[Foundation-l] 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content -- update

[phoebe ayers]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 5:26 AM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Could Phoebe, Jan-Bart or Kat please give us an update on the activities of
> the working group looking into the recommendations resulting from the 2010
> Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content?
>
> Have any conclusions been drawn, and are there any plans or discussions about
> implementing any of the recommendations?
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/215066?search_string=working%20group%20controversial%20content;#215066
>
> Andreas

Hi Andreas! Thanks for asking. Sorry for the slow reply, I've been
away on holiday the last couple of days and have not been online.

Also, my apologies for not posting an update before you asked. Things
have been slowly moving but as yet no conclusions.

Here is what has happened since I sent my last update:

Over the winter holidays the membership of the working group changed
due to the workload of other board committees. Jan-Bart and Kat
stepped down and were replaced by Matt, Jimmy and Bishakha; I am still
involved and agreed to chair the group. Of course any recommendations
for statements or resolutions will go to the whole board. The Harrises
are still involved as consultants on a "paid-as-needed" basis; if we
want them to do any further research or facilitation they are
available.

In my last message, I wrote that "The working group will be examining
the recommendations more closely, soliciting Board member feedback on
each of the recommendations to a greater degree than there was time
for in the in-person meeting, working with the community and finally
making a report to the full Board. The working group is expected to
recommend next steps, including providing fuller analysis of the
recommendations."

We did the first part of this (board member feedback); and are
currently working on the analysis part. As you know the various
recommendations fall into three kinds: philosophical, community-facing
(such as changing specific community practices), and technical. I
asked the WMF tech staff to spend some time looking into the
recommendations that require technical work (7 & 9)* so that we can
have more information about what's feasible and possible, and what it
would take on the wmf/tech side and the community side. This does not
mean they're developing these features now; it means I asked for
possible specifications (since I am unfamiliar with what it would take
in MediaWiki to make this happen) so the working group can make a more
informed recommendation. The WMF won't develop anything without a
board request.

You may notice that the "working with the community" part has been
largely absent this winter. Beyond carefully reading** all of the
public discussion to date, the working group has not actively worked
with the community (at large) or specific community members. This is
because I wanted to first focus on getting all of the board feedback
and getting background information, and that has taken longer than I
hoped. Of course we're not under the illusion that any changes can be
made in how this organization works with controversial content (or
even happily keeping the status quo) without community discussion
(which there has been a lot of), consensus (which the recommendations
were meant to help catalyze but afaik has not yet emerged), and hard
work. I'd still suggest the meta talk pages along with commons policy
pages as a good place to discuss the issue; and people can still help
the working group by working on summarization, analysis, and procedure
advice for going forward.

I'll say that the board does not yet have a formal position on this
whole issue, and so I am hesitant to say much about that for fear of
it being *taken* as an official board position.

You may read this message and think "ok, they're doing something" or
you may read this message and think "the board has totally lost the
way/not done their job on this issue" or you may not care :) Either
way, feel free to write me or us, publicly or privately. Our next step
as a working group will be a report to the board, likely at the march
meeting.

-- phoebe


* recs 7 & 9: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content:_Part_Two#User-Controlled_Viewing_Options
** I have also been working on summarizing all this discussion; a big job.