User talk:Okeyes (WMF)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Notification of help desk thread

You are mentioned in this thread at the Help desk and may like to comment. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, dude :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:16, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply

Hi, answer is no I have no idea what Beeblebrox is up to, was there any notification regarding that on some mailing list / public noticeboard? Is there any similar rfc going on? Petrb (talk) 12:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

tag on Battle of Romani article

Prior to 13 January, the 'Improve this page' tag was attached to this GA page. No specific date is known when it was attached as it does not appear in the article history. Nor has an explanation been given on the article's talk page as to why such an article would be targeted in this way. Can you arrange to cut this tag ASAP? --Rskp (talk) 03:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Rskp, I have already explained all of this to you via email, and told you that I'm not disabling the tag on individual articles until testing is completed. You will note the tag includes a link to an FAQ, which may answer additional questions, and explains quite clearly the steps we took to engage the community in development. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:54, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

But how long will this GA article languish in this dubious position of being on the one hand good but in desperate need of improvement? How long? --Rskp (talk) 02:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't say it's in desperate need of improvement, Rskp, and I will find out for you the precise date that testing this form ends. It is, from memory, fairly soon. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'd appreciate it. --Rskp (talk) 02:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

PS Can you tell me who is in change of this trial? --Rskp (talk) 01:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• As in, who is running the testing, or who is running the entire programme? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The person who has the power to end the test which is being run on the Battle of Romani article.--Rskp (talk) 01:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• That would be "none of them". As I have explained twice, now, the test will be ended when testing has ended, which should be 8 February. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for at last telling me when this test and 'testing' should end. As you play your cards so close to your chest its the most I can hope for. --Rskp (talk) 00:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Roslyn, other than the date I already told you all of this via email. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Rskp: you cannot post private emails on-wiki. It is a violation of our normal privacy and security practises. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

  Just as a note, I've removed the edit from the edit-history (using Revision Deletion) under the privacy/copyright policies; please don't do this again. James F. (talk) 10:09, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I didn't realise it was a no no, even though I had removed all references to private info and even though these emails were referred to by you. I merely wished to demonstrate that all had not been revealed. Still today I am waiting to know why this tag remains on the Battle of Romani article even though I was assured, that the tag would be removed by early February. This is a long sad sorry story of no cooperation and no communication. Saying you will drop the relevant staffers an email and get back to them is yet another example of your noncommunication. Why is it that you won't disclose who these relevant staffers are? I am beginning to doubt they even exist? --Rskp (talk) 06:13, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Rskp, the massive chain of emails you copy and pasted into this very thread kinda undermines the idea that this is a "story of no cooperation and no communication". Please do not assume bad faith of me; WMF contractor or not, I am entitled to just the same basic courtesy as any other user. I said "the relevant staffers" because "the relevant staffers" is shorter and more to the point than "Howie Fung, Fabrice Florin and Dario Taraborelli". Note for future reference that I have a standing policy of neither indulging nor communicating with people who accuse me of grand conspiracies. I'll make an exception this once. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't be silly I have not accused you of anything other than not answering my questions. I presume you have had enough time to contact Howie Fung, Fabrice Florin and Dario Taraborelli. So when will this tag be taken off this GA article? --Rskp (talk) 01:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As of next Thursday, there'll be a close button on the box so you can dismiss it if it's bugging you personally. We also switch around the tags, so that the little box marked "improve this page" that is docked to the browser window will be altered or replaced with something else (which will hopefully be less prominent or annoying). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Wish I had been able to take advantage of this talk page [1] to find I'm not the only one who was annoyed by this tag and wanted some answers. --Rskp (talk) 00:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hooray, its gone. No explanation - just gone. --Rskp (talk) 06:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Editing rates

Hi Oliver!

I would like to assume that the WMF wants to uphold professional standards on data and surveys, the same as it does on copyright, etc.: The copyright and BLP policies are stricter than legally necessary, because WMF wants to do the right thing.

I raised a concern about the appearance of a prompt to start editing at the end of the quality survey.

I and the WMF should be also concerned about unauthorized and authorized low-quality "surveys" about Wikipedians that have little or no scientific value but that receive media coverage. (Maybe the UC San Francisco Medical School's human subjects review board would help WMF with human-subjects and quality issues.)

The AAOR and American Statistical Association would probably love to cooperate with and support Wikipedia.

1. WMF should contact the AAOR or ASA or both and say that WMF would like to have an AAOR-leader have a brief discussion about the current practices and plans of WMF regarding data on users, including polls and surveys to improve quality. (You could also contact the University of Michigan or University of Maryland, which cooperatively have a joint doctoral program on survey research for the Census Bureau.)
2. Then have an afternoon meeting with somebody to talk more seriously.
3. Then ask the experts to come in and give a presentation and Q&A session with the relevant WMF staff, some of whom should be asked to become liasons or develop expertise.
4. I assume that WMF should hire a consultant or perhaps a permanent staffer, or at least a summer intern from a Ph.D. program in survey methodology.

I am not a survey statistician, so I have no COI in this recommendation.

Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

So, I think our priority should be on doing what is ethical. sometimes this is more than professional standards demand; sometimes it conflicts with them. We do what is ethical and what is correct. The copyright and BLP policies (and, for that matter, the privacy policy) are not things we are required to have at that level to maintain legality or propriety. We have them because it is the Right Thing to Do.

I'm sure that there are professional organisations whose standards do not align with ours. Indeed, I'm sure there are professional organisations whose standard do not align with each other! We cannot comply with all of them; notwithstanding the difficulty of doing so, a lot of standards have simply not been adapted to things like the internet. The current survey standards, in our opinion, are ethical. We fully disclose in the terms and conditions what data is used for; we provide documentation that makes clear what function the form is intended to fulfil. There is no deception; people are provided with links to information explaining that one of the intents is to provide people with a call to edit.

We actually have quite a few statisticians and analysts on staff, and none of them have raised objections to the methodology; Howie, my boss, has a statistics degree from Stanford. Dario, our chief researcher, is a former fellow and lecturer at University College, London and a few other places throughout Europe. Philippe is a court-certified instrument designer. All of them are experts (or at least highly knowledgeable) in their respective fields.

If there were evidence of an actual issue, i have no doubt we'd be happy to consider the issue and approaches to correct it. But from my point of view, you've yet to show why we should change our practises; simply saying "they violate the standards set by a certain body" is not enough. We focus on doing what we believe to be the right thing to do. We are not signed up to the body in question, and we cannot be expected to comply with every standard from every organisation, if they have not been shown to have ethical relevancy to our work. We are answerable to our readers and our editors for our ethics - and I've yet to see a reader complain about any feeling of deception (we've run several questionnaires on the feature), and from the discussion on the Statistics talkpage it seems clear that editors are mostly agreed that this is fine. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Oliver,

We agree on the doing the right thing point, as I suspected. This is why I wanted to chat here.

I missed the part where you said that any of these sophisticates had any competence in survey statistics, particularly in professional practice! ;) I am a statistician, but above I explicitly stated that I was not a survey statistician. If you said you had a survey statistician trained at Chicago or Harvard or Berkeley or Michigan or Maryland or Iowa State or Southampton, I might be nervous....

