There are now, five days before deadline, 7 candidates and all new
names. Last time two years ago there were only two candidates before the
very last days before deadline and both being existing Board members.
It is very good to see so many competent candidates and representing a
wider set of background then has have been seen before.
But we should respect the election process and keep questions and
discussions on the candidates meta pages.
I find it inappropriate to discuss any of them separately on this list.
Anders
Per these questions:
1. When James was made to leave, then did anyone tell him that there was
going to be a joint or prepared statement from the WMF?
No one before I left the meeting suggested we come out with a joint
statement or that we prepare a joint statement.
2. If so, did anyone ask James not to email the mailing list? And why did
you feel that was so inappropriate?
No one requested I not announce my removal. Let me repost my removal
message here "On Dec 28th 2015 I was removed from the board of the
Wikimedia Foundation. Many thanks to all those who gave me their support
during the last election. I have worked in the last six month to honor the
trust placed in me by advocating for our values, communities, and
projects."
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2015-December/080472.html
I find it strange that this message is deemed controversial. I would
consider that me pretending that I was still on the board of the WMF for a
few weeks until the board could come out with a statement even when I was
not on the board to be dishonest. I am not sure if that is what Jimmy Wales
wanted but it was not an option.
Finally facts are not determined by a vote. That you got unanimity for "The
board.. has offered no objections to any board member discussing long term
strategy with the community at any time" should make all of us worry. I
have provided evidence that refutes this claim here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-03/In_fo…
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
Sorry, I don't know where else to ask - I was thinking of trying out the
Discourse installation, and wasn't sure if I should create a new account or
if I could just use my SUL credentials? And if the former, wouldn't that
later clash when we merge to something like OAuth?
One of the things that someone asked me privately to discuss is what I
think of the possibility of James running for the board again.
First, I have no opinion about whether or not he will be eligible at the
next election. That's a matter for people other than me to decide. I
don't know.
Second, if he is eligible, and if he runs, and if he wins, then I will
support his joining the board. Because I've been willing to be vocal
about what I view as his failures, people have sometimes gotten the
mistaken impression that this is primarily a personal conflict between
him and me. That's not true. Before the board vote to remove him, I
told him that I would vote with the majority - because it is my feeling
that on matters of trust, if he was unable to command the trust of at
least the majority of other trustees, his position would be untenable.
Third, it may interest you all to know that I did not and would not have
instigated the meeting in which he was removed from the board. Indeed,
I missed an online board meeting where things happened apparently that
brought this to a head, and in the final meeting with James, I mainly
inquired "What brought this up now?" as I thought things were settling down.
Fourth, having said all of that, I remain very disappointed in James and
the way he has spun this without coming forward with the community about
what happened. He claimed reasons for his dismissal that everyone else
on the board agrees unanimously are not the reasons. I haven't seen him
acknowledge that he was wrong about that, and I haven't seen him own up
to the things that actually upset people.
There are many narratives being spun by people who weren't there, who
have made all kinds of assumption that aren't true.
[x-posted announcement]
Hello,
A reminder that the online office hour hosted by the Wikimedia Language
team is scheduled for later today at 1400 UTC. You can join the hangout or
watch the session from:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cbn4a2gubl4m6au3jv0gllh5t0k
Please note, due to the limitation of Google Hangouts there are few seats
available. So do let us know on the event page, if you would like to
participate on the hangout. We will also be on the IRC channel
#wikimedia-office to take questions. Please see below for the event
details, local time and original announcement.
