Hi folks,
This is a response to Martin's note here:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-August/073936.html
.. and also a more general update on the next steps regarding disputes
about deployments. As you may have seen, Lila has also posted an
update to her talk page, here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov#Working_Together
I want to use this opportunity to respond to Martin's and other
people's criticisms, and to talk about next steps from WMF’s
perspective following discussions with Lila and the team. I’m also
sending a copy of this note to all the stewards, to better involve
them in the process going forward.
I am -- genuinely -- sorry that this escalation occurred. We would
have preferred to avoid it.
I would like to recap how we find ourselves in this situation: As
early as July, we stated that the Wikimedia Foundation reserves the
right to determine the final configuration of the MediaViewer feature,
and we explicitly included MediaWiki: namespace hacks in that
statement. [1] When an admin implemented a hack to disable
MediaViewer, another local admin reverted the edit. The original admin
reinstated it. We then reverted it with a clear warning that we may
limit editability of the page. [2] The original admin reinstated the
hack. This is when we protected the page.
Because all admins have equal access to the MediaWiki: namespace,
short of desysopping, there are few mechanisms to actually prevent
edit wars about the user experience for millions of readers.
Desysopping actions could have gotten just as messy -- and we felt
that waiting for a "better hack" to come along (the likeliest eventual
outcome of doing nothing) or disabling the feature ourselves would not
be any better, either from a process or outcome standpoint.
Our processes clearly need to be improved to avoid these situations in
the future. We recognize that simply rejecting a community request
rather than resolving a conflict together is not the right answer.
We’ve been listening to feedback, and we’ve come to the following
conclusions:
- We intend to undertake a review of our present processes immediately
and propose a new approach that allows for feedback at more critical
and relevant junctures in the next 90 days. This will be a transparent
process that includes your voices.
- As the WMF, we need to improve the process for managing changes that
impact all users. That includes the MediaWiki: namespace. For WMF to
fulfill its role of leading consistent improvements to the user
experience across Wikimedia projects, we need to be able to review
code and manage deployments. This can be done in partnership with
trusted volunteers, but WMF needs to be able to make an ultimate
determination after receiving community feedback regarding production
changes that impact all users.
- We are prepared to unprotect MediaWiki:Common.js on German Wikipedia
and enter constructive, open-ended conversations about the way
forward, provided we can mutually agree to do so on the basis of the
current consistent configuration -- for now. We would like to request
a moratorium on any attempts to disable the feature during this
conflict resolution process. The goal would be to make a final,
cross-wiki determination regarding this specific feature, in
partnership with the community, within at most 90 days.
With regard to the German Wikipedia situation, we’d like to know if
stewards want to at all be involved in this process: In a situation
like this, it can be helpful to have a third party support the
conversation. Stewards are accountable to "valid community consensus
within the bounds of the Foundation's goals" [3], which seems to be
precisely the intersection of concerns at issue here. We would like to
suggest an IRC meeting with stewards ASAP to talk about the specific
question of stewards’ involvement, if any. If stewards prefer not to
be involved, we understand, but it's probably a good idea to have a
sync-up conversation regardless.
I hope we can move forward in good faith from here, and find better
ways to work together. As Lila has expressed, we believe there is a
need for a clear understanding of our role. It is as follows:
Managing software development, site configuration and deployment is a
core WMF responsibility. The community leads in the development of
content; the Wikimedia Foundation leads in the development of
technology.
Because these processes are deeply interdependent, we need to develop
better protocols for timely feedback and resolution of disagreements.
At the same time Lila’s and the Board’s statements make it very clear
that the WMF will not accept RfCs or votes as the sole determining
factor in global software deployments.
This means that technology and UX changes should not be decided by
vote or poll and then disabled at-will: where we disagree, we need to
talk to each other (and yes, that means a more judicious application
of RESOLVED WONTFIX on our end, as well!). We need to ensure a
process where the community voice is heard earlier at critical
junctions in the product development. All of this is consistent with
the principle of "shared power" articulated in the Guiding Principles
[4] approved by the Board of Trustees.
