... I have reason to believe that about 18% of English Wikipedia administrators are living below the poverty line, ...
... citation desperately needed for this stat.
In February I performed a survey of over 300 inactive English Wikipedia administrators based on a survey which had been approved on the Strategy Wiki more than two years prior. I added financial demographic questions to the survey. Steven Walling, who I thought had agreed to act as the Foundation point of contact for the survey during a public IRC office hour (he disagrees) has access to all of the original data I collected as a Google Forms document available to his Google Drive account.
Shortly afterward, I was told that the survey was a violation of policy (two months later I was told it was not), and that I was violating the privacy policy because I asked for contact information to follow up. I was banned from Meta and told to contact the Legal Department if I had further questions. I did, and I am still waiting for their response. After several weeks without reply from the Legal Department, I followed up with some of the respondents, and performed an additional survey which I do not wish to describe in detail until I have an answer to my questions from the Legal Department.
If the statistic is in doubt, I suggest that the Foundation perform their own survey of long term contributor financial status. As of May, by the way, more than 30 of the original survey respondent administrators had returned to active status, having made more than 50 edits each after having gone at least six months without editing.
Sincerely, James Salsman
On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 7:06 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
... I have reason to believe that about 18% of English Wikipedia administrators are living below the poverty line, ...
... citation desperately needed for this stat.
In February I performed a survey of over 300 inactive English Wikipedia administrators based on a survey which had been approved on the Strategy Wiki more than two years prior. I added financial demographic questions to the survey. Steven Walling, who I thought had agreed to act as the Foundation point of contact for the survey during a public IRC office hour (he disagrees) has access to all of the original data I collected as a Google Forms document available to his Google Drive account.
Shortly afterward, I was told that the survey was a violation of policy (two months later I was told it was not), and that I was violating the privacy policy because I asked for contact information to follow up. I was banned from Meta and told to contact the Legal Department if I had further questions. I did, and I am still waiting for their response. After several weeks without reply from the Legal Department, I followed up with some of the respondents, and performed an additional survey which I do not wish to describe in detail until I have an answer to my questions from the Legal Department.
If the statistic is in doubt, I suggest that the Foundation perform their own survey of long term contributor financial status. As of May, by the way, more than 30 of the original survey respondent administrators had returned to active status, having made more than 50 edits each after having gone at least six months without editing.
Sincerely, James Salsman
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Do you mean this survey? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHZWdFQ0STlNbnl5TjJpNzd...
I'm sorry but if that's the case I would highly doubt that statistic and basically ignore it. The only question about wealth is one that says:
| How financially secure are you? | (Note: all questions are optional and individual responses will be kept strictly confidential.)
and then gives a 1-5 scale from"'Impovrished[sic] to Wealthy"
You can't get anything like that stat from there and it doesn't even begin to get into the idea of inactive admins not equalling admins or countless other statistical anomalies.
James
--- James Alexander jamesofur@gmail.com
When you subsidize volunteers they a) are no longer volunteers and b) the same problem with paid editors: losing the power to walk away.
Give me money to administrate Wikipedia and I give up my bit. The freedom to pick and choose what we do on the website is one of our greatest strengths.
On Oct 24, 2012 9:46 PM, "Keegan Peterzell" keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
When you subsidize volunteers they a) are no longer volunteers and b) the same problem with paid editors: losing the power to walk away.
Give me money to administrate Wikipedia and I give up my bit. The freedom to pick and choose what we do on the website is one of our greatest strengths.
Well said.
Sj _______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Agree with Keegan.Not to mention a) the legal ramifications, and b) the PR ramifications -- how on earth do we maintain a straight face having a policy on paid editing if we begin paying administrators directly?
Dan Rosenthal
On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 24, 2012 9:46 PM, "Keegan Peterzell" keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
When you subsidize volunteers they a) are no longer volunteers and b) the same problem with paid editors: losing the power to walk away.
Give me money to administrate Wikipedia and I give up my bit. The
freedom
to pick and choose what we do on the website is one of our greatest strengths.
Well said.
Sj _______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
good point, Keegan! Also, my experience with NGOs in the Soros Foundation wide network (about 12 Invisible Colleges) was that when gifted students were given minor stipends, they developed a really demanding attitude. They kept complaining that their stipends are too low, and that they deserve more. Only after all stipends were withdrawn, they started to engage in voluntary work for the NGOs.
This anecdotal evidence is symptomatic of some more general phenomenon - a lot of people treat whatever they do for the money as a chore, labor, something that is the antithesis of a hobby and fun. Much more than the possible loss of quitting power I would worry about the fact that paid editors would start treating editing as any other job, and on a competitive market they would immediately see, that we cannot really pay competitive wages. One way to make editing a chore is paying for it.
Regarding James' thesis of 18% below the poverty line - besides obvious issues with the definition of poverty line (in some countries poverty means starvation, in some it means not being able to eat out as often), as well as clearly non-representative sample of the poll, poorly devised questions, and serious ethical considerations of a possible misuse of private data and expanding the research beyond of its original and approved scope, there are just minor practical problems with singling out the poorest editors for support, obvious for anybody familiar with the state social benefits programs (borderline cases, reporting, etc.), major even when needed to be addressed within ONE country, and not as a worldwide policy.
Finally, my understanding is that formally the big general governance picture is that FDC is meant for the largest proposals from Wikimedia entities, while grants are meant for the smaller ones and individuals, so the whole discussion clearly does not apply to FDC concern.
best,
dariusz
On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 6:46 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
When you subsidize volunteers they a) are no longer volunteers and b) the same problem with paid editors: losing the power to walk away.
Give me money to administrate Wikipedia and I give up my bit. The freedom to pick and choose what we do on the website is one of our greatest strengths.
-- ~Keegan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On 25 Oct 2012, at 08:10, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
Finally, my understanding is that formally the big general governance picture is that FDC is meant for the largest proposals from Wikimedia entities, while grants are meant for the smaller ones and individuals, so the whole discussion clearly does not apply to FDC concern.
That's also my understanding. The recommendations that the FDC make do connect to grant-making to individuals, but at a step or two removed - e.g. the WMF's GAC budget is part of the WMF's FDC application [1], and various chapters also have grant-making processes (e.g. [2] [3]) described in their FDC applications.
[1] See row 4 of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikimed... [2] search for 'grant' in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikimed... [3] see row 3 of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikim%C...
Thanks, Mike (FDC member)
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org