As GerardM mentioned in the thread relating to the Berlin conference, wikiconferences are an opportunity for wikimedians to come together to share in knowledge.
New York Magazine published an article on the conference which gives us great insight into everything that is wrong with the wiki culture.[1]
Out of curiosity, what was the total cost to "the movement" for this knowledge sharing opportunity, and do people consider it money well spent given the golden sound bytes the conference generated in the media?
Cheers
Russavia
[1] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/06/love-and-drama-at-the-wikipedia...
Russavia wrote:
As GerardM mentioned in the thread relating to the Berlin conference, wikiconferences are an opportunity for wikimedians to come together to share in knowledge.
I attended WikiConference USA this year. It was a wonderful event and I was particularly impressed with the organizers' work. Congrats to all of them for a job well done!
New York Magazine published an article on the conference which gives us great insight into everything that is wrong with the wiki culture.[1]
I know for certain that there quite a few people who feel that you, Russavia, are actively damaging and degrading the wiki culture with your actions... perhaps the same would be said of me and others, though I hope not.
Out of curiosity, what was the total cost to "the movement" for this knowledge sharing opportunity, and do people consider it money well spent given the golden sound bytes the conference generated in the media?
In the medium, you mean? You've only linked to one story, a story that happens to conveniently link to a press release about a certain banned editor. Interesting. :-)
This article also seems to make some strange claims; e.g., the article claims that there are only 22,000 registered Wikipedians. Given where it links to, what it discusses, and the seeming inaccuracy of facts it includes, I'm not sure how much this piece should be trusted.
MZMcBride
Hi Russavia -
Since the conference was funded through the PEG program, with the exception of any WMF staff whose travel was funded by WMF (I don't know how many that may include,) you can figure out the answer to "how much did it cost to the movement" pretty ridiculously simply =p Given the number of connections that were made and future events that were generated, I suspect that, yes, the conference was absolutely worth the money spent on it, although we won't know that with surety until some of the planted collaborations have an opportunity to actually be carried out.
Best, Kevin Gorman
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 6:17 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Russavia wrote:
As GerardM mentioned in the thread relating to the Berlin conference, wikiconferences are an opportunity for wikimedians to come together to share in knowledge.
I attended WikiConference USA this year. It was a wonderful event and I was particularly impressed with the organizers' work. Congrats to all of them for a job well done!
New York Magazine published an article on the conference which gives us great insight into everything that is wrong with the wiki culture.[1]
I know for certain that there quite a few people who feel that you, Russavia, are actively damaging and degrading the wiki culture with your actions... perhaps the same would be said of me and others, though I hope not.
Out of curiosity, what was the total cost to "the movement" for this knowledge sharing opportunity, and do people consider it money well spent given the golden sound bytes the conference generated in the media?
In the medium, you mean? You've only linked to one story, a story that happens to conveniently link to a press release about a certain banned editor. Interesting. :-)
This article also seems to make some strange claims; e.g., the article claims that there are only 22,000 registered Wikipedians. Given where it links to, what it discusses, and the seeming inaccuracy of facts it includes, I'm not sure how much this piece should be trusted.
MZMcBride
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MZMcBride, et al
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 9:17 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I know for certain that there quite a few people who feel that you, Russavia, are actively damaging and degrading the wiki culture with your actions... perhaps the same would be said of me and others, though I hope not.
I would appreciate it that if you are going to have a pot shot at me, that you expand on it, and explain exactly what actions you are talking about. However, this isn't about me, so feel free to start a new thread on that if you so wish.
The article in question is obviously an issue, because gendergappers are already saying that the unnamed female is owed an apology for the comments which were directed towards her.[1][2]
The comments from Kevin Rutherford were entirely inappropriate, and whilst others may not want to publicly say anything because they know the editor in question,[3] I am willing to go on the record and say that comments that come across as totally clueless have no place in a chapter-organised and WMF sponsored event.
If Kevin Rutherford thinks that his comments were acceptable, then he is sorely mistaken and he has shown clear misjudgment through his comments at this public event, because they are not supported by the wider community (if they are, then shame on the community).
I'm seriously not doubting that Frank Schulenberg is reported to have shaken his head at the comments, because I know others who have read the article have *facepalmed* and lolwut.
Having this in the media is just another cost that communities have to face (it's not always about money), and unfortunately it seems to have overshadowed anything actually useful that might have come of the conference.
Cheers,
Russavia
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004310.html [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004311.html [3] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004312.html
Yep, I'm not happy with that particular quote. But you know what? It was a set-up. Any reporter worth her salt attending a conference like this knows how to spot the person in the room that will give them the story they want to tell, and this is what happened here. She came in looking for the geeky white guy whose talent at chatting up women was, um, not his strong suit, and then quoted him instead of talking to the women. Notice that? One would think that the people to talk to about the challenges of being a woman Wikipedian would be the Wikimedia women. And yet the reporter herself refuses to allow them their voice.
I wasn't able to attend this conference, but I talked to several people who did, and I also looked at the photos. What struck me was how many women were there. Some of those who attended were struck by how engaged the women were, too; they were committed to being part of the "gendergap" solution.
Russavia, give everyone a break here. I feel badly for the young woman, because she was put on the spot in a very awkward situation. I feel badly for Kevin, because I think he really does get the importance of expanding the perspectives on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, but he was put in a situation that was well outside his comfort level. Wikipedia, Wikimedia and the conference itself were inaccurately portrayed by a media outlet. We all know it happens all the time; it's why we look for multiple reliable sources in our articles.
Risker
On 7 June 2014 00:39, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
MZMcBride, et al
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 9:17 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I know for certain that there quite a few people who feel that you, Russavia, are actively damaging and degrading the wiki culture with your actions... perhaps the same would be said of me and others, though I hope not.
I would appreciate it that if you are going to have a pot shot at me, that you expand on it, and explain exactly what actions you are talking about. However, this isn't about me, so feel free to start a new thread on that if you so wish.
The article in question is obviously an issue, because gendergappers are already saying that the unnamed female is owed an apology for the comments which were directed towards her.[1][2]
The comments from Kevin Rutherford were entirely inappropriate, and whilst others may not want to publicly say anything because they know the editor in question,[3] I am willing to go on the record and say that comments that come across as totally clueless have no place in a chapter-organised and WMF sponsored event.
If Kevin Rutherford thinks that his comments were acceptable, then he is sorely mistaken and he has shown clear misjudgment through his comments at this public event, because they are not supported by the wider community (if they are, then shame on the community).
I'm seriously not doubting that Frank Schulenberg is reported to have shaken his head at the comments, because I know others who have read the article have *facepalmed* and lolwut.
Having this in the media is just another cost that communities have to face (it's not always about money), and unfortunately it seems to have overshadowed anything actually useful that might have come of the conference.
Cheers,
Russavia
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004310.html [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004311.html [3] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004312.html
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On 07/06/14 06:36, Risker wrote:
Yep, I'm not happy with that particular quote. But you know what? It was a set-up. Any reporter worth her salt attending a conference like this knows how to spot the person in the room that will give them the story they want to tell, and this is what happened here. She came in looking for the geeky white guy whose talent at chatting up women was, um, not his strong suit, and then quoted him instead of talking to the women. Notice that? One would think that the people to talk to about the challenges of being a woman Wikipedian would be the Wikimedia women. And yet the reporter herself refuses to allow them their voice.
I wasn't able to attend this conference, but I talked to several people who did, and I also looked at the photos. What struck me was how many women were there. Some of those who attended were struck by how engaged the women were, too; they were committed to being part of the "gendergap" solution.
Russavia, give everyone a break here. I feel badly for the young woman, because she was put on the spot in a very awkward situation. I feel badly for Kevin, because I think he really does get the importance of expanding the perspectives on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, but he was put in a situation that was well outside his comfort level. Wikipedia, Wikimedia and the conference itself were inaccurately portrayed by a media outlet. We all know it happens all the time; it's why we look for multiple reliable sources in our articles.
Hi. Thank you for this.
I was there, the woman who randomly joined in, and I must say, what the journalist did was very unfair to Kevin and the others. It wasn't just putting them on the spot in the way in which she did, but even going so far as the rather childish descriptions to further stereotype them... naming folks by name and then doing that, that seems perhaps even more rude than what we tend to do to each other around here. As I recall Schulenberg had the sense to leave partway through (for which I say good for him), but most of us wouldn't know to do that (or how), and taking advantage of that wasn't very nice either.
Thing is, these guys were put on the spot and pressed, and that they are the ones getting crap for it is ridiculous. Sure, there may have been some some awkward things said, but the entire thing got very awkward and quite frankly I think they handled it remarkably well considering the line of questioning and discourse. A lot of what looks so bad appears to have been jokes taken seriously - because in a tense situation, trying to alleviate the tension with humour is a pretty normal response - and as a result I don't even know how much of what was quoted is even representative of the views of those quoted, never mind the wider community.
For my part, no apologies are owed, nor should anyone expect them to be; these are awkward issues with often no right way to bring them up, and outrage against those who try to respond under pressure and fail to do so diplomatically does not help matters in the slightest when we're all just doing the best we can. So apologise to them, I say, if to anyone. They were the ones wronged.
-K
Thank you Issara. I was not at the conference, but journalism is a world I've inhabited, and this was exactly my impression -- an opportunistic reporter cutting many corners to come up with something that would titillate and entertain. Yes, the choice to use real names, given the way she described people, was really inappropriate. But I'm very glad to have this confirmed by somebody who was there and involved.
In the more traditional world, what happened there carries a certain accountability. If a company got that kind of treatment by the NY Magazine, they would call the reporter and express that disappointment, and perhaps put things in motion for better coverage for the future. If the reporter doesn't get it, that's the sort of thing that will result in the publication losing access to the company.
