Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 151

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Village pump (proposals) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214

I would like everyone to read this

This is important. It focussed primarily on Article 13, but Article 11 is quite possibly worse, although frankly it's all so bad that it is hard to say with any certainty which is worse.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

It really is a nightmare legislation. That's why we should have a banner being displayed prominently. Wikipedia being neutral when presenting content doesn't mean being passive when our very existence is jeopardized. The Red Cross is an apolitical organization, but that doesn't mean they won't oppose legislation that makes it harder for them to organize blood drives.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:33, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
  • +1 support to User:Headbomb. We use Turnitin, a world leader in copyright infringement detection, but they are still only correct just over half the time. We apply them "after" a person makes an edit not before. Apply them before an edit goes live would result in significant disruption. And text is easy compared to images and video (ala Commons). Additionally German and Bulgarian Wikipedia had a banner related to this from what I understand. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:52, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Absolutely. Neutrality does not mean staying silent when threatened by legislation. —Kusma (t·c) 17:53, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I also agree with the above sentiments, and I think we should post a neutrally worded banner to raise awareness of this, at least in the EU, if nothing else. We can't always remain neutral when something threatens the site's continued existence. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 20:50, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
  • @Jimbo Wales: If this needs vast volunteer support as a banner, requesting placement as a CentralNotice (perhaps with geo fencing/targeting) at meta:CentralNotice/Request would hit the widest audience - if it has foundation support it should be able to get fast-tracked. — xaosflux Talk 20:53, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
There was an RfC on this (further up the page) already, but there was no consensus on posting the banner. There was some support for a neutrally-worded version, but it was buried in the overall discussion. There could be reason to post another RfC specifically for a neutral banner to notify readers in the EU. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 20:57, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
RfC's here (such as the one you referenced above at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Banner_in_EU_countries_explaining_dangerous_European_Parliament_copyright_proposal_and_linking_to_SaveYourInternet.eu) are about banners driven by and for the English Wikipedia only, the actual impact of this sounds much further reaching. — xaosflux Talk 21:23, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
No. You can't just keep making proposals over and over again until one of them passes. This is at least the fourth such proposal within the past few months. At this point, I'd support Ammarpad's proposal above that we decide that political banners will not run, period, to save editors time on discussions like this. The risks from continually dealing with these proposals may be greater than the risk of not being able to act in the face of some possible future dangerous political threat. --Yair rand (talk) 08:26, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
There is no greater risk to Wikipedia than being unable to edit it because of laws makes it a crime to do so. Opposing banners on this is like saying "We firefighters are apolitical, we'll put fire outs no matter where they happen. It's more dangerous to our existence to comment on politics than oppose legislation that would make it illegal extinguish fires." The threat is NOW. Not in the future. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:30, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
What is "the risks from continually dealing with these proposals"? Lots of proposals for banners are not and should not be supported. Some should and are supported. Disallowing discussions is a strange proposal and one I definately do not support. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:31, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm not sure what the proposal is here. I agree that the legislation is awful, but like AfroThundr said, there was no consensus at the above discussion. Are we proposing a neutrally-worded banner? TeraTIX 13:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Well, Jimbo was mostly bringing this matter to everyone's attention (for those who live under a rock, anyway.) I do think we should try that RfC again with a neutral notification banner. In the closing statement of the previous RfC this was mentioned:

There was also a proposal to put up a neutrally-worded banner that would provide information about the directive without pushing any particular position of it. It was supported by some users from both the support and oppose sides, but ultimately there was not enough discussion on it to have any sort of consensus of approval either.
With that said, the discussion leaves open the possibility towards proposing a neutrally-worded banner, which would then be the topic of a new discussion.

