The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently, the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions. While we value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able to override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be spent towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if participating requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and moderators to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand
Having a global and diverse movement means finding value, albeit implicitly, in diversity (of language, sex, gender, culture, pov). The NPOV is not a "null" concept: it means giving weight to different point of views, merge them together to find a balanced article on something.
Mostly, we as a movement (and WMF, as staff, is part of that) can remain apolitical: not when there are things that shake the foundations of our values and what we believe in.
Daring to build a free, open, collective, diverse, international, neutral encyclopedia in a volunteer, auto-organized, bazaar-like way is one of the *most* political and ideological statement I've ever encountered in my life.
The MuslimBan can affect volunteers or staff at the WMF, it goes against everything we believe in. So, to me, a blogpost in the Wikimedia blog is the minimum we can do. I, for one, am very proud of our staff and our ED for writing that.
Aubrey
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 10:09 PM, Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently, the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions. While we value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able to override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be spent towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if participating requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and moderators to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line? Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? Sent from my iPhone
On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently, the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions. While we value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able to override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be spent towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if participating requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and moderators to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view. The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to think about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral, has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes. That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite normal - not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech". A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF is making notable efforts in a context where advertising, non disclosed paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter. I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to start a genocide. This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach. We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans remind us of very dark memories. Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see it) Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a tweet! Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining silent.
Nattes à chat / Natacha
Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter osamadre@hotmail.com a écrit :
I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line? Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? Sent from my iPhone
On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently, the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions. While we value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able to override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be spent towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if participating requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and moderators to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
The WMF has an obligation to respond to any changes where its based that impact on the movement or potentially impact on the movement, and that includes staff members or operational activities under taken.
It cant respond to such changes without taking a POV regardless of the situation its not about the under lying politics.
On 3 February 2017 at 08:26, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view. The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to think about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral, has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes. That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite normal
- not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
speech". A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF is making notable efforts in a context where advertising, non disclosed paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter. I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to start a genocide. This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach. We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans remind us of very dark memories. Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see it) Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a tweet! Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining silent.
Nattes à chat / Natacha
Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter osamadre@hotmail.com a
écrit :
I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the
case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? Sent from my iPhone
On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse,
and
has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or
another
on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of
these
contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage
such
actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of
any
given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our
mission
due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants
because of
politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I
think a
stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia
Foundation
itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect
the
Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With
the
WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk
our
Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue
over
the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A
previous
ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than
accept
advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF
die
outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently, the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct
threats to
the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an
area
that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions.
While we
value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able
to
override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be
spent
towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if
participating
requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and
moderators
to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Here is my two cents: Most of criticism I saw boils down to these ones: - It's politics and we should not make political statements: It's not just political anymore, it's a humanitarian crisis. Handcuffing a five-year-old boy in airport because of the country he was born is inhumane. Let's not forget Holocaust was made by a democratic regime and it was completely legal. - There are worse things going on in other regimes: Yes, we have ISIS, mullahs in Iran, etc. but look at the impact. This ban caused hate crimes against Muslims all over the world. Terrorist attacks in Canada, setting fire mosques in Texas are all because of this simple ban. if humans stay silent, worse things happen to them. Let's learn from history. - People have different opinions, let's respect that: Yes, but Wikimedia movement has core values such as inclusiveness and we need to stand for those values when they are under threat. I take the gay rights example. If someone makes a homophobic comment, they should be banned (per WP:NPA). So if someone is as homophic AF and they want to be a part of the movement, they need to park it at the door when they edit because inclusiveness is a core value. One other core value is simply "Knowledge knows no boundaries" and we need to stand for that, political or not. - People in WMF voted for Trump: If that's true, which I don't know because anyone from WMF I know were publicly against Trump, It's very saddening to see someone who works for WMF votes for someone who practically opposed everything Wikimedia movement stands for. But It's a personal matter outside the scope of this discussion. WMF can take a stand when it's related to its values. Like what happened with SOPA and it is possible that some employees were for SOPA but it was not the reason not to take the stand. It's the same today as well.
