Hey all --
Just heard that Steve Kent (Head of Office IT Support) got fired. Is this just a wild rumor? If not, what's the backstory?
MZMcBride public@mzmcbride.com
2009/10/30 MZMcBride public@mzmcbride.com:
Hey all --
Just heard that Steve Kent (Head of Office IT Support) got fired. Is this just a wild rumor? If not, what's the backstory?
He's still listed on http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff
Where did you hear it?
We don't comment on personnel rumors and speculation and will make announcements when and where appropriate.
2009/10/30 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org:
We don't comment on personnel rumors and speculation and will make announcements when and where appropriate.
So yes then.
Erik this is the wikimedia community you are dealing with. All those wikipedians are not only rather good at finding things out but tend to raise rumors and speculation to a science. Announcements when and where appropriate isn't really working out to well (or did you really mean for the information on your office move to drip out like that?). Announce early announce often. Won't have that much impact on the rate of information flow and means that you face fewer problems of other people getting to put their spin on the information first.
Why would you even ask that question, let alone expect an answer? Last I checked, no Wikimedian also carried the title of "majority shareholder" or anything close. You're not entitled to sordid details of personnel management. Try to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation is a business, and needs to operate with more professionalism than "announce everything announce often."
Nathan
On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Why would you even ask that question, let alone expect an answer?
There are lots of people who contribute to this mailing list who aren't staff members or otherwise encumbered by confidentiality agreements. Maybe one of them knows what happened and is willing to share.
Hello,
I normally only read this list because I don't see the need to get really involved into discussion a lot, but while reading this I had the feeling that I should respond.
As far as I see it there was been a question and it has been answered with the answer that Erik isn't going to respond on rumours and will make a announcement when needed, so why does pushing for a answer?
Wouldn't it be better to sit back and wait of and when there will be a announcement? Its just like Wikipedia we can't think trust something untill its verified and pushing isn't going to help :)
Best regards, Huib
Evidently it's too late to wonder. The staff page has been updated recently stating specifically that he is leaving on 30 Nov 2009. Are you now saying that there's a rumor that that date has been moved up more? The change was made in the last week on that page.
2009/10/30 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
Why would you even ask that question, let alone expect an answer?
Nothing wrong with taking the direct approach. It's also a fairly effective way of letting the foundation know they have a potential issue.
Last I checked, no Wikimedian also carried the title of "majority shareholder" or anything close. You're not entitled to sordid details of personnel management.
Zee relevance being?
Try to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation is a business, and needs to operate with more professionalism than "announce everything announce often."
It's an approach that can be quite professional depending on what you are doing.
I think the community should be and is being treated as a majority shareholder, even better! Office IT support is a typical thing that the community is not affected by AT ALL. So I am not surprised no announcement is being given on foundation-l about this. If any public list would be relevant, it would be wikitech-l, but even there it would be doubtful. (not even to speak about privacy issues)
We should get used to a situation where the foundation grows, and that more hirings/firings (or farewells for other reasons) are going to take place then up to now. It would simply not be practical to announce them all. I do expect the foundation to announce community-relevant positions such as the volunteer coordinator, CsomethingO's, board positions and other functions that relate to the community more directly. Financial controllers, office supports, personal assistants etc are just not relevant to the community, and a change on the relevant webpages and maybe a periodic (anonymized?) overview on monthly reports would make more sense. (2 hirings last month, and three people left the foundation for example)
Lodewijk
2009/10/30 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com
Why would you even ask that question, let alone expect an answer? Last I checked, no Wikimedian also carried the title of "majority shareholder" or anything close. You're not entitled to sordid details of personnel management. Try to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation is a business, and needs to operate with more professionalism than "announce everything announce often."
Nathan
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2009/10/31 effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com:
We should get used to a situation where the foundation grows, and that more hirings/firings (or farewells for other reasons) are going to take place then up to now. It would simply not be practical to announce them all.
While it shouldn't be necessary to announce everything, I think it would be advisable to because otherwise we will inevitably end up with threads like this, where sensationalised rumours get spread because of a lack of accurate information. If the community would just calm down and not assume the worst all the time, the WMF could just get on with doing their jobs, but unfortunately that isn't the case.
I agree with Lodewijk completely. One of the best reasons for this is simple human dignity. People come and go from jobs all the time, it is neither a scandal, nor a shame. Public speculation about such stuff is offensive and embarassing.
