Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2015/Questions/4
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DistributionEdit
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Hi! Thanks for volunteering as a candidate for the Wikimedia Board. I have two questions. This one is about distribution freedom. As you know, free information implies freedoms to get, modify, and distribute content. Wikimedia Foundation is there to support and advance such information freedoms. In my opinion the 'anyone can edit' concept is an attempt at exercising the 'free to get and modify' freedom, but I have two concerns. 1) I believe that the current implementation of «anyone can edit» is a failure because of MediaWiki's bugs in flaggedrevs regarding templates, and because of inadequate diff viewer for reviewing edits.
2) I believe that providing adequate decentralized infrastructure for distributing content is vital for the success of the Wikimedia movement.
Please comment on these two problems. Thank you. --Gryllida 02:17, 17 May 2015 (UTC) |
To address the first question, I think that there is still a benefit to using flagged revisions, coming from a project that actively employs it as a quality control measure (the Polish Wikipedia). I agree that anyone should edit, and barriers to entry should be as low as possible, but flagged revisions in principle shouldn't be seen as something that ought to be demonized, but rather as something that helps Wikipedians realize their true potential. The same could also be said for Media Viewer. That being said, we need to continue improving upon the technology, and the fact that we're continuing to insist upon using buggy software for the sake of convenience is discomforting. We need to reemphasize that technology is built for users, not the other way around.
However, I think the second question is the more important of the two. There are strong benefits to enabling the wide dissemination and distribution of our content, and a decentralized, distributed model of distribution would be a welcome, logical next step in making this a reality. But it won't be easy—we'll have to deal with problems both big (reconciling different software branches, the ability of MediaWiki to scale that widely, etc.) and small (edit conflicts, potential conflicting page histories, etc.), and this is something that we ought to look at down the road in order to better come to conclusions as to whether this is possible.
How does OuiShare Fest factor into this discussion? Aral Balkan gave a talk on the last day of the conference on distributed tech systems and how the current regime of information handling by the big companies of the world is akin to us being comfortable with a not-so-magical white man sitting up in the clouds (referring to Mark Zuckerburg). While I don't think the Foundation is out to get our personal information to sell to advertisers, he does have a point: the current centralized model is unsustainable when factoring in the greater picture, especially with regards to freedom of information and our personal liberties. A distributed model helps resolve that, and this is something that we should consider for our future as a universe of projects and as a movement of people at large. --Sky Harbor (talk) 16:10, 23 May 2015 (UTC)templateeditor right is exactly the correct approach. Editors can be expected to prove their abilities before messing around with those pages.
The display of diffs, from my editor perspective, is not so bad. For patrolling it could be more clever: I've seen a few instances of vandalism where a bad edit is followed by a good edit, and the diff viewer only shows you the good one. For readers and for long-term comparison, I think there should be another diff viewer that ignores moved text. All these are not Board tasks or issues, of course.
Regarding your second point, I'm not sure if I fully understand you. There are mirrors, there are books made from Wikimedia content, and in a way our license encourages that. We could help users to install MediaWiki and to import pages, particularly taking care of the template hierarchy (that is, if I import X then I also need template Y that X uses, template Z that Y uses, and so on). I think this is not particularly difficult; if there is a use case for it that serves WMF's mission then it should indeed be developed.I am not completely convinced that the inherited protection of template pages is truly pushing newcomers away. If a new contributor made it to learning about templates and how to edit them, I would not count them as newbies anymore. Nevertheless, you are right that such long-standing issues do not really get the attention they deserve, and that other projects seem to be prioritized which have a much less clear pay-off. I understand our software and the infrastructure very well, and I am known for pragmatic solutions - as a Trustee, I will sure offer my expertise and help to the Executive Director to understand the technical challenges she is facing, but also the low-hanging fruits that are there and that could have enormous impact.
Regarding the diff mechanism, I consider the differ used on Wikipedia to be a rather decent differ. But it should be rather easy to set up a demonstration for another differ you prefer and how it would look like, and then make an informed decision. As long as it is free software, I don't see big barriers on using a superior piece of code.
Yes anyone can edit. But that does not mean the bar to editing all of Wikipedia should be zero. We are radically opener than anything that has come before and while this has contributed to our success it has also come at the cost of many thousands of hours of volunteer time cleaning up poor quality edits.
In established languages, we are no longer a new encyclopedia in need of any old content. To take Wikipedia to the next level of quality requires research and consistent effort. Those who are serious about Wikipedia will spend the time to register an account and build a reputation. One of the first articles I tried to edit was semi protected. I ended up working on another topic until I was autoconfirmed. I do not think judicious use of semi protection turns away the editors we are most in need of.
I am not sure I understand the second part of the question. I have an entire copy of Wikipedia and Wikivoyage on my laptop. I could run my own instance of Mediawiki and set it up how I wish and many people do. There are more than 2000 mirrors of Wikipedia content for example. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:27, 18 May 2015 (UTC)I am not a fan of flagged revisions, speaking personally as a Wikipedian.
Kuhusu AfricaEdit
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Mimi naitwa Diana Sherina francis nataka kujua uhusiano wa bara Africa je kuna mtu gani aliwahi kuchaguliwa kuwa kiongozi wa Wikimedia foundation najua kwa sasa kunamchakato wa uchaguzi kwa ajili ya wajumbe wa Body, ili kujua msima wa Wikimedia kama na sisi tunasifa ya kugombe kwenye hiyo Bodi --Dianasherina 13:05, 18 May 2015 (UTC) Unconfirmed rough translation: My name is Diana Sherina francis I want to know about the relationship of the African continent if there's any person who had been elected to a leader of Wikimedia Foundation am aware that there's a an election process of board members, to know the principals of Wikimedia if we also qualified to contest in that board. |
- The WMF Board is overwhelmingly composed of people from the developed world. As Pundit pointed out, not a single member in the history of community-elected Board seats has come from outside the United States or Western Europe. There is only one person from the developing world in the current Board.
