User talk:Denny/2017 BoT voting rationale

I appreciated this summary, while I disagree on some of the premises and hence some considerations bring me to the opposite conclusion (in particular, I don't think the board handled the Lila matters well, so I don't see why I should trust the majority more than the expelled minority, even if maybe the majority was right). Nemo 08:17, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! I sure do not expect everyone to just come here and nod along :) I just hope it might be helpful for some. --denny (talk) 13:30, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Hey Denny! Thanks for the writeup, it's good to have some input from someone who has done the job, and knows some of the people! I'm a little confused about the numbering of the questions, though. Do the numbers refer to Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2017/Board_of_Trustees/Questions? But there is no question 8 there... Would question 8 correspond to Questions/2, heading 3?... -- Duesentrieb (talk) 11:42, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Q8 is Q/2-3 - sorry for the confusion. --denny (talk) 15:48, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Conspiracy?

Hi @Denny:, I felt like a discussion during the voting period was not appropriate. Your opinion, after all, and stated as such. But now that it is all water under the bridge, would you mind stating which of my statement(s) made you think of conspiracy theories? Just give an example if there were too many. I'm asking because, if I should get a seat, I would very much want to revisit any prejudices that I may have. Thanks a lot in advance, Pgallert (talk) 13:26, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pgallert: Since I believe that you have a very good chance of gaining one of the three seats, I offer here the quotes which made me think of pondering to conspiracy theories:

"So I don't know and can't speculate how much fishy business is done there." [on the board]

"Senior management has, until the not so distant past, been freely roaming in their own dreamland, poisoning the work atmosphere for the majority of their employees, and angering the stakeholders (the editors) in almost every way possible."

"And it affects the Foundation whenever there are things forced down the throat of the editing community for the reason that the Foundation knows better."

As you see, in several places you are painting a stark figure of the Foundation as an antagonistic entity which intentionally aims to harm the communities. You evoke a picture of the Board involved in 'fishy' business, and of the WMF openly and intentionally being hostile to the communities. I don't see how your words can align with assuming good faith towards the actors. I find the idea that senior management and/or the Board has conspired to anger the editors wrong and problematic.

In fact, should you win, I see some good coming out of that too. Since - and if you win, also James will likely have won, due to the election method - the two of you have a certain reputation with the subset of editors who are also into similar conspiracy theories - they are widespread among certain Wikipedians, unfortunately, and I understand many of the reasons how they came into existence and grew - your tenure on the Board has the chance of generating sufficient trust with those Wikipedians to, for a while, lessen these unproductive notions and possibly indeed create, for a while, a more welcoming atmosphere of deeper cooperation between this set of Wikipedians and the WMF. In short, people who vote for you given the above quotes, might be slightly reconciled with the WMF given that one of them is part of the Board.

I very much hope, and in fact expect, that you will use the responsibility, should it be bestowed upon you, productively, and will fulfill your obligations towards the WMF within the confines of a seat on the Board. I won't be happy if you - or James, for that matter - get elected to a seat, but I definitely will be cooperative towards you as I would be to any other Board member. --denny (talk) 16:16, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Denny:, thanks for your elaborate answer. I must admit that I am surprised, considering that yours is an insider's view, but (1) was indeed bad phrasing on my side, partly triggered by the loaded question that solicited it. I should not have written that, and I will in future be more careful in my wording. However, (2) I consider almost self-evident, given staff responses, staff turnover, the Heilman story, and the drama around the previous ED. For (3) I could mention some not too distant software rollouts, and I could link to a letter from Jan-Bart that you for sure already know.

My sincere hope is that all this is the result of suboptimal communication rather than inherent mindsets of current Board members, because in the former case it could be changed quite easily. Thanks again, Pgallert (talk) 07:52, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pgallert: So did staff turnover improve since the ED has been exchanged? More importantly, what I consider problematic in these quotes is the assumption that actions were intentionally done to 'anger editors' and to 'force things down the throat'. Why can't we just assume that everyone is doing their best, that sometimes opinions diverge, and that sometimes decisions turn out not to be perfect in hindsight? Why does it have to be clothed into the assumption of an evil Foundation trying to take away our projects from us adorable community members?