Yes, to community-facing positions. Yes, to high-level positions. Those things are relevant public information and can and should be discussed.
But not every job is like that, nor should it be.
effe iets anders wrote:
I think the community should be and is being treated as a majority shareholder, even better! Office IT support is a typical thing that the community is not affected by AT ALL. So I am not surprised no announcement is being given on foundation-l about this. If any public list would be relevant, it would be wikitech-l, but even there it would be doubtful. (not even to speak about privacy issues)
We should get used to a situation where the foundation grows, and that more hirings/firings (or farewells for other reasons) are going to take place then up to now. It would simply not be practical to announce them all. I do expect the foundation to announce community-relevant positions such as the volunteer coordinator, CsomethingO's, board positions and other functions that relate to the community more directly. Financial controllers, office supports, personal assistants etc are just not relevant to the community, and a change on the relevant webpages and maybe a periodic (anonymized?) overview on monthly reports would make more sense. (2 hirings last month, and three people left the foundation for example)
Lodewijk
2009/10/30 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com
Why would you even ask that question, let alone expect an answer? Last I checked, no Wikimedian also carried the title of "majority shareholder" or anything close. You're not entitled to sordid details of personnel management. Try to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation is a business, and needs to operate with more professionalism than "announce everything announce often."
Nathan
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2009/10/31 Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com:
I agree with Lodewijk completely. One of the best reasons for this is simple human dignity. People come and go from jobs all the time, it is neither a scandal, nor a shame. Public speculation about such stuff is offensive and embarassing.
Yes, to community-facing positions. Yes, to high-level positions. Those things are relevant public information and can and should be discussed.
But not every job is like that, nor should it be.
And the reason for speculation is that people first found out by rumor rather than foundation announcement. Basic communication management. Get stuff out before someone else can put their spin on it.
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 10:22 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
And the reason for speculation is that people first found out by rumor rather than foundation announcement. Basic communication management. Get stuff out before someone else can put their spin on it.
I have to disagree. The reason for the speculation is not the rumor. The reason for the speculation is a misguided sense that there's some sort of absolute right to know about these things. Jimmy's right: it makes sense that board or upper level management positions are discussed among the project community (although I would not consider this list to be a useful forum of community discussion). It does not, however, make sense that this principle be applied to someone responsible for office IT.
I don't know what the reasons were for why this particular employment is scheduled to end. And there's no reason that I or anyone other than those directly involved with it internally to the foundation should know. It's a simple case of none-of-your-business.
Best regards,
Sebastian
On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Why would you even ask that question, let alone expect an answer? Last I checked, no Wikimedian also carried the title of "majority shareholder" or anything close. You're not entitled to sordid details of personnel management. Try to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation is a business, and needs to operate with more professionalism than "announce everything announce often."
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Sebastian Moleski sebmol@gmail.com wrote:
I have to disagree. The reason for the speculation is not the rumor. The reason for the speculation is a misguided sense that there's some sort of absolute right to know about these things. Jimmy's right: it makes sense that board or upper level management positions are discussed among the project community (although I would not consider this list to be a useful forum of community discussion). It does not, however, make sense that this principle be applied to someone responsible for office IT.
I don't know what the reasons were for why this particular employment is scheduled to end. And there's no reason that I or anyone other than those directly involved with it internally to the foundation should know. It's a simple case of none-of-your-business.
Practically every state and municipal government in the US is subject to public disclosure laws, sometimes part of 'Government in the sunshine' legislation, which require most relevant information about the daily operations to be made available. This usually includes information on employee performance, reasons for departure/dismissal, etc. about everyone from top management through the junior dog-catcher. Though the law usually does exclude highly private/personal information (for example, medical information).
[I'm coming from a US centric angle here because that is what I know. Feel free to mentally replace US locations with any other place with robust records laws]
Accordingly, I find the supposition that being very open about the operations of the foundation is somehow incompatible with professionalism or ethical behaviour to be simply unsustainable.
Wikimedia is not a business. It is a publicly supported charity. The WMF depends on the public both for the funding used to cut everyone's paychecks and for the creation of the material which makes its sites worth visiting. In terms of man-hours-input the community of contributors dwarfs the foundation's full time staff considerably.
The inescapable reality of this is that the employees and officers serve at the pleasure of the public. Although the chain is not a direct chain of command, it is no less real. So I don't think it's surprising to see people making noises expressing a desire for the kind of openness which is technically available from state and local governance almost universally thought the US.
