Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Ruslan Takayev]

Geni stated: "As so many projects have learned so painfully in the
last decade the
English Wikipedia knows what they are doing."

Sorry, but that is not correct and Mitar's case is evidence of this.

Here we have an article on a cultural organization in Slovenia, which
a cursory glance of Google shows is notable, being deleted outright by
an admin who 1) does not speak Slovenian (and therefore unable to
check sources) and 2) who likely did not do the same cursory glance
that I did.

http://www.culture.si/en/Poligon_Creative_Centre is one awesome source
that is not only reliable but also establishes the so-called
importance of Poligon; i.e. "...the biggest artist run space in
Slovenia."

Culture.si is an encyclopedia project of the Slovenian Ministry of
Culture, devoted to the culture of Slovenia. If Culture.si, which is
not editable by the public, has an article on an organization, then so
should Wikipedia.

On http://www.culture.si/en/Culture.si:About under "Enhance Wikipedia!
Reuse our content" (yes, it is CC licensed!) they state "Wikipedia in
English has over 3 million articles but not many of them are related
to culture in/from Slovenia."

This is, unfortunately, true. There is likely to be more articles on
Game of Thrones, than there is on Slovenian culture.

As to the article in question, it is possible that it needed a little
bit of cleanup; the solution in such instances would be put a
cleanup/notability tag on it, and fix issues through collaborative
editings.

If, at the whim of an admin, it was really required to be moved out of
mainspace it could have been moved to Draft namespace, or even user
space, with a note being left for the editor on their talk page.

This would be good practice, and it astounds me that after all the
words written both on the project and on this very list, no-one has
had the foresight to do one of the two above things for Mitar. Even
now, he is asking on IRC for someone to provide him with the text that
was deleted, and that request is being ignored.

Mitar, don't apologize for anything you have done on Wikipedia, or
said on this mailing list, as you have shed some light on how
Wikipedia fails on many levels with new editors.

Warm regards,

Ruslan Takayev

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

Thanks you for all the responses. It is really great to see this
various explanations.

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 4:27 PM, John  wrote:
> If we do not have checks and balances in place wikipedia will quickly get
> overrun with articles on everyone and everything to ever exist regardless
> of the actual notability of the person/place/thing/event.

Hm, while I understand the goal of high quality content, I do not
understand why this has to be so black and white? Existence vs.
non-existence? Why not introducing a third level of content, so that
we would have something like:

- encyclopedic article in the main namespace
- non-encyclopedic draft/stub/sandbox article in the same main namespace
- deleted articles in a special namespace

There could be a special very small set of really deleted articles for
legal reasons.

The main idea I would propose is that all of those articles should be
editable. Even if article is deleted, people should be able to
continue editing it, it should just be made that robots cannot index
them, for example, and that they are under some special namespace. The
reason is that it is much easier if you can edit it and improve it and
then through time maybe things change, maybe somebody becomes notable
through time and their content can be brought back.

The same for so-called non-encyclopedic content which do not merit
entry by current standards. Some of those should be kept with clear
visual tags that content is not yet up to the standard of Wikipedia.
We could even make it so that you first get an full overlay warning
and you have to click through to get to the content.

I think the whole issue of inclusionists and deletionists is so
problematic because we do not step back and observe that there could
be ways to address both concerns with slight changes to the process,
and probably small technical changes.

It is really not necessary to be introducing artificial scarcity.

From what I read this has been going on from 2008 at least, when Paul
Graham included to fix this among his startup ideas:

http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html

This is 8 years ago.

I might really do not understand something here, but what is the plan
to solve this problem? Are we just waiting for something to happen?
Why are we not discussing how to find a solution which would find a
consensus in the community? In 8 years there should really already be
a solution?

So, what are issues people have with my proposal above? Why would not
this satisfy both groups?

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:19 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Mitar is not being specific about the entry and seems more into discussing
> the process.