The minimum degree for statistical practice is usually thought to be a M.A. or M.S, following an undergraduate mathematics degree and feeding a scientific hunger. However, a Ph.D. or equivalent is usually thought the degree that enables research to be directed without the supervision of a supervisor. You did not specify whether "a degree" was a "B.A./S." or "M.S." or "Ph.D." from Stanford.

Talk to you later!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As I understand things, it's an M.S. We're not really here to go through my boss's education history, though :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

from the thread in the Signpost - answering here

Okeyes, Maggie is a very nice person but not able to help me. I asked her in her WMF persona to help me with an online ambassador's plagarism/copyvio problems and she said she couldn't in that role Because I had contacted her as her WMF persona, she as Moonriddengirl was unable to help me regarding an online ambassador's copyvio/plagiarism/close paraphrasing behavior - according to some rule that prohibits contacting her in both roles.

In the end, she suggested that I take that online supervising ambassador to WP:DR if I had a problem with an online ambassador's editing, something I'm certainly not going to do. To be clear, my concern was not this online ambassador behavior in a particular article (not WP:DR material IMO), but that an editor who was the chosen by WMF (or whoever) as supervising online ambassador for the US and Canada's on line education programs (working with both professors and students as they edit their articles and selecting other on line ambassadors according to her user page), did not know the difference between copyvio, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing. This problem still hasn't been addressed because there's no way to address it that I can figure out. So this editor continues in her role, lacking fundamental knowledge about plagiarism etc.

I asked her in one of her roles how the US/Canada on line educational programs chose their on line ambassadors, and she didn't know and didn't know who to ask. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, you may have misunderstood what she wrote; she explicitly said that she could speak to some staffers on your behalf, which would suggest she knows who to speak to :). It also looks like (if you see the message below) there are some efforts to strengthen the rules and requirements for ambassadors and ensure what they're followed. Surely this is precisely what you want? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Okeyes, thanks for answering. You may have misunderstood the posts you linked to above. I asked "Maggie" who to contact, and she answered she could not be involved in "content": "So, what I can do as Community Liaison is speak on your behalf to the Global Education Program Communications Manager, to ask her to look into whether and how Online Ambassadors are acquainted with core policies such as copyright." Immediately after that statement, the On line Ambassador with whom I was having problems User talk:Cindamuse chimed in:

"Maggie, I can assure you that the WEP and Steering Committee is committed to high standards of quality, as I personally support. That said, there are instances of OAs coming on board that do not have a thorough knowledge of WP policies and guidelines. We will be addressing these issues in SF next month and I will be making recommendations for solidifying minimum criteria for appointment of Ambassadors. Note that Frank thinks it's best that RAs and CAs have little WP experience. The battle for quality is ongoing. For an example of a current OA applicant that does not meet the criteria, see Wikipedia:Online_Ambassadors/Apply/Pine#Discussion. It's puzzling, but other editors sometimes feel overwhelmed to the point that just want to accept any warm body. Maggie, the appropriate contact person at the WMF is not LiAnna, but Jami. I would certainly appreciate your attention or overview of the Douglas W. Owsley article in your personal capacity as User:Moonriddengirl if you are able. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy)"

After explaining to Cind.amuse that she could not enter in as Moonriddengirl, she recommended that Cind.amuse contact User:Dcoetzee (who subsequently supported my contention that Cind.amuse's editing was problematic and showed her ways to rephrase her wording so it was not close paraphrase/plagiarize; see Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA1). Cind.amuse then attacked me on Maggie's Moonriddengirl page repeatedly, accusing me of bad faith etc., and Moonriddengirl said I did nothing wrong.

However on her other page, "Maggie" said: "haven't passed along any messages yet, as I am waiting to hear if there is need. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)"

I concluded that she had not "passed" along anything, else she would have said so, right? Nothing else was said.

However, I happened to get a response from her other persona Moonriddengirl today to my question what does WEP stand for, and she suggested I contact User talk:JMathewson (WMF) which I have done.

Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 15:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Cool. Well, as said, unless there is evidence that the problem with plagiarism is a recurring one, and not just a one-off mistake, there's no need to get anyone stuck in the stocks :). If you can demonstrate that it isn't just a one off I'd be more than happy to communicate with staffers about the issue. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

well, JMathewson's immediate reaction was to cancel the upcoming SF meeting for Online Ambassadors,[2], saying: "We have discussed and finally decided that these meetings are going to so drastically impact the US and Canadian Education Programs that we would like to make sure it's as well-planned-out as possible. We will postpone such an event to an undecided time in the near future."

I think, for example, if you do a search in Wikipedia talk:United States Education Program/Archive 1 and Wikipedia talk:United States Education Program/Archive 2 for "Cindy" you will see the depth of her misunderstanding on many issues. This recent incident of close paraphrasing/plagiarism is only one of the problems with her. I'm just wondering what is going on, since nothing is transparent, and no one seems to be supervising the behaviors of people like "Cindy" who fueled the fires between the editors of en:wp and the WEP. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 15:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! There is supervision; it's simply awkward, in that it's a quasi-WMF person who is being cited as breaking policy in her role as a volunteer. Because it's a volunteer issue, DR really is your best bet - but if there is wider misbehaviour it may be worth looking into from an ambassadorial POV (I don't know: I can't speak for their programme). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Mathew. Oliver asked me to weigh in here. :) I'm glad to see that you left a note for Jami; I wouldn't necessarily connect the post you've linked with your note on her talk page. I suspect since she's describing a group discussion that the timing there is coincidental and that you can still expect to hear from Jami in response to your note. The workday is just beginning for most of the Wikimedia Foundation, although people like Oliver and I who don't live and work in San Francisco are on a different schedule.

It seems I may have inadvertently misled you with my language; I was and still am willing to communicate on your behalf to the Global Education Program Communications Manager, or whomever else may be helpful here, but I didn't pursue it any further when the Global Education Program Communications Manager told me you had written her directly. I'm here to facilitate communication, but not to impose myself where direct communication is already ongoing. :)

Oliver makes very good points about DR. As I mentioned to you on another page, dispute resolution applies to all of us, and it does carry weight with the Wikimedia Foundation. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Who is Oliver? I assume "Jami" is User:JMathewson (WMF)? As far as I know Jami has not contacted me. A DR over a GAN seems kinda of ridiculous. Although Cindy clearly demonstrates problematic behavior in the GAN, what dispute is there to resolve? The article failed GAN on the basis of close paraphrasing and plagiarism. And she is free to renominate it again according to GAN rules, which she hasn't done. A DR over her nasty attitude? That hardly seems enough, considering there was a whole ArbCom over what constitutes nasty wording that was somewhat inconclusive. I've never done a DR and don't have the stomach for it. My interactions with Cindy have been bad enough as it is. I would like some clarity about this WEP, who the people are, who supervises who, etc.? Actually, I'm getting very very tired. No one seems to know, and they can always retreat to the WMF which has complete control over en:wp as I understand it. So a DR wouldn't apply to her behavior in that role, which is the problem. So I really don't get how a DR would do anything other that make me look foolish. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Oliver is Okeyes, the fellow whose talk page is hosting this conversation. :) Jami is JMathewson, yes. I'm sure Jami will respond soon. Apologies if I've misunderstood you; I recommended DR because I thought you were concerned with systemic issues with Cindy as an editor, in which case DR of course applies. The WEP has many different facets, as it involves many different "departments". WEP runs in many different language projects around the world - for instance, Wikipedia Brazil. I don't think you'd want to talk to the person who runs the whole thing. Cindy is involved in the US Education Program (USEP), which is in transitioning from a staff-run program (WMF was given a grant to set it up) to a program run entirely by En Wiki editors. This transition, I think, is one of the reasons people aren't clear on who does what. Cindy was elected to the Steering Committee by other editors. The Steering Committee runs the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, which supports US Education Program students. Jami is their point of contact on staff, and would be the person to talk to about issues. At this point, it might be best to see what she says and take it from there. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Mathew, let me please clarify that the meeting that we were planning to host in San Francisco was not a meeting of Online Ambassadors but an event driven by volunteers, including some of our Online Ambassadors, about the direction of the US and Canada Education Programs. If you notice in the original post, I mentioned that the meeting was "pending approval", which was turned down to give us more time to plan this event. Purely coincidental that the approval meeting coincided with your comments.