May FSM bless you, Ramen. Best
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 4:11 AM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
The WMF has an obligation to respond to any changes where its based that impact on the movement or potentially impact on the movement, and that includes staff members or operational activities under taken.
It cant respond to such changes without taking a POV regardless of the situation its not about the under lying politics.
On 3 February 2017 at 08:26, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view. The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to
think
about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral, has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes. That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite
normal
- not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
speech". A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF is making notable efforts in a context where advertising, non disclosed paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter. I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to start a genocide. This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach. We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans remind us of very dark memories. Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see it) Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a
tweet!
Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining
silent.
Nattes à chat / Natacha
Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter osamadre@hotmail.com a
écrit :
I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the
case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? Sent from my iPhone
On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse,
and
has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or
another
on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of
these
contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage
such
actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half
of
any
given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our
mission
due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those
who
use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants
because of
politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for
an
environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded
by
hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of
no
return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain
country's
top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I
think a
stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects
is
warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia
Foundation
itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect
the
Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous.
With
the
WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk
our
Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue
over
the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A
previous
ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than
accept
advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF
die
outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More
recently,
the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct
threats to
the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an
area
that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions.
While we
value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be
able
to
override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be
spent
towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if
participating
requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and
moderators
to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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-- GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
After the ban was announced, StackOverflow founder Joel Spolsky posted an impassioned call to arms [1] to Meta Stack Overflow (the StackOverflow equivalent of MetaWiki/wikimedia-l). The community was not happy and a closing discussion was started. In the end the orginial post was closed and Spolsky agreed to rewrite it as a company blog post [2] instead. The discussion is IMO worth a read: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/342480/should-the-time-to-take-a-sta...
Another discussion that comes to mind is the straw poll [3] on the proposal to run a banner campaign to protest the imprisonment of Wikipedian and open source/content advocate Bassel Khartabil by the Syrian government. (The proposal was closed as lacking consensus.)
Both of these discussions are about community action, and it makes sense that the WMF would have more freedom in how it expresses itself when talking in its own name, on its own blog; still, the discussions might offer some insight into how community members often view political activism for specific local concerns that's sort of happening in the name of a global community.
[1] http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/342440/time-to-take-a-stand [2] https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/01/Developers-without-Borders-The-Global-Sta... [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_Bassel/Banner/Straw_poll
My opinions as a US-American, member of multiple marginalized groups (queer/black/trans), and "social justice warrior" (though I prefer "mage", being a pacifist):
- Having a truly "neutral point of view" when it comes to anything regarding Donald Trump is not really possible.
- I support and applaud Katherine Maher's statement on the WMF blog.
- Independent of the above, I don't think this mailing list should be open to just any and all discussion of politics, regardless of viewpoint. What is and isn't appropriate to post is a delicate judgment call that the moderators will have to make.
- Pax aka Funcrunch
On 2/2/17 5:26 PM, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Here is my two cents: Most of criticism I saw boils down to these ones:
- It's politics and we should not make political statements: It's not just
political anymore, it's a humanitarian crisis. Handcuffing a five-year-old boy in airport because of the country he was born is inhumane. Let's not forget Holocaust was made by a democratic regime and it was completely legal.
- There are worse things going on in other regimes: Yes, we have ISIS,
mullahs in Iran, etc. but look at the impact. This ban caused hate crimes against Muslims all over the world. Terrorist attacks in Canada, setting fire mosques in Texas are all because of this simple ban. if humans stay silent, worse things happen to them. Let's learn from history.
- People have different opinions, let's respect that: Yes, but Wikimedia
movement has core values such as inclusiveness and we need to stand for those values when they are under threat. I take the gay rights example. If someone makes a homophobic comment, they should be banned (per WP:NPA). So if someone is as homophic AF and they want to be a part of the movement, they need to park it at the door when they edit because inclusiveness is a core value. One other core value is simply "Knowledge knows no boundaries" and we need to stand for that, political or not.
