Based on the limited information that I have, it seems to me that there are already numerous contribtors who are paid to engage in promotional activity on Wikipedia, whether declared or undeclared, and the community does not have adequate human resources to patrol and investigate all of these. I expect that the problem will continue to get worse unless WMF gets more energetic about investigating TOS violations involving undeclared COI and WMF becomes predictable about extracting financial penalties that are severe enough to deter most of the undeclared COI contributors. Unfortunately, as far as I know, WMF has been largely passive about the problem of undeclared COI and has not announced any plans to become more aggressive. As nice as it would be if everyone could afford and was willing to work for free, this is not the case. If it was then we could safely eliminate the salaries of the entire WMF staff. However, I think that financial support makes sense for some paid staff to handle activities like network operations, interface design, legal defense, and responses to safety problems. Some types of Wikimedia activities are better suited to volunteer work than others. I encourage volunteers to avoid burning themselves out; there are some activities that I did in the past that I would not do again as a volunteer. Better to be an occasional and long-term contributor than to get burned out. I have some ideas about how to pay people to do certain types of work that, so far, WMF has not funded. Unfortunately these are merely ideas and not likely to become reality in the short term. Perhaps later this year or in the next few years I will have specific proposals with reasonable chances for sustainable success. I share the concern that paid participants in the Wikiverse, like staff of WMF and affiliates, WMF grantees, and potentially like the paid contributors that I have in mind, may become so numerous that they can drown out the consensus of the volunteers. Unfortunately I do not have easy solutions for this issue. We could prohibit all paid contributors from participating in RFCs and related decision processes, but we would be largely relying on people to self-disclose their paid status, which seems unlikely to be adequate. Perhaps the issues that we are discussing in this conversation should be included in the Structures and Systems prong of the WMF strategy process. I am pinging Nicole to ask for her input about that idea. However, keep in mind that the strategy process is financially sponsored by WMF, and it is not free of potential conflicts with the interests of WMF. I wish that I could be more optimistic. These are difficult topics. Regards, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) null
Pine, It is nice of you that you thought about including these topics in the WMF strategy process, which I assume it is an ongoing process and not a one-off event. However as the 2017 cycle ended, I am unable to find the way to incorporate new ideas into the process. I would have expected to find a discussion page where new input can be taken into consideration, but it might not be the case.
I consider that the importance of admin decline in Wikipedias is really high, and at the same time I understand why you or anybody else would not like to do some tasks as volunteer. For this reason, while I do not like the idea of employees doing project activities, I feel that by creating a scheme where volunteers become empowered/liberated from work through direct donations could be part of a practical way of addressing the issue. I'm very sensitive to potential pitfalls and for this reason I consider that the feedback given by Yaroslav is extremely important, and that any donation to volunteers should happen only if they are committed to a personal transformation, that involves developing the capacity for listening, humility, and other values important for the project. I think this is only part of the story so far, and at this point the only thing I can do in my capacity as volunteer is to steward the conversation, and bring it to an increasing number of people as the understanding on this topic increases.
These are difficult topics indeed, but only by dealing with them we can grow as a movement.
