Wikipedia talk:Education Working Group/RfC

What's in it for Wikipedia?

This RfC really has little to do with Wikipedia: you're setting up an external structure so that you can get money to pay for an education program, since the WMF is pulling the funding for the existing program, without demonstrating that the current program has had a positive impact on the project. I don't know that the community's opinion really has much place here: any group can set up its own organization, and the Wikipedia community won't be deciding whether or not it will be recognized as a 501(3)(c).

What evidence have you provided that this program brings any value whatsoever to Wikipedia? What metrics are you using to illustrate success? Number of classes doesn't mean anything if you can't demonstrate that the classes have brought some value to Wikipedia. Percentage of editors who continue after their classes? Percentage of Wikipedians who interact with students and find it a favourable experience? Class objectives that do not depend on non-student volunteers? Nobody cares about your structure if you can't demonstrate that there has been lasting value to the project. Risker (talk) 17:32, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

To answer your first question, I think there are several ways in which the creation (or not) of this new organization will have a significant impact on Wikipedians. First, though, it's worth remembering that this isn't an RfC on whether professors should be allowed to give students tasks to do on Wikipedia. That's been going on for a long time, and will continue with or without a new organization. The RfC is about whether we should set up a support organization for those classes. Having said that, it's true that the new organization is likely to encourage more such classes, so the question of whether the community wants more or fewer classes is relevant.

The main impact that I see for the education program on the community is the quality of instructor engagement. An instructor with a thorough understanding of Wikipedia is much more likely to assign tasks that the students can do without creating a burden on the editing community. We've seen issues in the past with students creating articles that shouldn't be independent articles; with non-encyclopedic writing; with copyright and plagiarism; with poor referencing. An instructor who understands these issues can guide their students to avoiding those pitfalls, and the result should be better articles and less cleanup work for other editors.

As for metrics, I think one has to distinguish between metrics showing the value of student work, and metrics showing the value of the Education Program itself. The former is a bit easier to measure. In the "Wikipedia needs academics" section of this opinion piece from last year's Signpost, there are some metrics cited on the quality of the student contributions. I feel very confident in saying that the student contributions are a strong net benefit to Wikipedia, based on that analysis. There is a similar analysis underway at the moment for the spring semester 2012, but it's not complete yet. I will post a note here when I hear about it; I think the two WMF employees working on it are Annie Lin and Jami Mathewson. I will be very surprised if that analysis doesn't replicate the earlier work.

The flip side of quality content is community burden; improving an article from C to B is not worth much if there were hours of cleanup by regular editors required. We tried to measure editor burden for the spring 2012 semester; I'll post a link to that shortly. We did that by posting talk page notices asking for editors to comment if they had to do significant cleanup. Not that many editors responded, but it's hard to be sure whether that's because the students caused little burden, or editors were simply not responsive, or we did a poor job posting the notices. Overall, however, I think the data are very much on the side of the student edits being good enough to outweigh any burden.

The value of the education program itself is harder to measure. If you believe that it will significantly increase the number of these classes, then that, by itself, might be the most significant metric on the program -- if you think student involvement is a negative, then the EP would simply magnify the effect. I think the EP will increase the number of classes, and that they are a good thing for Wikipedia. Giving the professors support makes their classes even more likely to have a positive effect.

Beyond those points, I think there's a strong case for outreach. (The following is just my personal opinion, and is not necessarily shared by anyone else in the working group.) The opinion piece linked above gives my personal opinions on our relationship with academe. I think professionals in higher education are a key constituency we've been looking for to assist with content editing: they have subject matter expertise, and tons of it. We need that. Closer engagement with academe, and relationship building, can only lead to better interactions on-wiki. I see the education program as a key part of changing academe's perception of Wikipedia, to the long-term benefit of both. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:14, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's the link to the burden metric: Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Research/Editor impact. The talk page notices used to advertise this look like this: Talk:Women in Chile#Impact of recent student edits. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:52, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The "burden metric" study (and I hesitate to call it a study) contains all of 12 responses. That's roughly equal to the people who vociferously oppose the education work here, and does nothing to explain how everyone in-between feels. How were those notices advertised, merely on the associated talkpages? And what other metrics do you have? Because you're talking about creating an organisation that is funded enough to involve paid staff - not exactly a cheap proposal - and the justification seems to be "I feel confident, these was an opinion piece in the signpost, and a dozen editors haven't considered the additional edits disruptive". That shows absolutely nothing about the value of those additional edits and how it compares to the cost. Do you have any data on the sustainability of the programme, the value such editors add to Wikipedia, or the difference in efficacy between an education project run by an "official" organisation and one organised by some random professor? Ironholds (talk) 01:14, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Hold on, that "editor burden" study showed a significantly negative impact on half of the articles involved. Is this the best evidence you can come up with for why the community should support a breakaway group that is outside of the control of the community but is intended to draw volunteer resources (not to mention donor funds) from the community? Risker (talk) 02:08, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

