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Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9

 

 

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swatjester at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 7:40 AM

Post #1 of 10 (358 views)
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Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9

I don't see the difference between a voter drive on en.wp, and the
other projects having direct action drives on them stating "GO VOTE!"
and having similar campaigns.

Why is this actually an issue? The email apparently does not say
"Vote for XYZ and not ABC". It just says go vote.

Why do you feel this is A) noteworthy, and B) anything we should be
concerned about?

-Dan Rosenthal

On Jul 3, 2007, at 9:59 AM, foundation-l-request[at]lists.wikimedia.org
wrote:

> i wonder what IS going on behind this *spamming*: who? why? does
> anyone have
> a clue?

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cimonavaro at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 8:19 AM

Post #2 of 10 (342 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

On 7/3/07, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I don't see the difference between a voter drive on en.wp, and the
> other projects having direct action drives on them stating "GO VOTE!"
> and having similar campaigns.
>
> Why is this actually an issue? The email apparently does not say
> "Vote for XYZ and not ABC". It just says go vote.
>
> Why do you feel this is A) noteworthy, and B) anything we should be
> concerned about?
>
> -Dan Rosenthal



I think you make excellent points. Not only is the campaign most likely
counterproductive to its purported aims, but there is a singularly
nonexistent threat of the board being over-run by an anglo-saxon
horde.

There is *yet* to be one anglo-saxon to be _elected_ to the board of
trustees.


--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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cimonavaro at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 8:31 AM

Post #3 of 10 (340 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

...aaannnddd a swift apology in the general direction of Angela Beasley.
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shimgray at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 11:20 AM

Post #4 of 10 (341 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

On 03/07/07, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't see the difference between a voter drive on en.wp, and the
> other projects having direct action drives on them stating "GO VOTE!"
> and having similar campaigns.
>
> Why is this actually an issue? The email apparently does not say
> "Vote for XYZ and not ABC". It just says go vote.
>
> Why do you feel this is A) noteworthy, and B) anything we should be
> concerned about?

An analogy.

When I ran elections for a student union - and, I quietly brag, got
the highest turnout in the country - we had an interesting structural
issue to handle. The electorate was fragmented into a dozen colleges,
and it was generally accepted that a candidate from a specific college
had a decent first shot at their votes*. People wouldn't vote solely
along collegiate lines, of course, but all other things being equal
the fact that they'd recognise someone as someone they sort of knew
would tip the balance. These colleges varied substantially, both by
size and apatheticness.

The similarity to projects and candidates here should be pretty clear,
I hope! (Except that, for linguistic & cultural reasons, the
candidate-project link is probably a shade closer)

As a side-effect, one of our most lengthy "theological arguments" was
on whether or not it was unfairly influencing the vote to allow
candidates to say which they were affiliated with, and if not how on
earth you could practically enforce this. We kept varying this; no
good answer.

When the actual running of the election rolled around, the only
practical way to get turnout was to devolve the "advertising" to the
collegiate level - our people had substantially better access to
students through that method than any central body did. There was a
single person, with a couple of assistants, responsible for getting
the electorate in each group turned out.

As a result of that, a second-order factor on how well any given
candidate would do was the competence and enthusiasm of *one single
person* in their college. This was, basically, an unavoidable feature
of the system, but as the way to "balance" it was for the candidates
to enthuse all the others harder, we felt it was self-correcting :-)

I wonder if this might not be a model to embrace next time - name a
committee on each project responsible for whipping up the vote from
that project, and leave them to it so long as they don't a) involve or
endorse any given candidate; b) go overboard.

This avoids the "omg, canvassing on enwp" "but there's canvassing on
dewp" "it's different" sort of disputes, and also helps avoid the
inherent inefficiencies of a central group trying to both run the
elections and promote them across dozens of projects.

Thoughts?

--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray[at]dunelm.org.uk

* Or would get an abnormally *low* vote from them, depending on how
good they were at pissing people off...

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robert_horning at netzero

Jul 3, 2007, 1:03 PM

Post #5 of 10 (341 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

Dan Rosenthal wrote:
> I don't see the difference between a voter drive on en.wp, and the
> other projects having direct action drives on them stating "GO VOTE!"
> and having similar campaigns.
>
> Why is this actually an issue? The email apparently does not say
> "Vote for XYZ and not ABC". It just says go vote.
>
> Why do you feel this is A) noteworthy, and B) anything we should be
> concerned about?
>
> -Dan Rosenthal
>

An issue here is if you already have some sort of relationship with the
individual that you are exchanging e-mails and user talk page notes
with, and which ones you havn't. If you are sending a quick reminder to
a bunch of people in a Wikiproject that you have all worked on a common
set of articles and already have a relationship with, I don't see the
problem. But if you have never had any other sort of exchange with
these individuals in the past and a message of this sort is your very
first communication, I would call that spam.

