Indeed George I agree with everything you have said about the internal effects of lack of transparency and openness. Assuming I and other board members who continue to press for full openness about the James situation are eventually successful this will all become more clear.
Sent from my Samsung device
-------- Original message --------
From: George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2016/03/10 9:49 AM (GMT+00:00)
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: A conversation?
> On Mar 10, 2016, at 1:25 AM, Jimmy Wales <jimmywales(a)wikia-inc.com> wrote:
> ...
> Those ideas never got traction
> and never made it to the board level. ...
I don't think you are lying or being deceptive, but it seems apparent in the various half-explanations that it did, to James, who either got mangled explanations and assumed worse or heard worse from someone incorrectly. Thence to mistrust.
Assuming nobody is evil or insane, we have clear evidence and now open admissions of communications breakdowns at several levels and confused, contradictory explanations about who thought what secrecy was required and why.
It seems like those fed upon each other into misunderstandings and mistrust.
Have you not considered that lack of transparency and openness would have the same internal effect as external?
George William Herbert
Sent from my iPhone
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Hi all,
in case you don't know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCell is a
single-player card game, that became popular after being included in
some versions of Microsoft Windows. Now, the English Wikipedia entry about it
used to contain during at least two times in the past, some relatively short
sections about several automated solvers that have been written for it.
However, they were removed due to being considered "non-notable" or
"non-Encyclopaedic".
Right now there's only this section -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCell#Solver_complexity which talks about the
fact that FreeCell was proved to be NP-complete.
I talked about it with a friend, and he told me I should try to get a
"reliable source" news outlet/newspaper to write about such solvers (including
I should add my own over at http://fc-solve.shlomifish.org/ , though the
sections on the FreeCell Wikipedia entry did not exclusively cover it.).
Recently I stumbled upon this paper written by three computer scientists, then
at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev:
*
http://www.genetic-programming.org/hc2011/06-Elyasaf-Hauptmann-Sipper/Elyas…
* There's some analysis of this paper in this thread in the fc-solve-discuss
Yahoo Group:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fc-solve-discuss/conversations/messages…
The solver mentioned in the paper can solve 98% of the first 32,000 Microsoft
FreeCell deals. However, several hobbyist solvers (= solvers that were written
outside the Academia and may incorporate techniques that are less fashionable
there, and that were not submitted for Academic peer review) that were written
by the time the article published, have been able to solve all deals in the
first MS 32,000 deals except one (#11,982), which is widely believed to be
impossible, and which they fully traverse without a solution.
Finally, I should note that I've written a Perl 5/CPAN distribution to verify
that the FreeCell solutions generated by my solver (and with some potential
future work - other solvers) are correct, and I can run it on the output of
my solver on the MS 32,000 deals on my Core i3 machine in between 3 and 4
minutes.[Verification]
===========
Now my questions are:
1. Can this paper be considered a reliable, notable, and/or Encyclopaedic source
that can hopefully deter and prevent future Deletionism?
2. Can I cite the fc-solve-discuss’s thread mentioning the fact that there are
hobbyist solvers in question that perform better in this respect - just for
"Encyclopaedic" completeness sake, because the scientific paper in question
does not mention them at all.
===========
Sorry this E-mail was quite long, but I wanted to present all the facts. As you
can tell, I've become quite frustrated at Wikipedia deletionism and the hoops
one has to overcome in order to cope with them.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
[Verification] - one note is that all these programs were not verified/proved
as correct by a proof verifier such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coq , so
there is a small possibility that they have insurmountable bugs. Note that I
did write some automated tests for them.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/
What Makes Software Apps High Quality - http://shlom.in/sw-quality
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and
Hubris.
— http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html
Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
Yes. When I can publish I will.
Sent from my Samsung device
-------- Original message --------
From: Michel Vuijlsteke <wikipedia(a)zog.org>
Date: 2016/03/10 10:05 AM (GMT+00:00)
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: A conversation?
...this is about that mail of yours to James that was going to be
published, right?
On 10 March 2016 at 11:01, jimmy wales <jimmywales(a)ymail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Indeed George I agree with everything you have said about the internal
> effects of lack of transparency and openness. Assuming I and other board
> members who continue to press for full openness about the James situation
> are eventually successful this will all become more clear.
