A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and undramatically. The ombudsman commission is such a committee. Charged with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool, the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and efficiency. The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board, who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I took it on.
Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen the ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with the exception of one, have chosen to do so. The one who has not is Pundit, who has accepted a position as a steward. Dweller, who was an advisory member of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been extremely remiss in sending out the notification. There was no lapse of commission, and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
Best wishes, pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
Can you explain why you request another year from them instead of running a new process, Philippe? _____ *Béria Lima*
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*
On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:
A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and undramatically. The ombudsman commission is such a committee. Charged with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool, the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and efficiency. The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board, who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I took it on.
Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen the ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with the exception of one, have chosen to do so. The one who has not is Pundit, who has accepted a position as a steward. Dweller, who was an advisory member of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been extremely remiss in sending out the notification. There was no lapse of commission, and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
Best wishes, pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...
Richard On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima" berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Can you explain why you request another year from them instead of running a new process, Philippe? _____ *Béria Lima*
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*
On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:
A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and undramatically. The ombudsman commission is such a committee. Charged with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool, the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and efficiency. The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board, who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
took
it on.
Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen
the
ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with
the
exception of one, have chosen to do so. The one who has not is Pundit,
who
has accepted a position as a steward. Dweller, who was an advisory
member
of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
extremely
remiss in sending out the notification. There was no lapse of
commission,
and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
Best wishes, pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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Yeah, they are doing a very good job...
One year a go with all the "abigor" drama everybody told go to the umbutsman commision, and they never responded...
I'm happy to see that we keep the failing commite with the same people yet another year.
Best,
Huib
Still, a vote for new members should of been done.
Ebe123
On 12-04-22 4:29 PM, "Richard Symonds" richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...
Richard On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima" berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Can you explain why you request another year from them instead of running a new process, Philippe? _____ *Béria Lima*
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*
On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:
A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and undramatically. The ombudsman commission is such a committee. Charged with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser tool, the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and efficiency. The commission is appointed under the auspices of the Board, who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
took
it on.
Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen
the
ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with
the
exception of one, have chosen to do so. The one who has not is Pundit,
who
has accepted a position as a steward. Dweller, who was an advisory
member
of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
extremely
remiss in sending out the notification. There was no lapse of
commission,
and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
Best wishes, pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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Without commenting on the quality of the work of the Ombudsmen, I'll just point out that there has never been a vote for this position.
Risker/Anne
On 22 April 2012 15:43, Etienne Beaule betienne@bellaliant.net wrote:
Still, a vote for new members should of been done.
Ebe123
On 12-04-22 4:29 PM, "Richard Symonds" richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...
Richard On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima" berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Can you explain why you request another year from them instead of
running
a new process, Philippe? _____ *Béria Lima*
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*
On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org
wrote:
A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and undramatically. The ombudsman commission is such a committee. Charged with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser
tool,
the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism and efficiency. The commission is appointed under the auspices of the
Board,
who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
took
it on.
Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the ombudsmen
the
ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All, with
the
exception of one, have chosen to do so. The one who has not is Pundit,
who
has accepted a position as a steward. Dweller, who was an advisory
member
of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
extremely
remiss in sending out the notification. There was no lapse of
commission,
and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
Best wishes, pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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Hi Anne,
it was however common procedure to ask publicly for applications before making a decision on who are the best candidates. Maybe they are the best there are - maybe not, we'll never know.
As an unrelated sidenote, I still hope the committee will public an annual report of her activities in summary (as I suggested a few members privately).
Best,
Lodewijk
El 22 de abril de 2012 21:46, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com escribió:
Without commenting on the quality of the work of the Ombudsmen, I'll just point out that there has never been a vote for this position.
Risker/Anne
On 22 April 2012 15:43, Etienne Beaule betienne@bellaliant.net wrote:
Still, a vote for new members should of been done.
