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By Jorgenev, Jan eissfeldt and Jarry1250

Chapter funding discussion hits public forum

After the Board of the Trustees last week published a letter threatening to withdraw direct funding from those chapters that did not conform to a number of criteria including expectations on transparency, most discussion was on the internal-l mailing list, a private list now used for WMF-chapter communications. The news came just weeks after new funraising agreements had been signed with the chapters, which required them to submit a budget to the WMF to have access to the funds required. According to Wikimedia David Gerard, "quite a lot" of chapters complained about features of the letter, whilst none had enthusiastically welcomed it. This week the discussion spilled over into the public mailing list foundation-l, opening it up to the wider Wikimedian community, who responded with a number of viewpoints.

Some were critical of chapters' apparent resistance to the pro-transparency message. "What chapters seem to want is for the WMF to sign over the trademarks they need to do their own fundraising, and then simply hand over a portion of the WMF's own revenue on top of that... there's nothing particularly 'normal' or 'fair' about it" wrote Kirill Lokshin, an arbitrator on the English Wikipedia. Nawrich agreed that the Foundation's position was understandable, noting that it had responsibilities to donors, add that "any misuse of funds by a chapter using Wikimedia marks would reflect back on the Foundation" anyway. "At least criteria are to be put in place now than never. For chapters in good order they should not be an issue" wrote FT2.

There was also sympathy for the chapters. "Being on the board of a small nonprofit organization is both incredibly fun and rewarding and also totally not fun and thankless" (commented Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. WMAU member John Vandenberg had numbers to show that chapters were influential in driving fundraising (and hence in supporting the Foundation itself), wrote David Gerard. For him, the letter and its aftermath represented "a potentially catastrophic failure of volunteer liaison". WMUK member Chris Keating and French Wikimedian Anthere agreed with the sentiment that chapters were very valuable institutions both in terms of fundraising and their ability to provide "local partnerships with institutions they know about".

It seems to me that these changes are about making chapters more into franchises. Which I find to be exactly backwards. Chapters in my mind should be diverse entities. - BirgitteSB ([1])

The key thing to understand here: there is no desire or agenda to take away power and autonomy from chapters. But there is a strong moral duty to note that financial controls, reporting requirements, transparency, and evaluation of effectiveness are always at the top of our agenda. - Jimbo ([2]).

I strongly support that chapters should be innovative, creative, and independent... I think we should have a model in which chapters near-automatically receive funds in a timely fashion. But not automatically, not without accountability to themselves, to the communities serve directly, and to the broader movement. The WMF has a moral responsibility to be engaged with this. - Jimbo II ([3])

Just to be clear, this is more or less the model that I personally advocate: that the WMF turn over a portion of its revenue to chapters every year, without question, based on a simple and non-controlling framework of accountability and responsibility. - Jimbo III ([4]).

One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [.and it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns. - Phoebe Ayers, speaking for herself not the board or staff ([5])

Counterpoint? http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/244500

Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia?

Susan Gerbic at The Amaz!ng Meeting 2011 gave a talk on "guerrilla skepticism on Wikipedia and how important that is as skeptics for us to get the message out there" —oh dear. "Its not vandalism, which it kinds of sounds like, because we are totally following the rules" she said. Not vandalism? True. But, following the rules? Not so much that either.

Whats really strange is that as an atheist skeptic myself I have found our content to be pretty inline with my world views. It was my understanding that the hardcore atheist POV camp was one of the strongest and most institutionalized onwiki, but Gerbic described the "skeptical content" on Wikipedia as "not very good".

Well, its better than guerrilla creationism. Maybe we will be able to get some new contributors out of this and reform them —otherwise be on the watch for suspicious editing activity on the skeptical articles font.

The Bugle: Issue LXV published

The July issue of WikiProject Military history's newsletter The Bugle has been published. It contains

News in brief

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Thank you for your frankness. My agenda is obvious, I want to improve pages, reflecting cited articles that focus on critically thinking about subjects. Many pseudoscience articles rely on vagueness and only giving a slight nod to anything that is factual. I'm thinking about the blog I published last night on psychic Archaeology http://guerrillaskepticismonwikipedia.blogspot.com/2011/08/psychic-archaeology-on-wikipedia.html as a great example.

I also advocate that the pages of our spokespeople are clearly lacking. I do not want to cover up anything negative (see Brian Dunning (skeptic) for a great example of leaving negative where it was put. I know that Wikipedia is the single most important tool readers have to understand the world around them. When they are searching for one of our spokespeople, we need to make sure we have their backs, and frankly I do think that overall our representation is horrible. I wish that wasn't so, but with a few exceptions of the really popular people we have mostly stubs representing us. Shame!

As far as your assertion that I am not "following the rules" I would like to see that clarified so it can be discussed. Maybe I am doing something wrong but until I know what that is I can't change my behavior. I'm a self taught editor learning as I go. I'm passing on my thoughts, frustrations and tips to people on a blog (off-site Wikipedia) and hoping for help from others.

I look forward to your comments.

Sgerbic (talk) 16:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to understand how removing bias on pages promoting pseudoscience by introducing a balanced POV is not following the rules. In fact, it is desired by Wikipedia. Yes, this makes some topics more controversial and targets for cultish editing to remove such balanced POV, but this is nothing new to Wikipedia and an ongoing battle. --FreedominThought (talk) 18:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm at work right now —I will answer your objections in three hours. jorgenev 20:30, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: The above conversation appears to refer to earlier versions of the story, e.g. this one, which differ from the published version. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Inteligent Design for an article that is completely dominated by a clique of self-righteous skeptics. You can hurt the project while still "following rules": The regulars there preferred to have the article to loose it's Good Article status than fix balance the coverage. The article should be about a concept, but it's actually about a legal case in the U.S.. --damiens.rf 17:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean "lose its Good Article status"? It's a Featured Article! --69.26.46.169 (talk) 17:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Following the rules" is neither necessary nor sufficient for the purposes of Wikipedia. The goal is to produce encyclopaedic articles, not to push the agenda of either "true believers" or "skeptics". For this reason the balance will vary from article to article, a comprehensive description of an "alternative system of medicine" for example, might be extensively citable, while there may be very little citable either supporting or opposing the treatments, and if there were it might well be better spun out as a separate article. The dangers of public calls to action, however well intentioned, are something that Wikipedia has been subject too many times and has, so far as we know, weathered, but not without creating a lot of needless conflict. Rich Farmbrough, 17:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC).[reply]

  • We definitely need more skeptics and scientists involved. Hopefully this will attract more people to the community. Skepticism is a critical part of any academic work. We cannot let our articles be exclusively written by "believers" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Skeptics are believers just as well. And they believe to be the only one right just like any other fundamentalist. Believing in Papal infallibility: Dumb. Believing in Inductive reasoning infallibility: Smart. I don't see the difference. --damiens.rf 19:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Err, yeah, that about sums up the basis of the scientific method. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Inteligent Design article is now featured and the lead is well written. Not sure to what damiens refers too.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delayed response, but while I do agree that parts of the Psychic archaeology article could be written more bluntly ("The problem with psychic archaeology is that it has no verified accomplishments"), I think you're a little harsh on the article as a whole. The dowsing section has to give how dowsing works *according to the theory of the dowsers*. It doesn't help to add "and this doesn't actually work" every other sentence. This is probably more clear if you think of articles on old scientific theories that have been surpassed; it's entire legitimate to talk about "when the four humors are out of balance, the easiest way to restore them is to drain away the excessive humor, such as via leeches to the blood." We know that this isn't very helpful these days, and when leeching is helpful it's not for the claimed reasons, but in an article on the four humors, Wikipedia should present what practitioners believed and how they applied the system. Same here; let dowsing theory stand on its own, then mention in the lede and in the Validity section that it doesn't work. SnowFire (talk) 23:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What the pseudoscience skeptics, and anyone else, need to understand is how important the overall tone of an article is. That is one of the problems with the Inteligent Design article in that its overall tone is one of skepticism towards the entire idea of Inteligent Design. Someone reading a Wikipedia article should not be able to tell which side it is taking on the topic. In my experience, if you bring up the subject of "balance" with some skeptical editors, they will respond that the advocacy side for the topic, for example, those who promote Intelligent Design, is "fringe" and "undue". Cla68 (talk) 07:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One always has to take a sceptical approach to anything, otherwise one can't distinguish fact from fiction. This is how the "scientific method" works, it has led to the modern technological world, including Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 17:24, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And what's wrong with noting that something is a fringe belief? Or that a particular POV is receiving undue weight in an article? Nothing. Powers T 21:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, if an article is truly NPOV, the reader should not be able to tell which side it is taking on an issue or topic. If one side is labeled "fringe" it should be described as such in the voice of a reliable source, not Wikipedia's voice. Cla68 (talk) 04:49, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't talking about identifying it within an article. You referred to "bring[ing] up the subject of 'balance' with some skeptical editors", which implies discussion about what is "fringe" and "undue", not placing such claims within the text of an article. There is nothing wrong with an editor, in discussion, properly and correctly identifying a fringe view as "fringe". Powers T 12:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chapter funding

I think the phrase "threatening to withdraw direct funding" is a bit inaccurate and may reflect, or seem to reflect, a particular point of view on the issue that isn't shared by everyone (including, I'm sure, the Board itself). While the letter suggests that some chapters may not be able to participate in the fundraiser itself, I'm not sure I'd characterise it as a "threat"; additionally, substituting grant funding for fundraiser participation is still "direct" funding of a sort, and the affected chapters could still solicit and receive funding in other ways. Nathan T 20:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure "threat" is really a perjorative term. You can threaten someone for the right reasons, or you can threaten them for the wrong reasons. I don't think the word itself makes a difference.
Point taken about "direct" funding though. That's probably the wrong word. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 11:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

LDS

WP has both a standard style guide (wp:MOSLDS) and a naming convention (wp:NCLDS) for how to appropriately describe the Latter Day Saint movement; how is it that this article could get that most basic element so wrong? You could have said "...elements of the Latter Day Saint movement have said they..." or "...elements of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church) have said they..." and been more correct, but the existing wording is simply wrong. Since the Church News article was about a presentation given at a Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) conference, it would have been even more accurate to characterize the comments as coming from that group, since there is no official connection between FAIR and the LDS Church. We also have an existing article on Church News, so a wikilink on it would have been useful for readers to understand what that publication is. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 20:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Its still a wiki; I've wikilinked the Church News reference as you suggested. As for the name of the Church... Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church) leaves out a couple of words, perhaps in the interest of brevity (I didn't write it) but it does wikilink to the correct place, and I doubt anyone will be confused as to the reference. Nathan T 21:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, no, it doesn't link to the right place -- it redirects to Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints), an organization that doesn't currently exist, but has several sects that claim to be the continuation/successor of that organization after the succession crisis. Unless Signpost editors are prepared to declare that the LDS Church as the single true claimant to the original organization founded by Joseph Smith among all of the Latter Day Saint sects, perhaps a truer description, with the correct name, would be better. Those affiliated with WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement try to avoid POV issues like this by adhering to the wp:NCLDS & wp:MOSLDS, regardless of any individual personal beliefs about this core topic in the Latter Day Saint movement. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 21:35, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since you are obviously familiar with the application of the guidelines in question, perhaps you could fix the article? Thanks. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 21:39, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As for how we (I) got this wrong, it's because we (here, I) was writing under immense time pressure. I apologise if any members of the movement were offended by my choice of the words, but I don't think that anyone would have misunderstood them. (Thanks Nathan for updating the article.) - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 21:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the revisions that 208.81.184.4 made, and I added a comma. On an loosely related note, I read the FAIR article, and I think "promoting Mormonism" might not be quite the right term. They seem to be taking more of a defensive stance. But I don't have a lot of experience there, and could be wrong. -- Adjwilley (talk) 00:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the suggestion for the news article itself mostly implies a moderate ("defensive") view although suggestions that alternatively-viewed editors "own" articles would suggest that their is some "offensive" work to be done from the author's POV. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 11:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're right - there is no obligation to be NPOV - as this should reflect Wikipedia's (or Wikipedian's) viewpoint. I do think that the promote is too strong a word. Don't worry about your speedy writing - I used to write for the Signpost ("In the news" editor for about a half year back in 2006) - the pressures to be done on time are unique in the Wikipedia world. --Trödel 16:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We obviously slightly different interpretations of the word. No worries. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 16:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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