Resolution talk:Wikimedia Foundation Guiding Principles/Archive 1

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Freedom and open source

"As an organization, we strive to use open source tools over proprietary ones, although we use proprietary or closed tools (such as software, operating systems, etc.) where there is currently no open-source tool that will effectively meet our needs." - Is there a requirement and process in place which forces people to publish an evaluation which open-source tools were considered and tested for a task in order to identify which specific functionality was only provided by closed-source tools? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe that is my impression because I work remotely, but I've seen some proprietary files been shared and proprietary softwares being used when we could have free software. For instance, microsoft documents or apple softwares. And I've heard the wifi network in SF office works better with apple stuff, which is kind of weird - I've visited SF office only once and I checked that, but I've heard the same from other online meetings. For pragmatical reasons, sometimes I know using some closed softwares can deliver things faster tho. --Ezalvarenga (talk) 19:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree we could use a little more discipline on this. e.g. I'm not convinced all Mac users in the office would truly be significantly less effective at their work on Ubuntu machines. I do acknowledge some may be. I think it warrants some nudging/pushing, though. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 20:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I think there's a huge distinction between closed source tools for personal productivity, and closed source tools for supporting the projects. This should be clarified in the text of the principles, because the current state of affairs is that we require FOSS when it comes to what is actually necessary for the projects to run, and we obviously don't when it comes to the office IT. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. In my initial posting I had shared tools in production (servers, webservices, etc.) in mind, but did not mean to refer to personal computers of individuals - that would be under the "personal freedom" category, and a published evaluation feels like overkill for such private cases. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi, Aklapper, I don't have time today to make a longer comment, but for the personal freedom, if everybody begin to use closed formats, people who wants to use open formats will be forced to use also closed ones. If a person doesn't want to buy an apple computer, but the wifi network forces people to do so or make their lifes with other hardwares difficult, sorry, a serious policy about that should change. Yes, people can choose whatever they want on their personal computers, but if the majority is using what is fashion, a conscious minitority will not have freedom to choose what they want. As an example, I do use sometimes closed softwares, like skype, but only when really necessary, like a partner or co-worker that prefers to use it. And I know the pain it is sometimes to use only Linux since 1998. :) In Brazil, at least, in the government level, we are trying to BURN ALL THE DOCS! There are also bills under way. ;D P. S. I could not even imagine close softwares on the server side. --Ezalvarenga (talk) 12:36, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Responding to a couple of you here. No, AKlapper, AFAIK there is no formal documented requirement/process for evaluation of when the Wikimedia Foundation uses a proprietary tool instead of an open source one. To date we've been small enough, and had a sufficient proportion of the staff who're personally dedicated to open source values, such that evaluation has tended to happen informally on a case-by-case basis, and it's worked reasonably well. Like, we made an organizational commitment to use CiviCRM early and we've stuck with that, and similarly I know that Finance & Admin uses proprietary accounting tools because early on some research was done that determined there was no acceptable open-source tool. I think those were both reasonable outcomes. Over the years we've toyed with the idea of developing a formal evaluation policy, but we have not done it. If you're suggesting we should, I would generally agree, but I also wouldn't say it's the thing Office IT should prioritize as most important and most urgent.

More generally, in response to Ezalvarenga and Ijon, yes, I'd agree that our actual practices are likely imperfect -- there are probably some people at the Wikimedia Foundation using proprietary tools for individual use that could be replaced by open source tools. For example, I know that Legal has at some times used Microsoft Word for documents shared with external firms, when they probably could've insisted on using OpenOffice or LibreOffice without too much of a productivity hit.

Frankly, individuals using proprietary tools has been a pretty big pain point for the Wikimedia Foundation. It's understandable: individual staff have widely varying levels of personal commitment to FLOSS, people want to be effective at work and so they want to use the tools that support them best, and people's work, and their needs, vary. No-one wants to be told they have no choice but to use X, whether X is Ubuntu/Thunderbird/LibreOffice or IE/Outlook/Word. That's utterly reasonable. So it's complex, and we're not going to capture a lot of complexity in a short statement.

StevenW had proposed we modify the language here to distinguish between site production tools and personal/individual tools. Can somebody propose language for that, and for anything else here that might need clarification or finetuning? Feel free to make a change and I'll revert it or finetune it if I feel I need to. Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 18:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Quick suggestion...

