User talk:Katherine (WMF)

Media Inquiry on Plagiarism

Hi Katherine, sure, have the journalist google my name and contact me by email. I'll be glad to give them a phone number. --WiseWoman (talk) 21:48, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Where is the strategy audit?

Hi Katherine, I saw in your Metrics Meeting slides that this month you have scheduled an "Audit 2016-18 strategy: Does it capture all assets, strengths, threats, opportunities?" Where is that taking place?

Do you know when the critical question synthesis of the meta:2016 Strategy/Draft WMF Strategy and its discussion is due back from the strategy process facilitator contractor? It's been "(coming soon)" redlinked in the infobox there for over three months now. EllenCT (talk) 01:38, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi @EllenCT: - we deprioritized the critical question synthesis against preparing the Annual Plan and shepherding it through the approval process. We expect it to be ready around the end of next week. The Audit will likely live on a TBD location on Meta, but has not yet been planned beyond what I presented. We'll be sure to continue to share as that process moves forward. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! EllenCT (talk) 01:16, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Any word on the critical question synthesis? EllenCT (talk) 01:59, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you so much for seeing that through, Katherine. I excerpted the recommendations at meta:2016 Strategy/Recommendations and started brainstorming some specific tutorials as suggested on the discussion page there. EllenCT (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Specific suggestions

Please consider the risks of coordinated paid advocacy and ways to mitigate that risk. It is similar to the risk that bias will be introduced where the surveillance state controls or has a chilling effect on editing.

By the way, I like the fact that your first article was on a housing project. We can not make improvements until we study flaws. Where do you find the best skills to make constructive criticism complementary? EllenCT (talk) 13:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

That was a serious question; I hope you didn't think it was rhetorical. I wish I had better constructive criticism skills, and your popularity among sticklers makes me want to know your advice. EllenCT (talk) 17:35, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

One of the tutorials I suggested is on constructive criticism skills. That seems to be the lowest hanging fruit for community civility gains, as far as I can see. EllenCT (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Staffing suggestion

From [1] which was archived before being responded to: Please give Halfak (WMF) the funding and authority to hire Nettrom, Quang Vinh Dang, Claudia-Lavinia Ignat, Susan Biancani,Yu Suzuki, Masatoshi Yoshikawa, and/or their referral(s) for an importance evaluation system to complement ORES's quality classification system. Would you please also get Legoktm help for mw:User talk:Legoktm#FRSbot questions so our nascent jury system can pass audit? I also want to know how much it would cost to implement searching recent changes.

Thank you for your kind consideration of these requests, and please keep up the good work. EllenCT (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Abandoning projects or assigning further budget

Hi Katherine,

What mechanisms does the WMF have for abandoning failed projects or assigning new budget to projects that have not completed their objective with prior funding? Are there any that are explicitly open to the community?

Thanks and best wishes,

Samsara 21:15, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	WikiConference North America Barnstar
	Thank you for the role you played at WikiConference North America 2016. This year's conference could not have been a success without your contributions and we hope you will continue to be involved in 2017. On behalf of WikiConference North America - Gamaliel (talk) 01:13, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Holiday greetings

	Thank you for all you do for WP. I was proud to have gotten to meet you. Keep inspiring us all to push on. Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy, healthy and productive 2017!
	TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:14, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

WMF Legal and paid editing

Hi Katherine

I am interested to learn if the WMF management or the board has discussed taking legal action against companies that offer services to edit Wikipedia and that have no on-Wiki presence disclosing their edits here, per the Terms of Use. We all know the companies and their websites, where they use the Wikipedia name, etc. I have looked and never found disclosure by any of those companies in WP. I have looked and found no public evidence of WMF legal engaging with these companies, other than Wiki-PR.

Some en-Wiki editors recently identified a long-term paid editor and brought the matter to ANI: thread is here.

Two questions:

Has this been discussed, and if so, what has/have the outcomes been?

Also, is there budget for WMF legal to take action against such companies?

Best regards Jytdog (talk) 06:16, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Uncontrolled spending increases

In my essay at User:Guy Macon/Wikipedia has Cancer I make several proposals.

Whether of not you agree with the essay as a whole, would you be willing to propose and/or support the following?

• Make spending largely transparent, publish a detailed account of what money is being spent on and answer any reasonable questions asking for more details.
• Limit spending increases to no more than inflation plus some percentage (adjusted for any increases in page views). Are you willing to support any limit at all on spending growth, and if so roughly how much? 10%? 20%? 30%?
• Build up our endowment and structure the endowment so that the WMF cannot legally dip into the principal when times get bad.

--Guy Macon (talk) 02:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for all you do at the Wikimedia Foundation!

Asparish (talk) 00:21, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Q re funds

Hey Katherine, my real life person ;) just got an email asking for a donation. I attended an anniversary conference in SF (it was great) couple of years ago, and from what I understood our issue is not the funds but what to do with them. So I am curious about our current approach to maintaining and improving wikipedia. If my impression re what we discussed is correct, why are we asking for more donations? I'm eager to give, just curious about our strategy. Rybkovich (talk) 22:21, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

A question for you

Hi Katherine. Some community members just pointed me to this tweet from your twitter account earlier today (archived here for reference). I gather that the tweet is in reference to this article by Buzzfeed News, which was published this afternoon and tweeted (archive) three times today by its author Joe Bernstein, who is registered here as JosephABernstein.

We haven't met, but by way of introduction, I'm a current member of the Arbitration Committee. I'm here entirely in my capacity as an individual volunteer, not as a representative of the committee - but still, as a volunteer whose role means I've invested quite a bit of time over the last couple of weeks trying to work out a broadly satisfactory solution to the situation described in that article. Does your comment reflect your views about the volunteers who have taken an interest in or discussed the article, who spoke to the reporter who wrote it, and who have spent their time trying to resolve the issue it covers? (As I was writing this message, I noticed you'd posted a followup (archive), but I'm afraid I don't understand it - the original text, When you have to retweet your shitty pseudo-thinkpiece three times because no one cares., is pretty specific, and hard to read as garden variety the world is burning subtweeting. Were there other long articles posted three times today?)

I understand some community members have asked you about the same comment over at meta - I'll post a short note there, but as the concerns that have been raised about the underlying incident reflect a matter of local community interest, I'd prefer to keep things on enwiki. Thanks. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:13, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi Katherine. As another member of the Arbitration Committee, I would also like a response here. Worm^TT(talk) 06:31, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Opabinia regalis that it would be appropriate and helpful for you to make a clarification statement here on Wikipedia, even if it is to say that yes you were posting about the article, but did so in a moment of weakness and frustration. We understand that here on Wikipedia, because it is a surprisingly stressful place to work as a volunteer because we have to monitor thousands of edits every hour looking for edits which damage the reputation of Wikipedia, which put the Foundation in jeopardy of legal action against them, which create unrest, which are disruptive, plus having to deal with the everyday frustrations of editors who disagree with each other over how best to edit the encyclopedia, and then work out from the context what the issue really is, and how best to address it. So, yes, we understand frustration here on Wikipedia, and sympathise with people who make inappropriate outbursts now and again. We tend to be more understanding and forgiving of those who are self-reflective and honest about their actions as it tends to reassure us they have taken on board what has happened and so make it unlikely that it would happen again. So we would be more reassured if you said yes it was about the article which had annoyed you on a personal level, then if you attempted to cover up the tweet by saying it was about something unrelated. However, if it was about something unrelated, and you can supply evidence of that, that would be even more reassuring. SilkTork (talk) 06:42, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

It might help to stop tweeting about this issue until you have a clear statement to make, and to make that to this community, not the Twitter one. This Twitter comment: [2] in which you say that the Wikipedia community is a "monolith misnomer" to suggest that we are fractious and divided and unable to agree, could be read as hostile, non-appreciative and non-understanding of the communal work that goes on here every minute of every day, and insulting to those of us who value the collegiality and co-operation of the community and who respect and abide by the consensus of the community, even when they disagree with it. There is speculation in the community that the Foundation does not understand the community, and sees it as toxic and fractious and troublesome; such comments encourage that view rather than dissuade it. SilkTork (talk) 08:22, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

SilkTork, I read her comment very differently. I thought she was making the important point that one ought to be exceedingly careful about any statement such as "the community thinks X", because it is not a monolith, it is not the borg, it is a collection of individuals who have a variety of view on many subjects. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:53, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, that was also my interpretation. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:38, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

And as not a member of Arbcom but just one "the 'oi polloi", yet someone who has contributed more than 150,000 edits to this project over 14 years, I'd also very much like to hear your explanation. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:06, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

In 13 years I have never seen this place erupt as much as this - alot of people are very upset. It needs leadership and soon. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:38, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the tweet is currently under discussion at Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram#Katherine Maher tweet. Also, throwing my headband in to endorse Opabinia regalis's comments. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:48, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

WMF have displayed appalling leadership and appalling communication throughout this farrago. And now you add the kind of childish hideousness that if done on Wikipedia could get you banned without appeal or information about your offence by your very own WMF secret police. Disgraceful. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:21, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah. You've not edited here in 3 years. So at the risk of earning your scorn on Twitter, I'll repost this message on meta. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:31, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

You can add me, speaking as a Wikipedia editor or ArbCom member or whatever you like, as someone who is hoping you will speak on-wiki to this. I've always admired that you speak your mind on Twitter, and use it to voice everything from your political opinions to my own personal favorite use of Twitter: a place to air those weird thoughts that go through your head and have no other place to go. A lot of people in similarly high profile roles as you use their Twitter accounts as little more than an extension of their corporation's Twitter account, resulting in a very robotic and uninteresting feed, which I find unfortunate. But by not handing your account over to some communications team with a carefully-orchestrated messaging plan, you definitely run some risks as far as how your messages come across, as I'm sure you're aware.

I personally find it frustrating that (to my knowledge) the first you've spoken about this recent WMF ban fiasco is a) in a tweet, not on-wiki, and b) only to dismiss a journalist who wrote a piece that you later acknowledged "covered the community position and wiki details accurately". You also haven't actually addressed directly whether you were initially tweeting about the Buzzfeed article at all, which to me feels evasive (and honestly, a little bit gaslight-y)—it certainly seems unlikely that you were referring to some other thinkpiece that was tweeted out three times by its author, especially when you later addressed the Buzzfeed article directly, but you've said things like "it wasn’t about a specific author or article" and alluded to thinkpieces on things like gender and income inequality as if you might have been referring to something else. Furthermore, though you've acknowledged that your tweet was hurtful to members of the community that you in a way lead and represent, you have not meaningfully apologized or addressed it on-wiki. I am often one of the first to speak up about unreasonable demands on peoples' time—Wikipedians are unfortunately prone to forgetting that people have jobs and standard working hours and personal lives and other obligations—but even a quick note on-wiki (any wiki) to say you'd be addressing it would've been a good start. I understand also that you're more fluent with Twitter, but meeting us where we are (or not) makes a big impression.

You've also said that you have not communicated with the community because no one has asked you to directly, but surely your employees and board members have made their CEO/ED aware of one of the largest issues that the largest Wikimedia project has faced in the past years? Why would you not proactively address it, rather than wait for a community member to comment? Sure, Trust & Safety is the group that typically handles bans and subsequent communication, but this ban has evolved into a major threat to this community and its relationship with the WMF, which to me seems like it is a critical time for leadership from the CEO and ED. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:25, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I am another member of the Arbitration Committee. At this stage, I request from you a full explanation. Why did you write such a thoughtless tweet? What time have you devoted to the future handling of WMF actions on enwiki? What action are you taking next? We can gather donations without you. You are here to provide a degree of professionalised leadership and experience. As it stands you would probably be blocked if you were a volunteer, acting like that and contributing nothing helpful. It is pathetic. AGK ■ 17:34, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I am not currently a member of the Arbitration Committee, but previously served on the Committee for eight and one-half years, which I believe made me the longest-serving member, for whatever that might be worth. I don't want or need to add to everything that's been said thus far, here and elsewhere, except to comment on the importance of dealing with the current situation. Whether deservedly or otherwise, this set of disputes is creating the highest level of unhappiness and disharmony in the English Wikipedia community that has ever existed in my 13 years of editing. I am sure you cannot address the issues unilaterally but you can certainly give the matter the attention it deserves, and reinforce that level of urgency with both the Board members and your Office colleagues. Putting aside the issue of the individual editor who was banned, as I wrote last week, the community remains uncertain exactly what it is that the WMF is trying to accomplish with this new initiative and how we are collectively to get where the WMF wants us to be, assuming that it's a place we agree we want to go. And if the goal is a higher level of civility, then as I wrote last night, your own utterances probably should model it, both on-wiki and in off-wiki communications about our project. But most importantly, please adjust your priorities as needed: until progress has been made toward deescalating the current situation, I can imagine no more urgent call upon your effort, time, and dedication to the wiki movement. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:54, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

So many members of the Arbitration Committee in one place, all ready to congratulate themselves for their reasonableness and moderation, here to tone police a single tweet while ignoring the morass of conspiracy theories emerging from the toxic cesspool they preside over. This was no different from any other office action which you yourselves approved of and enforced against other users. The only difference is that the target was popular. Before you congratulate yourselves too much, all of you are the reasons we are in this mess in the first place, not Katherine's tweet or any alleged communications failures on the part of the WMF. You should all be embarrassed to have the audacity to blame anyone but yourselves for steadfastly doing nothing about this situation for years until the WMF was forced to step in to do something you would not. Gamaliel (talk) 22:58, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

You seem lost.- MrX 🖋 23:04, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Bless your heart. Gamaliel (talk) 23:10, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Comments relating to WP:FRAMBAN

Without any intention to involve myself in the main discussion, above all as a community member, and as a former admin here and elsewhere (not that the bits should matter), I would like to express my disappointment at the way the WMF has handled this matter so far, at various levels (and especially when it comes to clarity in the WMF-community relations). Although my contributions have been dwindling and scant of late, this climate of general malaise arising out of this situation is dispiriting (and given that this is enwiki, that's saying something). I do not wish to expound further on this issue here, but if you or anyone else should need my opinion, my email user function is open, FWIW. MikeLynch (talk) 11:59, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I will underscore the significance of this. MikeLynch was Sanskrit Wikipedia's last remaining bureaucrat, and one of 5 administrators there. --Rschen7754 16:29, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

And I'm a long-time editor with no advanced permissions. I very much want to make sure that you start paying close attention to that main discussion. I think that we all are on the same team here, wanting what is best for the encyclopedia. But you really, really need to be aware that a large brush fire has been burning under your watch for quite some time now, and it needs to be dealt with thoughtfully. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:07, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I would also suggest a look at WP:BN. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

FYI – Until progress has been made toward de-escalating the situation at WP:FRAMBAN, I cannot in good conscience continue to implement the Wikipedia Editor of the Week Award at this time. I'm not sure what progress I should expect but I'll know it when I see it. My sincere hope is that it leads to more respect for the workers in the front lines.―Buster7 ☎ 13:22, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Email

Hello, Katherine (WMF). Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.— Miniapolis 17:14, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Responding to some questions and concerns

Hi folks. I'm not very active here mostly because it's not a very active page in general. But when I'm pinged there's a lot of activity here, like today, you have my attention, and here I am.

I understand people are very upset about my tweet yesterday. My tweet wasn't really meant to be about the BuzzFeed article about the situation here on enWP, it was meant more a comment about Twitter and media culture in general. (If I’d wanted to comment on the article, I would have linked to it directly.) But I understand why it was upsetting, and why it could be seen as dismissing or dismissive of perspectives and people here in the en-wiki community. That truly wasn't my intention, and I apologize. I've thought about deleting it, but I didn't want people to think I was hiding from something. (It was also admittedly a somewhat ill-conceived and hasty throwaway, which is Twitter in a nutshell, versugs what I hope will be a more thoughtful and well-written reflection here, more in line with the nature of this community.) Thank you for reaching out and inviting me to clarify my intention here.