At the same time, as noted above and earlier, the superprotection
feature should be replaced with a better mechanism for code review and
deployment in the MediaWiki: namespace. This is discussed in [5] and
ideas and suggestions are welcome. Let’s be upfront about control
structures for production changes to avoid misunderstandings and
ambiguity in the future.
We are exploring options on how to improve dispute resolution
mechanisms -- whether it’s e.g. a standing working group or a better
protocol for responding to RfCs and engaging in discussions. We've
started a brainstorming page, here, which we hope will usefully inform
the process of conflict resolution regarding German Wikipedia, as
well, so we can arrive at a more concrete conflict resolution process
soon. Your thoughts/suggestions are welcome, so we can (in NPOV style)
look at different possibilities (e.g. workgroups, committees, votes,
surveys) that have been discussed in the past:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_(Product)/Process_ideas
We’re absolutely not saying that WMF simply wants to be able to
enforce its decisions: we completely understand there need to be
mechanisms for the community to influence decisions and outcomes at
all stages of the development and release of software. We need to
arrive at this process together.
Again, we are sorry that this escalation occurred - and we hope we can
move forward constructively from here.
Sincerely,
Erik
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_Diskussion:Meinungsbil…
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_Diskussion:Common.js&d…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards_policy
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding_Principles#Sha…
[5] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69445
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Hey,
Don't worry, we indeed have a lot of time till the next elections, but as
this issue had been raised during the last elections - and we decided that
we can't change the rules few weeks before the elections, now I want to
raise the discussion enough time before.
According to the current rules [1], in order to influence and vote in the
elections, you need to be active editor, developer or WMF staff/contractor.
Last year this issue concern some of us. The foundation is not small
organizations as it been before, and by comparison, the number of people
participating in the elections every year is not high.
For example, last elections there were 1809 valid votes. By comparison, the
number of WMF staff this days is 218, what makes there voting power 12% of
the total voters last year. This consider to be a great amount of power
when we are talking about elections (In the last election you would have
around 650 votes in order to be elected...)
Wikimedia thematic organizations staff and contractors for example don't
have the same privilege to vote only because they are employees of the
movement, only if they are editors as well. The question - what make the
WMF staff different, and if this is not a little bit problematic that the
staff have such power to decide on their direct board, but in general - the
board of the whole movement.
Do we need to give the same privilege also to all the staff in our
movement?
Should we limited the elections to staff (both WMF and chapters) that are
active editors or developers as additional to their work in the movement?
I'll be happy to hear yours input.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Vote_Qu…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Results
*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!
Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on
Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). Please note, on
this occasion, we are holding this meeting on the second Wednesday in
April.
The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net, and the meeting will
be broadcast as a live YouTube stream.
Each month at the metrics meeting, we will:
* Welcome recent hires
* Present reports/updates that are focused on a key theme or topic: the
theme for April's meeting is Fundraising
* Engage in questions/discussions
Please review
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further
information about how to participate.
We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you,
Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Product & Strategy and the VP of
Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation \\ www.wikimediafoundation.org
Dear Wikimedians,
In order to encourage the expansion of knowledge, we’ve been considering
new ways to support and develop the work you do. Collaboration is an
essential part of the Wikimedia movement, and today, I’m excited to let you
know about a new addition at the Wikimedia Foundation that will support our
collaboration with like-minded organizations.
For some time now, we’ve planned to hire a Vice President of Strategic
Partnerships. Today, I am pleased to announce that Kourosh Karimkhany will
step into this role on March 30, 2015.
Kourosh will be responsible for crafting a strategy to grow long-term value
for Wikimedia projects through building meaningful partnerships, projects,
and relationships on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation. He will become
part of the C-level team and will report to Lisa Gruwell. Kourosh will also
oversee Wikipedia Zero, which will transition to the partnerships team.
The Wikimedia community has many fruitful and creative partnerships that
help support knowledge creation and sharing around the world. The
partnerships Kourosh will support will will help us better support these
partnerships and your work, as well as grow strategic initiatives we take
on at the WMF.
Kourosh was born in Iran and moved to the U.S. as a child with his family.
