On Sunday, the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation published several resolutions concerning movement roles (following the publication of a resolution on the related subject of fundraising, see the other report in this issue). This concluded a process that started in October 2010, with predecessors going back to at least 2009. The details of the model are discussed in this week's "News and notes" column, but the Signpost also caught up with community-elected board member Samuel Klein ( Sj) to discuss the background of these debates, the long-term importance of their subject, and why it has taken so long to arrive at this conclusion.
Today, eleven years after its inception, Wikipedia is still the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but there is a growing number of activities in which volunteers interact with the outside world in a way that requires their being legitimized in some form as official representatives of the Wikimedia movement. This legitimization can be as simple as an @wikimedia email address, or access to donor funds (raised under the official assurance that it would be used to advance Wikimedia projects). If I'm a Wikipedian who needs this kind of formal support for my project, whom do I need to turn to? Can we say that the movement roles discussion is largely about who should have that kind of authority to grant projects this kind of legitimization? What would be your concise definition of the concept of "movement roles"?
Is the English Wikipedia editing community also considered one of these "active groups in our movement", for example? Where does it fit in the list given in the new resolution?
Can you describe some of the problems that sparked this conversation and the establishment in 2009 of the "movement roles" task force and the following year of the movement roles workgroup ( Signpost coverage, board vote)? Why did these attempts to arrive at consensus recommendations falter?
Many national chapters have now been established or are in development, but for now they still represent only a very small slice of the Wikimedia community. Can you explain why chapters are the best organizational unit for Wikimedia users, why they uniquely have earned representation on the Board of Trustees (2 seats guaranteed) and the Funds Dissemination Committee, and the role you see chapters playing in a democratic, transparent global movement?
Historically, how has the understanding of movement roles evolved, from the founding of the first chapters in 2004 until now? Has the general opinion of what chapters are for changed since then, and how?
Leonhard Dobusch, a Berlin-based scholar who has studied the relationship of the Foundation and chapters since at least 2010 ( Signpost coverage), has observed about the fundraising debates that "the whole conflict is fought out by representatives of the formal organizational bodies. The majority of Wikipedians – editors and administrators – seem to be rather uninterested in these governance issues." Would you agree that this a problem with respect to the movement roles question? Has it had an effect on the state of the debate?
According to one Wikimania submission, the Foundation "is regularly accused [of imposing] a US-centric cultural model", which together with the predominance of the English Wikipedia generates "power tensions" (exacerbated by the financial success of the Wikimedia movement), which in turn "nourish nationalist approaches ... Wikimedia chapters claim their role in providing a more balanced cultural approach and in managing decentralised outreached programs. In reality the fund-raising campaign mirrors last century geopolitics with the US and few European countries sharing the cake; Switzerland with a rather independent position and Italy unable to keep a proper slice." Do you agree with this criticism of the Foundation and chapters? Otherwise could you explain how the new movement roles resolution will help to address such problems?
As the annual fundraiser approaches the $30 million mark, distribution of funds has become the hottest controversy within the Wikimedia community. The issue of control over funding has arisen in the last year or two largely as a result of the recent ability of some chapters to retain large amounts of money from the fundraiser by acting as a payment processor for donors from certain geographic regions. An observer reading about the debates might wonder which is truly the core of the dispute: concerns over decentralization and cultural diversity, or simply who gets to control the money? If the former, can you describe for Signpost readers what these concerns are, and any specific events or problems that might exemplify them?
The recent resolutions were an effort to address the inflamed tensions over movement roles and funding priorities; to what extent do you think the process the resolutions outline will resolve these tensions? Are we looking at a long-term solution, or will the debates of the last year prove to be a preview of inter-organizational relations for years to come? In what way might tension and conflict between the Wikimedia Foundation and national chapters affect the projects, their users or the uninvolved reader?
As part of the continuing Signpost series on analyzing the work of the Arbitration Committee, its work and its membership, we take a closer look this week at the committee's deliberations over the ban appeal of TimidGuy. This case dealt not only with important principles of jurisdiction (as it concerned the appeal of a block imposed by Jimbo Wales), but a deeper look at committee discussions over the appropriate remedy in the case can serve as a case study of how the committee crafts a consensus opinion. Over more than 60 days, the committee worked tirelessly to reach a decision—a decision that will now have a lasting impact on arbitration work as a whole.
On 14 December 2011, the Arbitration Committee opened TimidGuy's ban appeal as a full case. At the onset, arbitrator Roger Davies opined that the committee would have to review "the [extent] to which [Jimbo] may develop policy by fiat", a reference to newly created conflict-of-interest rules. Other arbitrators accepted the case on the simple basis of reviewing possibly disruptive editing by the editor in question.
After weeks of evidence submissions and workshop proposals, the Committee sat down to hammer out a proposed decision. What would result would be a series of procedural guidelines that the Committee would use in the future, and a clear statement of its jurisdiction.
The proposed decision in the case was posted on 20 February by drafter Roger Davies, who wrote the proposals alongside colleague Jclemens. Over the next week, other members of the Committee discussed and debated a series of principles which would guide decisions on remedies in the immediate case and cases in the future. A discussion of some of the more important principles follows below.