- The Wikimedia model scales poorly in developing countries. In societies where people are forced to think about more basic needs, it is extremely difficult to find dedicated volunteers who would have the time and the resources to contribute to Wikimedia. At the same time, resources are less abundant, leaving them out of the greater narrative.
I have tried to translate the question, but have too met with some difficulties. My understanding is you're asking about our involvement with Africa and African content.
Wikipedia's goal is to allow everyone in the world to share in the sum of all knowledge. It is true that the goals have not been met especially in those languages who need it the most, which is sad. But the Swahili Wikipedia has almost 30,000 articles, which is already more than just a good start - Encyclopedia Britannica has 65,000 articles, and the lexicon I had as a kid had 7,000 articles (it was a treasure of mine. I read it all. And I also understand that these numbers alone do not mean much). Thanks to the internet today, it is becoming much easier to share knowledge than it used to be. Projects like Wikipedia Zero aim to expand the reach of Wikipedia.
Everyone can participate in Wikipedia. You can go to the Swahili Wikipedia and help them grow right now. There are many other ways to contribute, too, for people from everywhere. Three of the candidates for the Board are from Africa, and I am sure that they would bring unique perspectives to the work of the Board.
How will you expand Wikipedia for the billion users in Poor Countries?Edit
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Many candidates have said that they will help or work more with users outside of Europe and North America and since less than 20% of humanity lives in Europe and North America that sounds like a good goal. Still, what exactly will you do to benefit the 50% of human beings on earth who are under the age of 28 and live in non-Europe and North American countries? Thank you in advance for your responses.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 11:12, 19 May 2015 (UTC) |
I said it before and even i will say it again that , History is always an example to us many Govt. had fall because they never spread the importance of their policies to the citizen. I hope the same situation shouldn't come for Wikipedia because the resources of Wiki are limited within certain peoples many people aren't aware of this. Wikimedia Foundation appoints employees for our countries unluckily we never see their faces or never ever get chance to contact them.
For User's who belongs to these countries, It's their chance to make their country more resourceful and enrich the cultural aspects. For me Editing Wikipedia is like saving the Culturally Advanced History of my country. It's WMF's duty to spread resources of its project with Global South users so that it can make user Wiki friendly.Being a Board member by the community selection, It's our prime duty to work for every single community without any hesitation and try to solve their problems in single hand.
WMF could help its contributor in better ways by providing them the resources ( Money never matters ) Like;
- We all know about Wikipedia Zero , It was one of best initiative by WMF to make Wikipedia for reader friendly but in the same moment the editors pay their bills to make Wikipedia strong. If we can also start same initiative for Wikipedia editors it could help us getting more active editors and remove the burdens of existing Wikimedians.
- Wikipedia Education program is also best initiative to reach among the youths and make Wikipedia famous in them. School ,College and University students can get information from Wikipedia as well as can contribute to it.
- We allow every age group and every race or gender people to edit in Wikipedia, In most of the Global South countries many housewives are educated but aren't aware of Computer if WMF and Wiki Women Collaboration can help us in empowering them.
- Enable the projects to accommodate developing world demands. We've seen this with oral citations, spoken Wikipedia and video support, but we need to bring this further. We need to enable content creation by investing in the ability of our developing world communities to generate this information, studying best practices for sustaining these communities in the long term, and reducing barriers to entry both technological and societal.
- Giving the developing world a place at the table. The movement's power structures need to be overhauled in order to account our diversity, especially geographical diversity, and we need to have a deeper conversation on diversity at this label. Among others, there needs to be investment in incentivizing the developing world to participate in the movement's governance structures, and supporting affiliates and movement partners who engage with the developing world so that they have a greater say in how the Foundation is run.
- Sustain distribution of our content, both for reading and editing. Wikipedia Zero and the Education Program are helpful, but we can go further. We should invest in the growth of new editors through projects more relevant to people in the developing world (e.g. the Cultural Heritage Mapping Project), enhanced offline distribution methods, and generation of information that would be most relevant to the developing world (e.g. medical articles, agriculture. etc.).
As Board member I will undertake to sensitise colleagues, Foundation employees, and editors whenever necessary. We often call our Global North dominance systemic bias. This is very convenient because, by its very definition, we cannot eliminate our systemic bias. We can shift it by aligning the composition of our editor base or our Board. Then our systemic bias will be different, but it cannot disappear. What we can fight is bias, the ordinary one, rearing its head in pretty much all our projects. Prof. van der Velden and I described the problem in some detail here.
If we want to reach young people in developing countries we need to strengthen three things:
- Mobile applications for countries like Namibia where there is cheap and reliable Internet access but few computers
- Offline Wikipedia like Kiwix for countries like Tanzania where there are computers but no or expensive Internet access
- Wikipedia Zero for countries like Angola where there are neither computers nor affordable Internet access
I'll repeat some things fellow candidates have said, but broadly, as a foundation and a movement we should focus on:
- improving access: including mobile (for free with zero-rating, with apps, with redesigns for feature phones); supporting better offline access; better software language and font support; and examining our search engine ranking around the world so that the articles we do have are findable.