Ebe123
On 12-04-22 4:29 PM, "Richard Symonds" <richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk
wrote:
I suspect it's because they're doing a good job in the WMFs opinion, at least, that's how I read it in Philippe's email...
Richard On Apr 22, 2012 4:11 AM, "Béria Lima" berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Can you explain why you request another year from them instead of
running
a new process, Philippe? _____ *Béria Lima*
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho. http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*
On 21 April 2012 22:06, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org
wrote:
A sign of a healthy committee is that it does its work promptly and undramatically. The ombudsman commission is such a committee.
Charged
with investigating alleged privacy violations around the checkuser
tool,
the commission has functioned with a high degree of professionalism
and
efficiency. The commission is appointed under the auspices of the
Board,
who have delegated this role to the staff - first to Cary, and then I
took
it on.
Accordingly, after a great bit of deliberation, I offered the
ombudsmen
the
ability to extend their current term for one additional year. All,
with
the
exception of one, have chosen to do so. The one who has not is
Pundit,
who
has accepted a position as a steward. Dweller, who was an advisory
member
of the commission, takes Pundit's seat.
It should be noted that this was done some time ago - I have been
extremely
remiss in sending out the notification. There was no lapse of
commission,
and the commission functioned fully during the gap period.
Best wishes, pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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Lodewijk, 22/04/2012 23:58:
As an unrelated sidenote, I still hope the committee will public an annual report of her activities in summary (as I suggested a few members privately).
If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask the commission whether they reached them.
Nemo
On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.comwrote:
If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask the commission whether they reached them.
I think this is an excellent idea. Although I'd encourage you to position it as "this is what the community would like to see going forward" - it's not fair to hold a past commission to metrics they didn't know they had. :)
pb
Hi all,
Well, I think an annual report is a good idea. However, there is not much we are allowed to report, for obvious reasons. I can tell you that we had a number of requests (about 30, depending on what you count as request), some of which were pretty difficult to deal with and therefore took a while (or are still pending). We cannot tell you which projects (or even people) were involved or what the results were. Sometimes, the language barrier was a bit hindering, so I pretty much appreciate the effort to maintain a level of language diversity within the committee, also for future committee searches.
However, I want to point out that at least half of the requests that came to us, had nothing to do with the privacy policy and were therefore not dealt with in detail. We always tried to direct the people to the right place where they could get help for their individual problem, but we do not know if they actually got help. In most of these cases, the problem was more of a sort an arbcom would be able to deal with. I (personally) still very much support the idea of creating a Global Requests Committee, the proposal for which was developed last year, but has not yet been created, for whatever reason. This body could handle such and similar requests and some other things and it would ease our work as we could just give such cases to this body.
Best regards, Thogo.
2012/4/23 Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org:
On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.comwrote:
If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask the commission whether they reached them.
I think this is an excellent idea. Although I'd encourage you to position it as "this is what the community would like to see going forward" - it's not fair to hold a past commission to metrics they didn't know they had. :)
Hi Thomas,
of course the privacy of those involved needs to be guarantueed. But questions I had in mind were:
* How many cases were brought to your attention? * How many of those did you consider serious enough to warrant investigation beyond direct dismissal? * How many cases did you take on *proactively* (without a solid complaint)? * In how many cases in total did the committee take action (or advise the WMF to take action)? * How many emails did you exchange over the past year on your mailing list? * Were you able to send a confirmation with the outcome of the case to every complainor? * Was the person complained about informed every time of the fact they were under investigation? * Is the process accurately described on meta? * Do you have steps in place to ensure every single request gets the follow up it needs, if not will that be improved? * How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of the committee?
