This afternoon has been another terribly slow one for response from WM
sites, I've tried patience, and wandering off to other faster sites for a
while, but I suspect we have another IT glitch. Or at least we do here in
London.
WSC
A group of French admins is threatening me of what they call a "block
with consequences" in the case I would perform any "similar move", a
move similar with what I did which they interpret as "disrupting
Wikipedia to illustrate a point" (1).
As the wording is totally vague ("similar move") this deprives me of
the right to express myself on community matters. My freedom of speech
on community matters is being denied.
What I did, was a request to stewards on meta to remove access for all
current French Checkusers as a consequence of the French Wikipedia
switching from the "wiki with arbcom" to the "wiki without arbcom"
status (2).
So I am under threat, because I tried to enforce the checkuser policy,
which provides different access procedures according to whether the
wiki is with or without arbcom (3).
Would it be possible to provide some kind of protection to users
making requests on meta in reference to WMF policies ?
Would it be possible to have some kind of "meta-arbcom" that would be
a supreme court responsible for guaranteeing a set of fundamental
principles, such as freedom of speech ?
References:
(1) http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussion_utilisateur%3ATeofilo&…
(2) http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steward_requests/Permissions&ol…
(3) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_policy#Access_to_CheckUser
See also:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Checkuser
[The community vote in 2005 where checkusers where agreed by only a
very short majority (52.4%)]
Hey All
WikiVoyage could potential launch in beta Nov 6th, 2012 on WMF servers. We
have an issue surrounding moving images over to Commons (ie they will not
all be their for a least a few weeks and thus some/most images will be red
links). We are having a straw poll on if we should deal with images before
a "beta" opening or defer any opening until after the images have been
moved. Please weight in here
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Travel_Guide/Launch
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
Hi all,
not sure if I'm the only one. But too often I've gone mad while seeking for
essential information regarding the Board. If it's dates, composition of
committees, whatever. Some information is on meta, some on the foundation's
wiki, and some is well kept only in somebody's head (whoever that is). And
we are not really good in keeping our own history. It is so hard to find
former compositions, initiatives or fundamental discussions. Could be a
project of its own maybe.
The ongoing discussion started by Lodewijk reminds me of an older idea, a
starting point like a portal. And here it is:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_portal
It's quite ugly and only a rough draft yet. It needs helping hands to
become nicer and as informative as you want it to be. And I ask you to
help. Please let me know which information you want to find there. What is
missing, what needs more explanation. Help is appreciated, please feel free
to add items, edit, rearrange and reformat to make it smarter and nicer.
Resolutions, policies and charters as part of the organization's core
decisions are published on the foundation's wiki, and that's fine as far as
they are findable. A lot of other things can and will be done on meta. Both
parts can be collected on the portal and I hope it can help to provide
easier access to what is going on.
Regards, Alice.
Dear all,
I have set up a brainstorming page on metawiki (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Democratizing_the_Wikimedia_Foundation)
where I would like to invite you to think about ways to democratize the
Wikimedia Foundation.
This doesn't mean that the Wikimedia Foundation is totally undemocratic,
but it does mean that in my humble opinion, improvements are possible. This
was triggered by me after the third time in my memory that the Foundation
board has changed the bylaws of the Foundation without even consulting the
community - but this doesn't have to be the only possible improvement.
This is not intended as a huge complaint 'moo, the WMF is evil and
dictatorial' but rather as a constructive exercise. I invite you to
approach this also constructively, and think about possible improvement to
current procedures - to ensure that there is a large community involvement
in the governance of the Wikimedia Foundation - directly or indirectly -
and that processes are transparent.
I hope that our community selected board members will take this up as well,
think along and bring the proposals to the board when the time is there
(Alice, Kat, Patricio, SJ, and Ting: I'm looking at you) but of course I'm
counting on it that also other board members will support the thought
behind this. Any input on how to make this process more constructive would
be appreciated. I also hope that the legal team will be watching the page
and advise when something is legally impossible and how it could be made
possible.
With kind regards,
Lodewijk
Could I ask about what information the Board had in addition to these
slides? The slides provide little in the way of hard numbers for financial
and ROI information, such as expected improvements to editor retention or
the Visual Editor's progress that should occur with the changes to funding
and FTE assignments.
