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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
on 12/13/08 6:52 PM, Florence Devouard at Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

> "Professionals could probably help us grow up in certain areas, but they
> would have to cope with all the no-life standing on our mailing lists".


Florence,

"Professionals", or, as they are also referred to, "experts" don't get much
of a welcome in the Project. I know, I'm one of them. My professional :-)
guess is that it is fear by the larger Community that they will somehow take
over. This is unfortunate thinking. And I believe it is having a negative
effect on the overall depth and quality of the encyclopedia.

Marc Riddell


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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
2008/12/14 Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86@comcast.net>:
> on 12/13/08 6:52 PM, Florence Devouard at Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> "Professionals could probably help us grow up in certain areas, but they
>> would have to cope with all the no-life standing on our mailing lists".
>
>
> Florence,
>
> "Professionals", or, as they are also referred to, "experts" don't get much
> of a welcome in the Project. I know, I'm one of them. My professional :-)
> guess is that it is fear by the larger Community that they will somehow take
> over. This is unfortunate thinking. And I believe it is having a negative
> effect on the overall depth and quality of the encyclopedia.

There may be some of that, but it is also true that a lot of experts
are actually unhelpful (perhaps we could do something to improve that,
though - a system for experts to review articles, rather than edit
them, might be good). When experts get involved in editing there are
often ownership and original research issues (or, to be more precise,
WP:OWN and WP:OR issues - following an earlier discussion, I deleted
the acronyms and wrote them out in full and then realised that
actually that makes my statement ambiguous since people don't know if
I'm using the terms in their general dictionary meanings or their very
precise Wikipedia policy meanings, and in fact, I meant the latter -
jargon serves a purpose and from now on I think I'm just going to use
it!).

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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 12/13/08 6:52 PM, Florence Devouard at Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> "Professionals could probably help us grow up in certain areas, but they
>> would have to cope with all the no-life standing on our mailing lists".
>
>
> Florence,
>
> "Professionals", or, as they are also referred to, "experts" don't get much
> of a welcome in the Project. I know, I'm one of them. My professional :-)
> guess is that it is fear by the larger Community that they will somehow take
> over. This is unfortunate thinking. And I believe it is having a negative
> effect on the overall depth and quality of the encyclopedia.
>
> Marc Riddell


True, true.
But note that this fear seems to be less pregnant (hmm, maybe not the
right word, pregnent ?) in WMF, which now has hired "expert" or use some
as consultants.

Ant


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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
> True, true.
> But note that this fear seems to be less pregnant (hmm, maybe not the
> right word, pregnent ?) in WMF, which now has hired "expert" or use some
> as consultants.

The WMF uses experts for administrative stuff, that is very different
to using them directly in the creation of content.

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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Hoi,
The creation of content is not something the WMF organisation deals with. It
has started to employ experts in order to make our environment more usable.
As part of the Stanton project, a user interface designer will be included.
This is likely to improve the usability of MediaWiki a lot. By including
such expertise as part of development projects, we can hope that people who
have so far been unable to connect to our wiki way will become empowered and
join us in making our projects grow in vitality.

The notion that many experts have not been part of our community is however
a fallacy, many people have been contributing as part of external projects
to improve content of the en,wp. One such example has been people from the
"Linguist list" working on the linguistics domain.
Thanks,
GerardM

