On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 4:41 PM Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
Neutral Point of View is a fundamental founding principle. Per the policy, NPOV "is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus." It may not be violated, period.
Are you suggesting that the Foundation may not take any political positions at all?
The Wikimedia Foundation's mission still stands. It does not include promoting a higher minimum wage, nor public advocacy for environmentalism.
I doubt that more than 20% of the long-term project editor base share that opinion. Can you point to even a single instance other than your own dozen or two complaints to this list of anyone opposed to the WMF's Sustainability Initiative. The only comments about it ever say that it should be doing more (I agree: we should be flexing our muscle with the datacenter operators to ask them to buy renewable power, perhaps in return for the visibility of a joint press release or acknowledgment on a high-traffic page, or both.)
And again, I doubt even 5% of the long term editor base is opposed to campaign finance reform, which was the only only issue championed by the Earth Day Live sponsors, and I doubt less than 10% thinks that both issues support the Mission to "engage and empower" free content contributors. Similarly for living wage standards, which support the ability of editors to fund their living so they don't, for example, need to take two jobs and thereby lack time to edit. I am sure you can see the connection, but for whatever reason you simply choose not to.
I repeat my request for the Foundation to survey the editor base to put an end to this disruptive bickering.
-Will
My point about NPOV was referring to article content, as the previous post seemed to suggest that the WMF can and does try to influence articles non-neutrally.
I don't understand your point about the Sustainability Initiative. To the best of my knowledge, the Sustainability Initiative (which was approved by the Board, IIRC) does not include any public advocacy efforts. I haven't said anything against the Initiative, and I don't oppose it myself. I do think the WMF should not undertake any public advocacy efforts which do not comply with the guidelines[1].
Earth Day Live was pushing many, many political positions, not just campaign finance reform.
It doesn't take much searching to find any of the on-wiki discussions which show conclusively that the community opposes general political advocacy. On the wikis themselves, this isn't a matter of controversy. Activism outside the five identified areas that relate to Wikimedia activities (Access, Censorship, Copyright, Intermediary liability, and Privacy; see the public policy portal and associated documents) is not acceptable, and advocacy is only acceptable even within those areas under limited circumstances.
-- Yair Rand
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Associ...
בתאריך יום ב׳, 27 באפר׳ 2020 ב-20:00 מאת Bill Takatoshi < billtakatoshi@gmail.com>:
On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 4:41 PM Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com wrote:
Neutral Point of View is a fundamental founding principle. Per the
policy,
NPOV "is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus."
It
may not be violated, period.
Are you suggesting that the Foundation may not take any political positions at all?
The Wikimedia Foundation's mission still stands. It does not include promoting a higher minimum wage, nor public advocacy for
environmentalism.
I doubt that more than 20% of the long-term project editor base share that opinion. Can you point to even a single instance other than your own dozen or two complaints to this list of anyone opposed to the WMF's Sustainability Initiative. The only comments about it ever say that it should be doing more (I agree: we should be flexing our muscle with the datacenter operators to ask them to buy renewable power, perhaps in return for the visibility of a joint press release or acknowledgment on a high-traffic page, or both.)
And again, I doubt even 5% of the long term editor base is opposed to campaign finance reform, which was the only only issue championed by the Earth Day Live sponsors, and I doubt less than 10% thinks that both issues support the Mission to "engage and empower" free content contributors. Similarly for living wage standards, which support the ability of editors to fund their living so they don't, for example, need to take two jobs and thereby lack time to edit. I am sure you can see the connection, but for whatever reason you simply choose not to.
I repeat my request for the Foundation to survey the editor base to put an end to this disruptive bickering.
-Will
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On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 2:00 AM Bill Takatoshi billtakatoshi@gmail.com wrote:
And again, I doubt even 5% of the long term editor base is opposed to campaign finance reform
I doubt even 5% of the long term editor base has any opinion on this “campaign finance reform” (or, for the most part, know what that is). I guess it has something to do with the political parties in the United States? Sorry, I’m not interested in that very much.
-- [[ cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec ]]
On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 1:21 PM petr.kadlec@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 2:00 AM Bill Takatoshi billtakatoshi@gmail.com wrote:
And again, I doubt even 5% of the long term editor base is opposed to campaign finance reform
I doubt even 5% of the long term editor base has any opinion on this “campaign finance reform” (or, for the most part, know what that is). I guess it has something to do with the political parties in the United States? Sorry, I’m not interested in that very much.
And even in that case, there's a huge gulf between that and it being something Wikipedia actively endorses.
The whole "Wikipedia should support any political movement that makes people's lives better because they will then have more time to edit Wikipedia," is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning. It would literally cover anything in politics whatsoever. Tax increases, tax cuts, open borders, closed borders, federal daily blueberry pancake delivers, etc, whatever you want, then one can make an argument under this line of logic.
"Wikipedia should support any political movement that makes people's lives better because they will then have more time to edit Wikipedia," is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning. It would literally cover anything in politics....
On the contrary, by definition, it would be restricted to the subset of ways to make people's lives better which also allow them more time to edit. The contrapositive of 'because' is 'is caused by.'
If campaign finance reform makes people's lives better and allows them more time to edit, then there would seem to be five categories: 'active opposition,' 'inactive opposition,' 'silence,' 'inactive support,' 'active support.' Obviously the Board wants to do what supports the community, employees, donors, and readership, not necessarily in that order.
I personally would love to see a link to https://bit.ly/amendmentact at least on the Outreach wiki or something, as I have no idea what passes for petition notability these days.
Best regards, Jim
On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 4:18 PM James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
"Wikipedia should support any political movement that makes people's lives better because they will then have more time to edit Wikipedia," is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning. It would
literally
cover anything in politics....
On the contrary, by definition, it would be restricted to the subset of ways to make people's lives better which also allow them more time to edit. The contrapositive of 'because' is 'is caused by.'
If campaign finance reform makes people's lives better and allows them more time to edit, then there would seem to be five categories: 'active opposition,' 'inactive opposition,' 'silence,' 'inactive support,' 'active support.' Obviously the Board wants to do what supports the community, employees, donors, and readership, not necessarily in that order.
Nah, of course all these things do.
Tax cuts? Well, I don't have to work as hard at work, leaving me more editing time! Tax increases? With more services, I won't have to work as hard to make money, leaving me more editing time! Free blueberry pancake deliveries? Ever make blueberry pancakes? Takes forever, freeing up more editing time! My family turned into delicious sausages? Between holidays, birthdays, and random errands mom calls me for help with, it's taking up valuable editing time!
And so on. You can make a tortured case for *anything* someone wants to see as increasing editing time.
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