Values/2016 discussion/Themes

This page collects the themes that have emerged during the 2016 values discussion. The quotes are taken from the transcripts of the discussions.

Freedom; empowerment; liberty; independence; sanctuary; neutrality; courage; equality

• Protecting our content from explicitly biased interests is tantamount to realizing a project that is globally representative. · §A3
• Protecting our fiscal independence· §A4
• Freedom is the value upon which we have built our projects from the beginning and inherent in free knowledge, free culture, and free software. · §A27
• Using tools that represent our values. To remain free and open, collective ownership and the value of using open source software · §A41
• Giving everyone their own little hub. · §A46
• We are not tied to commercial interest, and this allows us to serve the communities and protecting the projects and our vision. · §A51
• It touches all different layers of the work: the way we work, the content that we serve, it enhances participation. · §A56
• It’s not just about free of charge. It’s about openness to the world and empowering others. · §A57
• We are not telling communities what to do, we are unlocking the power for them to do the work · §A58
• If in 10 years we change our leadership, they might bring new ideas that collide, like corporate funding, which might endanger our vision. · §A81
• Independence: Protect the mission and project as we create necessary partnerships for today and tomorrow. · §B6
• Remaining independent/unaffiliated to any single source of income, information, partnerships - in pursuit of gaining reputation for being trustworthy source · §B10
• Independence - as we are making decisions or partnering that we understand our stewardship and service and are not doing anything that could harm or risk our mission in the future. · §B55
• Independence: I think it’s important to me that we don’t lose ourselves, our true north, our mission, and our project as we stay relevant. I want creative, useful partnerships and I want to protect the mission and projects. · §B75
• non-commercialism: Community-based and free knowledge model only work if people are incentivized via mission rather monetary goals · §C58
• Many of our goals are cannot be met if we are distracted by commercial thinking. · §C60
• Purity and idealism of the mission generates good will from staff and from the general public. Fuels this sense of passion, authenticity of what happens. · §C61 · §C64
• I think people have the opportunity to do well in many different ways and better themselves. There’s a lot of opportunity that’s tied to access and empowerment. · §C90
• Taking the monetary aspect out of the equation means it’s easier to see the meaningful impact · §C107
• noncommercialism is a means to meaningful impact, clarity of vision, purity of purpose · §C110
• We uphold high values and we want to achieve this amazing vision, and we want to achieve that without compromises. We don’t advertise, we don’t sell out, we aren’t partial. · §D3
• Knowledge and information can level the playing field and foster the dialogue we need to make the world better. Ignorance has always been used to manipulate and dominate people. Knowledge and information can be freeing and empowering; therefore, they can increase our chances to live in a just world. · §D13
• Ignorance and misinformation is at the core of what's happening around the world. If you don’t have information and knowledge, you can’t change your life. People are fated to the same destiny. · §D24
• There are many people trying to manipulate others and impose their point of view. We need to provide a place with reliable knowledge. Knowledge enables people’s self-determination. · §D45
• I want people to have an opportunity to decide by themselves, and I hope that they’ll make decisions that make the world a better place. · §D49
• Wikimedia projects are a common good. Anything possible must be done to avoid Wikimedia projects becoming politically or religiously oriented, centered on one way to think, dependent of external resources. We (as a whole community) have built Wikimedia projects to become a sanctuary that can be a safe place for people seeking that knowledge. · §D53
• Creating tools and resources that empower users to learn and explore. Feels linked in many ways to the commitment to NPOV, Wikipedia as a way to learn rather than be guided. · §E9
• Facilitating not only individual users’/contributors’ work on our projects, but empowering them, to the best of our ability, to not do it alone (whether because they want to, or because they feel they have to).· §E17
• There is a constant push to influence the projects, content, the Foundation, movement organizations, and community members. We must be the defenders of the movement to ensure not only that people can trust in it and participate in it, but to ensure its continued existence. · §E30
• Users should not feel that their privacy is invaded. Protect their identities and privacy. · §E35
• Defending independence - lawsuits, intimidation, being killed because of how you participate, to paid editing, and changing regulations and self censorship and it includes fundraising because many small donors keeps our independence. That leads to trust. · §E50
• Knowing that privacy policies aren’t going to change. Wikimedia will not take ad money. That allows people to openly and freely share and that the core values will not shift beneath them. · §E59
• Creativity: offering people the opportunity to create things, to have control over the work they do and the process by how they do it. · §F9
• We empower people to accomplish their aims and fulfill their desires and human potential by making knowledge available to all, and by empowering people to take ownership over the existing canon of “knowledge.” · §F25
• I came to work for the foundation because we work to support people who want to help others. I believe to some extent we all share information in order to improve people's lives · §G16
• I came to this organization because of the work it does to support others who are trying to help the movement reach the sum of all human knowledge. · §G18
• Not be beholden to any prominent systemic actor - social, cultural, political, state, or any other - so that minority / non-conformant / uncomfortable voices and perspectives are not suppressed. · §G46
• Without a commitment to do what is important when we have fear or face risk, we will balk at the most important junctures and decisions. · §H23
• Without courage, there is no creativity. · §H23
• No matter how lofty our goals, if we don’t commit to doing what’s important and right or it won’t look good to the press or the community or more convenient not to do it. · §H50
• We can’t become what we aspire to without courage. · §H50
• People shouldn’t be horrible to each other: it’s nice, and it creates a more productive environment. · §J21
• It’s important, when we construct environments, to think about how people are going to communicate in them. We monitor the servers to check if loads are too high and are going to catch fire; we also need to monitor communities to make sure they don’t catch fire. · §J22
• As the people providing the space for people to collaborate, it’s our responsibility to make sure it’s a healthy place · §J24
• Bold; It is about being innovative, it is about holding yourself to standards beyond that would simply be expected but those that we should strive for. Providing all of the knowledge to all of the people isn’t going to be something done by being tepid or tiptoeing around the issues we face in our world. Starfleet captains didn’t simply waltz around idly they went boldly. · §K30
• We’ve set ourselves not an impossible goal, but it’s so high and so grand a vision that we have to be willing to make those difficult choices and those difficult steps towards reaching it. · §K32
• We shouldn’t be afraid, we shouldn’t languish in simply the mundane. Nothing was ever achieved by being mundane other than being mundane. Access to everything by everyone everywhere is nothing mundane. · §K32
• When 20% percent of our users think that we’re a commercial entity, it means they don’t see us for what we stand for. We shouldn’t be so naive about the importance of the being open, free, reusable, etc. · §K68
• Is it free gratis, or free libre, or all at the same time… English sucks. Actually probably all human languages suck. Let’s define this in mathematics! · §K74
• We have struggled with ignorance for the vast majority of human history. We kid ourselves if we think we’ve overcome that. The world is hurt by ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss. It is not a state of safety. It is an existence that allows humans to shirk. We need to do something that is better than what we have now. To be able to leave the world a better place. · §L13
• [Empowerment] . . . giving communities what they need for the preservation of their own bodies of knowledge in and under their own terms. · §M6
• Making our knowledge freely available, and giving everyone a voice is essential to erasing inequality.· §M24
• Empowering through knowledge is powerful, sustainable and beautiful because it cannot be taken away, is often self-directed, and is intensely individualized (it’s in your head).· §M25
• Equality is important because inequality is bad. I can’t break it down any more. It’s a reason to go to work every day. Equality is justice.· §M43
• Empowerment is for greater equality. It’s about independence. What are the things we want to be equal in? It’s not equality of height or smell or sight. It’s about equality of power. Education does that.· §M44
• When I think of education one is paternalistic. I bestow this knowledge onto you. Then the other is education as a practice. Empowering people to practice education in their daily lives.· §M48
• Freedom You can’t produce any knowledge, free or otherwise, without freedom. Freedom to think. Freedom to question, including questioning received wisdom, information, why something is considered knowledge. · §O8
• Freedom of speech shouldn’t depend on how powerful you are. · §O9
• We really have to think about the freedom that the least powerful can experience. Free speech turning to hate speech, and to silencing others. · §O11
• One of our values is to allow people to be better. To better understand their world, the other people and culture that roam Earth. That we do what we do not just for the sake of harnessing knowledge but because in the end it can make the world a better place. · §O26
• We’re gathering human knowledge to make a difference in human lives. · §O28
• Leave the world in a better place than we found it. · §O29
• We need to stand up to governments who want to spy on our users, to powerful entities who want to manipulate their entries, and to malicious hordes that would kill the projects with a thousand cuts. · §O39
• Investing on behalf of others and finding joy in their success; engaging to help others achieve their goals. · §P18
• collaboration doesn’t need to mean conformity. Collaboration is how we work with each other, but just because we’re always collaborating doesn’t mean we can’t empower individuals to make decisions, do what they need/want to do and grow. · §P23

• Information is power, therefore giving information is giving power. Distributing, decentralizing information is decentralizing power. · §S45
• 2: We want as a movement (and as an org) to make a better place. As a movement, we have chosen access to knowledge as a path to do that. There are many others. We try to empower people, giving them access to knowledge, to decentralize power. · §S47
• The reason (or one of) Wikipedia is so popular is because people trust it. If the foundation were perceived as not being independent, that trust would be lost. · §S76
• Our funding model (many small donors) encourages independence. And also avoiding partisanship, being apolitical. Anything that would be perceived as us being a tool being controlled by an organization. · §S78
• Freedom not just in the passive sense, but also in the sense of empowering. We believe that knowledge empowers, and empowerment means freedom if it is widely shared. That is why we believe that every one should have the freedom and the capability to access knowledge and join us in creating it. · §S
• We don’t want them to just read, but also contribute content. Join the global conversation about how we as humans understand the world. · §S89

• Empowering others, supporting and sharing knowledge and power with others is why we’re here · §T53

• Freedom - Refers to the autonomy of the organization (independent funding, apolitical…) and the results of our work (distributed freely and free to be redistributed, copied, modified, forked...) · §U3
• We aren't part of a government, we fight back when we need to, we stand for freedom of speech and expression no matter where you are and are willing to fight to keep that. We don't let funders or governments control our goals or desires and we don't roll over when we get push back from them. · §U29
• We strive for neutral content, that doesn't mean we (as an organization) are neutral. The core of our identity, Free, accessible, verifiable knowledge, is a political statement in its own right and brings us (and our community) into direct conflict with the many in the world who would wish to limit that. · §U30

• Power should be shared. When power gets condensed there is often a lot of corruption and lack of different view points. It’s not inclusive. There is not much equity. · §V51

• I feel like human history has a tendency toward things being closed and held tightly and in the hands of few, to information being disseminated. Things went from being closely guarded to being disseminated; from a means of control to a means of culture. It seems to be the path we’re on, the path we’re supporting. · §W19
• I’m also on the anti-censorship side of the fence. If we’re talking about the sum of all knowledge, we don't mean some of it, or none of it, we mean all. · §W21
• Freedom about what you’re able to do: for us, it’s that you’re free to contribute, to knowledge, to culture. Freedom to consume it, if that’s what you want. · §W23
• Freedom from restriction, from control, from censorship, from ads, from foundations leaning on us to do X or Y, which is why we’re picky about our fundraising. · §W24
• We’re here to promote verifiable information. We have to be diplomatic and low-key in some ways about how we do this. Sometimes there’s no diplomatic way to do this, but if there’s a diplomatic way of doing this we should do that (to protect people’s safety, both physical and legal) · §W39
• I believe in a society where everyone has freedom from oppression and control. · §W41

• To serve the cause of all knowledge, content can’t be constrained by fear of reprisal, judgement, surveillance · §X14
• Knowledge as a human right. Wikipedia represents one of society’s highest ideals: That knowledge and information should be free to everyone, regardless of class and condition. · §X45
• Principled consensus. Every Wikipedia article -- even stubs -- represent a consensus of sorts, where people have decided that this is the information that’s important, that will inform readers. This is how Democracy works: Those who participate get the most say at first, but it’s always open to more active participation, and always welcoming to whomever knocks on the door. We’re like the United Nations -- except that everyone is able to join and have a voice. · §X47
• Helping people help themselves (and others) and feel ownership because that is what sharing knowledge is all about at the end of the day. That is what people need knowledge for. · §X69

• Free licensing and open technology protect our work in perpetuity and enable others to build on it -- relates to openness, long term thinking. Also speaks to free expression within the confines of a project’s mission and behavioral norms. · §Y15
• We can only preserve our commitment to neutrality if we remain independent in terms of funding, external control · §Y17
• Avoid interference from governments, people with vested interests. It’s important to call out because governance decisions don’t always reflect 100% commitment that the foundation must always remain free of unwanted influence and control. · §Y18
• If we remain true to this commitment that all the information is freely licensed, including the technology stack, freely usable, reusable, replicated, we truly ensure that the work that we do is available indefinitely alongside civilization. It’s an important way to think about the long term sustainability of what we’re doing. · §Y32
• We’re in a world where we are the data. Wikimedia sites are digital artifacts open to everybody and that no one has control over. · §Y36
• Ultimate end goal of neutral content in any language: in order to accomplish that we must preserve that notion that it’s funded, supported by everyone. Not one single source of funding. That independence is very linked to what the projects can create. By choosing our funding model, we’re committed ourselves to a high level of independence that other organizations can’t achieve. · §Y44
• When I was thinking about independence, I wasn’t thinking about funding, but about independence of voice, of space. What is the process through which you get to that content. · §Y47
• We want to continue to matter to the world. For us, that mission in service of humanity means that we primarily have to be independent in a way that we’re not in collusion, cooptation. · §Y51
• Being independent means reasoning these things out. What I thought characterized our SOPA action well was that we weren’t blindly following others. There was a lot of deep thinking inside the organization and the community. They reasoned that yes, it was a real risk, a real threat. Wikipedia was willing to go through a path that was truly its own. Even the slightest hint that the WMF might not be independent undermines its position in the eyes of some. It’s so central that people will sometimes expect the WMF to live to a standard that no one can. · §Y52
• Sometimes you can’t be in a position where someone has power over you or you’re in power over someone. But you can have power with someone. · §Y66

