Talk:Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Nominations/Christophe Henner

Individual endorsements

1. Christophe's involvement in the Wikimedia's movement always demonstrated the following things : a clear and ambitious vision of what we could (and should) be; an uncommon and very precious capability to see what really matters and go straight to it; and a distinctive and much needed ability to remain focus and excellent during heated crisis. Léna (talk) 08:09, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
2. Until now Christophe proved a strong ambition to Wikimedia France and faced the crisis with every types of actors. He assumes the rules he takes. nadia / Nadia Ayachi (talk)
3. I endorse Christophe's candidacy personally, as well as on behalf of the FASBMA support group (Former Affiliate-Selected Board Members Anonymous). Best of luck, Christophe! I am very much looking forward to you joining the support group at a later stage. -- Arne (akl) (talk) 12:45, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
4. As part of my role at Wikimedia France regarding international matters, I've witnessed Christophe's passion and ambition for this movement. I fully support his choice to apply as a WMF BoT member. Good luck to you ! -- Anne-Laure WMFr (talk) 16:34, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
5. Christophe and I have been working together for two and a half years, when he was vice-chair and now as a chair of WMFR. We led the reorganization of Wikimedia France, which was a successfull undertaking. Right now, I think that Christophe and his skills will be valuable assets on the board of the WMF. He has dealt with the same kind of situation as a volunteer and also in his work (where he is C-level in a major gaming media that has faced merger and huge change during the last two years). From an organizational standpoint, he is a person who knows how to distinguish among everyone's role and respect everyone's place. He's able to develop strategic thinking, and he sincerely believes that "united we stand, divided we fall" : he's able to take a true place as a leader. From a personal standpoint, I believe in his strength of character, his dynamism, his determination and his ability to sometimes step back to look at the bigger picture. If there are any questions among the community about his ways of working, feel free to get in touch. --Nathalie Martin (WMFR) (talk) 17:53, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
6. on behalf of myself and of the to old and >100.000-edits-community worldwide I also endorse Christophe without ever meeting him personally. In the international communities their are some legend volunteers one need to know - for me he is one of those. So if this vote is worth anything: Go for it. -- Achim Raschka (talk) 19:52, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
7. I've been working with Christophe for several years (even if there's an Ocean between us !) ; he is intelligent, trustable and a Cartesian man, perfect skills for Wikimedia Board of Trustees. He is a leader with a deep knowledge of Wikimedia movement and with a worldwide vision. Number of times he supported and trusted me with WikiFranca, and most of all, he does not hesitate to help when needed. I strongly support his candidacy with great conviction. Benoit Rochon (talk) 22:41, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
8. Without knowing Christophe personally, I believe he demonstrated skills that could benefit to the WMF and the Wikimedia community in general. Seeris (talk)
9. I know Christophe from our brief meetings in Berlin and Mexico City, as he is helping so much (and the WMFR chapter) our young organization to grow up and to act to share knowledge, I endorse his candidacy. He will be a trustee who we can lean on. Habib M'henni aka --Dyolf77 (talk) 19:55, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

The Endorsements section

A clarification about the nomination form: the "Endorsements" section is not for endorsements by individuals, but for endorsements by chapters or thematic organizations. It is a technical requirement to have one endorsement to be a valid candidate. This is a way to ensure that all candidates have at least some support from the voting organizations; it is not a vote, and one endorsement per candidate is well enough (although there is no upper limit in the rules).

Therefore, I moved all comments in the "Endorsements" section to this talk page. The ones by ShreCk and MichaelMaggs look like official chapters statements, but since it's difficult for me to distinguish among the ten comments, I'll leave to them to take them back if appropriate. - Laurentius (talk) 08:24, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I think I disagree with moving all non-chapter endorsements to the talkpage. Why not set up a separate section on the front side of the page for non-chapter, individual or usergroup endorsements? I can't see the harm in it, and I think it can only create a more lively and better-informed conversation. (BTW, the current listing of WMUK and WMFR endirsements is in the wrong order.)--Pharos (talk) 17:02, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Clearly it is important to have a conversation about candidates, and to express support for them, or any other relevant opinion. But the nomination page is not the right place for that (the nomination page is not a conversation page!): the talk page where we are writing right now is a better place. - Laurentius (talk) 21:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Technical question

Shouldn't the category be added to the page itself, not the talk page? I've been trying to find if there are other nominations - it seems there is no list - but it is hard to find if people do not use categories correctly.

