Wikipedia talk:Education Working Group/RfC/Archive01

Notes

• Removing this bullet: "Enable the Wikimedia Foundation to focus its efforts on its other work, satisfying its desire to see the US and Canada Education Program operate independently while ensuring it supports the overall Wikimedia movement strategic goals" because I'm not sure it's accurate to say our new organization will help people at WMF do their job.
• Removing this sentence: "In early 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation’s board decided to [need an accurate characterization of the board decision to limit EP funding, and a link]" because the WMF board was not involved in the decision to spin off the US/Canada.
• Actually, I replaced the first paragraph of the "WMF role" section with the direct text from the original Working Group documents.
• In regard to all funding issues/comments, I've changed the terminology to "will seek funding" or "will ask for funding", since we will not know until December whether the Wikimedia Foundation will provide any funding to the new organization.
• For this question "What about support for education programs outside the US and Canada?", I am just changing the wording to more accurately reflect how Education Programs currently operate.
• Also removing some of the negative language around the funding requests, since I think our RfC should be much more positive overall. I think we've had many conversations about how this is a positive opportunity, so I'd like to represent it accurately to those who have a limited scope of what's been going on.
• I'm just removing this question "Why is the initial funding for this organization not provided via the Funds Dissemination Committee?" because I think it will be obvious to anyone who knows about the FDC that we're not seeking funding from them because they don't exist/operate yet.
• Adding in a link to the original FAQs we wrote about the relationship of the new structure to WMF and the Working Group in general. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Pros and cons - providing academic resources to WP editors

This statement: ..and will seek to provide editors free access to academic resources such as scholarly books, journals, and conferences in the scope section of the RfC has become contentious. We need resolution as soon as practical.

There are two goals in play here.

• In the future picture - In June 2015, the US-Canada Education Program is providing human, curriculum, and other incentive resources to support on-going and innovative uses of Wikipedia and related projects in education that promotes free knowledge, information fluency, improves the breath, scope and quality of Wikimedia project content as well as growing editor participation.
• In Phase I Objectives - The Wikipedia Community understands the proposed US-Canada Education Program strategy, the structure by which the proposed program will operate, the volunteer roles the community will support associated with program and the Wikipedia Community is not opposing the creation of an independent US-Canada Education Program.

Any statement in (scope or goals) that indicates the Education Program may or will provide academic resources to WP editors is merely a statement of tactics that will help achieve the above future picture and Phase I objectives. i.e. The assumption is that incentivizing editors with academic resources (something that is already taking place) will 1) help improve WP content quality and scope, 2) motivate editors to continue with WP, and 3) contribute to gaining community wide support for the new program.

Finally, the ultimate decision to actually implement such activity will ultimately fall to the leadership of the new organization, not this working group. They will weigh the advantages/disadvantages of operating such a program within their capacity and against their strategic goals. It is the job of this working group to craft an RfC that gives the WP community a realistic and honest opportunity to evaluate and provide comment on the proposal for the new organization. To do so, we need to stop bickering and make an informed decision. We have to move on. So there are only two sides to this question. What are the pros and cons of including a statement in the scope section about the provision of academic resources to WP editors. Please weigh-in. A pro argument is support for the statement. A con argument is opposition to the statement. I empower Mike Christie to adjudicate this so that the RfC can move forward. Your friendly facilitator --Mike Cline (talk) 22:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Pro

• We are talking here about the RfC to editors. We need a strategy to appeal to these editors. So far we are offering them zip in this RfC -- and they have little reason to support the RfC. Furthermore we know a) the editors really want it--thousands have signed up in the last month or two; b) we can deliver it immediately (in December). Rjensen (talk) 23:26, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

We are making tactical decisions about the content of the program right now in proposing a plan to the WMF at the end of October, which will include a list of staff and a detailed budget listing all sorts of projects we want them to fund in Phase II. Those items are legitimate for discussion in the RfC. It is nonsense to say the WMF board on Oct 27 should approve and fund a mystery operation with unknown projects. Likewise the editors can't be given a mystery package to comment upon. Rjensen (talk) 00:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Con