This information could probably be summarized in a few paragraphs. I suspect that the Board already receives such summary (the committee reports directly to the board according to the meta pagehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission) so an extract from that would probably be easiest. Even if that is not the case I have the feeling it should be doable to create these numbers afterwards for 2011. That is not only a big win for transparancy, but also for future candidate members - they would know what they are getting into. Finally, it allows people to evaluate if they trust the committee enough to send their complaints to. I know several people who in the past (before the current committee probably) have sent complaints but felt it was a black box and have no idea what happened to them. That can be quite damaging for the image and should be avoided.
Best,
Lodewijk
El 23 de abril de 2012 01:51, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.comescribió:
Hi all,
Well, I think an annual report is a good idea. However, there is not much we are allowed to report, for obvious reasons. I can tell you that we had a number of requests (about 30, depending on what you count as request), some of which were pretty difficult to deal with and therefore took a while (or are still pending). We cannot tell you which projects (or even people) were involved or what the results were. Sometimes, the language barrier was a bit hindering, so I pretty much appreciate the effort to maintain a level of language diversity within the committee, also for future committee searches.
However, I want to point out that at least half of the requests that came to us, had nothing to do with the privacy policy and were therefore not dealt with in detail. We always tried to direct the people to the right place where they could get help for their individual problem, but we do not know if they actually got help. In most of these cases, the problem was more of a sort an arbcom would be able to deal with. I (personally) still very much support the idea of creating a Global Requests Committee, the proposal for which was developed last year, but has not yet been created, for whatever reason. This body could handle such and similar requests and some other things and it would ease our work as we could just give such cases to this body.
Best regards, Thogo.
2012/4/23 Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org:
On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
nemowiki@gmail.com>wrote:
If they don't, the community could define some quality metrics and ask
the
commission whether they reached them.
I think this is an excellent idea. Although I'd encourage you to
position
it as "this is what the community would like to see going forward" - it's not fair to hold a past commission to metrics they didn't know they had.
:)
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- How many cases were brought to your attention?
around 30, give or take
- How many of those did you consider serious enough to warrant
investigation beyond direct dismissal?
around 10, I'd say
- How many cases did you take on *proactively* (without a solid complaint)?
none that I would remember
- In how many cases in total did the committee take action (or advise the
WMF to take action)?
we requested user rights changes for the committee or asked for further information we were not able to obtain ourselves several times (thanks to Philippe for helping us all the time with this!), but we never asked/recommended the Board to remove CU/steward rights from anyone.
- How many emails did you exchange over the past year on your mailing list?
I'd say at least 500. Could also be 1000 or more, I really can't tell you any exact numbers and I won't count it.
- Were you able to send a confirmation with the outcome of the case to
every complainor?
Except for the cases still under investigation, I guess so. We now usually also send a confirmation when we receive a request (we didn't do that in the beginning).
- Was the person complained about informed every time of the fact they were
under investigation?
If someone did not make any mistake we do not tell them that someone complained about them. We contacted them only if we had questions to them or if we deemed it necessary to explain something to them.
- Is the process accurately described on meta?
Which process do you mean?
- Do you have steps in place to ensure every single request gets the follow
up it needs, if not will that be improved?
We are working on developing a better way of keeping track of the requests at the moment. However, the technical possibilities are limited, for security and privacy reasons.
- How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of the
committee?
I don't know, ask Philippe. ;) I guess some people were not happy about the time it took to get to a result (I'm not, either.), or about the result itself. But there is always a way to improve things.
This information could probably be summarized in a few paragraphs. I suspect that the Board already receives such summary (the committee reports directly to the board according to the meta pagehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission) so an extract from that would probably be easiest. Even if that is not the case I have the feeling it should be doable to create these numbers afterwards for 2011. That is not only a big win for transparancy, but also for future candidate members - they would know what they are getting into. Finally, it allows people to evaluate if they trust the committee enough to send their complaints to. I know several people who in the past (before the current committee probably) have sent complaints but felt it was a black box and have no idea what happened to them. That can be quite damaging for the image and should be avoided.