My actual feeling on the BuzzFeed article, which I also clarified on Twitter, is that it accurately covers the situation in the community and the anger or frustration people have expressed about the ban and the Foundation's action. In general, I don't have issues with negative press coverage of criticisms about the Foundation or my own judgment and actions. That’s part of my role, and often I find it very useful to help me learn and improve. To that end, the coverage of the conversations was a fair characterization of many perspectives here. Very often the press doesn't really understand the workings of Wikimedia, however, the journalist clearly did his homework to understand community conversations and processes. He put in the effort, so kudos - that's not easy and it often takes people a long time. (I personally found the “culture war” framing to be strange, because seemed like it was trying to make a Wikipedia issue into a comment on society as a whole, using a very American perspective for what is a fairly international community.)

However, while I don't have any issues with the things I described above, I did feel the way it handled reporting on the alleged targets of harassment was objectionable. For people who know how the communities work, it would be very easy from the article to identify those individuals. That is not okay, and it would have been possible to write the article on the issue and the controversy without needing to take that approach. The Foundation communications team has been in touch with the Buzzfeed editors with our concerns around that. I take very seriously the matter of protecting members of our community, especially ones being harmed by harassment. Criticism is fine, but you shouldn't make it harder for people who already are in a hard place in order to make a point. Or, as I've been taught, don't 'punch down.'

Even if I’ve not been vocal here on my talk page or on other discussions, I’ve been closely monitoring what’s been going on here on en-wiki, and will continue to do so. I believe there are things that could have been handled better on the Foundation side, including my own communications. My goal, which I’ve shared with the Board and am happy to share with you all here, is to find a path to de-escalate the current situation and build better, lasting solutions to the issues of harassment. To me, this means consulting with the enWP community to address your articulated concerns about our respective roles and community processes, identifying some clear next steps to resolve some of the current concerns, and consulting on how we can work together to strengthen community self-governance while also cultivating a respectful editing environment that safeguards everyone in the community.

As always, I appreciate people's passion and the community's efforts toward holding the Foundation accountable, even when these conversations are difficult. I recognize I've also not answered every question or responded to every comment on my page today -- there's a lot, and I wanted to focus on the things that seemed most important and to have the most energy around them.

I know it doesn’t seem like it to many people at the moment, but I wholeheartedly support and am committed to the principle of partnership with members of this and other project communities. It’s been a part of my commitment as a Foundation employee for five years, and consultation is something I’ve made an effort to embed in every aspect of our work, from the movement strategy conversations to the product development process. We don’t always get it right, and even if we do, we don’t and won’t always agree on everything. But I know that collaboration and discourse is essential, and something we all -- community members and Foundation and staff alike -- should always be working toward. Thank you. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 23:49, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Excuse me for top-posting, SilkTork, but I was worried about another thing. I have trouble following your final valediction, Katherine (WMF), where you say But I know that collaboration and discourse is essential, and something we all -- Foundation and staff alike -- should always be working toward. I'm not trying to pettily catch you out wrt a word, but who are you referring to with the word "staff"? Foundation employees? The definition of "Staff" in our article is "People in employment within any organization" (when it doesn't mean a hand-held ceremonial stick or something). So either the volunteers writing and administrating the encyclopedia are invisisble in your good wishes, or else they're your employees. Could you clarify? For my part I've never felt like a WMF employee, nor do I want to. There's a distinction. Bishonen | talk 00:48, 29 June 2019 (UTC).

An editing mistake, thank you, and there was no ulterior insinuation intended. I meant to write "community members and Foundation staff alike." I certainly don't see community members as employees or staff. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 00:54, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Point of WP-etiquette here, for future use: It is considered bad form to change your comments after someone has replied to them, unless you follow the directions at WP:REDACT. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:02, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you for alerting me. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Surely not just WP-etiquette, but common sense and common courtesy. Changing a phrase after somebody has complained about it wrongfoots the other person, in this case me, and makes them look a little crazy. ('What are they on about?') Bishonen | talk 04:39, 30 June 2019 (UTC).

Fair, entirely. I assumed that my acknowledgement and people's ability to check diffs would be sufficient. If anything, I'm more used to being on Meta, in which I've edited for meaning and clarity without previously raising concerns. I appreciate the pointers and explanation of etiquette here. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 04:48, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Just edited your post the way it should have been amended. An WP:IAR move on my part. — JFG ^talk 13:26, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

The rule JFG is ignoring is that it is usually bad form to edit other people's talkpage-comments (WP:TPO). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:57, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Katherine, thanks for getting in touch. I've only read the first lines so far and got caught up in your comment that this page has been vandalised. I checked. It hasn't. Your page on Meta was the one that was vandalised. As the media may be reading this page, it perhaps doesn't look good for the CEO to be saying that their Wikipedia page was vandalised when in fact that isn't true. It's also not exactly a warm and encouraging start to be suggesting that this place is vandalised! I will finish reading this in the morning as I want to hear what you have to say with a calm and neutral mind, but a lot has been said today that keeps getting in the way of me being able to do that right now. But I wanted to be able to acknowledge and thank you for responding. SilkTork (talk) 00:10, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I originally started writing this in response to some comments on my Meta talkpage, simply because I started with the most recent notification and that's where it led me. I didn't get far before I realized that wasn't where I should start by responding. I cut what I'd written, discarded the draft on Meta, moved over here, pasted and continued. I didn't catch that in the copyedit before publishing. Thank you for noticing, I've edited accordingly. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Katherine, I'm Tony. I'm a CU and OS here. I've been generally cautious about the situation here, because I've worked fairly closely with T&S on a few things in the past, but given your tweets yesterday, the only way this ends amicably is if someone high profile gets fired or resigns. That means either you or JEissfeldt (WMF).
  I still don't have an opinion on the ban itself, as I haven't seen the information, but you all have done a horrible job of dealing with the fallout here, and that alone requires a personnel change. You obviously cannot comment on that now, but the Foundation has lost the confidence of a significant number of people on it's flagship project, and there really isn't much else that can be done to repair that relationship other than a change in leadership at a recognizable level.
  I'm aware I am just a small part of this community, but I hope you at least consider what I've said. We've far passed the point where anything other than leadership change will heal the wounds here, and that's the case even if T&S is right. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:17, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
  • WTF is this? The Wicker Man? Gamaliel (talk) 01:04, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
• Thank you for responding here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:36, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Katherine (WMF), Frankly, horseshit. You are either being exceptionally disingenuous or flat-out lying about the tweets not being related to that article. Yup, you're a CEO so spin control and working with people to manage relationships is second-nature. It shows, very clearly, and you're reply leaves me with a very, very bad feeling. There are editors that face death threats on a regular basis and have ASKED for help from WMF and get NOTHING. Ah, but some perceived "harrassement" (or "frank exchange of views", depending on your POV about this) gets significant help.

Bullshit.

If everything around this is how T&S wants Wikipedia to work, awesome. Great. DUMP ARBCOM. Replace it with the Nineteen Eighty-Four, excuse me, Trust and Safety and watch the highly dedicated volunteers here who actually MAKE this website work disappear.

Wikipedia has done a phenomenal job of hoping this would all disappear and folks will let it drop, and if you aren't watching, it's not. Look at the list of seriously respected people with advanced permissions that have resigned because of how Wikipedia (and as the CEO, that means YOU) have handled this debacle. Think on that. Stop the deception, be brutally honest with yourselves and look where this is going. It's not a good place. Ravensfire (talk) 03:08, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

• I've responded further below in this section explaining more about what was going through my mind when I tweeted. It was a dumb tweet, it wasn't well-constructed, it wasn't intended to contradict or otherwise disregard community sentiment, I wouldn't do it again. I don't know that I have ways to further account for myself on this particular point, but I understand not everyone will accept what I've said. The fact that I've spent most of today here answering on-wiki and to emails sent directly to me by editors should hopefully be an indication that I am paying attention, and I've stated in other places here that I am listening to people here and elsewhere, and working actively with Foundation staff to find a way to resolve the issue. I don't expect to have a magic solution in the next 24 hours, but I am tentatively hopeful that we'll have something to offer soon. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 03:30, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, I am a former Wikimedia steward. I am seeing editors who faced harassment in real life because of Wikipedia leaving over this. This means that the death threats and real life harassment was not the breaking point; WMF was. What would you say about this?

By the way, I'm still waiting a response to my email, though I fear that a lot of it is moot by now. --Rschen7754 00:52, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi there. First, thank you for serving as a steward. I'm always a little amazed by the very existence of the role and what it says (in a very positive sense) about this community. While we've not had the chance to meet, I appreciate what you've done to make these projects possible.

You won't be surprised to hear that I received quite a few emails this week from community members, in response to a suggestion that people email me. This week was a little busier than usual, and not only because of this: it was the last week of the Foundation's fiscal year, which includes a number of administrative obligations. I've begun responding today and will continue to do so over the next few days. As for your other comment, I would say that no one should be harassed for contributing to Wikipedia. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:06, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

I've still not read your initial post - I will do I promise! :-) - I just wanted to pick up on your comment here that "no one should be harassed for contributing to Wikipedia". I have become aware that harassment appears to be a significant concern for the Foundation, and it has become an increasing talking point in the community. WMF and enwiki appear to have a point of contact there, though we seem to be attempting to deal with it separately. WMF can provide the money, the research, the professional skills to look into harassment, while the community can provide the experience and the context. Dispute resolution is very complex on Wikipedia. While there is obvious unjustified harassment, there is also legitimate concern about performance which appears to the party being questioned to be harassment. We have various procedures for dealing with these matters, which sort the wheat from the chaff. Those on Wikipedia who handle dispute resolution and/or deal with recalcitrant individuals, commonly find folks who are unable to see what they have done wrong, and will continue to deny it even when it is explained to them - see WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. On the Committee we get many emails from individuals who feel they have been wronged, when it was in fact them who did the wrong. Such individuals totally and utterly believe they are in the right, and that the admin or Committee members who stopped them doing the wrong are in fact harassing them. Such people will complain for years. Long after they have been banned from Wikipedia. Such vexatious complainers are sometimes difficult to sort out from the individual who is genuinely being harassed. And it's a two way street. There are editors who do get treated badly on Wikipedia, especially new editors who are likely to make good faith mistakes. And there are admins who get treated badly, including death threats, for dealing with the problematic users. How do you know if you are hearing a complaint from a good faith productive user who is being harassed, or a problematic user who is being appropriately escorted off the premises by an admin? An experienced admin, one of those who has resigned this week, left me a note on my talkpage today, which made me think of a case that we had at the start of the year (the GiantSnowman case), in which an admin had been inappropriately hostile to a number of new users, and had harassed some for long periods. What he had been doing was totally unacceptable. But he was also an experienced and respected long term admin. We didn't desysop him or give him a one year ban. We looked closely at what he had been doing and devised a solution to steer him away from harassment and keep him doing productive work. I think it's worth bringing WMF's attention to such cases as they show that this community and this ArbCom can solve tricky problems and keep the project working. Let's work together on solutions. SilkTork (talk) 02:47, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Apologies for just responding to your post here as I realized I'd been working backwards chronologically to new posts, and am now just trying to reply to most everything I'd already missed. I know that this is both a really helpful runthrough of all the complexities of managing such a vast community of very real people and all their personalities, strengths, and foibles -- and a request to collaborate between the community's deep knowledge, context, and expertise, and the WMF's dedicated resources. I hope that you may have seen some of my comments elsewhere here on the page acknowledging that I agree that the absolute best way forward is working together to strengthen community bodies, devise better approaches for some of the more unusual and difficult cases, and clarify norms and expectations. I do want to work together on solutions. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 04:02, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, I'll ask this in a different way: if you skim User talk:Jimbo Wales or User talk:Iridescent, there is this perception that all the WMF cares about is their own vision for the site, and that they would not really care, or even be quite happy if all of the older admins/"established editors" left to make room for the new editors who embraced this new vision. Moreover, some editors that are leaving are saying that they feel like "free labor" to get donations for paying staff salaries. That is what happened with Flow/Visual Editor/MediaViewer/superprotect. That is what is happening with the WMF local bans / emphasis on anti-harassment / code of conduct stuff now - and many of the uncompromising statements by JEissfeldt (WMF) just reinforced that view, with quotes like the community does not and cannot have all the facts of this case and While we appreciate Fram and other volunteers exploring possible compromises, Foundation bans are non-appealable. And yes, I get that harassment is bad, I've gotten death threats cross-wiki that mentioned my city of residence - but this wasn't the way to end it on the English Wikipedia, and it can be argued that this WMF action has resulted in more harassment. It makes the harassment that we have suffered seem pointless. Unfortunately, your tweets have only fueled that perception (that WMF doesn't care) and by themselves caused 6 admins (as of this writing) to resign. I am sure that this is not the message that you want to send to those who do the hard work of building the encyclopedia. Could you please respond to this? --Rschen7754 03:38, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• First, it's deeply distressing to hear that you yourself have been subjected to death threats. Having had some experience with directed and specific harassment myself, it's not something anyone should experience. And I certainly regret any actions that would have made confronting that harassment feel pointless. That's a terrible outcome. As for your question: as far as I know, the Foundation, the Board, and myself - and I can really only speak for myself - certainly don't long for a world in which everyone who built Wikipedia from the ground up disappeared and were replaced. And I'm a little hesitant to type what I'm about to type, because I do worry it could be misinterpreted. So please, I hope you'll AGF and ask if something seems wrong. Rather, what I'd say is that the Foundation is very committed to the long-term health of the Wikimedia projects, and the vision of a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. This means supporting a Wikipedia that is open to newcomers, in terms of policies, experiences, and culture, so that the community can stay self-sustaining and resilient -- and better yet, grow in size, commitment, and capacity, as well as globals perspectives. That does require a commitment to reducing harassment and creating welcoming spaces for new people, and I have to believe the best way for this to happen is by building with the community that has already done so much to make Wikipedia what it is today. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 04:15, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

• I understand, and thanks for the response. Some of the things I cited are ultimately good things, but take Visual Editor as an example - it had bugs, people complained and nothing was done about them, and then suddenly it became the default on English Wikipedia. Eventually people hated it and just wanted it gone. I think there is room for a code of conduct, that would have helped prevent against what happened on Amharic Wikipedia earlier this year, and the current incidents happening on Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Croatian Wikipedias (to name a few). But the role of the WMF in something like this should be to facilitate discussion, not drop a new code of conduct (and have secret hearings for said code of conduct) down from "on high".
• I'm infringing a bit on what @Opabinia regalis: wrote below, but how did we get here? Obviously the tweets were regrettable, but what would have happened if you had not made them and engaged in conversation here - would we keep losing admins day by day while we waited for a reversal from WMF Board that might never happen? How did this become an issue that T&S could no longer handle? And this is Day 19 of this issue - when established editors were raising legitimate concerns about these new local bans, why did T&S not listen and change course on day 7 rather than now, where all these negotations between you and T&S and ArbCom and Jimmy and WMF Board etc. have to take place and we are under the pressure of losing admins by the hour (and we might lose a bunch more when the Signpost comes out overnight PST)? --Rschen7754 05:29, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

• The first deploy of VE was before my time, but I was already at the Foundation for the second rollout. There's some stuff I'm not sure I'm able to share because it wasn't under my leadership, but I can say that I was part of a weekly meeting of people who were working extremely hard to ensure we would only ship when we were confident it wasn't going to be a total disaster. The needs of the Wikimedia community for feature (product) experiences is unlike any other technology platform operating at this size and scale, and we've worked hard over the last three years to create a sui generis culture in the Audiences department that respects these needs, and works collaboratively. We'll never all agree on every single site change, but if there's one thing I hope we've embedded in the feature deployment practices at the Foundation, it's to take an approach more like the one around page previews and recent changes filters, rather than replicating the challenges and consternation over VE.