"In enacting this article the Legislature finds and declares that it is the intent of the law that actions of state agencies be taken openly and that their deliberation be conducted openly.
The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created." Cal. §11120
I believe Wikimedia Foundation already has a stated goal of being on the leading edge of organizational openness and has done well /by commercial standards/. Perhaps it's time to take that a step further and voluntarily subject the organization to the public record laws of some state or some composition or subset thereof.
Not only would this advance openness but it may help avoid arguments over the form and level of openness by delegating those decisions to others who have thought harder about them than we have. It may also make cooperating with other organizations simpler because rather than trying to explain Wikimedia's bizarre one-off openness requirements and the inevitable debate about the wisdom of every aspect, it could be simply pointed out that the WMF operates under some particular rule-set used elsewhere.
Pre-existing government openness rulesets also have the advantage of the existence of training materials for staff and layman guides for the public.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Practically every state and municipal government in the US is subject to public disclosure laws, sometimes part of 'Government in the sunshine' legislation, which require most relevant information about the daily operations to be made available. This usually includes information on employee performance, reasons for departure/dismissal, etc. about everyone from top management through the junior dog-catcher. Though the law usually does exclude highly private/personal information (for example, medical information).
[I'm coming from a US centric angle here because that is what I know. Feel free to mentally replace US locations with any other place with robust records laws]
Accordingly, I find the supposition that being very open about the operations of the foundation is somehow incompatible with professionalism or ethical behaviour to be simply unsustainable.
I have to agree with the general philosophy of this approach. The problem is not confined to the US, and that Nathan should later raise a contrast between California and North Carolina law only tells me that the problems at a government level is far from being settled. When we are dealing with competing virtues (openness and privacy) the debate always becomes more intense.
Wikimedians are a naturally suspicious lot, for many of whom "Assuming good faith" is little more than sloganeering. Does it come as any surprise that the same people who question the integrity of pharmaceutical company public relations will also put the same suspiciousness to work in regards to their own corporate overlords? Many of us are suspicious of corporatism, and WMF is a corporation. The excuse that a corporation is still too small also soon wears thin.
This thread includes the word "firing" in its title. Whether or not the word accurately reflects the facts, the cat is out of the bag. It is all over the internet where the audience tends to see little difference between "He was fired," and "Was he fired?" That audience can easily include potential former employers, who will look for easy ways to trim a long list of applicants into a short list. We can no more control such low-level rumour mills than we can control large scale conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination or why the towers fell on 9/11.
Wikimedia is not a business. It is a publicly supported charity. The WMF depends on the public both for the funding used to cut everyone's paychecks and for the creation of the material which makes its sites worth visiting. In terms of man-hours-input the community of contributors dwarfs the foundation's full time staff considerably.
Absolutely.
The inescapable reality of this is that the employees and officers serve at the pleasure of the public. Although the chain is not a direct chain of command, it is no less real. So I don't think it's surprising to see people making noises expressing a desire for the kind of openness which is technically available from state and local governance almost universally thought the US.
In a lot of other places too. The internet has made hiding high-level misdeeds more difficult. It is far more difficult for lobbyists to come and go unnoticed than ever before. Governments are still far from perfect in their handling of these matters.
I believe Wikimedia Foundation already has a stated goal of being on the leading edge of organizational openness and has done well /by commercial standards/. Perhaps it's time to take that a step further and voluntarily subject the organization to the public record laws of some state or some composition or subset thereof.
Not only would this advance openness but it may help avoid arguments over the form and level of openness by delegating those decisions to others who have thought harder about them than we have. It may also make cooperating with other organizations simpler because rather than trying to explain Wikimedia's bizarre one-off openness requirements and the inevitable debate about the wisdom of every aspect, it could be simply pointed out that the WMF operates under some particular rule-set used elsewhere.
Pre-existing government openness rulesets also have the advantage of the existence of training materials for staff and layman guides for the public.
Those who say that the current severance was at too low a level to merit such heated controversy are probably right, but it is up to WMF to be sufficiently pro-active to avoid this kind of discussion about any single individual. The broader policy question remains an important one. If the result is that a public release needs to be made whenever *anyone* quits or is dismissed, so be it. An open and honest release may be less damaging than the alternative.
Ec
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Whether or not the word accurately reflects the facts, the cat is out of the bag. It is all over the internet where the audience tends to see little difference between "He was fired," and "Was he fired?"
