[Foundation-l] Questions about new Fellow

[whothis]

I was going to drop this and fade away until your patronizing comments.
First, I am not a gentleman, I would be a lady, according to the
pseudo-chivalrous, patronizing tone you used in your last response.

/>/That's the spirit. And I've always felt that a waste is a terrible thing to
mind.

/>/Settle down, my friend...going around in circles will make us all dizzy.
/>/Personally, I recommend half an hour of Pranayama
/>/(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranayama) every morning: it makes one
/>/feel calm and loving.

Now, I took offense to this, Antagonizing the only two people who asked a
direct and straightforward question about your position and conflicting
interests while the rest of the list remains quiet. We are taught to assume
good faith, thats one of the founding principles of the organization that
you supposedly lead. Now, if I were to make an ad hominem attack in response
along those lines, I might say something like, you have an atrocious command
of the English Language, you know (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language). Invoking Shaw, and
mis-attributing a quote implies nothing about your literary prowess, just
the lack of it.

/>/In all these capacities and more.

On to the point, You are very actively involved in the hiring process from
the last two reports that you linked to, you have been interviewing the
potential hires. Perhaps you're the only member on the Advisory Board who
has ever been this involved in the hiring decisions. I assume you probably
had some say in selecting the current Board Member from India since you
announced his appointment, you helped form the Indian chapter
and started with the south African one by your own admission. Now, for
someone who knows so little about the 5 year plan, our ethos and the
community you are none the less leading, thats an awful lot of control to
exert. Incidentally, the two areas that you are representing are also the
focus according to the 5 year plan, which you were allegedly not actively
involved in formulating. All of this could be looked at as payoff or reward
from the outside, with opportunities for more down the road, but that would
be assuming Bad faith, and we certainly don't do that.

I fear that I have gone too far, Maybe its time for someone from the cabal
to place me on moderation. More comments below for your entertainment:

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Achal Prabhala <aprabhala at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I'm happy to tell you a little more about myself and the scope of this
> short-term research project I'm undertaking, and I'm as happy to assume
> that you fully intended for your messages to come across as decorous and
> rational.
>

Believe me if my intention was to be anything less that decorous or
rational, you wouldn't have had to assume anything.

>
> I've been on the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation for some
> time now, and there have been large periods where I've done nothing, and
> many periods when I've done a lot. This, I suspect, is the case for many
> fellow Advisory Board members; overall, I can say for myself that it's
> been a rewarding and interesting experience. I'm involved in various
> aspects of the Wikimedia movement - from helping to organise communities
> in India and South Africa to looking at broader, more global questions
> around the work of the Chapters Committee and the possibility of other
> kinds of affiliation that might usefully exist within our world. All of
> this work, as it should be, is completely open and transparent, and is
> in no way forced or mandated.
>

So it was a ceremonial position as we thought and you have gotten more
involved of recent. The scope however of your involvement seems to be ever
expanding- India and Africa, the chapters and possibly "other kinds of
affiliation that might usefully exist within our world." Yes, your work has
been open and transparent, like how and when you were appointed, what
exactly you do and when does your supposed term end, if ever. I think this
thread has more information about you than any profile I have read so far.

>
> Funnily enough, I wasn't very involved with the strategic 5-year plan; I
> started off trying to look at what community members from India might
> want to do, but the exercise didn't get very far, and I sort of gave up
> in between. I'm glad it went forward with the help of a whole lot of
> others from India, and I'm glad it exists, but I haven't even read what
> it says yet. So I'm forced to confess (like Shaw almost said) that
> reports of my influence are greatly exaggerated. I am, however, involved
> on a daily basis with all kinds of work that is related to the movement,
> and I'm delighted to be of use to you.
>

Exactly as we thought, you haven't been involved with Wikimedia policy work.
The claims above are in direct conflict with the statements earlier, either
"reports of my influence are greatly exaggerated" or "you're involved on a
daily basis with all kinds of work that is related to the movement." Second,
I don't think Shaw ever said that, you're either confusing a Quote by Mark
Twain or referring to someone we don't know about, we have a project called
Wikiquote.com you might want to check out one of these days before quoting
someone.


> As for me, I work on intellectual property rights as a researcher, and I
> also write. I've worked in India, Guyana and South Africa, mostly as an
> activist on access to medicines and access to knowledge; I am now
> engaged in writing a larger piece of work that is unrelated to
> intellectual property.
>

Again, this introduction should have came before any of this. It should have
been on the advisory board page.


> Now to the project. I see that neither of you gentlemen has any thoughts
> on it, and I welcome your engagement. The problem with oral knowledge
> vs. published knowledge is an old one, and there are many interesting
> ways in which the sum of published material in the world reflects the
> order of the world. For us, unfortunately, it also means that in some
> cases, to make Wikipedias work in languages where scholarly publishing
> is not that strong is a difficult task. This problem applies not just to
> languages with a primarily oral tradition (such as many of those in
> circulation in sub-Saharan Africa today) but also for those with a
> non-Latin written tradition but with a lower output of published
> material (like many South Asian languages today). What excites me about
> this is that I am interested in the idea of 'legitimate' knowledge - and
> the manner in which our ideas of authenticity, reliability and
> certification can be shaped and changed in our own lifetimes. This
> spirit of consistent reinvention, I think, is central to the idea of
> Wikipedia and everything else that comes under the umbrella of our
> movement.
>

A rather verbose way of saying, you wanna research "Oral knowledge" for
Wikipedia. As for "neither of you gentlemen has any thoughts on it" I do, in
fact. What you're talking about is, I believe called Oral Traditions, the
same ones that became the basis for the Talmud and the Gospel. There is
already a large body of work available in that very discipline, to
some extent I agree that your research might be interesting given its target
demographic and language. Would you consider yourself a unitarian or an
analyst in your field.

>
> I have a fairly good understanding of the academic literature on this
> subject; I've had excellent discussions with Wikipedians working in
> languages across India and South Africa where this is a tangible
> problem; and working together with them, I think we can make a useful
> contribution to this topic, or at least mark a starting point from which
> to make this movement truly inclusive, plural and global.
>

Again, you might not be aware of this, but the majority of people on this
list are Academicians and Scholars but above all Wikipedians.

>
> I'm looking forward to it very much. As I am certain you are too.
>

Certainly, the entire community awaits your research.

>
> Fondest wishes, etc.
> Achal
>
> Same
E. Forrester