• Security and access are the preconditions by which we foster a free and equitable society, none of which can be achieved without transparency. · §Z13
• Free and equitable go together; that’s the society I want to live in. Freedom of thought, of expression, freedoms granted to us by human rights. It’s the society most people are comfortable in and want to live in. · §Z30
• This idea of freedom makes a lot of sense to me; about people deciding of their own volition. Coming through a process of education that we all need. Should give us the possibility to be freer. Make conscious decisions about how I am and the world around me, who I want to become. · §Z33
• There’s a social agreement about what the limits are. Every generation probably has to rethink and decide for itself. We are a society… there are people around us, and we have to define what those limits are, but we need to think about them consciously, not just follow what X (e.g. founding fathers) came up with. · §Z34
• If people don’t feel secure, that’s a limit of freedom. People need to feel secure and safe to speak their mind in a society. · §Z35
• If you’re not secure you’re not likely to think and criticize. But you also want to empower people and make sure they have that same security. · §Z40
• We’re all standing on the shoulder of giants. You can create your own ideas, but we’re not working in a vacuum, you need to work with others as well. Unless you have access (to information), you won’t have the information you need to get to a society you want to live in. · §Z50
• As a whole, people are gravitating more towards the idea of freedom and equitability. It’s not necessarily the only way, or the right way, but it’s the one we’re moving towards. · §Z56
• Strong belief in privacy for the individual, and transparency for the organization. Embodied by the notion of security. If you don’t feel secure you’re not going to share your ideas. · §Z60

Kindness; care; love; respect; tact; empathy; trust; relationship; safety

• Tact: ability to have a positive outcome/experience out of a negative situation. · §B31
• Tact: turn a negative situation around. Using "I" instead of "you". Or referring to the situation rather than the people. · §B46
• There is a tactful way to say that you are upset with someone. You can say it with anger or with tact. How you communicate to get from one space to another. · §B66
• We should be spreading rainbows. · §B66
• I want to know that when I engage with another co-worker they feel safe enough that they can bring a playful side to the conversation. Not have their guard up. · §B70
• Trust is the confidence that their peers and intentions are good. You don’t have to be guarded. Requires vulnerability and that this vulnerability will not be used against them. · §B78
• Tact: communication does take a bit more time and reflection to put together - few people do this automatically when communicating quickly or in a reactive way. · §C38
• Without assuming good faith, it is hard for far-flung communities to be able to always engage with each other given their possible opposing cultures. · §C68
• If you don’t assume good faith, it causes a lot of tension and conflict. AGF allows people to engage without being ostracized. More willing to work with each other. · §C71
• You need to be curious to build a community, because you need other people to build that community. You need to learn about what they believe in, compare your values with theirs. It’s a component of equality. · §D37
• You have the right to your own opinions, but you also need to be open to others and respect them. · §D51
• This is how I want people to treat me, and this is why I treat people this way. · §D85
• Empathy - understanding why people use and contribute to - and how they experience - our movement/projects, and then mirroring our understanding of that back to them, will allow us to serve and support users and contributors in the ways they need. · §E16
• Amplify voices to allow us to truly hear people. We don’t need to always agree, but we need to at least be able to hear people. · §E51
• You’ll see people say things and they didn’t think how that would come across. That’s how some people live their lives. If we can position ourselves in a way where we are thinking ahead of time how what we are doing will be interpreted and understood. · §E63
• It’s about dialogue. You cannot operate independently of other people’s understandings and needs. · §E63
• In a perfect world, everyone would have empathy. It’s never gonna work that way. Different communication styles. Or care so deeply. Part of being empathetic is attempting to understand why those conversations are happening. · §E64
• Modeling the behavior. We make a choice in our interactions. You can impose rules, but then people like to break rules. · §E65
• Free speech doesn’t mean without consequences. Don’t be surprised if you are rude that there will be consequences. · §E69
• Lack of empathy will fundamentally impact their ability to be successful. · §E70
• You are curtailing the freedom of the people who are afraid of you by being this frightening, intimidating personality. · §E71
• Most of us have gone off the rails at least once. Someone has approached and told us that we are accountable and that wasn’t cool. When that happens it has had a huge impact on changing my behavior rather than a written policy. · §E74
• We fix mistakes rather than breaking people. I don’t want it to be finger pointing. · §E78
• If someone screws up they don’t need to be publicly shamed or fired. Make it a safe to fail environment. Do you know why it happened? Do you know not to do it again. · §E87
• You need to have the ability to let go of what you think is best for the movement. Say your piece. And then support the decision. · §E93
• Not being supportive of one another is detrimental to shared power; our ability to be transparent; free-speech; and freedom. No one likes to be told what they are doing is not useful or wrong. · §F3
• “humaneness.” Be good humans, be good to humans. That’s fundamental. · §F19
• Supportive is the equivalent of respect. There are a lot of good ideas in the Foundation. Supportive seemed important because our movement doesn’t have a structure. This opportunity to be more supportive. · §F40
• Listening to others, taking into account other ideas, being transparent, freely willing to share with colleagues, and the world · §G7
• Curiosity: a desire to learn and grow, interest in the world, open to other ideas and changes. · §G10
• I want to see other succeed. · §G19
• Talk to the quietest person in the room and ask them “how can I help you”. · §G20
• We are here to share in the sum of all human knowledge. We say this because we believe that every person in the world is valuable and has something valuable to share to the world · §G22
• I’ve always been wary of the word “to help”. It’s not just about helping others, but also putting yourself on the same footing. Mentorship is a really hard concept to display and explain without coming out as patronizing · §G25
• Knowing the people I work with is essential to maximize my effectiveness here both personally and professionally. I not only need to have relationships on a personal level - but so to know who is an expert in what for those times I need guidance on how to proceed from a strategic perspective. We need to have strong ties with each other. · §G58
• Knowing who can help you, who I can help, to do our best work and collaborate. Develop personal relationships with people as a result of work activity. · §G58
• The stronger our relationships with each other, the better we collaborate, and the deeper the relationships. · §G62
• If somebody is having a bad day: there might be something else in their life that is a problem. Not take it personally. So try to think the best in others/forgiveness is good. · §G77
• Openness and respect both help deal with conflict especially when you are encountering a new way of perspective which you might never have encountered before. Try to see things from the other person’s perspective. · §G78
• Listen to learn, not listen to respond/contradict. · §G79
• Listening, observing, caring enough to take the time to be in the shoes of others, and including that learning compassionately when making decisions · §H4
• Civility; care in communication - understanding that words make impacts, and consciously crafting communications with that understanding. Caring to empathize with those you are communicating with, working with, solving problems with - whether in person, remote, in written or spoken communications. · §H6
• I like to be able to think that everyone has something wonderful to add to any conversation. We should be encouraging to that person (or, a group of people) in order to make them feel welcome and able to share their thoughts. · §H10
• When you are in a conversation, it should be understood that you can ask questions to understand that topic or thought or action. · §H11
• Not everyone moves or thinks at the same pace. Sometimes other people have things going on that you have no idea about. · §H12
• Generosity - demonstrating your empathetic kindness by using your richness of expertise to meet the needs of others with no expectation of reward. Evokes the nobleness of our mission, our call to assume good faith, and compassion for our fellow man. · §H15
• We are all humans. All of the people in this movement are humans. The second we stop embracing this explicitly and at every level, I’m probably out. · §H26
• Empathy is sensing others, listening to them, compassion is what you do with that understanding. · §H32
• Your words have impact. Incivility inhibits problem solving. Being conscious of your communication. · §H33
• Encouragement. We’re glad that you are here. We want to hear from you. You’re encouraging them to grow and share and think and feel safe. · §H36
• Inquisitiveness is a form of encouragement. Clarifying questions. Curious. Pay attention. Get involved. I think what you did was great, can I ask you questions. · §H37
• Patience with people that are new. With learning. Don’t jump to conclusions · §H38
• Demonstrating kindness. No expectation with reward. Taking care of other people. · §H40
• Valuing humanity, a lot of things fall out of that: collaboration, autonomy falls out of it. · §H53
• It’s hard to connect with people, that’s why it’s worth doing. · §H53
• To understand the impact we need to understand people. · §H59
• A practical definition of empathy. It helps us understand people and helps us make decisions. It helps us decide how we are going to treat people. · §H60
• To be able to be creative and do the things I need to do, I need to feel able to put things out without fearing that someone is going to lash out to me. · §H66
• It’s important to understand the impact of your communication and shutting people down. You can critique, but don’t lash out. · §H66
• I need to think of other people and be patient with them. Also asking for patience when I am struggling. You have to work at this stuff. It’s not easy. · §H71
• Patience allows collaboration to happen. · §H73
• Courage is not just boldness. It’s not just about doing. It’s about facing vulnerability and doing the right thing anyway. · §H85
• If we’re going to catalogue all the knowledge, we have to be inquisitive to find the knowledge. Support people coming for the knowledge. Maintain beginner’s mind (Zen). · §K7
• Tech people in particular don’t necessarily have a problem expressing their ideas quite strongly, and that’s sometimes to the detriment of civility and compliment · §K15
• Compassion/Empathy - in communication, consideration for the work and personal challenges of others, reflection on the utility or impediment created by technical decisions · §K17
• Trying to find how to get the best out of people. Trying to balance the fact that everybody in the org has different needs, and at all sorts of different levels. Not just jobs, but the way they work, conversations. · §K27
• The most diverse set of people you have, the more difficult it is to see from other people’s perspective. We ought to have more patience and tolerance for people who aren’t good at adapting to what the majority expects from them. · §K39
• Value spaces where anyone can participate without fear of backlash; · §K46
• If we do have this vision of the sum of all knowledge, we can’t get there if we aren’t inclusive, and we can’t be inclusive if we’re uncivil. · §K47
• If we exclude or ignore people who have more frequent bad days than the majority… It’s particularly a problem in our movement because the job of volunteers focusing over the long term on very complicated tasks such as writing articles, resolving disputes, educating newcomers. People who are good at repetitive tasks and not getting frustrated about it. But maybe not the best at communication. · §K57
• People who have critical / cynical viewpoints are sometimes the best at noticing or preempting certain kinds of problems. If we exclude them, are we excluding a whole set of problem solving skills, as well as poor communication. · §K59
• Working, thinking, behaving from a place of kindness can lead to civility that would be helpful for us. The goal for me is not to aggravate anyone’s existing difficulties that they’re having at any given time. · §K60
• If somebody’s making a mess, it’s because they don’t know how to do it another way. If they had better tools, they would have put them to use. · §K65
• We can’t educate grumpy people to always communicate properly, and we can’t thicken the skins of people with lower-thresholds for poor communication. · §K66
• We should be careful about why the door should be shut, because that is potentially a very dangerous thing. You have to make sure that, when someone comes to an organization, yes, there are standards of behavior and expectations, but we should also make sure that we bring out the best in that person as well. · §K83
• I hate to think that we might have lost card-carrying members of the grumpy old person club, because others can't handle their frequent cynical remarks, or steadily increasing in volume/passion demands for fixes to perennially broken processes. · §K108
• I also hate to think that we might lose any great people who can't handle even low-to-medium levels of regular grumpiness and cynicism... and I know that we do. They leave IRC channels and mailing lists and talkpages and rooms, when they get overwhelmed with the negativity. · §K110
• Civility: We work online, where a lot depends on communication. In order to achieve our mission, we need to make sure our discourse is always civil. Being a community that is merely "technically" open, or open on paper, is not enough. We should make sure all of our activities are civil and friendly for everyone.· §M19
• We are here because we are passionate about free knowledge. We need to care about our work and we need to care about each other. Caring brings respect and collaboration.· §M39
• Civility is also a spirit that you bring to the table or a mindset. A willingness to look at it with good will· §M58
• Civility is a required qualification for collaboration. It’s already messy. But we’re not going to accept side effects of people getting hurt.· §M60
• Civility can be used to silence people. It has to have truth in it.· §M62
• brings collaboration, each other, what we’re doing, we see it as so fundamental as who we bring in on the team.· §M83
• I believe it is important to show respect and care for those you work with, the audience you are presenting to, or the perspective you may be receiving. It is also important to assume good faith in an effort to create a space where others will acknowledge that even if something is taken poorly or offensively, it was not intended so. This creates a safe space and a more receptive space to have conversations where people can discuss different views and create a more unanimous respect for each other.· §N3
• Open and empathetic way of doing our work. Always caring for how everyone can be onboarded, feel welcome and be part of the movement, but also that we provide people with the right medium (format, way of access, language level,...) to learn. · §O22
• New philosophy of “this is our knowledge and we’re here to protect it, and you must prove that you’re worth contributing to it”. And that attitude is starting to spread to other wikis. Being a Wikimedian used to mean being bold and welcoming newcomers, but that’s changed. · §O53
• Content stops spreading, or loses quality, or becomes biased. People disengage. People are settling for not having huge fights. The joy of contributing is starting to go away. Harassment is a huge issue. · §O55
• The ability to give and receive feedback in a compassionate way that is geared toward helping people grow and achieve better results. · §Q13
• Self-management; keeping commitments and never using force (physical, verbal, mental, etc…) against anybody, at any time, as well as holding each other accountable to commitments and actively working through tensions. · §Q14
• Empathy: ability/willingness to see through the eyes of other types of people within the movement, understand needs of our users and other participants in the movement. · §Q19
• Having empathy for each other in helping us work better together and for people we are designing for. · §Q20
• What leads to good collaboration is a lot about communication. Ask why people are doing things a certain way, it might teach you something that you didn’t think of before. · §Q27
• I wish that instead of thinking that it should be a certain way, or this person did something wrong, maybe they did the right thing and figure out why they did it that way, already trusting the person. · §Q27
• Come from a place of love and you will see why they are doing it that way. · §Q27
• Conflict will arise. If I have a disagreement with you, I should first work it out with you, then a trusted third party. If it escalates, to someone who can make a decision. · §Q31
• Empathy: how to see the world through someone else’s experience. · §Q35
• Challenges between the individual and collective and their own personal goals. When you have hierarchical structures, and everyone is aware it’s really important that if they are to commit to self management, the uppers have to let go of their power. · §Q37
• When I think about my team, it’s helpful to approach people with a sense of love. I think that’s the perfect word for it. It’s easier to do that when I see my life through a certain lens. People react because of how they see life, through their lens. · §Q42
• How do you engage people in your needs. It starts with an invitation, with expectations. What is our relationship? If I know that then I can do my best. · §Q46
• Trust: Mutual trust can create a really productive work environment. Abilities are… respected. Not micromanaging people. Empowering people. · §R4