The Committee voted unanimously to approve a principle which clearly defined the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee. Taken from the recently amended arbitration policy page, the Committee included "the resolution of private matters unsuitable for public discussion" as a responsibility for oversight. This principle is important in the context of the TimidGuy case, where some material was unsuitable for public discussion—several issues touched on in the Committee's findings had to be discussed behind the scenes on the Committee mailing list.
TimidGuy was in a unique position for Committee review, as the Committee was revisiting a ban decision made by Jimbo Wales. The Committee affirmed past policy that Jimbo Wales "retains the authority to ban editors" and that an appeal from such a decision may not be appealed back to Jimbo. Arbitrator Newyorkbrad added a note in discussions that this principle did not change any existing policy: "When it was decided (with Jimbo Wales' concurrence) that his actions involving individual users...were subject to review by this Committee, it was also decided that Jimbo Wales' reserved power to review this Committee's decisions could not apply where we reviewed one of his own rulings". Arbitrator Jclemens added a different note, pointing out that this principle "is interesting" because "[this power of Jimbo Wales] is one of the few direct powers [he] still maintains as founder, most of the rest having been given up over the past few years". Jclemens also added a historical reference to older arbitration policy which expressed that this power of Jimbo's was "theoretical" and "not intended for use".
While TimidGuy related to a very special instance of a ban appeal, the case, taken in context of other historical notes on Jimbo Wales' authority as 'Founder', is an intriguing study of the ArbCom–Jimbo relationship. While it is not landmark in the sense that it has changed something, this case does demonstrate a clear indication of ArbCom's authority in relation to its own cases and to other entities—a statement that is likely to evolve over time as the encyclopedia grows in the future.
If you have a suggestion for a future 'Arbitration analysis' article, let us know in the comments, or feel free to drop a note on the writer's talk page. Ideas for new Signpost features are openly welcomed for proposal and discussion in
newsroom.
Reader comments
Since 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, selected staff, and chapter delegates have met for the Wikimedia annual conference in Berlin, Germany. This year's installment was held over the weekend of March 30 to April 1, after more than six months of tense relations between the board and chapters over governance and fundraising issues, including notions of pursuing the Foundation's goal of extending Wikimedia’s reach into the “global South” by reforming the distribution of Wikimedia funds. The board came to conclusions on finance, new organizational models and standards, and transparency.
The board unanimously agreed to publish how each of its members votes on proposed resolutions, reinstating a practice that was abandoned without discernible reason in December 2009.
Several resolutions emerged that define or improve the standards of Wikimedia movement committees and best practices for Wikimedia movement organizations. The role of the Chapters Committee was re-defined more broadly and it was asked to take on the additional role to look after new kinds of movement entities such as user groups, theme-specific entities, and sub-national Wikimedia organizations ( Amendment to the ChapCom rules, Affiliations Committee resolution, New Models) according to the Wikimedia affiliation model principles. Additionally, the Board approved a Board Governance Committee charter to formalize the duties of one of its own committees.
To better fit the new models, the Chapters Committee is to become the Affiliations Committee, whose charter will have to be presented by the Chapters Committee to the Board of Trustees by June 15, 2012. The new committee-to-be as well as the new entity forms were recommended by the Movement Roles working group, which itself was dissolved in Berlin and whose topic is subject of a Signpost-interview this week.
The board approved two resolutions on the highly contested issue of finance, declaring basically a moratorium on the topic until 2015, while limiting the payment processing by chapters on Wikimedia project sites such as the English Wikipedia to the Foundation itself and under conditions to the four already processing chapters (France, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK). At the same time, the board asked the Foundation staff to come up with a new volunteer-run Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), which shall handle all funds the movement receives through Wikimedia sites, by June 30.
While basically maintaining the status quo on fundraising, the resolutions nevertheless constitute a change of current procedures, since they significantly separate fund processing from money distribution and the introduction of the FDC. Thereby, the board, while making changes such as limiting and re-defining chapter processing, mainly followed the recommendations of executive director Sue Gardner.
On the chapter front, the weekend saw a major decision taken: to establish an entity, called Wikimedia Chapters Association, to improve and coordinate the activities of the chapters. The charter of the new organization, highly contested with 17 amendments, issues postponed until post-Berlin and with discussions by far exceeding the scheduled sessions, will establish a council to legislate, and a paid Secretariat to execute. Additionally, the council has to appoint auditors to ensure proper conduct. The participating chapters elected Tomer Ashur, the Chairman of Wikimedia Israel, as interim Secretary General, leading a team of four that takes care of the practical process up to the first council meeting at the upcoming Wikimania in Washington D.C. in July. A proposal for a similar organization had been made on December 11 2009 in the course of the strategic planning process by Pharos (today President of Wikimedia New York City):
“ | The Wikimedia movement should establish an International Wikimedia Chapters Network, for the purpose of increasing communication, cooperation and representation, both among the chapters and between the chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation. | ” |
but met with objection on January 31 2010 by Delphine Ménard (today Treasurer of Wikimedia Germany):
“ | I am not sure I understand this proposal. Or rather, the way I understand it, I am rather worried at the results it can yield in the longer run. Reading the (short) discussion, I understand that the proposal aims at looking at organizing the chapters around a "central" kind of piece, which would take care of ensuring communication, collaboration, making decisions etc. However, the way the recommendation is phrased, it seems to me that the task force proposes that the network of chapters be a separate entity from the Foundation, i.e. we'd have the chapters on one side (organized, say, à la Greenpeace), and the Foundation on the other. I have studied a bit the governance and structural models of international organisations, and there are none where I have seen two "central pieces" or "international pieces" (formal or informal) or whatever you want to call them.
