https://www.opensourceforu.com/2022/01/an-open-letter-to-maryana-iskander/
Hi Frederick - Nice to hear from you again. I look forward to reading the letter. Maryana
On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 9:19 PM Frederick Noronha < fredericknoronha@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.opensourceforu.com/2022/01/an-open-letter-to-maryana-iskander/
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I sympathise with a lot of what you say, but do you have a workable alternative to reliable sources as currently defined? Peter
From: Frederick Noronha [mailto:fredericknoronha@gmail.com] Sent: 11 April 2022 21:19 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Maryana Iskander
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https://www.opensourceforu.com/2022/01/an-open-letter-to-maryana-iskander/
Hi Some comments here too.
While in general the points are important and relevant, the 7 and 8 continue to be based on a geographical separation that it's almost updated and is itself discriminatory.
If you base the discussion to the war between Europa and America vs remaining world or to White people Vs World, the culture will remain not neutral.
It makes more sense to speak about minorities in general as the point 10 stresses.
I am an example because I am white, male, European and middle age so I fit perfectly in the stereotype of majority but I am a Swiss Italian and I am a minority for Italian language and a minority for the Swiss people. Unfortunately my culture is at the edge to be considered of 'regional interest' and can be under several conditions of cancellation.
I think that old models based on a geographical separation are quite outdated.
Except European or North American cultures there are several and more serious situations of dominant cultures against minorities and it is happening in Brazil against local indigenous or in China or in Russia or Egypt against Copts to give some examples.
In all previous cases it's always a dominant culture against minorities and not necessarly European/North American Vs the World.
Kind regards
On Mon, 11 Apr 2022, 21:19 Frederick Noronha, fredericknoronha@gmail.com wrote:
https://www.opensourceforu.com/2022/01/an-open-letter-to-maryana-iskander/
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Hi thanks for sharing!
I would agree on many of the issues there, is why you think writing to Maryana Iskander would make things change since the foundation has no editorial rights on Wikipedia ? Maybe the solution lies in a better system rating the articles. For me there would be no problems having sourced articles PUNKT, and not worry about notability criteria. That would shift the maintainance energy on deleting articles to maintaining them :). But that does not mean that we can have no secundary sources at all. I think we should move more towards the wiktionnary criterias. That means we focuse more over sourcing each line of information, not “notability criterias”. But this seems impossible the communities would not agree. Maybe having a project which adds deleted articles in a “stub” encyclopedia? Like an “wiki article spore” or article nursery ?
Kind regards,
Nattes
Envoyé de mon iPhone
Le 12 avr. 2022 à 11:36, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com a écrit :
Hi Some comments here too.
While in general the points are important and relevant, the 7 and 8 continue to be based on a geographical separation that it's almost updated and is itself discriminatory.
If you base the discussion to the war between Europa and America vs remaining world or to White people Vs World, the culture will remain not neutral.
It makes more sense to speak about minorities in general as the point 10 stresses.
I am an example because I am white, male, European and middle age so I fit perfectly in the stereotype of majority but I am a Swiss Italian and I am a minority for Italian language and a minority for the Swiss people. Unfortunately my culture is at the edge to be considered of 'regional interest' and can be under several conditions of cancellation.
I think that old models based on a geographical separation are quite outdated.
Except European or North American cultures there are several and more serious situations of dominant cultures against minorities and it is happening in Brazil against local indigenous or in China or in Russia or Egypt against Copts to give some examples.
In all previous cases it's always a dominant culture against minorities and not necessarly European/North American Vs the World.
Kind regards
On Mon, 11 Apr 2022, 21:19 Frederick Noronha, fredericknoronha@gmail.com wrote:
https://www.opensourceforu.com/2022/01/an-open-letter-to-maryana-iskander/
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April 2022 | Frederick Noronha. 784 Saligao 403511 GoaSu Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa | M (after 2pm) +91 9822122436 Twitter @fn 1 2 | ---------------------------------------- 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | fredericknoronha2@gmail.com 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 | Books. Words. Photos. Wikipedia. Networks 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 | PHOTOS: https://flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/ 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 | VIDEOS: http://t.ly/58ji
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On Tue, Apr 12, 2022 at 2:46 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi thanks for sharing!
I would agree on many of the issues there, is why you think writing to Maryana Iskander would make things change since the foundation has no editorial rights on Wikipedia ?