Sorry if someone gets the impression of a black box, but as we are investigating privacy violations, we have to be very careful which information to share and we prefer to share as little as possible. The committee works very simple, we receive a complaint, which we confirm to the complainor, then we discuss if a privacy violation can even be involved. If not, we decline the request and - if possible - we try to tell the complainor where they can get help for their problem. If indeed a privacy violation is possible we investigate on this and then we have a result whether or not there was a breach of the policy and we give that result to the complainor, explaining them why we think there was (or not) a breach of the policy. If we do find a breach of privacy we would have to discuss what we do about it. But as I said, we never recommended to the Board to remove any rights from a CU or steward. I hope that such a recommendation will never be necessary, but of course we are ready for this, *if* it becomes necessary. :) This whole investigation process can take a while and can involve contacting the person about whom the complaint was, if we need to ask them for clarification on the issue, or if we need to tell them how to avoid such issues in the future. It can also involve us doing checks on users ourselves to double-check CU results (of course, in such cases we inform the local CUs why they see us in the log).
However, when we will finally have set up our technical aids to keep better track of the cases, we will be able to improve on all this.
Th.
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.comwrote:
- How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of the
committee?
I don't know, ask Philippe. ;) I guess some people were not happy about the time it took to get to a result (I'm not, either.), or about the result itself. But there is always a way to improve things.
To my knowledge, none.
pb
___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint. Let's say 1.
Ebe123
On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette" philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.comwrote:
- How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of the
committee?
I don't know, ask Philippe. ;) I guess some people were not happy about the time it took to get to a result (I'm not, either.), or about the result itself. But there is always a way to improve things.
To my knowledge, none.
pb
Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
philippe@wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l. For a formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.
pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Etienne Beaule betienne@bellaliant.netwrote:
Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint. Let's say 1.
Ebe123
On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette" philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.comwrote:
- How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of the
committee?
I don't know, ask Philippe. ;) I guess some people were not happy about the time it took to get to a result (I'm not, either.), or about the result itself. But there is always a way to improve things.
To my knowledge, none.
pb
Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
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Exactly, I was referring to formal complaints which probably have the intention to reaching out to the board.
In any case, I think it would be very helpful if the information Thomas has provided could be summarized in a short report on meta so that it is also a template for the future. Perhaps some of the numbers can even be made more precise (number wizards probably can extract the number of emails more easily etc - although I realize now that most likely your mailing list has no archive :) ).
The process I referred to is everything that happens between the receipt of a complaint about privacy violation and the final action decision taken by the committee. I.e. "1. Confirm receipt of the complaint. 2. Register complaint for tracking purposes. 3. Decide if the complaint falls within scope of the committee..." etc. That would complainors give an idea what is going to happen with their complaint and what they can expect. Currently the description is quite vague on meta :)
Thanks for all the answers so far!
Lodewijk
El 23 de abril de 2012 12:20, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.orgescribió:
That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l. For a formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.
pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Etienne Beaule <betienne@bellaliant.net
wrote:
Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint. Let's say 1.
Ebe123
On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette" philippe@wikimedia.org
wrote:
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.comwrote:
- How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of
the
committee?
I don't know, ask Philippe. ;) I guess some people were not happy about the time it took to get to a result (I'm not, either.), or about the result itself. But there is always a way to improve things.
To my knowledge, none.
pb
Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
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On my behalve a letter has been send to the foundation and the same letter has ben send by fax. How formal do you wish to get it?
Nor I or the person that sended this communication on my behalf got a responds about the complaint self, we only got the responds "We don't think any office action is needed".
Best,
Huib
On Monday, April 23, 2012, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org wrote: U> That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l. For a
formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.
pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Etienne Beaule <betienne@bellaliant.net wrote:
Abigor did a message to wikimedia-I for his complaint. Let's say 1.
Ebe123
On 12-04-23 7:16 AM, "Philippe Beaudette" philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.comwrote:
- How many formal complaints were received about the functioning of
the
committee?
