Vandalism used to be dealt with entirely manually, then it became semi automated with tools like huggle, nowadays much of it is rejected by the edit filters without the vandals managing to save an edit. So while it is still a problem, it is much less of a problem than it used to be. Far less gets through to need human attention, and far less is actually seen by the readers. If it is rejected by edit filters or held up by pending changes then it isnt seen by the readers, we could do better, the German language Wikipedia has a much better system called flagged revisions. But vandalism is much less of a problem than it once was.
Against that we have an issue with IP contributions that newspapers and others don’t have. We recruit our editing community by being easy to edit. One theory of Wikipedia recruitment is that a large proprtion of new editors make an IP edit or two before deciding to create an account, and that closing down IP editing would reduce our recruitment of new editors. Of course that has to be balanced against the possibility that we would get rid of lots of vandals. But here we have to remember another theory, that vandals and trolls will do the minimum registration necessary to do their vandalism or trolling, but people who were going to be helpful and point out a typo are easily deterred. Perhaps someone on this list would fancy doing a research project on this, but I am inclined to assume that the trend amongst news sites is to drop comments sections entirely rather than merely restrict them to those who create an account, and that this implies that the model of restricting comments to those willling at least to create a throwaway account keeps more of the toxicity than it does of the goodfaith contributions. I have seen plenty of sites that have restricted comments further by requiring new accounts to disclose an email address, and that step might be one that deters a larger proportion of badfaith users than goidfaith ones. But I can’t see Wikimedia making such a drastic step in reducing openness, especially with 2018 looking like a year of declining editor volumes with the rally of 2015/16 having ended. Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef> ________________________________ From: Wiki-research-l <wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 3:05:00 AM To: Wiki Research-l Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey are published! I am a bit more optimistic than Kerry, although I agree that wider support for VE and more publicity for the "thanks" feature would be good. I agree with Kerry's concern about our labor supply being too small for the demand. Related to this is the difficult situation with our diversity statistics for content contributors; I would hope that if we could improve our diversity that we could do so in a way that created a net positive for the labor supply. I would not trade down transparency for other possible benefits, and I believe that *off-wiki* WMF and its associates like AffCom should be more transparent about problematic situations and bad news. I'm not sure that I'd agree that vandalism on ENWP is a huge problem. It's a problem, but I don't think that it's going to overwhelm the encyclopedia soon. However, I do think that it's a nontrivial timesink for experienced users and ambitious users who want to protect the quality of the encyclopedia. It would be interesting if there was research that estimated the amount of time that good-faith editors on ENWP spend on cleaning up vandalism and handing out blocks. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 11:56 PM Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> wrote: > It comes as no great surprise to me to see these survey results show very > little change in matters of some concern (e.g. diversity, community > health). Quite simply, if you don't change the system, then don't expect > the outcomes to change. I can't speak about most projects but I don't see > any change on en.WP in terms of how it operates since the last WMF > strategic plan published in 2011. We had a non-diverse toxic culture then; > nothing changes; culture remained the same. Our active editor numbers go > down, the number of articles to be maintained goes up, do the maths and see > the long-term problem. Admin numbers are also declining. > > One big potentially positive change was the Visual Editor. WMF built the > Visual Editor specifically to open up editing to a wider ground of users > and, as someone who does training for new users, it is a game changer for > making it easier for new users. However, en.WP didn't change. VE is not the > default for new editors on en.WP. It is not enabled for en.WP talk pages, > project pages, or even the Teahouse, or any forum where new users might > report problems or harassment etc. Almost any how-to help page gives > information only for source editor users. Commons has blocked new users > from using the VE to upload own-work photos (and no useful error message is > provided to tell them what to do - just something generic like "server > error" is returned because Commons just "fails" the upload and doesn't pass > back a reason to the VE). > > The old adage "praise in public, criticise in private" remains inverted in > the world of Wikipedia. Everyone can see reverted edits and the criticisms > on User Talk pages. Meanwhile "Thanks" (our lightest weight way to praise) > is effectively private (yeah, I know there is a public log, but at most it > tells you who likes who). And what the public log does show is that most > people never thank anyone anyway, which again speaks volume about our > culture. We are all for transparency except curiously when thanking for a > particular edit. Transparency leads to a lack of privacy that comes with it > is a turn-off to some new users. I know from training some new users don't > think it's OK that everyone can read their User Talk page or that their > entire contribution history is visible to all. They generally believe that > if they were to misbehave, then of course someone in authority (admins in > our world) should be able to look at such things for the purposes of > keeping the place safe and functioning effectively, but they don't see why > just anyone should be able to monitor them, which is a means by which you > can stalk someone or wikihound them on Wikipedia. Interestingly pretty > much all of those who raise these concerns are women, who are, in real > life, the most common victims of privacy invasions (think "up-skirt-ing" vs > "up-trouser-ing", think Peeping Tom vs Peeping Tomasina) and stalking. So > should we look at trading off some transparency in order to get more > diversity? > > Vandalism. Many years ago, when I questioned our very soft policy on > vandalism (it takes 4 to allow you to request to block an account), I was > told that "yeah, there is a lot of vandalism now but Wikipedia is new and > once people realise its value and that vandals get blocked, it will stop > happening over time". Sadly nobody told the vandals this, as, based on my > watchlist, they are still very active and still mostly IPs. I note we have > not changed our IP policy or our pseudonym account policy; editors remain > as non-real-world accountable as always. As many online newspapers and > other forums are turning off comments as they have learned that > anonymous/pseudo accounts lead to completely unproductive name calling, > defamatory comments, and not the constructive civil debate envisaged, yet > at en.WP we persist in believing that the same approach can create a > positive collaborative culture, which clearly it has not. > > There's no willingness even to experiment with anything that might change > the culture and I see little likelihood that en.WP's culture will change of > its own accord. > > However, there is one easy win for diversity at WMF. Start diversifying > the WMF livestream times. Every WMF livestream is usually between 2-4am > here in Australia so I'd like to see a bit of support for the Global East > diversity by shifting the livestreams so everyone gets a chance to > participate live. One small step that WMF could take ... > > Kerry > > -----Original Message----- > From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] > On Behalf Of Pine W > Sent: Saturday, 15 September 2018 1:52 PM > To: Wiki Research-l <wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Results from 2018 global Wikimedia survey > are published! > > Hi Edward, > > Thanks for this publication. This research is likely to be of interest to > the WikimediaAnnounce-l (and by extension, Wikimedia-l) and Wikitech-l > subscribers, so I suggest that you cross-post this publication to those > lists. > > After reading this report, I have a question which may be challenging to > answer: what should we do to improve our diversity? Many of us, inside and > outside of WMF, have wanted to see progress on diversity metrics for years, > and I get the impression that while significant attention and resources are > being given to diversity, our progress has been disappointing. Perhaps > that's a subject that can be discussed further during the video > presentation, but I'd also be interested in hearing your comments here on > Research-l. > > Have a good weekend, > > Pine > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > > > On Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 11:07 PM Edward Galvez <egal...@wikimedia.org> > wrote: > > > Hi everyone, > > > > I'm excited to share that our annual survey about Wikimedia > > communities is now published! > > > > This survey included 170 questions and reaches over 4,000 community > > members across four audiences: Contributors, Affiliate organizers, > > Program Organizers, and Volunteer Developers. This survey helps us > > hear from the experience of Wikimedians from across the movement so > > that teams are able to use community feedback in their planning and > > their work. This survey also helps us learn about long term changes in > > communities, such as community health or demographics. > > > > The report is available on meta: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_Insights/2018_Rep > > ort > > > > For this survey, we worked with 11 teams to develop the questions. > > Once the results were analyzed, we spent time with each team to help > > them understand their results. Most teams have already identified how > > they will use the results to help improve their work to support you. > > > > The report could be useful for your work in the Wikimedia movement as > well! > > What are you learning from the data? Take some time to read the report > > and share your feedback on the talk pages. We have also published a > > blog that you can read.[1] > > > > We are hosting a livestream presentation[2] on September 20 at 1600 UTC. > > Hope to see you there! > > > > Feel free to email me directly with any questions. > > > > All the best, > > Edward > > > > > > [1] > > > > https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/09/13/what-we-learned-surveying-4 > > 000-community-members/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGQtWFP9Cjc > > > > > > -- > > Edward Galvez > > Evaluation Strategist, Surveys > > Learning & Evaluation > > Community Engagement > > Wikimedia Foundation > > > > -- > > Edward Galvez > > Evaluation Strategist, Surveys > > Learning & Evaluation > > Community Engagement > > Wikimedia Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > > Wiki-research-l mailing list > > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
