[Foundation-l] Huge soapbox on foudantion-l tl; dr at bottom (was: Criticism of employees (was VPAT)

[Birgitte SB]

----- Original Message ----
> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Thu, February 17, 2011 11:23:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Criticism of employees (was VPAT)
> 
> 
> >
> > One suggestion I made was that, since communication between  office and
> > community is so critical, it might be worth the foundation  employing one
> > person at the office purely for community/office liaison  (via this list,
> > on
> > Meta, etc). In other words their role is to  be at the office and
> > responsive
> > to the community on lists and  wikis, ensure community questions and
> > concerns
> > are addressed or  not lost, where other staff may not be able to do so as
> > fully as some  would wish. It'd cost, but it may well be worth it.
> > Worthwhile? Or  wasteful?
> >
> >
> > FT2
> 
> Yes, worthwhile, although this list  would be only a minor part of such
> monitoring. An experienced Wikipedian  needs to monitor the mailing lists,
> Village Pump, requests for arbitration,  and the administrative
> noticeboards regularly and prepare a brief summary for  staff daily.
> Emphasis would be on issues which have potential to or already  affect
> public relations or Foundation  resources.
> 

You are really off-base with that suggestion. Community-wise the staff exists to 
support the Wikimedia communities in fulfilling the vision that the community 
members developed for the WMF before there were enough staff to have anyone 
assigned to a "Community Department:" department.  Their role is not to enable 
enWP to overcome its unique brand of dysfunction, nor to enable any of the 
communities with each of their unique dysfunctional aspects.

Experienced community members need to monitor their local wiki community pages 
(maybe the Village Pump, maybe the Scriptorium. maybe Talk:Main Page), any 
noticeboards that exist locally, any misc governance activity.  Obviously in 
most cases their will be many members doing this rotating in in out of various 
levels of activity over time.  These people need to work to ensure local 
concerns, especially uniquely local concerns, are resolved locally.

However whether causally or in an organized fashion, that group of experienced 
community pulse keepers would be wise to make certain they have at least one 
person who is both assertive and comfortable with communicating in English 
subscribed to Foundation-l.  In large communities that have a great deal of 
mistrust at least one experienced member of each quasi-faction should probably 
do this independent of the other quasi-factions.  Ideally these subscribed local 
pulse-keepers should be able to keep the pulse of WMF solely by subscribing here 
but it may be a good idea to watch-list certain pages on Meta with 
email-alerts.  Currently Meta-Wikimedians are very good at alerting local 
communities to anything relevant, but that always could change. Foundation-l is 
very bad about alerting local communities in a timely fashion. Often someone 
will post a decided opinion on the local wiki when the thread is in its 
death-throes here.  This is just as much the result of the mailing-list moving 
very fast as is due any lack of sensitivity among subscribers. Since more 
sensitive people tend to move even slower than those who less thoughtful of 
their tone, the first contact invariably ends up being from someone who is more 
oblivious as to the effect the tone of their communication will have in the 
local communities. So there especially a need for pre-emptive subscription.  So 
the experienced members of local communities really need to subscribe and keep 
the local communities informed of any WMF developments that may impact their 
communities while people are still open-minded about the issue.  They also would 
be wise to try and judge what local concerns seemed to be common across the many 
communities plugged into foundation-l and decide if bring outside attention to 
such concerns will do more help than harm.

I suspect that just like I did, many of the people here who resemble that 
description of "pulse-keepers" have joined this list after someone with strong 
opinions posted a notice locally about what they believed foundation-l had 
decided was wrong with the way their community had been handling some issue.  In 
my case, the thing which made me realize I needed to join list or else see en.WS 
interests being trampled without much thought was David Gerard's posting his 
take on the copyright considerations at en.WS with regard to the UK law 
prohibiting Fox Hunting link to the foundation-l archives.  Of course everyone 
at en.WS thought he was someone kind of official from the foundation, that the 
discussions on this list were binding, and while being a little cross at the 
tone complied right away with a swath of deletions.  Later we realized that he 
was not so official after-all, nor is what is found in the foundation-l archives 
any sort of edict, nor was the particular interpretation he espoused for the 
copyright issue the complete story.  Many works were restored, people for a time 
were very bitter and mistrustful towards outsiders and wanted more than anything 
be non-communicative of local questions with WMF, as it seemed encouraging 
*them* to ignore *us* was the best that could be hoped for from dealing with 
WMF. I joined foundation-l to advocate for en.WS interests, to act as an 
early-warning system for the community when en.WS was receiving attention, and 
because I wished help create a framework where en.WS being ignored (i.e. left 
alone) was not the best that could be hoped for from WMF. After a few more 
experiences similar to the Fox-Hunting edict debacle I came to realize we were 
still largely under-estimating how unofficial everything regarding foundation-l 
really was and I became determined to do my best to advocate for all the 
communities that have yet to discover how badly they will be trampled if they do 
not keep the pulse of WMF for themselves.