As such, I am interested to understand better where the Foundation stands were there to be a "network of chapters" as per your proposal. Am I reading this wrong, or is the "network of chapters" meant to develop among chapters and chapters only? I can imagine a "Wikimedia network" developing and increasing communication, cooperation and representation, not a "chapters network" that seems not to fully integrate the Foundation, but rather develop as a counterpart to it." |
” |
The topic of the ongoing process of selecting the two chapter-appointed members of the 10-strong Board of Trustees was also discussed, with representatives from a majority of the chapters participating in a straw poll on the slate of eight candidates for the seats as an early part of the decision-making process. The chapters have until May 15 to come to consensus on who to put forward.
Additionally, sessions were held on content-related topics such as library outreach and Wiki loves monuments. Most topics discussed or decided in Berlin are expected to lead to follow up-debates on how to implement or develop them further. Decisions on issues such as the Funds Dissemination Committee, the Wikimedia Chapters Association, and the transformation of the Chapters Committee into the Affiliations Committee are scheduled to be finalized mid-2012.
This week saw a press release by Wikimedia Deutschland on the topic of their latest pursuit, Wikidata. The newest addition to the Wikimedia Foundation family tree, Wikidata aims to be "a free knowledge base about the world that can be read and edited by humans and machines alike...[that will] allow for central access to the data in a way similar to what Wikimedia Commons does for multimedia files." With the potential to be the first Wikimedia family expansion in six years, the initial construction of Wikidata, if successful, would be the largest project a single chapter has ever undertaken.
So, how will it work? According to its current technical description, development will proceed in three stages. The first, expected to end by August of this year, will overhaul the language system by providing a central interwiki repository. The second, to finish by December, will use a similar method to standardise the content of infoboxes, allowing editors to add and use the data within the framework and allowing smaller wikis to share in localised versions of this data for their own infoboxes. Finally, the third stage of development will see the automation of list and chart creation based on Wikidata data, at which point Wikimedia Deutschland plans to hand over operation and maintenance to the Wikimedia Foundation itself, hopefully by March 2013.
In addition to the obvious internal benefits of the project, the Wikidata team has been keen to stress the benefits of a central data repository that could surpass existing Wikimedia-scraping data wiki dbpedia, attracting numerous donors in the process. One half of the €1.3 million raised (equivalent to US$1.87 million) will come from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, a supporter of long-range activities that have potential to accelerate progress in the development of artificial intelligence. A further quarter is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, established by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, in the hopes that it will be an "easy-to-use, downloadable software tool for researchers, to help them manage and gain value from the increasing volume and complexity of scientific data." Google provides the last quarter of funding, stating that "[our] mission is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful."
The money raised has been used to hire a team of eight developers (plus four support staff). The development team itself will be led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology alumni Dr. Denny Vrandečić and Dr. Markus Krötzsch, the two co-founders of the Semantic MediaWiki project. Vrandečić stated on the foundation-l mailing list that although support staff have been in place for several weeks, the development team itself will first come together on Monday; following Wikimedia Deutschand's credo, he expressed his hope that "in the future we will be communicating about Wikidata much more, as the development is finally starting." Indeed, according to its timeline, previews will be presented as soon as feasible, probably in May or June, as a way to engage community discussion. In July, the team hopes to present at Wikimania 2012 on the topic of language links and to give updates on the project. Community communications will be handled by dedicated manager Lydia Pintscher, who has already introduced a communications roadmap. Look forward to an interview with Pintscher in next week's Signpost!accountcreator
flag, and spilled out into a host of ANI discussions (
1,
2 and
3), and prompted the perennial village pump proposal to
ban the ritual celebration of the wiki's wilder side. The candidate's participation in the April Fools pranks pushed the result of
Mabdul's RFA from an unclear 75% to a failed 68% during the last half day before closure.
In a hard-hitting exposé that will surely garner a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, The Signpost delved into the dark and twisted world of Wikipedia's most powerful media institution: The Signpost.
Founded by Michael Snow on 10 January 2005, the Signpost was created to "spare people the effort of trying to be everywhere and read every discussion" by centralizing Wikipedia's news and announcements. The Signpost has been published by a staff of volunteers on a weekly basis with few breaks in publication. Over the years, the community newspaper has developed recurring sections dedicated to reporting news, watching the way Wikipedia is portrayed in other media, highlighting material promoted to Featured status, exploring WikiProject communities, following arbitration cases, and discussing technological matters. Other sections have come and gone while new features are occasionally introduced.
Michael Snow served as the newspaper's first editor-in-chief from its inception until August 2005, when he passed the baton to Ryan Lomonaco (Ral315). After serving over three years in that capacity, Ral315 retired in December 2008 and was followed in February 2009 by Sage Ross (Ragesoss). When Ragesoss left the Signpost in June 2010, Tilman Bayer (HaeB) took up the reins. Since HaeB's departure in July 2011, the newspaper has been led by a team of interim editors. We interviewed all four former editors-in-chief (editors emeritus) and asked our current editor, Skomorokh, how Wikipedians can become involved in their community newspaper.
