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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Which would help volunteer editors more? (Amgine)
   2. Re: Which would help volunteer editors more? (James Salsman)
   3. Re: Which would help volunteer editors more? (Raul Veede)
   4. Re: Which would help volunteer editors more? (James Salsman)


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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:09:40 +0100
From: Amgine <amgine@wikimedians.ca>
To: Advocacy Advisory Group for Wikimedia
        <advocacy_advisors@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Advocacy Advisors] Which would help volunteer editors
        more?
Message-ID: <52974EA4.1060203@wikimedians.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

On 27/11/13 02:24 PM, James Salsman wrote:
> The idea that the economic and physiological health of the editor
> pool isn't a large determinant of the proportion choosing to edit,
> if not the largest that we may have any meaningful control over
> after everything we've tried so far, simply does not seem
> defensible. What does it mean to empower a potential editor with
> the ability to share knowledge, if their circumstances leave them
> without the inclination to do so? That is the difference between
> empowering and merely enabling, is it not? A slightly more complete
> encyclopedia with society crumbling around it is not an improvement
> over a less complete  encyclopedia in symbiosis with a flourishing
> society.


Two points of disagreement:
* "that we may have any meaningful control over"
* "does not seem defensible"

I do not believe we have meaningful control over either the economic
or the physiological health of the editor pool. We do note even have
significant relevance to either hugely divergent measure.

Therefore it *is* completely defensible.

Until you can support your statements with objective, repeatable,
observations you should probably avoid castigating others for what is
your beliefs or moral codes. It tends to make people less aligned with
your goals because of their opposition to your methods.

Amgine



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 04:23:44 +0800
From: James Salsman <jsalsman@gmail.com>
To: Advocacy Advisory Group for WMF LCA
        <advocacy_advisors@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Advocacy Advisors] Which would help volunteer editors
        more?
Message-ID:
        <CAD4=uZYT8zS9xZGNwWQXwMNKEBi6ULcnV_B5eLuwjU=hiYFCmQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Nov 28, 2013 10:09 PM, "Amgine" <amgine@wikimedians.ca> wrote:
>
> I do not believe we have meaningful control over either the economic
> or the physiological health of the editor pool.

It has been established by example that the English Wikipedia is able to
influence its readership politically to generate very large scale effective
political change from calls to action. We are also a primary source of
information about health for both physicians and lay people. More directly,
the Foundation now makes decisions about how to compensate editors and
chapters based on the merit of their proposals as submitted, directly.

So, for example, if there were a banner directing people to  fixmyjob.comor
heathcare-now.org, there is no reason to believe it would not generate very
substantial support from readers and have a large actual, and probably
measurable, impact on the extent to which they are truly empowered to
contribute.

Ignoring political realities of the factors that influence the day to day
lives of editors, potential, current, and former, is just that -- willful
ignorance. When the legal team was threatened with the potential
troublesome overhead of removing links due to SOPA/PIPA, the community
supported action to prevent that. When are we going to take action to
support the wider editor community?

Pretending that political and economic factors are somehow out of the scope
of the mission requires imagining that the mission statement says something
about them. It does not. What is the relative impact on a potential editor
who might not be able to include hyperlinks to copyrighted media because of
SOPA versus one who has to work two jobs to make ends meet?

Why is political neutrality on economic issues preferable to political
neutrality on intellectual property law issues? The latter is a subset of
the former. Acting as though one side of economic political debates is not
more accurate than their opposition in the face of overwhelming evidence to
the contrary is tantamount to the worst kind of "he said, she said"
journalism, which in this case is not only an affront to the readers who
expect occasional rational calls to action, but actively harms the rate at
which the encyclopedia is improved.
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 23:14:06 +0200
From: Raul Veede <raul.veede@gmail.com>
To: Advocacy Advisory Group for Wikimedia
        <advocacy_advisors@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Advocacy Advisors] Which would help volunteer editors
        more?
Message-ID:
        <CAG_2RZrYmZDDqVgUZZKtydZtdUW5pF_KeXZrt6vguqe4Q65MZg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

"...very large scale effective political change..."

Well, if you're really believing that, perhaps you would like to focus on
real global problems that are also connected to the problems of the
Wikimedian community like creating a reliable education system in
Sub-Saharan Africa? If you insist that the greatest problem we as a global
movement face is the low living standard in U.S., we should, of course,
start collecting donations in Bangladesh and Botswana right away.

Many members of this very mailing list are people from countries facing far
worse situations than Americans (or Estonians, for that matter). Once you
realize that, calls to support local Amerocentric actions don't sound very
smart - even if they were relevant to this list's agenda.

Raul

On Thursday, November 28, 2013, James Salsman wrote:

> On Nov 28, 2013 10:09 PM, "Amgine" <amgine@wikimedians.ca<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'amgine@wikimedians.ca');>>
> wrote:
> >
> > I do not believe we have meaningful control over either the economic
> > or the physiological health of the editor pool.
>
> It has been established by example that the English Wikipedia is able to
> influence its readership politically to generate very large scale effective
> political change from calls to action. We are also a primary source of
> information about health for both physicians and lay people. More directly,
> the Foundation now makes decisions about how to compensate editors and
> chapters based on the merit of their proposals as submitted, directly.
>
> So, for example, if there were a banner directing people to  fixmyjob.comor
> heathcare-now.org, there is no reason to believe it would not generate
> very substantial support from readers and have a large actual, and probably
> measurable, impact on the extent to which they are truly empowered to
> contribute.
>
> Ignoring political realities of the factors that influence the day to day
> lives of editors, potential, current, and former, is just that -- willful
> ignorance. When the legal team was threatened with the potential
> troublesome overhead of removing links due to SOPA/PIPA, the community
> supported action to prevent that. When are we going to take action to
> support the wider editor community?
>
> Pretending that political and economic factors are somehow out of the
> scope of the mission requires imagining that the mission statement says
> something about them. It does not. What is the relative impact on a
> potential editor who might not be able to include hyperlinks to copyrighted
> media because of SOPA versus one who has to work two jobs to make ends meet?
>
> Why is political neutrality on economic issues preferable to political
> neutrality on intellectual property law issues? The latter is a subset of
> the former. Acting as though one side of economic political debates is not
> more accurate than their opposition in the face of overwhelming evidence to
> the contrary is tantamount to the worst kind of "he said, she said"
> journalism, which in this case is not only an affront to the readers who
> expect occasional rational calls to action, but actively harms the rate at
> which the encyclopedia is improved.
>
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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 06:02:27 +0800
From: James Salsman <jsalsman@gmail.com>
To: Advocacy Advisory Group for WMF LCA
        <advocacy_advisors@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Advocacy Advisors] Which would help volunteer editors
        more?
Message-ID:
        <CAD4=uZa1z4dEs1ONQa-azky-+0cN8z_5d42A8ymsQZ0VOvu2Hw@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Nov 29, 2013 5:14 AM, "Raul Veede" <raul.veede@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>... you would like to focus on real global problems that
> are also connected to the problems of the Wikimedian
> community like creating a reliable education system
> in Sub-Saharan Africa?

That is in fact my day job. I have been unable to effect as positive change
in the field in large if not largest part due to the economic and political
conditions in the United States, where I used to live. Why isn't USAID
doing as much for Africa as it did for the Pacific Rim? Because the
diplomats have been losing out to the arms dealers internationally.
If Wikimedians wanted to address that problem within the confines of not
taking a stand on U.S. economic issues, we could have a drive to translate
instructions for obtaining exchange student visas and invitations. I think
that would be great, but much less effective than taking a principled stand
on the economic issues which enable the arms dealers to operate with
impunity in the largest economy where most of them are connected with to
begin with.

I have done plenty for education in the developing world, including
improving some of the most important health care articles and preparing
them for translation. If I thought the most positive overall change could
be effected by doing something about the developing world, then I would say
so, and I have long been on record as supporting the ratification of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child and its protocols without
reservation, e.g. at http://j.mp/amendmentact

Best regards,
James Salsman
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