Mailing List Archive

Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'm curious.
>
> What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do* that will be better?

I think there are several things which could be done better, and I very
much appreciate Brion's calling attention to the need for practical
discussions rather than vague statements of dissatisfaction. :)

We have for the past couple of years operated in a fairly unusual way,
in that 4 of the 5 board members have been extremely active in things
that would normally be the functions of executives and employees. This
is a natural mode of operation for a small club, but it shows a lot of
strain as things grow.

Angela, Anthere, and I have been deeply involved in all aspects of the
projects (and intend to continue doing so). Michael has been, for the
past year, deeply involved in the business side of things (negotiating
bandwidth, paying bills, doing accounting, etc.).

This is highly unusual. I am on the board of several nonprofit
organizations, and I am not asked to take part in the day to day
management. The ability to attract high quality people (from inside the
community, or from outside the commnity as needed) to serve on the board
depends in large part of separating these day to day management
functions from board functions. Being on the board of Wikimedia should
not be a full-time job.

> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do *right*
> that the present management is not?

Some of the areas where we have been failing is in the timely
negotiation of partnerships which are consistent with our charitable
mission and which would both reduce our reliance on fund drives, and
increase our abilities to meet our charitable goals. We are doing a
great job in some areas (English, German, French, Japanese, and several
other European languages), a decent job in some areas (Chinese is not
bad, Arabic shows promise), and a fairly poor job in other areas (Hindi,
Swahili, Bengali, etc.)

> If there's something that management needs to *do* which will actually be better
> served by a new management structure or new board members, then by all means
> let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.
>
> What first, then how.

:)

--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
# http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################
Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> Wikiversity is a natural fit with the existing projects and the slogans
> and bylaws yet it is not being implemented despite overwhelming
> community support.

It should be noted that I am a strong supporter of Wikiversity. So,
whatever merits the rest of your rant might have, this does not seem to
be particularly relevant.

The Wikiversity group was asked to make some relatively minor
adjustments to the charter, adjustments which addressed the concerns
*not of the board*, but of the people who had opposed to creation of
Wikiversity.

The board has not been presented with a followup proposal for a vote.

--Jimbo
Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> I have been eagerly awaiting Wikiversity for about three years now as it
> was an obvious synergistic project. I would be curious as to what the
> real holdup is with it. Are we afraid of hardware or bandwidth
> limitations? Are a bunch of self motivated learners to potentially
> radical and threatening to the status quo?

Perhaps the irony is that the board has deliberately chosen not to
engage in "top down management" and to let this community "manage
itself". This has a lot to recommend it, because the wikiversity
proposal is a lot stronger for it.

But if you are really upset that this community-driven process takes so
long, then instead of clamoring for the board to not micromanage, you
should perhaps ask us to do so. I am quite sure that we could get
Wikiversity approved and up and running in 2-3 weeks time, if we chose
to run roughshod over the community to do it.

This is actually a very typical scenario, of course.

--Jimbo
Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
On Jun 13, 2006, at 1:19 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would
>>> do *right* that the present management is not?
>>>
>>
>> Deal with marshaling assets and legal resources to deal with
>> defamation litigation. Tackle the problem of how to effectively avoid
>> such litigation.
>>
>
> Is there anything specific in what you'd like to see done about it?
> What can the
> management do to make this work more visible or more complete?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I think the major step leadership can do is to made every
administrator and user aware that one of the major risks of being a
publisher (which Wikipedia and each user is) is defamation
litigation. [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]] is an example
of good work in that direction. So, consciousness raising and support
for administrators who take the initiative and act boldly in this
area (the arbitration committee can help in this now). All this goes
toward building a track record of good faith efforts to minimize the
consequences and damage that results from vandalism and malicious
editing. When we do end up in court it is going to very helpful to be
able to document the policies and actions we took to minimize and
control damage resulting from defamation.

Also we need to start lining up legal resources for every language
and jurisdiction on Earth. If someone is libeled in the Finnish
Wikipedia, what happens? Do we just say, tough, see you in court in
Florida? So part of this is public relations. Being able to quickly
apologize in Finnish might be very helpful.

And I guess, we need to consider the question raised by the
Siegenthaler incident and focused on by Brandt: the degree of our
responsibility for the anonymous malicious editor. The legal defense
that we are not a publisher, nor are we responsible for identifying
the person who made the malicious edit might be effective, but that
is very like keeping a stray dog around and when it bits someone,
saying, "not my dog".