There seem to be only two emails in this thread with the individual's name in them. They probably should be deleted, especially if the initial rumor was untrue.
2009/11/1 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Whether or not the word accurately reflects the facts, the cat is out of the bag. It is all over the internet where the audience tends to see little difference between "He was fired," and "Was he fired?"
There seem to be only two emails in this thread with the individual's name in them. They probably should be deleted, especially if the initial rumor was untrue.
You can't delete an email. Email is a decentralised medium of communication.
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/11/1 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Whether or not the word accurately reflects the facts, the cat is out of the bag. It is all over the internet where the audience tends to see little difference between "He was fired," and "Was he fired?"
There seem to be only two emails in this thread with the individual's name in them. They probably should be deleted, especially if the initial rumor was untrue.
You can't delete an email.
You can delete http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-October/######.html
W dniu 01.11.2009 23:22, Anthony pisze:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/11/1 Anthonywikimail@inbox.org:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net wrote:
Whether or not the word accurately reflects the facts, the cat is out of the bag. It is all over the internet where the audience tends to see little difference between "He was fired," and "Was he fired?"
There seem to be only two emails in this thread with the individual's name in them. They probably should be deleted, especially if the initial rumor was untrue.
You can't delete an email.
You can delete http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-October/######.html
from archive yes. but not from individual mailboxes :(
masti
2009/11/1 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/11/1 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Whether or not the word accurately reflects the facts, the cat is out of the bag. It is all over the internet where the audience tends to see little difference between "He was fired," and "Was he fired?"
There seem to be only two emails in this thread with the individual's name in them. They probably should be deleted, especially if the initial rumor was untrue.
You can't delete an email.
You can delete http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-October/######.html
Yes, you can delete the archives on the WMF site. That does make much difference. It will still be in everyone's inboxes and on various other archive sites.
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, you can delete the archives on the WMF site. That does make much difference. It will still be in everyone's inboxes and on various other archive sites.
So, what, don't do the right thing and delete it because some archive sites might not do the same thing? Whatever. Not my fight. And at least the guy has a relatively common name.
2009/11/1 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, you can delete the archives on the WMF site. That does make much difference. It will still be in everyone's inboxes and on various other archive sites.
So, what, don't do the right thing and delete it because some archive sites might not do the same thing? Whatever. Not my fight. And at least the guy has a relatively common name.
Obvious censorship (which hiding information which is readily available elsewhere will be seen as) is rarely beneficial.
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/11/1 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, you can delete the archives on the WMF site. That does make much difference. It will still be in everyone's inboxes and on various other archive sites.
So, what, don't do the right thing and delete it because some archive sites might not do the same thing? Whatever. Not my fight. And at least the guy has a relatively common name.
Obvious censorship (which hiding information which is readily available elsewhere will be seen as) is rarely beneficial.
Right. Removal of possibly libelous information is what would be seen as the wrong thing to do. "For a short time he was thought to have been fired from the Wikimedia Foundation. Nothing was ever proven."
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, you can delete the archives on the WMF site. That does make much difference. It will still be in everyone's inboxes and on various other archive sites.
So, what, don't do the right thing and delete it because some archive sites might not do the same thing? Whatever. Not my fight. And at least the guy has a relatively common name.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
How can a WIKIMEDIAN, a member of a project that prides itself in the freedom of information, support the censoring of information and the stifling of free discourse like this?
2009/11/2 Dan Collins dcollin1@stevens.edu:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, you can delete the archives on the WMF site. That does make much difference. It will still be in everyone's inboxes and on various other archive sites.
So, what, don't do the right thing and delete it because some archive sites might not do the same thing? Whatever. Not my fight. And at least the guy has a relatively common name.
How can a WIKIMEDIAN, a member of a project that prides itself in the freedom of information, support the censoring of information and the stifling of free discourse like this?
Because some people recognise that in the real world you can't blinding apply the same ideology in the same way to every situation.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 12:27 AM, Dan Collins dcollin1@stevens.edu wrote:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, you can delete the archives on the WMF site. That does make much difference. It will still be in everyone's inboxes and on various other archive sites.
So, what, don't do the right thing and delete it because some archive sites might not do the same thing? Whatever. Not my fight. And at least the guy has a relatively common name.
How can a WIKIMEDIAN, a member of a project that prides itself in the freedom of information, support the censoring of information and the stifling of free discourse like this?
I don't support the stifling of free discourse. I don't have a problem with the issue being brought up and discussed, I just think it'd be nice to take the person's name out of the archive, at least unless and until there is some evidence that it is true.
