Mailing List Archive

On 9/22/06, effe iets anders <effeietsanders@gmail.com> wrote:
> When will the results of the election been announced? (or have I
> missed some email?) Congratz to the winner!

As Kelly Martin mentioned, by October 1, 2006.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
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Returning from holidays and browsing through the various threads, I
got triggered by a few buzzwords in the threads on the board
elections: sock puppets and (language) origin of the votes. As I'm
currently working on technical means to automatically detect open
proxies, that raised with me the following question.

Does the auditing process on the vote validation takes care of sock
puppets? I guess the answer is yes, but what about the case where the
sock puppet is smart enough to use open proxy IP's. I presume the
standard check user tools are inappropriate for that.

The reason I post this (rather critical) question, is the
aforementioned work on open proxy detection. With just a list of IP's,
I could easily scan those IP's on being an open proxy or not. If
detected that is positively yes, if not detected the likelihood of
being OK is pretty high as the program also takes into account the
daylight periods in the respective time zones of the IP's.

An even more easily obtainable by-product of such an exercise could be
a frequency distribution of votes per country and that might be more
useful for understanding the origin of votes than just the language.

Rgds Ronald Beelaard
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On my wikibreak, yesterday, I was worried how we detect open proxies
... the strongest tool I have is not batch-processing type..

On 9/23/06, Ronald Beelaard <rbeelaard@gmail.com> wrote:

> I presume the standard check user tools are inappropriate for that.

Agreed.

> The reason I post this (rather critical) question, is the
> aforementioned work on open proxy detection. With just a list of IP's,
> I could easily scan those IP's on being an open proxy or not. If
> detected that is positively yes, if not detected the likelihood of
> being OK is pretty high as the program also takes into account the
> daylight periods in the respective time zones of the IP's.

Your proposal is attractive for me but I am strongly hesitant to give
you raw data. Not depending I and / or the other Election officers
know you, I simply fear the current version of Wikimedia Foundation
private policy doesn't permit us to give such raw data to the third
party. (Brad?). I am afraid my counterproposal sounds rude, but would
you please consider giving (one of) us your script/tool for detection?

> An even more easily obtainable by-product of such an exercise could be
> a frequency distribution of votes per country and that might be more
> useful for understanding the origin of votes than just the language.

I think it would be interesting, but "the origin of vote per language
community" and "per country" are not compatible in my impression. Some
Asian language community editors could be in the USA, for example. And
"involvement of editors who are active on a certain project" and "...
in a certain land" might be perhaps related, but not equal.

Sincerly,
--
Kizu Naoko
Wikimedia Foundation Election Committee, 2006
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On 9/21/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> No Native American voters are represented. Very sad.

There are a number of Amerindian voters, most voting from the English
and Spanish Wikipedias. Few (if any) native-language projects are
large enough for their contributors to have the requisite number of
edits to vote from that project. (Have you voted?)

Austin
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Jeff Merkey wasn't eligible to vote, since he got indefinitely blocked from
a wiki.

On 9/23/06, Austin Hair <adhair@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/21/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> > No Native American voters are represented. Very sad.
>
> There are a number of Amerindian voters, most voting from the English
> and Spanish Wikipedias. Few (if any) native-language projects are
> large enough for their contributors to have the requisite number of
> edits to vote from that project. (Have you voted?)
>
> Austin
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2006/9/21, Aphaia <aphaia@gmail.com>:
>
>
> > but then allow (and encourage) candidates to post as
> > much additional material as they wish, in whatever language(s) they are
> > comfortable in, with no guarantee it will get translated.
>
> and that I object (except "no guarantee" part). As I stated before, it
> means "if you can read language A, you are provided more materials
> than language non-A speakers". On local projects, I found some signs
> some people thought such additional materials would be just a sign of
> those candidates are anglo-centric.