• Respect anyone as you want to be respected. Respect is the key for mutual understanding and for the ability to learn from each other. · §S17
• Although we don’t like one another’s opinion, we need to tolerate it. There are so many people. We need tolerance to accept and discuss with people, even those who don’t understand what we do. Tolerance will help us understand how others are thinking. · §S21
• Nonviolence in a Gandhian sense. There are ways to disagree and reach consensus while being nonviolent. You can stand up with your opinion without turning to ad hominem attacks, aggressive language. · §S22
• There is, to me, only one goal: minimizing suffering, maximising happiness. · §S43
• We have to acknowledge that neither the Foundation nor the Communities not the Movement as a whole are just abstract entities but composed of single, individual, three dimensional humans, with their faults and with their beautiful perfections. · §S95
• We have to be accepting of our humanities and do the right thing to treat each other as humans, even if we have to break other rules for that. We should be treated and we should treat each other with the dignity we deserve. · §S95
• We’re often thinking about the movement, about Wikipedia editors as a big abstract thing, and we forget that we’re 100,000s of individuals with their personalities, their flaws. Mostly crazy people who think we can make a big splash in the world, and we sometimes forget to treat each other with the humanity we deserve. · §S96

• People fight because sometimes they don’t understand they’re saying the same thing. They need meta-discourse. · §T94

• It is not about deference but about listening, being open and receptive to new, different and contrary perspectives. It requires people to have a sense of accountability for the things they say and the manner in which they say them. · §U7
• The organization must be committed to inclusion in terms of fostering the kind of environment where the people who are brought in will feel welcome and stay.· §U8
• Civility is normally about politeness, but I see it as being open to different perspectives, ones that are different than your own. It requires people to have a sense of the accountability for the impact for the things you say. · §U39
• It’s not about deference or respect. It’s about being able to have that conversation rationally. It requires patience. Finding a sense of calmness and mindful. Recognizing hostile situations and people being committed to de-escalating situations. · §U43
• We all want to have positive communication. Listen to learn. Without feeling that you need to fundamentally change. Trying to discover and learn more. · §U46

• We are all prone to making mistakes or having things turn out much differently than we had intended. It has been so important to demonstrate that mistakes bad behavior can be forgiven when there is mutual understanding about why · §V4
• Requesting funding in public and answering questions from strangers about your ideas and plans can be hard, especially when writing in a non native language. It can be really challenging to post feedback publicly, too. · §V5
• We’re people. We have people needs. We need compassion and flexibility to be our best selves. And yes, this implies a view of the person as a whole, not just their work lives. Health is a natural offshoot of this. · §V19
• Being in a space where we can understand that someone has said something terrible in a public space and forgiving them for it. For when an affiliate makes a mistake. Helping them correct it. How do I get my message across that this is important and can’t be done again, without being too harsh · §V25
• Especially when working quickly and transparently. We need a trusting and forgiving space. It’s hard when people are not forgiving. · §V25
• People are asking for things in public. They are going to be given feedback in public. We need to help them feel comfortable risking themselves. · §V26
• Acknowledging that people feel hurt by things, making sure that there is broad understanding together. Listening to one another. Willing to be wrong. Willing to have people tell you you are wrong - for years. · §V28
• Recognizing people coming into this space who are putting effort into this work, they are also human. This is a different space than they may operate in their culture, different values, expectations. People will make mistakes. If we want to continue we have to forgive each other for the things that have happened. But trust them again in the future. Extending trust again and again. Until it doesn’t make sense to do. · §V46

• I have a sense that there is a lot of hurt in our communities, and amongst foundation employees. A lot of that hurt stems from a lack of respect in communication with each other. It can range from simple things like wording something in a manner that is intended to hurt, to not showing genuine interest in why people are saying, or what they’re saying. · §W3
• In order for a social system to survive and thrive, I feel it’s necessary for them to have a certain level of respect. I’m not saying that debate should be avoided. We need more respect in our interactions. Otherwise we’ll struggle more than necessary. · §W30
• Different portions of society are conditioned to respond to disrespect in different ways… we lose a sector of voices when disrespect is encouraged. · §W31

• Respect for each other, for our environment, for ourselves · §X40 · §X41 · §X42
• Civility: Common human decency + appropriate workplace behavior + informed, engaged, polite actions and communications. I’ve never worked anywhere where this would be said aloud. Didn’t need to be discussed because it was such a closely shared value. We’re a different kind of place. · §X52 · §X53
• So many times, I see people entering a conversation with their minds made up, so much so that they seem incapable of listening to other people’s perspectives. I see people disagreeing with a perspective before they have even understood the other’s perspective. Curiosity also means slowing down, not assuming that you know what the other person is saying. Checking that you understand. Asking clarifying questions. · §X59
• Often I see that we debate forgone and potentially premature conclusions, rather than unpacking sources and assumptions. · §X59
• Avoid the bunker mentality when arguing about something. What are you basing this on? What are the data, the assumptions? Don’t argue about the conclusions only. · §X60
• In a country with free speech, a nation is a large space to have different opinions. But on a smaller scale you can blow apart collective togetherness with toxic speech. · §X95
• Respect each other’s views; this is how families work (theoretically). Unconditional love that will be there regardless. You can disagree and respect. Respect to disagree is important. · §X108
• Isn’t it also the case that not listening got us here in the first place? Maybe it’s less painful to listen now rather than later. · §X112
• I know some difficult discussions go well when I listen, but when comes the time for them to listen, they don’t. When does it become a suicide pact? · §X113
• Communication is a skill. Not everyone knows how to do it, and people need to be self aware about their need to learn. · §X115
• Civility is super important. But the first people always ask is “so now I can’t have honest discussions any more?”. We do want people to have honest discussions while being civil to each other. But people struggle with that. · §X125
• You /can/ say whatever you want, but you may want to phrase it in a way that doesn’t alienate others, because otherwise people might tune you out, or refuse to work with you later, and in that case you suffer the consequences. · §X126
• “Be yourself, the universe will give you feedback.” It gets turned on its head: people don’t like the feedback they’re getting when they’re themselves without consideration for things like civility. · §X127
• The heroes in difficult threads are the ones genuinely asking what the asshole was trying to say. · §X129

• The organization has had this difficulty at times, same patterns of very authoritarian, corrective mode (“don’t do that, you’re terrible, you’re terribly incompetent for not knowing how this weird feature works”). · §Y39

• Love-Kindness: sincere, deep appreciation for every other human being. · §Z25
• Love-Kindness: Precondition to establish a relationship with other human beings. From there we can create more detailed/ refined relationship. But love/kindness is the very starting point of every relationship, so we should keep it in our hearts. · §Z26
• It starts with the trust and building relationships. When you have trust, you can speak your mind. Ability to move forward, collaborate on projects. For me it’s about building trust first. · §Z37
• Privacy is really important in terms of coming up to talk about ideas. Not having privacy limits your freedom of thought. A problem with harassment is that the bad behavior is accepted, not the anonymity itself. If the bad behavior wasn’t accepted, your voice would be rejected, regardless of whether you’re anonymous. · §Z62
• The system has to be able to put limits; conscious, willingly applied. There are some that we can accept as the whole, and others that are harming the whole. Some things are just not acceptable. Inclusiveness doesn’t mean free for all. · §Z67
• Cutting people out of the conversation might not be the best thing. You don’t want hate speech, but you also want to leave space for reform. Two perspectives on justice: punish people, or try to help them become part of the society. I’d like us to have a place where we can have difficult conversations. · §Z68
• You have to be as truthful as possible, but you also have to express love for the people you’re communicating with. To some people truthfulness can equate with being blunt, because there’s no good in lying. We need to excel at being truthful, and also at loving the other, when you’re expressing yourself. · §Z91
• Love is not neutral. It imposes a certain form of relationship over others. If each individual decides that love is the primary emotion that drives the relationships, then we can achieve different goals than if fear or indifference are the driving emotions. Not as passion, not as sexuality, but the pure desire for the other’s well-being. · §Z94
• We’re not neutral to the world, we’re trying to improve the world, and we've chosen knowledge as the way to do that. · §Z94
• Just appreciating each other. Respecting each other. Appreciating the work that we’re all doing. Sometimes a value we miss, but it’s a very important one. · §Z95
• Unity: expression of love. Idea that we’re connected, acknowledging that we’re connected. Working from the framework as a human collective. · §Z97
• The issue we face as a human race is that we have to acknowledge this connection with the rest of the world. All parts of the human race are valuable and have something to teach us, and we have a responsibility to this whole. This is the truth about the human condition. Prejudice and other crap we’ve invented over the centuries has prevented this consciousness of the connection with the rest. Technology is there now but the mind isn’t yet acknowledging the connection. · §Z99
• There are fundamental human needs to feel part of an in-group, a family. The negative stuff that comes out in the world, the conflicts, arise from the divisions between those groups. So we need to see the bigger picture, transcend from the in-group to the larger one. · §Z104