I agree with Nattes - this is an issue that should be addressed by all who (want to) take part in Wikipedia maintenance and development, not the WMF CEO. I think the best thing WMF can do is support multiple ways for people to take part in these processes.
Maybe the solution lies in a better system rating the articles. For me
there would be no problems having sourced articles PUNKT, and not worry about notability criteria. That would shift the maintainance energy on deleting articles to maintaining them :).
Yes - that could be one of the ways!
But that does not mean that we can have no secundary sources at all. I think we should move more towards the wiktionnary criterias. That means we focuse more over sourcing each line of information, not “notability criterias”. But this seems impossible the communities would not agree.
I love that you use the plural 'communities', as when we assume singular, than it is tyranny of majority too often, but given the resources we could easily have more than one system in place for each Wikipedia instance.
Maybe having a project which adds deleted articles in a “stub” encyclopedia? Like an “wiki article spore” or article nursery ?
It can even more easily just be in a different namespace. So Stub is not just a status category, but Namespace like Draft:
Kind regards,
Nattes
Best wishes - Z. Blace
Frederick,
The paragraph in your letter that resonated most with me was this one:
(9) The Wikipedia movement also seems to be shifting away from its volunteer model. This is what gave it its strength and vitality. We seem to be moving to an NGO/funded or even corporate model of operations. Wikipedia may well have the resources to afford this. But could such an approach actually demoralise volunteers who have, and continue to, put in a lot of their labour of love?
There are and have been many signs of this increasing corporatization.
The vast majority of volunteer contributors never ask for or receive funding from the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Yet the board members [s]elected by this unpaid majority of contributors have only ever formed a small minority on the WMF board.
Meanwhile, the WMF is accumulating every greater amounts of money – an income generated by annual fundraising banners that convey a misleading impression of urgent financial need to millions of readers.[1]
Every year, tens of millions of donor dollars flow into a completely opaque fund, the Wikimedia Endowment, which
– has never published audited accounts – is with the Tides Foundation, which specialises in obscuring money flows through "donor-advised funds" (such funds, whether right-leaning or left-leaning, are the very antithesis of transparency) – has never disclosed how much it pays the Tides Foundation for managing this fund – has never to my knowledge disclosed any other expenditure, including whether or how much it pays any contractors, consultants, advisers etc.
Per the most recent Form 990 available, the WMF spent $56 million on salary costs in 2019, while reporting a total of 291 employees. This makes an average of over $190,000 per head (by now most likely substantially exceeded, as salary costs have kept rising), a figure the WMF neither confirms nor denies.[2]
For its most recent major strategy process, which resulted in its Strategy 2030, the WMF enlisted the help of Hillary Clinton's erstwhile trip director, a lady who has since stood (unsuccessfully) for political office herself.[3]
For its PR strategy, it has long relied on a firm founded by the chief communications and marketing officer of the Clinton Foundation.[4]
The various foundations that have donated the most substantial amounts of money to the Wikimedia Foundation generally have strong links to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations.[5]
The WMF's most important partners are to be found among the most dominant and richest U.S. tech companies, which earn vast amounts of advertising revenue from the content Wikimedia volunteers create, while at the same time holding back education and healthcare investment in the Global South by doing everything they can to avoid paying taxes in these countries.[6]
I don't think that these choices, priorities and strategies are a particularly good match for what the average global volunteer contributor is about, nor are they in tune with the project's original and declared founding aim of political neutrality.
I agree that the overall effect is rather demoralising, all the more so as none of this had to be this way.
Andreas
[1] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ and https://thenextweb.com/news/why-is-wikipedia-asking-for-donations-when-it-ha... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statistics [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:IRS_tax_related_information/2019_Wikime... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Williams [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=16945819 [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-06-27/Forum [6] https://www.southcentre.int/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TCPB19_Developing-Cou...
On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 8:19 PM Frederick Noronha < fredericknoronha@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.opensourceforu.com/2022/01/an-open-letter-to-maryana-iskander/
--
April 2022 | Frederick Noronha. 784 Saligao 403511 GoaSu Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa | M (after 2pm) +91 9822122436 Twitter @fn
1 2 | ----------------------------------------3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | fredericknoronha2@gmail.com
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 | Books. Words. Photos. Wikipedia. Networks
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 | PHOTOS: https://flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 | VIDEOS: http://t.ly/58ji
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