User talk:Wllm/Archive 2

Is it possible for banned editors to edit pages in a single user's namespace?

I would very much like to have everyone who cares to chime in on questions and ideas here whether or not they are blocked or banned from the rest of the site. If this is possible in MediaWiki, I will lobby very hard to make it happen. -wʃʃʍ- 18:36, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Most blocked editors can still edit their own talk page. If their edits on there get too disruptive, talk page access is taken away. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:43, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but that doesn't get them in to the discussion, which is what I'm after. -wʃʃʍ- 18:48, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Then no, the software doesn't allow exceptions on a page-basis for blocked users. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I should add there have been cases where a user has been unblocked with the strict stipulation that they only post to a certain page. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

So, unblocked for that page, but not enforced in the software? If a blocked user were interested in such an arrangement, who could I ask to support him/her for editing pages in my namespace? Also, I can look at adding that to the MediaWiki software. It sounds like it might be a useful feature if such measures have been taken in the past. -wʃʃʍ- 18:58, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

If it's a community ban, ask the community at WP:AN. If it's an Arbcom ban, ask Arbcom. Frankly speaking, the chances of you succeeding are remote. As to your second point, I would recommend you get the support of the community by laying out your proposal at WP:VPR before approaching the WMF requesting a feature to be added. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:07, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• Weirdly enough, although I haven't thought about it that much, I'm pretty sure there is a technical way to do this even though it's pretty hackish. It should be possible to set up an editfilter to allow users in a certain new permission group (say, set up a 'banned' usergroup admins can add people to) to only edit particular pages. It should be possible theoretically to set up a usergroup that could only edit one particular page, or one particular set of pages. I really doubt that you could achieve community consensus on ENWP though. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:39, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I had also considered the possibility of transcluding content from other projects where they aren't banned. I know that's not one of the standard use cases, but I thought it might get me closer to what I was after. There is a bug here where it's stated that if the feature is already implemented, it isn't enabled on the Wikimedia servers. What you mention seems to involve a lot of admin footwork if it means adding people one-by-one to a new usergroup. I'll see what I can do about getting consensus on this, along with the idea of reviewing some cases of banning or blocking as a whole. More info on the latter can be found below. -wʃʃʍ- 02:54, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Well, we do have to block people one by one anyway... and for that matter, the block process takes more work than adding someone to a usergroup. You'd have the tripartite challenge of getting consensus to implement such a group, getting consensus as to who belongs in that group, and getting consensus as to what pages that group can edit. It's possible to do technically without really much extra footwork, but getting consensus on any of those points would a painful thing to try. Kevin Gorman (talk) 14:06, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Comprehensive Policy Reform

Create a page listing all site policies with links to either existing or draft policies. Once complete, this list will be linked to at the bottom of every page, so that all policy is only 2 clicks away from every page on-wiki. Use this list as a nexus around which we can discuss how each policy would fit in the big picture. -wʃʃʍ- 18:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Essays vs. Guidlines vs. Policy

Define the enforceability of documents describing ideal user behavior. -wʃʃʍ- 18:24, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

This is already in theory done, but it doesn't slow anyone down. I think it's especially important to break OWN of policy so that change can actually take place, but that's just me. Intothatdarkness 18:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, keep in mind that I'm kinda thick here. What do you mean by "it doesn't slow anyone down"? -wʃʃʍ- 09:33, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

What I mean is that people continue to use essays as de facto policy, even when they're advised that they are just essays and thus opinion. It's a deeply-ingrained habit here (one I don't agree with, but that's something else again). Intothatdarkness 16:01, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

One example is the tendentious editing essay, which is apparently used as a reason to block people. --Ca2james (talk) 19:38, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that there are at least three different kinds documents that seem to be very similar in form until I looked in to this, starting with your link: policies, guidelines, and essays. To be clear, every example I've seen has a banner stating what it is, but it would hardly be surprising that editors would confuse one for the other. What differences are there enforcement-wise among these three types of docs? Are there more kinds of docs that share a basic pattern of defining acceptable user behavior than just these three? -wʃʃʍ- 22:04, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Content Policy for Commons

Define acceptable content for commons and enforce it. -wʃʃʍ- 09:36, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Comprehensive Child Protection Policy

Such a policy would be applied across all projects with no volunteer triage. -wʃʃʍ- 10:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Policy-Streamlining Task Force

The mission of this task force will be to eliminate redundancy, bloat, size, and quantity of policy or essays used as policy and working towards a unified standard guidelines. -wʃʃʍ- 09:38, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Something similar to this was attempted a couple of years back and died (IMO) due to existing policy OWN. The talk page archives of ThatPeskyCommoner might be instructive here, as she was one of the major proponents of that attempt. Intothatdarkness 16:01, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Comprehensive Harassment Policy

Such a policy would be applied across all projects with no volunteer triage. -wʃʃʍ- 10:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

BLP Notability Criteria

Create policies for notability of BLP's that include stuff like references, links, and eventually BLP traffic. Write a Google-like algorithm to rank BLP's and determine how many of these BLP's belong on Wikipedia. Truncate the list to that length. Run this algorithm regularly. -wʃʃʍ- 18:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

BLP Committee

Created an elected body to review all BLP opt-out and inclusion requests. Existing BLP's should not be discarded. Rather there should be a probation area where they will sit until someone advocates their inclusion with an assurance that s/he will keep the BLP up-to-date. Review BLP advocates for potential COI's. -wʃʃʍ- 18:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Protection Policies for BLP's and Commercial Enterprises

Examples would include no anonymous editing and pending reviews to BLP's and commercial enterprises to prevent practices like revenge editing. -wʃʃʍ- 09:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Article accuracy über Alles

yes. folks need to look more at content in disputes - I tried to when I was on arbcom. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:07, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I think this covers a lot of territory. It could involve more nuanced metrics, prepublication review, expert involvement, useful user feedback, etc. I seems to me that there are many tools that could be brought to bear to optimize for quality, but the main tool still seems to be users policing individual changes. We all know that this doesn't cover every article by a long shot, plus it can lead to problems like article ownership, revert wars, and turning off potential new editors. -wʃʃʍ- 00:18, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Measure Article Quality

Article quality should include pertinence, clarity, concision, comprehensiveness, and style. -wʃʃʍ- 09:43, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

err, we have this. See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:10, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Medical Articles Disclaimer