2008/12/14 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>

> > True, true.
> > But note that this fear seems to be less pregnant (hmm, maybe not the
> > right word, pregnent ?) in WMF, which now has hired "expert" or use some
> > as consultants.
>
> The WMF uses experts for administrative stuff, that is very different
> to using them directly in the creation of content.
>
> _______________________________________________
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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Birgitte SB wrote:
>
>> I am strongly against collaborating with Westernish governments to help make their censorship more effective. I personally don't think we should help anyone make their censorship more effective. But if we are to decide we would rather have citizens under censorship able to participate with censorship rather than not participate at all, we should not discriminate with which governments we are willing to help.
>>
>> Personally I don't get censorship, nor the complacency Europeans generally have about living under it. I don't get it but I can recognize that many other people see it differently and may want to support censorship. But we can't pick and choose which government's censorship we will support. This is an international organization and nothing in mission expresses support for western mores over others. Selectively helping some governments censor would be a disastrous move for WMF to make.
>>
>> Birgitte SB
>>
>
> Hello
>
> I did not mean to suggest we should collaborate with whatever
> government. I meant that we could maybe learnt from what happenned and
> think about scenarios for different futures, and prepare ourselves for
> these different futures.
>
> Ant
>
>
>

To say again what I already noted in another posting but in
other words; I really think planning like this should be done
at board level and in private, not at the mailing list which
any troll can participate in and get silly ideas from.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


P.S. Yes I realize I am here advocating lack of transparency,
but this is just one of those legitimate cases where such
lack of transparency is not merely excusable, but a sine qua
non.



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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
> There may be some of that, but it is also true that a lot of experts
> are actually unhelpful (perhaps we could do something to improve that,
> though - a system for experts to review articles, rather than edit
> them, might be good). When experts get involved in editing there are
> often ownership and original research issues (or, to be more precise,
> WP:OWN and WP:OR issues - following an earlier discussion, I deleted
> the acronyms and wrote them out in full and then realised that
> actually that makes my statement ambiguous since people don't know if
> I'm using the terms in their general dictionary meanings or their very
> precise Wikipedia policy meanings, and in fact, I meant the latter -
> jargon serves a purpose and from now on I think I'm just going to use
> it!).

Have a look at what I was preparing if you are interested

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yaroslav_Blanter/Temp17

Cheers
Yaroslav


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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Judson Dunn wrote:

> Make no mistake, the free dissemination of all human knowledge to
> every person on the planet is a fight. The forces that would spread
> ignorance as a means of control, and separation are always fighting
> back. The idea that we should acquiesce in that fight, and censor our
> own information from people that are searching for that knowledge is
> disgusting, and would cause a substantial backlash against the
> Foundation.

The very mission of the WMF is illegal as hell in a huge number of
countries including some that are considered democratic, Western and
what ever. Censorship is so deeply engraved into legal systems that is
isn't even recognized as such in many cases. It can fall under
protection "from illegal content" including "from hate crimes", "of
personal honor", "of privacy", "of dignity of the king", "of the nation
and its culture as such" and what ever more reasons there are to limit
free speech.

Even in areas where most probably all of us will agree that some content
should not be publicly available, such as child pornography, there are
huge issues about the scope and the method of the ban. Not even the
European Union can agree on what is a child or what is pornographic, so
how could we establish global guidelines on acceptable content?

Ciao Henning


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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Thomas Dalton wrote:
> It's a democratically elected government making the laws
> and those laws don't prevent free and fair elections, so it isn't
> undemocratic. (Of course, an semi-official and unaccountable agency
> like the IWF enforcing the laws is not a great way to go about it.)

Your addendum makes the point: Outsourcing censorship to a private body
with no public appeal process is a bad idea. And the UK public noticed
that now. Let's see if the incident has legislative consequences. But
that is not our problem.

On the other hand, a governmental agency with proper procedures and
processes would have acted much slower in both directions.
Self-regulatory bodies might be too fast in acting sometimes - but they
are more flexible in reacting than governments as well.

Ciao Henning


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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
2008/12/15 Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net>:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>> Yes, all states have laws. It is the content of those laws which
>>> determines whether or not the state is a free and open society. One
>>> may have a free and open society that is not an anarchy.
>>>
>>
>> If the country has free and fair elections for its leaders then it is
>> a democracy. A law made by democratically elected leaders that doesn't
>> get in the way of free and fair elections cannot be undemocratic. Just
>> because you don't like the law doesn't mean a majority of the
>> electorate agrees with you.
> So it seems that you feel that the tyranny of the majority is
> justified. California recently voted by a small majority to outlaw gay
> marriages. When democracy is used that way to needlessly suppress the
> rights of the minority it puts doubts into its democratic credentials.

