[Foundation-l] Board Resolution: Openness

[Dror Kamir]

Hello,

This resolution is a very positive step. I hope we will soon be updated 
about practical steps to implement it.

Two such practical steps that are easy to implement and would make a 
significant difference, in my opinion:

(1) Administrators' decisions about bans, sanctions etc. should be made 
more public. They are, of course, accessible to anyone as a policy of 
all projects, but they are often "hidden" in many pages with 
non-intuitive titles (for detailed analysis of the problem, see Ayelet 
Oz's presentation in Wikimania 2009 
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:149). Had someone 
followed the administrators' decisions on the biggest projects, and 
publish a monthly newsletter with copies of the most prominent decisions 
about bans and sanctions, it would increase transparency and make 
administrators much more careful about checking cases and providing 
justifications for their actions, especially in what concerns treatment 
of new users. It would also give a better picture about disruptive 
behaviors of users.

(2) Appealing sanctions should be made much easier. I would even go as 
far as opening a special small wiki for such complaints. Reply should be 
provided within a limited period of time, and refer specifically to the 
new user's arguments. This may sound trivial, but projects often fail to 
do so.

Dror K

בתאריך 08/04/11 22:35, ציטוט Ting Chen:
> Dear community,
>
> on the IRC board meeting at April 8th 2011 the board approved
> unanimously the following resolution:
>
>
>
> We, the Wikimedia Foundation Board, believe that the continued health of
> our project communities is crucial to fulfilling our mission. The
> Wikimedia projects are founded in the culture of openness,
> participation, and quality that has created one of the world's great
> repositories of human knowledge. But while Wikimedia's readers and
> supporters are growing around the world, recent studies of editor trends
> show a steady decline in the participation and retention of new editors.
>
> As laid out in our five-year Strategic Plan, and emphasized by these
> findings, Wikimedia needs to attract and retain more new and diverse
> editors, and to retain our experienced editors.  A stable editing
> community is critical to the long-term sustainability and quality of
> both our current Projects and our movement.
>
> We consider meeting this challenge our top priority. We ask all
> contributors to think about these issues in your daily work on the
> Projects.
> We support the Executive Director in making this the top staff priority,
> and recommend she increase the allocation of Foundation resources
> towards addressing this problem, through community outreach,
> amplification of community efforts, and technical improvements.
> And we support the developers, editors, wikiprojects and Chapters that
> are working to make the projects more accessible, welcoming, and
> supportive.
>
> The Board resolves to help move these efforts forward, and invites
> specific requests for Foundation assistance to do so.  We welcome and
> encourage new ideas to help reach our goals of
> [[strategy:Openness|openness and broader participation]].
>
> We urge the Wikimedia community to promote openness and collaboration, by:
> * Treating new editors with patience, kindness, and respect; being aware
> of the challenges facing new editors, and reaching out to them; and
> encouraging others to do the same;
> * Improving communication on the projects; simplifying policy and
> instructions; and working with colleagues to improve and make friendlier
> policies and practices regarding templates, warnings, and deletion;
> * Supporting the development and rollout of features and tools that
> improve usability and accessibility;
> * Increasing community awareness of these issues and supporting outreach
> efforts of individuals, groups and Chapters;
> * Working with colleagues to reduce contention and promote a friendlier,
> more collaborative culture, including more thanking and affirmation; and
> encouraging best practices and community leaders; and
> * Working with colleagues to develop practices to discourage disruptive
> and hostile behavior, and repel trolls and stalkers.
>
>
> ;Resources
> :
> [[strategy:Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary|Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary]]
> : [[strategy:Editor_Trends_Study|2011 Editor Trends Study]]
> ([[strategy:March_2011_Update|Executive Director's summary]],
> [[strategy:Openness|ideas]])
>
>