I'd also like to clarify an above misnomer; Cindy is not "quasi-WMF" but is a community-elected representative on a board that oversees the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. I work very closely with this group of people, and our current task is how to transition the program to become more community-driven. Her position on that board comes through election, and her selection as an OA came through a community-approved selection process. I just wanted to clarify that her position is entirely as a volunteer, so her role does not have any oversight from WMF. This is why I keep directing you to the Steering Committee itself, as nobody at WMF has any authority over their members and selection process. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 01:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

ok, sorry! Where is that "steering committee" again? And did you see my posts of the enumeration of the problems "cindy" has caused? It's been explained to me that she's got good people skills (which probably got her elected) but she has been a disaster as an Online Ambassador. See links above Wikipedia talk:United States Education Program/Archive 1 and Wikipedia talk:United States Education Program/Archive 2 and type "cindy" into find, plus comment about educational program How can this be fixed? Thanks! MathewTownsend (talk) 01:17, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Mathew, I am the chair of the WASC. If you want to talk to me about this incident in general - please post me a note here User_talk:Epistemophiliac/MathewTownsendChat so we can have a quieter conversation and not harass the community at large, over something I think if we chatted about can get resolved swiftly. Cheers, Epistemophiliac (talk) 01:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Maple syrup

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Maple syrup". Thank you. - sorry, but felt I couldn't let one person do this. --Dougweller (talk) 10:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

New Page Triage engagement strategy released

Hey guys!

I'm dropping you a note because you filled out the New Page Patrol survey, and indicated you'd be interested in being contacted about follow-up work. This is to notify you that we've finally released both the initial documentation about the project and also the engagement strategy, which sets out how we plan to work with the community on this. Please give both a read, and leave any comments or suggestions you have on the talkpage, on my talkpage, or in my inbox - okeyeswikimedia.org.

It's awesome to finally get to start work on this! :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Nothing in the message appears to break. Awesome. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Page ratings going weird?

Hi Okeyes. I've noticed strange things happening with the page ratings of a couple of articles I edit (Pain, Cancer pain). Is this a known issue? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:33, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Depends what the strange things are :). Care to elaborate? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:39, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I didn't go into details because I was guessing it's a known problem. So: Since I posted it (6? months ago) Cancer pain has been rating around 4 4 4 4; about a week ago it flipped up to 5 5 5 5. which was enormously gratifying but highly unlikely. A couple of days later it was 0 5 5 5. Yesterday it went to 1 5 5 0. Pain has traditionally been around 4 4 4 4, and I just checked it and it's 5 5 5 5; again, very flattering but just impossible. I just checked again and Pain is now at a more realistic 4.2 4.0 4.0 4.8! So, there's something weird happening. All of these wild fluctuations are happening against a background of no substantive changes to the articles. (I added a couple of sentences to the lede of Cancer pain, but the weirdness was happening before that.) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Low ratings may have expired. Don't worry, I tried to knock it back down for you by clicking some ones! ;)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually seeing some bugs too; reporting to bugzilla now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

The 13 ratings for "well-written" at Cancer pain with an average rating of zero seems not only improbable but impossible, I think, if the thing were functioning properly. Thanks for passing it on, Okeyes. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

No problem :). I'm not actually seeing that :S. Would you mind emailing me a screenshot? I was getting a different (but similar) error. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Mmm. In Firefox, the "well-written" boxes at Cancer pain are all blank, but when I take a screen-grab, they're all blue. the average is 1073741827.8. In IE, the "well-written" boxes are all blue and the average is 10737. That is, the averages for Trustworthy, Objective, Complete, Well-written are 1.0. 4.0, 4.2 and 1073741827.8 respectively in Firefox; and 1.0, 4.0, 4.2 and 1073 in IE. What averages are you getting? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the same one! The Firefox, one, anyway (I hath not the explorer of the internets, yea). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 02:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I think you mean "Internet Exploder". You know what they say: the only thing IE is good for is downloading Google Chrome. :D Jesse V. (talk) 07:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Things are back to normal at Cancer pain now. Thanks for passing this on to Bugzilla. I wouldn't have had a clue where to report it. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:31, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

• No problem! Feel free to poke me if you come up with other errors :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:04, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Triage

Hi Okeyes, just a question about the naming of this project. Triage, to me, gives the impression that three patrollers would have to review a NP and agree on any actions to take on it. Is this the intended meaning? I feel the current term 'Patrolling', or the term 'Reviewing', are far more in line with what we are doing. You would be biased in me asking which you prefer, but I'm giving the community the opportunity to give their opinion. I shall do so on Wikipedia talk:New Page Triage. Regards, Osarius Talk 11:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Replied on the project page :). I'm going to get as much detail from Brandon on this as I can. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

And a question concerning one specific editor invited to participate - you might want to glance through the discussions on his talk page. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:43, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up :). I'm inviting everyone who answered the survey, and at the end of the day it's a consultative exercise; if anyone acts disruptively we'll simply ignore them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Signpost (5 March)

I think the parts that appeared copied were the piped links. So I have reworded those, hopefully to your satisfaction. The rest, I believe, is in my own words.

Best wishes, MathewTownsend (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

NPT page: "Accordingly, we are working on developing a new software suite to improve the patrolling experience, as well as the quality of submitted content."

Signpost page: "Therefore, WMF is working on developing a new software suite to improve the patrolling experience, as well as the quality of submitted content."

• I would suggest a complete rewrite is in order. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

ok, I've tried to translate what is meant. Please take a look. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Much improved, but I'd suggest waiting on Skomorokh (sp?) or whoever the current editor is. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Glad to hear that. Skomorokh always goes through everything before he publishes it. He has the last word. Plus Resident Mario edits after me. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Usually I edit before, of course, but it seems everyone jumped onto the ship faster then me this week. ResMar 22:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Come now

Aren't you being a little melodramatic? ResMar 21:10, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Resident Mario, my job is to listen to the community. My job is to help make sure that software is less bad for editors. By and large, I've found this to be productive - which I'd expect it to be, given that I'm working 50 hour weeks on this. Indeed, the only reason those weeks are 50 hours long is because I am contractually prohibited from billing for more than that, meaning that a chunk of my work each week is also unpaid. And in the midst of this productive conversation, which I'm spending 50+ hours a week on, I'm faced with a user who responds to my efforts by calling me a phony and claiming that the report I spent 12 hours on a Sunday tabulating and writing is based on deliberately cherry-picked data.