Heck, I would call "welcome messages" a sort of spam, but something that
generally is beneficial to the project. Perhaps the only type that
should be permitted. And it does provide a point of contact with the
commnity as well. Because of the "spam-like" nature of the welcome
messages, I usually try to add a personal touch as well when I write
them and add these sort of messages myself on projects where I'm
active. Usually commenting about the kinds of edits that new user has
been involved with and to let them know there are people and not some
'bot that has been spamming these messages out.

If your desire is to spread the message to a larger community in
general, there are other tools such as the village pump, mailing lists,
IRC, and other sorts of communications media that can be used to get the
message out regarding this sort of activity. And nearly every active
Wikimedia project has multiple communications methods like these and
more (like the Signpost and even blogs) that can used for sending mass
communications where the people reading those forii know in advanced
that they are mass communication media regarding these projects.

Tools like user talk pages and personal e-mail links are additional,
usually emergency communication channels. As an admin on a couple of
projects, I usually get some sort of regular communication on nearly a
daily basis... more so when I'm especially active. These sort of
communication channels are critical to remain free of cruft and mass
communicatoin, at least for me. When I have time to read the mass
communication channels, I take that time and do so. Just as I am here.
But I don't put a priority on responding here.

I'm not going to sugar coat that there is a problem with the Village
Pump on en.wikipedia, if only because it is a fire hose torrent of
opinions and information pouring through having discussions quite often
disappear before I get a chance to even read them. That is also one of
the reasons, BTW, that I don't claim Wikipedia as my primary project, as
the sheer number of people involved is in many ways overwhelming.

-- Robert Horning

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swatjester at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 1:07 PM

Post #6 of 10 (338 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

Problem is, we can't disenfranchise the users who don't use village
pump, IRC, or mailing lists. Email is the only way. Hell, we've
already established that certain users can't see the on-wiki site
notices.

-Dan

On Jul 3, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Robert Horning wrote:

> Dan Rosenthal wrote:
>> I don't see the difference between a voter drive on en.wp, and the
>> other projects having direct action drives on them stating "GO VOTE!"
>> and having similar campaigns.
>>
>> Why is this actually an issue? The email apparently does not say
>> "Vote for XYZ and not ABC". It just says go vote.
>>
>> Why do you feel this is A) noteworthy, and B) anything we should be
>> concerned about?
>>
>> -Dan Rosenthal
>>
>
> An issue here is if you already have some sort of relationship with
> the
> individual that you are exchanging e-mails and user talk page notes
> with, and which ones you havn't. If you are sending a quick
> reminder to
> a bunch of people in a Wikiproject that you have all worked on a
> common
> set of articles and already have a relationship with, I don't see the
> problem. But if you have never had any other sort of exchange with
> these individuals in the past and a message of this sort is your very
> first communication, I would call that spam.
>
> Heck, I would call "welcome messages" a sort of spam, but something
> that
> generally is beneficial to the project. Perhaps the only type that
> should be permitted. And it does provide a point of contact with the
> commnity as well. Because of the "spam-like" nature of the welcome
> messages, I usually try to add a personal touch as well when I write
> them and add these sort of messages myself on projects where I'm
> active. Usually commenting about the kinds of edits that new user has
> been involved with and to let them know there are people and not some
> 'bot that has been spamming these messages out.
>
> If your desire is to spread the message to a larger community in
> general, there are other tools such as the village pump, mailing
> lists,
> IRC, and other sorts of communications media that can be used to
> get the
> message out regarding this sort of activity. And nearly every active
> Wikimedia project has multiple communications methods like these and
> more (like the Signpost and even blogs) that can used for sending mass
> communications where the people reading those forii know in advanced
> that they are mass communication media regarding these projects.
>
> Tools like user talk pages and personal e-mail links are additional,
> usually emergency communication channels. As an admin on a couple of
> projects, I usually get some sort of regular communication on nearly a
> daily basis... more so when I'm especially active. These sort of
> communication channels are critical to remain free of cruft and mass
> communicatoin, at least for me. When I have time to read the mass
> communication channels, I take that time and do so. Just as I am
> here.
> But I don't put a priority on responding here.
>
> I'm not going to sugar coat that there is a problem with the Village
> Pump on en.wikipedia, if only because it is a fire hose torrent of
> opinions and information pouring through having discussions quite
> often
> disappear before I get a chance to even read them. That is also
> one of
> the reasons, BTW, that I don't claim Wikipedia as my primary
> project, as
> the sheer number of people involved is in many ways overwhelming.
>
> -- Robert Horning
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


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thomas.dalton at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 1:08 PM

Post #7 of 10 (339 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

> Thoughts?