While I'm aware of !voter fatigue, this proposal would segue off of the previous one, and could be handled rather quickly, one way or the other. That should put this matter to bed once and for all, at least on enwiki. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 15:48, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree and I think that such an important discussion needs to be brought to a very wide audience within the community, as most people don't hang out on Village Pump. (The number of !votes in the above discussion shows clearly that not enough people are aware.) I think personally that a neutrally worded banner is insufficient - I think this is an existential issue for the free culture movement and therefore deserves to be killed - and the only practical way I know to kill it is to create world headlines and put real pressure from voters on the European Parliament. We have a board meeting in 5 minutes to discuss further, and I'll report back what I can, when I can! Thanks to everyone for your attention so far.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:58, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Please keep us updated. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 16:41, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
I'd support having an RfC on a neutrally worded banner, although the WMF response will be interesting and pertinent. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 16:49, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
The neutral wording should only be used as a last resort if the community is too dumb to realize the danger is in. Jimbo is right here, we should be active in opposition to something that wants to pretty much directly kill Wikipedia and Commons and all other Wikimedia projects as best it can. This notice shouldn't just be on Wikipedia, but on every Wikimedia projects. With a blackout if needed like we did for SOPA. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:23, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
We had a board call with senior management at the Foundation yesterday, and a statement from the board is forthcoming. I wouldn't like to speak for anyone but myself, but I think I can safely say that there is consensus that (1) everyone would like to see broader community awareness of this, (2) that a decision about what action to take should, as always, not be dictated by the board or Foundation staff, but the community, and (3) the Foundation staff stands ready to assist with whatever we in the community request.
My own view is that we are at a point that I would consider to be something of an emergency. Time is very short. I'm told by reliable sources that a vote of the entire European Parliament is likely to take place on July 4th, which means that coordinated action to bring intense awareness on Parliament in the form of phone calls and emails from millions of ordinary European citizens needs to take place by July 3rd or so. If anyone is interested in how the process is likely to work, I'll explain it as best I can, but I'm still learning myself.
We are up against incredibly well-funded interests who have spent literally millions lobbying for this stuff. The general public is, as we all know from our day to day work here, quite unaware of and bored by copyright law. This is a classic example of how moneyed interests can lead law in a direction that is contrary to public interest. (I should add that in this case, at least some of the changes contemplated are beneficial in an indirect way for companies like Google and Facebook, who can afford to comply, and so I think this is a classic case of the two major financial sides (content industry and big platforms) reaching a "compromise" which benefits themselves, at the expense of the public and smaller competitors).)
The biggest challenge that I can see for us is time. The timetable is much shorter than would be desirable for a comprehensive community discussion of the type that is our great strength. The opposition knows this, and I believe this is giving them incentive to rush through a vote before we can get organized.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:47, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Jimbo, Katherine, and others should probably, if not already in progress and in addition to on-line efforts, do an "emergency" media tour of Europe, hold press conferences in various cities (perhaps even at the Wikipedia Monument), interview shows, etc. (both in person and by remote-access) during the next week to up-awareness and allow Europeans to understand the extent and ramifications of what's proposed and what passage would look like. And of course put a banner up (not just in Europe but worldwide), a serious threat to civilizational communication and knowledge is occurring in a limited time and Wikipedia is one of the only platforms that can make the public aware of it. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:16, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) At this point I really think a CentralNotice is necessary to raise awareness among our users and editors as well. As I mentioned before, there was some support for a neutrally worded banner in the previous RfC, and I think we should work with that. This goes to vote in 7 days so we should at least notify people about what is happening. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 12:38, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
If WMF thinks this is a huge issue, CN is the way to go - since it seems to be much further impacting then only the English Wikipedia if the hype is true; not quite sure I'm seeing what the "or else" part is - if WMF just ignore this all together what impact will actually be realized? Fines levied in a foreign jurisdiction are hard to enforce generally, and unlike most other companies we don't "sell" things in these jurisdictions. — xaosflux Talk 14:39, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • The previous discussion was before the committee vote, when over a thousand amendments were theoretically up for vote. Now the situation is much clearer: unless on July 5 the European Parliament plenary rejects the committee proposal, we can be sure to have nightmare copyright legislation for the next 20 years or forever. --Nemo 14:22, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Why are we even bothering discussing this? Either it isn't a threat to Wikipedia and a banner is unneeded, or it is a threat to Wikipedia and a banner is needed. If the foundation has determined that it is a threat, then the foundation should put up a notice. This isn't something that editor opinion is relevant to. --Khajidha (talk) 14:29, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