Thanks,
Pine
Hi,
as the newly appointed Chair of the FDC, but expressing my personal
understanding, I support Anders' view. The narrowed focus means more
activities done through the chapters, and the community at large. Of course
the specifics will have to be established, but now WMF applies for their
non-core activities like everybody else.
Best,
Dariusz
2 lis 2012 12:28, "Anders Wennersten" <mail(a)anderswennersten.se> napisał(a):
> As a newly appointed secretary of FDC and just back from San Francisco
after a four days deliberation session, where these thing has been in focus
I can give you some facts from what I have understood.
>
> The Board has earlier decided to give WMF an budget for 2012-2013 for
30,3 MUSD for core activities, up from 26,2 the earlier year, mainly
engineering and thing like fundraising support.
>
> The Board has also set a budget of 11,4 MUSD for activities partly to be
disseminated to chapters and to a part to WMF, where Grants make up big
part. The total of 11,4 is an increase.
>
> The narrowed focus in practice means that The WMF part funded through FDC
is changed in composition, so less in direct activities by WMF personnel
and more money in Grants to be allocated to chapters and individuals.
>
> The narrowed focus is only a issue for WMFs internal budget. The planned
funds dissemination to chapters is not effected and the actual result of
the the implementation of the Narrowed focus is that more money will be
used by community/chapters via grant then was earlier planned
>
> Anders Wennersten
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Lodewijk skrev 2012-11-02 12:05:
>>
>> Thanks Bishakha,
>>
>> while I can understand the move of the WMF to do what they are best at,
for
>> me it is always a bit confusing when the Board (or Sue) is talking about
>> the Foundation, and when about the movement. I hope I'm correct in my
>> assumption that this narrowed focus is mostly a Foundation thing.
>>
>> The question I am missing in this analysis (but perhaps it was discussed
>> orally) is 'which organization/group/individual is best placed to execute
>> this' and then I definitely agree that many events etc are probably
better
>> executed at a chapter level than by the WMF. I do hope that freeing up
>> these resources does mean that chapters and other groups will be
supported
>> more in taking over these tasks and where necessary, a transition process
>> is considered.
>>
>> I do have one more specific question. In discussions previously on meta,
>> there were some insinuations (maybe only my interpretation) that the
>> organizational support (so not just money) for chapters and other
>> affiliated groups would be reduced as a consequence of this narrowed
focus.
>> I sincerely hope the opposite will be true - and that more effort will be
>> put in enabling these organizations to take over tasks where possible and
>> take on new initiatives as much as possible. As long as the Chapters
>> Association is not active (it seems to me it will be another year before
it
>> will be fully functional) I think it would be a waste to reduce this
>> enabling capacity (for example the great networking function that is
being
>> provided by Asaf - but he could use some help!) while there is no other
>> organization yet to take over those functions. Could you elaborate a bit
on
>> this?
>>
>> Best,
>> Lodewijk
>>
>> 2012/11/2 Bishakha Datta <bishakhadatta(a)gmail.com>
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> At its in-person meeting on 26 October, the board unanimously agreed to
>>> accept the recommendation to narrow focus as presented by the Executive
>>> Director.
>>>
>>> This vote has been published at:
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus
>>>
>>> Best
>>> Bishakha
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>
>
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I take the need for more organized and constructive movement in the U.S. as a given. It's shocking to me that we have *two* chapters in all of the country. There's much important work to be done with GLAM, with the Education Program, partnerships with universities, non-profits, libraries and museums, and with general outreach. Which is why I was so surprised by the resistance to the idea of creating a US Federation that would have made forming local/regional U.S. chapters extremely easy. For some reason it was seen as a power grab or an unneeded layer of bureaucracy, but from my perspective it was just the right step to bootstrap tens and tens of active U.S. organizations. While the WMF is 'narrowing focus' and spinning off more and more responsibilities to affiliated groups, the opportunity to advance the U.S. towards working on the many needed areas of improvement should not be missed. --Jake Orlowitz (Ocaasi)
Dear all,
At its in-person meeting on 26 October, the board unanimously agreed to
accept the recommendation to narrow focus as presented by the Executive
Director.
This vote has been published at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus
Best
Bishakha