Thanks
Runa
== Details ==
# Event: Wikimedia Language team's office hour session
# When: March 2nd, 2016 (Wednesday) at 14:00 UTC (check local time
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20160302T1400)
# Where: https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cbn4a2gubl4m6au3jv0gllh5t0k and
on IRC #wikimedia-office (Freenode)
# Agenda: Content Translation updates and Q & A
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Runa Bhattacharjee <rbhattacharjee(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 6:12 PM
Subject: WMF Language team office hour and online meeting on March 2nd 2016
(Wednesday) at 1400 UTC
To: MediaWiki internationalisation <mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia Mailing
List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, "Wikimedia & GLAM collaboration
[Public]" <glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
[x-posted announcement]
Hello,
The next online office hour session of the Wikimedia Language team is
scheduled for next Wednesday, March 2nd 2016 at 14:00 UTC. This session is
going to be an online discussion over Google Hangouts/Youtube with a
simultaneous IRC conversation. Due to the limitation of Google Hangouts,
only a limited number of participation slots are available. Hence, do
please let us know (on the event page
<https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cbn4a2gubl4m6au3jv0gllh5t0k>) if you
would like to join in the Hangout. The IRC channel #wikimedia-office and
the Q&A channel for the youtube broadcast will be open for interactions
during the session.
Our last online round-table session was held in November 2015. You can
watch the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYWZ6C4N93Y
Please read below for the event details, including local time and do let us
know if you have any questions.
Thank you
Runa
== Details ==
# Event: Wikimedia Language team's office hour session
# When: March 2nd, 2016 (Wednesday) at 14:00 UTC (check local time
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20160302T1400)
# Where: https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cbn4a2gubl4m6au3jv0gllh5t0k and
on IRC #wikimedia-office (Freenode)
# Agenda: Content Translation updates and Q & A
--
Language Engineering Manager
Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
--
Language Engineering Manager
Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
I'm switching to this email address for posting, because apparently
there is some kind of weird problem between yahoo and google such that
gmail users see all or most of my messages in their SPAM folder.
If you've asked me something and think that I didn't respond, I
recommend looking there.
Regarding to Oliver's comment: "My concern is that when staff reached out
the Board replied with a letter indicating they had full and unanimous
confidence in our
leadership."
This statement is not really true. We had a formal vote regarding the ED in
November and it was not unanimous. The vote unfortunately has not yet been
made public.
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
Dear all,
I want formally introduce to you Wikimedia Ukraine’s Board, elected by our
General Assembly on December 27, 2015.
We can do it only now, as we have just recently successfully completed the
requirements from our state to change the people responsible for the
chapter officially [1].
Three people has decided not to run this year, and I want to thank them
wholeheartedly for all their time and efforts spent on our projects and
making this world better for a change:
-
[[User:Amakuha]], Andrii Makuha. He has been our Chair for the last two
years; his calm personality helped us a lot, especially during the most
turbulent times of transferring «power» from one to another Chapter Board
«without pain» [2], as Andrii has tried his best to understand everyone and
continue the dialogues even when it seems that we won’t be able to come to
any acceptable terms. By the way, awarding Wikizghushchivka [3] was his
idea.
-
[[User:NickK]], Mykola Kozlenko, our Treasurer, with great analytical
skills and profound knowledge about the Community (and I am talking not
only about our local community, but the global one as well) and the
Wikimedia Movement. He is actively engaged in Wikimedia Ukraine’s projects,
though he lives in France and can contribute almost only via Internet. But
he was able to be a vital part of organizing the rather successful regional
conference WIkimedia CEE Meeting in Kyiv in December 2014.
-
[[User:Ліонкінг]], Levon Azizian. He is a lawyer in real life, a
passionate Wiki(m|p)edian. He is blessed with the skills to make the
<s>dreams</s> ideas come into reality, as he is very convincing and one
just gets the feeling that (s)he can do it. And so they do it :) And then
there is only a pure wonder of: wow, we have organized a wikiconference in
2 weeks; wow, we have organized a CEE Meeting in a month; wow, we can
actually (but it is really hard!) organize wikitrainings for two weeks
non-stop in Luhansk region, go to librarians, preach about editing
Wikipedia… and just around the corner there is a real war zone…
These three are my dear friends, and I was really sorry to see them not
running. But it was our dream from a long ago: to have more great
Wiki(m|p)edians join the chapter and get interested in our projects. So
here we have our newly elected three Board members:
-
[[User:Olena Zakharian]], Olena Zakharian. She was (and still is!) our
press secretary, she is very keen about Nature and Freedom of Speech, she
believes in our Mission and has contributed greatly to most of our projects
before and she is a crucial part of our Board becoming more transparent for
our Community.