Today, he is an experienced digital media professional with a passion for
sharing information with the world. He started his career as a technology
journalist covering Silicon Valley for Bloomberg, Reuters and Wired. He
switched to the business side of media when he joined Yahoo as senior
producer of Yahoo News. Later, he led corporate development at Conde Nast
where he spearheaded the acquisition of Wired.com, Ars Technica and Reddit.
He also cofounded Food Republic in 2009, which was acquired in 2013. He's
an active angel investor and startup advisor.
In light of the expanded scope of the Fundraising team and the revamped
partnerships team, we’re changing the team's name to better reflect their
mission. The new name is the Advancement Department. To learn more about
the new role, visit the FAQ here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Partnerships_FAQ
Please join me in welcoming Kourosh as the newest member of the WMF
leadership team. We have many exciting projects in 2015 and I’m looking
forward to all the great things we will accomplish as we work together to
support our mission.
~~~~Lila
I'm sure many of you recall the Netflix Prize
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize>. This is that, for Wikipedia!
Although the initial goal of the Netflix Prize was to design a
collaborative filtering algorithm, it became notorious when the data was
used to de-anonymize Netflix users. Researchers proved that given just a
user's movie ratings on one site, you can plug those ratings into another
site, such as the IMDB. You can then take that information, and with some
Google searches and optionally a bit of cash (for websites that sell user
information, including, in some cases, their SSN) figure out who they are.
You could even drive up to their house and take a selfie with them, or
follow them to work and meet their boss and tell them about their views on
the topics they were editing.
Here, we'll cut straight to the privacy chase. Using just the full history
dump of the English Wikipedia, excluding edits from any logged-in users,
identify five people. You must confirm their identities with them, and
privately prove to me that you've done this. I will then nominate you as
the winner and send you one million Satoshis (the smallest unit of Bitcoin,
times 1 million), in addition to updating this thread.
I suspect this challenge will be very easy for anyone who is determined.
Indeed, even if MediaWiki no longer displayed IP addresses, there would
still be enough information to identify people. Completely getting rid of
the edit history would largely solve the problem. In the mean time, this
Prize will serve as a reminder that when Wikipedia says "Your IP address
will be publicly visible if you make any edits." what they mean is, "People
will probably be able to figure out where you live and embarrass you."
An extra million Satoshis for each NSA employee that you identify. A full
bitcoin if you take a selfie with them.
Let the games begin!
Brian Mingus
Re: http://twkozlowski.net/the-pot-and-the-kettle-the-wikimedia-way/
Two questions:
1. Where can I find a response from either the WMF board or WMF
funding/finance to the criticisms of a lack of transparency or the
apparent failure of the project to deliver value for the donor's money
as raised in this blog post?
2. Where can I read an officially recognized report for the outcomes
of this project in terms of value for Wikimedia projects? Obviously we
do not want to rely on second-hand analysis when reports to the WMF
are a requirement for such projects.
Thanks,
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Hi,
Actually, not so much a personel org chart, but rather a general
description what the function titles mean (ED, Director, Manager, Chief,
Head etc.), which supposedly should be much more stable and therefore
easier to grasp? For someone not embedded in US company nomenclature this
is all quite confusing and the general description articles on enwiki are
not very helpful either...
Lodewijk
On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 12:47 AM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> Lodewijk wrote:
> >In Wikimedian spirit, i would like to take the opportunity to ask the
> >silly question: is the structure of what all titles in Wikimedia mean,
> >described somewhere? Because to be honest, I'm getting all confused about
> >who ranks what in the structure of directors, vice presidents, chiefs,
> >heads, managers and seniors. I was, silly me, always under the impression
> >that a Vice President was basically just below the ED - on the C-level.
> >
> >I was looking for this info to be perhaps linked from the staff &
> >contractors page on wmfwiki, but i don't seem to be able to find it. Could
> >someone enlighten, and perhaps add it somewhere if not there yet? I recall
> >having asked this question also a few years back and that a list was made,
> >but I can't find it any longer...
>
> Hi.