Ahaaaaa, you missed a rather intense debate about this very thing - quite heavy it was too. Was a few months ago now. Gotta run but look in WT:MED archives and you'll find a link to it somewhere - otherwise will find it later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Casliber (talk • contribs) 06:34, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Or, I could just bring it up on wikimedia-l to get everyone's thoughts on it (and me). ;) -wʃʃʍ- 07:17, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I should become the Wikipedian librarian...I believe this is the sought after WikiProjectMedicine discussion link, with a link back to the flawed research paper: [1]. Here is a link back to Jimbo's talk page for the beginning of the discussion: [2]. I pretty much follow everything here on enwiki...(except roads and racehorses). Ta! Fylbecatulous talk 14:47, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

If I may butt in, there was also an RFC in February on including a medical discaimer [3] before the ruckus started with that study. The RFC was much too broad and there was no consensus on the issue. --Ca2james (talk) 15:07, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Anyone can butt in here. :) If you have any ideas on how to approach this so that it can get more support, add it to the ideas section above. -wʃʃʍ- 19:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Did you read through the RFC? How would you address the opposes? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:18, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Get the WMF to get legal advice from a medicolegal defence organisation as to the need or otherwise and follow it, and explain that this 9as with some other ironclad legal issues) trumps community say-so. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I looked at the RFC I linked to above and the main objections seemed to be split among implentation objections (how could we tag all articles/how would these articles be defined/a disclaimer would clutter things up), "why do we need a disclaimer" objections (there already exists a Disclaimers link (which in turn links to the Medical disclaimer/the people I know already know that WP can't be relied on for medical advice) that should be enough/other sites are less accurate than WP and they don't have disclaimers), "disclaimers could maybe cause harm by scaring away editors and might not do any good" objections, and (one that I'm quoting instead of paraphrasing) a medical disclaimer "[u]ndermines our goals-- Overall, we should aspire for professional status in our medical articles. A professional appearance is part of this. Already our finest work is of better quality than other sources of online medical information. Lesion (talk) 18:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)"

Implementation objections are putting the cart before the horse, IMHO; they're valid concerns, and they'll need to be addressed, but first we need to determine that the disclaimer is needed before determining how to implement it.

"Why do we need a disclaimer" objections can be addressed fairly handily point by point:

• the Medical Disclaimers link is so small and so underused (stats are in the RFC) that it's next-to-useless and doesn't achieve the point of having a medical disclaimer
• just because the people we know who might be more technologically able, know to not rely on WP info doesn't mean Randy from Boise knows that - and the disclaimer is for that person
• what other sites do or don't do should not have a bearing on what WP does and we have to be responsible for what is on our own site

"Disclaimers could cause harm" objections... well, there's no data on that, and whether it causes harm might depend more on the wording of the disclaimer. Then again, we do have a problem with editor attraction and retention, and one does wonder if a disclaimer would hurt that more. My instinct (and reading anecdotal reports and comments on teh interwebs) says that the problem has more to do with the way newbies and their edits are treated and that a disclaimer wouldn't do much (if any harm). One way to test this would be to gather some research now on medical article editing patterns and then perhaps do a limited test of a disclaimer and see how it changes those editing patterns.

Slightly OT (and feel free to move this comment somewhere else for organization)... I'm most thoughtful about the statement that the goal in writing medical articles is to achieve professional status because there's something about it that doesn't jibe with this being the encyclopaedia where anyone can edit. I have this vision - whether it's right or wrong, I don't know - of new editor's edits being reverted in the name of creating a professional article and that this could possibly be contributing to editor attrition, at least in those areas. From a disclaimer perspective, this is an implementation concern; I don't personally see a disclaimer as being incompatible with a professional presentation. --Ca2james (talk) 01:52, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Achieving professional status in articles and 'any layperson can edit' seem paradoxically impossible. I quickly reverted a mistake on Simple English regarding what a certain drug was used for. I did not want erroneous text to exist even for a brief while. Affairs are getting serious here on Wikipedia. Editors are currently being sued for talk page comments regarding a contentious BLP. Henceforth, I am hedging away from biographies...My question is, could an editor be sued for wrongful medical content? If they have some sort of professional certification, especially? (I do.) How could we possibly announce we hold ourselves to a professional standard and then not be held accountable? This reminds me of the tactic of companies posting signs: "we are not responsible for damage to whatever..." Are they or not if I fall and break bones in an unattended oil slick? Couldn't I still sue? A disclaimer here on medical articles should not possibly say anything other than "read this article as you like, with a grain of salt (which we cannot prescribe); but please: if you are sick, see a doctor!" Fylbecatulous talk 03:53, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, Ca2james does seem to be OK with that critical first step of at least letting our users know that they shouldn't rely on Wikipedia to make decisions about their health. I think all the expert-written and -curated articles online carry a similar disclaimer. It's a mystery to me why we wouldn't do the same or more, given the circumstances. If someone argues that we shouldn't call out medical content as somehow different from any other content, I'd say that if everyone else believes that it is, including our readers, it's not for us to decide. Google is already making a big exception for medical content to grab their summaries off a more reliable site than Wikipediocracy, and they display a very prominent disclaimer to boot! Is it me or all we all in violent- or very assertive non-violent- agreement that medical disclaimers simply make sense? Why are we as a community dragging our feet on this one? -wʃʃʍ- 08:15, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm definitely OK with having some sort of more prominent medical disclaimer. To me it's common sense but there are editors who are strongly against it and although I sort of understand their position, I don't agree with it. --Ca2james (talk) 13:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I think there will be another RfC, redesigned with lessons from the last one in mind, and I'm pretty sure consensus can be achieved in favour of a more prominent disclaimer. I'm waiting to see if Sandy Georgia, who was the moving force behind that initiative, returns to editing. If she hasn't, and no one else has done it, I'll look at initiating something in a few months. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: Could you give me a heads up when a new initiative on this is launched? One suggestion I have is that there doesn't seem to be a great reason to make the disclaimer specific to Wikipedia. For example, the right-bar info box that Google provides on medical content simply states: "Consult a doctor if you have a medical concern." I think that this is an urgent matter; I wouldn't hold it up on general accuracy issues stemming from the "anyone can edit" wiki philosophy. Medical disclaimers don't have to state why one shouldn't rely on the information presented. Rather, they simply need to notify the reader that the information shouldn't be relied on to make decisions about health care. There are actually many reasons readers shouldn't use Wikipedia to make decisions about their health beyond the question of accuracy. The study says that health care providers sometimes rely on information in WP articles, so maybe the wording might be even more general. In any case, keep it short and sweet; there will be less to argue over. ;) -wʃʃʍ- 22:15, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Address the Adult Material on Wikimedia Projects

