Hello all,
Being back from Wikimania, I have a look at the list of candidates and here is what I see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006
I'd like to make a very serious appeal for candidates. I would hate to discourage some of you, but rather to be frank.
Being on the board is not a game. It is not about changing the policies on the english wikipedia. It is not about improving welcome templates for newbies on wikipedia either. And it is not even about pushing the use of the german userboxes.
What we need (desperately need) is people who understand what the Foundation is, what our needs are, where the challenges are located.
I listed some of the challenges in my presentation at Wikimania; (http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:FD1). I have no idea when the audio will be accessible, but I think any candidate should at least have a look/ear to it.
What would be best are people who already know and participate to Wikimedia Foundation issue. I could cite dozen, many of whom were at wikimania. A couple candidated, but I also know they are controversial so might end up not being in the top.
I would like that non english editors take the chance to run. Not being english is certainly an handicap due to the huge number of english voters. Naturally, if you are mostly known in one community, you'll get a disadvantage. But if you are also a meta participant, the word can be disseminated that you are a high quality person. Because meta people know you and can tell about you in the local communities. You have a chance !
I will not hide the fact that being on the board is highly frustrating. It is a lot of work. It costs personal money. It is little rewarded. It carries its generous load of humiliation.
But... if you care about the projects, if you care about their future, if you care about giving a chance to the content to stay free for real, if you care about the risk of being "adopted" by a commercial firm, if you care about the risk of seeing the freedom being reduced to protect what is merely a legal entity, if you care about us being an international entity rather than being a pure american business and professional foundation, please, do help.
Please.
A minor point
But for Arno, absolutely all discussion pages for board candidacies on the english wikipedia.
What are the implications in terms of international representation AND in terms of project representation ?
ant
Anthere wrote:
A minor point
But for Arno, absolutely all discussion pages for board candidacies on the english wikipedia.
What are the implications in terms of international representation AND in terms of project representation ?
Where do the translations go for the candidates for discussion pages? I assume these are left in English.
I have stopped translating the lower candidate statements for Cherokee since I noticed the short list is out of sync with the main list since a lot of folks have submitted and gotten pulled before making the top list. Is the top list the approved candidates? I have translated these into Cherokee (and one from German into English).
Thanks
Jeff
ant
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Jeff V. Merkey a écrit :
Anthere wrote:
A minor point
But for Arno, absolutely all discussion pages for board candidacies on the english wikipedia.
What are the implications in terms of international representation AND in terms of project representation ?
Where do the translations go for the candidates for discussion pages? I assume these are left in English.
I have stopped translating the lower candidate statements for Cherokee since I noticed the short list is out of sync with the main list since a lot of folks have submitted and gotten pulled before making the top list. Is the top list the approved candidates? I have translated these into Cherokee (and one from German into English).
I am currently working on that, basically creating a templates-based system which will make the translation process easier AND allow for discussions on Meta, not on en: or any other local wiki. Let me one or two hours to get all this done and alive :)
Jean-Denis Vauguet wrote:
Jeff V. Merkey a écrit :
Anthere wrote:
A minor point
But for Arno, absolutely all discussion pages for board candidacies on the english wikipedia.
What are the implications in terms of international representation AND in terms of project representation ?
Where do the translations go for the candidates for discussion pages? I assume these are left in English.
I have stopped translating the lower candidate statements for Cherokee since I noticed the short list is out of sync with the main list since a lot of folks have submitted and gotten pulled before making the top list. Is the top list the approved candidates? I have translated these into Cherokee (and one from German into English).
I am currently working on that, basically creating a templates-based system which will make the translation process easier AND allow for discussions on Meta, not on en: or any other local wiki. Let me one or two hours to get all this done and alive :)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
OK. I'll get the stuff translated after you get it where you think it needs to be.
Jeff
It's now live, a nice, simple system of templates which streamline translation process. Many candidates created a Talk page on Meta for the elections.
If you find something broken, write on my Talk page and I'll fix it.
On 11-Aug-06, at 7:53 AM, Jean-Denis Vauguet wrote:
It's now live, a nice, simple system of templates which streamline translation process. Many candidates created a Talk page on Meta for the elections.
If you find something broken, write on my Talk page and I'll fix it.
Just so everyone is aware, Jean-Denis is currently [[m:User:Meanos]], but has requested a user name change to [[m:User:Jd]] (to match his [[w:fr:User:Jd]]).
