FYI - belatedly forwarding after internal announcement:
- - -
Hi folks,
Guillaume Paumier has been Technical Communications Manager in the
Engineering Community Team since early 2011. In this role, he's been
instrumental in developing the monthly engineering reports (including
all the underlying infrastructure on mediawiki.org), vetting and
writing technical blog posts and social media updates, and most
recently, co-launching the weekly tech newsletter and keeping it
running.
Guillaume's role is changing, and he will shift to my department as
part of the Engineering/Product department division. He will report
directly to me as Senior Analyst, and I will deploy him to projects of
strategic importance that require his expertise (any Guillaume
deployments will not be noted on the deployments calendar). Guillaume
will continue to put some of his time towards the tech newsletters and
reports for the time being (though we're considering to merge the
two), but other communications responsibilities will be handled by
Katherine's team.
What does it mean to be a Senior Analyst? As a long-time Wikimedian
(since 2005), Guillaume understands many of Wikimedia's workflows
deeply. As a self-confessed OCD introvert, he loves documenting,
analyzing; breaking apart things and putting them back together in
novel ways. He's awesome at information architecture, and at really
thinking through all the options to solve a complex product problem.
In other words, when I see a product that benefits from deep community
expertise, I can throw Guillaume at it and he'll help. :)
The first project Guillaume is taking on in this new role is the file
metadata cleanup drive, preparatory to the Structured Data work the
multimedia team will focus on in coming months. You can read more
about it here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_metadata_cleanup_drive
Finally, it's my pleasure to announce that Guillaume is also
relocating (back!) to the San Francisco Bay Area. Please join me in
congratulating Guillaume in this new role and wishing him a
stress-free move to San Francisco.
Warmly,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Product & Strategy, Wikimedia Foundation
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Hey Manuel, Thank you for the response.
Transparency is always good - and this case really shows why.
While Ellie didn't respond and answered the question how people been
elected, and summarize her answer to: "We have a system that works for jury
selection." Your side and answer shows a whole different point of view.
The system seem far away from working correctly.
The fact that above the movement biggest *community* event there is a jury
who most his members are paid staff, who been selected by a WMF staffer.
This is not a decision by a committee, as the committee, as you describe is
only been asked for feedback - and that should be clear.
I hope next year process will be much more community and much more
transparent.
Itzik
*Regards,Itzik Edri*
Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel
+972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 12:46 PM, Manuel Schneider <
manuel.schneider(a)wikimedia.ch> wrote:
> Hi Itzik et al,
>
> I think I should weigh in, having been part of this selection. I am just
> currently travelling, so I don't follow the mailinglists at the moment.
>
>
> In the past the jury was selected by a moderator - we had Joseph Seddon,
> James Forrester and others sending out the invitations and reminders,
> collecting the applications, making a selection and announcing it. From
> that point on the jury took on the work.
>
> Now we have a Wikimania Committee which so far has not yet found its
> mode to work - it only took one decision so far, and that was
> re-defining the bidding schedule to give more time to organise - Ellie
> and me were looking to move forward with the coming bidding process. The
> only process we actually had was said reviewed and rescheduled timeline.
>
> As we were actually already approaching the approved deadlines without
> anyone acting up, I took initiative to put the new timeline together on
> Meta, send out and invitation and had all applications going to Ellie.
> I also sent out reminders before the deadline, so everyone should have
> been informed and was invited to participate.
>
> Ellie made a pre-selection which I reviewed and discussed with her,
> after some slight adjustments I brought the selection forward the
> Wikimania Committee, asking for feedback. We received one response from
> someone who wanted to be included which Ellie denied with good arguments
> as we need this person take responsibility in other areas (eg.
> strengthen the Committee).
>
> After all selected persons agreed to become the new Jury I sent out the
> announcement.
>
> I agree that we need a better process but I do not see that this year's
> process was any worse than before, in the opposite - there have been
> more people involved and able to voice their opinions.
>
> What we actually need is a Wikimania Committee which lives up to its
> expectations, actually have meetings (and minutes), which can define
> such processes. There have been several changes, also with Ellie coming
> in, and everything is done on a volunteer basis. Things are slow. What I
> do not accept are critisms on processes from people who didn't actually
> participate in the same, even though they were invited to do so.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Manuel
> --
> Manuel Schneider - Chief Information Officer
> Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> Lausanne, +41 (21) 340 66 22 - www.wikimedia.ch
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-l mailing list
> Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
Forwarding good news.
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Quim Gil" <qgil(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Oct 6, 2014 2:35 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimedia Phabricator is now open for everyone
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc:
Today we celebrate an important milestone in the Phabricator project:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org is now open to all Wikimedia users!
Special thanks go to @chasemp and @mmodell, who lead us to this milestone
with their Phabricator expertise.
Please get your account and let us know if you find any problems.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator/Help#Creating_your_account
explains how to register and how to claim your fab activity today (and your
RT and Bugzilla activity in the future).
You are invited to participate in existing projects. Creation of new
projects is closed until the completion of the Bugzilla migration -- see
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator/Help#Requesting_a_new_project
NEXT STEPS
We will set up a separate Phabricator instance containing a sample of
Bugzilla reports imported automatically, for your delight and criticism.
