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Growth Team have developed a tool for newcomer engagement / reader conversion: Suggested Edits. This tool is highly configurable per community, but the English Wikipedia have yet to take advantage of that configurability to any real degree. This has led to some problems.
Suggested Edits are subdivided into three difficulty tiers (see related discussions here and here). The default tier – "easy" – comprises the copyedit task and the links task. links is not yet deployed to this project, ETA early 2024. So the focus is copyedit.
Articles are added to the pool of Suggested Edits by templates. These are configurable by local admins at Special:EditGrowthConfig. Articles can be removed from the pool by use of templates (currently just the recently created {{no newcomer task}}) and by use of categories (none active). Articles cannot be included by use of categories.
Suggested Edits makes use of the ORES articletopic taxonomy (transitioning to LiftWing on the backend). This allows users to filter for Suggested Edits (i.e. cleanup templates) within certain topics, as guessed by machine learning models.
Guidance through newcomer features
Clicking through to a Suggested Edit will bring up a "learn more" banner, which features six bespoke "quick tips" about the copyedit task. The text for these tips is in the MediaWiki: namespace, editable only by interface admins. From the Homepage, a Help Panel is available with links configurable by all admins at Special:EditGrowthConfig. I'd also like to address the links available earlier in the signup process.
Outcomes
I invite anyone from Growth to share statistics about what percentage of editors whose first edits were through the Suggested Edits feature have gone on to publish, say, their 100th or 500th edit, and any other statistics about the feature that seem applicable. I ask participants to focus on configuring the feature rather than disabling it, which is not in scope.
On the community side, the feature has been associated with disruptive incidents leading to ANI filings (1, 2, 3, maybe more), sock-sniffing (a functionary timewaster), requests for page protection (which costs admin time), etc. Recent change patrollers are invited to share their experience patrolling edits tagged "Newcomer task - copyedit".
Problem factors
1. Limited options presented
The recent disruptions seem to stem from the topic filters. Only a few cleanup templates will make an article eligible for the copyedit task: {{peacock}}, {{inappropriate person}}, {{in-universe}}, {{advert}}, {{awkward}}, and {{tone}}. When combined with the articletopic filter, this creates certain intersections containing very few articles.
For example, leaving the default "easy" difficulty selector in Suggested Edits and filtering for the topic "history" gives one result, seen in File:2023 suggested edits - copyedit honeypot.png, equivalent to this search. The influx of newcomer edits to these copyedit honeypots overwhelms the community's capacity for review at those articles, as seen in several of the linked discussions. Topics with few available "easy" Suggested Edits can be seen at Special:NewcomerTasksInfo.
2. Expectations mismatches
The copyedit task purports to take "5 – 10 minutes" to improve the encyclopaedia, and gives very basic copyediting guidance:
Formatting removed. The final two pieces of guidance take useragent parameters to customise display for mobile or desktop editors. The final piece of guidance contains a link to "learn more about the copyedit task", which up until a few days ago pointed to Wikipedia:Basic copyediting, and now points to Wikipedia:Writing better articles.
None of this guidance is incorrect, but it doesn't mention anything about core content policies, doesn't mention the Manual of Style, doesn't mention WP:ENGVAR (a very common stumbling block for newer editors), and doesn't invite the user to learn more about the reported problem with the article by clicking the displayed maintenance template, most of which cannot be addressed by basic copyediting.
We're pushing zero-edit accounts towards articles with maintenance templates like {{tone}}: ambiguous, requiring a high degree of familiarity with MOS considerations and what we expect an encyclopaedia article to read like, often difficult to resolve even for experienced contributors, sometimes needing a major rewrite, and not necessarily improvable by basic copyediting. While doing this, we tell them that they can improve the article in "5 – 10 minutes" of things like fixing typos.
3. Low visibility of community vetted guidance
When signing up my test account in researching this, I filled out a brief survey stating that I registered an account in order to create an article. During the signup flow, I was presented with a box recommending smaller edits first, with no caution about WP:COI, WP:PROMO, or WP:GNG, although it did come with a link to Help:Creating pages, which appropriately redirects to Help:Your first article. Earlier I was presented with links to Help:Introduction and Wikipedia:Help desk.
Having two pages of guidance about basic spelling and grammar issues is probably too many. I appreciate the goal is to get people from zero edits to one, and so very basic information like "you don't have to fix the whole article" and "even small contributions matter" are important here. But since the stretch goal is to get people from one edit to a lot, we should try harder not to set newcomers up for reversion of nonconstructive / noncompliant edits, and not throw them into problem areas without explaining the problems or setting reasonable expectations about their experience.
I offer no suggestions for words to improve this guidance, or how to structure it, apart from a strong recommendation to mention ENGVAR. The current guidance is probably the product of research and professionals. Altering it will require intadmin admin access.
B. Better / more help links
The links in the help panel could clearly be improved. I appreciate that the newcomer homepage is meant to help guide new editors through a variety of tasks, but three separate VisualEditor help pages alongside zero core content pages and zero MOS is not a good balance. Wikipedia:Article wizard should not be linked directly: Help:Your first article should be presented as required reading beforehand.
Help:Introduction is only linked during the account creation process, and not surfaced thereafter. Wikipedia:Teahouse should clearly be somewhere. I'm agnostic on which links specifically belong in the help panel, but it seems obvious (to me, who is weird and could be wrong) that the three VisualEditor pages could be collapsed to Help:Introduction, its parent. Anyone who can't find the links to the three specific VisualEditor tutorial pages from there is probably not our target demographic.
We have the ability to link more pages from prose in the Suggested Edits quick tips mentioned above. We don't want to overwhelm newcomers with so many links they know not which to read, but it seems self-defeating not to give them pointers that they will overwhelmingly likely find useful. I'm hoping some Foundation people might be able to comment on what might be an appropriate number of links to display to very new editors.
I'm uncertain if we can just add more links in the help panel from Special:EditGrowthConfig, because it is throwing an exception at time of writing.
C. Configure which articles go in the copyedit task
This step alone should solve the most acute issue: newcomer disruption at copyedit honeypots. As I see it, we have two options for how to change this for the better:
Under this theory of change, we could also create our own special {{newcomer copyedit}} or similar, and manually tag articles where their contributions would be more helpful.
The problems with this are that with the removal of {{tone}} (7977 transclusions), {{peacock}} (3349 transclusions), and {{advert}} (18338 transclusions), we'd be reducing the options of "easy edits" presented, and likely making the honeypot disruption worse instead of better. This approach may improve the new editor experience, since they'll be presented with articles where the basic copyediting guidance makes sense, and where new editors can genuinely fix reported issues.
II. Accept that "easy edits" are not associated with cleanup templates
In a discussion a few years ago that I will not link as a courtesy, a suggestion was made for extremely specific cleanup templates geared towards very new editors, to the degree of "term is misspelt in this article". Of course, WP:SOFIXIT applies, and anyone who went around tagging articles identifying known typos instead of just correcting them would probably be blocked for disruption.
The reality on the ground is that a cleanup template is (typically, under best practice) applied only when an editor has run out of time, energy, patience, or competence to actually address the issue. These are usually things a fresh editor cannot know how to fix (and, appropriately, there is no guidance in Suggested Edits about how to remove a cleanup template).
This last bit, about not indicating how to mark a reported problem as resolved, shows that we're already putting newcomers in hopeless situations, so why limit ourselves to cleanup templates? {{unreferenced}} (160561 transclusions) applies to articles that are: unmaintained, C Class or below, often have few editors, no text–source integrity to break, and could frequently benefit from minor copyedits. This template is not for copyedits, but it seems a safe and broad choice for the copyedit task, where newcomers genuinely can make improvements and not be reverted or break much. The downside is that they are also unwatched. This feels like a more organic solution, and more in line with where our project currently stands.
An even crazier idea, included for completeness, is to use something like {{short description}} (5.6 million transclusions, probably representing almost all non-redirect articles). We could exclude based on templates or categories. An entirely organic solution which steers people nowhere, to let them make their minor copyedits that don't really help anything at whichever article they fancy.
Non-starters
The following require dev involvement: creating additional newcomer tasks (like a second tier of copyediting), including articles based on categories (like Category:C-Class articles), rate-limiting Suggested Edits on individual articles, merging copyedit honeypots into different topics or suppressing their display if there are fewer than N valid options, significant alterations to the presentation of Special:Homepage.
Tl;dr
I hope I'm more bored with this now than you are, dear reader. Please engage in discussion about this feature so we can make it work appropriately with our project instead of seeing it as a source of disruption. Main proposal is at "C", talk page is at WT:GTF.
The text for these tips is in the MediaWiki: namespace, editable only by interface admins isn't true - ordinary admins can edit most MediaWiki namespace pages. Not that it particularly matters since I'm the person most likely to be implementing any changes here, and I hold both rights. * Pppery *it has begun...04:06, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Fixed, thank you. I'm not sure why I thought it was important. I've just been meaning to get to this all week and kinda poured all my notes out at once like I was looking for my keys. Folly Mox (talk) 04:44, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
There was a recent discussion lamenting the size of the {{unreferenced}} backlog. It does seem like a possible task for new editors. I wonder if there is a short "3-step plan" instruction we can give for a reference for a claim in the article. We could explain, as RS says, that Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and ask them to seek one out to back up a claim in an unreferenced article. —siroχo09:47, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
I probably should have mentioned that we already use {{unreferenced}} to sort articles into the reference newcomer task (tiered as "medium difficulty"). The idea here is not to get new editors to add references to these articles, just to give them a pool of articles where they can make their first, basic copyediting edits, and likely actually improve prose. Folly Mox (talk) 15:59, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Ah I see the problem more clearly now. The "easy" task is not so easy (given that an editor had to tag it, as you explained in more depth). I agreed with that point, and effectively suggested that a "medium" task could be on par or perhaps even easier than that "easy" task, ironically reinforcing the issue you raised.
I'm admittedly not very familiar with the broad new editor experience. Onboarding was simple in 2004, when a plausible claim was unlikely to be immediately removed if it had no citation.
I realize this isn't at VPI, but ... I wonder if it's worth using some sort of automation to look at low-edit-frequency untagged articles to check grammar, style, formatting, etc, and instead of tagging them (which would be a risky use of automation), feed them into some new editor experience? The automation wouldn't alter the articles in any way, but it would bypass the problem that you raised that tagged articles are often not "easy" copyedit fixes. —siroχo00:11, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Siroxo, that's a great idea for a phab request. All the things I brought here are implementable now, by local admins, with no dev involvement. At present the copyedit task can only include articles based on hastemplate, so some selection of templates is required for community configuration. Folly Mox (talk) 12:46, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Easy and Difficult is not a simple spectrum. At Template:Welcome training I avoided that sort of description and instead went for a task based description. Take two newbies, one an academic who wants a little practice in their written English, the other a precocious 10 year old who is a native speaker of English. One of them would likely find referencing unreferenced facts a much easier task than the other. There's also a typo finding tool in beta test. ϢereSpielChequers21:48, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree. (Two relevant discussions here and here, linked in the OP).Apart from changing the internal variable names and template-based eligibility style of the "easy" copyedit task, I think we have community control over the displayed name of the task (Special:EditGrowthConfig is still throwing a MWException at time of writing, so I'm unable to check). Between configuring the guidance, the templates, and the "Learn more" link, we could turn this task into whatever we want. (MOS fixes can be very easy and quick, and if compliant tend not to be reverted.)I appreciate it's not clear, because my writing isn't clear, because my brain is organised as well as the "everything else" table midway through a garage sale, but the intent here is to use the tools already available to the community to configure these features to work better with our project: better experiences for newcomers with clearer footing, realistic expectations, and more appropriate guidance; and better experiences for seasoned contributors, who should ideally no longer have to deal with copyedit honeypots created by unfortunate intersections of topics and tags. Folly Mox (talk) 13:04, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Broadly agree with all this. But there are an awful lot of articles where any native English-speaker of say 17-plus can improve ESL prose. I don't know if we tactfully convey this. Johnbod (talk) 13:25, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
A quick clarification regarding one of the types of tasks in The workings section. There is an active task to add links but it is very limited (because it is too borad). Newcomers are asked to open the article and to add links, with text guidance. These newcomers sometimes drift from the initial task, which can lead to incomprehension from patrollers: "why that 'ad a link' tagged edit lead the users to fix spellings?" Plus, this task only has one article available as I write this message.
We have a new task to replace it, Suggested links, already available at all Wikipedias, except German and English (you can test it at Simple English). It provides quite endless suggestions. A (group of) word is algorithm-suggested, highlighted in the text, with the target shown. Users just have to Yes/No/Unsure them. This task is the one Folly Mox mentions, and we plan to deploy it in January at English Wikipedia.
@Folly Mox thanks for starting this discussion and suggesting ideas to better configure Suggested Edits.
You asked for Growth team members to share statistics about the Suggested Edits that seem applicable, and I can think of three experiments we've conducted with results relevant to Suggested Edits.
the probability that newcomers make their first article edit (+11.6%)
the probability that they are retained as editors
the number of edits they make during their first couple of weeks on the wiki (+22%)
We also more recently conducted Newcomer task edit type analysis, to better understand if new editors were getting "stuck" doing easy tasks. This analysis finds that newcomers who start out with Add a Link and other Newcomer Tasks and who go on to have additional edit sessions most likely go on to make other types of article edits as well, we do not find evidence they restrict themselves to Add a Link tasks.
A third experiment related to Suggested Edits that is worth mentioning is the "add a link" Experiment Analysis. Suggested Edits are most impactful when we release Structured Tasks like "add a link" and "add an image." Structured Tasks basically provide a Suggested Edit for a new editor that includes onboarding, and then breaks the task into a few easy-to-follow steps. The analysis finds that the Add a Link structured task leads to increases in newcomer participation, particularly by making constructive (non-reverted) article edits. These tasks aren't released on English Wikipedia yet, but we plan to make the tasks available to English Wikipedia in early 2024, and then admins can enable them in Special:EditGrowthConfig if there is community interest. These tasks are effective at funneling more new account holders into editing, but as you know, people make mistakes when learning new skills. :) In other words, as more new people try editing, there is an increase in the patroller/moderator burden. So these are features the Growth team has made configurable, so communities can decide to opt in or opt out.
Hopefully this data helps, but I also understand that it doesn't perfectly answer all questions. I don’t have an answer to your exact question: what percentage of editors whose first edits were through the Suggested Edits feature have gone on to publish, say, their 100th or 500th edit? It sounds like the underlying question is about long-term retention, and the Growth team experiments generally utilize a more short-term definition of Constructive retention. I agree it would interesting to look at some longer-term metrics, and if this group is interested I can follow up with our data analyst about potential future analysis.
Do you have additional questions or feedback regarding Suggested Edits? Is there anything I should do to increase awareness of the community customization options available via Special:EditGrowthConfig? We hope to make it easier for more features to be build for Community Configuration in the future, so that's something the Growth team is thinking a lot about right now. KStoller-WMF (talk) 20:11, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Another complaint
Another IP user (1.157.92.55 has complained about the advertising banners, this time at AN:
If the donations were ACTUALLY going to the editors who make this website, I would pay. But no, that money goes towards the Wikimedia "Foundation" and their ludicrously overpaid executives. Why can't they just relinquish some of their salary? WHY do you act like Wikipedia will fail without these donations? You DON'T need that money for servers so stop acting like you do. It's absolutely pathetic, sleazy, and utterly dishonest. I don't CARE about Wikimedia's projects, I ONLY care about Wikipedia, and if I'm going to be paying money, that money should be going to the ACTUAL users who create this website, not a bunch of overpaid bourgeoisie "staff" who accomplish absolutely nothing.