I appreciate that we are a volunteer-led project; I consider myself still a volunteer, and do a heck of a lot of work as an editor. And if you had thrown those accusations at me as an editor, you would (quite rightly) have been accused of acting in bad faith, and told to either withdraw the allegations or present evidence. The behaviour is no more acceptable just because a lady called Sue now gives me some money now-and-then. Volunteer-led does not mean unprofessional. It means unpaid. If you are going to persist in acting unprofessionally, despite my repeated offers to have an honest conversation about what your concerns are, I'm not going to put myself out of my way just to help you. I've got actual work to do with other people, and they, unlike you, understand that me being a contractor does not mean it's open season to mock and insult me.

If and when you decide you'd like to act like an adult, I'm happy to listen to your suggestions as to what I should do with the meagre shreds of my free time. In the meantime, why not spend a few minutes mulling on the fact that, actually, your actions have consequences. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

My accusations, as you say, was simply a concerned note on what I had discovered about the opinions of the volunteers who had suggested and helped execute the report. They were unimpressed, and I thought that warranted, and still does warrant, concern. I felt we came to terms, and used slightly aggravating language because I knew it irritates you. As you can tell from the very lengthy discussion following publications, my concerns were echoed by a good many users, and you cannot possibly argue that they were unwarranted, nor would not receiving paychecks from Big Brother have lent any additional weight to your argument; nonetheless that point is moot. You take my jests personally, a light-hearted stab at your work as a serious offense on your character. I'm sorry you feel this way. ResMar 22:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It certainly didn't come out as a "light-hearted jest"; for reference, I did not take it as an offence on my character, but neither does that mean it's okay. Claiming my work is "phony" is no more appropriate than me claiming that, actually, your featured articles are all poorly-written dross...with the difference that you don't stake your living on the quality of your featured articles.

For reference, using slightly aggravating language because you know it irritates me is not the way to productive discourse. The tone you're taking here is far more productive; it would be useful if you acted in the same way when talking to me elsewhere. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

This user employs a more formal style of writing in articles than in talk pages. ResMar 23:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I took it as LOL funny. Playful and not against you at all Okeyes! I really think that's how it was meant. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

*sigh* I guess I won't get you to do it, huh? Shame... ResMar 00:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Good job!

Hi,

Since apparently you have a reputation for "being testy" under your other name, I'd like to compliment you on your handling of the "New Page Triage" issue. This could sent a precedent for WMF- wikipedia community interactions. Good work! MathewTownsend (talk) 01:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Uh. Thank you! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

o_o. ResMar 01:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Pesky cautiously sticking muzzle above parapet ...

Hey there! My judgement may be somewhat narcotic-impaired at the moment, but I feel that in the second half of this you came across as a little bit terse / harsh. I'm sure that's not what you meant to do. I may, of course, just be more judgement-impaired than I think I am. Nortonius is a good egg, with a great heart and a good mind; well worth nurturing, cultivating, and making good use of. :o) Cheers, Pesky (talk) 10:21, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Very sorry; this certainly wasn't what I intended :). I do think it is important to communicate, though, that talking about ACTRIAL is never going to get us anywhere. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue One - Recent news from the Teahouse

Hi! Welcome to the first edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

Spring has sprung! Stop by the Teahouse for a cup of tea under the cherry blossoms.

• Metrics are out from week one. Week one showed that the need for Teahouse hosts to invite new editors to the Teahouse is urgent for this pilot period. It also showed that emailing new users invitations is a powerful tool, with new editors responding more to emails than to talk page templates. We also learned that the customized database reports created for the Teahouse have the highest return rate of participation by invitees. Check out the metrics here and see how you can help with inviting in our Invitation Guide.
• A refreshed "Your hosts" page encourages experienced Wikipedians to learn about the Teahouse and participate. With community input, the Teahouse has updated the Your hosts page which details the host roles within the Teahouse pilot and the importance that hosts play in providing a friendly, special experience not always found on other welcome/help spaces on Wikipedia. It also explains how Teahouse hosts are important regarding metrics reporting during this pilot. Are you an experienced editor who wants to help out? Take a look at the new page today and start learning about the hosts tasks and how you can participate!
• Introduce yourself and meet new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. New & experienced editors to Wikipedia can add a brief infobox about themselves and get to know one another with direct links to userpages. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, they'll surely be happy to feel the wikilove!

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. Sarah (talk) 16:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thoughts on the mock up for NPP

Apologies, as I'm sure there's a place for these but I'm too frazzled to find it.

• Overall, I like it a lot.

• Not having images is common, especially in new articles. I don't think it deserves to appear as being as much of an issue as some of the other things in bolded red in the mock up. I personally would, at the very least, have it not bolded and placed last when there are multiple red flags. That being said, it's not too major of an issue.

• The shadowing, on the other hand, I consider a bit more serious. The large grey shadow over "North West Statium" in this mock up serves no useful purpose and is distracting. I know that the goal is to look sleek, but in this case it's overdone.

I should be around next week; at the very least my schedule measures out a tad on the 19th. Until then, Sven Manguard Wha? 04:46, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• Both of those points are good'uns :). I already brought up the images thing - I can't see it being used as a way to identify good/bad articles. The proposed use case was "it might contain inappropriate images that should be deleted", but nobody uses the article view to check files. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Article "Statistics" menu error

Hi there Okeyes, I'm not sure where to bring this up but since your with the WMF maybe you can help me or know of someone who can. I just noticed that among that handy list of tools which appear on the left hand side of an article's page, there's a section called "Statistics". For some reason the items in it, "Traffic stats", "Edit history stats", and "Page watchers" are in much larger font than the other tools, and clicking on "Statistics" doesn't collapse the group unlike when I click on another section like "Toolbox". Not only that, but the "Edit history stats" link is broken. For the record, I'm testing this running Windows 7 on the latest version of Google Chrome and I noticed it on the Folding@home, but I believe it occurs on many other articles. The "Edit History stats" link takes me here when I believe it should take me here right? So basically there are three different things wrong with that "Statistics" section: it doesn't collapse, font is abnormally large, and a link is broken. I'll be watching this page, so let me know if you need more information or if I need to repost this elsewhere. Thank you for your time. Jesse V. (talk) 19:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you email me screenshots? okeyeswikimedia.org :). I'm happy to submit it to bugzilla and the like once I've worked out what is sorta going on. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done Jesse V. (talk) 20:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

I just wanted to let you know I appreciate the quality of your engagement with the community: The hours you put in, the promptness and thoughtfulness of your responses, the empathy and enthusiasm you demonstrate are all much appreciated. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:59, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me since I got hired :). Thank you so very, very much; it's this kind of reaction - the feeling that I'm really making a difference in how the community and foundation work together - that makes me keep going. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

