[Foundation-l] Changes to the identification policies and procedures

[Bartol Flint]

Wait, so the policy change is about to be implemented, the discussion on
private list has been going on for a while.

Some peoples already submitted their IDs and the deadline for ID submission
is in a few weeks...and asking about it here is being called presumptuous.

How is it a "good-faith interpretation" for not announcing the changes since
they've already started implementing it ? they even decided on a deadline
already. I don't follow.

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 11:29 PM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> phoebe ayers wrote:
> > It seems to me that a good-faith interpretation is that not announcing
> > changes right this second was the right thing to do -- since there was
> > so much controversy among OTRS agents the staff may choose to change
> > or modify the original plan, in which case it's not clear to me what
> > would be announced.
>
> In my discussions with people about these recent decisions, some people
> have
> tried to pivot the conversation with statements such as "but Wikimedia is
> allowed to do this" and "the non-public data access policy is determined by
> staff." I don't disagree.
>
> My issue is that this was presumably discussed for weeks prior to the
> announcement to the OTRS list, without any community notification. Even a
> courtesy heads-up ("we're currently re-evaluating whether certain
> volunteers
> need to identify") would have been good, especially as it brings forth a
> lot
> of questions from the community that Wikimedia apparently had not
> considered. (This is pretty clearly evident from the discussion on the OTRS
> mailing list.) When these decisions are issued by fiat and out of the blue,
> it raises suspicion about why the discussions weren't public or at least
> why
> there weren't any notifications that discussions were taking place. Was it
> intentional? Was it simply an oversight?
>
> Nobody is saying anyone was outside their remit to implement these changes
> (and to an extent, these changes are sensible, in as much as they make the
> pointless procedure a little less pointless), but the Community Department
> doesn't seem particularly keen on involving (or even notifying) the
> community. That's the larger issue, as I see it.
>
> Some of the comments in this thread have read like "oh, but we were going
> to
> announce this as soon as we had decided everything privately." That doesn't
> seem to fit in with Wikimedia's governance model and more often than not,
> it
> leads to situations where the announced implementation of decisions like
> these have to be re-worked and re-released because adequate discussion and
> thought weren't given the first time. Again, the discussion on the OTRS
> mailing list is pretty clear evidence of this.
>
> > The original announcement did affect only a limited number of volunteers,
> and
> > there was no implication that it would be extended to admins, etc. Of
> course,
> > broader discussion of the issue of identification and access to
> non-private
> > data (and who should have it) in general is great, and if people have
> thoughts
> > they should weigh in.
>
> People do have thoughts and have tried to weigh in, but they're being
> chastised for doing so on this list (not by you, to be clear). I don't see
> how it's fair to contributors to encourage discussion and debate in some
> posts while condemning open discussion and debate in other posts (referring
> here primarily to Steven's posts).
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>



-- 
Bartol Flint
Student
Erasmus University Rotterdam