Acknowledge the amount of adult material on Wikimedia projects and comply with all applicable laws and rulings for the jurisdictions under which it is collected and distributed. -wʃʃʍ- 09:45, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Disclaimer for COI's

Call out articles on a company or organization that have been edited by principals, employees, or agents of that organization that may constitute a Conflict Of Interest. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Mature Articles Vetted by Experts

Articles that attain Featured Article and Good Article status should be vetted by experts and kept in a “stable” state with a badge or banner calling it out, backport critical updates if necessary, creating a reference version alongside an unstable, possibly more up-to-date version. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Would the vetted experts be expected to edit too, or would they be primarily commenting/approving? -- Trevj (talk · contribs) 07:44, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

That's a really interesting question, and one that might not have been asked before. But it might keep experts out of the politics, avoid article ownership by these experts, and promote an opportunity to learn from discussion, which might be one of the best things the experts, who would likely be from the academic universe, could bring to the table. It also might make the idea more palatable to "non-pros" working on the articles. Anyone else have a counter-argument and/or -proposal? -wʃʃʍ- 03:09, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I brought that up on WO. The proposal is for highly-regarded experts to check FAs for accuracy and completeness, make suggestions on the talk page; and if the editors can satisfy the reviewers the article gets a badge at the top pointing to the version that has passed expert review (naming the experts and linking, where they have them, to their Wikipedia BLPs). The reviewers don't edit the article. From the readers' perspective, it would be better to simply lock the reliable version in article space while editors prepare the article for its next review in WP:DRAFTS namespace, but that will not fly, politically, among the community, at least initially. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

You mentioned an interesting criterion for qualifying as an expert, i.e., having a BLP, in passing. I think that would be interesting, but it seems like BLP's are almost progress kryptonite on WP, so probably best to leave that out of the discussion. Deciding the criteria for qualifying as an "expert" strikes me as a potential point of contention. Has there been community discussion on this topic already? Is there any proposal here that you believe has a chance of community acceptance at this point? -wʃʃʍ- 01:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Content Issue Workflow

Establish a workflow to ensure that content problems do not languish indefinitely. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Redesign the Main Page

Redesign the main page with more relevant content and a more engaging design. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Academic Quality Control Initiatives

Initiatives should be established in cooperation with academic institutions to assure quality and accuracy of articles. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're referring to this, but I mentioned at WO that the best people to manage a process like expert-review of our FAs would be the specialist and scholarly societies, like the British and American medical associations, publishers of BMJ and JAMA. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting idea. Do you think that this idea should be merged with the idea directly above it? The two ideas seem very close in nature, and working towards an "expert certified" page seems like a good goal for such collaboration. -wʃʃʍ- 01:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Eliminate Systemic Bias

Eliminate systemic bias for developed nations and dedicate more effort, funds, and awareness for developing nations with a focus on the Global South -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

New Sister Project Focussed on Children

What about Simple:? I'm not particularly familiar with it but last time I looked, I formed the impression that there was less verifiable info there than here, not to mention the duplication of effort. General articles of a relatively high standard here should already be understandable (from the lead sections) to a wide range of audiences, shouldn't they? -- Trevj (talk · contribs) 07:44, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Establish Editorial Boards

Such editorial boards would be granted the authority to resolve content-related disputes. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Search Filter on Commons

Opt-in, or possibly opt-out- search filter for potentially offensive or age-inappropriate material on Commons. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Guaranteed Reliability and Quality of Medical Articles

Any initiatives to these end should be considered a public safety measure. -wʃʃʍ- 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Evaluate WP:DYK

Determine whether it meets its goals and has a place on the main page; if it does, develop a better process for approving hooks to prevent offensive hooks from being approved. --Ca2james (talk) 19:53, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Annual or Biennial Election of All Advanced Permissions

Such advanced permissions would include but not be limited to admin, project admin, bureaucrat, checkuser, and steward.

forget it - massive time-suck and drama magnet. Would suck up yet more limited editorial time. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:03, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Given how many admins there are now, that's seems to be the case. I think this is intended to be a solution to the problem of admin abuse due to perpetual privileges. Maybe the solution is to have more oversight over admins. The next item is a more generalized statement of this solution; might make sense to discuss other, more specific, solutions under that one. -wʃʃʍ- 00:11, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay truth be told, I was (it turns out mistakenly) under the impression that arbcom was the place for the review (and removal if need be) of admin tools, and that if editor X had concerns about admin Y, s/he could refer that to the committee for examination of tool use and that this would bypass WP:RFC and various boards. Turns out that is not the case apparently, which (to me) means that it becomes very difficult to run the gauntlet as it were if one is concerned about tool use by an established admin. I think this is worth raising. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:28, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Granting and Revoking Access to Admin Tools More Easily

Related to this, there have been proposals to allow editors access to subsets of admin tools. Basically, an editor could only protect pages or handle speedy deletes, etc. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, if we had a fair removal process, then (hopefully) RfA would be easier. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:29, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

End “Founder” Status

Would be entirely cosmetic. Irrelevant to how the place runs. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:04, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what measures the Wikipediocrat who mentioned this had in mind. If is it to get rid of the founder seat on the board, that would have an impact. IIUC, there is a founder bit that only Jimmy has among the various groups, but I don't know what privs this gives him. It seems to me like Jimmy's greatest influence is through the soft power in the form of thought leadership. That certainly wouldn't be affected. -wʃʃʍ- 00:27, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Whistleblower Complaints Process

Such a process should include anonymity protection for the whistleblower and no direct intervention by admins. -wʃʃʍ- 09:50, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Needs to define what type of complaints fall under this protection. "This admin is abusing his authority!" won't cut it or "This editor is a sockpuppet/paid editor" (with no evidence) probably won't fly. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Amnesty

