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Here is one more comment for the WMF, that is a component of other issues that I will identify shortly. Should I also post this to User talk: Jimbo Wales, or will this suffice? I am deeply cynical about the WMF board collectively. It is only individual trustees whom I trust. The board collectively seems to have reached the point where it is no longer trying to communicate in a two-way sense with any of its communities. That is, it is no longer listening, only talking. That may be the result of the fact that it is now self-sufficient in terms of earnings, assets, and revenue, and so doesn’t really need the confidence of the readers or editors. I haven’t seen any recent effort by the WMF board to ask for input from the readers or the editors. Its interests seems to be its own travel, its own splashy campaigns, and poorly documented grants. If I have misunderstood, then it is the Board that needs to explain better, because most of the outspoken editors are in complete agreement with my cynicism. Do I have your assurance that some of my concerns will go to the Board, or do I need to post to User talk: Jimbo Wales, which has useful comments but also flamers, malcontents, and trolls?
The basic problem has to do with the governance of the English Wikipedia. I am aware that the WMF Board takes the position that each language Wikipedia, and each WMF Wiki in general, is self-governing. That is a valid general principle, but common sense is needed. Because the English Wikipedia is said to be self-governing, it is ungoverned. It has an unworkable governance model, and, because it is self-governing, it is not capable of its own governance reform. The English Wikipedia is said to be governed by consensus, but consensus is often not feasible for a group as large and diverse and fractious as the English Wikipedia. Consensus governance doesn’t work in the English Wikipedia, at least not with regard to policies or conduct. It works reasonably well for content in the form of Requests for Comments. However, the idea that the English Wikipedia can, on its own, change its governance to something other than consensus is just unrealistic. We don’t have a consensus as to what form of governance we want. From time to time, editors have said that they would like a constitutional convention. There is usually agreement that a constitutional convention would be good. However, consensus, in the sense of supermajority, is elusive. Any constitutional convention for the English Wikipedia will anyway require some sort of support from the WMF Board. Does the WMF Board think that its responsibilities include helping the Wiki communities achieve effective governance?
To be more specific as to my assessment of the self-governance of the English Wikipedia, we do a good job on Requests for Comments. In my opinion, we are essentially always stalemated on any policy matter, because we are deeply divided, and the consensus model of governance does not work for a large, diverse, fractious community. (We have had a few policies enacted for us by the The one body that we have that is exempt from consensus is the ArbCom, which was created by Jimbo Wales (not by the community), is elected by majority, not by supermajority, and acts by majority, not by supermajority.
In short, is the WMF Board sufficiently satisfied with its own perception that each of its communities can self-govern (that they will ignore evidence to the contrary), or are they willing to work with a very large, nominally very successful community (but never successful at governance) to achieve practical governance?
Can you and/or the WMF Board help the English Wikipedia, which is very large, very diverse, and very fractious, achieve more or less effective governance, or do you have a principle that you can’t get involved in communities, or something else?
Thank you. Robert McClenon ( talk) 02:13, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I will be directing my future comments elsewhere. I had been advised to communicate with you, but, as you said, you are staff and not Board, and I was looking for the Board. Unfortunately, the obvious place in the English Wikipedia to communicate with the Board is User talk: Jimbo Wales, but it is full of trolls and flamers as well as reasonable people. Also, I am aware that the staff and the Board do not communicate with each other effectively (and statements to that effect keep coming up in connection with the discussion of the removal of James Heilman from the Board). I will have to find a different way of communicating with the Board at meta. Robert McClenon ( talk) 16:46, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I need revision 662966055 to 692307169 (inclusivly) be RevDel'ed per your DMCA-removal here. You only removed the content from the live article, not old revisions, which need to be done per RD1, and probably per the Safe Harbour Agreement. Thank you. ( t) Josve05a ( c) 22:14, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
It's been four years since the main list on this page was wiped due to copyright issues (the notice for which is still existent in the page code), and replaced with a link to the chart page. Now, I understand that this was because of copyright concerns, however, as far as I am aware, this copyright concern was since cleared up (as evidenced by the OTRS notifications on the talk pages of the older lists; I assume this was extended to the newer ones since), which makes the absence of this sole list a bit of an oddity, unless there was some exception that made the list still in violation. Can I please request an update as to what the case is with this page? -- JB Adder | Talk 14:44, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
An administrator becomes antagonistic to an editor and works to get her blocked. Sometime later, chumming with his pals, he says "Maybe I'll submit to the medieval get-together in Leeds one of these days and LOOK UP MARINKA VAN DAM AS WELL, on my way to the "Manchester circle and sausagefest", to shake y'all's hands and look at the ferrets. Drmies 01:32, 2 December 2014 (UTC)" (caps added) ( [1]).
