All right.
I got an answer
The banners set up on Dec 1 have been reduced to "minimum visibility" on 1 dec 2016 14:00, after 13 hours and 18 minutes of entering into the contest.
This has been done by WMF staff member Seddon, with no information to us at all. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Seddon_(WMF)
This is not the first time this happens. A similar situation occurred with other contests I hear and I can also add that Seddon obviously purposely prevented the set up of the site notice requested and approved during the destubathon.
This is plain _*sabotage*_. A complete loss of energy and time for volunteers working on WLA contest. And a loss of money for Wikimedia Foundation funding the contest. And a loss of money for donators as well.
The thing I do not know is whether Seddon is doing that at the personal level for reasons I can not identify, or whether this is the result of an explicit request from his managers. So I will not blame Seddon by default, as he may just be doing what his boss is telling him to do.
The only way of knowing is in raising the issue with the HR departement, which is what I am going to do RIGHT NOW.
I will wait their answer before raising the case officially on wikimedia mailing list but I consider this a completely unacceptable situation. It goes without saying that our willingness to try to reach the metrics of success described in the grant agreement is void.
Also, please help me track the log of banner visibility changes on meta : https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CentralNoticeLogs&o...
If you see anyone changing the WLA banners set up back to minimum visibility, please send me a note. I will track once a day myself to limit risks of further sabotage.
Florence
PS: Africa.. think of all the work we do... us... members on this list... our dedication... to try to bridge the gap and get more africans and Africa content on this encyclopedia. Think... of who is deliberately sabotaging our efforts. For what ? For which reasons ? There are no other banners currently running above African countries. We are not preventing WMF to raise more money. We are not damaging anyone else communication. We are not bothering anyone. Just trying desperately to get more african participants on this encylopedia. So why ? Why ? Why ?
Le 15/12/2016 à 10:14, Felix Nartey a écrit :
Hi Florence,
I recall seeing it for about a week but now its no more.
Cheers,
On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Florence Devouard <anthere@anthere.org mailto:anthere@anthere.org> wrote:
Hello everyone Wiki Loves Africa results are quite bad at the moment. Not to say awful. So I started looking at what is going on. And I just asked Isla if she was seeing the sitenotice at the top of Wikipedia. And she said she saw it "from Thursday 1st to end of Friday 8th" And that's it. Well, we are SUPPOSED to have a site notice. But I can not see that myself. I have no means to know whether there is a site notice or not at all. So I need your help to know what you guys see. Can you relay that info ? Thanks Florence