At some time into the WMF Board candidates campaigning season, the Wikivoices project undertook a sort of "candidates debate", where a Skype conference served as a central meeting point for at least eight of the candidates to orally respond to questions posed them. This debate transpired about two hours of time, and I found it very informative of the critical issues facing the Wikimedia Foundation.
I was a bit concerned with several things:
(1) That the role of "campaign debate" was filtered into one available time slot -- if you were not able to participate, you had no voice.
(2) That the English Wikipedia service (and not Meta, or Foundation) was the "proprietor" of the content.
(3) That the Foundation itself had no representative helping to coordinate and assure professionalism in the volunteer execution of this effort.
On that last concern, my worry seems to have come true. On July 26th, we were promised that an audio file of the Skype cast would be posted soon, as episode # 45:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikivoices&diff=next...
On August 5th, I made a worried complaint that the audio still had not been posted. Through the close of the election period (August 10th), I communicated via private e-mails about what had happened. Now, August 17th, we are even past congratulating the winners of this election (where 67% of the available seats are represented by candidates who offer no changes over the status quo -- huzzah!), and there is STILL NO AUDIO FILE POSTED.
Along with others sharing my view, I find this to be disgraceful. It is an insult to the participants in the debate, and it reflects on just how little the Foundation actually cares about who gets seated on the Board, so long as they are a community rubber-stamp of the editors who hold sway over the English Wikipedia project, which is really most of what this represents. I apologize for sounding bitter, but the delay seems to have been in one audio editor abdicating his responsibility and dumping it in the lap of an unsuspecting back-up, then trying to "edit" the audio so that it was fair to those who had had communications problems during taping. I say, at some point, it would have been far better to simply post the unedited audio, so that voters still making decisions could have listened for themselves, before it was too late. As it stands, the audio is practically worthless now, and the Foundation should be ashamed that they let this happen under their noses, without so much as a public apology.
Good luck to the new Board member and the returned two Board members to their warm seats. Will you be making use of the familiar rubber stamps, or will something actually be learned from this recent disgrace?
P.S. Five days after the election results were announced, we are also still waiting for the requested data feed of the anonymized votes: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Votes
Greg
You misunderstand the role of Wikivoices and its relationship to the Foundation. It fulfills no official function, does not (and did not) have any official sanction from the Foundation, and was simply an interesting and different way for prospective voters and candidates to participate in a discussion. It's unfortunate that the audio hasn't made it out - pitfalls of a volunteer system, but no blame falls upon the Foundation, its staff, or any other volunteers aside from those who assumed responsibility for the debate. I'd like to see the Foundation host voice debates in some manner or another; the version Wikivoices held on Skype has some drawbacks (particularly the role of the moderator/Wikivoice regulars in controlling the topic/mic, the one-time-only format that limits participation, and the haphazard nature of assigning responsibility for producing a useful audio file of the event, etc.), but none that can't be overcome with some organization and thought.
Nathan
On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Gregory Kohsthekohser@gmail.com wrote:
At some time into the WMF Board candidates campaigning season, the Wikivoices project undertook a sort of "candidates debate", where a Skype conference served as a central meeting point for at least eight of the candidates to orally respond to questions posed them. This debate transpired about two hours of time, and I found it very informative of the critical issues facing the Wikimedia Foundation.
I was a bit concerned with several things:
(1) That the role of "campaign debate" was filtered into one available time slot -- if you were not able to participate, you had no voice.
(2) That the English Wikipedia service (and not Meta, or Foundation) was the "proprietor" of the content.
(3) That the Foundation itself had no representative helping to coordinate and assure professionalism in the volunteer execution of this effort.
On that last concern, my worry seems to have come true. On July 26th, we were promised that an audio file of the Skype cast would be posted soon, as episode # 45:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikivoices&diff=next...
On August 5th, I made a worried complaint that the audio still had not been posted. Through the close of the election period (August 10th), I communicated via private e-mails about what had happened. Now, August 17th, we are even past congratulating the winners of this election (where 67% of the available seats are represented by candidates who offer no changes over the status quo -- huzzah!), and there is STILL NO AUDIO FILE POSTED.
