So I had an enormously unsatisfying experience in the recent steward elections, and I'm hoping there might be some lessons learned from this going forward. I don't spend much time on Meta, notwithstanding the fact that im almost inexplicably mentioned at the top of the Live mirrors page the only visits I make to meta are for votes on presumably now deleted pages, and even that hasn't been for some years. My en.wiki account is substantially older (edited since 2004, registered since 2005) and more active (thousand of edits versus a few on meta) so I freely confess that I may be a little out of the loop in how Meta works, but i think most voters are, we are funneled here through election notices. My userpage has had a link to my home wiki since 2007. That's the only thing on the page. I voted in the Steward elections when I saw a name I recognized on the list. He was an employee of the foundation and a personal friend of mine and I was very pleased to see him running considering how helpful he's been to me through the years. I pay no more attention to this process before coming back to check election results to find out my vote was struck. No warning a day before close or similar, no note or even bot-posted warning template. This is frankly ridiculous. In something as important as a Steward Election our determining the will of the community seems pretty willing to cut out parts of the community without giving an opportunity to correct any technical issues with the casting of the vote. I've been discussing things with the admin who struck it, and while there's nothing wrong with his responses, he's not being very helpful in correcting this for the future, and being vague about what the requirements are for verification. I was told i needed both a link from meta to my home wiki and from my home to meta, i added the half that was missing (an edit made by me to the top of my talkpage on en giving my account name on meta, stating i am that account and providing a link) still wasnt sufficient but not informing me what more I'd have to provide to insure disenfranchisement doesn't occur.
Quite simply, if we give a rats ass what the community thinks we need to come up with a better system for measuring it.
Refs: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dungodung#Possibly_inappropriate_vo... http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mask
--Brock
Hoi,
You have been told that you need to make a back link from your home wiki to the Meta account as well, if you don't have a global account (because everyone can link to a certain enwiki account on their Meta userpage and the real user won't notice it, but on your user page on enwiki people are unlikely to edit without your consent, don't you think? ;o) The link on Meta is still necessary to identify you so that people can find your home wiki user page.) That's a very simple thing, the people must be able to verify (at least to a certain extend) that you are indeed that user on enwiki, which they were not obviously, so your vote was correctly marked invalid. For the next one, just get yourself an SUL account and vote with that, or add a link on enwiki to your Meta account, and everything is fine. :o)
Th.
2011/3/7 brock.weller@gmail.com brock.weller@gmail.com:
So I had an enormously unsatisfying experience in the recent steward elections, and I'm hoping there might be some lessons learned from this going forward. I don't spend much time on Meta, notwithstanding the fact that im almost inexplicably mentioned at the top of the Live mirrors page the only visits I make to meta are for votes on presumably now deleted pages, and even that hasn't been for some years. My en.wiki account is substantially older (edited since 2004, registered since 2005) and more active (thousand of edits versus a few on meta) so I freely confess that I may be a little out of the loop in how Meta works, but i think most voters are, we are funneled here through election notices. My userpage has had a link to my home wiki since 2007. That's the only thing on the page. I voted in the Steward elections when I saw a name I recognized on the list. He was an employee of the foundation and a personal friend of mine and I was very pleased to see him running considering how helpful he's been to me through the years. I pay no more attention to this process before coming back to check election results to find out my vote was struck. No warning a day before close or similar, no note or even bot-posted warning template. This is frankly ridiculous. In something as important as a Steward Election our determining the will of the community seems pretty willing to cut out parts of the community without giving an opportunity to correct any technical issues with the casting of the vote. I've been discussing things with the admin who struck it, and while there's nothing wrong with his responses, he's not being very helpful in correcting this for the future, and being vague about what the requirements are for verification. I was told i needed both a link from meta to my home wiki and from my home to meta, i added the half that was missing (an edit made by me to the top of my talkpage on en giving my account name on meta, stating i am that account and providing a link) still wasnt sufficient but not informing me what more I'd have to provide to insure disenfranchisement doesn't occur.
Quite simply, if we give a rats ass what the community thinks we need to come up with a better system for measuring it.
Refs: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dungodung#Possibly_inappropriate_vo... http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mask
--Brock
On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.comwrote: | That's a very simple thing,
the people must be able to verify (at least to a certain extend) that you are indeed that user on enwiki, which they were not obviously, so your vote was correctly marked invalid. For the next one, just get yourself an SUL account and vote with that, or add a link on enwiki to your Meta account, and everything is fine. :o)
Sure, it's very simple if know about meta and the steward election process and went into detail. In this case we have AKMask not following the letter of the law to a T, but certainly the spirit in stopping into support a candidate as a long-time English Wikipedian.