- People in WMF voted for Trump: If that's true, which I don't know
because anyone from WMF I know were publicly against Trump, It's very saddening to see someone who works for WMF votes for someone who practically opposed everything Wikimedia movement stands for. But It's a personal matter outside the scope of this discussion. WMF can take a stand when it's related to its values. Like what happened with SOPA and it is possible that some employees were for SOPA but it was not the reason not to take the stand. It's the same today as well.
May FSM bless you, Ramen. Best
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 4:11 AM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
The WMF has an obligation to respond to any changes where its based that impact on the movement or potentially impact on the movement, and that includes staff members or operational activities under taken.
It cant respond to such changes without taking a POV regardless of the situation its not about the under lying politics.
On 3 February 2017 at 08:26, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view. The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to
think
about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral, has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes. That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite
normal
- not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
speech". A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF is making notable efforts in a context where advertising, non disclosed paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter. I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to start a genocide. This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach. We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans remind us of very dark memories. Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see it) Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a
tweet!
Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining
silent.
Nattes à chat / Natacha
Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter osamadre@hotmail.com a
écrit :
I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the
case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? Sent from my iPhone
On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse,
and
has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or
another
on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of
these
contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage
such
actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half
of
any
given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our
mission
due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those
who
use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants
because of
politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for
an
environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded
by
hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of
no
return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain
country's
top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I
think a
stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects
is
warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia
Foundation
itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect
the
Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous.
With
the
WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk
our
Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue
over
the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A
previous
ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than
accept
advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF
die
outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More
recently,
the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct
threats to
the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an
area
that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions.
While we
value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be
able
to
override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be
spent
towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if
participating
requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and
moderators
to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand
+1 to "writing an encyclopedia is a political act" and +1 to the notion called "freedom of speech", and +1 to "refugee bans remind us of very dark memories", but mostly +1 to the point about bias on Wikipedia! So I can also only conclude "Bravo Katherine"!
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:26 AM, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
Had the WMF statement been issued on Wikipedia, now that would have neutrality issues from a wikioedian point of view. The WMF is not Wikipedia, and does have a political activity: being in favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement, this is not just an american issue, it is a planetary one). One only needs to think about the influence of Diderot and the encyclopedists in the French revolution to understand that an encyclopedia, albeit seemingly neutral, has very concrete political influences in major political regime changes. That the WMF which relies on the free movement of people and ideas to fulfil its mission should be worried and issue a statement is quite normal
- not to say courageous. After all there is a notion called "freedom of
speech". A foundation has actually no obligation to be fully transparent, and WMF is making notable efforts in a context where advertising, non disclosed paid editing and lobbying are representing (in my opinion) a much greater threat to neutrality than a public statement on this particular matter. I am personnallly pretty impressed from across the ocean: in the 30s had some leaders shown more courage maybe Hitler would not have been able to start a genocide. This not only political, this is common sense, and living in Switzerland might influence a very pragmatic and down to the roots approach. We are watching from over the ocean, as europeans these refugee bans remind us of very dark memories. Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see it) Bravo Katherine this is what I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a tweet! Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining silent.
Nattes à chat / Natacha
Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter osamadre@hotmail.com a
écrit :
I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the
case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?
Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement? Sent from my iPhone
On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse,
and
has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or
another
on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of
these
contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage
such
actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of
any
given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our
mission
due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants
because of
politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I
think a
stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia
Foundation
itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect
the
Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With
the
WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk
our
Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue
over
the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A
previous
ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than
accept
advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF
die
outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently, the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct
threats to
the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an
area
that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions.
While we
value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able
to
override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be
spent
towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if
participating
requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and
moderators
to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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Katherine: Thank you, that was beautifully written.
We all have our work cut out for us to preserve the free sharing of knowledge and experience across borders, and the very notion of reliable sources.
Mike, your perspective is deeply welcome.
