User talk:Jan-Bart

There's some amazing news coming out of the Netherlands regarding the [non-]enclosure of images of public domain artworks by people making photocopies or photographs of them! Thanks for leading the world forward ;) –SJ · talk | translate 19:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Vertaling (nl)

Opmerkelijk nieuws uit Nederland omtrent [niet-]ontsluiten van afbeeldingen publiek domein kunstwerken en het kopiëren of fotograferen ervan! dank voor het vooruithelpen ;) –SJ · talk | translate 19:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

thanks!

• Thank you :) I will sport it with pride. Pundit (talk) 19:28, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm proud of this award! Thank you! --Perohanych (talk) 21:30, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for the appreciation. --Arjunaraoc (talk) 06:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

A Barnstar!

FDC special barnstar

You also deserve this award — to recognize your hard and indispensable work on the first round of the FDC!

--Perohanych (talk) 21:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

+What he said. Pundit (talk) 22:32, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Your commitment to the process was invaluable. Sydney Poore FloNight (talk) 15:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Current lack of mechanism to revise bad decisions made by the chapters

Firstly, I'd like to thank you for your answer over there. Still, I would like to express my concern that apparently the Founation has no mechanism to revise bad decisions made by the chapters, which may prove to be extremely bad for the Foundation's reputation in a long term. So I'd like to ask your personal opinion whether there is any possibility to introduce such mechanism, kind of "anti-corruption commission" of Wikimedia Foundation? Thank you. --DancingPhilosopher (talk) 09:55, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

So I think that there are several measures which can be taken when entities affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundations make seriously bad decisions. Luckily we have not had to resort to this in the past (as I can recall) and I hope we don't have to do this in the future. The examples mentioned in the discussion you are linking to are not examples that I would use of "bad decisions" which hurt our reputation because I really do think that we as a movement should experiment and try new things, which sometimes might not work out.

Wikimedia exit interview

Hi. I've started Wikimedia exit interview. What do you think? I wanted to ask a few specific questions myself (e.g., "What's been your biggest struggle while working at the Wikimedia Foundation?" or "What are you most proud of?", etc.). --MZMcBride (talk) 14:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I like it, but I am pretty sure that Gayle already does this? Do you need it to be in a public forum? Jan-Bart (talk) 12:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to give community members (not Gayle) a way of asking questions (and receiving answers). A wiki page was one semi-structured way of trying to do that. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to see this too. Sue already did an IRC office hour about the exit, I don't think its a stretch to have the same sort of session on wiki. I would think IRC would have been harder to answer questions in, a meta page can be answered at any point that is easy for her. I really don't see what impact Gayle doing a closed exit interview would have for the rest of us, the staff and the board member already know things more than the community members. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 15:34, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

So you are asking for opportunity to ask questions to an employee leaving the foundation in a public forum? This seems like a bad idea. The WMF does exit interviews, but these will never be in a public fashion. If the person(s) in question are open to this kind of scrutiny there are enough possibilities for that person to make her/himself available (irc/wikimedia-l etc..)Jan-Bart (talk) 10:47, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Sue is an employee, or anyone thinks of her as one. She occupied the highest spot of an executive in the organization. There might have been disagreements along the line, but Sue also happens to be familiar and well-liked by a large part of the community. At the same time, it might be understandable for people to be curious about her departure, her reflections, dare I say, her reasons. I thought her announcement was a bit out of the blue. I don't think an interview would be any worse than an IRC office hour, and she would have the option and time to pick her questions. At the same time, it would be her prerogative to decline and completely understandable. But just in case, Sue is up for it, I would be happy to moderate and collect the questions and submit them to you or Sue directly. I'll make sure the tenor and conduct is respectable and there isn't any cross-talk. Thanks. Theo10011 (talk) 15:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I think this is something we'd only do with willing outgoing department heads and Board members. It's certainly not something we'd do with most staff members. I've started Wikimedia exit interview/Sue Gardner. The upcoming issue of the Signpost will include a call for questions. Theo: if you could post to wikimedia-l and other relevant forums, that would be great. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not an "exit interview", which connotes a certain privacy and implicit expectation of candor. It's more a "farewell retrospective". There's nothing wrong with that, of course. But it's different. Perhaps it would be good to rename the project. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure there are (m)any examples upon which to base your claim, though I see your point. :-) It's titled "Wikimedia exit interview," as that seemed like the best title choice at the time (someone is exiting, it'll hopefully be a series of questions and answers—an interview). In some ways, it's about institutional memory, but that seems like an even worse page title. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:17, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

"Final press conference"? "Goodbye Tour"? 1/2 :-). The problem is that the compound phrase "exit interview" has a linguistic implication apart from the mere composition of sequence term and interview. Sort of like "first date". Maybe "retrospective interview", though that's a bit wordy. I understand you've already created the page. Still, the "exit interview" phrasing seems "off" to me. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 09:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

In my mind, one of the great beauties of (MediaWiki) wikis is that redirect functionality is built-in, allowing pages to easily be renamed. (Having recently used a DokuWiki installation, I have newfound appreciation for what I previously felt were standard wiki features.) Feel free to move the page to a better title and/or create redirects, as it suits you. And, of course, if you'd also like to submit a few questions, I think that would be wonderful. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:04, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. But I wouldn't touch any sort of rename/redirect of the page myself. It is most emphatically not worth the risk of setting off some sort of edit-war from someone assuming bad faith or taking the opportunity to name-call. I don't feel strongly about it, merely writer's dissonance. Regarding questions, I'm not against these kind of events, but they aren't a forum for hard-hitting examination. The respondent can just have a PR firm write the replies. If one asks, e.g. "Why do you think the pornography (err, "controversial material") mess at Commons never blew up into a truly major scandal, and how long will that hold?" (a question where I'd truly like to know the answer!) the reply will be akin to "there is no cannibalism in the British Navy. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit, but all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find any toothmarks at all anywhere on their bodies, they're to tell me immediately so that I can immediately take every measure to hush the whole thing up. And, finally, necrophilia is right out." -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

My father is fond of saying that the answer is no if you don't ask. That is, I think discussing lessons learned from events exactly like the controversial content debate is what this exit interview process is intended for. A typical exit interview involving an employee and a human resources person would never discuss such matters. An exit interview between the Wikimedia community and the outgoing Executive Director (or outgoing Board members... Ting is on his way out) would be an excellent forum for such questions and answers, in my opinion. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Profile

Hi Jan-Bart,

I'm a Dutchman, born in Utrecht city, living and editing in Arezzo province, Tuscany, Italy. Is there a profile the new director of the Wikimedia Foundation needs to have; if the answer is 'yes' where can we find it? Thank you very much indeed for an answer and who knows TTYL,  Klaas|Z4␟V:  22:54, 14 April 2013 (UTC) P.S. I'm administrator on OmegaWiki as Patio. My old name I changed on most projects, because it was yet in use on e.g. English Wikipedia).

Hi Klaas, there is as yet no job description. For this and other inquiries please see: Transition Team

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