When did you first become involved with the Signpost and what initially motivated you to contribute? How did you wind up in the position of editor-in-chief? What have you done since moving on from that position?
What role does the Signpost play in the Wikipedia community? How does this role differ from Wikipedia's myriad talk pages, village pumps, and WikiProjects? Is the Signpost expected to live up to the same journalistic standards as other print, broadcast, and online media?
Share with our readers the most challenging aspects of writing and editing the Signpost. Do you have any suggestions for how the newspaper can better cope with deadlines, recruit talent, and engage readers?
In your opinion, what are the most important sections of the newspaper? How frequently should the Signpost run special reports, opinion pieces, book reports, and experimental sections? Does the paper need an occasional shake-up to keep it fresh?
At various times, there have been discussions about expanding the Signpost to a multi-wiki or multi-language format. What are your thoughts on changing the paper's scope and audience? Should the Signpost build stronger connections to existing newspapers on the other languages of Wikipedia?
The Signpost has developed its own lore, ranging from inside jokes about the initialization of several sections to rumors that the editor in chief position has become a training ground for future Wikimedia Foundation volunteers and employees. Can you respond to some of these stories? Do you have any other interesting tall tales to add to the mix?
What is the most important thing you have learned from your Signpost experience? What do you hope readers will take away from each issue of the Signpost?
Anything else you'd like to add?
What are the Signpost's most urgent needs? Are there any new features or revived sections you'd like to see in future issues? How can new writers and editors get involved today?
Next week, we'll interview some
nutmeggers. Until then, revisit Signpost history in the
archive.
Reader comments
Seven featured articles were promoted this week:
Five featured lists were promoted this week:
Fourteen featured pictures were promoted this week:
One featured topic was promoted this week:
The Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week, leaving one review open.
A review was opened of the Race and intelligence case as a compromise between opening a new case and ruling by motion. The review is intended to be a simplified form of a full case and will cover conduct issues that have purportedly arisen since the closure of the 2010 arbitration case. Over the last week, several editors submitted specific evidence at the request of the committee. The posting of the proposed decision is expected on 2 April.
The change in the core version control system from Subversion to Git, insofar as it can be separated from the change in code review systems, seems to have settled in well after last week's switchover ( Signpost coverage). By contrast, the new code review tool Gerrit continues to prove controversial, spawning dozens of threads on developer mailing lists.
The issues raised (many of which seem, at least on the surface, to be fairly minor) are both too numerous and in many cases too technical to be adequately summarised in a couple of lines; nevertheless, in doubtlessly a positive sign, developers seem to be treating the vast majority of the problems encountered (such as an awkward system for responding to comments and the overly personal nature of the autogenerated taglines that accompany certain types of review) simply as issues – bugs needing to be fixed – rather than internalising them as complaints with the fundamentals of the new code review process. Indeed, work on a number of these issues has started already; others will however require changes to Gerrit itself. On the whole, developers seem to be hopeful that all their issues with the new code review process can be resolved, given enough time. Nevertheless, a handful of the the issues raised do seem to have real sticking power, including concerns that Gerrit's code review paradigm may be fundamentally ill-suited to the review of large or complex changes ( wikitech-l mailing list), too difficult for new contributors to come to grips with, or overly conducive to the kind of endless bar-raising that would see the gap between old and new contributors continue to widen.
Though the current trend suggests that issues will continue to be either resolved or ameliorated over the coming weeks, a potential future fly in the ointment is a planned audit of Gerrit's performance in three months' time. Such an audit, a pre-switchover concession to those who initially disliked Gerrit, has the potential to lead to the code review system to being abandoned in favour of a competitor system such as Phabricator. Needless to say, should grievances with Gerrit be unresolved by then – with or without great appetite for a second difficult migration – the audit could be a difficult one to manage.
Write-ups of the Chennai Hackathon (held in the Indian city on March 17) began to be posted online this week, giving an insight into the success of a hackathon with a deliberately broad remit. Overall, thirteen projects were demonstrated at the end of the day, including a "text-a-quote" service, a hand-held device-based pronunciation recorder and work on an instant image rotate function accessible from file description pages ( wikitech-l mailing list). The quality that WMF localisation team member Gerard Meijssen perceived in many of the projects prompted him to comment how they "deserve attention [from the wide] public—they represent missing functionality or they have a different approach to something we are struggling with. They are all by people who have a keen interest in the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation and as such they represent our 'latest generation'".
In total, the hackathon (one of an increasing number of tech-focused Wikimedia meetups being scheduled across the globe) attracted some 21 programmers, overwhelmingly but not exclusively male. In writing up the event, WMF developer and attendee Yuvi Panda described why he thought coders at the "super awesome and super productive" event were able to get so much done in a single eight-hour day:
“ | The event started with us sailing past security reasonably easily, and getting setup with internet without a glitch... Since this was a pure hackathon, there were no explicit tutorials or presentations. As people came in, we asked them what technologies/fields they are familiar with, and picked out an idea for them to work on from the Ideas List. This took care of the biggest problem with hackathons with new people—half the day spent on figuring out what to work on, and when found, it is completely outside the domain of expertise of the people hacking on the idea. Talking together with them fast to pick an idea within 5 minutes that they can complete in the day fixed this problem and made sure people can concentrate on coding for the rest of the day. | ” |
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
On Sunday, the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation published several resolutions concerning movement roles (following the publication of a resolution on the related subject of fundraising, see the other report in this issue). This concluded a process that started in October 2010, with predecessors going back to at least 2009. The details of the model are discussed in this week's "News and notes" column, but the Signpost also caught up with community-elected board member Samuel Klein ( Sj) to discuss the background of these debates, the long-term importance of their subject, and why it has taken so long to arrive at this conclusion.