Absolutely disgusting. And the INSISTENCE is utterly obnoxious - EVERY time I load a Wikipedia page your misleading begging loads up top and forcibly scrolls upwards to the top. Enough is enough. STOP LYING
I am sorry that readers are upset and I also wouldn't have used those words, but the comment does match my own reasons for not donating money. I am glad that at least one potential donor is clearer about how donations are spent, and thus able to make an informed decision about giving. Certes (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
"The CEO of the most important website in history [Wikipedia] makes $790,000. The CEO of Docusign, a company that JUST signs documents for you, made $85,940,000 this year," I believe top positions should be compensated well. And 790k is only less than 1% of 85 million. It is a reasonable salary. Also, I suggested the fundraising ads, in line with the ads of The Guardian. After all, we don't want Wikipedia to be taken over by commercial ads in a bid to raise funds. Ads that come with demands of undue censorship and bias. Regards, Thinker78(talk)03:55, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
I have been quite critical of WMF fundraising practices in the past, but that rant is unhinged and amounts to trolling. I do not think that it should be taken seriously. Cullen328 (talk) 20:04, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
I think he means the original post. The pay rates shown on twitter amounts to a storm in a teacup. They are quite low for the positions. Maybe other spending could be criticised, but not that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t° 17:16, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
One interpretation is that, although top WMF staff each have a reasonable salary, there are too many managers and too few lower-paid staff assigned to more visibly useful tasks such as fixing bugs. Certes (talk) 22:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
There is no risk that Wikipedia will ever be forced to carry commercial advertising, even if literally all fundraising were completely stopped for multiple years. jp×g🗯️11:12, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it's clear from the comment whether the IP user understands that Wikipedia is written by volunteers and feels that the consequent cost saving makes requesting donations unnecessary, or if they think we ask for money and are refused. Certes (talk) 22:36, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
#2 (courtesy of the Teahouse)
Please STOP YOUR ONGOING BEGGING adverts asking for money. If you can’t manage the operation - CLOSE IT DOWN & go away - Stip ruining our experience 👎😡👎😡👎 2A00:23C4:D0F:1D01:9C29:17CA:2F74:C7EF (talk) 07:58, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
It's useful to know what some readers are thinking, even if those who feel strongly enough to comment are unlikely to form a representative sample. It's not actionable in that the WMF is unlikely either to stop begging or to close down, but the feedback may be helpful when wording future banners. Certes (talk) 15:53, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
I agree that continuing to copy these here is not useful. I'm sure the WMF is aware that some people are upset about their fund raising practices, and the complaints embodied in these posts are all things that have been talked about before. These kinds of posts don't add anything new. RoySmith(talk)16:08, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't think volunteers should be heat shields for people upset at the foundation's fundraising. So what would the correct way to make sure these complaints are seen by the people they're meant to be seen if not posting here? Barkeep49 (talk) 03:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure that there is any benefit in making unconstructive rants more visible than they are at present. Volunteers are not acting as "heat shields" but more akin to spam filters. If you do think it's important that the foundation see it, then email it so as not to waste more volunteer time by posting it here. Thryduulf (talk) 11:10, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
They could post puppies and kittens are cute, and someone on the internet would have a rant against it. Unless someone posts something useful or interesting I don't see the point, I'm sure the WMF are well aware of their detractors. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t° 20:11, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
"If you can’t manage the operation - CLOSE IT DOWN & go away". So basically they rather have Wikipedia close down rather than see fundraising requests. I think whoever wrote that should simply go away from Wikipedia. Anyways, I suggested the fundraising ads because I read they have been very successful in The Guardian. No idea if it was because of my suggestion they implemented it or not but I support the ads, even though I don't donate money because I have donated thousands worth of my time. Regards, Thinker78(talk)03:24, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
I am not against posting these here, it's light tongue-clucking reading, but I think it serves no real purpose. My reasoning is as follows: For most feedback/reviews (think restauarant reviews on Yelp, product reviews on Amazon or your fave website), there's a human tendency to a bivariate distribution: people who loved loved loved it, and people who hated hated hated it; maybe a few just shy of that on either end. But the number of people who take the time to say a restaurant or product was decent, pretty much "met their expectations" is underrepresented, because where's the motivation to sign in, type that all out, and send it? You have to be a real data demon to do that. However, fund-raising is different: no matter how good the objective, nobody writes in to say how excited they were to receive the dunning request from Save the Manatees, or whatever there fave charity is; only some small fragment of the negative cohort bothers to write back, and their reaction is predictable. So, whether there are five posts thundering vitriol about our fund-raising or five thousand, I don' believe there's anything we can learn from it, other than perhaps the timing of when some social media platform posted a link to it, and how much influence they have, and there's nothing much we can do about that. I'm sure the WMF must do some A–B tests on the *wording* of such requests in order to measure the results (on the positive side) no doubt provides useful info, but I'd love to hear whether any A–B tests are done to measure negative reaction of the outraged-flame type, and whether anybody at WMF cares if there is. My guess is 'no' and 'no'. Mathglot (talk) 06:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
Hi all, I'm posting on behalf of WMF's online fundraising team. This is an interesting discussion around a topic we see as both important and challenging for the scale at which we operate: how to measure and ‘weight’ qualitative feedback. We work on it all the time, and we try to take both a human approach, e.g. building relationships through dialog, as well as running A/B tests to detect and improve points of friction.
On the more relational and dialog-based approach: we do rely on valuable feedback from various sources from readers, donors, and volunteers to inform the campaign, and we thank you for passing along more feedback. This year, we've been working with volunteers the past few months on the campaign and appreciate all the time and creativity everyone has brought to the collaboration process. We also recognize the increased volume in messages from readers at this time of year, and have staff dedicated to responding to inquiries who are monitoring our email address, donate[at]wikimedia[dot]org. Please feel free to forward any fundraising related messages to that email address and the team will follow up. We could also discuss having the team assist with responses at the teahouse, if that would be helpful. We welcome ideas for how we can better support volunteers during fundraising campaigns.
In our A/B testing, we often design tests that are aimed at improving user and reader experience, e.g. adding clarity around how to find the close button, improving the flow so that fewer donors get stuck or see error messages, etc.
I agree that online feedback can often swing to the extremes, but it is also true that any feedback contains a kernel of an idea that might lead to positive outcomes for all users. So we try to stay humble and receptive to input. Thank you and happy new year. - SPatton (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign on English Wikipedia ended yesterday
Dear all,
The WMF annual banner fundraising campaign for non logged in users in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US ended yesterday.
We would like to thank all of you whether you collaborated with us on the community collaboration page, or answered questions from readers on the Helpdesk, the Teahouse, or the VRT. Thank you all for your engagement during the Foundation’s biggest banner fundraising campaign of the year and for all your contributions to the projects. Thank you to all the donors who made the campaign a success and support free knowledge.
You can find the fundraising team across on meta if you have any questions or comments.
Hi @Novem Linguae, thanks for the question. We'll share plans for participating in the annual planning process some time in February. That said, this year we're starting from a blank slate, so we're hoping to hear from people about what they want in next year's plan in the Talking:2024 process. These ideas will help shape our plan from the start. All this is to say, if you have ideas, go ahead and share them now! :) KStineRowe (WMF) (talk) 15:38, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
Saw this about an hour ago on the Wikimedia General Chat Telegram channel, where a link to a paywalled article on the HY Times was posted. Her biography on Wikipedia has this free one to the announcement on NPR.
My own opinion, based on her clumsy & ill-informed response to the FRAM debacle -- as well as routinely ignoring her talk page over at Meta -- is that she was selected for this position more due to success at networking than for her job performance at the Foundation. She may prove to not be up to the job. That said, I will be quite happy if she proves me wrong & flourishes there. -- llywrch (talk) 20:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I think she'll do ok as long as she has a good CTO to deal with the "technological turbulence". The job there seems likely to play more to her strengths than her weaknesses, and to see some of the kinds of things she pushed for while at WMF as desirable rather than undesirable. Anomie⚔21:48, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Community Fund (General Support Fund) Round 2 announcement
Hello everyone. The Community Resources team at Wikimedia Foundation announced the upcoming round 2 for the General Support Fund, which will run from February through May 2024. The Wikimedia Community Fund's General Support Fund provides flexible support for long-term projects contributing to Wikimedia projects. In the announcement, you can find information for new and returning applicants, as well as details about the round timeline and grant budgets. We will also reach out to you during the community review period. Read the full announcement on Meta-Wiki. On behalf of the Community Resources team. --I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Stewards Election and Confirmation
The Stewards Election and Confirmation is currently taking place until 27 February. Interested editors can participate in the election here and the confirmation here.
Currently, 11 editors are running to become stewards, and 27 stewards are running to be reconfirmed. I have attempted to provide a neutral[a] summary of the current status of each of these candidacies, including a summary of concerns that have been raised. BilledMammal (talk) 15:49, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
Stewards are a global group of users with complete access to the wiki interface on all public Wikimedia wikis. They have the technical ability to modify all local and global user rights, change the status and name of global accounts, and access any of the permissions available to administrators and bureaucrats. The use of steward rights is restricted by policy; stewards will not use their technical access when there are local users who can use that access, except in emergencies.
On the English Wikipedia, this means their primary functions are to make editors a bureaucrat and to globally ban editors; this last aspect can be controversial when an English Wikipedia editor is globally banned for activity that we would not consider to warrant such an action. They are also able to access personal data and suppressed information.
Between January and February every year Steward Elections are held, during which editors with at least 600 edits who have been an admin on at least one Wikimedia Project for at least 6 months can run. To be elected an editor needs to receive at least 30 votes in support and at least 80% support.
Between January and February every year Steward Confirmations are held, during which current stewards must have their status reconfirmed. During a public comment period editors may comment for or against a current steward; after the public comment period is closed all existing and newly elected stewards consider the comments and issue their own votes; a steward is removed if a majority of stewards vote to remove them.
Agree with Novem, thank you! As you mention, it'd be awesome to have this automated in the future (maybe as a Toolforge tool instead of a bot, to avoid the update edits needed). — Frostly (talk) 23:41, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
^For full disclosure; I have currently participated in two of the discussions, with a vote for Xaosflux and a vote against Vituzzu
^ abLink takes you directly to the voting page; candidate statements may be found there.
^ abColumn is left empty when there is little or no opposition. Concerns are summarized from the votes in the linked discussion.
^ abManually updated; last updated at 23:24, 12 February 2024 (UTC). It would be useful to automate this for future elections.
No relicensing template
How is Template {{WikimediaNoLicensing}} permissible under wmf:Term of Use? It's even fully protected. User Anthony (inactive) created the original in 2004, and the license only dates to 2011, so maybe the template is grandfathered in somehow? Beyond the legal, I've seen it on a user page (and elsewhere) and on user pages it seems to be a declaration that the user does not intend to comply with the Terms of use, and even if the statement above the Publish button negates that from a legal point of view (does it?) which maybe means the template's assertion is void, it hardly seems the right attitude for a User here to have. Should it be taken to Afd? Even if legally void, why encourage that with a template, even if it's just a pointless sign of an ornery user strutting some attitude on their user page, like a lot of userboxes are. Adding Slaporte (WMF). Mathglot (talk) 19:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
It looks like there about eight users active in the past year who display that template on their user page. Most users displaying the template have not edited in 10 years or more. I don't see how displaying that template can override the terms of use. I don't see it as a major problem. If the template does not have any legal effect, then trying to delete it may create more drama than it is worth. Donald Albury20:43, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
Conversations with the Trustees - next call this Thursday 21st!
Hi all. I just wanted to give you a heads-up, in case you didn’t already know, that there are regular ‘Conversation with the Trustees’ events that you are welcome to attend and ask questions to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (who oversee and guide the Foundation). I’m hosting the next one, taking place this Thursday 21st March at 19h UTC and, speaking as a long-time enwiki editor, it would be really nice to see people from here attending and engaging in the discussions. Please see m:Wikimedia Foundation Community Affairs Committee/2024-03-21 Conversation with Trustees for details! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:51, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Proposal: WMF should hire a full-time developer to do basic maintenance on MediaWiki
I've been disappointed with the state of disrepair of MediaWiki for years, but yesterday I've become aware of an issue that finally drove me to complain: there was a basic SVG rendering bug that has been fixed upstream 4 years ago, but it still torments Wikipedia readers because WMF can't be bothered to install the fixed version T97233. WMF also refuses to switch to a less buggy SVG rendering library T40010 or to let the browsers do the rendering themselves T5593. Other users there expressed skepticism that SVGs would ever work here and we should revert to PNGs instead, as such issues have existed for more than a decade without being addressed.
This lack of basic maintenance is not limited to SVGs. There is also the well-known issue that graphs are "temporarily" disabled, which was triggered by MediaWiki using the Vega 2 library for 6 years after its end-of-life, until this time bomb exploded in their face. It looks like the current "solution" is just disable graphs forever T334940.
Another issue is that MediaWiki still runs on Debian Buster, the Debian stable from two releases ago. Fun fact, it will be end-of-lifed in three months, so we'll have one of the biggest websites in the world running on unsupported software. And these are only the problems I have personally encountered. Other editors tell of many more that I won't list here.
One might think that this situation is due to a lack of funds, but this is not the case. WMF has so much money that it doesn't know what to do with it: Signpost May 2023, Signpost August 2023. That's why I'm launching this proposal to tell it: hire a full-time developer to do at least basic maintenance. It's unconscionable to donate millions of dollars to other charities while your own website is falling apart.
It would be in fact perfectly natural natural for such a wealthy foundation administering such a large website to fix bugs themselves, or even take over development of the libraries it depends upon. I'm not demanding that much. Only to keep the software stack remotely up to date. Right now it's downright archaeological. Our billions of readers are suffering through issues that the rest of the world has long solved. Tercer (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
As I understand it, the WMF has hundreds of staff and these include developers. Github has 558 names of such. So, my impression is that there's no lack of staff or other resources. Presumably it's more matter of organisation and fit. I'm guessing that there's a lot of legacy code and technical debt and maybe this is too brittle and rotten to maintain easily. The graph debacle indicates that senior management ought to be getting a grip on this before a more catastrophic gap opens up. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
Obviously WMF has some developers. Certainly not hundreds, let alone 558. In any case none of them is dedicated to maintenance, otherwise Wikipedia's servers wouldn't be in a worse state than my grandmother's PC. I assume they are working on sexy new features such as the visual editor, the reply function, or the dark mode. Maintenance is boring, and doesn't look impressive in your CV. Nobody wants to do it. That's why I'm proposing a full-time maintainer.
Your alternative theory that they have enough resources but still can't do maintenance can be summarized as rank incompetence, and that's too cynical for my taste. It's also not actionable. What could one propose? "Proposal: WMF should get its shit together"? Tercer (talk) 19:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
The WMF does appear to have hundreds of developers and engineers. For example, see Developers/Maintainers which has a specific column documenting maintenance responsibilities. Some of these are the responsibility of entire teams such as Wikimedia Site Reliability Engineering which has a headcount of about 45. There are still clearly gaps in this structure, as shown by the year-long outage of graphs, for example. But the idea that there's nobody currently responsible for maintenance in a general sense seems too simplistic. The problem seems more that there's a complex structure in which it's easy for issues to fall down cracks or for people to pass the buck. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:21, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
I took a look at the gigantic list in Developers/Maintainers; the first two names there are volunteers, not staff, so we can easily discount that as indicating that WMF has hundreds of devs. All the ones I clicked in Wikimedia Site Reliability Engineering, however, are actually staff, so we can take 45 as a lower bound for the number of devs. Fair enough, some of them are responsible for maintenance, but it's clearly not enough. The WMF can easily afford to hire another, and it should urgently do so. Tercer (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
I find these threads tiresome. By background, I'm a real software engineer for real money in real life. I do some software development on enwiki-related projects as a volunteer. The pay sucks (but it's no worse than I get paid for editing) but at least I get to pick and choose what I work on, when I want to work on it, and how I want to architect it.