- supporting organic communities: including supporting Wikimedians and meetup groups all around the world, supporting Wikipedia outreach efforts, etc.
- supporting local educators: who want to use and develop Wikipedia in (and out of) the classroom.
- improving content: including a push to improve all our language sites, including the smaller Wikipedias, but also to make sure that topics of concern and interest are addressed in all languages. Our best articles are not our most highly-read articles, in any language. In the English Wikipedia (which I know best) we may cover obscure historical topics beautifully, but our practical engineering articles leave a lot to be desired, let alone global culture, some aspects of basic health, and much much more. To accomplish this, of course, we need more editors, better tools, and outreach.
- remixing and refactoring: articles that are absolutely technically correct are not always the most understandable, or practically useful. This is a lovely article that doesn't tell me anything about what to do if I'd like to avoid HIV (it turns out that's in two other articles: this main article and this unassessed article). We should be supportive of creative refactoring into other books, summaries, translations, and usage of Wikipedia that does not always follow the strict encyclopedic model.
- working with partners: including educators, publishers, phone companies: we must maintain our values, but we do not have to go it alone in this challenge.
For many of us though, this dream remains unrealized: maybe we don't have a device to access the Web, maybe no electricity, maybe data access is prohibitively expensive, maybe people or organizations don't want us and block us from accessing knowledge, maybe the knowledge is not available in a language or expressed a way I understand. I have experienced all of these constraints first-hand, and have repeatedly fought them, and sometimes won - not just for myself, but also for others. I will continue to do so.
The Wikimedia movement and the Foundation cannot solve all of these issues, but we need to be aware of them and move towards enabling more and more people to access the Wikimedia projects.
Projects like Wikipedia Zero directly (and controversially) aim to solve one particular piece of the puzzle, but what good is Wikipedia Zero if there is no content available for the reader?
I am working to change this by raise awareness regarding the issues and through collaboration with other organizations. This morning for example we had a blog post published by the London School of Economics.
One effort I would love to see increased is collaborations between Wikipedians and local medical schools. I believe that translation can be a great introduction for students to Wikipedia editing. As long as the students have excellent base content they do not need to worry about sourcing or copyright issues. The students also develop the skill of translation from English into the languages they will ultimately be using to practice medicine which will ultimately benefit their future patients. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:08, 19 May 2015 (UTC)Unpaid internshipsEdit
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It appears that the WMF advertises unpaid intern positions. Do you approve of this practice? Didcot power station (talk) 18:12, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
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In face of the costs to run a program with such a premise, the cost of paying a compensation to the intern becomes usually tiny. The flight, board, legal costs, etc. would not only outweigh any payment to the intern, but probably also the direct benefits from the internship. And yet I think it would make sense. Because there are many intangible secondary benefits to such a program.
I would love to live in a society where working for good would be as readily compensated as ... the other thing. But we do not. And it would be great if the Foundation would also open up on this side too. This is a question of priorities, too, obviously.
I think it is exceedingly useful for the WMF to be involved in these sorts of programs. This is often a useful way to find future staff members. It additionally spreads awareness regarding the work we are doing. These programs have a number of benefits for the Interns. It gives them the opportunity to develop skills, making them more eligible in the job market. It helps them develop connections in the tech industry. And they end up with official recognition from a global technology leader. As editors many of us are working an equivalent of a full time job or more for free without gaining official recognition for our resumes.
Academic writing has historically been unpaid work. Most people neither get paid to write a journal article nor get paid to provide peer review. Academic publishers have sprung up (such as Elsevier) and made billions by simply being the middle man between those doing the work and those benefiting from it. One reason why Wikipedia is amazing is that we are replacing these middle man. We have returned a system were neither the writer nor the distributors are making money, but most importantly people are getting access to knowledge. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:03, 21 May 2015 (UTC)Term Limits for Board SeatsEdit
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What are your opinions on term limits for Board members, such that Board members may serve a maximum of, say, two or three terms (4 or 6 years)? I understand the need to have stability in the Board and so perhaps term limits could be excluded for the 'Board-appointed' members, but do you believe that such limits should exist for the community-elected and chapter-selected seats? I'm certain that this question (or a discussion relating to it) has been asked before, but I can't seem to find previous discussions at present. Template:BoardChart summarises the current history of Board membership. Thehelpfulone 21:23, 19 May 2015 (UTC) |
If enough of the community; however, see this as an important issue I would be supportive of the creation of a RfC to address it and would support whatever decision the community makes.
Additionally I am not sure why we would want term limits for community elected members but not for board elected members? I am happy to have Jimmy Wales excluded from term limits but not sure why other would be if they were implemented. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:31, 21 May 2015 (UTC)Overriding local policiesEdit
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Suppose a certain edition of Wikipedia decides to abolish the "citation needed" template, leaving editors unable to directly challenge statements found in articles. Or, suppose they decide to abolish WP:BLP, and proceed to block editors who remove WP:BLP-violating content from articles as "vandals". Should there be a global body with the ability to override such decisions and practices? If so, what would be the threshold for involvement and how far should they go in enforcing the global decisions (blocks, desysopping)? GregorB (talk) 19:24, 24 May 2015 (UTC) |
Remember that ultimate authority for closing projects lies in the Board, which has so far devolved this authority to the Language Committee and the stewards, including dealing with issues where the projects themselves become problematic (e.g. the Siberian Wikipedia). I would suggest at this point that we expand the purview of the Language Committee and the stewards to include dealing with projects that are in violation of our principles and policies, setting them back on the right path unless they become really problematic, after which closure can be initiated according to the current process, with exceptions made for very problematic cases (e.g. wikis promoting hate crimes, wikis overrun with advertising, etc.) where they can be closed immediately and restarted if necessary.