New Page Triage

When you posting the newsletter on one of the users talk wrongly clicked rollback but I reverted myself.Actually I wanted ask you about New Page Triage. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 00:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Ask away! :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Great job There has been difference in standards between WP:AFC which is always been higher than directly creating an article as it is reviewed would implementing New page Triage correct this anomaly and when is this to be implemented.Thank you.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:25, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It is unlikely to, I'm afraid. At the end of the day standards are set through community policy as much as they are through software; if AFC has higher cultural standards, we can't alter that through technical changes. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Hurricanefan25

A message from you was delivered to this user's talk page. The user is retired, so his account can be removed from the list. Calabe1992 01:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that :(. I remember him doing truly excellent work. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I have done some work with him as well - guessing that's why his page was on my watchlist ;). Apparently it was time for him to leave... Calabe1992 00:24, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Article feedback

Is there a way to deflag something as abuse, when it's been erroneously labelled as such? Because I only managed to +1 the accusation of abuse, to hide the comment, then unhide it. :p Maxim_(talk) 22:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

You can't, but being flagged as abuse means nothing up to a certain threshold (five independent marks), at which point it is auto-hidden. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

IRC on the 21st

Sorry, that's a bad time, if you can send me the log though I'll look at it. Dougweller (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Will do :). Andi you know exactly what you're doing with hand-coding, so there's no problem there! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

New Article Feedback tool

Thanks for your note about helping to evaluate the new article feedback. I won't be doing that in detail, but I would just like to request that any feedback be OPTIONAL for the editor, and that it not be too complicated. If we see a page full of stuff staring us in the face that has to be filled out, most of us will simply decide not to partake in that activity any more. Case in point (bad): the DYK nomination process became so cluttered with requirements and templates and forms to fill out, that many of us simply decided not to nominate things for DYK any more. Case in point (good): the current "rate this page" form is simple and self-evident and out-of-the-way, and we can simply ignore if we don't want to do it. --MelanieN (talk) 22:48, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That's hopefully how it will work :). The feedback goes to a dedicated URL for each article, but there's no actual requirement to do anything with it. It would be great if people did, but they don't have to check through constantly - it's like Special:FeedbackDashboard in that regard. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:13, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Feedback Evaluation System

There's no way I can make 18:00, that's 2:00 PM on the East Coast, I believe. I can do 19:30 if you're still online then. I'll pop into IRC when I can. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
P.S. We need to talk about something else (Wikimania related) too, when you have some (ha ha ha) free time.

19:30 sounds good! Want to run it through Mumble or something? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio template

I'd agree that this is a "massive, hideously ugly" template (as you commented at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/NOINDEX) especially when used to only blank a section rather than a whole article. As we don't have enough editors working copyvio as it is I suspect it may be some time before I have a chance to have a proper look at it! Dpmuk (talk) 19:06, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, it is intended to be really ugly :). The idea is it immediately shows OMG THERE IS A PROBLEM HERE HALP OR GTFO which it does fairly convincingly. I can never shake the feeling that it was designed by the guy who coded MS-DOS, though. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it's the massive point that concerns me more. When it's the whole article that's not a problem but often the template is considerably larger than the original section it's blanking. As for MS-DOS I'm quite nostalgic for it - windows is a mess! Dpmuk (talk) 19:17, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

That's true! It makes sense for entire articles but not for sections. Someone should look into tweaking the heck out of it; unfortunately that isn't something I can do :(. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it possible just to reduce the size fairly easily? Pesky (talk) 21:26, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

FES

There's absolutely no point in me doing the FES until that bug gets fixed, so please let me know when the updated version is ready, so I can give it another shot. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:26, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Will do :). I actually just got word that the bug has been fixed, at which point the slave database went into read-only mode, making the tool non-usable...in a slightly different way. Headdesk. But I'll give you a shout when it's working. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Some help for you!

	Cat-astrophic paperwork?
	Have a cute kitteh to "help" you with all that paperwork! (Yup, it's That Huge Bryn, as a baby!) Pesky (talk) 21:29, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Hah! Thank you :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:04, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I do have to say as a (talk page stalker) that your talkpages (both of them) see a whackload of traffic compared to other user talkpages. So you definitely need the kitten :P -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 06:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012

Just FYI, this went live a few minutes ago. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:51, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know :). Obviously I have no opinion in a WMF role. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

upcoming Signpost

Hi,

I'm trying to provide brief updates on your activities as Community Liasion such as New Page Triage in the Signpost. Do you have anything you want noted in the upcoming issue of the Signpost for 2012-04-02? (I've merely noted so far that progress is continuing.) Regards, MathewTownsend (talk) 19:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

We hope to have a prototype deployed by early April, and are investigating ways to speed that along. That's about it :). I know Skomorokh was planning on doing something too - have you checked in with him? I'm not sure what the status of that is. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Skomorokh supervises all, so if you're communicating with him, it will be taken care of! I didn't know he was planning something so I was just checking. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, no, I mean he was planning something, but I have no idea what is going on. It may have been shelved or delayed or whatever :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I suggested to him that I do an interview with you (with his help). I'm interested in what you're doing and how you're going about engaging the community here on en:wp. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure; now, the thing he was planning was an interview. We've already conducted it; it was whether it would get released or deferred or what that I was confused about :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

• Looking at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-04-02/News and notes btw; my name is Oliver. It tends to flow a bit better in prose than "Okeyes (WMF)" :). And the diagram you've posted is of how the process traditionally works, not of the changes that have been made; it's also rather confusing without context. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I just took a stab at a few things just to keep it on the radar and put something on the page. I'd much rather get the real deal from you, correct images etc. Why aren't you Oliver (WMF)? MathewTownsend (talk) 21:52, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Because if we hire another Oliver at any point, we have problems :). Same reason we have User:Mdennis (WMF) for example. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

A couple of suggestions

I noticed you were active in some of the discussions about new users, article creation etc and thought I would drop a note here. I think that there are some things that we can do, low hanging fruit so to speak, that would be a great improvement with little effort. A couple examples:

1. Adding a link to the toolbox on the left for Create article which leads to the Article Wizard. I don't think we will ever be able to mandate its use but I think we can reasonably link to it from the toolbox and "encourage" its use.

   That would be nice; I think it would create more problems, in the short-term, than it solves :(. Making article creation methods incredibly prominent is something we should do in the long term. But in the short term it'll likely overwhelm our patrollers. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   I have to be honest and say that although I understand what your saying, I don't think we should let concerns about overwhelming editors stop us from doing these types of changes. WE should make it as easy as possible to do things in WP, not harder. I do admit that there are some downsides to the idea and admittedly some would undoubtedly abuse it. But they do that now. I also think that there are some things that we can do to help the new page patrollers. A bot for example could monitor those new pages and look for certain things like no categories, formatting issues, copyright problems and a lot of other things. A lot of the new pages are good but need a little help but there are some that can obviously be eliminated through automated means so the New page patrollers time doesn't get wasted. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   That's true, but I'd worry about proportions. Don't get me wrong; we should make it easier, not harder. But it has to be a gradual process of eliminating bottlenecks. The IEP, whatever its flaws, proved that the community has trouble at the moment with coping with a massive influx of new editors all at once; the culture just breaks. That's something we need to adjust and work with before we invited a horde of new editors in; simply unleashing them is likely to both lead to infuriation on the part of existing editors, and cause problems for the newbies. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

2. Add a link to the Article creation wizard in the Meta messages like the one here that users see when they click an article that doesn't exist yet. Again I don't think we can mandate it but we can provide a link to it.

