This is a super-fast comments policy because people have been asking for it: I will probably refine it at some future point.
Upshot: I am happy when people comment – I invite you to comment if you haven’t yet, and I thank you for commenting if you have :-)
I’m happy to get comments here from Wikimedia Foundation staff and board and community members —whether I know them personally or not, whether they are commenting in their official role or giving personal opinions—, and also from people on the periphery of the Wikimedia movement. (By definition: if you’re here, you are either part of the Wikimedia movement, or you’re adjacent to it. As The Last Psychiatrist sometimes says: if you’re reading this, it’s for you :-)
But this is never going to be a super-lively discussion space. It isn’t designed for that, and I can’t support it — because I don’t have time to actively curate (solicit, approve, respond to) comments, and because I pre-moderate comments in order to eliminate the risk of having spam or libel sitting here for hours. That means the time lag between someone posting a comment and it being published is necessarily going to prevent easy, open discussion. That’s too bad, but it’s not avoidable.
So. In general, I approve about two-thirds of non-spam comments, and they go up unedited. The wait may be as little as a minute, or as long as a day. (Sorry!) The average is probably an hour or two. If eight hours pass and your comment’s not up, probably either it’s sitting unnoticed in the WordPress filter or I’ve deleted it. Feel free to try again if you want.
In general, I’ll approve your comment unless it is unusually unkind or has the potential to be harmful – particularly if the unkindness/harm is aimed at people other than me, who aren’t here to defend themselves. I don’t allow personal attacks, trolling, insinuations and accusations, invasions of privacy, and so forth.
And I’ll say preemptively that this blog is not an accountability mechanism for the Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikimedia projects. There are many different places where critics (including friendly ones!) can raise questions and explore concerns. This is not one of those: this is just my personal blog. I want this to be a place where people can kick around ideas in a low-key, good-faith context: I don’t want people scared off by a hostile atmosphere.
So please comment, and please do it in a constructive, friendly way :-)
Sue Gardner's Blog 
Hey Sue! I was wondering where do I sign up to leave an appeal at wikipedia and also where do I send my photo. I want to be famous after all!! :) Thanks and God bless!
User:AntonioMartin
I find Wikipedia very handy and interesting. I think Wikipedia is a good source of information for lay people who want to get it immediately. Good luck to your progress!
I find Wikipedia very handy and interesting. I think Wikipedia is a good source of information for people who want to get it immediately. Good luck to your progress!
I think it’s interesting that you’re concerned about libel in blog comments sitting around, leading you to activate moderation. Meanwhile any anonymous user can libel anyone on Wikipedia without moderation.
Read the article about women and wikipedia in the NYT today. Here is the thing — it is not that women somehow feel oppressed or afraid to voice their opinions. It is just that holding yourself out as an expert and blathering on about things, without being asked, is viewed as rude by most women. “Blowhard” is the name for it, I believe (my brother is one of these). Now, if you ask a woman for information, particularly if you ask in such a way that makes the woman feel you need her help, well then she is more than happy to provide all that you need. If you want to get more women into Wikipedia, ask for their help, and send the message that participation will be helpful to others. They will be there.
Hi sue
Also read the NYT article, I think it is terrible that the gender gap is so huge, I read this article the other day…
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/100421_gender.htm
I think remedying this problem should be wikipedia’s top priority and the most cost efficient way to improve the project (content and community)… something as simple as a banner with the photo of a girl contributing to wikipedia.
I don’t know how influential you are in the project, but I sincerely hope you can convince everyone there that role models matter, and that its a safe bet that girls (half the population) are more effected by positive role models than state libraries. :)
Hi Sue,
this is the link to your TEDxDubai talk : http://vimeo.com/19532861
I am sorry we could not meet after your speech.
Regards,
Giorgio
[…] policies Profitplus.com’s suggestion Sue Gardner‘s comments policy (She’s the Executive Director of the Wikimedia foundation) Andy Beard has a good list, aimed […]
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Anne Elizabeth Moore is the author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity[1] (New Press, 2007) and “Unofficial Histories: Zine and Ephemeral Print Archivists,”[2] and Hey Kidz, Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People.[3]
From November 2007 to February 2008, Ms. Moore taught self-publishing to 32 girls at a high school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and later described their creations in Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh.[4]
She is a former editor of Best American Comics and Punk Planet[5], and former managing editor of The Comics Journal[6]. She teaches Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago[7].
