Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-05-13/Foundation elections

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I find it disappointing that so many candidates don't want to merge the affiliate-selected and community-selected board seats. The former is not always aligned with and is certainly not representative of the latter, yet they are granted two seats on the Board of Trustees. In comparison, the community gets three. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

So you're saying that once again the editors of the en.wiki Signpost gave prominence to an item to push for a personal wish of theirs? (A dead horse, by the way.) --Nemo 07:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Nemo, this is a repeat theme of yours, in which we're damned whatever issues we choose to survey from debates that have occurred on Meta and within the WMF. Very easy for snipers to sit on the sideline. Do you have anything substantive to say about the results? Tony (talk) 6:05 pm, Today (UTC+10) [Reinstated after Csisc inadvertently removed it in posting his section below.] Tony (talk) 09:32, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: As one could readily ascertain from the byline, I had nothing to do with this story. I would wager that Tony's question stemmed from that very page—which, incidentally, seems to catalog part of an ongoing debate rather than your "dead horse." Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:06, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

And I don't see how being a volunteer editor at a newspaper gives me any less of a right to holding an opinion. ResMar 12:59, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

If anyone doesn't like the issues that are focused on by the Signpost, they can always contribute to the Signpost and focus on issues we overlook. Gamaliel (talk) 18:45, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Just want to give props to Tony1 and the signpost team for this excellent piece of coverage. Winner 42 Talk to me! 18:56, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Csisc responses

I did not give my overview to Signpost as I had exams from 10 to 15 May 2015. However, I have the great delight to show it here.

Part A: (a) The Board should implement a merger of affiliate-selected with community-elected Board seats 4. (b) The Board should should appoint more technology experts as trustees 2. (c) Wikimedia’s two big annual conference formats—Wikimania and the Wikimedia conference—should be merged 2. (d) The WMF's current reserves of some US$47 million should be transformed into the seeding for a WMF endowment, thus increasing yearly returns from the endowment 3 (e) The WMF's terms of use should forbid paid editing of any type on its sites 3

Part B: Increasing reader and editor participation in the global south. 5. Increasing editor retention 6. Investing more in mobile. 8. Investing more in collecting data relevant to our mission. 4. Funding more offline meetups (e.g. conferences, editathons). [My priority 9. Implementing VisualEditor 7. Reducing the gender gap in the editing communities 1. Advocating for freedom of information on the internet 10. Providing more engineering resources to improve readers' experience 3. Providing more engineering resources to improve editors' experience 2.

If elected, I will give more interest to the amelioration of the localization of WMF wikis and the implementation of more independent wikis in the WMF ones. I will ensure more importance to community as I will create a council of admins for each wiki that will take decisions on the regulation of projects and policy change in that particular wiki. --Csisc (talk) 08:18, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: With concern over due weight, I've rationalised the formatting of this post; it was essentially a copy-paste from our email sent out to candidates, and inappropriately included the instructions. Csisc's reponses arrived just before we published and after all of the stats and graphs were done—nearly three days after our deadline to candidates; so I suggested that he post here on the talkpage with just the sequence of numbers for each part (rather than a whole page equivalent, spaced out). Tony (talk) 09:26, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I probably should explain why I had chosen these priorities. I think that Feminine Users could perform good works. As you already know, rate of success of women in Education in Tunisia and in some developed European countries is higher than the one for men... There are many talents that are not attracted to wikis because of the deficiency of the designs and the inexistence of tutorials that are developed to explain projects to women... I think that the new board should think of that and try to recruit feminine users and that is why I choose it as my first priority... As a users of several wikis, I face some problems in engineering bots and templates as I am creating some new wikis and works... I think that many users suffer from the same thing and that is why I had chosen doing tutorials explaining this as my second priority. As for the priorities I had chosen as least, I think that they will occur as results of the first priorities... In fact, when the output is ameliorated and the work in wikis in efficiently explained in a better way, more people would be interested in WMF wikis... More people will contribute and more fundings from governments and organizations would be given to offline regional meetings... --Csisc (talk) 19:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

On me placing the Global South second rather than first

I think at this point, I should explain why I placed editor retention first rather than onboarding the Global South despite being a Global South candidate, because had I voted the other way like the other candidates from the Global South, it would've tipped the balance in favor of the former. (If I was able to, I would've voted 1.5 in favor of both.)