Pluralism; openness; inclusiveness; diversity

• Diversity and openness in hiring and communications with one another· §A6
• We should always be proactively looking to promote openness and diversity and inclusiveness. I also want to add some mechanism that makes individuals act like good neighbors and partners to other WMF staff. · §A16
• Inclusive with how we communicate, but also allowing diverse voices to engage with us. · §A40
• Not only do we want to make space for diverse voices, but by design, we need a space for people from diverse backgrounds. · §A50
• What I like about pluralism is the intention of bringing as many voices as possible to the table. · §A75
• One can be inclusive by listening, but you can also take a step forward and work actively to bring these voices into action. · §A76
• People with privilege take more space, and as such, they have a responsibility to offer this space to other people with less or no privilege. · §A77
• Pluralism helps neutrality. It is said that “history is written by the victorious”, and this value fights against that. · §A78
• Giving voice to those who would otherwise not be heard/given opportunity to speak · §B9
• Inclusive of all geographic areas, types of sources, cultures, etc.· §B13
• Facilitating collaborative efforts to add/edit/create new projects; inclusive; belonging · §B15
• We foster an inclusive space that everyone can feel a part of. · §B37
• We respect and cultivate different perspectives, make space for different opinions, and value their input. · §B38
• We have a lot of different perspectives. As Wikipedians we tend to care a lot about getting the right answer. But in some cases there is no one right answer. Just being accepting that there can be different opinions and they can exist in the same time-space continuum. · §B42
• Go and find and include other opinions. Don’t just create spaces, find people and invite them in. · §B42
• Leverage as many different perspectives and sources and talent as possible. · §B49
• Plurality makes our project more likely to survive. If one part dies, there are other parts.· §B58
• Because you are balancing different perspectives don’t go off in a one direction. Avoiding systemic bias. · §B58
• Inclusiveness just could be making space. Plurality is about actively engaging points of view. Plurality is going out and getting it. · §B59
• We design processes, ecosystems, tools, and other mechanism for bringing other groups into the project and spaces that we curate for others to participate. · §C20
• Inclusiveness requires very deliberate, mindful invitation to participate, and only certain values and paths for participation allow individuals to be included. · §C21
• It’s about saying “you belong with us” and calling on others to join. Our goal is not just to serve the people that we currently have, but also others. · §C22
• Allow everyone from everywhere to participate; Allow all content to participate; Do not, by default, prioritize one thing over the other · §C53 · §C54 · §C55
• Mission: connect the world together, exchange ideas, information with each other. If you’re not inclusive, it’s not gonna work. · §C56
• Inclusiveness. Important to engage everyone in this mission. To have free knowledge around the world. There shouldn’t be any limits in terms of how much knowledge we collect, and where from. · §C73
• If there’s a centralizing authority, they have a certain point of view. If you’re inclusive and open to things, you’re not reliant on a central authority. Avoid marginalization. · §C77
• Inclusivity is about fairness and not marginalizing people. But also expanding the possibility of executing on the mission by having people involved · §C80
• Inclusiveness is rarely about being open, but rather about people feeling empowered to speak up. Give people invitations to participate. · §C82
• In our vision we say we want all humans to share in the sum of all knowledge but we are leaving a lot of people behind. We need to bring them in and have an environment that is safe, welcoming and respectful to have them stay. This inclusiveness is not only geographical but also includes race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, disabilities, etc and all non-dominant groups of our societies. · §D18
• We’re more than the biggest encyclopedia. We have this unique place in the world to build community around knowledge. That should be a global community with all the voices represented.· §D20
• Inclusiveness. Is it possible to share every kind of knowledge through our current projects? Do we have the right places to welcome all kinds of knowledge? · §D27
• Equality: everyone must have access to knowledge equally. So everyone must have a chance to give access to that knowledge. · §D32
• One side of me really loves that equality is a big umbrella. But another part of me has seen that when we have this big umbrella of equality, with no subtext about what we mean by that equality, sometimes it’s just a beautiful term that’s not actionable. Historically it’s been used as just a pretty word. · §D38
• Inclusiveness is a way of expressing to our users that they are accepted, valued and represented within Wikimedia’s projects. · §E4
• Readers from around the globe and from all backgrounds should be able to see their history represented in Wikipedia. Inclusiveness of topics, articles, languages. · §E5
• Ability for anyone in the world to be able to access our projects - and going step further to inviting broad audiences to do so - essentially merger of "accessibility" and "diversity" in an applicable way. · §E21
• Open-mindedness - the ability, capacity and desire to be open to others opinions, issues and opportunities understanding that the World around us is ever changing. · §E25
• We want to build a movement that allows and encourages any and everyone to be part of it. This means that people need to be able to physically access the sum of human knowledge and meaningfully participate in it. · §E29
• We need to promote diversity and collaboration because they improve quality -- quality of Wikimedia content, strategy, and perspectives. And we need to amplify voices in a way that allows us to truly hear and process them while being respectful and productive. · §E31
• Increasing accessibility. We can think of impacting ways that lack infrastructure where there is no internet. Affordability. Harassment issues that is all a lack of access to me. Accessibility issues with disabilities. · §E49
• Promoting diversity and collaboration because they improve everything. Best quality articles are those that have the most eyes and the most diverse eyes. Goes beyond content, it goes to product strategy, org strategy. · §E51
• Inclusiveness means we need certain kind of partnerships. Work on harassment. Invest in ADA compliance. With diversity it directly impacts our strategy. · §E57
• If we have nobody from Africa how will we meet the needs of African community members? We need diverse perspectives to build great products for different users. · §E57
• It’s one thing to strive for equality, but it’s another thing to actively go our of our way to reach out to someone, to invite them to come and talk to you · §G23
• Open arms, open to change, to new ideas and point of views, open to diversity, open to different views. We welcome all that come our way. · §G30
• Openness is about welcoming; something that makes it so that when people look at us, they want to come towards us, because we’re inviting the conversation and the work together · §G31
• I believe diversity will be an emergent property of these values rather than pursue diversity for its own sake which risks being delegated to tokenism, filling checkboxes, or becoming a buzzword. · §G44
• Genuinely open to hearing / listening / learning from multiple perspectives, positions. · §G45
• all the humans are A LOT of people. Creatively enabling ourselves to be fully inclusive (to the extent possible with resources) · §H8
• Inclusivity - it’s all over everything. Free knowledge. That’s so many humans. Taking time and care to reach out to people. Paving ways to include people. · §H34
• The WMF needs to push back against other stakeholders in our movement who want to do things that would result in a decrease in inclusivity. · §J42
• You can’t get all the world’s knowledge if you only see through one set of eyes. If the foundation accidentally becomes a monoculture on any of a gazillion axes, it’s going to become a big problem for the movement. · §K5
• Diversity - Of people, of ideas, of solutions, of phrasing. - Benefits include: multi-perspectivism, increased empathy, increased neutrality. Drawbacks include: increased need for patience/tolerance (of people who think differently, or have different expectations or habits) · §K38
• We cannot achieve our mission without perspectives from all corners of the world, all walks of life; inclusiveness hits on different aspects of our mission and vision as well, things like access (readership must be inclusive, not just editorship) · §K48
• Barriers of entry to contribution (geography, language fluency, fluency in movement culture). I see the learning-Wikimedia-culture bit playing over and over again for newcomers. · §K50
• There’s an aspect of inclusiveness. It’s getting outside outside perspective informing what we’re doing as well. Trying to get feedback loops. If we don’t have someone looking at us and giving feedback, we can’t even know if we’re being inclusive or not. · §K87
• Knowledge isn’t complete if it is coming from one source. The winners writing the history books. Colonial education has serious problems. Sharing back empowers people to feel part of the knowledge dialogue and the best way to learn it is to share it. · §L
• We have a responsibility to share back. Historically is the way humanity has conveyed knowledge is person to person. Crowdsourcing helps deal with bias and weaknesses. If we share it in a common pool, we get truth. We see common threads and it helps us to determine “what happened” objectively. · §L
• Diversity is important in the ecosystem pool. It’s vital to our healthy survival. The species needs it to grow in a positive way. · §L16
• Our vision is inclusive with all people in the world. We encourage diversity of forming communities around the world. · §M11
• Feeling authentic about the work that we do, being open about what we do and how we do it.· §M36
• We are in this together, we can’t represent the world if we can’t include everyone amongst the foundation. The more diversity of mind and background - the stronger we will be and the stronger our work will be.· §M38
• We benefit when we include others· §M64
• The more diverse minds, we make a much stronger group together and the stronger our work will be. There have been so many studies. Diversity is some of it, but you have to include.· §M82
• Seek to understand different perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, behaviours in an attempt to improve inclusivity. Often times we inadvertently exclude because we are unaware or have not been exposed to something.· §N4
• “Nothing about us, without us.” People who will be affected by the grants themselves have a right to be a part of the decision making, always, and especially in the context of WMF funds.· §N8
• People should feel they have a stake in the outcomes, and if they haven’t been a part of developing the process, participating in the work itself, or feel they have a stake in the outcome, it is likely not to succeed.· §N9
• In all ways we operate, we at WMF have to be willing to share decision-making, share ownership, share money, share resources, and share political power. Otherwise we operate in isolation and risk failure, and certainly limit our power as a true social movement.· §N11
• The quality of our product/vision becomes better and better as we are more inclusive. The more we create a welcoming, inclusive, participatory culture, the more well-rounded and valuable our knowledge is. Also the quality of attention we bring to working with each other to fulfill our mission.· §N16
• Equity is how we can assure fairness and inclusivity in a world with uneven power . . . It’s not really impartial, but it’s an effort we need to constantly make to include others in every aspect of what we do until all people are equal in holding and sharing knowledge.· §N32
• The challenge in adding as many voices as possible to the discussion. It worries me when we have a discussion on meta or wikimedia-l and we say this is a discussion with “the community”. · §O16
• Openness goes beyond open source to other modes and paradigms of openness. · §O17
• The platform is super efficient for the demographic of white men from the US and Europe, but is it efficient for others? If we can’t bring them along, we can’t even know if it works for them or not. · §O32
• Look at the maps of knowledge, whole continents are dark on those maps, and we need that knowledge on Wikipedia, and we need to bring those people aboard to contribute. · §O34
• Provide knowledge not only in the current form, but also in other forms. People should have knowledge in a form that they can use. Even the most radical encyclopedists stick to the idea of written knowledge and written encyclopedia. · §O35
• Openness to other forms of knowledge that may not belong in an encyclopedia. Making sure that people know about other projects e.g. Wikisource. People who are trying to contribute in the wrong space, making sure they can find the right place. · §O38
• What is morally pure on one side of the world might be different in another part. · §O48
• Some say that diversity will make us lose quality, and I think it’s the complete opposite. · §O50
• We spend a lot of time devoted to the loud voices. Explosion of affiliates means we have more diversity in discussions. But these voices aren’t on IRC or wikimedia-l, they’re on Telegram or facebook groups etc. Not just listen to the voices that are on mailing lists. · §O52
• Feel that including different voices and perspectives offer a very rich environment on several levels · §O59
• If at the foundation we have a value of diversity etc. then we have more standing to preach for efforts e.g. within the community. · §O67
• Making sure that all voices in a conversation/team are heard and respected and that all potential stakeholders are included in the conversation in the first place. Prioritizing diversity in all its forms (gender, race, emerging vs developed communities, backgrounds of experience; etc.) · §P7
• Coming to our teams and interactions with a curiosity and a positivity and a sense of joy. If you’re open to listening what other people have to say, and new ideas, you’re engaging in a better way · §P11
• At the level of movement and communities, there’s no other way to achieve our mission without inclusivity and diversity. I see often strategies or priorities moving forward within the foundation that don’t necessarily connect to these values · §P33
• Diversity allows staff to bring forth new ideas that connect people of all races/genders/sexulaty/religions etc. Makes us more relevant to our volunteers & audience, promotes creativity. · §Q3
• Fairness; Giving everyone equal opportunity to contribute and experience the support structures and benefits of the organization; breaking down and ideally eliminating senses of privilege and fostering a service mindset. · §Q10
• Inclusiveness of multiple perspectives, approaches, levels of experience, etc, inside and outside the WMF, thinking more about the ones we have not already included or acknowledged · §Q17
• To be known as a global organization, I think it’s important to have people of all different backgrounds. · §Q26
• Contemplating who is not here. Getting to know these perspectives. Inclusion is an action. Look at how many people in the world that we haven’t reached. · §Q51
• Wide variety of people in the conversation is what end up creating the best decision · §R2
• Being open is good and we generally try to be open, with exceptions I don’t want to mention. “Not keeping secrets”: I can look at other people’s calendars, not just to schedule meetings, but to get an idea of what they’re working on. · §R7

• Open up your mind, open up your abilities and open Knowledge and information for everyone everywhere. Being open to others and being open to adopt changes by ourselves. · §S13
• Not only invite people to contribute to our projects and platforms, but also be open to any new ideas, to things we haven’t thought about before. Two-direction openness. · §S15
• What you believe in has effects on what you create. And what we want to create is something that’s very open to every human being, so openness must be the starting point of that. · §S15

• The key to evolving and including new people and initiatives is openness in ideas and direction for the mission. · §T7
• Making it as easy as possible for people to access knowledge (language, formats) and also for sharing knowledge (expertise, specific tools). Insuring people can collaborate in constructive ways without fear for their safety (physical, emotional). · §T15
• You can be open but it doesn’t mean you’re ready to integrate others in what you’re doing. I want people not just to go through, but to contribute. · §T26
• Pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity. Pluralism describes difference as the necessary pre-condition, but then also represents how we actually come together to respect and work together through that difference · §T50
• Without being open, we wouldn’t able to reach the mission. We can’t even have the vision about every human being if we’re not open. · §T58
• It’s not just a good idea, it’s essential to what we do. What we include into Wikipedia, but not just: who we get to get involved. There’s no way our mission can succeed if we’re not open. Otherwise we make an inferior product. If you’re not open, you get a project or a movement that doesn’t represent the breadth of human knowledge. · §T61
• Openness has always seemed necessary but not sufficient, much like diversity. Lots of open source projects where “anybody can contribute” and yet not everybody does. So that’s the insufficient piece. What do we add to it that makes it sufficient? · §T66
• Open/plural/diverse discussion inputs: different backgrounds, ideas, contents, etc. We’re choosing to also be diverse in outputs. · §T70
• Newer people also bring good ideas. Pluralism is about accepting that some communities use other tools or channels like facebook to communicate. · §T86

• A project "for everyone" must be formed by a representation of everyone in as many aspects as possible. · §U4
• In an organization that has a mission to bring free knowledge to the world, it is important to have people from diverse backgrounds doing the work and advancing the mission. I think it is critical to the sustainability and longevity of the projects to reflect diverse cultures, backgrounds, experiences, etc in order to provide the possibility for greatest innovation and accessibility. · §U8
• Are there things that are making it hard for people to feel heard or participate? This is an acknowledgement that we’re all here for a reason, and bring something to the table, and each of us deserves to be heard. · §U16
• Being “open” means listening and being accepting of difference, whether thats different people, opinions, motivations, skill levels, and also accepting of difference over time. · §U18
• We can't be everything, we can't do everything, we can't understand everything and we want to. In order to be able to do so we need to be as diverse as possible whether that be by language, by race, by sexuality, by country, by thoughts or by something else. · §U23
• We welcome the diversity of opinions and engagement from the community. No matter how large the staff gets, it will never be at the diversity of our community or the public at large, and so even more important than staff diversity is the ability to engage and ask for help and support both directly and indirectly. · §U24
• Our mission says we want to provide free knowledge to everyone. Everyone means everyone. In order to serve this diverse world, we need to be diverse ourselves. · §U33
• The vision requires bringing in people to do the work with very different backgrounds, different worldviews, different cultural perspectives, different devices. Yes you can bring different perspectives to the table, but people have to feel welcome when they get here. · §U40
• Diversity is not just about now, but how we will keep the projects going. A resilience angle. The foundation needs to be able to adjust to new needs of new users. We need new life experiences. · §U42

• WMF needs to be open minded when considering ideas that the community wants funding or support. Even if the project itself does not make sense, it is important to be open to understand the needs and interests that are behind the idea and why it is important. · §V3

• To make sure we don’t build walls and barriers, us vs. them, labels and categories. · §W32

• It’s a big tent. There’s room for everyone, providing we can agree and abide by some basic ground rules for engagement. · §X56
• Important for the content, diversity, depth of our projects, but also for human beings that participate in the projects. There’s room for everybody, even the people we profoundly disagree with · §X57
• Different points of view, different angles on problems, different angles on solutions, different ways of speaking in conversation… it makes our solutions stronger, more resilient. It reflects the multiplicity of views, languages, users that we either already have or we would like to have. By inclusion, I don’t just mean friendliness, inclusion is about more than tone, it’s about really reckoning with the substance of someone’s perspective. · §X64
• Being interested and open to new things and perspectives is crucial for sharing knowledge. If we only share without being curious we fail by not questioning what we “know” and the status quo. Contributing to our projects and movement is often driven by curiosity about a given topic - not necessarily by just wanting to share knowledge I already have. · §X71

• Pluralism of identities; of types of knowledge; of forms of knowledge · §Y7
• There’s a very clear focus on the encyclopedia, historically driven culturally specific concept, highly Enlightenment driven form. Careful about the distinction between knowledge, wisdom, propaganda. How do we make sure as we move ahead that the forms of knowledge that we are producing are multiple, diverse, plural · §Y8
• There is something around the notion of inclusion as being by a community that already exists. Presupposes an homogeneous set of values, identities, etc. The notion of community itself is complicated and complex. Heterogeneous. If we’re to accept that there are multiple communities, with multiple forms of working and being, pluralism better encompasses who we are and who we want to be. Pluralism affirms that there is difference and it says “we celebrate that”. · §Y26
• Ethical imperative to have multiple identities and people in our movement, but also strategic imperative. If we look at our communities right now, the real growth potential is in communities that have been marginalized so far in our movement. Pluralism matters from both of those lenses. · §Y28
• Helping people tell their own story, document their life, their world, and broaden the understanding of the world. · §Y
• Most of the world (women, global south, lgbtqi, indigenous people), most of them are marginalized, or at best given a passing nod) on Wikipedia (and the rest of the internet). We can often as Wikipedians think of access to knowledge as a unidirectional thing. Inclusion presumes a center of gravity that is already fixed. To make this enterprise of free knowledge something that is brilliantly and beautifully multidirectional, that’s what makes Wikipedia so exciting. · §Y30

• Inclusiveness (make sure to include everyone; different cultural backgrounds; different perspectives) will allow us to move forward, innovate and bring new ideas. · §Z15
• Equitability is related to justice. Justice might be the same for everyone, equitability is also about the fact that acknowledges the differences in conditions, needs, and responding to those needs. Being equitable is not only about being just. Not everyone speaks from the same context. · §Z45
• I think the goal of any administrative body, any org, is to managing justice. Managing resources, especially in the hierarchy. We need to reflect a lot more about how we are providing the engine for free knowledge for the world. · §Z48
• Providing a platform for everyone to share information with everyone else. We want to guarantee that people have the power to share their information, not just guarantee the access to knowledge. · §Z54
• The feeling of belonging is very important, especially since we’re such a global organization and community, with so many different perspectives. It’s hard to talk about it. You want to include everyone, to have the same access and fairness. · §Z64
• Everyone is welcome, and we want to make space for everyone. The more complex the organism, the better it can adapt to the conditions. The more diversity we can embrace, the more effective we can become. · §Z65

