“Rogol”,
Now that you’ve told me on another thread that “Rogol” is a fictitious name, I feel that I’ve entered a world of international intrigue. Lord knows my Saturday could use the excitement.
Sometimes it may take some time before I can respond. They keep me fairly busy here.
On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 2:11 PM, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
Anna
I propose to challenge your comments "t’s not even about whose at fault anymore, because we all are. When I talk to people across the movement, they're all pretty clear that someone other than themselves is the responsible party"
There is a difference between fault, responsibility and accountability.
This is a good point. I’m glad you’ve made it. It adds to this discussion and my own thinking. Certainly errors can be fixed through an articulation of accountabilities, if a lack of accountabilities are part of the underlying reason for the problem.
Just saying we are all at fault is as meaningful or meaningless, and as useless, as saying that we are none of us at fault.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the statement is meaningless when applied to our collective discourse.
Let’s apply “fault, responsibility, and accountability" to our collective discourse. When applied to this particular case—our collective discourse on email threads—then might the questions become, Who is at fault for our collective discourse on email threads? Who is responsible for our collective discourse on email threads? Who is accountable for our collective discourse on email threads?
In collective discourse... everyone is. We are all accountable for how we engage in civil discourse. But I've already expressed this as an absolute and I understand that you are trying to get me to look at the relatives, and wisely so.
The question is, who is responsible for doing what, to whom are they accountable for doing it, and how well or badly have they done what they are responsible for?
I want to understand this point. Are you talking about issues like who moderates the threads or who articulates the practices for email threads?
Also, I wonder, do you have your own answers to these questions? Have you thought about this subject yourself, Rogol? If so, I’d really like to hear your thoughts on fault, responsibility, accountability and collective discourse.
You say "We've created a culture that is hard on people". Which culture do you mean?
Thank you for requesting that I be more specific. Generalizations can be useful in problem solving, but only in certain phases. I am specifically referring to email threads, and in this particular instance wikimedia-l.
However, I have seen this kind of discourse in other places... talk pages (largely enwp where I edit), phabricator tickets, IRC.
Is it the working culture within the WMF? Or one, some or all of the hundreds of volunteer projects? How were those cultures created and why did they evolve as they did? Did anyone create them, if if "we" did, who are "we" in this context?
I think these are another series of very useful questions. Part of the reason it took me time to respond is because I’ve been contemplating your questions. They were not at the front of my mind all week, but they were on the “back burner” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/backburner.
I’ve come to suspect that you have something to teach me in this regard. Would you be willing to offer me a history of what you’ve seen and heard and some origin stories (e.g., who created them, the relevant “we”).
Is it everyone equally?
You brought this up earlier in your email, at least that is how I read your initial statement about fault, accountabilities and responsibilities. I suspect that you have a different point of view and your view is likely more informed on movement history, structures, and dynamics. So I would like to understand your take. If you’re willing to offer it, I’d like to hear it.
Do you think that a Director of Culture and Collaboration might have more responsibility and more impact than one of the hundred thousand or so active volunteer content contributors, or the billion or so users?
I am very aware of the scope of my purview: I am the Director of Culture for the Wikimedia Foundation, and I’ve largely approached even that role through influence rather than command... “nudge and cajole”, not “command and control.” If I were to imagine myself the Director of Culture for the movement, I would also need to imagine myself arrogant, ill-informed, and grandiose, a vision of myself that I admittedly defend against.
But how do you see it, Rogol? Is there something that you would like from me in this regard? Is there some course of action that you are hoping to see from me? How shall I serve you?
What do you propose that the Foundation and Community actually do to support each other?
You are practical, yet another good quality.
On my end, I’m thinking about some kind of modular “community service” training for foundation staff. I’m not committing to anything right now, because I wouldn’t go it alone (other people with other high-priority agendas would need to be consulted and involved). I’m just thinking.
The reason I responded on this thread is because I thought that Salsman's post:
- was framed with a leading question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_question. - was filled with a good deal of speculation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/speculate (definition #2). - strikes me as mild affront to undue weight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources_and_undue_weight, though I do not believe that’s a norm of this list. Minority views on this list could be *very* important. I just don’t think this one is. Besides, the political persuasions of early editors cannot and *should not* be known. - seemed to be a circumspect form of argumentum ad hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem, particularly when linked to a tweet discussing Rex Tillerson https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer/status/808003564291244033’s favorite political philosopher (though I struggle to credit Objectivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) as a philosophy), as JW bears no relationship to Tillerson. - and I don't believe that the post was meant to solve any kind of problem. Sure, that’s a high bar to set, but it's on my mind.
None of that strikes me as constructive discourse and sets a low bar for the kinds of discussions we could have here. If we could start by not doing that, I think that would be a good first step.
Thank you for taking your precious time to engage with me in conversation. I know time is limited for us all, and that you've spent some of yours to help advance our projects is quite meaningful to me.
/a
"Rogol"
On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 7:50 PM, Anna Stillwell astillwell@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello,
I'd like to talk beyond this particular instance or these particular protagonists.
I'd like to talk about culture. We've created a culture that is hard on people, somewhat punishing of them. We engage in a good deal of public shaming.
We need to find a way to turn our culture toward more generative and constructive forms of public discourse. If we fail, smart, good, healthy Wikimedians will go away and not add their knowledge to our projects.
It’s not even about whose at fault anymore, because we all are. When I
talk
to people across the movement, they're all pretty clear that someone
other
than themselves is the responsible party:
- “It’s the dysfunctional board.”
- “No, no. it’s the “toxic communities”.
- “Of course not, its the obtuse staff”.
First, this is not healthy and it is not true. We have smart, brilliant, competent people throughout our movement. I’ve met brilliant, generative, empathic community members who have performed a deep service by adding their knowledge. I’ve met brilliant staff members that are advancing
ideas
that can have tremendously positive impacts on our projects. I’ve met brilliant board members who are thinking about the future in a very
serious
way.
Second, it does us no good to shift the blame around and work against
each
other. We have to find ways to support each other in solving problems because we have a lot of important problems to solve together.
We face so many challenges, not least of which is a world that seems to think that closed societies and ignorance and divisions are better than open societies, coursing with knowledge and constructive unity. Of the
many
challenges we face together: being collectively diminishing of one
another
and divisive should not be one of them.
Sorry, I just can’t keep quiet https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=v_DvGP6Y4jQ on this any more.
/a
On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 10:39 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Does anyone doubt that the English Wikipedia's longstanding, pervasive, counter-factual, systemic bias towards supply side trickle-down austerity libertarian objectivist economics due at least in part to early influence of editors attracted to Jimmy Wales' former public positions isn't at least partially responsible for the situation Romaine describes below?
Would it be better to move the Foundation out of the U.S., fix the bias, or both?
https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer/status/808003564291244033
Sincerely, Jim Salsman
---- forwarded message ---- Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2017 04:33:53 +0100 From: Romaine Wiki romaine.wiki@gmail.com To: Wikimedia wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns in general
Today I was reading in the (international) news about websites with knowledge on the topic of climate change disappear from the internet as result of the Trump administration. The second thing I read is that
before
something can be published about this topic, the government needs to approve this.
Do you realise what the right word for this is? censorship. Even if it is only partially.
Luckily there are many scientists working on getting all the data
abroad,
out of the US to ensure the research data is saved, including on
servers
in
the Netherlands where Trump (hopefully) has no reach.
In the past week I was reading about the Internet Archive organisation,
who
is making a back up in Canada because of the Trump administration. I
did
not understood this, you may call me naive, but now I do understand, apparently they have some visionary people at the Internet Archive.
I miss a good answer to this situation from the Wikimedia Foundation.
Trump is now promoting harassment and disrespect, already for some
time,
What signal is given to the rest of the world if an America based organisation is spreading the thought of a harassment free Wikipedia
and
the free word, while the president of the US is promoting harassment, disrespect and censorship on a massive scale.
This is just the first week of this president!
I am 100% sure everyone in the Wikimedia movement is willing to make
sure
Wikimedia faces no damage whatsoever, including in WMF, but to me this still starts to get concerning.
If we as Wikimedia movement think that free knowledge, free speech,
freedom
of information, etc are important, I would think that the location
where
the organisation is based is that country where liberty is the
largest, I
do not know where this is but it is definitely not the US.
To my impression WMF is stuck in the US, so I do not believe they would actually move when the danger grows.
But I think it is possible to make sure risks are spread over the
world.
Certainly as we are an international movement that intends to cover the knowledge of the whole humanoid civilisation.
To come to a conclusion, I think WMF and the Wikimedia movement should think about a back-up plan if it actually goes wrong.
If you do not agree with me: that is perfectly fine, that's your right
and
should be protected.
Thank you.
Romaine
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-- "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret Fuller
Anna Stillwell Director of Culture Wikimedia Foundation 415.806.1536 *www.wikimediafoundation.org http://www.wikimediafoundation.org* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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