>
>
> Sent from my Samsung device
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com>
> Date: 2016/03/10 9:49 AM (GMT+00:00)
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: A conversation?
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 10, 2016, at 1:25 AM, Jimmy Wales <jimmywales(a)wikia-inc.com>
> wrote:
> > ...
> > Those ideas never got traction
> > and never made it to the board level. ...
>
> I don't think you are lying or being deceptive, but it seems apparent in
> the various half-explanations that it did, to James, who either got mangled
> explanations and assumed worse or heard worse from someone incorrectly.
> Thence to mistrust.
>
> Assuming nobody is evil or insane, we have clear evidence and now open
> admissions of communications breakdowns at several levels and confused,
> contradictory explanations about who thought what secrecy was required and
> why.
>
> It seems like those fed upon each other into misunderstandings and
> mistrust.
>
> Have you not considered that lack of transparency and openness would have
> the same internal effect as external?
>
>
> George William Herbert
> Sent from my iPhone
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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Dear friends,
Recent events have made me curious to learn more about the Wikimedia
Foundation's origins and history as a membership organization. The
revelations about the Wikimedia Foundation Board elections being a
recommendation for appointment rather than a direct vote seem to have been
a surprise to many of us, and almost ten years after membership was
eliminated, we see strongly suggestive "directly elected" language still
being fixed on the Foundation's own Board elections page.[1]
It turns out that this history is colorful, the Foundation was a membership
organization from 2003-2006 and Board seats were indeed, originally,
intended to be directly elected by member-Wikimedians. It seems that the
membership issue was never quite resolved. I've put some of my notes on
metawiki, please forward to any wiki historians who might be interested in
throwing their weight on a shovel.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_membership_controversy
As a current WMF staff member, and having received a formal scolding two
weeks ago for expressing my professional and personal opinions on this
list--that a hierarchical corporate structure is completely inappropriate
and ineffectual for running the Foundation--I don't feel safe
editorializing about what membership could mean for the future of the
Wikimedia movement. But I would be thrilled to see this discussion take
place, and to contribute however I am able.
A note to fellow staff: Anything you can say about this history is most
likely protected speech under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, since we're asking
whether state and federal laws were violated.
In solidarity,
Adam Wight
[[mw:User:Adamw]]
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Board_of_Trustees&diff=10…
As many of you are aware, it's always been difficult to navigate
information about the proceedings of the Board of Trustees: minutes,
agendas, specific resolutions, notes, and commentary are split across Meta
Wiki, WMF Wiki, various mailing lists, etc.
So, I spent the last few days building a set of navigation templates on
Meta, tidying up page names, summarizing the Board's activities in recent
years, etc. I hope you will take a look at the before[1] and after[2] pages
on Meta. (There's still work to be done -- any help appreciated! Speaking
of which, thank you to MZMcBride and Rillke for helping get a useful gadget
up and running.)
== The most useful part ==
In addition to the navigation boxes (which I hope are helpful in themselves
to Trustees, staff, and any volunteers interested in governance issues), I
think perhaps the most useful pieces are the Annual Summary pages I put
together for 2014 [3] and 2015.[4] These aim to capture every resolution
passed in each year, separated according to those focused on Board
governance and more general votes. I have also included brief narratives
about issues that have been widely discussed (e.g., the absence of any
Advisory Board-related votes in 2015, and the implications of that). I have
tried to keep this very factual, to keep it short and useful for for
anybody interested in tracking the information. It could use additional
eyes, and probably additional links (to significant email messages, etc.)
== Curious observations ==
This is the deepest dive I've taken into Board proceedings, and as such, a
few interesting points struck me:
* Yesterday, for the first time, minutes and resolutions from the two
December 2015 Board meetings were published. As far as I know there was no
announcement of this; I wonder if in these tumultuous times, this has
slipped through the cracks. As you will see, there are several significant
pieces of information in there, and three months is a long time to wait for
it.