Today, eleven years after its inception, Wikipedia is still the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but there is a growing number of activities in which volunteers interact with the outside world in a way that requires their being legitimized in some form as official representatives of the Wikimedia movement. This legitimization can be as simple as an @wikimedia email address, or access to donor funds (raised under the official assurance that it would be used to advance Wikimedia projects). If I'm a Wikipedian who needs this kind of formal support for my project, whom do I need to turn to? Can we say that the movement roles discussion is largely about who should have that kind of authority to grant projects this kind of legitimization? What would be your concise definition of the concept of "movement roles"?
Is the English Wikipedia editing community also considered one of these "active groups in our movement", for example? Where does it fit in the list given in the new resolution?
Can you describe some of the problems that sparked this conversation and the establishment in 2009 of the "movement roles" task force and the following year of the movement roles workgroup ( Signpost coverage, board vote)? Why did these attempts to arrive at consensus recommendations falter?
Many national chapters have now been established or are in development, but for now they still represent only a very small slice of the Wikimedia community. Can you explain why chapters are the best organizational unit for Wikimedia users, why they uniquely have earned representation on the Board of Trustees (2 seats guaranteed) and the Funds Dissemination Committee, and the role you see chapters playing in a democratic, transparent global movement?
Historically, how has the understanding of movement roles evolved, from the founding of the first chapters in 2004 until now? Has the general opinion of what chapters are for changed since then, and how?
Leonhard Dobusch, a Berlin-based scholar who has studied the relationship of the Foundation and chapters since at least 2010 ( Signpost coverage), has observed about the fundraising debates that "the whole conflict is fought out by representatives of the formal organizational bodies. The majority of Wikipedians – editors and administrators – seem to be rather uninterested in these governance issues." Would you agree that this a problem with respect to the movement roles question? Has it had an effect on the state of the debate?
According to one Wikimania submission, the Foundation "is regularly accused [of imposing] a US-centric cultural model", which together with the predominance of the English Wikipedia generates "power tensions" (exacerbated by the financial success of the Wikimedia movement), which in turn "nourish nationalist approaches ... Wikimedia chapters claim their role in providing a more balanced cultural approach and in managing decentralised outreached programs. In reality the fund-raising campaign mirrors last century geopolitics with the US and few European countries sharing the cake; Switzerland with a rather independent position and Italy unable to keep a proper slice." Do you agree with this criticism of the Foundation and chapters? Otherwise could you explain how the new movement roles resolution will help to address such problems?
As the annual fundraiser approaches the $30 million mark, distribution of funds has become the hottest controversy within the Wikimedia community. The issue of control over funding has arisen in the last year or two largely as a result of the recent ability of some chapters to retain large amounts of money from the fundraiser by acting as a payment processor for donors from certain geographic regions. An observer reading about the debates might wonder which is truly the core of the dispute: concerns over decentralization and cultural diversity, or simply who gets to control the money? If the former, can you describe for Signpost readers what these concerns are, and any specific events or problems that might exemplify them?
The recent resolutions were an effort to address the inflamed tensions over movement roles and funding priorities; to what extent do you think the process the resolutions outline will resolve these tensions? Are we looking at a long-term solution, or will the debates of the last year prove to be a preview of inter-organizational relations for years to come? In what way might tension and conflict between the Wikimedia Foundation and national chapters affect the projects, their users or the uninvolved reader?
As part of the continuing Signpost series on analyzing the work of the Arbitration Committee, its work and its membership, we take a closer look this week at the committee's deliberations over the ban appeal of TimidGuy. This case dealt not only with important principles of jurisdiction (as it concerned the appeal of a block imposed by Jimbo Wales), but a deeper look at committee discussions over the appropriate remedy in the case can serve as a case study of how the committee crafts a consensus opinion. Over more than 60 days, the committee worked tirelessly to reach a decision—a decision that will now have a lasting impact on arbitration work as a whole.
On 14 December 2011, the Arbitration Committee opened TimidGuy's ban appeal as a full case. At the onset, arbitrator Roger Davies opined that the committee would have to review "the [extent] to which [Jimbo] may develop policy by fiat", a reference to newly created conflict-of-interest rules. Other arbitrators accepted the case on the simple basis of reviewing possibly disruptive editing by the editor in question.
After weeks of evidence submissions and workshop proposals, the Committee sat down to hammer out a proposed decision. What would result would be a series of procedural guidelines that the Committee would use in the future, and a clear statement of its jurisdiction.
The proposed decision in the case was posted on 20 February by drafter Roger Davies, who wrote the proposals alongside colleague Jclemens. Over the next week, other members of the Committee discussed and debated a series of principles which would guide decisions on remedies in the immediate case and cases in the future. A discussion of some of the more important principles follows below.
