Would have liked to have read the author's thoughts about the keynote speech by Lila Tretikov, which struck me as being particularly useful for anyone trying to divine her thoughts on where the WMF projects are now, where they're going, and some of the steps she feels are needed to get there. Risker (talk) 02:25, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
These are unfolding on Lila's talk page. Very positive discussions, I think, but a certain "hold the line" rather than "do the right thing" flavour is still evident. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 02:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC).
Re: "kindness, generosity, forgiveness, compassion", - that effort would convince me more had it not been accompanied by the phrase "incredibly toxic personalities" which I believe expresses a way of thinking about other people or a group of people that contradicts the goal. I learned that the phrase was already used in 2009, see my talk. Room for improvement. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:02, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Gerda, you need to readjust your priorities: we are no longer interested in creating an encyclopaedia, full of ("allegedly") high-quality content. Instead we are now more interested in a nice fluffy environment when we spend so much time stroking each others egos or drawing up a Black Book of people who don't think fluffy thoughts, that nothing ever actually gets written. I felt decidedly uncomfortable watching the video stream: despite intentions, or the claims to the contrary, it does create a climate of fear, a toxic environment for people to work in. Incivility I can ignore or laugh at: a reign of fear whereby good editors are "encouraged to leave" is a depressing and worrying development. - SchroCat (talk) 16:41, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My family and I have been there in Wikimania and it was great for us. We shared experiences and impressions with people from many places. Kindness was one of the main themes of the meeting. We've been reminded to be kind even to people that are aggresive to us. Once I was even explained to be kind to politicians! Next time we can, we'll repeat. B25es (talk) 12:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This year's Wikimania was indeed quite good, although the keynote speech by Shetty was completely out of place. It had clear political undertones and was insulting to many attendees I spoke to. Even if someone had to invite a political figure to the conference, they should've talked more about how that organization is relevant to the open knowledge movement, or as the author noted how they deal with organizational problems. Instead, one can sum up the long talk with "All governments are evil, but especially the ones in countries fighting terrorism". Not exactly something you'd want at a Wiki conference. —Ynhockey(Talk)13:48, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The show of hands in the auditorium suggests well over half the attendees on Thursday were supporters of Amnesty or at least sympathetic to its aims. QuiteUnusual (talk) 19:12, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the point. The movement makes a point about being an apolitical organization, so having a blatantly political talk at our annual conference is something that should never be done. It is even more significant when this is your keynote, likely to be heard by all of the conference attendees and covered by the media. —Ynhockey(Talk)09:59, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What was "blatantly political" about it? Seems to me that Shetty's viewpoint was that most governments (or their agents) are capable of doing bad things, including but not limited to detention without trial, torture and other abuses of political prisoners, extraordinary rendition, "disappearances", capital punishment, attacks on civilians and so on. (Did he mention privacy intrusions? Can't remember.) And that such bad things are... bad. Whereas free information is good - and can help mitigate these problems. Sure, lots of governments justify some of these bad things by mentioning terrorism (China, Russia, USA, UK, Iran, Israel, Syria, both past and present Ukrainian governments, and doubtless others) but that doesn't somehow mean Shetty's talk was an argument in favour of a softer line on terrorism. I think he did a great job of explaining how Amnesty's struggles mirror the struggles of the Wikipedia movement in many important ways. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Bad things are bad. And it was a good talk. But Ynhockey has a valid point, it was effectively Amnesty recruiting spiel, it associates WP with AI - sure the organizations have a lot in common, much of it is shared with many, even most organizations - they started form humble beginnings, no-one thought they would succeed, etc...
It could have been a talk on the importance of free and open information for prisoners of conscience, the families of the disappeared and those on death row. It could have covered the NPOV reporting of repression and oppression, in other words, instead of being merely inspirational, it could have been relevant.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 02:34, 20 August 2014 (UTC).
I thought it did mention some of those things - maybe I ought to watch it again. And, it associated AI with WP just as much as vice versa; it was WP recruiting spiel just as much as Amnesty recruiting spiel, actually rather more so. Remember a great many people in the audience were not Wikipedians.
Aside from which, exactly how non-political should we censor a keynote speaker to be? If Stephen Fry had been the keynote speaker - it was lamented in the write-up that he was not - then he has plenty of political views too. So does Jimbo, in fact, about things relevant to Wikipedia. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:49, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well indeed, but Jimbo would never use his keynote to push, for example, his views on the "right to be forgotten", would he? Oh wait.... All the best: RichFarmbrough, 19:19, 21 August 2014 (UTC).
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:19, 21 August 2014 (UTC).
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