Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/Countrymike/Discussion Part 1


 * A question about "power". It's noticable when comparing your custodial request to requests made in the past that your request is based on a desire for power (you want to edit the main page) rather than a desire to serve. On 14th Dec, at about the same time as writing your request, you posted this: "I don't like the quote. Can we leave freedom out of it all for a while?", refering to the US Supreme Court Justice Cardozo quotation from 1937 on freedom of speech ("Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom."), i.e. the Friday quote which has appeared on the main page every Friday since User:CQ put it there about 7 months ago (or longer?). In particular, you highlighted the word "freedom" as being problematic. It looks vaguely to me as if this was the issue which prompted your request to be a custodian. In this context, I have the following questions for you (please do not break up my listing, but answer below).
 * Why is a statement made in court 70 years ago by a US Supreme Court Justice on the freedom of speech be problematic to you?
 * Why would someone need custodial power to remove the quote rather than the normal route of dialogue with others? For example, as I was busy editing the page at the time, did you not feel I would fairly deal with your request?
 * Do you think you are/would be entitled to remove this quote from the main page all by yourself?
 * These are questions designed to probe your attitude towards custodianship at Wikiversity. Thank you in advance for your carefully considered responses.
 * McCormack 08:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * McCormack - My request is not based on a "desire for power". My main intent as stated above is "to strengthen relationships between the two projects that I am most involved with in my networked life, to continue working on developing learning projects inside Wikiversity, and to act as trusted and informed member of this community, helping newcomers become old-timers and visa-versa". My initial desire to edit the front page was not at all about the quote you refer to but about changing the Featured Project to Bloom Clock, which I spoke of here: Colloquium and which had been discussed at some length on #wikiversity-en. (I also seem to recall bringing this up a lot earlier, but nothing happened then either.) In my view an active front page reflects an active community, and my discovery that the page had not had an edit for nearly a year surprised me. The most obvious place for activity on the former page was Featured content, but which after I explored the possibility of editing the front page I found it to be locked (freedom?...). A greater stimulus for my decision to apply for custodianship was perhaps the recent "Wikiversity is dead. Long live WikiEducator." discussion started by yourself in the Colloquium. It seems to me that both projects could benefit from a person with a solid foot in each camp. I have referred some projects over there to work being done on Wikiversity and have recently requested interwiki links to be allowed from WikiEd to Wikiversity. It's not about power, it's about this community acknowledging their support in me to represent Wikiversity in my goal to bridge and possibly widen the educational use of wikis dedicated to similar projects. Countrymike 22:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. The main page comments in your posts ("hadn't been edited in a year") above nevertheless surprise me, as I was in the middle of the recent revamp at the time, and was busy discussing it with others on IRC. I'd also been discussing the locking issue with MikeU on IRC and had already announced an intention to relax things so that ordinary registered users could perform edits. As you were logged on to IRC at the time, you should have been aware of this. I'm sure you are also aware of the main page learning project (still under construction, but well advanced), which is designed to pro-actively involve ordinary registered users in a responsible active editing of the main page. If you've looked at this project, you will know why and how the main page is protected. Your comments about main page inactivity and locking therefore make me uncomfortable to say the least, as they rather forget a lot of my recent work at Wikiversity. To move on to a different topic, you are keen to move the emphasis in your candidacy towards "strengthening links between...". Can you therefore tell us exactly how you would view custodianship as a means to achieve this end? Thank you. McCormack 08:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * McCormack - I think if you look here, Talk:Main_Page/Draft_version_0.3 you'll note that I was one of only two people to comment on Draft v.3 - so I was well aware of work being done on the front page, and I also contributed to the current page, here; my comment on Colloqium was in regards to simply changing the Featured content. I apologise if you have taken this as oversight of your work on Wikiversity. I have praised the new front page elsewhere as being a major improvement. Countrymike 18:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I am very fortunate in that my work on wikis has taken me to quite a few places globally and enabled me to meet a lot of people working on Open Educational Resources. My involvement in networks that are actively debating, inventing and innovating new ways of teaching and learning online has also allowed me to meet many of these people in my home country as well - most notably amongst participants in Wikiversity, Leigh Blackall and Teemu Leinonen whom I was very fortunate to have met in my home town of Waiheke Island. This coming year I hope to be able to attend a meeting of WikiEducators in Nairobi, Kenya as well as present on educational wiki projects at Wikimania in Alexandria, Egypt. I am not seeking custodianship in order to actively hunt vandals or participate in extended policy development debates or discussions - there are existing custodians of which I have far more faith in to undertake these activities than I do myself, although I will to the best of my abilities participate in both of these activities to a level of which I feel I can contribute. I am seeking custodianship in order to be able to, with the confidence of the community of participants in the Wikiversity project, act as an ambassador for this project oversees and more importantly within the various networks in which I participate, of which WikiEducator is but one. I suspect that this is quite a different understanding of what the custodian role has traditionally entailed but I feel that a diversity of talents and goals in the custodians of this project may be worthwhile. In part it is custodianship as in a person entrusted with the custody or care of something - I care very much about this project, about the ideas of which this project is a part of, and about the future we might be creating. Countrymike 08:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your reply, Brent. But this does not answer my question at all. It just restates, at greater length, your position. Let's try the question again: Can you therefore tell us exactly how you would view custodianship as a means to achieve this end? In other words, (1) why is it specifically the additional admin "privileges", such as rollback, deletion and blocking, which you find essential to achieving for ambassadorial aims, and (2) why can you not achieve these ambassadorial aims with your existing status as Wikiversity? WV has some highly respected and influential users who have deliberately chosen not to ask for admin status. Your respect and influence does not turn on whether or not you are a custodian. Why not try to attain a position of respect and influence simply through good, solid contributions? --McCormack 16:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * McCormack: In re: to (1) - I think that I have already suggested that the 'tools' are not really what I'm proposing 'custodianship' may be solely about, so while access to the tools is one thing that may come in handy at some times, I'm suggesting that we open up this definition to include a wider view of why and on what grounds custodians may be recruited. The Review_board that JWSchmidt has written about could quite easily fit into a broader definition of custodianship than just having access to "the tools". (2) -- many of my solid contributions have actually been outside of Wikiversity and so may not register through a history of edits: i have blogged about the project, forged links between WikiEducator and Wikiversity through pages on each project on each wiki, requested and got interwiki links turned on between WE and WV, arranged for speakers on a Wiki Campus radio project to step in as needed and liased with potential future speakers, assisted people on IRC, contributed to policy debates on IRC, socially bookmarked the project extensively, pointed people on Wikieducator to projects of interest here and here, as well as having started 2 learning projects and edited numerous others. I cannot speak as to why others have not chosen to ask for admin status (originally I was nominated by user CQ but at that time declined the offer). Obviously respect and influence does not turn on whether one is a custodian or not, but it does suggest to outsiders that the user who has gained custodianship has one, made the effort though good works, and two is supported by the community itself. Countrymike 20:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply, Brent. And thank you for confirming the point that I have been suspecting all along: namely, that you have no reason at all for being given admin privileges, nor any particular desire or intention to exercise these in the way that a custodian regrettably has to do so. I'm sure we can set up a separate status of "ambassador" that is not a custodian to accommodate your desires. Can we go with a further question, then? Assuming WV creates an Outreach Committee (or similar), without any sysop tool access, would you be content to be appointed to this committee instead of becoming a custodian? Or do you still have some residual reason why the members of this committee should have access to sysop tools of any kind? --McCormack 07:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * McCormack, I've stated above that I am quite prepared to use "the tools" that you seem so obsessed with/about and I have been learning about how, where and why to use them -- of course I would rollback vandalism, and block continual offenders, i'm not suggesting that this is something that I would carelessly not do. I see that your own candidacy was pretty much based solely on fighting vandalism and I'm sorry that my attempts to flesh out my intended position on custodianship don't seem to meet up with your own expectations of the role you have chosen to fulfill. I am starting to suspect (which I have all along) that your debate with me here is personal, and is actually more related to avenging your experience on WikiEducator than in debating my worthiness. Countrymike 17:30, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Brent. Unfortunately you are not correct. I have been bending over backwards to delve honestly and politely into your true reasons for what you are doing, in the interests of the Wikiversity community. If there is a personal issue between us, perhaps you could explain what it is on my talk page? I'd also like you to perhaps explain why you think I would have something to "avenge" with respect to WikiEducator (on my talk page, please). I've been making every effort here to be civil to you. It is, in my short experience, unusual that someone so disinterested as you in doing basic housekeeping chores should ever even get a mentor. I think your true interests in becoming a custodian must be highlighted, and rather than simply my stating what I think they might be, I think you need to answer questions about your intentions. In this debate you have constantly sidestepped my questions (for example, you avoided revealing your POV on freedom which was behind the Cardozo edit proposal, but I very civilly did not push you on it). Once again, you have failed to answer my question about why admin privileges are key to your ambassadorial aims. I would have been quite prepared to back the creation of a new outreach committee and back your placement on that committee, in the interests of openness and inclusivity which JWS so strongly supports. It's also very plain that in response to this debate between us, you have suddenly started to show an interest in the lowly housekeeping chores (about 17 days after your initial candidacy). To me that looks like someone worried "the game is up". I find your calling me "obsessed" is a mild breach of civility. The admin privileges (tools) are the things which custodians use, and the properly restrained use of these tools and the philosophy with which they are used (or not used) is critical to any good candidacy. If you cannot convince me that you have good motives, then I shall, of course, oppose your candidacy. If you think that it would be a good move at this point to pre-emptively attack my motives instead of answering my questions, and style me as some kind of radical lunatic, it won't work. Now please stick to the issue and answer the question. McCormack 10:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know how much more I can write here to "answer this question", so I'm going to leave it at that and let the rest of the community decide. I have found your tone towards me and your constant attempt to rhetorically paint me into a corner to have been the most aggressive I've experienced on Wikiversity and I find it interesting that you should describe this as "a game". You are wrong to characterize me as uninterested in the "lowly housekeeping chores" as you put it - one doesn't get over 2500 edits on a wiki without doing the chores (i have over 2500 edits on WikiEducator). Also, if you have looked at the policy on probationary custodians you would note that a custodian has a month of mentorship before a 5 day period of comments and questions -- my recent interest in the "chores" as you put it has been due to a holiday period for myself where I am pursuing time with family, and other work; I have continued to check in where possible on IRC and I have also been spending quite a bit of time here (more than the 5 days I might add) trying to communicate my position to you, which you still seem to not understand. Countrymike 19:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your reply. A number of points, Brent:
 * I will always ask insistent and penetrating questions of candidates, and have done so in the past. Erkan gained my "strong support", but got, as the price, some questions which were at least as tough as yours, and which correctly identified the (one and only) weakness in his candidature. A candidate who does not break under my questions, but answers honestly and forthrightly, gets my support and trust. Erkan has that. I am no sycophant, and even JWS has had to suffer a "neutral" vote from me once, despite my trust for him. Even your friend Wayne stood up to my penetrating barrage of questions once (unfortunately it turned out afterwards...etc).
 * The correct answer to the question is: "Yes, you are right, I agree that an ambassador has no business to have admin tools. No, I would not be happy to be just an ambassador, because I really, really want to be a custodian as well. I realise I have given no good reasons yet for being a custodian, so here are my new reasons." That is the honest answer. That answer would have gained you (some) trust. Unfortunately, you gave the wrong answer, which is to personalise the discussion and accuse me of victimizing you. This is the untrustworthy route.
 * If you ignore my questions and "let the community decide", this means you prefer majority over consensus. This is a dangerous route in a small wiki. It is not the wiki way, which tries to maximize the number of people kept on board.
 * 2500 edits on a wiki is a relatively low count for an admin; I have far more than that on my outside projects, but I would never think that qualified me for admin-ship on a wikimedia project. And yes, you can easily reach 2500 edits without doing chores. Outside projects usually generate far less in the way of chores and than a real wikimedia project.
 * Wikiversity doesn't stop needing custodians during the holiday break. You chose to be a candidate at this time - that was your choice. We could, if you wish, lengthen your probationary period to 90 days and allow you more time to answer the questions.
 * I take it this particular thread is now closed, but leave it here for reference. -- McCormack 13:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)