Yes, of course! It was my mistake to move it together with the other text. I'm fixing it. - Laurentius (talk) 15:57, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Experiences as an editor

Hi Christophe. I have a question regarding your activity with the Wikimedia movement in the context of your candidacy. I have checked your latest contributions, and noticed the following:

1. Your last twenty (20) edits on Meta go back to September 2014;
2. Your last ten (10) edits on the French Wikipedia go back to April 2013;
3. Your last ten edits on Commons go back to May 2010;
4. Your last ten edits on the English Wikipedia go back to August 2007.

In your candidacy, you described extensively your experience with Wikimedia France, however this is something that appears to be quite far away from the experiences of regular Wikimedia contributors. As a Board member, you will of course have a fiduciary duty to the Foundation, but will have to take into consideration the opinions of the editing community, too. Would this not be a problem for you seeing as you haven't been active on any of the projects for a considerable period of time, including what is supposed to be your home wiki, the French Wikipedia? Thanks, odder (talk) 14:59, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Odder, thanks for your question. Not unexpected question actually. I'm sorry it will be à lengthy answer :)

First of all, I believe contribution to Wikimedia comes in many many many different ways, not just through editing as you imply. Of course editing is the most common one. But a dev are also contributing, the people organising irl events are too, photographs too, and people serving as board members too. I contributed a tremendous amount of my time for Wikimedia doing many things in the last 12 years (including editing at a time, not anymore). There are a lot of people editing and being awesome at editing. My talent is doing what a lot of people find boring, "managing" organisations.

So I focused on that so that Wikimedia France would provide support to all of those people editing and outreach to new ones. Today we provide funding for books and travels, access to events (sports, concerts, etc.) for photographs, paid for drones to take aerial picture, provide professional cameras and lenses, and have created a MOOC on editing with more than 5000 people registered. All of that was possible because the organisation is lead correctly.

Now, moving away from "what is contributing to our movement" to "would my lack of active editing be a problem". It isn't as I'm chairing Wikimedia France. Though I'm not editing, I keep myself informed of what is happening in the editing community. I follow the main discussions, key to the editor actual issues. I do not experience them myself, not much, but I read of them (like the huge wikidata discussion few weeks ago on frwp).

I do that because, and I do the same at work, I believe you need to understand the needs of all the agents of an organisation to make the best decisions (and to be clear, I say agents, because an organisation always has "external" agents on top of staff that you need to take into account).

So, no, I don't think that not being an active editor will be an issue as I'm an actively contributing. What matters, I think, is the vision I carry with me. That organisations in our movement are here to make the agregation and diffusion of free knowledge as easy, as fun and as efficient as possible. That is the vision behind Wikimedia France "reboot", and I believe it does work. For Wikimedia Foundation, I believe the vision should be the same though the implementation should be done differently.

I hope I answered your question, happy to follow-up :) Schiste (talk) 11:13, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Schiste, first of all thanks for your nomination. I think you're a solid candidate to the BoT, but I must said I also seen a little bit odd your lack of activity on-wiki. I can relate with people with zero edits (actually, one of our board members have ~15 edits) that accomplish great things for the movement in different aspects. But for me, either when I 'm working or when I'm attending a wiki-event, I try to find the time to pull at least a couple edits or photos or whatever. Since we as a movement are always very suspicious of people with low activity telling us what to do, I'd encourage you to click edit once in a while :-). Cheers and good luck! --Oscar_. (talk) · @ 20:59, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your thanks ^^. I have a finite amount of time and energy and would in be in my personal life, professional life or wikimedian life always considération the outcome of anytime time/energy I spend and the results. That's the point where I sound crazy I guess, but when I edit, and I still from time to time usually from the office while using Wikipédia, I do it because I want to and I believe it's more useful than another task. I will not édit just ro goes by a social construction, we as movement, have which "a true wikimedian is an editor". I'm fighting this construct that I believe is harmful to our movement as it excludes people. We're looking for new contributors, we should have a strong, open, inclusive, welcoming stance. Not one where we create à "right way" of being a wikimedian. I'm not sûre that will help being selected but I tend to always speak my mind :) Schiste (talk) 08:58, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Question about experience