There are certainly other things which foundation-l could be very useful for.  
Many of them.  But the bridging issue is one that is rather hard to replicate 
without foundation-l.  In some cases, where the correlation is strong chapters 
have stepped in.  But universally speaking that is no more workable than asking 
WMF to employ staff to track on the local discussions, noticeboards, and 
governance pages on every project in every language.  I truly believe the 
mis-communications that occur without such bridging does more damage to WMF than 
anything else I can think of.  It is what led to the Spanish fork and it is why 
people are laughed off of en.WS for attempting to directly tell us how to handle 
an issue of almost any kind. 


When people using the title of Wikimedian and referring the possible actions 
they will have WMF take to ensure they are listened to have forced massive 
changes in the communities . . . When community leaders coax, prod, and use 
every bit of political capitol they can muster to get their community to buy 
into said changes. . . When dedicated people leave or simply lose their previous 
level of dedication over such changes . . .  And then it is discovered the 
changes were unnecessary and may be reversed at will. And this happens once, 
twice, three times.  That damage is immense.  I joined this list because the 
sheer waste in cleaning up the first round of damage in a community I loved made 
me quite angry . . . The guilt over falling for the same false arguments a 
second time made me nauseous , , , And the derision shown toward outsiders who 
tried to use those false arguments yet again made me pity them.  I have always 
felt I was running interference here.  On one hand trying to prevent my 
community from being trampled by some blind elephant and the other trying to 
keep the elephant from stepping in the pile of shit one of their herd-mates 
deposited they last time the herd was in our vicinity.   That is what the WMF 
loses when they decide they would rather ignore troll-l.  They lose the help of 
thoughtful people who can see the big-picture and are willing to run 
interference to protect WMF.  Because it neither in WMFs interests to trample 
its own communities nor to have its associates step in a big pile of elephant 
shit.  But such people can be of no use when there is no warning given of what 
is upcoming.

The occasions were I was unable to be of much use in a protective role were more 
recent than not and didn't move through foundation-l.  Whether they incubated on 
some closed list , on a wiki I merely don't frequent,  or they ran straight 
through the gossip network to spring into life formed like Athena, I have no 
idea.  But the incidents were ugly all around and no one walked a way happy.  In 
regard to how much damage unofficial Wikimedians can manage, I think things have 
gotten significantly worse.  When there is so little transparency over what 
positions WMF is developing *anyone* can go to an unfamiliar communities and 
convincingly claim that their pet decisions will be backed by a board resolution 
if they really must go get one or that the wiki will be shut down by WMF if the 
community does not adopt their pet reforms.  Such misguided Wikimedians can 
actually believe these statements to be true.  I have heard both kinds of 
statements more than once from several different people who were neither 
stewards nor staff, in completely different circumstances.  I have no doubt that 
those making such statements sincerely believed they could achieve what they 
stated if it was really necessary. That is how opaque WMF operations and 
developing positions are and how very long a time they have been opaque.  
Reasonable, caring, intelligent dedicated, Wikimedians can be that misguided in 
how things work. They can truly believe that there can be no relevant 
information that they are missing. That there is no argument nor explanation an 
unfamiliar community could present that would shift anyone's opinion in an open 
discussion. That they believe the outcome of the dispute is so completely 
certain that the community need not waste time further educating itself about 
the dispute nor explaining their position to them, but just comply. It would be 
funny if it were not so unbelievably sad.  


For the record how things really work, when things are working well, is as 
follows.  There is valid process. All  stakeholders understand the methods of 
this process and  have access to  those who are responsible for implementing the 
chosen method. The issues  working their way through the process are 
consistently advertised and  updated through the same reliable channels.  In 
order for the process to  be a valid process all advertised outcomes are 
possible results. (i.e.  if anyone could truly know the result before the 
process is applied then  it is not a valid process).  Whether that options are 
that all content  classified as Foo is prohibited or accepted or accepted after 
special  review, that Bar is banned from Wikiland inclusive overriding local  
communities or not, or that X number of WMF offices will be opened in  cities 
within either  A, B, or C.  No results that WMF is unwilling to  accept can be  
offered as part of the process and no results that win through the  process can 
refused by WMF.  If that process is that everyone has three  weeks to privately 
email Sue Gardner their thoughts on five different   proposals and then she sits 
down on Friday morning with her notes and  picks and announces  whichever 
proposal she judges best by noon; that is  a valid  process.  Having a valid 
process doesn't mean having a poll or a public  discussion or losing control 
over the decision.  Just setting up basic  expectations and conforming to them.

A valid process can be as simple as a dictator deciding, but what makes the 
process valid is that everyone understands *who* the dictator is, *where* the 
dictator can be reached, *what* the dictator is pondering, and *when* the 
dictator is going decide the issue.  Notice I left out why.  That point is 
relatively unimportant and does not need really need to be explained when there 
is a valid process, narrow the choices by weighted point system and then flip a 
coin if the top choices that fall within a single point or be moved by passion 
and organization of one particular advocate's email campaign.  It really doesn't 
matter so long as the other information given for a valid process is accurate 
and upheld.  People always say they care most about why when there is no valid 
process, but they are mistaken.  People really care most about feeling that they 
know who is in charge, that they have been heard, that  their preference had a 
chance of winning, and that they can have confidence in when they will know what 
is going to happen in the future.  Satisfy those criteria without even 
explaining why and the largest majority of criticism will evaporate.  I don't 
mean to say why does not matter at all.  But none of us would be if we where not 
committed to a large number of the same basic principles.  So given the common 
ground within Wikimedia, the why of decisions are relatively unimportant. Since 
they are the most sensitive pieces and often impossible to be 100% transparent 
about in public without disrespecting people, voiding contracts, scaring off 
partners, etc.,  it is best to ignore that aspect beyond the general answer 
(i.e. Why-to fulfill our mission provide the sum of all human knowledge to 
everyone on the planet)  Focus on easy aspects of the process the bring no ugly 
unintended consequences and watch the criticism of decision making evaporate 
like morning mist.  


And I am not recommending a dictatorial process.  First and foremost dictators 
don't scale, so huge inefficiencies abound.  But the point is that if a dictator 
can be set-up in a way the satisfies the *how* criteria of a valid process .  
Any *how* for making decisions can be set-up as a valid process, different ways 
of deciding different categories of decisions can all be set-up as a part of 
valid process.  The point saying a valid *how* could be a dictator or flipping a 
coin, is to show that WMF does not need to give up any control over decisions to 
institute a valid process.  WMF only needs to plan and document whatever 
decision process they are comfortable with to have a valid process.  


Sorry for the massive soapbox here.  I don't know how articulate this really 
turned out I have gone over it too many times now.  I wanted to offer my 
experiences and observations.   I realize they are extremely subjective.  I 
don't pretend that the samples of incidents I used to illustrate how my 
experiences led me to hold the positions I do can only be seen in the way I have 
interpreted.  I wrote what I recall, based most strongly on what I recall 
*feeling*, about the events.  I did not check histories and verify things.  I do 
not mean to suggest my viewpoint on these incidents is the authoritative account 
of what happened.  I have merely described one of, surely, many valid viewpoints 
of these events; the viewpoint that most deeply influenced me.  I know people 
had good intentions and no one set out to cause the any harm.  I don't mean for 
anyone to be embarrassed if they recognize themselves at all.  I don't know if I 
should have taken out your name, David.  I thought about it after I realized I 
never recalled as much detail about the other examples. But I left it because I 
am so certain that you are thickly skinned.  I guess just natural that you 
remember your first rude-awakening to some discrepancy between the world as you 
initially imagined itt and, as I have seen on blogger name it, "Objective 
Fucking Reality" much more strongly than the incidents where the discrepancy is 
repeatedly confirmed. Even if the other incidents are more egregious.



tl;dr

 WMF making use of foundation-l to develop upcoming positions gains all parties 
an early warning of problems and a chance for thoughtful people who care about 
the big picture to help make mutually beneficial adjustments. . . Merely 
announcing fixed decisions makes it more likely the WMF will commit itself to 
some deeply flawed framework which the communities will fail to ever flesh out, 
. . And hands the dialogue directly to the elements of the communities who have 
quick, strong, and negative reactions to the decision . . . And empowers 
misguided Wikimedians who are confident in their desired result and blinded by 
short-term considerations to damage unfamiliar communities that do things 
differently than such Wikimedians would prefer..

Plus this copied from above

For the record how things really work, when things are working  successfully, is 
as follows.  There is valid process. All  stakeholders understand the methods of 
this process and  have access to  those who are responsible for implementing the 
chosen method. The issues  working their way through the process are 
consistently advertised and  updated through the same reliable channels.  In 
order for the process to  be a valid process all advertised outcomes are 
possible results. (i.e.  if anyone could truly know the result before the 
process is applied then  it is not a valid process).  Whether that options are 
that all content  classified as Foo is prohibited or accepted or accepted after 
special  review, that Bar is banned from Wikiland inclusive overriding local  
communities or not, or that X number of WMF offices will be opened in cities 
within either  A, B, or C.  No results that WMF is unwilling to accept can be  
offered as part of the process and no results that win through the  process can 
refused by WMF.  If that process is that everyone has three  weeks to privately 
email Sue Gardner their thoughts on five different  proposals and then she sits 
down on Friday morning with her notes and  picks and announces  whichever 
proposal she judges best by noon; that is a valid  process.  Having a valid 
process doesn't mean having a poll or a public  discussion or losing control 
over the decision.  Just setting up basic expectations and conforming to them.

Birgitte SB