I agree that a lot of this has to do with consensus, which naturally varies between projects. That being said, should consensus lead to behaviors that run contrary to our values, the Foundation should have the authority to act accordingly. However, this must be done only under strict parameters to prevent overreach—an example would be overriding consensus only when there is sufficient advice from some position of authority (stewards, Legal, ombudsman committee, etc.) indicating that the actions of a local community would be detrimental to our movement's interests. --Sky Harbor (talk) 11:38, 25 May 2015 (UTC)On the other hand, there are stereotypes and and superstitions shared by virtually all speakers of a local language, particularly in cases where the act of speaking a certain language is an expression of one's political or social alignment. This is a complex problem, and it might become entrenched once smaller language editions grow. There should be a minimal standard for all affiliated Wikimedia projects, developed after a global discussion. There should be a global Board (of editors) to which cases can be brought, much in analogy to the International Criminal Court which hears cases where the accused might have acted in complete adherence to local law. Interventions could include blocking, banning, deleting, and in extreme cases even closing the project and oversighting its content.
Imagine German Wikipedia in the year 1980. The articles GDR and FRG (the two Geman countries at the time) would have been a drama scene, with probably no consensus anywhere, on anything. Now imagine the two countries speaking different languages. The same two articles would be POV on both language Wikipedias, enjoying happy consensus from the whole editor community, respectively. That's a situation where the editor community should intervene, the WMF should assist, and the Board should steer.There are obviously a few global policies that all Wikimedia projects have to follow. But I would like to keep their number small. A project must have the air to grow and breath organically. Rules that might work on a huge wiki like the English Wikipedia with its 30,000 active contributors might be stifling growth in a project with ten active contributors. And the majority of our projects have ten or less active contributors.
Having a discussion regarding one of the smaller language versions of Wikipedia on a movement wide scale has the additional complexities of language. Google translate only works in 90 or so languages and we are in 287. Even the languages Google does translate, it often does not do so well. So the question becomes has does one have a fair discussion of a controversial issue?
Individual languages; however, do not and should not have complete autonomy either. We all share and need to uphold the names Wikipedia/Wikivoyage/Wiktionary/etc. We have the five pillars for Wikipedia in more than 108 languages [7]. We also have the founding principles. If a single language project for example become primarily about promoting genocide or selling commercial products the wider movement would need to take action and if issues were not solvable would have the authority to close down a language or project. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:44, 25 May 2015 (UTC)Specifically in relation to your candidacy for membership of the board, on what justification are you WP:HERE?Edit
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I guess this is a WMF specific version of that blunt interview question: why should you get the "job"? In response to a question that I raised at Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2015 that asked, "#How come infrequent editors to Wikipedia want to be trustees?" Gryllida constructively advised "Please ask them." There are 3 positions for board members that are elected directly by the community with 20 candidates "en:shortlisted" with all the candidacies being considered by, perhaps, ~1809 potential voters many of whom may variously wade through various candidate statements, a questions and answers content that so far extends to most of four pages and may additionally make other, further enquiries. en:WP:HERE states that, "A major pillar of Wikipedia is that editors are here purely to build an encyclopedia." Having explained my involvement on this page I would like to primarily ask:
I appreciate that earlier sections on the questions pages have given you opportunity to mention various of your credentials including:
On the page mentioned Alsee has helpfully added a base format of data to which I have added stalktoy stats as follows:
In the light of the above I would also like to ask:
On a personal note I think that there may be a possibility that issues related to en:WP:SNOW and even en:WP:DISRUPT and related p & g contents may potentially apply. For the sake of 3 places on the board there are 20 candidates and I wonder if there may be possibilities in future elections for a different extent of en:shortlist to be finalised. GregKaye (talk) 16:18, 25 May 2015 (UTC) |
I am here because India have 20+ Wikipedia and almost all Indic languages comes under top 30 most spoken languages. However, expect Hindi Wikipedia not a single Wikipedia have crossed the milestone of 1,00,000 articles, which i believe that most of user aren't aware of Wikipedia and it's work. Being an Indian my top most priorities is to be the growth of my Indic language.
- significant external (outside Wikimedia) experience of similar roles, preferably including experience from other boards of organizations of similar size/budget. Essentially, WMF Board is not the place to start learning how to deal with such roles. It is my understanding that I am one of the very few, if not the only one of the candidates who does have experience of sitting on different boards of large organizations outside of our movement.
- high knowledge of strategy and management in F/L/OSS and software, both in terms of theory (understanding the processes) and actual practice (experiencing them). I not only know the theory (with a Master and a doctoral degree in business management), but have also contributed to it, as I published academic articles and two books with the leading global publishers. I also have a hands-on startup development experience (I developed several startups, including the largest online dictionary in Poland, ling.pl), as well as national and international experience from consulting (which, sort of, proves that my qualifications have been recognized), and mentoring. I am one of the very few candidates who have sufficient and diverse experience in this department.
- significant and versatile Wikimedia websites experience, not just in terms of an edit count; in fact I think that anyone with a five-digit edit count has basically more than enough editing experience, but may lack experience from other important community roles: applying blocks (admins), dealing with privacy issues (checkusers), global protection and control (stewards), resolving problematic issues of privacy breaches by other functionaries (ombudsman). Especially the roles of a steward and of an ombudsman open one's eyes to the problems of our communities that are otherwise known only from hearsay or even unknown at all. It is my understanding that I am the only of the candidates who has acted in all of these roles.