Hi Christophe,

Can you give a brief overview of your professional and educational background? How does your professional experience contribute to your candidacy for the board of the WMF? How many people do you manage, directly or indirectly, in your current role? Have you been involved in non-profit management other than WM-FR? Can you describe some of the challenges WM-FR has faced during your time on the board and how you contributed to overcoming them? Other than funds contributed by the WMF/FDC, what has been the maximum budget your board has been responsible for managing? Thank you for any answers to these questions you can provide. Nathan ^T 19:05, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Nathan. Thanks for your question, I'll try to be brief, though I doubt I can. I've put back your question in my answer to make it mmore readable.

Can you give a brief overview of your professional and educational background?>> First my education, I studied catering industry in high school (normal high school courses + specific topics from cooking to biology applied to food health to management and accounting. I won't get into much détails but even I'm not at all in that line of work it did teach me a lot. I then studied macro-economics and law in college (it was a dual licence). During my licences, I was also working in a telemarketing company and was freelancing as a webmarketing consultant. The latter brang me to be the first employee of a marketing consulting firm subsidiary dedicated to new technologies (broad spectrum: from websites to how to adapt an organisation to digital media). I spent five years and ended as a senior consultant there working for various clients (Telcos, pharma company, industrial companies, retailers, etc.). I resigned willing to start up my company in data analysis. Which didn't happen for many reasons, one being jeuxvideo.com came to me to create their communication and marketing department. Last year, jeuxvideo.com was bought by Webedia and I became CMO of all the group gaming assets. Mostly, what drives me is the intellectual challenge :).

How does your professional experience contribute to your candidacy for the board of the WMF?>> In many ways. As CMO, a good part of my job is to design and promote a vision both internally and externally. As I'm the last remaining of the C-Levels prior to merger, I also do had to take the role of "translator" between the staff od jeuxvideo.com and the rest of the group. I won't go further than that on this specific topic. A good part of my job is to think of what we're gonna be tomorrow, what we're gonna do and how we're gonna do it and make sure that it is adopted by our staff and our market is fine with it. Those are traits that do help in a board. You asked me to be brief, but I also believe that a board needs diversity in skills, experiences and backgrounds. I actually could argue how me being a cook do benefit the board.

How many people do you manage, directly or indirectly, in your current role?>>So, as for direct management it's 2 persons. Indirect, over 100. The matrix structure the company have, and the weekly m&a we're experiencing, makes it really hard for me to say how many people I manage. For exemple, I do work a lot with two data analysts, and few people in an other marketing department, but don't manage them per say. My job, is to make sure we all go in the same direction and that staff inputs are taken into account. As I'm the last c-level remaining from the merger, I do also have to manage a lot of people even though I'm not their direct boss, help them find their place and be confortable in the new structure.

Have you been involved in non-profit management other than WM-FR?>> Nope, I was not involved in the management of an other non profit. Last ten years were dedicated to our movement :)

Can you describe some of the challenges WM-FR has faced during your time on the board and how you contributed to overcoming them?>> WM FR Challenges, this can't be brief, so long version is available there: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/452082?search_string=christophe%20henner;#452082. Short version, we went through a crisis with major volunteer distrust, a ED leaving its job less than a year after starting and some board member resigning. My contribution was through leadership. I stepped in, and made sure we knew where we wanted to go and only then we defined a course of actions. I made sure that we went through the storm and that we didn't slow down at any point. That mean that I had to stand in front of an AGM of angry members and advocating for our decisions (and our last AGM every member recognised WMFr is in a greater shape than 3 years ago). That mean, after that AGM, we had to make sure we kept our plan, and our vision on course. That meant having people accepting that we would cap our growth, so it would be manageable while we were reorganising. That meant shutting down projects that didn't fit our vision. That meant a lot of things actually :D

Other than funds contributed by the WMF/FDC, what has been the maximum budget your board has been responsible for managing?>> As for Wikimedia France budget, it's roughly 1.2M€ and a little less than half of it comes from FDC, and every year we're trying to have our growth from external funding sources and not the FDC.