Democracy is the worst system of government - except for all the others.

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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Todd Allen wrote:
> Yes, all states have laws. It is the content of those laws which
> determines whether or not the state is a free and open society. One
> may have a free and open society that is not an anarchy.
>
> Prior-restraint censorship, or blocking people from seeing,
> discussing, and thinking about (as opposed to performing) potentially
> harmful actions make that answer a "no".
>
I cringe when I hear that an application has been made to the courts in
India to block Google Earth because the perpetrators of the Mumbai
attacks used Google Earth in planning those attacks. Most uses of such
a service remain perfectly innocent and productive, and submitting to
paranoid police mentality can be more harmful than most of the dangers
the police pretends to prevent.

Ec

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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> Yes, all states have laws. It is the content of those laws which
>> determines whether or not the state is a free and open society. One
>> may have a free and open society that is not an anarchy.
>>
>
> If the country has free and fair elections for its leaders then it is
> a democracy. A law made by democratically elected leaders that doesn't
> get in the way of free and fair elections cannot be undemocratic. Just
> because you don't like the law doesn't mean a majority of the
> electorate agrees with you.
So it seems that you feel that the tyranny of the majority is
justified. California recently voted by a small majority to outlaw gay
marriages. When democracy is used that way to needlessly suppress the
rights of the minority it puts doubts into its democratic credentials.

Ec

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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Florence Devouard wrote:
>> Birgitte SB wrote:
>>
>>> I am strongly against collaborating with Westernish governments to help make their censorship more effective. I personally don't think we should help anyone make their censorship more effective. But if we are to decide we would rather have citizens under censorship able to participate with censorship rather than not participate at all, we should not discriminate with which governments we are willing to help.
>>>
>>> Personally I don't get censorship, nor the complacency Europeans generally have about living under it. I don't get it but I can recognize that many other people see it differently and may want to support censorship. But we can't pick and choose which government's censorship we will support. This is an international organization and nothing in mission expresses support for western mores over others. Selectively helping some governments censor would be a disastrous move for WMF to make.
>>>
>>> Birgitte SB
>>>
>> Hello
>>
>> I did not mean to suggest we should collaborate with whatever
>> government. I meant that we could maybe learnt from what happenned and
>> think about scenarios for different futures, and prepare ourselves for
>> these different futures.
>>
>> Ant
>>
>>
>>
>
> To say again what I already noted in another posting but in
> other words; I really think planning like this should be done
> at board level and in private, not at the mailing list which
> any troll can participate in and get silly ideas from.
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>
>
> P.S. Yes I realize I am here advocating lack of transparency,
> but this is just one of those legitimate cases where such
> lack of transparency is not merely excusable, but a sine qua
> non.


It is not only a question of lack of transparency Jussi (though I fully
understand your point about the trolls).
There are issues which goes much beyond of the board of WMF.

A long time ago, many years, I noted that everything global was decided
at the english wikipedia level, and then applied in other languages. And
I remember I fought for the right of all languages to participate into
the decision making at the global level.
What you advocate is that every decision at the global level be now
restricted to the board of WMF, and in private on top. In short, you
advocate a nice top down organization, whilst the organization itself is
not willing to take on that role. That's disappointing.

I do not think it will happen. I think what will happen is that either
issues will not be dealt with, or that issues will be dealt with at the
local level, without much learning and much global understanding.

But well, fine. Maybe unavoidadable.


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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Where you see tyranny I see beauty. A majority of the people acted (A real majority!) to speak through their ballots. That is the purest form of democracy, and that is how California works. We are not a rightocracy. If people have an issue with that, there are 49 other states to live in. The best part about this is that all it takes to overturn this law is another vote.

