Re: [Wikimedia-l] Specifying office action in edit summary?

[svetlana]

On Sun, 24 Aug 2014, at 07:02, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 10:53 PM, svetlana  wrote:
> 
> > An undo with appropriate edit summary would also avoid a need in
> > escalating the issue - local sysops would consciously hold off their edit.
> > If they went against an office action, introducing superprotect /then/
> > could make sense
> 
> 
> Note that's exactly what was tried in the dewiki situation. The first WMF
> revert[1] refers to a warning on the talk page[2] that (according to Google
> Translate, and Erik's later statements) seems to basically say "Please
> don't do this again. Otherwise we might have to remove the editability of
> this page."
> 
> But the local sysop didn't hold off; according to Google Translate he
> replied "With threats you will achieve nothing."
> 
> 
>  [1]:
> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.js&diff=132938232&oldid=132931760
>  [2]:
> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_Diskussion:Common.js&diff=132938244&oldid=132935469
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Brad Jorsch (Anomie)
> Software Engineer
> Wikimedia Foundation

By the way, while there is a downside to what the folks did (as in, edit war 
and insist on stuff), I suppose it's partly justified by the thing being a 
first point in time where a local consencus was considered insufficient.

I took some notes of this, and possible solutions, on this draft essay:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Regaining_trust_in_local_consencus

I expect that superprotect is just a consequence of such missing trust; once 
the trust is regained, there is no need in superprotect in principle.

svetlana

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps regarding WMF<->community disputes about deployments

[MZMcBride]

Thank you for a really good post.

Erik Moeller wrote:
>I know there are some who want to use this opportunity to cement a
>different relationship - "WMF as servant", without a say. ("You are
>the servant, not the master, and your opinion doesn't matter very
>much." [1])  I understand that - I think it's rational, and
>justifiable, and may even be the better direction in the long run. I
>personally happen to disagree strongly with that belief, and the
>organization's leadership certainly does, as well. I hope we can find
>a middle ground, and I know that some of this is also just a reaction.

I appreciate the candor here and the recognition that there are acceptable
yet radically different views of how the Wikimedia Foundation should fit
within the Wikimedia world.

>What's happening here is painful and difficult, and I'm sorry for our
>role in that. I do believe it's necessary that we work through this,
>and on a personal level, I honestly care more about doing that and
>achieving some clarity on our working relationship with each other,
>than about any specific outcome.

Re: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_configuration_changes

The reality is that sometimes the wiki communities can make poor
decisions. But Sj and Brion and others have, in my opinion, tried to
stress that it's okay for people to be wrong and it's okay to try things
out. But it's always been a balancing act.

If there aren't technical, legal, or fundamental philosophical issues with
a wiki configuration change, when should and shouldn't it be allowed? And
who ultimately decides (e.g., stewards)? I think that's roughly what we're
looking at right now. The past process has sometimes relied on collective
and intentional deafness (via Bugzilla or mailing lists or whatever) and
that isn't really still suitable these days, I don't think.

Defining the third category (fundamental philosophical issues) is tricky,
but retaining open content licenses, the ability of people to easily
contribute, etc. are the types of things I'm talking about. Deeply held
shared values, not "I think Web users should always have a lightbox when
they click an image." That's an aesthetic choice that should probably be
left up to individual communities unless we can find a compelling reason
not to (e.g., having an identical user experience across Wikimedia wikis
by globally enabling MediaViewer is not a fundamental philosophical issue
and these types of aesthetic choices have never been considered as such).

>It's appropriate for WMF to take into account the full breadth and
>depth of devices that do exist and are in wide usage, more so than
>sites developed for users in rich countries. Hence a greater focus on
>things like image compression, overall page footprint, the
>no-JavaScript experience, etc. But that's still consistent with
>carefully updating the presentation. (Introducing a lightbox viewer in
>2014 is not exactly a radically new vision for user experience.)

Yes. Performance is important. Graceful degradation is important.

>People have cited WikiWand as an example of a third party improved
>reader experience. It's quite nicely done; I like a lot of the design
>choices they've made. It's far from a threat (though a more prominent
>"Edit" link would be nice, especially since the browser extension
>hijacks wikipedia.org views), but it's the kind of cool third party
>effort that keeps us honest. They recently raised about $600K in
>funding, which means that at least some people believe there's a real
>demand for a nicer, more modern default reader experience.

At  Andreas Kolbe
discusses WikiWand. In Andreas' view, "the Wikimedia Foundation is afraid
it will lose readers to sites like WikiWand that offer Wikipedia content
as a pure consumable with a much more aesthetically pleasing interface.
The moment Wikipedia page views go down, the Alexa rank will go down and
donations will go down, as fewer people will see the fundraising banners."

Pi zero at 
writes, "The non-Wikipedian sisters are the growth sector of the
wikimedian movement, and the WMF by dissing them is strangling the
wikimedian movement's best chance of having a vigorous future, with
Wikipedia embedded in a thriving ecosystem of wikimedian sisters
augmenting each other's strengths."

Meanwhile Lila has been repeatedly emphasizing priorities and
prioritization on Meta-Wiki (in seven distinct posts, by my count). There
are vague references to the "prioritization pipeline," but in addition to
the issue of deciding wiki configuration changes, discussed above, we also
need to clearly define what that pipeline looks like and how it behaves.
Pine and others have been discussing a Technology Committee that could
possibly bridge the Board, Wikimedia Foundation staff, and the editing
communities. But who knows if such an idea is viable or desirable.

There is lots and lots to think about right

[Wikimedia-l] editor retention initiatives

[James Salsman]

Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation
initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors?  I am only
aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage
editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s

I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as
constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the
total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming
active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would
be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is
applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has
not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to
be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met
through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the
Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?

Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is
interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more
inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might
provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to
edit more?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Specifying office action in edit summary?

[Austin Hair]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 1:48 AM, svetlana  wrote:
> And then they draw comics stating that that's WMF's fault?
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_building_wiki_wall_in_August_2014_caricature.jpg
>
> What a wonderful community (clique of active editors and sysops) we have.

Svetlana,

With a whole week left in August, you've managed to hit 30 posts
(actually more, if you count those made with your previous address) in
the span of a month. The reason is fairly obvious, given the number
that, like this one, are purely rhetorical.

I've temporarily flagged your address for moderation, and will let
more carefully considered posts through as they come.

Everyone else should refer to my recent e-mail reminding everyone of
the post limit and why it exists, and perhaps check
http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Wikimedia-l.html to see
your current tally.

Best,

Austin

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps regarding WMF<->community disputes about deployments

[Henning Schlottmann]

On 22.08.2014 09:22, Erik Moeller wrote:
> 
> - The MediaViewer rollout was very smooth until the deployments to
> German Wikipedia, English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. There could
> be many reasons for that -- but it's a fact nonetheless. I do see
> little evidence that users in other communities are especially unhappy
> about the feature (leaving aside the politics of it now). I would be
> very curious what reason people do attribute that difference to,
> however (understanding that Commons is very different from the
> Wikipedia use case).

This may or may not correlate with a deep commitment to a) the licenses,
b) quality.

> - The criticism isn't just about that -- it's about a large number of
> mostly individually small issues. Generally, the idea that we
> effectively "munge" some of the metadata by displaying a
> machine-readable subset below the fold is viewed very negatively,
> because 1) it doesn't reflect all the available information, 2) it
> makes it harder for users to discover the File: page, and potentially
> edit it.

If it does not reflect the license information it is broken.

The license is paramount. We can not accept any kind of software that
hands out "reuse information" that does not display the photographer's
name and the license (with link to the license text).

We do not want a default setting, that does not show extensive
descriptions, map legends, image annotations and the like. All that is
content we created for the readers. You must not block our readers from
this content.