This is not a problem which affects only English Wikipedia, and it is being considered WMF-wide. I just sent an email to the heads of all the chapters to ask for their support in making the issue known as widely as possible within their own language groups, and I have cleared my schedule of almost everything so that I can do as much as I can.
Regarding the idea that "if this a threat, then the foundation should put up a notice" without the support of the community. I'd be the first to oppose that. Decisions of this magnitude should be taken by the community - as it is a much more powerful message when coming from the community. And I personally do not think that a neutrally worded banner is sufficient, although if that is all we can get to, then we should do that at a minimum. I personally believe this is one of the very rare cases where a much more significant move is needed.
  • Some languages have already run banners. EN WP represents about half of our traffic and many in Europe use EN WP thus a banner here could significantly raise awareness. Yes we could move the discussion to meta to make it movement wide but time is short.
Here's where I get to on this whole issue. At this time, the only thing that can stop this is a huge outpouring of calls and emails from the general public. We need to explain to them that this affects their rights online, and that it affects the entire free culture movement that Wikipedia is the great shining example. And we need to inform the public as to how their voice can be heard.
This isn't only about narrowly defending Wikipedia, it is about defending our values and the broader ecosystem and culture that we are a part of.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:55, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
  • But much of the community will have no idea this is going on or very little understanding of what it is unless the foundation takes the first step of putting a highly visible notice out there. The community members would then know what they could do and that "huge outpouring of calls and emails" could commence. --Khajidha (talk) 11:29, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree. Statements from the Foundation and Board should go out soon after SF wakes up today.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:15, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, calendar cleared so...news conferences, video link to media and news shows in Europe, personal in-studio at news programs, the news releases, etc. You and Katherine can blitz Europe (wrong choice of words?) in opposition. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:29, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Our projects are generally self governing, and this typically includes the banners. Thus community opinion on these matters I feel is important. The first proposal was brought forwards by a community member. The community at that time was undecided but input was not that significant. I am hesitant to see the WMF overrule this. There does appear to be a fair bit of support for a neutrally worded banner though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:05, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I just see this as falling more or less under the "Legal issues" portion of the perennial proposals above. We, as a community, don't have to worry about the legalities, that's what we have the foundation and its legal advisors for. --Khajidha (talk) 15:16, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I am not sure I agree. We as a community do need to worry about the political and legal environment we function within. Well the foundation can support and provide some legal opinions our communities have a significant voice when we decide to use it / are able to come to consensus. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:45, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Request for help I am beyond my limit for what I can do to help but I see what I think are obvious problems which have multi-million dollar negative impact but which have labor solutions which could cost a few thousand dollars.
  1. Relevant Wikipedia articles are in bad shape - net neutrality, General Data Protection Regulation, and several dozen related concepts are low quality. Lobbying organizations spend $$$ advocating for the consumer but the single most consulted sources of information on all these topics is Wikipedia. If Wikipedia does not clearly inform and educate then there is no clear way for anyone to become informed and educated. Wikipedia's strength is supposed to be its articles but our articles on these topics are unsatisfactory.
  2. Wiki labor pool needs organization - the social context is that there have been many wiki community attempts at organizing to do something about net neutrality. Most of these attempts have been a request for a banner. Despite all these banner requests where 100s of Wiki community members have participated the wiki editing of the concerned articles has been low. Someone should take a few hours to list all these discussions because having the list of records is the only way to put the sum conversation in context. Although there has not been consensus for "Wikipedia" as an entity to take a political position, I think everyone in those conversations would agree that Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects should provide clear information on the issues with wiki articles, illustrations, etc. The WMF historically has been hands off about content and this is good. However, if there were a community organizer who was neutral and who could bring the best available sources from all sides of the issue, then I think everyone would benefit. This is not exactly a winner-takes-all competition, but rather, a situation when everyone benefits when all sides of the situation get their best presentation in Wikimedia projects. The Wiki community is not spontaneously crowdsourcing labor management and really needs a funded dedicated lead (perhaps from a university, perhaps from any organization) to help sort the dozens of volunteers who each do their part here.
  3. Poor external relations - there are various advocacy organizations which have information to share in wiki but fail to do things like post to talk pages, share images, and share sources. It is beyond usual wiki volunteer capacity to do office administration to interface with expert organizations. That kind of support has not been a priority of the WMF grantmaking strategy. Somehow - and not with WMF staff - the WMF needs to fund someone somewhere who can interface with the 20+ organizations who have expert content to share in Wikimedia projects.
I fail to recognize any other Wikimedia community goal in this space more important than the development of Wikimedia educational content. We are greatly bottlenecked by the complexity of this issue being beyond what is typical for Wiki community crowdsourcing and challenges accessing basic source content. It is not as if there are summary publications to choose from which could be a guideline for a wiki article on these individual topics.
I recognize that net neutrality and GDPR are different issues, but collectively these and other issues are "online community rights" and the popular global perception still groups all "computer" issues as related. We need to have clear information about all of these to make it easy for people to browse one issue to the others. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:23, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I spoke with Julia Reda

(As with my last message, I am not here making a concrete proposal but passing along information as background preparation for any actual concrete proposal that we may consider.)