Again keep in mind despite the jocular tone, that Marinka and Drmies are not friends, and that she was alarmed by his statement and the apparent prospect of Drmies showing up unannounced at her residence or workplace.
I tried reporting this at the Administrators Noticeboard, but it is quickly deleted by Drmies' allies (which may well have been the case 15 months ago). Floquenbeam, Favonian, and RickinBaltimore are among the noticeboard regulars that delete the report.
Ms. Dennis, I don't need any comprehensive account of your response, but I'd appreciate a mere acknowledgement that you have read this, otherwise I guess I'll keep trying to reach you, or someone else there at WMF. Colton Cosmic 14:55, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
MER-C 12:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. The quality control of newly created articles is a critical issue affecting all Wikipedia projects. My proposed presentation for Wikimania 2016 was rejected (appaently simply because the committee misunderstood its importance, and it was too late to do anything about). I have therefore applied for a slot in the discussions program instead which I sincerely hope will be retained (see New Wikipdia articles: Controlling the quality and relevance - a critical cross-Wiki issue. I'm sure that the other projects have the same issues and would like to discuss possible solutions. Unfortunately, in spite of being a near-native speaker of French and German, I have no idea what those projects call their NPP systems and therefore have no idea where to look. Can you help? Thanks. Chris. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 02:14, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
Maggie, you've got mail. — TransporterMan ( TALK) 18:13, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
As you probably know, we are currently struggling to find a new API for copyright detection work. Phabricator thread, Village Pump thread. It was stated in the Phabricator thread that using Google would be too expensive. User:Crow and myself both asked in the Village Pump thread as to how much the Google service would cost, but we never got an answer. I was wondering if Google is still being considered, and if not, why not? And we would still like an answer as to how much Google would charge. Thanks, — Diannaa ( talk) 00:43, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Crow; Diannaa. I need to acknowledge that I have a bit of a conflict here, given my copyright work. But my conflict is not much of an issue, because this budget doesn't belong to Community Engagement. :)
COI disclosure aside, I can speak to the history of this a bit, which might help you contextualize. The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't so much have a big bucket of money that can be assigned to whatever we want, even if in aggregate it looks like our budget is big-bucket-like. We actually have a pretty tight (and more or less binding) financial plan that is signed off on by the Board every year. When the WMF took on footing the bill for CorenSearchBot, it was an emergency situation, where the bot had ceased to function and the process would not work if we didn't pick up responsibility for it. Engineering took it on even though it wasn't part of the annual financial plan and has continued to support it because the cost could be sustained and the work matters. (I was uninvolved in making that decision.) However, it's important to note that it's a bit of an anomaly for the WMF to pay for a volunteer-run service that focuses on one project in one language without community review, and it was a big deal for us to make the leap to devoting resources to that.
$18,000.00 is not a small sum of money. I know it looks small against the entire budget of the WMF, but keep in mind that we’re not drawing from “all money the WMF has available”; we’re drawing from a much smaller set of dedicated budgets. Aside from salary, it is more than the entire annual operating budget for FY 2016-2017 of the Chief of Community Engagement. That’s all the money the CCE has to spend for the year. The Support and Safety team, which expects to have a staff of eight during the 16-17 year (we're hiring!), requested just shy of $75,000 to operate for all of next fiscal year. This includes all travel, non-standard equipment vital to our work (like our emergency paging system), support for community convenings (last year, we brought the stewards to San Francisco to have in-person meetings) and support for programs like OTRS, staff training and conference attendance, and intern/contractor support for child safety. To meet our goals, we are still working to find ways to cut an additional $6,000.00 from our spending. I don't have that much personal insight into the budget of Engineering and/or Product, but I suspect a change to $18,000 would be no easier for them to absorb, particularly when it was unexpected and hasn’t been planned into any budgets. We're all tightening spending in every area, and in that context, an $18,000 expenditure for a one-project, one-language tool seems likely to be very hard to justify.