I've found my interactions with the WMF development staff similar to my interactions with any dev group I've ever worked with. Some are good, some not so good. There's a few who are absolute joys to work with. There's a few who are grumps. But then again, you could cross out "WMF developer" and write in (with crayon if you like) "enwiki editor" and you would still have a true statement.
The basic architecture is 25-ish years old. There's a lot of legacy crud. The fact that the core system is written in PHP just boggles my mind. Recruiting must be a challenge. How do you attract top-shelf talent when what you're offering is an opportunity to work on a legacy code base written in PHP and salaries which I can only assume are not competitive with what the Googles and Facebooks and Apples of the tech world are offering. And yes, you are right, doing maintenance work is not what people want to do. If you told somebody, "Your job is to ONLY work on maintaining the old stuff and you'll never get a chance to work on anything that's new and shiny and exciting", I can't imagine you'd get many applications. RoySmith(talk)23:54, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
And the slow code review process discourages the volunteers who are affected by longstanding bugs from working on fixing them. And of course a company with a known-bad workplace culture. I think there are people, myself included, who would be willing to work on only fixing bugs rather than building new things in principle, but probably a lot of those people (again including myself) have internally vilified the WMF for exactly this reason so would consider it to morally repugnant to work for them. * Pppery *it has begun...00:32, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
I am one of those people. The experience described in that link is totally unacceptable and would lead to prosecution in many jurisdictions. I am ashamed to be associated with its perpetrators. Certes (talk) 01:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
That's why WMF has to pay them. You'll never get boring infrastructure work done by volunteers. And no, I don't believe you'd have any difficulty finding applicants if you offer a decent salary. Even for working with PHP (it's no COBOL, everybody knows PHP). WMF can afford to pay even a top salary from a tiny fraction of the money it has been setting on fire. Tercer (talk) 10:26, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, that sounds much more likely to succeed than giving the interesting work to the paid staff and hoping some mug will volunteer to do the grind for free. One option is make dedicated maintenance a role rather than a person, and to allocate it to a different member of staff each month. (Other time periods are available.) That way no one has to do it for long enough to drive them to resignation, and it's a chance to cycle the skill set with e.g. graph maintenance being done when a graph expert is on duty. Certes (talk) 11:44, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Small bug fixes can be spread out amongst developers. But truly addressing significant technical debt means cleaning up the software framework to be more sustainable. That's not something that can be done effectively by rotating the work. isaacl (talk) 20:49, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
To add a bit to what Roy Smith described about software development: there are failures in managing it throughout the industry, particularly dealing with legacy code bases and a existing user population that generally wants all of their interactions to remain exactly the same. When the software has an associated revenue stream, there's a profit incentive to drive deadlines to be met, but when there isn't, the motivation is to get something that works implemented, as cheaply as possible. That tends to accumulate technical debt that has to be resolved later. One more developer isn't going to have much effect on these problems, which need significant resources working in concert to address. Better project management and setting of priorities is needed, to adequately plan how to transform the code base to a more sustainable state. Note there's a good possibility that would result in a decision to shed functionality currently in use that's too costly or insecure to keep in place, with a plan to re-implement some parts deemed necessary. isaacl (talk) 01:57, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
That's mitigated slightly by the lack of one negative force: MediaWiki has no need to make change for change's sake, just to make Product 2024 look sufficiently different from Product 2021 that users will feel obliged to upgrade. Certes (talk) 11:48, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm a software engineer myself. More specifically I'm an SRE, so I'm typically responsible for the types of tasks you're talking about (server upgrades, etc). Let me give you my perspective:
For most software engineers, the work they do at their job is completely outside of their control. They do what makes their boss happy, and in turn, they do what makes their boss happy, and so on. Thankless work like regular maintenance is often dropped without the proper incentives. For some people, those incentives are the salary to work long hours, but since many American jobs in big tech pay 2x to 5x the salary WMF pays for the same role, That isn't it. Those incentives have to come from the top. An example of what that might look like is a "backlog drive" that employees are required to participate in. But that's pretty rare, because leadership is typically being evaluated on metrics like increasing revenue or visitors to the site, and technical debt doesn't push those metrics. So, asking WMF to hire more people doesn't address the problem. Those new employees, if hired, would just fall into the established system that caused the technical debt to exist in the first place. So the conversation you need to be having is: "How do we convince WMF to invest in technical debt?" I don't know the answer to that question. But focusing on hiring more people doesn't solve anything. Mokadoshi (talk) 03:31, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
The problem is bigger than just one person working on small bug fixes. The framework needs to be cleaned up to be more sustainable. The third-party software dependencies need to be reconciled across different extensions. This needs co-ordination across multiple development areas, and a lot of automated testing. It needs support from management to push through, rather than to just spend enough to keep the parts working. isaacl (talk) 20:49, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Been there, done that. Assigning all mainteinance work to a single engineer (or a small group of them) is a really bad idea in practice. It just obfuscates the need to have better mainteinance practices across the whole engineering organization. It isolates "mainteinance folk" from the new developments that they'll eventually move to mainteinance. It leads burns out, and then to a new "mainteinance guy" coming who starts from scratch and cannot tap into institutional knowledge about mainteinance. It is just unsustainable practice. MarioGom (talk) 10:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
Yes, investing in technical debt is exactly what's needed, but one reason (or excuse) for not doing that is lack of people. If I gag the cynic in me shouting that any new staff would just be diverted to exciting but unnecessary new chrome, an increase in resource should make it easier to get through the required drudgery. Certes (talk) 09:14, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
The key point is why hasn't the WMF already hired that one more developer, or ten, or fifty? Because it places a higher priority on spending those funds and management resources in other areas. For the development environment to truly improve, the WMF needs to change how it sets its priorities. Echoing what Mokadoshi said, that's the problem that needs to be worked on. isaacl (talk) 20:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
A message just came around on the cloud-announce mailing list saying that all the VPS hosts running Buster need to be upgraded in the next few months. I don't have any insight into what they're running on the production web servers, but I assume if they're migrating the VPS fleet, they're doing the same for production. RoySmith(talk)19:14, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for that link, I'm not in that mailing list so I didn't know. I don't know how WMF runs prod so it very well may be that they are running Buster. But it's important to note that the announcement is for Cloud-VPS which is VPS hosting for the community. It would be common practice to not upgrade Cloud-VPS until the last possible minute so as to minimize disruption for the community. AWS for example does not forcibly upgrade your OS until the last possible day. Mokadoshi (talk) 19:51, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't spend too much time and effort focusing on the Debian Buster thing. That doesn't affect end users in any way that I can see, and it is not end of life'd yet. Let's trust WMF software engineers and SREs to handle those details, and focus on things that directly affect end users. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Where it adds to the technical debt that has to be managed is the work to figure out the third-party software stack required by the extensions used for a given Wikimedia site. I agree that it's not a level of detail that editors should be worried about figuring out, but getting the code base improved so that it's easier to work out is important for long-term sustainability of the software. isaacl (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
It's in the discussion of the SVG bug I linked, where they say they will only install the bugfix when it comes with Bullseye, and link to the task for upgrading from Buster to Bullseye. Tercer (talk) 23:33, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
I really don't want to speak for the WMF, but I kind of understand their logic here. One way to manage a fleet of machines is to stick with LTS releases and survive on whatever gets packaged into that. It's certainly possible to built custom installs, but once you start doing that, you're off the LTS train and have to take on a lot more responsibility and overhead. I've lived in both worlds. If you haven't, it's difficult to fully understand just how attractive sticking to the LTS can be. RoySmith(talk)00:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
I suspect WMF SRE would be fine with a newer version of the package, provided that there was a compelling reason (more than just small bug fixes) and a different person/team took full responsibility for what that entailed. Like if WMF multimedia team (staffed in this hypothetical future differently) basically said that this is a critical issue, we need the new version, and we are willing to take responsibility for all that entailed, it would probably happen. But that is not the situation happening here. Bawolff (talk) 15:28, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
This certainly does illustrate the odd relationship that the community has with WMF. In a commercial software shop, there would be meetings between engineering and product managements. The product folks would say, "If this bug isn't fixed, it's going to cost us $X next quarter in lost revenue as customers jump ship". The engineering folks would say, "The only way we can fix this is if we go off the LTS train and that's going to cost us $Y in additional engineering costs, plus some indeterminate $Z in technical risk exposure". The two sides would argue and come to some decision, but at least both points of view would be heard and weighed.
But that relationship doesn't exist here. The customer base is the volunteer community. It's difficult to put a price tag on their labor, and even if you could, they don't have a seat at the table when it comes to making these decisions. Yeah, there's meta:Community Tech and meta:Community Wishlist Survey, but that's not quite the same thing as having the VP of sales in your face about fixing whatever bug is pissing off his biggest customer and threatening his bonus this quarter :-) RoySmith(talk)17:48, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
I think there is also a problem here in that the community lacks sufficient knowledge into how WMF does things to make effective criticism, and without effective criticism its impossible to hold WMF to account. Take this thread. The proposal is for WMF to hire a single developer to work on maintenance of MediaWiki despite the fact that there is already a lot more than one developer currently working on MediaWiki maintenance and none of the issues mentioned actually are MW maintenance issues. As a proposal it is pretty non-sensical - it is hard to even tell if these are issues the community cares a lot about or just an issue that a few people care about. The community might lack a seat at the table, which is a problem, but the community is also pretty bad at expressing what is important to it in a way you can actually do something with. Bawolff (talk) 18:17, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
You're missing the forest for the trees. I could have phrased the proposal instead as "invest more resources in maintenance" without changing anything else, and your criticism wouldn't apply. Moreover, you're missing the point about "jumping off the LTS train". There is no need to update this package in isolation. If MW had been updated to Bookworm last year, or even Bullseye three years ago, they would have gotten for free the SVG bugfix. No matter which way you look at it, maintenance is lacking. Tercer (talk) 19:16, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Sure, but would it have been worth it? I also have a long list of things i would like to see fixed. The issue is everyone has a different list. I don't think there is any reason to think that hiring 10 more, or even 100 more devs would neccesarily fix the specific issues you are concerned about. Not all problems can be fixed by just hiring more people. (P.s. my criticism of, well technically this isn't a mediawiki issue, isn't neccesarily directed at you - there is no reason you should know where the boundries between different components lie. I think it is more emblematic of the meta problem where the community lacks the ability to really tell what WMF is doing and hence lacks the ability to really judge it which undermines the community's ability to be taken seriously when lobbying for changes) Bawolff (talk) 21:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Actually, we do have good visibility into what they're doing. The big picture of how they handle OS upgrades is on on Wikitech. And if you're willing to invest some effort looking around on phab, you can find all the details. For example, T355020 talks about upgrading the hosts that Thumbor runs on. RoySmith(talk)22:06, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
That's funny, it turns out SRE is violating their own policy by hanging on to Buster for so long. Well, I'm glad they agree with me. Tercer (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, it would. Updating Debian is a no-brainer. Very likely it would take care of a large fraction of your list automatically. And it's something you have to do anyway, so there's no benefit from running archaeological versions. Keep in mind that we're talking about Debian stable here, so even the newest version is already old and battle-tested. Tercer (talk) 22:09, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
From what I am aware of, there is a decent number of employed devs as well as volunteers, so if anything, this is a coordination problem (economical and social) more than anything else. I do have to agree on the point that despite the number of people, some important things don't seem to get done - some of it is primarily because dealing with legacy code is hard, and because hiring quality is hard (this is not to imply at all that current devs are bad) but more exactly that hiring the best devs to work on legacy code is particularly challenging (atleast without paying through the nose). The best way to resolve this is to use the donation war chest and work harder on technical evangelism + hiring on quality over quantity. --qedk (t愛c)22:54, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi all - I'm Mark Bergsma, VP of Site Reliability Engineering & Security at WMF. Thanks for this discussion and the points already raised. I'd like to help clarify a few things: at WMF we do indeed have a few hundred developers/engineers - spread over many teams in the Product & Technology department, which is roughly half of the organization. "Maintenance" is not exclusively done by a few dedicated staff, but is the shared responsibility of most of those teams and staff, for the components they're responsible for. They actually spend a large amount of their time on that, and for some teams it's the vast majority of their work. We do consider that a priority and explicitly make time & space for it (we call it "essential work"), and we aim to carefully balance it with strategic work (like bringing new functionality to users/contributors), as well as needed investments into our platform and infrastructure (e.g. our multi-year project to migrate all our services to modern Kubernetes platforms for easier development/testing/maintenance/developer workflows). Since last year, we've also made MediaWiki and related platform work an explicit priority (WE3), including the establishment of some much needed MediaWiki-focused teams again, and have an explicit annual goal to increase the number of staff and volunteer developers working on MediaWiki, WE3.2), and the new formation of our MediaWiki platform strategy. This will continue going forward (WE5 and WE6 of our draft next-year plan).Nonetheless, it's true that we have a big challenge sustaining the large and ever growing footprint of services, features and code we've developed and deployed over the now long history of our projects, at the large scale we're operating at. Compared to that footprint, and considering the very wide range of technologies involved, old and new, different code bases and needed knowledge and skill sets, a few hundred staff to sustain and develop that is not all that much. It involves difficult choices and tradeoffs everywhere - prioritizing between many tasks and projects, all of which seem important. It's something we care about, have done quite a bit of process improvement work on over the past 1.5 year, and have a lot more left to do on. We're planning several related initiatives (e.g. WE5.1, all KRs of PES*) as part of our next annual plan to further improve this. We're also going to communicate more about this sort of work, which has been less publicly visible before.But, for something more concrete right now: I've also looked into the situation of the specific issue with SVGs that you raised. That's indeed a problem with an old librsvg library version that is used by Thumbor, our thumbnailing service, which was extensively worked on last year to migrate it to our Kubernetes platform - also for easier/quicker maintenance like discussed here. Further work (including the Thumbor container OS image upgrade and some required Thumbor development for that) then unfortunately got delayed, as the development team then responsible for it needed to be disbanded and reorganized at the time - also to allow us to form the aforementioned MediaWiki focused teams. But, I'm now happy to report that the plan is for the work on the Thumbor upgrade to Debian Bullseye to start soon, in the next few weeks, which when finished should finally address this frustrating issue as well. (And yes, we do normally upgrade before OS releases go out-of-support :)
Thanks for taking the time for such a detailed answer (it seems that Andrew Davidson had a much better grasp of the situation, and I stand corrected). I'm glad to hear that you are aware of the issues, care about them, and there are plans for improvement. In particular, I'm glad that there is a MediaWiki team again and that WE5.1 is an explicit goal. If the state of MediaWiki in fact improves (at least in the issues I'm aware of) I'll resume donating.
It's clear that the answer to my specific proposal is (a quite diplomatic) "no", but I don't mind. I care about the results, and I'm not going to pretend to know better than you how to achieve them. Tercer (talk) 18:44, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Regarding the broken Graph extension, I have written an overview in the new Signpost that hopefully sheds some light on the situation for those who haven't followed it closely over the past year: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-03-29/Technology report.