Unlike the other candidates from the Global South, I predominantly edit on the English Wikipedia like most Filipino Wikipedians, and editor retention is very important to our community where we've lost editors, new and old, either to real-life commitments or arguments on-wiki. This was a very difficult decision for me to make as I was answering this survey, but I feel at this point that we need to grow our existing community so that we actually have new people to welcome. As much as we want to make our new editors feel comfortable (and we definitely should bring them on board!), we can't onboard new editors from the developing world when they have no tight-knit community to look forward to who could help them with on-wiki issues or who could better translate Wikipedia's "quirks" if you will to an appropriate cultural context. New editors, especially on the English Wikipedia, are some of the most vulnerable members of our community, and I strongly feel that it's the responsibility of older, more experienced editors to make them feel at home and to help them grow into becoming more experienced. This doesn't happen when there are no older editors.

That being said, I am still strongly committed to the onboarding of Wikimedians from the developing world, I still believe that we need to grow our developing world presence in an environment where editor trust is present, and retention of good editors is a good strategy towards realizing our goal of expanding our reach in the developing world. Thank you. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 11:05, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I probably should add a line or two on my Global South stance. I believe that increasing editorship and readership in the Global South is important, but these priorities can be often better achieved through technology (hence, priorities for tech, mobile, etc.), and also through solid work of chapters and thematic organizations in the region, not necessarily WMF. In fact, I think that an indirect influence, of organizations understanding the region well, and without being directed from San Francisco, is the best way to go. In practical terms of tech: I believe that it is important to develop partnerships allowing free access to Wikipedia, develop light, mobile websites (low on bandwidth), allow easy access to light versions of our pages, etc. All these can and should be achieved through targets covered by other priorities listed by the Signpost, while direct addressing the issue of readership/editing in my view may not. Pundit|utter 16:53, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

As a candidate from Global South, I had discussed the issue in WikiArabia this year... I think that the problem is difficult to solve because the technological issue is not the only reason behind this... There is some scientific and linguistic issues behind this... I think that this problem should be solved by the implementation of the Education Programme in South and this is just what former members of WMF Board had done and by the creation of wikis in regional dialect that are divergent from original languages in order to localize the recognition and the consciousness about the importance of WMF wikis. --Csisc (talk) 19:46, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Csisc that the education programme can help greatly. Not just in the south, but everywhere. This requires local wikimeets. It is nearly free to have these small Wikimeets. Yet they can help us increase our editorship, and improve our content. Long term wikimeets, local workgroups who teach others and encourage them to contribute. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:08, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

• How can I check if I am eligible to vote in this election? --WiseWoman (talk) 05:21, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Dear WiseWoman, you can use this tool. For more information see Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2015. I hope this answers your question. All the best, Taketa (talk) 08:24, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
• "Meagre"? Really? I thought I knew all the words the Brits spelled differently.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:30, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Small correction

I'm from Namibia. That should be Global South, not Global North. --Pgallert (talk) 08:38, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Pete, I did ponder this. Not easy. You're a native-speaker of German, and I'm guessing you migrated to Namibia. Sorry if I got it wrong, and in the end you have a foot in each camp. A few others caused pause for thought in this respect, too. Tony (talk) 10:31, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

There are native Germans in Namibia. You got it right that I wasn't here when the country became independent, but I'm here for a really long time. My kids are citizens, thanks to some legal nitpicking I am not. I understand you cannot update all the charts, but from what I do and where my priorities are, I count myself as 'Global South'. No worries, and thanks for the overview on the candidates, Pgallert (talk) 20:33, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

