[Advocacy Advisors] Which would help volunteer editors more?

Wed Nov 27 10:14:16 UTC 2013

Dear James,

You keep amazing me with the topics you bring up on this list. It might be
just that I'm utterly naive and not understanding what Wikimedia is all
about, but I seriously have a hard time seeing a connection at all with our
mission - let alone how any serious impact could be achieved or how this
could become a priority.

While we all have political opinions on 'the big issues' (well, most of us)
I think that almost everyone agrees that Wikimedia should refrain from
taking a stand on issues not directly related with its mission. Even on
issues like net neutrality, the use of free software in government or
software patents there is a serious concern with many of our volunteers
that we should not get involved with those discussions.

So please, lets focus on what we're good at and where we can have a real
impact. That is hard enough on itself. I would appreciate it if you could
ask yourself more critically whether something you post would really
support our mission, before you post it. While there are no stupid
questions, some restraint can help in being taken seriously rather than
being considered trolling.

Kind regards,

Lodewijk

2013/11/27 James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com>

> I agree an international approach would be best, but at the same time,
> [1] and [2] seriously limit the number and capabilities of would-be,
> active, and inactive volunteer editors.
>
> [1]
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-american-workers-poll-finds-unprecedented-anxiety-about-jobs-economy/2013/11/25/fb6a5ac8-5145-11e3-a7f0-b790929232e1_story.html
>
> [2]
> http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/america-stingiest-rich-country-world
>
> Is it even possible to take a truly international approach to the
> underlying issue? I hope so, but I fear that any such approach will be
> more Kumbaya than active or effective problem solving.
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Raul Veede <raul.veede at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Seriously, none of these. I'm completely satisfied with my job, I like my
> > boss a lot and although my pay is not much, I don't believe any spree of
> > activism in U.S. ("Every two weeks, our volunteers telephone targeted
> U.S.
> > government decision makers...blah blah" http://incomeaction.org) would
> give
> > more money for spending to my local government in Estonia. It may come
> as a
> > surprise, but not everybody on Earth is American. Don't get me wrong,
> U.S.
> > is all nice and fluffy, but Wikimedia movement is global. Let's focus on
> > that.
> >
> > Raul
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:13 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Which would help volunteer editors more:
> >> http://www.fixmyjob.com/
> >> or
> >> http://incomeaction.org/
> >> assuming the latter was completed?
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Advocacy_Advisors mailing list
> >> Advocacy_Advisors at lists.wikimedia.org
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
> >>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Advocacy_Advisors mailing list
> > Advocacy_Advisors at lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Advocacy_Advisors mailing list
> Advocacy_Advisors at lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/attachments/20131127/59de79af/attachment-0001.html>