Speaking personally and generally (i.e. not necessarily about the Graph situation in particular), I think people should keep their minds open to the possibility that several things can be true at once: 1) WMF does a lot more maintenance (and other technical) work than some community members give it credit for, 2) many technical issues are trickier to solve that it might appear without detailed knowledge about the situation, but also 3) WMF often has serious problems with assigning resources proportional to impact and 4) there can also sometimes be situations where engineers overcomplicate a problem and let the perfect become the enemy of the good, or lack the expertise to find the most efficient solution. Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:49, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you @HaeB for your even-handed review of the Graph extension situation, and articulating some real challenges that we all face, contributors and WMF staff. Something that I remind myself daily is that most people are trying very hard to get decisions they think will have a lasting impact right, and it's true that sometimes that can lead to letting 'perfect become the enemy of good.'
I wanted to share a little of my perspective on the maintenance challenge: I've joked that this is my third 20+ year old codebase. Over those years, security, uptime and performance expectations have changed dramatically along with the Internet. We all expect software to be more safe, available and faster than ever before. Wikipedias have the privilege of serving a large user base of readers and editors, who are diverse in their geography, expectations and needs (to name just a few ways!). And often, those who work on the software are trying to keep as much functionality as possible as we modify things, so that as little as possible breaks even as the world changes around us. An imperfect analogy to what's happened might be retrofitting a series of buildings and changing their core purpose from some industry to housing. It's possible to change the purpose of a building without changing any of the internal structure, but over time, that becomes increasingly hard to live with. And now you have tenants, so you can't just send everyone away for a year to upgrade it all!
We have multiple significant maintenance projects underway. One place to hear about a part of this work is in the monthly MediaWiki Insights reports, which describe MediaWiki project progress and plans. Each language wiki and sister project wiki is a separate deployment that also supports a distinct set of extensions, some of which were created and deployed many years ago, under pretty different circumstances than we face today. Following the insights reports may help those interested learn more about what it takes to untangle years of uncoordinated decision making for our most critical software, and what it will require for us to establish a platform that is supportable on a free and open internet by dedicated staff and volunteers, and still enable an open and distributed model for all contributions.
Having volunteers who understand our challenges and then help us think through how to get things right together is super helpful. Thanks again and please keep sharing your thoughts. SDeckelmann-WMF (talk) 19:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Preannouncement of upcoming Movement Charter conversations
I am Kaarel, support staff of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee, working with the Wikimedia Foundation.
I am writing here to let you know in advance that the full draft of the Movement Charter will be published on April 2nd, 2024. This will kick off the community engagement period from April 2nd to April 22nd. Perspectives from the English Wikipedia community would be very valuable for the conversations.
For context, the Movement Charter is a proposed document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia Movement, including to lay out a new Global Council for movement governance.
Everyone in the Wikimedia Movement is invited to share feedback on the full version of the Charter draft – this is the last chance to propose improvements before the Charter draft is updated for the ratification vote in June 2024.
Since the last feedback round the drafts have gone through notable changes. I hope many of you will still find it worthwhile to review the drafts and share your perspectives to inform the final version of the text that will be ratified.
Please remember, when attempting to tie-in and enforce any specific rulings or wording of the document, that this project is Wikipedia (specifically English Wikipedia) and not Wikimedia or an entity called "Wikimedia movement", and its editors are called Wikipedians and not Wikimedians (although some Wikipedians may also want to self-identify as Wikimedians). Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:27, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for this feedback! I would like to understand better the point you are making. The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a high level document defining the future roles and responsibilities of those comprising it. As defined here, on English Wikipedia, "The Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia." The article further elaborates that "the Wikimedia community includes a number of communities devoted to single wikis", followed by a list, including Wikipedia communities.
In my perspective, this means that following the definitions also in respective article on English Wikipedia, as curated by English Wikipedia community, Wikipedians are part of particular Wikipedia community, who in turn are part of the global Wikimedia community. It does not seem reasonable in a Charter-like high level document to mention all the projects separately, so the term Wikimedia is used. At the same time, I do hear your point about the choice of the term might feel "alienating" (my interpretation, please correct or specify, if not correct) for the contributors of particular projects. What is your positive proposal for terminology considering this?
Hello KVaidla (WMF). The point is quite simple. Wikipedians are people who have edited Wikipedia, the flagship project that WMF was organized to fund and protect. Wikipedians can individually choose to identify as Wikipedians, Wikimedians, or both (irregardless of the language you quote above, remember that Wikipedia cannot be used as a source) and are different groups of people when they identify or identifying them. WMF's funding is primarily based on donations that people think they are donating to Wikipedia when, in fact, Wikipedians have very little to do with deciding where and how much such funding is allotted. Wikipedians, a dictionary term, even used to have an annual award named for them. Wikimedian of the Yearl was named 'Wikipedian of the Year' from 2011 to 2016, when an obvious opportunity not taken arose to create the second award while keeping the first intact.Since Wikipedians are a stand-alone grouping, they may choose to belong or not belong to what you call the 'Wikimedia movement'. But any rulings or direction which dictates WMF (or "Wikimedia movement") policy onto them, without regard to the separation of the two, should not stand as doctrine or overriding policy but simply as suggestion. Funding of Wikipedia projects, conventions (our Wikimedia conventions, both worldwide and local such as the North American convention, should rival other major corporate and professional conventions in terms of facilities, banquets, sponsorship, etc., with a much greater extension of WMF funding, upwards of 500 scholarships to each, etc. as a major opportunity to celebrate the volunteers), and new ideas should be taken for granted in WMF's yearly budget, with WMF asking "Thank you, what more can we do?". In any case, the elephant in the room is that Wikipedia is the popularly known entity which "brings in" the donations for the movement and WMF operations, and instead of erasing the term 'Wikipedian' (as was done with the annual award) that separation, as well as the partnership and much fuller funding, should be further recognized and encouraged. Thanks for your reply above, and for your work supporting the projects. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:37, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
I am proud to be a Wikipedia editor. I don't really know or care about this "Wikimedia movement" which some marketing genius seems to have plucked out of thin air recently. I associate the term "movement" with promoting some cause or other, whereas I try hard to do the opposite by editing neutrally. If membership of this "Wikimedia movement" is optional, then I opt out. If it's a mandatory condition of remaining a Wikipedia editor, just let me know, and I'll move on and leave you to write your own encyclopedia. Certes (talk) 22:31, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
The “membership” like it pleases you to frame it is optional but certain policies are not. For camper, you may not personally attack other users or perform undisclosed paid editing. Ymblanter (talk) 11:40, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
I haven't done either of those and don't intend to, but I consider myself answerable to the community and not the WMF. I'll continue to behave in a way I feel is reasonable, the WMF (unfortunately) can decide which of us it allows to edit, and I trust the community to react appropriately to any poor or unexplained decisions as we have occasionally had to do in the past. Certes (talk) 11:59, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, Randy Kryn, for taking the time to elaborate your point more. clearly. I believe I understand the perspective better and it has sparked further conversation, which can be helpful.
As to separation between Wikipedia communities and Wikimedia movement, I believe that project autonomy and agency of project contributors in policy-making continue to be important aspects of how we function. At the same time, there are already global policies, like the Terms of Use in place, that basically legally enable the functionality of all the projects. The Wikimedia Movement Charter drafting work is based on a hypothesis that there are matters that can be defined universally, so we do not need to revisit these matters project by project. Also it is about having the rights and responsibilities of different stakeholders set in writing for clarity. It would be interesting to hear your further thoughts and insights in relation to what has been suggested in the Movement Charter draft (which is now been published). Thank you again for your time and sharing of your perspective! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
Thanks KVaidla (WMF). I think my statement above presents my personal concerns, mainly about full funding of Wikipedia/Wikimedia volunteer projects and the worldwide and regional conferences (where 257 scholarships are given, for example, expanding that to 700, or 800, and assuring that the conferences rival the best corporate or non-profit conferences in keeping with Wikipedia's reputation and, importantly, to thank some of the volunteers who provide both the work product and the incentive for donors) could easily become a key priority of WMF funding. I've been saying that the world's billionaires will, at some point donate up to a billion dollars to Wikipedia and Wikimedia associated projects (Wikipedia's perceived yearly worth per the EMO - the Elon Musk Offer). For both then and now it would be nice to assure that the volunteers fully participate, including widescale funding-decision participation, in everything that dedicated knowledge-sharers can think up and accomplish. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
Responding to Katherine Maher / Uri Berliner Story
In that clip, Maher's not talking about her personal philosophy. She's talking about a principle that's been part of Wikipedia since long before her tenure at the WMF: the distinction between verifiability and capital-T Truth. The idea is that an encyclopedia anyone can edit could not function if it were predicated on a bunch of anonymous users arguing about what The Absolute Truth is. To make this model work, we try to leave The Truth and the beliefs of individual users out of the equation and instead spend our time debating how to effectively summarize what reliable sources outside of Wikipedia say about a subject. Then we cite those sources. As a tertiary source, we can afford to outsource ~truth to journalists, book publishers, academics, and other experts/professionals. What's going on now is that people are highlighting that clip and similar claims about Wikipedia and making it seem like she doesn't care about what's true in a journalistic sense. It is [ironic] misleading partisan dreck. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 19:34, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
An example I use is that, at one point, plate tectonics was considered a fringe theory by most of the best and most reliable sources in the field. Had Wikipedia existed at that time, it would have said as much. Now, of course, those who thought it was true actually did the hard work, collected the evidence, did the math, convinced their peers, and today plate tectonics is widely considered correct. So Wikipedia says as much. But Wikipedia isn't out to "scoop" anyone on anything (and indeed, if we ever do, we should not congratulate ourselves, but ask "What went wrong?"). Rather, once the best sources available on a given subject change their consensus, then, and only then, should Wikipedia change to reflect that. We could argue forever over what the truth actually is and never come to consensus on it, so the best we can do is to reflect what the best available sources say on a given subject. If it turns out that they're wrong and that later comes to light, well, articles can be edited after that happens. But only after. SeraphimbladeTalk to me23:10, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
thanks this helps provide some context on her words. I also want to make sure WMF helps manage the PR . Most patrons, editors and readers will need help understanding WMF & Wikipedia's position Tonymetz💬23:12, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Hi, I am Lauren from the Communications Department at the Foundation. Thank you for letting us know about your concerns. We are following the situation, and our goal as always is to raise understanding of the Wikipedia model. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you Lauren for your efforts here. What is the best way for editors to track the Communication Department's efforts as the situation develops? I've noticed the attacks have become more directed toward Wikipedia itself. Tonymetz💬17:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Are any comms planned? The story seems to be getting more coverage and as an editor I would like to see the comms team defend Wikipedia. Tonymetz💬20:49, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
Could we have the comms team hold a Q&A? Some of the claims, particularly around US federal government influence over content (akin to Twitter Files ) are particularly worrisome. It would be nice to see that this matter is being seriously addressed. Tonymetz💬20:29, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Yes, we are continuing to monitor and are addressing any incoming media questions, as well as clarifying our model to people. We've seen a dramatic drop in conversations about this issue. Our social listening analytics, which assess the volume of mentions on this topic based on relevant keywords, show that from 1 April - 2 May, the peak of mentions occurred on 18 April (with 8709 mentions). On 2 May, there were 15 mentions, and we continue to see a decline. The press team is keeping a close watch. Thanks for the flags in this thread. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply and some updates. So it sounds like the Twitter / social-media message volume is the critical indicator of the gravity of this story? Are there other indicators used? I ask becausea Congressional hearing has been called and if that happens, her tenure at Wikipedia will be the primary topic (she's only been at NPR for a few months)
And how about internal comms? I've seen other editors with concerns over possible censorship. Can we get reassurance that there has been no outside influence over Wikipedia content? Tonymetz💬16:21, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I think proving the negative can be quite difficult. There are some things I would change about WMF but I don't recall seeing any sort of censorship on a content project. As other's have said WMF doesn't have a ton of influence over content. And WMF has a clear and explicit legal policy (and strategy) to not get involved in content or editorial decisions. Now moving on from WMF to Wikipedia itself:
In many ways Wikipedia really goes the extra mile to be transparent about what changed, who changed it, when they changed it, what did they discuss about it before or after the change. Have you identified any part of the wiki where you think transparency is lacking? Any information you have been unable to find?
It would be helpful if you could identify specific instances (topics? articles? diffs?) Where you think Wikipedia has been censored. Were you censored yourself? I believe analyzing specific instances would be more productive. Jeremyb (talk) 18:04, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing and it helps to learn more about the process that WMF uses to ensure they are living up to policies. I did look at the policy you shared it was helpful, but also concerning.
About what you shared, I have two concerns. One , the policy itself says Wikimedia Foundation generally does not edit, contribute to, or monitor the content on the site. -- which means in some cases they do.
Secondly, any corporate policy is just a legislative mandate. The organization is also required to perform regular audits to ensure they are abiding by the policies. So we should have a record we could go by. Tonymetz💬18:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Regarding "transparency" , which is a popular topic with many connotations. I believe You're referring to the edit history that every page has. Yes this is one component of transparency but does not live up to a full audit log and accountability process required to confirm that WMF is not involved in editing.
MediaWiki itself supports confidential edits and edits can be hidden. The hosting platform can also modify the edit log itself so editors don't have a record of what is changing.
Even ignoring the audit trail, WMF has WP:ADMINH admin authority over the editors and also side-channel authority . There are dozens of ways that the WMF leadership team could have influenced content on COVID-19 without WMF showing up on the history page of those articles.
I think what you are referring to as "transparency" is only a small component of what a regulatory audit would consider as good governance and accountability.
I know you've asked me to provide evidence of WMF influence and I want to clarify that I'm not the one making the case here. The media has made a reasonable case that KM made claims to have helped the government have influence over covid-19 content.
Assuming that WMF has a clear policy of zero modifications on Wikipedia, and that policy is being enforced and audited, I'm assuming that they can quickly spell out why the media's claims are preposterous. Tonymetz💬18:55, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
@Tonymetz: It should be rather obvious that it is impossible for the WMF to not make a single edit to Wikipedia. Office actions are sometimes performed.
Regarding transparency, as Jeremy mentioned, it's very hard to prove a negative. How would you confirm the WMF is not involved in editing? Would a "full audit log" not also be vulnerable to modified edit logs? Do you think no one would notice if content on a high-traffic page was all of a sudden changed substantially without any corresponding edit log? ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!19:18, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Generally institutions hire a third party auditor who establishes the appropriate process, evidence (including audit trail), resources, personnel etc that would be required to attest that the given commitment is withheld.
I'm saying that the Page history alone would not meet that bar (of full transparency).
I don't want to say that's my expectation here. Just being clear that the Help:Page history alone is not an audit log.
For my request here I'm just asking WMF to help with internal comms to reinforce that WMF is not influencing content Tonymetz💬19:29, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I don't want to be too prescriptive. Right now I'm just asking for more comms & engagement with the editors than we've seen so far. Tonymetz💬20:07, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Do you think no one would notice if content on a high-traffic page was all of a sudden changed substantially without any corresponding edit log
This wouldn't be an adequate safeguard assuming there is a policy in place.