What's our analogue of that? Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:31 AM, Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/06/14 06:36, Risker wrote:
Yep, I'm not happy with that particular quote. But you know what? It was a set-up. Any reporter worth her salt attending a conference like this knows how to spot the person in the room that will give them the story they want to tell, and this is what happened here. She came in looking for the geeky white guy whose talent at chatting up women was, um, not his strong suit, and then quoted him instead of talking to the women. Notice that? One would think that the people to talk to about the challenges of being a woman Wikipedian would be the Wikimedia women. And yet the reporter herself refuses to allow them their voice.
I wasn't able to attend this conference, but I talked to several people who did, and I also looked at the photos. What struck me was how many women were there. Some of those who attended were struck by how engaged the women were, too; they were committed to being part of the "gendergap" solution.
Russavia, give everyone a break here. I feel badly for the young woman, because she was put on the spot in a very awkward situation. I feel badly for Kevin, because I think he really does get the importance of expanding the perspectives on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, but he was put in a situation that was well outside his comfort level. Wikipedia, Wikimedia and the conference itself were inaccurately portrayed by a media outlet. We all know it happens all the time; it's why we look for multiple reliable sources in our articles.
Hi. Thank you for this.
I was there, the woman who randomly joined in, and I must say, what the journalist did was very unfair to Kevin and the others. It wasn't just putting them on the spot in the way in which she did, but even going so far as the rather childish descriptions to further stereotype them... naming folks by name and then doing that, that seems perhaps even more rude than what we tend to do to each other around here. As I recall Schulenberg had the sense to leave partway through (for which I say good for him), but most of us wouldn't know to do that (or how), and taking advantage of that wasn't very nice either.
Thing is, these guys were put on the spot and pressed, and that they are the ones getting crap for it is ridiculous. Sure, there may have been some some awkward things said, but the entire thing got very awkward and quite frankly I think they handled it remarkably well considering the line of questioning and discourse. A lot of what looks so bad appears to have been jokes taken seriously - because in a tense situation, trying to alleviate the tension with humour is a pretty normal response - and as a result I don't even know how much of what was quoted is even representative of the views of those quoted, never mind the wider community.
For my part, no apologies are owed, nor should anyone expect them to be; these are awkward issues with often no right way to bring them up, and outrage against those who try to respond under pressure and fail to do so diplomatically does not help matters in the slightest when we're all just doing the best we can. So apologise to them, I say, if to anyone. They were the ones wronged.
-K
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I guess we can at least contact the journalst: jpressler (@) nymag.com (found her E-mail on her public twitter account) asking to fix obvoius factual mistakes (22 000 accounts etc) + provide POV of Issara and others.
2014-06-07 9:41 GMT+02:00 Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com:
Thank you Issara. I was not at the conference, but journalism is a world I've inhabited, and this was exactly my impression -- an opportunistic reporter cutting many corners to come up with something that would titillate and entertain. Yes, the choice to use real names, given the way she described people, was really inappropriate. But I'm very glad to have this confirmed by somebody who was there and involved.
In the more traditional world, what happened there carries a certain accountability. If a company got that kind of treatment by the NY Magazine, they would call the reporter and express that disappointment, and perhaps put things in motion for better coverage for the future. If the reporter doesn't get it, that's the sort of thing that will result in the publication losing access to the company.
What's our analogue of that? Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:31 AM, Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/06/14 06:36, Risker wrote:
Yep, I'm not happy with that particular quote. But you know what? It was a set-up. Any reporter worth her salt attending a conference like this knows how to spot the person in the room that will give them the story they want to tell, and this is what happened here. She came in looking for the geeky white guy whose talent at chatting up women was, um, not his strong suit, and then quoted him instead of talking to the women. Notice that? One would think that the people to talk to about the challenges of being a woman Wikipedian would be the Wikimedia women. And yet the reporter herself refuses to allow them their voice.
I wasn't able to attend this conference, but I talked to several people who did, and I also looked at the photos. What struck me was how many women were there. Some of those who attended were struck by how engaged the women were, too; they were committed to being part of the "gendergap" solution.
Russavia, give everyone a break here. I feel badly for the young woman, because she was put on the spot in a very awkward situation. I feel badly for Kevin, because I think he really does get the importance of expanding the perspectives on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, but he was put in a situation that was well outside his comfort level. Wikipedia, Wikimedia and the conference itself were inaccurately portrayed by a media outlet. We all know it happens all the time; it's why we look for multiple reliable sources in our articles.
Hi. Thank you for this.
I was there, the woman who randomly joined in, and I must say, what the journalist did was very unfair to Kevin and the others. It wasn't just putting them on the spot in the way in which she did, but even going so far as the rather childish descriptions to further stereotype them... naming folks by name and then doing that, that seems perhaps even more rude than what we tend to do to each other around here. As I recall Schulenberg had the sense to leave partway through (for which I say good for him), but most of us wouldn't know to do that (or how), and taking advantage of that wasn't very nice either.
Thing is, these guys were put on the spot and pressed, and that they are the ones getting crap for it is ridiculous. Sure, there may have been some some awkward things said, but the entire thing got very awkward and quite frankly I think they handled it remarkably well considering the line of questioning and discourse. A lot of what looks so bad appears to have been jokes taken seriously - because in a tense situation, trying to alleviate the tension with humour is a pretty normal response - and as a result I don't even know how much of what was quoted is even representative of the views of those quoted, never mind the wider community.
For my part, no apologies are owed, nor should anyone expect them to be; these are awkward issues with often no right way to bring them up, and outrage against those who try to respond under pressure and fail to do so diplomatically does not help matters in the slightest when we're all just doing the best we can. So apologise to them, I say, if to anyone. They were the ones wronged.
-K
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Tomasz, et al
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
I guess we can at least contact the journalst: jpressler (@) nymag.com (found her E-mail on her public twitter account) asking to fix obvoius factual mistakes (22 000 accounts etc) + provide POV of Issara and others.
The 22,000 accounts is obviously meant to be 22,000,000.
New York Magazine, for what it's worth, was the winner of the 2013 Magazine of the Year Award.[1] An award which has previously been won by Glamour, TIME, National Geographic, and in 2014 which was won by The New Yorker. This is obviously not The National Enquirer or The Daily Dot we are talking of here.
Jessica Pressler is published in New York, GQ, amongst others. She has over 3,500 articles in New York Magazine alone.[2] So we are not dealing with a fresh out of college journo here. However, she has had her moments, such as her profile on Avicii in GQ which saw him taking to Facebook to attack her article on him.[3]
There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)
Cheers,
Russavia
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/national-magazine-award-winners-201... [2] http://nymag.com/author/jessica%20pressler/ [3] https://www.facebook.com/avicii/posts/10151406809626799
Russavia, despite the smilie, your last comment suggests that someone would create a biography of a living person in retaliation for the fact that she wrote unflatteringly and made errors in a piece about the Wikiconference.
BLPs must never be created or edited as a form of retaliation against the article subject or misused in connection with an off-wiki dispute, nor may any suggestion of doing so be made at any time..
It is also undesirable to provide ammunition for the (sometimes, unfortunately, accurate) perception that being the subject of a Wikipedia article is something that people should fear, nor that we would, even jokingly, threaten to do create a BLP as a form of what came last year to be called "revenge editing."
Please don't make this sort of comment again.
Thanks, Newyorkbrad/IBM
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)
Cheers,
Russavia
NewYorkBrad,
How is your commenting on it better than Russavia commenting on it? I am pretty sure everybody who takes the time to join an email list like this would agree, starting an article for retaliatory reasons is an abhorrent practice. But surely you can't be claiming it doesn't happen? If it happens on our sites, and is a problem, how can mentioning it be forbidden? That doesn't seem like a wise policy to me.
I will grant that Russavia used a higher degree of snark than I would have personally chosen. But if snark is going to be against the rules around here...well, I'll put it this way -- I'll be interested to see how that transition goes.
Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 9:30 AM, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
Russavia, despite the smilie, your last comment suggests that someone would create a biography of a living person in retaliation for the fact that she wrote unflatteringly and made errors in a piece about the Wikiconference.
BLPs must never be created or edited as a form of retaliation against the article subject or misused in connection with an off-wiki dispute, nor may any suggestion of doing so be made at any time..
It is also undesirable to provide ammunition for the (sometimes, unfortunately, accurate) perception that being the subject of a Wikipedia article is something that people should fear, nor that we would, even jokingly, threaten to do create a BLP as a form of what came last year to be called "revenge editing."
Please don't make this sort of comment again.
Thanks, Newyorkbrad/IBM
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)
Cheers,
Russavia
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Ira,
Don't lecture me about what is and isn't acceptable.
Sure, you're a member of WMNYC and you are, of course, really butthurt over the fact that basically the only report on the conference in the media has painted a picture you would have preferred not to be painted, but don't take that out on me -- this is one painting I hold no responsibility for.
If you want reports that paint a glowing picture of the Cult of Wikipediology, hire a publicist, don't let the media in, and certainly don't let the media talk to people who, by all accounts, shouldn't be doing so due to incompetence -- not everyone is capable of dealing with media.
What is interesting is that immediately after you posted this, you raced over to en.wp and posted what you did. But you should have stopped and thought about how ridiculous this could make you look, and it will make you look in the future.
Firstly, Risker stated that the reporter set up Rutherford, Rutherford said that the reporter lied, Isarra said that the reporter basically created a tense situation....hell Siko even stated on Gendergap that New York Magazine still sucks.
Ira, you push the line that BLP applies on all WMF projects; you do realise that this list is hosted on WMF servers, and therefore both Risker and Rutherford have engaged in gross BLP violating accusations. But you stayed silent on that....how quaint...how <s>Scientologist</s> Wikipediologist-like.
It's disturbing that Rutherford stated that there were discussions about how to deal with her report, because all of the comments Wikipediologists so far on this list leads me to think that they would likely deal with it the same way Wikipediologists deal with others who dare to stray from or mock the Wikipediology doctrine -- that being attack, attack, attack! And this is something you excel at Ira.