I started writing this article after reading that only 15% of Wikipedia’s contributors are women, and realized that a lot of women like Anne Elizabeth Moore get left out because male reviewers have no fucking idea about scenes that are actually important to women, like zines, and now… SURPRISE!!!
Some male reviewer just can’t understand why one of the founding editors of Punk Planet and the author of three books about zines is important enough to be included along side the “Anne Moore” who was a member of the British Equestrian Team in 1972! Horses! That’s something a guy can understand! Zines? Not so much!
I just want to vote KEEP on Sue Gardner. Thanks for raising important issues. Wikimedia Foundation is a better place for having you at the helm.
Love your insights born of a hyper-productive life mission. Here is a health-travel tip for you– olive leaf extract (in liquid form). It is one of nature’s few anti-viral/ anti-bacterial substances. It works in a flash, can be used as a preventive measure or to zap the nasty viruses while they’re propagating. I’m sure Wikipedia has a entry on it, but olive leaf extract actually dissolves the cell membranes of viruses!
Teaching in higher ed, I am exposed to all sorts of airborne dangers and have found olive leaf extract to be the best defense. Keep up the great work!
Hi Sue,
I just listened to your interview regarding the gender gap. I do not claim to have found a magic bullet, or a complete solution to that problem. I do, however, believe that I have proposed an idea that, with more attention and feedback, could become one of many vital pillars for increasing reader conversion – including the conversion of female readers into editors.
That plan continues to be outlined and discussed at “Wikipedia:Sticky notes”. It has received a fair deal of positive feedback – so how do we get the attention of those with the power to affect change?
Thanks for your time. I hope to hear from you.
-Jesse D
Hey Sue–
I saw video of your talk in the UK to the WikiUK Executive Board folks and liked your bit on “rogue administrators” being a significant problem. I wish you would do a whole column on this topic to increase visibility of the issue.
I’d also like to ask to be connected with somebody at WMF that could provide a data dump a list of contributors not by total edits, which is easy to find and somewhat uninformative, but rather by content created in terms of bytes of information added to mainspace. The first key to retaining content creators is identifying the existing content creator crew and getting those people organized, I think.
Thought for the day: calling WP volunteers “editors” is a generic obstruction of the way things should be viewed. There are “content creators,” “quality control workers,” and “rules enforcement volunteers.” How many of each of these are there? Is there a time series for these counts?
best regards,
Tim Davenport
Corvallis, OR
“Carrite” on WP
MutantPop@aol.com
Many people love Wikimedia but may not have disposable income to donate nevertheless they may donate time to people in their circle-of-influence and those people donate to Wikimedia.
An Idea Worth Spreading
The Idea:
People apply their talent, skill, ability, or work experience for others in their community (people in their circle-of-influence). They do not accept pay. That would be work-for-hire. That’s not what this is. This is community service in the public interest.
The Secret:
Volunteer your time with this caveat: The recipient responds quid pro quo by donating in your name to a cause you choose.
This is how I contribute. It always works. People enthusiastically participate. They benefit from what I do for them and feel connected, engaged. I benefit contributing to the community and the community benefits while at the same time good causes and the nation benefit.
Dear Sue: Thanks for the work you do and your very exciting book list. Congratulations on the 4 star ranking for WikiMedia in Charity Navigator. This is a bit akward but, it shows that your salary/compensation is over $200,000. I just thought it might be good to ask, how to you reconcile a relatively higher salary than most with the nonprofit mission of WikiMedia:? Is there any concern that this knowledge would make people more reluctant to donate? Best regards,
Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place, re-read a bit of your blog intro and really I don’t want to cause any embarrassment or come across as critical. I guess you can feel free to move the post to a more appropriate forum, I am out of time to figure out where that would be despite following the link “many different places.”
Hi Marion, and thanks for your question — I don’t think it’s awkward at all; I’m happy to answer it. And here is fine :-)
I hear you about sensitivity to donors’ opinions. And we do aim to be careful with donor dollars — we get money from a wide range of ordinary people including lots of students, and we want to use it well. To that end, we’ve put a lot of effort into ensuring our compensation practices are fair and justifiable. So I’ve got no problem accounting for what I make: I think it’s a totally reasonable question for people to ask, and I don’t mind answering it.
My salary’s set by my Board of Trustees. To set it, my Board collected together a half-dozen or so salary surveys published by governance/non-profit experts like Guidestar, BoardSource, the Center for Non-Profit Management, and the Non-Profit Times. The surveys showed compensation data for EDs and other execs at non-profits, sortable by size, type and location. The Board also consulted with recruiters in the non-profit practices at Russell Reynolds, Korn/Ferry and Spencer Stuart, and commissioned a salary recommendation from an independent compensation specialist in the Bay Area. The Board used all that data to figure out what seemed to be average compensation for an ED at a non-profit of our size and scope and scale, and then offered me that, which I accepted. So, my salary is absolutely in line with what non-profits like Wikimedia would be expected to pay, and what they do actually pay in practice.
(Wikipedia’s a top-5 website, and it goes without saying that CEOs at other top sites (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Facebook) make a lot more than I do. But their context, and their actual work, is completely different from mine. So we don’t use any of that info for setting my salary.)
Some non-profits offer their execs perqs such as transportation or entertainment allowances, first-class travel, deferred comp, etc. We don’t do any of that, for me or anyone at the Wikimedia Foundation. Our general approach is that we offer what we consider to be fair and reasonable salaries, plus reasonably good benefits such as good health insurance and 401(k) matching. If you’re interested, you can read more about what we do here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/2a/Wikimedia_Foundation_Compensation_Practices.pdf.
Thanks again for your question, and thanks for reading the blog :-)
Hello Sue, I am a major Wikipedia user. Have been for years, and I have frequently donated. I saw your appeal for donations, and as I always do, I research who is asking before I donate. I found your blog and read some of your opinions, And I must say, one of my favorite things about Wiki is the illusion of no agendas and no political bias. Your comparisons of Wiki and Occupy Wall Street are disturbing to me. While I support peaceful legal protest, obviously the Occupy people do not. This idea you have that these movements should be connected has convinced me not to donate, and has changed my opinion of Wiki in general. Thank You for your time, If you even read this.
I have written several books about houses in Devon South West England and their families but found that some of the present wikipedia articles need wholesale rewriting, which I am more than happy to do. Advice is given on corrections and minor editing but how does one replace a complete article ?
Hi Charles — I’ve been in that situation too. I’ll tell you how I handle it, and maybe other people will come along with additional ideas.
What I tend to do is write text that’s better (and better sourced) than the existing text. I add it to the existing article section-by-section, then delete the existing text in the same way. So for example on the shoplifting article, I have added Overview, History, Motivations and Differences by geography sections. After I’ve fleshed out the article by adding new and better information, I’ll start removing unsourced material and badly written sections that, by then, will be duplicated by the better material I’ve added. Essentially — I add good new stuff, then delete the worse older stuff. I try to preserve good old material in the new stuff I write (if there are good sources, or information that’s not in the material I’ve written myself), but if there’s nothing valuable I delete it all. I figure that somebody else can always restore it if they see something useful in it.
By the way — I don’t do this for high-quality existing articles, for articles that have been edited by lots of people, or where the topic is controversial. In those cases, it’s more polite to propose edits on the talk page beforehand, because any edits are likelier to be contentious. (And wholesale deletions are likely inappropriate anyway, because these types of articles are normally not terrible.) But for poorly-written historical articles on uncontroversial topics, I doubt anyone would object if you just wrote better material and deleted what’s currently there.
Good luck, and thank you for tackling those articles :-)
I want to respond to Patrick here too. Patrick, first, thank you for having donated to the Wikimedia Foundation — we appreciate your support. I’m sorry you found my Occupy post disturbing. Two quick things I would say: 1) The post was about discussion and decision-making practices used in the Occupy movement, not about their political goals. I wasn’t praising their politics — rather, their methods. More importantly, 2) Regardless of my own views, it’s worth noting that neither I nor anyone else at the Wikimedia Foundation has the ability to shape the editorial material in Wikipedia, any more than any other editor. That of course is a feature, not a bug. Wikipedia’s a very very big tent — the people who edit it represent a very broad array of political beliefs, religions, cultures, geographies, ages, social classes, and so forth — there is much more diversity at Wikipedia than in, for example, any newsroom I have ever worked for. And, decision-making at Wikipedia happens via consensus process, which means that people’s individual biases (whatever they may be) are mitigated and counter-balanced by the views and information that others bring to the table. People talk, and through talking (sharing sources, debating reliability, etc.) articles over time become smarter and more nuanced. If you’re interested, you can see some of that process happening for example here and here.
You go Girl, miss you, the Gerris in Kingsville “thanks for all the fish”
OMG Gerri! I love you guys: thanks for saying hi :-)
Thanks for all your fine work with Wikimedia and at CBC.ca before. Looking forward to learning about your next venture.