Cooperation; hospitality; community; collaboration; togetherness

• Bring our community in, so they have a seat at the table · §A7
• Communicating frequently, being participatory · §A8
• From a product manager perspective, developing a new feature should begin and end in the community, not only end · §A85
• We are empowering the community, by involving them in every step of the process. · §A87
• We work together, with other staff, other community members, and other movement stakeholders. · §B37
• Our greatest strength is having these communities. Nurture it. Include it. Not independent from this organization. · §B41
• If you’re making a big change, how do we engage the community on it? The way we collaborate with each other. You want to do the right way. · §B66
• Connectedness. Inclusiveness. People. Sources. Cultures. And then the connectedness of information. Facilitating collaborative efforts. Collaboration. Belonging. Especially for groups that are at the margins. · §B71
• co-creation process, important to the communities and projects we support. Building out in open spaces so others can hack away · §C6
• Co-creation. Though we have lots of “community experts” and “deep experienced” folks at the Foundation, there is always space for others to participate and add layers on top of that work: to modify, and to help shape it in ways that help it emerge into something grander. · §C34
• What makes our work valuable is that it can be connected to other things, and improved. Almost everything we do is working in parallel (and sometimes in contradiction) with the work of other people. What’s really interesting is when that work overlaps. · §C36
• Community is the foundation of our movement. The collective, the people who donate themselves, their time and intellect to make sure other have access to knowledge and information. The collective is richer and more powerful than individuals. · §D9
• We are a community of people dedicated to share knowledge. That community is part of a bigger one. We work together, we discuss together, we decide together, we act together. · §D30
• It’s not possible to imagine the WMF existing without the community. · §D31
• A promise to users that, no matter what, Wikimedia will be there to provide free and open knowledge regardless of who they are or where they are accessing the projects from. · §E12
• Everything we do and make should be accomplished with an eye toward how it will facilitate collaboration (and if something is likely to block collaboration, we should think extremely seriously about whether it’s actually something that serves our movement/users) · §E17
• Doing things collaboratively vs. in org silo - speaking both to internal working approach and external - collaboration between departments and between org and community/affiliates. · §E22
• If the movement has taught us anything, it's that we can do more together than we can as individuals. But that doesn't mean that we should always agree. · §E31
• Value our users and that they feel validated to contribute and read and learn. Inclusiveness of topics, languages, articles and equal representation across identities. · §E33
• Collaboration - how is this going to help our users and work together to build this monument. · §E37
• The world is changing, whether it is the things we work on or the people we involve. We have to challenge ourselves to be open minded. We all have our experience and biases, if we don’t stay open minded we can lose perspective. · §E40
• Diversity and accessibility, but also expanding that to making our work and our projects remain available to everyone. Access is on us, and content quality is on the communities. · §E45
• Collaboration speaks to our style and the value we take in our approach. Internally we should do things collaboratively across teams and with affiliates. · §E46
• There is a wide variety of expertise and hear their perspectives. It’s a way to ensure the best work. That’s the why. It produces our best work. · §E55
• New ideas are hard and sometimes controversial. Many people I know have left the foundation because they feel we are not open-minded about new ideas. · §F5
• Just as we’ve opened up the canon of existing knowledge as a collaborative effort, we should endeavor to model strong collaboration -- both internally among ourselves and with the broader community. · §F30
• We’re not an island. We're part of an ecosystem that cares about protecting an open Internet. We work with others to figure out what this free knowledge system looks like. · §G13
• We make sure that we work with people. We grow with them, we fail with them. We join strengths and overcome weaknesses together. · §G28
• We are loyal to the people we cooperate with, and we provide them reasons to be loyal to us. We are faithful to commitments we make and the obligations we have. · §G32
• We are loyal to the people we serve. We try our best not to let them down, and if we do let them down, we try to make up for it. · §G32
• We’ve forgotten to build this into our system from the beginning. We need to make sure that we’re loyal to affiliates, to our readers, to everyone we work with and for. And encourage the same loyalty in return. · §G33
• It’s about realizing that we’re all connected, this is a big network. Pulling in one direction disturbs (or moves) everything. If someone is taking the lead, we might want to follow them because we trust them. · §G35
• Flexibility in how we communicate with each other (e.g. timezones, hangouts). It’s about getting your work done in a manner that works for you. A rigid environment may lead to an exodus. · §G65
• We cooperate as an instinct and we do so across WMF teams, across affiliate organizations, across external partners, and across countries and languages. Inherent to collaboration is that we view autonomous contributors as part of a community--a movement. · §H22
• Inclusion of everyone, sharing what is known and in decision making (sharing power). · §H17
• There is no way that we achieve our vision without working together. Across teams, between affiliates, partners · §H49
• I really want a Wikipedia t-shirt that says “it’s an ‘us’ thing” · §J9
• People work together to build things; we should concentrate on making sure that people are able to do so effectively, and that communications between people are productive and aim towards working/building things. · §J20
• We’ve always been in a collaborative environment. It’s how we do things. But communication between people is the primary medium for: getting stuff done, not getting stuff done, and deterioration into conflict. · §J21
• Worldwide collaboration in the creation of knowledge artifacts that are available, and potentially contributed by, every single human being. There is no “they” in there. · §J41
• Being inclusive means e.g. to find a way for the visually impaired to contribute, and dyslexic people, and people with degrees of mental illness. And including more of the world’s knowledge than what is verifiable using Western “reliable sources”. Or that notability criteria rely on Western sources. · §J46
• Cooperation is the force multiplier for everything that we do. · §K41
• To put aside ego where necessary and create a playing field where all are welcome, where good ideas are listened to and good work is appreciated, where compromises are made to build to better outcomes. · §L4
• In some ways we overcome individual imperfections through the masses. By bringing in people to share work we can each help achieve perfection. We’re stronger together. An open community of givers and receivers. · §L8
• Wikimedia is built on a good model of online cooperation. For example, we don't hire writers for our projects, we invest in supporting the people to work together to write. I think this is because our method of working is as important as what the work achieves.· §M21
• A spirit of working together to both determine what we want to do as an organization and how. Thinking holistically about our goals and priorities as an organization -- how each of our individual parts is working toward that goal. What we can each bring to the table to accomplish those things. Trusting each other’s expertise to do their part.· §M33
• We work together to solve problems. They are other more efficient options, but we don’t choose them. It’s more empowering to work together.· §M56
• It is important to maintain collaboration internally as well as externally. This allows for new ideas, growth, understanding, inspiration, appreciation, quality, the list goes on.· §N5
• We share values, we share goals, we are humans here on these projects drawn in for different reasons but aligning on something that brings us together · §N14
• Shared ownership that includes both recognition and partnership· §N21
• Connectivity, something about being in it together, being committed to each other. All the people that are in our movement. We come here for different reasons, but we’re sharing values and/or goals and/or mission. And passion. I am deeply motivated by our commitments to each other. A strong and deep connection to each other.· §N57
• Trifecta +1 (fourfecta?): participation, transparency, accountability and collaboration those are enables or values that would foster the conditions for shared power.· §N76
• Shoving status updates out there is not an invitation to collaborate.· §N86
• We don’t create knowledge in isolation, but co-create knowledge together, with each other, in community. Through back and forths, reason and emotion, discussions, debates and arguments. Consensus. This is the core of who we are. · §O13
• We sometimes think of the community as one big artifact, but frankly I’ve been part of many movements and many communities, and I don’t know any community where everyone wants to be part of a big family. All are fragmented, have internal disagreements. The thing that happens, the whole being more than the sum of its parts, people coming together. Hopefully that sense of belonging is what matters. · §O15
• We are not one community, but several communities working towards the same goal. Using the word “community” erases our differences. I belong with the crowd even if I don’t know them. · §O23
• We approach our challenges from a collaborative perspective (like ants/hive mind) and that is also why we could be globally successful; the core of what we do is the same but it can be approached in thousand of ways. · §O24
• It is key that we can gather people that love harnessing knowledge, others that code, others that organize projects, others that take picture and crazy ones that love staying in the background doing call late at night on how we can make all of those persons “work” easier. · §O24
• collaboration can yield better results · §P20
• Our communities of volunteers collaborate to create the encyclopedia that we are. Our volunteers collaborate to make Wikipedia, and our staff collaborates to enable our projects by increasing efficiency of funds and resources. · §Q5
• Ability to work together and believe in one another through ups and downs, to work on large projects and issues together and in ambiguous situations · §Q21
• I wish that collaboration was more about “we” versus “me”. I wish that people had the mindset that if you’re successful then I am. That’s the biggest area of opportunity. When you start taking yourself out of it and thinking about your team and the foundation succeeding, that’s what it’s all about it. You have to want each other to succeed. · §Q24
• Good communication comes from trust. People knowing each other. Having some way to keep bonding with each other. When you have a trust you have a foundation for a lot more communication. When you feel safe, when you know you won’t offend. · §Q30
• In an open source culture you can sometimes forget to include other people or how to see their perspective. You’re used to having to get the things done on your own. You develop a certain level of familiarity the things you know about. It can be hard to not dismiss others. I don’t know how to get past “I just need to get this done”. · §Q40
• People can develop a strong sense of independence and ownership. Then when someone comes in then you are up against someone’s conditioning. Coaching and learning becomes really important. I had a hard time to share documents. When I felt comfortable. Some are inviting you into their entire process. · §Q43
• Tact and trust; foster environment in which people can collaborate and have an impact on the world. Creating an environment in which people feel good, safe.· §R35

• We live from collaboration. We only exist because people work together, fight, discuss, make consensus, and this can only happen if we respect each other. · §S18
• We can’t always get to consensus. Sometimes staff, or the Board, or volunteers were looking for consensus and they lost their focus. They spent more time trying to create consensus rather than accepting that we have different opinions. · §S23
• Sometimes it’s ok if my peers, or the organization, or my boss, decides and we follow them because it may be a very wise decision that I just don’t yet understand. Looking for consensus is a very costly thing. We’ve all been in situations where it’s just not doable, and we should be wise enough to find for a pragmatic way to move on. · §S23
• There are two ways to do things: competing or collaborating. Collaboration leaves fewer bodies on the ground. · §S46

• Working together in order to achieve more than we ever could alone · §T52
• Controlling centrally might be more efficient but we’ve learned that doesn’t work for WP, the same is true for the organisation itself. · §T91

• Collaboration is fundamental to bringing out the best in everyone. When people feel they have a voice and are involved this will foster more engagement, openness and productivity. It requires everyone to come to the table to do the work. · §U9
• The nature of the projects requires people to collaborate. When people have a voice, they will be more engaged, they will be more productive. Collaborating brings people together. · §U41

• No one can do the things alone. You can’t do it by yourself. It’s no one’s entire job. You need things from other people. Time, attention, resources. We need each other. When there is a lack of trust, groups splinter and divert energy and resources. We’re stronger together. Trust enables the sharing of resources. · §V48

• Democracy, collaboration, anti-authoritarianism · §X10
• Connection enables collective action and growth · §X19

• Hospitality - there’s a difference between open and welcoming, and while we value openness for many different reasons, key is to be welcoming at the same time. And this is a cultural value many communities (offline as well as online) understand in embodied practice. · §Y9
• Hospitality is a value that most of our communities understand and can embody. Applicable to editors but also people who read and support Wikimedia sites. · §Y10
• We mention openness, friendliness, etc. but none of that comes home to me like hospitality. More universal concept across the world. It may mean different things, but we ascribe a certain form of behavior to the word “hospitality”. · §Y38
• If someone wants to become part of this process, it’s a real and serious commitment to say that we want to help them as long as we understand that they truly want to embody the principles of the project themselves. You want to ease their way into the projects if they’re really committed to our mission. · §Y39
• How do we bring the immediacy and closeness of face to face communication to online? · §Y40
• We’re an org in service to a movement. There’s something about the notion of cooperation that not only makes us work in partnership with others, but work towards something that is greater than the sum of its parts. WMF can sometimes be more insular than it should be in the way it relates to other entities. Cooperation might be an interesting framing for that. Collaboration is still a hugely problematic word in some places because of WWII. In some places cooperative movements (milk producers forming a cooperative) have had a stronger symbolism. · §Y57
• Collaboration: more about a process. Cooperation is a values-laden term, contains meaningful connotation. You can only create an encyclopedia that is updated in real time, products that reflect the whole of humanity, if the process of collaboration is cooperative in nature. · §Y58

• Collaboration is an important part to achieve our mission; we need to collaborate and work together. · §Z17
• Unity: feeling the connection with the whole of the human race, no exceptions. From that connection we can build something/anything together. Unity in diversity means we can all be, think, act different, while remaining connected, working on shared goals (uniformity is not the way to go). · §Z26
• You can put different notes or instruments together, but you can still feel the unity of the music. · §Z27
• For a couple of centuries some societies have emphasized the individuals with little place for the whole, and others the other way around, so maybe we need to discuss a balance between the two. · §Z41
• Collaboration is the important part to achieve our mission and work together with staff and communities. We need to be in sync with our communities, with our teams. · §Z75
• Collaboration alludes to this idea that we’re ready to work with each other. We are willing to work with others. We’re not on our own, isolated; we’re reaching out to connect. · §Z76
• Cooperation vs. Collaboration. Collaboration is broader, more complex. Just not going along with everyone. · §Z77
• Collaboration is more like dovetailing and gears working together, whereas cooperation is more like going in the same direction. · §Z78
• Collaboration means agreeing on the process. Cooperation: we’ll reach the same goal eventually. Collaboration is going shoulder to shoulder. · §Z80

Honesty; integrity; transparency; service; responsibility; accountability; initiative