For the record Ira, I have been in touch with the reporter a few times, and she has told me, that like the Avicii interview, she recorded the entire conversation and she stands by her report. So will New York Magazine when they review her recorded conversation, if Wikipediologists wanted to make her report an issue. What you may not have seen about the Avicii report is that the reporter was vindicated in the end, simply because the conversation was recorded. I also told her that she would probably be notable enough for a Wikipedia article, and that she has no need to be worried if one were created -- people generally do edit in an NPOV way. She has faith in that system.
Now on your other comments, and it's one which Pete Forsyth touched on --- Wikipediologists do have a history of creating articles when they have been slighted.
Take Theodore Katsanevas,[1] for example. Prior to the news of him suing a Greek Wikipedia editor, he had a bio article on one project, Greek Wikipedia.[2] He now has an article on 18 projects.[3] It's the same thing with Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station,[4] which now has articles on 33 projects.[5] On the flipside, Pine Gap,[6] has an article on only 7 projects.[7] Interesting comparison isn't it.
So, there you have it Ira, I hope this gives you something to think about, and if you want to comment further, then I welcome it.
Cheers
Russavia
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Katsanevas [2] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q12877939&oldid=108324487 [3] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12877939 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-sur-Haute_military_radio_station [5] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10369016 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap [7] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1754535
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 12:30 AM, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
Russavia, despite the smilie, your last comment suggests that someone would create a biography of a living person in retaliation for the fact that she wrote unflatteringly and made errors in a piece about the Wikiconference.
BLPs must never be created or edited as a form of retaliation against the article subject or misused in connection with an off-wiki dispute, nor may any suggestion of doing so be made at any time..
It is also undesirable to provide ammunition for the (sometimes, unfortunately, accurate) perception that being the subject of a Wikipedia article is something that people should fear, nor that we would, even jokingly, threaten to do create a BLP as a form of what came last year to be called "revenge editing."
Please don't make this sort of comment again.
Thanks, Newyorkbrad/IBM
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)
Cheers,
Russavia
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Russavia, your post confirms my rule of thumb that any post containing the word "butthurt" is unworthy of serious attention.
I was not present at the conference while the newspaper reporter was (or at least not in the same place), so I have no personal knowledge about man statements in her article. I do, at a minimum, share some of the broader criticisms of its emphasis and its tone.
When I pointed out that I was concerned by your suggestion that someone might create a "revenge BLP," people responded that you were obviously joking. It now appears that you were quite serious, and in fact that you actually raised the prospect with the reporter (albeit trying to play down the potential impact). I will add that I don't see for what purpose you were interacting with the reporter at all, at least on the specific subject of the New York Wikiconference, which you were thousands of miles from. Given your prior "outreach" activities, ranging from Pricasso to the Encyclopedia Britannica, I find your motivations to be suspect.
As for the broader topic of revenge editing, it is certainly a serious issue, as we were all reminded by last year's Qworty fiasco. That is precisely why I asked you not to say something that could be read as promoting it. It is less clear whether the specific example you cite is an example of within-wiki revenge editing, or the broader issue of people who bring privacy-seeking lawsuits losing their privacy as a result (compare "Streisand effect"; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_examples_for_discussion#Example_... (adapted from a real case); and see also http://openjurist.org/8/f3d/1222/haynes-v-alfred-a-knopf-incorporated (7th Cir. 1995, Posner, J.), discussed in my BLP talk linked on my En userpage).
Newyorkbrad
On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 3:21 PM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Ira,
Don't lecture me about what is and isn't acceptable.
Sure, you're a member of WMNYC and you are, of course, really butthurt over the fact that basically the only report on the conference in the media has painted a picture you would have preferred not to be painted, but don't take that out on me -- this is one painting I hold no responsibility for.
If you want reports that paint a glowing picture of the Cult of Wikipediology, hire a publicist, don't let the media in, and certainly don't let the media talk to people who, by all accounts, shouldn't be doing so due to incompetence -- not everyone is capable of dealing with media.
What is interesting is that immediately after you posted this, you raced over to en.wp and posted what you did. But you should have stopped and thought about how ridiculous this could make you look, and it will make you look in the future.
Firstly, Risker stated that the reporter set up Rutherford, Rutherford said that the reporter lied, Isarra said that the reporter basically created a tense situation....hell Siko even stated on Gendergap that New York Magazine still sucks.
Ira, you push the line that BLP applies on all WMF projects; you do realise that this list is hosted on WMF servers, and therefore both Risker and Rutherford have engaged in gross BLP violating accusations. But you stayed silent on that....how quaint...how <s>Scientologist</s> Wikipediologist-like.
It's disturbing that Rutherford stated that there were discussions about how to deal with her report, because all of the comments Wikipediologists so far on this list leads me to think that they would likely deal with it the same way Wikipediologists deal with others who dare to stray from or mock the Wikipediology doctrine -- that being attack, attack, attack! And this is something you excel at Ira.
For the record Ira, I have been in touch with the reporter a few times, and she has told me, that like the Avicii interview, she recorded the entire conversation and she stands by her report. So will New York Magazine when they review her recorded conversation, if Wikipediologists wanted to make her report an issue. What you may not have seen about the Avicii report is that the reporter was vindicated in the end, simply because the conversation was recorded. I also told her that she would probably be notable enough for a Wikipedia article, and that she has no need to be worried if one were created -- people generally do edit in an NPOV way. She has faith in that system.
Now on your other comments, and it's one which Pete Forsyth touched on --- Wikipediologists do have a history of creating articles when they have been slighted.
Take Theodore Katsanevas,[1] for example. Prior to the news of him suing a Greek Wikipedia editor, he had a bio article on one project, Greek Wikipedia.[2] He now has an article on 18 projects.[3] It's the same thing with Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station,[4] which now has articles on 33 projects.[5] On the flipside, Pine Gap,[6] has an article on only 7 projects.[7] Interesting comparison isn't it.
So, there you have it Ira, I hope this gives you something to think about, and if you want to comment further, then I welcome it.
Cheers
Russavia
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Katsanevas [2] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q12877939&oldid=108324487 [3] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12877939 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-sur-Haute_military_radio_station [5] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10369016 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap [7] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1754535
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 12:30 AM, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
Russavia, despite the smilie, your last comment suggests that someone
would
create a biography of a living person in retaliation for the fact that
she
wrote unflatteringly and made errors in a piece about the Wikiconference.
BLPs must never be created or edited as a form of retaliation against the article subject or misused in connection with an off-wiki dispute, nor
may
any suggestion of doing so be made at any time..
It is also undesirable to provide ammunition for the (sometimes, unfortunately, accurate) perception that being the subject of a Wikipedia article is something that people should fear, nor that we would, even jokingly, threaten to do create a BLP as a form of what came last year to be called "revenge editing."
Please don't make this sort of comment again.
Thanks, Newyorkbrad/IBM
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)
Cheers,
Russavia
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("man statements" --> "many statements")
On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 5:33 PM, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
Russavia, your post confirms my rule of thumb that any post containing the word "butthurt" is unworthy of serious attention.
I was not present at the conference while the newspaper reporter was (or at least not in the same place), so I have no personal knowledge about man statements in her article. I do, at a minimum, share some of the broader criticisms of its emphasis and its tone.
When I pointed out that I was concerned by your suggestion that someone might create a "revenge BLP," people responded that you were obviously joking. It now appears that you were quite serious, and in fact that you actually raised the prospect with the reporter (albeit trying to play down the potential impact). I will add that I don't see for what purpose you were interacting with the reporter at all, at least on the specific subject of the New York Wikiconference, which you were thousands of miles from. Given your prior "outreach" activities, ranging from Pricasso to the Encyclopedia Britannica, I find your motivations to be suspect.
As for the broader topic of revenge editing, it is certainly a serious issue, as we were all reminded by last year's Qworty fiasco. That is precisely why I asked you not to say something that could be read as promoting it. It is less clear whether the specific example you cite is an example of within-wiki revenge editing, or the broader issue of people who bring privacy-seeking lawsuits losing their privacy as a result (compare "Streisand effect"; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_examples_for_discussion#Example_... (adapted from a real case); and see also http://openjurist.org/8/f3d/1222/haynes-v-alfred-a-knopf-incorporated (7th Cir. 1995, Posner, J.), discussed in my BLP talk linked on my En userpage).
Newyorkbrad
On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 3:21 PM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Ira,
Don't lecture me about what is and isn't acceptable.
Sure, you're a member of WMNYC and you are, of course, really butthurt over the fact that basically the only report on the conference in the media has painted a picture you would have preferred not to be painted, but don't take that out on me -- this is one painting I hold no responsibility for.
If you want reports that paint a glowing picture of the Cult of Wikipediology, hire a publicist, don't let the media in, and certainly don't let the media talk to people who, by all accounts, shouldn't be doing so due to incompetence -- not everyone is capable of dealing with media.
What is interesting is that immediately after you posted this, you raced over to en.wp and posted what you did. But you should have stopped and thought about how ridiculous this could make you look, and it will make you look in the future.
Firstly, Risker stated that the reporter set up Rutherford, Rutherford said that the reporter lied, Isarra said that the reporter basically created a tense situation....hell Siko even stated on Gendergap that New York Magazine still sucks.
Ira, you push the line that BLP applies on all WMF projects; you do realise that this list is hosted on WMF servers, and therefore both Risker and Rutherford have engaged in gross BLP violating accusations. But you stayed silent on that....how quaint...how <s>Scientologist</s> Wikipediologist-like.
It's disturbing that Rutherford stated that there were discussions about how to deal with her report, because all of the comments Wikipediologists so far on this list leads me to think that they would likely deal with it the same way Wikipediologists deal with others who dare to stray from or mock the Wikipediology doctrine -- that being attack, attack, attack! And this is something you excel at Ira.
For the record Ira, I have been in touch with the reporter a few times, and she has told me, that like the Avicii interview, she recorded the entire conversation and she stands by her report. So will New York Magazine when they review her recorded conversation, if Wikipediologists wanted to make her report an issue. What you may not have seen about the Avicii report is that the reporter was vindicated in the end, simply because the conversation was recorded. I also told her that she would probably be notable enough for a Wikipedia article, and that she has no need to be worried if one were created -- people generally do edit in an NPOV way. She has faith in that system.