I don't know, ask Philippe. ;) I guess some people were not happy about the time it took to get to a result (I'm not, either.), or about the result itself. But there is always a way to improve things.
To my knowledge, none.
pb
Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
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On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:49 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
On my behalve a letter has been send to the foundation and the same letter has ben send by fax. How formal do you wish to get it?
Nor I or the person that sended this communication on my behalf got a responds about the complaint self, we only got the responds "We don't think any office action is needed".
Best,
Huib
Bearing in mind that it's nearly 4AM, but I'm not aware of that letter. If such a letter was sent, of course, we'll increment that to "1" from zero. :)
pb
Philippe Beaudette, 23/04/2012 12:20:
That's not a formal complaint. That's an email to wikimedia-l. For a formal complaint, I'd request documentation of the dates presented, etc.
What's a "formal complaint" then? I don't see anywhere instruction about how to file one and all ways I can think of don't seem adequate.
Nemo
On 23 April 2012 11:06, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
Sorry if someone gets the impression of a black box, but as we are investigating privacy violations, we have to be very careful which information to share and we prefer to share as little as possible.
Transparency and privacy are not mutually exclusive. Obviously, the actual content of complaints is usually going to be confidential, but that doesn't preclude the process being transparent.
You can clearly document the process that you follow. You can publish metrics like those Lodewijk suggested (and actual numbers, not just guesses). It would be nice to have a page on meta that says how many cases are currently at each point in the process and is kept up-to-date.
The ombudsmen commission has always felt to me to be the most cabalistic of all the committees and groups we have. A lot of people don't know it even exists or what it really does. All I tend to hear about it is when people are complaining that their emails have gone into the black box, never to be seen again.
Just because it deals with confidential information doesn't mean that it shouldn't be held to the same standards of transparency as every other part of our movement.
2012/4/23 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
Transparency and privacy are not mutually exclusive. Obviously, the actual content of complaints is usually going to be confidential, but that doesn't preclude the process being transparent.
That's why I answered to Lodewijk's questions. I guess the process is more transparent now.
You can clearly document the process that you follow. You can publish metrics like those Lodewijk suggested (and actual numbers, not just guesses). It would be nice to have a page on meta that says how many cases are currently at each point in the process and is kept up-to-date.
You just volunteered to set up such a page on Meta (for 2012, I mean). I already described the process we use, so this should be possible for you to do. Thanks.
The ombudsmen commission has always felt to me to be the most cabalistic of all the committees and groups we have. A lot of people don't know it even exists or what it really does. All I tend to hear about it is when people are complaining that their emails have gone into the black box, never to be seen again.
Well, we are not going to advertise our services to everyone in person. If the people do not know that we exist, that's not our fault but the fault of the community. What we are doing is already described on the Meta page. If someone has sent a complaint and never gets any answer, then this is of course our fault, and it shouldn't happen. A little reminder usually does the trick, though. As you know, we are all not 24/7 OC workers doing nothing else in our lives. It can always happen that some email gets stuck in spam filters or just gets overlooked especially on days when you receive a hundred or more wiki-related emails, which is about every day in the year. I think what could really help is if we could use the OTRS ticket system for our work (that's an idea that just now came into my mind)... But I don't know how secure that is and if it is even possible to set it up so closed that only the OC members can access those tickets. (Any suggestions from Philippe about that?)
Just because it deals with confidential information doesn't mean that it shouldn't be held to the same standards of transparency as every other part of our movement.
Well, traditionally the transparency of the OC was very low, that's true. We just took over these traditions from our predecessors, but that doesn't mean that we can't break with these traditions and set up some new standards. It just needs to be done, which means some work. However, don't ever expect that we will publish anything case-related, including people or wiki projects involved.
Th.
On 23 Apr 2012, at 13:02, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
You can clearly document the process that you follow. You can publish metrics like those Lodewijk suggested (and actual numbers, not just guesses). It would be nice to have a page on meta that says how many cases are currently at each point in the process and is kept up-to-date.