Sharing the world's knowledge is fundamentally political. It has brought wikimedia directly into political disagreement with a number of national policies. We seem to be in the early stages of an all-out information war of global scope, and I expect the number of those regimes and policies to grow. I am proud that the WMF has principled stands on issues of freedom, access, and communication.
And The WMF does sometimes declare positions that I disagree with; as does the FSF! This is better than having no principles at all. I am firmly committed to the projects those foundations support because their goals, their understanding of how part of the world should work, and the people involved are all extraordinary.
Sam.
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech".... Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see it).
I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks, that nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why taking political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced.
That is an obvious false equivalence. The issue isn't people rooting for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own. The issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act appropriately. The free dissemination of factual, neutral information and the ability of editors to participate in that dissemination is in many contexts a political act and the WMF should recognize this. To contend that Wikimedia activity is, can be, or should be always politically neutral is naive and comes from a place of privilege where your personal engagement will likely never be threatened by political interference.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech".... Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians from editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as I see it).
I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks, that nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why taking political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Perhaps the issue has something to do with whether donors expected their money to be spent on publicising a political stance. One "privilege" I see here is the privilege of being able to spend other peoples' money in ways they did not expect and, possibly, do not support, without recourse.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Robert Fernandez wikigamaliel@gmail.com wrote:
That is an obvious false equivalence. The issue isn't people rooting for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own. The issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act appropriately. The free dissemination of factual, neutral information and the ability of editors to participate in that dissemination is in many contexts a political act and the WMF should recognize this. To contend that Wikimedia activity is, can be, or should be always politically neutral is naive and comes from a place of privilege where your personal engagement will likely never be threatened by political interference.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech".... Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians
from
editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as
I
see it).
I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks,
that
nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why
taking
political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I agree absolutely with this. All Wikipedians are political and we pontificate to the world quite happily while following a complex set of agreed rules. To believe that Wikipedia has a neutral point of view is like believing there is no systemic bias in the academic world. The gateway that anyone must pass in order to keep their edits live on Wikipedia is navigating the extremely complex web known in our jargon as "reliable sources". I believe Wikipedia has done a better job overall than academia in general of expanding this magic list by opening up our "set of rules" to a worldwide playing field, but this magic list is uneven and a work-in-progress. Face-to-face meetups have only cemented rankings on our magic list, not erased them. Where does this magic list stand in the post-truth world? If we believe in our magic list, we believe in the people who made it and add to it every day and thus we believe in free passage for those people to any meetup anywhere in the world. Any threat to that safe passage is a direct threat to our community, no matter how good your irc, google hangout, skype call, or facebook group might be.
And meanwhile, we will deal with political issues as they affect us in the way we deal with all the other random stuff of humanity that pops up regularly in our projects, whether it is based on "reliable sources", religious belief, superstition, politics, fear, humor, or all of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bowling_Green_Massacre&direct...
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 8:06 PM, Robert Fernandez wikigamaliel@gmail.com wrote:
That is an obvious false equivalence. The issue isn't people rooting for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own. The issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act appropriately. The free dissemination of factual, neutral information and the ability of editors to participate in that dissemination is in many contexts a political act and the WMF should recognize this. To contend that Wikimedia activity is, can be, or should be always politically neutral is naive and comes from a place of privilege where your personal engagement will likely never be threatened by political interference.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech".... Katherine Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians
from
editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as
I
see it).
I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks,
that
nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why
taking
political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hi Yair,
I agree with your underlying sentiment. When we look at threats facing the Wikimedia movement, I continue to think that the risk of people being able to inject their national and identity politics into the movement is pretty great. While I may personally agree with many of the views being put forward, as you note these types of actions have the very real potential to create an unhealthy division among contributors and others.