I fail to see how this is contrary to the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation to "empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally". I think it promotes it, indirectly by making for a more friendly environment if not directly by paving the way for real educational content.
To anyone else who doesn't like this thread (especially the ones who are actually trying to stifle free discourse). I'm sorry, but I think this subthread is completely within the scope of this list. I think it's essential for us all to fight hard against the notion that removal of rumors and libel is somehow "OMG CENSORSHIP" which is forbidden by the organization's mission.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I fail to see how this is contrary to the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation to "empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally". I think it promotes it, indirectly by making for a more friendly environment if not directly by paving the way for real educational content.
Yes. "Making for a more friendly environment" is absolutely relevant to that mission.
Thomas writes:
I do know when a discussion is irritating people - they make that very clear. What I don't understand is why it irritates them when they could so easily ignore it. There are no limits on how many threads we can have, so saying there are other more useful discussions is a complete non-argument.
This is also about making for a more friendly environment. To be fair, technology has backpedaled a bit here. Many modern mail clients don't support killing threads, so you have to delete each new message as it comes along, and have no choice but to read annoying subject headers every time. [dear gmail: this is ridiculous.] Both of which make flames or other deathless threads annoying proportional to their size.
There are two solutions to this problem - people can ignore the threads they aren't interested in at negligible cost to themselves, or other people can stop discussing the things they are interested it, which is obviously a cost in itself.
This is the heart of the matter. A number of people have already stopped discussing the things they are interested in here, or even reading regularly, because they find this forum too noisy to use. So it is a tradeoff between who feels comfortable posting and reading here.
Since this is one of the few cross-foundation channels, as many people as possible should feel somewhat comfortable here. And since all channels can be saturated -- and many people's responses indicate that this one gets saturated for them by long contentious threads -- either the aggressive posters or the saturated readers are going to find their preferred use of the list frustrated.
If you find yourself posting for the fifth or eighth time to a thread, please consider this tradeoff, and other ways to get your point across. I prefer wikiessays (rc is a much harder channel to saturate), but ymmv.
SJ
Personally, I process about two or three hundred emails per day (yes per day), so the small amount of noise the Foundation list creates is negligible to me.
If someone is so annoyed by a thread, that they can't even bother to DWR (delete without reading) based merely on the subject title, I would think we need to question whether that person has the right temperament for the internet whatsoever. I delete at least two or three dozen emails every day without reading them, if I already know the subject is not going to be of "interest" to me.
I would submit the real issue here, is not that people are doing that or could, but rather that they have a compulsion to *keep reading* the thread. Sort of a, "I don't want to be left out, or I want to keep watching the train wreck" or something. I'm not a psychologist. I do know however, that the entire issue of "let's close this thread", "let's moderated these people", " this is too noisy" and so on, is endemic to the entire email world. Not merely this list.
I can't think of any list I'm on (and I'm on a few dozen), where the issue does not come up with regularity. It is merely part of the way internetlife is, in my opinion.
Will
Hoi, It is not about you.. it is about US ... and some of us are not like you, do not agree with you and have a different outlook on this... Please get it that most people do not have the time to waste on so many e-mails.
There is also the fact that most threads including this one do not stay on topic and consequently sometimes they become interesting. Thanks, GerardM
2009/11/2 wjhonson@aol.com
Personally, I process about two or three hundred emails per day (yes per day), so the small amount of noise the Foundation list creates is negligible to me.
If someone is so annoyed by a thread, that they can't even bother to DWR (delete without reading) based merely on the subject title, I would think we need to question whether that person has the right temperament for the internet whatsoever. I delete at least two or three dozen emails every day without reading them, if I already know the subject is not going to be of "interest" to me.
I would submit the real issue here, is not that people are doing that or could, but rather that they have a compulsion to *keep reading* the thread. Sort of a, "I don't want to be left out, or I want to keep watching the train wreck" or something. I'm not a psychologist. I do know however, that the entire issue of "let's close this thread", "let's moderated these people", " this is too noisy" and so on, is endemic to the entire email world. Not merely this list.
I can't think of any list I'm on (and I'm on a few dozen), where the issue does not come up with regularity. It is merely part of the way internetlife is, in my opinion.
