User:ErrantX/Alecmconroy

Answers to Alecmconroy's other questions:

Of the other candidates, who do you most support?

Easy. Coren. He is thoughtful, experienced and expresses his ideas well. After that Samuel Klein.

Do you have a favorite article (or more) that illustrates the 'best' of Wikipedia? Favorite on other projects?

en:Digital forensics, because I wrote it :) but on a serious point, the reason I came back into the Wikimedia family was because, as an industry professional, I saw a lack of content in my subject area and wanted to fix it. I think a lot can be achieved by encouraging others to do the same.

Of the current board members, who do you think is our most effective leader / who do you look to as a role model?

To be honest; Jimbo is really the member who has been visible to me (both on and off project). On project I have worked with him on BLP issues - he has a consistent philosophy to BLP's. Which I regularly disagree with :) but he sticks to his guns and expresses those views well. On catching up with past board/foundation matters I have enjoyed Samuel Klein's contribution and philosophy (hence the answer to #1).

What's your Myers-Briggs type-- here's a test if needed. (I can't imagine the answer themselves directly affecting any votes-- but it might help readers better interpret your other statements)

INTP; but I usually end up with a different answer every time I take a test like that :)

What's our Big Purpose? What's our Mission? Jimmy Wales famously said "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." Without quoting or paraphrasing, how would you say it?

We have a dual purpose:

• Collecting together a record of all human creativity, knowledge and achievement
• Providing that information as widely and freely as possible

That probably counts as a paraphrase :) but I see no other way of putting it.

What is the "big new exciting amazing thing" Wikimedia Movement could potentially accomplish in the next five years?

On projects like Wikipedia, how do we fix the quality problem? (some of our articles aren't very good and don't necessarily seem to be improving with time)

By getting more people interested in editing. Outreach to interest groups, academics, professionals and writers.

Can WM host a 'non-educational' project if we want to? For example, suppose there was a multiplayer online game targeted at Israeli and Palestinian children, in the hopes that this childhood experience will promote future peace. If there's a broad consensus that the non-educational project would bring good in a clear way, could we host it if we wanted to?

No.. although there may be scope in the future to look at supporting such endeavours in some way (i.e. moral, financial or technical support) the current focus should be on our educational projects. Whilst such ideas largely fit with our aims and ideals our specific focus is on collecting knowledge/information. Let others, with speciality in that area, focus on pro-active solutions.

If it were feasible, should the foundation promote 'internet freedom'-- that is, advocate for or actively providing unfiltered internet access to citizens of repressive regimes?

Difficult - we don't want to get involved in politics. On the other hand one of the aims is to open up knowledge to everyone, so advocacy or expressing support for such things is within scope. Actively providing unfiltered access... seems out of scope. Let others fight that fight, we can support them with a voice.

If it were feasible, should the foundation promote 'universal internet access'-- that is, advocating for or actually providing computer&internet access to impoverished peoples?

Again, well within our scope to advocate in. The caveat for both these things is that it should not be at the detriment to our primary goals (to collect data). Actually providing access

Is Wikimedia most like a library, a school, a museum? something else?

A university; because we are a collection of a diverse range of reference and creative works which people use for self-learning and self-improvement.

Does the WM movement have a role to play in local, national and international politics? If so, what does that role look like in the future?

No. WMF should be non-partisan. It would be very damaging if the foundation were identified as supporting some political agenda. Whilst our ideals are generally liberal, they are more of a social than a political.

WM content has generally been described using terms like "knowledge" and "educational". Do you think WM has a role in hosting non-notable art, fiction, music, and other works of open-culture? As hosting expenses naturally approach zero due to ever-dropping technology cost, should WM host increasingly more diverse content, or should we stick to the domains we currently focus on-- namely, factual, notable, instructional content of the kind that might be found in an encyclopedia or textbook.

In principle I feel there is scope to support such things. On the other hand, doing it in such a way as to not end up hosting crap (i.e. something I drew in Paint last night) is a non-trivial exercise. Particularly as views on art tend to be subjective. Wikibooks is already partially going this way (because although the books are reference based and must be sourced there is an amount of creative work in the writing) and Wikiversity has a scope that could include research work.

Should promoting "free culture" a goal in and of itself for the WM movement?

If it were technically feasible and of negligible cost, should we empower users the "be bold" and create new projects on their own initiative, ala Wikia?

No. Because projects with minimal/lone interest will rarely reach any form of maturity. But we should make it easier to propose, deploy and test new projects,

Should the WMF promote "Net Neutrality" in the US?

Difficult. I think expressing support is fine. Additional involvement begins to get political, however.

What can WM do to help those directly-affect by 'The Arab Spring'? movement, foundation or individuals

It's out of scope to specifically do anything for them. However we can work to have good coverage of the events and to maintain a neutral approach, people are turning to us for news on these events.

How do we fix the "MediaWiki Problem", namely, an over-reliance on a single software platform?

Short term. Hire more people

How can we empower our developers and other programmers to "be bold" in trying to create 'the next big project' that will do good for humanity?

Were still working on the current "big project", let's have a crack at that one first.

Should WMF advocate any position on copyright reform?

It seems reasonable to express views on what needs to be reformed, as it specifically benefits us to do so.

Looking forward, should all projects have to adhere to 'Western-Humanistic Values'? Or will falling hosting costs eventually mean that "Wikimedia" becomes more diverse?

Become more diverse. As my answers to other questions on the official pages indicate I think we need to improve outreach and correct systematic biases.

Distributed Wikipedia-- great idea or greatest idea?

Technical nightmare (my final year thesis was on distributed architecture, so I am horribly biased against the idea ;))