It seems like the Community Tech team are, however, looking for alternatives to Google’s more expensive services; in addition there is an alternative funding model that might be able to provide $18,000 a year, subject to community review: Grants. I've asked the Resources team which Grants avenue might be able to support this, and somebody (maybe me; maybe Karen) should get back with you once I hear more about that.
I’m sorry that this is not as easy as it feels like it ought to be; if we could pull money from an unlimited pool and lightheartedly sign off on everything that could be useful to communities, we would love to do it. :( -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 18:21, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Diannaa. :) As a non-profit organization, the Foundation does need an operating reserve for fiscal responsibility. Our goal is not to operate this year, but to meet our mission of sustaining our resources in perpetuity. We need to support the work of volunteers this year and next year and the year after that and ten years from now, whatever may happen to our fundraising model. It's not really (or even remotely :)) my area of expertise to determine how much of a reserve the WMF should have to shore up this mission, but it makes absolute sense to me that an operating reserve needs to happen, whatever proportion that should be. I presume that the decision on the amount is made at the Board level, potentially in consultation with Fundraising and Finance? As m:2014-2015_Fundraising_Report notes, the decline of desktop readers is a challenge for our fundraising models. We need to be sure that our asks are sustainable and sensible, which has factored into the reduced budget request in next fiscal year's plan at m:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2016-2017/draft. -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 14:49, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
3rd party resources required for the program activities described under Product. Including Bi-weekly regression testings, daily QA, bots/APIs for both copyright/plagiarism detection, and miscellaneous contracting cost to support the program objectives.Not to beat a dead bot, but since the comment period for this proposal ends tomorrow, perhaps some comments there are appropriate? Crow Caw 21:53, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
I have a question about what training the WMF provides its staff - specifically about free content licensing, attribution and so forth. I couldn't work out who to contact; could you please advise me who I should ask? Thanks, BethNaught ( talk) 22:11, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
Seriously disappointed to learn that you won't be coming to Esino. Just hoping it was nothing of my doing ;) Warmest regards, Chris, -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 13:39, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Maggie,
There is a new proposal that is starting to gain at least some traction at the village pump in regards to a new way to grant adminship on the English Wikipedia.
The proposal is to have bureaucrats appoint admins they deem worthy bypassing the normal RfA process. My question for legal, is in regards to the viewdelete right.
Previously, attempts to unbundle the viewdelete function to individuals who have not passed a community RfA-like process was rejected by WMF-Legal. The exact phrasing was allowing non-administrator users to have access to deleted pages would vastly increase the frequency and volume of legal complaints
. Would the same apply in this situation? They would be admins in name but they would be appointed admins. Would you be able to get in touch with the WMF's legal counsel regarding this proposal and see what they have to say? It would be sincerely appreciated. Thank you. --
Majora (
talk)
02:38, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
Okay, Mr. Dennis, I again did forward emails (there were two) from my "Sent" folder to that address as you directed but, after a full work month, I am still unable to get a response, or even an acknowledgement of receipt (which I asked for). Would you confirm receipt of my email time-stamped 02/26/16M3 07:12 UTC? The purpose is just to have a reference point to look back to it in case dRMIES acts out on his statement that he would "look up Marinka von Dam". I believe my email account to be in working order and there is no reason any email software should regard it as "spam" given that I use it responsibly and actually fairly infrequently. Colton Cosmic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.85.98.24 ( talk) 16:48, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Hello Maggie, hope you can point us in the right direction regarding this discussion: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#51.171.156.10. There are two issues I'd like to get clarified:
YGM. Chris. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 19:23, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Hello, please see User_talk:Mpaulson_(WMF)#Terms_of_Use_notice. — xaosflux Talk 02:52, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi Mdennis. Do you think you could ask WMF Legal for their general thoughts on a matter? There is currently a legal dispute at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Images of Area 51 which concerns pictures like File:Wfm x51 area51 warningsign.jpg, in which there is a sign that clearly says "photography is prohibited" under this statute. The dispute revolves around the following questions:
There are some who have argued that the photograph was taken outside of the boundaries of the defense installation and is therefore a legal photograph under freedom of panorama laws. However, some users have pointed out that the photograph includes areas that are within the boundaries. Others argue that even if the photograph was illegally produced, the law does not explicitly prohibit the photograph from being disseminated. In other words, the person who took the photograph would be liable, but not anyone who later uses the photo. Is there an official answer? Mz7 ( talk) 21:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi!
