User talk:Angela/Election

Thanks to everyone who voted for me. This page is an archive of the questions I was asked during the election campaign. --Angela. 23:30, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Volunteer or Contributing?

Which Board position would you prefer if you had to choose? +sj+

If standing for both the positions of Contributing Active Member Representative and Volunteer User Representative, you need to specify which one you would prefer.

I'm still deciding. I hope to do so early next week, by which time more information on the difference between the two roles will be available. Angela. 10:12, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Finally decided on "Volunteer User Representative". Angela. 16:17, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Favorite contributions

Just out of curiosity, and i am asking this to everyone who is standing, i would like to post a question. Could you point me to two or three of your favourite contributions in Wikipedia? Not the whole bunch of them, which I am sure you all have in powers of 10, but that special article you wrote, or made substancial changes to, and makes you happy. Just to see what you've been up to :) Cheers and all the best to you all, MvHG 14:51, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

This is a hard question for me to answer. I don't feel any ownership of articles that I write, so I have never kept a record of which ones I started. This is for two reasons. Firstly, because I much prefer the idea that I'm contributing to Wikipedia as a whole, rather than simply contributing a particular article, and secondly because I know I would feel too possessive of "my" articles if I did try to keep track of them. I tend not to even put them on my watchlist to avoid problems with me wanting to keep them a certain way. There isn't any one area that I write in. Many people will focus on a topic they are interested in, whereas I tend to write articles for all different reasons. For example, I wrote Skive because Daniel Quinlan asked on IRC what the word meant. I wrote a few articles such as Québécois Libre just so I could add interwiki links from the French version and decrease the lists at m: Articles on fr with no interwiki link to en. I often look through special:newpages on other Wikipedias and translate articles that are new there and we don't yet have on the English Wikipedia. Often I'll write something just because I'm surprised we won't have it already and another Wikipedia does, such as Hulk Hogan (which appeared on the Main Page last August) that I translated from the German article, despite me having no interest in that. Often the articles I write are tied in with the maintenance tasks I do. For example, when checking the Images with missing articles pages, I'll sometimes write an article, such as Howler Monkey, just to de-orphan an image. The Daugherty Report article was my response to finding out I was going to be made redundant as a result of the testing cutbacks which that report advocates. Another unusual reason for writing an article was that I wrote Claudine Guérin de Tencin because someone suggested it as a name for the new server (which ended up being called Geoffrin). However, none of these are great articles. I'm just giving them as examples to show that I write across a range of areas, and that I write them for a variety of reasons. Angela. 22:00, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! Its nice to see all the different kinds of answers. Happy election! MvHG 10:43, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Picture

Oy. Why the picture of you? Because of the election? I wouldn't be surprised if it works. Men haven't changed in thousands myriads lakhs of years, have they? --Juuitchan

Oh it'll work alright, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. But in all seriousness, Angela does have a point about the benefits of coming across as "more of a real person" on Wikipedia. I stay anonymous and have a nondescript user name that used to be the first three digits of an IP address. This makes it harder for users to see where someone's coming from. I started noticing really strong evidence of this after Ed Poor started making comments to this effect regarding my user name. 172 11:38, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

No, I'm not expecting votes because of the picture. :) I put it up partly because I wanted to be more of a real person on Wikipedia. Before this election campaign, I'd not used my real name on Wikipedia, so it was a sort of first step in removing the barrier between Wikipedia and my real life. MeatBall:RealPhoto has an interesting discussion of the use of real photos.The part that says "a photo of yourself in reality can help you mentally AvoidIllusion that your online LifeInText is divorced from your offline identity", which was added by Sunir after I'd spoken to him on IRC about the issue, reflects how I felt about it. Angela. 22:00, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Voting system