Take a look at the DSU Steering Committee rulings page
(http://steering.dsu.org.uk/rules/rulings.php) - it is full of
election rule violations. Whatever they are doing, it isn't working. I
would advise against using Durham Student Union as a role model.

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shimgray at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 1:29 PM

Post #8 of 10 (339 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

On 03/07/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thoughts?
>
> Take a look at the DSU Steering Committee rulings page
> (http://steering.dsu.org.uk/rules/rulings.php) - it is full of
> election rule violations. Whatever they are doing, it isn't working. I
> would advise against using Durham Student Union as a role model.

Ha. Yes, it does fall down a lot when you have *candidates* allowed
into the system.

Trust me, I made plenty of those rulings myself, I know what's behind
them... indeed, if you look down towards the bottom of the list, I'll
have signed the originals of several of them.

That level of candidate idiocy and whining is about the same as you
get for any similar body, collegiate system or not, IME. Very few of
those are structural-related; they're variously to do with candidate
misbehaviour (People are *really inventive* at that, as you can
imagine) or with non-election issues. Running through the last year's
worth in reverse order...

Administrivia; election publicity x8; administrivia; election process;
administrivia; election publicity; election process x2; administrivia.

Of those, the three "election process" are just faff over whether or
not a candidate nomination got in in time; the "election publicity" is
mostly to do with our arcane system for handling how *candidates* are
allowed to canvass. As WMF doesn't permit canvassing, this is moot :-)
A couple are to do with whether or not a candidate is allowed to say
where they're from, which is not an issue we'd have - there's no point
in disguising it.

Nothing in there is related to the "separate groups, devolved running"
system in a way that would have any meaning in the WMF context, with
the exception of one good-faith error of someone saying "go vote (...)
by the way, so-and-so from here is standing, so you know", and
assuming we don't leave complete muppets in charge of 'campaigning',
we should be able to avoid most of that.

I still think the model has a lot going for it.

--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray[at]dunelm.org.uk

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robert_horning at netzero

Jul 3, 2007, 1:36 PM

Post #9 of 10 (343 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

Dan Rosenthal wrote:
> Problem is, we can't disenfranchise the users who don't use village
> pump, IRC, or mailing lists. Email is the only way. Hell, we've
> already established that certain users can't see the on-wiki site
> notices.
>
> -Dan
>
>
That is a problem for en.wikipedia to work out on their own. But
abusing private and personal communication channels to dilute their
effectiveness with common mass mailings is not the way to accomplish
this goal. Mass communications is a huge problem for en.wikipedia,
particularly when something needs to be made known to the body of
Wikipedians as a whole.

But I strongly disagree that e-mail is the only way this can be
accomplished. There are so many methods of doing mass communication to
Wikipedia users that this is a complete fallacy that e-mail is the only
solution. As far as using [[Mediawiki:sitenotice]] and having that
effectively work in all browsers, all skins, and get pressing messages
out, that is something which should be taken to Tech-l or put on the
MediaWiki-Bugzilla, with you adding your own vote to the bug if it is
already submitted. Spam is not the solution here.

-- Robert Horning

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shimgray at gmail

Jul 3, 2007, 1:41 PM

Post #10 of 10 (339 views)
Permalink
Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9 [In reply to]

On 03/07/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning[at]netzero.net> wrote:

> But I strongly disagree that e-mail is the only way this can be
> accomplished. There are so many methods of doing mass communication to
> Wikipedia users that this is a complete fallacy that e-mail is the only
> solution. As far as using [[Mediawiki:sitenotice]] and having that
> effectively work in all browsers, all skins, and get pressing messages
> out, that is something which should be taken to Tech-l or put on the
> MediaWiki-Bugzilla, with you adding your own vote to the bug if it is
> already submitted. Spam is not the solution here.

The problem is, exhorting people to vote needs to:

a) be targeted to people *eligible* to vote; if undirected, it has to

i) be clear to those who are eligible that they are
ii) be clear to those who aren't that they aren't

and:

b) actually be clear why you ought to vote;

and:

c) actually get to the electorate

a) and b) together makes it very, very hard to efficiently condense a
"vote now!" message into a single sentence in the sitenotice,
regardless of whether or not that method can be coaxed into fulfilling
c).

--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray[at]dunelm.org.uk

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