Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are published!

[Kerry Raymond]

As advice to an individual editor on how to deal with good faith but 
problematics edits, I would say give the newbie feedback on exactly what the 
specific problem is with their reverted edit explain how to fix it, and 
continue to watch the article and their user talk page to see how they are 
going, and keep offering help until they get it right.

For my long answer on how to do it at scale, see my other longer email.

Kerry
 

-Original Message-
From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On 
Behalf Of Pine W
Sent: Sunday, 30 September 2018 5:01 AM
To: Wiki Research-l 
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are 
published!

Kerry,

This discussion about reverts, combined with my recent experience on ENWP, 
makes me wonder if there's a way to make reverts feel less hostile on average. 
Do you have any ideas about how to do that?

Thanks,

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) 
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are published!

[Kerry Raymond]

I have seen this too in face-to-face situations. While it is COI, if it’s 
notable and written factually, I don’t worry too much (I might swing past it 
later and just remove any puffery that may have crept in). I do stop them 
writing about themselves or other living people with whom they may have a COI. 
There’s a fine line between “having an interest” and “having a conflict of 
interest” and I find the dead/living distinction tends to make a difference. An 
article about a dead person is unlikely to be promotional, which is the big 
concern with COI.

 

I find edit-a-thons have more risk around CoI and notability, particularly when 
the organisers have not provided a list of possible topics but let the 
participants choose their own (I am generally supporting these events as an 
experienced Wikipedian rather than organising them). Also they are often larger 
groups than training sessions so it is a lot more difficult for me to know what 
they are all writing about and be able to chat to them about why they chose 
that topic, so I am far less likely to be aware if there is CoI.

 

Kerry

 

From: Ziko van Dijk [mailto:zvand...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, 29 September 2018 10:21 PM
To: kerry.raym...@gmail.com
Cc: Research into Wikimedia content and communities 
; Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight 

Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are 
published!

 

Hello Kerry,

 

Sorry, I did not see all the mails and the context before.

 

I remember a gentleman in a training lesson who wanted to write about his 
grandfather. Notability no problem, and no obvious bias. Why not assume Good 
Faith. But still, one might ask oneself whether this is an ideal situation. It 
is tricky. In general I totally agree that the hostility is a problem.

 

Kind regards

Ziko

 

 

Kerry Raymond mailto:kerry.raym...@gmail.com> > 
schrieb am Sa. 29. Sep. 2018 um 08:27:

Well, I run training and events. The folk who turn up to these are always good 
faith, typically middle-aged and older, mostly women, and of  above-average 
education for their age (our oldest Australians will not all have had the 
opportunity to go to high school) and generally acceptable IT skills. I think 
most of them are capable of being good contributors and their errors are mostly 
unintentional, e.g. copyright is not always well understood and so there are 
photo uploads from “family albums” or “our local history collection” where the 
provenance of the image is unknown  and hence its copyright status is unclear. 
But off-line activities like mine are too few in number to make a significant 
impact on en.WP. We have to get better at attracting and on-boarding people via 
on-line.

 

Obviously on my watchlist I see plenty of  blatant and subtle vandalism, so I 
am not naïve about that, but I do also see what appears to be good faith 
behaviour from newbies too. I suspect people who only see their watchlist have 
a more negative view about newbies than I do.

 

So, yes, we may have to filter out some of the good faith folks if their 
behaviour remains problematic, but reverting them for any small problem in 
their early edits certainly isn’t proving to be an effective strategy. 

 

Kerry

 

From: Ziko van Dijk [mailto:zvand...@gmail.com  ] 
Sent: Saturday, 29 September 2018 3:27 PM
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities 
mailto:wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org> >; kerry.raym...@gmail.com 
 
Cc: Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight mailto:rosiestep.w...@gmail.com> >


Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are 
published!

 

Hello Kerry,

 

While I agree to most what you said, I think that the bigger picture should 
include that: newbies are not always good contributors, and not always 
good-faith contributors. And even if they have good faith, that does not mean 
that they can be trained to become good contributors. Dealing with newbies 
means always a filtering. MAybe different people are differently optimistic 
about the probability to make a newbie a good contributor.

 

Kind regards,

Ziko

 

Kerry Raymond mailto:kerry.raym...@gmail.com> > 
schrieb am Do. 27. Sep. 2018 um 06:47:

While I have no objection to the administrator training, I don't think most of 
the problem lies with administrators. There's a lot of biting of the good-faith 
newbies done by "ordinary" editors (although I have seen some admins do it 
too). And, while I agree that there are many good folk out there on en.WP, 
unfortunately the newbie tends to meet the other folk first or perhaps it's 
that 1 bad experience has more impact than one good experience.

Similarly while Arbcom's willingness to desysop folks is good, I doubt a newbie 
knows how or where to complain in the first instance. Also there's a high level 
of defensive reaction if they do. Some of my trainees have contacted me about 
being reverted for clearly good-faith edits on the 

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are published!

[Pine W]

Kerry,

This discussion about reverts, combined with my recent experience on ENWP,
makes me wonder if there's a way to make reverts feel less hostile on
average. Do you have any ideas about how to do that?

Thanks,

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
___
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are published!

[Pine W]

Ziko,

That's certainly true. I think that Aaron Halfaker and the ORES team were
hoping to use ORES to identify with greater certainty which newbies are
likely to be good-faith very early in their edit counts, so as to try to
route those newbies to the Teahouse and other places where they could get
support. Perhaps Aaron or Jonathan Morgan could comment on how successful,
or unsuccessful, those efforts with ORES were.

More recently ORES seems to be focusing on helping experienced Wikimedians
to identify vandalism.

Gerard makes a good point that moving the needle in a statistically
significant way on a huge project like ENWP is a challenging goal. On the
other hand, the continuing inflow of new editors, on ENWP and elsewhere,
gives me hope that we have some time to increase the viability and
sustainability of the projects. Also, on ENWP and other large projects, if
someone finds a way to increase the retention of good-faith contributors by
a relatively small percentage, because the numbers involved are so large, a
small percentage change can be very valuable in terms of absolute numbers.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )


On Sat, Sep 29, 2018 at 5:27 AM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> Hello Kerry,
>
> While I agree to most what you said, I think that the bigger picture should
> include that: newbies are not always good contributors, and not always
> good-faith contributors. And even if they have good faith, that does not
> mean that they can be trained to become good contributors. Dealing with
> newbies means always a filtering. MAybe different people are differently
> optimistic about the probability to make a newbie a good contributor.
>
> Kind regards,
> Ziko
>
> Kerry Raymond  schrieb am Do. 27. Sep. 2018 um
> 06:47:
>
> > While I have no objection to the administrator training, I don't think
> > most of the problem lies with administrators. There's a lot of biting of
> > the good-faith newbies done by "ordinary" editors (although I have seen
> > some admins do it too). And, while I agree that there are many good folk
> > out there on en.WP, unfortunately the newbie tends to meet the other folk
> > first or perhaps it's that 1 bad experience has more impact than one good
> > experience.
> >
> > Similarly while Arbcom's willingness to desysop folks is good, I doubt a
> > newbie knows how or where to complain in the first instance. Also
> there's a
> > high level of defensive reaction if they do. Some of my trainees have
> > contacted me about being reverted for clearly good-faith edits on the
> most
> > spurious of reasons. When I have restored their edit with a hopefully
> > helpful explanation, I often get reverted too. If a newbie takes any
> action
> > themselves, it is likely to be an undo and that road leads to 3RR block
> or
> > at least a 3RR warning. The other action they take is to respond on their
> > User Talk page (when there is a message there to respond to). However,
> such
> > replies are usually ignored, whether the other user isn't watching for a
> > reply or whether they just don't like their authority to be challenged, I
> > don't know. But it rarely leads to a satisfactory resolution.
> >
> > One of the problems we have with Wikipedia is that most of us tend to see
> > it edit-by-edit (whether we are talking about a new edit or a revert of
> an
> > edit), we don't ever see a "big picture" of a user's behaviour without a
> > lot of tedious investigation (working through their recent contributions
> > one by one). So, it's easy to think "I am not 100% sure that the
> > edit/revert I saw was OK but I really don't have time to see if this is
> > one-off or a consistent problem". Maybe we need a way to privately
> "express
> > doubt" about an edit (in the way you can report a Facebook post). Then if
> > someone starts getting too many "doubtful edits" per unit time (or
> > whatever), it triggers an admin (or someone) to take a closer look at
> what
> > that user is up to. I think if we had a lightweight way to express doubt
> > about any edit, then we could use machine learning to detect patterns
> that
> > suggest specific types of undesirable user behaviours that can really
> only
> > be seen as a "big picture".
> >
> > Given this is the research mailing list, I guess we should we talking
> > about ways research can help with this problem.
> >
> > Kerry
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:
> wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org]
> > On Behalf Of Pine W
> > Sent: Wednesday, 26 September 2018 1:07 PM
> > To: Wiki Research-l ; Rosie
> > Stephenson-Goodknight 
> > Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey
> > are published!
> >
> > I'm appreciative that we're having this conversation - not in the sense
> > that I'm happy with the status quo, but I'm glad that some of us are
> > continuing to work on our persistent difficulties with contributor
> > retention, civility, and diversity.
> >
> > I've spent 

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are published!

[Ziko van Dijk]

Hello Kerry,

Sorry, I did not see all the mails and the context before.

I remember a gentleman in a training lesson who wanted to write about his
grandfather. Notability no problem, and no obvious bias. Why not assume
Good Faith. But still, one might ask oneself whether this is an ideal
situation. It is tricky. In general I totally agree that the hostility is a
problem.

Kind regards
Ziko


Kerry Raymond  schrieb am Sa. 29. Sep. 2018 um
08:27:

> Well, I run training and events. The folk who turn up to these are always
> good faith, typically middle-aged and older, mostly women, and of
> above-average education for their age (our oldest Australians will not all
> have had the opportunity to go to high school) and generally acceptable IT
> skills. I think most of them are capable of being good contributors and
> their errors are mostly unintentional, e.g. copyright is not always well
> understood and so there are photo uploads from “family albums” or “our
> local history collection” where the provenance of the image is unknown  and
> hence its copyright status is unclear. But off-line activities like mine
> are too few in number to make a significant impact on en.WP. We have to get
> better at attracting and on-boarding people via on-line.
>
>
>
> Obviously on my watchlist I see plenty of  blatant and subtle vandalism,
> so I am not naïve about that, but I do also see what appears to be good
> faith behaviour from newbies too. I suspect people who only see their
> watchlist have a more negative view about newbies than I do.
>
>
>
> So, yes, we may have to filter out some of the good faith folks if their
> behaviour remains problematic, but reverting them for any small problem in
> their early edits certainly isn’t proving to be an effective strategy.
>
>
>
> Kerry
>
>
>
> *From:* Ziko van Dijk [mailto:zvand...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Saturday, 29 September 2018 3:27 PM
> *To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities <
> wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org>; kerry.raym...@gmail.com
> *Cc:* Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight 
>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia
> survey are published!
>
>
>
> Hello Kerry,
>
>
>
> While I agree to most what you said, I think that the bigger picture
> should include that: newbies are not always good contributors, and not
> always good-faith contributors. And even if they have good faith, that does
> not mean that they can be trained to become good contributors. Dealing with
> newbies means always a filtering. MAybe different people are differently
> optimistic about the probability to make a newbie a good contributor.
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Ziko
>
>
>
> Kerry Raymond  schrieb am Do. 27. Sep. 2018 um
> 06:47:
>
> While I have no objection to the administrator training, I don't think
> most of the problem lies with administrators. There's a lot of biting of
> the good-faith newbies done by "ordinary" editors (although I have seen
> some admins do it too). And, while I agree that there are many good folk
> out there on en.WP, unfortunately the newbie tends to meet the other folk
> first or perhaps it's that 1 bad experience has more impact than one good
> experience.
>
> Similarly while Arbcom's willingness to desysop folks is good, I doubt a
> newbie knows how or where to complain in the first instance. Also there's a
> high level of defensive reaction if they do. Some of my trainees have
> contacted me about being reverted for clearly good-faith edits on the most
> spurious of reasons. When I have restored their edit with a hopefully
> helpful explanation, I often get reverted too. If a newbie takes any action
> themselves, it is likely to be an undo and that road leads to 3RR block or
> at least a 3RR warning. The other action they take is to respond on their
> User Talk page (when there is a message there to respond to). However, such
> replies are usually ignored, whether the other user isn't watching for a
> reply or whether they just don't like their authority to be challenged, I
> don't know. But it rarely leads to a satisfactory resolution.
>
> One of the problems we have with Wikipedia is that most of us tend to see
> it edit-by-edit (whether we are talking about a new edit or a revert of an
> edit), we don't ever see a "big picture" of a user's behaviour without a
> lot of tedious investigation (working through their recent contributions
> one by one). So, it's easy to think "I am not 100% sure that the
> edit/revert I saw was OK but I really don't have time to see if this is
> one-off or a consistent problem". Maybe we need a way to privately "express
> doubt" about an edit (in the way you can report a Facebook post). Then if
> someone starts getting too many "doubtful edits" per unit time (or
> whatever), it triggers an admin (or someone) to take a closer look at what
> that user is up to. I think if we had a lightweight way to express doubt
> about any edit, then we could use machine learning to detect patterns that
> suggest 

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are published!

[Kerry Raymond]

Well, I run training and events. The folk who turn up to these are always good 
faith, typically middle-aged and older, mostly women, and of  above-average 
education for their age (our oldest Australians will not all have had the 
opportunity to go to high school) and generally acceptable IT skills. I think 
most of them are capable of being good contributors and their errors are mostly 
unintentional, e.g. copyright is not always well understood and so there are 
photo uploads from “family albums” or “our local history collection” where the 
provenance of the image is unknown  and hence its copyright status is unclear. 
But off-line activities like mine are too few in number to make a significant 
impact on en.WP. We have to get better at attracting and on-boarding people via 
on-line.

 

Obviously on my watchlist I see plenty of  blatant and subtle vandalism, so I 
am not naïve about that, but I do also see what appears to be good faith 
behaviour from newbies too. I suspect people who only see their watchlist have 
a more negative view about newbies than I do.

 

So, yes, we may have to filter out some of the good faith folks if their 
behaviour remains problematic, but reverting them for any small problem in 
their early edits certainly isn’t proving to be an effective strategy. 

 

Kerry

 

From: Ziko van Dijk [mailto:zvand...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, 29 September 2018 3:27 PM
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities 
; kerry.raym...@gmail.com
Cc: Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight 
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are 
published!

 

Hello Kerry,

 

While I agree to most what you said, I think that the bigger picture should 
include that: newbies are not always good contributors, and not always 
good-faith contributors. And even if they have good faith, that does not mean 
that they can be trained to become good contributors. Dealing with newbies 
means always a filtering. MAybe different people are differently optimistic 
about the probability to make a newbie a good contributor.

 

Kind regards,

Ziko

 

Kerry Raymond mailto:kerry.raym...@gmail.com> > 
schrieb am Do. 27. Sep. 2018 um 06:47:

While I have no objection to the administrator training, I don't think most of 
the problem lies with administrators. There's a lot of biting of the good-faith 
newbies done by "ordinary" editors (although I have seen some admins do it 
too). And, while I agree that there are many good folk out there on en.WP, 
unfortunately the newbie tends to meet the other folk first or perhaps it's 
that 1 bad experience has more impact than one good experience.

Similarly while Arbcom's willingness to desysop folks is good, I doubt a newbie 
knows how or where to complain in the first instance. Also there's a high level 
of defensive reaction if they do. Some of my trainees have contacted me about 
being reverted for clearly good-faith edits on the most spurious of reasons. 
When I have restored their edit with a hopefully helpful explanation, I often 
get reverted too. If a newbie takes any action themselves, it is likely to be 
an undo and that road leads to 3RR block or at least a 3RR warning. The other 
action they take is to respond on their User Talk page (when there is a message 
there to respond to). However, such replies are usually ignored, whether the 
other user isn't watching for a reply or whether they just don't like their 
authority to be challenged, I don't know. But it rarely leads to a satisfactory 
resolution.

One of the problems we have with Wikipedia is that most of us tend to see it 
edit-by-edit (whether we are talking about a new edit or a revert of an edit), 
we don't ever see a "big picture" of a user's behaviour without a lot of 
tedious investigation (working through their recent contributions one by one). 
So, it's easy to think "I am not 100% sure that the edit/revert I saw was OK 
but I really don't have time to see if this is one-off or a consistent 
problem". Maybe we need a way to privately "express doubt" about an edit (in 
the way you can report a Facebook post). Then if someone starts getting too 
many "doubtful edits" per unit time (or whatever), it triggers an admin (or 
someone) to take a closer look at what that user is up to. I think if we had a 
lightweight way to express doubt about any edit, then we could use machine 
learning to detect patterns that suggest specific types of undesirable user 
behaviours that can really only be seen as a "big picture".

Given this is the research mailing list, I guess we should we talking about 
ways research can help with this problem.

Kerry

-Original Message-
From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
 ] On Behalf Of Pine W
Sent: Wednesday, 26 September 2018 1:07 PM
To: Wiki Research-l mailto:wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org> >; Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight 
mailto:rosiestep.w...@gmail.com> >