But I digress - I know VE is not the point. I think we got here for a couple of reasons. One, the Foundation should have better socialized the introduction of the partial and temporary bans as T&S tools. Two, as others have pointed out, I am not intimately familiar with the nuances of culture here on enWP. I say that because the buck does stop with me: T&S recommended the ban, but I approved it. Perhaps if I had been more familiar, I would have asked more questions about what the response would be, and been better prepared to step forward and be accountable myself. Three, there was and remains some confusion about the role of the Board, and I believe there was some well-intentioned caution about precedent and governance. Four, this happened in the last month of the fiscal year for the Foundation, which sounds very administrative, but meant that my focus was preoccupied with a number of immovable deadlines, such as closing this year's budget, finalizing the budget and plan for the coming year, and various end-of-year HR deadlines. Five, it just so happened that of the past fifteen working days, seven were pre-scheduled full-day on-site interviews for candidates for the open seats of Chief Technology Officer, General Counsel, and head of Talent & Culture (HR). Six, the Community Engagement team is currently short-staffed, with some critical people out of the office at the moment. I certainly don't mean to suggest that any of this was more important than this conversation (my experience with Wikimedia is that nearly everything is important, it's just that some things find a way to be more immediately urgent) but all of it added to challenges around sharing insight and coordinating among Foundation staff.

By this past week it was more than apparent that I needed to be doing more to directly engage. I wish I'd done so earlier. And yes, I'd any future Code of Conduct should be the result of extensive consultation. Even if it means hard conversations, and even if it ultimately is not welcomed with unanimity, it will only work if it is developed openly. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 06:35, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

"the Foundation should have better socialized the introduction of the partial and temporary bans as T&S tools" - what do you mean by "socialized"? Do you mean "engaged in meaningful consultation before making any decision to introduce, and not introducing it if it was unacceptable to the Community" or do you mean "told us it was going to happen"? DuncanHill (talk) 14:43, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello Katherine, I am an editor at the German wikipedia, which resigned as a sysop after a similar intervention of the T&S team in the German Wikipedia in februar 2019. It was the first intervention of that kind, executed even before the policy change was published. Of course it did not raise the same turbulence as now in the English wikipedia, but in deWP we also monitor closely the seemingly growing power, the Foundation wants to establish over the community processes. From my viewpoint I focus especially on your words about the international community in your statement: First you use it as an argument against the Buzzfeed article, that it has an American perspective. But then you speak only about "consulting with the enWP community to address your articulated concerns about our respective roles and community processes". I want to remind you, that indeed there is an international community, and the balance between WMF actions and community self governance is not only a problem between the WMF and the enWP, but a problem between the WMF and all communities. So if the WMF wants to establish new processes and wants to consult the active editors about them, this is something, that has to be discussed with all communities, not only with the enWP. So it should not be done only in enWP and it should not be done only in English, but the WMF has to reach out to all bigger communities with established strong self governance. Thanks. --Magiers (talk) 08:08, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

As an editor who is still sysop in German-language Wikipedia and on Wikimedia Commons, I would like to second the above statement by Magiers. English-language Wikipedia has the largest community, but it is only one of many communities that are affected by these questions. A consultation should happen not in English-language Wikipedia, but at Meta, and it should be multilingual. For what it's worth, as I do not know to what extent it came to your attention, the case Magiers is referring to is Judith Wahr / Edith Wahr / Janneman (accounts used over time by the same user; then-current account was Judith Wahr). This case was very baffling for German-language Wikipedia's community, as the user was already indefinitely blocked there and the case seemed solved by the local community, when months later, the WMF suddenly added a "Partial Foundation Ban" on top of the already existing block (there is no finely defined distinction between a block and a ban in de-WP, by the way - unlike en-WP; our block policy is much shorter and there is no distinct banning policy - but it works nevertheless). Gestumblindi (talk) 08:59, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

+1 to both, Magiers' and Gestumblindi's statements.--Aschmidt (talk) 13:45, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Magiers, Gestumblindi, and Aschmidt -- thank you for coming here to en-wiki in to make this important point. As some en-wiki users have pointed out, I am actually less familiar with the en-wiki community than I am with the broader global communities. As such, and because this is my en-wiki talk page, I've wanted to be more intentional speaking directly to enWP concerns. However, you're absolutely correct. Civility and respect are principles that should be part of all of our communities, and yet each community is different in culture and in capacity. Communities like en-wiki and de-wiki are more mature, with better defined processes and capacity for self-governance. Some of our smaller communities actively solicit WMF support in handling their governance. As such, we have a wide range of needs. I think it would be appropriate for any consultation to both solicit perspectives that are specific to individual local projects, including larger ones such as enWP and deWP, mid-sized projects such as arWP and koWP, as well as our many smaller wikis -- and to also use those to inform a broader conversation on Meta for consultation with the global community. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 04:28, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Your explanation regarding your tweet does not reach the fringes of plausibility. You are attempting to obfuscate. Badly. From that point I have no confidence in anything you have to say regarding the more serious situation caused by the incompetent running of your organisation. Leaky caldron (talk) 08:17, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• I understand. I tried to explain further what I was thinking when I tweeted that in a various replies here, including in more depth to KnightMove and to Ravensfire. I don't expect those replies will necessarily move you, but I wanted to respond. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 04:32, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, you state that "I wholeheartedly support and am committed to the principle of partnership with members of this and other project communities." So what does the phrase "principle of partnership" mean to you? To me, it implies the existence of a contract, either written or verbal. (There is some discussion over at User talk: Jimmy Wales over the existence of a "Constitution" of Wikipedia. It is relevant here if we accept that the constitution of a government is a type of contract.)

Years ago, the contract between the Foundation & the various projects seemed to be simple: the Foundation would be responsible for what it could do best (e.g., run the servers, maintain the code base); the communities would be responsible for what they could do best (e.g., create content); & while the Foundation would be responsible for what the law expected them to be responsible (as defined by the US law concerning telecommunication common carriers, everything else was the purview of the communities. Sure, this was not intended to be permanent, but a reasonable person would expect any of the parties in this contract to open negotiations when they wanted to change the areas of responsibility. This is not what the Foundation has done; they have arrogated in the past what belongs to the project communities, taking from us & leaving us with little recourse except to grow resentful -- or leave these projects as individuals.

Based on my interpretation of "principle of partnership", can you understand why I & others took offense at your tweet? Can you understand why we find your explanation unsatisfactory? (At best it comes across as a display of cluelessness; at worst it appears to be an exercise in disingenuousness.) Is what you wrote above truly what you believe, & will help us understand yours goals for the future of en.wikipedia? There is much mistrust in our project community towards the Foundation due to lack of information; unless you provide more information, that mistrust will only fester & spread, & lead to the end of the English Wikipedia. -- llywrch (talk) 08:42, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you Katherine, I have now read through your post. I feel optimistic. The enwiki community are hurting right now, so there will be a period of pushback from some against any idea of collaboration between enwiki and WMF, including that of increased communication moving forward. But that is exactly what is needed. I have suggested to several people, Jan included, that a permanent interface between WMF and the enwiki community (and, if appropriate, the other other communities, such as the German Wikipedia) be set up. Notices that are applicable to enwiki could be posted there, and discussions on those posts can take place. The communities can raise queries, suggest ideas, etc on such an interface. I was thinking along the lines of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard, where notices are posted on the project page, and discussions on those posts take place on the talkpage page. Subpages could be set up where ideas or queries are placed by the community for attention of WMF. Everything in the open and recorded and easy to find. Similar interfaces could be set up on other communities. Notices relevant to all communities could be posted there as well as local notices. Initial discussion to take place on local communities, and then transferred to Meta as and when appropriate. SilkTork (talk) 09:57, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi User:Katherine (WMF) - you may have missed this post. I'd welcome your feedback on the idea, so I'll repost in a new section. SilkTork (talk) 17:31, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

• Katherine, the core issue is that while the community did not consider Fram to be a model of civility, it has been taken aback by the sudden removal of Fram (words like "dissappeared" are used). Wikipedia is a unqiue platform, and unlike Reddit or Tripadvisor etc., it requires highly-skilled individuals to donate material amounts of their time for free. That donation is made on the basis of an open and transparent community that gives the donors a sense of predictability about what they can expect on Wikipedia for various behaviours. They are familiar with difficult cases, and situations where ArbCom take action against an editor without being able to disclose all the details; however, the community takes comfort that ArbCom is an elected body that has the trust of the community. Your tweet about what was a pretty well written Buzzfeed article, materially amplified concern amongst the community in the judgement of the WMF, and that WMF decisions may not be sound.

WMF needs to get ahead of this crisis. This could all be resolved immediately, if the WMF would show ArbCom the details of Fram's ban (in private); if ArbCom agreed with the WMF, then we are done. Even if ArbCom disagreed with the WMF (e.g if there was no information that was not already publically known about Fram), then there is a healthy debate to be had about what is civility and harrassment, and its governance on-Wiki; I think most editors would agree is not being done properly on-Wiki. I could well be that WMF is a better forum for handling these cases, and for setting the benchmarks/criteria, however, once the paramaters are clarified, it would key for all, that ArbCom is in agreement with any such WMF actions. Britishfinance (talk) 11:46, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Katherine, first I would say thanks for answering my tweets and continuing dialog here. Next, I would say that there really is a big disconnect between WMF and the volunteer community. Reassurances are not going to help. What might help is stepping back, admitting there is a disconnect, and start working towards bridging that gap. The gap DOES exist, and the only solution is working on it, not denying it. That is a two way street, perhaps we can benefit from understanding what WMF has to deal with as well, but right now we are two islands drifting apart, and already much of the damage is permanent. Because we are volunteers, we want as much autonomy as possible, and as much transparency as possible. As the Foundation, you need us to trust you as much as possible because there are some things you must do 100% in private (legal/child protection/etc). That is the partnership, each doing different things, but EQUAL in each other's eyes. This fire can still be put out, but only with quick action, simple action, and the WMF demonstrating a level of trust in US, the volunteer community. We want a solution, but kind words are not enough. I won't bother you with email, but feel free to email me using the wiki interface if you are so inclined. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:39, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

As a no-official-whatsoever and only sporadic contributor to English Wikipedia, I would like to state that the Tweet is inacceptable misconduct. The 'explanation' "My tweet ... was meant more a comment about Twitter and media culture in general." is ridiculous. The rest of the statement therefore cannot be taken seriously any more, not even regarding the other legit poinits of criticism raised so far. With such a person being executive director of the WMF, Wikipedia has a very serious problem. --KnightMove (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• As I've said elsewhere, it wasn't a particularly good tweet, and I'm not here to defend it on the grounds of insight, profundity, or decorum. It was an irritation with how the always-on culture of Twitter creates an incentive in the media for producing a churn of thinkpieces rather than straight reportage, all with a half-life of twelve minutes. It's true in politics, pop culture, and tech. What it absolutely was not intended as was a comment on the current community conversation, or the legitimacy of community displeasure and criticism. While reasonable people can question my aptitude for media criticism, that is was what was going through my head when I sent it. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:44, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you for engaging here. When I saw your first post in this thread, I was still a little unclear about what you meant about the tweet, but this response seems more specific. Do you mean that the tweet was a reaction to the Buzzfeed article, but that you were commenting on its style and the manner in which the author was attempting to attract attention to it?

  This still concerns me. I have a twitter account under another name, I post dumb stuff on occasion, everyone on twitter does. That's not the problem. What concerns me is that your first reaction to an article about a major controversy on Wikimedia's largest project was about how people on twitter were responding. To be honest, it seems like a reaction I'd expect from people used to thinking in terms of external public relations, rather than focusing on the concerns of the people doing the work on which all that external attention depends.

  Maybe more to the point: a unprecedentedly large number of long-term, widely respected community members have resigned their adminship, reduced their participation, or retired from the project altogether in response to this controversy, and regardless of its genesis or intentions, that tweet was the immediate cause of a number of those decisions. What's the plan to repair those relationships? Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:52, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  I suppose she could reach out to some of them and ask why they’re upset and what she can do to help. Hahahahahahaha. Sorry, probably not the right place for silly jokes. —Floquenbeam (talk) 22:14, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Volunteers are beginning to turn anti-vandalism bots off in protest

Katherine, bots do a huge amount of work to keep the encyclopedia usable, and if this sort of thing continues, it will be terrible. I've experienced harassment in the form of WP:TAGTEAMs motivated by politics, gender, and both. What makes the Fram situation so bad is that there are so many outright terrible abusers who have been ignored in favor of a prominent critic of Foundation missteps in the past, which looks terrible. I've decided to stop editing until this is resolved in a way that shows the Foundation is more interested in addressing the obvious out-in-the-open abuse instead of vindictive retribution towards your critics. EllenCT (talk) 06:15, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT: Have you reported that to T&S? They act only in response to specific reports from Wikipedians. In that sense, "Why haven't you done something about X?" is most often answered by "This is the first we're hearing about X". ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:20, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• I think it would be fair to say that reporting such situations to T&S now would be counterproductive on a personal level, and damaging to the project in general. I have zero confidence in T&S's abilities to handle these situations. The situation the WMF has created is one where rather than solve an issue of harassment, they have decidedly made it worse on a personal level. On a project level, the devastation they have caused shows an absolute disconnect with this community, and that's being kind. Being more direct, T&S has shown themselves to be utterly incompetent and incapable of carrying out their appointed duties. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:37, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

I, too, have stopped editing, primarily out of fear - ten or more years and > 200,000 edits later. I've spent years dealing with stuff here which attracts a lot of threatening behaviour, one instance of which actually involved the WMF intervening on my behalf (check with the Legal people) but nothing - nothing at all - is remotely as off-putting as the present shenanigans. It is almost as if the WMF staff actually want to kill the goose that lays their salaried golden eggs and it is an extension of remit beyond anything I could have imagined. Any lingering faith I had has been diminished by your tweets and subsequent obfuscation, and I already had no faith at all in the ironically named Trust & Safety whom, I honestly suspect, will likely now have me in their sights. This is an encyclopaedia, not a social engineering project, and I think the WMF have become blind to this as well as to their reasonable boundaries. - Sitush (talk) 11:12, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Concurring with Sitush. Katherine, you have an extremely serious issue on your hands when people like myself and Sitush who have more than ten years of experience on this project, have grave concerns about the WMF acting in retributive ways. There is no trust the WMF will now act in appropriate ways. You've had three years to get the house in order, far more than enough time to change the culture. The culture has indeed changed. It's now worse in its support, cooperation and appreciation of the community than ever before. Fixing this isn't going to happen in a day, but you had better come up with a publicly released plan of action to address the very serious concerns and do so not in months but in weeks. I would strongly, in the most adamant terms, encourage you to directly involve members of every significant language community in directing this effort. The WMF has shown themselves to have an extreme disconnect with community norms. Right now, you are way, way behind the reaction curve to this crisis. Your organization doesn't have a plan to address this, and Doc James's assertions that something is being worked on apparently WITHOUT involving the community is really just more fuel for the fire. If you don't take steps to involve the communities you purportedly exist to serve, any response you give to these communities will be fraught with errors. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:37, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Community Health Initiative, and Detox

Thank you for beginning to engage with the Community. I wish to raise a rather serious issue which may have escaped your notice amidst all the other concerns. The Community Health Initiative makes claims about harassment and attacks, and the level of reporting of them, based on the Detox tool.

This tool has now been deleted, as it was found - by En-wiki editors concerned abut the Fram case - to produce results which were homophobic and racist, as well as not coping with the Scunthorpe problem, and failing to notice some obvious forms of anti-Semitism.

As a gay man I am disgusted that the Foundation could have come up with a tool that rated "I am gay" as significantly more attacking and aggressive than "I am straight", still more so that the Foundation should then use that tool to make assertions and accusations against the En-wiki community. It does not create a safe editing environment, in fact quite the opposite - I feel unsafe using Wikipedia knowing that this is how the Foundation treats my data.