@Ironholds: I certainly wouldn't call it a study, and I don't think the number of responses we got allows us to draw much of a conclusion in either direction. Messages were posted on talk pages by LiAnna Davis of the WMF; you can see the talk pages posted to in her contributions. Looks like a little over a hundred pages got the notice; I don't know how they were selected but I can ask LiAnna if it's of interest. I mentioned it because you asked about metrics: when that discussion came up (here, for example) we were unable to find a good way of identifying the impact. The talk page notice and the associated page for editors to post to was the best we came up with. I think any better method would be very interesting to everyone involved in the program.

The metric I would place more faith in is the PPI analysis that was done. That's linked from the opinion piece, and perhaps that was a mistake; I should have linked to the metrics directly rather than just to the opinion piece, to avoid giving the impression that the opinion piece is relevant in any way. Anyway, here is a direct link to the metrics I am referring to: the statistical analysis of the PPI; and, of possible interest, the assessment rubric and an example assessment page.

In my mind, the justification for the new organization is more like this: the PPI (the most detailed quality analysis we have) shows that the students are having a net positive effect on Wikipedia, but the WMF isn't going to fund any support for them in the US and Canada after 31 May 2012, so we should consider creating a different organization to fund them instead. I don't think the burden metrics are really usable, and I don't think the opinion piece is relevant at all. It's just about whether the students are worth supporting.

Other metrics you ask for: sustainability -- I'm not sure what you mean, but if you mean whether it uses financial and human resources faster than they can be replenished I don't have anything formal to quote. My personal opinion is that we can't build a long term support organization that depends entirely on volunteer labour, but I think the PPI grant shows that there is money to be obtained for this sort of thing. It's just that the WMF won't be accepting grants that are limited to such a narrow scope any more, so if we want to be able to accept those grants, we have to have a separate organization. (That's my understanding of the WMF position; I may have the nuances wrong.) You also ask about the 'difference in efficacy between an education project run by an "official" organisation and one organised by some random professor'. I don't know of anything that qualifies as rigorous data to answer this question. The professors who have been involved in the program are positive about the value of the support they receive; that's somewhat anecdotal but I think it's pretty widespread. I can ask someone from the WMF to summarize the feedback they've had from the professors they've worked with, if you like. I believe the data analysis being undertaken for the spring semester included a questionnaire that might also address this -- I'll ask when that's going to be ready.

@Risker: per my comments to Ironholds above, no, I don't think the burden study is a useful metric; it's just the only data we have. I think the number of respondents is too small for us to draw any conclusions from it in either direction. The link I posted just above to the analysis of the PPI data is much more persuasive.

You describe it as a breakaway organization, but I think that's not quite right. That implies that the working group formed with the intention of breaking this function off from the WMF. In fact, it was the other way round; the WMF decided not to fund this program directly any more, and split it off into a group that would focus on this program only. The WMF solicited applicants for the working group, and has underwritten the process by which the working group came up with this proposal. (See this original Q&A if you're curious about the working group and how it was convened.) I don't think the WMF would be able to accept any proposal which didn't envision the new organization as separate from the WMF. As for control, that's about governance, and is a fair question; I see Ironholds posted a question about that in the discussion section of the RfC so I'll answer that there, and will also comment about the use of donor funds. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:56, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

By sustainability I mean "how long do editors stick around?". So, something I've noticed that is universal is an uncertainty as to what the point of the programme is. The Public Policy Initiative's purpose was to create high-quality articles in areas where there is little editor attention. The purpose for the full Education Programme was less clear; was it to create high-quality articles, or to increase editor input from fields where we are traditionally weak in the hope that these people will stick around? The numbers you've pointed to above suggest you're seeing it more as the former than the latter, but clarification would be most welcome :). Each option has very different questions associated, obviously. Ironholds (talk) 04:13, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The former. I can't speak to the motivations for starting the program, but it seems clear now that quality improvement is a far more achievable goal for the program than editor retention. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:22, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

P.S., added after Ironholds linked to this note of mine: that's just my personal opinion, as I should have said when I posted this. I don't know what the rest of the working group thinks on this point. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:14, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be useful for the working group to clarify. It's one thing to sign up in support of an organisation that has distinct deliverables in content terms, and another for an organisation with rather more woolly (although no less well-intentioned) objectives. Ironholds (talk) 13:29, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

In which case this should surely be something that you can quantify in the deliverables? I can't speak for everyone, but I know that one thing that has troubled some editors I know is the lack of firm, testable milestones in the WEP, which makes it relatively hard to evaluate it. Adding some could help persuade people that lessons have been learnt.

