Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:13 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
Help volunteers in the context of the WMF mission in what sense?
On Wednesday, November 27, 2013, Laura Hale wrote:
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:13 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman@gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'jsalsman@gmail.com');>
wrote:
Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
Help volunteers in the context of the WMF mission in what sense?
Which has the greater potential to empower volunteers, in the sense of allowing them more time, liberty, or both to contribute to WMF projects?
On 27/11/13 01:50 AM, James Salsman wrote:
Which has the greater potential to empower volunteers, in the sense of allowing them more time, liberty, or both to contribute to WMF projects?
While I understand your enthusiasm on social issues, WMF is exclusively focused on freely distributing knowledge. Tertiary issues, like contributor income, are probably out of scope.
Secondary issues, such as the "Necessary and Proportionate" campaign[1] regarding global internet surveilance, are much more likely to be addressed in this channel.
Amgine
[1] necessaryandproportionate.org/take-action
Seriously, none of these. I'm completely satisfied with my job, I like my boss a lot and although my pay is not much, I don't believe any spree of activism in U.S. ("Every two weeks, our volunteers telephone targeted U.S. government decision makers...blah blah" http://incomeaction.org) would give more money for spending to my local government in Estonia. It may come as a surprise, but not everybody on Earth is American. Don't get me wrong, U.S. is all nice and fluffy, but Wikimedia movement is global. Let's focus on that.
Raul
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:13 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
I agree an international approach would be best, but at the same time, [1] and [2] seriously limit the number and capabilities of would-be, active, and inactive volunteer editors.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-american-workers-poll-f...
[2] http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/america-stingiest-rich-country...
Is it even possible to take a truly international approach to the underlying issue? I hope so, but I fear that any such approach will be more Kumbaya than active or effective problem solving.
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Raul Veede raul.veede@gmail.com wrote:
Seriously, none of these. I'm completely satisfied with my job, I like my boss a lot and although my pay is not much, I don't believe any spree of activism in U.S. ("Every two weeks, our volunteers telephone targeted U.S. government decision makers...blah blah" http://incomeaction.org) would give more money for spending to my local government in Estonia. It may come as a surprise, but not everybody on Earth is American. Don't get me wrong, U.S. is all nice and fluffy, but Wikimedia movement is global. Let's focus on that.
Raul
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:13 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Dear James,
You keep amazing me with the topics you bring up on this list. It might be just that I'm utterly naive and not understanding what Wikimedia is all about, but I seriously have a hard time seeing a connection at all with our mission - let alone how any serious impact could be achieved or how this could become a priority.
While we all have political opinions on 'the big issues' (well, most of us) I think that almost everyone agrees that Wikimedia should refrain from taking a stand on issues not directly related with its mission. Even on issues like net neutrality, the use of free software in government or software patents there is a serious concern with many of our volunteers that we should not get involved with those discussions.
So please, lets focus on what we're good at and where we can have a real impact. That is hard enough on itself. I would appreciate it if you could ask yourself more critically whether something you post would really support our mission, before you post it. While there are no stupid questions, some restraint can help in being taken seriously rather than being considered trolling.
Kind regards,
Lodewijk
2013/11/27 James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
I agree an international approach would be best, but at the same time, [1] and [2] seriously limit the number and capabilities of would-be, active, and inactive volunteer editors.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-american-workers-poll-f...
[2] http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/america-stingiest-rich-country...
Is it even possible to take a truly international approach to the underlying issue? I hope so, but I fear that any such approach will be more Kumbaya than active or effective problem solving.
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Raul Veede raul.veede@gmail.com wrote:
Seriously, none of these. I'm completely satisfied with my job, I like my boss a lot and although my pay is not much, I don't believe any spree of activism in U.S. ("Every two weeks, our volunteers telephone targeted
U.S.
government decision makers...blah blah" http://incomeaction.org) would
give
more money for spending to my local government in Estonia. It may come
as a
surprise, but not everybody on Earth is American. Don't get me wrong,
U.S.
is all nice and fluffy, but Wikimedia movement is global. Let's focus on that.
Raul
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:13 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
wrote:
Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
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. On Nov 27, 2013 6:14 PM, "L.Gelauff" lgelauff@gmail.com wrote:
Dear James,
You keep amazing me with the topics you bring up on this list. It might be just that I'm utterly naive and not understanding what Wikimedia is all about, but I seriously have a hard time seeing a connection at all with our mission - let alone how any serious impact could be achieved or how this could become a priority.