Hi. Due to the concerns of a number of people, we are considering adopting a new system to replace First Past the Post. What is your preference? Please respond to WikiElections AT aol DOT com. This is not an assurance that the system will be changed, but rather an attempt to gauge the will of the electorate. Danny 03:56, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't think I have a preference. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages and I can't decide which I prefer, so I'll abstain from voting on the voting method. :) Angela. 21:01, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

License compatibility issues

One of your platforms is License compatibility issues. Another is Maintaining and defending the freedom of the project; openness to editing; free from charge; free from advertising. As you're probably aware, one of the issues the project has is the wide variation in what can and can't be used in different jurisdictions and the differing definitions of free used by contributors to the project. How will you seek to resolve the inevitable tension between those who want a completely free to use public domain Wikipedia, those who want to make full use of all works they are free to use under the copyright law of their jurisdiction, those who want a GFDL only encyclopedia, those who want a copyleft encyclopedia and those who want the best possible encyclopedia and accept all content which doesn't infringe copyright, even if some of it might be hard for all reusers, or a small number of reusers? Jamesday

There is tension over licensing issues. We need to find compromises, and also find out why people want GFDL only, or why they want to only allow content that is suitable under their own country's jurisdiction. If the issue is ease of redistribution, then we should work on that. We can make it easier for third party users to distribute a version of Wikipedia that is legal in England, or elsewhere, without having to prevent people uploading GFDL-compliant content. For example, by storing fair use images on a separate server and having the database downloads either separated, or clearly marked to allow people to filter these out if they need to. The image tagging that is currently taking place on some Wikipedias is a first step towards this. The future category system will hopefully be another. Suggesting that we restrict ourselves to things that are legal in all jurisdictions is impractical, so restrictions on what content we allow, beyond what the GFDL lets us do, is not something I would want to enforce.

At the same time though, there is no harm in promoting the idea amongst users that truly free content is better, and encouraging them to replace images with more-free versions or to seek permission wherever possible. I believe we can have the "best possible encyclopedia and accept all content" whilst still allowing people the right to reuse our content internationally, and to do that easily. The two do not need to be incompatible.

Some of the tensions are caused by specific problems people have with the GFDL. One solution to these concerns would be for Wikimedia to work with organizations such as the FSF and CC to ensure that future licenses are more compatible. We can't (easily) change the license of our current projects, but we can adopt future versions of the GFDL, so I believe our focus needs to lie in ensuring future versions meet our needs. Angela

The most compatible license is public domain, so does that mean that you prefer public domain content over other content? Would you want to strongly favor public domain content to maximise the freedom to reuse the work? Jamesday

I do not favor public domain content over that released under the GFDL. Obviously putting something into the public domain is the easiest way of making a work free, but this does not keep the work free. For example, if someone were to translate an article that was in the public domain, that translated version would not be free for others to reuse unless the translator explicitly released it into the public domain, or put it under a copyleft license. The GFDL has its problems, but it does at least prevent people being able to remove the freedoms the original author granted to their work. I think the GFDL provides a balance that PD does not. It allows freedom, whilst removing the vulnerability to exploitation. Angela

How do you believe that increasing or decreasing the acceptability of licensed content will increase or decrease the participation in the project? Jamesday

I don't believe it should affect participation in the project as we do not disallow dual licensing if individual users want to do that. However, we also need to recognize that this is going to be confusing for many users. If this is going to be done on any kind of large scale, the process needs to be made as simple as possible. Angela

How do you believe it will increase or decrease the chance of a competing project to fill any gaps in what we accept? Jamesday 05:53, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

The fact that Wikimedia currently allows only GFDL or PD text means that a competitor who set up a site allowing articles under alternative licenses would have access to more material than we do. The possibility of Wikimedia expanding and having new projects that use alternative licenses certainly needs to be explored. Whilst Wikipedia might be tied to the GFDL, there is no reason future projects need to be. The by-laws state that content will be released under the GFDL "or similar licensing scheme". These similar licenses ought to be considered during the planning stages of new projects.