• We’re not the ones creating the content, so we don’t have any particular ownership over it · §A11
• WMF staff should be held to a higher standard of conduct than the average person in the movement. · §A16
• Commitment to serve and support our communities · §A19
• Transparency: that through and with which we operate. · §A29
• Professionalism: why we did set up organizations in the first place. · §A31
• “Communities are our biggest assets” is a problematic wording. In the connotation that communities are an “asset”. This definition transpires makes them sound like a resource, not the end user. We serve communities. · §A44
• Transparency generates acceptability. · §A47
• Transparency where it makes sense: There are legal reasons not to share certain information (for example, financial, or protecting people’s identities). · §A60
• Transparency is a means to an end. It feels more like a guiding principle. · §A61
• Transparency takes work. When we decide to practice transparency, we need to be deliberate about it. It’s not always transparency for transparency’s sake. · §A63
• Professionalism, alongside transparency, carries the most social capital, which builds to the public message to our two most important stake holders: volunteers and funders. · §A70
• Model communication that is respectful. If you are a professional, you are being accountable for your actions. · §A71
• Underlying professionalism: transparency and accountability. · §A72
• We don’t exist without community, so we have to enable their trust to us. · §A84
• Service: Be in service to yourself, each other, the team, the organization, the community, the world. · §B4
• Accountable to community members to maintain commitment to vision/mission · §B11
• Candor: The ability to be honest and genuine in your rhetoric. · §B26
• We say what we are going to do, then do it, or explain why we did not. We acknowledge when we make mistakes. · §B36
• Candor: Being realistic about expectations and deadlines. Explaining why you can’t do something. Be honest and truthful. Genuine. Candid is not having that corporate speak. There is no voice to it. We need to have a voice to our projects and what we do. · §B45
• Service is about helping and doing. Both are core to our org. I like the word service because it puts the focus on to each other and off of the self. It is not self serving. · §B53
• Candid; honesty; authenticity; genuine. We talk about what actually happened. Don’t hold punches. · §B67
• Service. Integrity. Patience. All of that shows up in how you serve. · §B77
• If we're not transparent, then people within know what’s happening, people outside don’t. · §C7
• If there’s a block, a wall, you can’t get the information you need. Helps you gather everything you need to make an informed decision, to evaluate · §C8
• Transparency helps establish trust. Whether it’s good or bad news, when you have transparency, people can trust you more, and feel more engaged if they have more information. · §C11
• Being able to see the process as well as the product. And also people volunteering information, what they’re working on. · §C15
• Providing transparency can bring comfort and accountability that we serve. · §D2
• As WMF employees, we are here because of the community. Our existence is only meaningful due to their existence and the work they do. · §D57
• The foundation exists because of the community. Serving them needs to be a strong component of our decision making, both at my individual level and at the organization level. · §D58
• Transparency is a way to show that honesty and integrity exist. This is related to this axiom that human beings are equal. You need to be honest about who you are, how you think. That’s what in the long run makes the world a better place. That’s the way it should be. · §D64
• Only being truthful allows building trust. And you need trust to have a community. · §D65
• Serving the commnunity indirectly helps them make the world a better place. · §D69
• The traditional way of people doing business is based on these game rules of negotiation. But in my experience you have to tell the truth; you don’t hide your agenda to get more. You are honest to build trust. It works better in the long run. · §D72
• If you’re intentionally keeping information away that could have an impact on the result, it goes against honesty. · §D77
• By being honest, you’re providing the information and knowledge people need to make decisions. You’re assuming that people can use that to make decisions. Level the playing field. · §D81
• We cannot forget who we serve in order to ease our own way as a “company” · §E16
• Accountability- accountable to staff, community, board, all of the stakeholders. · §E41
• Accountability. So we don’t just document, we need to learn and share those learnings and make it accessible. · §E47
• Accountability. Easy to talk the talk, but implementing is harder. What does accountability mean as individuals? To each other and to the work. · §E76
• Listen, then be accountable for the outcome. Explaining to the other party why you’ve done what you’ve done. · §E79
• I prefer explanations as opposed to a united front. More open about how we got somewhere. It’s fine to explain and qualify with caveats. · §E94
• Our donors pay our salaries. Our community makes our content. It sometimes feels like we might be wasting that, missing deadlines for example. · §F4
• Integrity is the word I’d use for a baseline in which people can all be able to work together, trust one another, and understand that they’re collaborating in good faith. · §F8
• It’s vitally important that we live out our stated commitments. Given the unique nature of the Wikimedia movement, this means being open in our own work so that we can be accountable to our audience (i.e., humanity as a whole). · §F27
• It’s important to me that the act of how we work day-to-day is open. Someone from outside could see something interesting; de-mystifies how these things are built. · §F32
• Accountability: Just the right thing to do. On a practical level for goodwill, but also because it’s a respect thing. · §F35
• It’s always easy to close the ranks and take an oppositional view. We model our values by refusing to do that, by being open about what we are trying to do and why. · §F37
• Thinking about donors, we don’t know why they donate to us and there is a big responsibility to them. · §F40
• It’s better for people to see the full horizons of possibility than not. That might be a very cultural bound concern. · §F45
• Transparency can have different meanings / levels. Not just fishbowl, but also good information that is timely and honest. · §G3
• Important to decision making and allowing others to see how they were arrived at and participate in the process effectively · §G4
• Knowledge applies both inside and outside of the foundation. It encourages us to be transparent and who did what and how it went. · §H21
• To me, integrity means you do what you say you’re going to do, and if you don’t end up doing that, you say that too. No sweeping things under the carpet or pretending that we never change our minds when new data emerges. · §H25
• Do what you say, explain if you don’t. Talk about mistakes. They get us closer to the truth. No pretending that you never change your mind. · §H52
• If everyone is showing up in good faith, accountability is the way we don’t make the same mistakes repeatedly. · §H90
• The connotation that the people who claim integrity are just the people that are pointing to everyone who is doing things wrong. There is a self righteousness to it. A refusal to compromise. · §H92
• Transparency is a check on power; easier access to information, or even access at all · §J6
• People need not to have obstacles in their way, and transparency is a way to enable that · §J7
• Transparency enables agency; it makes it more of an “us” thing, rather than “the folks in San Francisco” · §J8
• If anybody has access to the inner workings of the organization, then even people who aren’t necessarily in a privileged circle have access. They’re on a more equal footing. · §J10
• Tranparency is an implicit invitation in the fact that it’s out there · §J11
• If we’re putting up roadblocks, there’s there for a reason, and maybe we need to investigate why. · §J13
• We’re a discursive culture; our movement is based on discourse. By having a lot of public and available discussions, that itself embodies something about us. · §J15
• Transparency reminds me of the more general issue of “the law”. Law is so complicated that we have 1000s of years of accumulated cruft, so much that we have lawyers assigned to you when you get into a legal dispute. Crazy thought, maybe sometimes we need a wiki defender’s office. Do we need specialists? Is it a problem that we do? · §J16
• This climate of radical and public transparency, and never forgetting wiki, is one where certain types of personality flourish, and others don’t. This does create an atmosphere not comfortable for some people, and maybe we need to address that. · §J17
• Another issue is negative feedback on what you’ve shared transparently. Not everyone flourishes on negative feedback. Has turned some of our leadership into recluse. Anything you say can and sometimes will be used against you. · §J17
• WMF works (with others) to build tools for people to work together to build things. This means that prioritization of work should have at least some relation to what people want/need to work with. · §J26
• Large total work space, we expect to tackle it bit by bit… but aim towards comprehensiveness in the end. But we can’t do everything at once. So it’s important to provide support (service) for other people to (collaboratively) work on (participate in) things that aren’t super-prioritized in the core. · §J32
• In addition to the “big things” we’re working on, there are also 1000s of things we’re working on. Lots of things that need attention. But once you’ve done that, you’ve enabled agency for someone to do something. We want people to have enough support that they can go in and work on stuff. · §J33
• It’s great when we can say “here are the tools you need to go work”. · §J33
• We didn’t write the encyclopedia, but we need to make sure we don’t screw it up, and we should be doing things to ensure its success. · §J51
• I’m great at my job, but sometimes I feel that the best use of my time is to support other people at the foundation because they do amazing things. · §J53
• The Foundation was created by a community of volunteers, to serve and represent it on matters suitable for a formal organization. As such, the role it should play is that of a servant-leader, always serving the community that created it. · §J62
• When we’re not accountable, we lose volunteer time and trust. One aspect that we’re routinely failing at is communicating what, why, etc. we’ve done things. Why we’ve done it, what are the next steps, etc. · §J70
• Trust is a movement- or org-wide resource. When one team “spends” trust, it affects us all. Trust is a shared resource. · §J72
• We don’t publicly communicate and acknowledge failure very well, or at all. It’s hard. I wouldn’t like to be the one doing it, but that kind of honest communication is critical. If you don’t do it, you do more damage than if you had ripped the band-aid off. · §J73
• The Foundation is a central piece in this peer production network. The justification for a central piece in a network is that it offers additional value that others cannot. We need to do things that enable other peers. Use our heft to solve the problems that individual peers and initiatives don’t tend to do. · §J78
• Wonder and awe for the works that the communities create with and without our support · §K11 · §K12
• People operate at their best when they are empowered to deliver their work. Things like access to information, ensuring the provision of spaces to share, learn and develop from each other and enabling people to lead. · §K25
• It’s about both what we produce and how we produce it. The way in which we work, and the way people can see how we’re coming to ideas, how we’re working to deliver those, that is as important as being able to ensure that everybody can enjoy the fruits of one’s labor indefinitely. · §K29
• Transparency - Benefits include: not reinventing past work, letting people find info without having to ask. Drawbacks include: increasing the info deluge, increasing the number of docs that ought to be kept updated · §K34
• Our obligation to be good partners in our mission, to properly use our resources, to respect our commitments, to make them thoughtfully and in mind of the vast network of collaborators who join us on this journey. · §L3
• Meeting commitments and doing what you say you will do. Enabling others to succeed in meeting your part. Being mindful of resources. · §L6
• We are a service organization. Service means that we give them what they need to fulfill their roles and sometimes that is leadership. Sometimes we lead from the back and sometimes from the front. The service is empowerment. · §L7
• Transparency is pulling the veil of the secret back room of knowledge and allowing everyone in. · §L11
• Top-down leadership [in our organization is] next to impossible, and requires lower level initiative to drive successful action and projects. · §M14
• To me, service also encompasses collaboration, community, and cooperation. · §M17
• Service relates to our mission. When we think about our affiliates, volunteers, at the minimum by providing a platform. Helping them resolve disputes or providing resources. We’re too small to do it ourselves.· §M67
• Each person needs to feel accountable to our values, to our plans, and to where our purpose and future come from (this can be volunteers, donors, etc).· §N30
• When people work at the foundation they need to be aware that there is this expectation from outside and they need to prove that they are trustworthy.· §N47
• Transparency gives everyone the opportunity to know what’s happening, which then informs us individually and allows us to get involved in the process. · §O2
• No authority behind the content we produce, so transparency enables people to see how it was produced. · §O5
• We need to allow everyone to see how it works and encourage them to participate. We shouldn’t present the knowledge as a finished product, but as a process that improves with each new collaborator. · §O37
• Transparency . . . Basis of trust building, and a lack of transparency can lead to a lack of trust in its simplest form.· §P10
• Transparency is important on many levels—so people know what we are doing with their contributions: whether it’s money, time, or passion. We want people to know how we came to our decisions, and that we considered things carefully.· §P31
• It feels like servanthood/sponsorship is the underlying layer of inclusivity. You’re not building this for yourself, but for a larger group of people, and their needs need to be represented.· §P43
• Our product is a changed human being, this is made possible through access to information/knowledge, transparency makes us trustworthy to our communities of volunteers as they need to know that they are contributing to a trustworthy movement · §Q7
• By holding each other accountable to our goals, that builds trust. · §Q38
• accountability to the community; we wouldn’t be here without them. Similar to transparency, but we also have a responsibility as an org, as a nonprofit, to be able to explain our decisions. · §R10
• honesty. Related to trust. Saying no, being direct, honest. Not lying. Being straightforward than feigning politeness and social norms to be more efficient and earn trust · §R22

• Transparency it the only way to ensure that we keep our collaborative nature. · §S2
• Things like transparency are a means to an end, it’s not what we want to achieve. · §S3
• Being transparent is giving people a way to trust you. · §S9
• Excellence is not about not making mistakes, but we should strive to be experts in what we do, and therefore we must understand what we’re doing. · §S30
• Impact towards the goal is a value. Sometimes in the movement, volunteers do things because they want to do it, because it’s fun. That’s fine. But I do try to use impact as a value when prioritizing work. I’m doing this, I’m in this community because I want to do stuff, not because I like or dislike the people in it, my primary goal is not to make online friends. · §S51
• Honesty takes many shapes, including but not limited to speaking up to your friend and not distorting facts. Without honesty, there's no trust, no efficiency, no effective collaboration. · §S56
• If you want to function effectively in an international environment like ours with so many cultures, it’s dangerous not to be honest with each other. · §S57
• We're not here for ourselves, but rather to 'serve the movement' - we have a role to fulfill. Sometimes this means doing chores that don't give you a lot of credits, but help others ahead. · §S59
• Knowing your place and what you’re responsible for, but also doing your chores and making sure others can do their part (affiliates, volunteers, etc.) · §S60
• The best leader is also serving. There are different roles you can take in a movement. It would be good if everyone in a movement thought about serving in some capacity.· §S62
• If you are focused on how you can help other parts of the movement to fulfill their role best, it’s a great driving force for collaboration, friendly interaction. If you take it as a value, a serving attitude is not necessarily what you do in the end. You may end up leading, but you do it from a perspective of service. Service is an attitude that you can take with every action. · §S62
• I have a bit of trouble with honesty as a value. Crucial and important principle for our day to day actions, but maybe not as value of the foundation. Honesty is not something that leads us to a goal where our vision is realized. · §S67
• I do certain things because I want to be honest with people. It’s also a driving factor about how I make choices in my life, not just a tool to work better with people. · §S68
• Make good use of our resources, be focused, deliver quality results. It's about focus. · §S72
• There is so much to do in order to save the world. We cannot do everything. The Foundation has to focus on the things only the Foundation can do. We have to have to say no. We have to be able to prioritize. · §S90

• The leadership that WMF provides is not to actually set the agenda, but to work with community/chapters/user groups to support their aspirations and help shepherd them in a collaborative way · §T5
• When we take action, it’s grounded in our values and our mission. We have reasons for doing what we do. Being honest in our communication. We can explain actions and decisions as much as possible. · §T17
• When you’re transparent, you’re invisible. But being accountable should mean being visible. Accountability is a better word. · §T22
• The Foundation should consider itself, in all its actions, not as the ‘do-er of the thing’ but the ‘facilitator of others to do the thing’. To leverage/support a ‘network’ of stakeholders to do their work better for the benefit of all. · §T29
• The more I can get other people to do things sufficiently well, I have more time and they grow. · §T31
• The results have to be useful; the org shouldn’t exist or be doing things for its own sake/self-perpetuation · §T32
• Providing the physical, technical and emotional support to those who are working on the mission. · §T42
• We have a lot of limitations to our resources so we need to make sure we’re using them well. Also includes stopping doing things that aren’t working well. Especially difficult for organizations and the foundation in particular. · §T45
• One of the important components of integrity is having words and actions match. When there’s a mismatch there, there’s an integrity gap. · §T74
• Foundation exists to serve rather than to exist. Being effective doesn’t necessarily mean doing it fastest being you’re the best, it’s about getting the best outcome. The best we have found at writing an encyclopedia: distributed system. · §T91