>
> I think you're talking about an org chart here. The Wikimedia Foundation
> used to have one, but they're kind of annoying to maintain and any public
> version basically fell apart years ago. Last I saw, it was a tool on Labs,
> but it's been through several iterations. The page histories (of the
> article and the template) on wikimediafoundation.org will have references
> to it if you go back a few years.
>
> Re: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:Staff_and_contractors
>
> The template page includes a table of contents, which is not yet updated
> to reflect this new department, but is still really helpful for
> understanding the organization's structure nonetheless. Bonus: that page
> also auto-expands the sections for faster and easier searching. Viewing
> the template page instead of the article is a nice little hack for now.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
Hi,
I was just wondering if any of you looked at the IEG page on a mobile phone:
http://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG
For me this experience looks rather broken.
Best,
Rupert
This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_we…
A version of this as a blog post is available here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/27/wmf-welcomes-vp-partnerships/
Wikimedia Foundation welcomes Kourosh Karimkhany as VP of Strategic
Partnerships
- *New position to advance knowledge and mission through strategic
collaboration *
The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to welcome Kourosh Karimkhany as Vice
President of Strategic Partnerships on March 30, 2015. In this newly
created role, Kourosh will initiate, maintain, and grow strategic
relationships and partnerships that advance the Wikimedia mission, support
the community, and increase access to knowledge globally.
Today, Wikipedia attracts nearly half a billion visitors and more than 20
billion page views each month. At the same time, hundreds of millions of
people interact with data and content from the Wikimedia projects on third
party platforms and properties. Our mission is to make the sum of all human
knowledge freely available to the world, and content distribution and
sharing play a key role in that process.
The Wikimedia Foundation has created this new strategic role to identify
and manage these opportunities, and convert some of them into sharing and
distribution partnerships in order to advance our mission. Kourosh joins us
in this senior leadership role to craft a partnership strategy and create
long-term value for Wikimedia projects through partnerships, projects, and
relationships.
“Our aim is to empower people around the world with knowledge,” said Lila
Tretikov <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_Tretikov>, executive director
of the Wikimedia Foundation. “To fulfill that goal, we need to think
creatively about opportunities to work with like-minded organizations.
Kourosh will help us focus on our continued service to our community and
users, and progress toward our mission.”
As Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Kourosh will oversee the
Wikimedia Foundation’s partnership strategy, including Wikipedia Zero, a
partnership-based project. Wikipedia Zero is designed to increase access to
knowledge for people around the world. Applying additional focus to that
work and orienting it within a larger partnerships strategy will help us
work more effectively to achieve our mission.
The many fruitful and creative partnerships the Wikimedia community has
already built to support knowledge creation and sharing around the world
will be better supported as a result of this change. The partnerships group
will help us identify the strategic initiatives we must take on at the WMF
and increase our ability to support the movement and mission.
Kourosh is an experienced digital media executive. He started his career as
a technology journalist covering Silicon Valley for Bloomberg, Reuters and
Wired. He switched to the business side of media when he joined Yahoo as
senior producer of Yahoo News. Later, he was the head of corporate
development at Conde Nast where he spearheaded the acquisition of
Wired.com, Ars Technica and Reddit. He also cofounded Food Republic in
2009, which was acquired in 2013. He is an active angel investor and
startup advisor.
Kourosh will report to Chief Advancement Officer Lisa Gruwell under the
newly created Advancement Department. To learn more about these changes,
please see our FAQ <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Partnerships_FAQ>.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
-
https://wikimediafoundation.org
-
https://blog.wikimedia.org/
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia consists of more than 34
million articles in 288 languages. Every month, tens of thousands of active
volunteers contribute to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. With
nearly half a billion monthly users, projects operated by the Wikimedia
Foundation are one of the most popular web properties in the world. Based
in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact
Katherine Maher
-
+1 415-839-6885 ext. 6633
-
press(a)wikimedia.org
--
*Juliet Barbara*
Senior Communications Manager I Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street I San Francisco, CA 94105
jbarbara(a)wikimedia.org I +1 (512) 750-5677
(To be unsubscribed from this press release distribution list, please reply to communications(a)wikimedia.org with 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line)
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l