Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia mobile application development
Thank you very much for the detailed and insightful reply. Tomasz Finc wrote: On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 9:37 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Mobile seems to have two branches these days: (1) the mobile versions of the sites; and more recently (2) specific mobile applications. Branch 1 is fairly understandable. What I'm having difficulty understanding is branch 2. While mobile has two branches, I wouldn't slice it that way. The way that we look at it is either * Smart phone development - editing, image uploads, mobile web, apps, mobile frontend, etc * Alternate access methods - S40 (J2ME), SMS/USSD, Zero Okay, I think that's sensible. In my opinion, initiatives such as Wikipedia Zero are exactly the type of work that can only really be done at the Wikimedia Foundation-level and great progress has been made there that I don't think would have been possible with volunteers. And in a lot of ways, being able to host and maintain the mobile sites is something that only the Wikimedia Foundation is capable of doing. The mobile application development was the part that I saw as possibly being ripe for outside organizations, but as you explain below, that may not be the case for a variety of reasons. The idea behind free and open content is that the content can be taken and reused and redistributed by others without issue. That's part of the great beauty of Wikimedia wikis. With a vibrant app market for both Androids and iPhones, why is Wikimedia getting involved in mobile application development? Isn't this something best left to third parties (which, as I understand it, have already filled the Wikipedia app niche with a variety of options for both platforms) or interested volunteers? No, its really not and we've heard from countless people that it wasn't working. There are a number of reasons that my team was asked to do mobile apps and i'll list some of them below * Whenever we talk with carriers about partnering with us they want to see a suite of products they can provide on our behalf. These can range from a basic bookmarks on the mobile web, sms access, to a listing our app within their own markets. Any one thing missing ends the conversation pretty quickly. I suggest reading the original blog post from January http://bit.ly/IFoti4 to gain more insite. Kul Amit can elaborate more on this. I'm a bit confused about the relationship between mobile applications and carriers. As I understand it, carriers in this context refers to cell phone service providers (Verizon, ATT, et al.). The mobile applications are generally at a different layer (Apple's iTunes Store, Google's Android Market, etc.), aren't they? Is this strictly about pre-installed applications on devices sold through these carriers? I'd encourage anyone interested to read both the blog post _and_ the comments below it, where some of these same questions are asked (and answered!). * Were constantly getting asked about why insert new Wikipedia app name in new app store has ads, is not free, and in general doesn't provide a polished experience. Users are confused why the foundation would provide so many bad offerings in each of the apps stores because they associate most apps in the market with something that the foundation has done. I've had users approach me and ask why the foundation puts ads inside their apps and even after explaining that we have no affiliation they insist that its a poor reflection of our projects. No matter how we look at it ... were being judged on behalf of any app that is showing people data from Wikipedia. Rather then having to explain why there are so many bad ones we decided to provide a better solution then the rest to raise awareness that you a) dont have to see ads b) don't have to pay for basic features like saving pages and c) have control in the future direction of the project. Aha! This is a very interesting point. I hadn't realized that this was an issue. Ad blindness seems to have not affected mobile device users as much as it has desktop users (yet). * It's a great way to eat our own dog food. Apps should always be decoupled and with the next release of both of our apps we'll have learned a ton about how our API's are deficient. By better understanding these use cases we've extended functionality for such things as loading articles into small chunks and our mobile web projects will soon be receiving the same benefits. Re-using code like this is key to making both our projects better and third party apps faster. * People use them. No matter if your a fan of apps or not they've replaced the function of bookmarks for most mobile users. They provide a faster and easier way of accessing content and our stats are starting to show it. In just under a month of metrics we've already seen 20+ million page views from the official android app and growth is continuing. * Code re-use. Whenever companies build native apps they have to create
[Wikimedia-l] Contribute box on wikimediafoundation.org
Hi. A few months ago I created Template:Contribute at wikimediafoundation.org.[1] It displays above the edit window whenever a logged out user presses the Contribute (previously Edit) tab. There were some concerns that this message was still too obscure, so I've now implemented a namespace notice via a MediaWiki gadget. When viewing any page in the Talk namespace, you'll now see the contents of Template:Contribute below the page title. The relevant code can be found here.[2] MZMcBride [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:Contribute [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-NamespaceNotice.js ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Update on IPv6
John Du Hart wrote: On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 7:08 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Erik, what time is this scheduled to go live? And on which projects? Please be specific here. I am gravely concerned about the privacy issues that are attached to IPv6 IP addresses, as they are in many cases almost personally identifying information, something that is not permitted to be released under our privacy policy. Have arrangements been made to hash these IP addresses to prevent them from being publicly available? What personal information do you think is contained in an IPv6 address? I wondered what Risker was referring to as well, so I looked up IPv6 + privacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Privacy. After reading that section, it's still unclear to me whether IPv6 is significantly more privacy invasive than IPv4. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Purpose-driven motivation
Hi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM9p4o050EY Someone sent this to me earlier this week. It's a ten-minute cartoon video that discusses purpose and motivation. The video lightly touches on technical projects such as Wikipedia, Apache, and Linux and focuses on the research into why people spend their free time on such projects. I imagine some people on this list have already seen this, but it's new to me and I thought I'd send it along in case others found it interesting. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] TVTropes deletes all pages with Rape in title under advertising pressure.
Kim Bruning wrote: On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 09:07:02PM +0100, Andreas Kolbe wrote: I've always been against ads, but as far as I am concerned, the illusion of an NPOV project ended with the SOPA strike, and Jimbo's current exploits around O'Dwyer (who I agree should not be extradited, but doh, that is not the point ...) just underscore that. The SOPA strike was necessary for us to retain neutrality. (It's the old freedom to swing your fists where you wish, versus limiting the arc to avoid my nose discussion; aka BSD vs GPL; aka do what you want, vs do unto others; etc. (incidentally, is there a general term for this 100% freedom vs -except not allowed to take away freedom- rule?)) Libertarianism. Also, the SOPA strike wasn't necessary; it was disruptive and foolish. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike
Milos Rancic wrote: In less than half an hour Russian Wikipedia will go on one-day strike against SOPA/PIPA-like law in Russia. As in previous cases with Italian and English Wikipedia, it would be good if the wider community would be activated in support of our fellow Wikimedians. They need wider promotion on Meta etc. Party is on #wikipedia-ru@freenode You've successfully disrupted an educational resource in the name of political advocacy. Stooping to the level of vandals... that'll show 'em. Party on. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's use of Mingle
Hi. Someone recently asked me about the Wikimedia Foundation's installation of Mingle (https://mingle.corp.wikimedia.org/) and when I went to find documentation about it, I came up dry. I started a page in the most logical place I could think of: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mingle. It's a very barebones page at the moment. If anyone who's familiar with Mingle (particularly the Wikimedia Foundation's use of it) could glance at or improve the page, that would be great! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike
Fred Bauder wrote: It remains possible, due to the nature of the Russian government and the pressures of the opposition on it, that reading between the lines and coming to the conclusion they did was justified. What the Russian government might consider extremist and necessary to suppress is sui generis. It remains possible for a lot of people to disrupt access to Wikimedia wikis (government agencies, ISPs, et al.). Tim's point (as I've read it, at least) has been that disrupting access ourselves is not the right thing to do. When there's a credible disruption (like the bans in China), working around those disruptions to further Wikimedia's aim of spreading free educational content is a worthwhile endeavor. Purposefully disrupting access to Wikimedia wikis through blackouts is contrary to Wikimedia's primary aim. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Fund-raising goal questions
Hi. How is the fund-raising goal determined each year? Is there a fund-raising goal set for the upcoming fund-raiser (the one beginning in November 2012)? Is there a guideline or policy regarding what happens once the fund-raising goal is met? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation
Thomas Dalton wrote: On Jul 29, 2012 7:01 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Risker wrote: This is a very good point, Thomas. Why exactly is there no place on a community wiki where this is being discussed? Instead it is being discussed on a mailing list to which the vast majority of the community does not subscribe. Because you haven't created such a place yet. It is generally best for the person that announces something to specify a forum. That way you avoid discussion ending up split between multiple venues. Given the bidirectional nature of this mailing list, I think the implicit option (replying here, on the same list where the plan was announced) was clear, but okay. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation
Samuel Klein wrote: I know a few people would like to see the talk namespaces of wikimediafoundation.org opened up to general discussion, but that's a bit tricky with raw HTML being allowed there. This shouldn't be a blocker. Disallow raw HTML on talk pages? Simply restrict editing to a higher 'autoconfirmed' standard? I would like to see your ideas on how to do this; it seems like a good idea. Trying to get me motivated? Tsk, tsk. Raw HTML is just one piece of the puzzle. A lot of other hacks and customizations have been built in to the site over the years with the bedrock principle that account creation is restricted there. I'd like to see at least the talk namespaces opened up as well. I laid out my thoughts here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Liberating_wikimediafoundation.org. For those interested, there's discussion on the talk page about how to best implement this idea. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] A task list for a beginning project
FT2 wrote: A bot that can be given a list of the important templates, or categories of templates, would be good for starting a new project. Once articles exist, at least some meaning comes through and it's more likely people will edit them. Maybe. People should be _extremely_ cautious when using bots to try to propagate (new) wikis. Page-creation bots are a form of inorganic growth in a place (a wiki) that demands organic growth.[1] Wikis must, by and large, evolve over time naturally, otherwise the bots risk damaging the culture of the wiki or, in rare cases, it's possible for these bots to kill the wiki entirely.[2] This isn't to say that pulling in templates from other wikis can't be useful (of course it can be [though remember to attribute your source!]), but if mass page creation is done with a bot, it needs to be done with exceeding caution and accompanied by a full assessment of the impact of these page creations. The effects of these page creations is of course amplified on smaller, more vulnerable wikis, though the caution to avoid mass page creation largely applies equally to larger wikis as well. That is, 10,000 new and unused templates on a small Wikipedia that only has 400 articles is terrible, but it's not as though the English Wikipedia or any other established Wikipedia with millions of articles wants 10,000 unused templates either. MZMcBride [1] Wikis have been previously compared to children. Creating a wiki is like creating a baby, yes you should have a good reason to create one, but if you don't for whatever reason, you should have an _extra_ good reason for killing one, bawolff once infamously said. In this case, the inorganic growth is analogous to cancer or anabolic steroid use. [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/BOTOVERUSE#History has most of the history, though I could swear a project or two has been restarted due to bots over-running the site. Does anyone have a citation for that? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline
David Gerard wrote: On 2 August 2012 05:13, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: This appears to be an unprecedented power-grab by the office of the General Counsel. Um ... that's a bizarre perception. Is it? I read through the page at Meta-Wiki and couldn't help but notice that every involvement required the approval of the General Counsel. I read the linked Board resolution (https://wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Recognizing_Models_of_Affiliations) and looked around wikimediafoundation.org and Meta-Wiki trying to find a resolution or vote that directed the General Counsel to develop this kind of policy, but didn't find anything. Philippe seemed to suggest that there's a distinction between outside groups approaching the Wikimedia Foundation for support and the community making its own requests. The distinction seems incredibly murky and doesn't seem likely to become clearer over time. What type of action was the SOPA blackout in January? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline
Stephen LaPorte wrote: On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:07 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: My question, more directly, is: if the SOPA action from January 2012 were held in August 2012 (following the implementation of this new statement from the General Counsel's office), would it be considered a community initiative or not? The community's decision to blackout a project would not be within this guideline, but any additional WMF resources would require legal and financial review. There are strict laws in the U.S. that limit when a non-profit organization may engage in political and legislative activity, and it is the General Counsel and CFA's duty to ensure that the WMF complies with those laws. The community has procedures for determining consensus for action, and most of the time the community can implement that action without any additional resources from the WMF. Thank you for this reply. It was helpful. There's still a disconnect for me between what's being said on this mailing list and on the Meta-Wiki talk page and what's being written in this new statement. What I'm hearing being said is that this _internal_ policy is mostly a guide for legal reasons to avoid trouble for the Wikimedia Foundation, its employees, and its non-profit status under U.S. law. If so, wouldn't the policy mostly be a matter of ask the General Counsel's office whether involvement in a particular action would be legally problematic? This policy seems to extend far beyond what _can_ the Wikimedia Foundation legally involve itself in? and by requiring Board approval and community approval (sometimes), seems to be a policy about what _should_ the Wikimedia Foundation be involving itself in. Is this accurate? This is where I see the disconnect. If it's simply a matter of keeping Wikimedia out of trouble with the IRS, there are simple legal tests that have no relevance as to whether there's Board approval or community approval or the approval of the Head of Communications or anything of that nature, right? Why are there so many various levels and steps if it's not a determination about principles and about whether a particular cause meets Wikimedia's mission? This is what's confusing me. People on the talk page at Meta-Wiki have seemed to suggest that you would _want_ this type of policy to cover administrator actions as administrators are often unelected and hold lifetime appointments. It's completely possible that it's just me, but something still isn't adding up in my head when I consider this policy and what exactly it covers and does not cover. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Should we lock StrategyWiki?