Amgine
On 8/10/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
A minor point
But for Arno, absolutely all discussion pages for board candidacies on the english wikipedia.
What are the implications in terms of international representation AND in terms of project representation ?
ant
Internationally, it means that countries where the English languages is widespread are probably going to have a greater representation. Changing this would be likely be extremely difficult and/or expensive. And it's somewhat of a catch-22: Wikimedia probably won't have very much representation from non-English speakers until it's easy for Wikimedians of different languages to communicate with each other, but until Wikimedia has more representation from non-English speakers translation issues will probably remain a relatively low priority.
As for project representation, I don't think board members should be representing individual projects in the first place. Wikipedia is by far the largest and most successful project, so it doesn't surprise me that board candidates use that project for their discussion pages.
Anthony
On 8/10/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
As for project representation, I don't think board members should be representing individual projects in the first place. Wikipedia is by far the largest and most successful project, so it doesn't surprise me that board candidates use that project for their discussion pages.
By the way, I also think this has a lot to do with the fact that this election appears to be a winner-takes-all election of a single seat (*). Having representatives from different languages/projects doesn't make sense when there are only two elected members.
Almost all the discussion on this very list takes place in English. I don't know what percentage of people who discuss on this list participate primarily on Wikipedia, but I'd guess it's at least a simple majority. Changing that, I believe, would require a major overhaul of the entire organizational structure of Wikimedia. But I suppose I shouldn't make such comments without first knowing what that percentage really is.
(*) Although, it says on the election page "at least one" seat.
Anthony wrote:
On 8/10/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
As for project representation, I don't think board members should be representing individual projects in the first place. Wikipedia is by far the largest and most successful project, so it doesn't surprise me that board candidates use that project for their discussion pages.
By the way, I also think this has a lot to do with the fact that this election appears to be a winner-takes-all election of a single seat Having representatives from different languages/projects doesn't make sense when there are only two elected members.
Of course, but for now we have to live with that and hope for better in the by-law revisions that are yet to come
Almost all the discussion on this very list takes place in English. I don't know what percentage of people who discuss on this list participate primarily on Wikipedia, but I'd guess it's at least a simple majority. Changing that, I believe, would require a major overhaul of the entire organizational structure of Wikimedia. But I suppose I shouldn't make such comments without first knowing what that percentage really is.
It's not just a matter of the English language. Angela was elected despite the fact that she is from England. The simple fact that 60% of the current board is from the same country may be more significant. That carries with it a lot of unwanted political baggage. Redressing these imbalances in a way that will be fair to all concerned calls for a lot of careful consideration that does not fit into the heat of an election compaign.
Ec
On 8/10/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 8/10/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Internationally, it means that countries where the English languages is widespread are probably going to have a greater representation. Changing this would be likely be extremely difficult and/or expensive. And it's somewhat of a catch-22: Wikimedia probably won't have very much representation from non-English speakers until it's easy for Wikimedians of different languages to communicate with each other, but until Wikimedia has more representation from non-English speakers translation issues will probably remain a relatively low priority.
As for project representation, I don't think board members should be representing individual projects in the first place. Wikipedia is by far the largest and most successful project, so it doesn't surprise me that board candidates use that project for their discussion pages.
I think you are missing the point entirely. What we are asking is for this election to be representative of the Wiki*m*edia community in its entirety, ie. all languages and all projects. Being on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation as Florence pointed out, does not mean changing policies in the English Wikipedia, no more than in Wikisource or the Chinese Wikipedia for that matter. It means seeing the greater vision, understanding, or be ready to understand what's at stake in all projects and all languages, making sure the projects are able to flourish regardless of their size or fame in the outside world. It means taking the right decisions as to where Wikimedia will use the money it has, the right decision on which partners to choose so as to allow to pursue our mission, ie. support free and open knowledge and access to information.
A good wikipedian or wikisourcian does not automatically make a good board member. And vice versa. We are not electing people on the basis of their number of edits or their influence in the projects, but rather on a program they might have concerning the organisation, to structure it, better it and make it realize its potential while keeping in mind its real responsibilities.
I sincerely hope that the international and cross project community will get organized and vote on this election, so as to balance the natural weight of the English Wikipedia and make sure that the person elected on the board has the skills necessary to the position.Whether they are or not from the English Wikipedia is indeed, irrelevant.