Most importantly, this is not something the board should be deciding alone. The opinions of users from different countries need to be considered, as does advice from experts outside the project. Being aware of the discussions of copyright and licensing issues on, for example, the Japanese or German Wikipedias or on other projects such as Wikibooks, is something the board should make every effort to do. Angela. 21:01, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Why stand?

What made you decide to stand? Martin 23:23, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I've a huge passion for the project, so I expect being able to represent the foundation at board level will be highly rewarding. I've gained a lot from Wikipedia — knowledge, the opportunity to work with a wide variety of people, enjoyment, satisfaction — this is my chance to give something back, and to do so across the whole project. I've done a lot on Wikipedia over the last 15 months, and the possibility to take on a more formal role provides a new challenge. Being on the board would meet my desire for new experiences and new ways that I can make worthwhile contributions to the project. I'm also doing it because I have a strong commitment to the goals of the foundation and I believe that I can meet the pressures that serving on the board will entail, including the legal responsibilities associated with that. I'm confident I can handle the role successfully and make a difference to the project through that role. Also, because I think that, despite the demands associated with it, it will be fun. Angela. 06:28, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

Who else?

If you become Volunteer Rep, who do you feel would be most appropriate in the other elected position? Martin 23:23, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't like to state a preference for any one candidate at this stage. They all have their own merits, and if I was elected to the board, I would be happy to serve alongside any one of them. Angela. 06:28, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

Ko-wiktionary

Question moved to user talk:Angela as not related to elections. Angela. 20:27, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

Licensing issues

Hi, I hope you wouldn't mind me joining here (but feel free to relocate my question as you see fit).

I moved it to the end. Hope you don't mind. Angela.

You once discussed about the idea of releasing wikipedia from GFDL's 4B at Wikipedia talk:Submission Standards . The explanation then presented by Martin (MyRedDice) was that Wikipedia has never been in compliance with 4B, and therefore it was better to make it a term explicitly agreed-upon by contributors. You objected to it. Would you say that Wikipedia is in compliance of 4B, and that is why we do not need a term like that? Or would you say that we have to comply with it ? Tomos 00:35, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

I think at the time I was confusing 4B with 4I. I am more concerned to ensure 4I is not waived, as this would remove all author attribution. 4B is another issue. Wikipedia has never used a "title page" as such, but I don't know if this means we are not in compliance with the GFDL because section 4 is about publishing a "Modified Version of the Document", and it could be argued that the Wikipedia article is the document, even after it's been changed, rather than being a "modified version" of it. If we don't need a title page, then there would be no reason to get users to explicitly waive this right, unless we want it also apply to third-party users of the content. However, that is something for the users to decide, not for the board to impose upon them. Angela. 10:49, May 26, 2004 (UTC)

Another question, that is more directly on the compatibility issues. I would like to know if you have some opinions or ideas about how we can coordinate submission standards, terms of use, and other non-GFDL binding rules that are developed and implemented within language-specific projects independently from each other. Are there any pressing concerns you have with regards to inter-lingual coordination of non-GFDL legal elements? Tomos 00:35, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

This is something I've been concerned about. I've recently been involved with simplifying the disclaimers for the Simple English Wikipedia, and I wondered then whether it should include some sort of statement saying that this is just a simplified version, rather than the official version. I think one solution could be that one version (probably the English one) is approved by the board as the "official version", and other translations could link to that, in the same way that translations of the GFDL have to include a note that they are not official. There are definitely advantages to having one central copy of the official one. Other projects could then suggest adaptations to the central one, and when approved, every language would make those changes. This seems to be the only way to do it rather than letting changes happen in all languages, and then trying to make them consistent later. I think the reasons given by the FSF for keeping only one official copy of the GFDL and their other licenses applies equally to Wikimedia's submission statements:

"The reason the FSF does not approve these translations as officially valid is that checking them would be difficult and expensive (needing the help of bilingual lawyers in other countries). Even worse, if an error did slip through, the results could be disastrous for the whole free software community. As long as the translations are unofficial, they can't do any harm, and we hope they help more people understand the GPL." [1]

Angela. 10:49, May 26, 2004 (UTC)

Do you recognize or expect any type of severe infringment that we should stop or prevent? Tomos 00:35, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

There are three main types that I am concerned about; GFDL infringements by sites using our content, robots violating the terms of our robots.txt and putting unmanageable load on our servers, and trademark infringements. I expect the board to be mostly involved in the last of these. The first is dealt with at pages such as Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content and de:Wikipedia:Projekte, die Wikipedia als Quelle benutzen, and I believe the first stages of contacting the sites is certainly something ordinary users can and should do, as they have been doing. I wouldn't expect the board to get involved in this until all normal attempts at getting the sites' co-operation had been made, although it might be helpful to make use of the Official positions idea to have someone coordinating such efforts. The second one is something that can be handled by any user contacting the sites concerned, and later handled by developers at m:Non-compliant site coordination if the sites refuse to stop. Trademark issues are more serious, and I would expect that it would be more useful here to have an "official person" dealing with the violators concerned. Again, this could be something part of an m:Official position rather than a board member, particularly in the early stages. Angela. 10:49, May 26, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Angela. I could see you have many experiences and thoughtful ideas in these matters. :-) Tomos 06:23, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Philosophical disagreements

Have you any outstanding philosophical disagreements with the present Wikimedia board members, about what Wikimedia is or should become? How would you characterise those differences?-Stevertigo 00:40, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

None that I know of. Based on Jimbo's statement of principles and what is written in the bylaws, I would say agree with the views Jimbo has about the direction of Wikimedia. The only place he and I may have some disagreement is where he says the mailing list must be "the place for meta-discussions". I don't feel the mailing lists are always the best place for discussions, and I hope that when the board does not mean only Jimbo, then people might feel encouraged to hold conversations in more relevant places. I am not currently aware of the views of Michael Davis or Tim Shell, though I assume they are reflected in the bylaws in which case I can say I have no disagreement with either of them. I feel it would be useful for the board members, once there are five of them, to make public their principles, and their visions of the future of Wikimedia. Jimbo's statements page is rather dated now and it would be interesting to have an official update, and to see whether all members of the board are in agreement and also how this the users feel about those goals. Angela. 01:58, May 27, 2004 (UTC)

a democratic decision making process for Wikipedia?

I am quite impressed with your campaign platform, but there is one very important issue that I feel is not sufficiently dealt with : democratic control of Wikipedia. As Wikipedia grows, in terms of contributors, readers, articles and generally in importance, more decisions will have to be taken regarding the general direction of the project. The most critical decisions will probably be those that relate to funding and licensing. In my opinion there is a very real danger that these decisions will be made by a small elite such as the Board and/or the most committed/active Wikipedians. While I do not question in any way the integrity of the people belonging to such an elite, I think this turn of events would be highly detrimental to Wikipedia. After all, it is the contributors that make Wikipedia what it is - even the most committed Wikipedians would never be able to deal with half million+ articles - and if these contributors feel that they don't have enough say in decision making and that decisions are imposed on them, they will turn away from the project. Also, a democratic decision making process, even though it tends to take more time, leads to better decisions in my experience. pir

I hope that the existence of the board with elected accountable members will be more democratic than the previous situation where only Jimbo was responsible for Wikimedia.

As I said at User:Angela/Election, I do not want the board to be controlling the site against the will of the community. This means we need to find ways of ensuring all users can influence the decisions made. My commitment to keeping open communication between users will hopefully be the first step in enabling this. Decisions must not be made behind closed doors and the community must have full involvement in the workings of the board. It is very important that people do not feel the decisions can only be made by any small elite of users. The reason I stood for volunteer user representative instead of contributing is because I want to ensure all users have a voice in the decisions, not only those who are willing to pay dues.

