[Foundation-l] Trust, consensus building and the image filter - was Letter to the community on Controversial Content

[Dan Rosenthal]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 6:28 PM, WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:

> ------------------------------
>
> >
> > Message: 5
> > Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:03:25 +0200
> > From: Tobias Oelgarte <tobias.oelgarte at googlemail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial
> >        Content
> > To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Message-ID: <4E9FFFFD.8010303 at googlemail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> > Am 19.10.2011 23:19, schrieb Philippe Beaudette:
> > > On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 5:07 AM, Tobias Oelgarte<
> > > tobias.oelgarte at googlemail.com>  wrote:
> > >
> > >> I ask Sue and Philippe again: WHERE ARE THE PROMISED RESULTS - BY
> > PROJECT?!
> > >>
> > >>
> > > First, there's a bit of a framing difference here.  We did not
> initially
> > > promise results by project.  Even now, I've never promised that. What
> > I've
> > > said is that we would attempt to do so.  But it's not solely in the
> WMF's
> > > purview - the election had a team of folks in charge of it who came
> from
> > the
> > > community and it's not the WMF's role to dictate to them how to do
> their
> > > job.
> > >
> > > I (finally) have the full results parsed in such a way as to make it *
> > > potentially* possible to release them for discussion by project.
> >  However,
> > > I'm still waiting for the committee to approve that release.  I'll
> > re-ping
> > > on that, because, frankly, it's been a week or so.  That will be my
> next
> > > email. :)
> > >
> > > pb
> > >
> > Don't get me wrong. But this should have been part of the results in the
> > first place. The first calls for such results go back to times before
> > the referendum even started. [1] That leaves an very bad impression, and
> > so far the WMF did nothing to regain any trust. Instead you started to
> > loose even more. [2]
> >
> > [1]
> >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Image_filter_referendum/Archive1#Quantification_of_representation_of_the_world-wide_populace
> > [2]
> >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WereSpielChequers/filter#Thanks_for_this_proposal.2C_WereSpielCheqrs
> >
> > nya~
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi nya,
>
> At the point when you sent the link to
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WereSpielChequers/filter#Thanks_for_this_proposal.2C_WereSpielCheqrsthe
> only people commenting in that section were myself and Sue Gardner. I
> don't know how you interpreted that discussion as the Foundation losing
> more
> trust, but as the only non Foundation person commenting there I would like
> to put it on record that neither Sue nor the foundation lost my trust in
> that discussion, rather the reverse. To me building consensus means
> discussing our differences and working to accommodate each others concerns,
> I see Sue's acceptance that "a category-based solution is a non-starter" as
> a major step from the Foundation towards those who opposed the previous
> image filter proposal. As far as I'm concerned one gains trust by listening
> to those you disagree with and accepting those of their arguments that you
> find convincing. That doesn't mean that it will now be easy to get a
> consensus based solution, but in my opinion it will be easier than it was
> as
> a major disagreement is resolved.
>
> WereSpielChequers
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I've got to agree with WereSpielChequers. Sue's post on the user talk page
resolves a few important concerns, and provides some assurances that
alternative models are in fact being considered. In fact, to me that is the
most solid evidence that I've seen so far against the assertion that the
filter has already been all but decided and that everything else is just
formalities. (though granted, I haven't been actively checking all the
threads/pages/discussion so maybe I missed something else to that effect).
 It's not 100% what I'd have liked to see, in that it implies that in the
next two to three months if things aren't resolved the filter may just go
ahead as originally planned anyway (again, correct me if I missed something
on that). But it's an opening of a dialogue that the category based system
has critical problems and some other solution is needed. I hope we can all
assume good faith here and restore trust in each other because if we don't
have it, we won't have a positive and fruitful dialogue on how to move
forward -- and without one it COULD lead to bad decisions being made.

-Dan