Amnesty for some or all blocked editors with a strict exclusion for those blocked threatening violence or raising child-protection concerns. -wʃʃʍ- 09:50, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Good job driving away editors who have fought for neutral, vandalism-free content! Before you advocate something like this, spend a few months doing recent changes patrol and watching articles with controversial subjects. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 10:37, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

@NeilN: Who the fuck ever said I was advocating for this? It's an idea; it's not even mine, at that. Tell me what you think is wrong with it, instead of what you think is wrong with me or anyone else who has the clacker to bring this up in civil conversation. :) -wʃʃʍ- 10:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Then perhaps you should have a disclaimer at the top of the section stating something like, "These are not my ideas and I may not be advocating them"? Otherwise it is a perfectly reasonable assumption that these are your ideas and enjoy some support from you. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 10:47, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

How bout that? Now, here's a question for you: do you think that all banned users were banned through a fair process? Could there be highly valuable banned editors out there that could be contributing to the project and are instead spending most of their time criticizing it due to hard feelings? As you answer this, please keep in mind how you would feel if you got banned. Apologies for my rough language earlier; it's about the 5th time someone has assumed that I'm advocating these ideas. All told, I can see why they'd think that. -wʃʃʍ- 11:01, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably not and yes. But let me use an analogy. Do you think all inmates in a prison are guilty of the crimes they've been convicted of? How would you feel if you were living in a city where all inmates except for the ones on death row were set free? And you should probably learn the difference (if you don't already) between a long-term/indefinite block and a ban. The former is done all the time to prevent persistent disruption, the latter is a lot more rare. The proposal advocates setting everyone free. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 11:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

There's no question that this proposal is likely to free at least 10 justifiably banned users for every unjustifiably banned one. Fork idea aside, it's probably the most radical "solution" on this page. But there are many banned users who could be excellent contributors- although I'm the first to admit it would take some tolerance- who are now spending all of their time and energy on relatively unproductive criticism. So, let's consider this idea: say amnesty were granted only after those who requested a fair appeals trial were found eligible for it. Might this be a way to bring some good people back in to the community? -wʃʃʍ- 11:37, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like the current process - banned contributors can have their ban reconsidered through community discussion on [{WP:AN]]. - Bilby (talk) 00:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I would be in favor of a public appeals process but the issue is most "excellent contributors" were not banned out of the blue (i.e., there was a reason behind the ban). So the proponents of the original ban are going to want a guarantee that the behavior leading up to the ban will not occur again. This is a sticking point as some editors have already been given 3rd, 4th, 5th... chances. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 11:48, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

No doubt this is true. I would imagine some pretty classic oppositional behavior to be at work in these cases, knowing some of the banned editors. It's tricky. On the one hand, most of those banned probably earned it fair and square. On the other, many of those who feel (perhaps rightfully) that they have been wronged in their banishment do an incredible amount of damage on the outside, when they could be building from the inside. In any case, this doesn't seem like a good candidate for the first issue to take on; it sounds like it would be far to controversial with potentially huge backfires in some cases that would put other, more systemic reform at risk. All the same, it strikes me as tragic. :( -wʃʃʍ- 12:04, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

There is a huge difference between blocks and bans, and also in the process used to get at them. Actions taken by individuals are the most susceptible to error, while decisions made by larger groups, like the full 15-member arbitration committee, are less likely to be the result of outliers, or groupthink. Disruptive editors are often cited as one reason that new editors don't stay. And it can take a huge, huge amount of effort to get rid of one disruptive editor. —Neotarf (talk) 16:39, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

This is something I've proposed before, and I think it would be perhaps the single best measure we could take to address Wikipedia's problems, increase participation and improve the culture. Good users are run off the project all the time due to personal differences; we won't let them back and we've given ourselves a terrible reputation for mistreating our own volunteers. A few legitimately banned editors might return to cause mischief, but they wouldn't last long, and the ones with good intentions could help us a lot. Everyking (talk) 23:44, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Make Checkuser Logs Publicly Searchable

The checkuser logs should be publicly searchable by target, checkuser, and mandatory policy-backed rationale, but not by result. -wʃʃʍ- 09:50, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely not—I think you have a misunderstanding of how CU actually works. When concerns are raised about an account, the account is CU'd which gives the IP address, and the IP address is then CU'd to see what other accounts show up on it—so if I were to run a CU on you, the log for my actions would invariably show your username, followed by your IP address. Consequently, what you're actually proposing is that the IP address of every Wikipedia editor who's ever been accused (rightly or wrongly) of sockpuppetry be disclosed to the public, and that anyone could find out the IP address of any other Wikipedia editor just by making an accusation against them. 84.13.57.140 (talk) 10:15, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I should first disclose that these are almost exclusively other people's ideas. Most of these ideas came from a thread on Wikipediocracy that I simply transcribed and boiled down to many of the items here. Secondly, I believe that this particular idea is very specific in that only includes target (presumably username), the checkuser, and the rationale behind doing a checkuser in the first place. It seems to me that this proposal very carefully avoids the disclosure of IP addresses. Assuming that there are no IP addresses disclosed, what are your thoughts on it? -wʃʃʍ- 10:24, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

@user:IP 84.13.57.140, you may not understand how the checkuser actually works. A checkuser can sit and examine IPs, then block and destroy anyone they want, without any evidence of wrongdoing and without documenting what they have done. Take for example the case of new user Verycarefully who was indeffed after making his third cautious edit to the project. Unfortunately he did it from a public computer at a state university which had also been used by User:Minorview, who was apparently blocked more than a year ago for removing an expired block tag from their talk page. In the case of user Verycarefully, an unblock is not likely, since they were blocked by an arb. Even if this user somehow manages to get unblocked by email, they will not have the clean block log required for a smooth relationship with WP. A block log is forever; they are now damaged goods. —Neotarf (talk) 16:04, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Biennial Election of WMF Board of Trustees

This idea was first proposed on Wikipediocracy. It's been pointed out that seats are elected biennially, although with some complexity due to chapter-elected seats and the founder seat. Could someone who knows the original intent of this idea explain it in more detail? -wʃʃʍ- 06:29, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Automatic Block Appeal

Every block should be automatically forwarded for appeal via random selection any three admins, who are to review the evidence at hand including violated policy, diffs, and an explanation for the block with no interference from the blocking admin. -wʃʃʍ- 09:50, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