Wikimedia is a global movement and many people in the world have strongly held and diametrically different views about gay rights, abortion, free speech, the role of women, etc. Those views should rarely be relevant to creating free educational content. I don't think it's appropriate for Wikimedia to take stands on these issues. If staff of the current iteration of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. want to make such statements and take such positions, that is technically their prerogative, absent intervention from the Board of Trustees, however it certainly behooves other Wikimedian to point out what a bad idea it is.
To put it another way: there are people who work at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. who voted for Donald Trump for president. While you may disagree with his policies and these staffers' decision to support him for president, needlessly and divisively injecting this kind of politics into the workplace is neither healthy nor appropriate, in my opinion.
Yair Rand wrote:
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
I guess this is referring to https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/.
In terms of various people at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. attempting to speak for the Wikimedia movement, there's also https://policy.wikimedia.org/. I've raised the lack of attribution and the "veneer of authority and legitimacy" issue at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Public_policy. At least the recent blog post was signed by Katherine. That's better than some of these other essays.
MZMcBride
Well I for one am one of those unapologetic Wikipedians who "inject their national and identity politics into the movement". I'm a fan of the "Be Bold" concept, bigly.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:00 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hi Yair,
I agree with your underlying sentiment. When we look at threats facing the Wikimedia movement, I continue to think that the risk of people being able to inject their national and identity politics into the movement is pretty great. While I may personally agree with many of the views being put forward, as you note these types of actions have the very real potential to create an unhealthy division among contributors and others.
Wikimedia is a global movement and many people in the world have strongly held and diametrically different views about gay rights, abortion, free speech, the role of women, etc. Those views should rarely be relevant to creating free educational content. I don't think it's appropriate for Wikimedia to take stands on these issues. If staff of the current iteration of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. want to make such statements and take such positions, that is technically their prerogative, absent intervention from the Board of Trustees, however it certainly behooves other Wikimedian to point out what a bad idea it is.
To put it another way: there are people who work at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. who voted for Donald Trump for president. While you may disagree with his policies and these staffers' decision to support him for president, needlessly and divisively injecting this kind of politics into the workplace is neither healthy nor appropriate, in my opinion.
Yair Rand wrote:
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
I guess this is referring to https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/.
In terms of various people at Wikimedia Foundation Inc. attempting to speak for the Wikimedia movement, there's also https://policy.wikimedia.org/. I've raised the lack of attribution and the "veneer of authority and legitimacy" issue at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Public_policy. At least the recent blog post was signed by Katherine. That's better than some of these other essays.
MZMcBride
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On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I guess this is referring to https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/.
There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC, who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.
I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.
Well, there were speakers who were not able to attend Wikimanias in Haifa and Cairo, to start with, because of similar bans, and the general response then was "Whatever place we choose, someone is always discriminated". I am not sure whether this is a healthy attitude or not, but I do not see why the US travel ban leads to a statement whereas existing bans say in Arab world, or Armenia-Azerbaijan or whatever do not.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:08 PM, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I guess this is referring to https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/.
There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC, who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.
I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 13:35:30 +0100 Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Well, there were speakers who were not able to attend Wikimanias in Haifa and Cairo, to start with, because of similar bans, and the general response then was "Whatever place we choose, someone is always discriminated". I am not sure whether this is a healthy attitude or not, but I do not see why the US travel ban leads to a statement whereas existing bans say in Arab world, or Armenia-Azerbaijan or whatever do not.
Cheers Yaroslav
The US ban is fragile, poorly supported in law; the others are entrenched and what we do is not likely to influence them.
Fred
I may write this biased message from my place of enunciation: a country that has been threatened for several days directly by the decisions of the President of the United States.
Only if you were a follower of Trump would you see unnecessary a proactive defense of potential damage to people both from our community and the Foundation staff. Personally, reading a statement from Katherine Maher let me know that in front of threats, people in your movement will react. Let's not be deluded, Trump's decision-making route over the past few weeks (outside privacy, airport reviews) will sooner or later lead to a threat to the Wikimedia Foundation. And we must be prepared.
And please, let's leave the false dilemma that as a Wikimedia movement we should not take political positions because of Wikipedia neutrality. They are different things clearly.