Fred

>
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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>I have been eagerly awaiting Wikiversity for about three years now as it
>>was an obvious synergistic project. I would be curious as to what the
>>real holdup is with it. Are we afraid of hardware or bandwidth
>>limitations? Are a bunch of self motivated learners to potentially
>>radical and threatening to the status quo?
>>
>>
>
>Perhaps the irony is that the board has deliberately chosen not to
>engage in "top down management" and to let this community "manage
>itself". This has a lot to recommend it, because the wikiversity
>proposal is a lot stronger for it.
>
>But if you are really upset that this community-driven process takes so
>long, then instead of clamoring for the board to not micromanage, you
>should perhaps ask us to do so. I am quite sure that we could get
>Wikiversity approved and up and running in 2-3 weeks time, if we chose
>to run roughshod over the community to do it.
>
>This is actually a very typical scenario, of course.
>
>

Although the community should ideally decide about things it is my
feeling that that is more often than not an utopian thought. The problem
is everybody tries to throw their opinions in a debate and tries to get
attention to these opinions. This usually results in an endless debate.
Many debates within our community therefor are already going on for 2,3
or more years. This because some people leave. Some people join and new
views are expressed and the same debate is extended again. Because of
this we never reach any conclusions to a debate. Which is one of the
things that make people very tired of wikimedia (me for instance)

I feel that there are 3 solutions:

1) A top down approach. The community gets x time to debate an issue
(say 1 - 3 months) after that the boards takes this debate into account
and makes a decision and that is final

2) A variant of 1) The community appoints 1 or 2 discussionleaders. They
will guide the debate in phases. Thesis->Antithesis etc. And will write
a conclusion to the debate at the end. And present this conclusion as
the community consensus and the board has to accept this.

3) The least feasible though I think an interesting option. People start
to group themselves in parties and every party has 1 person as its
spokesperson in the debate. This means that it will not become a
cacophonia of voices and the debate might proceed faster. After 1-3
months the spokespersons should reach a consensus which is acceptable
to most.

Hope someone reads this

Waerth/Walter van Kalken
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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>
>>I'm curious.
>>
>>What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do* that will be better?
>>
snip

>
>
>>What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do *right*
>>that the present management is not?
>>
>>
>
>Some of the areas where we have been failing is in the timely
>negotiation of partnerships which are consistent with our charitable
>mission and which would both reduce our reliance on fund drives, and
>increase our abilities to meet our charitable goals. We are doing a
>great job in some areas (English, German, French, Japanese, and several
>other European languages), a decent job in some areas (Chinese is not
>bad, Arabic shows promise), and a fairly poor job in other areas (Hindi,
>Swahili, Bengali, etc.)
>
>
>
>>If there's something that management needs to *do* which will actually be better
>>served by a new management structure or new board members, then by all means
>>let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.
>>
>>What first, then how.
>>
>>
What is a functioning Wikiversity.

How. Perhaps rather than simply launching our own producing some
innovation from peer based free knowledge production we should consider
canning the Wikiversity proposal and contacting these folks regarding
partnering opportunities:

http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikibooks:Staff_lounge&action=edit&section=8

They may be resistant at because it sounds line they are lining up
corporate funding to pay the content creators. Obviously this is a bit
at odds for our type of distributed production of free content where
everyone contributes as they can and will.

However. They may find that the production of large quantities of free
content takes a large distributed effort which they cannot afford. In
which case they may be interested in partnering with us in getting
Wikiversity going or establishing a Denverversity with local Colorado
assets. University of Colorado had a damn fine computer and
engineering program twenty years ago when I attended as a freshmen and
at that time they collaborated in cooperative projects with the other
state schools quite frequently.

They might be interested in providing us the infrastructure and allowing
us with our leading edge experience to take the lead in establishing the
social environment and helping define the policy issues that need to be
researched and tested to shield the state taxpayers from any liability
issues.

At a minimum I would expect an effective management group to glean some
useful intelligence regarding their thoughts on how to proceed and how
they are thinking about addressing the large issues that will face
effective Wikiversity. Presumably we can find a way to publicly
propagate this information back to our appointed proposal development team.

An easy way might be to just give them the appropriate URLs and a
special engraved invitation to come to meta and redline all existing
proposals pages and debate as they see it. Perhaps they could tell us
their perspective .... either as a locally uninterested ..... not
competitor they essentially have overlapping markets ... as an outside
consultant which similar experience sharing expertise and gathering
information and ideas on how we intend to initially attack the challenges.

regards,
lazyquasar


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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>
>>Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>I'm curious.
>>>
>>>What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do* that will be better?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>snip
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do *right*
>>>that the present management is not?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Some of the areas where we have been failing is in the timely
>>negotiation of partnerships which are consistent with our charitable
>>mission and which would both reduce our reliance on fund drives, and
>>increase our abilities to meet our charitable goals. We are doing a
>>great job in some areas (English, German, French, Japanese, and several
>>other European languages), a decent job in some areas (Chinese is not
>>bad, Arabic shows promise), and a fairly poor job in other areas (Hindi,
>>Swahili, Bengali, etc.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>If there's something that management needs to *do* which will actually be better
>>>served by a new management structure or new board members, then by all means
>>>let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.
>>>
>>>What first, then how.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>What is a functioning Wikiversity.
>
>How. Perhaps rather than simply launching our own producing some
>innovation from peer based free knowledge production we should consider
>canning the Wikiversity proposal and contacting these folks regarding
>partnering opportunities:
>
>http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikibooks:Staff_lounge&action=edit&section=8
>
>They may be resistant at because it sounds line they are lining up
>corporate funding to pay the content creators. Obviously this is a bit
>at odds for our type of distributed production of free content where
>everyone contributes as they can and will.
>
>
>
>
I forgot. They might also be interested in mirroring our controlled
version content on their computing resources and sending editors to
us. If this requires complicated programming beyond what our capable
developers can tackle easily given their current workloads or strange
platforms perhaps they can interest their computer departments in doing
the develop with either funded or unfunded groups.

We get free robust mirrors in exchange for managing the content
development environment. Their departments and students are not
responsible for managing the content development issues such as the
growing troll, deeply hidden link spam, and copyright/slander issues.

Once they do the development should be plenty of U.S. technical
universities with similar environements and walla! Our explosive
scaling problem is over!. We can dedicate funds to growing a small
professional staff and keeping up with the impending explosive growth in
editors.

regards,
lazyquasar

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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>Wikiversity is a natural fit with the existing projects and the slogans
>>and bylaws yet it is not being implemented despite overwhelming
>>community support.
>>
>>
>
>It should be noted that I am a strong supporter of Wikiversity. So,
>whatever merits the rest of your rant might have, this does not seem to
>be particularly relevant.
>
>The Wikiversity group was asked to make some relatively minor
>adjustments to the charter, adjustments which addressed the concerns
>*not of the board*, but of the people who had opposed to creation of
>Wikiversity.
>
>The board has not been presented with a followup proposal for a vote.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
You ever heard of management by walking around?

This is a farcical response to a year delay after members of your Board
of Directors presented a "freeing the curriculum" presentation.

From 200 voting supporters and a fair amount of activity in the
temporary space we are down to a committe of five, a couple of alleged
trolls, and maybe a few editors shifting back and forth from wikibooks.

Squandering that momentum and presenting this incompetence to practicing
professionals, a few of whom definately came calling with interested
graduate students, is not our finest hour.

Fun to find we are on speaking terms again.

regards,
lazyquasar

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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>Wikiversity is a natural fit with the existing projects and the slogans
>>and bylaws yet it is not being implemented despite overwhelming
>>community support.
>>
>>
>
>It should be noted that I am a strong supporter of Wikiversity. So,
>whatever merits the rest of your rant might have, this does not seem to
>be particularly relevant.
>
>The Wikiversity group was asked to make some relatively minor
>adjustments to the charter, adjustments which addressed the concerns
>*not of the board*, but of the people who had opposed to creation of
>Wikiversity.
>
>The board has not been presented with a followup proposal for a vote.
>
>
Further.

Since when do naysayers opposing a project set policy for that project?

That is about the most idiotic thing I have experienced locally for a
few days.

Also the best illustration of why the diverging projects are inevitably
going to come to the point of self organization independently of each
other and then need to define effective interfaces just like effective
complex machines, software packages, or big international organizations.

You must be working late. This is very substandard reasoning compared
to your usual brilliant prose.

regards,
lazyquasar

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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>I have been eagerly awaiting Wikiversity for about three years now as it
>>was an obvious synergistic project. I would be curious as to what the
>>real holdup is with it. Are we afraid of hardware or bandwidth
>>limitations? Are a bunch of self motivated learners to potentially
>>radical and threatening to the status quo?
>>
>>
>
>Perhaps the irony is that the board has deliberately chosen not to
>engage in "top down management" and to let this community "manage
>itself". This has a lot to recommend it, because the wikiversity
>proposal is a lot stronger for it.
>
>But if you are really upset that this community-driven process takes so
>long, then instead of clamoring for the board to not micromanage, you
>should perhaps ask us to do so. I am quite sure that we could get
>Wikiversity approved and up and running in 2-3 weeks time, if we chose
>to run roughshod over the community to do it.
>
>This is actually a very typical scenario, of course.
>
>
>
Ever consider activating the URLs which we ... sorry God King, you
control via the Foundation?

The initial development and prototyping could proceed effectively we
could be attracting participation and the Board could make it clear that
if the Wikimedia Foundation, or God King, or Community whoever is really
the driving force and final say around the Wikimedia organization and
community decided against it .... then the database would be backed up
and burned on CD or posted for download for any and all who wish to
pursue the concept elsewhere. Then a nice clean deactivation and
delete of the prototype space could occur.

I am quite sure given the proven talent of our developments and some of
your employee something like this is possible on servers the Wikimeda
Board of Developers controls.

If it is not possible I would be interested in any perspectives from the
Board or the employees or the developers regarding why not. It will be
helpful to any future attempts to initialize an equivalent project
elsewhere on other assets.

A calender year is not a trivial asset to retirees or people nearing
retirement in the U.S. with the kind of expertise we need to succeed
with Wikiversity. The average U.S. male kick offs within a few years
of retirement. It would be nice if we could keep them around for a few
years working for us creating free knowledge content that could be
delivered to the rest of the world.

Further, a calender year is not trivial to a starving entrepreneur
anywhere on this planet that just needed some information to succeed and
feed his family or a sufficient grounding in some relevant area of
knowledge or information to get gainful employment in a sweatshop paying
something instead of nothing.

As the previously designated troll and not on the current committee
appointed by the Board of Directors of the Wikimedia Foundation I hearby
request that you direct Brion to active the wiki and URL at the domain
wikiversity.org currently controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation at his
earliest efficient time on a time and material available no impact to
the rest of the operation basis with the clear understanding that if the
project is declined for support by the Wikimedia Foundation it will be
backed up, posted for download in whatever appropriate compressed format
is effective and available, and deleted from Wikimeda Foundation servers.

There. You have a request for action from the bottom. An easy
demonstration of bottom up methods in our peer based community and a
full CYA for later if the surging naysayers manage to convince the
community at large and/or the responsible controlling board members that
Wikiversity must not be operated by the Wikimedia Foundation and/or
community for whatever prevailing reasons or conclusion that dominate
that decision making process.

Finally. We are on parallel top down design, bottom up optimization,
experimentation, and initiative destined to meet in the middle under the
final say of the Board and/or prevailing factions of the community at large.

Have a nice day.

regards,
lazyquaser

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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Walter van Kalken wrote:

>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>
>>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>I have been eagerly awaiting Wikiversity for about three years now as it
>>>was an obvious synergistic project. I would be curious as to what the
>>>real holdup is with it. Are we afraid of hardware or bandwidth
>>>limitations? Are a bunch of self motivated learners to potentially
>>>radical and threatening to the status quo?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Perhaps the irony is that the board has deliberately chosen not to
>>engage in "top down management" and to let this community "manage
>>itself". This has a lot to recommend it, because the wikiversity
>>proposal is a lot stronger for it.
>>
>>But if you are really upset that this community-driven process takes so
>>long, then instead of clamoring for the board to not micromanage, you
>>should perhaps ask us to do so. I am quite sure that we could get
>>Wikiversity approved and up and running in 2-3 weeks time, if we chose
>>to run roughshod over the community to do it.
>>
>>This is actually a very typical scenario, of course.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>Although the community should ideally decide about things it is my
>feeling that that is more often than not an utopian thought. The problem
>is everybody tries to throw their opinions in a debate and tries to get
>attention to these opinions. This usually results in an endless debate.
>Many debates within our community therefor are already going on for 2,3
>or more years. This because some people leave. Some people join and new
>views are expressed and the same debate is extended again. Because of
>this we never reach any conclusions to a debate. Which is one of the
>things that make people very tired of wikimedia (me for instance)
>
>I feel that there are 3 solutions:
>
>1) A top down approach. The community gets x time to debate an issue
>(say 1 - 3 months) after that the boards takes this debate into account
>and makes a decision and that is final
>
>2) A variant of 1) The community appoints 1 or 2 discussionleaders. They
>will guide the debate in phases. Thesis->Antithesis etc. And will write
>a conclusion to the debate at the end. And present this conclusion as
>the community consensus and the board has to accept this.
>
>3) The least feasible though I think an interesting option. People start
>to group themselves in parties and every party has 1 person as its
>spokesperson in the debate. This means that it will not become a
>cacophonia of voices and the debate might proceed faster. After 1-3
>months the spokespersons should reach a consensus which is acceptable
>to most.
>
>Hope someone reads this
>
>Waerth/Walter van Kalken
>_______________________________________________
>
I read it.

Some mighty fine reasoning.

From my perspective all of these approaches and variations have been
implemented from time to time locally so you are spot on.

regards,
lazyquasar

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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>Wikiversity is a natural fit with the existing projects and the slogans
>>and bylaws yet it is not being implemented despite overwhelming
>>community support.
>>
>>
>
>It should be noted that I am a strong supporter of Wikiversity. So,
>whatever merits the rest of your rant might have, this does not seem to
>be particularly relevant.
>
>The Wikiversity group was asked to make some relatively minor
>adjustments to the charter, adjustments which addressed the concerns
>*not of the board*, but of the people who had opposed to creation of
>Wikiversity.
>
>The board has not been presented with a followup proposal for a vote.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
Actually, it was, but the follow-up was ignored, together with no real
means or process to submit the follow up proposal. And the objections
that were raised by the board were so curt and lacking any detail that
the participants trying to modify the Wikiversity proposal have resorted
to tactics more related to reading tea leaves than anything else.

Some significant changes have taken place in the proposal, never the
less, and there is going to be something forth coming in just the next
few weeks. A much more expanded and detailed proposal for Wikiversity
is going to be presented to both the Wikimedia community at large, as
well as to the WMF board for formal approval. It should hopefully
address some of the areas that lacked detail in the original proposal.
All I can say is simply be patient and hopefully most people who are
supporters of Wikiversity will be pleased with the results, as will some
of the critics.

--
Robert Scott Horning



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Re: Would you consider being on the Board? [ In reply to ]
On 6/15/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> Although the community should ideally decide about things it is my
> feeling that that is more often than not an utopian thought. The problem
> is everybody tries to throw their opinions in a debate and tries to get
> attention to these opinions. This usually results in an endless debate.

Yes. Ongoing debate is fine, but there should be a corrolary to npov
-- a greater goal aroun each topic of improving information on the
subject, not merely having one opinion/position win or lose. Then it
would be alright if people come and go; the underlying body of
knowledge about the topic would steadily grow more robust, people with
similar issues in other organizations would be able to start referring
to this ongoing discussion for background material, &c.

Among the longest-standing issues, the majority are faced not by
Wikipedia or the WMF alone, but by many other orgs; in our role as
leaders in creation of useful information perhaps we can improve our
debating style so that it generates both light and heat.

> Many debates within our community therefor are already going on for 2,3
> or more years. This because some people leave. Some people join and new
> views are expressed and the same debate is extended again. Because of
> this we never reach any conclusions to a debate. Which is one of the
> things that make people very tired of wikimedia (me for instance)

I would be content if, after three years of debate about how to cope
with "Fair Use" images, we had 'no conclusions' and continuing
disagerement -- there may be no 'right' final conclusion, as this
changes with time as laws change -- but the world's best free
collection of background material, case studies, legal references, and
hypotheticals on the subject. Which is not a wholly unreasonable
goal.

> I feel that there are 3 solutions:
>
> 1) A top down approach. The community gets x time to debate an issue
<
> 2) A variant of 1) The community appoints 1 or 2 discussionleaders. They
<
> 3) The least feasible though I think an interesting option. People start
> to group themselves in parties and every party has 1 person as its
> spokesperson in the debate. This means that it will not become a
> cacophonia of voices and the debate might proceed faster. After 1-3
> months the spokespersons should reach a consensus which is acceptable
> to most.

This is like 2 but without the assumption that for any given issue
there is a single 'community'. More feasible than 2 in that regard.

All 3 of these assume that there is a master list of issues or topics,
and implicitly assume that there is some mechanism for identifying the
priority of a solution or issue. Both of which we all need to work
on together.

SJ
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