Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/Countrymike/Discussion Part 2


 * To others watching my discussion with Brent, it unfortunately took a rather personal turn on 31st Dec., so I'd like to state here, clearly, for Brent and everyone else to see, where I trying to take the debate with Brent, and show that this is a positive direction.
 * Firstly, the trust issues. I don't want to close the door to the possibility of trusting Brent, but he needs to build trust with ALL of us, not just a chosen few, and he should therefore answer my questions in a forthright, direct manner designed to build trust. Whether or not he can recognize an olive branch, and value its offerer sufficiently to build a bridge, reflects his future capability as a custodian. The extent to which he engages in positive, open dialogue will reflect whether he prefers a consensus-based decision-making process or a cabal-based decision-making process. If he is consensus-minded, he would be a better custodian; cabal-mindedness (he simply doesn't bother to engage with me, because I'm not in his 'in'-group) would be a reason to reject him. Trust also means the issue that Brent is "number 2" on a 2nd website which others have long since accused of being a political front, but which, much more importantly, is the subject of a marketing campaign involving denigration of Wikiversity (User:JWSchmidt/Blog/31_December_2007). There's nothing wrong or untrustworthy about political sites per se; the danger creeps in with the "pretending to be what you aren't" and being associated with a marketing campaign that denigrates Wikiversity. Of course, Brent is not the only person who runs this site. Rather than making assumptions about Brent based on his associations, I'd rather give him a chance to clarify these associations and go more deeply into his current views on the politics of his conflicting interests and how he views his candidature in this context. Perhaps he is a critic of Erik and Wayne? I do not know. He should have the chance, and should be strongly invited, to expand on his relation with them. We need an open declaration from Brent on these issues if he is to build trust. Trust also involves the issue of the extent to which Brent can distance himself from his political leanings with respect to OER - custodians need the ability to drop their own POV, see things from other perspectives, defend the free speech of their opponents, and act accordingly. I'd also like to know from Brent what he meant by saying his intentions were (quote) "mostly good" followed by wink-smiley, apparently in the context of relations with Wikiversity - it sounds like an admission that we (or people outside his in-group) can't fully trust him (ref).
 * Secondly, the role issue: this is the issue over what role is appropriate for Brent, given his stated intentions. My position here is not anti-Brent. It is a pragmatic point that the role we give him should suit his declared intentions (if believable/ethical). Custodians have not previously been ambassadors from other sites, but it is perhaps an interesting idea. I can think of 20 or so important sites in the Open Educational Movement, many of whom are far more significant than WikiEducator, with whom we could exchange ambassadors. Perhaps we should co-opt 20 custodians all in one go from all of these sites, to avoid any suggestion of unfairly favouring Brent's site? Of course, once this suggestion is made, and once we ask ourselves why on earth these ambassadors would need admin privileges here, then it becomes pretty obvious that what we actually need to do is expand Wikiversity's Outreach Programme, perhaps beefing it up into a consultative committee of some kind and making formal appointments to it. If Brent's commitment to Wikiversity is genuine, then he should jump at this offer of a new role - both representing his own site on this committee, and perhaps helping reach out and involve further parties. In bringing in further sites which differ in ideology from his own, he could demonstrate his potential impartiality and neutrality as a Wikiversitarian, and build trust with people like myself. Perhaps after a couple of years in which Brent has proven his ability to rise above his personal beliefs on OER issues and reach out impartially, he could re-apply as a custodian? Yet another side to all this is the testing of Brent's ambassadorial skills and intentions: if he really intends to act as an ambassador, then he needs to show his willingness and ability to forge relations with those here who are most suspicious of him, rather than dodge the issues and hide his cards. A further and interesting idea here is that ambassadors are always exchanged and always hold reciprocal privileges, which would suggest that if he wishes to be an ambassador here, then his site must accept an ambassador in exchange, accord that ambassador identical privileges, and treat that ambassador with equal courtesy (me as ambassador to them?!)(thinking way outside the box).
 * Thirdly, the advocacy (spamming) issue. An ambassador is just a nice way to say "spin doctor", "spammer" or "advocate"; all the words have to do with marketing. Wikimedia projects are constantly the target of forms of vandalism which attempt to attract attention to particular websites or viewpoints. Edit-and-run vandals are easy to fix. The tougher vandals are the ones who infiltrate deeply and non-obviously into the system, manipulating content in the long term, never quite enough to become conspicuous. Many link-spam vandals never actually see themselves as vandals - they may genuinely believe in the usefulness of their edits and the validity of their viewpoints, and they may be not fully aware of policies on neutrality and the ban on advocacy. Perhaps Brent has really not realised that his "ambassadorial" platform can be seen as precisely this. There are issues which need to be explored here such as the difference (if any) between what Brent is proposing and (banned) advocacy. We need to think about an ethics code for custodians. It would be an interesting experiment to propose to Brent that custodians adopt an ethics code in which they ban themselves from ever mentioning any external site with which they are associated - would he prefer to continue with his candidacy? or remain an advocate? Which is more important to him? I would encourage Brent not to perceive this as an attack on him, but as an opportunity to reflect on his intentions, to learn from the wiki-way, and to modify his perception of himself and his goals here so that he can play a more valuable role.
 * As part of this process of dialogue, I had considered perhaps beginning a joint dialogue-style learning project with Brent on "what WikiEducator is", in which he and I debate strongly the issues involved, for the benefit of the Wikiversity community, adhering to civility and truthfulness. I think this would be a constructive process. (Note: since I wrote the draft for this, JWS has also suggested this and started the page). A second project or page which I had thought about would have been an "interview" with the candidate, rather like the interviews with some people over at Wikipedia when they run for or win organisational roles. Brent needs to realise, if he accepts these challenges, that journalists aren't tame - tough questions, and even loaded questions, are the norm. Brent isn't being victimised if I make him sweat - on the contrary, for me to even bother asking somebody tough questions is an offer to them that they can gain my respect.
 * This post is rather long, so I have transcluded it; if and when we vote on Brent's custodianship, I'll replace the transclusion with a link to tidy the page up.
 * --McCormack 14:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)