Along with others sharing my view, I find this to be disgraceful. It is an insult to the participants in the debate, and it reflects on just how little the Foundation actually cares about who gets seated on the Board, so long as they are a community rubber-stamp of the editors who hold sway over the English Wikipedia project, which is really most of what this represents. I apologize for sounding bitter, but the delay seems to have been in one audio editor abdicating his responsibility and dumping it in the lap of an unsuspecting back-up, then trying to "edit" the audio so that it was fair to those who had had communications problems during taping. I say, at some point, it would have been far better to simply post the unedited audio, so that voters still making decisions could have listened for themselves, before it was too late. As it stands, the audio is practically worthless now, and the Foundation should be ashamed that they let this happen under their noses, without so much as a public apology.
Good luck to the new Board member and the returned two Board members to their warm seats. Will you be making use of the familiar rubber stamps, or will something actually be learned from this recent disgrace?
P.S. Five days after the election results were announced, we are also still waiting for the requested data feed of the anonymized votes: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Votes
Greg _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
The only thing in this thread actually relevant is the data dumps. A private podcast produced by individual volunteers is under zero obligations to meet any sort of deadlines. I don't see what you expect the Foundation or the Election Committee to do about a privately produced podcast. Now, is it ideal? Of course not...it'd be like one of the news networks deciding to not air the debates until after the elections.
However, they certainly have the right to do so.
-Chad
On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Gregory Kohsthekohser@gmail.com wrote:
At some time into the WMF Board candidates campaigning season, the Wikivoices project undertook a sort of "candidates debate", where a Skype
[snip]
I was a bit concerned with several things:
In addition to the concerns you raised the format discriminated against candidates unable or unwilling to use the Skype software.
Further— a realtime voice interview is arguably pretty unrepresentative of the board activities as they are mostly conducted online. Should a candidate who stutters, has an impossibly thick accent, or is just deaf suffer a poor showing even though those limitations would have a negligible impact on their ability to participate on the board? It's fairly rare that board members need to make decisions on the spot— the whole role is well suited to those with a deliberative style, even ignoring the 'voice' part, simply being realtime is pretty inapplicable.
If there were to be some audio part of the process, I'd rather it be an optional audio addition to the candidate statements
I expect that some number of people reviewed the english only Q/A with the help of machine translation, but tools like that would not be available for the audio interviews. ... so thats another downside of audio.
Beyond that, typical adult reading speed is more than twice the typical speaking speed and text is amenable to skimming while audio recordings are not. Voter's time would be better spent in other ways than in listening to an audio recording, which may explain the lack of demand for an audio presentation from the voters.
Yet— Even though I think the that methodology used in this specific instance was poor and that idea of a realtime audio interview is a poor, perhaps actually harmful, idea… and I could have guessed that the whole thing would be vaporware… Yet, I did not protest the process because it was non-official.
That same non-officialness is why I think your complains about it are unreasonable and mistargeted.
[snip]
the Foundation actually cares about who gets seated on the Board, so long as they are a community rubber-stamp of the editors who hold sway over the English Wikipedia project, which is really most of what this represents. I
Ting represents the English Wikipedia?
[snip]
P.S. Five days after the election results were announced, we are also still waiting for the requested data feed of the anonymized votes: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Votes
Thanks for prodding on this.
Hoi, When someone chooses not to use Skype, the consequences are his or hers. If you do not want to have Skype installed on your computer, you can install it temporarily or you can borrow a system that has Skype installed.
An interview is not about existing board activities, it is about elections, getting the message out what the boardCANDIDATES want to contribute when elected. Why they should be elected and not someone else.
It is tough when a candidate has a problem with the format. However it is politics. This is the real world where people who are not able to communicate in English have no place on the board. It is just not practical. This does not mean that people with a stammer, a stutter a hearing problem cannot or should not be voted in, it is just a tad more difficult.
Reading may be quicker but speech does have benefits when you want to get a message across. When you read a text you do not learn if people can think on their feet, you do not learn how they come across and in my opinion that IS important.
The interview was in the end a waste of time. The idea was a good one but it lacked in execution. Thanks, GerardM
2009/8/17 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com
On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Gregory Kohsthekohser@gmail.com wrote:
At some time into the WMF Board candidates campaigning season, the Wikivoices project undertook a sort of "candidates debate", where a Skype
[snip]
I was a bit concerned with several things:
In addition to the concerns you raised the format discriminated against candidates unable or unwilling to use the Skype software.