Delphine
On 8/10/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I sincerely hope that the international and cross project community will get organized and vote on this election, so as to balance the natural weight of the English Wikipedia and make sure that the person elected on the board has the skills necessary to the position.Whether they are or not from the English Wikipedia is indeed, irrelevant.
If it's irrelevant, then why is it being brought up?
With only one seat up for grabs, I don't really think it matters what project the board member winds up spending most of his or her time on.
As for whether or not they speak English, I frankly don't think it's possible for someone who doesn't read and write English well to be an effective board member - unless maybe they have the money to hire their own personal translator.
Anthony
Anthony wrote:
On 8/10/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I sincerely hope that the international and cross project community will get organized and vote on this election, so as to balance the natural weight of the English Wikipedia and make sure that the person elected on the board has the skills necessary to the position.Whether they are or not from the English Wikipedia is indeed, irrelevant.
If it's irrelevant, then why is it being brought up?
With only one seat up for grabs, I don't really think it matters what project the board member winds up spending most of his or her time on.
As for whether or not they speak English, I frankly don't think it's possible for someone who doesn't read and write English well to be an effective board member - unless maybe they have the money to hire their own personal translator.
Anthony
I agree the future board member must be able to speak english. That's an obvious requirement.
By the point of my initial comment (But for Arno, absolutely all discussion pages for board candidacies on the english wikipedia) is
... we have meta, as the central place to meet together. Once a candidate publish his discussion page on a specific project, it somehow reduce the number of questions given by participants from other projects. It also reduces readability greatly, when the page mentionned in the talk page of the user, where a multiplicity of questions, relevant or not relevant to the elections also stand. It also prevents translation. And finally, it raises the question of whether the candidate even know what meta is.
ant
On 8/11/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
... we have meta, as the central place to meet together. Once a candidate publish his discussion page on a specific project, it somehow reduce the number of questions given by participants from other projects. It also reduces readability greatly, when the page mentionned in the talk page of the user, where a multiplicity of questions, relevant or not relevant to the elections also stand. It also prevents translation. And finally, it raises the question of whether the candidate even know what meta is.
The biggest problem with using meta is that none of the standard tools work across wikis. You don't get notifications of talk page changes on meta when you're hacking on Wikipedia, or Wikibooks. The watchlist feature covers one project at a time, etc.
This should have been fixed years ago. It hasn't been. Hopefully one of the achievements of the new board will be to integrate the projects better.
But in the mean time, I don't think it's at all unusual for a candidate to publish his or her discussion page on a particular project. Checking meta all the time is just ridiculous.
Anthony
But in the mean time, I don't think it's at all unusual for a candidate to publish his or her discussion page on a particular project. Checking meta all the time is just ridiculous. -- Anthony
Don't board members work mostly on meta? (with side orders of wikimediafoundation.org and projects?)
On 8/12/06, Jack jackdt@gmail.com wrote:
But in the mean time, I don't think it's at all unusual for a candidate to publish his or her discussion page on a particular project. Checking meta all the time is just ridiculous. -- Anthony
Don't board members work mostly on meta? (with side orders of wikimediafoundation.org and projects?)
Comparing http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales, I'd say no, definitely not, at least not in the case of all board members. Do all the board members even *have* an account on meta? I'd check, but I don't even remember one of their names.
Anthony
On 8/12/06, Jack jackdt@gmail.com wrote:
But in the mean time, I don't think it's at all unusual for a candidate to publish his or her discussion page on a particular project. Checking meta all the time is just ridiculous. -- Anthony
Don't board members work mostly on meta? (with side orders of wikimediafoundation.org and projects?)
No, some Board members don't work on those wikis at all, but only on a number of private wikis (one Board wiki and various committee wikis which not all Board members even have access to).
Angela.
This sounds weird. Don't have access to it. :-S. A Board should be able to oversee the activities of the "company". And of course I understand that there may be tasks within the board, where is stated who oversees what, and is responsible for that. But as the committees give advice to the Board at this moment only, and do formally (as far as i know) not *make* the decision (the Board still has to accept the resolution, right?) I would expect that at least some Boardmembers (those who are responsible for that area) have access to those wiki's. Is there maybe some list of responsibilities of the boardmembers, on what basis it may appear more logical that some boardmembers (hearing the sound of her writing, angela appears not to have access to some?) do or don't have access to certain sources of information, relevant to their functioning as boardmember? Is there further a list of private channels and wiki's available with globally the access? (for example certain Board members and committeemembers) I can understand of course that certain conversations and/or information should be out-of-public, but I wonder if the information that there is certain non-public information should be classified as well.