[1], which I made before seeing the request to comment first. Anyway, "serving every human being" seems a bit disingenuous, since we really aim to serve every literate human being with access to data and a digital device. ;-) The goal of providing equal access to all seems fairer, and more in line the the section's comments about well, accessibility. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:26, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

"equal access to all" is, er, equally disingenuous, as, by your own phrase, we're providing equal access only to "every literate human being with access to data and a digital device".
Furthermore, I actually do think we strive to serve every human being. Remember the free knowledge the Wikimedia community creates and shares is consumed offline too, not to mention the huge value of secondary use -- the knowledge worked into presentations, newspapers, books, radio and TV programs -- all consumed by hundreds of millions more than the group consuming it directly from our Web sites. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:50, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree with Ijon. The language is "aims to" and "endeavours to," so I think it's appropriately framed as aspirational. Sue Gardner (talk) 18:37, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Getting rich

On «nobody is getting rich by working at the Wikimedia Foundation»: define "rich". For instance, I'm a student but I'm very rich compared to most world population and richer than millions of Italians (so, when serving in my university board I raised tuition fees for myself/my income range). --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah obviously "getting rich" is relative. It's only when you compare apples to apples and look at other tech and nonprofit compensation schemes that you see what is meant. In any case, it's pretty awesome that we want to put that among our guiding principles, right? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:38, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Edit conflict with StevenW! And yeah, Steven, I agree. I think the key word here is "getting." Nemo is correct of course that by world population standards, everybody who works at the Wikimedia Foundation is rich. But we were born rich, we did not "get" rich through our work at the Wikimedia Foundation. The point here is that working at the Wikimedia Foundation is not a path to dramatically improving one's personal wealth. Thanks. Sue Gardner (talk) 18:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I tend to see those negative statements ("not getting rich") as putting things in people's head that you don't want there in the first place. You say "not getting rich" (and I am on par with both Steven's and your interpretation on this) and all people seem to read/hear is "rich". Maybe we should try to find a positive statement for this? I'm kind of stuck though for a good one. "If you want to get rich, go work somewhere else"? -- ok, that one is stupid, but maybe you get my point? notafish }<';> 21:48, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Reasonable travel costs

«We aim to incur only reasonable travel costs: the general policy is to travel economy class and stay in moderately-priced hotels»: were $225K for staff (and board) at Wikimania reasonable? Talk:Wikimedia budget#Wikimania travel question. --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

How much is that per person sent to Wikimania that year? I think looking at the total for shock value is unfair. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Nemo we're not making a commitment here to reduce travel costs, or to minimize travel. (I wouldn't want to do that: with a growing staff that operates as part of a global community that stages many international events such as Wikimania, the chapters' meeting and various hackathons, it strikes me that a focus on reducing travel costs would be a net negative not a net plus. I expect travel costs to be a not-insubstantial chunk of the Wikimedia Foundation budget: that seems eminently reasonable to me given the nature of our work.) The point here is simply that when we travel, we aim to do it moderately not luxuriously. The nuts-and-bolts of how we do that are captured in the travel policy, but the purpose of this statement is simply to summarize the overall intent. Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Title or position

«People at the Wikimedia Foundation get the same benefits regardless of their title or position».

  • Who's "people"? Are you including all managers, trustees and employees?
  • What's "benefits" and how do you measure if "salaries" are "fair"? Are you considering only accessories or also the actual wage, before or after taxes, pension contributions etc.?
  • What are you including in "title or position" (or other comparison for "fair")? For instance, remote worker vs. office worker, full time vs. part time, staff vs. contractor.

--Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

  • Well, people does include at least all staff if you read further "regardless of their title or position". This should include everyone. As for Trustees, you've got a point, "people" is not clear and should probably be changed to "Staff" when it comes to benefits. I do not believe Trustees get benefits, even though they might benefit from insurance and related stuff when it comes to their work for the Foundation. It might make sense here to differentiate between staff/volunteers or something along those lines. notafish }<';> 14:34, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
To be clear: yes, the statement's intended to refer to all staff, and I can change the word "people" to "staff." There is detail available in the document Wikimedia Foundation Compensation Practices. And for Notafish, yes, the trustees don't get any benefits. Expenses they incur on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation are reimbursed as per the policies, but they receive no compensation in the form of salary or other benefits. Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 18:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I think Staff makes sense in that context, thanks for clarifying. notafish }<';> 21:41, 20 March 2013 (UTC) (Sue, it's notafish, with a small n, and I'm stupidly particular about it. If you want a capital, go with Delphine ;)