Further— a realtime voice interview is arguably pretty unrepresentative of the board activities as they are mostly conducted online. Should a candidate who stutters, has an impossibly thick accent, or is just deaf suffer a poor showing even though those limitations would have a negligible impact on their ability to participate on the board? It's fairly rare that board members need to make decisions on the spot— the whole role is well suited to those with a deliberative style, even ignoring the 'voice' part, simply being realtime is pretty inapplicable.
If there were to be some audio part of the process, I'd rather it be an optional audio addition to the candidate statements
I expect that some number of people reviewed the english only Q/A with the help of machine translation, but tools like that would not be available for the audio interviews. ... so thats another downside of audio.
Beyond that, typical adult reading speed is more than twice the typical speaking speed and text is amenable to skimming while audio recordings are not. Voter's time would be better spent in other ways than in listening to an audio recording, which may explain the lack of demand for an audio presentation from the voters.
Yet— Even though I think the that methodology used in this specific instance was poor and that idea of a realtime audio interview is a poor, perhaps actually harmful, idea… and I could have guessed that the whole thing would be vaporware… Yet, I did not protest the process because it was non-official.
That same non-officialness is why I think your complains about it are unreasonable and mistargeted.
[snip]
the Foundation actually cares about who gets seated on the Board, so long
as
they are a community rubber-stamp of the editors who hold sway over the English Wikipedia project, which is really most of what this represents.
I
Ting represents the English Wikipedia?
[snip]
P.S. Five days after the election results were announced, we are also
still
waiting for the requested data feed of the anonymized votes: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Votes
Thanks for prodding on this.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, Gregory, Domas and myself life in Europe. For us the interview was in the middle of the night and yes, I am not pleased that the Wikivoices interview was not published. I have been involved with the Wikivoices in the past and it saddens me that Wikivoices is not able to publish its recordings reliably.
It surprises me that you are so ill informed that you are not aware how things are organised. In my opinion you should be pleased that there is an initiative intended to inform our community about the persons that may be elected as a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation. You may be sad that the results did not materialise but that is about it. Thanks. Gerard
2009/8/17 Gregory Kohs thekohser@gmail.com
At some time into the WMF Board candidates campaigning season, the Wikivoices project undertook a sort of "candidates debate", where a Skype conference served as a central meeting point for at least eight of the candidates to orally respond to questions posed them. This debate transpired about two hours of time, and I found it very informative of the critical issues facing the Wikimedia Foundation.
I was a bit concerned with several things:
(1) That the role of "campaign debate" was filtered into one available time slot -- if you were not able to participate, you had no voice.
(2) That the English Wikipedia service (and not Meta, or Foundation) was the "proprietor" of the content.
(3) That the Foundation itself had no representative helping to coordinate and assure professionalism in the volunteer execution of this effort.
On that last concern, my worry seems to have come true. On July 26th, we were promised that an audio file of the Skype cast would be posted soon, as episode # 45:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikivoices&diff=next...
On August 5th, I made a worried complaint that the audio still had not been posted. Through the close of the election period (August 10th), I communicated via private e-mails about what had happened. Now, August 17th, we are even past congratulating the winners of this election (where 67% of the available seats are represented by candidates who offer no changes over the status quo -- huzzah!), and there is STILL NO AUDIO FILE POSTED.
Along with others sharing my view, I find this to be disgraceful. It is an insult to the participants in the debate, and it reflects on just how little the Foundation actually cares about who gets seated on the Board, so long as they are a community rubber-stamp of the editors who hold sway over the English Wikipedia project, which is really most of what this represents. I apologize for sounding bitter, but the delay seems to have been in one audio editor abdicating his responsibility and dumping it in the lap of an unsuspecting back-up, then trying to "edit" the audio so that it was fair to those who had had communications problems during taping. I say, at some point, it would have been far better to simply post the unedited audio, so that voters still making decisions could have listened for themselves, before it was too late. As it stands, the audio is practically worthless now, and the Foundation should be ashamed that they let this happen under their noses, without so much as a public apology.
Good luck to the new Board member and the returned two Board members to their warm seats. Will you be making use of the familiar rubber stamps, or will something actually be learned from this recent disgrace?
P.S. Five days after the election results were announced, we are also still waiting for the requested data feed of the anonymized votes: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Votes
Greg _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I have asked the User who is supposedly in possession of the raw audio file to explain what's happening, and he has bluntly replied that he is no longer interested in spending the "two days" that it would take to edit the two-hour audio feed.