The Community Health Initiative continues to host claims based upon Detox.

This is not something that can be papered over with platitudes.

Any research based on Detox cannot be relied upon in any claims about harassment or attacks, or the Community's response to those things. The CHI needs to urgently address its use of Detox. The Foundation needs to urgently investigate to what other uses Detox has been put. After that, the Foundation needs to review its development of, and reliance upon, AI tools. In doing this it needs to engage directly with the editing community - not rely upon people finding out-of-date pages on Meta that nobody seems to watch. DuncanHill (talk) 12:09, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Katherine (WMF): I see that rather than respond to this concern about the Community Health Initiative you've decided to promote it in a thread below. DuncanHill (talk) 18:48, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Time for Katherine to start pinging Jan Eissfeldt on corporate Skype! Leaky caldron (talk) 19:05, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Four minutes after I posted just now, references to Detox were removed from the CHI page. DuncanHill (talk) 19:09, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

And it appears they've known for two years that it produced the sort of results objected to. DuncanHill (talk) 19:15, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Never used by T&S for any purpose? [3] Leaky caldron (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

What you possibly don't understand

Katherine, is that the vast majority of the people posting on this talk page today are our most (figuratively) 'senior' and most highly experienced admins, bureaucrats, and functionaries of the en.Wiki community, and we've lost 22 of them over the past few days in protest of the WMF's handling. Among the 500 or so other admins who do the routine maintenance work, this is the group of de facto movers and shakers of this project that others tend to respect and follow. Just because we do not enjoy salaries and business travel expenses does not mean that we are any less important than the position of a WMF ED and the rest of the C-suite.

Your comments today together with the less mature tweets clearly demonstrate, to me at least, that you have not really been reading all that has been written about these circumstances, because to do so would now require several hours to catch up. Instead you take your cues and clues from a journalist - whose summary was fortunately extremely accurate. I do not believe that you fully comprehend the seriousness and impact this issue is having on our community and its traditionally highly strained relations with the organisation you head up.

The WMF needs some leadership of the calibre we can expect for the salaries that are generated by our volunteer work, but at the moment the WMF and its management have totally lost the confidence of the volunteer community whose work provides the salaries and luxury travel expenses for the staff. I'm also beginning to regret the tens of thousands of hours I've spent over the past 14 years (nearly 9 as an admin), and the thousands of $$ travelling to Wikimanias to get some important new functions and policies established.

I was 3 metres away from you in Esino Lario when Jimbo announced your new position, unfortunately I cannot afford the $3,000 it would cost me to come to Stockholm from over 5,000 miles where I live, but I would not be surprised if you are received this time by a less joyous audience. I would certainly invite you to read the discussion on Iridescent's talk page, and take the time to reflect well on what you next statement here is going to be. Please now show some crisis management and work after hours on it if you have to, because I'm afraid I'm with TonyBallioni on this. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Just lost another admin at enwp (at least 20 now, plus crats/os/cus), and now MikeLynch resigned as adminship and bureaucrat on the Sanskrit Wikipedia, leaving them with zero bureaucrats, so this is spreading to other wikis and gaining momentum. Dennis Brown - 2¢
• Just to clarify my statement above, but I don't necessarily think that Katherine herself needs to go, but I do think that is in the cards at this point because of how bad the situation has become. Someone does need to go, however, because a new face is needed if this is going to go forward. I've been accused of being a WMF "loyalist" by some, so I'm hardly the type to make these calls lightly. A visible leadership change is needed so the community can have confidence with whomever they are dealing with. That may mean you, Katherine, or that may mean Jan.
  I don't know, and this is going to sound weird considering I just asked you to think about whether or not you should resign, but I do trust you to make that judgement. I'm not here trying to raise a mob. I'm here raising the real possibility that we've reached the point where only leadership transition at some visible level will begin the healing process. It's a difficult thing to talk about, but it is something that should be part of the discussion. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Meant to respond to this when I was here earlier, but: I have to say I think Jan has gotten a bad rap in all of this. He's the one who first posted under his own name as a real person, answered questions (albeit in a less-than-satisfying way), and spoke with arbcom. Obviously there were community members who thought we'd reached the "something must be done" phase about Fram; Jan and the rest of T&S contributed "this is something", but according to that flowchart there's at least three other people who endorsed "therefore this must be done". Opabinia regalis (talk) 10:46, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
• I very seriously doubt that anyone in that organisation has the remotest thought about leaving. They are salaried with generous packages. Why would they? Leaky caldron (talk) 18:17, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  Indeed, this storm will eventually blow over if WMF and Maher keep ignoring it, days, weeks, months. We'll lose plenty of decent people (we already have an unprecedented exit rate of admins, so that's something to write home about WMF!), the project will suffer a bit, and other people might step in, believing in all that leftie crap I bought into, where this was an "anyone can edit" Wikipedia, but with such dark undercurrents. Pretty much none of us have been paid for spending the last 15 or so years properly building the fabric upon which these individuals take their salaries. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:21, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  Life can be hard at the top where the buck stops, with the big bucks and expense account, but only if one does not stay on top of the job description. If it's any consolation, I would sincerely not like to be in Katherine's shoes right now, but it's all part of the job she accepted. Quite a contrast now to her quotidian life at 38,000 feet and luxury hotels, while wrongly believing that competent people have been left in charge of ground control in SF. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:32, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  • My shoes are off and by my door, and I'm on my couch at home talking to folks here. It's where I'll probably spend a bit of time until I go back into the office on Monday. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  Hi Katherine, I've been having a hard time pulling my thoughts together, though I have wanted to post something. This evening I was explaining to a family member why I've been so distracted (reading & reading & reading), but telling a non-Wikipedian about this place is always so much insider baseball and it's difficult. After listening to a long ramble, the reply to me was: "Well you know that Wikipedia is a collection of articles with material copied from books and other websites". At my look of outrage - though I've been in academia, have brought hundreds if not thousands of students through this place to teach them what not to do among other things, and I know full well the scant regard academia has for the project - having spent hours and hours researching and writing articles such as Murasaki Shikibu and Early Netherlandish painting (the little star in the right corner denotes Featured article status) among others, it was a reality check.

  So the issue at hand, speaking only for myself, doesn't so much have to do with the person who's been banned, but rather the sterile surgical way in which it was done. Questions were raised; there have been few to no answers, fueling speculation. As a result someone who might or might not have been a target of harassment has been has been made less safe. That is unacceptable.

  No, harassment isn't acceptable and as an online community we shouldn't tolerate it. This coming from a woman whose age is somewhere between that of the other two gentlemen who posted earlier, a woman who's been the target of harassment, but .... and this is important ... in spite of some very difficult situations, in almost every single case the community has banned those accounts. Our processes are not perfect, but they do work.

  We need to find a way forward and a middle ground between sterile silence and messy community processes. Perhaps you were unaware of this suggestion, that Jan roundly rejected in this diff. Might I suggest making Newyorkbrad's suggestion a starting point from which to move forward? Because we do need to move forward. In the ten years I've been here I've never witnessed such an outpouring and people are leaving in droves. In theory, free labor, volunteer labor, is of course replaceable. But replacing so many possessing such depth of experience, institutional knowledge, and shared experience would take a long long time. As you can tell, we talk and talk and talk, on and on, endlessly, get frustrated, swear, hurl insults, because we are human. We almost always find common ground. Please join us to find common ground. I realize this is a long post and your time valuable; don't feel under any obligation to read or to reply. Thanks, Victoria (tk) 23:53, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  P.s - sorry, earlier I struck my comment because I hadn't realized that a suggested way forward had already been proposed. But on second thought, striking wasn't the best idea. Victoria (tk) 04:47, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

• Not at all, I read your post and wasn't sure if I should respond due to the strikethrough. Thank you. The community is not replaceable for all the reasons you highlight. I am about to have to sign off for the evening, but I am hoping to be able to come back with something new to offer in the next day, latest Monday. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 04:52, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, I'd like to suggest that you take a look at Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram#The WMF is disconnected from the editing community, because it's directly related to your work. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 03:45, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram#Idea also Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:41, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedians are Awesome (Don't underestimate us)

Header formerly was 'Don't underestimate us'

Katherine, I am 50 years old and have 30 years experience running businesses that I've started, including a cybersecurity company. Other volunteers, such as Newyorkbrad have important positions and even more experience. You seem to think that Wikipedia volunteers don't know as much as your professional staff. You are mistaken. Before letting Trust & Safety light any more forest fires, please come to us and gather our advice. We have deep experience to share with you. If we've failed to solve problems related to online harassment, that's not because we're inept or unwilling, but because the problem is hard and nobody has solved it yet. Jehochman ^Talk 17:43, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Concurring with Jehochman, who is 'only' 20 years my junior, Katherine, my academic career has been in communication - and that means most of it in the times before desktop computers, mobiles phones, and the Internet and its stupid social media were invented, which people of your generation don't remember. With our huge diversity of qualifications here on en.Wiki we would run rings around the staff in SF, and with the exception of the maintenance of the server farms and software it's probably what we'll end up doing. In a way, it's scandalous that most of the work in the SF office is not populated by volunteers from the communities. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi there. I appreciate that there is a wide and deep breadth of experience in this community, which is why it has worked as well as it has for as long as it has, and will continue to do so. There are a number of ways in which the Foundation has been working in active collaboration with volunteers from across the communities -- here on en-wiki and elsewhere -- to identify and respond to harassment. I'm sure you're familiar with those efforts, but sharing again here for others who may not be. I'm speaking for myself and the Foundation to say that we do welcome your thoughts on how to strengthen the ability of existing community bodies in dealing with harassment, and improve or develop processes and communications channels that work better for everyone. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• Where has the Foundation been working in active collaboration with volunteers to not just address harassment, but address the serious crisis the Foundation has created? I noted above [4] that you need to involve the community in addressing this crisis. So far as I've seen (please correct me if I am wrong) the Foundation has done nothing to involve the community in resolving this crisis. Rather, the Foundation has demonstrated an extreme lack of understanding of these communities and are acting with that lack of understanding as a basis. The Foundation will make things worse if you do not involve the community. The community here is actively hemorrhaging, as can be seen from this list of resignations. That was caused by the Foundation's ineptness in dealing with this crisis. This is on you; involving the community in resolving this crisis is your best chance for getting out of this mess. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:31, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
• When the m:Community health initiative page you link above continues to rely on research gathered from the Detox tool - this is the same one that confidently identifies "I am gay" as an aggressive attack, presumably in the "not resulting in a block or warning" column - is it any wonder that it gets ignored as irrelevant? —Cryptic 18:56, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
  • My last conversation with members of the T&S team was that they are aware of that tool, it is un-maintained and slated to be deprecated, though I am not certain of the timeline. Because yes, of course that's not helpful or constructive. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
    • It's not "not helpful or constructive" it's downright destructive and nasty and it shouldn't have taken someone like me to have to keep on about it for something to be done. WMF have known for two years it produced that sort of result yet continued to host it and cite it in the CHI. DuncanHill (talk) 19:23, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
      • Your language and my language don't disagree in what we're saying. It's a problem I don't know why it has been up for as long as it has, but I'll find out. Thanks for your advocacy on getting it addressed. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
        • Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 19:40, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• I think the header is a bit unfortunate (my first association was the guy from the new mafia warning the guy from the old mafia), but I'm glad you took it the right way. I'm reluctant to toot my own horn, but here it goes. I'm now a tenured professor of computer science. In my 8 years in industry, I co-founded a workers right council and was elected (and later re-elected) onto it by the employees, and during that same time was appointed by senior management as the central "diplomatic contact" and "decider" for one of the biggest projects the company ever did. The people I have often interacted with on-wiki include (in addition to the usual suspects) the chief scientist of Berkeley Earth and several other senior academics. This community is not perfect, but it does have an incredible level of competence, experience, and passion. We, or at least I, appreciate attempts to improve Wikipedia and its processes. But this is not easy, and in particular, it's bound to fail if it is imposed by a small group of relative outsiders. Let me ask one question: Do you know any other online community that is of a similar size as Wikipedia and does actually better in handling community problems like e.g. harassment? Especially one that is similarly successful in its primary mission? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:46, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
  • It's okay, I've been around long enough to infer that it was meant more to recognize the remarkable collection of people that compose this community, rather than a veiled threat. I mean, I entirely agree. I am here for the same reasons - I'm in awe of the generosity of spirit of the people who make Wikipedia possible, and I talk about this all the time: at community gatherings, to Wikimedia partners and supporters, to policymakers, to appreciative donors, to pretty much anyone who will listen. But to your question: I would say that yes, harassment of the sort you see in the comments sections of other platforms is largely not tolerated here. But it's a sliding scale, and it tends to be that the more prolific you are, and the more precise you are with navigating the specifics of policies, the more latitude you have to behave in ways that range from brusque to outright hostile. Those who *are* the subjects of harassment here in our community report the same terrible experiences as those targeted in *any* online community. This NYT article from this past spring I felt was an accurate and fair assessment of how that falls particularly heavily on people from minority and marginalized groups. Our baseline shouldn't be, are we better than the worst. It should be, are we the best? Are we truly a place where anyone can edit (or learn how to), or where "every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge"? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the reply. My question also had another intend. You seem to agree that we are doing relatively well compared to other online communities with respect to inclusiveness and handling harassment. Most comparable commercial sites do use a top-down approach with paid staff trying to enforce their rules. We are using community processes, and we are doing better. To me, that suggests that our approach, while far from perfect, is better than top-down approaches. As you can see from this fall-out, the thought that "we can just add a separate level of additional enforcement and the benefits will add up" is dangerously wrong - for at least two reasons. First, it is unlikely that paid staff can do similarly nuanced and wide-ranging work as the community as a whole. They simply don't have the numbers. Thus, they can only ever cover a very small number of cases, and they are bound to get it wrong at least occasionally (without prejudice to the current case). If you read through legal philosophy, you will find that ratios as high as 1000 to 1 are considered unacceptable rates for false convictions. But even if we go with Blackstone's ratio of 10 to 1, are you sure that T&S can reliably do better than that? And errors are much more serious, if T&S insists on "no appeals", and much harder to accept if the process is intransparent. There is a reason why in nearly all modern states nearly all legal proceedings are in public - even though that may be hard for victims. Secondly, of course, there are plenty of volunteers who will stop working if placed under intransparent external supervision. Just editing article might be relatively safe, but enforcement of community standards involves unpleasant interactions with other editors. I suspect all admins who have commented on cases or issued blocks have been subject to some abuse, both on and off the Wiki. At the moment, I trust the community to evaluate my behaviour in a transparent way. It has a long view, it also sees positive contributions (which may change the perception of actions), and if pressed, I can explain myself. If there is a back-channel to instant unappealable sanction, I would be much more reluctant to intervene. And, of course, "why should I do for free what others are paid for" is something I have heard more than once in the last few days. I conclude from this long and somewhat rambling argument that improvement of the editing climate on Wikipedia must happen through community processes discussed openly and decided on the Wiki. I can imagine a number of ways - e.g. instituting a role of "editor representative", a neutral instance that users can request to intercede on their behalf if they feel harassed. In contrast to normal admins, these would be asked to explicitly mediate interaction between users. But even if nothing new comes along: Perfection is hard and may be impossible to achieve. We should be careful not to destroy what we have with one-sided interventions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:40, 1 July 2019 (UTC) It's a bit scary to see my progressive self arguing along the lines of Edmund Burke here, but at least it's towards distribution of power and flat hierarchies... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:35, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• Ok Kathrine, then please tell us: What are some of your SOLUTIONS to this ongoing and rapidly building problem? It isn't enough to say "we listen, we care" and if you really understood the greater community, you would know that. We want to hear some ideas on what you are going to DO. If ever there was a time for action, it is now. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:36, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
  • tl;dr: Stop the bleeding. Every day without action, more admins will resign and editors will leave. --Rschen7754 18:39, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
    • It is completely fair to ask what my proposals might be. I think the best way forward likely involves ideas that many people in the community also seem to be recommending. There is likely a role for ArbCom in the immediate case (although I want to be clear that, while Foundation T&S staff have had conversations with members of the committee through regular channels, I am not speaking for the committee and do not want to misrepresent any perspectives they may have or actions they may take). And then I would imagine a next step would involve consultation on how to build processes and tools that strengthen existing community bodies where they exist, identify gaps in the existing processes and proposed solutions, whether those are small gaps in otherwise robust processes or large gaps in which no viable solutions currently exist, and designate appropriate resources and time from WMF staff to support any outcomes or recommendations from that process. As you know, the Board has also been involved in conversations, and I'm working with them on how to move forward. Given that it is the weekend and many people involved in these conversations do have personal and family commitments, and the distribution of time zones for various people involved, I think it would be difficult to expect decisive action in the next 24 hours. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 18:59, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

