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The discussion has run for less than 24 hours; and of those (now) 37 editors, only three (3) have left a comment saying they are okay with the banners as they a

by akolbe 4y ago

The discussion has run for less than 24 hours; and of those (now) 37 editors, only three (3) have left a comment saying they are okay with the banners as they are. Good URL trick. It helps to be a staffer. ;) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DLynch_(WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DLynch_(WMF)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dang 4y ago
It looks like your account is using HN primarily if not exclusively to post about this one cause. That's not allowed here—it runs against the intended purpose of the site, which is intellectual curiosity. Single-purpose accounts are by definition repetitive and repetition is bad for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), as is any form of predictability. For this reason, we ban single-purpose accounts. Needless to say this doesn't have to do with the merits of your cause; it just has to do with the mandate of this site. I'm not going to ban you right now but if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and diversify your posts to HN and adjust so that you're using it in the intended spirit, we'd be grateful.
- 22c 4y ago
  > It looks like your account is using HN primarily if not exclusively to post about this one cause. https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=akolbe https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=akolbe Looking at akolbe's contributions with the strongest plausible interpretation of what they've said, and assuming good faith, it doesn't look that way to me. Also looking at akolbe's profile we see that they are deeply connected with Wikipedia, so it makes sense that some of their posts would involve stories about Wikipedia (presumably, they'd have more insight about what's happening at Wikipedia than the average reader).
  - ryan_lane 4y ago
    akolbe's posts are almost universally about Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising. The research is poorly sourced, mostly inaccurate, and has a strong bias against using funding for anything other than paying for hosting costs (which to akolbe, shouldn't include paying the staff). akolbe's strongest stance is against using money for "social causes", even though not much of the funding is used for that. Overall, akolbe is using multiple platforms to troll this particular issue. It used to be limited to wikimedia-l and to the community pump, but times change.
    - akolbe 4y ago
      Let us note that of the six candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation board in this year's (s)election process, three endorsed the statement: "WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever." https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Community_Voting/Election_Compass/Answers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_electio... One of these candidates (Mike Peel) was elected. The other successful candidate, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, said on the same page, "I do feel that the online campaign can be improved. See videos for more." She did indeed comment further in the videos, saying (in reply to question 6), "The one thing that I think we can improve is our on-wiki campaign. It is sometimes too aggressive to my taste." https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Community_Voting/Questions_for_Candidates/Sorted https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_electio... The rest in your post you have made up. It does not reflect my opinions at all.
      - ryan_lane 4y ago
        I agree with the fact that the messaging is deceptive. I'd like it to change. I've specifically called WMF out for it in the past. You're going well past complaining about the messaging, though. I did not make up the rest, and we've had numerous exchanges here, and on twitter, where you were pretty explicit about what things you dislike WMF funding, and most of those happen to be related to funding social issues related to Wikimedia (lack of representation, for example). You source from places with obvious bias that also include outright lies. You specifically call out how much is being spent on hosting, even though it's been pointed out to you numerous times by numerous people that it doesn't include the cost of engineering, legal, HR, internal IT, etc. which are vital to running and maintaining the sites. You're purposely being misleading, to the point of being deceitful. You point to a post by an old VP, that mentions a price wikipedia could be run for, but fail to take the word of folks (like me) who worked there at the time, that can tell you WMF was woefully understaffed (and poorly led by that VP) when he made that statement. Today's headcount is way more realistic in terms of what's needed to keep things going. It also doesn't take into account that the employees were woefully underpaid (and continue to be underpaid).

by akolbe 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dang 4y ago

It looks like your account is using HN primarily if not exclusively to post about this one cause. That's not allowed here—it runs against the intended purpose of the site, which is intellectual curiosity. Single-purpose accounts are by definition repetitive and repetition is bad for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), as is any form of predictability. For this reason, we ban single-purpose accounts. Needless to say this doesn't have to do with the merits of your cause; it just has to do with the mandate of this site. I'm not going to ban you right now but if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and diversify your posts to HN and adjust so that you're using it in the intended spirit, we'd be grateful.

22c 4y ago
> It looks like your account is using HN primarily if not exclusively to post about this one cause. https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=akolbe https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=akolbe Looking at akolbe's contributions with the strongest plausible interpretation of what they've said, and assuming good faith, it doesn't look that way to me. Also looking at akolbe's profile we see that they are deeply connected with Wikipedia, so it makes sense that some of their posts would involve stories about Wikipedia (presumably, they'd have more insight about what's happening at Wikipedia than the average reader).
- ryan_lane 4y ago
  akolbe's posts are almost universally about Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising. The research is poorly sourced, mostly inaccurate, and has a strong bias against using funding for anything other than paying for hosting costs (which to akolbe, shouldn't include paying the staff). akolbe's strongest stance is against using money for "social causes", even though not much of the funding is used for that. Overall, akolbe is using multiple platforms to troll this particular issue. It used to be limited to wikimedia-l and to the community pump, but times change.
  - akolbe 4y ago
    Let us note that of the six candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation board in this year's (s)election process, three endorsed the statement: "WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever." https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Community_Voting/Election_Compass/Answers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_electio... One of these candidates (Mike Peel) was elected. The other successful candidate, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, said on the same page, "I do feel that the online campaign can be improved. See videos for more." She did indeed comment further in the videos, saying (in reply to question 6), "The one thing that I think we can improve is our on-wiki campaign. It is sometimes too aggressive to my taste." https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Community_Voting/Questions_for_Candidates/Sorted https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_electio... The rest in your post you have made up. It does not reflect my opinions at all.
    - ryan_lane 4y ago
      I agree with the fact that the messaging is deceptive. I'd like it to change. I've specifically called WMF out for it in the past. You're going well past complaining about the messaging, though. I did not make up the rest, and we've had numerous exchanges here, and on twitter, where you were pretty explicit about what things you dislike WMF funding, and most of those happen to be related to funding social issues related to Wikimedia (lack of representation, for example). You source from places with obvious bias that also include outright lies. You specifically call out how much is being spent on hosting, even though it's been pointed out to you numerous times by numerous people that it doesn't include the cost of engineering, legal, HR, internal IT, etc. which are vital to running and maintaining the sites. You're purposely being misleading, to the point of being deceitful. You point to a post by an old VP, that mentions a price wikipedia could be run for, but fail to take the word of folks (like me) who worked there at the time, that can tell you WMF was woefully understaffed (and poorly led by that VP) when he made that statement. Today's headcount is way more realistic in terms of what's needed to keep things going. It also doesn't take into account that the employees were woefully underpaid (and continue to be underpaid).