- significant and versatile Wikimedia movement experience: it is essential that a good Board candidate has a wide understanding of what people in our movement, especially in the chapters and thematic organizations, actually do (since one of the problems we're facing is very poor knowledge transfer, limited exchange of great ideas, as well as minimal cross-community collaboration). This experience can be gained through participation in the Board itself, as well as other major committees in our movement (the FDC, AffCom, GAC, etc.). I have been the FDC chair for three terms (the fact that I was unanimously re-elected twice should probably signify that I gained trust and appreciation of skills from other fellow highly trusted Wikimedians). I have an intimate understanding of our movement's finances, plans, and strategies; on the level of chapters possibly even better than the current Board incumbents do.
- High professional skills from the real world. Bringing expertise to the Board means also bringing top professional skills (irrespective of whatever profession a candidate may have). I am a tenured full professor of management, one of the youngest in the history of my field in Poland, with visiting appointments at Cornell University, Harvard University, University of California Berkeley, MIT.
Now, all of the above qualifications are important. Even though I believe I possibly do better than other candidates in many of these areas, as well as definitely when all of these areas are combined, there are two more major reasons why I run for the Board:
- Diversity is very important, as bringing different perspectives to the Board helps it work better. I find it really sad that NEVER in the history of our movement has anyone outside of the Northern America and Western Europe been elected to the board. Diversity in this respect seems to be even worse in our movement than the gender gap (which is another huge issue that requires addressing, too). While I am lucky to be benefiting from a number of privileges, and also my country now is doing quite ok economically, I do have a vivid memory of living for 1 USD per day, in awe and jealousy of the West, in a country suffering from significant shortages (of food, of toilet paper, of other basic necessities), and also in a totalitarian regime with active censorship - this experience increases my sensitivity in this respect. Also, on a number of occasions I have been able to show that I have the civil courage to stand up for human rights and diversity (I am a member of Honorary Committee of Pride Parade in Poland, among others). Finally, it seems that I am one of the few who perceive the development of anti-harassment policies as well as reporting mechanisms as important enough to support it.
- We need change - although I agree that there is a need for continuity in the Board, replacing 1/3 of it is hardly a threat in this respect. There is, however, a need for community-elected members of the Board to be more active. I am not an idealist (or populist, choose one) to claim that the Board members should do hands-on, everyday work, and that wonders could be done. But I do believe it is the role of the Board members to stand up for us, as the community, when mistakes are made. SuperProtect issue, the whole story of WMF forcing a technical solution on a community, that didn't want it, shows very acutely that passive community-elected Board members may very seriously exacerbate problems, which otherwise would be relatively small. It is vital that all Board members, but especially the community-elected ones, act in their role of overseeing the WMF and our movement strategy - with this safety valve missing, governance problems and misunderstandings arise.
I have been a Wikimedian for ten years now, and on-wiki I am extensively involved in article writing, mostly about the Philippines but delving into other topics from time to time. Over time this has evolved: from the joy of simply writing Wikipedia articles I have since written numerous articles that are extensively cited and are as comprehensive as they can be, mostly in later years, and I enjoy putting in the long hours required to make Wikipedia a better place. I find greater pleasure in writing articles than using admin tools, which I've had since 2009 and have used very sparingly. But at the same time, Wikimedia is more than just Wikipedia (and the English Wikipedia at that), and I believe I can bring that perspective to the Board: for one, I am one of the few candidates running in this election with extensive experience editing both in other languages (to which I also edit in Tagalog, Spanish and Polish) and other Wikimedia projects (including building the Tagalog Wiktionary). My edit count is not as high as other candidates, yes, but I am exceedingly hard-working in doing good for our movement.
Running for the Board though also means not just being active on-wiki—it also means knowing what to do offline, since we're running after all to serve on the Board of Trustees of an organization with significant resources, and not just Wikipedia. Since 2006 I have been involved in outreach work and community-building activities, growing the Filipino Wikimedia community in the process through meetups, thoughtful discussions on the future of our movement in the Philippines, and just being there for community members (since, after all, a good way to retain editors is to build those vital bridges between newer and older ones). This has culminated in the founding of Wikimedia Philippines in 2010, and we've grown over the last five years to be one of the leading Wikimedia affiliates in Asia. My interests have also led me to pursuing Wikipedia as a subject of academic inquiry (listed here), and I have also spoken about the Philippines and Wikimedia at three Wikimanias (with a fourth this year) and two Open Source Bridge conferences (with a third this year). I have also spoken about Wikipedia at different events in the Philippines, as well as for various news media (e.g. CNN).
But Wikimedia for me is more than just about the Philippines. Unlike other candidates, I am probably the only candidate who has proactively sought to visit other Wikimedia communities to learn from them, to interact with them, and to see how they do things. To date, I have visited and spoken with Wikimedia communities in ten different countries (listed here), largely on my own initiative but both as a private individual and as a member of the Affiliations Committee, and I find immense joy in understanding them and seeing how we could work together. I want our movement's players to learn from one other, and I will foster this tradition should I be elected to the Board.