Accountable

«The Wikimedia Foundation wants to be accountable to [...]». Please clarify how the concept of accountability applies here: «responsible for your decisions or actions and expected to explain them when you are asked»[2] (are there processes to be responsible of your actions in front of the readers, receive their questions and explain? etc.). --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure, of course there are processes to be responsible to the readers of the projects. Reader surveys. User testing. OTRS. The blogs. The annual reports. The regular publication of activity reports, performance reports, financial statements. Social media. Engagement with charity watchdog groups. Public mailing lists. Bugzilla. Office hours on IRC. Events for donors. This page, and many other on-wiki consultations related to feature development, policy development, and so forth. There are probably lots I am forgetting :-) Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 19:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Shared power

This section seems entirely useless, in that it lists a lot of minor ephemeral details from the here and now and no actual "principles" that may "guide" any action. --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of this section is to explicitly acknowledge that the Wikimedia Foundation works in partnership with a global community of volunteers -- that the Wikimedia Foundation is not the sole or even primary actor in fulfilling the Wikimedia mission, and that it needs to conduct itself accordingly, by creating mechanisms and processes enabling the community to have influence on its actions. Because we are interdependent partners. I think this is a pretty fundamental and important point to make, because in this regard we are different from practically everybody else. (What I mean by that: eBay and Facebook and Yelp may also have a social purpose or utility, but their primary purpose is to make money, and "community members" are a resource to be managed by the company to that end. In our case, the primary purpose of the movement is to make knowledge freely available to everyone around the world, and the Wikimedia Foundation and the global community of volunteers play different and complementary roles in achieving that shared goal.) So I wonder if that's not clear -- if my wording is just mucky. If so, can someone help propose better, more useful language? Thanks Sue Gardner (talk)

United States

On «support successful job candidates in attaining the legal right to work in the United States»: why only USA? What if they want to move elsewhere? --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Maybe this should become "...to work from a WMF office in the United States", in case that's what's meant here. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:44, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Or rather: Support succesful job candidates in attaining the legal right to work in the US should the need arise". Or something along those lines. notafish }<';> 14:36, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah -- you're correct, we also support remote workers when people don't want to relocate and the job doesn't require it. I will reword :-) Sue Gardner (talk) 19:21, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Here's what I changed it too -- let me know if this is clearer. "We aim to recruit talented people regardless of where they live, and depending on their preferences and the needs of the job, we support them in working remotely or relocating to the United States." Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 19:29, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Does the trick, as far as I'm concerned. :) notafish }<';> 21:42, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Serving every human being

This section looks weird being 7 sections away from «Freedom and open source» with «All material in our projects is available in free formats that do not require the user to install proprietary software» etc. --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The emphasis on the development of new features is undue and likely to grate on both engineering staff and community, in my opinion. It is out of step with the custodian role which many individuals in both groups identify with. We should express a stronger commitment to high availability and site performance. --Ori.livneh (talk) 10:29, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh ha, Ori.livneh I think that's just clumsy wording on my part. I can see how it's easy to misread, but what you think I said is not what I meant to be saying. I'll revise. I'll also move this chunk up to be nearer to Freedom and Open Source. Thanks to you both Sue Gardner (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Also, it talks about these being directed at "readers", and hoping to support them in starting to contribute - but we should probably also talk about supporting existing contributors. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
On Sue's request, I've tried to address these points with this edit.--Eloquence (talk) 23:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Communication

Do you think https://xkcd.com/802/ [3] applies to the WMF? (In particular, the proportions in the two maps on the top right left being zoomed.) --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Nemo, could you clarify which proportions you refer to by naming them? Top right is "Unread Updates". --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Ouch. I meant left, of course. :) Thanks, Nemo 09:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Right to fork

Again nothing. Talk:Terms of use/Archives/2011-12-06#Right to Fork. --Nemo 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Sue asked me to explore some language around this, so I've taken a first crack at it with this edit.--Eloquence (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Internationalism

«When we consider the community as a whole, we aim to consider all its languages and geographies and to avoid global initiatives that favor communities speaking only our languages» (emphasis added). I note that you're only talking of how you consider the community; what about «initiatives that favor communities speaking only our languages» in general? For instance, roughly how much of the WMF spending goes on initiatives that favor only English-language people (projects, users etc., readers) or only the USA? --Nemo 09:36, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Right to influence

«Their work has earned [...] financial support sustaining the Wikimedia Foundation [...] and the global community has therefore earned the right to influence the work of the organizations»: it seems that you're stating that the only reason why someone has the "right to influence" the work is that they bring in dollars. --Nemo 09:55, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

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