Even in your reply you state that you 'hope that the problem is not the inherent mindset of current Board members'. That's so incredibly open to interpretation and exactly in the same vein I mentioned before. It does not assume good faith. What did you mean with that? Which current Board members? What mindset exactly? A mindset of us vs them? A mindset of 'WMF should take away Wikipedia from the communities'? What are you alluring to here? --denny (talk) 15:36, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm alluding to occurences of high-handedness and a general 'We know better than the community'. In the Foundation, and as the Board did not timely and visibly intervene, also the Board. Do I really have to link to statements that a lot of people interpreted as 'Live with that decision or get yourself another hobby'? And yes, there must have been a certain intentionality. Nobody on the Board and nobody in the Foundation is stupid. Community reactions to certain decisions were entirely forseeable. So, @Denny: which one was it: 'I don't care if there is an outcry?' or 'We have to do that, even in the face of criticism'? --Pgallert (talk) 07:57, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pgallert: Neither. For me superprotect was never about asserting control over the content of the projects, but always about ensuring that the projects run without technical issues. And that is how it was used: in no case was superprotect used to decide on content, but when it was used, for example, on Wikidata it was in order to ensure that a specific page remains renderable. It feels weird to defend superprotect, given the fallout and how it was interpreted later, but at the moment of rollout it was intended merely as a mechanism to ensure that the projects are not technically broken. I haven't been involved in its rollout, but my assumption is that there was no desire at the Foundation to assert sovereignty over the content of Wikipedia, nor that this was introduced intentionally to anger or hurt the communities. I understand that it is an unpopular sentiment, but I think the functionality of superprotect, used in well-defined circumstances, would be useful. But I can fully empathize with the people rolling it out, as well as I can empathize with the community members fighting against it, and I can do so without assuming bad faith or nefarious intentions on either side. --denny (talk) 17:41, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

@Denny: Wouldn't then "Both" have been the better answer, rather than "Neither"? Technical protection of the site's smooth operation trumps sensitivities of singular, albeit longstanding, community members, or have I misunderstood something here? Of course the issue is not content, it never was. The issue is governance. The issue is authority. From my perspective, if a local community decides on a certain technical issue then it is the task of the Foundation to help implement it, even if there are better solutions available, and just for the sake of keeping a happy relationship.

Look, I assume good faith up to a certain point, and it is certainly my "default setting". I also think that superprotect could have been useful... only that the way it was used on the German Wikipedia did not quite look like a protection of site integrity to me. That doesn't mean it wasn't, as I have insufficient technical insight, but its apparent message at that time, in that situation, was detrimental for community health. Are my priorities skewed if I prefer even half an hour of downtime over alienating several core community members? --Pgallert (talk) 22:35, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pgallert: I don't understand. If you say the issue is not content but authority, then I am confused about what you mean with that. Authority over what, if not the content? --denny (talk) 00:31, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

The "fishy business" sentence may look like a conspiracy theory indeed, but of the rest you can at most say that it doesn't assume good faith. I don't think it's especially controversial to say that some people at WMF intentionally angered editors. There are multiple occurrences across the years where top WMF managers have stressed that it may be necessary to drive away some existing editors, in order to increase the flow of new ones or the editor retention. Don't break the community is an example of alternate view which emerged in reaction.

This is different from saying that someone has the editors' unhappiness as life goal. In general, the worst evils are often made in the name of the higher good. Saying that someone intentionally did evil doesn't equal saying they only live for evil. The WMF often does evil and is generally cynical, precisely because it thinks it should do a lot. Nemo 06:49, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Nemo, you expressed what I wanted to say. --Pgallert (talk) 13:12, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Denny: I mean authority over the administration of the sites. To give the example of .de: Someone at the Foundation must have thought that a local administrator overstepped his rights when disabling VE opt-out with a workaround. The admin must have thought that the technical ability to do so, plus the backing of his community, automatically gives him that right. That issue should now have been discussed between the two parties instead of pulling out another workaround to undo the change. I hope we can at least agree on that one case. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 13:12, 19 May 2017 (UTC)