In case you think I'm being academic. Twitter & Meta both had technical and procedural systems in place to intervene with Covid-19 content . Those procedures were not revealed until they were exposed by subpoena, despite having a massive amount of visibility Tonymetz💬19:32, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I highly doubt people wouldn't notice if content suddenly shifted in tone. Relying on editors has worked so far, i see no reason why this should be any different. Content moderation on social media is done differently than on Wikipedia. Edits are logged, page history is viewable, moderation is performed by users, not the parent organization. ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!19:50, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I hope I've made a case on why this is good yet still incomplete. Perhaps I can ask -- why would you be opposed? The WMF is well funded, and likely has all of this content available already. Why would you be opposed to internal comms re-enforcing that WMF does not influence editing? Tonymetz💬20:23, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
If you mean abolishing office actions this is not realistic. This would mean you (and not a lawyer representing the WMF) would go to the court if you accidentally upload a copyright violation and get sued over it. Ymblanter (talk) 20:29, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to a statement from the WMF regarding what they do on wiki, I just think it's a bit pointless. Just to be clear, the WMF has edited articles before, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just doubt that the WMF has covertly influenced articles to support some unknown agenda. ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!20:38, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
The filter log lists only lists things that have tripped an edit filter, usually an unconstrctuive edit or vandalism. The vast majority of edits won't trip these filters, so won't appear in the filter log. See WP:EF for more info. ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!20:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for sharing this it's helpful I hadn't seen it yet. This is the sort of content I was hoping to discover with our discussion here. Tonymetz💬18:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
what's the best forum for pursuing this concern? I get that I'm in the minority, but minorities can often have valid concerns. This conversation has been revealing, from "WMF is independent of WP" to "our transparency report shows about 200 changes / year".
In short I think it's a valid topic yet also nuanced and may ruffle some feathers. What would be the best way to continue this ? Tonymetz💬23:45, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
You use quote marks but I don't believe you're quoting anything on this page. (I used ctrl-f to search for "200 changes" and "independent of".)
MediaWiki itself supports confidential edits and edits can be hidden. The hosting platform can also modify the edit log itself so editors don't have a record of what is changing. There are regular dumps of content published. (at least once a month) for as long as I can remember there's been a real-time feed of edits as they happen (at least 15 years but wikitech makes me think 19+ years) and anyone that watches that IRC feed could fetch diffs/revisions/other history immediately as soon as it's submitted.
You should identify a specific case of a change to an article (diff? log entry? or at least an article title and time period) that concerns you. You should tell us why you believe the existing transparency measures are insufficient and propose specifically what should be changed to alleviate your concerns. You should go make some edits yourself and see what sticks or doesn't. Jeremyb (talk) 04:40, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Will be nice when this section is auto archived. The original story gives me the vibes of a right-wing attack piece, and I don't think necroing this and giving more attention to it is the best strategy here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:34, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
it's more honest and straightforward to say "we got it wrong". "getting it right" doesn't mean following the rules — "getting it right" means "getting it right" Tonymetz💬18:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion Wikipedia can't function if people are chasing truth rather than Verifiable content that has a Neutral Point of View based on Reliable Sources. That does mean that we're going to present information that is wrong at times. But does provide a reasonable set of parameters on which editors can more likely find consensus about what content says than if we go after truth. And far more often it means we don't present information that is wrong even if the editor adding it firmly believes its true. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:01, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
In practice, "right" is always relative to something. One can argue that there is such a thing as objective correctness—that's a pretty profound philosophical question, and above my paygrade—but even if there is, only supernatural beings would be privy to such a distinction. For we mere mortal encyclopedists, the best we can do is be "right" relative to the knowledge we have access to. Even now, can we conclusively say we were wrong then and are right now? Science could be wrong twice, unlikely as that may be. From our frame of reference now, our current article is right. (Well, right-ish, it actually hasn't been updated very well.) From our frame of reference in 2012, the article we had then was right. We can't hold ourselves to any higher or lower standard than that. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 19:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
I am old enough to remember that the views expressed by Maher in this clip were very well represented in the initial iterations of the Wikimedia Strategy 2030 process. I would even say they represent the core of what the Strategy process was meant to produce initially. But there was a big community pushback and all that language got dropped. MarioGom (talk) 13:20, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
I'm just puzzled as to why any Wikipedian would be treating Vivek Ramaswamy or Chris Rufo as if they are honest brokers. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:19, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
Since my name was mentioned, I'll add my two cents. I find the issue that Berliner raises intriguing. While I haven't listened to NPR for something like 30-35 years, I've seen criticism of NPR for being too conservative; this makes me wonder just how accurate Berliner's criticism is. Yet I feel a certain solidarity with his situation at NPR: there are times I feel Wikipedia is increasingly pandering to certain groups at the cost of helping volunteers in general. I can only wonder if this tendency was caused Maher, since I don't remember this happening before her. (I want to emphasize that this is more of a feeling than an accusation.)
But I found more of interest was the PR release announcing Katherine Maher as the new head of NPR, especially about her "achievements" at the Foundation. I'm sure to anyone who wasn't a volunteer at Wikipedia during her tenure it sounds impressive; I can only wonder just how much of these claims she actually believes. (I must admit almost everyone inflates their resume to some degree.) One detail I will comment about, her claim that she "reversed decades-long declines in core contributors": my own opinion is that after Sue Gardner's less than empathetic attitude towards the average volunteer, almost anyone could have been appointed head of the Foundation, & the number of "core contributors" could have only increased. She benefitted by not being Sue Gardner. -- llywrch (talk) 07:19, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
I'm dumbfounded by Katherine Maher's statements directly undermining some of the core principles of Wikipedia: including verifiability and notability through published, secondary, independent, and reliable sources. And linking those to some identitary and racial arguments is appaulling. One other core value of Wikipedia is that editors' identities do not matter: what matters is the quality of their contributions, judged by themselves.
I am a contributor of both my time and my money to Wikipedia/WMF. I have tended not to follow closely the work by the WMF and its leadership. I am appalled by Katherine Maher's statement. How could she been allowed to become the WMF's ED?? That seems gross negligence by the Board of Directors. That all makes me want to stop my monthly donations. I think it would help address this issue if the WMF made a public statement that despite Maher's crazy statement, the WMF stays true to the original core values of Wikipedia and as a consequence does not get involved in identity politics. Thoughts? Al83tito (talk) 14:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia has always been a left-wing institution, just as academia has been for decades prior. The ideological bias was baked-in. Why else are supposed right wing sources deprecated here so often? Now the problem for many contributors is that they realize the one party they joined in hope actually eats its own young, and that in the future you guys might not be so safe from your erstwhile allies. If this story reflects on Wikipedia, it is only this realization that the WMF is as much of the pipeline for this ideology as the other parts of Maher's resume. Don't bother trying to distance us from her. Chris Troutman (talk)15:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
Within my lifetime in the United States the only major political party which has eaten its own has been the Republican Party... Between 2000 and today the GOP ran Bush, McCain, Romney, and Trump... Only one of them is currently a Republican in good standing. The Democratic Party ran Gore, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, and Biden... All are currently Democrats in good standing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree that her positions on censorship, truth, the first amendment, and “correcting past wrongs” are a bigger risk to Wikipedia than the degree of her left-leaning beliefs. They threaten Wikipedia’s reputation as a neutral publication. Both her ideology and left leaning views may scare off a good portion of our patrons and editors. It would be good to know exactly how little or how much influence her views have had on Wikipedia. Were there active censorship efforts? How much does WMF influence the senior administrative staff like bureaucrats, stewards, Aprbcom, admins etc. ?
In short, WMF has had a few months to prep for this fallout and there are hundreds (thousands) of volunteers who deserve PR support to protect their hard work on the encyclopedia. Tonymetz💬15:55, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
I think most of her personal positions are being overblown and conflated with Wikipedia, but I do disagree with her statement about notability. It's not Wikipedia's responsibility to right great wrongs. She points out that Wikipedia reflects the biases of the world, but that's Wikipedia working as intended. If there is more source content written about Western topics or cultures with written traditions, then Wikipedia is going to have more articles about Western topics or those cultures. Yes, that would mean unequal coverage, but what are we expected to do about it? We follow what sources say, not lead them. ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!01:42, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
thank you for the quick attention to this post and for escalating it to the appropriate team. I appreciate your help here. Tonymetz💬16:33, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
Does Maher have a current role in the WMF? I am unsure why WMF would need to have a position on her statements related to her current role, a few years after she moved on from being WMF CEO. (They certainly should not have a position on X/Twitter buzz.) CMD (talk) 02:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Katherine Maher says that, as CEO of Wikipedia, she "took a very active approach to disinformation," coordinated censorship "through conversations with government," and suppressed content related to the pandemic and the 2020 election.
Responding to X/twitter posts should certainly not be among the top responsibilities of the comms team, especially if they're such obviously rubbish tweets. The WMF does not editorially control the various language Wikipedias. CMD (talk) 05:17, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Pardon the self-indulgent subsection and long post, but this is turning into a real story in right-wing media and it seems useful to pull all the claims together. So here's what's going on, as far as I've seen. (I do not work for or speak for the WMF, just to be clear, and as such don't object if someone wants to move this elsewhere). It appears to begin with Christopher Rufo, who found in Katherine Maher a new target in a campaign to dig through people's past comments to frame as radical leftists, stoking partisan outrage and eroding trust in institutions he perceives as leaning left. And yet again right-wing media is eating it up while making no effort to verify that the framing is accurate. Ironically, it's terrible journalism about insinuations of bad journalism. Here's what he found, and the basis for the current hubbub about Maher:
Some years-old tweets that make it clear she's a democrat. Yes, she appears to support Biden and doesn't like Trump. Certainly none of the heads of the news organizations picking up this story have expressed political beliefs before, right? IMO it would've been a good idea to wipe her Twitter before jumping into the WMF CEO role and certainly before the NPR role, but none of the tweets were really all that wild. Maybe cause for some light Twitter bashing like we see anytime leaders of companies are found to not be apolitical robots, more or less assuaged with a "I shouldn't have said that on my personal twitter account years ago" apology. The most "scandalous" was one about Trump being racist, which might be jarring if she tweeted it today in her NPR role, but it was six years ago. Also, whether you agree or not, it's hardly a fringe interpretation of his comments/actions. Regardless, these aren't what most people are focusing on.
One of the clips going viral is from a TED Talk (here's the full talk) where she's talking about Wikipedia. When you hear someone say something odd about Wikipedia and the truth, they're probably talking about the practical way in which Wikipedia works, not a personal philosophy. Wikipedia works according to verifiability, which is what makes it possible for a bunch of anonymous users to collaborate on a single version of an article. If we were all arguing about things we know to be True, it would be chaos. Imagine writing an article on the Israel-Palestine conflict, for example, based just on what individual people on the internet say is true. It wouldn't work. For some subjects, it's easy to agree on a single truth; in others, we have to figure out how to present multiple perspectives based on good sources and put aside what individual users say is true. That is the kind of truth Maher is talking about, arguing that the "productive friction" of sorting out how to summarize multiple perspectives could be beneficial outside of Wikipedia, too. Her words about Wikipedia, by definition a tertiary source, are being isolated and reframed to make it seem like she's talking about truth in the journalistic sense of NPR. That would be clear to anyone who watches the full talk or puts any effort at all into fact-checking the context. Journalistic outfits that care about truth usually do that sort of thing rather than write a story about a short clip someone posted on X without asking any questions.
The "first amendment" clip doesn't even need the jargony context of the Wikipedia-related one -- it just requires listening to the question she's answering. Here's a link that includes the question. She was asked about solutions for dealing with content like misinformation and asked where those solutions will come from: companies, the government, civil society, etc. So she talks about civil society and about companies. As far as government, she says that yeah, if you think the government is going to intervene and do something to address misinformation, the first amendment presents an obstacle. It's just a non-starter. That's.... it. She never says it should change, she never says it should be removed, never says it's bad. She's not even talking about her own opinion -- it's just addressing the government part of the question. She then talks about the importance of the first amendment in giving platforms the ability to moderate content according to their own business interests and values. It's simply misleading to present it as "Katherine Maher is against the first amendment".
Some quotes about race, gender, notability, and a "white male Westernized construct". There's a lot to be said about systemic bias on Wikipedia, gender gap on Wikipedia, racial bias on Wikipedia, etc., and a lot of debate over the extent to which systemic bias affects Wikipedia's content, whether it's something to be fixed, how it could/should be fixed, or if it's something simply to understand as a historical reality. The idea is, if demographic surveys show that Wikipedia is written overwhelmingly by men in North America and Europe, that probably affects the content in some way. Our articles on European naval battles, baseball, and Hollywood movies are better than our articles about women's health in Tanzania. So there are efforts to recruit other participants, with the hope that it will increase the overall quality/coverage of the encyclopedia. It's not especially controversial to acknowledge that the historical record of Europe and the US was almost entirely written by and about white men. Again, whether that's something we should look at and say "that happened, and we've come a long way since then" or "that happened, and we haven't done enough to address it" is open to debate, but Maher is basically alluding to these things and saying that the free/open approach of Wikipedia reproduces those biases rather than corrects them. If your perspective is that we should not try to fix these biases, I have good news for you! Those are our policies. We base articles on published sources and whatever biases exist in the body of literature on a subject will typically be reproduced in Wikipedia because we are a tertiary source. During Maher's time at WMF, our rules for notability (how we determine which subjects get articles) got stricter, not more inclusive. That's not specific to Maher -- they've been getting steadily more restrictive for years. The point is, regardless of where you stand on issues of bias, the Wikimedia Foundation and its CEO have no power at all to change anything at all about how Wikipedia writes articles or which articles it covers. The most they can do is decide where to allocate recruitment funds and determine what makes for the best language in fundraising/communications.
TL;DR - Culture warriors on X are isolating clips of Katherine Maher and using a blatantly misleading framing to stoke outrage about NPR and Wikipedia. Maher's statements aren't actually controversial, didn't have anything to do with how articles are written on Wikipedia, and have nothing to do with NPR at all, but yeah she wore a Biden hat and had a nice dream about Kamala Harris (Twitter's a weird place sometimes). Even if they were accurate portrayals of her philosophy, the Wikimedia Foundation does not influence the content of the articles you read on Wikipedia in any way. Any news publication that's actually interested in things like "truth" could've figured out these tweets were misleading with minimal effort. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 19:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
100% endorse with one quibble. My reading of her answer to the question in the First Amendment clip is that she actually does endorse the First Amendment, even in the context of content moderation on the internet, because it gives platforms the ability to moderate content according to their own interests and values. Small difference, but an important one. Loki (talk) 03:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
100%. A lot of this is just basic willingness to look beyond what people scream out loud. If people haven’t learned by now that those who yell loudest are generally in it for their own good, rather than the rest of us… well I call that a failure of the educational system. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Funny thing is that my criticism of Maher has been independent of whatever this Rufo troll has been writing. (I'd like a reliable source to confirm that he has been the primary instigator.) And I'm annoyed that my criticism about her abilities as a manager is being usurped by one side in the ongoing US culture wars. From what I've read, her political views are very close to mine. Further, the effort to combat systemic bias on Wikipedia started years before Maher's tenure, probably years before she even heard of Wikipedia -- that page was first created 4 October 2004 -- so I'm offended she is taking credit as a major driver in that effort, when I never witnessed her making any significant contributions to solve that serious problem. Flying around the world to hold meetings to discuss how this is a problem & that more meetings are needed doesn't count. Especially when this hasn't generated any of the many needed articles.My criticism is based on what I've seen while a contributor during her tenure -- especially her clumsy handling of the FRAM incident. In that incident, she was so out of touch with what was happening & obsessed with her own priorities that it required someone to flame her on her preferred social networking platform for her to finally acknowledge that a problem existed needing her attention. (People posting on her talk page over at Meta, asking her to intervene, failed to attract her attention; from other statements she made it would appear that she didn't value the wikiwiki platform that highly.)As I wrote above, almost everyone inflates their resume to some degree. I found Maher's claims about her accomplishments as CEO of the Foundation was notably inflated. And I am annoyed about that, if not offended. Where was she when I -- or anyone -- needed help with finding materials to write articles to fill gaps in Wikipedia coverage? I have stated elsewhere that I hope she learned from her tenure at the Foundation, & won't repeat the same mistakes at NPR as she did there, but I'm reserving my final judgment on that matter. -- llywrch (talk) 17:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Your comments have been helpful for me to better understand her leadership accomplishments and setbacks. Tonymetz💬20:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Given that you think the attack is unfounded -- would you see the need for comms to correct the story and defend against the attack? Tonymetz💬18:21, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
The movement
The phrase "Wikimedia movement" is not a recent invention, though it has received more attention in the past couple years. We individual Wikians of course are free to call ourselves proudly as we will but I think the failure a few years ago to rename the outlying and ancillary sites to "Wikipedia [something]" was unfortunate as it would have helped in public recognition. It would help in recruiting; almost all my students have been attracted to our teaching sessions in hopes of writing a new article when really, it would usually be easier for them to learn how to add a new picture. For my own editing, for a decade or more I have been putting about as much effort into Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata as into English Wikipedia. Those sites do a few things but mainly they supply pictures and data (geographical coordinates are one of my specialties) to the hundreds of Wikipedias including English. Even without a common name, I figure there ought to be a common policy structure and general set of guidelines for us all, so the WMF staff don't have to decide so many things for us. Naturally there will be an interest in adding matters that are mainly the concern of only the encyclopedias or of only few of the various other autonomous member sites, who each ought to handle such things by their already established methods. There will be disagreements on such questions, but I'm confident our usual methods of drawing a consensus will prevail. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:16, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
In short: I'm curious whether you're saying you believe that a difference of one letter (in some cases) constitutes a real detriment to the development of Wikipedia's sister sites? "Wiki" is already very widely associated with Wikipedia by the public, does "Wikipedia Data" being a thing people hear about and are surprised it exists seem much more unlikely than with "Wikidata"?