The Committee voted unanimously to approve a principle which clearly defined the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee. Taken from the recently amended arbitration policy page, the Committee included "the resolution of private matters unsuitable for public discussion" as a responsibility for oversight. This principle is important in the context of the TimidGuy case, where some material was unsuitable for public discussion—several issues touched on in the Committee's findings had to be discussed behind the scenes on the Committee mailing list.
TimidGuy was in a unique position for Committee review, as the Committee was revisiting a ban decision made by Jimbo Wales. The Committee affirmed past policy that Jimbo Wales "retains the authority to ban editors" and that an appeal from such a decision may not be appealed back to Jimbo. Arbitrator Newyorkbrad added a note in discussions that this principle did not change any existing policy: "When it was decided (with Jimbo Wales' concurrence) that his actions involving individual users...were subject to review by this Committee, it was also decided that Jimbo Wales' reserved power to review this Committee's decisions could not apply where we reviewed one of his own rulings". Arbitrator Jclemens added a different note, pointing out that this principle "is interesting" because "[this power of Jimbo Wales] is one of the few direct powers [he] still maintains as founder, most of the rest having been given up over the past few years". Jclemens also added a historical reference to older arbitration policy which expressed that this power of Jimbo's was "theoretical" and "not intended for use".
While TimidGuy related to a very special instance of a ban appeal, the case, taken in context of other historical notes on Jimbo Wales' authority as 'Founder', is an intriguing study of the ArbCom–Jimbo relationship. While it is not landmark in the sense that it has changed something, this case does demonstrate a clear indication of ArbCom's authority in relation to its own cases and to other entities—a statement that is likely to evolve over time as the encyclopedia grows in the future.
If you have a suggestion for a future 'Arbitration analysis' article, let us know in the comments, or feel free to drop a note on the writer's talk page. Ideas for new Signpost features are openly welcomed for proposal and discussion in
newsroom.
Reader comments
Since 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, selected staff, and chapter delegates have met for the Wikimedia annual conference in Berlin, Germany. This year's installment was held over the weekend of March 30 to April 1, after more than six months of tense relations between the board and chapters over governance and fundraising issues, including notions of pursuing the Foundation's goal of extending Wikimedia’s reach into the “global South” by reforming the distribution of Wikimedia funds. The board came to conclusions on finance, new organizational models and standards, and transparency.
The board unanimously agreed to publish how each of its members votes on proposed resolutions, reinstating a practice that was abandoned without discernible reason in December 2009.
Several resolutions emerged that define or improve the standards of Wikimedia movement committees and best practices for Wikimedia movement organizations. The role of the Chapters Committee was re-defined more broadly and it was asked to take on the additional role to look after new kinds of movement entities such as user groups, theme-specific entities, and sub-national Wikimedia organizations ( Amendment to the ChapCom rules, Affiliations Committee resolution, New Models) according to the Wikimedia affiliation model principles. Additionally, the Board approved a Board Governance Committee charter to formalize the duties of one of its own committees.
To better fit the new models, the Chapters Committee is to become the Affiliations Committee, whose charter will have to be presented by the Chapters Committee to the Board of Trustees by June 15, 2012. The new committee-to-be as well as the new entity forms were recommended by the Movement Roles working group, which itself was dissolved in Berlin and whose topic is subject of a Signpost-interview this week.
The board approved two resolutions on the highly contested issue of finance, declaring basically a moratorium on the topic until 2015, while limiting the payment processing by chapters on Wikimedia project sites such as the English Wikipedia to the Foundation itself and under conditions to the four already processing chapters (France, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK). At the same time, the board asked the Foundation staff to come up with a new volunteer-run Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), which shall handle all funds the movement receives through Wikimedia sites, by June 30.
While basically maintaining the status quo on fundraising, the resolutions nevertheless constitute a change of current procedures, since they significantly separate fund processing from money distribution and the introduction of the FDC. Thereby, the board, while making changes such as limiting and re-defining chapter processing, mainly followed the recommendations of executive director Sue Gardner.
On the chapter front, the weekend saw a major decision taken: to establish an entity, called Wikimedia Chapters Association, to improve and coordinate the activities of the chapters. The charter of the new organization, highly contested with 17 amendments, issues postponed until post-Berlin and with discussions by far exceeding the scheduled sessions, will establish a council to legislate, and a paid Secretariat to execute. Additionally, the council has to appoint auditors to ensure proper conduct. The participating chapters elected Tomer Ashur, the Chairman of Wikimedia Israel, as interim Secretary General, leading a team of four that takes care of the practical process up to the first council meeting at the upcoming Wikimania in Washington D.C. in July. A proposal for a similar organization had been made on December 11 2009 in the course of the strategic planning process by Pharos (today President of Wikimedia New York City):
“ | The Wikimedia movement should establish an International Wikimedia Chapters Network, for the purpose of increasing communication, cooperation and representation, both among the chapters and between the chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation. | ” |
but met with objection on January 31 2010 by Delphine Ménard (today Treasurer of Wikimedia Germany):
“ | I am not sure I understand this proposal. Or rather, the way I understand it, I am rather worried at the results it can yield in the longer run. Reading the (short) discussion, I understand that the proposal aims at looking at organizing the chapters around a "central" kind of piece, which would take care of ensuring communication, collaboration, making decisions etc. However, the way the recommendation is phrased, it seems to me that the task force proposes that the network of chapters be a separate entity from the Foundation, i.e. we'd have the chapters on one side (organized, say, à la Greenpeace), and the Foundation on the other. I have studied a bit the governance and structural models of international organisations, and there are none where I have seen two "central pieces" or "international pieces" (formal or informal) or whatever you want to call them.