I spoke today with Julia Reda, MEP. As you may be aware, she is one of the key members of the European Parliament who has been fighting the good fight against Articles 11 and 13. I learned a few things from her which I think are relevant to our deliberations.

First, the vote will take place next Thursday, July 5th. This means that our time scale to let the community know quite widely that a proposal has been put forward so that it can be voted on by a meaningful portion of the community is quite short.

Second, she agreed with my estimation that without dramatic action from Wikipedia, this is very likely to pass. It is up to us.

Third, she pointed out that the vote on Thursday works in this way. A vote from parliament tomorrow of "yes" means that the law is fast-tracked and that's the end of it. We've lost. A vote from parliament tomorrow of "no" does not mean that it is killed - it is a vote that it should NOT be fast-tracked and there will be an opportunity for the entire European Parliament to debate the whole thing and for amendments to be put forward. Given the wide range of civil society groups and Internet luminaries who are opposed to it, this seems like something that needs to be done. But what it also means is that it is quite an easy "ask" even of MEPs who think that overall the bill is a good idea - we aren't asking them to help us kill the entire thing, but to open things up for a proper debate. (To date, there has been NO debate from the full parliament.)

The point of this third point is to day: we can win this, if we can make enough noise.

My evaluation here is that it is up to us (the multilingual Wikipedia communities of Europe) to win this - we are the only ones who can. And, we actually can win this - with millions of ordinary people calling their MEPs and blanket news coverage, we can have a big impact.

I further think that this is the right moment strategically. If the WMF sends representatives in to talk about the good of the commons and so on, not many people will listen if we are a powerless small nonprofit. But everyone will listen if they know that we not only claim to have the public on our side, we can actually demonstrate it with direct action.

My next call, in about an hour, is with Danny O'Brien, who is the International Director of the EFF.

I am also in touch with policy people from Reddit, who are also obviously concerned about this and interested in helping to shine more public light on the issue before it is too late.

And finally, I'm in touch with the heads of the WMF chapters to get their feedback and guidance about the situation in other languages.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:13, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

So an immediate banner in English seems like it would help, and, as I mention above, you and Katherine should maybe be holding press conferences, media interviews, press briefings all across Europe (maybe a meeting of like minded individuals for a press conference at the Wikipedia Memorial), etc. You are our only hope, Obi-Wan Jimboi. Thanks for your energy and caring. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:23, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words, and I am very much on emergency footing here and planning to do as much press as I can. I think more than that is necessary, and one problem with me doing press is that, despite living in the UK for 8 years and all, there can be a feeling in Europe of not wanting an American Internet Entrepreneur lecturing them. Hearing directly from our community, and directly from our readers, is a lot more powerful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:33, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
Because of your creations and the internet prestige of Wikipedia I think you might be recognized more as an international citizen. Don't want to take up any more of your time, so thanks again and good luck this week. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:45, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposals for wording of a neutral banner

Time is short. We need proposals for a neutrally worded banner. I have added one possible below. Please make other suggestions. If we are to go forwards with this we need to have something ready by July 2nd to go live July 3rd. So this will be closed midday UTC on July 2nd. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:05, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Option 1

On 5 July 2018 Members of the European Parliament will be voting on whether or not to approve a new copyright directive. These changes threaten to disrupt the functioning of the open Internet that Wikipedia is a part of. Join the discussion as we decide what we should do.

The second link would be to a page that lists options for engagement and further details. July 5th is just an initial vote and if successful a future vote will occur in the future. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:05, 28 June 2018 (UTC)


  • Summary:--Option 1 has a consensus.
  • Rationale:-When I intended to close the original discussion, a few days back, I observed some comment(s) about the issue from WMF's side and in the presumption that it might change the outcome of the discussion, mass-pinged the participants.I was wrong in my assumption (it led to zero camp-shifts) and Naurolevetosinha closed the discussion, accordingly as a NC.In this new discussion, largely precipitated by Jimbo, there is a mass-change in !voting trend(s) and in light of making a timed and meaningful impact, I'm closing the proposal of Option 1 as successful, courtesy having the maximal support:oppose ratio and relatively stronger number(s) of first-choice-support(s).Proposals to launch the banner may be executed accordingly.My closure does not terminate the !voting and shall, the !voting pattern changes completely, over the course of the next few hours/days, anybody has a right to accurately evaluate the-then consensus and pull the banner, if necessary.Best,∯WBGconverse 14:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  • For brevity, can change to: "threaten to disrupt the functioning of Wikipedia and the open Internet." And change to "as we decide what to do". -- econterms (talk) 11:42, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • FYI to all who do not know the policy details: European parliamentarian Julia Reda, discussed above, addressed Wikimania in Mexico City and later visited my chapter in Washington DC and we had a substantial discussion in a large group. She's great on copyright issues -- an expert, not a partisan/extremist. She understood us and advocated specific changes to make things easier, like freedom-of-panorama and standardization of copyright across the EU. I trust her. She says the new change is bad. We cannot individually follow every detail, therefore we must trust and support each other through networks of people and organizations, and therefore I strongly support slowing down the new EU proposal and presumably stopping it. I have confidence that she and the others who know this issue are right about it. -- econterms (talk) 11:54, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Summary as of Noon UTC July 2nd: Oppose 5 (19%), Support 22 (81%) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:11, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Support - I find this to be a better call to action than the others. It's not excessively long.- MrX 🖋 12:34, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - As the most effective option. If not Option 1, then Option 2 and Option 3 over Option 4.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:19, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak Support (2nd choice) - — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:48, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Better than the others choices. Also puts in clear and plain language this can have adverse affects on Wikipedia. ContentEditman (talk) 19:16, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Although it's a bit long, it explains clearly what Wikimedia's opinion and suggested solution is. epicgenius (talk) 21:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose It will raise (for good reason) questions about our ability to be neutral and out commitment to neutrality. It plays into the hands of those who do try to portray us as non neutral. Rules have to apply to everyone, and that includes Wikipedia itself, if we start to have political banners why cannot I have them emblazoned over my user page?.Slatersteven (talk) 09:16, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am opposed to all political banners as Wikipedia needs to remain neutral. I have worked here since 2006 under the impression that my contributions would not be used for personal crusades or political campaigning. I am not comfortable that after twelve years of work on Wikipedia that the sweat of my brow is to be used to influence due political process. That is not what I signed up for. As regards the proposed directive, Wikipedia is excluded: "Providers of services such as non-for-profit online encyclopaedias, non-for-profit educational and scientific repositories, non-for-profit open source software developing platforms, as well as internet access service providers, online marketplaces and providers of cloud services which allow users, including businesses for their internal purposes, to upload content for their own use shall not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this Directive". We would be compromising our neutrality for nothing, and making fools of ourselves. SilkTork (talk) 11:59, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    @SilkTork: All of our content is licensed for-profit as well as not-for-profit, so we are directly affected. Besides, the constellation of re-users would be damaged by this directive. --Izno (talk) 12:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
We would not be directly impacted - the Foundation acknowledge that themselves in their recent statement. The Foundation's concern is in the general application of the proposed directive, which they view as restrictive. So, let's be clear, even the Foundation accept that Wikipedia would be exempt from the directive, but they wish to make a statement regarding general free-flow of information. If Wikipedia users who are voting on this issue are aware that they are voting not to protect Wikipedia, but to protect the right for websites other than Wikipedia to use copyrighted material without permission or payment, then we are cool. Given that we don't allow any material to be used here without the understanding that it can and will be used by other people for profit, so we in effect don't have copyrighted material, what content on Wikipedia do you feel another website would be restricted from using under the proposed directive? What I am seeing here is people voting yes to a political banner without even understanding what they are voting about. SilkTork (talk) 13:03, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Were does "the Foundation acknowledge" that we will not be directly impacted? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:04, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support and agree with Guy Macon above. "We don't need to discuss this. We need to post a strongly worded banner opposing this as being a clear danger to Wikipedia." This is not a time for neutrality, imo, this is an existential threat we are addressing, 1 of several Wikipedia faces. Nocturnalnow (talk) 12:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not under threat. Wikipedia is exempt from the directive, and the Foundation in a recent statement acknowledge this. The Foundation are opposed to what they feel is the general restriction on free-flow of information. Those whose work websites are uploading without payment may feel differently. So what agreeing to this banner would be saying is: Ignore copyright laws - let websites upload what they like. I actually like that as I'm an old hippy. But we have copyright laws for a reason - it is to protect the work of those who make their living by writing. I respect that. And this directive aims to protect those writers. You should only support this banner if you feel it is OK for websites to take other people's work without acknowledgement or payment. SilkTork (talk) 13:03, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The NGO exception is only for art. 13 not art. 11 it appears. This would mean that we may have to pay to use references and create further reading sections. The art. 13 NGO exception would not apply to many who reuse our work. These websites would thus not be able to directly use us but would need upload filters on stuff they import from us. If you spend time working on copyright on Wikipedia you will quickly see the problem. Wikipedia articles fairly rapidly get included into fully copyright sources including textbooks and journal articles from the likes of Oxford University Press and Elsevier who occasionally claim copyright over it. It takes a fair bit of work to figure out who copied from whom in these situations.
I agree that one should not infringe on other peoples copyright, but fair use is important, and upload filters are not the solution for user generated content.
Additionally we do not "upload content for [our] own use". We upload content for the use of the entire world. Thus it is unclear if that exception even applies to us as we allow commercial reuse. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • Strong Oppose This wording is decidedly non-neutral. How can one possibly read words such as "threatened to disrupt the functioning of the open Internet" as neutral? A test of neutrality is whether a reader, unfamiliar with the underlying issues, nevertheless knows which side is preferred by the writer of the text. The use of "threatened", "disrupt", and "open" all lead the reader to be clear which side is preferred. While I'm not exactly thrilled with the wording of option three, as I'd like us to be as nonpolitical as possible, at least that wording is neutral enough to be acceptable. I'm disappointed to see so many people I respect choosing to support this wording. I haven't updated the math but both option one and option three had strong support. I would've hope that a closing admin would not simply close on the basis of numbers, but reflect the concerns for neutrality expressed by many participants. As a bit of a coincidence, I came here immediately after responding to an individual writing to us at OTRS asking how to write an article about their company. I explained that they shouldn't and emphasized the Wikipedia pillar of neutrality. If we support neutrality in articles we ought to support neutrality in banners.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Option 2