Regards, Micru ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Micru )
On Mon, May 28, 2018 at 8:10 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Based on the limited information that I have, it seems to me that there are already numerous contribtors who are paid to engage in promotional activity on Wikipedia, whether declared or undeclared, and the community does not have adequate human resources to patrol and investigate all of these. I expect that the problem will continue to get worse unless WMF gets more energetic about investigating TOS violations involving undeclared COI and WMF becomes predictable about extracting financial penalties that are severe enough to deter most of the undeclared COI contributors. Unfortunately, as far as I know, WMF has been largely passive about the problem of undeclared COI and has not announced any plans to become more aggressive. As nice as it would be if everyone could afford and was willing to work for free, this is not the case. If it was then we could safely eliminate the salaries of the entire WMF staff. However, I think that financial support makes sense for some paid staff to handle activities like network operations, interface design, legal defense, and responses to safety problems. Some types of Wikimedia activities are better suited to volunteer work than others. I encourage volunteers to avoid burning themselves out; there are some activities that I did in the past that I would not do again as a volunteer. Better to be an occasional and long-term contributor than to get burned out. I have some ideas about how to pay people to do certain types of work that, so far, WMF has not funded. Unfortunately these are merely ideas and not likely to become reality in the short term. Perhaps later this year or in the next few years I will have specific proposals with reasonable chances for sustainable success. I share the concern that paid participants in the Wikiverse, like staff of WMF and affiliates, WMF grantees, and potentially like the paid contributors that I have in mind, may become so numerous that they can drown out the consensus of the volunteers. Unfortunately I do not have easy solutions for this issue. We could prohibit all paid contributors from participating in RFCs and related decision processes, but we would be largely relying on people to self-disclose their paid status, which seems unlikely to be adequate. Perhaps the issues that we are discussing in this conversation should be included in the Structures and Systems prong of the WMF strategy process. I am pinging Nicole to ask for her input about that idea. However, keep in mind that the strategy process is financially sponsored by WMF, and it is not free of potential conflicts with the interests of WMF. I wish that I could be more optimistic. These are difficult topics. Regards, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) null _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi Micru,
On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 7:36 AM, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Pine, It is nice of you that you thought about including these topics in the WMF strategy process, which I assume it is an ongoing process and not a one-off event. However as the 2017 cycle ended, I am unable to find the way to incorporate new ideas into the process. I would have expected to find a discussion page where new input can be taken into consideration, but it might not be the case.
This sounds like another good question for Nicole.
I consider that the importance of admin decline in Wikipedias is really high, and at the same time I understand why you or anybody else would not like to do some tasks as volunteer. For this reason, while I do not like the idea of employees doing project activities, I feel that by creating a scheme where volunteers become empowered/liberated from work through direct donations could be part of a practical way of addressing the issue. I'm very sensitive to potential pitfalls and for this reason I consider that the feedback given by Yaroslav is extremely important, and that any donation to volunteers should happen only if they are committed to a personal transformation, that involves developing the capacity for listening, humility, and other values important for the project. I think this is only part of the story so far, and at this point the only thing I can do in my capacity as volunteer is to steward the conversation, and bring it to an increasing number of people as the understanding on this topic increases.
Thank you for your interest in this issue. I'll make a few further points.
* There are a number of people who are working on facilitating and improving the experience for new editors. There are existing projects like the English Wikipedia Teahouse and various help channels. During the 2018-2019 fiscal year, my understanding is that WMF intends to reconstitute the "Growth Team" to attempt to improve the experience of new editors. Mark Miller is the project manager for this, and I am pinging him here in case he would like to comment. Meanwhile, I am working on the project that I previously called LearnWiki https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Motivational_and_educational_video_to_introduce_Wikimedia, which I plan to re-brand later this year for trademark reasons (eventually I will publish a new name), and in my continuation of the project I am making modifications to the project's original design. I hope that both Mark and I will be able to demonstrate benefits from our work in 2018-2019.
* I am very interested in non-WMF funding for affiliate and community projects. As you probably have noticed, I can be outspoken when I have concerns about WMF, and I am worried that if I become financially dependent on WMF then I would be much less willing to express my views out of fear that WMF would eliminate my funding. So, while I want to work on my project which I think would support the community's vision and goals, I would prefer to obtain non-WMF funding. I hope that non-WMF funding could also be available to other community members and affiliates to work on activities which WMF has not funded, such as on-wiki administrative work for which there is significant demand but too little volunteer capacity. I can't make any promises regarding the availability of non-WMF funding for myself or others, but I am having off-wiki conversations about these issues and I hope to be able to report some success within a few years. In the meantime, I think that we are stuck with the status quo, although I am hopeful that in the context of the strategy process that WMF will be supportive of the idea of diversifying funding sources for the community beyond WMF. I am trying go avoid *competing* with WMF for funding, which I think would be viewed negatively by WMF, and instead look for outside sources which WMF has not tapped for funding. I would like to cooperate with WMF where possible, and so I would prefer that my fundraising efforts be "parallel with" rather than "in competition with" WMF efforts.
If you or others would be interested, perhaps we could have a video-conference meeting at some point regarding ideas for non-WMF funding sources.