   Ok thats a fair statement. If thats the case then I guess that gives us some idea about where to focus efforts. I think steering new users towards WikiProjects in their interest from the get go would be helpful to spread the load. I also still think that some bots could be imployed to reduce the workload to the New article review crew and that would help. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   As mentioned, the mw:Article Creation Workflow/Landing System does exactly this :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   When will that be implemented? 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   We honestly don't know :S. "within the next month", probably in a bucketed form for testing. We've pretty much got it coded - we're just waiting on some work at my end (sorry!) before we can do anything. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   Great glad its close. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

3. I think it would be beneficial to add a link to the User page wizard in the tool box. This is another tool that I think would benefit new users.

   The what, sorry? :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   There is a New user creation project that is developing a wizard to help users create accounts easier. Getting to it isn't particularly intuitive but it does exists. I thought it might be helpful to add it to the toolbox as well to make it easy to get too. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   Oh cool! Where is this? Are we talking the Account Creation Improvement Project? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   Yes it is the Account Creation Improvement Project. Sorry I couldn't remember the name. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

4. Same as number 2 above but for the Message users get when they create their user page from scratch like this one. The message could include a link to the Userpage creation wizard.

   Same answer as above :P. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   There are a lot of mediawiki messages dealing with New user accounts and I thought it would be useful to add a link to the New user wizard from teh message rather than make the user go looking for it. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

5. Adding a welcome message with a bot. Some users do this when they see a new user so perhaps this might not be automatic but within X number of hours if no one does it first.

   Actually, data is ambiguous as to the value of these :S. Some studies show that automated messages are actually more of a turn-off than no contact at all! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   I'm not sure I agree and it makes me wonder how they came to this conclusion. I think the generic and gloomy "Welcome to Wikipedia here are the 5 pillars message" is pretty unhelpful but if we include something bright and cheerful like this one it would be better. Not this one, but something like it was what I was thinking. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   Well, we had a specialist (Doctor Melanie Kill) do a pretty massive research project on the subject. The data was..not positive about pretty much all our welcome templates :(. The hypothesis is that firstly our welcome templates are bad, but secondly adding them automatically via bot or something isn't really "human contact". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   I do agree wholeheartedly that our Welcome messages are not helpful. It should be fairly easy to make some new ones though that as I mentioned above are bright and cheerful and inviting. I have a lot of experience in my day job with statistical analysis so although I am sure that the data is accurate, the method and questions asked to get the data may not be. We frequently joke when doing them about what the purpose is and what they want the result to be because that will help taylor the questions. Unfortunately not all analysis are fair and unbiased. :-) I'm not really sure about the one that was done here so I can't say but IMO its better to leave a helpful message that the user can ignore than to have the user feel that no one notices them at all. Additionally the welcome message should guide the new user to where they can get help and ask questions so they don't have to stubmle around and get caught up in the drama from day one. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   Totally agreed ;). Maryana and Steven just finished a load of work A/B testing messages and templates. They may be able to provide you with more info on what we're doing in this area. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:07, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

6. Once or twice a year leaving a message on the talk page of users who have left just in case they are watching. Not too often but this might be the encouragment that users need to come back to let them know they are missed.

   That sounds possible. An idea that interests me; what if we sent people a message every 6 months thanking them for their contributions, which have consisted of X edits on Y articles, etc? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   I think that could be helpful as well. I think often times people get turned off because no one thanks them for what the do so yes I think that would be good. I would suggest allowing them to be opted out of because some users would prefer not to get them. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   Agreed :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

7. Perhaps sending an EMAIL as well as a talk page message if Email address has been provided. Again nothing frequent, just once or twice a year.

   Snap :). The editor experimentation team is thinking of doing just this. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

8. If the talk page message or Email is sent I recommend including a link to a survey with no more than 5 questions about why they left and what keeps them from coming back.

   We actually did a study on this! I'll try and find it; it was pretty much the first thing Howie did when he came on board. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   I would be interested in seeing that if you can find it. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

   found it! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, just a few ideas I had in case there is interest. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 14:02, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Replying in line :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. I added a couple of answers and further discussion. I would also say that we should not include users who are known to be dead or blocked indefinately. I also think that we should give an opt out for the applicable ones. In case your wondering, yes I edited here for years myself but stopped due to unending drama with a couple users. Now I only edit via IP and won't be too active anymore. I'm just commenting on some things from time to time.138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

That's okay :). And yeah, we should filter users like that, I agree. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Feedback Version 5

So, we get our accounts on Friday(ish) so we can do actual feedback? ~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 17:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully, yup :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Get it right but hurry! I'm really looking forward to it... Jesse V. (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Haha, awesome :). And I'll keep wrangling on t-shirts too; budgetary confirmation, we have. An elegant way to organise it, we don't :(. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:16, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

There will be T-shirts?!! Now THAT'S a good way to get new editors... :D Jesse V. (talk) 21:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Man, I need to sell that to Merchandising. We could have uniforms with long-service ribbons or something ;P. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Aha! The more edits you make, the cheaper but cooler the T-shirt should be. A somewhat plain shirt for Registered Editor should go for like $40, the most epic shirts ever are for Vanguard Editors and they're free. I think this would work out pretty well. :D Jesse V. (talk) 21:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Staffer t-shirts, presumably, come with a free bullzeye ;p. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

What T-Shirts? ~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 15:20, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

ROFL! Jesse V. (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Rolling On the Floor Laughing at what? ~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 16:26, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I assume my comment :). And we're talking about being able to provide wikipedia-related t-shirts as a "thank you" to hand coders. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:35, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Sure. ~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 17:29, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Two

Hi! Welcome to the second edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

• Teahouse celebrates one month of being open! This first month has drawn a lot of community interest to the Teahouse. Hosts & community members have been working with the project team to improve the project in many ways including creating scripts to make inviting easier, exploring mediation processes for troubling guests, and best practices regarding mentoring for new editors who visit the Teahouse.

Springtime means fresh tea leaves...

• First month metrics report an average of 30 new editors visiting the Teahouse each week. Approximately 30 new editors participate in the Teahouse each week, by way of asking questions and making guest profiles. An average of six new questions and four new profiles are made each day. We'd love to hear your ideas about how we can spread the word about the Teahouse to more new editors.
• Teahouse has many regulars. Like any great teahouse, our Teahouse has a 61% return rate of guests, who come back to ask additional questions and to also help answer others' questions. Return guests cite the speedy response rate of hosts and the friendly, easy to understand responses by the hosts and other participants as the main reasons for coming back for another cup o' tea!
• Early metrics on retention. It's still too early to draw conclusions about the Teahouse's impact on new editor retention, but, early data shows that 38% of new editors who participate at the Teahouse are still actively editing Wikipedia 2-4 weeks later, this is compared with 7% from a control group of uninvited new editors who showed similar first day editing activity. Additional metrics can be found on the Teahouse metrics page.
• Nine new hosts welcomed to the Teahouse. Nine new hosts have been welcomed to the Teahouse during month one: Chicocvenancio, Cullen328, Hallows AG, Jeffwang, Mono, Tony1, Worm That Turned, Writ Keeper, and Nathan2055. Welcome to the Teahouse gang, folks!
• Say hello to the new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, as being welcomed by experienced editors is a really nice way to make new editors feel welcome.