After this instance is announced, we will leave at least one week for
community feedback before deciding the next steps.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator#Migration_timeline
--
Quim Gil
Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Here's hoping that the problem of bureaucratic degeneration is addressed by
our comrades in San Francisco. Che Guevarra is most illuminating on this
matter in his Feb. 1963 article "Against Bureaucratism," published in
translation by Ocean Press in The Che Reader in 2005. (
https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/02/against-bureaucratism.htm)
Tim Davenport
Corvallis, OR
"Bureaucratism, obviously, is not the offspring of socialist society, nor
is it a necessary component of it. The state bureaucracy existed in the
period of bourgeois governments with its retinue of hangers-on and lackeys,
as a great number of opportunists — who made up the “court” of the
politicians in power — flourished in the shade of the government budget. In
a capitalist society, where the entire state apparatus is at the service of
the bourgeoisie, the state bureaucracy's importance as a leading body is
very small. The main thing is that it be permeable enough to allow
opportunists to pass through, yet impenetrable enough to keep the people
trapped in its nets. Given the weight of the “original sins” in the old
administrative apparatus and the situations created after the triumph of
the revolution, the evil of bureaucratism began to develop strongly. If we
were to search for its roots today, we would have to add new motives to the
old causes, coming up with three fundamental reasons.
"One is the lack of inner motivation. By this we mean the individual's lack
of interest in rendering a service to the state and in overcoming a given
situation. It is based on a lack of revolutionary consciousness or, at any
rate, on acquiescence in things that are wrong. We can establish a direct
and obvious relationship between the lack of inner motivation and the lack
of interest in resolving problems. In this case, whether the weakness in
ideological motivation is due to an absolute lack of conviction or to a
certain dose of desperation in the face of repeated insoluble problems, the
individual or group of individuals take refuge in bureaucratism, filling
out papers, shirking their responsibility, and establishing a written
defense in order to continue vegetating or to protect themselves from the
irresponsibility of others.
"Another cause is the lack of organization. Attempting to destroy
“guerrillaism” without sufficient administrative experience has produced
dislocations and bottlenecks that unnecessarily curb the flow of
information from below, as well as the instructions or orders emanating
from the central apparatus. Sometimes, the former or the latter take the
wrong course; other times, they are translated into poorly formulated,
absurd instructions that contribute even more to the distortion.
"The lack of organization is fundamentally characterized by the weakness of
the methods used to deal with a given situation. We can see examples in the
ministries, when attempts are made to solve problems at an inappropriate
level or when problems are dealt with through the wrong channels and get
lost in the labyrinth of paperwork. Bureaucratism is like a ball and chain
weighing down the type of official who is trying as best he can to solve
his problem but keeps crashing time and again into the established way of
doing things, without finding a solution....
"The third cause, a very important one, is the lack of sufficiently
developed technical knowledge to be able to make correct decisions on short
notice. Not being able to do this meant we had to gather many experiences
of little value and try to draw some conclusion from them. Discussions
became endless and no-one had sufficient authority to settle things. After
one, two, or more meetings, the problem remained until it resolved itself
or until a decision had to be made willy-nilly, no matter how bad it might
be. The almost total lack of knowledge, which as I mentioned earlier was
made up for by a long series of meetings, led to “meetingitis” — basically
a lack of perspective for solving problems. In these cases bureaucratism —
the brake that endless paper shuffling and indecision place on society's
development — becomes the fate of the bodies affected.
"These three fundamental causes, one by one or acting together in various
combinations, affect the country's entire institutional life to a greater
or lesser degree. The time has come to break away from these malignant
influences....."
@ Cristian. I mean by number of "edits". Wikipedians by number of edits is
listed here for the Dengue fever article.
https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/articleinfo/index.php?article=Dengue_fever…
Yes I do know number of edits is not perfect and that someone who has made
a single edit could have contributed substantially.
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
Hi everyone,
As our new Vice President of Engineering, Damon Sicore, just announced in
his longer email to Wikimedia-l he will be having his first IRC Office
hours on Thursday, October 9th, at 20:00 UTC (13:00 PDT). This hour long
office hour is a chance to meet the new VPE and ask your burning questions.
The office hour will be held in #Wikimedia-office on the Freenode network.
You can find information on how to get online, including a link to a
webchat option if you don't have an IRC client, on the meta office hours
page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#How_to_participate>.
You can also find a time converter for the start of the hour at
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=20&min=00&sec=0&d…
. Like most of our public office hours this one will be publicly logged and
should be posted on the meta office hour page shortly after it's conclusion.
If you want to know you more about Damon you can read the Wikimedia Blog
announcement
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/09/29/damon-sicore-joins-wmf-as-vice-presid…>
or check out his personal blog <http://damon.sicore.com>.
James
[[cross posted on wikitech-l and wikimedia-l]]
James Alexander
Legal and Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
I agree all Wikipedia articles are sort of peer reviewed. When I speak
about GA/FA I refer to it as Wikipedia's semi-formal peer review process.
With respect to authorship, the 5th to 10th contributors by number of
editors were contacted and asked if they wished to be listed as an author.
All of them declined feeling that they had not contributed sufficiently to
justify being listed.
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
Tilman, thanks for those notes.
There was discussion awhile ago about involving the community in quarterly
reviews, and I have some questions and comments about this review, mostly
for Lila.
However, I would like to see the notes from the "group" mentioned at the
end of the quarterly review before I make comments, or if there is an
opportunity for community participation in the "group", I would like to
participate in a community capacity, if that is ok. (:
Thanks,
Pine
Re the request for discussion about the product roadmap during the
metrics meeting at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJGC9zpbJpU&t=1h06m30s
Do Foundation officials intend to address supporting article accuracy review?
I have asked several specific questions about
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Develop_systems_for_accuracy_r…
and I am certain that the proposal or something very similar is
urgently needed for the transition from content creation to content
maintenance on the largest projects. However at present there have
been no response. Does the Foundation have an alternative contingency
plan for article updating if active editors continue to decline? Or
are all the eggs being put into the basket of hoping that someone
thinks of something to reverse active editor decline, after at least a
dozen such attempts have yielded zero results over the past half
decade?