First you'll need to drastically increase the number of admins as requests for unblocks is already sometimes backlogged. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 11:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Every time this has been done at ANI, the result has been a rubber stamp of the admin's actions, no matter how many non-admins speak up against it. And a block log cannot be erased. Long time users will tell you that blocks of anyone except obvious vandals used to be debated *before*, not after the damage was already done.—Neotarf (talk) 16:13, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

End the Wikipedian-in-Residence Program

Why? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:05, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

The reasoning was that the program had been abused by Wikipedia and/or Wikimedia folks hiring friends. I know that there are lots of people who really like the program. If Kevin_Gorman is part of this program, then I would say that some of his behavior doesn't reflect well on the program or my alma mater. -wʃʃʍ- 00:38, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd honestly be pretty surprised if the British DJ whose Wikipedia article you linked to edited Wikipedia very often. That minor bit of snark aside: it's usually nice to ping people when you mention them, but for clarity: I wasn't hired by anyone associated with Wikimedia, and none of my salary is paid by anyone associated with Wikimedia. Short of office action banning the user accounts of anyone described as a Wikipedian-in-Residence (which would frankly be pretty weird,) WMF doesn't have all that much control over Wikipedians-in-residence. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:26, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

My bad! Yeah it sound like that is a different person. Sorry, Kevin! I usually get notifications when I'm mentioned anywhere, but it sounds like I screwed the pooch on your username. Anyways, props to Kevin for coming over and clarifying things. I'll admit, the Wikipedians in Residence program is not something I fully understand yet. I had the impression that Berkeley paid his salary, and, believe me, if Kevin is paid by UC Berkeley, there are much less productive positions they are paying for! Kevin, the problem that I have is that you seem to spend a lot of your time on Wikipedia dramahs, which I find unfortunate. But I need to look through your edit history to find out more. In the meantime, try not to speculate on my private life. ;) Otherwise, if Wikipedians in Residence costs the WMF nothing, then I don't see any reason to fault it. It isn't our problem how UC Berkeley spends its money. -wʃʃʍ- 06:19, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Very few residencies end up costing the Foundation anything. There have been some that have been partially subsidised by the Foundation, mostly for positions that either present particularly high benefit for the Foundation, or positions in countries where the budgets of their cultural institutions are low enough that there's no chance that the institution itself could fund a residency. A significant portion of my edits are directly related to content - I've written quite a few articles, and contributed to many more. You're right that a solid number of my visible contributions are related to drama. This is partly intentional - for instance, the reason I was initially made a moderator of the Gendergap list was so that when moderation decisions that were likely to draw personal attacks had to be made, I would announce them myself so that I could absorb most of the emotional labor involved rather than the other mods having to deal with it. There's also another *really* significant thing that a superficial analysis of contributions to ENWP under my username misses - most of the work I do doesn't result in anything that has my name attached to it, unless you dig pretty deep. As an example, among other things that I will be doing, next fall I'll be co-teaching a course that all first semester molecular and cellular biology doctoral candidates at Berkeley must take, as well as working with a graduate class in green chemistry focused on stuff like evidence based methods for remediating oil spills.

All of those students will be writing Wikipedia articles - and almost all of the articles they write will be in areas that Wikipedia's coverage currently really lacks. Not all of the articles will be awesome, but most of them will be well written and comprehensive. Without my position, these two classes wouldn't be editing Wikipedia - the faculty involved in the courses wouldn't adopt a Wikipedia-based assignment without pretty intensive in-person assistance. I also usually end up consulting with maybe half a dozen instructors a week across the country either talking to them about the idea of using Wikipedia-based assignments in their classes, or helping them with instructional design issues so that their classes run smoothly and benefit all stakeholders. That kind of work doesn't necessarily show up when doing something like looking through someone's edit history, but it is work that has quite significant impact. (I don't keep track, but my students have certainly written many times more articles than I have personally written, and working with them results in more impact per hour than writing myself does.) I also spend more than a few hours on meta reviewing grant applications and trying to guide applicants in a direction that allows them to both get their grant approved, and successfully execute their project in a way that creates meaningful impact, etc. So, although looking through someone's edit history can give you some idea of what they do, it also misses quite a lot, and judging someone based on their edit history alone wouldn't be ideal ;) Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:07, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Kevin makes a lot of interesting points here. And I know a bit about the terrain he is navigating at Berkeley. It's a place with almost endless opportunities, but they usually have to be cut out and defined by those who want to take advantage of them. It could be considered a huge ocean of a university where you can either sink or swim, and if you decide you are going to swim, you teach yourself your own strokes to make it happen. I did some work at CNMAT, for example, and I wasn't asked to do it; I put together a proposal to do it, and the director accepted it. So, I can see the potential benefit of Wikipedians in Residence funded by Berkeley or any other school.

That said, I think that WiR's would benefit greatly by staying out of politics. Kevin is just one case in point, and I'm about to single him out because he is a very significant example, but my point extends to all such situations. Kevin, you're an opinionated guy. Believe me, I understand what that's like. :) And you've undoubtedly noticed that you and I often agree on issues; these issues probably outweigh those we disagree on. But it seems to me like you wear different hats, and it's not always clear to everyone which hat you're wearing when.

There is no reason the people behind Wikipedians in Residence shouldn't get involved in Wikipedia politics; we would expect them to be seasoned Wikipedians, after all. But I personally expect to know whom you're representing, no matter what you're saying. So, maybe the best route isn't getting rid of such programs. Maybe special WiR accounts could be maintained that explain exactly who each WiR represents and who is funding their work. When you are working on behalf of Berkeley or any other institution, you could use this account. Otherwise you can use your personal account to say exactly what you believe, which is obviously a privilege that I wouldn't argue against under any conditions. In such a situation, I believe that an ethical WiR would not represent their corresponding institution in any political WP discussion; their purpose would be exclusively soft-limited and ethically defined to helping improve the content on WP. A prominent indication that this account is working in the capacity of a WiR should largely remove any potential COI's from the discussion of WiR's and keep the core mission in focus at all times. I would also be much more comfortable with WMF funding in these cases- with full transparency, of course. When Kevin and I disagree, as we have before and almost surely will again, I don't want there to be any confusion that I'm somehow disagreeing with the institution of UC Berkeley itself. I can't be the first one to propose this. Have there been discussions on this in the past? Any links? -wʃʃʍ- 05:34, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

