Jimbo Wales has made an Announcement about Pending Changes, having been asked to interpret the results of the Pending changes poll for the Foundation. Wales said his intent was to communicate the community's desires to the Foundation and not to act as a final authority on the matter. There is "absolutely no consensus for simply turning the system off and walking away", he said, citing the result of the poll (65/35% Support/Oppose, despite the large number of contributors who opposed the structure of the poll itself). He conceded there has been substantial, vocal, and articulate opposition to using a system of this kind at all, or to using it in its current form, and addressed three concerns:

• Openness: "I believe Pending Changes, used properly, can make Wikipedia more open if used on pages that would otherwise be put under some other form of protection." He acknowledged that while he had hoped that Pending Changes would make it possible to open up articles like George W. Bush and Barack Obama for anonymous edits, the trial had shown that for these particular pages "the workload of vetting edits and the polluted edit history weigh greater than the benefit of the system." However, he continues to believe that the system is useful for opening problematic pages to unrestricted editing, and should be further refined and tweaked for that purpose.
• Effectiveness: On doubts about effectiveness, Wales said the results indicate that there is still much to learn. Noting that PC does not work as well on high-traffic pages, he said it seemed to be effective on such articles as those dealing with current events. Referring to supporters' suggestions that the feature could be applied to determine if a page is eligible to be moved from semi-protected to unprotected status, he said it all argued for further careful exploration of the tool.
• Complexity: In response to complaints about the system's complexity—particularly the user interface—he agreed that the current iteration was "rough around the edges", but was hopeful it would integrate better with user experience over time, and work like traditional page protection now. On this basis, he has already asked the foundation to keep Pending Changes enabled, to streamline the interface, and "to increase the hard-coded limit of pages as the performance characteristics of the system allow it." He suggested a six-month waiting period, and proposed inviting opposers to provide feedback in the hope that by "working together, we can build a system and policies that have even broader support, similar to page protection and user blocking today."

Wales also took part in the ensuing discussion and responded to the comments on his page. Community members expressed their views following his statement on their concerns, suggesting an alternative straw poll for the future and discussing ways to resolve the issue in the meantime. Wales proposed a quick poll to determine what to do pending the availability of version 2.0, saying he has asked the Foundation for a firm schedule and will report back when he hears from them. The two proposed options for the poll would be to stop using the feature altogether or use it only on an evaluation basis. Rob Lanphier from the Foundation has advised that he will make a timeline available by September 17.

• Chief human resources officer hired: The Wikimedia Foundation has announced the hiring of Cyn Skyberg for the position of "Chief Talent and Culture Officer" (CTCO). She will be responsible for the coordination of Wikimedia's human resources and organizational, developmental, and recruiting strategies. The position was originally advertised as "Chief Human Resources Officer" but was renamed so as to show "a strong focus on helping Wikimedia grow and sustain an organizational culture consistent with its values."
• Three Chapter reports published: Three Wikimedia Chapter reports, for Hungary, for Argentina, and for Hong Kong, have been published. The Hungarian report covered the first ever "WikiCamp" (see earlier Signpost coverage), Conference organization, several grants, media and social media coverage, and contact with a group of librarians "who want to start an initiative to systematically improve Wikipedia content on the topics they find important." The Argentinian report covered several representative and board meetings (including one with representatives of Buenos Aires), the bicentennial of the start of the Argentine War of Independence, the third anniversary of Wikimedia Argentinia, media coverage, and other topics. The Hong Kong report covered the third annual Anniversary Conference, involvement in liberal studies, annual fundraising preparations, the Wikimedia Asia Conference, and the General Assembly.
• Wikimania Committee?: Discussions have begun on a possible Wikimania Committee, kick-started by Seddon. Active participants had "floated the notion" that there should be an oversight committee for several years; interest was reignited during the run-up to this year's Wikimania (see Signpost coverage).
• Gadget installation statistics have been published for the English Wikipedia.
• CGDO on India: The log for the August 31 IRC Office hours with Barry Newstead, the Wikimedia Foundation's Chief Global Development Officer, have been posted. A large part of the conversation related to the Foundation's plans in India, which Newstead is visiting this month to prepare the opening of the first Foundation office outside the US (see last week's "In the news").
• Movement roles workgroup: As reported in last week's "News and notes", the WMF Board (re)formed a Movement roles working group in its July meeting. The group is tasked with "clarifying the roles of different parts of the Wikimedia network and movement", with the goal of drafting a "Wikimedia Charter". It held its first conference call last week; a summary has been posted on Meta.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-13/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-13/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-13/In focus