* December 2015: For the first time, we learn that Guy Kawasaki was
appointed to the Board Governance Committee (BGC). Ordinarily, a committee
appointment might not be of great interest; however, in this case, the
appointment came during the same meeting as the one where the BGC nominated
Arnnon Geshuri and Kelly Battles. If I'm not mistaken, those were the only
two candidates presented to the full board for a formal vote, meaning that
the members of the BGC had tremendous influence in appointing those two
seats. I think it would be worthwhile to hear from the Board whether or not
Guy had a role in deciding what candidates were presented to the Board. Was
this appointment fully forward-looking, or was it recognizing work that he
had already done with the BGC? Did Guy have a role in the formal decision
of who to present to the full Board?
* December 2015: The resolution establishing the Endowment Fund, which was
announced in a press release in January, is now referred to on the WMF
Wiki. However, the text of the resolution has not been published. I suspect
this is a mere oversight and will be corrected shortly; but this is a
significant development, and it will be good to see what was actually
decided.
* December 2015: As we knew, the Board approved the FDC's recommendation.
But the text in the Minutes and in the Resolution are interesting: (a) Many
staff and volunteers have praised the FDC's diligence in identifying the
WMF's performance in relation to the Annual Plan Grant standards. It would
be interesting to hear from the Board how it takes those comments, but
there is no mention of that in the Board resolution. (b) There are,
however, comments about the FDC's take on Wikimedia Germany's request for
restricted funds for Wikidata. I'm not as familiar with this issue, but it
appears there is a bit of a power struggle going on between the FDC, WMF,
and perhaps WMDE over this issue. This is something I hope we can all hear
more about, as it seems significant to the future of an important Wikimedia
project.
* January 2016: (No big surprise) Kelly Battles has been added to the Audit
Committee, and Jaime Villagomez has been appointed Board Treasurer.
* Going way back to August 2014, I noticed an interesting detail. Many who
follow the Board are aware that Alice Wiegand, who had previously been a
Chapters-nominated Trustee, lost her bid that year for a new nomination.
Frieda Brioschi was nominated in her place, and was appointed; Frieda had
previously been a Trustee some years before. And the Board immediately
appointed Alice anyway, succeeding Ana Toni, who resigned mid-term. Now,
for the part I had not noticed before: In the same meeting where she was
herself appointed, Frieda cast the sole dissenting vote for both of the
resolutions to reappoint Alice. (One to fill out the 2014 term, and another
for a new term starting in 2015.) This strikes me as highly significant:
Frieda surely knew that the vote would be successful, and that she would
then be faced with serving alongside a colleague who she had publicly
opposed. I do not know Frieda at all, but this strikes me as an action few
people would take unless there was a strong reason. I am curious what the
rift was between the two, and especially whether it is over an issue or
philosophical difference related to the Wikimedia movement.
== Closing thoughts ==
Overall, I hope these navigation templates, and especially the annual
summaries, can facilitate various parties in navigating complex
information, and help us all develop a better understanding of how the
Board has been supporting the Wikimedia vision. Perhaps there are further
improvements that I haven't thought of -- so of course I welcome others'
contributions to how the information is presented.
Please let me know (on- or off-list) if you have any feedback for me.
Happy editing,
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
== Footnotes ==
[1] Before the new templates:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_board_mee…
[2] Current version:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_meetings#2016
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_summary,_2014
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_summary_2015
[5]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_celebrates_15…
Hi everyone,
In August, we asked for community feedback on a proposal to change the
structure of WMF grant programs.
Next steps for implementing changes based on the consultation are now
available:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants/Imple…
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants/Outco…>
Important dates to note:
1 May: Rapid Grants launch; submission forms available for new Project
Grants program
30 May: Last day to apply for a grant under the current Project & Event
Grants program
1 July: Project Grants and Conference Support launch
Come read about the timeline and next steps for implementing changes based
on your feedback. Your questions and comments are welcome on the discussion
page.
Cheers,
Alex
--
Alexandra Wang
Program Officer
Project & Event Grants
Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
+1 415-839-6885
Skype: alexvwang
Patricio, thanks for the update.
I appreciate you and Lila informing the wikimedia movement now, before all
of the details of the transition plan are complete.
As the BoT works on a transition strategy and plans for hiring a new ED,
perhaps a member of the Board can take on the role of Chief Communicator.
Understandably, it is not always easy to know when to make announcements
and updates to the wikimedia movement especially when plans are incomplete.
At this moment in time, a good communication strategy that keeps everyone
regularly informed will help build a stronger bond between the WMF Board
and the rest of wikimedia movement.