-
[[User:Helgi]], Oleh Yatsozhynskyi. He is an active member of Ukrainian
Wikipedia community, he has joined the organization only in September, but
he is an invaluable part of us now (especially his directness :)) He is
responsible for Wikiexpeditions now [4], and he is full of ideas and desire
to implement them (and that’s something really really important, you know)
-
[[User:Pavlo1]], Pavlo Lakiichuk. He is the Secretary of the Board now,
so he is responsible for all the boring stuff around the process of making
decisions. He is also an active member of our local community, he cares
about wikiprojects a lot. He has initiated a number of meetings for
creators of “real” encyclopedias and wikipedians to talk a few issues over
and get to know each other better (well, it works! quite a few myths were
dismissed by talking over a cup of tea :) )
The other four members of the Board, re-elected for this year, are:
-
[[User:Ilya]], Illia Korniiko. He is our Chair now. He codes. :) WLX
Jury Tool is his pet project, but he was deprived of almost all chances to
work on it, as our state’s bureaucratic system is quite a monster to
overcome...
-
[[User:Юрій Булка]], Yurii Bulka. He is responsible for Wikipedia
Education Program in Ukraine. And he was the one to suggest and implement
the project of digitizing and making available the phonograph cylinder
collection of Filaret Kolessa (early 20th century) [5]
-
[[User:Friend]], Pavlo Sokhan. He is an administrator of uk.wikiquote,
works in a library. He has contributed greatly into organizing of the first
Wikimedia CEE Spring article contest in 2015. He is now responsible for our
book scanning kit [6] and we hope to get lots of stuff scanned and uploaded
to Wikiprojects :)
-
and [[user:antanana]], Nataliia Tymkiv. I am an administrator of
Ukrainian Wikipedia, and I am quite active in a lot of Wikimedia Ukraine’s
projects. I am a member of Simple Annual Plan Grants Committee [7]
I am sorry for a bit long introduction. But I do believe that it is vital
for us all to work together, so even if you do not read the whole letter
and remember all the names, you’ll be able to find the info about the right
person to reach to, should you need to meet somebody in Ukraine or find the
answer.
Best regards,
[[User:antanana]] / Nataliia Tymkiv
Vice-Chair of the Board of Wikimedia Ukraine
[1] Well, they have changed a couple of laws during this period, so it was
not a pleasant task to do :)
[2]
https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Submissions/How_to_transfer_%…
[3] The project is aimed at peer recognition and appreciation of new and
active editors' contribution by monthly awarding a can of Wikizghushchivka
(condensed milk) to the editor with the most contributions in that month
and the new editor with the most contributions in that month
[4] We have a very detailed (day-by-day) report, maps, videos, photos,
created and illustrated articles now:
https://ua.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3465
[5]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Filaret_Kolessa_phonograph_cylinder_coll…
[6] https://ua.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3448
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Simple/Committee#committee-membe…
I found this the most interesting part of the recent IdeaLab discussion
about changing the Wikimania framework.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Towards_a_New_Wikimania
"*The total spend by WMF for Wikimania 2014 in London and 2015 in Mexico,
including all travel, accommodations, scholarships, staff support and
direct conference expenses, was ~$1 million USD*"
This is a pity. Small grants to support a con is one thing, but this is too
much.
Please let's stop encouraging conferences that do not cover their own
costs. A good conference series pays for itself, including its scholarship
pool. There are plenty of communities our size or larger with wonderful,
regular conferences of hundreds or thousands of people, which break even or
turn a small profit.
FUDCons are an interesting case in point. As I understand it, there was a
time when RedHat basically sponsored the events, with scholarships for all
active contributors and extensive grants. This was ok, but skewed
participation. Then the lavish sponsorship stopped. Attendance dropped;
community members felt unloved. Then after a time, this passed, and
everyone attended again. (Perhaps a core Fedora contributor can describe
this more accurately!)
SJ