While we all have political opinions on 'the big issues' (well, most of us) I think that almost everyone agrees that Wikimedia should refrain from taking a stand on issues not directly related with its mission. Even on issues like net neutrality, the use of free software in government or software patents there is a serious concern with many of our volunteers that we should not get involved with those discussions.
So please, lets focus on what we're good at and where we can have a real impact. That is hard enough on itself. I would appreciate it if you could ask yourself more critically whether something you post would really support our mission, before you post it. While there are no stupid questions, some restraint can help in being taken seriously rather than being considered trolling.
Kind regards,
Lodewijk
2013/11/27 James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
I agree an international approach would be best, but at the same time, [1] and [2] seriously limit the number and capabilities of would-be, active, and inactive volunteer editors.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-american-workers-poll-f...
[2] http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/america-stingiest-rich-country...
Is it even possible to take a truly international approach to the underlying issue? I hope so, but I fear that any such approach will be more Kumbaya than active or effective problem solving.
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Raul Veede raul.veede@gmail.com wrote:
Seriously, none of these. I'm completely satisfied with my job, I like
my
boss a lot and although my pay is not much, I don't believe any spree of activism in U.S. ("Every two weeks, our volunteers telephone targeted
U.S.
government decision makers...blah blah" http://incomeaction.org) would
give
more money for spending to my local government in Estonia. It may come
as a
surprise, but not everybody on Earth is American. Don't get me wrong,
U.S.
is all nice and fluffy, but Wikimedia movement is global. Let's focus on that.
Raul
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:13 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
wrote:
Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Hi James,
of course Free Knowledge doesn't appear in an empty space and relies on the society and culture it "lives" in. Free Knowledge, in turn, also has the power to bring about meaningful changes to said society.
Can you propose any specific project that is in line with the strategy, mission and vision of our movement that will directly improve the economic and physiological health of our editor pool? If yes, please share!
If not, I would suggest that we stick to what we're good at - changing the world by changing the way knowledge is shared. This is where our expertise lies and where we can really contribute. And it also directly affects the economic situation of our editor pool (e.g. saving money on textbooks, more free time due to quick and easy access to information).
Cheers, Dimi
2013/11/27 James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
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. On Nov 27, 2013 6:14 PM, "L.Gelauff" lgelauff@gmail.com wrote:
Dear James,
You keep amazing me with the topics you bring up on this list. It might be just that I'm utterly naive and not understanding what Wikimedia is all about, but I seriously have a hard time seeing a connection at all with our mission - let alone how any serious impact could be achieved or how this could become a priority.
While we all have political opinions on 'the big issues' (well, most of us) I think that almost everyone agrees that Wikimedia should refrain from taking a stand on issues not directly related with its mission. Even on issues like net neutrality, the use of free software in government or software patents there is a serious concern with many of our volunteers that we should not get involved with those discussions.
So please, lets focus on what we're good at and where we can have a real impact. That is hard enough on itself. I would appreciate it if you could ask yourself more critically whether something you post would really support our mission, before you post it. While there are no stupid questions, some restraint can help in being taken seriously rather than being considered trolling.
Kind regards,
Lodewijk
2013/11/27 James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
I agree an international approach would be best, but at the same time, [1] and [2] seriously limit the number and capabilities of would-be, active, and inactive volunteer editors.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-american-workers-poll-f...
[2] http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/america-stingiest-rich-country...
Is it even possible to take a truly international approach to the underlying issue? I hope so, but I fear that any such approach will be more Kumbaya than active or effective problem solving.
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Raul Veede raul.veede@gmail.com wrote:
Seriously, none of these. I'm completely satisfied with my job, I like
my
boss a lot and although my pay is not much, I don't believe any spree
of
activism in U.S. ("Every two weeks, our volunteers telephone targeted
U.S.
government decision makers...blah blah" http://incomeaction.org)
would give
more money for spending to my local government in Estonia. It may come
as a
surprise, but not everybody on Earth is American. Don't get me wrong,
U.S.
is all nice and fluffy, but Wikimedia movement is global. Let's focus
on
that.
Raul
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:13 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
wrote:
Which would help volunteer editors more: http://www.fixmyjob.com/ or http://incomeaction.org/ assuming the latter was completed?
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
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
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.
"...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.
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
publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org