The main reason this law was so successful was that gay marriage was legalized by judicial fiat. The people of California do not like it when the courts act as legislators. All that is necessary to overturn this law is to ask the electorate again, and let the will of the people govern.




________________________________
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 11:02:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] and what if...

Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> Yes, all states have laws. It is the content of those laws which
>> determines whether or not the state is a free and open society. One
>> may have a free and open society that is not an anarchy.
>>
>
> If the country has free and fair elections for its leaders then it is
> a democracy. A law made by democratically elected leaders that doesn't
> get in the way of free and fair elections cannot be undemocratic. Just
> because you don't like the law doesn't mean a majority of the
> electorate agrees with you.
So it seems that you feel that the tyranny of the majority is
justified. California recently voted by a small majority to outlaw gay
marriages. When democracy is used that way to needlessly suppress the
rights of the minority it puts doubts into its democratic credentials.

Ec

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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>
>> Florence Devouard wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hello
>>>
>>> I did not mean to suggest we should collaborate with whatever
>>> government. I meant that we could maybe learnt from what happenned and
>>> think about scenarios for different futures, and prepare ourselves for
>>> these different futures.
>>>
>>> Ant
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> To say again what I already noted in another posting but in
>> other words; I really think planning like this should be done
>> at board level and in private, not at the mailing list which
>> any troll can participate in and get silly ideas from.
>>
>>
>> Yours,
>>
>> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>>
>>
>> P.S. Yes I realize I am here advocating lack of transparency,
>> but this is just one of those legitimate cases where such
>> lack of transparency is not merely excusable, but a sine qua
>> non.
>>
>
>
> It is not only a question of lack of transparency Jussi (though I fully
> understand your point about the trolls).
> There are issues which goes much beyond of the board of WMF.
>
> A long time ago, many years, I noted that everything global was decided
> at the english wikipedia level, and then applied in other languages. And
> I remember I fought for the right of all languages to participate into
> the decision making at the global level.
> What you advocate is that every decision at the global level be now
> restricted to the board of WMF, and in private on top. In short, you
> advocate a nice top down organization, whilst the organization itself is
> not willing to take on that role. That's disappointing.
>
> I do not think it will happen. I think what will happen is that either
> issues will not be dealt with, or that issues will be dealt with at the
> local level, without much learning and much global understanding.
>
> But well, fine. Maybe unavoidadable.
>
>

I think you read completely different things into what I
wrote, than the words in plain state; perhaps you read
my text in too much haste.

Planning for crises and contingencies is a totally different
thing than making decisions. Crises and contingencies
require prepared options, which are by their nature not
"decisions made", but only happen in the event, as the
events themselves dictate, with the actors hopefully
applying a sound Observe, Orient, Decide, Act ([[OODA Loop]])
manner of operations.

Your sentence: "What you advocate is that every decision
at the global level be now restricted to the board of WMF,
and in private on top." ...is the very opposite of what I
wished to communicate.

Issues of laying out hard and soft options for contingencies
is a very specific and ring-fenced area of operations. It
could not be further from "every decision at the global level".

I would however recommend every local and global actor
to peruse our article on the OODA Loop, and on its creator
John Boyd in general too, for that matter.

But for more general decision making in the foundation,
that is a completely separate matter, which should not be
mixed in with the discussion of how to plan for crises.

It is in fact the case that so far, as wikipedians get more
practise with crises (germany and france seem to have
had more practise than most), the experience itself will
likely improve the general readiness of the foundation
staff and local actors acting in concert when events
unfold on the ground.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen









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Re: and what if... [ In reply to ]
David Gerard wrote:
> It
> would be novel indeed to have a Holocaust denier who wasn't a crank as
> an editor, but I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
>

You'd be surprised, then. If you're talking about Holocaust-denial
*activists*, trying to edit articles to encompass that point of view,
then sure. But normal people who believe the Holocaust either didn't
happen or was overblown, but realize their view is a minority one and
edit in other areas? We have quite a few, especially editors from Arab
countries.

-Mark


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