I hope I provided you with sufficiant answers, but your questions are the one that need whisky and a long night to answer :). Schiste (talk) 11:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Christophe for answering my questions. If you get a moment, could you describe what you think the ideal background and experience would be for a candidate for the WMF board? Nathan ^T 13:40, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Since then, movement. I've juste been appointed deputy CEO. I now am in charge of all non-technical issues, and my mandate is quite clear, get everything back on track within 6 month. So number of people reporting to me is now in the vicinity of 50. Glad to answer further question about that if needs be. Schiste (talk) 06:42, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Board member qualities

• Do you agree on my four points?
• What will be your heritage after your mandate?

--Nemo 20:17, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Nemo, thanks for your question. Short answer, I don't.

I should perhaps build on that :).

You're points raise mostly operational actions, and being operational they're absolute. "Involve more people..." can't be an imperative. There are discussions where you can't involve people. So, the points you shared are, to me, points I could agree with as "best practice to be done as much as possible when possible", but not what we need from a trustee.

So the best west way to answer your question would be to me to tell you what I believe should be the 4 key things to be a good trustee (and of course, being french I have to propose 5 not 4 :D):

• Decision making. Facing decisions that are hard to take, that we naturally want to postpone, but that postponing have hidden costs that usually is really high
• Arguing and accepting. Because the best decision are made from debate, but once the group votes something, the group has to push in the same direction. And it you really don't agree, using political tools (like resigning) and not drama.
• Empathy, empathy, empathy. That's my keyword for a few month, especially as a marketer. Empathy is about being able to step in someone else shoes and view things from their perspective. That is key to make good decisions. It also helps understand why would someone not agree with you and how to build a stronger solution. Empathy also mean caring for the other, and we tend to forget that caring isn't a waste of time, quite the opposite.
• Factual analysis. Personal emotions are usually not good in decision making. Decisions made out of fear, anger, jealousy, friendship, fondness, etc are rarely good ones. I got a reputation of being a robot (which I definitly I'm not (you should see me watching Mamma Mia! to witness me not being a robot :D)) but I do make rational decisions based on facts. I could quote Star Wars here quite easily on this, but let's stick to what I just said.
• Understanding of power play. That is something I pushed a lot with Nathalie, our ED, is to have our board understanding and aknowleding power plays. In every group of people, and in every organisation, there are power plays. Ignoring it, hinding it under the carpet, is the surest way to drama and bad decisions. Aknowledging power play in our board required a lot of work. From test to aknowledge how differently we were thinking to hard discussions where we had to say bluntly things to people. The key in the end is build a situation where you feel safe and confident of who you are and that the other do share a common vision. This open the door to open and frank decisions.

I'm not sure I answered your question the way you expected but hey, you asked for it ^^. And a lot of this traits can actually be taught and nurtured. Oh this isn't a finite list, but, to me, what should be shared within a board. You of course have to top that with specific expertises, skillsets, etc.

As for my heritage, I'd like to have the same goal as I had in Wikimedia France, leaving the organisation in the best shape possible. No matter what, this was meant to be my last mandate, I did my duty. Wikimedia France is in a strong position, my last actions are toward paving the road to the next steps. But I was a huge agent of the change in that past few years, now I have to leave and let other people build on that. Use those strong fondations to make Wikimedia France an even better org (and I'll love attending our next AGM as a regular member for the first time in forever :D). Happy to follow-up on that Schiste (talk) 12:06, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

In reply to this: Schiste I am asking the question now even if now is not the time. I want 100% participation among voters. I would appreciate your having the French chapter that supported you contact some of the less developed chapters and help them make a fair voting decision. If you won this election you would be representing all chapters. 1/3 of the chapters did not vote last time. They need help. They have a lot of power in their vote and I want them to use it now in this election. The election is less legitimate if eligible voters do not vote. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Questions to be addressed

Hi, I've been reading through the answers to the questions that have been posed by the community, and I note that there are several long-standing questions that you have not yet responded to, including my own question on the openness of board proceedings. Knowing where the candidates stand on a variety of issues is important when deciding who to vote for, and if you have not done so recently it would be worth reviewing the questions that still remain to be answered. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:24, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Michael, I've stopped answering questions as there are big changes in my work. I should step up, which would change some of my answers. If I don't get the final validation of my new job in the company before next week, I'll resume answering questions :) Schiste (talk) 09:22, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

What to do in these cases?