These interactions (and more!) have given me a very holistic understanding of the Wikimedia movement both in the developing and developed worlds, and the responsibility that it takes to be on the Board of Trustees: that there is more to Wikimedia than just Wikipedia, and that we are one community, not communities in our own separate bubbles. That we have a lot to do in order to make our editors feel at home, and at the same time be that welcoming place that we used to be for those joining us for the first time. We need to renegotiate our social contract so that things can be better between us as editors, staff members, the Foundation as a unit and the movement as a whole, as I have written in my other answers, and I have the skill set, the knowledge and the drive to make all of this happen. I strongly abide by Wikimedian principles both on-wiki and in daily life, where I uphold our culture of respect, diplomatic honesty and thoughtfulness even at work, where I was most recently a community manager for a prominent Singaporean startup. I am exceedingly dedicated to the movement, so much so that I have pressed on even if others have urged me to quit.
I must apologize for this very long answer, but I hope this proves to you why I should be elected to the Board. My loyalty is to the Wikimedia movement—a loyalty that will never waver, even if I lose in this election and come in last place. I hope to make all of you proud should I be elected, and I will continue to do so even if I'm not. --Sky Harbor (talk) 06:44, 26 May 2015 (UTC)I am not an heavy editor, but from my experience I think that I have contributed to the movement in other ways. In this sense, while it is true that we are on Wikipedia to build an encyclopedia you should remember that the vision of the movement is broader and contains many other projects. I think I have accumulated enough experience (to use my own words, I have "walked the path") to have something to say participating in the board.
I think that the role of a board member should be furthering the mission. I am committed to the mission and I have always tried to advance it following my own skills and making myself available when help was needed. I now think that this attitude could be useful in the Board.
I do not expect to have direct experience in all the matters that will be examined by the board but I think this is normal for any complex organisation. I am ready to be seeking out for help from all the people that could be affected by a board decision, in fact I think that the communication between the BoT and the "rest of the world" has been lacking in the past.I'm in the lower half of the edit count table. Yet I have created a few hundred articles, expanded a lot more, participated in policy debates, and so on. If you read anything about Namibia in the 1960s and 1970s on English Wikipedia it is probably from me. The same goes for the pre-colonial period and for current events. Actually, you might not find too many articles on Namibia, excluding sports, arts, and entertainment, without my account name somewhere in the article history. I won't complain about editcountitis. Even with 'only' 14K I have been around the block a few times.
I am a suitable candidate because I am not afraid to speak out. I will not hide, and I will not lie. I have the analytic capability to tackle complex challenges, and I have the experience and the technical expertise to work efficiently and fast. With almost 30 years of work experience I have gained some perspective that I believe is necessary to evaluate medium and long-term decisions.As for my wikiness, I have been editing for about 9 years now. I began on English Wikipedia and then started editing on Spanish Wikipedia. The list you provide would have been more entertaining if it included the kb's added per edit, but what can you do. :-) I have written around 14 or 15 Featured Articles in different language projects, including English Wikipedia, and significantly contributed to several more. I've written about 10-12 Good Articles. I've also delved in the sister projects and have a Quality Image here or a Featured story there. I try to make every contribution count, I've never had editcountitis but qualitycountitis.
But without doubt, what I'm most proud of is creating the LGBT wikiproject in Spanish Wikipedia. I was able to set it up from scratch and find amazing contributors, creating a collaboration hub that resulted in the creation and improvement of innumerable LGBT-related articles that were missing or had substandard quality. By producing high quality content we earned the respect of the community. Yes, sometimes there were clashes with other editors, but this is a controversial topic for many people in the world. Today, I honestly believe that some of the LGBT-related articles in Spanish Wikipedia are the finest of all projects, including English Wikipedia. And that gives me deep satisfaction.
I am also an administrator and bureaucrat in Spanish Wikipedia, for what is worth. I am familiar with regular maintenance and have handled my fair share of conflicts and drama. :-P As for the sister projects, I am an accredited reporter on Wikinoticias, and was an admin on Wikidata for a while. I haven't just done Wikipedia, and I know that the needs of the sister projects can be very different.
However, like Phoebe said, being a skilled contributor is not enough for this position, relevant experience is required as well. I have been a member of the Affiliations Committee, and was its first Treasurer. I was also part of the IEG Committee in its first round. Furthermore, I was a founding member of Wikimedia España and its first Vicepresident. And I helped found Iberocoop, which has bloomed into a successful cooperation network for Iberoamerican affiliates beyond my expectations. Additionally, during my first term in the Board, I have also been a liaison with AffCom and the FDC, as well as a member and Chair of the Board Governance Committee. I have strong experience with organizations, reports, grants, plans, committees, etc.
As for the second question, as of the last year or two, and because I have become very active in the local scene with wiki workshops, edithatons, etc, I have become more attuned to the needs of new editors. And I have seen this happen to other veteran editors too: the more contact with new editors via local activities, the more you realise what things are stopping others from becoming regular contributors as well. We've celebrated many activities in Madrid, for example, and we get many women participants who are very interested in contributing to the projects. And we see what the entrance barriers are, and I think that is changing our perceptions. Because you cannot hold for very long the assumption that women are just not interested in contributing to the projects when all the local activities have a majority of women participants. :-) I would like for this to take hold and start translating to the wiki, so we can see some change there. But it has been very interesting to see this indirect effect of off-wiki activities on veteran editors. My involvement with Iberocoop has also helped me see how universal some situations can be, which likely means that the culture of the projects is more determinant than we care to acknowledge.