Do you know if this warning by Philippe should also be applied to other languages (e.g. ptwiki)? Helder 01:17, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
I assume this is the right place (also asking Kbrown (WMF), since I don't know who is on "clinic duty"). At Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/2016 CUOS appointments#Must be an admin? the question has come up whether users with access to deleted content (which Oversighters and CheckUsers do on this project, per Special:ListGroupRights) need to pass a Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to receive such access. This has been stated here and here a fair amount of time ago but isn't documented anywhere. Thus I'd like to ask whether:
Thanks in advance, Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 17:41, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Hello each and everyone. I feel that I have to bring to you a rather complex issue, regarding the above, from the Finnish Wikipedia. We have an Arbitration Committee that is elected by "popular vote" as usual. Everyone can become a candidate, and each year we elect five users to be proper members of the ArbCom. Subsequently all the other candidates, who have received at least a single vote, become automatically "deputy members" for a year. The rules state that when a member resigns from the ArbCom, a deputy takes his place. All fine and dandy there. But there's more: The Finnish ArbCom members have been given the right (by a special user group arbcom) to view deleted text (i.e. deleted pages). The right is given to each full member of the ArbCom, but it will also be given to those deputy members that succeed a resigned member and become full members of the ArbCom. On several occasions the Community has given just one or two supporting votes to the candidates. This happened again this year, where there are three deputy members, two of which received 16 votes each, and the last deputy member received just one vote of support. Now this could theoretically create the scenario where an user account could be given the right to view deleted material without any real support from the local community. Do you see this as a problem that should be addressed seriously? While the legal standpoint of the Foundation seems to be that viewing deleted material should be restricted to as few people as possible, the problem I described, however, will not open any flood gates but might in a sense be more academic. -- Pxos ( talk) 18:58, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Dear Maggie, I would like to ask you about something of interest to WMF relating to site "Janevistan" (see about case [5]). It has not been resolved yet by Jimbo (see Talk Page), but as I can see we have here fundamental violations and disrespect of the Wiki Terms of Use, including the rule of civility. "Janevistan" is a text full of violations, such as, racial offences, brutal insults and mockery about Macedonia and Macedonians, plus harassment, death threat(s), and violations of basic procedures, and all other blatant stuff, and this site was actually protected by local administrators ! Please see history of the page Janevistan [6] i.e. Template (delete|racial offences, insults and mockery about Macedonia, Macedonians and the state of the Republic of Macedonia, harassment, massive abuse and massive trolling, defamations, disruptive and superflous edits and disrespect of the Terms of Use [7]), and than see the active protection of that site by the sh.wiki admins. (Plus, Janevistan appears as a regular page [8].) Is there anyone who can remove that offensive site? Sincerely yours, 178.222.77.248 ( talk) 05:05, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. Would you please notify WMF legal about Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#RfC: Hosting content from countries that do not have copyright relations with the U.S.. A statement on whether or not legal's previous statement still holds should be sufficient. If there is a better place for me to request legal's attention, please direct me there. Thanks! — JJMC89 ( T· C) 02:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
You've got mail! J e e 06:45, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Happy New Year MRG; long time no see. I commented on the commons copyright page c: COM:VPC#Picasa images now in Google photos which will likely require the foundation's lawyers to get involved directly with Google per the reply. Is this something you can start or should it go to someone else? ww2censor ( talk) 23:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 |
Here is one more comment for the WMF, that is a component of other issues that I will identify shortly. Should I also post this to User talk: Jimbo Wales, or will this suffice? I am deeply cynical about the WMF board collectively. It is only individual trustees whom I trust. The board collectively seems to have reached the point where it is no longer trying to communicate in a two-way sense with any of its communities. That is, it is no longer listening, only talking. That may be the result of the fact that it is now self-sufficient in terms of earnings, assets, and revenue, and so doesn’t really need the confidence of the readers or editors. I haven’t seen any recent effort by the WMF board to ask for input from the readers or the editors. Its interests seems to be its own travel, its own splashy campaigns, and poorly documented grants. If I have misunderstood, then it is the Board that needs to explain better, because most of the outspoken editors are in complete agreement with my cynicism. Do I have your assurance that some of my concerns will go to the Board, or do I need to post to User talk: Jimbo Wales, which has useful comments but also flamers, malcontents, and trolls?