I then requested that he simply deliver the unedited electronic audio file to me, and I will be happy to post it. That was 20 hours ago. Still no reply.
The previous public replies to my initial post here (that I am "ill informed that you are not aware how things are organised", or that my "complains (sic) about it are unreasonable and mistargeted", or that it's hard to "see what you expect the Foundation or the Election Committee to do about" it) are way off the mark. My point really was that if the Wikimedia Foundation truly cared about an open, transparent, and responsibly-handled election, the Foundation STAFF (the folks paid money to run the organization effectively) would have been hosting this sort of dialogue/debate themselves, rather than breathing a sigh of relief that the junior-grade volunteers would take yet another responsibility off of their plate. Clearly, there are more important things on their agenda, such as the monthly rent checks to Wikia, Inc. that need to be written! The WMF staff can't be bothered with things like Board-level election communications.
Greg
News flash! I received a reply from Adam Cuerden, the audio editor charged with the release of the WikiVoices # 45 session:
"I've asked around, and several people involved have made it clear that it should only be released by official means, not privately. I'm afraid that's the end of this discussion, as I cannot go against the wishes of the other people involved in it to please you.
I'm afraid that ends discussion on this matter, as far as I'm concerned. I see no moral way to go about what you're asking me to do."
I hope that some Foundation staff or board member will comment on what has happened here. Wikimedia Foundation server resources were used to coordinate a discussion of issues by no less than eight candidates for the Board of Trustees. All of the invited candidates and at least one of the co-hosts (Durova) spent two hours of their time in good faith to produce this lively Q&A session. Now, it is being withheld from our community and the public at large, with no explanation. People laughed when I suggested that something fishy was going on when the audio wasn't posted within the first week of taping. People also chuckled when I noted that the other co-host (Promethean) happened to have erased my Board candidacy statement only a number of days prior to the WikiVoices taping.
What do people THINK of this?
I expect several replies that will poo-pooh and explain away this cover-up with a few "they obviously did their best, but unfortunately they just didn't get the job done" excuses. I will ignore those, because they ignore reality. But I look forward to the comments of any who are still able to think for themselves and might have some actual explanations for what is going on here. I suspect that at least one WMF staff or board member is blocking the release of this audio, and the cover-up mandate is in place. Call me a conspiracy theorist all you want. I've shown evidence that the suppression of the tape is a deliberate decision on the part of a group of unnamed individuals. What's your evidence otherwise?
Greg
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:30 PM, Gregory Kohs thekohser@gmail.com wrote:
I have asked the User who is supposedly in possession of the raw audio file to explain what's happening, and he has bluntly replied that he is no longer interested in spending the "two days" that it would take to edit the two-hour audio feed.
I then requested that he simply deliver the unedited electronic audio file to me, and I will be happy to post it. That was 20 hours ago. Still no reply.
The previous public replies to my initial post here (that I am "ill informed that you are not aware how things are organised", or that my "complains (sic) about it are unreasonable and mistargeted", or that it's hard to "see what you expect the Foundation or the Election Committee to do about" it) are way off the mark. My point really was that if the Wikimedia Foundation truly cared about an open, transparent, and responsibly-handled election, the Foundation STAFF (the folks paid money to run the organization effectively) would have been hosting this sort of dialogue/debate themselves, rather than breathing a sigh of relief that the junior-grade volunteers would take yet another responsibility off of their plate. Clearly, there are more important things on their agenda, such as the monthly rent checks to Wikia, Inc. that need to be written! The WMF staff can't be bothered with things like Board-level election communications.
Greg
Greg, You were there. What is in the audio worthy of suppression?
2009/8/19 Gregory Kohs thekohser@gmail.com:
I hope that some Foundation staff or board member will comment on what has happened here. Wikimedia Foundation server resources were used to coordinate a discussion of issues by no less than eight candidates for the Board of Trustees.
What WMF server resources were used? I imagine there was a link put on meta somewhere, but that's about it. The Q&A happened using Skype's servers. I think it is extremely disappointing that Wikivoices did this and didn't publish it and I think the candidates that turned up deserve an explanation, but it really has nothing to do with the WMF. Perhaps in future the WMF should run a Q&A session like this and make sure it is done properly, but I don't remember it being suggested before, certainly not very prominently, so we can't really complain that they didn't do it this time round.
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