My thoughts are with you and the rest of the Board as you work through this
situation.
Warm regards,
Sydney
Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration
On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 1:50 PM, Patricio Lorente <
patricio.lorente(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> This week, the Board of Trustees accepted Lila’s resignation. Her last day
> will be March 31, 2016.
>
> I would like to thank Lila for her efforts over these past two years, and
> her passion for our shared mission. Together, we wish her the best in her
> future endeavors and accomplishments.
>
> The Board of Trustees is meeting regularly to determine next steps. Our
> top priority is to develop a clear transition plan that seeks to build
> confidence with community and staff, appoint interim leadership, and begin
> the search for a new Executive Director. We will continue working closely
> together over the coming days, and will share an update next week.
>
> This work will require extensive collaboration by the Board over the next
> few weeks. Although we know you’ll have questions, it is likely we’ll be
> very focused on planning the next steps. We appreciate your patience and
> understanding during this time.
>
> Patricio
>
> TRANSLATION NOTE: This message is also posted on Meta at the Board
> Noticeboard for for translation. You can find it here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/25_F…
> --
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
>
>
Hi,
On 03/09/2016 07:57 AM, C. Scott Ananian wrote:
> I'm interested in drilling down on these issues a bit. As far as I can
> tell, there is nothing in the actual bylaws which forbids WMF employees
> from being board members, although "conventional wisdom" seems to agree
> there is a conflict of interest in doing so.
>From the bylaws[1], Article IV, Section 3, part D: "Trustees selected by
Chapters and Thematic Organizations must resign from any board,
governance, or paid positions at the Foundation, Chapters, Thematic
Organizations, and User Groups for the duration of their terms as
Trustees, but may continue to serve Chapters, Thematic Organizations,
and User Groups in informal or advisory capacities."
The same applies to community-selected and board-appointed trustees
(part C and E respectively).
> (I'm not so sure I agree
> with that conventional wisdom, but let's treat it as given for now,
> since you've already pledge to give up your WMF position in your
> nomination statement.) AFAIK "board member" is not a paid position --
> it seems wrong (albeit laudable!) for you to give up your income (by
> donating your good work to the project on a volunteer-only basis) in
> order to aid the organization. The Board does not meet *that* frequently.
>
> And I have a personal interest in seeing your Shadow Namespaces work
> continue. ;)
Time permitting, I plan to continue my volunteer MediaWiki development
work, which includes shadow namespaces :)
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_IV_-_THE_BOARD_OF_TRUST…
-- Kunal Mehta / Legoktm
Don't be so hasty to rule out Donald.
With Computers coming down in price and Artificial Intelligence programs
steadily improving it should be perfectly possible to train an AI program
with the decision making power needed to make CEO style decisions; Remember
Chess has long had better computer players than human ones. And having the
CEObot trained to adopt the personality, communication style and persona of
a much loved and highly successful comic artiste means they would be
something of a known and trusted quantity.
Indeed it would temporarily put us at the leading edge of technology,
though in a few years everyone will be using CEObots.
The only slight problems are that if we wanted to hire an AI CEO the
community would object to one that wasn't open source. And as a high
profile organisation we wouldn't want to be using the same licensed CEObot
as thousands of other organisations, especially if we had to pay a license
fee to Disney.
Jonathan/WereSpielChequers
>
> On 3/5/16 8:28 AM, Chris Sherlock wrote:
> >> In it's decision making capacity, the Board should:
> >>
> >> * Select, evaluate and (if necessary) remove the Executive Director;
> >
> > Whilst I'm sure that C-level managers are up to the task, that's rather
> abrogating the responsibility of the Board.
>
> I think you are misunderstanding. The Board will meet to discuss and
> approve the recommendation of the C-level managers. In order to
> properly carry out the Board's supervisory duties, we can and should
> take advice from those who are best situated. We have not transferred
> the legal right and responsibility onto the C-level managers - we have
> indicated to them that we trust that they will make a reasonable
> recommendation.
>
> If, contrary to all expectations, they came back with a recommendation
> for Donald Duck or Donald Trump or some other cartoon character, we'd
> obviously refuse their recommendation as would be our fiduciary duty.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>