On 16 February 2011 19:41, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: Or, as probably everyone is wondering by now: what makes this an off-list matter? - d.

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Christine Moellenberndt <cmoellenberndt(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Hmm.. strikes me odd and worries me than Community Associate doesn't seem to differentiate between software "Media-Wiki" (sic), and Foundation/Community issues (Wikimedia). Opening post was about if Wikimedia (as organization) complies with regulations I don't see what software has to do with it.

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 5:44 PM, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez(a)gmail.com> wrote: There's no need to be mean. I would think that Christine just assumed that he was talking about our product was "MediaWiki", not the content projects. MediaWiki is a piece of software, so it's more likely to be thought of as a "product" than the projects are. That being said, I do agree with the fact that we should err on the side of responding *on-list* unless there's a very good reason not to. If someone asks a question on the list, it's best to respond on the list so that everyone can see the answer -- sharing wisdom and making sure everyone learns things is good. :-) Christine probably didn't think the whole list would be interested in it and decided to respond off-list, which is fine... but based on the responses that she received, I'm sure she'll be scared to do that again. =P -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: I apologize then

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 5:44 PM, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez(a)gmail.com> wrote: At some point WMF employees might just stop posting here altogether, to escape the unfounded criticism. The post asks if there is a VPAT, which pertains to the software (it is, seemingly, product specific), not the organization itself. It's therefore not a "community issue" -- accessibility itself might be, but that wasn't the question asked (that might take the form "How does the MediaWiki software accommodate people with disabilities, and what is the opinion of the WMF on making such accommodations?""). The VPAT, from my reading, is a way to help software vendors who want to sell or provide services to the federal government demonstrate compliance with this particular regulation (which applies to federal agencies, not vendors themselves).

Dan Rosenthal wrote: Most Wikimedia employees don't post or subscribe to this list already, though I don't think it has very much to do with criticism. Wikimedia employees are required to be subscribed to staff-l, but they're not required to be subscribed to this list (or any other Wikimedia mailing lists, in general). Mailing lists are a goofy and foreign concept to most people, so Wikimedia employees take the time to do what's required of them, but nothing more. That's to be expected. Personally, I think it's rather strange that people working for an organization don't pay more attention to this list and the Wikimedia Foundation wiki, but that's their choice to make. A few Wikimedia employees are part of the "Community Department," and there should be a higher level of expectation with them (Christine is among them, though she's working as a contractor until the end of February). From what I can tell, she has a pretty tough skin, but that doesn't mean that overly harsh criticism is necessary or warranted. It does mean that she has a responsibility to be as open as possible. (And this kind of sidesteps the issue of her in particular discussing MediaWiki....) It's not about assuming that Wikimedia's positions are "wrong," that's a bad and unfair characterization. But Wikimedia has a tendency, as an organization, to not be as transparent as it sometimes likes to think it is. Looking at the long view, more and more decisions _are_ being made privately among Wikimedia staff rather than with community consultation (or even notification). That's the reality, but to blame this shift (and the resulting skepticism from the community) on foundation-l is a red herring. MZMcBride

Le 17/02/2011 02:07, Dan Rosenthal a écrit : In summary, you detect a trend of criticism towards the staff's actions from many independent lists and you conclude that it is unfair, unfounded or caused by some foreign cause. It is much simpler to hypothetize that the staff's actions are the common cause. Just assume good faith when you're beign told that the opacity is the cause. Thinking about why people are asking for transparency would help solve the issue much better than denying the legitimity of their concerns, whether by saying that their pretenses are false or invalid. Democracy is the best way to understand each other. Some want it because they believe in equality as a end. Some don't care about it and just want to keep their job or mission going, and they're ready to accept it as the rules of the game. If no common ground is found, then mistrust arise.

Le 17/02/2011 03:41, Dan Rosenthal a écrit : Not at all. I'm saying it is best to try to understand instead of rejecting.

Dan Rosenthal wrote: I'm going to assume this was just phrased poorly because you seem to be saying that "criticism is happening in a lot of places, so clearly there's just too much criticism." That seems rather backward and wrong. If there's more and more criticism in various forums, I'd venture to guess that there are actual underlying problems, not just people who are being too critical. It's possible that it's a mix of both, but the fact that you're seeing more and more people (some of whom I imagine you respect and trust) make complaints or criticisms indicates to me that there is likely a fundamental issue with the actors' actions. If criticism is unduly harsh in your opinion, you should say so to the people doing the criticizing as it happens (privately or publicly). Nobody's perfect; sometimes people are too harsh. And sometimes text is just mis-read or mis-phrased. That's the nature of text-based communication, or any communication, really. MZMcBride

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Christine Moellenberndt <cmoellenberndt(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Don't worry you didn't kick start anything, It's been started for a long time and a new disucssion is started every few months. -Peachey

On 02/16/11 10:29 PM, MZMcBride wrote: Any two of us can use the same word differently. It's the responsibility of a good-faith reader to assume the more benign of two possibilities. We can't afford to be too easily offended by an unfortunate choice of words. Ec

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:00 AM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: I'm not sure I would say it like that (that they would simply stop responding at all) but I worry that the method at which discussion and criticism has developed is encouraging the growth of a culture where goes against the very thing we say we vocally fighting for. This is definitely not just a foundation-l thing and you're right to say it like that is a bit of a red herring and ignores the real issue (we're good at that). It is also something that I think has roots in all of the active aspects of the community (I at the very least see everyone, staff/contributer/reader/donor etc as part of that community) . There is no doubt that there are many things that the foundation, the local arbcoms, the stewards etc could do far better (though while I'm biased I do think there has been improvement on that). So frequently whenever someone opens their mouth they get bitten, regardless of what is happening the tenants of assuming good faith are just thrown out the window. This thread is about when it happens to staff but the same exact thing happens to other community members speak up. We see it with Arbcom members or Stewards, Article writers and anti-vandal fighters. So many people who love the community and truly want what is best for it are met only with skepticism, the assumption of bad faith and the decision that they only way to question is to do so harshly and without mercy. Is that really what we our community wants or needs? While the words that are used espouse the rightful desire (that I think every one of us wants) for transparency, discussion and community input (and decisions) throughout the foundation and the projects I worry that the result we are getting from this style of attack is exactly the opposite. We are breeding a culture where maybe the staff member doesn't stop posting here (or the Arbcom member stop posting decisions or the stewards enforcing them) but where everyone is forced to sit and think and plan the best way to break the news writing and rewriting announcements to try and "spin" it how the rest of the community will want to hear it (or worse how particular people they know will be vocal want to hear it). In the end they still post but they do so with far less transparency, far less discussion and take far longer . I've always found that one of the best ways for me to work is to throw my ideas in to the mix and debate it out with everyone. I end up with a better understanding of what all the variables and issues are and in the end I feel we come up with a better conclusion. The other side, asking everyone to come up with their own idea means they come back in the end having 'decided' on the best course of action. Getting them to deviate from that action is far harder now because they've hashed it all out on their own, they're much more sure and in the end I don't think we get the best conclusion because we don't get to mesh everyone's nearly as well. Maybe this is how I work but I feel like we want a culture where it is perfectly acceptable for someone to respond without all the data, for them to make mistakes and get corrected and have that debate and those arguments. I think we come out all the better for it. But to do that we have to be able to do it in a collegial (sp?) way. I know I want that in a work environment and whether I'm getting paid or not I certainly see the projects as a work environment for us all. James -- James Alexander jamesofur(a)gmail.com

on 2/18/11 8:08 PM, Samuel Klein at meta.sj(a)gmail.com wrote: To James: This is one of the most accurate, and articulate, descriptions of the present enWikipedia culture that I have read. Thank you. But, so far, any suggestions for change has been met with apathy or, those advocating change being considered malcontents and troublemakers. Yes, I have been accused of trolling:-). I have been trying to call attention to this problem of a dysfunctional culture in the Project for 4 years now. However, the initiative for change, and the know-how to create it, doesn't appear to exist at the highest levels of the Project. Pity. To Samuel: And, so do I. Marc Riddell

Actually, scrap that. I can think of a few more than two. But the extra ones are all from one common cause - robust views being stated off-wiki to fellow users with advanced privileges, who were badly failing to live up to expectations of the role. On a few occasions that's happened. I'm thinking of a handful of cases from 2007 onwards, where advanced users attacked users or made claims that were unsupported and just shouldn't have. People get heated but personal attacks and dubious claims are not the response I like to see from trusted others. Not rehashing the past but self-correcting (hence no details given and no response sought). Sorry for the incorrect statement though. Still all-in-all, a very small number of cases in 7 years, and not on-wiki. The thrust of the point I was making, is unchanged. As a cultural issue, interaction style is serious in its project impact. That's by *both admins and non-admins* (no reason to give excess leeway to long term non-admins to harm the project by discouraging bona-fide users, any more than we would give excess leeway to long-term repeated mis-citers or persistent original researchers). FT2 On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 7:07 AM, FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Feb 16, 2011, at 9:00 PM, MZMcBride wrote: Thanks MZ. As a point of clarification I work with the on-boarding of most, if not all staff, and they are all highly encouraged to join this list and others (announce, internal...) and are given an overview of the various lists and wikis - specifically if they will be in a position that has them working directly with the community. Most positions are in some way community facing, and others, like my own aren't necessarily by definition but overlap enough that it's good practice for all to join. That being said, there are a high volume of emails on this list and it is difficult keeping up with all replies and tangental conversations on top of the other lists and work I have. I imagine others at WMF are in the same boat. I do tend to see a lot of generalization and stereotyping on this list which makes me frown, and I also see a lot of language or phrasing that I don't consider civil. I'd love it if this list were a tool for the community and WMF staff, fellows or contractors to interact and collaborate openly on but I agree with the sentiment that that is unlikely to happen when you are worried you will be attacked or criticized openly on a searchable public list. That's key in a few ways, for the staff this is not only a passion (yes, we do screen all staff for alignment or interest in the mission along with several other aligned values of the projects ;) ) but it is also our livelihood and when things get overly critical or dig into personnel issues it's a very big deal. Not all community members on this list identify with their real names so there is a slight shroud of anonymity especially when it comes to the outside world. That's not so with staff. There is also the tone piece, many interactions on this list simply wouldn't be phrased the way they are if they happened in person. That leads people to be reactive, to be hesitant to respond or simply to unsubscribe. When we are able to get passionate community members with us, either in visits to the office or at meet-ups or events we get much more productive interaction. It doesn't mean we all agree and hold hands around a fire. We get to prod the whys and hows and share different view points where and when they exist. That's not always true in email on a public list, specifically this list. I've wondered if we shouldn't all collaboratively create a rules of engagement covenant for this list that by joining or remaining a member of this list we agree to abide by. Stuff like, I won't be a jerk - I agree to respect others though my opinion may differ - and I will assume good faith. I would think we wouldn't have to call that last one out, it's really a mindset for the community as well as the staff but I find that of all that seems to be left out of communications on this list a majority of the time. -Daniel

I am loathe to dive in here, since it was my post that kind of kick-started this whole thing and I certainly don't want to draw any more fire to be honest. But I also feel loathe to stay away, partially for that same reason, but also because of a few other things I've been thinking about not just this afternoon and evening, but in general. I feel like part of the problem here is that there's an expectation of perfection right out of the box for everyone. One of the biggest complaints I've been hearing as we start figuring out why it is so many new editors don't come back to the project is, "I created and article and it was deleted a few hours/minutes later, before anyone even had a chance to expand it and make it better." It's often decided it's "not good enough," even though it wasn't given a chance to be "good enough." Other members (both editors and staff) are forever marked by one small mistake, either one that happened years ago when one was new and didn't know the rules or one small one that in the grand scheme of things wasn't really *that* important probably. That blackmark, small as it may be, sticks around forever, dogging you every time you try and do something new. Which is terribly frustrating. We're all human. None of us are perfect by any means. I say that doubly, triply, quadruply about myself. There's a saying I heard somewhere today that "Wikipedians are born, not made." I'm not sure I agree with that. Wikipedian tendencies may be born, but Wikipedians are made slowly, over the course of thousands of edits, and hours of reading policies, procedures, guidelines, essays, and talk pages. No one joins a project knowing all of the rules and regulations. That takes time. And yes, they'll make mistakes along the way. That's part of learning. Also part of learning is on the part of the other people around the learner, assuming good faith that the person making the mistakes isn't out to do harm, and is... just learning. And even those who have passed through learning sometimes make mistakes. As my goddaughter says, "poo-poo happens." You're rushing to finish something, you forget what you're doing, you have a brain fart, any number of reasons cause that to happen. Or, you just made a simple misjudgment. That happens too because... well, we're human not robots (right? :)). We're going to make mistakes. It's what makes us human and makes our lives more interesting. If we were all perfect... man Wikipedia would be boring! That mistake doesn't mean the person is totally wrong, or bad, or out to get anyone. It just means they made a mistake. And when people make mistakes, it's fine to point them out. It's wonderful! It's how people learn, it's how they grow, and it keeps us humble. But there are ways to deliver that criticism that work better than others. That phrase "you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar" isn't just an old saying, it's pretty true. I've always figured that's what AGF was meant to address. A "hey, did you mean to do that?" or a "Hrm, why did this happen?" is probably better than insult hurling or questioning competence. The latter does nothing but cause the other person to get defensive and learn nothing, and then leads to this giant brawl where everyone gets hurt. The former can lead to good, productive discussions that help everyone learn something. Even phrasing can go a long way to saying things in a way that can be taken as a net positive instead of a negative. Okay, this got long, and probably overly-preachy. Sorry, gang. To sum the rest up: There are more folks reading this list than you see, every mailing list has a ton of lurkers (i've been on my fair share of them and then some; sometimes active, sometimes lurking). Just because someone doesn't speak doesn't mean they're not there. One thing I've learned through my time training in my discipline is that you can often learn more from the silences than you do from the voices speaking. My hope is that through all of this we can perhaps bring down the rhetoric a little and tempt the silences to speak to us a little more. They have valuable insights, too. -Christine (gets a little poetic when it gets late. sorry guys :)) (and by the way, this is just little me with a cat on her lap talking, not WMF employee talking) --------- Christine Moellenberndt Community Associate Wikimedia Foundation christine(a)wikimedia.org On 2/16/11 10:43 PM, Jon Davis wrote:

Christine Moellenberndt wrote: I don't think people demand perfection. They do demand, for better or worse, a very high level of transparency and openness from Wikimedia, though. That isn't just "do it first, report it later"; it means involving the community (or at least notifying the community) when things are being considered, big and small. Seeking the community's input, listening to and engaging the community, etc. When that isn't done, when people do things privately or secretly without community consultation or discussion, it breeds distrust and, yes, eventually it leads to people forming conclusions about others' motivations and intentions. I think that's largely natural and reasonable, given the circumstances. But it's also fairly easy to address. I'm obviously more than a bit biased here, but I'd say that a good percentage of the criticisms on this list and elsewhere stem from some lack of transparency, openness, or dialogue. Maybe I'm off the mark, though. I'm quite interested if you see something similar or something different here. Acknowledging mistakes goes a long way toward dispersing distrust, I've found. Not that nobody at Wikimedia has ever acknowledged a mistake, but it seems to be a crucial step that's missing from your chronology. MZMcBride

Something which might be worth bearing in mind is that (sfaiaa!) everyone involved with the projects - staff and volunteer alike - use a consistent attribution. In many companies, where staff will have interactions with non-staff in a purely online environment, they are required to maintain two identities: one 'real' for 'official' work and one 'fake' when they want to interact as an individual. I certainly recall having to do this when working on msn and I believe that such official-but-sortof-sockpuppet is nowhere near as open as what WMF staffers are displaying, which is to all our (ie. us readers) benefit. Alison ps. Yes, I'm aware there have been specific exceptions to this in the past, but that was some years ago now.

Not quite so. I've just been working at the "community department" and indeed, it does include quite a large proportion from the community. When I was there, Steve Walling was around, two people from Russian community were working in the community department for a week, Seddon from enwiki and Wikimedia UK was visiting in a few days. Alison dropped by to that department as did a couple of others. There were others but I didn't get all the names. For the most part, they were trying to do the most with their time so lists took a back seat. Most people here - whether foundation staff, community, or other list members - have a real life to get on with as well. When it gets busy, routine mailing list chatter is not a priority; doing the job is. The office staff work heavily, I didn't see people there with time to kick around on a list like this except at the cost of ignoring other priorities. One suggestion I made was that, since communication between office and community is so critical, it might be worth the foundation employing one person at the office purely for community/office liaison (via this list, on Meta, etc). In other words their role is to be at the office and responsive to the community on lists and wikis, ensure community questions and concerns are addressed or not lost, where other staff may not be able to do so as fully as some would wish. It'd cost, but it may well be worth it. Worthwhile? Or wasteful? FT2 On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 4:29 PM, whothis <whothith(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 2/17/11 9:23 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: Actually, we already do this. I make a point of visiting AN, AN/I, RfA, Village pump, and at least glance at the conversations on 11 mailing lists several times throughout my day (or tease out certain threads if I can't read everything at once). I try to hit the equivalents on the other projects as well on a regular basis. That's in addition to everything else I do each day. If I see something that's noteworthy, I make sure Philippe, Zack, somebody is aware of what's going on. Philippe does similar (at least while he's not vacationing, or maybe he still is knowing him!). I also watched the Arbcom election, and I'm watching the Steward one as well. And when I have the time (which hasn't been often lately, unfortunately) I hang out in IRC as well. So yes, we do know what's going on. We may not catch everything in a community this big, but we do try to keep an idea of what folks are talking about not only on things that affect the Foundation, but trends in the broader community that maybe we can help with (new software patches, maybe a project to see why things are a certain way [like the new editor decline], etc.). -Christine ------- Christine Moellenberndt Community Associate Wikimedia Foundation christine(a)wikimedia.org

On 17 February 2011 18:49, whothis <whothith(a)gmail.com> wrote: WT:RFA tends to be pretty wide ranging and WP:AN/I is one of the places major flareups can begin (although I would generally suggest that tracking WP:AN is more efficient) WP:AN/I is however very much on the coalface of en.wikipedia. If you want to know what problems are cropping on a day to basis that is the kind of thing you need to pay attention to rather than the rather more abstracted mailing lists. Thats true of pretty much everything though. With the number of policies listed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_policies The weakings who sleep or do silly things like actually edit the article pages are going to miss stuff. Sure this will sometimes result in you staring blearily at a deletion log wondering why CSD#T2 has come back to life (answer it means something different now) but that is pretty unavoidable. -- geni

----- Original Message ---- You are really off-base with that suggestion. Community-wise the staff exists to support the Wikimedia communities in fulfilling the vision that the community members developed for the WMF before there were enough staff to have anyone assigned to a "Community Department:" department. Their role is not to enable enWP to overcome its unique brand of dysfunction, nor to enable any of the communities with each of their unique dysfunctional aspects. Experienced community members need to monitor their local wiki community pages (maybe the Village Pump, maybe the Scriptorium. maybe Talk:Main Page), any noticeboards that exist locally, any misc governance activity. Obviously in most cases their will be many members doing this rotating in in out of various levels of activity over time. These people need to work to ensure local concerns, especially uniquely local concerns, are resolved locally. However whether causally or in an organized fashion, that group of experienced community pulse keepers would be wise to make certain they have at least one person who is both assertive and comfortable with communicating in English subscribed to Foundation-l. In large communities that have a great deal of mistrust at least one experienced member of each quasi-faction should probably do this independent of the other quasi-factions. Ideally these subscribed local pulse-keepers should be able to keep the pulse of WMF solely by subscribing here but it may be a good idea to watch-list certain pages on Meta with email-alerts. Currently Meta-Wikimedians are very good at alerting local communities to anything relevant, but that always could change. Foundation-l is very bad about alerting local communities in a timely fashion. Often someone will post a decided opinion on the local wiki when the thread is in its death-throes here. This is just as much the result of the mailing-list moving very fast as is due any lack of sensitivity among subscribers. Since more sensitive people tend to move even slower than those who less thoughtful of their tone, the first contact invariably ends up being from someone who is more oblivious as to the effect the tone of their communication will have in the local communities. So there especially a need for pre-emptive subscription. So the experienced members of local communities really need to subscribe and keep the local communities informed of any WMF developments that may impact their communities while people are still open-minded about the issue. They also would be wise to try and judge what local concerns seemed to be common across the many communities plugged into foundation-l and decide if bring outside attention to such concerns will do more help than harm. I suspect that just like I did, many of the people here who resemble that description of "pulse-keepers" have joined this list after someone with strong opinions posted a notice locally about what they believed foundation-l had decided was wrong with the way their community had been handling some issue. In my case, the thing which made me realize I needed to join list or else see en.WS interests being trampled without much thought was David Gerard's posting his take on the copyright considerations at en.WS with regard to the UK law prohibiting Fox Hunting link to the foundation-l archives. Of course everyone at en.WS thought he was someone kind of official from the foundation, that the discussions on this list were binding, and while being a little cross at the tone complied right away with a swath of deletions. Later we realized that he was not so official after-all, nor is what is found in the foundation-l archives any sort of edict, nor was the particular interpretation he espoused for the copyright issue the complete story. Many works were restored, people for a time were very bitter and mistrustful towards outsiders and wanted more than anything be non-communicative of local questions with WMF, as it seemed encouraging *them* to ignore *us* was the best that could be hoped for from dealing with WMF. I joined foundation-l to advocate for en.WS interests, to act as an early-warning system for the community when en.WS was receiving attention, and because I wished help create a framework where en.WS being ignored (i.e. left alone) was not the best that could be hoped for from WMF. After a few more experiences similar to the Fox-Hunting edict debacle I came to realize we were still largely under-estimating how unofficial everything regarding foundation-l really was and I became determined to do my best to advocate for all the communities that have yet to discover how badly they will be trampled if they do not keep the pulse of WMF for themselves. There are certainly other things which foundation-l could be very useful for. Many of them. But the bridging issue is one that is rather hard to replicate without foundation-l. In some cases, where the correlation is strong chapters have stepped in. But universally speaking that is no more workable than asking WMF to employ staff to track on the local discussions, noticeboards, and governance pages on every project in every language. I truly believe the mis-communications that occur without such bridging does more damage to WMF than anything else I can think of. It is what led to the Spanish fork and it is why people are laughed off of en.WS for attempting to directly tell us how to handle an issue of almost any kind. When people using the title of Wikimedian and referring the possible actions they will have WMF take to ensure they are listened to have forced massive changes in the communities . . . When community leaders coax, prod, and use every bit of political capitol they can muster to get their community to buy into said changes. . . When dedicated people leave or simply lose their previous level of dedication over such changes . . . And then it is discovered the changes were unnecessary and may be reversed at will. And this happens once, twice, three times. That damage is immense. I joined this list because the sheer waste in cleaning up the first round of damage in a community I loved made me quite angry . . . The guilt over falling for the same false arguments a second time made me nauseous , , , And the derision shown toward outsiders who tried to use those false arguments yet again made me pity them. I have always felt I was running interference here. On one hand trying to prevent my community from being trampled by some blind elephant and the other trying to keep the elephant from stepping in the pile of shit one of their herd-mates deposited they last time the herd was in our vicinity. That is what the WMF loses when they decide they would rather ignore troll-l. They lose the help of thoughtful people who can see the big-picture and are willing to run interference to protect WMF. Because it neither in WMFs interests to trample its own communities nor to have its associates step in a big pile of elephant shit. But such people can be of no use when there is no warning given of what is upcoming. The occasions were I was unable to be of much use in a protective role were more recent than not and didn't move through foundation-l. Whether they incubated on some closed list , on a wiki I merely don't frequent, or they ran straight through the gossip network to spring into life formed like Athena, I have no idea. But the incidents were ugly all around and no one walked a way happy. In regard to how much damage unofficial Wikimedians can manage, I think things have gotten significantly worse. When there is so little transparency over what positions WMF is developing *anyone* can go to an unfamiliar communities and convincingly claim that their pet decisions will be backed by a board resolution if they really must go get one or that the wiki will be shut down by WMF if the community does not adopt their pet reforms. Such misguided Wikimedians can actually believe these statements to be true. I have heard both kinds of statements more than once from several different people who were neither stewards nor staff, in completely different circumstances. I have no doubt that those making such statements sincerely believed they could achieve what they stated if it was really necessary. That is how opaque WMF operations and developing positions are and how very long a time they have been opaque. Reasonable, caring, intelligent dedicated, Wikimedians can be that misguided in how things work. They can truly believe that there can be no relevant information that they are missing. That there is no argument nor explanation an unfamiliar community could present that would shift anyone's opinion in an open discussion. That they believe the outcome of the dispute is so completely certain that the community need not waste time further educating itself about the dispute nor explaining their position to them, but just comply. It would be funny if it were not so unbelievably sad. For the record how things really work, when things are working well, is as follows. There is valid process. All stakeholders understand the methods of this process and have access to those who are responsible for implementing the chosen method. The issues working their way through the process are consistently advertised and updated through the same reliable channels. In order for the process to be a valid process all advertised outcomes are possible results. (i.e. if anyone could truly know the result before the process is applied then it is not a valid process). Whether that options are that all content classified as Foo is prohibited or accepted or accepted after special review, that Bar is banned from Wikiland inclusive overriding local communities or not, or that X number of WMF offices will be opened in cities within either A, B, or C. No results that WMF is unwilling to accept can be offered as part of the process and no results that win through the process can refused by WMF. If that process is that everyone has three weeks to privately email Sue Gardner their thoughts on five different proposals and then she sits down on Friday morning with her notes and picks and announces whichever proposal she judges best by noon; that is a valid process. Having a valid process doesn't mean having a poll or a public discussion or losing control over the decision. Just setting up basic expectations and conforming to them. A valid process can be as simple as a dictator deciding, but what makes the process valid is that everyone understands *who* the dictator is, *where* the dictator can be reached, *what* the dictator is pondering, and *when* the dictator is going decide the issue. Notice I left out why. That point is relatively unimportant and does not need really need to be explained when there is a valid process, narrow the choices by weighted point system and then flip a coin if the top choices that fall within a single point or be moved by passion and organization of one particular advocate's email campaign. It really doesn't matter so long as the other information given for a valid process is accurate and upheld. People always say they care most about why when there is no valid process, but they are mistaken. People really care most about feeling that they know who is in charge, that they have been heard, that their preference had a chance of winning, and that they can have confidence in when they will know what is going to happen in the future. Satisfy those criteria without even explaining why and the largest majority of criticism will evaporate. I don't mean to say why does not matter at all. But none of us would be if we where not committed to a large number of the same basic principles. So given the common ground within Wikimedia, the why of decisions are relatively unimportant. Since they are the most sensitive pieces and often impossible to be 100% transparent about in public without disrespecting people, voiding contracts, scaring off partners, etc., it is best to ignore that aspect beyond the general answer (i.e. Why-to fulfill our mission provide the sum of all human knowledge to everyone on the planet) Focus on easy aspects of the process the bring no ugly unintended consequences and watch the criticism of decision making evaporate like morning mist. And I am not recommending a dictatorial process. First and foremost dictators don't scale, so huge inefficiencies abound. But the point is that if a dictator can be set-up in a way the satisfies the *how* criteria of a valid process . Any *how* for making decisions can be set-up as a valid process, different ways of deciding different categories of decisions can all be set-up as a part of valid process. The point saying a valid *how* could be a dictator or flipping a coin, is to show that WMF does not need to give up any control over decisions to institute a valid process. WMF only needs to plan and document whatever decision process they are comfortable with to have a valid process. Sorry for the massive soapbox here. I don't know how articulate this really turned out I have gone over it too many times now. I wanted to offer my experiences and observations. I realize they are extremely subjective. I don't pretend that the samples of incidents I used to illustrate how my experiences led me to hold the positions I do can only be seen in the way I have interpreted. I wrote what I recall, based most strongly on what I recall *feeling*, about the events. I did not check histories and verify things. I do not mean to suggest my viewpoint on these incidents is the authoritative account of what happened. I have merely described one of, surely, many valid viewpoints of these events; the viewpoint that most deeply influenced me. I know people had good intentions and no one set out to cause the any harm. I don't mean for anyone to be embarrassed if they recognize themselves at all. I don't know if I should have taken out your name, David. I thought about it after I realized I never recalled as much detail about the other examples. But I left it because I am so certain that you are thickly skinned. I guess just natural that you remember your first rude-awakening to some discrepancy between the world as you initially imagined itt and, as I have seen on blogger name it, "Objective Fucking Reality" much more strongly than the incidents where the discrepancy is repeatedly confirmed. Even if the other incidents are more egregious. tl;dr WMF making use of foundation-l to develop upcoming positions gains all parties an early warning of problems and a chance for thoughtful people who care about the big picture to help make mutually beneficial adjustments. . . Merely announcing fixed decisions makes it more likely the WMF will commit itself to some deeply flawed framework which the communities will fail to ever flesh out, . . And hands the dialogue directly to the elements of the communities who have quick, strong, and negative reactions to the decision . . . And empowers misguided Wikimedians who are confident in their desired result and blinded by short-term considerations to damage unfamiliar communities that do things differently than such Wikimedians would prefer.. Plus this copied from above For the record how things really work, when things are working successfully, is as follows. There is valid process. All stakeholders understand the methods of this process and have access to those who are responsible for implementing the chosen method. The issues working their way through the process are consistently advertised and updated through the same reliable channels. In order for the process to be a valid process all advertised outcomes are possible results. (i.e. if anyone could truly know the result before the process is applied then it is not a valid process). Whether that options are that all content classified as Foo is prohibited or accepted or accepted after special review, that Bar is banned from Wikiland inclusive overriding local communities or not, or that X number of WMF offices will be opened in cities within either A, B, or C. No results that WMF is unwilling to accept can be offered as part of the process and no results that win through the process can refused by WMF. If that process is that everyone has three weeks to privately email Sue Gardner their thoughts on five different proposals and then she sits down on Friday morning with her notes and picks and announces whichever proposal she judges best by noon; that is a valid process. Having a valid process doesn't mean having a poll or a public discussion or losing control over the decision. Just setting up basic expectations and conforming to them. Birgitte SB

----- Original Message ---- his That is because it wasn't you. Some other David. In fact was a bit on a conflation of three seperate rounds of copyright discussions over a year and a half. And the first one regarding the work I mentioned was actually very uncontroversial; although it was quite incorrect. Strangely someone actually pointed out the correct argument against deletion in that first (and as far as I can tell only the first) discussion but that explanation wasn't absorbed and was treated as and novel revelation two years later leading to restorations. I am an idiot for posting such specific recollections of something that happened *six* years ago without researching it. I spent about an hour thinking "five more minutes of revising and then I going to bed and will read it again in the morning" and five minutes thinking "Forget it; I am not reading this one more time" And of course the latter thought was implemented. I am sorry for involving your name so carelessly (and obviously incorrectly). As they say "competence will excuse almost anything", but even if it had been accurate I would still have been wrong to be so careless. Sorry Birgitte SB

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 9:23 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: And it's worth pointing out the obvious -- the reason there are so many places is because it's nearly impossible to keep up with *everything* going on in the communit(ies)* all the time. Even a subset of that discussion can be too much for those of us trying to get other things done as well; most of the subscribees of the list probably skim it at least some of the time. And the vast majority of our community is not even on Foundation-l.... but a pretty large percentage (I'd guess) of those people who interested in governance, foundation and meta-issues probably are subscribed, which is just one of the reasons why it's worth trying to make it a useful forum -- a perennial hope and dream! collegially, Phoebe * projects in 270 languages, chapters, wmf, etc.

On 2/18/2011 12:38 PM, Zack Exley wrote: In my experience, it's actually mostly community members frustrated with the quality of discussions who call it that. The staff avoid that kind of tone, understandably, as it might seem unprofessional. Personally, I prefer not to suggest that anyone is a troll, except for Domas (he likes it). --Michael Snow

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 10:44 PM, FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think you missed my point, I meant people employed at the "community department", I only went by the staff page. From the 9 people currently listed in that department, there are apparently only 2 people from the community in the community department. Some of the titles, I admit seem rather vague and not necessarily related to anything with the community at all. The two people from the community, Steven Walling being one of them has already mentioned on another thread that his position is temporary and ends in a few months. As for Philippe Beaudette, the only thing I know about him is that he enacted the OTRS identification policy while leaving for vacation, and apparently no one else from the "community department" knew anything about it except him. I never referred to the visitors, who I believe have been visiting prior to the formation of the "community department". Well, it's feedback related to their work. Sometimes its a direct reaction to what they are doing, I would argue that this list should be a priority in that regard. The foundation needs to do a lot of things, to start with some clarification about the supposed departments and titles. It all seems rather vague from the staff page. I have already stated that there is a huge communication gap between the community and the foundation, this list merely seems to be employed for announcements by staff members. But again, I doubt anyone cares for my opinion since this is troll-l. Elizabeth -- Sorry my karma ran over your dogma.

On 2/17/11 8:29 AM, whothis wrote: Actually, I'd like to beg to differ here. I have been to conferences where questions have been asked publicly to a panel. If the question seems too off topic for the general audience, or too specific for the general audience, the panel member being questioned will generally defer to answering the question after the main panel discussion is over. Then the two get together and talk it out "off-panel" if you will. At least in my discipline, I've not seen anyone get upset over it (I'm usually grateful that it happened :) And oftentimes the asker is pleased as well because it gives more time to get their question answered fully). If it was a question I was also interested in, I'll go and talk to the panelist/question asker myself as well. Or, if the audience disagrees, someone else will chime up "Actually I'd like to know that too," or "That's a valid question that maybe should be answered here." And it goes into that forum. But usually, it stays off-panel. Or maybe my discipline is weird :) (wait, I knew that already.) You would be surprised to know how many people in the Foundation as a whole, including the Community department (and a BUNCH of the folks working on the fundraiser), come out of the community, including the Deputy Director and the Head of Reader Relations (who I report directly to) among others. And even if we don't come out of THIS community, some of us come out of other online communities. Which can give a fresh perspective and alleviate tunnel vision. Which, to my mind, is all to the good. -Christine --------- Christine Moellenberndt Community Associate Wikimedia Foundation christine(a)wikimedia.org

On 02/17/11 10:16 AM, Christine Moellenberndt wrote: I agree with whois on this point. My first impression was that it was a thoroughly uninteresting question from government another trivial bureaucratic requirement. I relished the idea that this would be an easy thread to delete. The community on this list never takes kindly to being peremptorily told by one individual that an answer to a question asked on this list doesn't belong here. Other community members did effectively say "Actually I'd like to know that too." Trying to rationalize why it was taken off list only made matters worse. Absent an affirmative reason for keeping something like this off list there is a lot less heat generated by a direct answer that is as full as you can make it, or simply promising to look into the question. Most who then respond at all may even thank you as they get into a brief discussion of the substance. When they do that it is their discussion, and no longer your responsibility. Valid criticism restricts itself to the points at hand. It is done with a view to preventing the perceived problem from recurring should the occasion arise. It is not about some generalization about the way someone does her job when no facts are on the table about anything but one incident. Nor is it helpful if someone else perceives the discussion as extending beyond the bounds of valid criticism. Alluding to multiple unspecified instances of excessive criticism only turns up the heat without turning on the lights; it sounds more like the shrewish wife who can't let go of the one time a month ago when her lazy husband forgot to do the dishes. Ec

On 16/02/11 23:52, Nathan wrote: Or the bunch of troll and unfriendly users there can go back to editing the wikis :-) -- Ashar [edit] Voultoiz

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 1:40 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: See: http://www.section508.gov/ Refers to a plan for compliance with a regulation designed to force federally funded software products/services to be accessible for people with disabilities.

Hoi, Given that Unites States government agencies do use MediaWiki, it is quite a relevant question. Given that we provide such an important service on a worldwide scale, I would be interested in learning the answer to the question. Is that possible ? In the final analysis we can only achieve our aims well when we achieve highly in this respect. Thanks, GerardM On 16 February 2011 19:43, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Spreading free knowledge implies a good free knowledge infrastructure, including reputable free knowledge tools. We don't need the US govt to use any given software, it pays to make it as widely usable and not block ourselves from any major group who might want to try using Mediawiki. Not least 1/ the US govt is not the only such body (other groups receiving federal funds?) and 2/ we ourselves have a genuine interest in ensuring we think hard how those with disabilities experience Wikimedia in everyday use, when creating our platform. FT2 On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 7:51 AM, Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de> wrote:

On 20 February 2011 13:09, aude <aude.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yep. 508 compliance for software is considered simply good practice, even if you don't *have* to apply it. +1 - d.

Hoi, The United States government uses MediaWiki in several places. When you consider that most of the money donated to the Wikimedia Foundation is given by Americans and, when you consider that complying with a standard for usability is something that is a strategic goal, I do understand your pov but I do not agree. What we can do is check out to what extend we already comply. Given that we have several visually impaired editors even admins, the quality of our software is not that bad. Understanding what needs to be improved to comply with a standard like VPAT gives us a measurable goal to realise what is a strategic goal. By inviting the American government to work with us on this, we may even find that given that MediaWiki is Open Source / Free Software the government will do the testing for us. All in all, I advocate to use the question "to what extend does MediaWiki comply with VPAT" as an opportunity. Thanks, GerardM On 20 February 2011 08:51, Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de> wrote:

On 20 February 2011 13:56, Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de> wrote: Government use of MediaWiki is strongly to our advantage, as this may lead to extensions to the software to the advantage of all. Thus, making the software more US government friendly directly assists what we do. Are there other governments with accessibility specifications? If so, we should investigate the feasibility of compliance with those also. - d.