If it's the former, though, this is...what? Money for course credits for edits? Don't get me wrong: it's a good programme with goals that have the best of intentions behind them. But things are being under-resourced across the board and I'm not sure if it's high enough priority to justify funding when we have things like the editor retention crisis still going on. Obviously that's not my choice to make, but it concerns me that we're trying to spread ourselves too thin. Ironholds (talk) 04:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think the new organization should continue to measure quality every semester, using something like the PPI metric. Here is a set of assessed articles for the spring semester; you can scan it yourself and get a general idea of the quality improvement, while we wait for the formal analysis to be completed.

Money for course credits for edits? I don't think the linkage is there. After all, most of the time, when the WMF provides resources (e.g. to GLAM efforts) it's with the intention of generating more and better edits. The link from money to resources to edits is problematic when the people making the edits have a motivation at odds with Wikipedia's premises. I suppose an ideologue professor who forced his students to write a one-sided article on some topic would qualify, but I don't see that happening. In fact, that strikes me as an argument for the program -- we need to educate the professors about Wikipedia so they don't screw up. As for spreading ourselves too thin: the WMF is going to turn down funds that this organization could use. Isn't that tempting? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:38, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry; I wasn't intending to suggest that contributions would be biased :). I more meant that the wider education programme seems to be predicated on "we provide funding for organisation, organisation hooks up professors, professors provide course credits to students in exchange for students participating in college modules that, with our involvement, consist at least partly of editing". As said, I don't think this is a bad idea: I applaud it. Can you clarify the "the WMF is going to..." point, please? Is there some source of education programme-explicit funding from one of the educational non-profits (the Saylor Foundation comes to mind) in the works? Ironholds (talk) 12:49, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Not that I know of -- I really should have said "would turn down", not "is going to turn down". However, the grant for the PPI initiative would be turned down if it were offered now, so this is not really hypothetical. It seems very likely that similar grants could be raised for the new organization. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:35, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense. I guess if it can be made funding-neutral, I'm all for it. If not, I'll need a bit more evidence of the benefits before I take off the "skeptic" hat. This is nothing to do with the validity of the programme (I absolutely think that we should be doing this work) but with the movement's funding and bandwidth. So, at the moment, we're going through an editor retention crisis - this is pretty well known and documented - which we absolutely need to solve. Unfortunately we're not some massive Rothschild Foundation-esque body with practically unlimited funding and resources: we've got a limited overall budget, and we've got to do a lot of things with it, some of which are more time-sensitive and highly prioritised than others...such as editor retention. I fully agree that this is something we should be doing, but it's not something where not doing it will kill us in 5 years, and unless it's revenue-neutral it kind of feels like it'd be distracting our finances and staff away from the central problem: that we've got a decade-old platform with the same timespan's worth of rules and clashing bureaucracy, that editor numbers have been dropping to the point where we can't maintain essential workflows with leeway, and that time is running out. Sometimes what we should do has to be temporarily put aside for what we have to do. Ironholds (talk) 13:47, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

It is the plan of the working group that the majority of funding will come from independent sources, not from other parts of the Wikimedia movement. Fortunately, we have several members with major experience in securing large-scale grants for academic projects of this type. This would mean taking national-specific grants like the PPI, and also others that have had to be rejected since because of 'new' WMF policies. Perhaps it would be helpful if there were more details on medium-term funding plans on the front side of the proposal?--Pharos (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Program effectiveness

Several of the oppose votes are due to concerns that the education program is not very effective when measured by English Wikipedia community yardsticks, or the lack of information to demonstrate program effectiveness.

Where are reports about the US and Canada Education programs?

When the WMF released their annual plan, there were some harsh comments about the education program.[1]

The annual plan says

“ The Global Education Program is now the largest-ever systematic effort of the Wikimedia mouvement to boost high quality content creation, with a projected addition of 19 million characters to Wikipedia through student assignements 2011-2012. ”

This had previously been covered in this blog post

Which is based on research paid for by the WMF at meta:Research:Wikipedia Education Program evaluation, however the results were never released, and the data is missing in action. See meta:Research talk:Wikipedia Education Program evaluation.

Before setting up a new organisation, I think a proper report into these programs is needed, and the underlying data needs to be evaluated to ensure it is sound.