• It's not a small correction, it's a fairly major one that will affect at least one of the graphs in the article that is supposedly comparing "global north" and "global south" candidates. Peter is pretty obviously a candidate from the global south; "speaks German" isn't a valid way of determining this, any more than "speaks Spanish" would be. Were candidates asked whether or not THEY believe they are global north or global south candidates? I think several of those you've lumped in the global north group could make a very good argument that they should actually be classified as global south or (to use the current terminology) "emerging communities" candidates, or for that matter "global" candidates. Depending on the definition, up to 10 candidates could be classified "global south". Risker (talk) 12:30, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion and your support. Tony (talk) 15:43, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Given broad definitions of global scope, it is a certainty that individuals will have backgrounds that will defy easy categorizations. Tony did the best he could with the information he had at hand. Your suggestion about asking the candidates about their personal categorization is a good one, but their personal categorizations may clash with how many voters may view those categories. We will try to incorporate your suggestion into our coverage of the next election if we can, but keep in mind we do ask the candidates many questions and we don't want to overload them. Gamaliel (talk) 17:18, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Is this article a sufficient lens into candidate qualifications?

For those who have looked at both the official candidate questions page and this article: What do you think of this article as a tool for evaluating candidates? It seems to me that the questions (from many different Wikimedians) reflect a broad array of concerns, interests, and hopes around Wikimedia. This piece, which according to discussion above was prepared by only one reporter, reflects a view which seems to me rather narrow; and yet it is presented as the totality of the Signpost's news coverage, not as an opinion piece.

I brought up this issue with Tony1 when I was still a candidate (as noted above, I have since withdrawn), suggesting that broad, emerging themes in the questions and answers (such as those in Question 3) were not reflected or addressable with these questions. Tony's response was:

"We purposely didn’t deal with superprotect because it’s been so prominently discussed at the question page. You’d have us bore readers?"

I don't think readers, who might or might not take the time to read all 31 questions and each of the 21 candidates' lengthy answers, would be bored by summary and analysis. I'm concerned that many voters will look to the Signpost for comprehensive analysis (even if that is not a fair expectation of a volunteer publication). I respect and value the efforts of Tony and the Signpost editorial staff to produce this publication, and I certainly do not think there is any intent to advance an agenda here. My question is not about intent, but about the consequences: are voters adequately informed/guided here? What do others think -- and if you agree, are their ways this can be improved, either in this cycle or in the future? -Pete (talk) 20:38, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to reiterate one point in stronger terms: as someone who has written and/or participated in a number of Signpost articles over the years, I am impressed and grateful to anyone who consistently takes the time to produce this publication. It takes a great deal of work, much of it thankless -- and it provides tremendous value to the community. My post is not in any way meant to disparage that work; my interest here is in how voters get information about the election. I believe there are many important things at stake in this election -- in my view, a renewed community focus and WMF transparency are the main ones -- that do not receive significant attention in the analysis above. -Pete (talk) 20:50, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that Tony's objective was to give a broadly scoped yet accessible election guide. I firmly believe that he's given a strong overview of the election and the important issues at stake. To go into the specificities that parts of the global community care about (Meredith Kercher, apparently?) would have greatly expanded the piece, increasing our (volunteer, I must emphasize [thank you for recognizing that]) effort while driving away readers, like what I suspect happened in our extremely long, two-week 2013 coverage. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:19, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I am sure that was Tony's genuine objective; but it does seem (in spite of his use of "we") that he was the only one producing the methodology for that, correct? Having worked for a number of newspapers (with, yes, paid staff), I find it hard to imagine one of them producing coverage they would call "broadly scoped" without extensive deliberation among newsroom staff. I think many of those asking questions on Meta also wanted a broad scope.