There have been many, many discussions about it in the past, although I don't have links to many of them offhand and my machine is acting up. Dominic, the WiR at NARA, puts some of his reasoning User:Dominic/FAQ#Why_do_you_edit_under_your_personal_username.3F. Some of the issues frequently raised against the idea of separating accounts include: Kevin Gorman is Kevin Gorman is Kevin Gorman to the Wikipedia community - using separate accounts would make it harder to scrutinize my edits, would make it easier for me to mask COI edits if I felt like doing so, and would put an artificial importance on edits I made from my officially tagged account which gets a little bit close to the credentialism that goes against what many Wikimedians feel the projects should be about. Separating accounts would lead to invariable good faith slipups that would sometimes generate drama (we see this happen as it is with WMF employees editing under the wrong account from time to time.) It would present difficulties if I started off as WiR at Berkeley, and then moved to another institution - we wouldn't want my edit history that was attached to Berkeley to get lost if I moved to UCLA (or worse, misattached to UCLA) but there's not currently a technical way to have a contiguous edit history that preserves affiliations. Multiple accounts could be created, but especially if someone has a long string of temporary WiR-type gigs, it would be next to impossible to track their whole edit history for bad editing patterns.

There are some WiR's who do choose to use separate accounts - I chose not to in part because I started editing Wikipedia as a volunteer as a student in the education program at Berkeley, then as an ambassador and (unpaid) instructor, and then as a paid instructor. It would put a weird break in the continuity of my education program related edits to separate accounts. I would also either have to argue for the WP:Administrator policy to allow for users to have two non-bot administrator accounts at once, or would have to either deal with not being able to use the administrative tools in a personal capacity, even though I was elected administrator in a personal capacity. (I hardly use them every day in any official capacity even when I'm in session, but when I do, it's usually for something relaively important - quickly hiding inadvertently revealed private information, revdeling copyright violations from my own students on sight, handing out manual confirmed privileges at things like editathons where a participant wants to edit a page that would normally require autoconfirmed status, and occasionally things like forcibly blocking a student who is running in to serious issues but isn't checking their talkpage or email account very often - trying to edit and seeing "You are currently unblocked. Please go to Kevin or your TA's office hours to discuss your project; we'll unblock you after.)

Probably the single biggest reason I didn't bother to create a separate account though is that except when I am acting with the voice of Berkeley (which is quite rare) - or at least my sub-silo of Berkeley - my personal opinions are essentially never taken as those of the institution of UC Berkeley itself. If it happened frequently, it might be enough to make me want to create a second (well - third - I have a (WMF) account from past activities at the WMF) account, but it is uncommon enough that it's hard to think of times where it's actually happened offhand. I also don't agree that an ethical WiR would not get involved in politicized discussions related to their work on Wikipedia. For instance, the education program is incredibly controversial, but it's also a huge part of what I do, and both my direct boss (who is the head of the American Cultures program,) as well as our faculty senate's committee on courses of instruction, and many individual administrators and faculty members believe the program has a strong potential to be useful to students, instructors, Wikipedia, and the world. Failing to participate in discussions that either focus on shaping the future of the education program in the most successful way possible or, alternately, failing to participate in discussions that could lead to the education program no longer existing (there have been proposals to ban it before,) would be failing to perform my role at Berkeley well. In the same way, failing to participate in conversations about issues Wikimedia has like our demographic gaps and systemic content biases would be failing to perform my role at Berkeley well, as would, say, failing to participate in a discussion where someone insisted that gender studies was not a legitimate academic field and that sources written by academics who focus on gender studies could not be used as sources (and that's not a theoretical example.)

It's extremely rare for me to speak in any capacity whatsoever as an official 'voice of Berkeley', but nowhere near as rare for me to contribute to politicized discussions of Wikipedia related issues that are directly related to what I do at Berkeley. Most staff at Berkeley who aren't in purely support roles are expected to contribute to conversations that further their fields, even outside of the narrow confines of Berkeley. Most of the conversations I have, even most of the ones that involve controversy (like my current proposal at AN to indefinitely topic ban someone from working on issues related to men's rights,) are aimed at being productive, even though not all of them always are. Though Berkeley people have done certainly done more controversial stuff, the Alvarez hypothesis definitely was controversial, polarizing, and politicized in its field. Hell, through the organizing efforts of faculty and staff at Berkeley and other campuses, the entire UC system eventually completely disinvested from South Africa, although financial analysis at the time said it would be financially damaging to the UC system - because it was morally wrong. I don't think I've ever done anything quite as intensely dramatic as disinvested $3.1 billion from a foreign country because I thought their government was morally abhorrent ;) Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:29, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Replace AN/ANI/ARBCOM with Accredited and Experienced Arbitrators

WMDE has a community driven grant program that at one point accepted a proposal to spend a good chunk of change to hire professional mediators to assist in settling disputes on DEWP. Unfortunately it fell through when the volunteer had other committments come up, but I thought it was definitely an idea worth exploring. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:26, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Any idea whether they plan to try this again in the future? There are some implementation problems that I see in this idea. In particular, many of the issues brought before these bodies involve the complex- and sometimes conflicting, it seems- governing structures that define the right path for the Wikipedia community. I've just dipped my toes in it, and I wouldn't consider myself remotely qualified for such a position- even if I did have all the arbitration credentials in the world. So, how would we get someone who is both qualified as an Arbiter, yet is unbiased towards WP issues, when it seems like this person would have to have a lot of WP experience to be effective in the first place. Am I missing something? @Kevin Gorman: How did the German Wikipedians resolve this issue? -wʃʃʍ- 05:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

WMDE has a community budget used to put funds towards community proposed ideas that tends to be willing (at least when I last evaluated it) to give both larger amounts of money tha WMF's direct grant programs do, and money to different sorts of projects. All projects also set their own dispute resolution processes, so something may run in to roadblocks on one project that are bigger than what they run in to on another project. The approved grant actually had a particular set of professional mediators in mind if I recall correctly, but the volunteer coordinating it had to pull out at the last minute, so it never happened. I've been wanting for a trial of soemthing similar to happen on at least one WMF project ever since, but I've never had the time and funding to try to spearhead setting it up myself. Though they'd have to spend some time picking up wiki specific stuff, there are lots of professional dispute mediators, and in my experience a good number of them are able to help even highly contentious situations. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Here's an interesting idea that came up on my blog. Basically, the WMF could fund online arbitration training. I hope that the training itself would be useful, but at the very least it would incentivize those who want to sit on ArbCom for all the right reasons (providing justice to individual community members, for example) and discourage those who might do it for all the wrong reasons (like power accumulation). It empowers the community to self-govern with more expertise, and it seems far cheaper than hiring full-time arbitrators. Thoughts? -wʃʃʍ- 20:58, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking far more of community mediation type people/training, and definitely not the kind of legalistic training necessary for real world arbitrators that that particular linked package seems to be - I definitely think the less legalistic we make ourselves the better, and increasing the parallels between arbcom and actual legal arbitration wouldn't be a great idea. Speaking of online training in general, one of my issues with it would be that in my experience it tends not to produce results of the same quality as in-person training. I suspect that a reasonable middleground might be to hire a well-vetted set of professional dispute mediators to examine our current dispute resolution procedures and make concrete suggestions for streamlining and process improvements and then to find an appropriately well-vetted and respected training organization for the type of dispute mediation we'd like to see on ENWP (which I suspect is likely not a group that provides training to real-world arbitrators,) and after ensuring good fit between whatever training program they offered or designed and our goals, fly out all elected arbcom members to a week of in-person training in dispute resolution and see what the effect ended up being. It wouldn't be the cheapest thing in the world, but as arbcom is the highest body of our most prominent project and it's actions have a significant effect on our most prominent project, if it produced results the cost could very easily be worth it (we certainly spend an awful lot of money on sillier things.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

At Least Market Rate Compensation for Wikimedia Employees

Yes - I think this would be money well-spent. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:05, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Out of all of the suggestions in this list, this is the one that I've heard unanimous support for. It's also probably the suggestion that I have the most insight on. I've gotten the impression that there are lots of techie Wikipedians who live near technology hubs, but others may need a bit more context. I think that it's important that the WMF makes this a deliberate and transparent effort and does a full review of current employees' compensation. For example, the tech-oriented job market in SF operates very differently from other job markets. To begin with, there is far greater demand for developers than there is supply. Top talent will receive several solicitations from recruiters per week whether they are currently looking for a job or not. Also, the salary should be competitive, but it isn't what will get the right people to accept job offers. Developers here are used to salaries running $200k+, and some of them don't really know what to do with the money they're already making. Company culture is a huge decision point, as is the equity upside and excitement of a startup. The WMF can do a lot about the former and nothing on the latter. Finally, I have a hard time imagining a field where experience and raw talent make such a big difference. Some techies are easily an order of magnitude more productive than others. And a ton of that productivity has to do with their familiarity with the software stack. One you have one of these people, you have to make sure they are happy and feeling like Wikipedia is the best option for their own career paths. For a manager, that means getting to know them as well as possible. Fortunately, this happens to be one of Lila's greatest strengths; her employees tend to follow her from job to job, because they like the productive and lax environment she creates. If the community would like more transparency in to the makeup of the WMF engineering team, however, my guess is that it would have to ask for it. -wʃʃʍ- 21:43, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Hire WMF Staff with Expertise in Information Science

This expertise might include knowledge management, machine-based text recognition, and content recognition. -wʃʃʍ- 10:07, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Review Priorities of All WMF Engineering Projects

Provide complete transparency in such a review and encourage collaboration between the community and the WMF. -wʃʃʍ- 09:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Transparency During Fundraising

I.e., be honest about financial status during fund raisers. -wʃʃʍ- 23:37, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Survey Wikipedia Readers Regularly

This requires real expertise, and real expertise costs money. The WMF has run a reader survey (2011, I think it was) and, hopefully has learned enough from that experience to (with some community input) manage this well. It is not something I would leave to the editor community, who all present themselves as experts in study-/survey-design, while most turn out to be chronophagic posers. This is the very least the WMF should do for its readers - its most ignored stake-holder. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

A Fork

Create Wikipedia 2.0 fork curated by an international academic umbrella organisation that gradually takes on editorial responsibility for the content. -wʃʃʍ- 09:57, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Forking it would be an utter disaster. I suspect folks that are antagonistic to WP at WO do realise this and would be rubbing their hands with glee should anyone be dumb enough to push this through. To date, every expert-only encyclopedia has failed through lack of numbers/energy/input. Utterly. Anyone who has contact with any experts in any field knows that most are incredibly busy - we are insanely lucky to get a few people dropping in here and there to help out. This won't change for another 15-20 years, when there are sufficient numbers of internet-savvy people in retirement, and even then most would probably prefer to be spending time in university institutions anyway. Any attempt to impose top-down experts will alienate numbers of contributors. Any attempt to fork or split the community will have a drastic effect on numbers. Part of why it rolls along is the interaction between many editors on improving articles. Many folks who stick to drama pages and wiki-war zones don't see this. Anyway, that's my 2c worth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Casliber (talk • contribs) 00:01, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

These are good points, and you draw what sounds like a probable scenario for an attempt to "out-quality" Wikipedia. What if we, in a sense, went the other direction? What if we created a more child-oriented Wikipedia (much more child-oriented than the Simple English version) that adopted many of the measures that are suggested above for the sake of creating a friendlier space for children that is based on Wikipedia but is somewhat curated to contain no age-inappropriate content and is a more focussed derivative of Wikipedia? If some of the measures that are required for such an effort (like pre-publication review if we say that there would be zero tolerance for age-inappropriate material) were successful, maybe some source encyclopedias would be convinced to adopt such measures for parts of their content, like medical articles or BLP's. It seems to me that such an effort could be a test-bed for many of these ideas, and if they don't work out there, then we know they are unlikely to work out here. The difference there might be that the project has governance rules that make it easier to change directions with agility, so experiments can be made without too much disturbance to the project and its core mission. As a father, I can tell you that the idea of a more appropriate Wikipedia for children (my child says the articles are too long, boring, and with too many big words to look up, for example) is very appealing. -wʃʃʍ- 02:28, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I can see a case for a non-editable subset of wikipedia using only wikipedia articles which have been assessed for quality and suitability for children. In fact this has already been done by [Wikipedia for Schools]. If such a site directs all editors to improve the wikipedia articles, then it has a real Unique Selling Proposition - most of the advantages of wikipedia (except for quick response to changes) plus scholarly review. This is probably best done by an organisation independent of WMF though I can see some wikipedias allowing some way to identify particular revisions which have been reviewed and approved. filceolaire (talk) 22:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikimania 2014?