MV is broken. It is not ready to be deployed. Not by far. Take it back
and fix it.

In theory I can see a working MV. I can even imagine a working Visual
Editor, but am very skeptical about it. I can not imagine Flow to work,
ever. This one needs to be abandoned now.

Eric, your department has an abysmal record. You have wasted millions on
software that started with the wrong framework and is not working after
years and years of development. Please think about yourself, not about
the communities if you want to understand about the conflicts at hand.

Henning


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Specifying office action in edit summary?

[svetlana]

On Sun, 24 Aug 2014, at 07:02, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 10:53 PM, svetlana  wrote:
> 
> > An undo with appropriate edit summary would also avoid a need in
> > escalating the issue - local sysops would consciously hold off their edit.
> > If they went against an office action, introducing superprotect /then/
> > could make sense
> 
> 
> Note that's exactly what was tried in the dewiki situation. The first WMF
> revert[1] refers to a warning on the talk page[2] that (according to Google
> Translate, and Erik's later statements) seems to basically say "Please
> don't do this again. Otherwise we might have to remove the editability of
> this page."
> 
> But the local sysop didn't hold off; according to Google Translate he
> replied "With threats you will achieve nothing."
> 
> 
>  [1]:
> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.js&diff=132938232&oldid=132931760
>  [2]:
> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_Diskussion:Common.js&diff=132938244&oldid=132935469

And then they draw comics stating that that's WMF's fault?
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_building_wiki_wall_in_August_2014_caricature.jpg

What a wonderful community (clique of active editors and sysops) we have.

svetlana

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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost -- Volume 10, Issue 32 -- 20 August 2014

[Wikipedia Signpost]

Interview: Improving the visibility of digital archival assets using Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-08-20/Interview

Traffic report: ''Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-08-20/Traffic_report

WikiProject report: Bats and gloves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-08-20/WikiProject_report

Featured content: English Wikipedia departs for Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-08-20/Featured_content

Op-ed: A new metric for Wikimedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-08-20/Op-ed


Single page view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single

PDF version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-08-20


https://www.facebook.com/wikisignpost / https://twitter.com/wikisignpost
--
Wikipedia Signpost Staff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Specifying office action in edit summary?

[Brad Jorsch (Anomie)]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 10:53 PM, svetlana  wrote:

> An undo with appropriate edit summary would also avoid a need in
> escalating the issue - local sysops would consciously hold off their edit.
> If they went against an office action, introducing superprotect /then/
> could make sense


Note that's exactly what was tried in the dewiki situation. The first WMF
revert[1] refers to a warning on the talk page[2] that (according to Google
Translate, and Erik's later statements) seems to basically say "Please
don't do this again. Otherwise we might have to remove the editability of
this page."

But the local sysop didn't hold off; according to Google Translate he
replied "With threats you will achieve nothing."


 [1]:
https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.js&diff=132938232&oldid=132931760
 [2]:
https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_Diskussion:Common.js&diff=132938244&oldid=132935469



-- 
Brad Jorsch (Anomie)
Software Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New movement org?

[Richard Farmbrough]

Note that while it *is* a trademark issue, it isn't *just* a trademark
issue.


On 21 August 2014 18:44, Gregory Varnum  wrote:

> Thank you Richard for bringing this to everyone's attention.
>
> So folks know, WMF Legal and the Affiliations Committee are investigating
> and will be reaching out to the group soon.
>
> Thanks!
> -greg aka varnent
> Wikimedia Affiliations Committee Vice Chair
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Richard Symonds <
> richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
>
> > Thanks all!
> >
> > I have passed this over to WMF legal to deal with as it's a trademark
> > issue.
> >
> > Richard Symonds
> > Wikimedia UK
> > 0207 065 0992
> >
> > Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
> > Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
> > Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A
> 4LT.
> > United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
> > movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
> > operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
> >
> > *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
> > over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
> >
> >
> > On 21 August 2014 17:31, Risker  wrote:
> >
> > > On 21 August 2014 12:21, James Forrester 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On 21 August 2014 09:13, Nathan  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi Richard, any links to where you found this information?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ​The ever-excellent OpenCorporates has its entry:
> > > >
> > > > https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_mi/71656Y
> > > >
> > > > … leading to the official US state of Michigan's entry:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/bcs_corp/dt_corp.asp?id_nbr=71656Y
> > > >
> > > > No information about the officers, sadly, just a filing office.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > Incorporation documents here:
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/bcs_corp/image.asp?FILE_TYPE=ELF&FILE_NAME=D201408\2014224\E0091608.TIF
> > >
> > > President:  Scott Perry
> > > Vice President:  Ann Perry
> > > Secretary:  Danielle Lewis
> > >
> > > Someone else can figure out how to copy/paste.
> > >
> > > Risker/Anne
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Access by Wikimedia volunteers to WMF records about them

[Ting Chen]

Hello Fae,

as far as I know there is no systematic data collection about volunteers 
by the WMF, anyway, there is non that is known by the board at my time, 
or ever mentioned on the board. In the first year when I joined the 
board I mentioned in a mail that it would be desirable for the 
Foundation to have a collection simply because we are often asked about 
various topics we don't know about, or I travelled a lot when I was on 
the board and often felt the need to contact people to get more first 
hand information or view so that I can prepare myself. But that 
suggestion was never picked up by the Foundation. So again, there is no 
such collection in the end.


There were unsystematic information exchanges at least on the board 
level from time to time about individual person, mostly in relation to a 
certain situation or an event. For example when you invited me to the UK 
board meeting in Derby I wrote a report to the board about that meeting, 
and also about the people I met there. Or, when Sue visited your board 
she wrote afterward a mail to the board about the meeting, in which she 
also mentioned the people who attended the meeting. (And those where the 
only two cases where I can remember today that you were mentioned in 
mails.) But again, non of these reports are collected and filed in a 
systematic way. And I doubt that anyone would still remember what I 
wrote in my report for example.


Actually on the board level we scarcely ever talked about individual 
person, in most cases it was about cases, situations, events.


Hope this helps a bit on your uneasiness.

Best wishes
Ting



Am 22.08.2014 17:06, schrieb Fæ:

I wrote the email below to Lila and the WMF Legal department asking
for access to records (and reports) they hold on me, but I'm sad to
say that after 3 weeks waiting, I have yet to receive an
acknowledgement. As a Wikimania London volunteer I had a moment to
speak with Jan-Bart, and some of my Wikimedia Commons uploads were
even featured as part of a presentation by WMF Legal on their
successes in the past year, so there was plenty of opportunity for us
to have the friendly chat I suggested.

Can someone recommend if there is a WMF policy on transparency that
volunteers can rely on for questions like mine, or does the law in the
USA give me any specific rights of access to records or reports the
WMF may keep on me that would mean that WMF Legal would do more than
stay silent in response to reasonable requests from its established
volunteers?

Thanks,
Fae

-- Forwarded message --
From: Fæ 
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 13:49:45 +0100
Subject: Request for disclosure of all WMF records relating to Fae
To: Lila Tretikov 
Cc: legal , Jan-Bart de Vreede 

Dear Lila,

The Wikimedia Foundation keeps information such as management
summaries about me, which have never been shared with me.
[Redacted example material]

Could you please ensure that all records that the WMF has retained
about me are copied to me? It would seem fair that I have the
opportunity to both understand what the WMF management and board have
available to refer to when discussing my activities for Wikimedia, and
that I have a chance to both correct any mistakes in this personal
data, or to ask that inappropriate material gets permanently removed
from WMF databases.

I will be active in both the Wikimania hackerthon and conference in
the coming week, should you or an employee wish to informally review
this request with me in person, along with my reasons for making the
request at this time.
...



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