Hi dear Christophe Henner, Talk:Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Nominations/Susanna Mkrtchyan#Questions from 6AND5/2, Requests for comment/Indefinite block the user:6AND5 in the armenian Wikipedia ?--6AND5 (talk) 10:30, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

About unethical behaviour

Hi Christophe, this question, possible not links to your possble work (Wikimedia Foundation trustee), but in any case, I want to know, in your opinion, in this page quoted phrases (which is made by user Արամ Սողոմոնյան (Aram Soghomonyan), who now admin in Armenian Wikipedia) is violation of wiki etiquette, or no? --Vadgt (talk) 23:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

jeuxvideo.com

Just for confirmation you are a leader of Webedia, which own jeuxvideo.com which as a pretty much unmoderated forum called 18-25 which is a famous source of vandal on french wikipedia ? --Xavier Combelle (talk) 11:58, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I am a leader there, that is correct. But I fail to see how your question is relevant on my candidacy, except as an attempt to undermine it. Jeuxvideo.com is the host of message boards, just as much as WMF is host of wikis. I can't possibly be responsable for the actions of individuals regarding Wikipedia coming from there. Schiste (talk) 04:44, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

My point of view is that through the lack of sufficient enough moderation of a forum which is under your responsibility (indirect responsibility I concede) you let concerted vandalism against wikipedia repeatedly and regularly happen. As far as I know, the moderator on the forum were called for action several times but never acted. --Xavier Combelle (talk) 19:41, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

I fail to see the rational here. As a plateform, with clear rules, any attempt to organized "raids" on any other platform is sanctionned. Moderators delete and ban such attempts. Of course, as it's a community managed platform it's not working 100% of the time, things can be missed. But again, I fail to see how I could be responsible of such things. We're permanently working on improving moderation tools so volunteer moderators can be more efficient, that's our duty as host. Schiste (talk) 10:41, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Conflict of interest, transparency and ethics

Context

Good afternoon,

You're currently in an executive position at Webedia, the editor of the site jeuxvideo.com.

This website hosts a forum, a forum which has in France, an audience described by news articles similar to 4chan, to offer a free, but here somewhat moderated, discussion space to teenagers and young people. Two sections of this forum, offering generalist discussion spaces by age, the 15-18 and the 18-25, are the core of the matter I'll develop below.

Last year, French sources published news about racism and homophobic behavior on the jeuxvideo.com forums. For example, we have:

• en:Le Nouvel Observateur : Antisémitisme, homophobie, fanatisme : Jeuxvideo.com, la ruche à fiel
• en:Arrêt sur images : Vincent Coquaz, Jeuxvideo.com : L'obs (re) découvre racisme et homophobie dans les forums

In 2014, your own name was quoted on a coverage of transphobic issues:

• Clémence Bodoc, Les forums de Jeuxvideo.com, un bouillon de culture misogyne ?
• Sexisme, homophobie, harcèlement : la bêtise se porte bien sur les forums jeuxvideo.com, an article about body shaming and lack of transparency from Webedia
• Que reprochent les militant/e/s à jv.com ?

Last year, there were weekly raids organized from this forum to target French Wikipedia articles and French IRC channels, stressing resources from contributors to cope with these vandalism.

These problems are not issues of the past but recent topics: an article is still published in February on Le Monde website: Jeuxvideo.com, les trublions du Web français, which points « propos racistes, homophobes et sexistes ».

The last incident seems to be last week, there was a short strike on the moderation team of the section 18 25. Quickly after the strike, posts supporting Daesh, with nazi cross, offering to kill jews was published on the forum, as we can see on this screenshot. A little sooner during this strike, as shown on this screenshot, we have a call for "pedophile pictures". I understand this is the worst your forum users can imagine to play with the notion of a non moderated space, but this is puzzling: other spaces on the net aren't moderated and doesn't have this content.

Questions to the candidate

Now I've given some context about the jeuxvideo.com situation, I have some questions about a conflict of interests between an executive position at jeuxvideo.com editor and a seat on the WMF board. I also have some questions about ethics and transparency.

1. While this candidacy stresses upon the importance of transparency, I'm a little worried about the lack of transparency the company, especially while you were "Responsable Marketing" and then "Chief Marketing Officer": what your position about transparency and how do you apply it in your professional life?