You just volunteered to set up such a page on Meta (for 2012, I mean). I already described the process we use, so this should be possible for you to do. Thanks.
Touché. I believe that if the process is going to be put on Meta we do need actual numbers as opposed to your guesstimations. Hopefully this shouldn't be too difficult to sort out, if you do some searches on Gmail for all the emails that you have received in the last year from the mailing list you should be able to get a better number of the volume of emails that you got overall in the year.
The ombudsmen commission has always felt to me to be the most cabalistic of all the committees and groups we have. A lot of people don't know it even exists or what it really does. All I tend to hear about it is when people are complaining that their emails have gone into the black box, never to be seen again.
Well, we are not going to advertise our services to everyone in person. If the people do not know that we exist, that's not our fault but the fault of the community. What we are doing is already described on the Meta page. If someone has sent a complaint and never gets any answer, then this is of course our fault, and it shouldn't happen. A little reminder usually does the trick, though. As you know, we are all not 24/7 OC workers doing nothing else in our lives. It can always happen that some email gets stuck in spam filters or just gets overlooked especially on days when you receive a hundred or more wiki-related emails, which is about every day in the year. I think what could really help is if we could use the OTRS ticket system for our work (that's an idea that just now came into my mind)... But I don't know how secure that is and if it is even possible to set it up so closed that only the OC members can access those tickets. (Any suggestions from Philippe about that?)
I don't think that OTRS is the necessarily the best option - unless you use it in collaboration with the mailing list, i.e someone sends a complaint to OTRS, the commission discusses on the mailing list and then send out a response to the user. You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets have been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins are technically able to view all the emails in any queues - so that would be another 12ish people plus devs that would be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that they would, but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be some issues with using OTRS.
Thehelpfulone
2012/4/23 Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.com:
Touché. I believe that if the process is going to be put on Meta we do need actual numbers as opposed to your guesstimations. Hopefully this shouldn't be too difficult to sort out, if you do some searches on Gmail for all the emails that you have received in the last year from the mailing list you should be able to get a better number of the volume of emails that you got overall in the year.
Nope. Thomas should just create the page and format it so we can easily fill in the numbers for 2012. (If he doesn't want, anyone else can do that as well, of course. ^^) Let's just begin with this sort of statistics now, for 2012, and let's not do 2011. It's just too much work to dig everything out again just for counting some numbers. Please bear in mind that it's just statistics anyway. It really doesn't matter if it were 28 or 32 requests (or any other number around that) in 2011.
I don't think that OTRS is the necessarily the best option - unless you use it in collaboration with the mailing list, i.e someone sends a complaint to OTRS, the commission discusses on the mailing list and then send out a response to the user. You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets have been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins are technically able to view all the emails in any queues - so that would be another 12ish people plus devs that would be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that they would, but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be some issues with using OTRS.
Hm ok, if that's true, OTRS is clearly not an option. ^^
Th.
Ok, for the number fans, I did a filter search on my email archive and I found 660 emails archived that were sent to the OC email address since we were appointed (I don't think I deleted any, so this should probably be it). This includes emails sent from within the committee as well as those sent to us from outside. My estimate was around 500, so it's not so bad, actually. :) No, you do *not* want me to read all that stuff again. Let's just keep it at roughly 30 cases, please.
Th.
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.com wrote:
You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets have been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins are technically able to view all the emails in any queues - so that would be another 12ish people plus devs that would be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that they would, but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be some issues with using OTRS.
Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets. This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they needed to for some reason.
On 24 April 2012 01:00, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets. This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they needed to for some reason.
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
Oh of course, what I intended in my previous email was to highlight the fact that OTRS admins *technically *have the ability to view private emails that may even be discussing actions that they themselves have done in their capacities as oversighters or checkusers. I completely trust the integrity of the OTRS admins (yes I even trust you ;-) ) to not do anything they shouldn't do, but I see the importance in giving advance warning about who could *potentially *view emails if an OTRS queue for the Ombudsman commission was created.