Now on your other comments, and it's one which Pete Forsyth touched on --- Wikipediologists do have a history of creating articles when they have been slighted.
Take Theodore Katsanevas,[1] for example. Prior to the news of him suing a Greek Wikipedia editor, he had a bio article on one project, Greek Wikipedia.[2] He now has an article on 18 projects.[3] It's the same thing with Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station,[4] which now has articles on 33 projects.[5] On the flipside, Pine Gap,[6] has an article on only 7 projects.[7] Interesting comparison isn't it.
So, there you have it Ira, I hope this gives you something to think about, and if you want to comment further, then I welcome it.
Cheers
Russavia
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Katsanevas [2] https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q12877939&oldid=108324487 [3] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12877939 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-sur-Haute_military_radio_station [5] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10369016 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap [7] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1754535
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 12:30 AM, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
Russavia, despite the smilie, your last comment suggests that someone
would
create a biography of a living person in retaliation for the fact that
she
wrote unflatteringly and made errors in a piece about the
Wikiconference.
BLPs must never be created or edited as a form of retaliation against
the
article subject or misused in connection with an off-wiki dispute, nor
may
any suggestion of doing so be made at any time..
It is also undesirable to provide ammunition for the (sometimes, unfortunately, accurate) perception that being the subject of a
Wikipedia
article is something that people should fear, nor that we would, even jokingly, threaten to do create a BLP as a form of what came last year
to
be called "revenge editing."
Please don't make this sort of comment again.
Thanks, Newyorkbrad/IBM
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)
Cheers,
Russavia
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I have set the moderation bit on Russavia's address for a limited time. I've asked Russavia to focus on issues only; in the spirit of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility
Regards, Richard.
On 14/06/14 05:21, Russavia wrote:
Ira,
Don't lecture me about what is and isn't acceptable.
Sure, you're a member of WMNYC and you are, of course, really butthurt
<cut>
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
There is the option of contacting her directly, or the chief editor of the magazine, for further comment/clarification. Or the Wikipedia way -- create a totally neutral on-project biography. ;)
Cheers,
Russavia
Richard Ames writes:
I have set the moderation bit on Russavia's address for a limited time.
I find it interesting to see how list moderators are applying different standards to different people here. I cannot remember you moderating Will Sinclair when he was clearly overflowing this list last month, nor can I remember you moderating Pierre-Selim when he vented his frustrations here, also last month.
Perhaps the word 'butthurt' is on a blacklist somewhere, or perhaps one needs to be closely associated to the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director to have a blind eye turned on when they do not follow list guidelines?
PS Apologies if this is breaking the thread; I'm responding to this e-mail via the Gmane gateway.
Tomasz
Stepping in just to address one general point, and in no way speaking for Richard:
We don't have a list of "bad words," or any kind of points-based system that we use to trigger moderation. Russavia has also not been banned; he's still free to post, and his e-mails will be let through as long as they meet the level of civility generally expected of mature individuals. Wikimedia-l is not governed by enwiki policy, but if you seriously have to ask what "civil" is, you might start with the link Richard shared.
Austin
On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 4:08 PM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski twkozlowski@gmail.com wrote:
Richard Ames writes:
I have set the moderation bit on Russavia's address for a limited time.
I find it interesting to see how list moderators are applying different standards to different people here. I cannot remember you moderating Will Sinclair when he was clearly overflowing this list last month, nor can I remember you moderating Pierre-Selim when he vented his frustrations here, also last month.
Perhaps the word 'butthurt' is on a blacklist somewhere, or perhaps one needs to be closely associated to the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director to have a blind eye turned on when they do not follow list guidelines?
PS Apologies if this is breaking the thread; I'm responding to this e-mail via the Gmane gateway.
Tomasz
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On 14 June 2014 14:22, Richard Ames richard@ames.id.au wrote:
I have set the moderation bit on Russavia's address for a limited time. I've asked Russavia to focus on issues only; in the spirit of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility
Hi Richard, thanks for specifying a reason for moderation. Could you define what you intend "limited time" to be, particularly as I believe there is no public appeals process. A month of moderation given "acceptable use"?
I do NOT find the word "butthurt" in any discussion acceptable, it would be a reason for me to stop reading. However this is my "thin skin" which I have been subject to robust public criticism for. Were Russavia to ask me for advice on these things, I would ask that he avoid vulgarity, it only distracts from the real points he wants to make, which on the whole I find benefit the Wikimedia movement, especially when we compare Russavia's dynamic actions to support meaningful free speech, which based on recent press interviews is exactly the same goal as Jimmy Wales.
With regard to the rationale for moderation, I would like to point out that from *my human memory*, some current or past English Wikipedia Arbcom members have used the word "butthurt" to describe other editors. In comparison the far more disruptive and offensive word "fuck" or telling editors to "fuck off" seems supported as appropriate by the community of editors, based on discussions this year as well as in the past (I'm recalling a discussion that was on Jimbo's talk page and a thread on ANI when an editor used these words against Russavia). Perhaps someone could track down an example(s) of current or past Arbcom members using "butthurt", as it will take me a few days to get around to running a search from scratch to provide a diff? Anyway, I'm certain that although the civility policy mentions "rudeness", if asked, Arbcom would not object to "butthurt" as a colloquialism in discussion.
As this moderation appears based on the English Wikipedia's guideline for civility, it would seem odd to moderate Russavia's access to this list for using a word that the most trusted of Wikipedia contributors use themselves, and defend the use by others, when they interpret the civility guidelines. Perhaps you might think of re-stating the rationale?
Thanks, Fae
On 14 June 2014 15:08, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote: ...
Hi Richard, thanks for specifying a reason for moderation. Could you define what you intend "limited time" to be, particularly as I believe there is no public appeals process. A month of moderation given "acceptable use"?
...
that from *my human memory*, some current or past English Wikipedia Arbcom members have used the word "butthurt" to describe other editors. In comparison the far more disruptive and offensive word
...
for civility, it would seem odd to moderate Russavia's access to this list for using a word that the most trusted of Wikipedia contributors use themselves, and defend the use by others, when they interpret the civility guidelines. Perhaps you might think of re-stating the rationale?
I have taken a moment to find a relevant reference to back up my memory, see [1] which shows Salvio giuliano vigorously defending his use of the word "butthurt". Salvio giulano is a current English Wikipedia Arbcom member. I have not bothered to research further use of this word by other current or past Arbcom members.
I think most readers of this list will find it odd to see that "butthurt" used in a mild and colourful context on this list by Russavia, gets highlighted and becomes a matter of objection by Newyorkbrad, a current Arbcom member, resulting in Russavia being moderated for an unspecified duration, while another Arbcom member has previously stated that his use of the same rude word is perfectly appropriate and legitimate public behaviour for himself in the rough and tumble of frank discussion.
Could the rationale for moderation be restated please, so that Russavia better understands what was unacceptable about his post here, and could we please have an idea as to what duration moderation is expected?
Links 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/C...
PS I have not discussed this email with Russavia, nor has Russavia canvassed me about it.
Fae
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 7:19 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
I have taken a moment to find a relevant reference to back up my memory, see [1] which shows Salvio giuliano vigorously defending his use of the word "butthurt". Salvio giulano is a current English Wikipedia Arbcom member. I have not bothered to research further use of this word by other current or past Arbcom members.
I think most readers of this list will find it odd to see that "butthurt" used in a mild and colourful context on this list by Russavia, gets highlighted and becomes a matter of objection by Newyorkbrad, a current Arbcom member, resulting in Russavia being moderated for an unspecified duration, while another Arbcom member has previously stated that his use of the same rude word is perfectly appropriate and legitimate public behaviour for himself in the rough and tumble of frank discussion.
Could the rationale for moderation be restated please, so that Russavia better understands what was unacceptable about his post here, and could we please have an idea as to what duration moderation is expected?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/C...
PS I have not discussed this email with Russavia, nor has Russavia canvassed me about it.
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
This is the same discussion where you described using the word butthurt as offensive in any context, inflammatory, uncivil, disrespectful and possibly defamatory? What, again, was your complaint with Russavia being moderated for writing it?
Please note that moderation is not a punishment: it is imposed as a measure to avoid future posts within a certain pattern of expectation when there are reasonable grounds to do so.
I think many people will agree that Russavia has been uncivil on quite a few occasios - I would even go as far as that I'm not surprised any more if (s)he is uncivil on this list. Therefore, I think there is a reasonable expectation that the pattern will continue - and I find it acceptable to moderate a person in such a situation to ensure future posts will be posterboys of civilty (well, or at least somewhat moderate).
I'm confident that the list moderators will moderate timely, will let through decent posts that approach civilty and that they will remove the moderation once the expectation of uncivil posts has been reversed (for example, when Russavia stopped making them).
I do second the insinuated requests by Tomasz and Fae that other people should be held to the same standards in the future, and they be moderated too when a pattern of uncivil behavior develops.
Best, Lodewijk
2014-06-19 1:31 GMT+02:00 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 7:19 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
I have taken a moment to find a relevant reference to back up my memory, see [1] which shows Salvio giuliano vigorously defending his use of the word "butthurt". Salvio giulano is a current English Wikipedia Arbcom member. I have not bothered to research further use of this word by other current or past Arbcom members.
I think most readers of this list will find it odd to see that "butthurt" used in a mild and colourful context on this list by Russavia, gets highlighted and becomes a matter of objection by Newyorkbrad, a current Arbcom member, resulting in Russavia being moderated for an unspecified duration, while another Arbcom member has previously stated that his use of the same rude word is perfectly appropriate and legitimate public behaviour for himself in the rough and tumble of frank discussion.
Could the rationale for moderation be restated please, so that Russavia better understands what was unacceptable about his post here, and could we please have an idea as to what duration moderation is expected?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/C...