Hi. Are you going to London? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably not. If so, only for the first day. My brother's wedding is that weekend. Family comes first. :) -wʃʃʍ- 04:18, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

That's a shame. (Great news for your brother, though!) I'm still deciding, and if you were going that would definitely tip the scales. I think what you're doing here is awesome, by the way. You're a welcome breath of fresh air. Pay some (but almost no) heed to those who say you can't question norms here until you've passed the 10,000 edit mark. Most of your questions and observations have been spot on. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:35, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Credit where credit is due. All of these ideas came from WO- and some probably from you. I'm here to stimulate on-wiki discussion of whether it makes sense to tackle them, and, if so, how. It sounds like we may be reaching the point of MO discussion on some of them, like the medical disclaimer. -wʃʃʍ- 01:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I've decided I'm going. I'll be in London from the 5th, and will be meeting up with User:Peter Damian and maybe some other WO denizens. If you do decide to turn up for day one and can fit us in, I'd love to buy you a warm bitter. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:06, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

If I go for the Hackathon, we'll definitely meet up. It's a bit of a missed opportunity; when I meet a lot of Wikipedians who have been wary of my motivations in the past, they'll probably feel a lot more comfortable with me and what I'm doing. I'm a very sincere guy, and I've been told wear it on my sleeve. Stay tuned. -wʃʃʍ- 02:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the foundation should organise a regular survey of our readers to see what they think about Wikipedia - but I'm not sure if I should add that to your catalogue above - or if I should, where. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:06, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

You definitely should add it above. I'm thinking WMF would be the best section. I'd add editors, as well, since the community seems to be concerned with editor retention. This is one idea that you might get more traction on with Lila at the helm. Like any ex-CPO would be, she is well versed on CSAT, and this might be a great way to kick off more quality- and user-focussed metrics. Do you know the right channel to suggest this on? Is there such a channel? If Anthonyhcole doesn't know, does anyone else? -wʃʃʍ- 02:11, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

OK. Will do. I initiated an RfC on en.Wikipedia last year (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013) and, while there was much discussion about how it could be structured etc., there seemed to be general support for the idea. I'm not sure what the next step would be - I couldn't set up or run something like this, it would need someone with experience and expertise to do it right. Off the top of my head: to implement this I would employ someone with demonstrated expertise and success in this kind of thing to establish it. If we leave establishment to anonymous amateurs and posers it just won't happen.

Just about everybody you talk to here - or on WO - presents as an expert on study- or survey-design. Really. And they can waste an enormous amount of others' time. Experts are essential in some endeavors, and this is one of those - though I would certainly throw the final design to the communities for critique (but not veto) before implementation. To be clear: this is the WMF talking to the readers, not the editors. If the editors don't like the final structure or questions asked, they can ask their own questions in their own survey - though I seriously doubt the ability of this mob to get that together.

Done. [4]

There is no channel to get the WMF to do stuff. I've tried lobbying WMF board members but it's like pushing soup uphill. I'll think about it for a few days but will probably end up just petitioning the ED. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:31, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If you feel like we need qualified experts for such surveys, I just happen to be friends with someone whose experience and sheer intelligence in this field of study is about as good as it gets. She used to work for Lila, and I believe she may be evaluating the WMF as a possible next step. I'll reconnect with her. Ultimately, I have little influence on this front other than to characterize the community to these prospective employees, so we'll see what happens. There are certainly other qualified candidates in SF. -wʃʃʍ- 04:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

There is probably no need to limit the field to SF. We have some brilliant social researchers here in Australia. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:42, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm much more concerned with the lack of a community channel to discuss ideas with the WMF. It seems to me that if the WMF wants to be responsive to the community (and I know as well as anyone reading this that they do), they need to establish a good channel through which any community member can expect a guaranteed response under the right conditions. For example, the White House will guarantee a response for every petition that gathers enough signees. I believe a response is guaranteed at 100,000 signees, but apparently the Death Star issue had to be addressed more immediately. In any case, I created a petition to make it clear how many people would refuse to attend a conference that any non-threatening participant is denied access to. Although many people have requested a comment from the WMF on this controversy, no one can force them to say anything through the current communication channels. I think that a petition system might make a lot of sense WRT the WMF for the same reasons it makes sense WRT the White House. At the moment, the ED's email is public, so the only option is to petition her directly. In your situation, if I wanted a more reliable channel of communication, that is exactly what I'd do, encouraging like-minded people to do the same, of course. -wʃʃʍ- 04:46, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

BTW, the first time I tried to save this edit, I got an error message saying that "Your edit was not saved because it contains a new external link to a site registered on Wikipedia's blacklist". Of course, my initial suspicion was that WP blocked access to the petition to "make Wikipedia conferences truly open to all by allowing Greg Kohs to attend". Just a little tweaking later, I found out that the problematic link was to the petition to build a Death Star. What the hell, Wikipedia? What do you have against Death Stars, anyways? In any case, can anyone tell me WTF is going on here? That's censorship, and I'm no fan. -wʃʃʍ- 04:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Here's the spam blacklist; it looks like it blocks any url containing the word "petition" (but only if it precedes the ".com", which is why your other link worked fine). Some relevant discussions here, here and here. DoctorKubla (talk) 07:11, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! It sounds like that rule might be too broadly defined, but I've got other issues that are keeping me too busy to look in to it. Interesting that the White House site has been specifically addressed, however. Note to self: go back sometime and see if the blacklist applies equally to all pages, or if there are separate lists for article vs. talk space. -wʃʃʍ- 21:50, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the formal process for forcing the WMF's hand, I don't think that's likely to happen. They own Wikipedia. Somebody tried to set up a page here for "talking to the WMF" - kind of a portal, monitored by the community-liaison team, who could attract the attention of various relevant WMF players when someone has a question or suggestion. It's late and I'm tired, but I'll try to find that tomorrow. I think it was shut down as unnecessary - but I didn't follow it carefully. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Content policy updates over time

@Wllm:, FYI: see Wikipedia:Update for a timeline of policy change. 82firebird (talk) 15:28, 5 July 2014 (UTC)