With respect to Sandole's editing of the article on [[Opposition to military action against Iran]]
The edit listed in this thread * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_military_action_aga...
by itself would seem to show undue emphasis on one particular researcher at the center.
But looking at it in context of the entire body of his additions to the article https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_military_action_aga... shows he has also adding a long section by another scholar criticizing Kroenig. (the section dealing with three other people at the Center was there long before he began editing the article. )
I think this shows an attempt at balance, but I suppose it could be argued that it represents an attempt at further enhancing Kroenig's importance
On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 4:14 PM, John Mark Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.comwrote:
On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 6:59 AM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 03/22/2014 02:45 PM, Russavia wrote:
It's already been established that there is massive copyvio in there, and I think it is absolutely unacceptable for a copyvio to still be in this article under the circumstances.
It's unacceptable under /any/ circumstances, but I don't see an obvious copyright violation, nor can I find a place where you pointed out one? Where was that established?
Responding to your second email first, a search for "copyright violation" on all emails on this list will lead you right to the relevant post, by Russavia.
Or search for copyright violations in the following page
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/443518
And in the email you quoted Russavia gave the diff where it can be found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relations&am...
On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 8:46 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
Russavia,
First, I write here in my capacity as a volunteer and a member of the community you claim to speak on behalf of, clearly not as a staffer of the Foundation (not that engineering has anything to do with programs like this anyways).
On 03/22/2014 09:00 AM, Russavia wrote:
I understand this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy with simply getting a few reports from Sandole
Whether or not you have a point about that position having been badly considered or having a been a waste of money -- and I'd be inclined to think that it was at least a little of both -- you've squarely crossed the line between "asking legitimate questions" and "pointless
harassment".
You have selectively quoted Russavia. His email wasnt pointless harassment.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070681.html
The email was primarily Russavia asking:
"Can you please provide the original JDF so the rest of the community has the opportunity to look at it."
That is a legitimate question in the circumstances, given this was a document that appears to have been revised after publication and it is being discussed on this list without it being public.
The tone of Russavia's email around that request had some rough edges, but so does your email. Credit where it is due : Russavia appears to have put quite a lot of time into this in the last few days, and shared an analysis that at least fairly conclusively points towards a serious problem.
I'm not expecting Erik to make it his primary task on Monday morning to find and publish this, and do appreciate that he has been personally answering questions and publishing relevant documents already, but it is a pretty simple request and he has staff who can do it.
Honestly this type of information should be publicly accessible from the get go. Why wasnt the JDF published on wiki? And discussed on wiki? It is surprising that quite a few people have known about this, and said nothing until now. It is also surprising that (afaik) the WMF didnt announce the person selected for this position to the community, to facilitate continual review of the ongoing program and its contributions, and hasnt undertaken a program evaluation of this already - one half of the Belfer position should have fallen directly in the scope of the Editing Workshops evaluation.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Editing_w...
Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't),
promotional paid editing, inserting pro-U.S. POV and copyvio/plagiarism into English Wikipedia may not be 'highly disruptive', especially as there were so few edits involved, but it is far from 'just apparently very inefficient'.
or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't),
It is appropriate to distinguish between general public unrestricted donations vs 'the donor of the restricted money telling WMF what to do with it', however focusing on what was 'spent' is not appropriate. There are direct costs which may be larger than the granted amount; there are indirect costs, and there are opportunity costs. From what I have seen, I think it is fair to conclude that general public unrestricted donations will suffer from this broadly speaking.
There may be quite a bit of direct costs that arnt covered by the Stanton grant per se, including selection process, onboarding, reviewing their work, and now handling the fallout of a failed project (e.g. Erik's time and I presume Jay is also working overtime). The Stanton grant quite probably included an amount for normal overheads related to the position (selection, onboarding, monitoring), but those costs could have blown out and/or the WMF decided to absorb the costs given the size of the restricted grant for program activity.
However it is the indirect costs which will hurt.
As the WMF considers spending donor money on clamping down on paid editing to be money well spent, a whole lot more of that donor money needs to be spent achieving that goal when month after month there are revelations of the WMF staff (which Timothy Sandole was, roughly speaking) engaging in this type of editing, or the initial investment of donor dollars has been wasted if the concept of WMF policing paid editing needs to be abandoned as it has lost the high ground.
There is reputational damage to the WiR concept, WMF, and Wikimedia generally, which will be felt across the movement. While the WMF may not be going to run this type of program again, affiliates do run these types of programs. Affiliate staff and volunteer time will be spent rebuilding the WiR brand. IMO it is also a shame that this will mean more resistance to content rather than community-focused WiR. I know many people feel very strongly that a WiR should act as an enabler for the community rather than fill the gaps themselves, but in practise a lot of WiR end up writing content to some degree, and I think there are scenarios when a WiR should be more of a contributor rather than collaborator, especially in topical areas that are under-represented in major languages and in wikis in their early stages needing a major content boost rather than a minor, and maybe shortlived, boost to the number of contributors that a WiR might be able to achieve. But the community, GAC and FDC will be more shy of content-heavy WiR type programs since Belfer.
Then there is the potential for this to cause Stanton to stop giving grants to WMF, which means donor money needs to fill the void or programs need to be cut (and staff may need to be laid off.)
I cant even guess the opportunity costs, except that these types of 'special interest' projects can be headaches for pushing through large structural changes like Sue's "Narrowing the focus" which was launched in October 2012.
or if you had /actually/ been appointed to speak for "the number one stakeholder in our projects" (which you haven't);
Eh? No appointments necessary.
it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week.
Who said that there would be no further substantive information until Sue returns?
You've made your point and raised the issue, and now the information for informed judgment is being published. How about you let the /rest/ of the community examine it and reach its own conclusions? Because, right now, you seem more interested in stoking the fires of your vendetta by harping on what you /want/ that conclusion to be than any actual interest in figuring out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again if it was a problem.
Which vendetta are you referring to?
Russavia was asking for more information, presumably in order to figure out what happened.
-- John Vandenberg
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