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.com wrote:
You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets have been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins are technically able to view all the emails in any queues - so that would be another 12ish people plus devs that would be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that they would, but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be some issues with using OTRS.
Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets. This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they needed to for some reason.
Is there an auditable log of these actions? i.e. one that OTRS admins cant doctor?
There is no such log within the OTRS software. Admin actions are logged by the OTRS admins on the OTRS wiki. Yes, these are manual edits. There has never (that I know of) been an issue with the OTRS admins accessing queues they shouldn't. While of course it is possible for them to, as others have explained, I'm not sure it is a realistic concern that needs a solution. It would be ideal if the OTRS software logged all actions ... I wonder if this is changed at all in the new version, which hopefully will be set up for Wikimedia soon ( https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22622).
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 9:06 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.com wrote:
You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets have been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins are technically able to view all the emails in any queues - so that would be another 12ish people plus devs that would be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that they would, but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be some issues with using OTRS.
Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets. This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they needed to for some reason.
Is there an auditable log of these actions? i.e. one that OTRS admins cant doctor?
-- John Vandenberg
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On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 8:06 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
Is there an auditable log of these actions? i.e. one that OTRS admins cant doctor?
-- John Vandenberg
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It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios. "And how about one of the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is anyone working on a solution for this?"
Pedro Sánchez http://drini.mx @combinatorica
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 03:52, Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com wrote:
It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
I'm going to suggest a "benefit of the doubt response" and wonder aloud whether it's more to do with what we've come to expect.
Most of us start as editors and we become aware that our every contribution is logged and publicly available for scrutiny. That is of tremendous use to us as editors.
So maybe it's just that we all started in that environment and see the value of that and then we tend to carry over those thoughts into every aspect of what happens on the wikis.
It may not be achievable, desirable or necessary to have access to that level of monitoring/review for everything else (I know nothing of OTRS and/or ombudsmen), I'm just suggesting why these questions may arise: a cultural thing, if you like.
Bodnotbod
Phillipe,
We are now to day's futher.
Still no responds from you on or off list, or any responds at all from the foundation.
best,
Huib
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 03:52, Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com wrote:
It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
I'm going to suggest a "benefit of the doubt response" and wonder aloud whether it's more to do with what we've come to expect.
Most of us start as editors and we become aware that our every contribution is logged and publicly available for scrutiny. That is of tremendous use to us as editors.
So maybe it's just that we all started in that environment and see the value of that and then we tend to carry over those thoughts into every aspect of what happens on the wikis.
It may not be achievable, desirable or necessary to have access to that level of monitoring/review for everything else (I know nothing of OTRS and/or ombudsmen), I'm just suggesting why these questions may arise: a cultural thing, if you like.
Bodnotbod
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On 25/04/2012 03:52, Pedro Sanchez wrote:
It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios. "And how about one of the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is anyone working on a solution for this?"
On 25/04/2012 20:35, Casey Brown wrote:
Nothing will ever be perfect though. For example, the mailman mailing list that they currently use can easily be accessed by anyone with the root mailman password. The list of people with that password is very small -- and is mostly restricted to sysadmins and high-level staffers -- but there are still people who can hypothetically access it without anyone knowing. It's more an issue of minimizing risk than eliminating it.
The main difference is the target of an ombudsman commission investigation are generally not (if at all) sysadmin, but CU, bureaucrat, admin, abcom & oversight. Out of the 12 OTRS admin, 5 are oversighter with 3 CU, and multiple bureaucrat & admins. Having the main potential target of your investigation able to access your primary communication channel used to discuss such investigation without audit record is just not a good idea.