That was my own personal reaction too on lengthy candidate statements - and
also to those who wrote as difficult English as they could, in order to
sound like they know what they were talking about or something similar.
However, I do not think it is possible to forbid the candidates to provide
extra information. The English Wikipedia Signpost made an interview to which
all candidates replied; I am not sure if they all replied in English, if
they got someone to translate their answers for them or if the Signpost
people did but the result was of course displayed in English. Debates in IRC
have been suggested, and even if those can be held in different languages
there will be information that is not available to all voters. It is
basically a good initiative. Should we oppose to this kind of genually good
things for the sake of equality between people of different langauges? IMHO
that would be a shame.

A system with electors has been suggested. I somehow doubt this is the magic
bullet that solves the problem with language barriers, though. If I
understand correctly, the people who should read all the election material
and choose a candidate, if not all users should, need to be good at
digesting texts in English. These people are then probably users at English
speaking projects, and in not too few cases know more about these project
than of those in his or her native tongue. Alas we end up with he English
language bias anyhow.


/habj
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oscar wrote:
> yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of votes
> cast over the languages in the various projects so far:
> (this is no final result, one can count this oneself from
> [[Special:Boardvote/list]])
>
> english - 1003
> german - 320
> french - 124
> dutch - 101
> spanish - 89
> finnish - 52
> italian - 48
> japanese - 38
> portuguese - 37
> norwegian - 30
> turkish - 28
> commonswiki - 26
> (rest less than 25)

I think this argues for some form of indirect democracy in order to
broaden the international participation in the foundation.

Conspicuously missing, as Oscar wrote, is Japanese, but also Polish.

--Jimbo

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On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
>
> oscar wrote:
> > yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of
> votes
> > cast over the languages in the various projects so far:
> > (this is no final result, one can count this oneself from
> > [[Special:Boardvote/list]])
> >
> > english - 1003
> > german - 320
> > french - 124
> > dutch - 101
> > spanish - 89
> > finnish - 52
> > italian - 48
> > japanese - 38
> > portuguese - 37
> > norwegian - 30
> > turkish - 28
> > commonswiki - 26
> > (rest less than 25)
>
> I think this argues for some form of indirect democracy in order to
> broaden the international participation in the foundation.
>
> Conspicuously missing, as Oscar wrote, is Japanese, but also Polish.
>
> --Jimbo


i agree!

we would probably need to move towards some kind of a two-round election
procedure.
i feel however, that more figures and analysis is needed before any feasible
system can be proposed which improves this.
what we want to strive for in he future is ''fair representation'', rather
than ''absolute majority'' imho.
some questions about figures:
1. what are the final statistics on the votes:
1.1 per language
1.2 per project
1.3 per language per project and vice versa
2.1 per country (analysis of location of ip's)
2.2 open proxies voted
3. per date/time of voting (progressive statistics)
4. comparison with number of ballots to number of active wikians, as a
whole, per language and per project
etc etc etc

some related observatons:
after i published the voting results in the dutch village pump last night,
some rather active contributor congratulated me, asking me if 3rd place also
meant if i was elected or no.
from this the conclusion can be drawn that the board, these elections, and
the metawiki, are something very very far away and only remotely familiar
(if at all) to most of the ''local editors'', a gap which we must be able to
breach in the near future, at least with regard to informing the respective
communities in their local languages, beyond merely announcing and
explaining things on the metawiki.
the email-lists are inappropriate for people new to this imho (it took me
quite some time to get familiar with them too).

oscar
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Jimmy Wales wrote:
> oscar wrote:
>> yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of votes
>> cast over the languages in the various projects so far:
>> (this is no final result, one can count this oneself from
>> [[Special:Boardvote/list]])
>>
>> english - 1003
>> german - 320
>> french - 124
>> dutch - 101
>> spanish - 89
>> finnish - 52
>> italian - 48
>> japanese - 38
>> portuguese - 37
>> norwegian - 30
>> turkish - 28
>> commonswiki - 26
>> (rest less than 25)
>
> I think this argues for some form of indirect democracy in order to
> broaden the international participation in the foundation.
>
> Conspicuously missing, as Oscar wrote, is Japanese, but also Polish.
>

... we forgot Poland?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>> Conspicuously missing, as Oscar wrote, is Japanese, but also Polish.
>>
>
> ... we forgot Poland?