2. While you gave interviews explaining you don't see as a solution to close topics with transphobic content, Sam Hocevar, former Debian project leader asked you on Twitter if you were shamed to be associated with a moderator position stating « vous avez le droit de ne pas apprécier la transsexualité », ie "you have the right to dislike transsexuality". This question is especially pertinent here, as you're candidate to serve in a board of an organization where trust and ethics matter, an organization with inclusive policies to "promote diversity in the Wikimedia movement". How do you see yourself to serve to a board supporting diversity while your corporate position seems to differ?

3. How do you conciliate the fact to serve as an executive director of a media used to attack Wikipedia contributors, make articles vandalism, flood IRC channels and to serve at the WMF board?

4. How will you support diversity if elected to the board?

--Dereckson (talk) 13:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, this question coupled with the previous one looks as ways to undermine my candidacy. But as your questions are on serious topics, I'll answer.

Let me provide some context too. First, the message boards are moderated by volunteers as jeuxvideo.com is host. The situation, legally, is the same as the one here. We wouldn't imagine WMF having paid moderators. Second, there are 250,000 messages published every day at least and hundreds of thousands of unique users per month. Of these 250,000 messages we register (We jeuxvideo.com through our internal alerting system plus those signaled to the police) around 2,000 a day that contain illégal contents. The forums were under my responsability from 2013 to 2014. They left my scope for all of 2015 as I became CMO and are back into it 10 days ago. Under my leadership, illégal content dropped drastically but even french authorities informed us mid-2014 that over the past 9 month they notices a significant drop in illégal contents coming from the message board we host. Now on to your questions.

1. transparency in my work life. So as I said I fear those questions are only meant to undermine my candidacy as, like these one, lacks any specifics and paints me as someone not honest. But hey, I'll play ball. I've spent hours, even on my week-ends, answering questions on my Twitter account even though I was being insulted. I shared, as I just did again, internal private statistics to provide understanding, I even gave my email adress on Twitter so that people could reach out directly to me in case of need. The details of the moderation system has been shared publicly and, under my leadership, a new moderation system, making use of collaboration on the message boards, was developped. All of that has been communicated numerous time in the past, and if you have any other questions about the company I'll be happy to answer. And if I can't, I'll explain why. Have always done so and won't change :). So if you have real questions, ask them. Oh by the way, if you had read my candidacy, you would have seen I don't talk about transparency in it, contrary to what you say in your questions. You should have read my statement before trying to undermine it. Striking that part, I just now notice that you pointed to another candidat. Emotions were triggered I over reacted, sorry.
2. so now we get to the part painting me has an x-phobic person. So basicly because people are saying transphobic stuff on the message board we host, the company hosting it is transphobic? So the same goes for Wikipedia right? Because people said transphobic things on Wikipedia, Wikipedia is transphobic? No. Because we, wikipedians, unlike most of the internet users do perfectly understand how role and responsabilities between editors/host/host employees are shared. As for my personal views, I leave it up to you to point where I just even remotely express something like that. I've been spending the last 5 or 6 years reading and questionning all of the cultural burdden that comes with being a priviledged white man living in France and I'm more than aware on this topic. I contribute in our movement for 12 years because I believe we're changing the world, we're providing understanding between people. And if you had read my statement you would have read that, but that's the second of your question that proves you didn't read it.
3. conciliation of both roles. So now trying to paint me as part of a company supporting vandalism. So, again, I would have believed has a wikimedian you would understand that jeuxvideo.com provided hosting and isn't performing pre-publication délétion of content. As a host, like on Wikipedia, we take actions after due notification. This is about individuals actions, you can't use individuals actions to pin it of the back of an organization.
4. about supporting diversity. That is your first great question :) First of all, I hate that we have to use that word. To me it usually is misleading us from the real issue. Bh talking about diversity we force the discussion about what we see, ie board diversity. And then to have us build a "diverse" board. But the issue isn't in the lack of diversity but in the fact that we are perhaps not providing a safe space for long enough so that everyone, priviledged or not, feels confortable raising their voice. And that is what I believe is key. Fighting for our movement to be as safe as possible so that everyone is feeling included. And as a board member I will push toward that.