Greetings, Lodewijk Gelauff
2006/8/12, Angela beesley@gmail.com:
On 8/12/06, Jack jackdt@gmail.com wrote:
But in the mean time, I don't think it's at all unusual for a candidate to publish his or her discussion page on a particular project. Checking meta all the time is just ridiculous. -- Anthony
Don't board members work mostly on meta? (with side orders of wikimediafoundation.org and projects?)
No, some Board members don't work on those wikis at all, but only on a number of private wikis (one Board wiki and various committee wikis which not all Board members even have access to).
Angela. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Anthony schreef: [cut]
The biggest problem with using meta is that none of the standard tools work across wikis. You don't get notifications of talk page changes on meta when you're hacking on Wikipedia, or Wikibooks. The watchlist feature covers one project at a time, etc.
That problem can be fixt directly more or less. MediaWiki supports the function that you get an email when;
[ ] E-mail me when a page I'm watching is changed [ ] E-mail me when my user talk page is changed [ ] E-mail me also for minor edits of pages
That is only a matter of switching that function for meta. The you can select that in you user option.
On 8/12/06, Walter Vermeir walter@wikipedia.be wrote:
Anthony schreef: [cut]
The biggest problem with using meta is that none of the standard tools work across wikis. You don't get notifications of talk page changes on meta when you're hacking on Wikipedia, or Wikibooks. The watchlist feature covers one project at a time, etc.
That problem can be fixt directly more or less. MediaWiki supports the function that you get an email when;
[ ] E-mail me when a page I'm watching is changed [ ] E-mail me when my user talk page is changed [ ] E-mail me also for minor edits of pages
That is only a matter of switching that function for meta. The you can select that in you user option.
Good point. Maybe we should force all the candidates to use meta for their discussion page, and let them know about that feature to head off any complaints. Anyone second the motion?
I still don't think it's significant that most/all candidates have chosen to use the discussion page on the project they use the most, when no one told them any advantages of doing otherwise.
Anthony
Walter Vermeir schreef:
That problem can be fixt directly more or less. MediaWiki supports the function that you get an email when;
[ ] E-mail me when a page I'm watching is changed [ ] E-mail me when my user talk page is changed [ ] E-mail me also for minor edits of pages
That is only a matter of switching that function for meta. The you can select that in you user option.
Because it seems not to totally clear to some a clarification;
The option to receive those email notifications is not active on Meta. But it is on some wikis like the Wikimania2006 wiki.
Actually I think it would be useful if it is active on all wikis or at least the smaller wikis. A possible result would be a (drastic) increase of the outgoing emails from wikimedia to its users. That can be a reason for not activating it globally.
On 12-Aug-06, at 6:24 AM, Walter Vermeir wrote:
Walter Vermeir schreef:
That problem can be fixt directly more or less. MediaWiki supports the function that you get an email when;
[ ] E-mail me when a page I'm watching is changed [ ] E-mail me when my user talk page is changed [ ] E-mail me also for minor edits of pages
That is only a matter of switching that function for meta. The you can select that in you user option.
Because it seems not to totally clear to some a clarification;
The option to receive those email notifications is not active on Meta. But it is on some wikis like the Wikimania2006 wiki.
Actually I think it would be useful if it is active on all wikis or at least the smaller wikis. A possible result would be a (drastic) increase of the outgoing emails from wikimedia to its users. That can be a reason for not activating it globally.
Thanks for the suggestion Walter! I've asked Brion if it would be okay to turn that on for Meta, and I believe it's happening right now.
Amgine
Anthony wrote:
The biggest problem with using meta is that none of the standard tools work across wikis. You don't get notifications of talk page changes on meta when you're hacking on Wikipedia, or Wikibooks. The watchlist feature covers one project at a time, etc.
This should have been fixed years ago. It hasn't been. Hopefully one of the achievements of the new board will be to integrate the projects better.
What you need to understand is that the Board of Directors doesn't run a web site. The Board of Directors oversees a *company*, whose assets are a bunch of web servers, the name and logo, and a traditional connection to the community.
The technical operations of the site are managed by several paid (me, Tim) and volunteer (Jens, Mark, Domas, various others) programmers and system administrators. But of course, who sets our priorities?
As the company gets more organized, we've got from a very amorphous situation to a slightly more manageable one where there's actually an executive (currently that's Brad). Brad's job is to be the boss and run the operations of the company, within the parameters set by the board of directors. Sometimes this involves setting priorities for me.