I agree with you that it would be detrimental to change the way Wikimedia works. We are supposed to be a democratic organization, and we need to find ways of ensuring that does not change.

As we grow, it won't be possible for everyone to have a say in everything. I doubt that is possible even now on the larger Wikipedias as there is so much going on, but what must happen is that anyone who wants to make a good faith contribution to the discussion is given the opportunity to do so. Angela.

I can see two slightly different approaches: representative democracy, where contributors elect representatives which then take the decisions about the long-term direction. In this case it is extremely important that those representatives are accountable to contributors, that they can be deselected if they take decisions that don't reflect the interests of contributors, that the time they serve is not too long. pir

Your idea about representative democracy is interesting, but I do worry about the negative implications of introducing additional hierarchy. I'm not convinced at this stage in the project that we need to create formal representatives of users, although delegating tasks to certain users with official positions could be done, but more so that they are recognised as representatives of the foundation by people external to the site rather than seen as having any extra power within the site. Angela.

The alternative approach, which I would very much prefer, is the one of direct democracy. The board, elected representatives or even just any Wikipedian would propose competing plans regarding e.g. funding, licensing, etc, and then contributors would directly vote on these proposals. In my opinion the direct route of decision taking is not only technically and humanly possible (if Wikipedia shows anything it is how very different people can collaborate productively) but far preferable, because it is consensus-based and deals with the real issues rather than the more personal stuff. pir

I also prefer the idea that any user can contribute to discussions and plans. This is how Wikipedia and its sister projects have been run up until now. I see no reason for that to change. Whether it will scale in future when the community is ten times as large remains to be seen, but it has worked in the past, and I see that continuing. It is the users who have, and should continue to have, the most influence over the direction of the project. Angela.

Also, it could be a way to make Wikipedia less dependent on outside funding, because I am sure that if contributors are more deeply involved in decision taking, they are also much more willing to contribute financially - maybe one could even have a system where Wikipedia voters pay a voluntary Wikipedia tax. pir

I'm not sure if Wikipedia becoming less dependant on external funding is necessarily a good aim. I think we should be looking to increase external funding rather than relying on the generosity of the same people who already give so much of their time to the projects. I hope that with formal budgets in place and people willing to write grant proposals, that external funding will become a significant source of revenue for us.

I don't think I can support "a system where Wikipedia voters pay a voluntary Wikipedia tax". There are advantages to having dues-paying members, but I would not like for only those people to be allowed to vote on matters of funding etc. This stops Wikimedia being open to all users. Angela.

I wonder how you think about this problem and if you have any concrete plans on how to democratically control the amazing Wikipedia project. pir 12:52, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My aim is that any decisions made by the board result directly from discussions between users. Ideally, these would result in consensus. Where that can't be reached, I don't think we should rule out voting. These discussions must always be held in the open. We certainly don't want to give the impression that we are making back room decisions.

Basically, my aim is to ensure good communication, so that those who want to contribute to discussions are aware of them, and to ensure open processes so that anyone has the ability to contribute to decisions. To do this, we need to find much better ways of distributing information across projects and languages. There have been efforts to do this, but it is one area that needs to be greatly improved. Angela. 04:25, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I second Pir on all these questions. I personally regret that no discussion took place on those matters before the elections. I fear that these concerns will be left behind, while those of copyright, licenses, collecting contributors' money, will be those at the front. SweetLittleFluffyThing

I don't think that discussions of copyright, licenses etc will force issues of democracy aside. I think they are naturally connected as when these decisions are being made, we need to make sure they are being made in a democratic way. That is, made according to discussions with users, and our normal processes of working towards consensus. Angela.