I think Katherine's response above (e.g. "a role for ArbCom in the immediate case"; "consultation on how to build processes and tools"), is encouraging. If Katherine can lead a process next week that follows this kind of collaborative approach (and get ArbCom involvement in the Fram decision), we could have material progress on resolving this issue, and finding a more stable long-term solution to governing civility on WP. Britishfinance (talk) 22:31, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• • • • In a classic corporate foul up 3 things are needed: Acknowledge, Apologize, Authenticity. You were late with the first, equivocal on the second and we are waiting for the third. In a publicly quoted company you would be contacting your head-hunter for your next position. Leaky caldron (talk) 19:09, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
      • Quite the contrary. You as the CEO of the WMF have the authority to enact item #2 from this action list right now. There is no risk to the community or to any apparent victims of harassment to enact this change now. Fram is unblocked and capable of ignoring the ban placed by T&S but is not doing so. At a local level, the ban has already been overturned. You can take a giant step forward in restoring the trust of this community by overturning the ban and directing en.wikipedia ArbCom to immediately open a case to address Fram. The only risk is that your T&S team will be seen as being found at fault for their actions. That's hardly much of a risk, as the community at large already believes this to be the case. You can make a statement to ameliorate this by saying "In my capacity has the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, I am hereby overturning the ban placed by the T&S team on Fram and directing the en.wikipedia ArbCom to immediately open a case to address issues regarding Fram. This action in no way is a statement with regards to the actions of the T&S team, or any of its personnel". Crisis cycles move far too fast for you to do nothing decisive in the next 24 hours. I very much appreciate your willingness to engage the community at this time. It's long overdue, but nevertheless very much appreciated now. That engagement is critical. So too is acting as I've recommended. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:12, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
        • I'm here to engage, and appreciate the direct recommendation. I don't anticipate that specific action happening in the next 24 hours. I recognize saying that may displease people, but I prefer to be direct as well. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
          • We should accept this. Much as we might like a faster result, I appreciate that Katherine will not want to go outside her chain of command or undermine the authority of her people. That would not be good leadership. Hopefully this can be discussed in the office on Monday and Fram can be unbanned, and if possible, the matter referred to ArbCom. They said they would normally take such a case as this one, and the only reason they didn't is because it was in the hands of WMF. ArbCom is strict and doesn't tolerate nonsense. If the facts check out (and I think they will based on diffs I've gathered and sent them) they are likely to confirm WMF findings, though any sanction they apply might be more nuanced. They have long experience and know how to control negative behavior with minimum force. Jehochman ^Talk 19:40, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
          • @Katherine: Respectfully, "here to engage" is trite. Hammersoft made an excellent suggestion—one that should be fully within your ability. You have an opportunity to restore some trust and begin unwinding this debacle. - MrX 🖋 19:41, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
          • With every ounce of respect (and I truly, truly mean that), this is insufficient. We have literally dozens of people resigning, hundreds of people who have added 700+ pages of content to Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram generating in excess of 150000 page views, and innumerable other discussions. I strongly do not believe that any action is better than no action, but you've got to do something decisive. Stating that it's the weekend, and people aren't in the office is completely inadequate. You have a brand to protect, and its reputation is being seriously tarnished every moment nothing is done. With this many people involved, with this many advanced permissions people resigning, donors will take notice. There will be an effect on the bottom line. You can not wait a week for the board to make a statement. Do you really think that Oscar Munoz, CEO of United Airlines, could have afforded to wait a week after the United Express Flight 3411 incident to take decisive action? It's already been more than two and a half weeks, and we're expected to wait yet another week? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:44, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
• Katherine (WMF) Leadership could end this firestorm with a couple of paragraphs. What would I say? I'm 54, an experienced businessman and business owner that has dealt with people in the real world for a long time. No one is asking you to capitulate, just find the middle ground. This is what I might have said if I wanted to end the firestorm:

  Admittedly, I don't fully understand all the nuances that led us to this current standoff, but it is obvious we didn't do something right, and we need to fix that. In the short term, I've asked T&S to direct any case to ArbCom that doesn't absolutely require our intervention. Most of the time, this is already the case, but we will redouble our efforts. Some of these will be public, some will be private, but ArbCom is capable of handling private matters. Cases like those involving legal issues, child protection and the like will still only be handled by T&S, as this is their mission, and their role in handling these types of problems is not being questioned. As for the current situation regarding Fram, we will consult with Arb. I'm not sure what the solution should be, but Arb will have a say in it. Our internal policies may require some changes to ensure we limit our actions to only those things the community can't. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

  I'm also asking the community to have an RFC, or more than one, to develop better policies and methods for handling harassment on the English Wikipedia, which is an area that everyone agrees needs improvement. We would like some people from T&S to share their general experiences and help the community craft a system. Hopefully together we can help the community create a better system for policing itself. While most of the time, the office action we take require absolute privacy, we will work on developing a better system of communicating with the community, and providing the information we can. Of course, there will be times when people complain that we aren't releasing enough info, and this won't coax us into divulging more information than our policies and the law allows, but it won't make us unresponsive. The cultures at the Foundation and on the English Wikipedia are very different, but we need to find a way to bridge these gaps, for we are like the two sides of a coin. We can't exist without the other, each very different, but equally important in implementing the goals of the Wikimedia Foundation.

• Then I would actually do what I said, restoring faith in the community that I was someone they could believe, and have T&S release a statement within 24 hours saying they've received the message and are complying. That statement is NOT much in the way of concession, it's just saying that this kind of event won't happen again, and how it will be handled in the future. We aren't against T&S, we support their mission, but think it needs to be limited to that which we CAN'T do. You want to stop the bleeding? Use more than kind words, have clear goals, admit what you don't know, quit telling us how great Wikipedia is, and just bridge the gap. That is what leadership looks like. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:56, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  Katherine, that means effectively that contrary to your job title you do not have any executive power to make unilateral decisions and that your position is about as powerless as the non executive presidency of the Federal Republic of Germany. As I have stated elsewhere and before this crisis, I do not doubt that that you are an excellent ambassador for the Wikimedia movement, but you are not a General Manager. The Office of the Executive Director (the ED and their secretaries and aides and the room or cubicles they occupy) is redundant and could be replaced by something far less costly, and far more effective, and by directly involving the community, truly democratic and representing our interests rather than the WMF's and how they can spend more money on themselves. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:29, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  Dennis' statement is a good one. His penultimate sentence is even more important. To that end, an action could be either you or a member of your leadership team reaching out to all of the advance permission holders who've resigned over the last two weeks offering to listen and learn. At some level it's harder to replace a really committed volunteer than a really excellent employee (and I speak from experience having had to do both) and it feels like there's a way to acknowledge that without upsetting the staff - or at least the staff who believe in the mission and thus recognize the importance and value of all of our volunteer editors. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:01, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  • I agree that Dennis' proposed statement is quite good, and I agree substantively with with much of it. (Thank you Dennis for sharing.) And Barkeep49, thank you - you're actually the second person to suggest this to me -- someone else did the same via email, which I think is a thoughtful suggestion. As for a broader statement, whether along the lines of what Dennis suggested or something else -- as Jehochman noted, I work with a team, and I would like to speak with some of them before doing so (at least, before sharing anything more definitive than my previously-posted comments above about possible next steps.) I reached out to that team earlier today, including members of T&S. However, it is the weekend, and not everyone has had the chance to respond. I'd like to be able to offer something more substantive more quickly, but I do want to acknowledge that it make take a little time. But, again, thank you for all the truly constructive ideas and proposals shared here. I'll still be engaged here talking over the next 24 hours (other than breaks to sleep and eat and whatnot) while I'm connecting with folks I work with, and would like to be able to share something sooner rather thsn later. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:34, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

• I'd like to add to the above that I fear a lot of WMF staff have been listening to an echo chamber of views similar to their own when they try to engage the community. I'm a woman who is old enough not to wish to state my age in public (probably >>double the average editor age here) with several decades of publishing experience on my CV and 13 years here, many of which as an admin. Although I've spent years creating articles on women, I don't feel comfortable editing under the umbrella of Women in Red for a variety of reasons. In the wake of the present kerfuffle I watched the recent video 'Exploring the gender gap in Wikipedia editors' [5] with bemusement at the notion that having one's edits reverted is a form of harassment – with my admin hat on, most edits are reverted and articles deleted for entirely valid reasons such as copyright infringements, BLP violations, lack of sourcing and the like. I'm not claiming that my viewpoint is common among long-term women editors – I honestly don't know what others think – but there's a wide diversity of views and cultures operating on en-wiki. There's been some talk in various fora of face-to-face discussions at Wikimania in Stockholm, but there's no way in which most editors can afford to participate in such conventions. I believe it is vital that wider, frank and open discussions take place on questions such as encouraging a diversity of new editors and stamping out harassment that successfully include all sections of the community and embrace a much wider range of viewpoints on these important topics. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:36, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't have much to say other than to say thank you for sharing a different perspective. It is my understanding that WMF staff who work on proactive anti-harassment efforts use surveys to inform how to define harassment and calibrate how and what percentage of people on the projects feel as though on-wiki or wiki-related harassment can be deleterious to their participation here. I am not familiar with the specifics of the methodologies, so I don't say that to diminish your perspective, but just to offer what I know about how they approach their work. But even having said that, it has been helpful to hear from yourself and others today about how differently you perceive this issue. Thank you. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 03:42, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Just a drive-by comment here, but the list of people doing drama quits over this, while some will be missed, will hardly collapse the system. As I have said elsewhere on several occasions, Fram had a long-term block coming, it was badly overdue, and ArbCom should have been able to deal with it. The reasons they did not or could not need to be examined and discussed. There was a better way to roll out the expansion of WMF OFFICE’s expanded powers, and this particular set of sanctions was badly botched in its execution, probably because the WMF Movement does, in fact, not understand the en.wiki community (something I have mentioned in person directly to some who are involved with these things). But bottom line, those who claim to be “the community” have created a consensus by volume and repetition, not numbers. Given the doxxing and off-wiki harassment certain individuals have been receiving when they have been proposed as possible complainants, it’s no wonder that a silent majority exists and has been silent. Montanabw^(talk) 01:44, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Offer...

Katherine, I'm conscious that many of the WMF leadership/senior staff don't appear to be actively involved as editors on Wikipedia: for example, by writing articles, reviewing material for Good Article status, etc. That's a fairly broad statement: there are obvious exceptions, of course, and some might be editing anonymously. And there are more ways than editing to support the creation of the encyclopedia: fundraising, activism etc. are also important. But... the gap in the "lived" experience of typical Wikipedia editors and the WMF leadership/senior staff can feel quite stark, and I suspect has has contributed to the recent community tensions. Anyway, I could sit here and moan about all of that, but I'd rather offer up a partial solution. I'd be very happy to work with you or one of your team to jointly develop an article or small set of articles between us, with the aim of building mutual trust and experience between us (and, of course, improve the content of the encyclopedia in the process!). I can't explicitly speak for other editors, but I suspect I'd not be alone in making that offer. If you or one of your team would like to take me up on that, let me know. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:49, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Are you actually serious? As soon as any critique is made of their article work you'll be reported to T&S! Leaky caldron (talk) 19:54, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Two can play at that game, Leaky caldron. I'm going to report you to T&S for critiquing HcHc's suggestion. EEng 21:49, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Hchc2009, I really appreciate your suggestion! I've really enjoyed editing myself (I don't do much, but what I've done has been under my private account or anonymously on mobile). But WMF staff don't edit during the work day for reasons of maintaining a division between staff and volunteer functions, and by the end of most days and weeks, I usually need to turn off my laptop and turn my time to my family and off-wiki community (not to mention laundry, and groceries, and chores... I'm sure you are all familiar with competing commitments). I agree there is a difference in understanding between some of my colleagues who came up through the communities, whether here on en-wiki or elsewhere, and it's true that's not my background. I'll chat with the leadership team about what we can do to make participation more of a part of the experience of joining the WMF. I know it was a part of mine -- I remember writing my first article -- and something I was both proud of and grateful for the experience. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:42, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

you know, this isn’t a bad idea. Until you’ve survived the WP:FAC gauntlet, you really have no clue what goes on beneath the surface. The first time an article I worked on appeared as TFA was a moment that made me so happy. Montanabw^(talk) 01:49, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

A thought occurs to me…

It is common, now, for organizations to actively cultivate diversity at various levels, including board and executive levels: partly to correct for past injustice (cynically: for PR purposes), but, for the smart ones, mainly because greater diversity makes the organization more robust and capable. That is, diversity is a form of competency and needs to be recruited for the same way one would recruit for other competencies and qualifications. And like other such, it is critical to have an idea of the right mix for the organization's goals.

In that light, how many of the WMF's executive team are experienced community members? How many have seen WP:ANI when it works as intended (which is the vast majority of the time, believe it or not), and when it doesn't (which makes a lot of noise and lots of edits, but is the minority of cases)? How many of them have actually been through WP:FAC? Is there even a single one whose immediate reflex on hearing that an article they wrote will be featured on the Main Page is to cringe? I'm sure you can guess at least some of the reasons for the latter, but do you have anyone in your team that actually knows this, deep in their bones, through hard won experience?

That's not to diminish or ignore the non-enwp projects, and cross-project experience would be ideal (I've dabbled enough at Commons and Wikisource to know it's dangerous to assume the experience here is transferrable there), but having that deep enwp experience is the absolute minimum requirement.

And yet, not a single one of the people here list any on-wiki experience in their bios… Were I in your shoes, I would be very worried about what blind spots that lack of diversity gave me. And the community reaction in this is, as you've written somewhere above here, a perfect example of what such blind spots can lead to: nobody with significant on-wiki experience is at all surprised at the community reaction (not even those who think the community reaction is excessive and wrong-headed are surprised by it: it was entirely predictable). That is, we're in the middle of an avoidable crisis: once the bleeding has been staunched and the flames are out (but while the ruins are still smoking), I'd take a long hard look at the composition of my leadership team and whether we collectively possessed all the necessary qualifications.

By the way, if we ignore every other aspect for just a moment… Isn't it awe-inspiring to observe just how much and how strongly that so many feel about this project and this movement? No matter their position on any given detail of this issue, they all burn so for this cause, and fight for its future. How can one but be humbled by such an outpouring and passion? --Xover (talk) 11:46, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Xover, this has actually been a topic of conversation in the Foundation for many years running. When I joined, Eloquence was on the executive team as a long-time Wikimedian, and ASengupta (WMF) was becoming quite active in her personal capacity, while LuisV (WMF) was also very wiki-familiar. (I don't wish to overlook others, but those are the folks I remember being very engaged). More recently, we were deeply fortunate to have Mdennis (WMF), a long-time English Wikipedian, serve as Chief of Community Engagement for more than two years (she continues to lead in a senior role in the Community Engagement department), and Heather (WMF) is wise in many of our movement's ways. However, you're entirely correct that it does not currently include any community members who we would readily recognize as having spent time in the metaphorical trenches. This is why I am grateful to be able to work with a Board that includes many dedicated and long-serving community Trustees, from at least five different home wikis, with varied and diverse perspectives.

And yet, I also want to give space and recognition to the fact that there are different skills that prepare people to be good leaders at the Foundation, and many of our executive team members have deep and meaningful experience in volunteer leadership, community organizing, open culture and open source. As the Foundation has evolved in recent years, it has become more difficult to find senior leaders from the community who both have relevant skills (e.g., being an in-house general counsel at a large technology or non-profit organization, leading human resources for a 300+ person hybrid specialization non-profit) and the inclination to apply for the roles. (To be extra clear, I'm not saying we don't have community members with such skills, I don't know one way or another. I do know that we did not see competitive applications with deep Wikimedia community experience for either of those currently open positions.)

Over the long run, I do believe in the power and importance of mentoring and developing community leadership for critical roles, whether in community bodies, on the Board of Trustees, or in the Foundation. That's why I'm quite excited to have approved a program on leadership development in the Community Engagement department's plan for the coming year, with the intention of developing programs and highlighting opportunities for community members to deepen off-wiki skills in areas such as strategic leadership and resource management. I believe it is an investment in our collective movement's future.

And yes! Forgive my dwindling eloquence as the night wears on, but I am absolutely, utterly with you on the awe this group of remarkable humans inspires in me every day. Wikipedia runs on human generosity, and it's pretty darn amazing. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 08:38, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that enwp experience is a primary qualification for the leadership group as a whole. Titles like Director of This and Senior VP of Whatsit do change over time, the content and responsibility of those roles change, and the entire organization is changed as its needs change. Look at Apple: its design departments now report to the VP of Operations(!). But what doesn't change are the core competencies you need for the leadership team: you need someone qualified to manage legal issues, you need someone qualified to lead finance, and you need someone with enwp (and preferably also cross-project) experience.

If you just look at a single position you need to fill and list its primary and secondary qualifications, something like enwp experience suddenly looks like a "nice to have" secondary skill set. Much as I agree it is important to fill the in-house counsel role in the short term, from a strategic perspective it is even more critical to have the on-wiki experience in the mix.

I know there are a lot of experienced community members on the Board—and as you've seen we trust Jimbo and Doc James to represent us as a community there, and do not hesitate to go to them when needed—and a lot of experienced community members on staff at the Foundation. In fact, a lot of them I know from and interact with primarily through their personal accounts. But for long term health it is critical to have that experience in someone that is on the inside of the decision loop. If you can't find that profile among the applicants to your current openings, offer someone like Maggie whatever it takes to step up as "Strategic Consultant to the ED on onwiki matters" until you do. Get Heather editing again. Or go raid your technical staff team leaders, product owners, or middle managers. Get someone in there that has the well-honed instincts to say "Uhm. Are you sure that's a good idea?". --Xover (talk) 12:08, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you...

Katherine for now showing some serious engagement. This is indeed the kind of crisis that would force any CEO to give up his Sunday game of golf and head for the office. You may think it takes us only a few moments to post here, but I have been up all night following the various comments and staying up to date with it, and I'm sure many others have spent even more time on it than I have, and please do not forget that most of us also have full time jobs to attend to, as well as our families, kids, and grandchildren. I realise that some of us, including me, have put you under enormous pressure to react, and I'm sure that you will now make this your priority when you get to the office on Monday - if indeed you are anywhere near the US. Some of us are impatient however - the UK is half a day ahead of SF and I'm almost 14 hours ahead. I'm also old and sometimes cantankerous because I have put so much effort (more hours than even a paid full-time staffer) into Wikipedia over the years, as many of us on this page have, and gotten, with the help of others, some of our major policy changes established and I would not like to think that my time (and money) has been wasted. Indeed, I would like to believe that I still have a couple of years to offer Wikipedia - maybe in Bangkok next year which is right on my doorstep. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:29, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I'll second what Kudpung said, plus this. This effort to build something enduring and noble has become a huge part of the lives of many of us. Many may still be drinking from the firehose of debates, or waiting to decide what this all means, but at least I think the seed of an idea has been planted: that the speculation and conspiracy mongering hasn't been helpful and even may have been based in incomplete knowledge. There's definitely a window of opportunity for communication and healing for those ready to listen. But fear and anger serve as a powerful nucleus of emotive venting, especially in the absence of a strong countervailing emotive current. It's my sense that the community, especially those who have kept their cool so far, are ready for a positive message from any quarter, and there remains a deep wellspring of engagement and willingness to make positive changes. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:31, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you both, Bri in particular for your eloquence. I am well aware that even in engaging here that there are many other pages of frustration and expression which I've not yet been able to (and may not be able to, in a practical sense) recognize. I do know that I value this discourse here, as frustrating and even infuriating (to some) as the circumstances may be that led us here. While I recognize the road ahead is not smooth nor assured, I strongly hope we can work together with that wellspring of engagement to take on those positive changes. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 07:38, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

The community, what that means, and why that matters

I'm sure what you want to see here is another post, especially a longish one. I would ask for your indulgence, though, as I think it would be helpful to understand just what we mean when we talk about "the community". It was written by Guettarda on the discussion regarding the ban, and while I don't imagine you will have time to read that entire discussion as it's gotten very massive, I think this is important both to understanding exactly what we mean by that, and why we're so protective of it. Most of the people who would be interested in writing an encyclopedia in their spare time are already here. If this community is ripped apart, there isn't another one to insert in its place.

I would tend to agree with the concern that the people who need to read what's said there probably are not the ones following that massive discussion, let alone reading all of it, and I think this particular part is worth the read. I hope you will, and will share it as appropriate. Maybe it will give an idea of what we mean when we say "the community", and why that matters so much to us.

(Quoted post from Guettarda follows: ) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:33, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Short answer (ok, not even vaguely short!) - WMF has no clue what the value of the community it. And it's hard to blame them, because no one understands the lightning-in-a-bottle nature of what we have here. I believe that WMF believes that if they did drive away a lot of editors, they'd be able to recruit new ones. In fact, they probably think they'd have a much easier time recruiting new editors if they got rid of the old, abrasive, newbie-biting crowd that's here already. People seem to think that if it wasn't for the rudeness of the community, new editors would be flooding in like they did in 2006.

I'm convinced that they're wrong.

Over the last 9 years, we've brought in almost 60,000 student editors. Many, many thousands of these are bright, motivated people who come away from the experience feeling like they've had a hand in changing the world (and in a real sense, that's true, even though for us making substantial edits to one article seems like a pretty small deal). We give them the tools to edit, we try to teach them how to interact with the community, and we answer questions. I think they do remarkable work, on average, but the quality of the work they do is immaterial to the point I want to make. The point I want to make is that the vast majority of student editors have a good experience contributing to Wikipedia. (I should know - I get the complaints when they don't have a good experience, either from them, or from their instructors, or from members of the community.) When you hang around ANI, you only see the bad experiences. When you look at thousands of interactions between Wikipedians and newcomers, you see lots of people who are willing to help student editors. But despite having brought tens of thousands of people to Wikipedia, despite them making hundreds of thousands of edits and adding over 50 million words to mainspace, we've created a tiny number of people who contribute to Wikipedia in a sustained, ongoing fashion.

If all it took to create Wikipedians was to bring them to Wikipedia, teach them to edit, and let them work in a constructive atmosphere, we'd be recruiting thousands of new Wikipedians to the community each year. Or at least hundreds. So why isn't the editing community growing by leaps and bounds? Is it because Wikipedia has a bad interface, or the editing tools are too difficult, or the talk pages are too hard to use, or because we're all a bunch of rude jerks? No. It's because potential Wikipedians are extremely rare. The people who become people like us, for the most part, show up here and feel like they've come home. They feel like this is what they need to do with their lives.

Now, obviously, a toxic environment can drive people away, and it probably disproportionately drives women away. Harassment is real, and it's a real problem that we need to fix. Diversity is a problem, and it's a real problem that we need to fix.

I honestly don't think WMF gets this about Wikipedians. I honestly don't believe that we get this about ourselves. The project will go on without any one of us - it may even go on better without some of us - but the community is, in a very real sense, irreplaceable.

WMF doesn't get that. We probably look like a set of whiny, self-indulgent people, who want to set the rules for a playground we don't even own, rather than a community whose members have contributed millions of hours to build this mind-boggling source of free knowledge. We're tearing ourselves apart because we understand, at some level, the value of the community to the project, and we're really, really damn committed to the vision that underlies this project. Even the Wikipedians you can't stand, even the ones who you think we'd be better off without, are, overwhelmingly, people who believe so strongly in the mission of this project that they'd donate thousands of hours to it. It seems like WMF is willing to burn up all that goodwill and commitment because they don't get how fucking unusual a creature Wikipedians are.

And what makes me most frustrated is that there's no way to convince them otherwise. The people who need to read this pages aren't going to read this page.

I second Seraphimblade's suggestion that you read this Katherine (WMF). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:28, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Seraphimblade says Most of the people who would be interested in writing an encyclopedia in their spare time are already here. If this community is ripped apart, there isn't another one to insert in its place and Guettarda says I believe that WMF believes that if they did drive away a lot of editors, they'd be able to recruit new ones...I'm convinced that they're wrong. I think they are both so right. For instance, in my case, I started editing WP because I saw very very poor articles on areas of interest of mine, operas by Handel and persecution of Christians by the Romans. People may think "well, who cares what such niche topic areas are like" but WP is now the main resource for information all over the world. You can see whenever a Handel opera is performed anywhere, the views on that particular article in WP will skyrocket, people in the UK, USA, France,Germany, Brazil, wherever are looking to EN WP to help in their enjoyment of the performance they are seeing and it upset me that the articles were not any good. So I have spent seven years improving them and if you get rid of me I don't think there is someone waiting to take my place since I am the only person who has been doing it for seven years. This is just one example. It takes a certain kind of personality to be a Wikipedian, you have to be very committed either to your choice of subject matter or the project, you have to learn huge quantities of fiddly little rules, you have to be prepared to defend even very innocuous seeming edits from ignoramuses or trolls who may turn up. I, along with many others, have been utterly disheartened and alienated by WMF actions during this fiasco.Smeat75 (talk) 02:27, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi everyone - especially Seraphimblade, Barkeep49, and Smeat75. I want to acknowledge that I've seen and read this post that Seraphimblade reposted from Guettarda's original. While I must strongly disagree with the characterizations it makes of how paid Foundation staff understand or relate to the community, I also strongly agree with the premise that the general population is not somehow magically over-indexed on undiscovered Wikimedians. Said another way, yes, Wikipedians are a rare and special breed, and we cannot and should not take the existing community for granted in any way.

To pick up on the post's reference to students -- at the Foundation, we've spent many hours poring over the data from education programs. We agree, and the data supports, that it is completely true that one can enjoy and edit Wikipedia well, be a productive contributor during that engagement, and also not become a life-long Wikipedian. Some might suggest that this then means that such contributors aren't as valuable -- but no one here is saying that. Instead, I believe that we're all agreeing that we need all of these contributors.

We need the fiercely dedicated Wikim/pedians such as yourselves, who live the policies and values and understand the ins and outs of governance such as WP:ANI. We as a movement should value the student or editathon volunteer who laboriously and trepidatiously endeavors to learn how to edit to share and expand knowledge with the world, even if their longer-term engagement is merely an improved appreciation for how Wikimedia works and the value of free knowledge. We should also welcome the casual contributor who spots a grammar, syntax, or formatting disaster on an under-loved page, editing once a year from their commute or weekend couch.

Truth be told, I fret constantly about the resiliency of our existing functionaries and the pipeline for new folks to assume critical responsibilities -- it's a worrisomely small group and the pipeline has only been narrowing over the years. For this, I ask in response: do you have thoughts on why? Because I welcome them. And also, what solutions might you propose? Is it to better support the existing functionaries, with greater caution about preserving their numbers? Is it to find ways to widen the funnel, by bringing in a broader if less sophisticated influx of contributors? Is it both, with necessary prudence and respect for new and established alike? Although I'm not a betting person, my wager would be on "both" -- and if that is the case, we as a movement (or community, as you prefer) must find a way to get there together. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 07:09, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• "do you have ideas why". Has anyone asked the ones who have left? It's a slightly difficult one because they have left, but some will have left their email facility engaged, or others may know how to contact them. Unless a properly constructed piece of research is undertaken (probably best by the WMF or an independent source), then you'll have speculative answers from people here, without any verification as to the real reasons behind it. Reach out to as many functionaries who have left in the past five years as is possible, and you'll hear directly from them as to the reasons. - SchroCat (talk) 07:18, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Fair point. The plural of anecdote is not data, etc. etc. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 07:25, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• With all due caution about anecdotes and data: My experience rather mirrors Guettarda's. I have, with Wikimedia Colorado, participated in several edit-a-thon type events, where we would help people interested in Wikipedia to do some editing or article creation. And there was a decent turnout for them; on one occasion we actually managed to hit the account creation limit, and I had to create people's accounts (admins automatically have the accountcreator right). So, we had people interested and wanting to do it, and they had experienced people right there to guide them through it. After all of them, I checked back in after a couple weeks on those new editors to see if they were having any problems. They weren't. No one had criticized them, or reverted them, nominated anything for deletion, anything like that. If they had talk page messages, it was just a "Welcome" or a Teahouse invite.

  But except for one, out of probably fifty at least over all those events, they just hadn't continued editing. (I wish I still remembered her account's name and I'd see if she still is, but that was a good few years ago and I don't). It wasn't a case of mean people coming to chase them away with sticks; most of them apparently just didn't have enough interest to continue doing it, despite what was to all appearances a very positive start and a lot of help.

  It's certainly not posting on Facebook, where most anyone can pick that up in a few minutes. It doesn't really take any learning for someone to just fix the occasional typo (especially with the VisualEditor option), but for anything beyond that, there is very much a learning curve. A kinda-halfway-decent start to an article can sometimes be made just by various drive-by editors putting in different factoids, but to actually get it to a state where it's clear, readable, and well-cited, someone with more experience is going to have to do some work on it in most cases. And I don't know how we really get around that; writing a decent quality encyclopedia article, or even part of one, is not something that most people can figure out in a few minutes, and learning how to do that while collaborating with others on it is yet another piece of that. Writing a really good one takes even more know-how and experience, as does learning how to navigate a content dispute. I think it will always be something of a niche thing for people to take interest in. Now, certainly, we should take care that we're not driving off our next potential writer of dozens of featured articles because we're not patient with them while they learn, but on a collaborative and interactive project like this, some ability to accept reasonable criticism is part of what's needed to participate here.

  Certainly the same for current functionaries. Take checkusers. They have to be trusted enough to allow them to handle sensitive and confidential data, have (or be willing to learn) enough skill and knowledge in computer networking to properly interpret and act upon the results they get, and be interested in doing it to begin with. Those aren't people we can replace quickly, and the pool of potential replacements is certainly not a huge one.

  So far as the point about disagreeing about the characterization of the WMF—well, of course I can say you would disagree with that, but from where you see it I'm sure things do look different. But to those of us here, we look at something like this happening, shake our heads in disbelief, and say "Did they learn nothing from the Superprotect fiasco? Not one single thing????" So, that frustration is not without a basis, I think, and it's very much amplified when I get the administrator's newsletter today, showing the names of a lot of people I like and respect having given up their tools. And that's not trivial; it's coming up on about ten percent of checkusers and oversighters having left directly or indirectly due to this situation, and exactly ten percent of our bureaucrats. No one gets to be one of those without being very much trusted and respected by the community. So, it's certainly a loss that we very much notice and feel. And it certainly did not help when, especially during the early stages of things, the only communication we could get was more or less dismissive boilerplate. That more than anything, I think, really got people's blood boiling. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, thanks for your prompt. On the whole I have some self-serving answers (e.g. the fact that the community gets to name only 10 things for the foundation to develop) but I'm not sure how great they would be. There is one idea I have which I think hasn't been discussed as seriously as I would like - perhaps this is because it's a bad idea but I'll throw it out there never-the-less.

I think for sometime the foundation's thinking has been "The World is full of Wikipedians we just need to find them." That was a reasonable premise, but I think as Seraphim and Guettarda has expressed it's also incorrect. Instead I think there is a fairly finite pool of longterm Wikipedians. In the Global South, as the WMF defines it, we probably have not come close to tapping this pool and growth efforts as the WMF has traditionally defined it makes sense.

I would suggest that conversely in the Global North, the untapped pool of longterm Wikipedians is small. Further that because of Wikipedia's prominence the pool is made smaller now than it was when Wikipedia was founded because some people who could become longterm Wikipedians come too early in their lives such that they don't have the maturity the community desires and do silly stuff which causes them to go away (perhaps voluntarily, perhaps not). I think, therefore, that some serious efforts into editor retention are needed - which is why we can all be alarmed about the resignations which have happened - and that efforts can/should be made to re-engage those who were once longterm (or perhaps even medium term) editors and have stopped. They already understand some of how Wikipedia works, have found fulfillment in at at some previous point in their lives, perhaps this can be resparked? In short, I think the volunteer community and foundation need to move to a mindset of volunteers as scarcity rather than an abundance (our prevailing attitude since Wikipedia was founded). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom's open letter to the WMF board

For those watching this page who haven't yet seen it, Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Open letter to the WMF Board. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:20, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, thanks from me as well for engaging here. I'm hesitant to say anything because I'm not sure how out-of-the-loop I am these days ... it's been a few years since I made an effort to keep up with community discussions ... but from what I'm reading, I think this crisis is hitting a lot of people in the gut, and people are more united in their response than I've ever seen before. In particular, see the reactions to this open letter (follow the link at the end). Warm regards, - Dank (push to talk) 15:35, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

As an administrator and a ten year editor, I offer my full support of this letter from ArbCom to the WMF. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:10, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Just following up to confirm that I also have seen the ArbCom statement. I know this has been a very difficult period for a number of people, and I want to be sure to acknowledge the distress it has caused so many. Regarding the ArbCom statement, I also can confirm the Board has been and continues to actively discuss the best response not only to the statement, but to the moment at large. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 07:24, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

A WMF noticeboard on enwiki

Thank you Katherine, I have now read through your post. I feel optimistic. The enwiki community are hurting right now, so there will be a period of pushback from some against any idea of collaboration between enwiki and WMF, including that of increased communication moving forward. But that is exactly what is needed. I have suggested to several people, Jan included, that a permanent interface between WMF and the enwiki community (and, if appropriate, the other other communities, such as the German Wikipedia) be set up. Notices that are applicable to enwiki could be posted there, and discussions on those posts can take place. The communities can raise queries, suggest ideas, etc on such an interface. I was thinking along the lines of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard, where notices are posted on the project page, and discussions on those posts take place on the talkpage page. Subpages could be set up where ideas or queries are placed by the community for attention of WMF. Everything in the open and recorded and easy to find. Similar interfaces could be set up on other communities. Notices relevant to all communities could be posted there as well as local notices. Initial discussion to take place on local communities, and then transferred to Meta as and when appropriate. SilkTork (talk) 09:57, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi User:Katherine (WMF) - you may have missed this post. I'd welcome your feedback on the idea, so I've reposted it here in a new section. SilkTork (talk) 17:32, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

SilkTork Rather than a "Noticeboard", three years ago I drafted a new Village Pump page. It was intended as a place for the Foundation to post notices or request for community input (like linking to the Talk_Page_Consultation and the Community_Health_Initiative page), a place where anyone could post info or updates on general Foundation activities, and where the community would handle issues and proposals relating to Foundation such as when we uninstalled Flow and the objections to community-policing of the (defunct) Gather extension, or for proposing requests for much needed new functionality. I three years ago I posted the idea at Pump Proposals. It got only a few responses, but they were positive. I very nearly created the page, but the stumbling block was an acceptable name for it. I initially referred to it as Village_pump_(WMF), however concerns were raised (I think by a Foundation Community liaison) that that title could be misinterpreted as meaning the page was owned-by or controlled-by the Foundation and that the Foundation was responsible for maintaining the page or responsible handling issues there. My intent was specifically "a community-page, about or relating-to the Foundation". I got no further input on the subject, and I let it slide. If you or someone else comes up with a good solution to the name concerns, I would be happy to tweak the draft, post a quick proposal/notice at the Pump, and install the page shortly thereafter. We have long needed such a page. I'm pretty sure the proposal would receive more active support today. Alsee (talk) 20:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I have no doubt at all that enwiki would welcome such a page. It's getting WMF on board with the idea that interests me. With a commitment from WMF, we can start to work together on what it is to be called, and what part of Wikipedia should host it. I favour a stand alone noticeboard for message from WMF as these already exist and do work effectively. The area where people feed back to WMF I'm less clear on, and perhaps that might be where your Village Pump idea could come in, though I am hesitant about splitting the communication. SilkTork (talk) 00:15, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• Hi User:SilkTork, you're right, I did miss this above. (And thank you, Alsee as well.) I'm going to ask the folks inthe Community Engagement team to weigh in here, because I know the need for this sort of central space has been somethingthat has come up many times in the years I've been here. Pinging @Qgil-WMF and Quim Gil: for his thoughts. Also, I want to thank you for sharing your cautious optimism. I know we've got a ways to go, but I am grateful that you felt comfortable and willing to share that. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
  • As a note, Commons has for some time had a DMCA noticeboard for OFFICE communications that we could probably use as a model. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:23, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
• A non-discussion page dedicated to receiving Foundation announcements and similar info-items is probably a good idea - and a standard Village Pump page for discussions. That way someone could watchlist just the info page, and the discussion page wouldn't be cluttered with the stream of non-controversial announcements and info items. And as P.S. for those who haven't seen it yet, Jimbo says the board is about to release a statement and that people will be happy with it.[6] Alsee (talk) 06:36, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Katherine (WMF) thanks for the ping. We actually have news for SilkTork, Alsee and anyone else interested in the idea of a centralized place to learn about Wikimedia Foundation announcements. Last week we soft-launched Wikimedia Space, a fully-functional prototype that you all are invited to test and provide feedback about. We aim to address several long-standing problems and interesting opportunities with Wikimedia Space, but I will focus on the topic at hand here.

Imagine that the Foundation commits to publish all their announcements at Wikimedia Space, categorizing and tagging each announcement according to the topics covered. Imagine that individual users could subscribe to categories and tags interesting to them, and receive these notifications on-wiki if they so wish. Imagine that anyone at their home wikis would be able to set up pages that would pull the news published in a specific category or with a specific tag. This setup is feasible, and we are working on it. With such setup, creating a Village Pump page tracking all the Foundation announcements in English would be trivial, and would require no manual maintenance (which is a main concern for us, because updating these kind of pages manually is unreliable and doesn't scale).

If you want to participate in the design and implementation of these features, now is a good time to join Wikimedia Space.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:14, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

O no. Sorry, you have been dragged into this Qgil, but this is typically the sort of thing that the community are unhappy about - the Foundation doing things centrally and imposing them on local communities, paying lip-service to collaboration by inviting us to agree with you, and doing it with a happy clappy smile as though that would please us. We don't want that any more of that. We have the means right here on enwiki right here and now for WMF to post notices and the community to comment on them. We have the means right now for members of enwiki to suggest ideas to WMF. All it takes is the willingness for WMF to step into our garden and have tea with us. Please Katherine (WMF), would you give Qgil some briefing on the situation, and explain that enwiki (and other communities) are frustrated and unhappy about the Foundation creating and imposing things, be it software or other forms of social control, on local communities from a non-local position and perspective. Forgive me for being frustrated and negative at your post as it's not your fault Qgil-WMF, you are a tech person who is doing the best that you can with your brief, and you are not aware of the bigger picture here, but these are tense times, and some of us are trying very hard to bridge the gap between WMF and enwiki, and heal the hurt. This sort of comment just takes us backwards. What we are looking for is genuine one-to-one interaction and equal collaboration. I understand that the WMF wishes to homogenise the local communities as that makes dealing with them easier, but that diminishes each and every one of us. The Space proposal is a Foundation thing for Foundation activities. What we want here is an interaction space between Foundation and enwiki for enwiki things. SilkTork (talk) 08:52, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

SilkTork we understand well the concerns you raise, and I addressed them somewhere else last week. Still, I think we can help on your original request with some pragmatism: with or without Space, your request requires a standard process for Wikimedia Foundation teams to publish announcements, and we are working on it. Once a reliable stream of Foundation news available in one place exists, then it can be used in different ways, and we can discuss which ways are the most appropriate in a specific place (e.g. English Wikipedia) at a given time (e.g. sooner than later).

(And just to clarify my role, I manage the Community Relations team at the Community Engagement department. I work in a team and in a department that are well aware of the English Wikipedia context and also about the wider Wikimedia context; about past proposals, current events, and future plans.)--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:34, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Sorry for my outburst Qgil - I didn't mean to sound ungrateful and hostile. It was poured out to you, when it was actually directed at the Foundation monolith, and you just happened to be the one who received it. And I'm aware that my reaction seems to justify the belief in the Foundation that enwiki is a hostile place. I'm generally not such a hostile person, and in my entire history on Wikipedia I have made very few such aggressive posts. Of course, that doesn't undo what has been done, and my main excuses that the past few weeks have been stunningly stressful for a number of us, and that this comes at a particularly bad time for me health wise, will not compensate for me reacting so inappropriately to your post. Please accept my profound apologies. SilkTork (talk) 09:56, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

SilkTork It's really ok. I do understand the stressful times and the unintended effects. If anything, excuse me for relying on cold pragmatism and practical details. Each of us are trying to help in our own ways.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:22, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes we are. And we need to be more appreciative of each other. I do welcome your involvement here, and that is what I should have said right at the start, rather than going off on one. So, Qgil-WMF, you think it would be possible to create a work flow in which notices particular to enwiki as well as general Wikimedia notices are placed here on enwiki in a format similar to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard. This may duplicate notices that are placed in other locations, such as Meta, and discussion may be fragmented, so it would mean that whoever would be involved in responding to such notices would need to be monitoring more than one location, but you feel that would be possible and achievable in a short space of time? SilkTork (talk) 10:38, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Qgil-WMF, a comment made by Wehwalt some years ago has since been much quoted and bears repetition here because, while I can understand the hassles of scaling communication et, we are not here to sing Kumbaya but to build an encyclopedia and this is the shop floor.

It is top-down proclamations/communications and administrative actions which have caused so much of the friction between en-WP and the WMF, along with what are perceived to be somewhat arcane communication channels such as IRC and the multitude of mailing lists. At the very least, IRC and the lists need to be deprecated if your Space scheme takes off but, to be honest, I think many people here will find even the name to be off-putting because it evokes the WMF obsession with "safe spaces". This is the shop floor and not some social engineering experiment, and no shop floor → no more product → no salaries for the management.

We need to get back to the basics but instead the WMF is becoming a Hydra-like monstrosity and it is creating its own problems of communication and governance by wanting to dine at so many different tables. I may be pleasantly surprised with how Space works in the long run but, really, I doubt it. The WMF's record in rolling out such things is poor (even the fairly new Library interface is a mess), and its apparent desire to mould the character of everyone into some sort of Californian stereotype of happy-clappy, oh-so-conscious etc people is cult-like and actually stifles the dissemination of knowledge.

We need basic support - running servers, some legal stuff, maybe a bit of software development etc - and everything else, including the highly exclusive Wikimania, seemingly nepotic in-residence programmes and selective prize offerings, is largely an irrelevance and certainly not cost effective to our goal of reflecting the sum of human knowledge, with all its inherent idiosyncracies. The shop floor enrols to produce the Swiss Army Knife of encyclopaedic content, not to prototype the development of a new tool. I think a lot of people may have lost sight of this, being concerned far too much with metrics, often-flawed data analysis, and social justice issues. From the point of view of the shop floor, Space would ideally be largely moribund. - Sitush (talk) 10:53, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Qgil-WMF oddly, I came across info on the Space project a few hours ago. I tend to have a good sense for community consensus, and based on what I've seen so far I predict: A lot of skepticism of the project, a low chance that it will really catch on, but on the positive side it doesn't seem likely to draw much active opposition. It doesn't seem like it interferes with our work, and it seems like people can safely ignore it.

As for the discussion above, you could use Space as a central place to push messages to Village Pump here, but you can already do that by running a page on Meta or somewhere and using a bot or MessageDelivery to push that to subscribed wikis. As for a place to discuss the issues, community discussion and community consensus will be formed on the local wiki. Most people simply don't go off-wiki, and trying to claim a consensus from off-wiki won't fly on-wiki. I guess we could contact the Foundation there, but I'm not sure why that would be better than contacting the Foundation at Meta or Phab. Maybe I'm just not getting the full picture yet. I didn't spend much time looking into it, but wordpress+discord didn't sound encouraging. One thing I did notice was that there was some sort of editorial or publishing approval board, starting with three foundation staff. That immediately made me wonder how much luck someone would have trying to run an item critical of one of the Foundation's pet projects.

Oh, and as always, everything the Foundation produces is unbelievably low-information-density and useless for constructive work. I looked at one blog-post and I had to scroll down seven pages just to read ten replies. It will be utterly unusable for any meaningful modestly-complex discussion with more than a very few people. On EnWiki the discussion page about the Fram ban involved I think 350 or 450 people, making 7,000 edits in 2 weeks. And it involved a multitude of proposals. That's an extreme case, but I don't think Space would be a viable medium for anything but the most trivial work or most trivial community-Foundation engagement. It certainly couldn't handle feedback or constructively address issues on anything like Flow or Gather. If the Foundation announced something like Gather, the only realistic option would be to reply "There are community concerns with Gather, here's a [link] to the on-wiki discussion of the issues". Heck, try copying Katherine's current talk page contents into a series of Space comments and let us know how well it turns out.

I'm pessimistic, but not hostile to the project. Sometimes it feels like the Foundation hired all of the employees from Social Media companies. A blog is a fine place to chat or rant, but I wouldn't expect to get much meaningful work done there. Alsee (talk) 13:17, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

A recommendation

Katherine, now that there are several hundred WikiMedia projects and official spin-offs, the WMF tends to forget that the en.Wiki is nevertheless very much the flagship project and that without it, the WMF's raison d'être ceases to exist. You may therefore wish to rekindle Sue Gardner's initiative where from 2009 to 2015 (or thereabouts) she sat in on WMF 'Office Hours', a weekly IRC in which she she engaged with the community, or something like it. I never took part but only because I can't abide any kind of online chat rooms due mainly to the trolling that goes on there - even on the informal 'Office Hours' (the chats were logged).

The point I wish to make however, is that while enjoying your high flying executive lifestyle on the funds our unpaid work provides, it would be good if you were to take a genuine interest in what goes on at ground level rather than just assume your colleagues are dong a good job and your volunteer minions in the WikiMedia owned communities are doing theirs.

By the same token, there should be some mechanism whereby our Executive Directors are constantly answerable to the Board of Trustees, also preferably in the form of a weekly audience with them. Even a Prime Minister of the UK, despite his or her heavy schedule, has to answer to the Queen and attend a private audience with her once a week.