The European Parliament is about to rubber stamp a new copyright directive. Your voice matters to allow a democratic debate. Speak up now for creativity, free culture and an open Internet.

I'm fine with any option but I was thinking of a text along these lines. Four points:

  1. stress that we're for democracy: the JURI committee passed some texts by just one vote, we're not accusing any political group but we think fair that the European Parliament has a full debate;
  2. rather than make statements about specific dangers of the directive (there are too many to summarise), say what people should stand for and why we care (the reference is also to problems created for freely licensed content, public domain etc.);
  3. mention creators, authors, creativity or something like that, to convey the message that this is not about pro-users vs. pro-authors (Wikipedia editors are authors too),
  4. actually reference the only thing which matters i.e. calling the MEPs over the phone, probably via http://changecopyright.org/ (which can be linked in teh landing page if/when there's consensus).

Maybe an adjective like "problematic" is warranted before "new copyright directive", but I'm not sure it matters. --Nemo 21:01, 28 June 2018 (UTC)


  • Summary:--Option 1 has a consensus.
  • Rationale:-When I intended to close the original discussion, a few days back, I observed some comment(s) about the issue from WMF's side and in the presumption that it might change the outcome of the discussion, mass-pinged the participants.I was wrong in my assumption (it led to zero camp-shifts) and Naurolevetosinha closed the discussion, accordingly as a NC.In this new discussion, largely precipitated by Jimbo, there is a mass-change in !voting trend(s) and in light of making a timed and meaningful impact, I'm closing the proposal of Option 1 as successful, courtesy having the maximal support:oppose ratio and relatively stronger number(s) of first-choice-support(s).Proposals to launch the banner may be executed accordingly.My closure does not terminate the !voting and shall, the !voting pattern changes completely, over the course of the next few hours/days, anybody has a right to accurately evaluate the-then consensus and pull the banner, if necessary.Best,∯WBGconverse 14:06, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Summary as of Noon UTC July 2nd: Oppose 10 (71%), Support 4 (29%) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

(talk) 21:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose It will raise (for good reason) questions about our ability to be neutral and out commitment to neutrality. It plays into the hands of those who do try to portray us as non neutral. Rules have to apply to everyone, and that includes Wikipedia itself, if we start to have political banners why cannot I have them emblazoned over my user page?.Slatersteven (talk) 09:16, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am opposed to all political banners as Wikipedia needs to remain neutral. I have worked here since 2006 under the impression that my contributions would not be used for personal crusades or political campaigning. I am not comfortable that after twelve years of work on Wikipedia that the sweat of my brow is to be used to influence due political process. That is not what I signed up for. As regards the proposed directive, Wikipedia is excluded: "Providers of services such as non-for-profit online encyclopaedias, non-for-profit educational and scientific repositories, non-for-profit open source software developing platforms, as well as internet access service providers, online marketplaces and providers of cloud services which allow users, including businesses for their internal purposes, to upload content for their own use shall not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this Directive". We would be compromising our neutrality for nothing, and making fools of ourselves. SilkTork (talk) 12:00, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Option 3

On 5 July 2018, Members of the European Parliament vote on a new copyright directive. Make your voice be heard. Join the discussion.

  • Summary:--Option 1 has a consensus.
  • Rationale:-When I intended to close the original discussion, a few days back, I observed some comment(s) about the issue from WMF's side and in the presumption that it might change the outcome of the discussion, mass-pinged the participants.I was wrong in my assumption (it led to zero camp-shifts) and Naurolevetosinha closed the discussion, accordingly as a NC.In this new discussion, largely precipitated by Jimbo, there is a mass-change in !voting trend(s) and in light of making a timed and meaningful impact, I'm closing the proposal of Option 1 as successful, courtesy having the maximal support:oppose ratio and relatively stronger number(s) of first-choice-support(s).Proposals to launch the banner may be executed accordingly.My closure does not terminate the !voting and shall, the !voting pattern changes completely, over the course of the next few hours/days, anybody has a right to accurately evaluate the-then consensus and pull the banner, if necessary.Best,∯WBGconverse 14:07, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Possible, please do so if appropriate. Hopefully a banner of some form could be up by Monday, maybe with some kind of graphic added on the 3rd - 5th to draw more eyes to it (I'd guess most people x out many banners with just a quick review of the first few words). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:49, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Summary as of Noon UTC July 2nd: Oppose 3 (15%), Support 17 (85%) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:15, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose - Omitting why this is important will reduce its effectiveness.- MrX 🖋 12:38, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:48, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong Support since the phrasing is neutral and if the vote passes, it will inevitable destroy the internet, as we know it. In Memoriam A.H.H.What, you egg?. 19:06, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose To weak and does not draw attention that is truly needed. ContentEditman (talk) 19:22, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. This is a more neutral wording than any of the other options, and my second choice. Though if it came down to two choices, I would choose Option 1. epicgenius (talk) 21:40, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose whilst now not trying (overtly) to advocate for something it is still politicsing Wikipedia (and I think most of us know the real intent, including those who would use it to attack our (alleged) neutrality (especially given what it links to).Slatersteven (talk) 09:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am opposed to all political banners as Wikipedia needs to remain neutral. I have worked here since 2006 under the impression that my contributions would not be used for personal crusades or political campaigning. I am not comfortable that after twelve years of work on Wikipedia that the sweat of my brow is to be used to influence due political process. That is not what I signed up for. As regards the proposed directive, Wikipedia is excluded: "Providers of services such as non-for-profit online encyclopaedias, non-for-profit educational and scientific repositories, non-for-profit open source software developing platforms, as well as internet access service providers, online marketplaces and providers of cloud services which allow users, including businesses for their internal purposes, to upload content for their own use shall not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this Directive". We would be compromising our neutrality for nothing, and making fools of ourselves. SilkTork (talk) 12:01, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • SupportSadads (talk) 13:16, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as written (no addition of "restrictive"). S Philbrick(Talk) 13:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Option 4: No Banner