2017-02-03 6:08 GMT-06:00 Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk:
On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I guess this is referring to https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/.
There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC, who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.
I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Andy Mabbett wrote:
On 3 February 2017 at 00:00, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I guess this is referring to https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/.
There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC, who would not have been able to attend under the current ban.
I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so.
Wikimania has taken place in many countries. In 2011 it was held in Israel, in 2008 it was held in Egypt, etc. That doesn't make it appropriate for the Wikimedia Foundation to issue statements about various national policies. That isn't its role or responsibility.
Simply because tenuous connections can be made doesn't suddenly make them legitimate reasons for political action on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikimedia movement. An unwanted pregnancy is a burden and may reduce the ability of some women to edit Wikipedia. But that (quite obviously, to me, anyway) does not mean that the Wikimedia Foundation should be taking a position on abortion rights and access to contraception. In my opinion, the risk of such political action is pretty clear: it has a very real possibility to fracture and divide the Wikimedia community over issues that are unrelated to Wikimedia's mission.
Robert Fernandez wrote:
That is an obvious false equivalence. The issue isn't people rooting for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own. The issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act appropriately.
You somewhat conveniently avoided addressing Nathan's point. If the Wikimedia Foundation issued a political statement with a view that you found deeply offensive and strongly disagreed with, how would you respond?
Todd Allen wrote:
I don't think anyone is disputing the facts. I'm certainly not. And I am gravely concerned by what's being done, and I entirely oppose it.
However, that doesn't mean I want to see WMF used as a political mouthpiece, even when what's being said happens to be things I fully agree with.
Agreed.
MZMcBride
The same way I would respond any time they do something non-political I strongly disagree with.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 7:00 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
You somewhat conveniently avoided addressing Nathan's point. If the Wikimedia Foundation issued a political statement with a view that you found deeply offensive and strongly disagreed with, how would you respond?
Hoi, As a movement we have several policies that can be contradictory.
We want to be inclusive, have a neutral point of view but at the same time we want facts to be supported by sources. For many things there are contradictory sources and for many things there are additional sources. With the current USA government denying provable facts, we find for instance that climate change is corroborated around the world by august bodies like the KNMI. When the USA puts forward an opinion that clashes with scientific data / facts, it is just that. At best a footnote on the subject of Climate change.
We know for a fact that a lot of sources have been bought. I can safely say this now because I already said it when Mr Obama was still president. It is a proven fact. When we are to share in the sum of all knowledge, we have to recognise what is what.
When some people insist on calling this political, they have a problem because sources and quality of sources are key. When we inform about "climate change" the fact that the EPA was defanged and declawed does not change the science and it is part of the article on the EPA. What American politics have to say about climate change does not touch the subject of climate change at all.
Advocacy for any opinion is problematic and it is well documented that the current government calls for "alternative facts". They bring measles, pollution, women dying of botched abortions back to the USA.
When you talk about abortions, sources are important. What a political party, a government has to say is an opinion. What Doctors without Borders has to say is observable fact. What they say is backed by scientific observations. When people call to leave politics out, they will have to recognise that a NPOV is about subjects where opinions matter. Where facts, science is available their opinion does not matter and obviously so because we are not a platform where an opinions can be found we are an encyclopaedia when we talk about Wikipedia and we should not politicise based on any given "alternative facts" that are often proven lies. Thanks, GerardM
On 2 February 2017 at 22:09, Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse, and has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or another on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of these contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen substantially, especially on this mailing list.
While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage such actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half of any given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our mission due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those who use the community to advocate for positions that some may find unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants because of politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for an environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded by hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of no return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.
As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain country's top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I think a stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects is warranted.
We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia Foundation itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect the Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous. With the WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk our Neutrality.
How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue over the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A previous ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than accept advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF die outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More recently, the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct threats to the projects.
Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an area that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.
It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions. While we value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be able to override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be spent towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.
It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if participating requires a certain political position.
It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and moderators to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.
Thank you.
-- Yair Rand _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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