Did you? What I meant was this: according to the totals Oscar posted,
there were very few votes from Polish projects. Polish is our 5th
largest Wikipedia, and I am here in Poland at the moment and I can
testify that there is an active community here. So, something clearly
failed in terms of "bringing out the vote" in Poland (for example).

--Jimbo
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On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
> I think this argues for some form of indirect democracy in order to
> broaden the international participation in the foundation.
>
> Conspicuously missing, as Oscar wrote, is Japanese, but also Polish.
>
> --Jimbo

En is the biggest project by any reasonable metric. Thus it seems
reasonable that it sould have a significant say over who ultimately
runs it.


--
geni
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"... we forgot Poland?"

Fucking priceless.

On 9/24/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > oscar wrote:
> >> yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of
> votes
> >> cast over the languages in the various projects so far:
> >> (this is no final result, one can count this oneself from
> >> [[Special:Boardvote/list]])
> >>
> >> english - 1003
> >> german - 320
> >> french - 124
> >> dutch - 101
> >> spanish - 89
> >> finnish - 52
> >> italian - 48
> >> japanese - 38
> >> portuguese - 37
> >> norwegian - 30
> >> turkish - 28
> >> commonswiki - 26
> >> (rest less than 25)
> >
> > I think this argues for some form of indirect democracy in order to
> > broaden the international participation in the foundation.
> >
> > Conspicuously missing, as Oscar wrote, is Japanese, but also Polish.
> >
>
> ... we forgot Poland?
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
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>
>
>
>
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geni wrote:
> En is the biggest project by any reasonable metric. Thus it seems
> reasonable that it sould have a significant say over who ultimately
> runs it.

I don't think anyone would disagree with that, of course.

The question is, how to make sure that people in smaller language
projects have a proper voice. It is not trivial to do this in a
sensible way.

The current situation is not horrible in this regard, because it does
not matter where someone *comes from* per se, so long as they take a
global approach.

--Jimbo
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On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
> The question is, how to make sure that people in smaller language
> projects have a proper voice. It is not trivial to do this in a
> sensible way.

Well there are various ways you could do it through mass meetings of
community repersentives or trying to start an organisation of small
wikis but those have high overhead.

I would suggest pushing commons. There people will work together
because there is something in it for them and working together is
likely to produce far stronger links than any meeting or elections.

I have already suggested that projects below a certain size be limited
to taking images from commons only (although mostly for copyright
reasons). Push commons in the right direction and you could end up
with a truly cosmopolitan community

> The current situation is not horrible in this regard, because it does
> not matter where someone *comes from* per se, so long as they take a
> global approach.
>
> --Jimbo

Again I belive this could be solved by have commons work in such a way
to create a pool of such candidates.
--
geni
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>> I think this argues for some form of indirect democracy in order to
>> broaden the international participation in the foundation.

> En is the biggest project by any reasonable metric. Thus it seems
> reasonable that it sould have a significant say over who ultimately
> runs it.

Could I remind people not to lose sight of the fact that "international
participation" is very strong in en:, not only with editors from the USA,
England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (where en; is the
'native' language) but also India and, frankly, nearly every other country
around the world.

one cannot equate "en:" with "English-speaking-countries-only" (and, of
course, vice-versa.)


Alison Wheeler

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On 24/09/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com> wrote:

> Could I remind people not to lose sight of the fact that "international
> participation" is very strong in en:, not only with editors from the USA,
> England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (where en; is the
> 'native' language) but also India and, frankly, nearly every other country
> around the world.
> one cannot equate "en:" with "English-speaking-countries-only" (and, of
> course, vice-versa.)


And that it's hard enough to get across to people from
non-English-speaking countries that there are Wikipedias other than
the English one. I do what I can when this comes up, but they keep
assuming it ...


- d.
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--- Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:

> geni wrote:
> > En is the biggest project by any reasonable
> metric. Thus it seems
> > reasonable that it sould have a significant say
> over who ultimately
> > runs it.
>
> I don't think anyone would disagree with that, of
> course.
>
> The question is, how to make sure that people in
> smaller language
> projects have a proper voice. It is not trivial to
> do this in a
> sensible way.
>
> The current situation is not horrible in this
> regard, because it does
> not matter where someone *comes from* per se, so
> long as they take a
> global approach.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________


Why do you believe low voter turnout is due to direct
elections? Why is it not simply due to apathy or lack
of understanding about the Foundation? To a belief
that the Foundation doesn't directly affect the
smaller projects? Or some other reason. Can we
conduct some polls as to why certain projects did not
vote before designing a new election system?

Birgitte SB


Birgitte SB

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Birgitte SB wrote:

>--- Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>geni wrote:
>>
>>
>>>En is the biggest project by any reasonable
>>>
>>>
>>metric. Thus it seems
>>
>>
>>>reasonable that it sould have a significant say
>>>
>>>
>>over who ultimately
>>
>>
>>>runs it.
>>>
>>>
>>I don't think anyone would disagree with that, of
>>course.
>>
>>The question is, how to make sure that people in
>>smaller language
>>projects have a proper voice. It is not trivial to
>>do this in a sensible way.
>>
>>The current situation is not horrible in this
>>regard, because it does
>>not matter where someone *comes from* per se, so
>>long as they take a global approach.
>>
>>--Jimbo
>>
>>
>Why do you believe low voter turnout is due to direct
>elections? Why is it not simply due to apathy or lack
>of understanding about the Foundation? To a belief
>that the Foundation doesn't directly affect the
>smaller projects? Or some other reason. Can we
>conduct some polls as to why certain projects did not
>vote before designing a new election system?
>
These are all possibilities, but I don't see how a poll would be a
useful metric. With over 700 projects it is easy to see that the small
number of people regularly involved in them may just feel that what they
say or think doesn't matter. It is also impossible for each of those
projects to be directly represented on the Board.

While I agree that the Board should be bigger there are still limits
beyond which it would become unworkable or just as dysfunctional as a
Board that's too small. I don't know what the optimum number should be.

I think that the autonomy of each project and each chapter should be
paramount. Any limitations to that autonomy should be clear and
unambiguous. The application of the four general pillars as principles
would certainly be a fair limitation, as would "Wikipedia is an
encyclopedia" to all Wikipedias. It also makes sense that WMF would
have some control over its logos.

Between the Board and the individual projects we need new but complex
structures that have no model to go by. Councils that bring together
Wikimedians by language, by type of project or by nationality are all
possibilites but even there the autonomy of the smaller units needs to
be recognized. A technical advance may seem the best thing imaginable
on a big Wikipedia, but a smaller Wikipedia may not be ready for it. It
may be discussed and approved by a Council of Wikipedias, but would
essentially still need to be ratified by each one before it is
applicable there.

The legal responsibilities of the Board need to be recognized, but those
responsibilities should never be more than they need to be. Having
members who act illegally on their own initiative is inevitable. If we
consider the WMF to be a service provider it should not be required to
act as a baby sitter. The circumstances when it would act to block an
illegal act must be clearly defined. Experience can easily show us that
random allegations by uninvolved third parties tend to give very
uncertain expressions of what is legal. We do need some clear
understanding of the point at which the WMF becomes responsible for
certain kinds of action.

We need to always keep in mind that there is no organization like
Wikimedia, and to avoid preconceptions about what its structure will
ultimately become. Every step of the way needs careful consideration.

Ec




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Jimmy Wales wrote:

>geni wrote:
>
>
>>En is the biggest project by any reasonable metric. Thus it seems
>>reasonable that it sould have a significant say over who ultimately
>>runs it.
>>
>>
>I don't think anyone would disagree with that, of course.
>
The trouble I had with geni's comment is that I couldn't determine
whether he meant it descriptively or prescriptively.

As a desciptive comment it makes perfectly good sense, and I can't argue
against it.

As a prescriptive comment it opens up avenues for the tyranny of the
majority, and I would be concerned about the absence of checks and
balances to safeguard minority rights.

>The question is, how to make sure that people in smaller language
>projects have a proper voice. It is not trivial to do this in a
>sensible way.
>
Absolutely, especially when the size disparities are so great. This is
why I would start from the prionciple of project autonomy. In
international affairs being a nation-state is worth something, even for
the tiniest of Caribbean and South Pacific Islands.

>The current situation is not horrible in this regard, because it does
>not matter where someone *comes from* per se, so long as they take a
>global approach.
>
That's under control for now, but there is a strong risk that this could
change in the future.

Ec

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--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net> wrote:

> Birgitte SB wrote:
>
> >--- Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>geni wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>En is the biggest project by any reasonable
> >>>
> >>>
> >>metric. Thus it seems
> >>
> >>
> >>>reasonable that it sould have a significant say
> >>>
> >>>
> >>over who ultimately
> >>
> >>
> >>>runs it.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>I don't think anyone would disagree with that, of
> >>course.
> >>
> >>The question is, how to make sure that people in
> >>smaller language
> >>projects have a proper voice. It is not trivial
> to
> >>do this in a sensible way.
> >>
> >>The current situation is not horrible in this
> >>regard, because it does
> >>not matter where someone *comes from* per se, so
> >>long as they take a global approach.
> >>
> >>--Jimbo
> >>
> >>
> >Why do you believe low voter turnout is due to
> direct
> >elections? Why is it not simply due to apathy or
> lack
> >of understanding about the Foundation? To a belief
> >that the Foundation doesn't directly affect the
> >smaller projects? Or some other reason. Can we
> >conduct some polls as to why certain projects did
> not
> >vote before designing a new election system?
> >
> These are all possibilities, but I don't see how a
> poll would be a
> useful metric. With over 700 projects it is easy to
> see that the small
> number of people regularly involved in them may just
> feel that what they
> say or think doesn't matter. It is also impossible
> for each of those
> projects to be directly represented on the Board.
>
> While I agree that the Board should be bigger there
> are still limits
> beyond which it would become unworkable or just as
> dysfunctional as a
> Board that's too small. I don't know what the
> optimum number should be.
>
> I think that the autonomy of each project and each
> chapter should be
> paramount. Any limitations to that autonomy should
> be clear and
> unambiguous. The application of the four general
> pillars as principles
> would certainly be a fair limitation, as would
> "Wikipedia is an
> encyclopedia" to all Wikipedias. It also makes
> sense that WMF would
> have some control over its logos.
>
> Between the Board and the individual projects we
> need new but complex
> structures that have no model to go by. Councils
> that bring together
> Wikimedians by language, by type of project or by
> nationality are all
> possibilites but even there the autonomy of the
> smaller units needs to
> be recognized. A technical advance may seem the
> best thing imaginable
> on a big Wikipedia, but a smaller Wikipedia may not
> be ready for it. It
> may be discussed and approved by a Council of
> Wikipedias, but would
> essentially still need to be ratified by each one
> before it is
> applicable there.
>
> The legal responsibilities of the Board need to be
> recognized, but those
> responsibilities should never be more than they need
> to be. Having
> members who act illegally on their own initiative is
> inevitable. If we
> consider the WMF to be a service provider it should
> not be required to
> act as a baby sitter. The circumstances when it
> would act to block an
> illegal act must be clearly defined. Experience can
> easily show us that
> random allegations by uninvolved third parties tend
> to give very
> uncertain expressions of what is legal. We do need
> some clear
> understanding of the point at which the WMF becomes
> responsible for
> certain kinds of action.
>
> We need to always keep in mind that there is no
> organization like
> Wikimedia, and to avoid preconceptions about what
> its structure will
> ultimately become. Every step of the way needs
> careful consideration.
>
> Ec
>

After reading that I am honestly not sure what your
position is. But I do agree with your last sentance.
I think asking some of these communities why they did
not participate in the election would give something
useful to consider. Maybe polling is too complicated,
but even asking a simple open-ended question would be
worthwile. If anyone here participates at an
underepresented community I really would be interested
if you could ask for people who did not vote to share
the reasons they gave for not participating. And of
course report some of these answers back here. I
don't know. I could be completely wrong about
indirect elections. But I just wonder if we are
overlooking a much simpler solution to the lack of
participation.

Birgitte SB

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geni wrote:

>On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The question is, how to make sure that people in smaller language
>>projects have a proper voice. It is not trivial to do this in a
>>sensible way.
>>
>>
>Well there are various ways you could do it through mass meetings of
>community repersentives or trying to start an organisation of small
>wikis but those have high overhead.
>
I do agree that mass meetings would probably not work for similar
reasons. There is also a presumtion that we would need to have already
recognized just who those community representatives would be.

>I would suggest pushing commons. There people will work together
>because there is something in it for them and working together is
>likely to produce far stronger links than any meeting or elections.
>
Not everybody is involved with commons. A person who almost exclusively
deals with text has no reason to go there.

>I have already suggested that projects below a certain size be limited
>to taking images from commons only (although mostly for copyright
>reasons). Push commons in the right direction and you could end up
>with a truly cosmopolitan community
>
This would be a needless restriction. The most likely non-text media
for people on a minor language project, are going to photos and music
related to their own culture in their own language. They need to be
able to find their own rules about these, without needing to make sense
of commons legalese which may not yet be translated into their own
language.

>>The current situation is not horrible in this regard, because it does
>>not matter where someone *comes from* per se, so long as they take a
>>global approach.
>>
>>
>Again I belive this could be solved by have commons work in such a way
>to create a pool of such candidates.
>
I would not interpret "global approach" to mean global solutions. A
more important factor for it would be global respect.

Ec


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On 9/25/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net> wrote:
> Not everybody is involved with commons. A person who almost exclusively
> deals with text has no reason to go there.
>

most wikipedians deal with images at some point. I supose the
dictionary don't but do any of them not have a connection to their
wikipedia?


> This would be a needless restriction. The most likely non-text media
> for people on a minor language project, are going to photos and music
> related to their own culture in their own language. They need to be
> able to find their own rules about these, without needing to make sense
> of commons legalese which may not yet be translated into their own
> language.

You realise that I read " find their own rules" as setting up another
copyright mess to sort out. At least on commons the problems are in
one place.



> I would not interpret "global approach" to mean global solutions. A
> more important factor for it would be global respect.
>

I think anyone who does well on commons is going to have that.


--
geni
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Hoi,
In most wiktionaries pictures are used to illustrate concepts. In most
wiktionaries references to Wikipedia exist for those who want to know more
about a concept. WiktionaryZ will not differ from this as well. We do want
pictures and we will point to Wikipedia when people want more information.

Given that pictures illustrate one or more concepts, and given that concepts
have words in many languages, it is possible to use references to
WiktionaryZ in commons thereby enabling the search of pictures in many
languages. Yes, I know it is an old idea, but we are now technically
advanced to the point where the implementation of this can be considered.

Commons and WiktionaryZ can mutually benefit from each others content.

Thanks,
GerardM

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_Ultimate_Wiktionary_for_Commons

On 9/25/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> most wikipedians deal with images at some point. I supose the
> dictionary don't but do any of them not have a connection to their
> wikipedia?
>
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