Will
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
And I never said it is about *me* stop trying to make this personal. I am not directing my remarks at *you*, so stop directing yours at *me*. There are many people on this very list who have said essentially the exact same thing. You should re-read the thread again to make that apparent, if you're not clear on that. Thanks Will
-----Original Message----- From: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Mon, Nov 2, 2009 3:07 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Recent firing?
Hoi, It is not about you.. it is about US ... and some of us are not like you, do not agree with you and have a different outlook on this... Please get it that most people do not have the time to waste on so many e-mails.
There is also the fact that most threads including this one do not stay on topic and consequently sometimes they become interesting. Thanks, GerardM
2009/11/2 wjhonson@aol.com
Personally, I process about two or three hundred emails per day (yes per day), so the small amount of noise the Foundation list creates is negligible to me.
If someone is so annoyed by a thread, that they can't even bother to DWR (delete without reading) based merely on the subject title, I would think we need to question whether that person has the right temperament for the internet whatsoever. I delete at least two or three dozen emails every day without reading them, if I already know the subject is not going to be of "interest" to me.
I would submit the real issue here, is not that people are doing that or could, but rather that they have a compulsion to *keep reading* the thread. Sort of a, "I don't want to be left out, or I want to keep watching the train wreck" or something. I'm not a psychologist. I do know however, that the entire issue of "let's close this thread", "let's moderated these people", " this is too noisy" and so on, is endemic to the entire email world. Not merely this list.
I can't think of any list I'm on (and I'm on a few dozen), where the issue does not come up with regularity. It is merely part of the way internetlife is, in my opinion.
Will
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--- On Mon, 11/2/09, wjhonson@aol.com wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
From: wjhonson@aol.com wjhonson@aol.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Recent firing? To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, November 2, 2009, 4:55 PM Personally, I process about two or three hundred emails per day (yes per day), so the small amount of noise the Foundation list creates is negligible to me.
If someone is so annoyed by a thread, that they can't even bother to DWR (delete without reading) based merely on the subject title, I would think we need to question whether that person has the right temperament for the internet whatsoever. I delete at least two or three dozen emails every day without reading them, if I already know the subject is not going to be of "interest" to me.
I would submit the real issue here, is not that people are doing that or could, but rather that they have a compulsion to *keep reading* the thread. Sort of a, "I don't want to be left out, or I want to keep watching the train wreck" or something. I'm not a psychologist. I do know however, that the entire issue of "let's close this thread", "let's moderated these people", " this is too noisy" and so on, is endemic to the entire email world. Not merely this list.
I can't think of any list I'm on (and I'm on a few dozen), where the issue does not come up with regularity. It is merely part of the way internetlife is, in my opinion.
"The right temperment for the interner?"
Maybe you would have a point if this was and email list targeted at people who spend every waking hour plugged into the internet. I realize some of come close to that. But that is not the target audience of this email list. Nor the Wikimedia movement. And if those of you who have the temperment and lifestyle for such participation do not control yourselves enough so that this forum might succeed in included more than just those participants similar to yourselves, Wikimedia will be sorrier for it.
On a personal note, last week I have gone to having the responsibilities of three people jobs, instead of only those two I have been handling for most of the past year. Maybe I will resubscribe when I can hire people again. Good luck with making sure this list is worth re-subscribing too. I truly hope you all succeed with that.
Birgitte SB
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 6:56 PM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- On Mon, 11/2/09, wjhonson@aol.com wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
From: wjhonson@aol.com wjhonson@aol.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Recent firing? To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, November 2, 2009, 4:55 PM Personally, I process about two or three hundred emails per day (yes per day), so the small amount of noise the Foundation list creates is negligible to me.
If someone is so annoyed by a thread, that they can't even bother to DWR (delete without reading) based merely on the subject title, I would think we need to question whether that person has the right temperament for the internet whatsoever. I delete at least two or three dozen emails every day without reading them, if I already know the subject is not going to be of "interest" to me.
I would submit the real issue here, is not that people are doing that or could, but rather that they have a compulsion to *keep reading* the thread. Sort of a, "I don't want to be left out, or I want to keep watching the train wreck" or something. I'm not a psychologist. I do know however, that the entire issue of "let's close this thread", "let's moderated these people", " this is too noisy" and so on, is endemic to the entire email world. Not merely this list.
I can't think of any list I'm on (and I'm on a few dozen), where the issue does not come up with regularity. It is merely part of the way internetlife is, in my opinion.
"The right temperment for the interner?"