• Secrets can breed resentment and mistrust, and enhance a volatile political environment. Having access to information also allows people to feel equal, and when people feel equal they feel less compromised. When people feel less compromised, they are more inclined to collaborate. · §U14
• As the paid employees of the movement we have a duty to deliver on our plans and promises. This will increase trust, making it possible to collaborate more effectively and understand what donor money and contributor edits are actually going towards. · §U19
• We must be able to set personal agendas and feelings aside and accept the constraints placed on us by our unique and diverse contribution mechanisms. We need to get past everyone thinking their own individual choice of how to support the mission is what matters and be willing to work on common priorities.· §U20
• We have to get over the idea that non-profits are a “mess” or that it is okay to accept less than excellent work. Our contributors and the wonder they have created deserve it, and working at the WMF should always feel like a privilege that should be repaid with responsible effort. · §U20
• Let’s hire executives that are facilitators that let things happen around them. · §U37
• We need to be honest with our assumptions. The risk of unconscious bias. · §U50
• We should do what the community can’t do. Fill in the gaps. If you say you are going to do something… deliver. The place where the foundation has struggled is in reliability. We get half done. Wandered out of it. · §U57
• We can be professional without being corporate. · §U61

• Transparency is a way to help keep us honest and equitable. · §V7
• Coming to conversations and problems with authenticity helps us find solutions. Promotes vulnerability and trust by being ourselves. · §V8
• Transparency helps ensure that we can deliver on our other commitments/values. It forces accountability. · §V14
• The “shadows” of transparency include a tendency to react and create safe private places and potentially reduce collaboration points. · §V15
• Needing to be upfront and forthright with people. And saying no to people you will have to work with again. Because we are in this movement as partners and always trying to check our power. · §V23
• Transparency is a pre-requisite for accountability, but vulnerability is required for transparency. · §V27
• Transparency - there are shadows involved. At the end of the day I feel that it is a good guiding principle, but not a value anymore. These other aspects, forgiveness, vulnerability, seem like the means for transparency. They are the prerequisite that makes you able to put transparency. It might be too superficial. · §V37

• As a nonprofit supported by donors, we need to be transparent to everyone. · §X2
• Living in a society that tries to obfuscate. By being transparent we’re setting an example for the society we want to see. This is why we work here. · §X3
• Element of transparency coming from the open source movement. And also important in service of neutrality. · §X4
• I see the Foundations as here not just to serve the Wikimedia community, but to serve the good of humanity · §X22
• Service is important to me because through service we learn and support one another’s learning, it is how we grow individually and collectively, it is how we build something better than what we had before. · §X24
• A culture of accountability builds trust and strong mutual reliance inside and outside and org · §X54
• Are we focused on our most important problems and are we giving the moment and our problems our best? · §X61
• One of those things that needs to be pervasive in all contexts, in all parts of our movement. We can’t achieve our vision of sharing the sum of all human knowledge alone so we need to empower others to help us and scale it. · §X70
• Working in the open in order to let everyone see how the sausage is made and take part in making it is crucial because without it we could not get people with so much passion and dedication to do what they do around Wikimedia. They need to feel a sense of ownership (and actually have this ownership!) in order to truly make the projects their own and dedicate so much of their life to it. · §X73
• Let people govern themselves. I understand how things go to where they are; If I don’t like them, I can change them this or that way. Having that sense of “I did my part in it”. · §X74
• If we don’t have vandal fighters, it doesn’t matter if we have money. · §X82
• Sitting back and thinking about the problems that could get in the way this year, or 10 years from now, and we’d get in trouble if we didn’t solve. Taking the time to establish what I believe to the best of my own particular limited ability, establish the most important things I need to work on. Usually, it’s harder work, but if I’m not advancing on my own problems, what’s the point? · §X118

• Transparency is a protection against other principles and values being compromised. If I felt that they’re likely to be compromised and be traded off, I’d emphasize them. Transparency falls squarely in that category. If you don’t call it out it’s likely to fall through the cracks. · §Y2
• By sharing the “how” of our work openly, we enable accountability, criticism and self-improvement · §Y19
• The organization as it grows will be inclined to build more and more processes inside the walls of the organization. Decreases accountability towards external stakeholders. · §Y20
• For me transparency is one of those things worth protecting. Where can the organization go off the rails, and what can go wrong. A part of what happened in troubled times: things were misrepresented, miscommunicated, lack of accountability. If you can’t talk about what you’re doing, you can’t be criticized for it either. · §Y61
• Some of the public (mailing list) communication can be messy, painful, but at the same time some of the best conversations came out of the org being honest not just with a few people, but with the movement, and acknowledging failure, and being willing to expose yourself and say “yes, I’m not perfect, this is why I did this, and did it this way, bring it”. It always will come under attack for legitimate concerns; it has to be something that the organization explicitly values so that those who speak up for it are not marginalized. · §Y61
• The worry that I have with words like transparency is that they can sometimes be used to pretend without practicing it. It becomes so much this empty word unless you embody it and know how to practice it. · §Y62
• whenever you’re unsure whether something should be public or private, and you decide to make it public, you’ll never be penalized by the organization. You may be penalized by people yelling at you, but not by the organization. · §Y63

• Transparency: to be able to speak out loud, create trust, build relationships, and meaningful conversations · §Z19
• Expressing that you’re thinking to the best of your ability. Sincerity. Even acknowledging that you can’t perceive all of reality, make an effort to describe reality as best as you can, and acknowledge that other people have different perspectives and understanding of reality. · §Z23
• People like to have this feeling of autonomy and self directedness. Transparency moves back to the beginning of the cycle towards free and equitable. · §Z57
• Stating what you think, what you know, is a key element of trust. Can’t be trust if there’s a lack of truthfulness. Cornerstone of how relationships can grow. As an organization, we’re a complex set of relationships, truthfulness is the minimum requirement to work in a healthy way. · §Z81
• Honesty to me is more an action, truthfulness is more about what you’re thinking. Candor is also an expression of truthfulness, speaking about what you think or know to be true. · §Z83
• We’re all doing something for the larger organization. We’re also nonprofit and have a very social mission. It’s very easy to see the connection between our small tasks in the organization and its impact on the rest of the world. We have a large impact from wherever we’re working in the organization. I’m doing something for the whole world to benefit from, not just for this organization. · §Z106

The long view; perpetuity; stewardship; sustainability; duty

• Keeping track of maintaining something, but we don’t have true ownership. We need to set this up for other people to lead later. · §A73
• Stewardship: We are entrusted with this precious product and resource; we must facilitate governance with balance, inclusion, and transparency for project relevance and sustainability. · §B5
• Stewardship - the notion that we didn’t create it. We’re here to take care of it. It helps me take the facilitation of it seriously. We want to protect it for perpetuity. That can lead to egoless. · §B54
• We’re all stewards of this beautiful ship. It helps you stay relevant because if you are a steward you are paying attention. · §B76
• Deep abiding respect for communities of knowledge creators and their workproduct · §C23
• We’re building monuments to other people’s knowledge · §C26
• We’re not trying to usurp what knowledge contributors create; we’re trying to support and spread it. · §C30
• Dependability as a way to show that the foundation is as committed as the community and will ‘always be there.’ · §E13
• Accountability - sort of more Foundation specific take on transparency and what the ultimate outcome/goal tends to be with many people - more than wanting to see everything - the reason is they want to have confidence in our work and a sense of community accountability/oversight for it. · §E23
• Accountability - we are here for a purpose and we should never lose our motivation to be accountable to those around us (Staff, Community, Board…). By improving our ability to demonstrate and actualize beneficial impact, we serve as a model to others. · §E26
• We have a unique position in the Movement and need to be aware of this heightened accountability for us and others. · §E26
• Historicity: we’re building something huge. The value is also that we show how millions of people built it and how the foundation helps. A record of why for any given thing. I see transparency differently, not how something happened here, but why we did it for future generations. · §E38
• We are the stewards and we can demonstrate the impact and serve as a model to those around us. · §E41
• We want to be lasting, permanent. Not just effective now, but going forward. · §F21
• WMF should not strive to dominate the free knowledge / knowledge sharing space. Instead, it should strive to create and nurture the ecosystem that lets multiple different actors thrive and prosper · §G47
• A healthy org has a good and healthy ecosystem which makes it easy for people to come in and also makes it easy for remaining people when folks leave an organization. · §G72
• It’s a century long project and take on huge tasks that may not be on a certain schedule. Humility around the scale of things. We’re in it for the long haul. Awe. Or even terror of what we’ve taken on. · §H73
• To me patience is about strategy and foresight. Pando the tree and surviving. Patience allows you to be the tree, not react. Look at things for the long run. We can’t do everything. · §H74
• We’re not just providing the technology; communities may need help in research, in seeing the effect of policies. Our communities respond well to facts and data. We can help the communities help themselves to address such issues. · §J25
• It's important to remember that we’re not building the end goal. We’re building the tools and space to enable people to do that. · §J27
• Our primary purpose and responsibility is to protect, grow, and disseminate our shared cultural heritage. Before we are creators, leaders, champions, or innovators, we are stewards. · §J48
• WMF should help the community see more clearly things the community may be myopic about (e.g. the needs and interests of people outside the community, such as readers and prospective partners). · §J62
• Not adhering to crazy deadlines from the business world. Long view related to the movement strategy (e.g. “20 years is too big”). The long view cannot be underrated. We’re building this for generations. · §K43
• A 20 year strategy with a destination would be dumb, but a 20 year strategy with a direction is interesting. · §K44
• The philosophy itself is that things slowly get better, and that we should avoid rushing. Haste makes waste. Civilizations slowly progress over time, it’s not going to be done tomorrow. · §K75
• It’s not just about patience and the long view; it’s also about not getting too caught up in the short term. · §K76
• Does the desire to spread knowledge impact our ability to preserve and collect other less globally dominant forms knowledge? If preservation is put front and center, as it sort of is now as stewardship in a way, perhaps it will lead us to further question this global dynamic. · §M4
• I think we have a strong duty to be good stewards of these resources.· §M20
• Since we are dealing with donor money and volunteers who edit all the time. We owe them a duty. It’s more about the duty. We owe to the public, the donors, volunteers. We are like a trustee. We don’t waste. We don’t go down our own personal paths. This is not a resume builder.· §M55
• Preservation - stewardship was close to this. Preservation I think about actively rescuing things from extinction. How knowledge in one form can become dominant and displace another. Preservation being capturing things before they are victims of that dynamic. Languages that go extinct. It captures a very specific form of that knowledge that even when translated is lost. Gather it. Stewardship is the natural second step. You have the duty to keep it safe. · §M89
• Responsibility towards that larger whole. I recognize my littleness in the scope of everything. A lot of my work is in investing in the work of others. My contribution is contributing to a larger thing.· §P19

• WMF has a leadership role in developing the projects and communities, and needs to innovate to do so. · §S84

• Steadfastness; As volunteers and societal/industry trends come and go, the WMF's main value is the ability to survive and nurture the movement for the long haul. · §T9
• Volunteers struggle with the long game - endowment, servers, etc. are important to do with long term support at an organisational level · §T103

• Remember why we’re here at this non-profit. Much more than a for-profit company we are here for more than just our paychecks. · §V21

• The movement’s work will be around for a long time. I don’t mean to say that we should be in a state of inaction, but as one person likes to say, we’re in a target rich environment. If some discussions take a long time, and they require a lot of emotional and intellectual involvement, so be it…. Will serve our vision and our mission. Sometimes there are things that are urgent, but it seems that more often we should promote a sense of patience for other things. · §W11
• Who know where the internet will be 100 years from now. We should be thinking about the long view, who will our successors be. We got to think about the long view, or it will all have been for naught. · §W13
• We have a duty to do more than let the machine survive. · §W16
• If you want to make it in the long run, you have to want to make it in the long run. A system that is about bringing vast change will have to transform itself anyway, which will require patience. · §W33
• Perseverance is being able to reapproach something at the right time, and getting better at reapproaching whatever you’re trying to do. Patience is about the state of mind, and perseverance is about how things are done. · §W35
• We’re not going to build this by ourselves, even with everybody else helping, in our lifetime. How do we make sure that we do move things forward, and they continue to move forward. · §W36
• Due diligence. Not just for the time right now, but also for the future to come. · §W38

• Part of being good stewards to the projects is continuing to exist and continuing to have the resources to sustain universal access · §X8
• Perpetuity. Producing a body of works that’ll never go away. · §X9
• Stewardship: Leaving the world a better place than we found it · §X38
• A lifelong commitment. The foundation has pledged to keep the projects ongoing in “perpetuity.” That means forever. Few other outlets have taken such a public pledge. That means a lot to me. · §X49
• Fundraising messages are often about “let’s go through the year”. The idea of perpetuity, of an endowment, tells our readers that we’re much bigger than a year. Don’t think of us like a newspaper that you throw away, but rather like a university that you don’t want to go away. You’re gonna be there for my kids. · §X77
• Archivist instinct. I want the data that we’ve amassed to continue to be available. Relatively cheap and easy to solve. I want (something like) Wikipedia to still be there 30 years from now. To the extent that I like the vision statement, I think I want the foundation to last forever. But it’s not just about our static content, it’s also about continued participation. · §X86

• We’re here for the long haul. Always balance the short term benefits of a partnership or something with the long term implications. Different from the startup mentality. · §Y32