Integrated talk notification will come shortly after single login, which is already my current top technical priority for implementation.
Don't waste your time bothering the board about it, but feel free to bother me about it. :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
Anthony wrote:
On 8/10/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I sincerely hope that the international and cross project community will get organized and vote on this election, so as to balance the natural weight of the English Wikipedia and make sure that the person elected on the board has the skills necessary to the position.Whether they are or not from the English Wikipedia is indeed, irrelevant.
If it's irrelevant, then why is it being brought up?
Maybe it's just because many people do feel concerned about this.
With only one seat up for grabs, I don't really think it matters what project the board member winds up spending most of his or her time on.
Fair enough.
As for whether or not they speak English, I frankly don't think it's possible for someone who doesn't read and write English well to be an effective board member - unless maybe they have the money to hire their own personal translator.
Facetious eventualities aside, English has indeed been the lingua franca at both Wikimanias, both for official proceedings and casual conversations. This ubiquitous practical reality does not imply any acquiescence to the superiority of English. A simple recognition by native English speakers that language is not just language goes a long way toward bridging this divide.
Ec
On 8/10/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I listed some of the challenges in my presentation at Wikimania; (http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:FD1). I have no idea when the audio will be accessible, but I think any candidate should at least have a look/hear to it.
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archives#Florence_Devouard:_Wikimedi...
It's here.
Delphine
Delphine Ménard schreef:
On 8/10/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I listed some of the challenges in my presentation at Wikimania; (http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:FD1). I have no idea when the audio will be accessible, but I think any candidate should at least have a look/hear to it.
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archives#Florence_Devouard:_Wikimedi...
It's here.
Delphine
And this is a compilation from the board discussion and a very large part of the presentaton of Anthere with parts that is about the board and the elections.
http://tinyurl.com/rdnxu - Ogg Vorbis 11,9Mb 32min http://tinyurl.com/s2j66 - Webbased Player playing the same file
My English is very very very poor to write something, but I really need to try it here. The point ins't the expenses for boarders. The point is what is Wiki>>>M<<<edia (and not only Wikipedia, Wikipedia is only the most famous project) is. Please, forgive the expenses question, Wikimedia ins't a travel agency, Wikimedia is a Foundation devoted to Free Culture movement.
Some candidates in yours presentations appear to be in that election only to give some important position in a famous website. Wiki>>>M<<<edia is so much more than it and the boarder position is so much more than it. Please, read again the full message from Anthere.
P.S.: Portuguese Wikipedia (my home wiki) periodically need to ask stressing subjects to boarders (a community with 300 editor that don't have a ArbCom committee). I'm doubt if at least 50% of current candidates are ready to apply to a position that lot's of anothers wikis need to listen periodically about lots of subjects.
On 8/10/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Hello all,
Being back from Wikimania, I have a look at the list of candidates and here is what I see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006
I'd like to make a very serious appeal for candidates. I would hate to discourage some of you, but rather to be frank.
Being on the board is not a game. It is not about changing the policies on the english wikipedia. It is not about improving welcome templates for newbies on wikipedia either. And it is not even about pushing the use of the german userboxes.
What we need (desperately need) is people who understand what the Foundation is, what our needs are, where the challenges are located.
I listed some of the challenges in my presentation at Wikimania; (http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:FD1). I have no idea when the audio will be accessible, but I think any candidate should at least have a look/ear to it.
What would be best are people who already know and participate to Wikimedia Foundation issue. I could cite dozen, many of whom were at wikimania. A couple candidated, but I also know they are controversial so might end up not being in the top.
I would like that non english editors take the chance to run. Not being english is certainly an handicap due to the huge number of english voters. Naturally, if you are mostly known in one community, you'll get a disadvantage. But if you are also a meta participant, the word can be disseminated that you are a high quality person. Because meta people know you and can tell about you in the local communities. You have a chance !
I will not hide the fact that being on the board is highly frustrating. It is a lot of work. It costs personal money. It is little rewarded. It carries its generous load of humiliation.
But... if you care about the projects, if you care about their future, if you care about giving a chance to the content to stay free for real, if you care about the risk of being "adopted" by a commercial firm, if you care about the risk of seeing the freedom being reduced to protect what is merely a legal entity, if you care about us being an international entity rather than being a pure american business and professional foundation, please, do help.
Please.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org