Regards,
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
These are difficult topics indeed, but only by dealing with them we can grow as a movement.
Regards, Micru ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Micru )
On Mon, May 28, 2018 at 8:10 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Based on the limited information that I have, it seems to me that there are already numerous contribtors who are paid to engage in promotional activity on Wikipedia, whether declared or undeclared, and the community does not have adequate human resources to patrol and investigate all of these. I expect that the problem will continue to get worse unless WMF
gets
more energetic about investigating TOS violations involving undeclared
COI
and WMF becomes predictable about extracting financial penalties that are severe enough to deter most of the undeclared COI contributors. Unfortunately, as far as I know, WMF has been largely passive about the problem of undeclared COI and has not announced any plans to become more aggressive. As nice as it would be if everyone could afford and was willing to work for free, this is not the case. If it was then we could safely eliminate the salaries of the entire WMF staff. However, I think that financial support makes sense for some paid staff to handle activities like network operations, interface design, legal defense, and responses to safety problems. Some types of Wikimedia activities are better suited to volunteer work than others. I encourage volunteers to avoid burning themselves out;
there
are some activities that I did in the past that I would not do again as a volunteer. Better to be an occasional and long-term contributor than to
get
burned out. I have some ideas about how to pay people to do certain types of work that, so far, WMF has not funded. Unfortunately these are merely ideas
and
not likely to become reality in the short term. Perhaps later this year
or
in the next few years I will have specific proposals with reasonable chances for sustainable success. I share the concern that paid participants in the Wikiverse, like staff
of
WMF and affiliates, WMF grantees, and potentially like the paid contributors that I have in mind, may become so numerous that they can drown out the consensus of the volunteers. Unfortunately I do not have
easy
solutions for this issue. We could prohibit all paid contributors from participating in RFCs and related decision processes, but we would be largely relying on people to self-disclose their paid status, which seems unlikely to be adequate. Perhaps the issues that we are discussing in this conversation should be included in the Structures and Systems prong of the WMF strategy
process. I
am pinging Nicole to ask for her input about that idea. However, keep in mind that the strategy process is financially sponsored by WMF, and it is not free of potential conflicts with the interests of WMF. I wish that I could be more optimistic. These are difficult topics. Regards, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) null _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- Etiamsi omnes, ego non _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi Pine,
On Fri, Jun 1, 2018 at 4:31 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
This sounds like another good question for Nicole.
Indeed, but she might be busy or in vacation. If she doesn't get involved into this conversation in the next days I will open a new thread about it.
- There are a number of people who are working on facilitating and
improving the experience for new editors.
That is very nice, and it should happen (including the project you are working on which seems very useful). Additionally to the experience of new editors, one should consider the experience of old editors, because that also reflects on the health of the community and the work atmosphere created by them, which in the end also affects new editors. It's not the same to work in an environment that is hostile and unfriendly, that in an environment where people listen to each other, and try to find common ground. As said before (I think), I believe this transformation has to happen from initiative of the volunteers themselves. The WMF can help with tools, employees, and resources if they are willing to, but if the volunteers do not commit to change, nothing will be achieved.
- I am very interested in non-WMF funding for affiliate and community
projects.
You indeed make a good point about non-WMF funding. It's true that you are very outspoken and I value what you do for the spirit of the community. I think that is a value we should nurture in everybody, specially in volunteers who accept donations, and that there should be a way for the donations to flow directly to volunteers or to projects without passing through the hands of the WMF. I do not know what would be the best approach to materialize this in practice, either by using an external platform (like Patreon) or building our own. However, it should be taken into account that at the moment the main source of exposure, which are donation banners to collect community money, are administered by the WMF, so that limits the capacity to find donors for individuals or small organizations.
If you or others would be interested, perhaps we could have a video-conference meeting at some point regarding ideas for non-WMF funding sources.
Excellent idea! I'll send you a private message with my availability/time zone and when we find a suitable moment, maybe we could invite others to join too. (If someone feels that they need to be in this conversation, please do express your interest to me and I will take your request into consideration when selecting a date)
Regards, Micru
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