I really disagree that even in effect Commons's main function is to act as Wikipedia's image repository. Its use is ubiquitous.
I figure there ought to be a common policy structure and general set of guidelines for us all, so the WMF staff don't have to decide so many things for us.
I don't really think this structure makes sense. WMF doesn't really make that many choices for us—or at least, I feel part of the process for just about every choice I would like input on. I'm not sure what exactly you would like centralized, the current model seems to work. Do you have specific areas of policy or administration in mind?
I think it's important to remember that there isn't a "we", strictly speaking. Not all of us are here to be part of a movement or whatever, or even editing for the same reasons; some just want to fxi a tyop that bugged them, others to add information about their favourite volcano. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
I have a great respect for sister projects. I refer to Wiktionary regularly, and I use Commons unconsciously most times I read a Wikipedia article with images, though I've contributed very little to either. I use Wikidata occasionally, and was briefly an enthusiastic contributor; I would use it much more if it had an intuitive user interface. None of this makes me part of a "Wikimedia movement", which I see largely as a political stance shared by some but not all editors. Certes (talk) 09:08, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
The fact that you think the other projects are nothing more than ancillary sites that should be rebranded as under the Wikipedia umbrella is a very, very bad sign. Cremastra (talk) 22:04, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
I completely understand that Wikipedia editors have a very Wikipedia-centric view of the broader Wikimedia community. It would be nice if everyone had the interest to learn more about the other projects, and how they are used, but I understand that it's not a priority for most Wikipedians, regardless of which language Wikipedia they choose to edit. But I'll just throw in a few tidbits:
For many mainstream media sources that use images, Wikimedia Commons is often a go-to resource. There isn't a day that I don't find a Wikimedia Commons credit on the series of mainstream media sources I look at.
Wikidata is used widely as a data aggregator by many other not-for-profit resources.
Some language editions of Wikisource are the largest repositories of open-source historic documents and literature in those languages
Some language editions of Wiktionary are having a major impact in preserving dying languages
The 339 Wikipedias, with their collective 62+ million articles, are indeed the major drivers of the Wikimedia family of projects; the largest Wikipedias, especially the English one, have deservedly gained a reputation for accuracy and neutrality in providing the entire world with information. That doesn't mean that the "sister projects" don't make a valuable contribution to the sum of all human knowledge. I will never fault anyone for choosing to focus on one specific Wikimedia project, or even one small aspect of a specific project. We're all better for those contributions. Risker (talk) 08:39, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
Fearful of being caught beating a dead horse, I'll speak once more and hope to be disciplined enough to hold my peace. Yes, one little letter can indeed make a difference. Besides the local Wikimedia Chapter I am a member of local clubs concentrating on bicycling and astronomy. I'm always nattering to them about how we make Wikipedia and sometimes they actually listen. A couple times, though they did not surrender to my efforts to get them to edit an article or two, they decided that a money contribution would be a good thing. "Eh? The form said 'Wikimedia Foundation'. Is that the same thing, or did someone else sneak in with some kind of Internet scam?" These people had me to make the explanation, unlike most outsiders.
A common brand can't help us thousands of insiders to understand what we're doing; like other big busy communities we are too complex to be understood with just a few simple labels. However, that's not what brands are for. Brand names are to promote instant understanding among the mass of outsiders, in this case their understanding that this is a big complex of websites with a common theme. We have different detailed policies to handle our specialties, but we are all about Wikipedia's original aim of promoting universal knowledge by organizing it for accessibility.
I have uploaded thousands of pictures to Wikimedia Commons, and I know of a dozen that are used in news publications, books, and other works. Probably hundreds more are so used; we don't require to be given notice. The usual credit, when given, is "From Wikipedia" or "From Wikimedia Commons" or "by Jim.henderson via Wikimedia Commons". I figure, out of the small minority of their readers who actually wonder where the pictures came from, "From Wikipedia" is the only one that isn't mysterious. Yes, knowledge professionals, most often, know what they are doing but they hope their product will be read by many more people than are composing it; same as we do. They don't expect their readers to learn what it takes to be a knowledge professional.
Wikidata is indeed used by many knowledge professionals. I am most familiar with the work of librarians since I work with them often, and have a lunch appointment tomorrow with a relative who's in that line of work. They are familiar with the different workings of OCLC, Worldcat, LoC and various local or specialized catalogs, and many of them also use Wikidata to help find their way through and among the others. Haha, a couple years ago I looked at the Wikidata item about me, and it showed my LoC Authority Control Number. What, has my good work come to such high prominence? No, that was another Jim Henderson, so I corrected it. Wikidata is full of dirty data like that, some of it imported from massive outside databases a century old or more. Not a big problem since WD serves people in the database business who are aware. I have also worked with art museum archivists and have no idea whether their old catalogs have as many errors as the databases for community gardens in Brooklyn or defunct restaurants in The Bronx. Hmm, perhaps I have wandered but anyway yes, the question of what brand name Wikidata ought to use is a lot less important than for Wikiprojects that serve a wider direct audience.
Oh-oh, it seems this paragraph on WD has revealed that I've already gone overboard. So, I'll drop my stick and carefully back away from the dead horse. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:13, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
The full Movement Charter draft awaits your review on Meta
Hello again! I am following up on the pre-announcement from the previous week to let you know that the full draft of the Movement Charter has been published on Meta for your review.
Why should you care?
The Movement Charter is important as it will be an essential document for the implementation of the Wikimedia 2030 strategy recommendations. Participating in the Charter discussions means that you ensure that your voice is heard and your interests are represented in shaping the future of the Wikimedia Movement. As the English Wikipedia community is the largest of the Wikimedia movement, it is essential to have the perspectives from your community presented in the global conversations. I hope many of you will find time to provide feedback, share your thoughts and perspectives!
Let your voice be heard by sharing your feedback in any language on the Movement Charter Talk page, attend the community session today, on April 4th at 15.00-17.00 UTC, or email movementcharter@wikimedia.org. I will also be monitoring conversations on this talk page, to bring back the summaries to the ongoing global conversations.
You can learn more about the Movement Charter, Global Council, and Hubs by watching the videos that the Movement Charter Drafting Committee has prepared. Read the Committee's latest updates for more information about the most recent activities from the Drafting Committee.
Thank you again for your time and kind attention! I look forward to your input and feedback. Have a wonderful month of April! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 13:07, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
Unified enwiki response to the charter
In votes like these a significant issue is that interested editors do not have the time or wherewithal to properly assess the issues or candidates presented and so abstain from the vote. I propose that we attempt to address this, by having more engaged editors consider the proposal carefully and, in consultation with the community though an RfC, issue a recommendation either to support or oppose the change. Specifically, I propose a three-stage process:
A pre-RfC discussion where we will write a neutral summary of the proposal.
An RfC where we will:
!Vote to approve the summary and its dissemination
!Vote whether we should encourage eligable enwiki editors to vote for or against the change
Assuming the summary is approved, a mass message to all eligable enwiki editors providing it. Further, assuming there is a consensus either for or against the change, a recommendation to the editors that they vote in line with that consensus.
Stage one should probably begin soon, in time for a RfC in May; first, however, I wanted a brief discussion of the general idea. BilledMammal (talk) 02:41, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment, BilledMammal. This isn't a bad idea, but it is worth noting that the draft charter will be revised in early May following this current feedback round. Although the MCDC (of which I am a a member) does not anticipate making really large changes, I think it would be reasonable to assume that the final version is going to have at least some differences from the current draft. Would it make sense to create a feedback page on this project as a place where interested enwiki editors could flesh out their opinions before the final revision is made? I'd hate to see people investing a lot of time reviewing a draft and proposing a project-wide opinion in an RFC-type format, based on a document that we know will change. There is something to be said for having a local page for comments and suggestions for improvement (and please yes, if someone thinks X is a bad idea, propose an alternative) as long as there's a link to it on the Meta page so that the MCDC will be well-informed of the discussion on this project. (For that matter, it may be a good idea for other projects, and I'm pretty sure some of them are thinking about this too.) Risker (talk) 03:17, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
That's a good point, but we also need to consider that it will take time for the RfC to run. I think we should start drafting the summary based on the current document, and then make any updates that are necessary to align it with the May changes and start the RfC a few days after it is released.
I would also agree that creating a local page where editors can make comments and suggestions for improvements would be useful, although I would suggest just using this page as it isn't as busy as the other village pumps and thus an extensive discussion of the proposed charter won't disrupt other discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 04:59, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
I think mass messaging every eligible voter WP:ACE style might be too many people. Perhaps a watchlist notice, or pinging rfc participants, would be a good compromise. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
I don't think that the vote to ratify this charter is less important than the vote to elect the Arbitration Committee. BilledMammal (talk) 16:32, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for this initiative, BilledMammal, to approach the Movement Charter conversations in a constructive way! For reference, the timeline for the steps can be found here on meta and you are right, the time is of essence. It has been already pointed out on the meta discussion page that the review of the Charter would benefit from additional contextual materials for informed decision-making. As a supporting staff member to the MCDC I will see what I can do, yet it might take some time. If there are priority areas for further context in the English Wikipedia community, please let me know, so I can focus my work around that and hopefully have respective content available earlier. Also let us know, if we can support the discussions around the Charter in other ways. Looking forward to hearing the perspectives and seeing good participation from en.wp community! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 12:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
We are reaching out to you all today with a message from the Human Rights and Trust and Safety Teams at the Foundation to provide you with some resources around digital safety while using the projects.
What do we mean when we say “digital safety”? Your digital safety on Wikimedia platforms can refer to your risk of being harassed, doxxed, or targeted by external organisations. There are ways to reduce the risk to yourself while you are using the platforms. For example, protecting your personal information gives anyone targeting you limited access to you and your life outside Wikimedia.
Here are some available resources to help with your digital safety:
Also, for some resources produced by other organisations, see the simple Security Planner to proactively stay safe online, and explore the Digital First Aid Kit for guidance in addressing digital harms as they arise.
If you are ever experiencing digital safety issues due to being active on Wikimedia platforms and you don’t know how to resolve them, or if you have any thoughts or questions on digital safety, you can reach out to our teams:
For concerns around harassment, abuse, doxxing, disinformation, or other Trust and Safety concerns: ca@wikimedia.org
For concerns about being targeted by a government or other human rights related concerns: talktohumanrights@wikimedia.org
Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in India
Dear all,
I would like to take the opportunity to inform you all about the upcoming annual Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in India.
The fundraising campaign will have two components.
We will send emails to people who have previously donated from India. The emails are scheduled to be sent between the 22nd of July to the 15th of August.
We will run banners for non-logged in users in India on English Wikipedia itself. The banners will run from the 13th of August to the 10th of September.
Prior to this, we are planning to run some tests, so you might see banners for 3-5 hours a couple of times before the campaign starts. This activity will ensure that our technical infrastructure works.
I am also sharing with you a community collaboration page, where we outline more details around the campaign, share some banner examples, and give you space to engage with the fundraising campaign.
Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact us:
I don't believe that's true, because @WMFOffice has contributions that are a subset of the above report, so there are some changes that are recorded and some that are not yet accounted for. Tonymetz💬23:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
What are you talking about? Most of WMFOffice's edits are marking users as globally banned (a process that has nothing to do with anything in the transparency report). None of it's extremely few other edits have anything to do with third-party requests for removal or alteration of content. * Pppery *it has begun...23:36, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
thanks i use a screen reader and the section i was using seemed to show alterations vs deletions. I'll see about the section you were talking about. Tonymetz💬20:14, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
what is status of movement charter drafting commission (mcdc)?
what is the current status of the movement charter drafting commission (mcdc)? can someone please post an update here, on the status of this process? I'm somewhat surprised that an update has not been posted here, for the current stage of the process. Sm8900 (talk) 19:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
There's been some news coverage and controversy over the recent RfC on the reliability of the Anti-Defamation League. Regardless of how any editor feels about that consensus, it's always nice that the WMF consistently sticks up for editors and for our editorial process - see their statement here. Their press releases on controversies like this are always accurate, informative to those who are unclear about the WMF:Wikipedia relationship, and unhesitant in their defense of what we do. Never any mealymouthing or backtracking. So as an editor, I wanted to say that I appreciate it, WMF! —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree that's a great statement and applaud the WMF for it. What I do find interesting is they talk about "Wikipedia", not "English language wikipedia". We're always being told (correctly) that enwiki is just one project out of many. It seems odd that this statement blurs the distinction. RoySmith(talk)15:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Saw the coverage in the Washington Post, and thought it was a clear and accurate account of how decisions are made on Wikipedia. I'm happy that the Foundation issued their statement, and that WaPo presented it so clearly. Donald Albury18:05, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
What I also liked with the WaPo article was the "ADL is on the WP:RSP-page, like these sources:..." comparison, I've seen other coverage on this making comparisons to Newsmax, Russian state media, amazon.com user reviews etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:46, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
However, "Wikipedia’s volunteers also added the ADL to a public list of sources to be avoided on certain topics" isn't quite right, but I don't know if any source who mentioned it noticed that ADL was there already:[4]Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:56, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Appreciate the nuance regarding reliability for certain topics too, although I was previously surprised to see a number of external publications had briefly mentioned this (obviously not the ones the WMF is correcting), and hopefully it helps all external sources that the WMF included a slightly longer explanation of the distinction. CMD (talk) 01:09, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
English banner fundraising campaign 2024 - community collaboration starting now
Dear all,
We would like to share with you the community collaboration page around the English fundraising banner campaign 2024. This page is for volunteers to learn about fundraising and share ideas for how we can improve the 2024 English fundraising campaign together. On this page you'll have messaging examples and spaces for collaboration, where you can share your ideas for how we can improve the next campaign together.
The fundraising banner pre-tests phase on English Wikipedia starts in mid-July with a few technical tests, using messaging that was created with the community during the last campaign. We will regularly update the collaboration page with new messaging ideas and updates on testing and campaign plans as we prepare for the main campaign that will launch at the end of November.