I honestly think I can contribute a different perspective to the Board. I don't just talk about eg. needing to increase diversity of content or editors, I actively work towards achieving it, and my work regarding LGBT, women or Iberocoop is proof of it. I want to help take the WMF to the next level, and make it as inclusive as possible in the process. That's why I'm running.If you are looking for my Wikipedia CV: I have been editing Wikipedia for 12 years, and I've been doing outreach about the project for nearly as long. With Charles Matthews and others, I wrote the second book in English to be published about Wikipedia, and still one of only two how-to books (and, I believe, the most comprehensive). My edit count includes work on four sister projects. My edit count on Wikipedia is not outstandingly high, but I have many major edits, including lots and lots of sources verified and added. I have given dozens of talks about Wikipedia, run lots of meetups and edit-a-thons, and taught hundreds of people how to edit. I've run some Wikimanias and attended all of them. I wrote a weekly column for the Signpost (News & Notes) for a year. And, I've been following Wikimedia governance -- and been a part of it -- for quite a while. In my day job, I'm an academic librarian at a top-tier university who works with finding and using scholarly sources all day long, including other encyclopedias. In other words, I think I know how this project works, I know how knowledge is produced in general out in the world, and I'm familiar with Wikipedia from both the perspectives of an established editor and a new editor. I have done all this because I believe this is the most important knowledge project in the world today, full stop.
But here's the thing: you're not voting for someone to work on Wikipedia. You are voting for someone to oversee a $60 million non-profit organization. And I have the experience and skills to do that, as well as being a skilled Wikipedian.My goal is not to achieve a big edit count, but rather to make every single edit by every single contributor count more. I want to make every single edit to be more effective, to make every contributor more effective. Because of Wikidata we have reduced the number of edits by a few million every month - but at the same time we have improved the content, ensured that it is easier to maintain. Hundreds of millions of line of Wikitext have been removed. Additionally, Wikidata has introduced several thousand of new contributors to the Wikimedia movement. It has been the most successful single initiative in this direction in the last decade.
I am also extensively involved in trying to solve one of the biggest issues facing our movement, that of decreasing or stagnating editor numbers. Efforts I have been involved in include speaking at universities including UBC [47], McMaster [48], University of California San Fransico,[49], in New Delhi, and in Iran.[50] As well I have spoken at medical conferences about Wikipedia and Medicine [51] aswell as at the World Health Organization [52] and at the National Institute of Health.[53]
I have not simply edited and promoted Wikipedia but have also studied and defended our site. One of my first notable activities was defending our right to contain the public domain images of the Rorschach inkblots. This received a write up in the New York Times [54] which was followed by a number of legal attacks and me needing to get a lawyer for nearly a year.[55] Thankfully my insurance covered the tab. In 2012 I was involved with defending the right to fork CC BY SA content when we set up Wikivoyage based on Wikitravel. For this I was also sued (and appeciated the backing of the WMF for legal support).[56] In 2014 I was involved in defended Wikipedia against poorly done research both in the academic [57] and the lay press.[58] I have protected our content from plagarism by others. This has resulted in a couple of publishers pulling books due to borrowing from us without attribution.[59][60]
I am exceedingly hard working, put in massive numbers of hours, and have done large amounts of out reach most of which was self funded. I have lead the creation of a number of very success collaborations with other organizations of which that with Translators Without Borders has resulted in nearly 1000 new articles in other languages.[61] I am here for one purpose and that is to promote the collection of the sum of all knowledge and make it freely avaliable to everyone. To acheive this we need to make our software work not just for new editors and readers but also the core community. I beleive that my involvement on the board can help acheive this goal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:04, 25 May 2015 (UTC)I'm running for the WMF Board of Trustees because that institution provides a vital oversight function which makes it possible to keep certain negative tendencies of large and growing bureaucratic organizations in check. I'm not running for Trustee to gain brownie points or status or paid junkets or career opportunities — I want to, in short, preserve, defend, and expand Wikipedia's content credibility and platform. We must work vigorously and ceaselessly to ensure that the original decentralized, non-commercial, volunteer spirit of Wikipedia isn't lost under bushels of cash poured onto our heads from donors around the world and that such money is spent wisely. Such has not always been the case.
Wikipedia-centrismEdit
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Wikipedia-centrism is an opinion that is shared by some contributors of the side-projects who thinks that the WMF put all the efforts (MediaWiki development, call for contributions, promotion, etc) on Wikipedia and neglect other projects. Do you think it's a true statement? What side-project do you think the development and contribution effort should be reinforced? How the WMF can help? What is your plan for Wikibooks? What is your plan for Wikiversity? What is your plan for Wikisource? |
Alexa Ranking gives these standings for Wikimedia Projects 1. Wikipedia (Ranked 6) 2. Commons, MetaWiki, test and Incubator (Ranked 206) 3. Wiktionary (Ranked 663) 4. Wikibooks (Ranked 2667) 5. Wikisource (Ranked 6753) 6. MediaWiki (Ranked 11987) 7. WikiData (Ranked 18939) 8. WikiVoyage (Ranked 24325) 9. Wikiversity (Ranked 25782) 10. Wikinews (Ranked 64432) 11. TranslateWiki (Ranked 447145) 12. Wikispecies (Ranked 10772763)
As you had mentioned, the situation is harmful and solving such problems would not be easy... Wikimedia Foundation cannot do many things for this... Its role consists on merging Wikispecies into Wikipedia and closing this underestimated wiki and trying to let the used systems in Wikis more flexible and interactive by implementing Flow and the VisualEditor into wikis and using Atom and RSS in the official page of Wikis in Social Networks in order to let the tracking of new pages and quality works more efficient. I think that our priority should be saving Wikiversity and promoting it efficiently as this wiki is widely challenged by leading MOOC Websites... I think that Wikimedia Foundation should apply from leading US universities to post their courses on Wikiversity and promote its system using Flow and the MOOC system. After that, more tutorials should be published by WMF in order to arise the consciousness of the users about how to edit in other wikis and how to do some excellent and effective works within them. --Csisc (talk) 12:01, 30 May 2015 (UTC)We need to seriously invest in our sister projects to make them viable, although we have to admit that this will be a challenge: we're even at a point where "there are lots of projects that are not useful or viable and we should accept the fact, but there are a handful of exceptions" is an acceptable conclusion. For me, it isn't. That being said, I agree that this investment needs to be impactful, and it doesn't necessarily have to come in the form of money from the WMF. We could invest in Wiktionaries for smaller languages which could then feed their Wikipedias (if any). Partnering with libraries and archives to build Wikisources through the digitization of their content in the public domain (with or without the use of WMF funds) is also a wise investment path forward towards making Wikisource more useful. One of my favorite long-term goals for Wikimedia Philippines is to convince the Department of Education to adopt Wikibooks as a platform for crowdsourced, dynamically edited textbooks for public school as an alternative to error-ridden, privately-published textbooks. We can certainly invest in that in partnership with governments.