Maybe you would have a point if this was and email list targeted at people who spend every waking hour plugged into the internet. I realize some of come close to that. But that is not the target audience of this email list. Nor the Wikimedia movement. And if those of you who have the temperment and lifestyle for such participation do not control yourselves enough so that this forum might succeed in included more than just those participants similar to yourselves, Wikimedia will be sorrier for it.
On a personal note, last week I have gone to having the responsibilities of three people jobs, instead of only those two I have been handling for most of the past year. Maybe I will resubscribe when I can hire people again. Good luck with making sure this list is worth re-subscribing too. I truly hope you all succeed with that.
Birgitte SB
Hear hear. And even people who do spend a heck of a lot of their time on Wikimedia might not want to spend it all reading F-l. And no, they don't have to -- but if you want to keep up with general discussion about the Foundation, you actually *do*. This is the main forum. Dominating it is as rude as being that guy in a classroom who won't shut up, to the detriment of all the other students who can't get a word in edgewise; only in this case, there's no professor to maintain order. If you're that guy, it's not like you're more brilliant than everyone else; you're just more talkative and don't have any social skills, and you are adversely affecting everyone else that has to share the space with you.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l is still up but hasn't gotten any new traffic in the last few weeks. Suggestions included: * starting a forum * starting an announcements list * limiting posting
others? -- phoebe
phoebe ayers wrote:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l is still up but hasn't gotten any new traffic in the last few weeks. Suggestions included:
- starting a forum
- starting an announcements list
- limiting posting
Looking at that discussion's history I see the following number of postings: Sept 9: 17 Sept.10: 13 Sept.11: 12 Sept.12: 0 Sept.13: 1 Sept.14: 1 Sept.15: 0 Sept.16: 2 Sept.17: 1 ...and nothing since
So it seems that after three days the discussion had essentially run its course, much in the way of many mailing list threads, including controversial or even inflammatory threads. An analysis of more threads or wiki discussions in a similar way could be interesting. I also not that the 9th was a Wednesday, and that the drop in list traffic on weekends may itself have a dampening effect on the life of threads in that list.
I would also suggest that any suggestion of moderation or other throttling strategy during the life helps to extend the life of an otherwise exhausted thread. Perhaps that should be a mailing list corollary to Godwin's law.
Ec
On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:00 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
only in this case, there's no professor to maintain order.
This list has moderators. Complain to them if you think they're doing a bad job.
Reasonable people in general have a natural tendency to maintain order without the need for police action. We all live in communities where chaos is not rampant. The application of excessive force is not conducive to a well-ordered society.
Somewhere on my site, I quote Jimmy Wales where he states that he, when he was a list moderator, allowed conversations to simply run their course. In my opinion, that is always the most civil thing to do.
Will Johnson
=
Wikimedia draws a disproportionate number of two types of people: those with some antisocial tendencies, and those with an unusual belief in various notions of "freedom." People being people, anyone in both groups will tend to use the second trait to reinforce the first. We've developed the basics of a legal system and a convoluted set of policies on the English 'pedia to attempt to address this particular problem, but as most know we're a ways from doing that well. Some folks are convinced that their rights to a forum require others to accommodate them; because they're clods and don't respond to social pressure, most eventually vote with their metaphorical feet.
Nathan
2009/10/31 Sebastian Moleski sebmol@gmail.com:
I have to disagree. The reason for the speculation is not the rumor. The reason for the speculation is a misguided sense that there's some sort of absolute right to know about these things.
Something of a strawman.
No one suggesting the foundation should have made a statement has suggested that it is due to some right to know.
Wikipedians do have an absolute right to be interested in things. They are also rather good at finding things out. In such an environment the rational approach is to make an announcement early to head of the rumor mill.
Jimmy's right: it makes sense that board or upper level management positions are discussed among the project community (although I would not consider this list to be a useful forum of community discussion). It does not, however, make sense that this principle be applied to someone responsible for office IT.
The community can and will discuss whatever it likes. Ranging from the copyright status of File:L O Schoolhouse Brochure Cover.jpg (probably PD due to failure to renew) to who should be on the board. Somewhere in between you have debates back room foundation personnel. Now either you can have these debates based on rumor and gossip in a situation where you have people out there looking to spread malicious gossip or you can have them based on foundation announcements.
I don't know what the reasons were for why this particular employment is scheduled to end. And there's no reason that I or anyone other than those directly involved with it internally to the foundation should know. It's a simple case of none-of-your-business.
None-of-your-business? Please we are talking about wikipedians. That's not really a concept that has wide recognition.
