, and when should one
post to foundation-l?)
cheers
Brianna
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
Something is not all right with the voting system. Got this at:
https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Special:Boardvote/vote
----------
Welcome Christopher Mahan@enwiki!
You are not qualified to vote in this election. You need to have made
400 edits before 00:00, 1 June 2007, and your first edit must be
before 00:00, 1 March 2007.
Note that you need to come to the election page via the wiki where
you have the most edits. If you came here via meta, go back to your
home wiki and then visit Special:Boardvote there.
----------
Uh, I've been active since 2002 and have 3000+ edits (not that I'm
counting)
And yes, I logged in to the right wiki (en.wikipedia.org) and then
went to the Special:Boardvote page from there.
Please advise.
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
chris.mahan(a)gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/
____________________________________________________________________________________
Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games.
http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=monopolyherenow
On 7/4/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> The game is to take pictures of Mike asap to put on commons.
One simple word: Photoshopping.
Everyone go crazy! Best Photoshop edit gets a barnstar from yours truly.
Send me a message with your image -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ta_bu_shi_da_yu
Chris - Ta bu shi da yu
IMO, having a public list of all eligible voters is a very good thing. It
helps make the process more transparent, and it also helps stops
vote-rigging.
Chris - Ta bu shi da yu
> What I find most disturbing in this is that someone, other than the
> people who are independently running the election, should have access to
> records of who has and who hasn't voted, and then be able to use that
> for his spam list. Saying that only 15% have voted is one thing, but
> identifying who is in that 15% is quite another.
Thank you for putting to rest the question of how experienced our much
our most tenured editors are about the election process. ...
While I'd like to accept the compliments about my HAxX0r skills, I can't...
The list of voters is public. It always has been public.
https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Special:Boardvote/list
It is very good that it is public because the community helps the
election com detect sock activity.
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> Please join me in welcoming Mike Godwin as our new General Counsel and
> Legal Coordinator.
>
> As General Counsel and Legal Coordinator, Mike will be responsible for
> handling the day-to-day legal needs of the Wikimedia Foundation, as
> well as coordinating pro bono legal help worldwide. Additionally, he
> will be responsible for evaluating the Foundation’s policies and
> operating procedures, and assisting the Board of Trustees with legal
> concerns.
I'm glad we finally have somebody in place again to help with these
issues. It's good to have Mike on board.
--Michael Snow
George Herbert wrote:
> On 7/3/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> > "Voting will be by secret ballot (the names of voters and the
>> > candidates supported will not be posted on-wiki)."
>> >
>> > Could the committee correct that statement?
>>
>> The statement is correct, although easy to misunderstand. Names *and*
>> candidates supported are not listed anywhere, just names. In jargon,
>> the "and" binds more tightly than the "will not be".
> "Has to be parsed by an grammar lawyer to be read and interpreted
> properly" == "A misstatement"
I don't know that it takes a lawyer to figure this out, but there's a
much simpler interpretation that helps make the statement more literally
correct. The posting of the voter list is not taking place "on-wiki"
since we're using the services of an outside party to host the voting
process.
> The information put forwards has to be both literally correct *and*
> interpreted by any casual reader to have the correct information
> content, or it's wrong...
I agree about the potential for confusion, and my previous observation
notwithstanding, the statement should still be improved.
--Michael Snow