Thehelpfulone wrote: Strategy Wiki has already been configured as an import source for Meta-Wiki, so any admins on Meta (there are plenty) will be able to import pages cross-wiki with full history via https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Import. Perhaps we could put things into a new Strategy: namespace? Maybe, though I'd like to see a clearer definition of what would go in that namespace. Would the final Strategic Report go at Strategy:Report or Strategy:Strategic Report? Or what's wrong with just Strategic Report (in the main namespace)? Someone will need to audit strategy.wikimedia.org's content for what we want and don't want (there's likely some garbage) and then figure out where it best fits on Meta-Wiki. I don't think a flat Strategy namespace will do anything but duplicate work (pulling everything in, then sorting all of it in a year or two when we realize that we didn't want everything and it's not well classified). I imagine you'll want namespaces for Proposals or Workgroups or whatever kind of high-level content separation you can find that might also be helpful to Meta-Wiki generally. I thought there was some planning about this on Meta-Wiki already somewhere. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Should we lock StrategyWiki?
Ziko van Dijk wrote: It seems to me that there was a period in the WMF history when it was popular to install new wikis, for strategy or outreach, instead of using Meta. I don't see the advantages of having seperate wikis, or disadvantages of Meta. Meta has always been the platform for the whole movement, not only the wiki content websites. By the way, the WCA decided not to have a wiki of its own but to use Meta. I'm not sure what a WCA is. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_fragmentation discusses many of the reasons that people fragment what are otherwise sensible critical-mass communities or projects into multiple beautiful-but-subcritical communities which fade over time. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] AFT5: what practical benefits has it had?
Dario Taraborelli wrote: A full roll out of AFT5 on the entire English Wikipedia is scheduled for Q4 2012. Hi. Do you have a link to on-wiki consensus for this idea? I was under the impression that the ArticleFeedback tool was developed as an experiment. It needs a discussion and on-wiki consensus before being widely deployed, right? Has that happened? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
Theo10011 wrote: Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus. I've read (or skimmed) your posts to the talk page and to this list and I'm a bit lost why you seem to be hostile to the document. Were you a big fan of the fellowships or India programs? Do you think Wikimania can't sustain itself? I think you have been pretty vocally critical of programs like these in the past and I would think you would be pleased with the narrowed focus. I am. And I think the Board will be. Is it a perfect plan? No. Is there more work to do? Of course. But I'm sincerely confused about which parts you're upset with and why. If your intent is to rabble-rouse, you're doing it wrong. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The new narrowed focus by WMF
MZMcBride wrote: Theo10011 wrote: Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus. Sorry, one more thing that I think deserves a follow-up e-mail: huge props to Sue for drafting this on-wiki. I know that there were a number of alternate private venues available (such as the office wiki) and it isn't always easy to draft a document, particularly a document like this, in public. In keeping with our values, I hope we continue to encourage everyone to use the public venues whenever possible. Thank you, Sue! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info action
Hi. This is just a heads-up that you'll start seeing a Page information link in the sidebar (under Toolbox) in the coming days on Wikimedia wikis. It is deployed now to a few wikis already. This Page information link leads to a newly reimplemented info action: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Pageaction=info Many, many years ago, the info action was added to MediaWiki, but due to performance issues, it was quickly disabled by default and was mostly forgotten about. This year, with the wonderful help of Madman, Krenair, and others, we have reimplemented the info action to provide an information dashboard of sorts about a particular page title to users. This dashboard includes a variety of metadata about the page, including the page's protection status, length, default categorization sort key, internal page ID, templates used on the page, and more. The content is somewhat dynamic: for some pages it will omit certain irrelevant fields and for some users (such as administrators), certain additional fields (such as the number of page watchers) will be displayed. This will slowly allow for the deprecation of outside tools that currently provide information of this nature. The hope is that this action will evolve over time to become a valuable resource for users. If you can think of data points that are missing from the current action's output or have other ideas to improve the info action (it desperately needs a little design love), please feel free to e-mail this list or file a bug at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info action
Richard Symonds wrote: This looks fantastic, and very useful! I'm not sure how related this is, but is there any way the page can also pull up page views? Or would that be a problem? My understanding is that page views puts too much load on the servers, so it may well be unworkable... It's also be useful to be able to see how many editors, authors etc there were in the past 24 hours - again, I'm not sure if this is doable, but I thought I'd throw it out there! Yes, I had a similar thought last evening. :-) I've filed a few bugs about this: * Incorporate analytics into MediaWiki's info action (tracking) https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/41326 * Add page views graph(s) to MediaWiki's info action https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/41327 * Add edit history graph(s) to MediaWiki's info action https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/41329 Andy Mabbett wrote: On 22 October 2012 22:41, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: for some users (such as administrators), certain additional fields (such as the number of page watchers) will be displayed. Why is this for admins only? Good question! There's a thorough explanation of the background of this at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/39957. In short, the plan going forward is to make this value configurable per-wiki. So you'll have an or condition. Users will be able to see the number of page watchers if they have the unwatchedpages user right (by default, administrators have this user right) _or_ if the number of watchers meets or exceeds the value set (on a per-wiki basis) via a new configuration variable ($wgUnwatchedPageThreshold). So, for example, the English Wikipedia might set this value to 30, while smaller wikis might set it lower. David Gerard wrote: On 23 October 2012 10:59, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: This looks fantastic, and very useful! I'm not sure how related this is, but is there any way the page can also pull up page views? Or would that be a problem? My understanding is that page views puts too much load on the servers, so it may well be unworkable... History pages on en:wp already have a link to stats.grok.se, shouldn't be hard to put such a link here as well. In fact, it's already there and has been for a few weeks. ;-) Part of the design of the action was to add a header and footer section. In this case, those exact links from ?action=history (where not all of them ever made much sense, honestly) have been copied to ?action=info. The relevant system message is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Pageinfo-footer. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Romney and copyright
David Gerard wrote: On 29 October 2012 13:39, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: If the question is indiscreet/offtopic forgive me and ignore it/more it another list, but: what are Romney's views on copyright? I read on today's Financial Times Europe (p. 4) that he has a couple millions dollars invested on Hollywood funds, so is it pessimistic to say that he must hold horrible positions on copyright? Both parties appear to strongly support the present regime. I'm not sure this is totally fair. I think the White House has somewhat embraced Creative Commons for certain works and there's some good work going on at http://www.data.gov. Of course, all works of the United States federal government done by federal employees are automatically public domain, so in many ways, the U.S. government is way ahead of the curve on this issue. ;-) Regarding Mr. Romney in particular, he seems to be very pro-corporation/pro-business, so I don't expect any major changes to copyright law should he be elected President. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board vote on narrowing focus
Bishakha Datta wrote: On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 8:30 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: It would be nice if someone could export the linked presentation from Google Docs and upload it to wikimediafoundation.org (or Wikimedia Commons) as a PDF or ODP (or both). I don't think we should rely on external resources in the context of historical Board archives unless absolutely necessary. Taken your feedback and done the needful, You're wonderful. Thank you very much. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia blog contributions; make participation invitation more obvious
Sarah Stierch wrote: I'm not sure why it was posted on the WMF blog. I'm sure if other countries submitted their top ten's they'd be posted to the WMF blog. Remember: anyone in the movement - around the world - can write a blog for the WMF blog, in any language they want. So do it! I'm going to fork this thread as I think this point should be highlighted. Currently, looking at https://blog.wikimedia.org/, I'm not sure it's obvious at all that anyone in the Wikimedia community is encouraged to draft a blog post. As far as I can see, there's no submit a post or contribute your own story or other invitation to participation anywhere on the blog. Even adapting the Creative Commons license note in the sidebar might work. This blog is licensed under blah blah. You can submit your own draft of an article here! or something. I'm as big a fan of security through obscurity as anyone, but it does occasionally help to give people a decent pointer to a page such as http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog#Drafting_a_post. Currently, it looks like there _is_ a Guidelines link in the sidebar, but it's painfully buried in the left-hand sidebar's list of links and its target (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Guidelines) is a wall of text. I'm not sure who could resolve this issue or how it's best tracked. I guess via filing a bug in Bugzilla? If there's a central point of contact for the blog, it'd be great to know who that is. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Nathan wrote: It's been clear to me, and seemingly other people, that Zack and the fundraising team take their task very seriously, and are extraordinarily thoughtful in all of their plans and interactions - with folks on the mailing list, with editors and other stakeholders, and with readers. The fundraising drive this year is head and shoulders above any prior effort by virtually any possible measure. To take a two word phrase in a short e-mail out of that greater context, and use it to imply that Zack is treating site visitors as though they're simply playthings does Zack a great disservice, and does you no credit. Try to keep in mind that Wikimedia employees are people with feelings and pride in their work, and in the future take more care with comments that impugn their work, professionalism and character. Yes, you're right. It wasn't fair to quote in the way that I did. It came close to twisting words and it unfortunately buried the larger point that I was trying to make about experimenting on users and the lack of general guidance in this area. I shouldn't have done that and I apologize. And while you're certainly right that employees are often protective of their work, you can see how Wikimedians are often protective of theirs? Fundraising banners are safely categorized as a necessary evil these days, but when they begin to intrude on page content or intrude on mouse hover, I believe that crosses a line. Finally, I've said previously that Wikimedians (or Wikipedians, rather) complain loudly, but congratulate softly. Megan and her team have done amazing work this year and I agree with you and others who rate this as the best and most successful annual fundraiser in Wikimedia's history. And not that money is the only thing that matters, but in terms of comparison to other years, this year has apparently just blown them away: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics. It's very impressive work and I hope nobody on the fundraising team feels as though it's gone unnoticed. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] If I could talk to the wiki folks...
Samuel Klein wrote: It seems guaranteed to cause confusion. Wiki Med strikes me as the second most confusing possible name for an associated group. The most confusing would be a multimedia / news organization named Wiki Media. I hope the medical group will change its name officially and permanently. Second most confusing? I guess you missed the wikitech-l thread about a possible MediaWiki Foundation. [snip] Yes, what the world needs is another horribly confusingly named foundation. After we establish the MediaWiki Foundation, we can start work on the MikiWedia Foundation and the WediaMiki Foundation. ;-) [/snip] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-August/062843.html MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Rationale for fundraising record?
Zack Exley wrote: In past years, the campaign has dragged on for weeks with us only making $150,000 per day. We wanted to avoid that this year, and so we did everything we could to get the money in fast, so that we weren't littering the sites with banners for little return. Thank you for the very detailed reply. I'm highlighting just this paragraph to say thank you to the fundraising team again for all of its work to reduce the time the banners spend on the site. This is fantastic. :-) In previous discussions, there were questions about trade-offs and I think you mentioned that the Wikimedia community would have to make some choices about certain implementation details (e.g., stickiness of banners) after evaluating the cost of these features (annoyance to readers and editors) versus their benefit (increase in donations, decrease in fundraising banner time, etc.). I realize it's January and that the next annual fundraiser is many months away, but do you have any idea when this year you'll be having a discussion about these trade-offs and where? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
Salvidrim wrote: This is the Wikimedia UK version: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non_Disclosure_Agreement Also relevant may be this discussion: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler/2012#Comparison_of_UK_NDA_with_W MF_NDA Thanks for the links. :-) I started an index page at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreements. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Rationale for fundraising record?
Zack Exley wrote: On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 1:59 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: In previous discussions, there were questions about trade-offs and I think you mentioned that the Wikimedia community would have to make some choices about certain implementation details (e.g., stickiness of banners) after evaluating the cost of these features (annoyance to readers and editors) versus their benefit (increase in donations, decrease in fundraising banner time, etc.). I realize it's January and that the next annual fundraiser is many months away, but do you have any idea when this year you'll be having a discussion about these trade-offs and where? Any suggestions about how that might best be done? There are so few people who participate on this list that I would say this isn't a good place to measure the feelings of either WM contributions or readers. Meta-Wiki (https://meta.wikimedia.org/). I agree that this list is not representative of the Wikimedia community (and no forum will ever be truly representative), but I don't think that's important here. There's also the problem of people not necessarily knowing what actually annoys them or interferes with their experience the most when it's being discussed in the abstract. I don't follow. There are about a million test wikis available, including test.wikipedia.org, test2.wikipedia.org, and an entire Wikimedia Labs cluster that can be used for testing banners. You're absolutely right that discussing banners and annoyance in the abstract would be useless, I just have no idea why anyone ever would. There are about eleven months till the start of the next annual fundraiser. In that time, I think it should be possible to come up with a few demos for the community to evaluate and assess. And surveys of course have their problems. I don't follow. This doesn't seem to have stopped the Wikimedia Foundation or any other organization on Earth from (regularly) using surveys. Moreover, what are the important questions? What do some editors find objectionable from an aesthetic point of view? (Even though we are now sparing logged in users completely.) What gets in the way of readers' use of the site? Or other more nuanced questions about readers' reactions? For example, do some choices cause readers to perceive banners as ads, cause confusion or possibly reduce readership? Well, are we sparing logged in users completely? Who determines that? Is that documented anywhere? There are many ways to annoy readers. Generally anything that invades the content area of the site (which is physically marked on the page with borders) is off-limits and inappropriate to me. Others may disagree, particularly if there's enough of a financial gain. These are the types of discussions that need to be had. It's always possible to do a full splash-screen and it would probably bring in a lot of money, but I don't think anyone is advocating for such an approach. That's one end of the spectrum. The other end is having no banners at all and relying on simple word-of-mouth. The grey areas in between these two extremes need further thought and consideration. Meta-Wiki is the place for this. Any thoughts? Your questions are a bit silly. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 15% off merchandise today at the Wikimedia Shop
Marcin Cieslak wrote: I just wanted to share my feelings: I went to en.wikipedia.org today and I saw this message on top: Happy Birthday Wikipedia! 15% off merchandise today at the Wikimedia Shop My first impression was: I think I mistyped the URL... I primarily contribute to Wikipedia, so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine it wouldn't feel great to look at the Wikimedia Shop right now as a Wiktionarian or a Wikinewsie or a Wikisorcerer or I primarily contribute in English, so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine it wouldn't feel great to look at the Wikimedia Shop right now as someone who primarily speaks French or Spanish or German or Italian or I imagine most active users have given up on CentralNotice and have the banners permanently hidden while logged in. But it isn't the banner that bothers me as much as the place to which it leads. These are solvable problems. We can do better. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] OTRS summaries and statistics report, 2012
Keegan Peterzell wrote: 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Reports/2012 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS Nice. Thanks for putting this together. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Loading remote resources on Wikimedia wikis
Hi. As I understand it, loading remote resources on Wikimedia wikis (such as YouTube videos or Google Analytics JavaScript) is not allowed. The basic principle is that any remote resources must be loaded from domains that also adhere to Wikimedia's privacy policy (such as toolserver.org) or be opt-in (such as the recent fundraising videos that were on YouTube, but carried an explicit warning). Is this correct? And if so, is this documented anywhere? I looked at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy, but this didn't seem to be explicitly mentioned there. Perhaps there's a page on Meta-Wiki somewhere? Does anyone know? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising testing
Megan Hernandez wrote: Sorry for the confusion. The chapters in Germany, France, and Switzerland ran banners at the end of 2012. WMF is not showing banners in those countries. I added a section to the fundraising meta page for comments if you've seen banners over the last two weeks: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2013 Looks good. :-) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013 (the noticeboard itself) also looks like it'll be useful for providing status updates, etc. Wikimedians are always curious about banners, particularly outside November and December. From the subject-space page, I saw this: * or send in your own story: wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Stories/en https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Stories/en I didn't realize this form was still up. I'm curious how many e-mails it gets/how it's been working for you all. Do people submit interesting stories? I assume it's funneled through OTRS or something, but I'm not actually sure. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Hi. OTRS (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this e-mail. Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors, this has become an untenable solution. Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Keegan Peterzell wrote: I've been an Volunteer Response Team agent since 2009, and a leader (OTRS admin) since 2010. In that time the control of OTRS moved from a function that had a designated staff role of control to one of community management. In the past two and a half years Philippe has been our contact for support from the Wikimedia Foundation, and he has done a fantastic job supporting myself and the time with advice and Foundation resources as they have been gathered. Over the past year, Maggie Dennis has transitioned into this role as the Foundation rep for OTRS. She has done an equally wonderful job in being proactive and helping us with our thoughts and needs. I don't have much interaction with either on a daily basis, but I can certainly say that it seems to be purely in terms of technical (software) support where we're seeing an issue right now. The non-technical support has been great, particularly since Maggie joined, from what I'm told. But OTRS is ultimately a big piece of software. Maybe the Wikimedia Foundation can buy a support contract for it if nobody is willing/able to support/maintain it internally? Or maybe that's something a chapter or grant could do? Dunno. I think any option is on the table right now. This also isn't a criticism of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering folks. They've got plenty on their plate as well, of course. But _somebody_ has to be supporting the technical portion of OTRS. If the Wikimedia Foundation can't/won't, someone else has to step in. That's where I thought the chapters or another movement player might be an option. Gregory Varnum wrote: This could be a good project for one of the developing MediaWiki Groups. MediaWiki Group San Francisco is already approved by AffCom and eligible for grants. If they're willing to make a commitment to support it for at least a few years (you don't really want to be moving infrastructure around all the time, I don't think), I think this is workable. It's just a matter of pointing where the e-mail is sent, as I understand it. And then maintaining whatever solution you pick/build that manages the e-mail. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Keegan Peterzell wrote: This conversation should shift to meta sooner rather than later. I'm not on my PC, but perhaps /Talk:OTRS/Software? I'm not sure moving to Meta-Wiki is a good idea. OTRS is the current software. It's unclear what a Software talk subpage would be used for. I'm inclined to say that whoever steps up and makes a commitment to support a ticket response system can pick whether to stick with OTRS or move to a different system, as long as it's comparable to (or better than) OTRS. James' post offered a lot of insight into why this has been so slow-moving. (Thank you, James!) But at this point it seems fairly clear that someone needs to become responsible for the technical support of OTRS or its successor. I'm not sure Meta-Wiki can help with that. It seems more like an organization issue. James Alexander wrote: Yeah, I have to agree sadly that we need more tech support and this has been a thing that has been ongoing for a while. I personally think it should remain in the foundation for many reasons (the least of which is relatively large legal reasons) but we REALLY need to focus on it, or a replacement, more. I would think the Wikimedia Foundation would want to remain pretty distant from unfiltered volunteer replies to e-mails, from a legal standpoint, but maybe someone from the Wikimedia Foundation legal team can chime in on this point. Thanks again for your post. Some of the background info in particular was enlightening. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
David Gerard wrote: On 21 February 2013 12:07, Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org wrote: [Sumana does ALL THE THINGS] This is a wonderful response. Thank you! Completely agreed. Thank you, Sumana! It seems like we're headed in a good direction. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
MZMcBride wrote: As I understand it, many Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Is there a copy of the current version of this non-disclosure agreement anywhere? I briefly checked Meta-Wiki and wikimediafoundation.org, but didn't see anything off-hand. I'm still looking for a copy of the Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement. Does anyone know who might be able to provide a copy for Meta-Wiki? There's a very sad index of Wikimedia-related NDAs here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NDA. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
Mono wrote: I think it's necessary for the Foundation to both provide a copy and explain the necessity of the NDA for transparency and legal/ethical reasons, especially if they are asking volunteers to sign them. Hmm, not just asking, but apparently requiring certain volunteers to sign them. It's unclear which volunteers are and are not exempt from this requirement. For example, it seems that Bugzilla administrators are now required to have signed an NDA, but OTRS volunteers and wiki administrators are not. Wikimedia stewards... it's unclear, as it is for many other user volunteer groups (people with access to rt.wikimedia.org, shell users, et al.). I suppose we should begin to expand the page on Meta-Wiki. Cunningham's Law will kick in, as necessary. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
Samuel Klein wrote: I have not seen a copy of such NDAs myself. Where did you see that Bugzilla admins have to sign an NDA? Philippe B. said so, I'm told. As it happens, most Bugzilla admins are Wikimedia Foundation staff, so the issue doesn't seem to come up much. As far as I know the relevant issue is that anyone who has access to private personal information of users needs to sign an agreement that they will not share that information. This definition doesn't seem to include CheckUsers, oversighters, OTRS volunteers and OTRS administrators, wiki administrators, and many others, so I'm not sure it's accurate. It's unclear whether Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees members and Wikimedia stewards are also required to sign NDAs. It seems all Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign one. And I imagine there are other (volunteer) user groups I'm forgetting. Whatever people are signing, it makes sense for the agreements themselves to be public. Agreed. :-) Any idea who I could poke about that? I e-mailed this list in January 2013 with no real response. Relatedly, the Wikimedia Foundation's employee handbook was posted to wikimediafoundation.org in December 2012, but it was subsequently deleted without explanation: https://wikimedia.org/wiki/Employee_Handbook and https://wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Smerrick#Employee_Handbook. I'm not totally sure this level of transparency is exactly needed, per se, but it was an interesting read and it may serve as a reference point for other non-profits and similar organizations. It'd be nice to see it re-posted at some point. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