Geni, Thomas and MZMcbride suggest that the Foundation should announce the dismissal of low-impact employees because otherwise the rumor mill will make up stories. Perhaps you're right that the spread of rumors is inevitable, but you don't seem to acknowledge your own role in this. Even so, "Wikipedians will do what Wikipedians will do" is not the best argument for immediately publishing sensitive employment information, particularly when doing so may go against various elements of employment law and/or simple best practice.
Gregory Maxwell argues that the Wikimedia Foundation should voluntarily submit to the type of openness required of government agencies; I suspect this is a fundamental difference of philosophy, and relates to why I mentioned "majority shareholder" in my initial post. As the Wikimedia community, what level of detailed control are we entitled to? We have some of the hallmarks of the role of the shareholder but not others, in that legally we have no particular rights to the Foundation but practically we control the Board composition through elections. The information given to shareholders of large, publicly owned corporations in the United States varies widely, but generally speaking announcements are not made about the hiring or departure of non-executive staff. Gregory cites a California statute, but all governments are not equally open:
North Carolina:
<quote> � 126‑22.� Personnel files not subject to inspection under � 132‑6. Personnel files of State employees, former State employees, or applicants for State employment shall not be subject to inspection and examination as authorized by G.S. 132‑6. For purposes of this Article, a personnel file consists of any information gathered by the department, division, bureau, commission, council, or other agency subject to Article 7 of this Chapter which employs an individual, previously employed an individual, or considered an individual's application for employment, or by the office of State Personnel, and which information relates to the individual's application, selection or nonselection, promotions, demotions, transfers, leave, salary, suspension, performance evaluation forms, disciplinary actions, and termination of employment wherever located and in whatever form. Personnel files of former State employees who have been separated from State employment for 10 or more years may be open to inspection and examination except for papers and documents relating to demotions and to disciplinary actions resulting in the dismissal of the employee. (1975, c. 257, s. 1; 1977, c. 866, s. 9.) <endquote>
Even California is not as permissive as you imply; see http://www.sos.ca.gov/admin/pdf/sos_pra_guidelines.pdf (Records Exempt from Public Disclosure) and http://law.onecle.com/california/government/6254.html (Government Code Section 6254 Paragraph C, describing the exemption of personnel records from public disclosure).
In my opinion we should be informed about changes and actions that affect the Foundation and its operations or substantially impact the execution of its mission. This can include broad employment information on some employees, as evidenced by the recent announced departure of Jennifer Riggs. Maybe some people want the gory details when anyone is fired; every office has people like that. But we're not entitled to it, its poor manners to ask, and the Foundation is right to decline such requests.
Nathan
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Gregory Maxwell argues that the Wikimedia Foundation should voluntarily submit to the type of openness required of government agencies; I suspect this is a fundamental difference of philosophy, and relates to why I mentioned "majority shareholder" in my initial post. As the Wikimedia community, what level of detailed control are we entitled to? We have some of the hallmarks of the role of the shareholder but not others, in that legally we have no particular rights to the Foundation but practically we control the Board composition through elections.
Greg raises a very strong point that demolishes your reply. You say "wikipedia is a business, therefore..." and of course... Wikipedia is not a bussiness (perhaps you mixed up with wikia?)
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Gregory Maxwell argues that the Wikimedia Foundation should voluntarily submit to the type of openness required of government agencies; I suspect this is a fundamental difference of philosophy, and relates to why I mentioned "majority shareholder" in my initial post. As the Wikimedia community, what level of detailed control are we entitled to? We have some of the hallmarks of the role of the shareholder but not others, in that legally we have no particular rights to the Foundation but practically we control the Board composition through elections.
Greg raises a very strong point that demolishes your reply. You say "wikipedia is a business, therefore..." and of course... Wikipedia is not a bussiness (perhaps you mixed up with wikia?) _______________________________________________
I'll stipulate that "corporation" is a more accurate term. I don't see how the semantic difference impacts my reply. But thanks for making sure I wasn't confusing the various entities.
Nathan
----- "Nathan" nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Try to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation is a business...
No it isn't - the Foundation is a charity. The Foundation needs to retain the confidence of the Wikimedia community in order to achieve its aims, and the community plays a big role in the Foundation through elected and chapter-selected board members. I'm sure it understands that.
Andrew
On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 5:05 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Announcements when and where appropriate isn't really working out to well
Announcements when or where not appropriate would work out even worse, though. :)
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