PS I have not discussed this email with Russavia, nor has Russavia canvassed me about it.
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
This is the same discussion where you described using the word butthurt as offensive in any context, inflammatory, uncivil, disrespectful and possibly defamatory? What, again, was your complaint with Russavia being moderated for writing it? _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 9:20 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Please note that moderation is not a punishment: it is imposed as a measure to avoid future posts within a certain pattern of expectation when there are reasonable grounds to do so.
Absolutely correct. Moderated posts stand a good chance of continuing on to the list, so long as they aren't furthering whatever caused their sender's posts to be held.
I think many people will agree that Russavia has been uncivil on quite a few occasios - I would even go as far as that I'm not surprised any more if (s)he is uncivil on this list. Therefore, I think there is a reasonable expectation that the pattern will continue - and I find it acceptable to moderate a person in such a situation to ensure future posts will be posterboys of civilty (well, or at least somewhat moderate).
I'm confident that the list moderators will moderate timely, will let through decent posts that approach civilty and that they will remove the moderation once the expectation of uncivil posts has been reversed (for example, when Russavia stopped making them).
I think the note Richard sent about the action unintentionally drew too much attention to one particular word, when the reality is that it was the result of a pattern of behavior that we finally deemed to be "too much." And while he remains on moderation, the one message I've seen Russavia send since was allowed to be posted, because—as Lodewijk points out—moderation is not a punitive ban.
I do second the insinuated requests by Tomasz and Fae that other people should be held to the same standards in the future, and they be moderated too when a pattern of uncivil behavior develops.
It's true that there have been periods where this list hasn't been watched as closely as at other times, and I understand that this can seem downright unfair. I will say that at least the default is to err on the side of leniency, but we'll do our best to continue with even-handed oversight.
Austin
Austin Hair wrote:
It's true that there have been periods where this list hasn't been watched as closely as at other times [...]
That's an awfully generous way of putting it. If you're no longer interested in being a list moderator, you could always step down. There are plenty of dedicated and active volunteers willing to help moderate this list. I'm not sure if others feel the same way, but I would be very glad to see you resign as I feel you're some mixture of an absentee landlord and a mandarin, clinging to this role for no particularly good reason. Unfortunately, neither of these labels fits quite right and I've yet to find the perfect word to capture this pattern of behavior.
MZMcBride
I cannot help but wonder, what good you hope to accomplish with this rant.
Seriously, if you insist on making personal attacks like this, just send a private email.
Best, Lodewijk
2014-06-19 15:48 GMT+02:00 MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com:
Austin Hair wrote:
It's true that there have been periods where this list hasn't been watched as closely as at other times [...]
That's an awfully generous way of putting it. If you're no longer interested in being a list moderator, you could always step down. There are plenty of dedicated and active volunteers willing to help moderate this list. I'm not sure if others feel the same way, but I would be very glad to see you resign as I feel you're some mixture of an absentee landlord and a mandarin, clinging to this role for no particularly good reason. Unfortunately, neither of these labels fits quite right and I've yet to find the perfect word to capture this pattern of behavior.
MZMcBride
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you know that we agree on most topics lodewijk. but on this one we do not :) i d be glad if i can make a picture of something by what i read and not by what i am allowed to read by an arbitrary list moderator, who probably does not even have my cultural context.
if somebody does write too often without adding value anybody on the list is free to drop a private mail to this person. this works. especially this works with russavia.
rupert. Am 19.06.2014 09:20 schrieb "Lodewijk" lodewijk@effeietsanders.org:
Please note that moderation is not a punishment: it is imposed as a measure to avoid future posts within a certain pattern of expectation when there are reasonable grounds to do so.
I think many people will agree that Russavia has been uncivil on quite a few occasios - I would even go as far as that I'm not surprised any more if (s)he is uncivil on this list. Therefore, I think there is a reasonable expectation that the pattern will continue - and I find it acceptable to moderate a person in such a situation to ensure future posts will be posterboys of civilty (well, or at least somewhat moderate).
I'm confident that the list moderators will moderate timely, will let through decent posts that approach civilty and that they will remove the moderation once the expectation of uncivil posts has been reversed (for example, when Russavia stopped making them).
I do second the insinuated requests by Tomasz and Fae that other people should be held to the same standards in the future, and they be moderated too when a pattern of uncivil behavior develops.
Best, Lodewijk
2014-06-19 1:31 GMT+02:00 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 7:19 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
I have taken a moment to find a relevant reference to back up my memory, see [1] which shows Salvio giuliano vigorously defending his use of the word "butthurt". Salvio giulano is a current English Wikipedia Arbcom member. I have not bothered to research further use of this word by other current or past Arbcom members.
I think most readers of this list will find it odd to see that "butthurt" used in a mild and colourful context on this list by Russavia, gets highlighted and becomes a matter of objection by Newyorkbrad, a current Arbcom member, resulting in Russavia being moderated for an unspecified duration, while another Arbcom member has previously stated that his use of the same rude word is perfectly appropriate and legitimate public behaviour for himself in the rough and tumble of frank discussion.
Could the rationale for moderation be restated please, so that Russavia better understands what was unacceptable about his post here, and could we please have an idea as to what duration moderation is expected?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/C...
PS I have not discussed this email with Russavia, nor has Russavia canvassed me about it.
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
This is the same discussion where you described using the word butthurt
as
offensive in any context, inflammatory, uncivil, disrespectful and
possibly
defamatory? What, again, was your complaint with Russavia being moderated for writing it? _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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 am furious about this coverage. Incredibly insulting to the entire movement. Our volunteers break their backs putting on a conference and the best NYM can think to write is "haha dorks"? Imagine if they did that for any other tech conference. Not even the barest attempt to cover the actual content or issues.
Ed Saperia Chief Coordinator Wikimania London
Sent from my iPhone
On 7 Jun 2014, at 08:41, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you Issara. I was not at the conference, but journalism is a world I've inhabited, and this was exactly my impression -- an opportunistic reporter cutting many corners to come up with something that would titillate and entertain. Yes, the choice to use real names, given the way she described people, was really inappropriate. But I'm very glad to have this confirmed by somebody who was there and involved.
In the more traditional world, what happened there carries a certain accountability. If a company got that kind of treatment by the NY Magazine, they would call the reporter and express that disappointment, and perhaps put things in motion for better coverage for the future. If the reporter doesn't get it, that's the sort of thing that will result in the publication losing access to the company.
What's our analogue of that? Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:31 AM, Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/06/14 06:36, Risker wrote:
Yep, I'm not happy with that particular quote. But you know what? It was a set-up. Any reporter worth her salt attending a conference like this knows how to spot the person in the room that will give them the story they want to tell, and this is what happened here. She came in looking for the geeky white guy whose talent at chatting up women was, um, not his strong suit, and then quoted him instead of talking to the women. Notice that? One would think that the people to talk to about the challenges of being a woman Wikipedian would be the Wikimedia women. And yet the reporter herself refuses to allow them their voice.
I wasn't able to attend this conference, but I talked to several people who did, and I also looked at the photos. What struck me was how many women were there. Some of those who attended were struck by how engaged the women were, too; they were committed to being part of the "gendergap" solution.
Russavia, give everyone a break here. I feel badly for the young woman, because she was put on the spot in a very awkward situation. I feel badly for Kevin, because I think he really does get the importance of expanding the perspectives on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, but he was put in a situation that was well outside his comfort level. Wikipedia, Wikimedia and the conference itself were inaccurately portrayed by a media outlet. We all know it happens all the time; it's why we look for multiple reliable sources in our articles.
Hi. Thank you for this.
I was there, the woman who randomly joined in, and I must say, what the journalist did was very unfair to Kevin and the others. It wasn't just putting them on the spot in the way in which she did, but even going so far as the rather childish descriptions to further stereotype them... naming folks by name and then doing that, that seems perhaps even more rude than what we tend to do to each other around here. As I recall Schulenberg had the sense to leave partway through (for which I say good for him), but most of us wouldn't know to do that (or how), and taking advantage of that wasn't very nice either.
Thing is, these guys were put on the spot and pressed, and that they are the ones getting crap for it is ridiculous. Sure, there may have been some some awkward things said, but the entire thing got very awkward and quite frankly I think they handled it remarkably well considering the line of questioning and discourse. A lot of what looks so bad appears to have been jokes taken seriously - because in a tense situation, trying to alleviate the tension with humour is a pretty normal response - and as a result I don't even know how much of what was quoted is even representative of the views of those quoted, never mind the wider community.
For my part, no apologies are owed, nor should anyone expect them to be; these are awkward issues with often no right way to bring them up, and outrage against those who try to respond under pressure and fail to do so diplomatically does not help matters in the slightest when we're all just doing the best we can. So apologise to them, I say, if to anyone. They were the ones wronged.
-K
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I think there's something of a lesson here for people: don't trust the press.
The job of a journalist, these days, is to write stories that people will pay to read. It is not to portray Wikimedia in the best possible light. It is not to be your friend, and it is not to record an accurate and impartial view of events. There is a reason that most organisations pay for press contacts / spin doctors, and that reason is that journalists will paint organisations in the worst possible light because that'll sell a few extra papers. Yes, it stinks. No, there's not really anything to be done about it.
Many journalists appear friendly, and outside of work, many of them are decent people. But when they're on the clock, you need to be aware that they'll quite happily 'misinterpret' a social interaction and draw the conclusion that "Wikimedians = Social Shut-ins with no ability to talk to girls" from that. So if you're at a conference with journalists about, act accordingly. And it doesn't hurt to be a bit cynical when you read these sort of stories, because it's usually a somewhat distorted and sensationalised view of things that you're reading.
Cheers, Craig
On 7 June 2014 17:41, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you Issara. I was not at the conference, but journalism is a world I've inhabited, and this was exactly my impression -- an opportunistic reporter cutting many corners to come up with something that would titillate and entertain. Yes, the choice to use real names, given the way she described people, was really inappropriate. But I'm very glad to have this confirmed by somebody who was there and involved.
In the more traditional world, what happened there carries a certain accountability. If a company got that kind of treatment by the NY Magazine, they would call the reporter and express that disappointment, and perhaps put things in motion for better coverage for the future. If the reporter doesn't get it, that's the sort of thing that will result in the publication losing access to the company.
What's our analogue of that? Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:31 AM, Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/06/14 06:36, Risker wrote:
Yep, I'm not happy with that particular quote. But you know what? It
was
a set-up. Any reporter worth her salt attending a conference like this knows how to spot the person in the room that will give them the story they want to tell, and this is what happened here. She came in looking for
the
geeky white guy whose talent at chatting up women was, um, not his
strong
suit, and then quoted him instead of talking to the women. Notice that? One would think that the people to talk to about the challenges of
being a
woman Wikipedian would be the Wikimedia women. And yet the reporter herself refuses to allow them their voice.
I wasn't able to attend this conference, but I talked to several people who did, and I also looked at the photos. What struck me was how many women were there. Some of those who attended were struck by how engaged the women were, too; they were committed to being part of the "gendergap"
solution.
Russavia, give everyone a break here. I feel badly for the young woman, because she was put on the spot in a very awkward situation. I feel
badly
for Kevin, because I think he really does get the importance of
expanding
the perspectives on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, but he was put in
a
situation that was well outside his comfort level. Wikipedia, Wikimedia and the conference itself were inaccurately portrayed by a media outlet. We all know it happens all the time; it's why we look for multiple reliable sources in our articles.
Hi. Thank you for this.
I was there, the woman who randomly joined in, and I must say, what the journalist did was very unfair to Kevin and the others. It wasn't just putting them on the spot in the way in which she did, but even going so
far
as the rather childish descriptions to further stereotype them... naming folks by name and then doing that, that seems perhaps even more rude than what we tend to do to each other around here. As I recall Schulenberg had the sense to leave partway through (for which I say good for him), but
most
of us wouldn't know to do that (or how), and taking advantage of that wasn't very nice either.
Thing is, these guys were put on the spot and pressed, and that they are the ones getting crap for it is ridiculous. Sure, there may have been
some
some awkward things said, but the entire thing got very awkward and quite frankly I think they handled it remarkably well considering the line of questioning and discourse. A lot of what looks so bad appears to have
been
jokes taken seriously - because in a tense situation, trying to alleviate the tension with humour is a pretty normal response - and as a result I don't even know how much of what was quoted is even representative of the views of those quoted, never mind the wider community.
For my part, no apologies are owed, nor should anyone expect them to be; these are awkward issues with often no right way to bring them up, and outrage against those who try to respond under pressure and fail to do so diplomatically does not help matters in the slightest when we're all just doing the best we can. So apologise to them, I say, if to anyone. They
were
the ones wronged.
-K
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Craig Franklin wrote:
I think there's something of a lesson here for people: don't trust the press.
The part of the piece I found most striking was that the author readily, and almost boastfully, admits to speaking to "a minority of the minority of the minority," but she seems to have no issue using this very limited sample size to evaluate Wikipedia on the whole. Even if we assumed that there are 22,000 registered Wikipedians, is a sample size of five or six appropriate? If she meant 22,000,000, it seems like an even crazier leap.
After re-reading the piece, I'd probably stand by a lot of it. It's not a great reflection of Wikipedia, but I also wouldn't call at least many parts of it inaccurate, per se, just crudely distorted and manipulated.
The author used the tactic where you mention that Mandela was a convicted criminal that spent 27 years in prison, but fail to mention that he won the Nobel Peace Prize and was the revered president of South Africa.
This tactic is an easy way to create a distorted, but technically accurate, impression. Some of the fine folks at Wikipediocracy are very good at employing this tactic as well. :-)
MZMcBride
On 07/06/2014 14:42, MZMcBride wrote:
The part of the piece I found most striking was that the author
readily, and almost boastfully, admits to speaking to "a minority of the minority of the minority," but she seems to have no issue using this very limited sample size to evaluate Wikipedia on the whole.
But she is about right, isn't she? I mean, there are millions and millions of people who edit Wikipedia, about their garage band, e.g., or about a company they were paid to edit for, or to write something incompetent or plagiarised about history or philosophy, or whatever. Some are remarkably good at it, many aren't. Most of these I suspect would not call themselves 'Wikipedians'. Then there are those who are regularly involved with the site, mostly as 'content contributors', but who would also shudder to call themselves 'Wikipedians'. I would have put myself in that category, when I used to edit. I care about the free knowledge stuff, very much, actually, and I would always do my best to ensure articles in my specialist field were reasonably accurate. Even though I don't edit any more I still try and get stuff corrected http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/02/23/islands-of-sanity. But I have never seen myself as part of any 'community'.
Then there are the people who _would_ call themselves 'Wikipedians', but wouldn't have the time or location or money to go to any of the 'community events'. Finally there are the hard core, who talk about the 'movement' and who proselytise for it and who do turn up to such events. So it's a minority of a minority of a minority, yes. That's a rough picture, obviously, but I don't think the journalist meant anything else.
, Ed
I'm combining responses to edward and Fae and then heading to the pool. B-)
edward wrote:
But she is about right, isn't she? I mean, there are millions and millions of people who edit Wikipedia, about their garage band, e.g., or about a company they were paid to edit for, or to write something incompetent or plagiarised about history or philosophy, or whatever. Some are remarkably good at it, many aren't. Most of these I suspect would not call themselves 'Wikipedians'. Then there are those who are regularly involved with the site, mostly as 'content contributors', but who would also shudder to call themselves 'Wikipedians'. I would have put myself in that category, when I used to edit. I care about the free knowledge stuff, very much, actually, and I would always do my best to ensure articles in my specialist field were reasonably accurate. Even though I don't edit any more I still try and get stuff corrected http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/02/23/islands-of-sanity. But I have never seen myself as part of any 'community'.
Then there are the people who _would_ call themselves 'Wikipedians', but wouldn't have the time or location or money to go to any of the 'community events'. Finally there are the hard core, who talk about the 'movement' and who proselytise for it and who do turn up to such events. So it's a minority of a minority of a minority, yes. That's a rough picture, obviously, but I don't think the journalist meant anything else.
Well, not quite finally. You've captured a few archetypes, but there likely many more. Who is and isn't a Wikimedian (or a Wikipedian) is probably as difficult a question to answer as "who is a Jew?" (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew%3F). It's a question of identity and culture that's complex and without very clear or simple answers. This is also why any attempt to directly quantify Wikipedians is also prone to error. Putting aside the orders of magnitude difference between 22,000 and 22,000,000, is it fair to only look at _registered_ Wikipedians? Involvement with Wikipedia does not and has never required creating a user account.
I think the journalist meant to paint a rough picture and she was successful in doing so. The counter-point being made here is that it's trivial to paint a distorted picture of nearly anyone or anything, but that does not mean it's fair to do so or good journalism.
Fae wrote:
- What proportion of attendees at the conference were women? *
- Several emails in this thread have claimed it was high, nobody has
provided evidence. As Wikimedia funded conferences measure diversity, publicly reporting this figure should be *a good thing*.
I'm not sure this number is available off-hand. I don't believe sex/gender was recorded at time of conference registration, so you'd have to manually sample, I think? There's a group photo somewhere that shows many (but certainly not all) of the conference participants.
If you think statistical survey data such as gender should be collected for all future wiki conferences, it probably makes sense to incorporate this recommendation into a best practices guide at outreach.wikimedia.org or meta.wikimedia.org and make future conference organizers aware of it.
- What proportion of attendees were Wikimedia Chapter or Foundation
contractors or employees and attending the conference could be considered part of their employment? *
- At least one email here claimed that volunteers broke their backs
running the conference, which seems to overlook that a high proportion of registered attendees were employees and probably did most of the preparation. I asked this question last year about another conference, it was never answered properly, as it was never measured. Again, this ought to be *a good thing* to report on, as our values are to keep the volunteer at the centre of everything we do and driving our movement rather than paying Executives six-figure sums to tell us what we should believe in.
This feels like a strange question to ask. Aren't you asking specifically who the conference organizers were and how many of them were volunteers? I think https://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Organizing_Team answers this question.
MZMcBride
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:31 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I'm combining responses to edward and Fae and then heading to the pool. B-)
Fae wrote:
- What proportion of attendees were Wikimedia Chapter or Foundation
contractors or employees and attending the conference could be considered part of their employment? *
- At least one email here claimed that volunteers broke their backs
running the conference, which seems to overlook that a high proportion of registered attendees were employees and probably did most of the preparation. I asked this question last year about another conference, it was never answered properly, as it was never measured. Again, this ought to be *a good thing* to report on, as our values are to keep the volunteer at the centre of everything we do and driving our movement rather than paying Executives six-figure sums to tell us what we should believe in.
This feels like a strange question to ask. Aren't you asking specifically who the conference organizers were and how many of them were volunteers? I think https://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Organizing_Team answers this question.
http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Organizing_Team
(for the record, i attended the conference as a volunteer and 100% paid for myself ... no scholarship, nothing, and think that's the case for most attendees)
Cheers, Katie
MZMcBride
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On 07/06/2014, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
(for the record, i attended the conference as a volunteer and 100% paid for myself ... no scholarship, nothing, and think that's the case for most attendees)
Could one of the conference organizers provide the totals for two measures to avoid speculation and hearsay:
1. The proportion of women attendees.
2. The total number of unpaid volunteers taking part AND The total number of employees attending as volunteers AND The total number of employees being paid to support the conference.
My original question seemed simple to me. These are basic statistics that any Wikimedia conference registration process should be able to provide without compromising anyone's privacy.
As has been raised before, giving a figure of "50 volunteers attended this conference" looks peculiar, and potentially misleadingly political, when someone can afterwards point out that 15 out of the 50 were Chapter and Foundation employees or contractors whether they were being paid for their time to attend or not.
Thanks, Fae
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 5:31 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/06/2014, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
(for the record, i attended the conference as a volunteer and 100% paid
for
myself ... no scholarship, nothing, and think that's the case for most attendees)
Could one of the conference organizers provide the totals for two measures to avoid speculation and hearsay:
The proportion of women attendees.
The total number of unpaid volunteers taking part AND The total
number of employees attending as volunteers AND The total number of employees being paid to support the conference.
My original question seemed simple to me. These are basic statistics that any Wikimedia conference registration process should be able to provide without compromising anyone's privacy.
As has been raised before, giving a figure of "50 volunteers attended this conference" looks peculiar, and potentially misleadingly political, when someone can afterwards point out that 15 out of the 50 were Chapter and Foundation employees or contractors whether they were being paid for their time to attend or not.
I am sure detailed reporting will come, but please give the organizers some time.
Just some observations...
There were just a handful of WMF staff there, and no chapter employees (afaik, except myself who did not attend in that capacity).
number of employees being paid to support the conference is zero, unless you want to count the venue staff for security, etc.
Please note that the venue was donated at no cost to Wikimedia, and there were a number of other sponsors who sponsored the evening reception at the conference.
details: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-NYC/WikiConference_USA_2014#Bud...
about the gender diversity, it's just a guesstimate but i'd say ~35-40% women in attendance. (i think conference reporting will provide more stats)
Cheers, Katie
Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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aude wrote:
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 4:31 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
This feels like a strange question to ask. Aren't you asking specifically who the conference organizers were and how many of them were volunteers? I think https://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Organizing_Team answers this question.
Indeed, thank you! (Firefox has an annoying habit of dropping the protocol when copying and pasting URLs and I now have "https://" in my muscle memory.)
aude also wrote:
Please note that the venue was donated at no cost to Wikimedia, and there were a number of other sponsors who sponsored the evening reception at the conference.
I loved the venue. I thought it was spacious and pretty and in a decent area of town and the wifi seemed to be stable and fast for me.
I also really liked having open space scheduled concurrently with all of the speaking sessions. This is something I think we should encourage at every editathon or hackathon or meetup. Having presentations and keynotes and whatever else is nice and all, but people at all types of meetups should also have the ability to meet up. It's difficult to do that when you're in a room where you can't speak. :-) The dedicated open space provided a really nice solution to this, in my opinion.
MZMcBride
Could we have some facts please?
* What proportion of attendees at the conference were women? * - Several emails in this thread have claimed it was high, nobody has provided evidence. As Wikimedia funded conferences measure diversity, publicly reporting this figure should be *a good thing*.
* What proportion of attendees were Wikimedia Chapter or Foundation contractors or employees and attending the conference could be considered part of their employment? * - At least one email here claimed that volunteers broke their backs running the conference, which seems to overlook that a high proportion of registered attendees were employees and probably did most of the preparation. I asked this question last year about another conference, it was never answered properly, as it was never measured. Again, this ought to be *a good thing* to report on, as our values are to keep the volunteer at the centre of everything we do and driving our movement rather than paying Executives six-figure sums to tell us what we should believe in.
Lastly, this appears a yellow journalism fluff-piece. I prefer to see volunteers wearing hoodies rather than corporate black suits, regardless of their gender or orientation, these are the people most likely to make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement. So good luck to pizza stained t-shirts, wear them with pride.
Let's not fall into the trap of indulging corporate style PR paranoia, let's stick to the *facts* of what gets measured and reported. Of course, if you are responsible for publicly reporting and measuring, then /shame/ on you if you are failing to do so in a mistaken belief that this is a way to manipulate public perception, or our perception.
Fae
On 07/06/2014, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Craig Franklin wrote:
I think there's something of a lesson here for people: don't trust the press.
The part of the piece I found most striking was that the author readily, and almost boastfully, admits to speaking to "a minority of the minority of the minority," but she seems to have no issue using this very limited sample size to evaluate Wikipedia on the whole. Even if we assumed that there are 22,000 registered Wikipedians, is a sample size of five or six appropriate? If she meant 22,000,000, it seems like an even crazier leap.
After re-reading the piece, I'd probably stand by a lot of it. It's not a great reflection of Wikipedia, but I also wouldn't call at least many parts of it inaccurate, per se, just crudely distorted and manipulated.
The author used the tactic where you mention that Mandela was a convicted criminal that spent 27 years in prison, but fail to mention that he won the Nobel Peace Prize and was the revered president of South Africa.
This tactic is an easy way to create a distorted, but technically accurate, impression. Some of the fine folks at Wikipediocracy are very good at employing this tactic as well. :-)
MZMcBride
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On 07/06/2014 15:18, Fæ wrote:
So good luck to pizza stained t-shirts, wear them with pride.
See my previous post. I thought the point was not that they had pizza stained t-shirts, but rather that the Wikipedian who was interviewed (Kevin) was explicitly dividing his kin into those who wear such stained shorts, and those who dress in a 'chill' way, which as Mr McBride explains, means 'cool and hip'.
these [i.e. volunteers wearing hoodies] are the people most likely
to make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement.
I don't see what the 'hoodie' bit has to do with it. I associate 'hoodies' with people who want to remain anonymous, possibly to escape the attention of police, government agents or other responsible members of the enforcement community charged with keeping the world safe from terrorism or violence. Why would such people make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement?
I'm puzzled.
, E
And I associate hoodies with people wanting to keep their heads warm.
-----Original Message----- From: wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of edward Sent: 07 June 2014 04:37 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media
On 07/06/2014 15:18, Fæ wrote:
So good luck to pizza stained t-shirts, wear them with pride.
See my previous post. I thought the point was not that they had pizza stained t-shirts, but rather that the Wikipedian who was interviewed (Kevin) was explicitly dividing his kin into those who wear such stained shorts, and those who dress in a 'chill' way, which as Mr McBride explains, means 'cool and hip'.
these [i.e. volunteers wearing hoodies] are the people most likely to make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement.
I don't see what the 'hoodie' bit has to do with it. I associate 'hoodies' with people who want to remain anonymous, possibly to escape the attention of police, government agents or other responsible members of the enforcement community charged with keeping the world safe from terrorism or violence. Why would such people make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement?
I'm puzzled.
, E
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As someone who usually wears a suit and tie to Wikimedia events when I go (Hong Kong last year was the exception to that for the most part, way too humid), my advice to people would be to wear whatever the hell you feel comfortable in, subject to the normal standards of decency and the local climate. If you feel comfortable in a hoodie, then wear one. If you feel comfortable in a tie and monocle, then go right ahead. Picking on people for their choice of clothes at a conference seems awfully petty to me. Ultimately, you'll contribute more and be able to absorb more from others if you're not worrying about how tight your tie is or fretting over whether you'll be asked to leave for violating a dress code.
Cheers, Craig "That Guy In A Suit" Franklin
On 8 June 2014 15:50, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
And I associate hoodies with people wanting to keep their heads warm.
-----Original Message----- From: wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of edward Sent: 07 June 2014 04:37 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media
On 07/06/2014 15:18, Fæ wrote:
So good luck to pizza stained t-shirts, wear them with pride.
See my previous post. I thought the point was not that they had pizza stained t-shirts, but rather that the Wikipedian who was interviewed (Kevin) was explicitly dividing his kin into those who wear such stained shorts, and those who dress in a 'chill' way, which as Mr McBride explains, means 'cool and hip'.
these [i.e. volunteers wearing hoodies] are the people most likely to
make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement.
I don't see what the 'hoodie' bit has to do with it. I associate 'hoodies' with people who want to remain anonymous, possibly to escape the attention of police, government agents or other responsible members of the enforcement community charged with keeping the world safe from terrorism or violence. Why would such people make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement?
I'm puzzled.
, E
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It's interesting how much this thread reinforces what Sumana said in her keynote at the conference!
Chris On 8 Jun 2014 08:15, "Craig Franklin" cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
As someone who usually wears a suit and tie to Wikimedia events when I go (Hong Kong last year was the exception to that for the most part, way too humid), my advice to people would be to wear whatever the hell you feel comfortable in, subject to the normal standards of decency and the local climate. If you feel comfortable in a hoodie, then wear one. If you feel comfortable in a tie and monocle, then go right ahead. Picking on people for their choice of clothes at a conference seems awfully petty to me. Ultimately, you'll contribute more and be able to absorb more from others if you're not worrying about how tight your tie is or fretting over whether you'll be asked to leave for violating a dress code.
Cheers, Craig "That Guy In A Suit" Franklin
On 8 June 2014 15:50, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
And I associate hoodies with people wanting to keep their heads warm.
-----Original Message----- From: wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of edward Sent: 07 June 2014 04:37 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media
On 07/06/2014 15:18, Fæ wrote:
So good luck to pizza stained t-shirts, wear them with pride.
See my previous post. I thought the point was not that they had pizza stained t-shirts, but rather that the Wikipedian who was interviewed (Kevin) was explicitly dividing his kin into those who wear such stained shorts, and those who dress in a 'chill' way, which as Mr McBride
explains,
means 'cool and hip'.
these [i.e. volunteers wearing hoodies] are the people most likely to
make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement.
I don't see what the 'hoodie' bit has to do with it. I associate 'hoodies' with people who want to remain anonymous, possibly to escape
the
attention of police, government agents or other responsible members of
the
enforcement community charged with keeping the world safe from terrorism
or
violence. Why would such people make a meaningful difference to open knowledge within the Wikimedia movement?
I'm puzzled.
, E
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-06-04/Op-ed
Martin
2014-06-08 12:35 GMT+02:00 edward edward@logicmuseum.com:
On 08/06/2014 11:28, Chris Keating wrote:
It's interesting how much this thread reinforces what Sumana said in her keynote at the conference!
Chris
What did Sumana say in her keynote at the conference?