Of course it's all very well believing in the good work and ethics of those currently with those type of rights. However it's a different issue entirely to assume there will never be a bad apple. If that's your attitude, then it have to follow that you believe the ombudsman commission is superfluous.
KTC
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
Of course it's all very well believing in the good work and ethics of those currently with those type of rights. However it's a different issue entirely to assume there will never be a bad apple. If that's your attitude, then it have to follow that you believe the ombudsman commission is superfluous.
I'm not advocating for anything in particular -- I could care less if the ombudsman commission made an OTRS queue. It's entirely up to them. :-)
I'm just bringing up the issues with both sides, and making it clear that *someone* will almost always have access to something, no matter what. It's important that all sides of the issue are brought up before choosing the best solution. :-)
Also, Philippe pointed out that there might be logs of who accesses lists with the master password. So, while they can still access the lists with the password, it might not be anonymous.
On 25/04/2012 23:50, Casey Brown wrote:
I'm not advocating for anything in particular -- I could care less if the ombudsman commission made an OTRS queue. It's entirely up to them. :-)
I knew this was going to happen LOL. When I said "you", I wasn't aiming it at anyone in particular but making a general statement. Apology for any confusion.
KTC
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com wrote:
..
It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios. "And how about one of the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is anyone working on a solution for this?"
Good governance is not built on blind trust.
It is important to be able to periodically check that there hasnt been abuse.
The OTRS admins are doing great work, and enwp oversight and arbcom have moved under OTRS despite the lack of an audit trail, but I will continue to ask for one because I believe it is important.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify
-- John Vandenberg
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 9:06 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Is there an auditable log of these actions? i.e. one that OTRS admins cant doctor?
As Rjd said, there isn't.
Nothing will ever be perfect though. For example, the mailman mailing list that they currently use can easily be accessed by anyone with the root mailman password. The list of people with that password is very small -- and is mostly restricted to sysadmins and high-level staffers -- but there are still people who can hypothetically access it without anyone knowing. It's more an issue of minimizing risk than eliminating it.
On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Can you explain why you request another year from them instead of running a new process, Philippe? _____ *Béria Lima*
Hi Beria -
It's a good question, and a fair one.
The truth is, there were a couple of factors: first, did I believe the current commission was doing a good job? No, I actually think they're doing an *exceptional* job. Second, was there a desire from among themselves for change? Yes, Pundit wanted to be a steward, but when Christine and I were scouting for this committee, we had anticipated someone rotating off and had another commissioner who was already trained and participating. So the commission was stable.
Then, what is the cost and benefit of the search? On the benefit side, there's the ability to form a new commission with all the myriad benefits that flow from that. But on the contra side, I sort of felt like stability is something good right now: systems are changing everywhere, and maybe keeping this one with a core group of stable people who are doing a good job is a good idea. I continue to believe that is true.
In addition, running a search is costly: in time for volunteers and staff. This is a secondary consideration - obviously, if the preceding had not been true, we'd have made the staff time to run the search. But when I looked at the realities of my transition to a new team, to not having Christine to help, and at Maggie's workload, there was a definite savings in "time beyond the norm" that would have been used to run this search.
They're hard: it's more than just asking for volunteers. We put together the commission with an eye toward diversity of gender, project, language, and geography, and we needed Wikimedians who are above reproach: this folks are the ultimate arbiters of the checkuser tool, and they have to be unblemished. So much as a whiff of an issue around privacy, and things could get very uncomfortable... so we did a lot of deep diving into backgrounds. It's a very very time intensive process, and we could frankly use the time other places.
Finally, I continue to believe that we should stick with traditions that make sense, but give them enough flexibility to change with circumstances: so re-appointing the commission this time was partially intended to set that as a possible solution going forward. That said, in order to prevent a "permanent committee", I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would ever reappoint a full commission more than one time. But, I wanted to have reappointment in my (or whomever's) list of tools for the future if need be.
Hope that gives you some insight into my thinking.
pb
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