Oh, I would of course like that we discuss the particular article and
get feedback on it, positive or negative. Anything helps. And I can
learn more. I just do not want us to digress from the topic which for
me is more even important: how to improve this experience for everyone
in the future as well. I will survive. But I am a privileged white
male with a good grasp of technology who experienced various online
communities through years. But what about others? What about people
who might have less command of the English language and would have
issues discussing all this through? Who do not have so much time to
discuss things through?

What we will do about that?

Maybe I should not care and I should just try to address the issues
with my article and move on. But when will then anything change?

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large community
> of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
> getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually able
> to help you.

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I more than appreciate all the
help and responses I am getting here. What I mean is that I would hope
that it is possible to edit the Wikipedia without knowing editors and
admins individually. But this would probably mean even more
bureaucratic process, so maybe it is even better like this.
Personally, I believe all editors are good people, with a common goal,
it seems we just disagree sometimes, but this probably also comes from
dissymmetry of information about particular things. Mine about
Wikipedia rules, theirs about a particular topic. Addressing this
dissymmetry is done through discussions.

I see how that comment might offended. Sorry again.

> But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
> engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.

I am trying to present this as an occasional editor. Yes, one solution
to issues I have is to get to know Wikipedia rules and community more,
to get more engaged and integrated. This is a completely valid
approach.

But I wonder, is there an alternative path. What about occasional
editor who might not have resources to embark on this path.
Personally, it seems, I am already 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Nathan]

Experiences described by a new editor are valid and meaningful even if, in
relating them, the new editor shows some lack of familiarity with Wikipedia
customs and established doctrines. It's certainly true that the process of
patrolling pages for quality can be, from the perspective of a newbie
writer, abrupt and off-putting. Thanks for telling us about the difficulty
you encountered, Mitar.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[geni]

On 25 June 2016 at 13:14, Vi to  wrote:
> As a deletion I'd say we totally lost at en.wiki, we can maybe tie on other
> wikis.
>

As so many projects have learned so painfully in the last decade the
English Wikipedia knows what they are doing.



-- 
geni

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Mitar

Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large community
of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually able
to help you. But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.

Quite frankly, without specifics about the entry -- and the citations used
-- there's nothing anyone can do to help you. It seems this is more about
discussing the process and your experience than finding a solution. Which
is fine, but I was trying to help solve the problem.

As others have said, this is not a new issue, or a newly discovered issue.
Saying the problem is systemic and not taking responsibility for yourself
as an editor by learning some of the requirements and rules of Wikipedia
seems to be a bit of an evasion of responsibility, perhaps?

Notability is definitely something that is highly debated within the
community, and I actually think there has been a lot of improvement in this
area. But if your citations -- or your entry -- isn't well done, I believe
that's when there are problems. Again, I would like to see these citations,
Slovenian or otherwise.

And I agree with John that there should be checks and balances. Many people
or subjects do not merit an article, but many others do.

- Erika

*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 3:06 PM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Thank you for your responses.
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
> > Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> > on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> > to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> > help / resolution.
>
> I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> discuss principles behind my experience.
>
> I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> bringing it here.
>
> I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
>
> And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
>
> Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> readers that they are reading such a new article.
>
> (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> example, for all sides.)
>
> > Discussion (with reason):
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page
>
> Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> cited and might get a better picture.
>
> The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
> why I am writing to such general list like this.)
>
> > I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
> > moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there,
> and I
> > would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.
>
> But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Thank you Carl. I will make sure to note re: real world identity going
forward. That was very helpful.

Agree Deletionists seem to be winning -- I've been told a contribution I
made was "too encyclopedic" for Wikipedia, among other nonsense. An entry
about a woman of course. Sometimes it's very absurd, and seems about
someone marking their territory than all of us working together to improve
the content.

It is a detriment to the community, as I know a lot of us adding content
are working really hard, are establishing notability, and using fully cited
information, etc. Really want to add content. But it's definitely not easy.
Blargh :-)

Mitar is not being specific about the entry and seems more into discussing
the process.

But for those newer editors needing help, please know that there is help
out there to get under-represented (but notable) entries and content onto
Wikipedia. There are a lot of initiatives and efforts to support that work.
A lot of us would like to make the encyclopedia representative of diverse
and culturally non-Western entities, to make it better, etc.

I also suspect people flock to editing Wikidata instead of Wikipedia
because maybe it's less contested?

Best,

- Erika


*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 4:11 AM, carl hansen 
wrote:

>
> Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
> within wikipedia
> is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
> User page, it's ok in this case.
>
> Mitar says.
> >
> > Why introducing artificial scarcity?
> >
>
> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> Deletionist war.
> Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
> travel among
> Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
> BBB. I guess
> the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
> to curate
> satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[John]

You are overly simplifying things, One can be both, some things just don't
merit an article, an obscure band working out of a member's garage who have
never had an audience of more than 500 shouldn't have an article because
they really are not notable. On the other hand major artist should have
article. Weighting the balance on that line between what should and
shouldn't be kept is up to the community and which is why they have two
sections of the site dedicated to it (articles for discussion, and deletion
review),

If we do not have checks and balances in place wikipedia will quickly get
overrun with articles on everyone and everything to ever exist regardless
of the actual notability of the person/place/thing/event.

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 7:04 PM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> On Twitter I was pointed to:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia
>
> This is amazing. I think John Oliver should make a segment "Wikipedia
> Deletionism - how is this still a thing?"
>
> I mean, is this a failure of Wikipedia community governance? Reading
> about this seems deletionists are just a vocal minority who benefit
> from the fact that deletion is much stronger action than keeping
> things. Destruction is always easier than creation.
>
> There are 1536 inclusionists just on English Wikipedia:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians
>
> And 280 deletionists:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deletionist_Wikipedians
>
> So, how is this still a thing? How can this be put to a vote and
> finally move on? What is Wikipedia's governance process here? Does
> Wikipedia has something like https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ ?
>
>
> Mitar
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Mitar  wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > Thank you for your responses.
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
> >> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> >> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> >> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> >> help / resolution.
> >
> > I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> > make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> > discuss principles behind my experience.
> >
> > I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> > constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> > the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> > reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> > bringing it here.
> >
> > I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> > why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> > one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
> >
> > And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> > clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> > left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> > increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
> >
> > Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> > place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> > the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> > I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> > articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> > readers that they are reading such a new article.
> >
> > (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> > a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> > cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> > issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> > Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> > system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> > people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> > better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> > example, for all sides.)
> >
> >> Discussion (with reason):
> >>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page
> >
> > Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> > local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> > cited and might get a better picture.
> >
> > The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> > improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> > deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> > started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> > information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> > nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> > to 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

On Twitter I was pointed to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia

This is amazing. I think John Oliver should make a segment "Wikipedia
Deletionism - how is this still a thing?"

I mean, is this a failure of Wikipedia community governance? Reading
about this seems deletionists are just a vocal minority who benefit
from the fact that deletion is much stronger action than keeping
things. Destruction is always easier than creation.

There are 1536 inclusionists just on English Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians

And 280 deletionists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deletionist_Wikipedians

So, how is this still a thing? How can this be put to a vote and
finally move on? What is Wikipedia's governance process here? Does
Wikipedia has something like https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ ?


Mitar

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Mitar  wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Thank you for your responses.
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
>> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
>> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
>> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
>> help / resolution.
>
> I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> discuss principles behind my experience.
>
> I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> bringing it here.
>
> I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
>
> And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
>
> Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> readers that they are reading such a new article.
>
> (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> example, for all sides.)
>
>> Discussion (with reason):
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page
>
> Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> cited and might get a better picture.
>
> The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
> why I am writing to such general list like this.)
>
>> I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
>> moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
>> would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.
>
> But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
> this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
> on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
> others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
> power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
> whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.
>
> Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
> namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
> still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
> of pages, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

Thank you for your responses.

On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> help / resolution.

I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
discuss principles behind my experience.

I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
bringing it here.

I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.

And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.

Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
readers that they are reading such a new article.

(Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
example, for all sides.)

> Discussion (with reason):
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page

Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
cited and might get a better picture.

The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
why I am writing to such general list like this.)

> I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
> moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
> would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.

But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.

Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
of pages, some could be edited in Wikipedia and some could be linked
elsewhere, until they are seen as worthy of Wikipedia.

> The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
> procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware of
> them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion and
> thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place

I followed instructions which were presented to me in the speedy
deletion tag: I opened a talk page for an article and objected to
deletion. The result was that next day the article was deleted without
any discussion.

What structures exist here?

I am talking about structures which would prevent deletion, and
structures which would help editors explain local significance of
articles. Structures which might exist to revert deletion are too
late. Editors might not return anymore.

> The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to create
> new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
> you have at least 5 (or even 10) very 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Status update about editing software, June 2016

[Pine W]

Thanks James. It would be nice if novice users who prefer VE for content
pages didn't need to learn about wikimarkup for talk pages, or had a
shallower learning curve. My understanding is that some wiki communities
like Flow and others don't. For those that aren't using Flow, are there any
improvements on the horizon for the editing of talk pages, particularly for
novice users? For example, prompts or hints in the editing window regarding
how to edit could be helpful for novice talk page editors (and novice
wikimarkup editors on content pages as well).

Pine
On Jun 25, 2016 08:16, "James Forrester"  wrote:

> On 23 June 2016 at 17:01, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > 1. Is Flow feature development still frozen? If and when would Flow
> feature
> > development resume?
> >
>
> ​Yes, principal development is frozen. Like with all production software,
> urgent bugs and maintenance are still worked on, and we might add some
> minor features.​
>
> We've not re-prioritised the Collaboration team's work on Flow, and we
> won't do so very soon; the team this coming year are working on improving
> the edit review process
>  and the
> notifications system. However, after that work is done there are some
> often-requested areas for improvement in Flow which the team plan to
> improve. For example, I know that the fixed threading of discussions is
> irritating to some, and the lack of search is a serious issue. I know that
> the use of Flow for individuals' talk pages as a Beta Feature on several
> wikis has been quite popular, and given us a lot of feedback on how we can
> do better. I look forward to discussing those priorities with everyone
> nearer the time.
>
>
> 2. Will VE be enabled on talk pages?
> >
>
> ​No. This comes up quite often. VE is designed to edit content. Talk pages
> aren't content. Many of the tools and design patterns that make VE nice to
> use to edit content make it poor to use for discussions. ​To make it usable
> for discussions, we would have to remove or break many of those patterns in
> VE. We have spent a lot of time researching with users what works best
> there. I do not think we will make writing reference materials easier,
> simpler and faster by compromising on that.
>
>
> 3. Is work planned to improve the Wikitext editor, or will that happen only
> > in the context of integrating it into VE?
> >
>
> ​Not really.​ ​The work on improving wikitext editing is mostly around the
> wikitext mode inside the visual editor. The department is also working more
> widely on improvements to wikitext itself (like supporting the
> TemplateStyles work, providing balanced templates, and replacing Tidy with
> a modern parser), but they won't have a big impact on the existing
> WikiEditor software.
>
>
> ​Thanks for your questions. Happy to answer more. :-)​
>
> ​J.​
> --
> James D. Forrester
> Lead Product Manager, Editing
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Status update about editing software, June 2016

[Johan Jönsson]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:17 AM, James Forrester
 wrote:
> All,
>
>
> TL;DR: The Editing Department is working to make the content editing
> software better. The big work areas are improving the visual editor and
> editing wikitext. We will bring in a wikitext mode inside the visual editor
> for simpler, faster switching. We will experiment with prompts to give
> users ideas for what they might want to make as they edit. We will do other
> things as well. Your feedback is welcome.
>
>
> I thought it would be helpful to send an update about editing software.
> It's been over a year since my last, and things change (and it's easy to
> lose track). We set out some higher-level objectives for Editing in the
> Wikimedia Foundation's annual plan for the coming financial year.[0] This
> gives a little more detail on that, with particular emphasis on the team
> working on content editing tools directly. There's also a brief, more
> feature-focussed roadmap available on MediaWiki.org if you are
> interested.[1]
>
> Status
>
> In Editing, we're continuing to work on our commission from the 2010
> community strategy[2] to create a rich visual editor which makes it
> possible to edit all our content, and participate in our workflows, without
> knowing or having to learn wikitext. This is a work in progress; as with
> all our improvements to the software, we will never be "done", and
> hopefully you notice improvements over time. Each week, new features,
> improvements, and bug fixes are released, often led, altered or supported
> by our volunteer developers and community pioneers; my thanks to you all.
>
> We are now roughly five years into this visual editor work, and have made
> good progress on a credible content editor for many users' workflows,
> helping editors spend more time on what they're editing instead of how.
> First and foremost, not having to think about the vagaries of wikitext and
> instead focus on the content of their writing is something that many new
> and experienced volunteers alike have mentioned they appreciate. The
> automatic citations tool makes adding new references to websites or DOIs
> much more quickly and thoroughly, improving the quality of the content. The
> visual media searching tool makes it simple to find and add more of the
> great images and other media on Commons and add to a page. Visual table
> editing helps make changes to tables, like moving columns or parts of
> tables around, much more easily than in wikitext, saving time of our
> volunteers to focus on their work making the wikis better.
>
> The visual editor supports many (but not yet all) of our content languages,
> and thanks to community support and engagement the editor is available by
> default on over 235 Wikipedias (and for opt-in use on the remaining 55),
> including almost all of our largest Wikipedias. It is on by default for
> logged-out users and new accounts on 233 of these, and on for new accounts
> (but not yet for logged-out users) on two, English and Spanish. As of this
> week, this now includes representatives from each of the "CJK" language
> group, with four different Chinese script languages (Classical, Cantonese
> and Wu, as well as Min Nan), Korean and Japanese. We're currently working
> our way through each of the remaining communities asking them if it's OK to
> switch; the next groups will be the thirteen Arabic script Wikipedias and
> the twenty-three Indic Wikipedias. You can see specific details at the
> rollout grid if you're interested.[3]
>
> We have recently been working with the non-Wikipedia sister projects. As
> you might imagine, each project has different needs, workflows and
> concerns, and it's important to us that we ensure the tools we provide are
> tweaked as appropriate to support, not undermine, those requirements to the
> extent justifiable by demand. Per community request, the visual editor is
> already available to all users on several different sister projects, but we
> think there is more to do for some before we encourage this more widely.
> Recently, we have been working with the communities on the Wikivoyages,
> which are quite similar to the Wikipedias in needs from the visual editor;
> our thanks to the patience and assistance from the Wikivoyagers. We're also
> working with User:tpt and other volunteers who create and maintain the
> software used by Wikisources to adapt the visual editor to work with those
> features; our thanks to them, and to Wikisourcerers more widely.
>
> Core and maintenance work
>
> Despite this progress, there are still several areas in which the core
> functionality of the editing software needs extensions, improvements and
> fixes. In many places within the visual editor software we have to work
> around browsers' bugs, missing features and idiosyncrasies, and nowhere is
> that more problematic than the critical areas of typing, cursoring, and
> related language support. There continue to be irritating, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Status update about editing software, June 2016

[James Forrester]

On 23 June 2016 at 17:01, Pine W  wrote:

> 1. Is Flow feature development still frozen? If and when would Flow feature
> development resume?
>

​Yes, principal development is frozen. Like with all production software,
urgent bugs and maintenance are still worked on, and we might add some
minor features.​

We've not re-prioritised the Collaboration team's work on Flow, and we
won't do so very soon; the team this coming year are working on improving
the edit review process
 and the
notifications system. However, after that work is done there are some
often-requested areas for improvement in Flow which the team plan to
improve. For example, I know that the fixed threading of discussions is
irritating to some, and the lack of search is a serious issue. I know that
the use of Flow for individuals' talk pages as a Beta Feature on several
wikis has been quite popular, and given us a lot of feedback on how we can
do better. I look forward to discussing those priorities with everyone
nearer the time.


2. Will VE be enabled on talk pages?
>

​No. This comes up quite often. VE is designed to edit content. Talk pages
aren't content. Many of the tools and design patterns that make VE nice to
use to edit content make it poor to use for discussions. ​To make it usable
for discussions, we would have to remove or break many of those patterns in
VE. We have spent a lot of time researching with users what works best
there. I do not think we will make writing reference materials easier,
simpler and faster by compromising on that.


3. Is work planned to improve the Wikitext editor, or will that happen only
> in the context of integrating it into VE?
>

​Not really.​ ​The work on improving wikitext editing is mostly around the
wikitext mode inside the visual editor. The department is also working more
widely on improvements to wikitext itself (like supporting the
TemplateStyles work, providing balanced templates, and replacing Tidy with
a modern parser), but they won't have a big impact on the existing
WikiEditor software.


​Thanks for your questions. Happy to answer more. :-)​

​J.​
-- 
James D. Forrester
Lead Product Manager, Editing
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Vi to]

As a deletion I'd say we totally lost at en.wiki, we can maybe tie on other
wikis.

Life is never B/W, grey is everywhere.

Vito

2016-06-25 12:18 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen :

> Hoi,
> The English deletionists may be winning. Thank (include your deity) for
> Wikidata. We can include much more and, we do include much more. It
> includes more people who won an award that what English Wikipedia does.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> [1]
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/06/wikidata-lange-taylor-prize.html
>
> On 25 June 2016 at 10:11, carl hansen  wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Mitar,
> > >
> > > ...
> > >
> > > First off:
> > > Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> > working
> > > on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> > able
> > > to dig and find the page, etc.
> > >
> >
> > Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
> > within wikipedia
> > is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
> > User page, it's ok in this case.
> >
> > Mitar says.
> > >
> > > Why introducing artificial scarcity?
> > >
> >
> > You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> > Deletionist war.
> > Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
> > travel among
> > Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
> > BBB. I guess
> > the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too
> much
> > to curate
> > satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.
> >
> > I hope that doesn't discourage you from wikipedia. Also, consider
> > contributing to http://wikinfo.org  , concept is similar but the rules
> are
> > different, more willing to accept polemics and non-neutrality
> >
> >
> > ]]] If you see something, say something. Snowden did. [[[
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Board appointment of Executive Director

[Jan-Bart de Vreede]

Congratulations to Katherine for being an incredible positive force and make a 
great impression in such a short time as Interim! A well deserved reward :)

I have all the confidence that you are able to motivate those around you (and 
in our community) to perform at their best, work together and be creative.

The very best wishes in what is (as always) likely to be a challenging time :)

Jan-Bart


> On 24 Jun 2016, at 11:15, Patricio Lorente  wrote:
> 
> Dear all, 
> 
> It is our great pleasure to share that during the Board meeting at Wikimania 
> 2016 in Esino Lario, we unanimously voted to appoint Katherine Maher as 
> Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. This is effective as of our 
> resolution dated Thursday, 23 June. 
> 
> Katherine served as interim Executive Director for the past three months, 
> during which time she consistently and repeatedly demonstrated the kind of 
> leadership our organization needs. She is deeply committed to our movement’s 
> values, and brings expertise in civic technology and international 
> development that will be an asset to the Wikimedia Foundation and the 
> movement.
> 
> We came to this conclusion after an intensive discovery process led by the ED 
> search committee. Our decision was also informed by direct feedback from 
> staff and community, and our own experience working closely with Katherine. 
> 
> In March, we assembled an Executive Director search committee[1] consisting 
> of four Board members¹ who were chosen to represent different perspectives 
> and capacities.² Additionally, the Board asked the Foundation’s Chief 
> Advancement Officer Lisa Gruwell to represent the executive team, and 
> Foundation staff member Katie Horn was selected by her peers as someone who 
> could represent staff perspectives. The committee was charged with keeping 
> the process on track and on time, engaging important stakeholders, and 
> facilitating transparency in communications. Their first tasks were to 
> identify a search firm, and define the position description. You can review 
> the committee’s updates on Meta.[2]
> 
> The committee recruited Viewcrest Advisors,³ to identify our leadership needs 
> and design a hiring process. Kathleen Yazbak of Viewcrest worked with the 
> committee to conduct interviews with every Foundation department, the 
> executive, the Board, and nearly 20 additional one-on-one interviews with 
> staff. Kathleen attended the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin, collecting 
> feedback from community members and affiliates. The committee launched a 
> community survey in June, receiving more than 1,600 responses about the 
> qualities needed in the next ED; they also asked for feedback on Meta.[3] 
> Taking all of this into account, the transition team developed a profile and 
> requirements for the next Executive Director that reflect our values and our 
> communities.
> 
> Throughout this process, the Board and the transition team received very 
> clear and often unsolicited feedback from both staff and community members 
> that Katherine embodies the values of our movement and the traits needed in 
> our next ED. This feedback was only reinforced by the latest Foundation 
> engagement survey results, which showed a strong shift toward renewed trust 
> in leadership. After taking this all into account, and considering what the 
> organization needs at this moment of transition, we moved to appoint 
> Katherine now. 
> 
> In just three months as interim ED, Katherine worked with the organization 
> and community to make huge strides in management, execution, and 
> transparency. She brought much-needed clarity to our strategic direction, and 
> mobilized the organization to clearly communicate that direction through this 
> year’s annual plan. 
> 
> After her appointment, she worked with the leadership team to swiftly 
> identify the organization’s priorities during the transition period and 
> execute against them, setting ambitious but reachable targets. Under 
> Katherine’s leadership, the Foundation submitted its annual plan to the Funds 
> Dissemination Committee, leaving ample time for community feedback and 
> discussion.
> 
> Katherine is an excellent fit for our movement. She is longtime advocate for 
> global open communities, culture, and technology. She was the Foundation’s 
> Chief Communications Officer from April 2014 until she was appointed interim 
> ED in March. Throughout her career she has focused on freedom of expression, 
> access to information, and digital rights; supporting the efforts of people 
> around the world to deepen participation, advance transparency, and 
> strengthen their communities through her work with UNICEF, National 
> Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and the World Bank.  If you 
> don’t already know Katherine, you can learn more about her on Meta.[4]
> 
> With this appointment, we feel strongly that the Foundation has the 
> leadership and 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The English deletionists may be winning. Thank (include your deity) for
Wikidata. We can include much more and, we do include much more. It
includes more people who won an award that what English Wikipedia does.
Thanks,
  GerardM

[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/06/wikidata-lange-taylor-prize.html

On 25 June 2016 at 10:11, carl hansen  wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Mitar,
> >
> > ...
> >
> > First off:
> > Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> > on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> > to dig and find the page, etc.
> >
>
> Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
> within wikipedia
> is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
> User page, it's ok in this case.
>
> Mitar says.
> >
> > Why introducing artificial scarcity?
> >
>
> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> Deletionist war.
> Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
> travel among
> Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
> BBB. I guess
> the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
> to curate
> satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.
>
> I hope that doesn't discourage you from wikipedia. Also, consider
> contributing to http://wikinfo.org  , concept is similar but the rules are
> different, more willing to accept polemics and non-neutrality
>
>
> ]]] If you see something, say something. Snowden did. [[[
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[carl hansen]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:

> Hi Mitar,
>
> ...
>
> First off:
> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
> to dig and find the page, etc.
>

Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
within wikipedia
is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
User page, it's ok in this case.

Mitar says.
>
> Why introducing artificial scarcity?
>

You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
Deletionist war.
Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
travel among
Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
BBB. I guess
the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
to curate
satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.