Generally, during the pre-tests and the campaign, you can contact us:
@Novem Linguae as you know, I opened a discussion there on how people should vote, in my opinion. is this location okay for some discussion on this topic, as well? Sm8900 (talk) 15:05, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Today I saw an exceptionally large banner on a wiki page (while not logged in), requesting donations. While this topic has been discussed previously, however this message states "it will soon be too late to help us in our fundraiser." This statement gives a clear message that Wikimedia is in dire financial condition and will soon go bankrupt, disregarding its ever growing 'substantial financial resources'. I have observed discontent among editors as well as readers about aggressive donation campaign sometimes, this one is clearly misleading (or maybe even a fraud for its language). Even after acknowledging the fact that there are multiple projects under Wikimedia (also those beyond the sisters of Wikipedia), it is nowhere accurate to say "it will soon be too late to help us in our fundraiser." Given that we editors strive hard to make articles as accurate and void of fringe theories as possible, this statement should be removed, and rather there should be some rules on how this banners are made. ExclusiveEditorNotify Me!13:39, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Oh come on, Mike. If I said "it's nearly too late to pull me out of the water!", would you think I was drowning, or nearly finished with my swim? The fundraising team are clearly pushing the community-established limits on banner language with this one.
Joe, thanks for the link; I think I'd seen that before but forgotten it. I don't see the banners myself as I'm always logged in so perhaps I'm not as sensitized to the language as others (or as others who've been discussing this for a while). I agree it's striking a note of urgency that takes a second to interpret; I wouldn't blame a reader of that text who -- for a moment -- thought it meant what ExclusiveEditor said. But it seems harmless to me to have text in a fundraising banner that says "this fundraising period is coming to an end; please donate now before you it ends". Do you read the linked RfC as saying that no text connoting urgency should be included in a fundraising banner? Or is it just that the urgency mustn't be in service of one of the points bulleted in that RfC close? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:29, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
I see it now @Mike Christie:, however would the people be not able to donate once the fundraiser is over? It is just creating an uneasy and unneeded sense of urgency. It is like say a youtuber who knows people will subscribe to his channel once they see at least of his video, but for that he puts a clickbait thumbnail over his video. It is not up to the standards of Wikipedia. Rather like me, many would take the wrong meaning out of it, especially from non English speaking countries. By the way I've started a discussion at meta:Talk:Fundraising#About Wikipedia:Fundraising/2024 banners for this, however I am not closing this because I've also suggested about a set of rules that mediates the banners, discussion about which could still be made here. ExclusiveEditorNotify Me!16:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Clearly it is controversial and subject to negative interpretations, so pull it out pending some further development. BD2412T23:11, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
It was not made clear what said "testing" would be on. I thought it implied "We will test multiple options and choose the one that gives most fundraising" which is fairly counterproductive. But 20+ days after the feedback, the fundraisers launched anyway with the odd phrasings, without clarity on how much of the 30 day period is "testing" and "production" phase. Soni (talk) 15:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
It does look like it was intended to imply things about the WMF's financial position that aren't true. Perhaps there was some thought that people might give because of that false urgency without checking to see if the WMF was really going bust. It's rather unseemly for the WMF, an organization that seeks to educate, to indulge in deception.Wehwalt (talk) 16:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the discussion here.
The intention behind the line "it will soon be too late to help us in our fundraiser" was to convey that “this fundraiser will soon be over,” not to suggest any financial threat to Wikipedia. We intentionally avoid peppering Wikipedia with multiple donation buttons, so very few people donate outside of a campaign. The fundraiser is the key moment for giving, and we aim to emphasize the importance of our work with a sense of urgency. The general use of urgency in messaging is an important and appropriate persuasion tool in nonprofit fundraising. It helps potential donors understand that their donation is necessary to advance a cause they care about.
However, ExclusiveEditor, your interpretation of the line as indicating a threat to Wikipedia’s financial stability is enough for us to reconsider its phrasing. We will workshop this line to avoid any misunderstandings.
Currently, we have no active banner campaigns live, aside from a brief systems test this week in India. Soni, to respond to your query, in India, we plan to run 2-3 short tests before the campaign goes live on August 13th. These tests will ensure our payment systems work at scale and help us refresh the content in response to the feedback we have been receiving. Sheetal Puri (WMF) (talk) 22:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
and help us refresh the content in response to the feedback we have been receiving Can you elaborate? What feedback do you expect to receive during the 2-3 short test period?
Is that feedback from editors? Readers? Is there a space where said feedback is collected so it's clearer to follow along what the changes are motivated by Soni (talk) 23:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
Why not use the exact words "this fundraiser will soon be over" if that is what you are trying to say? If you have to decode it for the editing community then presumably readers are having the exact same misinterpretation as us. * Pppery *it has begun...23:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
(e/c) I can't think of a way of saying "this fundraiser will soon be over" that actually conveys the meaning "this fundraiser will soon be over" in a clear and straightforward way. DuncanHill (talk) 23:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
Emails to past donors account for a very substantial part of revenue.
For reference, there is similar language in the current English fundraising emails (Email 1, Email 2, Email 3, Email 4) as well. For example:
"I’m sorry to interrupt, but it's Friday, June 14, 2024, and time will soon run out to help us because the clock is ticking on this fundraiser." (Email 2)
"But time will soon run out for you to help us in this fundraiser, so if you've been holding off until “later”, this is your moment. We need you. Please, remain one of Wikipedia's rare supporters." (Email 3)
"I know I said I was done in my last email, but it's Friday, June 14, 2024, and we haven't reached our goal. There are only a few days left in this fundraiser to make a difference. You have shown with your last donation how committed you are to helping us sustain Wikipedia. Please, remain one of the 2% of supporters who propel this important mission forward. It matters. We need you. Please remain an active Wikipedia supporter." (Email 4)
Also worth looking at:
"We don’t charge a subscription fee or run ads because we don’t want to put barriers between you and the knowledge you seek. In return, can we count on your support today?" (Email 1)
"Major websites have come and gone; new generations are growing up with no memory of a world without the connectivity and instant gratification of the internet. We owe it to them, in a world that is always changing, to keep Wikipedia free for everyone. Like it always was and always should be." (Email 2)
"This might be my last chance to request, so I want to make sure this third email reaches everyone who might donate. Right now, we're at a critical stage of our fundraiser." (Email 3)
"You have shown with your last donation how committed you are to helping us sustain Wikipedia. Please, remain one of the 2% of supporters who propel this important mission forward. It matters. [...] But I hope you'll agree that in a world where disinformation is everywhere, it is crucial that everyone has access to trustworthy information. We need our community of donors to help us reach our goal, and time will soon run out in this fundraiser." (Email 4)
Dark mode - one of the most requested features will transform Wikipedia’s accessibility and is now available on select wikis, on mobile and desktop, in both reading and editing mode!
MediaWiki insights into work done to improve security, ease of use, maintainability and overall code health. Also, a 25% increase in the number of authors who have committed more than 5 patches!
Have you ever wished monitoring and fighting vandalism was easier from your mobile device? Edit Patrol is here to help.
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees published its decision not to ratify the draft Movement Charter along with proposed next steps (minutes, resolution, appendix).
Movement Charter voting is closed. At the time of drafting, the scrutineers are working to ensure that all votes on the ballot are valid.
Hi all. We invite your feedback on a proposed way to improve communication from and about the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is an experiment to establish a more standardised format and cadence. It would include headlines and links from the Wikimedia Foundation's technical work; Foundation activities with communities and affiliates; as well as with other stakeholders like readers, donors, regulators, the media, and the general public.
This is an experiment: we want to know what you think, what is missing, what is too much, and whether this is something that we should consider investing more time and effort into. Please post your feedback on the Bulletin talk page - on the concept itself, and suggestions on anything from the design to specific words used would also be helpful. You can also provide feedback in this thread; by email to askcacwikimedia.org; or at the next Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees on 27 June at 18:00 UTC.
I've put the second issue below as well, and have signed this page up to receive them automatically in the future. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:38, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Bulletin June 2024
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation over the first half of June 2024. Please help Translate.
Feedback welcome on community collaboration page for annual banner fundraising campaign on English Wikipedia in India for non-logged in readers (planned for Aug 13 to Sep 10)
Watch the recording of the 11th edition of Wiki Workshop where research sessions on topics like Disinformation, Reliability, Representation and Gender, Governance and Policy, were held.
First edition of WikiLearn News released, highlighting opportunities and progress in the area of skills development.
These are excellent. Please keep them up, we could find a better way to integrate links to such newsletters from a global news page on Meta as well. [perhaps alongside one-line links out to the latest newsletters on individual projects] – SJ +17:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
I happened to view this with a different browser zoom level today, and FYI in case it helps, I find the one column version more readable than the two column version. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:03, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks @Novem Linguae, very helpful - we've had the same feedback about the two column version on French Wikipedia too so for the next issue (or maybe the one after that) we'll make the switch to single column. MPaul (WMF) (talk) 09:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
POTY (Picture of the Year) competition needs help!
POTY desperately needs new volunteers who can do the things required to run the competition. With the current state of the committee, it is likely that there will be no POTY this year, as the main member who ran scripts for the competition has burned-out from doing wikipedia tasks and isn't up for it. Others on the committee are also missing in action.
The political evolution of the US is worrying, given that the WMF is based there. What if in a few years the US government takes control of the WMF, seizes its assets, or becomes otherwise hostile? Can Wikipedia as we know it survive without being based in the US? Are there plans for decentralization or redundancy? Sylvain Ribault (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
Without speaking to the political situation, I will note that Wikipedia is backed up on server farms in other countries, and anyone can operate a clone of Wikipedia from anywhere, even if they could not use the name "Wikipedia". Donald Albury20:27, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
Interesting question. The WMF itself is pretty much entirely centralised, but it's always been pretty good at making it easy to mirror or fork Wikipedia. Our license is of course also a big help. So in this kind of scenario, I imagine preserving the content would be no problem at all, but reassembling the community would be difficult, and rebuilding the kind of financial resources the WMF has (to host, maintain, and develop Mediawiki) would be very challenging indeed. – Joe (talk) 20:42, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
Whatever dystopian future awaits the US, that the WMF would be taken over by political hacks is 3 or 4 apocalypses removed from reality. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}11:59, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
I think the main actual obstacle is that Wikipedia's existence depends on a fairly high degree of active maintenence of the MediaWiki software, and also -- most crucially -- that search engines give us a gigantic volume of incoming traffic. Incidentally, the forks that have existed have routinely had trouble with being absolutely slaughtered in Google rankings because their content is all considered by the algorithm to be "plagiarized" from Wikipedia. jp×g🗯️12:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
One of our most important tools, Earwig's Copyvio Detector, depends on access to Google. According to the tool's creator and operator, The Earwig, the WMF has kindly been paying for this Google access. Unfortunately, we've been hampered by a strict limit on the number of searches allowed per day. The Earwig mentioned that there might be a way to work out a special arrangement with Google to increase the cap. Would someone at the WMF be able to pursue this?
In case it helps, this is a vital tool to a number of English Wikipedia processes, and it would surprise me to learn that the sister projects aren't using it as well. We use the tool routinely as part of our new page patrol, articles for creation, contributor copyright investigations, did you know, good article, and featured article processes. Historically, the WMF has taken a special interest in supporting volunteer work that focuses on our legal responsibilities, of which compliance with copyright law is an obvious example. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:34, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
My understanding is that Google has a hard daily limit of 10,000 API accesses per day for absolutely everyone across the board, without exception. User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Copyvio detectors#Earwig copyvio detector. My impression is that an exception wasn't possible because Google doesn't provide an exception to anyone. Earwig would know best though.
Was this post made because Earwig said "please ask WMF on my behalf to negotiate with Google", or is this more of general question? –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:15, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
Earwig didn't ask me to do anything on his behalf. He mentioned that "the WMF pays for it, but Google's API terms limit our usage without some kind of special arrangement that I have been unable to get." This was at a discussion at his user talk. I wasn't sure who might be able to negotiate a special arrangement, and I'm not sure it's a possibility, but this was the best place I could think to ask. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
A bit odd that Earwig isn't doing the advocating himself, but on the linked user talk page, it does sound like he's asking for some help with this. Would The Earwig be willing to share his contacts at WMF that have helped with this in the past? Sounds like WMF pays for the tool, so there's some accounting/finance/grants contact that knows a little about it. And we also have partnerships people like NPerry (WMF) that I believe has worked with Google before. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:43, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
From what I've heard, the WMF contact that Earwig had has since left the Foundation and wouldn't be able to help in this case. You are correct that WMF pays for the tool. I had mentioned this at the Hackathon with staff and it seems there's some resistance in getting the cost of extra tokens funded, although I'm unsure of exactly how the WMF's budgeting process works, so no clue on the impact it has in this situation (considering we don't have a Google liaison to begin with). Chlod (say hi!) 05:20, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
Even the name of a former WMF employee contact would be helpful. Let's get all this documented so we can start figuring out what WMF departments/teams have assisted in the past. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
Hi all. Firefangledfeathers, thanks for starting the discussion. Novem, sorry if this thread came up a bit strangely. In truth, I struggle a little with motivation these days, so I really appreciate others' help getting the ball rolling. I am still here, though—it comes in waves. (It's also good to involve the community in the tool so the institutional knowledge isn't stuck with me.)
BTW, I am working on more effectively managing automated/excessive tool usage and will soon require OAuth to run searches (see this active thread on my talk). Right now the tool really doesn't have any usage guards or a way to limit individual users' activity, which isn't good when our resources are so limited. It's possible doing that will free up our resources a lot if a substantial fraction of our current usage is coming from malicious crawlers, despite Chlod and I's attempts at blocking them (the tool has been running for over a decade and it's never been this bad, though I have a theory what this is about). Even so, finding a way to increase our search quota will enable us to support some requested features that are current nonstarters, even if the tool's entire current quota could be devoted to it, like checking all new pages.
My main point of contact with the WMF in the past was Kaldari. The last time we spoke about the tool was 2020; since then, the situation has been unclear. (MusikAnimal, do you remember if we've spoken about this?) Last year Runab WMF and DTankersley (WMF) reached out to me to discuss the tool in the context of WMF efforts "to find ways to reduce single points of failure for tools that require a third party API", but after an initial conversation I haven't heard back aside from being told that Deb was moved to another project, so I'm not sure what happened with those efforts.
Frequently we've discussed adding an alternate search backend aside from Google. While Google is really the gold standard for breadth of search coverage, as far as I'm aware—and this is really what the copyvio detector needs, not necessarily quality/intelligence; people have suggested services like DuckDuckGo, but they're really unsuitable because they just republish raw results from Bing with some additional flair that is basically useless for us—something like Bing itself might work as an (automatic) fallback if we exhaust our Google credits for the day. I believe Bing has roughly equivalent pricing/usage limits as Google, but it's been a while since I've looked into it. And we/the WMF would need to establish a relationship with Bing for that to work; I don't know if that's a better idea than attempting to negotiate our Google limits. There are also other options like Yandex (which the tool did use one dark time in the past before the Google relationship and after Yahoo ended their free service... it wasn't great, at least for English results, but it's something that could be looked into for some other language projects, perhaps). Finally, there was a discussion on my talk earlier this year with Samwalton9 (WMF) about adding The Wikipedia Library as another search backend, and I did correspond briefly with someone at EBSCO about this, but again, I haven't heard from either of them about this in several months. — The Earwig (talk) 06:51, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
So the Google API proxy and the Google account it runs on are wholly part of Community Tech's budget. Kaldari was the contact in the past when they were my manager on CommTech. So the good news is Community Tech is still here, and we are actively maintaining this proxy (I just migrated it to a newer Debian a few days ago). The part that hasn't changed is our quota from Google, and sadly I doubt it will change. We are already paying hefty fines for the quota we have now, but I believe it is also correct that 10K is a strict limit from Google. I can see from the graphs in the API console that we almost always hit that limit within the first 12 hours of each day.