The basic problem has to do with the governance of the English Wikipedia. I am aware that the WMF Board takes the position that each language Wikipedia, and each WMF Wiki in general, is self-governing. That is a valid general principle, but common sense is needed. Because the English Wikipedia is said to be self-governing, it is ungoverned. It has an unworkable governance model, and, because it is self-governing, it is not capable of its own governance reform. The English Wikipedia is said to be governed by consensus, but consensus is often not feasible for a group as large and diverse and fractious as the English Wikipedia. Consensus governance doesn’t work in the English Wikipedia, at least not with regard to policies or conduct. It works reasonably well for content in the form of Requests for Comments. However, the idea that the English Wikipedia can, on its own, change its governance to something other than consensus is just unrealistic. We don’t have a consensus as to what form of governance we want. From time to time, editors have said that they would like a constitutional convention. There is usually agreement that a constitutional convention would be good. However, consensus, in the sense of supermajority, is elusive. Any constitutional convention for the English Wikipedia will anyway require some sort of support from the WMF Board. Does the WMF Board think that its responsibilities include helping the Wiki communities achieve effective governance?
To be more specific as to my assessment of the self-governance of the English Wikipedia, we do a good job on Requests for Comments. In my opinion, we are essentially always stalemated on any policy matter, because we are deeply divided, and the consensus model of governance does not work for a large, diverse, fractious community. (We have had a few policies enacted for us by the The one body that we have that is exempt from consensus is the ArbCom, which was created by Jimbo Wales (not by the community), is elected by majority, not by supermajority, and acts by majority, not by supermajority.
In short, is the WMF Board sufficiently satisfied with its own perception that each of its communities can self-govern (that they will ignore evidence to the contrary), or are they willing to work with a very large, nominally very successful community (but never successful at governance) to achieve practical governance?
Can you and/or the WMF Board help the English Wikipedia, which is very large, very diverse, and very fractious, achieve more or less effective governance, or do you have a principle that you can’t get involved in communities, or something else?
Thank you. Robert McClenon ( talk) 02:13, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I will be directing my future comments elsewhere. I had been advised to communicate with you, but, as you said, you are staff and not Board, and I was looking for the Board. Unfortunately, the obvious place in the English Wikipedia to communicate with the Board is User talk: Jimbo Wales, but it is full of trolls and flamers as well as reasonable people. Also, I am aware that the staff and the Board do not communicate with each other effectively (and statements to that effect keep coming up in connection with the discussion of the removal of James Heilman from the Board). I will have to find a different way of communicating with the Board at meta. Robert McClenon ( talk) 16:46, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I need revision 662966055 to 692307169 (inclusivly) be RevDel'ed per your DMCA-removal here. You only removed the content from the live article, not old revisions, which need to be done per RD1, and probably per the Safe Harbour Agreement. Thank you. ( t) Josve05a ( c) 22:14, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
It's been four years since the main list on this page was wiped due to copyright issues (the notice for which is still existent in the page code), and replaced with a link to the chart page. Now, I understand that this was because of copyright concerns, however, as far as I am aware, this copyright concern was since cleared up (as evidenced by the OTRS notifications on the talk pages of the older lists; I assume this was extended to the newer ones since), which makes the absence of this sole list a bit of an oddity, unless there was some exception that made the list still in violation. Can I please request an update as to what the case is with this page? -- JB Adder | Talk 14:44, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
An administrator becomes antagonistic to an editor and works to get her blocked. Sometime later, chumming with his pals, he says "Maybe I'll submit to the medieval get-together in Leeds one of these days and LOOK UP MARINKA VAN DAM AS WELL, on my way to the "Manchester circle and sausagefest", to shake y'all's hands and look at the ferrets. Drmies 01:32, 2 December 2014 (UTC)" (caps added) ( [1]).
