Hi Andreas,
Well, as promised a report from the board working group was presented to the full board (including information on the draft spec that you linked below, which is open for comment but certainly not set in stone), the matter was discussed at the March meeting as one of the many items on the agenda, and after the meeting we have been discussing a board resolution/next steps. Pretty typical. The minutes for the march meeting should be out soon.
( Incidentally, a general note on board process for those interested -- guidelines for board deliberations were passed in July, and can be seen here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Board_deliberations
The upshot is that a resolution takes three weeks minimum from the time of being proposed to passing, except in extraordinary/emergency cases. Two weeks of discussion, then a week of voting, and that does not account for extra time spent writing various drafts or discussing, or delays caused by exhausted committee chairs :) The time period tries to take into account the schedules of 10 very busy people, at least a handful of whom are traveling at any given time, as well as allow for enough time to seriously debate each resolution and take care with the wording.
So that, in a nutshell, is why sometimes things seem to take forever! )
-- phoebe
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
Hi Phoebe,
What is the current status with regard to the recommendations from the 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content?
From what I can see, a proposal based on the study was generated at
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Personal_image_filter
and the proposal was subsequently presented and discussed at the Board Meeting in Berlin, in late March.
How did that go? Any further developments?
Best, Andreas
--- On Sun, 20/2/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
From: Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content -- update To: "phoebe ayers" phoebe.wiki@gmail.com, "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sunday, 20 February, 2011, 22:54 Hi Phoebe,
Thank you very much for the update.
Recommendations 7 and 9 are important points, and I am glad there is some work being done on them.
Do let us know again how things are progressing!
Best, Andreas
--- On Sun, 20/2/11, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
From: phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 2010 Wikimedia Study of
Controversial Content -- update
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@yahoo.com Date: Sunday, 20 February, 2011, 19:35 On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 5:26 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
Could Phoebe, Jan-Bart or Kat please give us an
update
on the activities of
the working group looking into the
recommendations
resulting from the 2010
Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content?
Have any conclusions been drawn, and are there
any
plans or discussions about
implementing any of the recommendations?
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/215066?search_string=w...
Andreas
Hi Andreas! Thanks for asking. Sorry for the slow
reply,
I've been away on holiday the last couple of days and have not
been
online.
Also, my apologies for not posting an update before
you
asked. Things have been slowly moving but as yet no conclusions.
Here is what has happened since I sent my last
update:
Over the winter holidays the membership of the
working
group changed due to the workload of other board committees.
Jan-Bart and
Kat stepped down and were replaced by Matt, Jimmy and
Bishakha;
I am still involved and agreed to chair the group. Of course any recommendations for statements or resolutions will go to the whole
board.
The Harrises are still involved as consultants on a
"paid-as-needed"
basis; if we want them to do any further research or facilitation
they
are available.
In my last message, I wrote that "The working group
will be
examining the recommendations more closely, soliciting Board
member
feedback on each of the recommendations to a greater degree than
there
was time for in the in-person meeting, working with the
community
and finally making a report to the full Board. The working group
is
expected to recommend next steps, including providing fuller
analysis
of the recommendations."
We did the first part of this (board member feedback);
and
are currently working on the analysis part. As you know
the
various recommendations fall into three kinds: philosophical, community-facing (such as changing specific community practices), and technical. I asked the WMF tech staff to spend some time looking
into
the recommendations that require technical work (7 &
9)* so
that we can have more information about what's feasible and
possible,
and what it would take on the wmf/tech side and the community
side.
This does not mean they're developing these features now; it means
I
asked for possible specifications (since I am unfamiliar with
what it
would take in MediaWiki to make this happen) so the working group
can
make a more informed recommendation. The WMF won't develop
anything
without a board request.
You may notice that the "working with the community"
part
has been largely absent this winter. Beyond carefully reading**
all
of the public discussion to date, the working group has not actively worked with the community (at large) or specific community members. This is because I wanted to first focus on getting all of the
board
feedback and getting background information, and that has
taken
longer than I hoped. Of course we're not under the illusion that
any
changes can be made in how this organization works with
controversial
content (or even happily keeping the status quo) without
community
discussion (which there has been a lot of), consensus (which the recommendations were meant to help catalyze but afaik has not yet
emerged),
and hard work. I'd still suggest the meta talk pages along
with
commons policy pages as a good place to discuss the issue; and people
can
still help the working group by working on summarization,
analysis,
and procedure advice for going forward.
I'll say that the board does not yet have a formal
position
on this whole issue, and so I am hesitant to say much about
that
for fear of it being *taken* as an official board position.
You may read this message and think "ok, they're
doing
something" or you may read this message and think "the board has
totally
lost the way/not done their job on this issue" or you may not
care
:) Either way, feel free to write me or us, publicly or
privately.
Our next step as a working group will be a report to the board,
likely at
the march meeting.
-- phoebe
** I have also been working on summarizing all this discussion; a big job.
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