If the WMF has a suitable report, it needs to be released to the community. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

While not a report on effectiveness, the article Assigning Students to Edit Wikipedia: four case studies, published in E-Learning and Digital Media, looks interesting. However its behind a paywall and costs US$18.00. Looks like user:Ldavis_(WMF) is one of the authors. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It's talked about here: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-08-27/Recent_research --Rschen7754 07:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

All of those appear to be small-scale case studies. Ironholds (talk) 08:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems that pdf copies are available by email from the WMF - see [2]. - Voceditenore (talk) 08:19, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

John, there have been multiple conversations amongst participants in the EP about how to measure the results. Here is one conversation about an approach that was proposed; you can see some feedback from other editors on that page. I don't know exactly which of those suggested ideas were implemented, but the assessments were done (raw data is here), and an attempt was made to measure editor impact (see discussion in the section above) but there were a very limited number of respondents to the impact question and I doubt that we got enough data for it to be representative. I heard today that some but not all of the data analysis has been completed; I'll post a link here when that's done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm happy to email a PDF of the article to anyone -- just send me an email. Also, the article quality data Mike referenced has been analyzed here: Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Research/Article_quality/Results. I encourage you to post any questions about the research on its associated talk page. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not interested in seeing closed research about Wikimedia. Wikimedia research by Wikimedia Foundation staff should be open. ;-)

Thank you for pointing out those results. That is good to see. I would like to see data, and I've asked whether this rating system has been used outside of the Education program over at Wikipedia talk:Ambassadors/Research/Article quality#Control group, in order that it can be used for comparisons. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:15, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you that WMF staff research should be open. (I spent quite a while arguing about that during the PPI.) At present, though, there's no explicit policy, and when collaborating with others outside the WMF (such as the four professors who co-wrote this paper with LiAnna) it's sometimes not practical. (Personally, I'm fine with saying, "well, if you really don't want to publish in an open access journal, then I can't work on this as WMF staff." But that would mean some good work simply goes undone.) As for the article quality study, I've put up the data and replied at your other post.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually there sort of is an explicit policy, insofar as content produced by a staffer in the course of their work is GPL/CCY-BY-SA, depending on the nature. Ironholds (talk) 14:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but (correct me if I'm wrong) it doesn't preclude also publishing things in restricted venues. For example, LiAnna's contributions are GPL/CC-BY-SA, but that doesn't mean the whole work is free, and LiAnna's contributions couldn't be separated out from the non-free work of the co-authors.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed; that does preclude it :). But individually-authored works, for example, would certainly be CC-BY-SA, and while it doesn't preclude shuttered publishing, it does sort of make it pointless. Ironholds (talk) 14:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC);

The other authors were faculty involved in WMF ed program courses. One of them is even a member of the working group. They too should have realized the need for open publication; if they did not, though they may of course publish however they please, perhaps they are not really sufficiently into the spirit of our movement to be suitable role models--and that is how the article is presenting their courses. That two people on this working group felt it appropriate to publish a work on the program in a way that was not just outside but directly opposed to our principles, should be seen as a warning, just as the failure of the Indian program was a warning. The danger being warned against is that this proposal might simply carry over the ethos of the former program, when instead a fresh start is needed. DGG ( talk ) 18:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Lets be fair, here; it's a copyrighted journal. The options, in this specific instance, were "publish under some restrictions" or "don't publish at all". Ironholds (talk) 19:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

No, Ironholds. The question was whether to publish in that particular journal or to publish in any one of the relevant open access journals. And all the authors of a ms have to agree on where to publish, so the coauthor from the wmf by herself could have prevented publishing in that manner. DGG ( talk ) 21:24, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm pretty hard-pressed to consider this the "largest-ever systematic effort of the Wikimedia mouvement to boost high quality content creation". There are several wikiprojects that easily top this effort, and I'd say that they're fairly systematic too. (Wikiproject Military History immediately comes to mind, but roads, medicine, and several others are well up there.) In fact, I can think of a few individual editors who are almost as effective, and the GA and FA programs are also fairly systematic. The major difference is that they don't have WMF funding or research dedicated to assessing the quality improvements they make. Is there any reason why this is not being compared to existing structured processes? I'll note, as an aside, that retention of editors who bring an article to GA or FA, or even work within a wikiproject, is dramatically higher than the retention of participants in the Education Programs. Risker (talk) 22:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Risker, I appreciate your point about Wikiprojects and would like to point out that many participants in the Education Program work collaboratively with editors involved in Wikiprojects. For example, my students at Alverno College have been working with Wikiproject Lights Camera Wiki for almost two years to add video illustrations to enhance article content. This semester, my students are also working with Wikiproject Public Art. One of the goals with proposing this new structure is to facilitate connecting students productively to the ongoing work of developing the encyclopedia, including via Wikiprojects. Jgmikulay (talk) 23:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

2 cents from outside US/Canada

I'm halfway between feeling unable to voice my opinion, since I'm not from US/Canada, and overwhelmed by the verbosity of the whole debate, as usual in the wikiworld. However, for the sake of our work in Brazil I ought to say something. There are of course differences in the educational structures of all the participating countries, not to say in the language communities themselves. But there are many pedagogical implications and methodologies that can and should be shared between all the participants. From a professor's POV, I'd say that none of the channels currently used have integrated worldwide experiences, feedback and strategies. The program will continue to fail if professors don't fully understand what Wikipedia is and if the Ambassadors are not properly trained. Fixing these two issues is not possible in a 4-hour training only - it takes continuous understanding of the process of their involvement: the expectations of professors in terms of content learned, grading as a motor for students, and our anxiety for keeping at least new ambassadors as editors. I urge all of you to consider a broader, albeit focused, channel of experience exchange. There is much I'd like to discuss with other professors working here, but that can already be done though the current academic pathways. I'm afraid that locking the Education Program in the chapters may be a bureaucratic hindrance to that goal. Greetings, Domusaurea (talk) 15:07, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Close?

I'm a bit shocked to see that the RfC has been closed by a very new user in a manner that explicitly discounts the opinions of oppose commenters. I would have expected to see a more experienced user, preferably an admin, carry out this close, and do it in a manner that did not place a supervote on "closer thinks evidence shows X, so anyone who says Y doesn't count." An RfC close is supposed to summarize what people said, not ignore what people said in favor of what the closer believes. I'm very unhappy with the manner of this close and would encourage the closer to revert themselves and let someone with more experience close this RfC. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:05, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much what Fluffernutter said. A statement like Only the proposers produced substantial data to back their words. is completely false. Legoktm (talk) 18:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) On a very simple matter, I cannot even see, without viewing history, who closed the RfC. Perhaps this is a simple mistake, but I tend to expect people who close community discussions, whether they are RfCs, AfDs or noticeboard threads, to actually sign their closing. Strange. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

This is why we shouldn't let non-admins close stuff like this. Sure, I'd trust a RFC closing by Sven (to throw a name out there) but for that we get too many bad closes and we need a place to draw the line. --Rschen7754 18:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not about adminship. Plenty of admins are bad at closing as well. It is about facilitation... at any rate, it should be no big deal for someone else to come and close it properly. – SJ + 22:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Further note, on re-reading the close yet again: I'm also unhappy to see that the closer paid no attention to the fact that the proposal was supported almost entirely by those already benefiting from the program, who would be expected to approve of their work, and almost not at all by other community members not already involved in the EP or who had been involved in EP cleanup. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:19, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• I have undone this close - I think a debate of this scale needs to be closed and summaried by an administrator, someone appointed by the community to do just this; that is, closing debates. I have no comments to make on the manner of the non-admin's handling of the issue. — foxj 18:51, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Good call. While there ARE non-admins who could have closed this, this particular close was simply horrendous. The end-result might have been the right one, but the closer was pretty obvious in having showed up with a decision and fitting the debate into the mold of that decision. Courcelles 19:03, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• @Fluffernutter - please be careful when discounting the opinions of those involved with the program. I do not "benefit" from the program. I put work into it, like any other project on WP I take part in. I'm saddened by the suggestion that my opinion is worth less than anyone else's, by dint of association. The Interior (Talk) 19:51, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not saying your opinion is worth less, The Interior, and I'm sorry if it came out like I was. What I was trying to say was something more like that your (and others') opinion is an opinion "from the inside" and that the judgment of the program's acceptability from those "inside" is obviously very different than from those on the outside, and that the close failed to take into account that there were two perspectives at work here, each of which carried meaning. I'm not asking or suggesting that "involved" votes should be discounted, but there has to be some attention paid to how the perspective of an EP-involved person differs from the perspective of the rest of the community. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• There is an implication there that those involved with EP have suspended critical thinking regarding the program. You are creating a class of editors, "EP-involved people", and recommending that their opinions be taken with a grain of salt. That reduces my agency in this process. The Interior (Talk) 21:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

  I agree. This came up in the RfC in a conversation with MER-C; there is no precedent I know of for discounting or treating differently opinions from editors with particular involvements in areas related to the RfC. A closer is supposed to determine the consensus of those who commented. WP:CLOSE gives a good summary of how the process should work and I don't read it as supporting a closer who takes the perspective of those commenting into account when determining consensus. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with this reverting of the close. I thought the closing summary was fair and thorough. If there's no requirement that an RfC be closed by an admin then singling this one out for special treatment is what strikes me as inappropriate. Brianwc (talk) 20:11, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

You're not supposed to interject your own opinion into your close. There's been several closes by non-admins that I've disagreed with lately, but this one was beyond the pale. --Rschen7754 20:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

You have to admit this sets a troubling precedent. If this is closed in a manner that supporting editors object to, may they then reject that closure, as opposing editors have here? This undermines the concept of RfC. (This is the second RfC I've participated in recently where opposing editors have thrown out the result. It really makes me question whether participating in RfC's is worth my time) The Interior (Talk) 21:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it's worth noting that the editors who opposed didn't throw out the closure; they simply objected. An uninvolved editor agreed with them and reverted the closure, so it's not quite fair to say that the opposing editors threw it out. I think there's no harm in waiting for an admin willing to close this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:49, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm looking at closing this, but wondering what the result is. There is a body of experienced and highly respected Wikipedians who are voicing serious reservations about the programme, and about the Foundation continuing to finance the programme. There are a large number of students who have taken part in the programme who are saying how much they valued it. The number of students saying they value the programme is higher than the number of Wikipedians who have reservations. I don't think I saw any students objecting to the programme. A number of Wikipedians supported the programme, but not as many as objected. So what is the outcome? Students value the project, but Wikipedians have reservations? Meanwhile, the Foundation have made it clear they are continuing to support the programme, even before the outcome of the RfC is known, so there may be some misunderstanding as to the purpose of the RfC. The wording of the notification of the RfC, and the complex preamble to the RfC question, may not have been helpful in giving a clear, concise rationale for the RfC, and in focusing attention on exactly what (and whose) opinion is being sought here.
• I think this RfC has come to an end, and I will remove the Cent listing, but I'm not sure that any accurate or balanced conclusion can be found. It might have been of value to run this again with a clearer objective ("The Foundation wishes the programme to continue, but wishes to draw back to allow volunteers to take over - how best can this be achieved?" or "The Foundation wishes the programme to continue, but wishes to draw back to allow volunteers to take over - what are the community's thoughts on an independent organization running the programme?"); however, given that Phase II is about to start at the end of this month, there is no time for another RfC.
• I think the fairest closure of this RfC is "No consensus", and the message taken back to the Foundation that there are concerns about the programme from the community which it would be worthwhile taking on board. Dissent in the community can grow to a level where the programme itself may be challenged if concerns are not allowed to be properly aired and discussed. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:27, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

  A couple of comments on this analysis. First, I take mild exception to you characterizing the opponents as experienced and highly respected, when I feel there are many editors who are supporting the programme who could equally well be described in that way. I think there are experienced and respected editors on both sides of this issue, and I don't feel it's accurate to suggest, as you do, that "students value the project, but Wikipedians have reservations" might be a valid interpretation of the RfC. Second, I am uncomfortable with the distinction you may be drawing between students and Wikipedians. Certainly some of the students commenting have few edits, but the opinion of students such as Virginiawhite09 should surely be treated in the same way as the opinion of any other editor would be. If there's a minimum number of edits for commenting on an RfC and having one's opinion considered, surely that number is very small. And are you planning to discount the views of the IP who opposed?

  I agree with you that a message from this RfC to the Foundation should be that there are concerns about the programe that should be taken on board. I think that message should be sent (and has already been sent, and received, since the relevant staffers are watching these conversations) regardless of how the close is written.

  -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

  I just want to add that I think it is inappropriate for the archived version of this RfC not to reflect the fact that the initial closure reached a different conclusion, was reverted, and then was subsequently closed with its current outcome. It's fine if others don't share my view that the initial closure was fair and thorough. People can have a reasonable disagreement about that. However, I think it is an entirely separate issue for that history to vanish off of the archived version of the page. Many people are not going to look at this talk page carefully enough to see this discussion or dig around through the history of the page to see that it was previously closed with a different summary. The new closure should have at least one sentence reflecting this history. Brianwc (talk) 12:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Global nature

A general question, since thematic orgs are meant to cover a single topic broadly: why limit the geographic scope of the group? Just because the original group happened to be based in the US/Canada? Did you consider developing an org that would both support the work you've already been doing and work done elsewhere in the world? – SJ + 22:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

SJ, what I want to know is why the Board seems to be so strongly advocating the creation of expensive third-party non-profits that will increase the cost of administration and decrease the level of expected responsiveness to individual communities. I am gobsmacked that you'd suggest creating a *global* program like this when there isn't even very strong support on this project for the *limited* one proposed. Why are you not suggesting that they start with a User Group before expending money that they don't have? Risker (talk) 23:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

RfC reboot

I haven't really been involved in this RfC, other than criticising the sloppy closing.

I think there's a few issues with the whole RfC process.

The question asked is outside of the scope of English Wikipedia. Should the US Canada Education Program be established as an independent, thematic organization, as outlined in the section above, "Recommendations for the United States and Canada Education Program", and in the more detailed strategy and working group information linked above? If such an organization is setup, it is quite possible that it would have to operate across wikis. Whether it is advisable or sensible to set up such an organization is a movement-wide issue, thus any RfC should probably be conducted on Meta to enable editors who do not primarily edit on English Wikipedia to participate.

Although the US and Canada are primarily English speaking, there are significant linguistic minorities in the US and Canada including French-speaking Quebec. In the United States, languages spoken include both English, Spanish (spoken by over 10% of the population), French (Louisiana Creole, Cajun etc.) and many Native American languages. A consensus developed on English Wikipedia doesn't necessarily include speakers of those languages.

Instead, I would suggest that there might be a better way of doing this:

1. A Meta RfC to determine movement-wide consensus on the viability, worth and interest in having a US/Canada Education Program organization setup as a 501(c)(3) separate from the Wikimedia Foundation. Invite wide participation by advertising this on {{cent}}, and on movement-wide discussion points including Meta's equivalent of the Village Pump, the Wikimedia-L list, relevant chapter lists etc.
2. An English Wikipedia RfC to see whether there is consensus among English Wikipedia editors to continue supporting the Education Program. Volunteer time is stretched and valuable. This RfC would be a place for English Wikipedia editors to bring any frustrations or issues with the current Education Program offerings to light.

The Meta RfC could be seen on binding at a movement-level in a way that an enwiki-only one can't be. The English Wikipedia RfC would instead be advisory for the Foundation, the Education Program people and (if it comes into existence) the US/Canada Education Program organization. If there is widespread lack of enthusiasm for the EP at the volunteer contributor level, that may end being a fairly good reason not to set up a US/Canada Education Program organization. But we need to split out the questions of "should there be a US/Canada Education Program organization?" (which is a movement-level discussion involving chapters and cross-wiki consensus etc.) and "are English Wikipedia users currently satisfied with the continued operation of Education Program activities (regardless of whether they are hosted by the WMF, by a separate organization or whoever)?". Those are separate questions. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The options and issues you describe were discussed by the working group. For the question of where to hold the RfC, for example, we felt that anywhere but en-wiki would be inappropriate because the impact of the program would be primarily on the English Wikipedia, and those impacted should be asked for their opinion. Re other languages: there are already US/Canadian classes working with other languages, and if the new EP organization were to be able to help those classes it surely would do so. However, the majority of student work in the US and Canada is going to be in English, and we felt it was unrealistic to ask for feedback elsewhere. The separation of questions you raise is reasonable, but the practical problem that the working group addressed was that Foundation support for the Education Programs in the US and Canada was scheduled to stop in May 2013. We were asked to come up with an alternative way of supporting those classes that worked on Wikipedia after that date, so the RfC topic you suggest isn't one that would have fulfilled the remit we were given.

Of course, there's nothing to stop any editor from starting an RfC along the lines you suggest. I think we have a partial answer to your second question ("Are English Wikipedia users currently satisfied with the EP?") from this RfC; the answer is no, they're not fully satisfied: there is both support and opposition. But any such RfC would have to be careful to distinguish between the EP and the classes themselves; the EP is a support structure; the classes are students and professors who edit Wikipedia as any other editor does. I think an RfC intended to address the question of whether the net effect has been negative would have to make it clear exactly what should be stopped -- the support services, or student editing? The latter is what seems to me to have caused much of the opposition (though the data do not seem to me to justify the responses I've seen), but stopping student editing would surely be controversial -- would it no longer be true that "anyone can edit"? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I think Tom Morris's comments are pretty important and need to be considered here. This project can only determine whether or not it will support a continuing US/Canada education program. We, as a project, cannot determine whether or not a non-profit organization independent of English Wikipedia and the WMF, should exist and be recognized as a thematic association by the WMF Board. Now, I've been here long enough to remember back to when classes were actively discouraged from using Wikipedia as a classroom, and the support levels ranged from "if you keep this up, we'll block all your accounts" to "just a little" unless the professor was a known and experienced Wikipedian who had editing buddies s/he could enlist as helpers. I'm not really enthusiastic about returning to that practice, although as I've pointed out on the project page the return on investment for this project isn't exactly fantastic. I'd probably support the continuation of the project as is, that is with direct WMF support; I trust the WMF to vet any donations/bursaries/scholarships to ensure there's no conflict of interest, and wouldn't have any objection to the WMF seeking grants externally explicitly to continue this project. On the other hand, I really do have serious concerns about thematic associations, because they must be nonprofits or charities which are ridiculously expensive to create and maintain (all of that with donor dollars before even one edit is made), they lack direct accountability to either the WMF as a whole or to the project, and they are essentially "Chapters without Borders" in this case with the explicit intent to affect content. The potential for conflict of interest is just too high. If you were to apply to be recognized as a User Group (that is, a group of users with a clear link directly to this project, seeking funding for short term contracts for program admin and analytics), I might be willing to support, but not as a thematic association. The irony is that I have no doubt you'd be able to find lots of grants and donations to support a non-profit. I just am not convinced that Wikipedians would still welcome (or at least accept) this program under those circumstances. When someone else is getting money for it, it's less likely that you'll get the volunteer ambassadors that you need to keep the program functioning. Risker (talk) 06:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The WMF has made it clear that they are no longer going to directly support the EP so I don't think that's an option -- several members of the working group felt as you do that that was the best approach, but it was not on the table for us to choose. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

If this program is not significantly enough demonstrating its value in quality improvement and editor engagement, then the WMF is right to pull the funding for it. If it is, then the better way to continue is to lobby the WMF to actually fund this program, without the ridiculously expensive overhead of creating a separate non-profit. It will cost more to create and operate the non-profit than it will to pay for whatever ancillary staffing costs would be attributed to the WMF by continuing to staff this, and it will all come out of donor money. Bottom line, if the program isn't giving enough value for the WMF to continue it, I don't understand why the Board would approve this group as a thematic organization eligible for funds. Risker (talk) 15:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Risker, I find this statement troubling, but maybe I misunderstand it When someone else is getting money for it, it's less likely that you'll get the volunteer ambassadors that you need to keep the program functioning.. The only difference between the WMF (a 501c3 non-profit) and the EP (a 501c3 non-profit) is the ability of the EP to stay focused on building a robust infrastructure of curriculum, training, marketing, etc. related to WP in Education for use by Ambassadors, Professors, etc. Why would anyone interested in being a WP Ambassador care whether the training or other resources provided was funded by the WMF or the EP? Shouldn’t we be more concerned with the quality and quantity of resources that can be provided to Academia to engage them in helping improve WP? You make it sound like you think Students and Professors will be getting paid to edit WP. Is that what you think? Who is this someone else is getting money for it you are referring to? -- Mike Cline (talk) 12:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Mike, this organization will not be the WMF in any way, shape or form; it will be a completely separate organization in every sense, with a different board, its own priorities, and its own methods of fundraising. At best, it might be given a "thematic organization" flag that allows it to ask the WMF for some money. It costs a lot of money to run a 501c3 (or a comparable organization in another country), and would increase the cost of operating by tens of thousands of dollars a year. Canadians and Canadian institutions will not be able to get any tax credit if this organization is registered in the US, so don't count on McGill or University of Toronto or any of the other institutes that have been using your services to give you anything, unless you actually bill them for services. It means a great deal to many Wiki(p)(m)edians who gets the money, whether it's the WMF (over which they have some degree of control and direct communication) or another non-profit over which they have no control, which has no history of appropriate fiscal management, and whose objectives may or may not match that of the project. You'll be creating a new organization and expecting the same Wikipedians to provide your new organization with their volunteer services. It does make a difference. So far, even the WMF program has shown minimal benefit to the project; its greatest asset has been in giving the community somewhere to point professors who just descend on the project with a class, not the number of new editors or improved articles. Risker (talk) 15:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

A few comments.

• Running a non-profit need not be "ridiculously expensive". It need not be much more expensive than having a separate department within an existing non-profit. Smaller focused orgs have their own economies in overhead.
• Recognition as a thematic org is designed to be similar to recognition as a chapter: it will happen gradually, after some demonstration of capacity and project work, and will be an indication of a high level of confidence in the capacity of an organization to represent the movement faithfully in its <thematic area>.
• Recognition as a thematic org is not a flag for "being able to ask the WMF for money". It is an indication of deep mission alignment that is generally associated with trademark rights. Any individual or organization can ask the WMF for money through the grants program, and many do. Registering your group and activities as a Wikimedia User Group, may make it slightly easier to ask for funds or other support, but is also not at all required.
• If this group is intended to be regional - to only the US and Canada - then perhaps nothing more than 'user group' status is needed. I do think that a global Education thematic org would be valuable, but that doesn't seem to be on the table. – SJ + 23:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi, SJ! Just wanted to let you know that the Working Group did discuss the global possibilities, but we all finally agreed that local programs should be (and already are in the majority of cases!) run by locals. Since the Working Group is only made up of US/Canada folks who are entrenched in US/Canada higher education, we only thought it fair to represent that limited geography. Also, we'd never want to step on the toes of a volunteer in Sweden who knows best and wants to operate an education program there. Hope that helps explain our reasoning for sticking to the US and Canada! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 18:40, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposal moving forward in another fashion...

Just fair warning to all those who discussed here - this same proposal has come up in a different fashion here. Epistemophiliac (talk) 02:42, 15 January 2013 (UTC)