As such, I am interested to understand better where the Foundation stands were there to be a "network of chapters" as per your proposal. Am I reading this wrong, or is the "network of chapters" meant to develop among chapters and chapters only? I can imagine a "Wikimedia network" developing and increasing communication, cooperation and representation, not a "chapters network" that seems not to fully integrate the Foundation, but rather develop as a counterpart to it." |
” |
The topic of the ongoing process of selecting the two chapter-appointed members of the 10-strong Board of Trustees was also discussed, with representatives from a majority of the chapters participating in a straw poll on the slate of eight candidates for the seats as an early part of the decision-making process. The chapters have until May 15 to come to consensus on who to put forward.
Additionally, sessions were held on content-related topics such as library outreach and Wiki loves monuments. Most topics discussed or decided in Berlin are expected to lead to follow up-debates on how to implement or develop them further. Decisions on issues such as the Funds Dissemination Committee, the Wikimedia Chapters Association, and the transformation of the Chapters Committee into the Affiliations Committee are scheduled to be finalized mid-2012.
This week saw a press release by Wikimedia Deutschland on the topic of their latest pursuit, Wikidata. The newest addition to the Wikimedia Foundation family tree, Wikidata aims to be "a free knowledge base about the world that can be read and edited by humans and machines alike...[that will] allow for central access to the data in a way similar to what Wikimedia Commons does for multimedia files." With the potential to be the first Wikimedia family expansion in six years, the initial construction of Wikidata, if successful, would be the largest project a single chapter has ever undertaken.
So, how will it work? According to its current technical description, development will proceed in three stages. The first, expected to end by August of this year, will overhaul the language system by providing a central interwiki repository. The second, to finish by December, will use a similar method to standardise the content of infoboxes, allowing editors to add and use the data within the framework and allowing smaller wikis to share in localised versions of this data for their own infoboxes. Finally, the third stage of development will see the automation of list and chart creation based on Wikidata data, at which point Wikimedia Deutschland plans to hand over operation and maintenance to the Wikimedia Foundation itself, hopefully by March 2013.
In addition to the obvious internal benefits of the project, the Wikidata team has been keen to stress the benefits of a central data repository that could surpass existing Wikimedia-scraping data wiki dbpedia, attracting numerous donors in the process. One half of the €1.3 million raised (equivalent to US$1.87 million) will come from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, a supporter of long-range activities that have potential to accelerate progress in the development of artificial intelligence. A further quarter is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, established by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, in the hopes that it will be an "easy-to-use, downloadable software tool for researchers, to help them manage and gain value from the increasing volume and complexity of scientific data." Google provides the last quarter of funding, stating that "[our] mission is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful."
The money raised has been used to hire a team of eight developers (plus four support staff). The development team itself will be led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology alumni Dr. Denny Vrandečić and Dr. Markus Krötzsch, the two co-founders of the Semantic MediaWiki project. Vrandečić stated on the foundation-l mailing list that although support staff have been in place for several weeks, the development team itself will first come together on Monday; following Wikimedia Deutschand's credo, he expressed his hope that "in the future we will be communicating about Wikidata much more, as the development is finally starting." Indeed, according to its timeline, previews will be presented as soon as feasible, probably in May or June, as a way to engage community discussion. In July, the team hopes to present at Wikimania 2012 on the topic of language links and to give updates on the project. Community communications will be handled by dedicated manager Lydia Pintscher, who has already introduced a communications roadmap. Look forward to an interview with Pintscher in next week's Signpost!accountcreator
flag, and spilled out into a host of ANI discussions (
1,
2 and
3), and prompted the perennial village pump proposal to
ban the ritual celebration of the wiki's wilder side. The candidate's participation in the April Fools pranks pushed the result of
Mabdul's RFA from an unclear 75% to a failed 68% during the last half day before closure.
In a hard-hitting exposé that will surely garner a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, The Signpost delved into the dark and twisted world of Wikipedia's most powerful media institution: The Signpost.
Founded by Michael Snow on 10 January 2005, the Signpost was created to "spare people the effort of trying to be everywhere and read every discussion" by centralizing Wikipedia's news and announcements. The Signpost has been published by a staff of volunteers on a weekly basis with few breaks in publication. Over the years, the community newspaper has developed recurring sections dedicated to reporting news, watching the way Wikipedia is portrayed in other media, highlighting material promoted to Featured status, exploring WikiProject communities, following arbitration cases, and discussing technological matters. Other sections have come and gone while new features are occasionally introduced.
Michael Snow served as the newspaper's first editor-in-chief from its inception until August 2005, when he passed the baton to Ryan Lomonaco (Ral315). After serving over three years in that capacity, Ral315 retired in December 2008 and was followed in February 2009 by Sage Ross (Ragesoss). When Ragesoss left the Signpost in June 2010, Tilman Bayer (HaeB) took up the reins. Since HaeB's departure in July 2011, the newspaper has been led by a team of interim editors. We interviewed all four former editors-in-chief (editors emeritus) and asked our current editor, Skomorokh, how Wikipedians can become involved in their community newspaper.
