Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-15/News and notes

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• WMF monetized the editing community's voluntarism and obsession. Now, WMF will spend their ill-gotten gains however they please. The simple solution is: stop editing articles. Stop perpetuating new content on the Main Page. Let your hard work rust and decay and perhaps someday that edifice can be yours, again. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:50, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
  • This is getting ridcolous. There are many ways to spend money on Wikimedia community, but WMF is instead wasting $$$ on irrelevant projects and their own salaries. Something needs to be done. But abandining Wikipedia is not the solution, nor is it feasible. Let's try to brainstorm a realistc way on how to "take WMF back", folks. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 23:26, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

    Yep. I always kind of roll my eyes at the suggestion that we just *stop* - I write articles because I want to make local history accessible outside of the archives of my small town's museum. If I stopped editing, that history would stay locked away. No thanks! ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 12:15, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

    @Piotrus: Allowing editors to revert office actions would be a first step, in my view. Obviously the WMF needs to be able to react to legal threats, but that ability to overrule community consensus is too much potential for abuse, in my view ([1]). Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:56, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

  • @Chris troutman and Piotrus: There is another way, a better way. At the end of last year we forced the WMF to adjust their banners to remove misinformation, under threat of preventing them from fundraising on enwiki. There is no reason we cannot use the same threat to limit their ability to pursue activities that are inappropriate use of donor money; either they stop pursuing those activities, or they pursue them without the tens of millions of dollars that they raise from us each year. BilledMammal (talk) 03:14, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

    Right. How did we do it? An RfC? I'd strongly support another one related to this. Having reviewed a few related grant proposals for WMF a year or two ago, I think this is a waste of our money (money we could totally use for the community projects). @Pundit, btw. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:18, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

    Yep; Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 196#RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign. One major change from that RfC is that we would need to provide more detail about the various potential enforcement mechanisms, as well as placing those details in the main proposal, rather than at the bottom.

    As for the proposal itself, I am not yet certain of how best to word it. I believe what we want is a level of oversight on how the WMF spends the money that they raise through enwiki, but without otherwise curtailing their independence. BilledMammal (talk) 03:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

    In that RfC, North8000 made a good comment; I think that there are two issues blended together here. One is the broad general one that WMF has overall gone pretty badly astray. The other is the fundraising wording one. To me the latter has a simple fix. The banners HAVE given the (false) impression that that there is a threat to English Wikipedia's survival that needs money to resolve. Reword them to stop giving that impression.

    We addressed the banners issue, but we haven't addressed the broader issue; it is probably time to step up and do so. BilledMammal (talk) 03:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

    @BilledMammal: What are your thoughts on office actions? I'd like them to be able to be overturned by community consensus or reverted. Right now it's Unauthorized modifications to office actions will not only be reverted, but may lead to sanctions by the Foundation, such as revocation of the rights of the individual involved. Yikes. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:50, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

    That's a separate can of worms from the one discussed above, which is wasting WMF's funds on things that have zero relevance to the community. I mean, there are zillion worthy causes out there, but we are a worthy cause, and it is ridcolous we are giving away our funds instead of using them for ourselves (developing new software, hiring people to support community, giving grants to the community members, paying for more stuff for the Wikimedia Library, etc.). Heck, even organizing some legal action in support of freedom of panorama would make much more sense than 95% of the grants discussed here, which are just "feel good in the context of digital divide" actions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

  • Wouldn't this just punish the same readers that the WMF is defrauding? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:42, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
  • It doesn't matter if you are the most prolific contributor on the website: the WMF will not notice you leaving. In fact it seems many have not noticed the editors who have already voted with their feet and stopped editing, which has caused the critical volunteer shortage we've faced over the last several years. Instead we need a strike, but strikes have to be coordinated, organised and well-timed. Something like the SOPA/PIPA blackout, but this time the WMF would resist and try to overturn the blackout. — Bilorv (talk) 09:05, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
    • I like the idea of a strike; of course as long as office actions exist, the community has little power over the WMF. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

      On reverting office actions: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. — Bilorv (talk) 08:58, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

• Regardless of any misgivings over longstanding endowment concerns, never expected my own Windward Island homeland to receive a Wikimedia grant; chiming in as practically that country's only wiki aficionado. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 03:08, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

  It seems like a fantastic project as well! ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 12:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

  It's hard to argue with the projects' merit, but all we need ask is simply a requirement that their noteworthy aspects be documented on Wikimedia projects. That seems like such an easy requirement that I can only conclude it was assumed but neglected to be put in writing. Certainly asking for it would not be controversial within the Foundation, would it? Sandizer (talk) 07:57, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

That's my sense too, but it would be nice for that to be more explicit. – SJ + 09:13, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Slgrandson You should reach out to them. Maybe you can make sure that at least some of these kids will upload a picture to Commons, or write a little draft article using local sources. Andreas JN466 18:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466: I'd gladly love to, but at this writing, I'm now living in Florida instead. (Though a possible trip back home [during local Independence season ca. early November] is still in the cards; up to my superiors to get things ready, passport issues or no.) --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 01:42, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@Slgrandson: I had read your user page and knew you weren't there any more. I was just thinking of remote help – like reviewing draft articles or suggesting subjects to write about or take pictures of, both of which might benefit from being done by a Wikipedian who grew up there. Best, Andreas JN466 08:05, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

• Like everyone else here, I'm appalled that the Foundation is giving away money to outside groups without considering our own needs first. Or at least involving the communities in the grant process. Consider it a Plan B to stopping these "Knowledge Equity Fund" grants: no more of these grants unless they first open it to all volunteers given a chance to both nominate worthy causes & to comment on those under consideration. IMHO, this could be accomplished with a well-advertised comment page over on Meta. -- llywrch (talk) 21:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Llywrch: How about a collective letter of complaint to the WMF? Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 21:17, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

  • • Speaking for myself, I like the idea. -- llywrch (talk) 21:23, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

      @Llywrch: Done. Feel free to make some adjustments, and please sign the draft, so my signature doesn't look so lonely. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 21:33, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Hacker News thread

The majority of commenters at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37179587 seem to express profound unhappiness with how Wikipedia donations are managed. --Andreas JN466 23:04, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• Actually, User:Victoria, you said last year,

Equity Grants were an idea of the previous CEO who is no longer with the Foundation so there isn't a chance of them recurring. The Board has done its main job - changed the CEO. Victoria (talk) 10:39, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

So how come we have this new round of grantees? Andreas JN466 16:08, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I’d like to clarify a few of the misconceptions shared here. First, the Knowledge Equity Fund is a limited fund of $4.5 million from the Foundations 2020-2021 budget. Each round of grantmaking spends down these funds which were set aside two fiscal years ago. The Equity Fund does not come from or compete with the Foundation’s annual plan budget. Our annual plan priorities and budget allocations were discussed with Wikimedia communities through a robust community collaboration process earlier this year. This year alone, the Foundation is spending $17.5 million on grants to the Wikimedia movement.

As a member of the Knowledge Equity Fund selection committee, I can also share that we do not see these grants as tangential to the Wikimedia movement; they are intended to find new ways of supporting knowledge creation on underrepresented topics, so that newly available knowledge resources can be used to strengthen content on the projects themselves.

Howard requested an extension time for their report due to operational delays. We will post the report shortly. We have been working towards a more structured reporting process for the future year. KEchavarriqueen (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I feel like I'm a bit out of loop. What exactly is the Knowledge Equity Fund? Is it the origin these grants? Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 19:37, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

@KEchavarriqueen (WMF):And how is a non-profit organization based in Indonesia that works on human rights and advocacy issues for indigenous people in any way related to the project. Nice? Yes. Relevent? No. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 19:39, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, as you can see if you search the Web (or Meta) for it, the m:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund was a one-time fund set aside two years ago with the stated desire to trial a separate grant pool to support communities whose knowledge resources or language might not yet be represented on the projects, and who might have other barriers to being able to contribute to our form of collaboration. It's a reasonable conceit and countering systemic bias is a long-standing and important WP idea. one can propose better ways to do it or better ratios of investment, but a 20:1 ratio of community grants to this sort of (out-of-community / potential-future-community) grant is a plausible start. Cool concept, deserves more integration and more & better proposals. – SJ + 22:16, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

• Anyone who knows my history will be aware that I've gotten into it pretty hard with the WMF, but (and the Signpost article suffers the same flaw) at least I didn't do it on the basis of wild-ass conspiracy theories For all the bluster about the WMF, I'm still not seeing how the cited evidence is proof of some grand conspiracy; and if there is one, arguendo, the WMF is conspiring against its volunteers... why? An answer to that doesn't seem to be forthcoming. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:09, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• Speaking for myself, I'm not insinuating that there is some kind of conspiracy here. What I am concerned about is that the Foundation is giving money to groups that have little or no clear benefit to any Wikimedia projects, when there is plenty of need at Wikimedia projects. Not only are we donating our labor for free, some of us are spending money out of our own pockets to benefit Wikipedia, so if there is more money in the Foundation accounts than is needed to run their side of things, why not spend it on us? Or at least some charitable organization that clearly helps us? In short, someone set the wrong priorities, & we (okay I, I'm not speaking for anyone else) would like this decision either revisited or reversed. -- llywrch (talk) 22:06, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly. No-one is saying there's a "grand conspiracy". Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 22:10, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  You two aren't, but there's a tinge to this article which is definitely coming off as what they don't want you to know. Jimbo addressed some of this on his talkpage in the days before this was published, and noted much the same thing; I have no reason to disbelieve his comments or those of the WMF employee above. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:05, 24 August 2023 (UTC)