I hope that doesn't discourage you from wikipedia. Also, consider
contributing to http://wikinfo.org  , concept is similar but the rules are
different, more willing to accept polemics and non-neutrality


]]] If you see something, say something. Snowden did. [[[
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Board appointment of Executive Director

[shola ishola]

Dear All,
We write to congratulate Katherine on her appointment as the new Executive 
Director of our foundation.
Wishing you the best.
Olaniyan Olushola
Team Lead, WUGN 
 

On Saturday, June 25, 2016 6:31 AM, Andrew Gray  
wrote:
 
 

 On 24 June 2016 at 10:15, Patricio Lorente  wrote:
> Dear all,
>
>
> It is our great pleasure to share that during the Board meeting at Wikimania
> 2016 in Esino Lario, we unanimously voted to appoint Katherine Maher as
> Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. This is effective as of our
> resolution dated Thursday, 23 June.

Hi Patricio,

On a pretty miserable day here in the UK, this is really cheering
news. Congratulations to Katherine and well done to the Board for
making a clear decision.

Andrew.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Hi Mitar,

I haven't been on Wiki-l that long so not sure how (or if) people respond
to this issue, which is somewhat common. I will take a stab at responding
and will try to keep it short and sweet as you said you don't want a lot of
Wiki:Rulz

First off:
Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
help / resolution.

User name: Mitar

Name of page: Poligon

Deletion log:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete=Poligon

Discussion (with reason):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page

Second off:

This happens a lot. Here at Wikimedia NYC, where support a lot of
editathons with new users, who tend to want to create new pages, speedy
deletion of articles as well as edits is unfortunately common.

I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.

Third off:

The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware of
them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion and
thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place

Potential solutions:

The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to create
new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
you have at least 5 (or even 10) very solid citations. Have a friendly
editor take a look at the article before attempting to move it to the main
space.

It is critical you use the citations to establish notability. Not
everything is notable, and especially if the Wiki-en audience isn't
knowledgeable of the subject matter, it's even more important.

I know (and vouch for) DGG and he's queued a few articles I've worked on
for deletion. :-) He and many folks doing Articles for Deletion / Speedy
Deletion are well-intentioned, but sometimes it is a bit of an active
discussion. I suspect that folks who are evaluating deletions are doing it
quickly sometimes, and don't always have the context, but their goal is to
"protect" Wiki content, so

The IRC help channel (
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-help) is also a great
resource -- especially if it's a time zone issue.

Glad you are enjoying the Visual Editor.

Best,

Erika

*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *
Secretary, Wikimedia NYC

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 1:49 AM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
> sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
> Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
> they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
> reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with Wikipedia
> I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
> collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.
>
> As such I would like to share one positive feedback and one negative
> feedback (frustration). The latter comes from my surprise between what
> I would assume rules would be and what I have experienced. I am
> sharing this to help prevent similar frustrations to other editors who
> maybe be less persistent than me and just give up.
>
> I am also guessing this has come up again and again in the past.
>
> Anyway. First the positive feedback. I love the visual editor! I
> finally switched to it and I am not going back! This is a life saver
> for somebody who just occasionally edits Wikipedia. No need to anymore
> guess if I should use single [ ] or double [[ ]]. No need to try to
> remember the syntax for references every time when I am editing
> Wikipedia after few months pause. Great job!
>
> But the negative feedback comes from me getting too enthusiastic about
> my new visual editor experience and I decided to create some my own
> new articles instead of just editing existing ones. The result was
> that one of such articles was speedily deleted without any due
> process, because it was deemed insignificant, no discussion, in a day.
>
> The whole notion of insignificant and not notable articles comes to me
> as a surprise. It seems to me as a legacy of printed encyclopedias
> which were limited in number of pages printed. But an online
> encyclopedia? How is this possible?
>
> Why I have problems with this:
>
> I created an English article which is significant at least for people
> in Slovenia, with references to local news articles. How can other
> editors who might not know the subject, and are not from Slovenia,
> decide that this is not significant and just delete a page, without
> even starting a discussion? I commented on