Sarah Stierch wrote: Most organizations don't walk around releasing their NDA's. In fact, I don't know a single organization that would engage people to do so. And even though WMF is WMF, I don't think it's bad for it to hold onto some professional practices like that. It's common practice, in the States, for non and for profits to do. I always thought it was funny that NDA's existed at WMF just because of the openness, but, at the same time, it's industry standard and doesn't phase me. People should be glad WMF has one. Generally I'd agree that it'd be an unusual request. On the other hand, if the Wikimedia Foundation is requiring certain _volunteers_ to sign non-disclosure agreements, I think that changes matters. Deryck Chan wrote: As far as I know, NDAs are primarily for protecting people's privacy. Given who is and who is not being asked to sign NDAs, I'm not sure this definition is totally accurate, at least not in the context of Wikimedia. Keegan Peterzell wrote: On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Deryck Chan deryckc...@wikimedia.hk wrote: As far as I know, NDAs are primarily for protecting people's privacy. That's my understanding as well. I have a NDA with the WMF as a volunteer from a couple years ago to help with fundraising after I no longer contracted for the foundation in order to access the donations CRM. Out of curiosity, if you sign an NDA as a volunteer, what is the disclosure period, then? Is it indefinite? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
Nathan wrote: Just out of curiousity, MZ, what is your interest in the text of the NDA? Anyone required to abide by one has seen it and knows what the terms are, and no one who hasn't seen it is bound by it. So other than just being curious, is there are particular reason you want to know more about it? It came up in the context of Bugzilla adminship for me. On rare occasion, I've also heard threats (or admonitions, I guess) from Wikimedia Foundation staff about colleagues possibly violating the non-disclosure agreement. This of course led to: what are the exact terms of the Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement? Though as I learn more about who is and isn't required to sign an NDA (combined with the lack of a public rationale for making any volunteer sign one), it's become more perplexing and intriguing. It's similar to the Identification noticeboard in some ways, which is almost equally entirely arbitrary about who is and isn't required to identify themselves to the Wikimedia Foundation. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fiction: WMF policy of paying less than market
Leslie Carr wrote: Though I do feel that the WMF salary is discriminating against my right to fly first class everywhere. My champagne glass won't refill itself, you know! Turns out, I was wrong!! [...] Thanks to a generous anonymous benefactor :) :D These photos were adorable. Thank you for sharing them. (Though I did feel a slight pang in my heart when I remembered that S.F. had stolen Kat and Greg from us.) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Grants Program Retrospective 2009-2012 published
Asaf Bartov wrote: Another component of the Wikimedia Foundation's increased focus on grantmaking is now ready for discussion: it is a retrospective report on the history, evolution, and processes of the Wikimedia Grants Program (the Foundation's first, and until fairly recently only, grants program). We were interested in an independent report by someone with a good understanding of wikis and our shared values, and chose a local Wikipedian named Kevin Gorman (User:Kevin Gorman), active on English Wikipedia, who has volunteered in the Wikipedia Education Program and also had an (unpaid) internship at the Foundation office in San Francisco for a few months in 2011. Kevin was paid our standard contractor wage for his work on this. Kevin has posted the report here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Retrospective_2009-2012 Hi. I haven't had a chance to read the report yet, but I just want to say thank you for the transparency here. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Hi. I've started collecting notes about a possible Wikimedia or Wikimedia Foundation endowment here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment. Any additional relevant links to past discussions or thoughts about this idea are welcome on that page, its talk page, or this mailing list. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Thomas Dalton wrote: An endowment is a long-term thing. Current low interest rates probably won't last more than a few years. Even so, it would need to be a very large fund, yes. If you can get a return of, say, 2% over inflation (you can get more than that if you're willing to take some risks) you need 50 times your annual budget to fund it all from the endowment. That would be something like $2 billion for the WMF. It doesn't need to fund the entire budget to be useful, though, and can be built up over time (eg. from legacies in people's wills). Exactly. As I understand it, the yearly annual Wikimedia Foundation budget is about $35 million. It costs about $2.5 million to keep the sites operational for a year. So even if an endowment weren't large enough to cover well over 130 full-time staff members, it could still keep us up and running for a while. Assuming $2.5 million, that's about $125 million, using your multiply by 50 formula. That's still a shitload of money, but it's much less than $2 billion. :-) I think we need to decide, as a community, whether this is something we want. If it is, we should set up an endowment fund sooner rather than later, so that people willing to donate to such an endowment have a place to put their money, I think. The question then becomes: how do we decide on this? A community vote (similar to the licensing update vote) followed by a Board resolution? A Wikimedia-wide requests for comment? Just a Board resolution (assuming a majority of members support this, of course)? Thoughts on how to figure out what the next step here is would be really appreciated. (Particularly looking at you, Philippe, given your work on both the strategic plan and the licensing vote. Gerard's Law and all. ;-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Philippe Beaudette wrote: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:47 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: (Particularly looking at you, Philippe, given your work on both the strategic plan and the licensing vote. Gerard's Law and all. ;-) For the record, I didn't do the licensing vote. :) Erik gets all the sblame/s credit for that. :-) Hah, my bad. For some reason, I was associating it with you in my head. I thought you did the strategic plan in 2008 and the licensing update in 2009. Meta-Wiki bears you out, though. Maybe I got the licensing update vote confused with the image filter referendum? Anyway, sorry about that. My feeling would be that the obvious first place to start would be the Board of Trustees. I'd probably start by emailing them and asking them what they think. It seems to me, if I were in your shoes (and I'm carefully taking no position here, not because I don't have an opinion but because I don't have a considered opinion), that the response to that would drive the next set of actions. Well, I think a few of the Board of Trustees members read this mailing list occasionally. Perhaps they'll chime in. I'd not seen https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment. Thank you kindly for that. (Now if only strategy.wikimedia.org were folded back into meta.wikimedia.org so that I had a chance of finding these pages on my own) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Erik Moeller wrote: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:47 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: It costs about $2.5 million to keep the sites operational for a year. How did you come up with that number? I used to say $2 million, but Roan recently told me that it had probably gone up since that estimate (from 2009). So now I say $2.5 million. It's advertised on Meta-Wiki here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/?banner=money_or_die. ;-) As I recall, the $2 million (now $2.5 million) figure came from discussions with technical staff about what it would cost to keep the site running for a year and an examination of relevant Wikimedia-related budget breakdowns that were split out between non-technical staff costs, overhead costs, etc. However, following Cunningham's Law, if you have a better figure, please share. :-) We can certainly say it's far less than $35 million to only keep the sites up and running (barebones hosting support and related tech staff costs), the question is how much less. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Samuel Klein wrote: Yes, let us build an endowment. It makes practical sense: As a community institution that aims to serve our society for the next 100 years, it matches our scope and vision. And as a respected and visible global project, we can raise the funds we need. phoebe ayers wrote: All that said, I strongly support the idea, on the principle that what we do is important for the long-term and needs to be supported as such. We did discuss the idea during my time on the board, a year or so ago, and it sounds like it's coming up again, which is great! Hi SJ and Phoebe. What do you think about this as a path forward? The Board votes on a resolution that would create an investigative committee (a Sustainability Committee or an Endowment Committee or whatever) that would take six months or a year or more to examine the questions put forward by Stu (now available here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment/Questions)? The purpose of the committee would be to report back to the Board with solid answers to these questions (and additional questions, of course) about a possible endowment. The investigative committee could consist of some Wikimedia Foundation staff, some Advisory Board members, some community members, some outside financial and/or legal people, et al. I think very broadly there's likely support for the creation of an endowment, but I don't think there's enough solid information yet. Is this a reasonable (or tenable) path forward? After having seen the volume of past discussion about this idea, I'd really prefer not to look back at this mailing list discussion in two or three years and still not have made forward real forward progress. ;-) If you have other ideas about next steps here, please share! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Nathan wrote: To return to the endowment again as the main topic, I think there are some risks we need to consider in an endowment. In general I think having an endowment is a good idea for a charitable institution, and certainly the WMF needs a strategic reserve of some size to maintain operations in the event of a crisis. But a lot of thought has to go into the target size of that fund, the nature of its fundraising, how or whether it is used, and what role (and of what prominence) it plays in WM/WMF public relations. [...] These are all good points. I suggested quite recently that the Board pass a resolution creating a committee to examine the points you raise and additional questions outlined here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment/Questions. I continue to think that we (as a community) are still not at a place where we can make good judgments about whether to set up an endowment. There simply isn't enough information available to make a sound decision, in my opinion. That said, the idea of creating an endowment does seem like an idea that has broad support for further consideration and exploration, which is why I think an investigative or exploratory committee would make a lot of sense here and now. Thoughts? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] open positions at WMF
Platonides wrote: On 19/03/13 00:54, Sumana Harihareswara wrote: Oh, and I noticed that you have some OTRS expertise -- could you maybe check out https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22622 and let us know if you have some free time to volunteer your help? :-) Is it really something where volunteers can help? I thought it wasn't possible (private mail concerns blocking volunteer action). BTW, why is WMF looking for a WordPress Developer? I think that if we outgrew the current blog, the way to go would be to mediawikize it, not to make something new still based in WP. O. It kind of stings to read http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=ou3gXfwu, apparently a position listing from the Legal and Community Advocacy team, looking for a WordPress contractor to do a face-lift for the Wikimedia blog, when OTRS is struggling to stay functional. I don't do much OTRS-related work, but I find it easy to imagine some OTRS volunteers reading this and wondering what's going on. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: P.s.: I asked about this one because there wasn't a concrete roadmap for everything [to] continue[s] as planned, so it would not be strange to continue not hearing anything (public/definite) about it. :) Sue or Erik: is there any update on this e-mail from November 2012? (Or some place interested folks should be watching for news?) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
Erik Moeller wrote: On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 7:49 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Sue or Erik: is there any update on this e-mail from November 2012? (Or some place interested folks should be watching for news?) In addition to the original note from November, please also see Sue's follow-up restructure announcement from December, which made explicit that the decision to split the engineering/product department was deferred for now: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/122971.html [...] Thank you very much for the insightful update. Much appreciated. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Gadgets
Everton Zanella Alvarenga wrote: I've started a page on meta for Wikimedia Gadget http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Gadgets Hi. I'm not sure gadgets is the word you want. It immediately made me think of the popular Gadgets MediaWiki extension: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Gadgets. It sounds like maybe you want merchandise? Or something similar to that. Just a thought. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New design for the list info page?
Thehelpfulone wrote: Last week I noticed a nice design for the list info page of the WLM-US mailing list that I tweaked for this mailing list: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/cabal-l Unquestionably a major improvement over the default mailman theme. I'm not sure I love the black background, but it would be great to see any forward progress here, particularly if we can switch the default theme (affecting all lists). It's pretty... dated currently. :-) http://www.freecsstemplates.org/ is the site where this proposed theme came from. It may have some other themes worth investigating. Thank you for working on this! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The case for supporting open source machine translation
Erik Moeller wrote: Could open source MT be such a strategic investment? I don't know, but I'd like to at least raise the question. I think the alternative will be, for the foreseeable future, to accept that this piece of technology will be proprietary, and to rely on goodwill for any integration that concerns Wikimedia. Not the worst outcome, but also not the best one. Are there open source MT efforts that are close enough to merit scrutiny? In order to be able to provide high quality result, you would need not only a motivated, well-intentioned group of people, but some of the smartest people in the field working on it. I doubt we could more than kickstart an effort, but perhaps financial backing at significant scale could at least help a non-profit, open source effort to develop enough critical mass to go somewhere. [...] Wikipedia and our other projects reach more than 500 million people every month. The world population is estimated to be 7 billion. Still a long way to go. Support us. Join us. Share: https://wikimediafoundation.org/ Putting aside the worrying focus on questionable metrics, the first part of your new e-mail footer Wikipedia and our other projects seems to hint at the underlying issue here: Wikimedia already operates a number of projects (about a dozen), but truly supports only one (Wikipedia). Though the Wikimedia community seems eager to add new projects (Wikidata, Wikivoyage), I wonder how it can be sensible or reasonable to focus on yet another project when the current projects are largely neglected (Wikinews, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, etc.). There's a general trend currently within the Wikimedia Foundation to narrow focus, which includes shelling out third-party MediaWiki release support to an outside contractor or group, because there are apparently not enough resources within the Wikimedia Foundation's 160-plus staff to support the Wikimedia software platform for anyone other than Wikimedia. In light of this, it seems even more unreasonable and against good sense to pursue a new machine translation endeavor, virtuous as it may be. If an outside organization wants Wikimedia's help and support and their values align with ours, it's certainly something to explore. Otherwise, surely we have enough projects in need of support already. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone
Erik Moeller wrote: As background, relevant links I was able to find regarding the WMHK funding discussions: [...] Thanks for the links. I took a look at the current FDC members list[1] and the decision-making information[2] but I'm still a bit unclear how decisions like this[3] are made. Is there a vote on each individual request (and subsequent recommendation)? If so, is that vote public? Or is it a single recommendation encompassing all requests for that round and members vote on that? And if so, is that vote public? From the round 2 recommendation[3] we find the following snippet of text. We are concerned about the general increase in staff hiring that has been taking place over the last year, in particular where staff are performing functions that volunteers have been leading. We encourage entities to focus on balancing the work done by staff and volunteers in line with the Wikimedia movement's ethos of volunteers leading work, and to focus on having staff coordinate volunteer activities. We are also concerned about the growth rates of both staff and budgets. We would ask entities to consider whether their growth rates are sustainable in the long term, and whether they are leading to the most impact possible. Is the FDC commenting on the Wikimedia chapters here or on the Wikimedia Foundation (or both)? The scope of both the FDC and these comments is unclear to me. MZMcBride [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_members/Current_round [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Decision-making [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=5440314 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone
Florence Devouard wrote: I was thinking of the numerous (quite successful) associations in France, which are simply made of entrepreneurs wishing to do things together (from networking, to training, to visits, conferences etc.). Most of those associations have only one staff member, a long-term hired secretary who takes care of secretarial work. The rest of the association activity is 100% taken care of by the volunteer entrepreneurs (usually through an extended board of volunteer members). Yes, this kind of association is also somewhat common in the United States as well. I agree that it might serve as a very good model for a healthy number of Wikimedia chapters. In many cases, the secretary is paid with sponsorship and membership fees. The Wikimedia Foundation seems to be in a good place to ensure that this need is met for chapters in need of a full-time staff person. A little seed money. What needs to happen in order to ensure requests like this are met if membership fees and sponsorships aren't sufficient? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Accommodation best practices
Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Maarten Dammers, 28/04/2013 11:58: Last year after the Berlin Hackathon I sent an email to internal-l about the accommodation. The text I sent was quite sharp to get a response. A lot of people replied to the email and it contained a lot of useful opinions. The discussion was quite heated at some point and I would like to have something positive from it. I still have it on my todo list to start and/ or improve the Accommodation best practices. Does such a page already exist on meta or should I start a new one? The only thing I know about is https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WH#Accommodations I've been trying to organize best practices documents here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Best_practices. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Deryck Chan wrote: Given the foundation's recent tsunami of centralisation I'm not surprised by this at all. The message is clear - the community doesn't belong here. Go back to meta. Yeah, I think you're right. It seems to be part of a larger pattern. * Blog access has been restricted (as noted). * Bugzilla adminship has been restricted to staff only. * wikimediafoundation.org adminship is now restricted to staff and Board Members. * Shell access has been restricted to staff only (no more volunteer sysadmins). Relatedly, the Toolserver is being slowly killed in favor of a controlled sandbox called Wikimedia Labs and all Wikimedia accounts are being unified (with forceable usurps/renames) to make it easier to track and control users across all Wikimedia wikis. It's very surprising that the Board has been so quiet about all of this. Generally, a few staff members (notably Philippe and his team) have tried to create tiers in which paid staff are above volunteers. Even the most trusted volunteers are no longer allowed to hold positions of trust within the Wikimedia community. This is very bad. Are there ways to address this? But to blame this on Gayle is kind of insane. It seems clear to me that she's being used as a pawn here. There are very few indications that this has anything to do with her, aside from a few log entries (from... Philippe) inexplicably pointing to her name. And the curt e-mail she sent out to affected users. Her involvement with the wiki would charitably be described as negligible. The director of _community advocacy_ (Philippe) is stripping nearly every community member of user rights. And yet there's still no provided rationale for the change in policy, other than it being based on a series of private discussions. Meanwhile, the home page of wikimediafoundation.org stresses how transparent the organization is. This is a pretty disappointing day. I'd be interested to hear what Gayle, Philippe, or the Board has to say. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Itzik Edri wrote: Can we please give time to the Foundation to response and express their side before everyone starts to attack them? I think we had enough of that on Internal-l. After the first response, or at least 24h, I will understand everyone feelings about that. (And right now I'm also don't agree or understand WMF's decision, but I'm waiting to hear them first). I agree that it would be nice to have a full explanation from the Wikimedia Foundation here (particularly from Philippe and Gayle, who have apparently conspired). But I'm not sure I agree that time is needed to evaluate what has happened. There was certainly no wait before users were stripped of their user rights. The lack of any emergency makes this rash series of actions even more upsetting and confusing. Wikimedia _is_ its community. When a few staff members start to kick out the community (from the blog, from Bugzilla, from volunteer sysadminning), it's a pretty awful situation that needs to be immediately addressed, in my opinion. The alternative is that most volunteers will simply go away. While that may seem like a victory to certain staff members, I wonder when they'll realize that it's these same volunteers that keep the projects running. When the dedicated and trusted volunteers leave, their (paid) jobs will soon follow. Wikimedia simply isn't sustainable without trusted volunteers. Slapping them in the face does what? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Leslie Carr wrote: * Shell access has been restricted to staff only (no more volunteer sysadmins). Someone better tell that to domas and his ssh key. As someone tasked with protecting the servers, ssh keys should be restricted as much as possible, both with staff and volunteers. that is technical and not political. That was just sloppy wording on my part, apologies. Shell/root access has been indeed been restricted to staff only. About four users have been grandfathered in (Domas, Jens, River, Robert S.). I'll note that these users have all contributed an enormous amount (for free!) to the Wikimedia movement. They deserve only our appreciation for the volunteer work they've done. And they serve as a model of what trusted volunteers can do. Please don't suggest that this has anything to do with technical decisions. Even a child can see that this is pure politics. Leslie, do you agree with these policies that remove all non-staff from positions of trust? Do you agree with creating tiers between staff and everyone else? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Sue Gardner wrote: So. People can disagree with this decision, and that's okay. But ultimately, the Wikimedia Foundation is responsible for the Wikimedia Foundation wiki: it's our job to figure out how best to manage and Maintain it. That's what we're doing here. wikimediafoundation.org has historically been managed by the Board. Not Gayle or Philippe. I'm still waiting on the Board to chime in here. It's my understanding that several Board members (current and former) wanted to open the wiki to more editing and cleanup in the short-term and in the long-term re-unite the wiki with Meta-Wiki at www.wikimedia.org. This is a step in the wrong direction. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Casey Brown wrote: On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 7:15 AM, K. Peachey p858sn...@gmail.com wrote: This is the email that got sent out to everyone, For what it's worth, this didn't get sent out to everyone. I was a bureaucrat and administrator, and have the most edits on that wiki (afaik?), and wasn't notified. Like Huib, I was also in the batch of blog moderator removals and wasn't notified about that either. I'm left a little speechless by this. I've always considered my values to be largely aligned with Wikimedia's, but more and more, I find myself distanced from it. I don't really want to be associated with people who can't treat volunteers with basic respect and dignity. Ultimately, like every other volunteer, I have to evaluate whether my time is better spent elsewhere. It's a really sad day for Wikimedia. You and many others who were summarily stripped of their user rights were integral to building that wiki and you deserve to be recognized and appreciated, not thrown out on a whim without notice or warning. Sue talks so much about stewardship, but this apparently includes anointing a ruler of the wiki who isn't capable of caring out her own commands. What does this say about the stewardship of the wiki? Meanwhile the questions about who will actually keep the site running go unanswered. For people like Gayle and Philippe to privately collude and then fire us at the end of the day on a Friday like we're disgruntled employees was pretty bad. (Both of whom seemed to have been in such a rush to act, but now are mysteriously too busy to participate in the community mailing list discussion about their actions.) Watching Erik and Sue try to defend their actions has been even more painful to watch. But it's long-time community members who know that this isn't right and who have chosen to not say anything that are bothering me the most. It's unsurprising that you and many others aren't very active anymore. :-/ You're so much better than they deserve. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Nathan wrote: If the conflict was primarily with MZMcBride (which seems to be the case), then it was a bit cowardly to overhaul the entire scheme on the site in order to avoid telling him to knock it off. What'd I do? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Philippe Beaudette wrote: You want an explanation? I'm sure that Gayle will offer one. But for the umpteenth time, I was the person pushing the button because someone had to be. Why did you feel compelled to act here when it wasn't your decision? Was there something preventing Gayle from doing this herself? It's pretty strange to involve yourself in this decision (that wasn't yours) and then turn around and say well why are you pointing at me?! You were raised in a wiki culture, just as I was, where an individual is responsible for the actions of his or her account. You obviously felt an obligation to act here. What remains unclear is why. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] movement blog, not WMF blog, was: Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
Tilman Bayer wrote: thanks for correcting your earlier claim in the main thread that you were never notified about this kind of thing (although unfortunately this correction comes only after your claim already contributed to leaving MZ a little speechless and feeling more and more ... distanced from Wikimedia). Huib made his bed and he can sleep in it. To clarify, my comments were about people like Casey, Alex, Daniel M., and many others who saw their rights stripped after volunteering thousands of hours to help build both wikimediafoundation.org and the Wikimedia Foundation. When I read that some people apparently hadn't even been notified, it made me pretty upset. Erik calls it a clarification in governance; more like a coup. There's been an apology for the callous and capricious way in which this unfolded, but nobody seems willing to rectify the situation. Pages such as https://wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sean_Whitton are now out-of-date and there are a growing number of requests for an account (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMFACCOUNT). But we can wait for Gayle to return in a week or so. Address questions to her. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New design for the list info page?
Quim Gil wrote: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-announce Feedback, please. I would love to see this design or something similar become the default for Wikimedia's mailing lists. Compared to the current default,[1] I find the new design vastly more friendly and engaging. MZMcBride [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thoughts on Admin Rights on WMF Wiki (and other things)
Benjamin Lees wrote: The way this whole affair was undertaken was unfortunate, but that can be smoothed over with apologies. The remaining issue is that the wrong decision was made, and there's no way to fix that except to reverse the decision. This. It's not about making a mistake (or even a series of mistakes): that's to be expected by any person doing anything. Making (and learning from) mistakes is part of being human. The relationship here has certainly been damaged, but to move forward, I don't think acknowledging that mistakes were made is sufficient. It's about making things right. It's particularly frustrating that wikis make mistakes very easy to undo and yet somehow that process has completely failed us here. We encourage boldness, as the next steps (a reversion and discussion) are supposed to be easy. I suppose this principle doesn't apply to a wiki coup. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia Zero in Google search result
K. Peachey wrote: Can you please file this in bugzilla https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org? https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48856 MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Protecting the Encylopedia vs Destroying a human
billinghurst wrote: ... or there is the old saying of let sleeping dogs, lie Heh, you seem to be in Eats, Shoots Leaves territory here. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikivoyage logo
Michelle Paulson wrote: Since then, the Foundation has received a cease-and-desist letter from the WTO, requesting that we change the logo. While we wish that the WTO agreed with our assessment that the two logos contain substantial differences and could co-exist, we understand their concern. We still believe that there are some significant differences between the Wikivoyage logo and the WTO, however, such arguments are not guaranteed to win if we were to legally oppose this request because there are also some substantial similarities. With this in mind, as well as the fact that the Wikivoyage logo is still relatively new and has not had a chance to build significant brand recognition yet, we believe the better solution is to hold a new community contest for a new logo. Will the current Wikivoyage logo be an option in this upcoming logo selection contest? If the Wikivoyage community is strongly in favor of retaining the logo it already approved, what are options? I don't believe there's any precedent for the Wikimedia Foundation vetoing a community-approved logo in this manner. (Is there?) This seems like unchartered territory for Wikimedia, so it's important to be cautious and careful, I think. We believe that the community is the best body to decide what logo should represent their hard work and hope that interested community members will take this opportunity to once again showcase their creativity and talent by submitting designs. As I posted on the relevant Meta-Wiki talk page just now, the Wikimedia community cannot feel rushed or pressured to accept this new logo selection procedure. Typically a discussion of this nature would last at least thirty days, from my experience. This leaves two options, as I see it: pushing back the timeline for the selection of a Wikivoyage logo by a few weeks or not using this procedure for the selection of the next Wikivoyage logo. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikivoyage logo
Craig Franklin wrote: I'm sure that the legal team has done their homework on this and would not have made this recommendation unless they felt that the WTO had a credible argument. Asking the Foundation to play chicken with the lawyers of a major international organisation over a trademark claim on a relatively new and easily replaced logo of ours does not offer a very good risk/reward ratio in my view. You mean has done their homework on this this time, right? The General Counsel position is one of the oldest in the Wikimedia Foundation and the Legal and Community Advocacy team certainly existed before the previous Wikivoyage logo contest. If this were an issue, you'd think someone would've said something six months ago. And, of course, there's no shortage of trademark, patent, or copyright trolls in the world. I've seen both logos and while they're obviously similar, I'm sure there are a great number of lawyers who could make a number of arguments as to why there's no real issue here. Anyone can send a cease and desist letter, right? Presenting a logo selection procedure from a black box and then trying to pressure the community to accept it as global policy within ten days doesn't seem appropriate to me. Ten days is being very generous, as the draft procedure is only fully translated into two languages at the moment and we're fast approaching June 2. There are also at least a few Wikivoyagers who are concerned that the active participants of Wikivoyage weren't properly enfranchised during the last logo contest. That is, there's a concern that the people most involved with Wikivoyage will get drowned out by the much larger Wikimedia community in any contest of this nature. This needs further thought, deliberation, and discussion; however this is being rushed by an apparently hard deadline from the Wikimedia legal team to change the Wikivoyage logo no later than July 31. This isn't a great situation to be in. I would think some of these issues would be of concern to you. This isn't about asking anyone to play chicken. It's about ensuring that communities are free to choose their own identity. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikivoyage logo
Deryck Chan wrote: This time misses the point of risk management - it's all probabilistic rather than deterministic. It is totally reasonable for WMF to have judged that the differences between the two logos are large enough that a trademark claim is sufficiently *unlikely* to happen. But outliers do occur and in this case WTO chose (against perceived odds) to make a claim. And it's totally reasonable, too, for the WMF to now judge that the risks of going to court about this logo isn't worth fighting. Saying that WMF must've made a mistake last time because they allowed the logo in the first place but then gave in on the trademark claim simply misses the point. Very well put. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM
David Gerard wrote: On 10 June 2013 18:01, Rand McRanderson therands...@gmail.com wrote: I think the key here is not to keep more information about users than necessary. In particular - at present. as I understand it, we don't keep full access logs, just 1/1000 samples. We need to not keep full access logs. I'm not sure about access log retention. I know what used to be true (that we didn't and frankly couldn't keep full access logs), but I'm not sure what the current situation is. Related to this, however, is a broader point about hiding versus deleting information. We, as a community, have gotten into a pattern of hiding (suppressing) information in our databases rather than simply removing it outright. This has advantages (chiefly reversibility), but the practice of sweeping information under the rug rather than taking out the trash can, and inevitably will, cause issues. Truly problematic usernames, edits, and logs really ought to be deleted, not simply suppressed, in my opinion. This has come up in the context of database dumps and database replication. We're basically asking for this information to one day be leaked by retaining it indefinitely (including usernames that out individuals, CheckUser logs, content buried inside page histories, etc.). MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM
Fred Bauder wrote: This has come up in the context of database dumps and database replication. We're basically asking for this information to one day be leaked by retaining it indefinitely (including usernames that out individuals, CheckUser logs, content buried inside page histories, etc.). It is much better to be able to monitor oversighters than to completely remove the miniscule portion of suppressed material intelligence agencies might have an interest in. Sorry, that confusion was caused by me. I wasn't speaking in the context of the NSA or PRISM or anything like that (subject line aside, of course). I was talking about the general trend of preferring suppression to (actual) deletion on Wikimedia wikis. Though to frame it as simply able to monitor oversighters misses the point, I think. Yes, it's a trade-off, but when we think of things like long-banned usernames (and their associated block log entries) that are basically vandalism, we can take the approach of hiding them indefinitely (sweeping them under the rug) or we can take the approach of eventually deleting them outright (taking out the trash). The same is true of CheckUser logs, particularly logged direct queries of IP addresses, which when viewed in a timeline, can often reveal an editor's IP addresses. This is basically private user metadata similar to the telephony metadata at the center of one of these recent controversies. We can choose to keep these logs around forever, hoping they'll never be exposed, or we can delete them after a certain period of Time. In other words, it's not even outright suppression (in the MediaWiki sense) that we should consider. Private data can't and won't stay private forever unless it's actively destroyed. Surely history has taught us this. My view is that if you continue sweeping things under the rug, eventually some dirt is going to be exposed. This related to the thread's larger point about removing liability/culpability by simply deleting things rather than archiving them indefinitely. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM
Anthony wrote: One thing I'd also appreciate is that if indeed Wikipedia access logs are not even collected in the first place (except for 1/1000 samples), that this be stated officially, rather than relying on a two-year-old comment by a single, now-former employee. Minor point: I can't tell for sure if this is a reference to Domas, but if so, he only ever served as a Wikimedia Foundation Board member and volunteer sysadmin, never as an employee, as far as I know. Anyone who truly needs to keep their Wikipedia use confidential should, of course, still take measures to anonymize their access. But for the rest of the time, an assurance that these logs are simply not being kept is reassuring. Something in the privacy policy saying this would be best. But I've suggested this in the past, and WMF has declined on the grounds that they want to leave flexibility should they decide to do full logging in the future. I'm not sure that an empty reassurance will be particularly reassuring. It's not as though the Legal and Community Advocacy team sets log rotation/expiration times. This would have to be put into the privacy policy to mean anything of substance, I think. And I completely agree with your understanding of the current situation (the Wikimedia Foundation objecting due to concerns about future flexibility). Though I'm now remembering that there are certain staff policies that now exist (they contrast with official/Board policies). Perhaps that would be an avenue to pursue? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM
Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Benjamin Lees, 10/06/2013 08:13: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/49712/focus=49727 is probably relevant (if what Domas said then is still true). While I'm not aware of privacy changing substantially, speaking of fantastic names, Kraken is going to change things a bit compared to 2010: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Kraken/Request_Logging https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Kraken/Data_Formats I didn't find a human-readable overview but the gist seems to be that WMF will log the same (partial) data, but for 100 % of visits rather than 1/1000. More technical members of the list will be able to tell more from the specifications and source code. Kraken: the next-generation analytics platform that we'll see next generation. ;-) You and I should write the history of Wikimedia analytics. I already have notes! MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] PRISM, government surveillance, and Wikimedia: Request for community feedback
Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote: * Geoff Brigham wrote: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/06/14/prism-surveillance-wikimedia/ You are not making a good case there as to what to do and why and how this community is affected and needs to act. An immediate question seems to be whether the Wikimedia Foundation should become signatory of the Stop Watching Us open letter. No, the letter puts too much emphasis on people in the United States and domestic spying and the Foundation should not give the impression that that is a special kind of bad. [...] I can see nothing obvious that the Foundation could say or do in this regard at this time, and would expect the community to develop answers to questions like mine above before calling for action. So, no, I don't think the Foundation should join those other organisations at this time. I think I mostly agree with what you wrote. As I commented on the Meta-Wiki talk page,[1] I'd much rather see Wikimedia Foundation time and energy focused on defining what we stand for in documents like Sue's recent Guiding Principles[2] or the older Values pages.[3][4] Would most Wikimedians disagree with the type of behavior exhibited by the U.S. government? I think so. The NSA's actions don't seem to align well with our values of transparency and openness and user privacy. Does that mean it's something that we need to formally denounce? No, we should just keep doing what we're doing. And, as discussed on the Meta-Wiki talk page and in the blog post, we can work to bolster efforts such as HTTPS support, which may have a real impact on the underlying issue. These types of efforts are surely a better use resources rather than signing letters. Spending limited resources denouncing the latest government abuse (or potential future abuse) that happens to be in the news (SOPA, PRISM, etc.) feels faddish (all of our San Fran neighbors are doing it!) and doesn't seem particularly mature or productive. I think it's great for the Wikimedia Foundation to reiterate its values (cf. links 2–4 below) and work toward creating a world in which we can freely share in the sum of all human knowledge. Let's do that. MZMcBride [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:PRISM [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WFGP [3] https://www.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Feedback for the Wikimedia Foundation
Erik Moeller wrote: We're not going to solve these challenges if we lock away VisualEditor into some kind of laboratory and work in waterfall mode for another year. We have to make improvements every day, and get them into production every week, in order to find solutions that make sense. That's why it's the right decision to get VisualEditor out there now, and to continue to improve it, and that's why I would encourage everyone to not take the easy way out and hide it from their experience, but to keep hammering at it, keep reporting issues, and help us make it the best editing experience it can be. VisualEditor is emphatically *not* intended to simply be a nice way for newbies to edit articles. It's intended to become the best collaborative editor for the web, for new users and power users alike. We've still got a long way to go, but we're not turning back. I wonder what it will take for you to stop digging in your heels. You can continue to unconditionally treat Wikimedia editors as lab rats, but you're doing serious harm to the Wikimedia Foundation's standing (and your own) with the Wikimedia community. I hope you've carefully weighed the costs and consequences of the choice that you and James F. are making here. This particular ongoing saga (refusing to provide an opt-out mechanism for VisualEditor) seems to largely echo past issues with treating Wikimedia editors as customers instead of colleagues. It's a disgusting paternalistic attitude (we know best, just suffer our new toys) that shows only disrespect for the hardworking volunteers who, on a daily basis, help make Wikimedia wikis great. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Feedback for the Wikimedia Foundation
James Forrester wrote: Because I understand the level of concern that this matter is causing, I am changing my mind on this. For the duration of VisualEditor's beta period, there will be an opt-out user preference. This will be deployed tomorrow morning, San Francisco time. Thank you very much for reconsidering this, James. I appreciate that it's a bloody compromise, but I believe that it will help us all move forward. As much as many editors have complained about dirty diffs and other bugs in it, VisualEditor really is a remarkable achievement and it continues to show amazing promise for the future of Wikimedia (and the broader Web). As always, Wikimedians complain loudly and congratulate softly and this is something I hope we all (myself included, to be sure) collectively continue to work on and improve. :-) Thanks again. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Updates on VE data analysis
James Salsman wrote: It would be great to know what the average total edits per day was in June. Hi. I don't really mean to feed the beast, as it were, but your posts got me curious enough to re-run a query of the number of non-deleted revisions per day for the English Wikipedia. The results are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/565971356. The page history has a few older queries as well. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] What community initiatives have made an impact on editor engagement?
Tim Starling wrote: Note that CAPTCHAs have now been re-enabled on the Portuguese Wikipedia. Erik made the decision, in response to on-wiki consensus. I deployed the change just now. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49860#c75 Lest there be any confusion or doubt: this is a Bad Thing. We should take this time to explicitly state here (or even re-state here, it's important) that using CAPTCHAs in this way is a fundamental violation of our core principles, particularly site accessibility and openness. As a compromise measure between wiki sovereignty and autonomy and our deeply held values, there's been a temporary reinstatement of the CAPTCHAs on the Portuguese Wikipedia for the remainder of 2013. After December 31, 2013, these CAPTCHAs will be re-disabled. Hopefully no other wiki will feel the need to invoke such a drastic measure ever again. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
Todd Allen wrote: [comments about VisualEditor] Hi Todd. Thank you for writing this e-mail. Unfortunately I don't have a particularly unified reply to write here, but I can offer five thoughts. Regarding the specific issue you mention (the labeling of the user preference), I think there should be at least a little recognition that much more than half of the battle was getting this user preference re-added, supported for future VisualEditor releases, and appropriately positioned under the Editing user preferences tab rather than the Gadgets user preferences tab. Now that we've made forward progress on those fronts, re-labeling the user preference is a simple matter of editing the page MediaWiki:Visualeditor-preference-betatempdisable. Broadly, looking at your e-mail, I wonder what your thoughts are on the extent to which one wiki, even the golden goose, can dictate Wikimedia Foundation product engineering and development. While the English Wikipedia is certainly a formidable force, do you think it should be capable, through an on-wiki discussion, of setting or changing high-level priorities and their implementation strategies? If so, why and how? I started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Improvements to discuss actionable improvements that can be made right now related to VisualEditor and its deployment. Please participate. :-) And I started https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints to examine the pattern of complaints related to VisualEditor. Finally, and somewhat related to the complaints page, I've been thinking lately about the British and the Irish and the nature of insurgencies. I believe the VisualEditor team is now viewed by many on the English Wikipedia (and other wikis) as an occupying force. Consequently, this has created an insurgency composed of long-time editors. This isn't meant to be hyperbolic: nobody is rioting in the streets or planning warfare (yet). However, the anger felt by many in the editing community toward the VisualEditor team is very real and very worrying, as is the seemingly heavy-handed way in which VisualEditor has been deployed. Just a few weeks ago, VisualEditor was receiving accolades for the way in which it had been slowly and thoughtfully developed and deployed. However, seemingly arbitrary deadlines and a few key bad decisions have greatly hurt it. The wounds are deep, but it remains to be seen whether they will be fatal. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
Kevin Wayne Williams wrote: Op 2013/08/05 19:35, MZMcBride schreef: Finally, and somewhat related to the complaints page, I've been thinking lately about the British and the Irish and the nature of insurgencies. I believe the VisualEditor team is now viewed by many on the English Wikipedia (and other wikis) as an occupying force. Consequently, this has created an insurgency composed of long-time editors. This isn't meant to be hyperbolic: nobody is rioting in the streets or planning warfare (yet). However, the anger felt by many in the editing community toward the VisualEditor team is very real and very worrying, as is the seemingly heavy-handed way in which VisualEditor has been deployed. Just a few weeks ago, VisualEditor was receiving accolades for the way in which it had been slowly and thoughtfully developed and deployed. However, seemingly arbitrary deadlines and a few key bad decisions have greatly hurt it. The wounds are deep, but it remains to be seen whether they will be fatal. I notice you used the phrase seemingly heavy-handed above. Do you truly believe that this was not *actually* heavy-handed? Using seemingly twice so close together was certainly sloppy writing. :-) I'll try to explain where I am currently. As with many things in life, I think whether the deployment of VisualEditor was heavy-handed depends on your perspective; mine is still forming. At https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints, a few key issues/developments are discussed. There was a decision to deploy without an opt-out user preference, followed by a reversal of this decision and a re-instatement of the user preference. There was a decision to deploy with that awful section-edit animation, followed by its removal. At no point was the wikitext editor ever made unavailable to editors. And rhetoric and hyperbole aside, nobody was ever forced to use VisualEditor. The fact that the software is experimental (beta) is now much more prominent throughout the user interface, the user interface now consistently uses edit source, and the order of the tabs has been changed to make wikitext editing more prominent. With the points above, it's a mixed bag as to whether the deployment of VisualEditor was heavy-handed. This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and they make reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in. However, a very large number of my colleagues and your colleagues have strongly disagreed with this decision, which leaves doubt in any reasonable person's mind. That said, this doubt is tempered by the _enormous_ selection bias we see in the on-wiki discussion. Namely that (a) the discussion has only been advertised to logged-in users, and (b) that nearly everyone participating in the on-wiki discussion is someone who has figured out wikitext. That is, the people who would most benefit from a visual editor right now are the silent majority who are unaware of, and in many cases incapable of, participating in the discussion about whether VisualEditor should be opt-in or opt-out. And in the on-wiki discussions, we've seen a lot of comments that are quite simply out-of-touch with the level to which people are capable of interacting with Wikipedia via wikitext editing alone. I used seemingly to indicate nuance. Any editor could easily look at the deployment fiasco and claim that it was heavy-handed and be right. But I think there's also a legitimate case to be made that, whether or not we agree with the decision, it was considered and backed by reasonable views. As I said on my talk page, I believe that we need a visual editor and an active group of people are trying to develop one (however haphazardly). Rather than simply attack and banish them, I think we should instead focus on ways to make it better or make it easier to get it out of the way of those who don't want to use it or can't use it. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
David Gerard wrote: That is, the arguments tend towards saying you can't philosophically prove there aren't supporters! This is unconvincing for a number of reasons. This is lazy, but I'm going to quote myself. --- VisualEditor is a big project that didn't simply happen in a vacuum. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (your Trustees) made it a top priority, which is part of the reason that the Wikimedia Foundation made it a top priority. Faced with a growing concern about editor retention and the ability of anyone to be able to participate in the creation of the sum of all human knowledge, a new endeavor was undertaken to make editing easier for most users. The _inability_ of many users to be able to contribute to the encyclopedia (or the dictionary or the quote book or the ...) made this project a necessity. While wikimarkup built Wikipedia and its sister projects, there's a pretty prevalent view that wikimarkup alone cannot sustain it. In 2013, there's an expectation on the part of users that there will be some kind of visual editor (e.g., similar to that of WordPress), and so the VisualEditor project was started in order to bring in such an editor, side-by-side with the source editor. --- I cannot and will not blame the Wikimedia Foundation for working on this project. It's an important project and I believe this is a view that you strongly agree with. But it's similarly important that we recognize the current limitations to on-wiki discussions and what we can glean from them. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising
Matthew Walker wrote: Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums. Hi Matt. This sounds a bit like Fundraising principles or similar. Are these documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to start a page. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimania-l] git.wikimedia.org dead due to wikimania ; )
Huib Laurens wrote: I always believed that our servers were monitored 24/7? But nobody seems to be around to fix a core part in our systems? Hi Huib. You've been around quite a long time, so it shouldn't be new information to you that the appropriate mailing list for an issue like this is wikitech-l (where there's already an ongoing thread), not wikimedia-l. And you should also know that for issues like this, the best place to search is Bugzilla, as both Nemo and myself have now pointed out (specifically https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/51769). You seem to be a bit confused about core v. non-core services. In the Wikimedia world, core functionality generally means that the wikis are accessible for, at the very minimum, read access. Peripheral services and sites have varying levels of criticality, though there's no rating system in which git.wikimedia.org (a simple Git repository viewer) would be considered core (though it being completely down can be considered critical, as it makes development work more tedious and annoying). Obviously the operations team has a number of monitoring systems in place. The public monitoring dashboard is here: http://status.wikimedia.org. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] NSA
Anthony wrote: And I thought Ryan Lane was talking about the future, not the past. I certainly was. I think we should focus on the present, personally. If a user goes to https://wikipedia.org, they're quietly redirected to http://www.wikipedia.org. This is true of a large number of domains (e.g., https://wikimedia.org and https://mediawiki.org). This has been known about since at least October 2011 (cf. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/31369) and everyone seems to agree that it's a pretty evil bug (a user knowingly tries to access a site over HTTPS and is unknowingly routed to HTTP). And yet it's August 2013 and the best response we seem to have come up with is install a client-side browser plugin and we're working on it. It's difficult to believe that the Wikimedia Foundation is committed to user privacy when bugs like this go unresolved after so many months. This bug will celebrate its second birthday in less than two months. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising
Matthew Walker wrote: In the past days there's been discussion internal to the fundraising team -- it appears that the 'fundraising principles' I thought we held are not uniformly held by others. In this particular instance it seems that gift premiums are not entirely off the table. I've been told that the reason we have not done them in the past is mostly due to technical limitations. The current view is that we should keep our options open to future experimentation if the situation allows. Hi. I think establishing fundraising principles and documenting them at Meta-Wiki would still be a great idea. Would you be able to start such a page if one doesn't exist already? Outside of purely fundraising techniques, establishing what is and is not appropriate for fundraising banners would also be nice to have. For example, are splash pages off the table? CentralNotice has previously been used to completely block out the site, so it's certainly technically possible. What about banners that obstruct or obfuscate article content? Are these ever acceptable? Is it okay to stretch the truth if it brings in more money (e.g., Wikipedia Executive Director)? I think clarity as to what the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising team considers appropriate or off-limits in order to reach its goals is very important to have. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF's New Global South Strategy
Asaf Bartov wrote: I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some time to add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania, hence the delay. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/102946507 Thank you for posting this. The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term Global South with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning. The term Global South is pretty awful and deserves a quick death. But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead yet. I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads No WMF contractors on the ground any more, but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation of the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements. Does the no contractors on the ground line mean only full-time staff will be working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future? Full-time staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia Foundation contractors? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia and the politics of encryption
Erik Moeller wrote: So, what to do? My main suggestion is to organize a broad request for comments and input on possible paths forward. I think we’re doing the right thing by initially implementing these exemptions -- but I do think this decision needs to finally rest with the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, based on community input, taking the tradeoffs into account. Thanks for writing out these thoughts. A broad request for comments and input seems reasonable, though there seems to be quite a bit of work needed to get ready to begin such a discussion. My own stance, which I will continue to argue for (and which is my view as an individual -- there are many divergent opinions on this even inside WMF), is clear: I think we should set a deadline for the current approach, and shift to HTTPS for all traffic, for all sites, for all users, by default, after that deadline passes. This will force us to take the consequences of that shift seriously, and to explore alternatives to designing our technical policies around the practices of regimes that undermine web security in order to better censor and monitor their citizens. I think it would help the conversation to have more data. Everybody knows that there are over a billion people in China. However, how many people globally can't use HTTPS (for whatever reason)? What is that breakdown by country? How many users have opted out of HTTPS via user preference? There's merit to the idea of ignoring user-hostile countries such as Iran and China and cutting them off: certainly it's a mess of their own making. But it seems to me that this idea is orthogonal to the idea that Wikimedia needs to make a political point, engage in political advocacy, or take a stand. Wikimedia is in the business of spreading free educational content. It seems to me that getting involved in politics leads down a perilous path that could ultimately destroy Wikimedia. Of course, we've already decided to act by specifically exempting certain countries from the new HTTPS requirement. But there might be a strong contingent of users in the community that feels we should stop exempting countries (i.e., treat everybody the same), but also _not_ be involved in attempting to subvert whichever government monitoring we feel is most egregious. While we can pretend as though it's only China and Iran, many countries are spying on their own people at various levels. And it becomes a question of cost versus benefit, much like everything else that Wikimedia decides to work on. There's a very public trail of any edits that you make. What information, exactly, are we trying to prevent governments from getting ahold of? I think a stronger, clearer case for what benefits Wikimedia will see would help justify (or help eliminate) some of the proposed costs. Both the community and the Board need to think about these questions and their answers and ultimately address how to move forward. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia blog moving to WordPress.com
Hi. The recent draft privacy policy mentions that the Wikimedia blog (https://blog.wikimedia.org) will soon be hosted by WordPress.com. Was this discussed anywhere? If so, where? What is the proposed URL structure of a blog hosted by WordPress.com? I think there's a reasonable expectation that when a user visits *.wikimedia.org, we don't simply send his or her browser info to a third party without his or her consent. This has come up previously with Jobvite and iframes. It's also come up with the use of tracking tools such as Google Analytics, which not only affect one-time visitors, but aim to persist client-side. How will the blog be backed up? Relying on an external service means not being in control of the data. Will there be regular backups made to ensure that if WordPress.com goes away, we won't lose all of our posts? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Wikimedia labs-tools
I'm not sure this needed to be broadcast to three lists... John wrote: The toolserver was a fairly stable environment. I checked my primary host I connect to and it has been up for 4 months with continuous operations. I can only assume fairly was a typo for rarely. :-) I love the German Toolserver and would love to see many more Toolservers, but the myth that German Toolserver I was or is stable is quickly debunked by a visit to http://stable.toolserver.org. It suffered frequent outages and database corruption, high replication lag, and unstable and unsupported services. My question is why has the wmf decided to degrade the environment where tool developers design and host tools (quite a few of them are long term stable projects)? and what can we do to remedy this? I'll echo what Andre said. There seems to be one issue mentioned in your e-mail (host connectivity something or other), but if you're having many issues with Wikimedia Labs, please file bugs: https://bugs.wikimedia.org. In addition to providing you with something substantive to demonstrate your claim that Labs isn't working well, filed bugs in Bugzilla will also allow people running Labs the opportunity to perhaps fix these issues. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] It's time to reclaim the community logo
Tomasz W. Kozlowski wrote: We also want to note that this is in no way a legal action against the Foundation, but a simple notice of opposition against the registration of the logo in the European Union. Hi. Thanks for writing this up. I have a few questions. Was the logo trademarked only in the European Union? How is it possible to trademark a public domain image? Who at the Wikimedia Foundation worked to trademark this logo? What's meant by the opposition end date listed at wipo.net? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] : WMF resolution on neutral point of view
Asaf Bartov wrote: I'd say be bold and start drafting. Many people respond to a flawed (or at least improvable) text more readily than they do to an open invitation to contribute. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law :-) (There are occasionally suggestions of intentionally setting 'cunningtraps' in new articles [small typos, mostly] in order to get more people to edit. ;-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Someone wants to put their promotional photo on Wikipedia. What's best practices?
There's also https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard, which features a cartoon puzzle-flower that tries to explain free content. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New access to non-public information policy, re-ID requirements and data retention
Tomasz W. Kozlowski wrote: The discussion is taking place at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Access_to_nonpublic_info_policy and I invite every interested person (with a special invitation to people holding advanced user rights on any Wikimedia wiki) to take an active part in it. This discussion... isn't going great. There's now a talk page section devoted to users signing a pledge that should the policy, as written, be enacted by the Board, they'll resign their advanced privileges (steward access, CheckUser access, etc.). It's up to eight signatories. Reading through some of the discussion, I have two questions for the Wikimedia Foundation Board (copied on this e-mail): * Is the Board interested in updating its 2007 access to nonpublic data policy? * Has there been any consideration of removing volunteers from these types of roles and relying solely on staff? On a typical site, paid staff would deal with problematic users. There's a lot of hoopla being put in place (confidentiality pledges, etc.) that would be much easier to implement if everyone with this type of access were simply paid staff members or contractors. (Though contractors can still leak, heh.) But this seems like a legitimate enough question in the context of the current discussion: should volunteers be filling these roles or should they be focused more purely on education content creation? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Wikimania Committee Formed
Ellie Young wrote: • Orsolya Virág Gyenes (representing WM 2012) • James Hare I think your label may be switched here? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New access to non-public information policy, re-ID requirements and data retention
Marc A. Pelletier wrote: Seriously, however, I can understand why some current holders of rights might have reservations about a policy that tightens greatly how private information is handled and how much vetting is done on who does the handling; but that tightening does very much need to take place. Says who? I've been trying to get a clear answer to this question for the past few days. The access to non-public info policy is the Board's creation and the Board's prerogative. Is the Board interested in updating this policy? If not, then politely: why are we having this conversation? If so, why and in what ways would the Board like to see the policy updated? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