• I agree that we should focus on strategies rather than tactics, so support leaving this out. Once we start enumerating tactics, then opens a whole new set of items to discuss, which I agree should be part of the new leadership's responsibility. (Though I do think we can encourage the new ED to take a leadership role with such an important tactic.) DStrassmann (talk) 23:10, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
• I also support leaving statements like this out of the RfC and proposal to WMF. I thought we'd agreed in Chicago that we will provide our suggestions in this form to the new board/leadership but that this is not the pressing issue that the Working Group should be addressing in our limited time. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with Mike Cline's argument. We want these incentives, but they shouldn't be in the RfC. I appreciate Richard's point, but the RfC shouldn't be about appealing to editors; it should be a neutral statement of fact. Here the neutral statement is that we don't know this will happen, and we don't control it -- whoever runs the new organization will make this sort of decision. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Ditto all of the above. This was decided in Chicago - let's not rehash old arguments. Pjthepiano (talk) 01:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• I agree too. Sgelbman (talk) 16:59, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Note: in the interests of time I am going to go ahead and edit the statements out of the RfC; it's my understanding that the consensus in Chicago was not to say this in the RfC. If the outcome of the vote above supports including such a statement I will reinsert it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:51, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Earmarked funds

My recollection of the conversations in DC was that there was a WMF policy decision that had a significant impact on the education program; if I recall correctly, it was decided that the WMF would not accept funds earmarked for a narrow purpose. The PPI grant could not be accepted under the new policy, for example. This policy decision had an impact on the structure of the program, and I had expected we would want to mention it. However, I could also see that it is essentially irrelevant at this point -- it addresses what is not proposed, not what is being proposed. If anyone else feels we should cover this point, please say so, but I'm OK with leaving it out. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Educational workshops

I cut this from the lead: "Reach out to new editors outside academe by providing educational workshops". I think this falls into the same category as the other cut statements -- it's desirable, it may happen, but it will be a tactical decision by the new board, as it's not a clear part of the original charter. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:45, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

General Comments

Looks good! --Rburdette (talk) 14:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
This looks awesome folks! Great work, RfC crew! Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 16:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• I suggest replacing "spring 2012" with the specific month, as spring is specific to the northern hemisphere.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

  Agreed; done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me, team, I support.--Bob Cummings (talk) 11:33, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Phrasing of RfC Question

Should we rephrase the actual question within the RfC? According to my understanding of the process to create Thematic Orgs, we, as a group of Wikimedians, can propose to the Affiliations Committee to create this new group. However, we obviously want and encourage community engagement, ownership of the program, and excitement. I'd like for us to make the most use of community feedback and perhaps change the RfC question to something along the lines of "How can we make our proposal/plan better?".

In this case, we would actually remove the options of "oppose" and "support" and would simply create a space for community input that the rest of the Working Group can observe and participate in. This would also give us the chance to have more conversations with interested folks about what exactly we're doing and why. What do you guys think? We'd essentially be literally requesting comments on how to improve our plan but with the clear indication that we will be moving forward with this (since that's how Thematic Orgs are apparently supposed to work!). JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Jami here and would suggest the question is actually not about the proposal per se, but the establishment of a Thematic Organization for the US Canada Education Program. Here's the existing language:

The working group should deliver the proposal to the WMF. "The proposal" refers to the section above, "Recommendations for the United States and Canada Education Program", and to the more detailed information linked from that section. Please indicate your support or opposition below. If you have additional feedback for the working group that is not covered by one of these statements, please either add it to your !vote, or add a comment to the discussion section below. The final proposal may include recommendations that emerge as a result of consensus of discussions on this page. The WMF staff evaluating the proposal will also read this RfC for feedback on this proposal, and may make further changes based on their review. The following notifications have been made: Village Pump, (etc.)

Would it be more realistic to ask the question differently like this?:

Should the WMF establish the US Canada Education Program as an independent, thematic organization? as outlined in the section above, "Recommendations for the United States and Canada Education Program", and in the more detailed strategy and working group information linked from that section. Please indicate your support or opposition below. If you have additional feedback for the working group that is not covered by one of these statements, please either add it to your !vote, or add a comment to the discussion section below. The final proposal may include recommendations that emerge as a result of consensus of discussions on this page. The WMF staff evaluating the proposal will also read this RfC for feedback on this question, and may make further changes based on their review. The following notifications have been made: Village Pump, (etc.)