Again keep in mind despite the jocular tone, that Marinka and Drmies are not friends, and that she was alarmed by his statement and the apparent prospect of Drmies showing up unannounced at her residence or workplace.
I tried reporting this at the Administrators Noticeboard, but it is quickly deleted by Drmies' allies (which may well have been the case 15 months ago). Floquenbeam, Favonian, and RickinBaltimore are among the noticeboard regulars that delete the report.
Ms. Dennis, I don't need any comprehensive account of your response, but I'd appreciate a mere acknowledgement that you have read this, otherwise I guess I'll keep trying to reach you, or someone else there at WMF. Colton Cosmic 14:55, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
MER-C 12:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. The quality control of newly created articles is a critical issue affecting all Wikipedia projects. My proposed presentation for Wikimania 2016 was rejected (appaently simply because the committee misunderstood its importance, and it was too late to do anything about). I have therefore applied for a slot in the discussions program instead which I sincerely hope will be retained (see New Wikipdia articles: Controlling the quality and relevance - a critical cross-Wiki issue. I'm sure that the other projects have the same issues and would like to discuss possible solutions. Unfortunately, in spite of being a near-native speaker of French and German, I have no idea what those projects call their NPP systems and therefore have no idea where to look. Can you help? Thanks. Chris. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 02:14, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
Maggie, you've got mail. — TransporterMan ( TALK) 18:13, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
As you probably know, we are currently struggling to find a new API for copyright detection work. Phabricator thread, Village Pump thread. It was stated in the Phabricator thread that using Google would be too expensive. User:Crow and myself both asked in the Village Pump thread as to how much the Google service would cost, but we never got an answer. I was wondering if Google is still being considered, and if not, why not? And we would still like an answer as to how much Google would charge. Thanks, — Diannaa ( talk) 00:43, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Crow; Diannaa. I need to acknowledge that I have a bit of a conflict here, given my copyright work. But my conflict is not much of an issue, because this budget doesn't belong to Community Engagement. :)
COI disclosure aside, I can speak to the history of this a bit, which might help you contextualize. The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't so much have a big bucket of money that can be assigned to whatever we want, even if in aggregate it looks like our budget is big-bucket-like. We actually have a pretty tight (and more or less binding) financial plan that is signed off on by the Board every year. When the WMF took on footing the bill for CorenSearchBot, it was an emergency situation, where the bot had ceased to function and the process would not work if we didn't pick up responsibility for it. Engineering took it on even though it wasn't part of the annual financial plan and has continued to support it because the cost could be sustained and the work matters. (I was uninvolved in making that decision.) However, it's important to note that it's a bit of an anomaly for the WMF to pay for a volunteer-run service that focuses on one project in one language without community review, and it was a big deal for us to make the leap to devoting resources to that.
$18,000.00 is not a small sum of money. I know it looks small against the entire budget of the WMF, but keep in mind that we’re not drawing from “all money the WMF has available”; we’re drawing from a much smaller set of dedicated budgets. Aside from salary, it is more than the entire annual operating budget for FY 2016-2017 of the Chief of Community Engagement. That’s all the money the CCE has to spend for the year. The Support and Safety team, which expects to have a staff of eight during the 16-17 year (we're hiring!), requested just shy of $75,000 to operate for all of next fiscal year. This includes all travel, non-standard equipment vital to our work (like our emergency paging system), support for community convenings (last year, we brought the stewards to San Francisco to have in-person meetings) and support for programs like OTRS, staff training and conference attendance, and intern/contractor support for child safety. To meet our goals, we are still working to find ways to cut an additional $6,000.00 from our spending. I don't have that much personal insight into the budget of Engineering and/or Product, but I suspect a change to $18,000 would be no easier for them to absorb, particularly when it was unexpected and hasn’t been planned into any budgets. We're all tightening spending in every area, and in that context, an $18,000 expenditure for a one-project, one-language tool seems likely to be very hard to justify.
It seems like the Community Tech team are, however, looking for alternatives to Google’s more expensive services; in addition there is an alternative funding model that might be able to provide $18,000 a year, subject to community review: Grants. I've asked the Resources team which Grants avenue might be able to support this, and somebody (maybe me; maybe Karen) should get back with you once I hear more about that.
I’m sorry that this is not as easy as it feels like it ought to be; if we could pull money from an unlimited pool and lightheartedly sign off on everything that could be useful to communities, we would love to do it. :( -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 18:21, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Diannaa. :) As a non-profit organization, the Foundation does need an operating reserve for fiscal responsibility. Our goal is not to operate this year, but to meet our mission of sustaining our resources in perpetuity. We need to support the work of volunteers this year and next year and the year after that and ten years from now, whatever may happen to our fundraising model. It's not really (or even remotely :)) my area of expertise to determine how much of a reserve the WMF should have to shore up this mission, but it makes absolute sense to me that an operating reserve needs to happen, whatever proportion that should be. I presume that the decision on the amount is made at the Board level, potentially in consultation with Fundraising and Finance? As m:2014-2015_Fundraising_Report notes, the decline of desktop readers is a challenge for our fundraising models. We need to be sure that our asks are sustainable and sensible, which has factored into the reduced budget request in next fiscal year's plan at m:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2016-2017/draft. -- Maggie Dennis (WMF) ( talk) 14:49, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
3rd party resources required for the program activities described under Product. Including Bi-weekly regression testings, daily QA, bots/APIs for both copyright/plagiarism detection, and miscellaneous contracting cost to support the program objectives.Not to beat a dead bot, but since the comment period for this proposal ends tomorrow, perhaps some comments there are appropriate? Crow Caw 21:53, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
I have a question about what training the WMF provides its staff - specifically about free content licensing, attribution and so forth. I couldn't work out who to contact; could you please advise me who I should ask? Thanks, BethNaught ( talk) 22:11, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
Seriously disappointed to learn that you won't be coming to Esino. Just hoping it was nothing of my doing ;) Warmest regards, Chris, -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 13:39, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Maggie,
There is a new proposal that is starting to gain at least some traction at the village pump in regards to a new way to grant adminship on the English Wikipedia.
The proposal is to have bureaucrats appoint admins they deem worthy bypassing the normal RfA process. My question for legal, is in regards to the viewdelete right.
Previously, attempts to unbundle the viewdelete function to individuals who have not passed a community RfA-like process was rejected by WMF-Legal. The exact phrasing was allowing non-administrator users to have access to deleted pages would vastly increase the frequency and volume of legal complaints
. Would the same apply in this situation? They would be admins in name but they would be appointed admins. Would you be able to get in touch with the WMF's legal counsel regarding this proposal and see what they have to say? It would be sincerely appreciated. Thank you. --
Majora (
talk)
02:38, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
Okay, Mr. Dennis, I again did forward emails (there were two) from my "Sent" folder to that address as you directed but, after a full work month, I am still unable to get a response, or even an acknowledgement of receipt (which I asked for). Would you confirm receipt of my email time-stamped 02/26/16M3 07:12 UTC? The purpose is just to have a reference point to look back to it in case dRMIES acts out on his statement that he would "look up Marinka von Dam". I believe my email account to be in working order and there is no reason any email software should regard it as "spam" given that I use it responsibly and actually fairly infrequently. Colton Cosmic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.85.98.24 ( talk) 16:48, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Hello Maggie, hope you can point us in the right direction regarding this discussion: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#51.171.156.10. There are two issues I'd like to get clarified:
YGM. Chris. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 19:23, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Hello, please see User_talk:Mpaulson_(WMF)#Terms_of_Use_notice. — xaosflux Talk 02:52, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi Mdennis. Do you think you could ask WMF Legal for their general thoughts on a matter? There is currently a legal dispute at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Images of Area 51 which concerns pictures like File:Wfm x51 area51 warningsign.jpg, in which there is a sign that clearly says "photography is prohibited" under this statute. The dispute revolves around the following questions:
There are some who have argued that the photograph was taken outside of the boundaries of the defense installation and is therefore a legal photograph under freedom of panorama laws. However, some users have pointed out that the photograph includes areas that are within the boundaries. Others argue that even if the photograph was illegally produced, the law does not explicitly prohibit the photograph from being disseminated. In other words, the person who took the photograph would be liable, but not anyone who later uses the photo. Is there an official answer? Mz7 ( talk) 21:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi!