These are initiatives that you can call for yourself without being pressured into them by us. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:08, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

You know, I actually did hold Office Hours when I first took on this role, with a hybrid of both IRC and Google Chat videocalls, as not everyone is comfortable with chat rooms (as you note). There was strong initial interest, but it petered out, so we stopped doing them. My experience is these are good in theory but not less useful in practice. Attendance is often quite low and non-fluent English speakers reported feeling less comfortable in the format (more so on video chat, but bandwidth can be prohibitive depending on your geography). More practically, often attendees have very focused questions about topics that range greatly in breadth (from specific feature development to tool hosting to grant deadlines) and detail (specifics about bug reporting, say) that are often more satisfactorily resolved through conversations with teams working directly on the issue. I recognize how scarce and valuable volunteer time is, so I try not to ask people to spend their limited time with me if their need or question is best answered by someone else.

As for the Board, I'm sure you'll appreciate hearing that I have a weekly call with our Board chair, a bi-weekly call with the Vice Chair, standing monthly calls with the Committee Chairs. Of course, this is in addition to the ~6 annual scheduled full board meetings, additional regular committee meetings, and various other ad hoc meetings that come up throughout the year. Like volunteers on the projects themselves, it's my experience that the commitment and availability of the Trustees in their volunteer capacity is really quite remarkable. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 00:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Excuse me, I made a mis-statement, and it's been bothering me all evening until I could come back to make a correction. The Foundation's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Jaime Villagomez, leads regular meetings with the Audit Committee Chair, while I participate in the regular audit calls, duties, and meetings. I meet with Jaime on a weekly or bi-weekly cadence, and he relays status updates from his Committee Chair meetings. It is the case that all Committee Chairs have a dedicated liaison -- the Human Resources Committee has the Chief of Talent and Culture, Audit has the CFO, and Governance Committee chair has the General Counsel/Secretary of the Board. I usually meet with the HR chair monthly, and while the Governance chair and I used to meet on a bi-weekly basis, we now meet on an as-needed basis ranging from weekly to quarterly, depending on the work at hand (e.g., Trustee recruiting, governance review, etc.). Katherine (WMF) (talk) 05:39, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

A large number of en-wiki editors never use formats like IRC, but holding conversations on-site, on talk pages, is always a good thing. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, that makes sense. For better or worse, my intention and focus from my first day was to reach out and build or re-build relationships across the global movement. While I've taken some heat on this page for my travel, the first two years were very much focused on hitting the road and connecting with communities that haven't historically had the same access to the Foundation, from Accra to D.F. to Berlin to Cairo to Chandigarh to Dilijan. All along, I've tried to focus on some sort of equity of attention -- for example, while enWP is enormous and sprawling, caWP is relatively small in native speakers yet large in content and extremely well organized, arWP is quite small per million native speakers and struggles with vast geographies and dialect distributions among other challenges, esWP is large in articles and editors but has unique geographic and cultural distribution considerations... we go on and on, which is of course the beauty of our movement and also the challenge (and this is before bringing in the Commonsers, Wikidatans, Wikisourcers, Wiktionary contributors, and so on...) -- how to engage equitably, here and everywhere else?

And while I'm a fast typist, I'm a slow writer -- I value words, nuance, and precision (yes, I know this opens me up to a thousand challenges on past and future flops in this area, but so be it. Truth be told, the parsing of my Twitter feed caught me somewhat flatfooted after many years of joyful irrelevance and peanut-galleryisms, even during the last three years in this role. That this is obvious in hindsight makes it all the more bone-headed). In this particular role, I know each sentence I post on-wiki will be parsed and processed for text and subtext, which makes every published word more high-stakes. In such a context the best way forward is clearly to write voluminously, so that there's more focus on the corpus as a whole, rather than individual words. And yet, as a slow and generally intentional writer, this is challenging for practical reasons. The unsatisfying alternative I've settled into is to write perhaps a bit cautiously and frugally. And yet having said all that, I want to offer that I would wish to be offering this in a different context, I really do appreciate being here, criticism and all. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 06:35, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, you should primarily use the mode of communication that has created the world's greatest reference work and the world's #5 website - the Wikipedia talk page. Why use Twitter which is notorious for oversimplification, disinformation, flaming and trolling? Communicate with Wikipedians the way that Wikipedians communicate. Right here. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:51, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• I have been on Twitter for something like 12 years -- I've used it well before I joined Wikimedia, and to this day, I believe that it's still true that the majority of my followers pre-date my tenure at the Foundation -- most of which come from a international development, foreign policy, journalism, and open/civic tech background. And that background, and those interests, still inform the majority of my tweets. While there are a number of Wikipedians on Twitter with whom I enjoy engaging with, I've never used it with the intention that it is a mode for communicating with the Wikimedia/Wikipedian community, any more than I would expect that a Facebook feed would be interpreted as an offical channel for community communications (I am not active on Facebook). While of course Wikipedians/Wikimedians are free and welcome to follow me on Twitter, disagree with me on Twitter, or even possibly like me on Twitter, I've not positioned it as a default official channel for Wikimedia communications -- that's what Wikimedia-specific fora such as the wikimediaannounce-l and wikimedia-l mailing lists and Meta are for. If anything, I've learned in the last two weeks that there's a fairly significant divide that emerges when those worlds meet. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 06:35, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I would like to thank you once more for providing such detailed answers, which indeed go beyond what I/we originally asked. Very refreshing and helping enormously to combat my long, cynical outlook towards the role of ED and the WMF in general. You won't remember me from Esino Lario, and I won't be in Stockholm unnfortunately, due to the cost (do spare a thought for us volunteers while the very large WMF contingent enjoys their annual free trip among their many other junkets), but I look very much to meeting you next year in Bangkok where Wikimania will be right on my doorstep in my chosen retirement country these past 20 years. I actually live near Udon Thani but it's only a 55 minute, $25 hop to Bangkok on one of the 22 daily flights to the capital which is actually twice as far as NYC to D.C. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:06, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll permit myself an emoticon and say that I do hope so! :) I'm very much looking forward to Wikimania 2020 in Thailand. I've only ever visited Mae Sot and Chiang Mai, but those visits were for work. I welcome a chance to learn and see more of Bangkok and beyond, particularly if it entails marveling at public transit infrastructure (a favorite of mine). Katherine (WMF) (talk) 07:40, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Katherine, like many others, I have spent innumerable hours following the developing WP:FRAMBAN debate with some consternation, but have not contributed directly thus far. Personally, I have leaned more on the side of supporting WMF (at least up 'til now) in Office Actions and recognise the need to deal effectively with harassment if there is a failure to do so elsewhere. But it was that tweet of yours which caused me to genuinely wonder whether I was mistaken in feeling so supportive of WMF's actions, notwithstanding the communication disconnect between it and ArbCom. I don't need to berate you for its crassness, and I thank you for recognising above how unacceptable that tweet was, and for apologising for it. I actually support the use of Twitter by any CEO or senior manager, as it can provide a direct line of communication to management for 'ordinary mortals' that customer care lines or corporate email routes do not. In addition it publicly reveals the thinking and actions of those senior staff in a crisp, precised form. But even personal accounts have to be used with care, and I would urge you to read, reflect and act upon upon WMF's own guidance for staff on the use of social media, including personal accounts (see here). Every CEO must set an example to their employees, and not bring their organisation into disrepute. I had experience of drafting organisational social media policies/guidelines in the very early days of the medium and, as a former Trustee of an organisation myself, I would have been holding my CEO to account for speaking unprofessionally or profanely in any account which clearly links their personal social media account to my organisation. (Ironically, one of my supplementary guidance papers to colleagues advised against tweeting on a Sunday evening after a glass or two of wine, as judgement lapses are far more liable to occur than when tweeting in the cold light of a mid-week day.)

That said, I also like the obvious suggestion, made above, that you start use this talk page here on en-wiki to develop a stronger direct link between yourself and the English Wikipedia community. This is how all of us are used to communicating, even with Jimbo Wales. Prior to 28th June 2019, your last edit here was in June 2016 and, clearly, any bridges that can be built between us will be welcomed by all. I hope your recent activity and engagement here will continue. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 08:27, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• I would like to strongly echo what Nick Moyes has said. You noted about your twitter feed that you've "not positioned it as a default official channel for Wikimedia communications". As a CEO of a US$100 million organization with hundreds of thousands of volunteers world wide and one of the top ten websites in the world, you do not have the luxury of separating your personal persona and business persona. As unfortunate as that is, as a CEO you must accept this as part of the job. Everything you do in the public eye will be under the magnifying glass of the public with regards to your leadership of the WMF. You can't delineate a line such as that and expect it to be honored by the public. I am reminded of a crisis in an organization I used to work for. A very senior administrator attempted to manage the crisis. The leadership of the organization took over her personal cell phone number and her personal social media accounts to help manage the crisis. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:55, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Time for leadership

Katherine, after weeks of, like most editors, working to resist the temptation to add to what is already a huge multi-stranded dialogue, with so many valid points made by bright and dedicated people, I was reassured by your interaction on this page in recent days. I know, as a former volunteer in various organisations, and also sometimes a committee member or legally responsible figure, and as a manager, that the issues are not simple. At the same time, I have participated in, and watched, the wiki world for a long time, and I see no sign of a pervasive or even widespread harrassment issue, and I have seen far more dubious claims than even vaguely well-founded ones, so no emergency requiring drastic action.

I believe that the combined Wikimedia communities are a truly amazing phenomenon, and have created something wonderful, adding to humanity in a way all the other digital super-sites have not, and with this case, a body created to help with some background tasks, has damaged the mission. With the best of intentions, but I think with a genuine misunderstanding of the role and reach. I understand, staff want to do more, and it is easier to decide on plans and policies in a tight-knit office, as opposed to our discourse-based, and sometimes slow, governance, but it is the organic community, combined with Jimbo Wales's original vision, that made this thing fly.

Now a conclusion keeps delaying and I think we all may be falling into the trap of searching out some "ultimate solution" draft before acting - when what is needed for now is to stop the bleeding. And this falls to yourself, along with the Board Chair, and Jimbo Wales - you are the leaders of the structure which supports the projects. Along with, arguably, ArbCom members, who *have* spoken. We need to restore morale, and stop losing key people (>10% of multiple essential admin. functions, thankless jobs for which the pool of volunteers is modest indeed).

Out of all the good words, some basics should be clear by now. I think all agree that all the Wikimedia projects belong to the communities, and that the Foundation is there to serve and assist with some limited tasks. I think the principle that each community manages its affairs, including behaviour of all the volunteer roles, is reaffirmed. It seems less clear in some of the debates, but I hope some basic quasi-legal principles like the need for as public a working as possible, and some form of appeals mechanism for any corrective decision, are also clear. And to be honest, as a mid-range editor, who has seen Wikipedias at work in two different decades and stages of development, it also seems clear that T&S over-reached. en-wiki ArbCom *delegated* handling of some difficult issues (child protection, serious legal matters) to divisions of the WMF. It did not give up the community rights, and it never delegated, and the community would not, I believe, ever agree to such delegation, disciplinary matters. Claims of harrassment, some genuine, some just a way to get back at hard-working admins who have to deal with incredibly difficult issues and persistent bad behaviour, are clearly a matter for Admin and ArbCom handling. No grey area.

So, as a start, and before we lose anyone else, can someone just step up and say "sorry" - sorry for the original action, which needs to be formally reversed and referred to ArbCom, sorry for delayed and sometimes clumsy communications, sorry for misunderstanding. Then the process of building a better future can start. No excuses, no defensiveness, an apology and a clear sign of a willingness to learn. Please...

Best of luck, the months ahead will be tough, whatever happens, but I think most of us will stick with the projects, and the editing we love, SeoR (talk) 12:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to Hammersoft for the echo and amplification. And to address an important point, in case anyone misunderstands a point above - I fully support all efforts to address harassment, while understanding why it can be hard to develop effective and balanced policies. No one should suffer for editing here, or for genuinely trying to contribute. But the place to address this is in each wiki community, a small (compared to the combined communities) central team with various specific duties, cannot fix this. If this needs improvement, the community (even if only a couple of hundred Admins and a few thousand other editors actively participate in many debates) has enough collective knowledge to do this, perhaps supported by WMF experts. We need mutual respect, but should avoid over-reaction, or reduction of standards to address perceived problems. SeoR (talk) 14:45, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

No more delays

I'll echo SeoR above, but wanted to amplify. Katherine, at this writing of yours you indicated that there would be something new to offer by Monday at the latest. It is now Tuesday. You've made considerable edits on this page. I truly, truly appreciate the engagement you have demonstrated with this community. I don't want to minimize that by saying "But" or "However". It shouldn't be minimized in any way. So far, there has been nothing concrete that has been done. General ideas have been voiced, some plans that have been moving for some time have been commented upon, but nothing about this incident has been done. This isn't acceptable. Quite a number of us were expecting something by yesterday, and nothing happened. This was exacerbated by Jimbo's comment here, which left many of us with the impression that a statement was imminent. More than 24 hours after that, and there's been nothing. Further, Jan Eissfeldt said on June 30 that a response was planned for Monday, July 1 (ref: [7]). It's now July 2...and still nothing.

It has now been over three weeks since this crisis erupted. Did you know that in the 24 hours after the United Express Flight 3411 incident UAL lost US$800 million in market cap (ref: [8])? Within 48 hours after the incident, CEO Munoz had made a statement and took corrective action. While we have your comments here, it is not a statement. There is no apology. There is no corrective action. Multiple assurances that implied or outright said there would be something on July 1 have been broken. We are now 520 hours into this crisis, more than 10 times as long as it took Munoz to act. This is simply flat unacceptable, unconscionable, and demonstrates severe incompetence on the part of the WMF. We've received excuses of it being the weekend, of it being after hours, of it being the end of the fiscal year, of employee evaluations having to be done, of one board member not yet agreeing to the statement, and more. If UAL had used any of these excuses to delay their response, they would have been slaughtered in the stock market by an order of magnitude more than they were. Can you imagine the headlines? "UAL CEO; 'I'm busy doing employee evals'" <facepalm>

If you hold any faith in our communities, if you hold any belief that your job means something, if you hold any power in this organization and are not a puppet of a board of trustees that has refused to act for three weeks now, TAKE ACTION. Soothing words here are not enough. MOVE. The time for waiting is over. The time for delays is over. Patience is shot. No more excuses. No more broken assurances. ACT. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:24, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

"The Executive Director has charge of the business and affairs of the Foundation, subject to the direction and control of the Board of Trustees,..." [9] - MrX 🖋 18:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I expect the Board will share something very shortly, and I intend to follow up with a focus on next steps. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

"Overall, it’s a serious crisis for a community built on the ideal of gathering the sum of all human knowledge."

Wikipedia’s “Constitutional Crisis” Pits Community Against Foundation

In case you're interested. - MrX 🖋 16:35, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, I read it on my commute this morning. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned about the fact that the foundation has had time to talk to Slate, but that there has been little progress for a resolution here. That may be taken for another signal for the relative priorities of things.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Stephan Schulz, see I was going to say the opposite. I was glad that rather than give no comment like they did for Buzzfeed that they did provide the sort of boilerplate statement that we've received. I continue to eagerly await the statement that Jimbo and Doc James have promised is forthcoming as a chance to really move the conversation forward and perhaps achieve some resolution. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:01, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I do understand the perception and concern. However, different folks at the Foundation work on different things -- the communications team responds to press requests, but that's happening in parallel to conversations with T&S and the Board. Personally, most of my day yesterday and all of my day today thus far has been conversation or on email with Trustees about the forthcoming Board statement and possible next steps. People are taking this very seriously and weighing every word -- which as Wikip/medians well know, can take time among a heterogeneous group of people. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 18:23, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• Or here. I've also been here, though I've tried to use most of the "working hours" of the day while colleagues are online to be in touch with them, and the "off hours" to be here. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

At least some of us have noticed that you've been engaging in conversations here until after 11pm SF-time. Regardless of the merits of various related criticism levelled here, I feel that fact should be at least noted. --Xover (talk) 18:36, 2 July 2019 (UTC)