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On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
- What proportion of attendees were Wikimedia Chapter or Foundation
contractors or employees and attending the conference could be considered part of their employment? *
- At least one email here claimed that volunteers broke their backs
running the conference, which seems to overlook that a high proportion of registered attendees were employees and probably did most of the preparation. I asked this question last year about another conference, it was never answered properly, as it was never measured. Again, this ought to be *a good thing* to report on, as our values are to keep the volunteer at the centre of everything we do and driving our movement rather than paying Executives six-figure sums to tell us what we should believe in.
I would like to answer this question first, as it has a really simple answer.
There were exactly 0 employees on the organizing committee, and exactly 0 employees who did the preparation.
This was an entirely volunteer-run conference.
Thanks, Pharos
On 07/06/2014, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Craig Franklin wrote:
I think there's something of a lesson here for people: don't trust the press.
The part of the piece I found most striking was that the author readily, and almost boastfully, admits to speaking to "a minority of the minority of the minority," but she seems to have no issue using this very limited sample size to evaluate Wikipedia on the whole. Even if we assumed that there are 22,000 registered Wikipedians, is a sample size of five or six appropriate? If she meant 22,000,000, it seems like an even crazier leap.
After re-reading the piece, I'd probably stand by a lot of it. It's not a great reflection of Wikipedia, but I also wouldn't call at least many parts of it inaccurate, per se, just crudely distorted and manipulated.
The author used the tactic where you mention that Mandela was a convicted criminal that spent 27 years in prison, but fail to mention that he won the Nobel Peace Prize and was the revered president of South Africa.
This tactic is an easy way to create a distorted, but technically accurate, impression. Some of the fine folks at Wikipediocracy are very good at employing this tactic as well. :-)
MZMcBride
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-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.
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Fae: if you didn't know, US chapters don't have any permanent paid employees whatsoever, and only one temp contractor between either chapter - and he was only hired a few days ago, and to help manage one specific project. So no chapter employees from the US attended as employees, since none exist. I'm not sure if any overseas chapter employees attended, but even if they did, it would be a bit unusual for them to have directly participated in planning the conference. I'm sure there was some WMF staff overhead involved in handling the grant for the conference and for those that attended, but doubt it was that hugely significant. I'm not sure where you would get the idea that a high proportion of registered attendees were WMF or chapter employees, let alone why you would think they handled most of the conference prep.
----- Kevin Gorman -sent from my mobile
On Saturday, June 7, 2014, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Fæ <faewik@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
- What proportion of attendees were Wikimedia Chapter or Foundation
contractors or employees and attending the conference could be considered part of their employment? *
- At least one email here claimed that volunteers broke their backs
running the conference, which seems to overlook that a high proportion of registered attendees were employees and probably did most of the preparation. I asked this question last year about another conference, it was never answered properly, as it was never measured. Again, this ought to be *a good thing* to report on, as our values are to keep the volunteer at the centre of everything we do and driving our movement rather than paying Executives six-figure sums to tell us what we should believe in.
I would like to answer this question first, as it has a really simple answer.
There were exactly 0 employees on the organizing committee, and exactly 0 employees who did the preparation.
This was an entirely volunteer-run conference.
Thanks, Pharos
On 07/06/2014, MZMcBride <z@mzmcbride.com javascript:;> wrote:
Craig Franklin wrote:
I think there's something of a lesson here for people: don't trust the press.
The part of the piece I found most striking was that the author
readily,
and almost boastfully, admits to speaking to "a minority of the
minority
of the minority," but she seems to have no issue using this very
limited
sample size to evaluate Wikipedia on the whole. Even if we assumed that there are 22,000 registered Wikipedians, is a sample size of five or
six
appropriate? If she meant 22,000,000, it seems like an even crazier
leap.
After re-reading the piece, I'd probably stand by a lot of it. It's
not a
great reflection of Wikipedia, but I also wouldn't call at least many parts of it inaccurate, per se, just crudely distorted and manipulated.
The author used the tactic where you mention that Mandela was a
convicted
criminal that spent 27 years in prison, but fail to mention that he won the Nobel Peace Prize and was the revered president of South Africa.
This tactic is an easy way to create a distorted, but technically accurate, impression. Some of the fine folks at Wikipediocracy are very good at employing this tactic as well. :-)
MZMcBride
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?subject=unsubscribe>
-- faewik@gmail.com javascript:;
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.
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On 07/06/2014, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote: ...
This was an entirely volunteer-run conference.
Thanks Pharos. My question was about proportions of attendees being women or employees, rather than who organized it. I should have avoided the subsequent comment, as that appears to have taken us on a tangent (by the way, I think paying someone to help project manage conferences is an excellent use of donated funds, it is the sort of thing that is likely to cause volunteer stress and burn-out).
Aude's email (Sat Jun 7 16:12:35 UTC 2014) has confirmed that at least one attendee was an employee, so the answer to that question cannot be zero.
To avoid confusion, please refer to my email where I explain what was being asked: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-June/072566.html
Thanks, Fae
Hi Fae,
In your email of 16.31 today, you did indeed ask how many employees were "supporting the conference".
What was your intention in asking that question if not to get the answer Pharos has given you?
C On 7 Jun 2014 18:27, "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/06/2014, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote: ...
This was an entirely volunteer-run conference.
Thanks Pharos. My question was about proportions of attendees being women or employees, rather than who organized it. I should have avoided the subsequent comment, as that appears to have taken us on a tangent (by the way, I think paying someone to help project manage conferences is an excellent use of donated funds, it is the sort of thing that is likely to cause volunteer stress and burn-out).
Aude's email (Sat Jun 7 16:12:35 UTC 2014) has confirmed that at least one attendee was an employee, so the answer to that question cannot be zero.
To avoid confusion, please refer to my email where I explain what was being asked: < http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-June/072566.html%3E
Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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On 7 June 2014 13:27, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/06/2014, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote: ...
This was an entirely volunteer-run conference.
Thanks Pharos. My question was about proportions of attendees being women or employees, rather than who organized it. I should have avoided the subsequent comment, as that appears to have taken us on a tangent (by the way, I think paying someone to help project manage conferences is an excellent use of donated funds, it is the sort of thing that is likely to cause volunteer stress and burn-out).
Aude's email (Sat Jun 7 16:12:35 UTC 2014) has confirmed that at least one attendee was an employee, so the answer to that question cannot be zero.
Hold on....so now you are saying that someone employed by a WMF chapter or the WMF itself will never be allowed to be considered anything other than an employee? Fae, if they're paying their own way, they are there as volunteers, not employees. If they have not been directed to attend by their employer, they are volunteers. Not everyone does everything for work-related purposes, and a very significant proportion of Wikimedians who work for a chapter or the WMF also make volunteer contributions in many ways to WMF projects. This is a good thing, and shouldn't result in them being slammed for attending Wikimedia-related events on their own time spending their own money, as the nature of the question implies. If they didn't register as "employee of Chapter xx" or "employee of WMF", and their employer hasn't paid for their registration, there is absolutely no reason for them to be considered "employees" during their attendance.
I do not believe that gender is a mandatory question on any registrations for any WMF projects, and I question whether or not it's an appropriate one unless there is some specific reason to ask (e.g., accommodation arrangements). Therefore, there is no accurate method to assess the number of women who attended.
Risker/Anne
On 7 June 2014 18:40, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 7 June 2014 13:27, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote: Hold on....so now you are saying that someone employed by a WMF chapter or the WMF itself will never be allowed to be considered anything other than an employee? Fae, if they're paying their own way, they are there as volunteers, not employees. If they have not been directed to attend by their employer, they are volunteers. Not everyone does everything for work-related purposes, and a very significant proportion of Wikimedians who work for a chapter or the WMF also make volunteer contributions in many ways to WMF projects. This is a good thing, and shouldn't result in them being slammed for attending Wikimedia-related events on their own time spending their own money, as the nature of the question implies. If they didn't register as "employee of Chapter xx" or "employee of WMF", and their employer hasn't paid for their registration, there is absolutely no reason for them to be considered "employees" during their attendance.
Being an employee or contractor for the Foundation or a Chapter is not a crime, nor something that needs to be a shameful secret. You appear determined to parody my question.
Simply asking for numbers of unpaid volunteers taking part and numbers of women taking part, without numbers being biased by however many Foundation or Chapter employees and contractors attend (a greater proportion of whom are women compared to the general unpaid volunteer population) is a perfectly good question, and I should be free to ask it without endless bad faith accusations and slurs.
I do not believe that gender is a mandatory question on any registrations for any WMF projects, and I question whether or not it's an appropriate one unless there is some specific reason to ask (e.g., accommodation arrangements). Therefore, there is no accurate method to assess the number of women who attended.
The Wikimedia movement is perceived both inside and out as having a problem attracting and retaining women volunteers, especially *unpaid* women volunteers.
If leading members of our movement are going to adamantly refuse to even count the numbers of women participating at events and so fail to openly and transparently report the statistics, then I guess the only defence we have when criticised by journalists is to close our eyes and plug our ears until they go away.
To all feminists reading this, do you want to be counted or not?
The answer to how many women attended this conference officially appears to be "we don't know, we don't want to know, we will never tell you."
Fae
On 07/06/2014 22:27, Fæ wrote:
If leading members of our movement are going to adamantly refuse to
even count the numbers of women participating at events and so fail to openly and transparently report the statistics, then I guess the only defence we have when criticised by journalists is to close our eyes and plug our ears until they go away. <<
Perhaps I'm being stupid but the photo on this page http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Main_Page says "Most of the speakers, organizers, and attendees of the WikiConference USA 2014 at the New York Law School".
A quick and dirty count suggests 110 people in the photo, of whom 40 I can identify as women.
, Ed
On 6/7/2014 2:27 PM, Fæ wrote:
To all feminists reading this, do you want to be counted or not?
Sometimes marginalized minorities find it beneficial to be counted, sometimes they don't. When they're being subjected to mockery, hectoring, and aggressive interrogation, it's very often the latter. Fae, I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here, but if you support the notion of improving gender dynamics in the Wikimedia movement, you have an incredibly counterproductive way of going about it. Or maybe you think things are just fine the way they are.
--Michael Snow
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