The Meredith Kercher example is quite different from the Superprotect one -- I think, actually, they define the range pretty well. I believe every candidate who answered the Kercher question more or less said, "this is a matter for English Wikipedia, not for the Board of Trustees"; so you're right, there's no compelling difference coming to the fore there, and no reason for the Signpost to cover it. But with Superprotect, you have either two or three incumbents saying more or less "nothing happened here that required Board intervention," and many others saying "this was a big deal, and merited a response." It highlights an important difference (as Tony acknowledged). What I'm suggesting is, broadly scoped coverage of the race should include all available information about important differences among the candidates.

To use a comparison from US politics, you wouldn't expect a newspaper's coverage of presidential candidates to skip over candidates' opinions of Obamacare, simply because it has been covered elsewhere. If a long page of questions and answers has, hidden within it, clear indications of what differentiates the candidates, I propose that news coverage should highlight that fact -- even if it's just a couple sentences that invites the reader to dig deeper. -Pete (talk) 02:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Candidate names in the table

Is there any particular reason why the first names of all candidates *except* Ali Haidar Khan are used in the table? Why is his the only column using his username? And would it be possible to add in the name you are using in the tables for each candidate with the list of candidates at the top of the page, or at least sort the names in the order that they appear in the list of candidates? Thanks. Risker (talk) 12:30, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Risker, please check your facts. The candidate's username is not used in the tables; on the contrary, "Tonmoy" appears—his preferred short-form name, which he has displayed in parentheses in the title of his candidate statement. In at least one other case a short-form name is used where a candidate commonly uses it: "Ed" for "Edward". Short-form names were used in space-constrained tables, which are too wide as they are; perhaps you object to the friendlier tone of first names and nicks. I see no complaint that surname initials appear in just two columns (that was to avoid any confusion by readers). The order in the tables is exactly that in which I received the responses in my inbox—perhaps I might have spent another 15 minutes changing that, but I was very tired at the end. Could you write to User:The ed17 to complain about the form of names bulleted at the top (he did that bit)?

This coverage was an enormous task that I did as a volunteer in good faith; just sending the emails and posting talkpage notifications involved some 70 actions, including thank-yous and clarifications. Let's not even mention tabulation, data analysis, and writing it up. It took days, just when I had clients with sharp deadlines; but I'm keen, just as are my Signpost colleagues who watched it progress, to provide community coverage separate from the election pages themselves. One of the rewards for me was that candidates were a pleasure to communicate with.

At the moment I'm finding your comments to be in bad faith; I'm happy to engage more positively when you're in a better mood. I don't think you realise what a tricky and time-consuming undertaking it is to try for balance—with a close deadline—where there are 21 candidates in a complex, multi-linguistic global organisation. Tony (talk) 16:47, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for this article and the work it took to produce it. I found the prioritization exercise very insightful. Ijon (talk) 00:49, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

My opinion

I think that:

• Affiliates are very important to the Wikimedia mission and they shouldn't be ignored. Therefore, I disagree with affiliate-selected with community-elected Board seats, and with merging Wikimania and Wikimedia conferences.
• The terms of use should forbid paid editing, period.
• We don't need more tech experts or more investment in engineering. Wikimedia's biggest issues are social.
• Wikimedia should focus on increasing / retaining editors, especially women and in the "global south". (I prefer the term "undeveloped countries", like my country. Plus Australia is in the south.)
• Wikimedia should advocate for freedom of information.

Therefore, my top two candidates are Cristian Consonni (CCantoro) and Josh Lim (Sky Harbor). The top six is completed by Phoebe Ayers, María Sefidari (Raystorm), Syed Muzammiluddin (Hindustani) and Peter Gallert. --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:11, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

@NaBUru38: Surely you mean paid advocacy? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

@The ed17: Well, no. It's hard to be neutral when you are paid. --NaBUru38 (talk) 13:37, 6 June 2015 (UTC)