This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (WMF). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
They decided to rebrand to MediaWiki Foundation in the end? – SD0001 (talk) 15:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Open Letter from Arbcoms to the Board of Trustees
I just stumbled onto m:Open Letter from Arbcoms to the Board of Trustees, expressing concerns about how the UCoC Enforcement policies are being developed. Thanks and support to our Arbs (won't ping you all) and those of the cs, de, fr, pl, ru, uk communities. You have expressed it better than I ever could. Pelagic ( messages ) – (23:39 Wed 31, AEDT) 12:39, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a universal baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire Wikimedia movement and all its projects. The project is currently in Phase 2, outlining clear enforcement pathways. You can read more about the whole project on its project page.
Drafting Committee: Call for applications
The Wikimedia Foundation is recruiting volunteers to join a committee to draft how to make the code enforceable. Volunteers on the committee will commit between 2 and 6 hours per week from late April through July and again in October and November. It is important that the committee be diverse and inclusive, and have a range of experiences, including both experienced users and newcomers, and those who have received or responded to, as well as those who have been falsely accused of harassment.
2021 community consultations: Notice and call for volunteers / translators
From 5 April – 5 May 2021 there will be conversations on many Wikimedia projects about how to enforce the UCoC. We are looking for volunteers to translate key material, as well as to help host consultations on their own languages or projects using suggested key questions. If you are interested in volunteering for either of these roles, please contact us in whatever language you are most comfortable.
[Wiki For human rights] Invitation to participate discussion
Hello everyone,
This is Michel BAKNI from Wikimedia Foundation. I am writing this post on behalf of the Wiki for Human Rights Campaign which is an annual campaign. This year we are focusing on the right to a healthy environment.
We are currently looking for local communities to engage in the campaign. Thus I would like to invite you all to participate in the challenge or any event related to the human rights campaign.
Here are some usual links related to this year's campaign:
Please feel free to get back to me if you have any questions or need more information, you can also add join the discussion here and I will be more than happy to answer all of your questions.--Michel Bakni (talk) 19:10, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
There's a proposal to run a Central Notice banner for a #WikiForHumanRights writing challenge on "Right to a healthy environment" which would run from 15 to 21-April. Please discuss at link. --Michel Bakni (talk) 19:17, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Notification of discussion at Wikipedia talk:Oversight
Hello! I've been advised by Beeblebrox to notify this village pump about a discussion regarding the potential use of a remake of the Oversight logo using a 3D version of at the Wikipedia logo. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:Oversight#Proposal to change the Oversight logo. Chlod (say hi!) 21:12, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Community Resilience & Sustainability office hour April 17 15:00 UTC
Duplicated from VPM
Hi all! The Community Resilience & Sustainability team at the Wikimedia Foundation is hosting an office hour led by its Vice President Maggie Dennis. Topics within scope for this call include Movement Strategy coordination (recently transferred to CR&S), Trust and Safety (and the Universal Code of Conduct), Community Development, and Human Rights. Come with your questions or feedback, and let’s talk! You can also send us your questions in advance.
--
I've copied this across from VPM, as this seems more appropriate. If you follow the office hours it will also explain how to email questions in advance For Maggie to answer. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Hi. I have created the page below, simply to facilitate greater awareness and discussion of current and active proposals by WMF, in the most inclusive and positive way possible. any comments and input are welcome. thanks!!
I'm not the most familiar with existing venues for announcements from the WMF, but I have some concern this could become a fork of any such existing venues and end up inactive. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 22:45, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
I misread that as in the most inconclusive...way possible and thought "yup, that sounds like noticeboard business as usual" GeneralNotability (talk) 23:16, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
lol! good one! ---Sm8900 (talk) 🚀🌍 15:17, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
thanks for those suggestions. much appreciated. ---Sm8900 (talk) 🚀🌍 15:17, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Charter drafting process proposal and discussion
Certain individuals who were involved in the strategy process have put forward a proposal for going forward with the Interim Global Council and Movement Charter. Part of the proposal is to start the IGC with a group of people who were active in the Strategy groups, rather than starting with some other selection process such as elections, as had been suggested previously. The proposal also suggests limiting the IGC's scope to so that it does not include strategy implementation oversight.
There's going to be an open zoom call on the topic in about an hour from now. --Yair rand (talk) 01:12, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Board elections resolution
See m:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/2021-04-15 Resolution about the upcoming Board elections. Tl;dr: Call for candidates for the election of four community-elected trustees is planned to start June 8, voting from July 20 to August 3, using a system of proportional representation to be decided by the elections committee. (Timeline may be delayed if ElecCom thinks this isn't enough time to set things up.) In a future election, the Board may introduce geographic or gender quotas. See the full proposal. --Yair rand (talk) 19:25, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Which is a change from the previous direct election system, just to make it clearer. —DerHexer(Talk) 09:42, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
This remains uncertain to me, and does not seem to have been clarified in the proposal. Instead, this seems to be left open to the Election Committee. Best, —DerHexer(Talk) 23:52, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
That's a good outcome, I'm glad they're sticking to a fairly simple process. --RaiderAspect (talk) 12:19, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Meta proposal: closing the gap between communities in discussions with WMF
This proposal grew out of concerns editors on the Portuguese Wikipedia had about the current fundraising campaign in Brazil – editors were unhappy with the design and wording of the banners, and wondered why the WMF hadn't consulted the local community beforehand.
What's proposed is that community consultation should not just happen on Meta. Rather, WMF staff should initiate important discussions concerning finance, security etc. in the various wikis' Village Pumps (or equivalent), with a central page on Meta serving not just as a space for discussion, but also as a directory of discussions on that topic in the various language wikis, with a link to each.
Free machine translation programs like DeepL (excellent quality) and Google Translate (slightly inferior quality, but more supported languages right now) have become so good that it's very much easier than a few years ago to get an idea what people in other wikis are saying. It may sometimes help for people to see that different communities have quite similar views and concerns, and that insight may also strengthen the position of volunteers vis-a-vis the WMF.
At any rate, the idea is that any decisions taken by the WMF and/or on Meta should reflect the wider consensus, including that of editors who don't participate much on Meta because of language barriers or simply because they don't know their way around there.
If you like or dislike the idea or have anything to add, please chip in either here and/or on Meta. Cheers! --AndreasJN466 17:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Here is the wording of the proposal as posted on Meta
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Proposal
Problem: abysmal distance between Meta and Base Communities
What we have today is a star design with Meta in center
What we have today is a Meta formed by users who have migrated from their base communities (home wikis) and formed a new community, who decide and impose these decisions on the base communities in a top-down model of governance. In this model, the design of the relationship between Meta and the base communities is a star, with Meta at the center, where each base community has a relationship only with Meta. In the image on the right, Meta is represented by the central green dot.
Consequences
The negative consequences of these models are several. To name a few: a) the decisions do not reflect the opinion of the totality of the communities, but only of those who form the community on Meta; b) editors and users who do not have the full confidence of their base communities, but possess that of the Meta community, end up deciding and imposing their decisions on the base communities; c) sometimes decisions of the base community are administratively contested by Meta (formed by outsiders in relation to the base communities), overruling the decisions of the base community; d) several editors that don't frequent Meta (for various reasons, such as language, difference of political and technical structure, lack of time and others) end up not participating in the decisions on Meta; e) there is no knowledge and recognition between communities, since they don't interact other than through Meta; f) etc.
Examples
1) Concerns about the fundraising banner, which is not at all harmonious with the Brazilian (Portuguese? Others?) society (therefore probably not very effective), and not even with the Wikipedia.pt community (see the discussion at: here) (with participation of: Ppena (WMF) and JBrungs (WMF));
2) Serious safety problems caused by deficient or non-existent guidelines on how to behave to protect oneself from lawsuits and other abuses (no response from AKeton (WMF), Jrogers (WMF) and JSutherland (WMF) on the topic). Lack of guidelines that should have a clear line for users to access the protections provided by WMF (discussion of the topic can be found at Legal guidelines and intervention.
3) etc.
Suggestion: Meta as communication channel and organizer
What's proposed is a Mesh design organized by Meta
A modification in the function and structure of the Meta wiki is proposed, changing the communication structure between Meta and base communities from Star to Mesh, where the Meta does not function as a centralizer and separate decision maker, but as a communication channel and organizer of discussions.
In the image on the right, Meta is not symbolized by any points, but by the edges connecting the points. Meta, in this sense, does not form a separate community, but forms the base communities' communication channels.
In practice
In practice, this would work like this: every important decision (for example on finance and security) would have to open a page on Meta and immediately, without fail, open a page on the largest Wikimedia communities (x registered editors or other criteria), and could be taken to others depending on the interest and willingness of local users.
In this way, in addition to discussions on Meta itself, discussions would take place in parallel on various communities forums and in various languages simultaneously. Furthermore, there will be a link in each of these discussions to all other discussions, so that editors in one base community can easily access the correct discussions in the other base community.
It is not necessary that all arguments be brought into Meta, but if decisions are made on Meta, this will then be in a more decentralized way, enriched by diverse discussions.
The fascinating thing about Google translate is that one person says that is is really good and another person translating between the same languages says that it is awful. Or someone says that is is great with language A but terrible with language B while someone else comes to the same conclusion with A and B reversed.
So why does this happen?
First, GT tries to break down each sentence into individual phrases and, based on previous translations, tries to find a match in their database -- and the database is huge.
So if the president of France makes a major announcement that is picked up and translated in all the international newspapers, and later you use a part of a phrase that he used on a Wikipedia talk page, the translation is spot on. But if there is a hugely popular joke with a punchline that translates "Adios Amigo" into "Eat a Banana", that may be what you get.
If no translated phrase is found, GT does a word-for word translation with algorithms that try to understand the sentence structure of each language -- poorly. Which can run into the "Time flies like an arrow/Fruit flies like a banana" problem -- but only if those two phrases are not in the database.
Thus you get the fascinating effect that the translation of one phrase rocks while the translation of another phrase sucks. And by writing that I just made GT a little bit worse at translating "the pump sucks water out of the bilge, but if the boat rocks it sucks air instead". --Guy Macon (talk) 21:45, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Guy Macon, my experience: good at French, really bad at Dutch :-) Guy (help! - typo?) 21:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Guy Macon, have you tried DeepL. I tend to use Bing translate as well. scope_creepTalk 16:43, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
We hope this email finds you well and safe. The COVID 19 situation continues to affect many of us across the globe and our thoughts are with everyone affected. We are also aware that there are several processes currently in progress that demand volunteer time and we do not want to add more work to anyone's plate.
We do want to draw your attention to our new Regional Committees for Grants though as they are an opportunity for you to have an active say in the future of our Movement!
📣 So today, we invite you to join our new Regional Committees for Grants! 📣
We encourage Wikimedians and Free Knowledge advocates to be part of the new Regional Committees that the WMF Community Resources team is setting up as part of the grants strategy relaunch [1]. You will be a key strategic thought partner to help understand the complexities of any region, provide knowledge and expertise to applicants, to support successful movement activities, and make funding decisions for grant applications in the region.
Regional Committees will be established for the following regions:
Middle East and Africa
SAARC [3] region (Includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka)
East, Southeast Asia, and Pacific (ESEAP) region
Latin America (LATAM) and The Caribbean
United States and Canada
Northern and Western Europe
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
👉All details about the Committees and how to apply can be found on meta [4]. Applications have to be submitted by June 4, 2021!
If you have any questions or comments, please use the meta discussion page [5].
Please do share this announcement widely with your Network.
Best wishes,
JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 06:22, 21 May 2021 (UTC) on behalf of the Community Resources Team
On the subject line and word choice in the message
I sincerely doubt that new points are going to be made if this discussion continues, so let's try closing it. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
"Subject line"? "This email"? Does anyone at the WMF remember when they got their money and jobs from the work some volunteers did on some wiki? The good old days, you know? It would show a bit more respect if you adressed us as if you were a Wikipedian / Wikimedian as well, and not as if this message here is a distant afterthought after it had been shared on some much more important mailing list for the "true" WMFians.
Greetings, your key strategic thought partner from your Network. Fram (talk) 07:34, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
And Fram is supposed to "fix" the way the WMF makes decisions...how? What steps, exactly, would Fram have to take in order to accomplish this? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:16, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
You're losing your mind over a noticeboard post assuming it's some grand conspiracy to insult you. Fram's comment wasn't some magnum opus on the organizational structure of the WMF; it was a complaint about how a notice to hundreds of wikis and mailing lists was formatted. This might be a crazy idea—we can't possibly have the technology in this day and age—but maybe some people get notified of watch list changes through email and so would actually see this as an email? Perhaps, and I'm really just making things up at this point, a post can be made by email and on-wiki simultaneously so that work is minimized while audience and participation are maximized? No, that would make no sense. Why would the evil empire WMF try to inform as many people as possible? It's much simpler to assume this is part of some grand conspiracy where the illuminati WMF decides to screw over this wiki specifically with it's insidious mass message to hundreds of communities. Stop yelling at clouds getting pissed off at mass messages like it's a personal insult, you look unhinged. If you want to go back to the "good old days" try editing the post to remove the vulgar "subject line" and insulting "this email". It's a wiki after all, or do we only appeal to the wiki ethic when it's convenient? — Wug·a·po·des 22:06, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Fram was making the point that someone from the WMF has no idea about community norms for posting a talk-page message. It's not a question of fixing it or educating them, it's a reflection on the unfortunate fact that many people in the WMF are in a bubble where staff are concerned with their own welfare and are almost totally cut off from Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 23:24, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Johnuniq, This page was created to enhance communication between the WMF and enwiki editors. Beating up on and insulting WMF staff when they try to communicate isn't going to advance that goal. WP:CIVIL and WP:BITE apply here just as much as they do anywhere else on enwiki. -- RoySmith(talk) 23:45, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
WP:BITE shouldn't apply to WMF'ers, they shouldn't be "newcomers". I find their post insulting, you don't, fine. I don't see you complaining about Wugapodes claiming "You're losing your mind over a noticeboard post assuming it's some grand conspiracy", which is a completely over the top reply to my and Guy Macons post. Further on: "you look unhinged." Seriously, that is an acceptable post but mine or Guy's are a problem? No one claimed or implied a grand conspiracy, no one but Wugapodes is "losing their mind" over it. But apparently it is fine to give such over-the-top replies to enwiki editors, but it isn't fine to see issues with how the WMF too often interacts with us. Strangely, the "Subject line:" part was already removed from their post when they posted to other communities[6], e.g. here two minutes later. So it was perfectly possible to change the message, they realised that their post looked poor, they just didn't come back to change it here. Wugapodes simply assumed stuff putting the WMF in the best possible light, as a means to blatantly insult people here, and you RoySmith, apparently have no problem with that? Good going there. Fram (talk) 08:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Your reply wasn't "disrespectful" or "sarcastic", it was a pure and simple personal attack. Either make a genuine apology or don't bother. If you want to lecture people on their behaviour, perhaps first look at yourself. And please don't misrepresent the ArbCom case, there was no "particularly those at the WMF" or anything close in the link you provided. Fram (talk) 07:09, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Sorry, you're correct and I misremembered; you were admonished for your conduct towards people you disagreed with generally not necessarily the WMF so I've struck that part above. You seem to think it was a personal attack, which I'll trust you on given your experience with the topic documented in the link above. As I said, I thought candidly stating my unfiltered response to someone's tone rather than the content was appropriate on this board given your original comment. You rightly point out that incivility is wrong regardless of who it is directed towards (I think, you actually completely ignored Roy's point about WP:CIVIL instead trying to justify why you should be allowed to bite the WMF and shifting attention away from your conduct but I'll assume the best). Hopefully we can both learn from this experience. Perhaps my sincerity was lost in my sarcasm, it's a shame how that can happen, but sincerely I'll do my best to work on these things. Hopefully you can say the same? — Wug·a·po·des 19:46, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
I'll take your sincere comments a bit more seriously when you give any indication that you mean them. Something like "You seem to think it was a personal attack, which I'll trust you on given your experience with the topic documented in the link above." is not really reassuring, both because you apparently can't recognise your own personal attacks even when they are quoted, and because you felt the need to add another sniping comment in this. If you can't refrain from making such attacks in the very statement where you claim that you'll do your best to work on them, then either you don't mean your "sincere" comments, or you lack the self-awareness necessary for your role. In any case, I don't think it is fruitful to continue this discussion which has apparently only reaffirmed your view of me, and has given me a good view on you. Fram (talk) 07:22, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
And User:JBrungs (WMF) is a "Senior Community Relations Specialist"! Heaven knows what we'd have got from someone more junior, or not specializing in Community Relations at all. Johnbod (talk) 20:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
I imagine it would have contained all the exact same information but with a different name at the bottom. — Wug·a·po·des 20:55, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
That response is probably not as clever as you intended it to be. But sarcasm isn't your strong point, is it? Fram (talk) 07:22, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
I cross-posted this to WP:VPM with the minor fixes mentioned, as this noticeboard is not well-watched. I'm writing in my volunteer capacity here, but I also sometimes post to this board as User:Xeno (WMF). Just a thought, but maybe we shouldn't bite in general - whether they're newcomers, staff, newcomer staff, or otherwise? While everyone is entitled to their own opinion on Foundation hiring practices, I don't think it's practical or even possible to hire a steeped contributor for every wiki-involved position. As such, some staff performing outreach will necessarily learn terminology and how MediaWiki works "on the job", and constructive assistance from established contributors would be more useful (imo) when we encounter a new user, even if they have those three bracketed letters at the end of their username. –xenotalk 13:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't get how such a large company as the WMF, who is for much of its income dependent on Wikipedia and its largest entity, enwiki ("dependent" as people and institutions give money to the WMF because of Wikipedia, Commons, and to a much lesser degree all other parts), can hire a "Senior Community Relations Specialist, Wikimedia Foundation" and not either look for someone with some editing knowledge (plenty around of those), or as a second choice would make sure that the person with this function gets a thorough first hand knowledge of the main sites and their ins and outs (i.e. not just play the Wikipedia Adventure and be done with it). How can you have good community relations if you don't have the faintest knowledge of "the community", what it deals with, how it does this, ...? This is two months of "editing", well, not even simply interacting with the communities on the ground, by the Senior Community Relations Specialist. It seems that none of the four words in the job title are particularly well chosen. Fram (talk) 13:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
The thread is related to seating regional committees to grant money to volunteers (including the volunteers sitting on the committee!), essentially helping to provide resources to the volunteers that helped generate them. If I were to guess, her first two months involved off-wiki work scaffolding the structure that lead us to this post. I just think it would be more useful to express thoughts about hiring and onboarding practice to someone at Talent and Culture, rather than a post to an unrelated thread on a barely-watched noticeboard. –xenotalk 14:11, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
My thoughts, my original post, were about the text of the post she posted here. If it wasn't directed at the vast bulk of the volunteers but only to those in regional organisations (chapters), then it shouldn't have been posted here. If it was aimed at individual volunteers, and at the community of individual volunteers as a whole, then the very least it could do was pretend to be written as an onwiki message, and not as an afterthought which very reluctantly had to be posted here as well. The thread then degenerated in personal attacks by an admin, and then diverted away from the original post to the function of the poster. I have no interest in dealing with the people of Talent and Culture or anyone at the WMF, my experiences with them aren't really brilliant (with some exceptions). It's largely a parasitical organisation instead of a symbiotic one. I try to deal with this sometimes on this side, but that's as far as I go. Fram (talk) 14:28, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
If the intent was to improve future communications and enhance staff understanding of our project norms, something like: "Welcome to the project - I hope you enjoyed The Wikipedia Adventure and are starting to gain and understanding about how wikis work. Just so you know, technically you've posted a "message" (i.e. on a message board), not an email. I'm not sure if you noticed, but you forgot to delete the "Subject Line:" marker here, like you did in subsequent messages on this project. Both of these make the post look a bit awkward in context. The good news is, this is a wiki and (almost) everything can be edited! Just click the "Edit" button at the top of this section, and delete the part that says "Subject Line:", then "Publish changes", you can fix it. I know this can be a bit confusing at first, it took me a while as well. Don't worry, you can't break anything - at least not permanently ;>. Let me know if I can be of any assistance." might have worked, too (jmho). –xenotalk 14:50, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
And then probably someone would have complained that I sent a patronizing message to the "Senior Community Relations Specialist" of the WMF (plus, of course, "sofixit"). How can someone be responsible for the framework, the communication, the outreach, to give out grants to Wikipedia volunteers, if they have no idea how Wikipedia actually works? Or have they given up all pretense that such grants are for Wikipedia improvements and not just for some plush jobs and extra money for insiders? Anyway, don't you see how ridiculous it is that someone would need to sent such a message to a person with that job description? "Enhance staff understanding or our project norms" in so far that they don't even know the difference between an email with a subject line or a post with a section header (which wouldn't include the words "section header" to start with)? It's not some obscure policy or guideline they were unaware off, they just had never interacted with anyone on wiki (nor edited articles). Fram (talk) 15:05, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
Every single day is someone's first day to interact with another person on a wiki, there are literally billions of them. This is all the more reason to make their first interaction a positive one. –xenotalk 15:24, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
Fram, it's not reasonable that you criticize someone for writing "email" and "subject line". God forbid, someone copied and pasted a message across platforms without personalizing it for each platform! Fire them immediately!! Not only is the criticism fundamentally ridiculous, of such minuscule importance that it wasn't worth raising at all, but the way you've raised it is incredibly, over-the-top harsh. When you're behaving like an asshole, someone saying "you're behaving like an asshole" is not a personal attack, it's the truth: you're behaving like an asshole. I want the WMF to keep posting updates here, and they're going to stop if they're met with harassment from disgruntled community members. Stop "biting" WMF staff. Keep it professional or keep quiet. Levivich 14:59, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
Fram, Your public criticism of a WMF employee's qualifications and performance of their duties is inappropriate and borders on WP:HARRASSMENT. Please stop. -- RoySmith(talk) 15:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
All bow to the overlords. I would take you more seriously if you had e.g. interfered when Wugapodes started throwing around personal attacks, but apparently not everyone here is worthy of your interest and protection. Oh well, the volunteer will "keep it professional" and the professional may keep it amateuristic, who cares how they interact with us as long as we can suck up and kick down, no? Until the next round, I guess. Fram (talk) 15:35, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
Your public criticism of a WMF employee's qualifications and performance of their duties is inappropriate and borders on WP:HARRASSMENT No. The WMF works for us. When they suck at something, we are more than entitled to criticize them. There is a very real disconnect between the WMF and the community, and this is an example of it. It is not the end of the world, in the grand scheme of things, but it is something the WMF needs to be called on and it is something the WMF should address through orientation sessions or whatever. Especially for someone who's job is to apparently represent the "Community Resources Team" as "Senior Community Relations Officer". This isn't some internal pen pushing position. As much of a tempest in a teapot this is, debates about who (and whether) one is allowed to criticize the WMF are red herrings that are detrimental to community health. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:04, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Roy, this isn't criticism, it's borderline harassment. I criticize the WMF all the time, lots of editors do, but we shouldn't do it in a hostile way like this. And not only that, it's a childish thing to criticize the WMF about. Changing "email" and "subject line" is not anywhere near important enough to rip someone a new one over. We (the editing community) have serious concerns about the WMF, and this isn't one of them; this is immature and distracts from the important issues, like who the next trustees and CEO will be, and how they're going to spend that $300 million they're sitting on. Levivich 16:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
New annual WMF fundraising record after just nine months
Financial development of the Wikimedia Foundation (in US$), 2003–2020 Black: Net assets (excluding Wikimedia Endowment, currently at $90m+) Green: Revenue (excluding third-party donations to Wikimedia Endowment) Red: Expenses (including WMF payments to Wikimedia Endowment)
The Wikimedia Foundation has taken $142 million in the first three quarters of this financial year – more than it took over the entire twelve months of the year prior. That's according to a quarterly review for the third quarter (January to March 2021) of the WMF financial year (which started 1 July 2020 and will end on 30 June 2021). The original year goal was $108 million (matching planned expenses in the annual plan); in the second quarter, this was raised to $125 million. By 31 March, the WMF had exceeded this revised target too, by $17 million. (Note also that last year the WMF underspent considerably, because so many events were cancelled. This is what led it to stash $9 million in a new Tides Advocacy fund, as people didn't know what else to do with the money. Given that the global pandemic actually accelerated over the past 10.5 months, one would expect that the same cancellations happened again.)
In addition to the $142 million, the first three quarters of the year have also seen $18.6 million added to the Wikimedia Endowment. Established in 2016, the Endowment was at $90 million at the start of the year; it will reach its ten-year-goal – $100 million – five years early.
As we speak, there are fundraising banners runnning in South America: 1234. According to a Washington Post article published last week, "South America leads the world in new cases and deaths per capita." Readers there are asked to "defend Wikipedia's independence", saying a donation is required today so the WMF can continue to protect said independence. The banners add that it's the 2% of readers who donate that ensure that Wikipedia remains accessible to all. They also add that by donating money to the WMF, people can tell the volunteers that their work matters.
Now given that the WMF had already exceeded its original fundraising goal by $34 million six weeks ago, do people feel that's ethically okay? --AndreasJN466 08:32, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't know about ethically OK. That depends on how the money is spent. The proper job of the WMF should be to provide the necessary infrastucture to support its projects, and to ensure that all of the projects are run in accordance with its legal obligations as a charity and that they don't get taken over by people who wish to exclude others based on attributes that have nothing to do with its objectives. The impression I get is that it spends its money on perpetuating and expanding the many paid positions in its bureaucracy rather than these. Independence and accessibility can be guaranteed on much less money than this. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:54, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
As the author of WP:CANCER, For several years I have been calling on the WMF to do the following:
Make spending transparent, publish a detailed account of what the money is being spent on and answer any reasonable questions asking for more details
Limit spending increases to no more than inflation plus some percentage (adjusted for any increases in page views) -- even if the limit is "spend no more than ten times what we spent last year".
Build up our endowment, and structure the endowment so that the WMF cannot legally dip into the principal when times get bad.
All three recommendations have either been rejected out of hand, or responded to with laughably false claims that they are already being done.
For example, I have been told that the words "Professional service expenses: $8,998,26" and "Other operating expenses $9,005,744" meet the requirement of "publishing a detailed account of what the money is being spent" and that pointing to those two line items is "answering any reasonable questions asking for more details".
I have also been told that the fact that an account labeled "endowment" exists meets the requirement of "structuring the endowment so that the WMF cannot legally dip into the principal when times get bad."
If we do these things now, in a few short years we could be in a position to do everything we are doing now while living off of the endowment interest, and would have no need for further fundraising. Or we could keep fundraising, using the donations to do many new and useful things, knowing that whatever we do there is a guaranteed income stream from the endowment that will keep the servers running indefinitely. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:20, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
In 2020, the wage bill expanded >20% to >$55M, so it'll be a long time before an endowment is adequate! EddieHugh (talk) 22:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
In 2010 the total spending for everything was ten million. I was here in 2010. I didn't notice Wikipedia not being able to function because they were spending too little. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:05, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Guy, the Foundation can expect to earn over $10 million in annual interest from now on, based on the $100 million endowment it has with Tides and another 100 million of investments it has in its own name. While this doesn't pay 500+ staff and contractors, it is already enough to ensure "actual sustainability of Wikimedia's mission", according to Erik Möller writing in 2013. --AndreasJN466 10:51, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
That assumes that the $100 million endowment doesn't disappear. Here is how it can, and how we could prevent that.
Assume for the sake of argument that the day comes when spending becomes larger than revenue. This could happen because of a scandal making contributions fall off a cliff. Or revenues leveling off while the spending continues to increase. Or we lose a huge lawsuit and are forced to pay a $300 million judgement. Or we have another great depression. Or hyperinflation. Or maybe some future CEO decides to try to compete with Google in the search engine space -- again.
Assume that the WMF sees the shortfall but assumes that it is a temporary. After all, everybody loves having meetings in exotic vacation destinations, and all those employees are absolutely essential, right? Surely you wouldn't want us to lay off our friends, you monster. So they dip into savings. That's what savings are for, after all.
Now assume that they burn through all of the savings and the shortfall persists.
If I had my way, they could not drain the endowment. They would have to live on whatever donations are still coming in plus a hefty amount of interest from the endowment. But they could not spend the principle. Result: Wikipedia survives.
The way things are set up now, they could drain the endowment to maintain spending. When that runs out it is sell assets and fire people time -- unless they can borrow money and thus keep spending more than they take in. There are clever lawyers out there who might be able to make it so that the WMF could put up the encyclopedia as collateral. How much do you think Google would pay to own Wikipedia? Result: wikipedia is now owned by a corporation.
All of this could be avoided if only the WMF would structure the endowment so that the WMF cannot legally dip into the principal when times get bad. Yet they refuse to do that (or sometimes they lie and say they already have done that, but go silent when asked to provide a legally-binding agreement that says they cannot touch the principle). It makes you wonder why they resist the idea, doesn't it? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:05, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Guy, no such provision is iron-clad. Note e.g. "In cases of extreme financial hardship, the court may grant cy pres relief permitting a charity to invade an endowment fund in order to meet the charity’s financial obligations." [7] (As it is, some of the funds will have come with donor restrictions.) Best, --AndreasJN466 17:15, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
I am fine with the Cy-près doctrine or indeed with any situation where the WMF can dip into the principle only after a judge approves doing that. Right now The WMF refuses to even try to put any restrictions on draining the endowment. Go ahead and ask them. Ask them to show you any agreement, contract, bylaw, or any other document that puts any restriction at all on spending the endowment on anything they choose. I would be happy to report that I was wrong. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:50, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
I am quite convinced you are right. There are quite probably some restrictions that apply now, because of what donors specified, and some UPMIFA regulations limiting what can be done with the money, but like you I have not seen any commitment from WMF that the principal will remain untouched except for cy près cases. And I agree that such a commitment would be a good thing. What's also important in the short term is what form the new 501c3 charity will take – as you know, the whole endowment, all $100 million of it, is soon to be returned to the WMF to be put into a standalone charity. I said on the mailing list some weeks ago that it would be nice if the WMF could share legal details of that envisaged organization – no reply. If all the funds are returned to the WMF, is the WMF even legally bound to set the new charity up as an endowment? --AndreasJN466 11:11, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
"I have here an empty bag, capable of containing £100,000. As I am wanting that amount, I merely place the bag upon the table, whisper the magic words 'Gordon', 'Khartoum', when, hey presto! we shall find the bag is full." Kind of fits for Wikipedia fundraising too. Just replace the words Gordon and Khartoum with "really need money today to protect Wikipedia's independence". Except the WMF money bags are bottomless.
Honestly, this is just unfortunate and wrong. Guy's recommendations look completely reasonable. I'm not extremely familiar with finance, endowments, etc, but if this amount of money is pouring in, perhaps it could be used for grants, servers, etc? I'm honestly just confused on WMF's spending. EpicPupper (talk) 16:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
It could allocated 0.1% of that to hire more people to fix bugs and work on projects like Deploying ArticleAlerts on other wikis and other things from the Community Wishlists. Hell, let's go crazy. Let's go for 0.2%. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:23, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
That's just crazy talk. Who let this guy in? "Fixing bugs" indeed. I say good day to you sir!
I have been a trustee for a charity with an endowment, there is a downside to the idea of not being able to dip into the principal. To invest longterm you need most of the assets to be in stocks and or real estate - assets that perform well in the longterm but which will have good and bad years. In the medium to longterm this will outperform leaving the money in the bank and just receiving interest, but you will have years when the fund drops quite a bit. Maintaining the longterm value in real terms can be done in various ways, including investing part of the fund in stocks and using the dividends as income, setting a floor to the fund below which the trustees can't or shouldn't go without a unanimous vote, or having a floor that increases in line with inflation and unspent reserves in the fund that give a cushion against bad years. But if we are going to get something useful out of having this fund, such as the ability to commit to institutions considering mass uploads to Wikimedia Commons that commons will be around for the foreseeable future; You don't want to set up the fund in such a way that every decade when the market has a downturn you have a year or three when you can't get anything from the endowment. A longterm yield of 3% is not unreasonable, but to be useful an endowment needs to be set up so it can continue to make grants during a recession. ϢereSpielChequers 20:22, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't follow your reasoning there. If you invade the endowment, you just make the situation even worse for any future difficult years. The whole idea of the endowment is to have a minimum annual income from interest. --AndreasJN466 11:16, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
"The Wikimedia Endowment is our enduring commitment to a world of freely shared knowledge, now and in perpetuity."
Also
"The purpose of the Wikimedia Endowment is to support Wikimedia projects in perpetuity. [It] ensures long-term security. A robust Endowment also provides Wikimedia’s community of volunteers and donors with the confidence that the mission and vision in which they’ve invested will be supported for future generations."
"Tides or the Wikimedia Foundation may choose to transfer the Endowment from Tides to the Wikimedia Foundation, or other charities identified by the Wikimedia Foundation that are engaged in activities that further the Wikimedia Endowment’s purpose. Following any transfer, the Endowment would continue to act for the purpose of being a permanent, income-generating fund to support the Wikimedia projects."
Most people reading that would assume that they mean funding the core activities that keep Wikipedia, Wictionary, etc. on the internet. Paying for servers and bandwidth, funding the minimum number of employees in legal and accounting to remain a charity and respond to lawsuits, fixing security bugs in the software, that sort of thing.
But does it actually say that? Does it say "Keep Wikipedia running" or does it say "support the Wikimedia projects"? We already had a CEO secretly start spending a boatload of cash on a "Wikimedia project" to develop a search engine to compete with Google and Bing. Literally anything can be declared to be Wikimedia project.
We should have a legally binding agreement that the endowment principle is not to be spent and that the endowment interest must be spent to keep the projects currently listed at [ https://www.wikipedia.org/ ] up, running, and independent.
Please note that the the WMF also has roughly $100 million USD in non-endowment investments. They should be continue to be free to spend that money on anything they choose. But if the WMF fucks up, spends all of that $100 million USD in savings and then tries to drain the endowment to avoid living under a budget like the rest of us have to do, they should have to go before a judge, make a case that the spending is needed to keep the projects currently listed at [ https://www.wikipedia.org/ ] up, running, and independent, and get the court's permission per the Cy-près doctrine. So tell me; Is asking the WMF to agree to this this an unreasonable request? Is asking them to explain why they refuse to discuss this an unreasonable request? I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:10, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
You only get interest if you lend the money rather than invest it. It would be irresponsible to lend an endowment rather than invest it in assets such as stocks and shares. Maybe you would lend a proportion of it if you were being cautious or risk averse. But even if you put some of the endowment into fixed interest bonds, the value of those bonds will go up and down. So if the fund was partly invested in government bonds you would get interest payments for owning those bonds. But if we had a spike in inflation, and interest rates rose, then the money you could sell those bonds for would fall, and the value of the endowment would drop. Plus any dividends or interest are part of the endowment, you need part of them to maintain the value of the endowment in real terms. If you set your endowment up so that all interest and dividends were treated as money that could be disbursed then your fund is pretty much guaranteed to dwindle over time. ϢereSpielChequers 13:44, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
True, but let's get them to agree to not dip into the principle before focusing on where the interest goes. Baby steps. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 14:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Whether interest or dividends (or whatever income you like), the principle remains that if you want to convince others e.g. that Commons is here to stay, the endowment's principal should never be dug into. If the endowment can evaporate, you can't argue that it guarantees the Commons' existence in perpetuity. And yes, part of the interest and dividends should be retained so the endowment maintains its value in real terms. (The WMF has been sending out emails asking people to include them in their will. So the principal seems likely to rise naturally ...) --AndreasJN466 14:37, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
My objection is to your suggestion that the principal can never be dipped into. An endowment will go up and down in value as the stock market or whatever it is invested in fluctuates. Maintaining that principal in real terms over a period of decades or even centuries is one thing. Not being able to make any grants for two or three years after a stock market crash would be a problem. There are various ways round this, but one that you want to avoid is setting a principle that the "the principal can never be dipped into". I was a trustee of a charity with an endowment during the years of the 2008 banking crash. We held our nerve and continued to make grants during those years, we were able to do that because our aim was to maintain the value of the endowment in the longterm, but accept that it would fluctuate in the short term. There are various ways to do this, including setting a floor on the value of the fund, or to link it to various stock market indices. The important thing is to avoid making a commitment such as "the principal can never be dipped into". ϢereSpielChequers 15:43, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
I see your point. --AndreasJN466 16:17, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't see their point. I can see the point in the case were an endowment is making grants on a regular basis, but there is no need to do that when you have a hundred million in the endowment, an additional hundred million in the bank, and revenue has never been lower than expenses. Basically, the WMF endowment isn't there to make grants. It is there to ensure the survival of Wikipedia.
I do not trust every possible future set of WMF managers and board members to not drain the endowment so as to temporarily delay needed spending cuts. It is just too easy to look at the start of a multi-year decline and say "this is just a temporary glitch. Donations are down, we burned through our hundred million in the bank, and now we can't afford our planned huge Wikimania at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. Let's just pay for it out of the endowment. We will pay it back when things get netter, we pinkie promise." --Guy Macon (talk) 16:46, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Actually, it's $200m+ in the bank by now. [8] All in all, there's $100m+ with Tides (not included on that page), and $200m+ in short-term/long-term investments and cash ($180m shown on that page, but add in the fact that takings this fiscal year have already exceeded budgeted spending per the annual plan by over $34 million, and the WMF is still fundraising as though it were down to its last penny, and you get there). Just sayin'. --AndreasJN466 17:30, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
To WSC's point, no major institution (i.e. those with an endowment the size of the foundation's) that I'm aware of manges their endowment on a "legally bound to never touch the principle" basis. The practical effect of this would be to spend less than the total interest in any given year because investment returns fluctuate so much and you don't want to hire people or otherwise commit to spending you may not be able to afford on an ongoing basis. At least with current board/management what we saw with the pandemic is that spending was slashed dramatically - and in retrospect unnecessarily - over fears that donations would dry up. That didn't happen but the aftermath of that decision lead to the facts which started this thread. So in essence the foundation's conservative and cautious approach to budgeting is now being leveraged as a reason to handcuff them further. I have major issues with how the foundation allocates its resources (and plan to ask board candidates about it in some way) but this critique seems unfair to me. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Re: "no major institution (i.e. those with an endowment the size of the foundation's) that I'm aware of manages their endowment on a 'legally bound to never touch the principle' basis", while unrestricted endowments are common, so are endowments where you cannot touch the principal.
"Under law, Cornell is not allowed to spend the principal value of the endowment, but can spend a portion of investment returns. Nearly all of the $5.4 billion is invested, and after adjusting for inflation, a portion of investment returns are spent."[9]
"The Whatcom Community Foundation (Foundation) exists, in part, to manage funds permanently endowed by donors for the benefit of a specific charitable cause... An endowed fund is a permanent fund, designed to work in perpetuity to benefit your organization. Its principal is not distributed, and is invested to maintain the purchasing power of the fund over time."[10]
"One of the first points that people need to know is that while you can’t spend the principal from the endowment unless the donor or court says so, income from the principal is normally accessible."[11]
"Wellesley's large endowment is the result of generous donors and prudent management over many years. The value of the endowment on June 30, 2019 was $2.2 billion. It is comprised of about 3,000 individual endowed funds, most of which carry donor restrictions on spending. Gifts to the endowment are generally made so that the annual income earned by the principal supports an activity such as financial aid or a professorship in perpetuity. The income may only be spent to support that activity and the principal cannot be spent."[12]
"True Endowments, which are often referred to as simply endowments, reflect the original historical intent of the term. In a true endowment, the donor transfers assets to the institution prohibiting the principal from being spent. Institutions rely on the income from these assets to provide funds to further their philanthropic purpose."[13]
"All principal amounts will be retained, and only the income or a portion of it, will be expended."[14]
Thanks for these examples Guy. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:04, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Be careful what you wish for, and know that it may not help. The Cornell example linked above is a good one. Their return was +1.9%, but their overall endowment balance shrank from $7.3 billion to $7.2 billion (-1.4%). They may not have spent any principal, technically, but the result is the same. Imagine an endowment of $1,000 where half of the principal has a +100% return (+$500), and half of it has a -100% return (-$500). You spend all of the investment income ($500). Your ending balance is $500 (half of what you started with), and you haven't touched any of the principal. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Guy, you and I may not be as far apart as you think. We are currently in a low interest rate, low inflation rate era, that may not last. In the future one possibility is that we could be in an era of say 10% annual inflation and 14% interest rates. If we simply have a policy of not dipping into the principal, the foundation could put the endowment into interest bearing accounts and bonds that would generate 14% interest per annum and ten years later have the same number of dollars in the principal, but with 10% inflation the fund would have lost more than 60% of its value in a decade. Even at current rates of inflation, over decades the fund would dwindle in real terms if we didn't embed something into the structure to require the trustees to maintain the value of the endowment in real terms. One strategy is to keep a mixed portfolio of shares and bonds - stocks tend to pay a dividend and also increase their value, another is total return investment But for any strategy other than just leaving it in the bank, expect that there will be years when the fund loses value. As for the idea of not touching the principal, always check whether they are talking about the amount or the value in real terms. A charity that aims to maintain the value of its endowment in real terms over the economic cycle is a charity that aims to last indefinitely. One that merely wants to maintain the amount of the principal may look very different after the next bout of inflation. ϢereSpielChequers 20:04, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
If we are heading for high inflation[15] and the WMF wants to maintain the true value of the endowment, the WMF would have to not only not spend the principle, they would have to not spend some of the interest and instead fold it back into the endowment. Spending all of the interest plus spending part of the principle would be going in the other direction, making the true value drop quicker than it would by inflation alone.
The fact that the WMF refuses to even discuss the possibility of not spending into the principle does not bode well for them deciding to not spend part of the interest. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
The article you cite is from the Babylon Bee, a satire publication, not known for its economic analysis. — Wug·a·po·des 05:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Actually [16] is both satire and an excellent economic commentary, just as Gulliver's Travels is both a satire and a commentary on petty differences between religions. (So, which end of an egg do you crack? Are you a bigendian or a smallendian?) --Guy Macon (talk) 15:59, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
If you could share it online, I'd appreciate it! Best, --AndreasJN466 13:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Andreas, I don't know if that 2013 estimate $10M+/year, "to ensure not only bare survival, but actual sustainability of Wikimedia's mission" is still valid, and what it includes and omits. I'm not sure I would equate sustainable with comfortable as you have in that article. To me comfortable would include internationalisation so that one day editors on the Georgian Wikipedia could just click an icon and edit on their Qwerty or Cyrillic keyboards, rather than only being able to edit if they have a Georgian keyboard. Erik was clear that his sustainable estimate didn't require dropping back to a single data centre - so not "bare bones", but did it include funds to fix major problems such as our sites being almost read only for the smartphone generation? I'm not defending the WMF's fundraising, some of what I've seen gives some the impression that the site is in financial difficulty. But my idea of financially comfortable is more than just sustainable, but sufficient to address some of our problems that are amenable to being addressed with money. Of course it would be better if we were asking people to donate for things like internationalisation rather than giving the impression that we need what might be quite a bit of money from them because our programmers drink coffee that costs £5 a cup. ϢereSpielChequers 20:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
The article does specifically say, "But keeping Wikipedia online is a task that the WMF could comfortably manage on $10 million a year. I think that's true, given that Erik said it includes actual sustainability of the WMF mission, in addition to hosting Wikipedia. For reference, here is the article passage in context:
... these banners have created a widespread impression that the WMF must be struggling to keep Wikipedia up-and-running, with tearful-sounding messages like: “This Thursday Wikipedia really needs you. This is the 10th appeal we’ve shown you. 98% of our readers don’t give; they look the other way … We ask you, humbly, don’t scroll away.” But keeping Wikipedia online is a task that the WMF could comfortably manage on $10 million a year, according to a casual 2013 estimate by Erik Möller, its VP of engineering and product development at the time.
And what Erik said was this:
WMF has operated in the past without staffing and with very minimal staffing, so clearly it's _possible_ to host a high traffic website on an absolute shoestring. But I would argue that an endowment, to actually be worthwhile, should aim for a significantly higher base level of minimal annual operating expenses, more in the order of magnitude of $10M+/year, to ensure not only bare survival, but actual sustainability of Wikimedia's mission. The "what's the level required for bare survival" question is, IMO, only of marginal interest ... --AndreasJN466 21:21, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
As Erik said, sustainability means things like "more than one data centre", so we can both agree that the $10 million is more than bare bones or bare survival. I have given a couple of examples of activities that are more than just making the movement sustainable, do you agree that such things are worthwhile? ϢereSpielChequers 22:29, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Have you ever heard the story of the admiral's yacht? According to the story, whenever someone proposes a reduction in military spending, the military immediately cuts the budget by not buying bullets or food for the troops, but they never touch the admirals' yacht or the general's ski vacations in the Swiss Alps. Whether or not the story is true in the case of the actual military, in certainly is in the case of the WMF. We keep hearing about maybe spending less on redundant datacenters or on fixing bugs, but we never discuss the Wikimanias or the HQ located in the second most expensive city on earth. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Making the announcement an hour and a half before ithe office hours closed made it so that nobody had time to bring up the fact that the WMF discriminates against the visually impaired and that this was reported over 15 years ago. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:16, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: How does it discriminate against the visually impaired and where was it reported? Genuinely curious. Kleinpecan (talk) 18:54, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation was a case where a major retailer, Target Corp., was sued because their web designers failed to design its website to enable persons with low or no vision to use it. This resulted in Target paying out roughly ten million dollars.
I have been repeatedly told that the proper way to request that Wikipedia stop discriminating against the blind is through phabricator, but clearly this was not effective in this case. I do not consider 15 years of refusing to answer to be reasonable behavior on the part of the WMF. I have been asking this question since 3 August 2017.
What I expect from the WMF
I expect a yes or no answer. Either the WMF makes an official statement saying "No, we have decided not to fix this" or an official statement saying "Yes, we have decided to fix this."
If the answer is "Yes", I expect a page to be created (preferably on the English Wikipedia, but I will accept a page on Meta) that gives us the requirements (a testable definition of "done"), a schedule with milestones and updates, and budget and staffing information. The WMF has made multiple statements saying that they intend to be more open about these sort of thing, and this is an excellent place to show that the commitment to openness is more than just talk. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:01, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
@Volker E. (WMF), Raystorm, Jimbo Wales, and Pundit:. Please don't ignore this. If you were pinged and it's not "officially" your job to take care of this, then please make arrangements for the person who's job it is to take care of this see the message and reply to it. And if there's no one who's job it is to take care of this, then please make a arrangements to appoint someone to take care of this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:01, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
...or be straight with me and tell me to my face that you refuse to fix this. Don't stonewall for fifteen years.
Again, if nobody is assigned the job of fixing this, it won't get fixed. If fixing this isn't in the budget, it won't get fixed. If there is no deadline assigned, it won't get fixed. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:24, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Proposal that may be of interest to the WMF
Sorry if my English is a little bad. I am Brazilian and I came here just to make a proposal that is being debated in the Lusophone language and that you can move forward with the help of you and the WMF. What do you think of a partnership between Wikipedia and the Kindle? More information can be found on Wikipedia in Portuguese (more specific in the section Esplanade: Proposals). If this is not the right place to make this proposal, I ask you to guide me. Editor Master Plus (talk) 17:15, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm not part of WMF but I do think this is a good idea. I mean, Amazon Alexa uses Wikipedia for questions! But just out of curiosity, do you own a kindle and is there an encyclopedia on it? Oh and they would have to get deals with Amazon (company) to have it on kindle as it is owned by Amazon Thank you. YaxopsBanter 18:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
So this is about w:pt:Wikipédia:Esplanada/propostas/Parceria entre Kindle e a Wikipédia Lusófona (24mai2021). Editor Master Plus, your proposal is effectively to add the library of the Kindle Store to Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. Except who exactly is going to pay for this? The Wikipedia Library can work because the partners primarily publish their own content. So giving accounts away for free costs them hardly anything. Amazon/Kindle however pays authors a per page rate, and those thousands of authors aren't going to waive that rate for Wikipedia. So you expect either the WMF (forget it) or Amazon (most likely forget it) to cough up the dough. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:53, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz:, as I said in Lusófona: “It doesn't hurt to try”, I know it's very optimistic, but Amazon is big, and it sells to the whole world! We are a non-profit organization, and not a company that seeks profit, it would be unethical for them (the authors of the books) to charge for this, we are not gaining (in monetary terms) practically nothing with this. --Editor Master Plus (talk) 13:23, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Editor Master Plus, actually it does hurt to try when it's nothing but wishful thinking because it's a waste of time. This is an administrative hellhole and you have no idea how big of a hellhole (it's very, very big) or how to deal with it and you have no idea why Amazon would even consider this. On top of that, I'd actually be concerned that Wikimedia could get a WP:COI for all articles related to Amazon. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:48, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz let me see if I understand, your justification for the proposal to be considered inadequate is because "it would be too complicated". I see, we all hate bureaucracy, but, with all due respect, I think that your argument is unsupported. I understand that we should avoid having to go through bureaucracy as much as possible, nobody likes that. But we can't just run away from bureaucracy and decide not to look for any more bureaucracy because "it would be too complicated". I think that, if necessary, we should go through the bureaucracy to get more partners. You call my proposal "very optimistic" I already said that I was really optimistic I just wanted to propose this idea here and see if the community has an understanding like mine. For the time being, two have manifested themselves. Once again I say that I understand your point of view and respect, but my point of view differs from yours (at least) on that point. I emphasize that I am speaking to you in a respectful tone. Editor Master Plus (talk) 21:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
Editor Master Plus, with all due respect, your proposal is inadequate because it hasn't been thought through. It's like proposing world peace: everyone is in favor, nobody knows how. I already told you there is no incentive for Amazon to do this. That's your first hurdle, you'd have to think of something. But let's say you did it. I told you there's no way to get thousands of authors to agree. Just contacting them would be a challenge! And we can't even do it, Amazon would have to, because permission would have to go to Amazon. So now you have to come up with an incentive for Amazon to go through all that. But let's just say you managed this as well. (no idea how, but for the sake of argument) Since many authors won't respond or won't agree, Amazon would have to make changes to their infrastructure to exclude those authors. That'll be fun. But let's just say you managed this as well. (we are well into fantasy land already) I decided to read slightly more about Kindle Store. As I could have guessed, it uses Digital Restrictions Management. This is the polar opposite of everything Wikimedia stands for, so even if you manage to jump through all the previous hoops, we simply don't want it! It's fine to fantasize about silly things, you might accidentally run into something that turns out not to be entirely silly. But please don't ask others to fantasize for you. Do some research and think it through. Don't propose world peace unless you have already figured out a way to maybe make it work. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 03:33, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Editor Master Plus: No opinion about the idea, though I think Meta:Wikimedia Forum would be a better venue for suggestions like this, this noticeboard is specific to EnWiki, and is not well-watched. –xenotalk 13:38, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
When newcomers had the Reply tool and tried to post on a talk page, they were more successful at posting a comment. (Source)
Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.
The key results were:
Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.
These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.
Looking ahead
The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
Ironically, replying to this post using the reply tool isn't possible because there's a line break between your signature and the timestamp :P – Rummskartoffel 11:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Given this will affect many editor's workflows, as well as a fairly significant WP:PERM change, please take the time to look and comment Nosebagbear (talk) 13:12, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Serious issue for SPI, I think. Now, we often post accounts + IPs at SPIs to illustrate the total amount of socking. According to the proposal, "All users with accounts over a year old and at least 500 edits will be able to access partially unmasked IPs without permission. This means an IP address will appear with its tail octet(s) – the last part(s) – hidden. This will be accessible via a preference where they agree not to share it with others who don't have access to this information.": (emphasis mine) it will no longer be allowed to post any IP information, not even with the last octet(s) hidden, to SPI pages (or to other pages like AN/ANI). This will make battling disruptive IP sock editing much harder, and probably will increase IP vandalism. Fram (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Fram, I think the answer is simple; take ptwiki's lead and outright ban IP editing. -- RoySmith(talk) 15:00, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
No objection from me, but I doubt that's what the WMF wanted. This would reduce the number of edits, and downwards trending statistics aren't really what they aim for. Fram (talk) 15:04, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
I can only wonder what percentage of productive IP editors wouldn't be willing to register a user name. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:19, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
I think how SPI reporting would work is a good question to ask over at meta from this framework. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:48, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Using my crystal ball, I foresee much more liberal use of semi-protection to protect the encyclopedia. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 16:48, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
There will clearly be unintended consequences to this, which could include banning unregistered editing or a large expansion of semi-protection, which will both result in a reduction in editing. If this is what the WMF want then they should go ahead with such a proposal, but I doubt whether they do actually want this, because I am sure there are plenty of employees who will look bad if edit numbers go down. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:18, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Agree that if the rational is to mask IPs because those editing from IPs don't understand the ramifications of doing so, then IPs need to be banned from editing entirely. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:42, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Wow this is horrible. It's incredibly obvious that the authors of this (ill-informed) proposal at the WMF have spent virtually zero time reverting vandalism and/or culling LTAs. Agreed with the sentiments above; it's time to seriously consider following the ptwiki playbook and restrict editing to registered users. -FASTILY 00:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Before I go off and start writing code, do we have any statistics currently on quality of IP edits vs logged-in edits? I'm not sure how to measure "quality" but the most obvious metric would be what percentage of edits are reverted. -- RoySmith(talk) 01:35, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
a helpful pie chart visualizing the data for 248 edits in Feb 2007RoySmith: WP:IPHUMAN cites studies saying 80% of total vandalism is from IPs, but >80% of IP edits are not vandalism. Data is from 2004 & 2007 so it may have changed since then, but probably not too much. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:30, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
I would expect the data to have significantly changed. In today's hyper-privacy-obsessed world, I think less people would be fine with having their IPs logged, unless they're just vandalising. – SD0001 (talk) 16:09, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Also - it was harder to get onto the internet back then -- smartphones didn't exist, and that acted as a filter for childish behavior like vandalism. Now any random person could just hop onto Wikipedia on their phone and make disruptive edits. -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 01:48, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Actually, running this analysis again shouldn't be too hard. Take a 3 minute interval of all edits and see which proportion of them are made by IP users and which proportion of those edits are good. Compare to registered users. Easy peasy. -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 01:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Uhh - if they're actually considering implementing this instead of just asking for suggestions, this is so incredibly shortsighted, I don't know what to say. I'm not sure how there's any legal impact to this, anyway. IP addresses are not private. They've NEVER been private. -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 03:27, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
I think the current form of IP masking that is to be implemented would turn SPI and AIV work into a logistical nightmare because the current plans for IP masking is that it would direct registered users with access to IPs, wishing to report unregistered editing on SPI and AIV to private mailing lists such as the info-en-v OTRS queue (in a similar way to how presently ArbCom deals with private evidence). As a result, my prediction is that we would see a substantial rise in emails sent to those OTRS queues compared to what the OTRS teams currently deal with.
The worst thing about it all is that the WMF hasn't come up with a credible-enough reason that would allow IP masking to be implemented in the way that they are hoping to achieve, and for the reasons I have mentioned earlier, would give rise for the enwiki community to implement sweeping changes to WP:OUTING which would make it easier for someone to get blocked from editing for simply disclosing an IP on-wiki. While I believe that someday IP masking will be implemented in one form or another, the implementation of IP masking on WMF projects should be deferred until the WMF can provide a satisfactory explanation for needing IP masking that would generate enough support from the Wikimedia community at large. Hx7 08:24, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
+1 to outright banning IP editing. Now is the time. – SD0001 (talk) 10:52, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm as "anyone can edit" as they come, but if the choice is "ban IP editing" or "some complicated mess", banning IP editing gets my vote. —Kusma (talk) 11:06, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Depiction of Wikipedia FoundationWikimedia Foundation destroying Wikipedia with the Fram ban, IP masking, and the 2020 rebrand instead of making obvious but boring improvements to what we have. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:27, 11 June 2021 (UTC) I would support a ban on all IP editing, effective right after this change is rolled out to enwiki. The ban would be lifted if the WMF changes their mind. It's disappointing, but in light of the WMF's opacity/stubbornness, it's the only option we have if we don't want to open Wikipedia to floods of vandalism/abuse. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:27, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
I sort of agree with WMF Legal's stance, but for slightly different reasons - no other major websites publicly log IPs to the outside world like we do anymore, and privacy laws are catching up. I would personally support disabling IP editing on all namespaces except main. I'm just slightly reluctant to go for complete disabling because I appreciate the argument that you shouldn't need to fill out forms in triplicate to fix a typo, but the way other sides solve this is by having a "log in from Google" or "log in from Facebook" option, which takes a couple of seconds. Now, we can argue about the pros and cons of that method until the cows come home, but remember that option isn't for us - we've already got accounts registered here - it's for the casual editor who wants to change "teh" to "the" on some article somewhere and couldn't give a flying monkeys about what the Wikipedia Adventure is. A general relaxation of when to semi-protect may be the answer as well. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 13:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Thinking a bit more about this I am getting more and more convinced that this will do nothing to increase privacy and may well reduce it. Every web site that you visit knows your IP address - that's simply the way that the Internet Protocol works - so no amount of masking or anything else will prevent you from revealing it. Introducing measures such as masking may well lead to people thinking that they are not revealing it when this is not the case. We should be educating people that every time they visit a web site they are revealing something about themselves, rather than trying to convince them that they are protecting their privacy when they visit Google or Facebook or a political blog or a porn site or Wikipedia or whatever. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:32, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Phil Bridger, Actually, "no amount of masking or anything else will prevent you from revealing [your IP address]" is incorrect. See WP:PROXY.
But, that's not my main concern here. I'm mostly wearing my SPI Clerk's fez and looking at how an already difficult task will be made even more difficult. Even if the full IP information is still visible to authorized users via some new tool, it's another level of complexity to an already complex job. We're already losing the war. This will just be one more thing on their side of the balance. -- RoySmith(talk) 20:37, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
If you are using a proxy then you reveal your IP address to the proxy. If you want any response to anything you have to reveal it to someone, or it simply doesn't get back to you. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:41, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
I find that a shortsighted take. There used to be a time, where 'the internet' knew all the sites you came from and went to, all traffic went unsecured over the line etc, and XSS and CSRF issues were the default. .Those are all holes that have been mostly closed. I find it incredibly logical that IP information is being hidden more and more, esp from other visitors of that website. Educate ? ppl don't even read the ToS, and you are going to explain what an IP address is and its privacy implications are to that 99.9% of the masses that didn't used to be online when you yourself were first introduced to the Internet ? For the masses, the Internet is no more than a utility to complete their goal. It's exactly that the technology sector is caring more and more about protecting the privacy of the masses that they still have any privacy left. Some divisions of Google and Facebook might have be dragged into that new reality kicking and screaming, it's undeniable that it is happening and has been happening for years. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:51, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure why this is Wikipedia's problem. We assume that editors are competent enough to realize that their IP is revealed when they make edits unregistered. -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 23:30, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
But why, because it's a completely invalid assumption (and we've known that for a long time). Things change all the time. Blocking all anonymous edits or applying IP masking makes much more sense. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:47, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Can I push the people commenting here to comment on the IP:Masking talk page - viewpoints here don't necessarily get read by the relevant people Nosebagbear (talk) 01:17, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
It would be interesting to learn more about the impact of IP editing ban on Portuguese Wikipedia. It looks like early after the implementation, vandalism decreased dramatically and daily account creation almost doubled. Also, if we ever get to that point, we would need to coordinate it with the WMF. If this is done through edit filters or range blocks, WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU will ensure that unregistered users on mobile apps will have no clue about what's going on. MarioGom (talk) 17:58, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
I'd also love to hear about the effect on ptwiki checkuser workload. —Kusma (talk) 18:43, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
I know this goes against the idea of the "encyclopedia anyone can edit" but the time's come to end IP editing. Things have changed in the time Wikipedia has been around, and at this point, creating an account needs to be the way to go. Will we lose a few editors due to this? Most likely yes. How many of those will be productive though? Any other site I go to at this point, in order to edit, or post a comment, etc. I need an account. It's time we go that way as well. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:08, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
This is a ludicrous idea, and the only responsible thing to do now in order to protect the encyclopaedia and good-faith editors is to ban all IP editing. That or we just give up and let the vandals have their playground. DuncanHill (talk) 13:57, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with WMF Legal's stance. The reality is that the status quo with publicly logged IPs to all is not really acceptable. Don't really mind whether IP editing stays or goes, but I note that it's really not difficult to register an account here, and if IP editing is disabled then who's to say the problem editors wont just create tons of accounts which are even harder to link together? Pretty indifferent about banning IP editing as a result, but the data from ptwiki (I think?) seems good, and arguably it'll stop the "wanna make this bad edit, but too lazy to register" variety of edits. Arguably IP editing is now a bit archaic and more problem than it's worth. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:02, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
That said, it would be nice to know why people think this specific plan is bad. It seemed fine to me. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:07, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader, I'm looking at this mostly from the point of view of a SPI clerk and a tool developer. This plan obscures information, which means it will make both of those jobs harder. Yes, the information will still be available via a WMF-supplied tool, but that adds another level of complexity to the job of investigating a SPI case.
It will certainly make it more difficult to build automations of various kinds, and make people more dependent on WMF to add features to their tool rather than just rolling our own. I mean no disrespect to the WMF developers, but their time is limited and WMF priorities don't always line up perfectly with the priorities of enwiki editors. Any time you hide information behind a layer of access control, it adds complexity.
If the goal is to prevent an editor's full IP address from being publicly visible, making it impossible to edit anonymously meets that goal.
You asked a legitimate question; I hope I provided a useful answer. There's no doubt that a lot of the comments above reflect a "I hate the WMF and everything they do" mentality, which is sad. That's not where I'm coming from. -- RoySmith(talk) 15:18, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
If WMF creates permissive API endpoints that provide the raw data, that would alleviate this issue, right? Then developers could create userscripts to use the data in different ways, possibly up to the point of reversing the effects of the masking entirely? (for users who have the required permissions) ProcSock (talk) 15:37, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
If too many users have the permission, this is likely going to cause IP masking data to leak. Don't know if that is a problem, but this is why I don't expect things to be as easy to use as now. —Kusma (talk) 15:56, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
ProcSock, To some extent, yes. That would eliminate the need to get WMF developers to update their tool. But it would still be added work on our part. And the set of people with the technical skills to access an authenticated API is smaller than the set of people with the technical skills to grab the text from a wiki page and parse it with whatever local tools they have. Also, SPI clerks often have conversations along the lines of, "I see X, Y, and Z IPs in the archives. To cover that range, it would take blocking the /25, but I'm thinking I'll just block the /28 since that seems to cover the recent activity". It would no longer be possible to have conversations like that in the public forum of SPI. -- RoySmith(talk) 16:03, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
I'd say that the best route to protect the project in this case is going to be to disable IP editing in response. !ɘM γɿɘυϘ⅃ϘƧ 17:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
So as someone who is currently unsure on the logical response re IP-editing remaining, I would highlight a couple of significant negatives: one is that it's not so much the direct positive editing from IP editors that is beneficial. It's the longer-term conversion to registered productive editors that's valuable. Many of us made our initial edits as an IP. The question that none of us can truly know, and it would take at least a year to have any real idea, is what % of that group would have just directly registered accounts. A fairly small difference makes a big impact on the weight of that prong. The other is that banning IP-edits would drive up the number of CU requests. A lot. We already have less coverage than we'd like and it's not something we can just choose to fix without issue. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
We are not and never were like other websites, so I do not believe we should require registration just because other sites do. I don't know how popular you all are in your social circles, but I doubt my friends will be clamoring to create a Wikipedia account just because I edit here. I signed up for social media sites because my friends were there and I had to if I wanted to interact with them. I signed up for newspaper websites because it is required to read most content. I sign up for web apps because it is required to use them. Other websites incentivize registration through coercion: if you do not register you miss out on core functionality. That is not true of Wikipedia; our content will always be entirely free and available regardless of whether people create an account or not. Most people don't care about editing Wikipedia at all--they just want to read our content--so eliminating unregistered editing will not entice them to register, but it will stop them from fixing typos they see while reading. For those who are interested in editing, it creates an unnecessary barrier that will only serve to decrease organic editor recruitment.The main concern is that IP masking will make some things harder. That seems based on little more than fear of change since any change will make some things harder; meanwhile no one seems to care about how it will make editing harder for other editors like unregistered editors or checkusers. The proposal will still allow admins to see unmasked IPs so we can still effectively calculate range blocks. There will be a new user right that will allow us to expand this ability to non-administrators meaning that non-admin SPI clerks can still effectively do their job. Similar to autoconfirmed and extended confirmed, all registered users will be able to see parts of an IP address without disclosing the most identifiable parts, allowing most regular editors to determine and check whether a range block will be effective. If we require registration though, all of this will require checkusers since this IP info will be behind an account and we (rightly) have tight controls over when and how that gets accessed. The biggest difference that the IP masking proposal brings is that unregistered editors will have similar privacy protections as registered editors do: deletion of personally identifiable information (IP address) after 90 days. Currently we rarely block IPs for more than a few weeks. Checkusers already have issues connecting registered masters to very old IPs. Why is this? Because IPs change constantly. If we are going back more than 90 days we run a major risk of going off of stale information anyway. In most cases we won't need to look back that far, and even in the cases where we do it's not particularly reliable. Will IP masking make some things harder? Yes, but so will requiring registration to edit. The difference is that one thing requires us to make compromises so that we can accommodate greater privacy for editors, while the other lets us centralize power among established editors to create an even more exclusive editing environment while offloading the hard work to other people.Regardless of IP masking, I'm staunchly opposed to restricting unregistered editing. It creates an unnecessary barrier that undermines our core principles for little net benefit. There are certainly improvements that can be made to the IP masking proposal, but our response to increased privacy protections for unregistered editors should not be to throw out one of the core features of a public wiki. We should be working to bring in more editors, not devising new ways to exclude groups of people we're prejudiced against. — Wug·a·po·des 23:49, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
I must admit that I did not read that whole comment, but certainly agree that "we are not and never were like other websites". If anything is done because others do it then the sites that we should be following are online free encyclopedias that anyone can edit that have been much more successful than Wikipedia. There are obviously none, so we should be leading, not following. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I say we give it a shot and see what happens before we panic. While I may not be a fan, I also am not sure I see the need to ban all IP editing. Lets just wait and see what actually happens and respond in an informed and responsible manner. PackMecEng (talk) 23:57, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Well what's the fun in that? Levivich 00:30, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
These discussions start too early—initially, people were merely saying that if IP masking proved to be a problem, IP editing might have to be curtailed. I'm not ready to vote but have two observations. First, there is always a significant number of contrarians for any topic and it is likely that many of the constructive IP editors don't create an account because they don't have to and they don't want to change their habit. Requiring them to make an account might actually be doing them a favor because then they can think that they only did it because they had to, and an account has several benefits. Second, vandal accounts are easy to deal with—once detected, all their edits are usually inspected and reverted if necessary. That's not so easy with shifting IPs. I have seen many such IPs who change numbers or other factoids—checking each edit might take an hour and that's not going to happen. You can ask the IP why they made the change but that is usually pointless (example of me trying to reach one person on five different IPs: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5). If a registered editor makes frequent edits without explanation they are eventually blocked indefinitely. An IP might not be blocked at all because tomorrow a new person could conceivably make a good edit. Johnuniq (talk) 03:48, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Playtime is over for the WMF. I'd agree with Kusma's point, and refer you to PythonCoder's list of bad WMF decisions. Ironically, it is their victim Fram who started this thread. Had Jimbo Wales been pinged yet? Firestar464 (talk) 04:01, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
This is, so wrong,
Sweet Jimbo, hear my prayer!
Back down! Back down!
Sweet Jimbo doesn't care.
(Adapted from the opening song in the film Les Miserables[17]) --Guy Macon (talk) 05:52, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
The process for blocking IPs currently involves the caution against blocking sensitive IP addresses. It's just a matter of time 'til someone unwittingly blocks one of them because we no longer know they're "sensitive". Shall we write the headlines now, "Wikipedia censors Congress/Senate/Parliament/White House"? Cabayi (talk) 11:48, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Firstly, admins can still see complete IPs under the WMF's current plan. Secondly, if a person connecting from the WH/Congress is blocked for vandalism or some other form of trolling, then I imagine it would be more embarrassing for that Congressman (or their aides) to tell the media which edits got them blocked, than it would be for the administrator pressing the block button. Afaik there exists no policy that says people from Congress get a pass on problematic editing (and if there does it should be scrapped), so I don't see why it should play be a factor at all anyway. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:32, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
To Proc, actually there will be admins who don't see IPs, if they don't opt in to view them, but generally yes. I'd also note that I assume that in the information they're raising to editors with the new tool, "sensitive IP" would be a logical category. There are reasons to oppose this, but this isn't really one of them Nosebagbear (talk) 12:46, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Cabayi, Totally orthogonal to the IP masking issue, the whole "sensitive IP address" thing is a minefield. We have these nice tools called computers which are very good at answering questions like, "Is this number an element of that set of number ranges". The idea that we're relying on humans to make those lookups every time they block an IP is absurd. I know I don't do it. I suspect the vast majority of admins don't do it either. If we really cared about it happening, the software would do it and give you a warning before you could hit the Confirm button. -- RoySmith(talk) 13:59, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
RoySmith, As far as I recall, if you try and block an IP on the range of "sensitive" ones, you are asked to confirm if that's really what you want to do. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 15:22, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Kusma, I don't think I've ever used Twinkle for blocking. Most of my blocks these days are by either clicking one of the "block user" or "spi block" links that {{checkuser}} generates (both of which get you to the Special:Block form), or (more frequently) by letting User:GeneralNotability/spihelper do it for me. -- RoySmith(talk) 15:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
...but you wouldn't want an admin to not know they were about to block congress. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:02, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose banning IP editing I do 99% of my editing while logged out, only logging in when I absolutely have to because my setup is such that logging in is a major inconvenience (comfortably logged out right now as the PROJSOCK hurdle has finally been moved out of the way). If IP editing were to be disabled, that's ~2K edits/year lost from me alone. Not the end of the world? Sure, but do you know the difference between a disruptive edit and a good edit that never got made because the person who considered making it decided it was too much hassle to make it? Both result in immediate damage to the project, but the latter also causes long-term latent damage. If the project is to continue past the lifespan of its current contributors, we simply cannot afford to cut off the vital supply of fresh blood that IP editing provides. 78.28.44.31 (talk) 18:25, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
That's why I support banning IP editing in all mainspaces except main. I've no problem if your 2K edits are spelling or grammar fixes, but if you post here, it's impossible to tell you're not a sockpuppet or a joe job. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 11:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
I do not really get the purpose of this project, but it seems as if you want to provide a solution to those who do not want their IP address visible?
I will simply leave my two cents here as many other people have done so as well. Those who do not want their IP visible can simply register an account. IP addresses also do not do a very good job at identifying people as IPs are really only attached to a particular location or a particular ISP. Wikipedia has done a very good job at protecting people's privacy. WMF does not do fingerprinting or any form of tracking as far as I know, and they only collect information needed to effectively moderate the platform.
Those that do not want their IP address publicly visible can just create an account, no problem. Also in the privacy policy as it stands, WMF may release such information if they believe it is necessary to protect other users or the projects. I think this project may be a solution looking for a problem. Aasim (talk) 19:29, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
My understanding is the ip masking is a legal thing, not a because the ip wants it thing. But I could be mistaken. PackMecEng (talk) 20:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that the legal has thus far refused to explain why this is needed. IP addresses are not sensitive information, at least not here in the US (where Wikimedia's servers are hosted). -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 21:22, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Their explanation is the first link at the top of this thread. In short: it's a legal requirement. Levivich 21:35, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
That's not how it reads to me. They're literally refusing to explain their reasoning. -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 22:01, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Rockstone35, They have explained their reasoning here. It's one thing to say you don't like it, or that you don't agree with their reasoning, or that you think the cost to the smooth running of the project exceeds the value, but to say that they are "literally refusing to explain their reasoning" is just plain silly. -- RoySmith(talk) 22:28, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
RoySmith, Legal explicitly refuses to describe why they thought this is a legal requirement (see their statement, because it isn't. I'm not saying that Wikimedia as a whole isn't explaining why this is needed, but the legal team certainly is not. -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 22:39, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
They can't disclose the legal advice they are giving, as doing so would violate attorney-client privilege. If a lawyer tells their client they are or might be out of compliance with the law, neither lawyer nor client would ever disclose that publicly. Same with a lawyer's advice for how best to comply with recent or expected future changes in the law.Anyway, I'm not sure what more of an explanation you'd expect about this: IP addresses are personal data, at least in certain situations, in the EU, California, and elsewhere, according to recent court decisions and legislation. The writing on the wall is clear: privacy protection of IP address is coming to more and more jurisdictions. It's obviously not legally prudent to reveal IP addresses publicly as we do; we may not be breaking any laws by doing so, but we definitely are taking on liability, and if we aren't breaking laws now, the laws are changing in that direction. We are/will be required to comply. IP masking is just a way of complying without entirely scrapping IP editing. If anything, in this instance, I think the WMF and WMF Legal are handling it just about as good as can be under the circumstances. Levivich 22:44, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
@Levivich: While Johan and NKohli have been nicely communicative throughout, Legal can hardly be said to handling it as well as possible given that they waited until a huge amount of effort had gone into what was being participated by editors as a good-faith consultation before switching out that actually it was needed and they just hadn't been sufficiently clear. There are also a variety of questions asked around 14 weeks ago, some of which would not be answerable but others which would be (noted and accepted in the asking), including a number of "meta-questions". There has been no response despite Johan stating they've been passed on. If you have something restricting transparency then they would need to be nailing it in all the other comms, and that can not be said to be happening Nosebagbear (talk) 09:50, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
This is not a legal requirement. As they explain, this is an action by the Foundation to ensure the privacy of IP editors — Publication of these IP addresses compromises the safety and anonymity of these users. In some cases, it may even invite the danger of putting people at risk of government persecution. and later — Q Is this project the result of a particular law being passed? A: No. — GhostInTheMachinetalk to me 22:18, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I kind of see the dilemma at hand and thought of a solution. Why not run the IP address through a hash algorithm then have that be the identifier used for anonymous users? If the salt is long enough, then it will take hundreds or thousands of years to figure out the IP address. There will be collisions, but that will only be a small handful of IP addresses.
It also allows for the full IP to be hidden from everyone except database admins. Checkusers can still view these hashes when attempting to identify sockpuppetry, and if there are legal ramifications, database admins can share the raw IP data with appropriate officials. Admins would be able to see that an anon is in an IP range and block it, but would not be able to view their IP address. Aasim (talk) 23:40, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Done naively, that would destroy range information. However Crypto-PAn is a hash algorithm for IP addresses that does preserve ranges. The drawback is that anyone could recognize an IP on their own range, since they have both the original IP and the hash. I don't know if WMF-legal thinks that's a problem. I've brought Crypto-PAn several times with the WMF but never got a response other than "we'll look into it". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:55, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
They'll never SAY it's a legal thing.. Doesn't anyone understand how legal departments work ? If they confirm it's a legal thing the foundation has automatically admitted fault complicated their own defence in any potential lawsuit and opens itself up to lawsuits being filed (most likely in the EU). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:28, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
TheDJ, no one is expecting them to. I don't think anyone would figure it be wise for them to have "Q: Does this violate the law?" "A: Oh it totally does and we know that." However, that still does not make it acceptable to lie. If your conjecture were true, they should say nothing at all about that subject, not give a false answer. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 00:53, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
That's a pretty negative way of looking at things. Just because there is no particular single prompt, doesn't preclude it from being a part of the puzzle. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:35, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't really understand the rationale that IPs are only useful to tech savvy users. I'm so dumb I got fired from the M&M factory for throwing away all the Ws, but even I can do a range block and a geolocate. GMGtalk 12:02, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Not only is this a solution in search of a problem—anyone who is concerned about revealing their IP can register an account—but it will actively prevent those of us who do not jump through hoops to register as "vandal fighters" from treating IP editors as humans by messaging them in welcome or thanks (including pointing out to them the advantages of registering an account) or explaining to them why their edits are being reverted. We want to encourage editors other than "vandal fighters" to interact with new editors or editors who are doing something inadvisable. In fact it seems to me that it will prevent even those who do secure the permission from starting talk pages for IP editors, which is fundamental to treating them as fellow humans.(Seems to me like a very counterproductive way to get out of fixing the WMF mobile apps that leave mobile editors unaware they have talkpage messages.) It also smears together multiple IP addresses on the same network, a particular concern with mobile networks and some countries that funnel internet access through a small number of IPs, thereby ensuring we can't distinguish IPs who make useful edits from others who don't: it effectively announces that they are all the same, which is presumably the opposite of the message the WMF wishes to convey about individual rights. If en.wikipedia reacts by banning IP editing, we lose anyone who would have tipped their toe in by making a first edit or two without registering (and many of us started that way), we violate the principle of "anyone can edit", thereby letting vandals spoil it for non-vandals, and we will lose a whole slew of IP editors, many of them long-term contributors, of whom I know of one ("BOB") who's a tremendously productive vandal-fighter and -reporter. I don't personally understand why anyone would rather reveal their location and possibly more by not registering, and put up with CAPTCHAs, the inability to start or move a page, and widespread anti-IP prejudice. But it's been more than 10 years since I registered my only account, so for all I know there is some intrusive questionnaire that I've forgotten or that the WMF has since introduced. Far more importantly, it's none of my business that someone would have different preferences from me, and this proposal would hurt such people, at the very least by forcing us to treat them all on the same basis as people who drop in from the public library to deface an article (and frequently get library IPs blocked). I can't think of a single justification for this, and can only see further damage from responding by requiring registration. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:25, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Where are you seeing the info that non-vandal-fighters will not be able to create IP talk pages, or that users on different IPs in a small range will be mapped to one account and not distinguished between? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:22, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: According to the Meta page, the proposal is to allow only "[c]heckusers, stewards and admins]" plus "[e]ditors who partake in anti-vandalism activities, as vetted by the community ...[a right that] could be handled in a similar manner as adminship", to see complete IP addresses; which would appear to me to be a requirement for creating or indeed posting to an IP talk page. (Creating or posting to such a talk page might also violate the secrecy that both classes of users would need to promise to uphold.) Other users "with accounts over a year old and at least 500 edits" would be eligible only to apply for the right to see all but the last part of the IP, which amounts to equating the edits from all IPs on a large range; every IP with the same initial parts would be indistinguishable except to the certified "vandal fighters" plus admins/functionaries (and this is expressly stated to be a matter of demonstrating need; they don't see any need other than vandal fighting). Has this since been modified? It's precisely IP editors we need to be able to reach with explanations and advice on-wiki before or as soon as possible after they get into trouble, because they are likely to be new editors and thus unaware they are breaching some rule or guideline, and because there's no way to e-mail them. I can't see any way in which the WMF has accommodated that need. Yngvadottir (talk) 03:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
I think your assumption is not correct. According to the same page:
Q: If we don’t see IP addresses, what would we see instead when edits are made by unregistered users?
A: Instead of IP addresses, users will be able to see a unique, automatically-generated, human-readable username. This can look something like “Anonymous 12345”, for example.
It seems to me that each unique IP will be passed through some kind of hashing function. e.g. 1.2.3.4. -> "Anonymous 6fagb". 1.2.3.5 -> "Anonymous 9ha1g". Of course anyone will be able to post on "Anonymous 6fagb" or "Anonymous 9ha1g"'s talks, without any extra permissions needed. You'd just need extra permissions to realise that they're both connecting from similar IP addresses, or to realise what their location is. But certainly it's worth clarifying with the WMF if you are concerned; they are responding on the talk of the meta page linked in the OP. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:21, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
After thinking about it, no thanks. A number of others have raised serious objections to this here, and it is yet another example of the WMF carelessly undermining collegial interactions between editors, not to mention making it harder for those of us who work on the projects. I have raised the issues here, where they will cause damage. If someone else wants to undertake the thankless task of trying to get them to listen to actual volunteers, that would be best. I don't speak the necessary argot and I understand that "negativity" is not welcome there. (Can IP editors post over there? I hope so.) Yngvadottir (talk) 21:18, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
Test IP range for testing the warning you are supposed to get when blocking certain special ranges?
192.0.2.0/24 would only give you 256 addresses, many of which are already in use. 10.0.0.0/8 has 16,777,216 addresses. If we picked, say, 10.234.0.0/16 as or test range, that would allow the admins to test blocking up to 65,536 addresses, or let several admins test 256-address /24 blocks at the same time without walking over each other. 192.0.2.0/24 is typically used when testing a single IP, while 10.[something].0.0/16 is the usual choice when testing a range of IPs. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:39, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Guy Macon, But, the point is, 192.0.2.0/24 is a reserved range, so you're guaranteed (well, about as much as anything is guaranteed on the internet) that zero addresses in that range are in use. -- RoySmith(talk) 17:47, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Surely 256 is far more than enough for testing, so RoySmith is right, and we don't use the 10. addresses, so Guy Macon is right. Does it really matter which we use? Or are we going to get into a techie pissing contest that has no relationship to reality? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:09, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I believe the WMF internal network uses IP addresses in the 10.0.0.0/8 range and WMCS uses addresses in the 172.16.0.0/12 range, so for the avoidance of any possible side effects, it would make more sense to go for a range which is actually reserved in a way which makes it improbable that it has any usage, this 190.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, and/or 203.0.113.0/24. stwalkerster (talk) 18:29, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved the following three blocks of the IP address space for private internets:
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)
If the WMF uses private IP addresses in such a way that a Wikipedia administrator blocking that IP address on the public internet is a problem, then they should [A] change the Wikimedia software to make it impossible to block those IP addresses, and [B] fire the idiots who didn't follow the advice in RFC1918 ("If an enterprise uses the private address space, or a mix of private and public address spaces, then DNS clients outside of the enterprise should not see addresses in the private address space used by the enterprise"). That's the whole point of private IP addresses. The system is designed so that 90% of the people reading this have a router with an IP address of 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 and yet they don't interfere with each other.
BTW, has anyone at the WMF ever said that we should not block IP addresses in the 10.0.0.0/8 range? Or is that just a guess? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:52, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Back in 2013 I (in my role as an admin here, after some WP:SILENCE) blocked 10.0.0.0/8 to prevent accidental logged-out edits from the then-new Wikimedia Labs like we had done for the Toolserver. WMF people didn't think it would be a problem. But it turned out that blocking an IP also blocks requests that have that that IP in an X-Forwarded-For header, and some ISPs are misconfigured such that they emit private-range IPs to the public internet in X-Forwarded-For and so were caught by that block. Whether anyone still at the WMF would remember that if asked now, I don't know. Anomie⚔ 11:56, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Just for fun, I just logged into dev-buster.toolforge.org and (after some fun trying to remember how lynx worked), made this edit. I was half-expecting it to show up with the dev-buster's internal IP of 172.16.6.70, but I guess the toolforge boxes are (as they should be) behind a different NAT gateway.
The interesting thing I learned is if you go to the contribs page for that IP, you get the "sensitive page" popup there too. Which is nice. It's still concerning that this warning is generated at a level that (apparently) is only visible to the web interface. If you're using some add-on tool that goes directly through the API, as far as I can tell, you could block the entire US government from editing (not sure that wouldn't be a bad thing) without any visible warning (which is certainly a bad thing). -- RoySmith(talk) 12:30, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Please put my request for a test IP range on hold. We have a more serious issue. Having a test range is a convenience. Blocking users when the blocking administrator has no way of knowing who they are blocking is something we need to look into.
First, we need to test to see if blocking an IP blocks a post with that IP in the X-Forwarded-For or in the similar Forwarded HTTP header specified in RFC 7239.
If the answer is yes, we need to discuss whether this is desirable behavior.
I am looking into Trusted X-Forwarded-For as mentioned here[18] Does anyone know anything about this? Are forged X-Forwarded-For headers a common thing? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:42, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
It appears that there is also a X-Real-IP header. This article[19] talks about spoofingt them both. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:07, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: I'm really befuddled why this is an issue. 192.0.2.0/24 is explicitly designed for exactly this sort of thing, and guaranteed never to be allocated to any real machine, and even if it were, it's also guaranteed never to be routed anywhere. It's designed to avoid exactly this sort of problem. Why are you so worked up over whether 10.0.0.0/8 can be used, when the right answer is simply that we shouldn't be using it for this at all.
We've also strayed way out of what makes sense to be discussing on WP:VPW. I've started a thread at Template talk:Sensitive IP addresses; you might want to follow up there if you have concerns. If you believe the Wikimedia software in incorrectly processing X-Forwarded-For headers, you should open a phab ticket. -- RoySmith(talk) 13:13, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Speaking from experience: blocking 10. addresses can indeed block internal traffic, see for example this oopsie caused by internal XFF issues. Please, if we need to blindly block things for testing, use one of the test ranges: 192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, or 203.0.113.0/24. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:56, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Looks like mostly inconsequential changes. I'm a bit concerned by the removal of the text "[W]e do not allow tracking by third-party websites you have not visited (including analytics services, advertising networks, and social platforms)", but I think it might be already covered by some text elsewhere? There's already a line saying "We will never use third-party cookies, unless we get your permission to do so." Unsure if this matters. --Yair rand (talk) 22:47, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Nice of them to tell us. DuncanHill (talk) 23:48, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Most of it is just copyediting. One useful provision has been added, however, relating to access and removal of personal information. It's one of the things I contacted them about a few months ago and IMO a meaningful improvement. Shame they didn't do more about community handling of personal information, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:15, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I would note that most privacy policies on any site will do copyediting and provisions that restrict data gathering with no notice, as it's assumed that no individuals will complain. It's the fact that the WMF has any time-gap that makes it look odd to our eyes. I don't see anything objectionable Nosebagbear (talk) 12:53, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
As a note, the deadline for questions is the 29th JuneNosebagbear (talk) 00:23, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Self-Dealing on the WMF Board
I'm kind of surprised that this isn't already here.
Recently resigned chair of the Board of Trustees, María Sefidari has been immediately transitioned into a paid consulting role with the WMF, which raises some very serious ethical questions about board governance.
When asked, Maggie Dennis and others (including counsel) gave conflicting stories on the sequence of events that led to this breach of ethical governance. This kind of insider self-dealing not only raises ethical questions about how the WMF is run, but could also possibly raise legal issues; the sections of the code talking about private inurement were not written by accident.
But don't take my word for it, read the discussion and judge for yourself. This is a situation that should be discussed by the community, not brushed under the rug as insiders are trying to do.
General Counsel's reply was to completely duck the question and give meaningless boilerplate about doing better in the future, without any roadmap to remedying this situation.
I can't believe they hired a former board member. This is like nonprofit governance 101: even if it's below commercially-reasonable rates, you just don't do it, because it looks awful. Yikes. Levivich 21:53, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
If you really can't believe it then I think you are being very naïve. I can believe it all too well. The incredible thing is that they think they can get away with this sort of thing without anyone noticing. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:06, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm actually surprised, too. This is almost a whole new level of brazenness compared to the Fram stuff and the WMF renaming fiasco. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
Wherein, IIRC, there was an issue with the same board member's relative being hired. Real chutzpah. Levivich 22:33, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
And if the Foundation needs her expertise (which is debatable), why offer her a paid position? The Wikimedia projects run on unpaid, volunteer labor. And last I checked, Sefidari has a full-time job. Or did Rey Juan Carlos University give her an indefinite leave without pay to attend to personal matters? -- llywrch (talk) 01:50, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
The specific part I can't believe is that Maggie and Amanda are approving/defending this. Before reading those emails, I thought they were the voice of reason at the top. Maybe that was naive... Levivich 22:33, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
I haven't followed the Movement Strategy consultations recently, but did "try harder to alienate the communities and work to dismantle confidence in the governance structures" accidentally slip in there somewhere? —Kusma (talk) 22:14, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
No, this is totally out of the blue (even though it is being sold as "sthengthening the strategy process").--Ymblanter (talk) 22:39, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
Hi all, I'm dropping this information here as it is related:
The Wikimedia Foundation is hosting an office hour featuring Chief Financial Officer Jaime Villagomez and General Counsel Amanda Keton, two of the transition team guiding the Wikimedia Foundation during its executive transition. It will also feature guests from the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees (BoT), to be determined over the next few days, and Community Resilience & Sustainability Vice President Maggie Dennis. The main purpose of the call is to discuss questions related to Wikimedia Foundation executive transition, including the retention of María Sefidari as an advisor to Movement Strategy and supporting and onboarding the expanding BoT. Come with your questions or feedback, and let’s talk! You can also send us your questions in advance.
@Phil Bridger: I think if they were "trying to get away without anyone noticing" then they wouldn't have sent an email titled "Welcoming María Sefidari as a Foundation consultant" on one of the most subscribed email lists. Don't get me wrong, I am against the action in both the general and the specific, but I don't consider them to be attempting to hide it. An argument could be made for them trying to present as a fait accompli, but I also don't think that's the case - they seem too surprised by the backlash and both Amanda and Maggie are more aware than most at the top of the chain about the risks of that. Amanda's defence, in particular, concerned me - for the General Counsel, she seemed surprisingly unaware that it's considered very poor form, unwise, and also that various of the more established affiliates restrict such activity. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:51, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
There are of course two, in principle, separate questions - whether the move is legal and whether it is good. Whereas it is probably legal - and this is likely what the office hours are going to address - so far everybody concerned seems to think it is a bad move, for a simple reason that it damages the reputation of the WMF as a whole and also particular WMF employees and board members who facilitated this. I mean, pouring gasoline around my own house and igniting it is probably legal, assuming nobody is inside at the moment, but is hardly a smart move in most situations.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:23, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Exactly. The standard we must be applying is "best practices," but judging from the emails, it seems the standard we are applying instead is "not clearly illegal." I hope they just reverse themselves before Tuesday on this one. They can't claim it's best practices (because hiring a board member is the stereotypical example of "might be legal but never best practice," just ask Google and you'll see how many articles and ethics advisory opinions are written about this exact issue), so if they spend the office hour explaining that it's not illegal, that will make things worse. Levivich 15:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
By "without anyone noticing" I didn't mean without anyone noticing it had happened, but without anyone noticing that it was an obviously bad move. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:55, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
On the bright side, at least Maria was actually one of 3 community elected trustees. Worse look if it were one of the 7 non-community-elected ones... ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:51, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Community elects trustees to stay for the whole term.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:40, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
I mean, she was chair when they cancelled the elections, then made significant changes to the bylaws during the lame duck year, then hired her to oversee implementation of said changes. Facepalm Does it not occur to them the community might elect trustees in the next election who will reverse these changes, thus making Maria's consultancy unnecessary? Levivich 17:52, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Not sure the community can elect trustees to reverse these changes even if it wanted to. There are 7 (a majority) seats not community elected, compared to 3 of the community. After the board expansion who knows how many seats we'll be allowed. Then there's the corporate trustee evaluation form that places little value in community participation even for the community-elected seats. (nb: I don't consider chapters or Jimbo's perpetual seat to be 'community elected', but the Board does, hence the slogan of apparent community control.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:28, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
2 of the 7 are affiliates tho, and one is Jimbo. In theory the 3 community and 2 affiliate trustees can outvote the 4 appointed trustees. (Those 4 were re-appointed during the lame duck year.) Jimbo could deadlock the vote but I don't think that's ever happened or ever would. The expansion maintains that ratio AFAIK. So it's still within the editing community's power to elect an entirely new board (that will appoint different appointed trustees), and they'll get to pick the new CEO, who oversees everyone else, so "cleaning house" at the top of the WMF remains an option for the community. It starts with electing the right trustees in this year's community trustee elections (and in the next affiliate trustee elections). In my view, efforts to work with the current board in any way are not as efficient or productive as efforts focused on the election. To put it bluntly, colleagues, we can complain about the decisions the trustees make until the cows come home, but we really should just be talking about who we want to replace them. Levivich 18:48, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
@Levivich: So now the Election Commission (appointed by the board, not elected by the community) has decided to select its own questions that don't match up with what the community wanted to ask. Editors are not allowed to ask individual questions, and pretty much all but one important question was removed. Still think the community can reverse the changes even if it wants to? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:19, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: well they really messed that up. But yes we still have the power to reverse these changes. WMF staff can't get between the community and its representative trustees even if it tries. To cross post what I wrote at meta just now: For my part, I'm going to ask the questions that I have to ask anyway, and I'm not voting for any candidate that doesn't answer the questions that I think are important. The WMF cannot (and will not) control or limit my communications with candidates. It's up to the candidates individually to engage with the community, or not, as they see fit. It's up to the community to perform its due diligence and vote, or not, as it see fits.Levivich 14:55, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't have much time to spend on internal governance issues, but one of the questions I will ask if I have the time will be what candidates think of the current foundation selecting the questions to be asked rather than the community, and the answers or non-answers that they give will strongly influence my voting. It appears that we have a self-perpetuating oligarchy of employees who think that they are the employers. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:38, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
Just to make it clear, it is not the Foundation which is selecting questions, it is the Election committee. The committee is indeed appointed by the WMF (or may be by the Board), but it does not include the WMF employees. It includes volunteers active on the projects, including for example KTC who is administrator here.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
As you say, it's a committee appointed by the WMF or the Board (and is so lacking in transparency that we don't know which) who select the questions. That is the same as the outgoing administration in a country deciding what questions can be asked of candidates for the next parliament. That sort of thing only happens in dictatorships. It is neither here nor there whether the committee includes an admin on English Wikipedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:43, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
I can't say this is shocking. The display of complete incompetence by the WMF has been going on for years. At what point does the general public take notice? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:12, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
TBH I don't really understand this corporate-governance scandal on the same level as WP:FRAM, so I think it's unlikely that this will get picked up by the general public. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 14:34, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
For the general public, FRAM was that "a bad user was banned from the Wikipedia but some editors became so unhappy that he was unbanned". This one is "The former Wikipedia board chair took a paid position she created while still being the board chair". Whereas this simplification clearly distorts the real situation in both cases, I believe the second distortion is easier to understand by an outsider. (Note that I am not a proponent of solving the Wikimedia issues using the external media).--Ymblanter (talk) 14:45, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
And, this is really quite a much larger scandal than the Framgate situation. Framgate didn't violate ethical requirements for 501(c)(3) organizations. This one could undermine the WMF's status as a 501(c)(3). That it could, and that nobody in the WMF organization seemed to begin to think this just might be a problem (much less a devastating one that could land them in serious hot water) speaks volumes of the abject incompetence of the WMF as a whole. It's not surprising we've seen so many resignations of senior officers from the organization of late. It makes one wonder if the ship is sinking and the rats are leaving as fast as possible. María Sefidari's first recommendation as a paid advisor to the WMF should be to recommend her position be terminated posthaste. I would like to have hope that the search committee to replace Maher is professional and will be selecting a candidate who can stop this ship sinking. Such hope, however, is completely unreasonable to have given the track record of the WMF. The next CEO will not have significant (if any) experience in heading a multi-million dollar 501(c)(3). Maher had no such experience, and I doubt the next selection will have any either. The problems with the WMF are deeply systemic, and without a CEO that has the knowledge, experience, and power to dramatically correct the organization, these problems will only get worse. This bubble is going to burst, and when it does it's not going to be pretty. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:40, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
A thing can be bad without being a threat to the entire foundation. Considering that a CEO can serve on a board it is not going to undermine their status as a 501(c)(3) to have a former board member working at the organization. Setting up a strawman that because Maher had no experience heading an org the next hire also won't isn't helpful either. The foundation is a much larger organization than when it hired Maher. We all have thoughts about that but it does mean that a different kind of candidate may be interested than was interested when they selected Maher. Will they hire someone good? Too soon to tell but catastrophizing this doesn't help. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:48, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm not trying to help or hurt. I'm simply stating the situation as it is, and extrapolating that based on their prior patterns of behavior it's highly unlikely they will hire someone with the knowledge and expertise to fix the serious systemic issues with the organization. The Maher hiring was in my opinion a failure. There's been plenty of 'bad'. There's been lots of things for us to complain about with the WMF. There's not been many that fall into this category, where such behavior can lead to their non-profit status being revoked. Being a larger organization than when they hired Maher doesn't mean they've gained competency. In fact, give the track record over the last few years a rather strong argument can be made that they've gone in the opposite direction. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:04, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
It does make you wonder why they don't hire a CEO from within the communities. I'm curious if there's an assumption that a community member cannot be an effective WMF CEO, and if so whether that assumption is true. I don't mean this in a critical way -- perhaps the skills needed to be an effective community member don't overlap with the position of CEO, but it's intriguing that few in any WMF leadership role seem to have been active community members.For example, I'd hypothesise that an engineering director who uses the product day-in-day-out (as a user) would be better placed to appropriately direct development resources. I doubt I'll get an answer here, but if someone can turn this thought (or really, any line of questioning relating to development resources) into effective questions for the trustees that'd be welcomed -- questions are currently being accepted here. (Given the discussion a few sections up, I think some questions relating to how engineering resources are allocated are especially prudent.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:12, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree that it would make sense to look within as well as outside the communities for a possible CEO, but I don't see what anyone whose speciality is software engineering could bring in the way of particular skills to the party. The problem is to do with corporate governance, not software development. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:06, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
To be clear, those were two separate comments, and that portion was about a different senior leadership position (an engineering director) -- I'll add a paragraph break for clarity. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:23, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
I've seen a couple of volunteers hope that Maggie Dennis might become the next Foundation head. However, based on her support for hiring Sefidari as a paid consultant I suspect this support has eroded.As for not hiring a CEO from the communities, there are a number of reasons. One is a historical reason: Sue Gardner was picked because none of the volunteers at the time thought they had the expertise to run the Foundation, & believed an experienced journalist would help with improving access to content. In short, there has not been an experienced volunteer who could -- or thought they could -- convince the PTB to give her/him a chance to run the Foundation. -- llywrch (talk) 06:40, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader I have spent enormous time dealing directly with the Foundation. I literally created WP:Village_pump_(WMF). I can comment on your hypothesis regarding the WMF hiring community members. It turns out to be a paradox. My experience is that the Foundation has an impressive talent for finding and hiring community members who are actively hostile to community consensus and mainstream community views. That explicitly includes software product managers. I began expanding that into a long wall of text, but I'll cut a long story short. To the best of my knowledge the worst software managers were all community sourced and each waged an actively hostile war against the community. I'd say the best experience has been when a manager may be clueless in editing/community matters, but they genuinely tried to work with us. Alsee (talk) 16:23, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
I was going to suggest that Rabbie Burns's poem "To a Louse" should be required reading for all managers at the WMF, but they would probably think that the poem only applies to everone else rather than themselves. And to think that even Matt Hancock seems to have finally behaved more honourably than some of them. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
Yep, Phil. The Tories were the first thing came to my mind as well. --AndreasJN466 18:17, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
The parallel that came to my mind was Nominet UK, another not-for-profit which lost sight of its noble purpose and now seems to be run for the benefit of its board.[20]Certes (talk) 21:00, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
The decision to hire Maria was apparently okayed by the incumbent Board of Trustees. One member of the aforementioned Board of Trustees, Dariusz Jemielniak, is currently running for reelection. People may (or may not) wish to keep this latest misstep in mind when voting opens. --RaiderAspect (talk) 14:16, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Unsurprisingly, the Office Hour was just about worthless; all platitudes and doublespeak, no transparency or accountability. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 16:24, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
I disagree, I thought Amanda did a good job with crisis management on the call. I was particularly glad to hear they're willing to walk away from this, which I hope is what they decide. The six month cooling off period doesn't make sense to me here, because in six months presumably we'll have new board members and probably a new CEO and hopefully will have transitioned by then, so I'm not sure what the sense is in paying Maria to jump back in at the end of 2021. One amazing aspect was that 30 people were consulted and not one apparently brought up the affiliates or best practices issues: that really demonstrates how there is a large group at the WMF that seems quite out of touch with the community (I mean we knew that already but this kind of thing really highlights it) and maybe nonprofit best practices (that's a bit concerning). Interesting to hear that the community-elected trustees were opposed to cancelling last year's election but that begs the question of why they voted for it anyway. The star of the show, though, was Jackie's cat in the beginning. I may follow Jackie's lead and also place my cat on top of my printer to improve print quality. :-) Levivich 16:39, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Opinions are going to vary! I have a different take. Since this has been going on for a week and they already know what the feedback says, if they were going to undo the contract, I believe that they would have already, given that nothing new was given or presented during this stream. I do not have a record of being 100% right, of course, but just to me personally, it felt like they were saying what they were saying to take the heat off themselves. My apologies if it seemed as if I was presenting my opinion as a fact; everyone should watch the video and make up their own mind! CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:10, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
@CoffeeCrumbs, perhaps you missed it but as I noted below Amanda indicated that she wanted to have this session before making any final decisions about the position. That seems reasonable enough to me; it doesn't sound like any voices spoke up saying that this position should be kept from the volunteer community but I appreciate them putting together time with the interim co-CEOs to hear directly from others and answer questions. Considering that decision making in an org that stretches so many time zones is bound to have some degree of delay I hope in a day or two we get word that the contract has been undone. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:26, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
People can watch the video on YouTube and decide for themselves what they think but I found Amanda quite open that they had made a mistake. I found that there were specific promises to change practices going forward including not asking anything of affiliates that they're not doing themselves. And I would hope that there would be an announcement in the next few days that the contract is being undone (to use their word). I respect the fact that they wanted to talk to the community - such as this was and there was admittedly little 2 way dialogue - before making a final decision but I don't think anyone was saying even with the extra context Amanda added that this contract should continue and I quite expect this means it won't be because they said right away that was on the table. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:42, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, consider me pleasantly surprised and wrong. Happy to be incorrect here. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 03:24, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
The general feedback from wikimedia-l thread was pretty clear, as well as this discussion. Virtually nobody supported the hiring. In this sense, the community reaction was there.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Barkeep and Levivich. It was very clear the community reaction was heard, listened to and acted upon. The whole thing is unfortunate, but I cannot think of another situation where the WMF has listened to feedback, reversed course and apologised within the space of less than one week. Mistakes inevitably happen; this one could perhaps have been avoided, but the next best thing is that it's promptly reversed. The Land (talk) 17:56, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Your notes as posted on the mailing list said the decision would be made today. Your post was quickly followed by a board member saying it would be several days before a decision would be published. That is not the most encouraging development. --AndreasJN466 23:21, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Well turns out a decision was made today. There's a reason that assuming good faith serves us well in many regards. Not that three more days (or like a total of 10 days since announcement) would have been a ridiculous amount of time for this to have played out. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:48, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
One thought. While I haven't watched the entire video, I doubt it was addressed in this talk. Now it's widely known that Sefidari is not liked by a large number of Wikipedians; whether or not this is justified is not my point, I'm merely pointing out this fact. I have to wonder if the people responsible for hiring her were so concerned about the reaction of this group that they overlooked the more glaring issue of apparent insider self-dealing. It's not unusual for one issue to obsess a decision-making group that they ignore more important ones (I could cite a few I know of ), & if this is what happened, then we could explain this decision as an error in judgment rather than an example of systemic corruption. -- llywrch (talk) 18:40, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
To be honest, she is not liked by a group of English Wikipedians who are less active in meta issues. I have no idea what is her standing in the Spanish Wikipedia, where she is a long-term administrator. I guess other project (except for Wikidata, where she was voted out as administrator) probably only know that she is a board member (which means slightly positive, non-personal connotation).--Ymblanter (talk) 18:54, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, the English Wikipedia has a disproportionate influence in Wikimedia events. But fair enough of an observation: I didn't mean to imply most English Wikipedians dislike her; I figure most English Wikipedians are barely aware she even exists. As for her involvement in the Spanish Wikipedia, I had a look at her editing history a few months ago & found that except for a period from 2007 to 2010 she has not been active there -- or any other project. Make of that what you will. -- llywrch (talk) 19:34, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
From the tone of the initial announcement, I get the feeling that WMF thought that hiring her would be a very popular move in the community. I have heard no hint they even thought about the potential reaction of community members who are still upset that she dared to stand up for herself in one of the side-issues to the Fram case. The Land (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
The reasons why she is not popular here are more complicated that this, but I do not think we should discuss them here now. I think it is good to say though that this is yet one more indication that opinions of affiliates' management on meta issues are often very different from those of editing communities in big projects.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:17, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
The office hour cleared up one thing: the paid position is for up to 40 hours a week. --AndreasJN466 23:32, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
General Counsel Amanda Keaton has now stated that the contract will end as of July 16. She also detailed several other pieces of review that will happen going forward including updating the COI policy (i.e. cooling off periods) and reviewing Affiliate Grant Agreemnts. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:48, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Announcing the confirmed candidates for the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election
The Wikimedia movement has the opportunity to vote for the selection of community-and-affiliate trustees. The Board is expected to select the four most voted candidates to serve as trustees. Voting closes 17 August 2021.
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. The Board wants to improve their competences and diversity as a team. They have shared the areas of expertise that they are currently missing and hope to cover with new trustees.
Would it be possible for someone at the WMF to set up a Matrix homeserver and room hosted on that homeserver? [Edit 08:18, 9 July 2021 (UTC): Specifically, a Matrix homeserver running via the Wikipedia servers, or Wikimedia servers, so that it would be [roomname]:wikipedia.org or [roomname]:wikimedia.org] Matrix rooms can also be bridged to IRC rooms. There is a new feature currently in development called "spaces", which allows grouping rooms together. Depending on what is desired, the Matrix rooms could be bridged to the IRC rooms, or there could be dedicated Matrix and IRC bridge rooms.
How would people feel about this? Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 07:35, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Why not talk about Wikipedia and Wikimedia on the Wikipedia and Wikimedia sites? That way discussions are open to everyone who contributes here, rather than just the cognoscenti. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:37, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
User:Phil Bridger: I agree with you. But unfortunately we have so far had two external communication systems used which are against the ethos that Wikipedia was founded on (freedom); I won't name them, but one of them was a requirement to take part in some WMF discussion that occurred earlier this year. At least Matrix is a libre software communication system. If people want to use real-time chat, at the very least giving them an option which is libre would be a positive step. DesertPipeline (talk) 04:21, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
Fortunately, #wikipedia-en:libera.chat and all the other Libera channels are perfectly usable from Matrix clients (although the bridge between IRC and Matrix is sometimes unreliable). Unfortunately #wikipedia:matrix.org was banned by Matrix staff, but I've emailed support and we'll see how that goes. I would certainly like to create a Wikipedia space, but I don't know off the top of my head if that would interfere with the bridging to IRC. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:01, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
User:Enterprisey: If there were a Wikipedia or Wikimedia homeserver, we wouldn't have to worry about any bans, because the chat rooms would be hosted on the WMF's servers. DesertPipeline (talk) 05:57, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
While true, please don't forget that running any 'home' server of any kind of service type, requires maintenance, resources, backups, monitoring and someone needs to be on call 24/7.. Running things is not easy. Having said that, no one as far as I know excluded the possibility of running matrix. It's just that everyone said: "we're switching to Libera first" —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Movement Charter Drafting Committee process
There's an ongoing process for determining how to put together a drafting committee for the upcoming Movement Charter. (The Charter was proposed in the Strategy Recommendations. Ctrl-F "Charter" in the Recommendation for details.) The Foundation has put forward a proposal (summary: a committee with 7 community-elected members (assuming sufficient candidates), 6 members selected by affiliate-appointed selectors, 2 members selected by the WMF, 3 optionally appointed by rest of committee), and there are several proposals by others. As of July 1, the Strategy team was "aiming to open the call for candidates by July 21". (I am unsure if that's still current.) --Yair rand (talk) 03:42, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
As an update (from someone who made one of the alternate proposals), I feel that with a few additional tweaks made by the WMF, I think their proposal is a good compromise and have supported itNosebagbear (talk) 14:30, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Over the course of the next 10 days we will be collecting feedback regarding this draft and making necessary changes based on the suggestions received. We have tried to converge different viewpoints presented in previous discussions and hope there is not a need for substantial changes. In this anticipation we are looking forward to launching the call for candidates on August 2, 2021.
I hope this is helpful. We are here to hear your feedback and answer any questions or specifications! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Enjoyer of World; thanks; that led me to m:Guide on how to use WPWP Campaign Hashtags, which covered #WPWPCA (Canada) and #WPWPTR (Turkey). Didn't help with the #WPWPARK one, which I've decided is the Arkansas Photos project, and unless you're John Nash, you're not gonna talk me out of it. ;-) Mathglot (talk) 05:56, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
I believe that this was also a major issue when the same campaign was run last year, after it generated a huge slew of high-volume edits adding irrelevant images to articles with the inscrutable hashtag #WPWP. The fact that there's a cash reward offered for it is, I'd expect, a major factor as well. jp×g 01:35, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
I've seen a lot of people confused past few days dotted around on different pages. I was thinking about adding a tag to these edits to link to the meta page. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:07, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
^ That's done. Edits with the hashtag should now have a tag in contribution history with a link to the meta page next to it. That should at least make it more clear for everyone else what the obscure hashtag refers to. Looks like this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:19, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
Board of Trustees election delayed due to SecurePoll Error
Hi there, just a heads up:
The Board of Trustees election is being delayed for 2 weeks due to a SecurePoll error [21]. Developers are currently working on the issue. This is not the first time that this issue has happened before. There are no plans for cancellation of the election, just that it is postponed for now. Note that this is a decision made by a developer, and has not been reviewed by the Elections Committee or the Board of Trustees, meaning that the "2 weeks" timeline is not exact or guaranteed.
--EpicPupper, English Wikipedia election volunteer
Thanks for the update. It's never fun to be a developer when a critical delivery is missed. My best wishes for the team. And I'll make sure to vote for candidates who take core engineering as a top priority. MarioGom (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
Election software in general is a mystery to me. Here in New York, we ran Ranked-choice voting for the first time this year. The total amount of data involved would fit on a smartphone, and the complexity of the algorithm would be about right for an Intro To Programming 101 semester project, and yet they still managed to make a hash of it. The common feature here is that elections are things that get run infrequently (maybe a couple times a year), so the code never gets to mature in a real-world environment. -- RoySmith(talk) 23:13, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Well, it's probably a good idea to do a dry run sooner than the day before the election...
But, more importantly, having to delay an election for the board of a large non-profit, for two weeks, because you ran into an error creating a new election entry in the software just looks... Well, Reedy says it better @ T287859#7253820. Hey, maybe this will generate enough awareness to allocate more resources towards maintaining extensions, such as pending changes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:39, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the update, a delay is better than an unreliable election. Looking at the phabricator ticket, the problem was that securepoll timed out when trying to create an election.Jackattack1597 (talk) 00:29, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
IP editing and Masked edits
PROCEDURAL CLOSE
(non-admin closure) We operate on consensus, and we have policies that document global consensus about how to change that global consensus, such as the policies WP:POLICY and WP:CONSENSUS, and the information page WP:RFC. There is no way that we are going to make a change as large as ending IP editing without following our own global consensus about policy changes. This RFC did not comply with that global consensus (it's on the wrong page, it didn't have a neutral statement, there was no WP:RFCBEFORE, which, if any RFC should have one, an RFC ending IP editing would be it), so I am procedurally closing it before more editors spend time reading and writing in response to this RFC. No prejudice to another, policy-compliant RFC. Levivich 17:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The issue of IP editing has long been a Perennial proposal. However circumstances have changed, with further major change on the way. Discussions on two unrelated issues both appear to indicate a shift in consensus against logged-out editing, and Portuguese Wikipedia has recently had positive results from prohibiting logged out edits completely. This RFC reports on these issues, and considers several options. Alsee (talk) 03:32, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Proposed options:
Option 1: Do nothing. Continue IP-edits, and deal with Masked edits when they arrive.
Option 2: Block Masked edits at that time. Do nothing now, but inform the WMF of consensus against Masked edits. Ensure that Masked edits are prevented from going live on EnWiki, either by the WMF configuration or local filter shortly-before-deployment as necessary. Logged out users who click on edit should be sent to the create-account screen as on Portuguese Wikipedia.
Option 3: Terminate logged out editing now. Inform the WMF of consensus against Masked edits and IP edits. Invite the WMF to implement this server-side, and/or implement it locally via Edit-filter or other means, with a timeline of earliest reasonable convenience. Logged out users who click on edit should be sent to the create-account screen as on Portuguese Wikipedia.
Option 4 [Suggested by Nosebagbear]: Run a trial After implementation of masked IP editing on en-wiki, continue for 4 months, with an RfC to automatically run at its conclusion to assess whether IP editing should be stopped or continued on en-wiki.
Option 5 [Suggested by PaleoNeonate]: Stress that there is no valid reason or consensus on en-wiki to enable the masked addresses feature, that IP addresses should remain visible while keeping the reminder/warning to IP editors that their address is visible if they edit logged out
Responses on IP and Masked edits
Support 3 or 2. IP editing has been a Perennial contested issue, with majority support in the past largely for philosophical reasons. I understood it and tacitly accepted the idealism. However the calculus has been changing. Sadly, this is only one of several ways that the Foundation has been actively sabotaging our platform. I absolutely support blocking Masked edits - logged out edits are not worth the headaches if the Foundation is going to actively make things more difficult. And, given the data from Portuguese Wikipedia, ending IP editing immediately looks like a win. Alsee (talk) 03:32, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Comments by Alsee moved from the RfC statement
Portuguese Wikipedia blocked IP editing approximately 40 weeks ago. A Portuguese community discussion indicates apparently unanimous agreement that it has been beneficial. They say vandalism is way down, new accounts are up, and communication with new users is improved. The Foundation has a dashboard showing various data for Portuguese Wiki. Reverts are way down, account creation is way up, active registered-editors is way up, blocks are way down, page protections are way down, total edits appear approximately steady (possibly increased, once you discount reverts). It looks like even editor-retention is up! I don't see any negative indicators at all in the Foundation's data.
Issue 1: One of the WMF's Movement Strategy iniatives is to replace IP-editing with "Masked" edits. Some staff have asserted that this is to be non-optional. The Foundation has a page on the Masking project at Meta. Masking means that instead of seeing the IP numbers we would see a random identifier instead. Multiple edits from the same IP on the same day would show the same random identifier, but it is unclear whether the identifiers would be re-randomized over time. The Foundation is well aware that Masking will be disruptive to our work. The Foundation's current proposal is for vandal fighters to (1) require age verification, AND (2) go through an RFA-like process, AND (3) "likely to be something less complex than signing the access to non-public personal data agreement", in order to receive a userright to view unmasked logged out edits. Anyone who disclosed the logged-out IPs on-wiki would be treated as a privacy violation. They also want to build new tools to help us deal with Masked edits. Discussions on the project's talk page appear strongly and widely opposed to Masking, with indications of potential consensus to block logged-out editing if the Foundation Masks those edits.
Issue 2: There have been a growing number of Mobile users. The Foundation's support for Talk pages on Mobile has ranged between non-existent and poor. The WMF has also deliberately disabled all notifications for Mobile IP editors, under the rationale that mobile IPs change so fast that there's little likelyhood the notification would be received by the correct person. In many cases mobile users cannot even receive block messages or edit filter messages. See Village Pump discussion on the problems of being completely unable to communicate with these people. That discussion also appears to indicate a significant shift towards ending IP editing altogether.
@Alsee: Thanks for your work monitoring WMF's damage but please withdraw this now. There will not be a consensus to ban IP editing now, and that will set a precedent so that whatever happens when masked IPs hits, it would be much more difficult to ban IP editing if that seemed desirable. Johnuniq (talk) 03:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
You seem to be forgetting that an RFC is also an opinion-gathering exercise. You do not and cannot know what the outcome of this discussion will be. It does not mean that any consensus has to be immediately acted upon. You may not remember that there were indeed around a dozen RFC stretched over nearly 4 years before even Pending Changes was finally rolled out in 2012, plus the 2016 0ne for PC2, and there may have been more that I have missed. Things have changed drastically since then and consensus can change. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 2 or 3. We will have a serious handicap against the vandals - not that we don't already against mobile IPs and LTAs on proxies. Plus, the data from ptwiki shows that it was good for their wiki. --Rschen7754 04:03, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Strong Support 3.The WMF have steadfastly refused to provide any proof that IP masking has become/or will become a legal requirement in the US or any other legislations. I certainly have not found anything anywhere about such a thing. The ban on unregistered editing on Portuguese Wikipedia had a very positive result. Admins, at least on the larger projects, such as en.Wiki, are the least likely to be pro-actively looking for vandalism, spam, disinformation, POV pushing et cetera. Those who do anything at all (probably less than 20 - 25% of users with admin rights) already have their hands full with everything else they have to do with their special tools. There are even backlogs where they are required for admin action on the cases that are reported to the respective noticeboards, AIV, SPI, COIN, etc. We have seen how (un)successful creating a special right for New Page Reviewers was in an endeavour improve the quality of reviewing and reduce the monumental backlogs (which are still monumental), not to mention some abuse by rights holders for their own ends.
The initial announcement by the WMF created a first flurry of discussion which unfortunately has long since been relegated to the archives but which contain some of the most important reactions. Sadly, a large number of those once prominent and experienced users have since retired or simply stopped editing - two years is a long time. Since then, the use of WiFi (domestic, and public hotspots), mobile devices (smart phones), dynamic IPs, and VPNs has increased exponentially; even here in my remote small village in Thailand, you open your laptop and there are a dozen or more WiFi connections to choose from, not all of them needing a password for access.
I'll just add that IMHO anyone who uses 'infringement of a founding principle: The encyclopedia anyone can edit ' as an excuse against requiring registration, as did a few of the posters on the many Pending Changes RFC, is using a red herring, a logical fallacy. Anyone can edit - whether they are 2 or 102 years old, or have never been to school or have a raft of PhD degrees. If they can read, use a screenreader, type with one finger, dictate into a computer, all they would need to do is take 30 seconds to register. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Procedural points: I don't think the description above qualifies as a "neutral statement" about the issue per WP:RFCNEUTRAL; and this should be at VPR or possibly VPP, since this is not about the WMF. --Yair rand (talk) 04:23, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Two more points:
The correct time to have this discussion is not now, as we do not have as much information as we will in the near-ish future. Previous research has shown a strong tie between IP editing and recruitment.
Considerable research has shown that IP editing is of immense value in recruitment of new editors and other areas. Oppose (or "Option 1"), per that, as well as per the principle of "anyone can edit", which requires minimizing obstacles in front of editing.
Comment I has an instinctive dislike of forcing people to register accounts, however the Portuguese wikipedia data is fascinating, and the idea of placing some obstacles in the way of vandalism fighting and checkusers is not appealing. If it's true that IP addresses are considered to change rapidly enough that people would not be expected to see messages on IP talkpages, that weakens the idea of seeing helpful IPs and leaving account creation requests on their talkpages. Regarding the above proposals, I have a technical question as to whether an IP block could be customised between name spaces. Could for example IPs be prevented from editing Wikipedia articles, but retain access to talk pages? (And if this is possible and/or has been discussed, could a link be provided to that discussion?) CMD (talk) 04:38, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis: One could create a very simple edit filter denying edits in specific namespaces for IPs. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:50, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
RandomCanadian, it could probably be done with a change in the configuration, like how only interface admins can edit the MediaWiki: namespace while anyone can edit MediaWiki talk:. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 3, with regret, on substance and also as a protest vote. What the WMF is proposing is not, by any means, going to improve Wikipedia (or any other project). If IPs are problematic, enforce registration instead of stonewalling if not outright ignoring community input and concerns and being needlessly opaque when asked for justification. On substance, I've expressed my concerns that the WMF proposal is only going to make vandal fighting and other tasks harder (either/both technically and practically), and I stand by that too. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:50, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
option 2 Wikipedia operates with the consensus and support of the community and such support does not exist for masking at this time. There are lots of possible ways to negotiate this support, but such a conversation or negotiation has never been meaningfully advanced. If anyone seeks to enact masked edits then it is without community consensus. Wikipedia volunteer labor is valuable, we respect our article patrollers, and I am not ready to support sacrificing our time-tested quality control and fact-checking processes in exchange for black-box big data technology from outsiders to our community. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are fundamental Wikipedia values and we protect them by letting anyone edit, then checking those edits through the extensive review process we have developed. Of course I want new technology to make things better, but technology and communities develop together. Before software development comes community development, and while I can observe years of costly software development in the masking initiative, I see no financial records of any investment in corresponding community development. Blue Rasberry (talk) 04:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 We have long held the ideal "anyone can edit". This has meant that we have allowed IP editors despite the many issues that brings. In the end, the benefit is undeniable. IP editors contribute a massive number of edits, typo fixes, and even whole articles. I think part of the hesitancy remains from the initial discussion on the matter some years ago. The recent release from the WMF clarifying its implementation is a great step forward, and shows that the WMF is listening to us, and implements our feedback. If we have an aspect of IP masking we don't like, we ought ask it to be amended, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
IP masking exists as a legal contingency. The WMF understands that it moves slowly, and that politics can sometimes move faster than it. Recent legislation around the world has put restrictions on tech companies that require compliance within a very short time after enacting. The WMF has not wanted to be caught with its trousers down, so to speak, should it become apparent that IP edits are a privacy violation, or new legislation come out. Having talked in-depth on the subject with various staff, I get the feeling that the exact reason remains a closely guarded secret for the fact that the WMF does not wish its legal strategy to be public knowledge. If the WMF were to be public about all the things it feared it could be sued over, people would then promptly sue them on that behalf. Discretion is the better part of valor, and legal strategy. Personally though, I have little doubt that it will eventually become essential to mask IPs. We already have an increasing number of people seeking their IP's to be oversighted, and social media/privacy as at the top of multiple nation's legislative agenda. Whether legislation forces our hand, or the WMF decides to be pro-active and pre-empt harmful legislation, it is ultimately a step to protect Wikipedia from being sued to oblivion.
IP editors do us a great service. While IP masking will certainly have some hiccups, and more noodling needs to happen to make it work excellent, it will not substantially affect the nature of Wikipedia. But removing IP editing altogether certainly will. The press coverage will likely be substantial: we do not exist in a vacuum, and going back on our core ethos could shake trust in Wikipedia as an institution. We must remain the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 05:11, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support Option 2 We need to adopt the Portuguese model instantly if the WMF imposes this ill-advised masking plan on us. The problem could be solved by adding a gigantic font bright red full page banner on IP editors that says something like "WARNING! Your IP address will be disclosed to the world if you make this edit. Please set up a truly anonymous Wikipedia account now!" with a sign-up link to click. Two decades of incorrectly calling IP editing "anonymous" has taken its toll. We cannot allow the vandals to be unleashed on this encyclopedia, and an RfA-like approval process for vandal fighters is absurd. As for mobile editing, I am a mobile editor myself and a vigorous advocate for mobile editors. The mobile apps and sites are all complete failures because they all are an active impediment to collaborative editing and talk page communication. Administrators are forced to block mobile editors who have no idea what they have done wrong and how to improve their editing. I use the incorrectly named "desktop" site, which works great on billions of modern smartphones. The WMF should lay off all of their mobile programmers and shut down these failed mobile sites and apps. But of course they won't because WMF money routinely gets handed out with zero evidence of actual success in solving severe problems going back over a decade. Cullen328Let's discuss it 05:38, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
I use the Android app for reading Wikipedia on my phone, and for that it's excellent and superior to the alternatives (desktop and mobile view). It has a 4.5 rating, 661K reviews, and 50M+ downloads in the Play store, so I'm not the only one who uses and likes it. The editing side has its issues, but the app is mainly for the readers. kyykaarme (talk) 08:50, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 3 as first choice, 2 as second. With many thanks to the Portuguese Wikipedia community for being willing to blaze the trail here. The data from that trial, especially in retention rates, is compelling—when required to create accounts, people stick around more often, and are reverted and blocked much less often. That alone would earn my support. Yet we also have the ill-conceived "IP masking" policy, which the WMF has tried to punch through as required by law—but when asked the simplest of questions, even so simple as "Required by what law?", boy, they sure get evasive there. Not to mention that if it's illegal, why are we still allowing IP editing at all, on any Wikimedia project? Nothing that has been told to us about that makes the slightest bit of sense. We also have the issues with communicating with editors using the mobile apps, so if they must have an account, we will have a way to actually talk to them rather than them just finding out they're blocked (and maybe not even able to see why that happened either). That's hardly an experience we want an editor to have.We will still be the encyclopedia anyone can edit. In 2021, a requirement to create an account before participating interactively on a website is something Web users are very used to; it is not a substantial barrier to their participation. I wish it weren't so; I kind of like the idea that someone can see a typo, click "Edit", and they can see their fix happen immediately. But the data is clear that IP editing is harming the experience of new editors, and that's the last thing we want. Sometimes we have to reconsider even our oldest and most venerable practices, and it looks like this is such an occasion. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 05:49, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support Option 2.Support Option 4 WMF forcing masked edits is one of the worst decision ever. First, I don't have problems with IP editing. Yes, some of them are spotted by Huggle or RedWarn because they are unconstructive, but lots of IP edits are also constructive. The numbers on 2007 research on WP:IPDIS shows that the number of constructive edits made by IPs far outstrips the unconstructive edits. I see IP editing is still important for the Project, but WMF leave us with no choice. I spend most of the time on WP to rollback vandals, and a forced RFA-like process to keep my rights will be madness. And how do WMF deals with blocking these masked edits? If I made 3 vandalism today, will my warnings be removed tomorrow because I have a brand-new clean start tomorrow because of the new masked IP?
IP edits are important to the project, and I would really like for it to stay, but disruptions that will be caused by masked edits and unclear way how to deal with them will be worse. What is "great" is that WMF is pretending to have "discussion" while they already claim that it is "non-optional". And legitimate concerns such as WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU has been dismissed for years! Random Rant:Board of Trustees Election is coming soon, is there any candidate that talks about this issue? Based on my limited research on the candidate none of them thinks that WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU is a serious issue. SunDawntalk 06:52, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
After more careful reading, I think more data and clarification is necessary. For instance, after re-reading the page from Meta there is no mention about requirement for RFA-like process for vandalism hunters. We also need more data on how much the IP edits is contributing to the project, whether it is constructive or not. SunDawntalk 15:34, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 3 From my own experience, by far the vast ammount of vandalsim, esp. in relation to BLPs, are from IP editors. "Good" anon edits are rare. Removing the option to edit logged out increases the integrity and reliability of the project. LugnutsFire Walk with Me 06:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 What CaptainEek said. We don't have any data from which to gauge what harm or benefit the masking will bring to the project yet. A preemptive ban on unregistered editing is premature and antithetical to the ethos of the project. Nardog (talk) 07:17, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Could we have a test month then when anon. editing is switched off to get the data to guage the harm and/or benefits? LugnutsFire Walk with Me 07:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
That's data on a blanket ban on unregistered editing, not on IP masking, and the sheer number of active users says nothing about the overall health of the project. If casual vandals created accounts only because now they're required to vandalize, that could arguably make countervandalism harder because now only CheckUsers can see the connection between them. Nardog (talk) 12:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Comment. This Aaron Schwartz essay from 2006 concludes that logged out IP editors do the majority of our article content writing. I would be interested in seeing more recent data to see if that's still true. And I'd also be interested in seeing PTWiki data that analyzed total bytes added to articles per week or something like that, to see if the amount of content contributed went down after adding a barrier to editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:42, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support with caveatsSupport 4(with strong leaning to ending IP editing): I think there are good reasons to end IP editing, illustrated by the Portuguese experience. Evidence on ptwiki seem to contradict a long-held belief that I would summarize as "editors edit without an account because they edit without an account." However, I would oppose to take this decision justified exclusively on IP masking without giving IP masking a try for a decent period of time. MarioGom (talk) 08:02, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Edited to change the !vote to option 4, as Nosebagbear's feedback aligns better with my rationale above. MarioGom (talk) 13:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 2 until we have a firm logical explanation of why this is mandatory. Oppose 3 because in my experience, the good edits are a net benefit and outweigh the cost of reverting the bad ones. And while this evidence may be anecdotal, I am not really seeing any grounded evidence to the contrary. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 1 this is not a problem. It might be a temporary disruption to what ppl are accustomed to. It might be good, or it might be fixable and then the/our world will keep spinning like it always does. It might be bad and then we can always decide later. Fear is the mind-killer. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support option 4 "Trial" (see below), currently option 1 as backup - currently we aren't in a position to identify if the new tools will sufficiently mitigate the issues. IP Masking comes with known issues, but its removal comes with 2 major issues - the demand on CUs, which would be immediate, and an increased hurdle to editing, which will take at least a year to see the effects of. As such, we can't run a trial of no IP-editing because it would need to be very long to be a fair run. Instead we can run a try of coping with the mechanism - but with the commitment of an automatic trial RfC. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
As a further note, I also support those who have raised procedural flaws. Namely: i) VPW is NOT the forum for this discussion ii) The RfC summary is not neutral, and worse, is not accurate. While I'd prefer to wait until we actually are near its implementation for any RfC, if we must do it now, then it should be restarted on VPP with a rescripted neutral summary Nosebagbear (talk)
Option 1, do nothing and keep it that way. Unregistered editing has brought and continues to bring many new editors into the project. I still recall the joy I got from being able to quickly and easily fix a typo I saw while reading. I started fixing and cleaning up so many little things that I finally decided to create an account and really get active. If I was forced to create an account back then when I saw that first typo I wouldn't have bothered. I strongly feel many people would feel the same way. Anon IP editing has been a foundational aspect of Wikipedia, let's stick to our roots. Regarding masking it seems like a net negative. Also, requiring our valuable vandal-fighters (many of whom also started out as anon IPs) to jump through all those hoops is certainly not a good idea. -- Ϫ 11:47, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Propose option 5 - Stress that there is no valid reason or consensus on en-wiki to enable the masked addresses feature, that IP addresses should remain visible while keeping the reminder/warning to IP editors that their address is visible if they edit logged out. Alternatively, option 2 for now (that does not exclude the possibility of 4)... Because of the different size and dynamics of the projects, I'm not convinced that the pt-wiki stats are enough to risk the same on en-wiki (without a separate clear consensus for doing so and short trials that can be stopped without long term consequences, independently of the pressure imposed by masking). An example is the already very polluted username space because of throwaway account abuse, that could be expected to suddenly ramp up, causing more users to request usurpation to have acceptable nicknames. Another is the current low bar for patrollers to recognize easily proxy, school or COI editing when it is obvious, that could be lost at the cost of excessive bureaucracy... —PaleoNeonate – 11:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Strong oppose (option 1) Sorry but, the proposal here is misleading. The Foundation said nothing about "age verification", for example. It doesn't even do age verification for ArbCom/CU/OS, which it formally requires to be 18+, but it doesn't ask for their real name nor proof of identity, so there is no "age verification". It's just a case of "Yes, I'm over 18". I suspect the reason for the 16 limit is because Article 8 requires it for processing, so it seems reasonable to require it for seeing personal information. As for the "contract", that may well (and probably will) just be a paragraph of wording and a checkbox at the end... Mobile communication issues are a problem, but this is not the solution either. The data of Portuguese Wikipedia is unlikely to be indicative of what will happen on English Wikipedia, not least due to the completely different size of the communities.I'm open to a reasonable discussion on the future of IP editing, but this is shoehorning it through various assumptions, many of which are unlikely to be true. The proposal has not even been deployed, so we have no data and no answers. Heck, it hasn't even been ironed out yet. This is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction that will not result in a calm, rational decision, and if we use the pretext of the IP masking effort for this ban we're very likely to make an error. I don't care that much about IP editing to be honest, but I do care about decision-making made using no evidence, poor evidence, or bad reasons, because all those lead to bad outcomes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: I do agree that we must not make any knee-jerk reactions, but seeing how WMF already stated that it is necessary and have stated that the matter has been decided, the pushback from the community, in my opinion, made sense. SunDawntalk 13:01, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: When you say It doesn't even do age verification for ArbCom/CU/OS, which it formally requires to be 18+, but it doesn't ask for their real name nor proof of identity, so there is no "age verification"., that is factually inaccurate. I have been through that process, and I was required to send proof of identity and age before being permitted to have those tools. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 15:58, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@Seraphimblade: I recall a comment from NYB saying he had to do it a decade ago. I personally asked a 2020 arb and a 2021 arb and both said they didn't have to give a real name or ID. I think I also asked publicly onwiki somewhere but don't remember. So I guess it changed over the years? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:06, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 3, with 2 as second choice. What we get from the WMF here just isn't acceptable: they don't tell us why they're doing this, and the "age limit" for vandal responders is clearly a non-starter (will either be a pointless clickthrough or a massive privacy issue). Note that both 3 and 2 will solve whatever issue WMF Legal might be concerned about. Given how positive everybody is about the ptwiki test, stopping IP edits seems worth a try. One additional advantage of banning IP editing is that we won't have to wait another 10 years for the WMF to come up with a way of communicating with IP editors using mobile apps. —Kusma (talk) 12:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Let's assume the WMF is currently in likely violation of a data protection law with regards to IP editing. You want them to give an explanation of that, which seems fair in theory. However, Wikimedia wikis are public to all and anyone can read the content here. So assuming it is indeed required by a reasonable interpretation of a law, basically you're asking WMF Legal to openly admit they're in violation of a law and explain exactly how. That would lead to one of two things, or both: 1) headlines in reliable sources reading "Wikipedia admits ongoing violation of data protection laws"; 2) them getting sued, for exactly the reasons they'll have articulated in public. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
OK, so let's assume that what we currently do is illegal (then I find it disgusting to hear that WMF Legal has allowed us to continue with an illegal practice for months or even years after they found out). The question is what we should do about it. We don't know what the problem is (other than that it has to do with displaying IP addresses of certain editors who do not log in), we've just been presented a solution to whatever the problem might be. It is clear that there exist other solutions, for example, to disable IP editing. From what I can see, that solution is preferable to a massive new bureaucracy around masking. —Kusma (talk) 14:31, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
In regards to the first sentence: see my userpage, it wouldn't be the first time the WMF found itself napping on data protection laws. But in any case, forced immediate implementation would be disruptive so there needs to be an organised path towards a solution. As for the rest of the comment, I think it comes around in a loop. To discuss the issue with the community in the manner you refer to, they would need to admit they're breaking a law, which poses the issues I originally mentioned. I don't see how any other path, other than the one they're currently on, would be sustainable for Legal in this scenario. I am sure Legal is not doing an unpopular pet project just because it enjoys being yelled at by the global community. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 1 per CaptainEek. Some IP edits are a nuisance, but many enhance our content. I started with anonymous typo fixes, and the immediate gratification gained us an editor. Of course ptwp now has less vandalism but it will also have fewer good edits. Of course ptwp has better editor retention: casual editors who would make few but perhaps valuable contributions are driven away by the registration requirement. I could also support Option 4: at this stage, we're all guessing how badly masking will cripple our counter-vandalism work. We may be able to judge better if and when the WMF is able to respond to questions on requirements. If the WMF imposes an RfA-like process just to fight vandals then the situation changes and we may be faced with a choice between blocking IPs and simply abandoning Wikipedia. (Personally I'd find it difficult to remain under those circumstances, but I hope others would be more flexible.) Certes (talk) 12:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
I also support option 5 (the two seem compatible) but with no expectation that the WMF will listen. They now control Wikipedia, not us. Certes (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 5, per Paleoneonate, with 2 as a second choice.Jackattack1597 (talk) 13:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
I also support 4 as a third choice, but oppose 1 and 3.Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:28, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support 3 or 2. To cite a WMF product manager: "Deciding the amount of resourcing we provide for the IP editing experience is always a challenge." So we should make that decision easier. The WMF doesn't really seem to care about WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU given that that task is still triaged as low priority. And it's basically impossible to communicate with most IP editors. It would also be nice if I didn't have to worry about accidentally spilling my IP after being unexpected logged out. (there are warnings, but I'm capable of overlooking those when I'm unexpectedly logged out) IPs could retain access to talk pages so the bar to make suggestions remains low. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:33, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Fully agree. If the WMF doesn't even care about IPs enough to work on WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU, there don't seem to be enough resources to deal with this even now. Adding another layer of complexity just to keep a low priority thing (IP editing) enabled doesn't make sense to me. —Kusma (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
What the fuck. This is clearly fucking premature. No, option 1 on the principle of it. Masked edits aren't even out the door and you're trying to ban all IP edits because of fear, uncertainty, and doubt? --Izno (talk) 13:44, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Separately, this is the worst fucking place for this question. WP:VPWMF is for conversations between WMF and the wiki, not for making a consensus decision. WP:VPPRO/WP:VPPOL is -> over there. Izno (talk) 13:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Yeah... I saw this on my watchlist and didn't even bother click it because I thought it was going to be a perfunctory announcement that Legal released a new statement. I only clicked it when I saw it on T:CENT as "IP Masking" and thought "Why is an announcement on Centralised discussion?". I found myself reading a proposal to ban IP editing. I changed the name on T:CENT and I think the section title also needs changing, and this proposal moved to the appropriate venue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 1, no matter what the eventual result will be I oppose banning IP editing because of achange which doesn't even exists yet and, and last I checkek is still in active development as a matter of principle. Wait for it to b deployed first, then wait to see a bit what it does and then hold this discussion. I also agree withseveral l people above tht this is the wrong place for the discussion, and support moving it to a more suitable place. -- AsarteaTalk|Contribs 14:15, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Also Alsee where are you gettin the age requirement from? And for that matter the RFA requirement? All I see on meta is a editcount, account age and "vetted by the community" requirement -- AsarteaTalk|Contribs 14:25, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@Asartea: there is an age minimum - likely 16, but no age verification Nosebagbear (talk) 14:35, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support Option 2 Masked IPs are usernames, so we might as well ask people to make an account --GuerilleroParlez Moi 14:38, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support Option 2 (or 3 as back-up) - it was fun while it lasted but times have changed. It's time to get realistic about the real world, WP's global reach, and the nefarious events that have occured in the past decade. Let's eliminate the time sinks, and the damage IP anonymity has caused to WP's neutrality and accuracy. I don't think the comparisons and graphs for constructive IP edits vs registration are accurate - too many variables. It's an encyclopedia, for Pete's sake. Why doesn't WMF spend some of their money automating what volunteers are having to do to fight vandalism, and put those registered editors to better use as copy editors, or helping out at AfC and NPP. Better yet, how about creating articles that are already copy edited before they go mainstream? Now there's a thought. Atsme💬📧 15:01, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support Option 3 with my second choice Option 2 as about equally preferable. Masked editing would be a self-inflicted wound and will just make everything harder, particularly dealing with the really bad actors, not just the daily drizzle of schoolboy vandalism. I think it's time to do this. Hundreds of hours -- nay, thousands of hours of volunteer time become available for more productive things. Antandrus(talk) 15:39, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support Option 1 or 2 if this RFC ends up being valid. I have worked for many years to implement changes to wikicode on thousands of pages ahead of announced but long-delayed changes by the WMF. Example: disabling magic ISBN auto-linking took something like a few months from "WMF is announcing that it is going away" to "en.WP has fixed all of the problems", and then about four years and a lot of encouragement from us for WMF to actually turn it off. I have many more examples of announced changes that took years to take effect or may never be implemented (cf allowing Linter errors in signatures, elimination of obsolete HTML tags, Visual Editor moving out of beta, disabling Wikidata short descriptions). I think there is little harm in continuing to discuss the issue with the WMF and working to mitigate the possible challenges with this proposed change. If they really, finally, after some period of years, decide to implement some version of this proposed change, we can have this RFC at that point. Having this discussion now is premature unless we think that there is an immediate benefit, unrelated to the WMF's proposal, to eliminating IP editing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:07, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support option 3, oppose options 2/4 (do this regardless of the status of masked edits, and no need for a trial), no opinion on the rest. The WMF has declared, for no reason they're able or willing to say, that we can no longer reveal an editor's plain IP address. They've decided, again for no reason they're able or willing to say, that the only possible way to implement that directive is to partially mask editors' IP addresses. However, they recognize that being able to track anonymous editors' contributions is critical to resisting vandalism, so they've also decided to create a new special group of thoroughly-vetted users which they must create themselves (rather than, say, employing the preexisting group of checkusers) to have access to fully unmasked IPs. They have absolutely no idea how they're going to mask IP addresses, nor what the requirements of this new usergroup should be, nor what new tools will be required to counter vandalism under this new scheme nor who will design them, and they cannot (or refuse to) answer even very basic fundamental questions about how all of this is supposed to work. But at some point they're going to mandate that the largest project in their portfolio must start using this entirely untested and experimental process to anonymize IP addresses, whether we like it or not, and whether or not it actually works; they're just going to turn it on and leave it to the community to manage the fallout. This whole IP masking thing is an enormous waste of resources that the WMF already doesn't have, especially considering that their mandate to hide IP addresses would be entirely resolved by simply enforcing account creation, without any need for all of the other technical work and legal shenanigans that are necessary to make IP masking even sort-of functional. Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 16:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@Qwerfjkl: I'm a checkuser using an alt account, I've been following the masking discussions since the very early days. I know what the WMF has said about it, and I agree basically with what RoySmith said about why it's a good idea, but it's the wrong approach. It's going to cause immediate problems that the WMF has no clue how to solve, and it has become clear from the discussions that their plan is to turn it on and then leave it to the various communities to deal with the inevitable disruption on their own. Much aligned with RoySmith's point about being caught off guard by regulatory changes, we should prepare to maintain the integrity of the website in case the WMF's patchwork solution turns out to be a spectacular failure, and the way we do that is by enforcing account creation in advance so that masking never becomes necessary. I would also prefer to maintain IP editing as it is now but that ship has sailed: the WMF's IP masking solution is going to be deployed. All we can do is decide how to prepare. Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 16:33, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 per meatball:DefendAgainstParanoia and those above. I'm not willing to change a fundamental aspect of our website based on speculative fear. Let's see how it goes before we freak out. — Wug·a·po·des 16:50, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support option 3, second choices #2 and #4. The W?F reaps what they sow. We might as well triple the number of checkusers while we are at it. MER-C 16:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Strong oppose, Option 1 - I get the value of being proactive, but this is a huge overreaction to something which hasn't been implemented yet. Being "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" is foundational to this movement and IP editing should not be done away with pre-emptively. Ganesha811 (talk) 17:20, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 5 as a first choice, Option 1 as a second choice. I see no reason to change how en.wikipedia handles logged-out editing. We're transparent with the fact that if a user edits logged out, their IP address is visible and connected to that edit. If the user finds that to be too much a risk, they have sufficient prior warning about that risk, and if they choose to go ahead, that is implicit acceptance of that risk. If they want to hide their IP address, they can create an account. This is not an undue burden, and neither is it an undue burden on Wikipedia to tell everyone "If you hit publish changes, everyone will see your IP address if you don't have an account" --Jayron32 17:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 5 is meaningless because, well, legal compliance is a valid function of the WMF regardless of how much community disapproval such compliance may incur. It is no longer 2001. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:50, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 per BEANS - there are reasons (which I will not hint at publicly) why we should wait until IP Masking is announced before doing anything. Regarding the question of "should we disallow IP editing", the Portuguese data suggests this is something that should be considered, but at this time I am philosophically opposed to that change. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Option 4: Do a Trial - idea/discussion
I'd like to propose option 4: Do nothing for 4 months after the implementation of masked IP editing, with an RfC to automatically run at its conclusion to assess whether IP editing should be stopped or continued on en-wiki. This is sort of a flip on how we handled ACTRIAL, which people generally perceive as a good thing. IP Masking will bring problems, we know that, but so would its removal - we need a chance to assess whether we can cope with the issues its continuation causes or if we need to make the plunge to removing it. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Comment: In the interest of testing, I try to recreate the 2007 research that is on WP:IPDIS. This is just some rough research, prone to errors, but may enrich the discussion. I randomly take 141 edits from the Article mainspace, and see whether the edits are constructive or not. It turns out that the picture is not clear enough but I am too lazy to make another one. But some facts that can be presented: 80.1% of the edits are from registered accounts are constructive, while 2.8% are not constructive. 14.9% of the edits are constructive edits from IPs, while 2.1% of the edits from IPs are not constructive. My opinion is as follows: While it is clear that IPs tend to do more vandalism (around 1 in 7 of their edits are vandalism, compared to 1 in 40 in registered edits), the number of edits by the IPs that are constructive is still significant, at around 15%. As I said before, this is just some rough research and more thorough research may be necessary. Time of the day is important too, and another poll taken at US nighttime might be necessary. SunDawntalk 12:45, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Would it be fair to summarize this as 97% of logged in edits are constructive, 3% non constructive, vs IP editors 88% constructive, 12% non constructive? Phrased this way, it makes it easy to compare. The conclusion is that 88% and 97% are pretty close together, so IPs make a lot of constructive edits, almost as many as logged in editors. Also, IPs are 17% of our total edits, so about one fifth of all edits. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
What comprises a "constructive" edit? Atsme💬📧 14:38, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Good research, but in order to make it more useful we would probably need to have a group of people go through a set range of edits and manually review them, since different editors may have different definitions of constructive .Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:23, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
That's why we need more research and numbers across time zones. SunDawntalk 15:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
The problem I see with this trial approach is there will be no opportunity to turn off IP masking after it goes live. Once it's turned on, it's staying turned on, the WMF has made it very clear that masking is happening and is not up to community consensus. Just so we all understand that an RFC after masking goes live will have to ask the question of whether we want to continue allowing logged-out editing at all, because turning masking off will not be an option. There will be no going back to the way things are now: the choices will be continuing logged-out editing with masking, or stopping all logged-out editing entirely. Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 16:42, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
General Discussion
@Alsee:, your summary at the top is almost criminally reckless and inaccurate. There would be an age limit but nowhere does it say there will be age verification. We don't utilise any for OTRS access, and that's what it's being compared to in terms of age etc. Nor does it require an RfA-style process. The June major update specifically would create a new userright that would be treated like other permissions. For en-wiki, PERM would be just fine. And they also have clarified what it would be like, rather than just "less complicated than the current non-public data policy" - in effect, it would be ticking a couple of boxes in your preferences if you have the userright. I have spent a year debating this with NKohli, Johan, and WMF Legal. I am not a supporter of it by any means, but you have got to do your research and lay out the actual facts if you're going to start a wildly pre-emptive and critical RfC. I would go so far as to say that the inaccuracies render every !vote thus far pointless, and it should be rescripted and restarted on VPP. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:25, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
I have always supported registered editing because I don't believe the price we pay to control vandalism, propaganda, fake news and inaccuracies is worth the hefty price we pay in order to maintain unregistered IPs so they can copy edit. Perhaps if we eliminated the unregistered IP issue, other editors would have more time to do the copy editing and waste less time staving off vandals. I believe there are compromises that can be made in an effort to continue allowing minor copy edits by IPs vs allowing IPs an open door to vandalize, propagandize, contribute to discussions, and ivote. My main concern is that there are times when a trusted, long-time registered user needs to use a VPN, and that should continue to be allowed as long as proper clearance procedures have been followed. If doing that presents a problem with the adoption of either 2 or 3, then I will probably not support it. Atsme💬📧 14:33, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
It's not an iVote, it's a comment open for discussion. Where do you think it belongs? Atsme💬📧 15:09, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Can't long term registered users always use a VPN by getting IPBE?Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:25, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
No, not exactly. IPBE is supposed to only be given to users who actually need it, not just because they want it. I have IPBE on my alt because someone managed to get my home IP range hardblocked. Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 16:47, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Regarding the first point here, about the NDA requirements, there's a lot of good-faith confusion about that because the processes around it are somewhat deliberately opaque, but I can tell you what I know as a signatory. It's true that the WMF used to require age verification and personal identification to the office before signing, but that was a long time ago. Now you just need to be signed in to your account and basically put an edit on a confirmation page, which is literally your Wikipedia signature, and then a clerk or a bot (I forget) adds your username to a central list of signatories. Real personal info is not collected. The WMF has proposed creating a new userright for being able to unmask a masked IP, which would require a vetting process and they've said would require signing a different legal document from the access to nonpublic information policy that most functionaries sign (oversighters have a slightly different one, IIRC). I don't know why they think this should be a separate document from the standard access policy, but that's what I've understood. The vetting process would not necessarily be RFA-like, everyone basically agrees that RFA is the worst tool imaginable for actually vetting qualifications (it's a popularity contest more than anything) but I expect it would be more robust than PERM because of the legal implications. But I can't say for sure, these are some of the questions that the WMF has not answered. Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 17:01, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Support starting this RFC over with a accurate summary of the changes, and in the proper place (probably the proposal village pump), and discounting every vote cast so far. -- AsarteaTalk|Contribs 14:40, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Of course not, don't be silly. Newcomers are still welcome and highly valued, they would just have to create an account. You know, like how basically the entire internet has worked since roughly 2006? Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 16:49, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
IP Masking is going to happen. As noted by several people above, it's a requirement that came out of WMF Legal, prompted by changing regulatory environments in multiple countries. While there's many things I don't like about it, it is certainly a good thing that WMF is working to stay ahead of the curve on this. Trust me, having lived through too many fire drills, the last thing you want is to be caught napping on regulatory issues. You really don't want to be in a position where (for example) the EU says, "You have 10 days to comply or we'll fine you a gazillion Euros". I personally believe we should ban all IP editing (for all the reasons people have stated above), but even if we did, that's not going to eliminate WMF's need to implement IP Masking. Other MWF projects may (almost certainly will) continue to allow IP editing, so it needs to be supported. So, we're not really talking about "Should we do IP Masking?". We're talking about "Should we allow IP editing?". And thus, I agree that this is the wrong place to discuss it. We should also de-tangle the two threads. If we want to discuss turning off IP editing, let's discuss that on its own merits. -- RoySmith(talk) 16:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Annual Plan Highlights
The WMF has released a set of departmental Annual Plan highlight youtube videos, for those that may be interested. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:53, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
For those of us who prefer text to videos: what are the highlights of the annual plan? —Kusma (talk) 16:20, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
User:Nosebagbear: Have the videos also been uploaded to Commons? If not, I think they should be. Not everyone wants to use YouTube for various reasons. DesertPipeline (talk) 13:06, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
@DesertPipeline: - I don't know if they have been, but they certainly should be, even if our views on private software differ. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:42, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm fine with using private software as long as it allows you to access things without joining the service, but I think that if (and it's only an "if" for now) this has only been published on YouTube then it's another indication that the WMF view this as just another social media site rather than the unique encyclopedia that it is. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:53, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
User:Nosebagbear: I mentioned this before, but if you're using "private" to mean "non-libre" – they're two different concepts; private software is software which only certain people have copies of. It may or may not be libre (as in it may or may not give those people the four freedoms). However, services are different – YouTube can't be described as "libre" or "non-libre". Unlike software, services do have a trust requirement. Unfortunately I don't know how that problem can be resolved; but I'm not a computer expert. I doubt there's no solution whatsoever. DesertPipeline (talk) 04:16, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for that, Killiondude. There's little in the plan that anyone can argue against, because it all seems very "motherhood and apple pie" with few specifics. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:32, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
A Summary of the 7 Youtube videos
I'll skip a lot of fluff, such as a staff member writing an article. Summary in one line: They continue to struggle to spend all the cash raining down from the sky, they are greedy for more cash, and their war against consensus continues.
Communications Department:
They are "now beginning" to tell the community they are going to do the things they want to do. Acknowledges the importance of building trust. To achieve this, they are continuing to hire more people to talk more loudly at us.
They are going to assist other departments efforts to push out the various Movement Strategy items.
Comment: The Movement Strategy team explicitly refused to allow consensus anywhere into the process. Many or most Strategy items appear to be strongly contrary to consensus. This is growing into a multi-front storm.
Advancement Department:
Expanded staff for providing Grants
The WMF cashpile is about to hit $100 Million.
Commercial-class offerings to bring in more cash.
Chief Technology Officer:
Better site performance to remote parts of the world.
Better security/reliability/backups in case anything bad happens.
Better software documentation.
Talent&Culture (This appears to be the Human Resources department, but with a twist):
Continue to grow staff.
Focus: Diversity Equity & Inclusion.
Celebrate employees as people, and cultivate them.
Finance and Administration:
This years fundraising was an even bigger windfall of cash than expected, and they had to scramble to figure out how to spend it all.
They will be focusing on growing the cash stockpile, as well as the Commercial-class offerings to bring in more cash.
A "key area of focus" will trying to handle the surge of expansion and hiring. Calls this "somewhat new".
Helping budget managers understand where the money is going.
Legal Department:
Will be working with people who supported the strategy.
Working on the Strategy.
Product Department:
Community Tech (continues as usual), Visual editor (as always), Talk Pages project, Content Translation for mobile (also VE).
Growth team. New kinds of edits. Not every edit has to be a long-form article. Tools for readers (I don't know what this means). IP masking. "Equitable growth".
Tools for Campaigns team - they work with organizations that want their content in Wikipedia.
Vue.js - a software thing that is supposed to be more inviting for new developers.
"Content refresh" (this appears to be a trending marketing buzzphrase for SEO and maximizing pageviews) - update content display to match expectations of readers, "more readable". Not really clear what that means. Talk Page project. Work on translation for mobile.
The highlights (of concern) for me are are their insistence on calling Wikipedia works "content" and the "Tools for Campaigns team" thing. Does the latter one mean they're trying to allow native advertising on Wikipedia, or am I misunderstanding? DesertPipeline (talk) 11:55, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
The campaigns stuff sounds to me more like supporting GLAM and organisations who want to share public domain content. Nthep (talk) 12:29, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
I wish somewhere up there it said "fix thousands of software bugs", but I guess that would take a few more tens of millions of dollars. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:21, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Fixing bugs needs a few well-paid people who know what they are doing, rather than many people who can't get jobs elsewhere "working" on trendy issues. Do you really think that anyone at the WMF is interested in that? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:13, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the update. I agree with Jonesey95; sufficient money could be diverted to fix software issues such as WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU with little loss. Certes (talk) 18:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Wow. I don't want to turn this into a debate, but if they are scrambling to figure out how to spend their cash, they should really fix the WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU. It is an issue that is really important, as "transition" to a more mobile-friendly experience is a thing that should be accomplished years ago. It is so concerning that the CTO didn't even touch about mobile issues as it have been discussed many times. SunDawntalk 16:55, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
They have been too busy with other matters for the last ten years. In 2011 they published their strategy to deprecate wikitext. They hired a ton of HTML devs, they built a new HTML editor (Visual Editor) that has no ability to edit wikitext, they built a temporary hack (Parsoid) to translate Wikitext to HTML and back. The current plan is to kill off our current wikitext engine over this coming year. In one way or another, this has sucked up almost all dev time over the last decade. In fact the Foundation has been running into problems due to an almost complete lack of staff with any competence on our core wikitext engine.(See Constraints and challenges:Unfamiliarity with PHP and MediaWiki internals) This is why thousands of bugs and problems and improvements have been neglected. Alsee (talk) 14:54, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
MediaWiki was developed for use on Wikipedia but has been adopted elsewhere. (That's the nature of open source development, and is usually a Good Thing.) Although the cash raised from enwp's Donate link alone could fund its development many times over, we no longer get much say in its direction. It's an off-the-peg package that we have to squeeze into rather than the bespoke software we once enjoyed. Certes (talk) 19:47, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
That's just not true. Almost all development of MediaWiki is driven (and indeed funded) by the Wikipedia use case. It does have to take the other users into account of course, but relatively those other users contribute little code. Wikipedia is the only group who has any say beyond the WMF and the long-time developers I would argue. It's just that once something becomes complex and widely used, any changes becomes very difficult. Not saying that Alsee is right (far from it), but that we are squeezed into a off-the-peg package isn't right either. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:32, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
A long time ago, I had heard some WMF staff members talking about certain articles and topics being exempted from the constraints of WP:V or WP:RS if their notability could be asserted via oral history or word-of-mouth, in order to encourage articles on minority subjects. Is this what they are still pushing for? Is that what they mean by "equitable growth"? WaltCip-(talk) 14:46, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
@WaltCip: That's part of the Strategy Recommendations: "- Consult with communities and experts to identify policies in Wikimedia projects that act as barriers of access to content related to underrepresented communities (e.g. Notability). - Create pathways to new projects, create new functionalities, or encourage communities to create new policies that address these barriers. The goal is to allow the inclusion and preservation of all forms of human knowledge in all socio-cultural contexts (e.g. encourage refining reliability criteria to provide guidelines to identify reliable sources from oral or non-Western knowledge resources, encourage ensuring that notability criteria are relevant in all contexts)." I think "equitable growth" refers to something else, though. --Yair rand (talk) 22:46, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Further background: There was some project where they organized people from some tribe or something, and had them try to write articles. I'm don't think they even had written sources internal to the population, never mind anything resembling Reliable Sources. They got nuked on Notability and Sourcing. The Foundation considers us mean and evil for that. The Foundation Equity-brigade wanted any random-idiot-on-the-internet to be allowed to record "oral histories" spoken by anyone, upload them, and to cite those as sources in articles. By the way, I happen to have an oral history right here - Queen Elizabeth and Albert Einstein are time travelers, and they're Genghis Khan's parents. OH! Another fun detail - they wanted an exemption from our open content licensing - no derivative works. In particular they didn't want anyone outside the population-group to be allowed to change "their" content. Alsee (talk) 23:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
That sounds like a useful project but out of scope for Wikipedia. It might be better as a separate Wiki Oral Knowledge Encyclopedia. Certes (talk) 01:25, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
That is very concerning in terms of reliability. My extended families do have stories that are transmitted orally, but that does not mean that it is reliable. For instance, even at the same tribe, different storytellers may give different stories. And how do you determine which one is the "right" story? And what counts as oral history? Is tribe rituals an oral history? Or how about fables and stories in the past? How about stories that "I saw it happened and even if it is illogical you have to believe me because I saw it happened." How about stories that are affected by superstition? There is so many that can go wrong there. And how do you determine that a user is for certain belong to some population group? If my grandfather is from tribe X, do I belong to the population-group of X? SunDawntalk 04:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I am not quite sure why we keep talking about oral histories. Indeed, there are communities where this is important, and which what to solve their (perfectly real) problems by allowing these oral histories as sources. Whereas I personally think this is unlikely to be implemented on any Wikipedia, and still may be implemented as a separate project, it in principle can affect some smaller Wikipedias (and how many of us know what are the policies currently being implemented on the Hausa Wikipedia for a starter?). However, there is no way this can be implemented on the English Wikipedia, and everybody perfectly understands this. I would say even that nobody at the WMF who has ideas about the functioning on the projects wants to implement this, but possibly people would not believe me. It is enough to say however that they (and they here means, well, anyone) just do not have any tools to implement oral histories as reliable sources on the English Wikipedia, irrespectively of what whoever wants. And please do not remind me of UCoC, the oral histories have no relation whatsoever to the terms of use.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:24, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Various WMF execs will be holding open Zoom Q&As about the Annual Plan over the next several days. See m:Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019/Annual_Plan_2021-2022#Annual_Plan_Conversations. Product and Technology Departments on 28 July at 15:00 UTC, Finance and Administration and Advancement Departments on 29 July at 17:00 UTC, Communications Department on 2 August at 17:00 UTC. --Yair rand (talk) 01:26, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
A Mega Wikipedia is coming (or not) ???
This is not going to happen, at least not in the form you described, but see m:Abstract Wikipedia for something similar. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 11:19, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
As each page is written and updated in a language then logically the amount of information on one page will be different from another.
For this reason, I always do research in Portuguese and, in case I don't solve my doubt, I do it in English afterwards.
So I thought the following: would it be possible to unify the pages written in Portuguese, Spanish and English?
This would massively reduce the number of pages and unify all available information.
Firstly, Brazilian Portuguese would be done with Portugal, United States English, with United Kingdom and universal English, etc.
A second step would be to unite Portuguese and Spanish. The third and last step would be to unite with English.
How to do this? Partnering with Google Translate.
When opening a page (for example: Rio de Janeiro), then the most complete page would appear first (example: Portuguese from Brazil) followed by the second (example: Portuguese from Portugal).
That way the person would complete the larger text with the information from the smaller text below. With the pages in Spanish and English, the same thing would happen.
It would be months before I got users to edit all that and simplify the pages.
And to open the pages, edit and finally unify Portuguese, Spanish and English? It would be simple: when opening the pages, Google Translate would automatically translate all the text into the language chosen by the person.
All finished pages would be saved in English and translated into the language chosen by the site visitor.
This would reduce the number of pages in the database by 90% while keeping the same amount of original information.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ufrrj99 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Just no.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:45, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
No. The ptwiki community is healthier. Érico(talk) 18:42, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Request for comment notification
Here is a link to a RFC on Meta concerning all Wikimedia projects. Lionel Scheepmans✉ Contact(French native speaker) 23:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
The RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 179#RfC on limiting minor edits, asking whether minor edits should be restricted to autoconfirmed or extended-confirmed editors, was recently closed. The closer noted that there was "slightly more support" for limiting the box to autoconfirmed editors than continuing the status quo (requiring only registration), and although it wasn't quite enough for implementation, there is clear community dissatisfaction with the present functionality of minor edits. A sidebar I started about the possibility of a pop-up box received general support.
Mostly copying my explanation comment: Part of the issue we have with minor edits is that our definition of minor is not intuitive, and this means that we have to assume that people misusing the box are doing so out of ignorance, which makes it very difficult to do enforcement. One way to address this would be if, the first time an editor checks the minor edit box, a notice pops up with a brief definition of what we mean by "minor" (perhaps similar to the wording at {{uw-minor}}) that the editor would have to okay. This would ensure that everyone making a minor edit can be expected to understand what it means.
Would any of the design folks at the WMF be willing to help put together a prototype of what that notice could look like? That could then be presented to the community seeking consensus for implementation. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 23:05, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: I wonder if a low-key way to do this change is to introduce a little info/question icon next to the "Minor" that includes an explanation of what it is? Something like in this image -> TemplateWizard_extension_03. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 00:37, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
@NKohli (WMF), that would be one option, but I'm not sure it'd be aggressive enough. The minor edit box already includes a link to Help:Minor edit, but I suspect very few people actually click on that (it's averaging 220 views/day), and I'm not sure many more would click on an icon. The problem is bad enough that the community is on the verge of disabling minor edits for new users entirely, so I think a more in-your-face form of education is likely needed. We could certainly experiment with different options and see what data we get. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 19:21, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Implementing a popup could be useful, but as you say it's probably not actually going to get looked at if it's optional. Maybe we could do some sort of diff-analysis to have this suggested popup trigger itself if e.g. you've checked "minor edit" and you're changing more than 100 characters -- an "are you sure?" focus.
(I feel like in the long-term the "right" way to handle this would be for "minor edit" to be an attribute that's applied to an edit automatically via a system like ORES. The problem, of course, is that distinguishing between minor typographical corrections and incredibly-significant meaning-changes strikes me as a very tricky one.) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 23:45, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
@DLynch (WMF): Definitely. The current minor edit feature is like the evil bit. Automatic detection is likely difficult & a lot of effort for a low benefit really, but is probably how such a feature should work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:55, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Automatic detection of minor edits would require strong AI-levels of intelligence. Even single letter changes can be major if they're, say, changing a subject's gender or taking a stance on a controversial MOS issue like she vs. it for ships. I don't see any way that could reasonably be automated. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 23:21, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree, especially when you consider that I've made some minor edits that tallied at over a thousand characters difference when adding archives to deadlinks in a long list article. Thryduulf (talk) 02:05, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Sadly, no automated process can reliably determine whether an edit requires review, let alone whether its author believes it to require review. Certes (talk) 10:40, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Question: Are there any voter guides or other resources for first-time voters? —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:16, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
I found this Q&A posed to the candidates helpful. (Though, incidentally, I found it a bit surprising that there were no links in the banner or the voting page to this sort of information, and that I had to do a google search to find information about the candidates.) Colin M (talk) 23:36, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi @Pythoncoder, nice to meet you. I'm actually a first-time voter as well :) I find all the links at [22] helpful, especially the candidate table, Q&A, candidate profiles, general voting information and history, and information on Single Transferrable Vote (the voting format this election uses).
If it helps, personally, what I did in advance of the election was start a LibreOffice doc, look at the candidate question answers and statements, rank the top 10 of who I like, bottom 6 of who I don't like, and leave the rest in the middle. When voting, I then entered those in and picked randomly for the middle ones. 🐶 EpicPupper(he/him | talk, FAQ, contribs) 00:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you both so much for these helpful resources! —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 01:13, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
rank the top 10 of who I like, bottom 6 of who I don't like, and leave the rest in the middle. When voting, I then entered those in and picked randomly for the middle ones – I see this was posted before the advice meta:Special:Diff/21908644/21913330. Would your approach change in light of that advice? —2d37 (talk) 19:40, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm surprised they don't have a single page that presents basic info on all the candidates. I had to click open 20 or so tabs to see their info. What candidates do you guys like? I am just going to vote for folks that have the most edits on the English Wikipedia unless convinced otherwise. I feel it is important to make sure that our wiki is well represented. Those candidates appear to be Rosiestep, Mike Peel, AshLin, and Discott. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
I've taken editing history into account but also looked at the candidates' statements. (Yes, it's a shame that takes so many clicks.) I'm not here to tell anyone which policies to like, but I do suggest you vote for whomever will try to lead the WMF in your preferred direction. I also attached some importance to answers to Community Questions from those candidates who provided them. Certes (talk) 12:12, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Results are now available here. Certes (talk) 18:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Community questions
Hello fellow editors,
I would like to draw your attention to the complete list of 61 questions which were asked by the Community here. The Election Committee of the WMF selected eleven of these questions which were mandatorily needed to be answered by the candidates in the link given above by Colin M. Some candidates answered the complete list of 61 questions and you can read their views in their questions, however please note there was severe time pressure on the candidates in this election and all candidates were genuinely not able to answer all the questions due to commitments in real life.
Please do go through candidate statements and their answers to the mandatory 11 questions and complete set of community questions before voting. Vote wisely, and Happy Editting. :) AshLin (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Disclaimer: I am a candidate for the Board of Trustees Election and this post is only for information of editors on my home wiki. AshLin (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Hours of analysis yielded these candidate options
Hi everyone. I read and analyzed carefully for hours the candidates' statements, background, goals, positions. My main priorities in a candidate are support for transparency, democracy and decentralization of the board, digital and free education rights, inclusiveness of the Wikimedia projects' community at large in decision making. As a result of my analysis, the top 5 candidates I recommend are
After rating the candidates' statements, Q&A answers, user pages, and other stuff on seventy-eight variously-weighted metrics (for a total of around 2400 individual ratings), with my top priorities aligning with a majority of those named above, I can say my top five candidates are mostly the same up to ordering as the above, but with AshLin and Discott rather than Mr Mustaklem and Dr Siqueira. —2d37 (talk) 13:45, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
2d37 That's very interesting! I guess we did a rather objective job and it proves by reaching about the same conclusions without ever communicating with each other. Question: I didn't find AshLin nor Discott, did you mean Ashwin and Scott? Thinker78 (talk) 15:38, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
I would be less inclined to think it shows objectivity than subjectivities that were slanted in similar directions. AshLin and Discott are indeed Ashwin Baindur and Douglas Ian Scott, according to the candidate pages. I suppose it was confusing of me to use their usernames while also using the offline names that you had already. —2d37 (talk) 19:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
<sigh> And only Lorenzo Losa was elected from among those five. Perhaps darker days ahead for the WMF. As if it's not bad enough. :/ --Hammersoft (talk) 19:28, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
I gave a big sigh too. At least we have elected one member who believes that The community is not just a bunch of people providing free work. I'm concerned that, for many of us, this may have been Wikipedia's last chance to return to a model we can continue to support. Certes (talk) 19:55, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Sigh. Did anyone really give any weight to some random candidate preference list like the one presented in the original post here? MarioGom (talk) 22:45, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
They are probably here as well but not yet in numbers that can influence any processes. However, we have seen that a single person (possibly not affiliate with a state) managed to grow such a big sockfarm that he was able to influence recent ArbCom elections in the Russian Wikipedia. So I am sure we will feel CCP here as well, though this is probably not their main priority for the moment as Wikipedia is only available in China via VPN.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:02, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
This is something I don't understand - they're the biggest source of disinformation and malign foreign influence in the West and their apparent presence is smaller than most of WP:PAIDLIST. The same questions can be asked about Putin as well. MER-C 19:13, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Putin is most certainly present, I have encountered users clearly paid by Russia to spread disinformation.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
It would be naive to believe that China and Russia are the only governments engaging in this kind of activity. -- RoySmith(talk) 20:44, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
The announcement has a lot of PR speak and is hard to understand. What's the summary? WP:OFFICE de-sysop'd 4 Chinese Wikipedia bureaucrats, and also some admins and interface admins, and banned some people, because they are suspected of working for the Chinese Government? And also removed all Chinese Wikipedia checkusers? Is it known what abuses these guys got away with? I see that zhwiki is in traditional Chinese... does this mean that its main users are Taiwanese folks? Does mainland China even have a Wiki, and has it been able to escape censorship? –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:10, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Chinese Wikipedia lost its CheckUsers in an unrelated incident in 2018. Also, zhwiki uses LanguageConverter to convert between traditional and simplified Chinese on the fly, so it's not specific to Taiwan. * Pppery *it has begun... 23:29, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Some of these people posted at external fora threatening to find out the personal data of Hong Kong editors who opposed the CCP mainstream ideology and give the data to the Chinese government, if I understand the things correctly. This is also in the cited Signpost articles.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:45, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Mostly correct but more.
Recent years' sysop elections have traces of large scale voting manipulations. Refer to the third RfA of 和平奮鬥救地球 (Peacearth) early this year, which failed due to large amount of oppose votes from WMC, including many of the aforementioned office action'd users.
Also earlier this year, a sysop (now global banned) 蟲蟲飛 was accused of socking by multiple stewards. This finally lead to a Request for Desysop vote, which also failed (with over 80% of users chose to support her). Some people suspect that her ban is linked to this. By the way, she got away with that by pledging that she was "using a common iPad" and was "framed" and also (possibly) appealing to the stewards' nationality.
Walter Grassroot is known to frequently use discrimating words towards Hong Kong and Taiwan people in discussions. He is also responsible for mass-uploading Chinese state media news video clips to Commons, then mass-inserting them in articles, violating WP:UNDUE. Literally nobody could stop him, because whenever a sysop blocks him, another certain sysop (now desysoped in action) would certainly come and unblock him.
尤里的1994 identifies him as a Nazi. He puts Nazi flags on his user page. He also advocates that China should use nuclear weapons to initate "destructive military actions" towards Taiwan - All written on his user page. His user page was sent to Request for Deletion for promoting Nazism and violating WP:NOT, but the request eventually failed, for "anything written on user page is his freedom of speech".
The community in Chinese Wikipedia is gradually going out of control, and I doubt whether this office action could help it become normal. To my knowledge, this incident is reported in mainland China with tons of people criticizing WMF. I am not sure whether they will seek revenge. I could sense things are going insane. Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 08:30, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Exactly. In zhwiki, "WMC" or seldomly, "WMCUG", refers to Wikimedians of Mainland China. Sorry for my mistake. No offence to Wikimedia Canada. Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 14:38, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
The "this user is a Nazist" (and a "national Bolshevism"), support for fascism and the nuclear bombing of Taiwan present on the user page of 尤里的1994 pre-blanking is mind boggling.--Eostrix (🦉 hoothoot🦉) 08:25, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Equally disturbing is that he denounces (one of the primary culture-heros of China), while supporting Legalism, the totalitarian philosophy that underlay the oppressive Qin dynasty. (In other words, he clearly understands what Naziism is all about.) I know we want a diversity of viewpoints on Wikipedia, but IMHO allowing his is one group more than I am comfortable with. -- llywrch (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
To MER-C original questions: While WMCUG action here seems to be pro-PRC, I don't think there's enough information to state that this is a direct Communist Party of China (CPC) operation? That being said, there seems to be both pro-PRC and anti-PRC operations on English Wikipedia. The exact actors behind each of them is not necessarily clear in all cases. For example, their focus area can also be consistent with private businesses in China, and their competitors. This is not a problem exclusive to China by the way. Political UPE/influence ops on English Wikipedia can also be found for pro-US, pro-Qatar, pro-UAE sockfarms, just to name a few. Unfortunately, I think we have a quite limited understanding of this type of activity. MarioGom (talk) 10:05, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
The WMF seems to be quite clear in not attributing blame on the CPC or the Chinese Government. (Note that followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory were mostly not in the pay of, or under the direction of the Trump administration, even if many of their acts may have been pro-Trump) While the WMCUG seems to be pro- the current policies of the Bejing government, as ordinary editors we have no way of knowing whether this group has state backing, so we as individuals can only judge the edits on there own - if edits are reverted it should be because the edits are disruptive or against policy, not because we think the editors are part of some conspiracy.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:02, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Right. I agree with that characterization. I also agree with the Office Actions. My comment was about the framing in this particular thread. There are state-linked UPE operations on Wikipedia (which, by the way, I wouldn't call conspiracies). But that does not seem to be the case here. MarioGom (talk) 22:55, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Some points:
Quotes: "some users have been physically harmed" (from the original statement), "all individuals who were banned were banned for the kinds of behavior that communities (including English) widely regard as within the Foundation’s remit" (from the mini faq, in response to my question about whether the bans were for '"conventional" reasons (eg, threats of violence or other serious actions of types that the community has accepted as belonging to T&S)').
The desysoppings seem to be because of issues with the votes (Manipulation? Socks? Threatening or blackmailing users to vote a particular way? The original statement mentions the need "to make sure that the community can hold fair elections, without canvassing or fraud", but the details are unclear.), and the WMF has said that the local community can hold new votes to re-sysop them.
The bans seem clearly reasonable. The desysoppings I'm more skeptical of; it seems to me that it should have been dealt with either locally, or with the assistance of either the stewards or global community, unless there were, here too, serious threats involved (such that all would agree it was beyond the abilities of volunteers to deal with). But information is limited, so it's hard to tell. --Yair rand (talk) 06:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
There are quite probably some restrictions that apply now, because of what donors specified, and some UPMIFA regulations limiting what can be done with the money, but like you I have not seen any commitment from WMF that the principal will remain untouched except for cy près cases. And I agree that such a commitment would be a good thing. What's also important in the short term is what form the new 501c3 charity will take – as you know, the whole endowment, all $100 million of it, is soon to be returned to the WMF to be put into a standalone charity. I said on the mailing list some weeks ago that it would be nice if the WMF could share legal details of that envisaged organization – no reply. If all the funds are returned to the WMF, is the WMF even legally bound to set the new charity up as an endowment? --Andreas JN466 11:11, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
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Facepalm Does it not occur to them the community might elect trustees in the next election who will reverse these changes, thus making Maria's consultancy unnecessary? Levivich 17:52, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § We cannot sweep copyright issues under the rug any longer. It would be helpful to see some WMF participation there, particularly from people who decide how the foundation's resources are allocated. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:12, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