I am working on more effectively managing automated/excessive tool usage and will soon require OAuth to run searches … – that is most certainly the best immediate recourse for addressing this problem. From my years of shielding XTools from web crawlers, I can say with confidence that putting up a login wall by itself should make a big difference. I also think mitigating excessive and automated use is something that would probably be required before we could consider dishing out more money to Google. However again, I don't think such negotiations would get us anywhere anyway :(
As a general note, such "negotiations" are typically done these days via the Partnerships team. I went though them recently when we solidified our partnership with Turnitin. Speaking of which… do others find the "Use Turnitin" option of Copyvios at all useful? Because that's using the old Turnitin account (the new one can't be used outside CopyPatrol), and the last I checked there were still a few million credits left. — MusikAnimaltalk20:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for those details. So I can improve my notes at User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Copyvio detectors#Earwig copyvio detector, do you know why/how Google API Proxy ended up separate from the main tool? And does "paying hefty fines" mean that there is some sort of sliding scale of pricing and that getting near the cap gets more expensive? My notes currently state that Google API credits cost us $50/day. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:52, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
The Google API Proxy (docs at wikitech:Nova Resource:Google-api-proxy) exists solely to anonymize requests to the Google APIs, should they be used in a fashion that sends personal data such as your IP or user agent. As far as I know, Copyvios has always accessed Google APIs through this proxy.
I'm not aware of any sort of sliding scale as far as pricing goes, and my use of the word "hefty" was relative to my team. However since I made my reply above, I have been informed that the budget is actually not solely from Community Tech, as it was in the past (but we do still maintain the proxy). I don't have any details about internal accounting, I'm afraid. My apologies for any confusion caused. — MusikAnimaltalk19:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Wouldn't the Toolforge tool itself serve as an anonymizing proxy as long as the Google API requests are being sent via a backend rather than via browser JavaScript? But that's a bit of a tangent :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:18, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
I imagine it also serves to decouple who pays Google from who operates the service using the Google API. isaacl (talk) 21:11, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
From my years of shielding XTools from web crawlers, I can say with confidence that putting up a login wall by itself should make a big difference
I'm willing to entertain alternate methods for anonymous users to access the tool. I do need some way to attribute usage to a human, though. Any suggestions? I might present a challenge page where you have to answer some question (essentially a CAPTCHA, but one that works without JS). Or I can require anonymous users request a token (that would be saved as a cookie so does not need to be entered with each request). — The Earwig (talk) 00:00, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
That's a good question, but I can't tell from the documentation whether temporary accounts are able to use OAuth. I would need to test it. (And we may need some other solution in the meantime, before that's deployed.) — The Earwig (talk) 14:25, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
I know nothing about what the "modern" methods are of telling bots and humans apart these days (besides knowing that CAPTCHAs are apparently broken: e.g. Table 3 in [6]), so I probably won't be able to provide many helpful suggestions. If we need to request a token from you, I for one would be okay with that if it's a one-time process, but would that be handled by an automatic system or by asking you for one manually—and if the latter, is there any indication how many anonymous editors (legitimately) use the tool so you won't be potentially flooded with hundreds of requests?
Another idea I had is making sure the requesting IP address' /64 range (if IPv6, or the address alone if IPv4) has made at least one edit to the Wikimedia site the Earwig request is for. I could easily be assuming wrong, but I would think there wouldn't be many cases where an anonymous user would want to check for copyright violations on a site they've never even edited before. This would admittedly require anonymous users to be on the same device they edit from to use the tool, but so would requiring a browser token. ...however, I don't know how technically feasible that is, and obviously someone malicious could just manually change their IP address (but would someone running hundreds of web crawlers go to that effort for every single one of them?). 2603:8001:4542:28FB:9566:5D77:1AC4:CB78 (talk) 18:47, 12 August 2024 (UTC) (Actual talk)
@The Earwig: OAuth is not available for temporary accounts. The T&S Product Team aims to make the experience with temporary accounts very similar to what IPs have now, which includes not having access to OAuth or user groups. @2603:*: For IPs, we don't have access to IP addresses on Toolforge, so we can't check on wikis if a specific Toolforge visitor's IP has made an edit on the wikis. Requesting a special token, as you've mentioned, is probably a better option to go for if we want to have anonymous editors keep their access. Since there aren't that many editors who do all of their edits on an IP, we shouldn't get too many requests for this. What should be decided is the minimum requirements for giving this access, and the criteria for revoking it (should we find out that an editor has been using a token maliciously). Chlod (say hi!) 05:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Given IP addresses (and thus contributions) can't be measured by Toolforge, what prerequisites could even be measured? Or would the token-giving occur on a different site?
In terms of revoking, my knee-jerk thought is more than M requests in a minute or N requests in a day could cause the token to get revoked until the anonymous user interacts with a human to request it back. But A. I don't know if that's how things work with tokens and Toolforge, and B. I'd be curious to know what the already-established practice and limits for e.g. the Wikipedia API and whatnot are, to have some sort of a benchmark. 2603:8001:4542:28FB:C10F:60AC:578A:3F8 (talk) 22:48, 13 August 2024 (UTC) (Actual talk)
more than M requests in a minute ... could cause the token to get revoked You need to be careful with that. When I'm checking DYK queues, I check a whole set at a time, which means opening nine (or more) Earwig windows in a few seconds. RoySmith(talk)23:25, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Feature updates from the Tech News: Stewards can now globally block accounts; Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest; and interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as “Pending Changes”) is improved.
This month’s Wikimedia Research Showcase highlighted the impact machine translation has on both content and readers of Wikipedia and provided interesting insights on how to overcome related challenges. Watch the recording.
The Charts project officially kicked off. The goal of this new initiative is to restore basic data visualization capabilities to the wikis. Check out the project page and follow our progress on Phabricator.
The CampaignEvents extension is now available on Meta-wiki, Arabic Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested on other wikis. This extension helps manage and make events more visible. Learn about how to request this extension.
The Campaigns Product & Programs teams have launched a consultation on WikiProjects and other forms of collaboration on the wikis. They want to understand why they work (or don’t work) for some Wikimedia communities, and they want to learn what can be done to improve the experience. Everyone is encouraged to share their feedback.
The Board of Trustees selection pre-onboarding and campaign period is open from July 25 to August 26.
Foundation Trustee Dariusz Jemelniak was appointed to the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, established as part of the EU’s key funding program for research and innovation.
I am an occasional user of SWViewer, a vandalism patrolling tool that is (in my understanding) partly maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. I generall like its interface and design, and I have found it to be a useful tool.
I do have one item that I would like to discuss though: I think it would be wise to add a checkbox for whether or not to mark an edit as minor. Currently, the interface allows users to tick a box for "Use undo" when rolling back an edit with a summary. This is good, but it only allows users to revert edits in a way that is marked as minor. I understand that certain wikis, such as the English Wikipedia, have a very narrow understanding of what constitutes a minor edit, and there are times when I want to undo an edit but it is not technically a minor edit. This makes me have to manually go to the English Wikipedia and click the "undo" button there rather than keeping all of this in the SWViewer interface.
Is there a way that the WMF could either:
Not automatically mark edits made while "Use undo" is ticked as minor (i.e. submit them to non-minor edits); or
Allow users to select whether or not their actions are considered to be minor edits (via a tick box)?
Hi, I'm not WMF staff (although I am the Wikimedian of the Year) but I noticed something I thought should have wider community input. Please keep in mind that as far as I'm aware this is in very early stages and there is no guarantee that it will actually be implemented. Also, please be nice. I anticipate that some people will be surprised by what it was being proposed here so I felt like this was an important reminder. Anyways: mw:Wikimedia Apps/Team/iOS/Fundraising Experiment in the iOS App. There is a feedback section towards the end of you wish to give it. I have already commented there. Clovermoss🍀(talk)17:47, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
This is an example of what is being proposed. Essentially, there would be a donation button near the top right of an article and these would kind of be like Reddit trophies. I think this needs way more visibility than being buried in the depths of mediawiki which is why I'm posting here. Clovermoss🍀(talk)18:52, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
Hi @Clovermoss, it’s Haley from the Mobile Apps team! You’re correct that the project is in very early stages. We just recently published the project page and had planned to start outreach after Wikimania—that’s why folks might not have heard about it yet. In short, the idea is that we want to try out other ways of fundraising beyond just banners – hopefully ways that make readers and editors feel more connected to each other. But we know that fundraising ideas have to be considered carefully, which is why our goal right now is just to be in conversation with the community on high level concepts. We hope people will join the discussion on the project page. P.S. Congratulations on Wikimedian of the Year! HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
This should have been mentioned at the fundraising brainstorming page as soon as it was published. I object to the "gamification" aspect of giving money to people. I'm not sure how "donating from an article" is an improvement over just having a discrete "donate" button, which we already have. In conclusion: I think this is unnecessary.
Also here – is it THAT HARD to say "introduce", which is a long-standing, universally recognized word, rather than "onboarding" which is today's #1 corporatese-jargon? These things always make the WMF look bad, bureaucratic, corporate, and out of touch. Cremastra (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
@HNordeen (WMF): This is what I meant when I said at the page itself that this is likely to cause a public relations disaster. Imagine a thousand comments like this. Please understand that I really don't think this is a good idea and I don't say this because I wish you to fail but I wish to see everyone suceed. Clovermoss🍀(talk)17:13, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I'll also note that the phrase "Microinteraction and confirmation snackbar." was used without apparent embarrassment to mean "a notification/confirmation box". The thing is, phrases like this are inaccessible, and make these pages harder to understand. Cremastra (talk) 17:17, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
While "microinteraction" definitely should've been left out, that's not a "box". "Confirmation box" sounds like a dialog for you to confirm. A snackbar can only be a small message that pops up from the bottom to tell you that the operation has been a success (sometimes with an ündo" button to the right). Aaron Liu (talk) 18:17, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, what I meant by confirmation box was a box confirming that the operation worked. That is, it's sending you a confirmation, not the other way around. Cremastra (talk) 18:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
That's an important distinction for developers, but I think if the page is targeted to the general public, "notification bar" should suffice. Cremastra (talk) 18:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound like a complete crank, but this is, I think, part of the reason some or many editors react badly to WMF pages like this: they're sometimes hard to understand and come off as a bit condescending. I've WP:BOLDly toned down the language so that it's easier to understand for non-developers. Cremastra (talk) 18:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I appreciate that my comment prompted you to reflect and tone things down a little. [7] I also know that your heart is in the right place too and that a lot of the time these comments are caused by a series of frustrating events and not feeling like one has been listened to. Feel free to tell me if I'm putting words in your mouth, Cremastra. I just know that HNordeen (WMF) is relatively new to the foundation and I don't want her to feel like all of this was directed at her personally. Clovermoss🍀(talk)18:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I guess I can put this here: I feel like calling this "mobile fundraising" is a little bit misleading. Do not misunderstand me: I sincerely appreciate Clovermoss bringing this here, regardless of the title. But this is not really about fundraising on mobile. That always has happened, and I doubt anyone will have feedback on that. This is about allowing people to donate to "support"/"champion"/"appreciate" a particular article. Would "allowing people to donate in appreciation of a particular article" be a neutral way to phrase what is being suggested? Best, HouseBlaster (talk · he/they) 18:32, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I said mobile fundraising because I wasn't sure what else I could put without making it sound like I was canvassing and steering the discussion a certain way. Between here and CENT, I'm sure this will get enough eyes instead of being buried at mediawiki. If someone does change the title, I'd suggest that it's as clear and concise as possible. Clovermoss🍀(talk)18:42, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
@HouseBlaster: What would you think if we added "experiment" to the end of the current text? It'd make it more clear that what is being proposed is a bit different compared to a normal mobile fundraising. Clovermoss🍀(talk)21:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I'm largely indifferent to the idea of mobile fundraising in general, and was surprised it wasn't already well established. I'm also mostly indifferent to the idea of donations tied to articles. What I have a quite strong opinion about is what happens when someone donates "to" an article. To the point: there should be no direct connection between donations and the appearance of a Wikipedia article for anyone other than the donor. No matter how it's framed (badges, stickers, sponsors, endorsements, pictures, text, etc.), if there's any way to affect the appearance of the article with money, there will emerge metacommunicative/signalling strategies to manipulate the system in unacceptable ways. On some level, I like the idea of audiences being better able to communicate appreciation to contributors, but it has to be divorced from money. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 18:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
To the point: there should be no direct connection between donations and the appearance of a Wikipedia article for anyone other than the donor.
Agreed. I also see that the WMF recognises at least some of issues this could cause, saying Safeguards should be added to prevent inappropriate usage of the feature on sensitive articles, but I don’t think they’ve thought through the complexity of accurately classifying articles as sensitive.
Alternatively, if they have already succeeded in doing so in a robust manner, can they please release the tool, as it will be very helpful in general? BilledMammal (talk) 00:23, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
I think the safeguards comment was in regards to the concerns that I and other people expressed at the page itself on why you wouldn't want something like this on controversial articles. As far as I'm aware, this is just an idea and nothing has actually been implemented. That would mean that there isn't a way to filter this content out yet either. Clovermoss🍀(talk)00:41, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
I encourage people to leave their feedback on the mediawiki page itself (see my initial comments at the top of the thread) so it isn't scattered across pages and projects. Clovermoss🍀(talk)00:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
Thank you to everyone who has spoken up here - I'll echo @Clovermoss's request to please leave thoughts and ideas on the mediawiki project page. The mediawiki page has been edited to make it more clear (thank you for suggestions on how to do that!) and in hopes to communicate that this is at an early stage, and we are not limited to this first idea that is on the page. I've also expanded the page to include risks that have been brought up so far. Thanks to everyone who has contributed, we have the capacity to try a new format of fundraising within the iOS app this year, and we're excited to work together with you to identify what form it could take. HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
@HNordeen (WMF):identify what form it could take makes it sound like this will be further developed even if the feedback you receive is overwhelming negative. I really hope that is not the case. Clovermoss🍀(talk)21:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Hi @Clovermoss, it's meant to communicate that we want to change direction to pursue alternate ideas in response to feedback and suggestions we receive. We want to work together with you to figure out ways of recognizing existing donors and creating pathways for potential donors, and we only want to proceed with ideas that we can all feel good about experimenting with. HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in India postponed to start on the 27th of August
Dear all,
As mentioned previously, the WMF is running its annual banner fundraising campaign for non logged in users in India. Initially, we planned the campaign to start tomorrow and run until the 10th of September. We have had some issues with our local payment provider in India and due to this we are postponing the campaign by a couple of weeks. Our new campaign dates are the 27th of August to the 24th of September.
You can find more information around the campaign, see example banners, and leave any questions or suggestions you might have, on the community collaboration page.
Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact us:
The Open Conversation with the Trustees at Wikimania hosted breakout discussions about the Movement Charter, affiliate strategy and hubs, the proposal for a Global Resource Distribution Committee (hybrid table--had streaming and is available to watch back online), the Product/Tech Advisory Council & Product/Tech priorities, building a sustainable revenue strategy for the movement: online fundraising, Wikimedia Enterprise and the Wikimedia Endowment, and responding to emerging threats to free knowledge: litigation, censorship, disinformation, and trust in an election year.
You are invited to join the discussion at meta:Community Wishlist Survey/Future Of The Wishlist/January 4, 2024 Update. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 March 4 § Template:WikimediaNoLicensing. — Frostly (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!
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