Dear Federico:
Do you have time to re-do the European community survey, or know any trusted community members who do? I am nowhere near Europe. Any trusted community member can update the questionnaire, and I am sure you could get volunteers to help translate it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/General_User_Survey/Questionnaire
Furthermore, there are some pretty obvious reasons why anyone at the Foundation or any Foundation-funded entity has a conflict of interest when trying to administer such surveys, which manifests in ways which we should try to reduce. The last time I tried to run a survey I was accused of violating a proposal. That makes it much harder for me to run another one than it would if you did. I am confident that the permissions involved will be restored, because I am confident that the Foundation will try to make amends for their mistake someday. It took me about 60 hours for 330 enwiki administrators, but there were complicated issues and questions to which I still have not received a response.
Original: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Survey
16 proposed additions followed by the earlier list of 24:
1. Labor rights, e.g., linking to fixmyjob.com
2. Support the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its protocols without reservation
3. Increase infrastructure spending
4. Increase education spending
5. Public school class size reduction
6. College subsidy with income-based repayment terms
7. More steeply progressive taxation
8. Negative interest on excess reserves
9. Telecommuting
10. Workweek length reduction
11. Single-payer health care
12. Renewable power purchase
13. Increased data center hardware power efficiency
14. Increased security against eavesdropping
15. Metropolitan broadband
16. Oppose monopolization of software, communications, publishing, and finance industries
---
A. Open Access (Scientific Research)
B. Database Rights
C. Freedom of Information
D. Orphan Works
E. Broadband Internet Access
F. Data Protection
G. Human Rights
H. Freedom of Panorama
I. Open (Government) Data
J. Censorship
K. Copyright on Government Works
L. Internet Neutrality
M. Three-strikes laws
N. Cultural Heritage
O. Data Retention
P. Provider/Hoster Liability
Q. Copyright Enforcement
R. Geodata
S. Open Educational Resources
T. Software Patents
U. Research Funding
V. Surveillance
W. Public Broadcasting
X. Frequency Allocation
Justification from previous messages:
Our advocacy orientation isn't well aligned with the issues that most affect Wikimedians at present, because previous surveys had ... flaws.
Would quantitative measures of how various proposed actions counter threats to building and sharing free knowledge help?
For example, if someone makes a case that acting successfully on some issue is likely to cause X additional hours of productive editor contribution time than failing to act on it, and nobody disagrees with the analysis, or, if the analysis is supported by reliable sources, nobody is able to counter those sources or show that they aren't applicable, then the Foundation could be obligated to at least open a formal RFC on the topic, and at larger thresholds of X, for example, point people to it with CentralNotice or watchlist notices etc.
A good specific example is the Comcast-Time Warner Cable issue. I think we should act to avoid monopoly consolidation of internet resources, and there are sources which measure the extent to which monopolies result in additional rent-seeking which would tend to exclude editors. But I'm not particularly motivated to ask for action on it without some expectation of whether it is even worth it to try to persuade people.
see also: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-February/000394....
Best regards, James Salsman
James Salsman, 09/03/2014 03:16:
Dear Federico:
Do you have time to re-do the European community survey, or know any trusted community members who do? I am nowhere near Europe. Any trusted community member can update the questionnaire, and I am sure you could get volunteers to help translate it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/General_User_Survey/Questionnaire
Furthermore, there are some pretty obvious reasons why anyone at the Foundation or any Foundation-funded entity has a conflict of interest when trying to administer such surveys, which manifests in ways which we should try to reduce. The last time I tried to run a survey I was accused of violating a proposal. That makes it much harder for me to run another one than it would if you did. I am confident that the permissions involved will be restored, because I am confident that the Foundation will try to make amends for their mistake someday. It took me about 60 hours for 330 enwiki administrators, but there were complicated issues and questions to which I still have not received a response.
Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Nemo
publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org