Finally, even though it's designed to undermine my candidacy, I will answer every of those questions as I will not allow you to paint me as such a person. You're going after one of the few thing that trigger an immediate emotional answer from my part and get to me personaly. I will fight off any and every insinuation you will lay on those topics. I will not let you. Schiste (talk) 05:37, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

First, thank you for these responses, especially as it's a sensible topic for you.

I understand this jeuxvideo.com matter is sensible, but you work there, you spend a lot of time in this company, and so this is a part of you. Nobody forced you to chose this work career. Nobody forced you to work on a company who host in France homophobic, racist, xenophobic, transphobic content. You have the right to work where you want.

I'm absolutely not convinced by your "we only host, we aren't editors" defense, as your company takes a proactive part to actively moderate the content, and so act more like an editor than an host. Jeuxvideo.com bulletin boards are not Wikipedia, these are a strongly moderated place. And your company is in fine responsible of the tone, the climate, the kind of people they want to cater for, ie their marketing audience and demographics.

You have a strong support from chapters endorsement. You have a track record of participation to Wikimedia movement. There is here absolutely not any issue of "undermine your candidature", but to determine how to conciliate the best your participation to WMF board and your work. This is something important to find a balance between the two. And know if such balance is possible.

My questions are mainly born from genuine concerns to avoid a new Brandon Eich affair. Yes, as far as I know, and according other French Wikimedians, you support LGBT rights in France and was pro marriage for all. That's respectable. But the association between you and jeuxvideo.com is clearly not an asset. There is here no insinuation: you Christophe are inclusive, but you're an executive to a company catering for an audience in part not inclusive at all. --Dereckson (talk) 19:32, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

P.S. I liked the safe space notion in your answer to my fourth question.

On the "host/editor" part, it's not a matter of convincing but of facts. We host a platform that is managed by its community. As host, we provide tools for moderation and notification of potentially harmful content. As host we act on such notifications. Are their such content as you described published by internet users on our platform. Sadly, yes there is. And sadly again, as there is on many other platforms. Are we letting them alone. No. Just so you know, we're the company that does the more formal notifications to french authorities (dozens a week). Because, we do believe such speech shouldn't go unpunished. But we can legally only act after a notification has been made. All of that being said, as I said earlier, as an editor, in the video game industry, since I arrived I pushed for a respectful agenda. Our content mostly is respectful, there are some that did include some sexism. But, as anyone roaming on this topic, it's a hard and a long way to get people to actually see all the cultural burdden that makes people write stuff they don't realize as sexist. As for the message boards, since I took back that duty, 10 days ago, we've had more ressources pulled to improve moderation tools. On top of that, we regularly provide volunteer moderators with information and documentation on the legal ramification on those issue. Basicly we're trying to help people from 15 - 25 about n-ism.

To that day, what I focus on is the change. Is it going better? And it is. Is it good, not yet. But it gets better all over the board. Because we push in that direction.

To give you some perspective, your assumption about the company is based on rawly 1 000 messages over 250 000 a day. It's also based on one message board over 35 000. I'm not saying it's ok. It's not. I'm saying that we sometime also need to look past the tree and look at the rest of the forest.

As for having both jobs, I was answering for jeuxvideo.com questions from our readers regarding our business and we operate. I was as transparent as I could be, and from the comment I've seen it has been recognized as transparent. So, and I've said publicly before, I'm ready to welcome anyone in our offices and talk with them and even share private data to explain and work on the issue (and we actually did a few weeks ago with feminists and with a couple of civil rights organizations). Because the picture painted is only a glimpse of the truth, because people think we don't care and we can prove we do, because people think we're sitting idle on the matter and we're not, and finally because we have facts to prove that our actions and dedication had positive consequences.

Our work is far from over. But it's getting better, and we keep pushing that direction. And that is weird to say as a marketing guy, but on this very issue I do not care of the perception, all I care is are we doing our best with the ressources allocated to get things better.

Finally, I understand some of your concerns but I do hope that the facts will always prevail, especially as I am not shy, as a person, of what I believe and defend and I do not hide of defending my work. I'm not proud of what individuals do on our message boards, but I'm proud of having been able to make it a real topic internally in the past years and I'm proud that we, as a team, are all pushing into what I believe is the right direction. I'd like it to go faster, but at least it gets better. I'd be glad to answer any other question on these topic obviously :) Schiste (talk) 11:04, 28 April 2016 (UTC)