[Foundation-l] for the future...

[phoebe ayers]

On 7/3/07, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> (This is my personal opinion and does not reflect that of the election
> committee, etc, etc.)
>
> On 7/3/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org > wrote:
> >
> > On 7/3/07, Jimmy Wales < jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > It seems pretty clear to me that it would be reasonable for the
> > > Foundation to send out an official election reminder by email in all
> > > languages (or as many as we can muster) next time around.  Thoughts?
> > >
> > Sounds reasonable.  If it was done by the Foundation officially I
> > don't think I would have had a problem with it.  Note the privacy
> > policy specifically says that "The email address may be used by the
> > Wikimedia Foundation to communicate with users on a wider scale."
> >
>
> I was about to suggest the same thing, but technically slightly different;
> instead of having such notification as part of the standard email yes/no
> option, create a separate option saying "Allow the Wikimedia Foundation to
> notify me of important events (only used once or twice annually)", or
> something like it. It should, however, be quite clear that you will not
> get
> a lot of emails from this feature, and that it should only be used in
> "emergencies" (in lack of a better word).
>
> This would allow people to choose to receive notifications, but not be
> emailed by other members, or to be emailed by other members but not
> receive
> notifications.


This sounds like a reasonable solution, though there would have to be a big
push to make sure current account-holders knew they could opt in.

Though spam-like, I wouldn't consider the elections message spam --
especially if it came from the Foundation directly. It is entirely possible
that an otherwise dedicated editor could be away from the wiki for a couple
of months and miss the election entirely; emails would help with that. We
should just be careful about limiting the notices to the bare minimum of
foundation-wide announcements that really do affect all users, and making
them short.

As with elections and participatory governance in the real world, it is not
simply that the election is an opportunity for members to vote if they feel
like it; instead it may be that those who claim the label of "community
member" have some responsibility in sharing in governance. Thus griping
about having too many reminders of the election seems, frankly, like poor
form. Most of us will not be overwhelmed by an email or two from a project
that we spend dozens or hundreds of hours on. Even if this is controversial,
an opt-in option would be painless -- and it would be nice to be able to
walk away from the wiki and still know that you'd get notifications if the
place was burning down or similar.

-- phoebe