When did you first become involved with the Signpost and what initially motivated you to contribute? How did you wind up in the position of editor-in-chief? What have you done since moving on from that position?
What role does the Signpost play in the Wikipedia community? How does this role differ from Wikipedia's myriad talk pages, village pumps, and WikiProjects? Is the Signpost expected to live up to the same journalistic standards as other print, broadcast, and online media?
Share with our readers the most challenging aspects of writing and editing the Signpost. Do you have any suggestions for how the newspaper can better cope with deadlines, recruit talent, and engage readers?
In your opinion, what are the most important sections of the newspaper? How frequently should the Signpost run special reports, opinion pieces, book reports, and experimental sections? Does the paper need an occasional shake-up to keep it fresh?
At various times, there have been discussions about expanding the Signpost to a multi-wiki or multi-language format. What are your thoughts on changing the paper's scope and audience? Should the Signpost build stronger connections to existing newspapers on the other languages of Wikipedia?
The Signpost has developed its own lore, ranging from inside jokes about the initialization of several sections to rumors that the editor in chief position has become a training ground for future Wikimedia Foundation volunteers and employees. Can you respond to some of these stories? Do you have any other interesting tall tales to add to the mix?
What is the most important thing you have learned from your Signpost experience? What do you hope readers will take away from each issue of the Signpost?
Anything else you'd like to add?
What are the Signpost's most urgent needs? Are there any new features or revived sections you'd like to see in future issues? How can new writers and editors get involved today?
Next week, we'll interview some
nutmeggers. Until then, revisit Signpost history in the
archive.
Reader comments
Seven featured articles were promoted this week:
Five featured lists were promoted this week:
Fourteen featured pictures were promoted this week:
One featured topic was promoted this week:
The Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week, leaving one review open.
A review was opened of the Race and intelligence case as a compromise between opening a new case and ruling by motion. The review is intended to be a simplified form of a full case and will cover conduct issues that have purportedly arisen since the closure of the 2010 arbitration case. Over the last week, several editors submitted specific evidence at the request of the committee. The posting of the proposed decision is expected on 2 April.
The change in the core version control system from Subversion to Git, insofar as it can be separated from the change in code review systems, seems to have settled in well after last week's switchover ( Signpost coverage). By contrast, the new code review tool Gerrit continues to prove controversial, spawning dozens of threads on developer mailing lists.
The issues raised (many of which seem, at least on the surface, to be fairly minor) are both too numerous and in many cases too technical to be adequately summarised in a couple of lines; nevertheless, in doubtlessly a positive sign, developers seem to be treating the vast majority of the problems encountered (such as an awkward system for responding to comments and the overly personal nature of the autogenerated taglines that accompany certain types of review) simply as issues – bugs needing to be fixed – rather than internalising them as complaints with the fundamentals of the new code review process. Indeed, work on a number of these issues has started already; others will however require changes to Gerrit itself. On the whole, developers seem to be hopeful that all their issues with the new code review process can be resolved, given enough time. Nevertheless, a handful of the the issues raised do seem to have real sticking power, including concerns that Gerrit's code review paradigm may be fundamentally ill-suited to the review of large or complex changes ( wikitech-l mailing list), too difficult for new contributors to come to grips with, or overly conducive to the kind of endless bar-raising that would see the gap between old and new contributors continue to widen.
Though the current trend suggests that issues will continue to be either resolved or ameliorated over the coming weeks, a potential future fly in the ointment is a planned audit of Gerrit's performance in three months' time. Such an audit, a pre-switchover concession to those who initially disliked Gerrit, has the potential to lead to the code review system to being abandoned in favour of a competitor system such as Phabricator. Needless to say, should grievances with Gerrit be unresolved by then – with or without great appetite for a second difficult migration – the audit could be a difficult one to manage.
Write-ups of the Chennai Hackathon (held in the Indian city on March 17) began to be posted online this week, giving an insight into the success of a hackathon with a deliberately broad remit. Overall, thirteen projects were demonstrated at the end of the day, including a "text-a-quote" service, a hand-held device-based pronunciation recorder and work on an instant image rotate function accessible from file description pages ( wikitech-l mailing list). The quality that WMF localisation team member Gerard Meijssen perceived in many of the projects prompted him to comment how they "deserve attention [from the wide] public—they represent missing functionality or they have a different approach to something we are struggling with. They are all by people who have a keen interest in the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation and as such they represent our 'latest generation'".
In total, the hackathon (one of an increasing number of tech-focused Wikimedia meetups being scheduled across the globe) attracted some 21 programmers, overwhelmingly but not exclusively male. In writing up the event, WMF developer and attendee Yuvi Panda described why he thought coders at the "super awesome and super productive" event were able to get so much done in a single eight-hour day:
“ | The event started with us sailing past security reasonably easily, and getting setup with internet without a glitch... Since this was a pure hackathon, there were no explicit tutorials or presentations. As people came in, we asked them what technologies/fields they are familiar with, and picked out an idea for them to work on from the Ideas List. This took care of the biggest problem with hackathons with new people—half the day spent on figuring out what to work on, and when found, it is completely outside the domain of expertise of the people hacking on the idea. Talking together with them fast to pick an idea within 5 minutes that they can complete in the day fixed this problem and made sure people can concentrate on coding for the rest of the day. | ” |
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.