So often on this list we talk about the reception of new users and the various ways the wikis operate regarding such. But rarely (comparitively speaking) do we discuss such biting of other Wikimedians by stopping by another project. Each one has its own pitfalls in receiving new users whether it's uploading images, editing another language wiki when you aren't fluent in the language if that's not an accepted community norm to work with in content creation, not knowing en.wp's 32x3^10 policies, guidelines, and other rulings, or the eight million other reasons a user would become disenfranchised with a project after spare usage. AKMask was making a genuine vote in the steward election and was (fairly, by rule) disqualified because of the rule. That doesn't make it right in terms of making sense as an outsider to meta, the hub of Wikimedia, but still very much invested on a Wikimedia Project. It's akin to being on a colony and coming home to vote only to be informed that the rules were set up while you were on the voyage "home". I'm good at bad comparisons.
The email shouldn't be discounted as "try again next time and follow these simple rules". The issue is fundamental to interwiki relations.
Indeed, you've hit the nail on the head. In the talkpage exchange I already accepted this election is tallied. This is more about fixing the election process now. Something as simple as using a bot to template all non-qualified votes pointing to an easy to follow list of whats needed to achieve technical compliance during a, say, 3-day vote freeze following an election, or even 3 days before it closes would easily be sufficient I think. -Brock
On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Thomas Goldammer <thogol@googlemail.com
wrote:
| That's a very simple thing,
the people must be able to verify (at least to a certain extend) that you are indeed that user on enwiki, which they were not obviously, so your vote was correctly marked invalid. For the next one, just get yourself an SUL account and vote with that, or add a link on enwiki to your Meta account, and everything is fine. :o)
Sure, it's very simple if know about meta and the steward election process and went into detail. In this case we have AKMask not following the letter of the law to a T, but certainly the spirit in stopping into support a candidate as a long-time English Wikipedian.
So often on this list we talk about the reception of new users and the various ways the wikis operate regarding such. But rarely (comparitively speaking) do we discuss such biting of other Wikimedians by stopping by another project. Each one has its own pitfalls in receiving new users whether it's uploading images, editing another language wiki when you aren't fluent in the language if that's not an accepted community norm to work with in content creation, not knowing en.wp's 32x3^10 policies, guidelines, and other rulings, or the eight million other reasons a user would become disenfranchised with a project after spare usage. AKMask was making a genuine vote in the steward election and was (fairly, by rule) disqualified because of the rule. That doesn't make it right in terms of making sense as an outsider to meta, the hub of Wikimedia, but still very much invested on a Wikimedia Project. It's akin to being on a colony and coming home to vote only to be informed that the rules were set up while you were on the voyage "home". I'm good at bad comparisons.
The email shouldn't be discounted as "try again next time and follow these simple rules". The issue is fundamental to interwiki relations.
-- ~Keegan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:54 PM, brock.weller@gmail.com brock.weller@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, you've hit the nail on the head. In the talkpage exchange I already accepted this election is tallied. This is more about fixing the election process now. Something as simple as using a bot to template all non-qualified votes pointing to an easy to follow list of whats needed to achieve technical compliance during a, say, 3-day vote freeze following an election, or even 3 days before it closes would easily be sufficient I think.
It might be a bit tricky for a bot to automatically find all the struck votes afterwards.
Another solution, which might be easier to implement, is for a bot to check every contributor to the voting pages for compliance, and notify any contributor who doesn't have a cross-linked account.
-- John Vandenberg
From what I can tell from the now-closed election page all struck votes have
a standard not qualified template following them, I was figuring on having it look for that. Your implementation sounds workable as well though and it really doesnt matter, they would both seem to address the issue and provide a simple 'somethings not right, fix it' red flag for a user that would (presumably) be interested in making sure they get things right. -Brock
On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 8:18 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:54 PM, brock.weller@gmail.com brock.weller@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, you've hit the nail on the head. In the talkpage exchange I
already
accepted this election is tallied. This is more about fixing the election process now. Something as simple as using a bot to template all non-qualified votes pointing to an easy to follow list of whats needed to achieve technical compliance during a, say, 3-day vote freeze following
an
election, or even 3 days before it closes would easily be sufficient I think.
It might be a bit tricky for a bot to automatically find all the struck votes afterwards.
Another solution, which might be easier to implement, is for a bot to check every contributor to the voting pages for compliance, and notify any contributor who doesn't have a cross-linked account.
-- John Vandenberg
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:18 AM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Another solution, which might be easier to implement, is for a bot to check every contributor to the voting pages for compliance, and notify any contributor who doesn't have a cross-linked account.
Or we could just use the SecurePoll extension that is used for board elections and enwiki ArbCom elections. The extension would bar people who did not meet the requirements from voting at all.
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:51 PM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
Or we could just use the SecurePoll extension that is used for board elections and enwiki ArbCom elections. The extension would bar people who did not meet the requirements from voting at all.
Can we keep the election open while using the SecurePoll?
--vvv
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Victor Vasiliev vasilvv@gmail.com wrote:
Can we keep the election open while using the SecurePoll?
I'm not sure, but do we need to keep it open? IIRC, there was some opposition to using open voting during this last election.
A second solution could be the return of the verification edit... I vaguely recall needing to provide a diff with an edit summary stating 'I am xx on whatever wiki'. Storing a link to that from meta keeps all needed information on meta. The sticking point with the steward im discussing becoming compliant with is that my en link back to meta is on top of my usertalk page and not my user page, which is rather silly. -Brock
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Victor Vasiliev vasilvv@gmail.com wrote:
Can we keep the election open while using the SecurePoll?
I'm not sure, but do we need to keep it open? IIRC, there was some opposition to using open voting during this last election.
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
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NO ENTIENDO INGLES . POR FAVOR ESPAÑOL...GRACIAS
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 07:21:00 -0900 From: brock.weller@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Steward election issues
A second solution could be the return of the verification edit... I vaguely recall needing to provide a diff with an edit summary stating 'I am xx on whatever wiki'. Storing a link to that from meta keeps all needed information on meta. The sticking point with the steward im discussing becoming compliant with is that my en link back to meta is on top of my usertalk page and not my user page, which is rather silly. -Brock
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Victor Vasiliev vasilvv@gmail.com wrote:
Can we keep the election open while using the SecurePoll?
I'm not sure, but do we need to keep it open? IIRC, there was some opposition to using open voting during this last election.
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
MARIA DE LOS ANGELES HERRERA GARCIA wrote:
NO ENTIENDO INGLES . POR FAVOR ESPAÑOL...GRACIAS
Don't write in all caps, please. And stop complaining about people writing in a language different than your own. Shouting isn't going to change that.
The fact that many threads on this list (and at Meta-Wiki) are in English is an inevitable (albeit unfortunate) reality given the user base. If you want a basic idea of what's being said, try an online translator; e.g., http://translate.google.com/.
MZMcBride
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 8:55 PM, MARIA DE LOS ANGELES HERRERA GARCIA meriaherrerag@live.com.mx wrote:
NO ENTIENDO INGLES . POR FAVOR ESPAÑOL...GRACIAS
Hola, Maria,
Hablamos inglés en esta lista. Quizás usted prefiere la lista de la Wikipedia en español, que se encuentra en https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikies-l.
Lo siento, pero Ud. está prohibido de esta lista ahora.
Austin
2011/3/8 Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com:
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 8:55 PM, MARIA DE LOS ANGELES HERRERA GARCIA meriaherrerag@live.com.mx wrote:
NO ENTIENDO INGLES . POR FAVOR ESPAÑOL...GRACIAS
Hola, Maria,
Hablamos inglés en esta lista. Quizás usted prefiere la lista de la Wikipedia en español, que se encuentra en https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikies-l.
Lo siento, pero Ud. está prohibido de esta lista ahora.
Austin
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
However... wikies-l is about spanish wikipedia issues, and certainly not the place to talk with people related to foundation/wikimedia global matters.
I understand the ban, but it only highlights the underlying problems for communication in a multilingual community: channels become monolongual and those not knowing the language will just not be able to participate
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 11:04 PM, Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com wrote:
However... wikies-l is about spanish wikipedia issues, and certainly not the place to talk with people related to foundation/wikimedia global matters.
No, certainly not. But given that she typed "NO ENTIENDO" several times, in all caps, I'm not sure she intended to be here in the first place. At the very least, wikies-l could point her in the right direction.
I understand the ban, but it only highlights the underlying problems for communication in a multilingual community: channels become monolongual and those not knowing the language will just not be able to participate
This is certainly a problem, and not unique to Wikimedia. Better automatic translation software certainly helps, but only if you are willing and able to use it. I think most of the people on this list are willing, but senders like Maria frequently aren't able.
Austin
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 11:21 AM, brock.weller@gmail.com brock.weller@gmail.com wrote:
A second solution could be the return of the verification edit... I vaguely recall needing to provide a diff with an edit summary stating 'I am xx on whatever wiki'. Storing a link to that from meta keeps all needed information on meta. The sticking point with the steward im discussing becoming compliant with is that my en link back to meta is on top of my usertalk page and not my user page, which is rather silly.
That is pretty silly, but if we're being fair, so is the fact that you still don't have a global account. ;-) That would really make everything so much easier!
Why don't we just write in our respective native language, all of us. XD Would make communication much funnier, I guess. :p
Th.
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