I consider the two board members will have to do this rather quickly, to ensure management of donation money, is managed in a democratic way, rather than through a centralised and ponctual system. I would like to know how you plan to make Wikimedia a real democratic association, when you plan to do, through which means. SweetLittleFluffyThing

In essence, I believe that keeping processes and communication open and transparent will result in Wikimedia remaining democratic. The two elected members will be accountable to the users, so they certainly should not be off making decisions without even consulting those users. They should be more interested in carrying out decisions that users have made rather than having too much influence over these themselves.

Perhaps we need clearer information on how people can raise such issues so that no one is left feeling they can not discuss something. I hope to encourage the use of meta for this. Creating pages there is a good place to start discussions that will lead to decisions being made, as meta is multi-lingual, rather than people feeling the English Wikipedia is a good place to discuss things which affect more than this project. Increasing links to meta from the other language wikis may be one way of making sure everyone is aware of discussions, and also aware that they can raise issues there.

The board itself will not be representative of a variety of languages as it is limited to only two elected positions. However, the aim of the board should be to listen to users who are from a variety of languages, so hopefully the limited experience on the board will not be an issue. The board must be there to listen to its users, not to dictate to them. Finding better ways of doing this should be one of their goals. Angela.

I'll suggest a starting point : do you think contributors to international projects, who will be *members* of local associations will be automatically members of Wikimedia Foundation ? Do you think they should pay twice to belong both to local and Wikimedia associations ? SweetLittleFluffyThing

I'm assuming members of local associations will be users of at least one Wikimedia project. According to our by-laws, this already makes them members of the Wikimedia Foundation, which is basically open to anyone with an account. Perhaps what you are asking is whether they will be given the same rights as dues-paying members of Wikimedia? If so, I think this is something that may be dependant on how much the dues are set at. Would it be too expensive to pay to join both? What benefits are users getting from joining both? This is probably something which the person elected to the Contributing Member Representative role will have to deal with. Perhaps it is up to the local associations to decide whether they feel people should be paying twice. Remember, it isn't necessary that anyone pays dues to Wikimedia, so a user could decide to pay dues to their local foundation, but not to Wikimedia, so I don't see that the two need to be tied together. Angela.

Do you think money collected by local associations should be partly refunded to Wikimedia ? If so, how do you plan local associations boards to be involved in budgeting the money they collected in the name of Wikimedia ? SweetLittleFluffyThing

I expect the local associations will be fairly autonomous, so I don't see at this point that they would necessarily be expected to give any money to the foundation. How local associations produce their own budgets is likely to be something decided within those local associations, not something which is decided by the board. The board should be there to advise and support them, but certainly not to tell them how to spend their money. However, it's really a bit too early to say anything on this. I would prefer this be discussed with those who are already involved in setting up local foundations to see what the arguments for giving or not giving money to the foundation would be. I hope to discuss this in Berlin at the weekend with those setting up the German Foundation, so perhaps things will become clearer after that. Angela.

How do you think we should manage common funds ? Do you know what other contributors think on the topic ? How do you plan to ask them ? Just a few questions. SweetLittleFluffyThing 15:55, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How funds are managed is one of the things that needs a lot of user input. We need to know where users feel the priorities are. In terms of funding for hardware, obviously, the developers need to have a large influence over this. This has traditionally been done on IRC or the mailing lists, and to a lesser extent, on the wiki. I think that this has worked in the past, and I expect it to continue to do so in future. I do not feel that the existence of the board should take away the opportunity for people to influence how the money is spent.

I also feel that the donors should have some say on where their money goes. Perhaps there needs to be an option whereby the people donating can specify that their donation be used for something in particular, such as a print edition, or on hardware etc. Separate funding campaigns for specific proposals would be another way to do this. For example, having a period where we ask for money specifically to raise money to advertise Wikipedia in a certain country. This then gives people the option to contribute to that particular cause or not, rather than just have one general donations link and people having no idea where their money will end up.

My answers to pir above will also answer your questions about democracy, so I tried not to repeat myself too much on that. Sorry for giving such a long reply but I hope I've covered all of your concerns. Angela. 04:25, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)