Wisdom; self-awareness; conscientiousness; learning; humility; curiosity

• Conscientiousness: Actions which reflect a thought on how it will affect yourself or others · §B21
• Conscientiousness: Keeping the door open to see if someone is behind you. Picking up trash that’s on the ground. Allowing others to use MediaWiki · §B44
• Acceptance: Change or healing around an issue or condition does not come about until there is true acceptance of what is. Acceptance is the point at which things can change or become more whole/less fragmented. · §C45
• Acceptance: Thinking about the vision statement (imagine a world…). Acceptance of where we are and how far away we are from that. Accepting that, accepting failures. · §C94
• Serenity: taking your time before making decisions, not rushing. And a component of honesty with yourself, intellectual honesty, to make decisions · §C103
• Reflection, learning · §C105
• I hope people will make well-informed decisions in an individual way, and I hope that will include a reflection about what is best for themselves, and what is best for everyone else as well.· §D49
• Being aware of history. Building off of other people’s work. If something didn’t work before when was the last time you tried it and should we try it again? · §E58
• We don’t have a great memory for things we do wrong. Even if we successfully learn and document, we do the same thing two years later. How do we not repeat history. · §E82
• We go through cycles of being better at communicating across departments and having these relationships takes time. We’ve not been great at setting up continuity. In leadership in development. The hit by the bus problem. · §E83
• I see the idea of wisdom being a stand-in for thinking things through and taking thoughtful, considered action. This might be the most core value for me because it extends out to other things. · §F7
• Wisdom is about thinking through problems, gaining more knowledge when you are not sure what the solution is, making better choices. The negatives of that is there often isn’t time to think through a problem holistically. · §F47
• Humility; remember where we come from; we might have a good answer, but it might not be the right answer tomorrow. Even if we decide not to go with someone’s idea right now, value it regardless and keep it in mind for later because it may become applicable or the right thing to do. · §G40
• The drive to discover and learn, and thus improve. · §H16
• Both inside the Foundation and in our mission, the heart of what we do is sharing knowledge, and we must value it boldly and inherently. · §H21
• We never ever value snap decisions. There is a perceived tension between speed and accuracy that I don’t think actually holds up in our complex environment. · §H29
• You’re curious because you want to do something, build something, constant learning. It makes you humble because you don’t have all of the answers. · §H41
• We value understanding complicate problems before doing things that will have a lasting effect. Critical thinking. Thinking things through. · §H54
• It’s not coming up with the whole package beforehand. We either think too much and people are accused of not moving. Then there is be bold. Be bold only works if you can revert quickly. Foresight. · §H55
• We can and sometimes do dig them up and say “we did this, we said this”. Sometimes this is used as a weapon, but it’s usually a good thing. It helps us know where we came from. · §J15
• Always consider how to bring the widest possible set of stakeholders and perspectives into any decision-making process; consider the impacts of decisions on the widest possible set of people. Our mission explicitly acknowledges that all of humanity are not just our potential audience, but also our potential collaborators. · §J40
• Utopian aspect of all-inclusiveness; it forces us to think about potential impact of our actions on a group so large. · §J43
• We tend to make decisions and pursue things for reasons that aren’t always clear and that aren’t always well determined. It’s important for us to always think about the decision process, and how we determined what to do. · §J55
• I’m always impressed at the brilliance, and creativity of the people in this organization. And at the same time that doesn’t always bubble up through the decisions that we make as an organization. · §J58
• The WMF must avoid the bureaucratic trap of becoming more invested in its own existence and perpetuation than in the best interests of the movement. Sharing power is key to accomplishing this. · §J62
• Truly sharing power means truly relinquishing power over the outcome. Truly embracing the fact that we are partners. Of course some things are not appropriate to share power. · §J63
• When you genuinely share power, you are inviting people to co-own the outcome and the process. · §J65
• Thoughtfulness for the needs and feelings of others; for the use of the resources we are entrusted with; for the bias that we unconsciously bring to all things from our heritage & experience; for the projects we leave for others to carry on. · §K8
• We should strive to do everything well, and be proud of what we do; What we do is important, we should treat our work with some reverence · §K51
• Being open to learning, growing, maturing - striving to always improve. · §L5
• Committing to continual improvement. Continually getting better. Need to be able to learn and make changes. You have to be able to perceive your errors and when the world has changed. · §L9
• We should be one of the modern wonders of the world. The drive to accumulate and share knowledge is one of the noblest we have. Our mission is not just to enable to consume, but to enable to contribute and to teach.
• The only way we can get close is to keep trying. Because we need to do it right. This is something so huge and important. We must do it as well as we can. · §L12
• Approaching everything we do with the desire to first understand, not diminish, change, etc.· §M35
• Do the best we can, giving it our all, but not seeking perfection. We have to leave room to grow, make mistakes, and learn from them.· §M40
• A commitment to continuous learning and improvement - willingness to not always let the past dictate our choices (though we should learn from it). The ability to lift our heads up from the day to day or the status quo and ask questions about what could be · §N17
• The ability to take a stance of humility when you feel like digging your heels in; to be willing to be vulnerable by putting aside your perspective and see what’s at stake for others - to consider multiple perspectives.· §N18
• Learning, showing individual and org learning. When we do something, what did we learn. It’s an org discipline that is tough. Making sure that we are not repeating the same mistakes, is really critical. Demonstrate that we don’t make the same mistake again.· §N85
• Open discussions, making big decisions: if they end up being bad, we can go back and look at the reasoning that led to those decisions (and others can too). · §O5
• Ingenuity: We need to keep trying new ways to collaborate (even across languages), wherever the suggestions originate. We can’t calcify around a set of tools that exclude internet users who have different ways of communicating. · §O41
• We’re not going to be able to preserve this stuff and welcome new people if we just stick to the same old way of doing things. Both technologically (newer generations of internet users are used to different interfaces for communicating back and forth, or even different mediums altogether, e.g. whatsapp, facebook; can we incorporate some of that?) and governance (how do we get input from the vast number of people who may not be comfortable talking on the big wikimedia list. And if we do want o hear from 100000 people, email may not be practical. Something like representative democracy?). · §O42
• Being able to be fully present. Being aware of what you are experiencing and how it is affecting you. · §P14
• Maintaining a permeating consciousness of each other and the work we do such that we treat each other respectfully and hold each other with the notion (and trust) that we are all doing the best we can. · §Q12
• Mindfulness as a way of being aware of others. That requires a certain level of action, to get to know others, to share, to be less dismissive of people. · §Q39

• If you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance - Derek Bok · §S44

• Be able and willing to take in new information and change behavior. We don’t have to have all possible information before starting to do something, but we whould be open to listening and her new information as things go along and adapt behavior as a result. · §T19
• Willing to experiment, try new things, and explore the lessons we learn from that. “If it doesn’t work, we have a way out, but if it does work, we have something exciting”. A way of reassuring us that we’re willing to try new things as long as we know there’s a point where we evaluate and consider what to do after that. · §T47

• Acknowledging reality. There is a narrative for everything. That narrative does not always reflect accurately what is really happening. This is more about accepting where we are at so that we can know where we are going. · §U11
• We are from the community and of the community and here as servants of them specifically and the public as a whole generally. We will often have more expertise, more knowledge or more skills but will also be blinded and out of touch. We just have to remember why we're here and that we don't have all the answers even when we feel like we do. · §U26

• A sense of reverence. Always rechecking. Like going to confession, you reorient yourself. A way of reassessing and self assessing to make sure that it is purposeful. · §V39

• Mindfulness is about awareness; awareness of the self, awareness about the group, awareness about the broader contexts in which we exist. · §X28
• Learning is how we grow and how we improve. Without learning, there is at best, stagnation, at worst, going blindly in the wrong direction - ineffectiveness and/or destruction · §X32
• Learning is how we individually get closer to self-actualization; learning is how we collectively get closer to group-actualization. · §X33
• Excellence also means facing our mistakes in an excellent way. Learning from them. Reckoning with them, both privately and publicly. Without excellent accountability for a mistake it is difficult to regain trust. · §X61
• Sometimes, long time habits need to be reevaluated because they’re not practical any more · §X93
• I want to be able to self-actualize. Reach my potential as a human being, whatever it is. Not something I can do on my own. I need a community, a reciprocal relationship to do this. Self-actualization of the group as well. Inherent need to be better, to do better, bigger than just the individual. · §X100
• We seem to have difficulty separating our personal values from the org values, which sometimes leads us to wonder “why am I even here”. But there needs to be a separation, and be aware of the Venn diagram of the overlap between the two. · §X104

• Ignorance is one of the roots of evil. Access to information, education, is a way to diminish the level of evil and ignorance. The foundation has decided in its mission that it wants to spread knowledge. We’re guardians of that access. It’s something almost sacred, very special. · §Z53

Fun; playfulness; enthusiasm

• Not taking process/selves so seriously that there can’t be a joke/humorous slant · §B17
• One of the chief ways humans build connection is by eating and laughing together · §B19
• I like to approach my work with enthusiasm, and passion. You want to feel like you’re doing something meaningful. Serious work but an environment that fosters optimism. · §G56
• From the second I started working here, I've felt like being in this playground where they build things, fluid, form relationships spontaneously. · §H44
• Curiosity is the spark to playfulness. Deep motivation is that I want to have more fun. You get one life. You live it. That’s it. · §H79
• I studied working with new editors. Playfulness helps. It doesn’t have to be funny to be fun. We can have fun and do serious things. · §H80
• Comedy - it helps people to connect and to balance when things are tough. If you have that sense of humor with each other. It gets us through so much.· §M86
• We need to be committed to our bigger vision, to do these things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. Commitment without enthusiasm is a kind of masochism, so we need to do what we can to maintain our energy and drive so that the commitment doesn’t become a grinding slog.· §P26

• A little fun, and humor, goes a long way on our team. · §V9
• On my team there is a lot of humor. It helps build trust and connection with my co-workers, which helps with better collaboration and more open and honest conversations. · §V31
• I worked hard to hire people that would work well together and would become a team and have fun. It’s clear that we have finally gelled and have a team, almost family. Now I am thinking about in-jokes, or insular aspect of that. I’m scared that we are creating walls. Around my team. Is it hard to be a part of it? Is it a clique? · §V34

• Use non English words on enwp and Meta. Playing with language and semantics and symbolism. As volunteers, we enjoy being playful. We can embody some of our values in fun and playful ways. · §Y42

Other themes

• Helpfulness: I think of the wonderful reference librarians I have met in my life who take the time to ask good questions to help you find what you are looking for. Service and education intertwined. · §C41
• Give people the opportunity to feel that their life is more complete because they were able to access specific people of heritage. · §C118
• Creativity is particularly reflective of the newness and radicalness of the movement. We are doing something new. · §F39
• We’re in this world today, with intrinsic and extrinsic demands and to have a culture that supports this flexibility that equates to work life balance and thus greater productivity through adaptability. · §G57
• To me part of the dialogue of folk narrative needs to include recognizing scientific advancement and objective truth. We’re not here to encourage myth making, we’re here to help people identify truth. That means giving them the tools to recognize what is speculative and what is objective truth. · §L17
• The importance of growth. Something that is embedded in staying current, so you are learning. Staying curious: always growing. Not stagnant. Is this as much about passion as it is about perfection? It’s included, but I’m talking about quality of work. But if they are not doing it well, the passion is misdirected. Quality.· §M84
• We don’t want a n org that is only providing the basics: collecting, coding, talking to the media. We need the foundation to be a driving force. One of the things we need from the foundation to be “disruptive”. I would not have said this before but the community is not now daring. They are more conservative. If the community is not moving in that direction we need the foundation to move in that direction. · §N49
• Quality... in this complex world, we actually do need a lot of patience to understand the spectrum of perspectives. This runs counter to the go-go mentality and the tech sector, but that gets us a type of quality and be patient and not jam our ideas down other people’s throats and we get more well rounded knowledge and better quality products and experience. The quality of attention that we bring to working with each other.· §N52
• In times of crisis, we need more clarity about our values. · §O81
• Courage to try new things or stand with your own decisions. · §R3
• Realism. We’re sometimes a bit dogmatic about what we do. Strong vision and mission, but we don’t have to be stubborn in what we want to achieve. Sometimes the good is better than not achieving the perfect. We should think more about how this is perceived from the outside. We should be prepared to compromise to get things moving. Not look for dogmatic solutions. It doesn’t help to say “we’re right and you’re wrong”. We should be compromising more. Motion is good, standing still is not. · §R30
• (impact) Trust and honesty are useless if you’re not achieving something with it. Everything else seems like a means to that end. · §R31

• I’m very proud to be part of an organization where the vision and mission are motivating people, but I also believe that the organization itself should be drawing people in. · §S18
• The foundation should focus on the parts that only the foundation can do. We should have the courage and explicit goal to not make everything perfect, because small imperfections in UI, workflow, are things that can be done by volunteers, by volunteers who didn’t yet contribute. Not creating problems on purpose, but maybe not polish everything too much, to empower more people, giving them something to work on. Otherwise we lose the invitation for others to come in and contribute. Not just for the content (which is in the purview of the community) but also on the technical side, which is led by the WMF. · §S92

• STROOPWAFELS · §T2
• WMF is not an organisation that is ‘in San Francisco’ but all over the world in terms of staff and its daily impact on the lives of people in the movement. Ask: how would this conversation be different if we were sitting in Reykjavik right now? It’s important the foundation considers itself location neutral. · §T34 · §T35
• I think the definition of a useful value is if it can go on the all of every meeting room, and any plan that comes out of a meeting, even the least powerful person in the room can point at that value on the wall and say “this plan doesn’t reflect that”. Gravitas to change decisions. · §T71
• Actions, decisions, words should reflect the values. Part of the fabric of how things work; it should be fairly easy for people to pick up on that and absorb the values. · §T79
• People we bring in should share the bedrock values (the why) and then we can discuss / educate on the how (the behavior, guiding principles). · §T80
• Values that seem in opposition keeps you from going too far in one direction · §T97

• It all started with a wiki, which is a tool designed to collaborate in a decentralized way. This type of collaboration is what made Wikipedia unique and what brought us where we are. · §U5
• The more we run away from decentralization, the more we lose that core part of our identity. It’s hard to have freedom and diversity if you are all concentrated in one place. · §U34

• Sticking to the things we do and how we do them will kill us. · §W15

• Idea of asymptotic mission. It gets harder and harder the more content you have. The mission is a living thing that we’re always working on. · §X122

• If we make up announcement about what we think is important, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the community does. Something like friendliness hasn’t necessarily made it to the practices on the wiki. Model out what we’re trying to preserve and protect against. · §Y14