Do you know if this warning by Philippe should also be applied to other languages (e.g. ptwiki)? Helder 01:17, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
I assume this is the right place (also asking Kbrown (WMF), since I don't know who is on "clinic duty"). At Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/2016 CUOS appointments#Must be an admin? the question has come up whether users with access to deleted content (which Oversighters and CheckUsers do on this project, per Special:ListGroupRights) need to pass a Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to receive such access. This has been stated here and here a fair amount of time ago but isn't documented anywhere. Thus I'd like to ask whether:
Thanks in advance, Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 17:41, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Hello each and everyone. I feel that I have to bring to you a rather complex issue, regarding the above, from the Finnish Wikipedia. We have an Arbitration Committee that is elected by "popular vote" as usual. Everyone can become a candidate, and each year we elect five users to be proper members of the ArbCom. Subsequently all the other candidates, who have received at least a single vote, become automatically "deputy members" for a year. The rules state that when a member resigns from the ArbCom, a deputy takes his place. All fine and dandy there. But there's more: The Finnish ArbCom members have been given the right (by a special user group arbcom) to view deleted text (i.e. deleted pages). The right is given to each full member of the ArbCom, but it will also be given to those deputy members that succeed a resigned member and become full members of the ArbCom. On several occasions the Community has given just one or two supporting votes to the candidates. This happened again this year, where there are three deputy members, two of which received 16 votes each, and the last deputy member received just one vote of support. Now this could theoretically create the scenario where an user account could be given the right to view deleted material without any real support from the local community. Do you see this as a problem that should be addressed seriously? While the legal standpoint of the Foundation seems to be that viewing deleted material should be restricted to as few people as possible, the problem I described, however, will not open any flood gates but might in a sense be more academic. -- Pxos ( talk) 18:58, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Dear Maggie, I would like to ask you about something of interest to WMF relating to site "Janevistan" (see about case [5]). It has not been resolved yet by Jimbo (see Talk Page), but as I can see we have here fundamental violations and disrespect of the Wiki Terms of Use, including the rule of civility. "Janevistan" is a text full of violations, such as, racial offences, brutal insults and mockery about Macedonia and Macedonians, plus harassment, death threat(s), and violations of basic procedures, and all other blatant stuff, and this site was actually protected by local administrators ! Please see history of the page Janevistan [6] i.e. Template (delete|racial offences, insults and mockery about Macedonia, Macedonians and the state of the Republic of Macedonia, harassment, massive abuse and massive trolling, defamations, disruptive and superflous edits and disrespect of the Terms of Use [7]), and than see the active protection of that site by the sh.wiki admins. (Plus, Janevistan appears as a regular page [8].) Is there anyone who can remove that offensive site? Sincerely yours, 178.222.77.248 ( talk) 05:05, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Hi Maggie. Would you please notify WMF legal about Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#RfC: Hosting content from countries that do not have copyright relations with the U.S.. A statement on whether or not legal's previous statement still holds should be sufficient. If there is a better place for me to request legal's attention, please direct me there. Thanks! — JJMC89 ( T· C) 02:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
You've got mail! J e e 06:45, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Happy New Year MRG; long time no see. I commented on the commons copyright page c: COM:VPC#Picasa images now in Google photos which will likely require the foundation's lawyers to get involved directly with Google per the reply. Is this something you can start or should it go to someone else? ww2censor ( talk) 23:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC)