Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2007/Candidates/UninvitedCompany/questions: Difference between revisions

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== Project policy involvement ==

What are your views on board involvement in writing and implementing policy for the various projects, especially in controversial areas where it appears that community consensus will be difficult to establish, such as on the "attack sites" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks] and biography of living people (BLP) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons] issues? [[User:Cla68|Cla68]] 15:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

: I don't think that direct board involvement in these issues is warranted. I do believe that ENWP has a leadership vacuum that has led to these issues languishing, but I see that as an internal ENWP matter rather than something for WMF to fix. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 23:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

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##other

#What are your thoughts on [[Wikimedia brand survey|Wikimedia branding]]?

#What are your thoughts on [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-May/030346.html the foundation's hiring of a business developer]?

#How would you vote on the board about the foundation [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-June/030687.html reducing or offsetting anthropogenic greenhouse gases], e.g. power used by hardware, flights, etc.?

Thanks. -- [[User:Jeandré du Toit|Jeandré]], 2007-06-19[[User talk:Jeandré du Toit|t]]18:14z

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== Wikinews and Accredited reporters attending events ==

Wikinews may be one of the lesser-known projects, but we recently managed to get a contributor entry to the G8 conference. Efforts were made to get the Board involved in the drafting of a letter for the reporter's entry to the G8, but these received no response. As an involved party there is more about this issue on Eloquence's questions page [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/Eloquence/questions#Wikinews_Accreditation]. What is your opinion on this, it is - I believe - an issue the board should take seriously. Those of us who contribute on Wikinews are ambitious enough to think that we can overtake the Wikipedia article count (although I may be retired before we manage it there are new news stories every day). As we really want to be able to do truly original reporting we need people who can "almost" say they represent us. Do you support this, and do you believe the board should have been involved for something as important as sending a reporter to the G8 conference? --''[http[:n://en.wikinews.org/wiki/:User:Brianmc |Brian McNeil]]'' / ^{''[http[:n://en.wikinews.org/wiki/:User_talk:Brianmc |talk]]''} 21:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

: Traditionally, it has been a cornerstone of WMF legal strategy that no one (well, almost no one) represents the foundation. The board members have email footers that tell you they don't represent the foundation. OTRS replies have a disclaimer that says they don't represent the foundation. Jimbo generally goes to great lengths to explain that he's only acting in a personal capacity, in most cases. The point of the strategy is that then the foundation can't be held responsible for these people's mistakes. There is an ancillary point that anything which makes it appear that our users are under our control and supervision could weaken an OCILLA defense. So no one officially represents WMF. Which is great, as a legal strategy.

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Have you read these usability studies? Do you consider them to be important? Would you commission more such studies? How would you implement their results?

[http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/008575.html Here's an example] from just a couple months ago: a journalist working for a major newspaper thought that "there's no way to tell who wrote the entry or how many people contributed to it" until one of his readers corrected him -- he works for the media! How many regular people know how to check an article's contributors?


If i might be permitted to opine for a second: the fact that you can view the revisions of an article should be obvious from the design of the webpage, but it's not: "history" is a terrible, non-obvious name for the function.

Put yourself in your parents' shoes: you're reading a page about Thailand that you found through Google, and you see a square that says "history". You click the square expecting to read about the history of Thailand and suddenly you're faced with a long, mysterious list of nonsensical words and numbers. You click the back button.


Aaron Swartz gave one of the best summaries of the issue that I've seen:

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== IRC Debate ==

Hi, as this seems to get closer to the time that the elections are to start, I thought it would be best to go ahead and attempt to get the unofficial IRC debate a time and a place. By the time analysis on the [[User_talk:Tawker/ElectionDebate07#Timing|talk page]], the best time for the debate appears to be 1800 UTC, to 1900 UTC. As it would be best for this debate to occur before the elections, June 27 was chosen as the day. I know that this is short notice, but the whole unofficial debate thing was on a very short notice to start with. I hope that you are able to attend. Again the time is '''18:00 UTC, June 27, 2007''', ''it will be held at ##wikimedia-debate''. ''Please do note that this debate is '''unofficial''', and you are not required to attend''. —— [[user:Eagle 101|<font color="navy">'''Eagle'''</font><font color="red">'''101''']] </font>]] ^{[[user_talk:Eagle 101|Need help?]]} 20:40, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

: I'll respond elsewhere. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 20:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

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*First question, should we do things like this - we've had other competitions in the past and the daily article count has gone up significantly.

*Second, are you prepared to put your money where our projects are and donate to the prize fund?

*Third, if you are prepared to donate to the prize pot would you also be prepared to help out as a judge? I feel the impartial position the board should strive to take day to day would be welcome in defining rules and judging a competition. --''[http[:n://en.wikinews.org/wiki/:User:Brianmc |Brian McNeil]]'' / ^{''[http[:n://en.wikinews.org/wiki/:User_talk:Brianmc |talk]]''} 11:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

One of our core principles is that our content is the work of volunteers. While we have given out prizes in the past, in general these have been of little material value, instead being primarily a means of recognition for those whose contributions are exceptional. I believe that significant cash prizes have the potential to pose problems in the future as they undermine the volunteer spirit of the projects. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 19:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

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Sometimes a popular opinion is contradicted by scientific evidence. Majority of editors stick to the popular opinion (which is also theirs) and vote to delete all pages that contradict their opinion (intrinsic weakness of democracy). As a result Wikipedia propagates old prejudices. How would you solve this problem?

'''Supporting evidence for the problem:''' Once I wrote several pages on Einsteinian physics (I'm just doing my PhD on it) and all of them were deleted by consensus of editors (9:1) who preferred their old high school physics :-). Unfortunately their high school physics was invalidated about 100 years ago by Einstein. Yet till today one can read as the first statement of Wikipedia's [http[:w://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/:Gravitation |Gravitation]]: "Gravitation is a natural phenomenon by which all objects attract each other". According to contemporary science objects don't attract each other they just look like they do. Similarly as the Sun looks like running around the Earth while it doesn't and there exists a simple explanation in both cases. So I just explained the simple Einsteinian mechanism of this apparent attraction, since I thought it may be interesting to Wikipedia's readers. All those pages were deleted by consensus of editors cooling my enthusiasm for Wikipedia. So the issue of propagating old prejudices, because of democratic process involved in editing, seems to be very real in Wikipedia. [[User:JimJast|JimJast]] 14:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

: I don't believe that this matter is under the purview of the Board of Trustees. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 16:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

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== Majority biasing the facts ==

:12:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Candidate,

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regards,

:[[User:Xiutwel|Xiutwel]]

:NL

: See [[w:WP:NPOV]] and [[w:WP:RS]]. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 16:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

==Who Writes Wikipedia?==

Late question: do you have any thoughts on [http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia this essay] (and if so, what)? It suggests that Jimbo formed a radically false picture of anonymous users and their contributions to Wikipedia. This may have far-reaching implications. [[User:Dan(pedia)|Dan(pedia)]] 21:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

: I've seen the essay. It's based on anecdotal evidence. While I do tend to agree with its conclusion that a good deal of useful material is contributed by anons, I don't agree that what Aaron calls "insiders" contribute little useful article content. It is my experience that pop culture articles like the [[w:Alan Alda]] article upon which Aaron's analysis is based tend to draw more casual edits than, for example, science or history articles, and the considerable effort expended and value achieved with image contributions (both photographs and diagrams) comes almost entirely from "insiders." [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 12:47, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

==Censorship on Wikipedia==

Does this [http://www.prweb.com/releases/world/peace/prweb449517.htm extraordinary true story], completely censored by the major media, with verifiable evidence to back it up, deserve its page on Wikipedia? If so, WHY? Thanks for your truthful answer.

[[User:69.116.234.208|69.116.234.208]] 21:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

: I don't know for sure, but I somehow suspect that it would difficult to find [[w:WP:RS|reliable sources]] for such an article. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 12:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

==Banning an editor without supporting diffs==

You described in the arbcom case Sathya Sai Baba 2 on the English Wikipedia my edits on the topic [[:en:Sathya Sai Baba]] as "generally responsible". Nobody provided any diffs that I made activist or disruptive edits in spite of my repeated requests to you and others to provide them. Nevertheless you decided to support a topic ban of me on Sathya Sai Baba. I was one of the main authors of the article. How do you think such a topic ban helps the encyclopedia? [[User:Andries|Andries]] 09:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

: I don't believe this is a matter that would properly come before the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees, and so I have no comment. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 12:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

==A Fairer Voting System==

'''Would you support the use of choice voting in the next Board Elections?'''

[[wikipedia:Single transferable vote|Choice voting]] protects majority rule while providing for the fair representation of minority views. Voters rank the candidates 1, 2, 3, and so on, in order of preference. If your top choice either is not elected or already has enough votes to win a seat, your vote goes to your next choice. No vote is wasted, and all viewpoints are represented. Choice voting would drastically reduce the number of wasted votes.

Choice voting can be used for single or multiple position elections. It is used for national elections in a number of countries including the Republic of Ireland. It is also used by a wide variety of organsations such as students' unions, charities, trade unions, universities, hospital trusts and housing associations. Choice voting is already used to elect the board of Nominet UK.

Choice voting is also called preference voting or [[wikipedia:single transferable vote]] (STV)

[[User:John Cross|John Cross]] 16:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

: While I do have some concerns about our voting system, I am unconvinced that STV is the answer. [[User:UninvitedCompany|UninvitedCompany]] 20:40, 7 July 2007 (UTC)