There are many ways our sister projects can be more useful, and we need to put in the time and effort to make this happen so that our sister projects can also benefit from the large amount of intellectual capital that we have amassed as a movement over the last fifteen years. For example, in the spirit of the Inspire campaign, we can have a campaign specifically for non-Wikipedia projects to apply for WMF grant funding. Or we could work towards publicizing our sister projects more rather than focusing all our PR efforts on Wikipedia. While I'm not saying these will work 100%, at least we can better assess at this point whether these investments will make an impact, and if they do (which I hope they will), then we can better allocate resources to them. --Sky Harbor (talk) 12:29, 29 May 2015 (UTC)What certainly can be changed is to use our influence to lobby for free content. I just returned from a conference where several companies that exhibited there have landed multi-million dollar contracts with African governments, providing stuff that Wikiversity, Wiktionary, and Wikibooks give away for free. A fraction of these monies could make a huge difference to our projects, but even their existence is not widely known. WMF must become an exhibitor at such conferences, become the competition to all these get-rich-quick backyard enterprises.
I don't think the sister projects are under-funded. They lack editors, not money, and my experience from WMF Grants is that any reasonable project will be funded by the Foundation. However, WMF's approach to funding should not be entirely passive: For things really important, the Foundation should actively (that is, without any editor requesting it) offer their services, take the money, and hire the editors if no volunteers can be found. Apparently, the price tag for a 7,000-word dictionary English/some-obscure-language was several million US$. What could we have done for human knowledge with that kind of money!But more to the point: it is a bit unfortunate that the set of projects we currently have is more or less a historic accident. We had, early on, a short phase of enthusiastic project creation, and then a long time nothing until, coincidentally, Wikidata and Wikivoyage have launched within weeks of each other. Both of them had very peculiar histories and do not offer a template or a process for how to launch new projects. What we really need are procedures for how to propose, evaluate, and decide on the creation and closure of projects. There have been discussions before on this topic, but they have not led to effective results. The only processes we have in place are the Language Committee deciding on opening and closing language editions of a given project, and I am very grateful to LangCom for doing that hard job. But we lack the same processes on the level of projects.
Also there is a branding issue with many of the projects, since the connection with Wikimedia might be tenuous to discern and remember for outsider.
Regarding the particular projects you ask - Wikibooks, Wikisource, etc. - I believe in the autonomy of the projects to set up their own goals and define their own visions within the Wikimedia movement, and that it certainly is not the Board's task to define their goals. But I could imagine that one result of the processes above is that every project needs to come up with a charter for itself, and that its success and its need for support is measured from this charter. But this is really a discussion that has to be held in a much wider context.Size of Wikimedia staffEdit
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Do you think paid wikimedia staff body should more grow or shrink in future? --Itu (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2015 (UTC) |
That being said, I think the Foundation in its current size is doing okay, but it should be given room to grow within reason. At the same time, growth in staff numbers should complement, not supplant, community efforts in either developing new software tools, or devising new community engagement strategies, etc.
I also believe at this point that the Foundation should, when making hiring decisions, consider its compliance with the pluralism, internationalism, and diversity policy. The Foundation, like the movement at large, is largely, if not predominantly, led by and composed of people from the developed world, and that is a disturbing trend given the international character of our movement and the Foundation's overtures towards diversity. --Sky Harbor (talk) 13:39, 30 May 2015 (UTC)I don't think most software development should happen in-house. What would from my perspective be much more valuable is establishing and improving relations with the open source software community - MediaWiki is used in thousands of companies, and developing this body of software could benefit more entities than just the Wikimedia readers and writers. I am not sure why it is not currently happening, though.
But there are other functions that appear to be - again I have to guess - currently understaffed, like community liaison, and documentation. I think for every large editor community there should be somebody at the WMF that is fluent or even native in their language. I doubt this is the case. So the general direction is growth, but not growth in the software engineering division.But I think the question should be "What should the Foundation do and what should it not do?" - the raw number of employees should derive from how many people are needed to get our tasks done. I do not want to see important projects and developments being stalled because of understaffing. I do not want to see support for our communities being insufficient because of understaffing. I also do not want to see money spent spuriously. All of these questions are key concerns for the Board, and it is its duty to oversee the Executive Director in the effective and efficient execution of the Foundation's tasks.
So, just to make clear that I am not dodging the question: I am happy with the number of employees of the Foundation going up or down, as long as we are efficiently getting the right things done.