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. -- Sarah (talk) 21:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Spamming for the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Request an account

Hi. I'm not sure it was a very good for you to spam only members involved with the current Toolserver tool about the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Request an account. They're quite obviously biased.... --MZMcBride (talk) 18:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As well as the people involved in the initial discussion, note :). It is only intended to be a quick measurement to see if there is a strong sense that we should invest time in this. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:07, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=487112528&oldid=487105531 --MZMcBride (talk) 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Email

Hello, Okeyes (WMF). Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 18:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Article feedback question

Hi Oliver, sorry if this is the wrong place to ask about this, but I see you're involved in it. The feedback tool on several articles I work on keeps disappearing. One day, lots of comments; the next day, none. I've tried logging out to look at it, but it makes no difference. Do you know what the cause of this is, or where I could read up/ask about it? Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:40, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

No problem! I'm the liaison for the tool (and the other primary tools we're developing at the moment so this is precisely the right place :). When you say "comments" are you talking about ones accessed through the Special:[redacted] page that dare not speak its name, or 5-star ratings left under the old tool? Just for clarity :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 05:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi again, I'm talking about the five-star ratings at the end of the articles. No idea what the page that dare not speak its name is -- sorry, I've not kept up with any of this. If there's something contentious, I'm blissfully unaware of it. :)

The issue is that the ratings keep mysteriously changing (radically) or disappearing. So one day there are 100 ratings, and the next day none. Or there are 100 ratings and four stars for each parameter, then the next day 110 ratings and just one star for each parameter. Sometimes the ones that disappeared completely do reappear, but have been reset to almost zero commments. And sometimes they never reappear (or at least not so far). So I'm very confused as to how this is meant to work. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, right! Okay, so if I recall correctly (I got hired after the tool was developed, but had to do a ton of background reading) there's a 30-day expiry date on ratings. This is intended to avoid gaming, which is fine, but it's using a sledgehammer to crack an anise seed: it gets rid of good stuff too, with no real discrimination, and confuses the heck out of people. It's one of the many reasons we're developing WP:AFT5 to give finer control over what gets displayed and what doesn't. Hope that helps :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 05:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I would say that makes gaming easier. If a person or group wanted to sway toward bad reviews, it's easier to do that if they only have to overwrite a few days' worth of good reviews, whereas if there are several months' worth, it's harder. And from the editors' perspective, it's unfortunate to see a bunch of positive reviews just disappear. But thanks anyway for the response. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

No problem :). Yeah, I agree; I think the only real impact is likely to be disenchanting readers from contributing in this fashion. It's one of the reasons I'm enthusiastic about moving towards a commenting system with the new version. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:37, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec)

I've not noticed the fluctuating ratings, but I've noticed that some pages have a different rating system than most - it asks for an opinion (I think - only see them rarely) rather than the star system. What is done with the data that disappears after 30 days? And what system is being gamed? e.g. are any decision made by WMF (or whoever) on the basis of these stars? Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 15:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I hope no one uses them for anything serious. I was working on one article about a delicate issue that had very good reviews (four and five stars). One day an SPA turned up with a specific concern, and started removing something from the article, a POV issue. She was reverted, but there was a meeting that night for a group of other activists (there was a campaign about the issue our article was about; nothing to do with WP).

I sat and watched the ratings for that article suddenly change during the time the meeting was held. I forget the figures exactly, but it suddenly went from four and five stars to two and three. So clearly that woman had told people at the meeting that she had been reverted, and asked them to leave reviews. The thing is, with a lot of ratings, that's harder to do, but if you only have 30 days' worth of good ratings, a small number of people can change it from good to bad quite easily.

And as Oliver says, it might discourage people from reviewing if they realize their comments are being discounted after a short time. I've left a few reviews myself (on articles I'm not editing), and I do it largely on good articles because I want to encourage the editors. That feels less worthwhile if the reviews keep being removed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Largely what she said :). The WMF itself does nothing with the data, because we don't get involved in content contributions for legal reasons. The intention is for editors to be able to react to and predict what is needed by applying many eyes to the issue; an extension of the crowdsourcing that has made Wikipedia so great in the first place :). The ones you rarely see are from WP:AFT5, the project you have been reporting on for the Signpost :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there any way of telling how many readers even look at the ratings (stars). You have to click on "View page ratings". How many readers bother doing that? Is there a way of comparing number of page views with number of ratings viewed (even if the reader didn't rate - which I think almost none do.) If you look at articles that get thousands of hits a day, e.g. Sinking of the RMS Titanic which got 180,000 the day it was featured on the main page, it has only 270-some raters. How many people, even wiki editors, click on the rating before they read the article? So I don't see how it matters what an article's rates are. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:21, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

We don't have data on that, to my knowledge. As I said in this very thread, ratings expire after 30 days, so "270-some rates" isn't necessarily meaningful. And we don't care if readers click the rating before reading the article; that's not the point of the ratings system. If it was, why would we put the box at the end of the article? The point is to provide editors with a metric to evaluate how readers perceive articles and therefore identify things that need tweaking/fixing. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

any info for Signpost?

Hi,

The Signpost being published today - is there any info or update on the projects you are working on? Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 15:44, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

On the AFT5 front, we have a discussion about the Abuse Filters on the talkpage, which I would love people to comment on. And on New Page Triage; we're getting ready to hopefully deploy a prototype! :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? e.g. give me some links so I can read up? Or I can go to the ones I've used in past Signposts and highlight that action is taking place. (I think you're doing a wonderful job in interacting with the community, soliciting their input, holding office hours etc.) Some members are trying out the beta, right? What is their input, etc. How do they like it? What are their suggestions? MathewTownsend (talk) 17:03, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The beta of AFT5, or the beta of NPT? People haven't tried out the most recent AFT5 version, and I'm still poking people about NPT.

For more detail:

1. On the New Page Triage front, we are working towards a prototype for the "list view" (described here. We're hoping to have this deployed either next week or the week after, depending on what our bug-testing finds. This deployment will be of a prototypical nature only, and will occur on the English-language Wikipedia, as promised in my engagement strategy. It will run in parallel to the existing Special:NewPages so people can improve and get used to the system, but will not yet replace it :).
2. For the Article Feedback Tool, Version 5, the current project is to discuss what Edit Filters will be linked into the tool. The discussion is happening here, and I would be very grateful if everyone would comment :). Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

IRC log

Didn't you post a log somewhere of your last IRC? I can't find it but would like to add it to the Signpost. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

All logs are posted at m:IRC office hours. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I found yours (it was last month so old news I guess) - but it's not listed m:IRC office hours that I can see. [3] MathewTownsend (talk) 21:28, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

"2012-03-13, with Howie Fung, Fabrice Florin, Brandon Harris and Oliver Keyes on the New Page Triage project.". There's also a more recent one; "2012-03-22, with Howie Fung, Fabrice Florin, Brandon Harris and Oliver Keyes on the New Page Triage project." Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

YGM

Hello, Okeyes (WMF). Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Sorry to disturb your talk-page-abusefilter-message-adding session. Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 18:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Signpost

Do you have any new or interesting information regarding your projects to include in the upcoming Signpost? (I haven't been keeping up very well). Regards, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:07, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	To you, for your excellent undertaking and management of the hand-coding project. It wouldn't have been possible without you! Osarius Talk 11:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Shucks :). User:EpochFail did most of the hard work; I'm just the training-and-recruitment monkey! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

But a fantastic job you did! Let me know if there's any more projects going and I'll be happy to volunteer for them. Osarius Talk 12:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Shall do :). We're about to launch something new; I'll give you a poke when the pages are up. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

Thanks for the hand-coding barnstar. I also got my first DYK. --Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 16:15, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Awesome, and congrats! :D Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I've got a few more in-the-bag (review accepted) :D --Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 17:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	For your work with the Article Feedback Tool. Jamietw (talk) 17:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	For the Article Feedback Tool, and the barnstar you gave me. Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 18:26, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Okeyes (WMF). You have new messages at Shirik's talk page.
Message added 15:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 15:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Replied on my talk page --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 15:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Question: New articles by new editors?

Okeyes, do we have a tool (like special:New_pages) that finds new articles by newly registered accounts? E.g. articles created in the last X-Y days by accounts which were less than Z days old at the time of article creation? --Salimfadhley (talk) 11:10, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

We don't at the moment :). However, we are building a replacement/thing to augment Special:NewPages at WP:NPT which includes the ability to filter to say "articles created by new editors in ascending order" (or descending order, for that matter). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:14, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

My main concern is old articles which were generated by accounts which (at the time) were newly registered. Once your feedback tool is live I bet we'd find a very strong inverse-correlation between (article-creation-time - account creation time) vs article quality. Would the new tool be able to find this kind of article? I appreciate from a DB/Indexing point of view this is probably a non-trivial challenge.--Salimfadhley (talk) 11:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I honestly don't know, but I will find out :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Signpost for May 7, 2012

Hi,

Please read over, if you can, what I wrote in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-07/Technology report, for any mistakes or misunderstandings of mine regarding your projects.

Also, I take it that there is nothing to report on the "Article Feedback Tool/Version 5"?

Best wishes, MathewTownsend (talk) 17:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The tech guy Jarry1250 rewrote it, so it's much better now. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

That seems generally accurate; my internal copyeditor would dearly love to go over it with a red marker pen, but it's got everything right (and not called me "Okeyes"!) :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

well, I'm just trying to publicize the great job you are doing by ensuring your work is mentioned in the Signpost each week. Sorry about the "Okeyes"! Why are you named that if you don't want to be called that? It makes it hard for some of us who aren't in the "in group" and don't know people's real names. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:16, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm named that because it's standard practise for a lot of staff accounts. See User:Jalexander, User:Mdennis (WMF) and others. I'm very grateful for the work you do, and didn't mean for it to come out snappy :). As much as possible we try to avoid an "in" group; outreach and communication should be with as wide and representative a pool as possible, otherwise there's little point in doing it if our goals are to bring informed community decisionmaking into software development and keep people informed as to what is going on - my name is, however, on my userpage.

This very thing has caused me problems. I contacted Mdennis (WMF) over an issue, and then was told I should contact Moonriddengirl instead. But when I contacted her, I was told that because I had already contacted Mdennis (WMF), I was not eligible to contact Moonriddengirl because they were the same person. I can't possibly understand these rules and who is who. Is there a list anywhere? MathewTownsend (talk) 23:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

As to who is who? Well, pretty much every staff account should make clear what their volunteer account is (and vice versa). User:Okeyes (WMF) says right below it "Oliver Keyes" in big letters, though, so it's a slightly different issue from distinguishing between accounts. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

well, it's not clear. I don't extensively read everyone's user page, and I don't think that should be expected, as many user pages ramble on and on with little point except narcissism. And because now I know you are also a third person johnbod or some such name. But probably I can't contact you under your other name (also not your "real" name) because of the rule (whatever it is) that prevented me from contacting Moonriddengirl and Mdennis (WMF). MathewTownsend (talk) 23:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Why do you think I'm User:Johnbod? And no, you're welcome to contact me as a volunteer, User:Ironholds, about volunteer stuff, and me as a WMFer (here) about staff stuff. :S Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

ok, sorry. I can't keep all these names straight. I can't think of a reason to contact you about volunteer stuff, as I don't know where the "bright line" is between "volunteer" and "WMF" just like I didn't with Mdennis and Moonriddengirl. I just went by advice I was given, which it turned out no one knew what they were talking about. Is there a list somewhere, about all this? (I read somewhere that there was a new WMF fellow affiliated with Consumer Reports, user talk:Bluerasberry. But I can't find out where I read it. And his user page doesn't disclose. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I honestly don't know if he's a fellow; if he is, he should disclose, but I don't think he is. Basically, the bright line is "don't ask the WMF about content issues unless they're legal issues the community can't resolve". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Flyout mockup

That looks spiffy indeed. I'm sure you'll have to touch up a few of the details, but I expect an interface of that sort will be very well received. Thanks to you and everyone working on the project! --joe decker^{talk to me} 02:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree! Seriously psyched to be working on a project that ties into my editing interest. If you can think of any tweaks to make, do let me know. I'll pass your compliments on to the team :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:24, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	For being with the WMF and still talking and listening to the community! As well as for responding in kind even to our occasionally more harsh posts! :) Thank you! Nageh (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! And thank you for for keeping me honest :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi

(Note:This has nothing to do with the WMF). I had my (first) successful ANI, which leaded to a Check User request. See this. Thanks! --Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 17:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

If it's got nothing to do with my job, I recommend in future pointing it towards my personal account :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Moved there. :D --Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 18:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

New Page

I've been a bit out of touch with things lately. I've been unable to try out this New Page Triage. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 11:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Have you read WP:NPT? :). We haven't (yet!) released the tool for use - we're ironing some bugs out first. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Good idea (not mine)

Please read this. Sounds like a good idea. Arcandam (talk) 12:50, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree! I'll comment there now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Okeyes (WMF). You have new messages at Hasteur's talk page.
Message added 03:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hasteur (talk) 03:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

?

You say it's ready. Where is it? I could comment more intelligently on the design if i could try it before the irc session on the 16th. DGG ( talk ) 07:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Try Special:NewPagesFeed--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 07:08, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Your photo on a user page

Please see User talk:Badmachine#Re: Lil B (permalink) where I have objected to the use of a photo of you. Johnuniq (talk) 08:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

New Pages Feed

Hi,

Do you mind if Special:NewPagesFeed appears in the Signpost with an explanation that it's in the testing phase and will be fulling distributed Wednesday? It's really exciting to see it live! (Or would you rather it just be mentioned that it is being tested for bugs but will go live on Wednesday?) MathewTownsend (talk) 21:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Either is fine :). I'd say not only that it's still being tested, but that it's still being built - there are a lot of neat features in the list view that are planned but not currently included, and the curation bar isn't deployed. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Ping

Response? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:46, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Royal Society - do we have an institutional login for it?

... and, if not, can you get me this, please? Pesky (talk) 08:55, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

We don't and I can't :(. But you could try talking to User:Andrew Gray, who has been very helpful on that front! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC)