Fae,
Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it." After many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to governance, nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works. Knowing the history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to "consensus".
Dariusz just remarked: "Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform the Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open conversation about these ideas soon".
You've been on a board, right? You're aware, then, that changing board governance procedures and composition is something that takes time, and, yes, is sometimes an opaque process to start with, as the Board has to display a policy, or plan, to be commented on. Dariusz and other members have been actively listening in WMCON Berlin and here, to concerns made by community members. Do you seriously expect the BoT to just perform a "hard reset" and redefine itself? This takes time, and patience on behalf everyone that's involved.
No, I have not forgotten that Arnnon had to resign, thanks for pointing that out, and I recall how the WMF board unanimously supported him staying just the day before, even though it was absolutely obvious that he was not fit to be a trustee, and had he stayed the WMF board would have been a ghastly joke in terms of ethics for HR, at a time when the WMF's inability to do a professional job of HR in terms of the most basic staff morale was becoming a public fact.
Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
Now, I'm not defending Dariusz or anyone else in the BoT in particular - they don't need my defence. I do wish, however, that your tone sounded just a little less like personal attacks against BoT members - especially the ones that take the time and attention to actively speak constantly openly about what's happening.
Contrary to popular opinion, BoT members are human and as such they are error prone. So c'mon... it's clear to everyone that mistakes were made. Fixing the procedures that ensure this does not happen again is productive; pointing fingers isn't.
Ido
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 5:09 PM, wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
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Today's Topics:
- Re: Crisis of Confidence (Dariusz Jemielniak)
- Re: Crisis of Confidence (Fæ)
- Re: What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved? (Pete Forsyth)
Message: 1 Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 09:21:47 -0400 From: Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence Message-ID: < CADeSpGUDhsQwVgtOeGoekCKgtD67rTau+PAqavhj6w_YC0pf5g@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com napisał(a):
Perhaps we could stick to facts?
In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the Board.
and have
not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment process quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform the Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open conversation about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).
I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a mission-driven, knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that delivers visionary results.
We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process (which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and that should provide sensible community's feedback.
Dj
Message: 2 Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 14:48:26 +0100 From: Fæ faewik@gmail.com To: darekj@alk.edu.pl, Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Crisis of Confidence Message-ID: < CAH7nnD1dG7OU6A7JkwzBN267LLvLLBuygQ_cdcKM38pGVY3cxg@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi Dariusz,
Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it." After many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to governance, nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works. Knowing the history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to "consensus".
No, I have not forgotten that Arnnon had to resign, thanks for pointing that out, and I recall how the WMF board unanimously supported him staying just the day before, even though it was absolutely obvious that he was not fit to be a trustee, and had he stayed the WMF board would have been a ghastly joke in terms of ethics for HR, at a time when the WMF's inability to do a professional job of HR in terms of the most basic staff morale was becoming a public fact.
Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
Thanks, Fae
On 2 May 2016 at 14:21, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com napisał(a):
Perhaps we could stick to facts?
In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the
Board.
and have
not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment
process
quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform
the
Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open
conversation
about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).
I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a
mission-driven,
knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that delivers visionary results.
We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process (which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and that should provide sensible community's feedback.
Dj _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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Message: 3 Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 07:09:32 -0700 From: Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] What New Thing is WMF Doing w. Cookies, & Why is Legal Involved? Message-ID: < CAGWts0G7AV4GxSFB0WrXXVBA2CmJm1JAue39QBt2igViyYRgAg@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Adam,
Thank you for providing an informative and accessible answer to Trillium's relevant questions. It's truly heartening to see the organization improving in its ability to communicate its intentions, etc. I hope that when broad consensus among staff is reached (as you express in footnote [1]), it will become an increasingly high priority to clearly communicate that in public fora. It really helps when we can understand what others are trying to do, and how it aligns with our own ambitions.
Good stuff. I think this discussion got off to a rough start, but you have gotten it back on track, and maybe to resolution.
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 12:21 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Trillium,
These are great questions to ask, thank you for keeping the privacy conversation on track!
As a technical employee of the Wikimedia Foundation who would have been involved if we were planning significant changes to expand or limit tracking, I can confirm that nothing rotten is in the wings. In fact,
the
situation is better now than ever before (in my 4 years here). There are internal accountability reforms under way to help us make strong
guarantees
about our users' privacy. A brief investigation into assigning readers long-term unique identifiers--in lay person terms the gateway to
dystopian
tracking--opened and was immediately shut again.[1] Data retention (what user data we collect and for how long) policy work is being tightened up, and done in public.[2] In Fundraising, we've found a way to measure aggregate data about our banner delivery without collecting information which lets us correlate anything else about readers.[3]
While I feel good about what's happening now, it would be nice to have longer-term assurances that we won't go collectively nuts in the unforeseeable future. I'm not sure what that assurance might look like, though... Democratic stewardship of our shared resources? Anyway,
please
do keep a critical eye on cookies and their brethren, and if you find anything out of joint I'm sure there will be plenty of allies left within the Foundation to help set it right.
Regards, Adam Wight [[mw:User:Adamw]
[1] Sorry, there was an all-staff internal discussion but I don't think this was published. The idea at the time was to get our house in order
and
decide whether to start a public conversation about unique IDs. There turned out to be many strong critics of the plan and no real supporters
as
far I could tell, and the initiative was abandoned, to my knowledge. The motivation for the project was to get a better estimate of our unique visitor counts (a count of their devices, to be precise). We've settled
on
the less accurate "last visited" measurement instead, which is described here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/03/30/unique-devices-dataset/ [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines [3]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lightening_banner_history.pdf
On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Oliver Keyes ironholds@gmail.com
wrote:
It seems like you can either deny James's knowledge of the
technical/legal
overlap or ask him questions, but probably not both :p.
One element I can answer: no, it does not contain flash objects, flash
is
not a technology included in the Wikimedia stack on account of it
barely
being classifiable as a technology.
On Sunday, 1 May 2016, Toby Dollmann toby.dollmann@gmail.com wrote:
It's certainly possible that this is only 'obvious' to me because
of
my
knowledge of outside organizations or law but it doesn't surprise
me.
Your reply is not obvious to me. I understand that your employment is exclusively with WMF and you do not appear to be particularly qualified (or experienced) in law.
Treating the cookie statement as an explanation / extension of WMF's privacy policy and noting the poster's concern that the WMF legal
team
have amended certain descriptors for locally stored objects (not cookies) of indeterminate (theoretically infinite) persistence, would you clarify the following technical /legal aspects relating to
cookies
and their usage on Wikimedia.
- Whether, or not, editors of Wikimedia websites", say
"en.wikipedia.org" or "commons.wikimedia.org", can edit if cookies (broadly construed) are disabled and not stored on client devices.
- Whether, or not, the locally stored objects referenced in the
cookie policy include (i) Javascript code, or (ii) Flash objects
- Whether, or not, the locally stored objects inserted by the WMF,
on
client computers and stored there, have the capability of collecting extensive personal information of editors, the degree of which not being explicitly disclosed in advance to users.
- Whether, or not, the WMF is aware that a certain "toxic and
juvenile .. problem" [reff#1] WMF sysop (now banned) with extensive knowledge of WMF's checkuser process, the cookie policy and its internals has achieved remarkable technical capability to closely impersonate other editors and get them blocked by a network (aka
"porn
crew") of surviving cooperative "community appointed" sysops
favorably
still disposed to him/her. That this problem person (who has also threatened legal action against WMF) extensively uses mobile
Wikipedia
via "millions of IPs" [ref#2] in multiple languages, including
several
some fairly obscure ones, for abusive purposes which are 'obviously' related to WMF_legal's recent subject edit.
Toby
[ref#1] "I should be clear - the problem is not the abuse of me, but the toxic and juvenile environment at Commons. I have never failed in 30 seconds of looking to find a horrifying BLP violation at commons
of
a photo of an identifiable woman engaged in sexual activity with highly questionable provenance (for example a deleted flickr
account).
Every time (including tonight) that I go there hoping to see improvement, I am disappointed. And I think that as long as we tolerate it and don't bounce some very bad admins, we will not solve the problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:04, 14 October 2014 (UTC)"
[ref#2]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AOdder&action...
On 5/2/16, James Alexander <jalexander@wikimedia.org javascript:;> wrote:
On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 2:40 PM, Trillium Corsage <
trillium2014@yandex.com javascript:;>
wrote:
I noticed Michelle Paulson editing the "Cookie Statement" page,
and
it
seemed kind of strange to me because I thought it more a technical
and
IT
thing to edit. But Michelle is WMF Legal, right
I won't/can't comment on the rest of your questions but I'm
confused
about
why you would be surprised here... the cookie statement is,
essentially,
a
legal statement/privacy policy "type" document (obviously different
but
similar) and just like the privacy policy (or access to non public information or document retention policy or terms of use or other
policy
docs along those lines) the cookie statement has been owned by
Legal
for
as
long as it's existed (I can attest to that fact since the CA team
was
asked
to help put it up for them).
It's certainly possible that this is only 'obvious' to me because
of
my
knowledge of outside organizations or law but it doesn't surprise
me.
Cookie statements are part of the law in some countries (not
necessarily
ones we have to follow given our position in the US but Europe has
laws
about it for example) and so would usually be within the legal
department
for many organizations. Cookies are also closely tied with privacy
and
the
privacy policy and so compliance and ensuring that the org stays
within
their promises would, also, often fall within the legal department
(though
everyone should/does have a hand in ensuring they follow the
promises
the
org as a whole made).
James Alexander Manager Trust & Safety Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe:
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