--Mike Cline (talk) 19:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree this is a better phrasing -- the "deliver the proposal" phrase made it seem as if we'd do nothing if the result was oppose; in fact the WMF is going to read the proposal and the RfC no matter what, so asking whether the organization should be created seems more accurate. I'll make the change now; if anyone disagrees with this, please post a note here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for both of your agreements, though I have to say I'm not reading Mike Cline's summary of my own suggestion as representative of what I meant. Let me try to clarify again. So the phrasing of the actual RfC question is still very much "do you support or oppose our forming this Thematic Organization?", but what I meant is that this is inherently not the question we want to be asking to form a Thematic Organization, as it does not align with the Them. Org. process. However, what seems like a better space for communication, discussion, and feedback is to phrase the RfC more along the lines of "What is the most effective way to build on the Education Program and make sure it's aligned with the community?". This is the phrasing that I believe will produce the best conversations around the changes we should actually incorporate into the WMF proposal and the new structure in general. Please discuss as a group. If everyone agrees it should be the current version, I will, of course, support it. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend that we do not start the RfC question with "Should the WMF...". This creates the perfect bait for Wikipedians angry at the WMF for whatever reason to rant about the WMF and vote according to those feelings instead of the actual content in the RfC. It's a perfect way to feed into any anti-WMF emotions some Wikipedia community members may have, and that would be an unfair and unfortunate way for this RfC to go down. Plus, it is the Working Group — not WMF — that has done the vast majority (if not all) of the valuable work that we now see in this RfC. I would strongly suggest that the main "actor" in the phrasing of the RfC question be the Working Group, not WMF. Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 21:25, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Plus, "no, the WMF should not establish the US/Canada Program as an independent entity" is not an option. The WMF has decided to spin out the US/Canada programs, and there is no going back (unless we want the US/Canada programs to simply die). So this is not a good way to phrase the question. The question should be phrased in a way where both Yes and No answers actually mean something realistic and actionable. Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 21:27, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the real question is whether the new entity should be created or not. However, Annie, I don't agree that there is no alternative. The programs could indeed simply die. I don't think this will happen, but suppose the consensus opinion in the community was that the education program was a net negative to Wikipedia, and we should not encourage classes to work with Wikipedia, or publicize that that's possible. Then the community would not want the new organization created. If that's the consensus, we should communicate that to the WMF.

As for whether the WMF should be mentioned, I take your point, and on balance I think it should be removed, though not quite for the reasons you give. It really is the WMF that will decide whether to create the new organization, after all. The Working Group has created the proposal, but it is the WMF that will have to act. However, I think it's a red herring to mention the WMF: it's not relevant how the organization should be created, just that it be created.

Jami, I don't agree with your analysis, assuming I haven't misunderstood it. For the reasons I give above, I think the question has to be phrased not as "how can we support...", but as a statement of the community's support or lack of it. I know we would all be deeply disappointed if the community decides it doesn't want to create an education program, but we can't tell it what to think. We don't control the WMF's decision, and it may decide to spin out the new organization despite community opposition, but it's not our job to try to prevent or encourage that opposition, just to present the proposal and get feedback. Here's the desired effect of the CEP: "By November 30, 2012 the Wikipedia Community Engagement Process has ensured the Wikipedia community has been explicitly and thoroughly informed of the existence and purpose of the U.S. Canada Education Working Group to include the strategic purpose of the U.S. Canada Education Program, has been provided opportunity for comment and inputs on working group proposals, and is comfortable that the community is having meaningful influence on working group proposals and the future of the U.S. Canada Education Program." This doesn't say that the community can veto the creation of this organization, but it specifies that the community is having meaningful influence on the proposals. Denying the community a way to say it doesn't want the program in the first place would be a mistake. We need to have faith that we did a good enough job that that won't be the outcome.

I am going to change the question to Should the US Canada Education Program be established as an independent, thematic organization, as outlined in the section above, "Recommendations for the United States and Canada Education Program", and in the more detailed strategy and working group information linked from that section? which removes the mention of the WMF. Please comment here again if you think this is a change for the worse, or feel I haven't addressed the points raised. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Board Composition/Funding

Great work Team RfC! I have two small suggestions.
1. The first is that the final bullet in the intro that says "Be governed by a board with representation from the editing community and academia" be changed to include ambassadors and other stakeholders. Conceivably there will be board members who are neither WP editors nor academics.
2. The second is that the "funding" section make it clear that while in the short term the new organization will have to rely on WMF funds, it hopes to establish financial independence by seeking other sources of funding. The possibility of other sources is mentioned in the current language, but I think it should be highlighted as a priority rather than just a possibility.
Again, great work! Pjthepiano (talk) 14:38, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

To PJ's note about board composition, the language does already seem flexible ("is likely to include"), but I'm fine with us making it more specific. In addition to PJ's suggestions, I think it's important to note that we may want to have people on the board with a specific skill set, and that might not always include those groups of people. I believe we discussed in Chicago the need for specific skills on the board. Hope that makes sense. Other than that, everything looks really great, and I'm glad the language has turned out to be much more positive! I will probably look over it a few more times before we post and may have more comments. :) JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out that the task force on Structure talked quite a bit about board composition yesterday (the task force is charged with proposing not only the structure but also the board composition), and we mentioned that the Board should represent a matrix of interests and needs, including: (1) stakeholder groups (academia, Wikipedians, WMF, etc. — I like PJ's idea of including Ambassadors a lot, although we didn't get to talk about this as a task force), (2) skillsets (legal/financial/accounting, organizational/business development, etc.), (3) demographic diversity (race, gender, Canadian representation, etc.), and (4) characteristics (personal integrity, etc.). I don't think we need to go into detail in the RfC about these things, especially because the Structure task force hasn't really finalized these recommendations yet, but it might be good to at least briefly mention in the RfC that we want the Board to represent not only various stakeholder groups but will also pay attention to necessary skillsets and diversity, which we had consensus on in Chicago anyway. Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 16:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Re funding: I've made a minor change which I hope makes it more explicit that the funding can be sought from other sources. PJ, is there more explicit language you're looking for? I don't know that we have consensus for anything that implies it's a "priority" for the new organization to seek other funding; we didn't discuss that very explicitly.

Re governance: my recollection of the Chicago discussions is that we felt ambassadors (and some other stakeholders, such as chapters) are included when we say "Wikipedia editing community". Mentioning them specifically elevates their priority; they're important community members, but they don't have special standing beyond being community members. Similarly, students are Wikipedians, or part of the academic community; either way, they're included in the current list of stakeholders: "the Wikipedia editing community, academe, and the WMF". I don't think we should get more specific than that.

With respect to other skills, I think the current language, which says "the board is likely to include representation from stakeholder groups such as..." is accurate; it says include but doesn't imply exclusion of other groups. Jami, if you can think of a way to phrase what you want to add that doesn't sound like "the board might include just about anyone we want to include" then please suggest it. As it stands I don't see an easy way to make this clearer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:09, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Background Content

After looking over the background section again, I have a suggestion of a gap I currently see that we may be able to address before posting the RfC. Right now, a lot of dissenters of the WEP essentially ask repeatedly whether these courses are more trouble than they're worth. Though I believe they are worthwhile, I feel the best argument for engaging students on Wikipedia aligns with something Mike Christie has proselytized for a long time, which is that professors (experts in their fields) serve the primary purpose, with the right training and engagement on Wikipedia, of addressing content gaps and assigning those gaps to their students. Mike is much more eloquent when talking about that, but I wonder if maybe we could provide any information on this in the background section. I'm not quite positive how to fit it in but wanted to at least suggest it before we post this! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

You're right; I do proselytize this. (I think I made some progress with Brian Carver on Sunday -- if I could have gotten him drunk while we were talking I could have closed the deal.) I don't really see how to add this, though if the right question pops up in the Q&A section I'll say something to this effect. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

IRC Office Hours

I just wanted to emphasize again how important I think it is for us to announce IRC office hours in conjunction with posting this RfC on watchlist notices/program talk pages/participant listservs. If a few people are willing to help facilitate such a session, please sign up here, including times next week that work out.

• Jami, any time on Friday, 10/5 or 10AM-4PM (Pacific) on Tuesday, 10/9. Also open for other times but just suggesting a few days that could give enough notice to participate. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Just adding a note from the Community Engagement Process Task Force to say that both Pharos and The Interior have agreed to be involved with an IRC office hours, though I believe The Interior is busy this weekend. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:13, 29 September 2012 (UTC)