No Banner

  • Summary:--Option 1 has a consensus.
  • Rationale:-When I intended to close the original discussion, a few days back, I observed some comment(s) about the issue from WMF's side and in the presumption that it might change the outcome of the discussion, mass-pinged the participants.I was wrong in my assumption (it led to zero camp-shifts) and Naurolevetosinha closed the discussion, accordingly as a NC.In this new discussion, largely precipitated by Jimbo, there is a mass-change in !voting trend(s) and in light of making a timed and meaningful impact, I'm closing the proposal of Option 1 as successful, courtesy having the maximal support:oppose ratio and relatively stronger number(s) of first-choice-support(s).Proposals to launch the banner may be executed accordingly.My closure does not terminate the !voting and shall, the !voting pattern changes completely, over the course of the next few hours/days, anybody has a right to accurately evaluate the-then consensus and pull the banner, if necessary.Best,∯WBGconverse 14:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  • Support as proposer. Any banners on issues to be resolved through the political process undermine NPOV. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 06:38, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - How many times must the community reject such banners? At least not more than once per political event. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 06:57, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose putting our head in the sand will not be good, this issue will impact our ability to provide reliable sources and do so in a neutral way. Gnangarra 10:16, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose NPOV is a a valuable editorial guideline concerning the text of Wikipedia articles. It does not directly and fully apply to content outside the Wikipedia article realm. There might be a reaon for the Wikipedia community (and to WMF) to refrain from making political statements unrelated to the mission of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. However, this also does not apply here, as the article 11 and 13 of the proposed copyright directive. As it has been pointed out, both article 11 and 13 would undermine Wikipedia's ability to fulfill its mission. It is therefor acceptable and advisable for Wikipedians to make themselves heard before these rules are enacted. "No banner" is not a good choice of action, in my opinion. -- Mathias Schindler (talk) 10:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the issue needs to be highlighted. Renata (talk) 10:48, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Attempting to ignore the world around use or pretending that the provision of information is not a political act does not support our mission. We need a policy that we oppose laws and policies that threaten to disrupt the functioning of Wikipedia. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:53, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I am normally very weary of banners and prefer there would be less. Speaking about the legislative process, now is probably one of the better moments to run a banner. If we don't change the tides now (and it looks like it is going to be a toss-up vote) the text will be pretty much a done deal and only details could be changed later. --dimi_z (talk) 11:25, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per my comments elsewhere in the discussion. In the interest of disclosure, I am opposed to the contents of the directive itself and worried about its implications, but as I said, Wikipedia should generally refrain from involving itself in political affairs. In fact, while I don't want to invoke WP:OSE here, Wikipedia has seen different challenges before such as blocks in countries such as Turkey, but you didn't see the English Wikipedia putting up banners, even neutrally-worded ones, about that. With that said, I'm not opposed to discussion or banners in other Wikimedia sites such as Meta, but personally, this is a battle that should be kept off the encyclopedia. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 11:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The issue is very important and attention must be called to it. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 11:46, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I have mixed feelings about what wording we're looking for, but I've read the discussion above and I agree a banner is needed. - Dank (push to talk) 12:39, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Opppose A banner is the bare minimum needed. I'd support everything and anything up to a blackout. Wikipedia should stay out of political affairs only to the extent that political affairs don't try to directly annihilate us. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Opppose It's absolutely legitimate for us to defend ourselves as proposed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:25, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose obviously. –Davey2010Talk 14:27, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, this is an issue that should be publicised. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 14:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Mathias Schindler. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 18:17, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose "[P]retending that the provision of information is not a political act does not support our mission" — exactly right. XOR'easter (talk) 18:44, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
I wholly agree that it is a political act, and that is the very reason we should not get involved; an encyclopedia should not be an advocacy group. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 22:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per my earlier comments. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:47, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Whatever the text, but we need to speak up! Yann (talk) 00:00, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Voice need to be heard on important matter of such. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 00:58, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - yet another attempt to push through one of these political banners. Is this the new strategy? Propose something until people stop caring and you can push it through with minimal people commenting? -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:34, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
    I'll also add that the proposed legislation does not appear to threaten Wiki(m|p)edia's existence. Article 13 even provides an exemption for non-profits. I haven't had the time (nor will have the interest) to go through the proposed legislation line by line, however. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 08:29, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose this is an existential threat to the free Internet. We need to stand for our values and protect the free and open knowledge movement, as one of its key players. Pundit|utter 07:46, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: We should not ignore this clear threat to Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:12, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I strongly disagree with the thought that WP:NPOV "does not directly and fully apply to content outside the Wikipedia article realm". It very much does, and I can explain why. Wikipedia's mission is nuanced. The spirit of NPOV is that we should give readers a place where they can find out what reliable sources have written about the proposed legislation in a way that allows the reader to decide for themselves what to believe without getting the feeling that Wikipedia's editorial community is trying to sway their viewpoint in a particular direction. This is also a part of Wikipedia's mission. Whenever we, in the voice of Wikipedia's editorial community, decide to publicly take a side in a dispute, we undermine our ability to remain neutral with respect to that dispute no matter how we write our article. If you are considering supporting a political banner, you had better be absolutely certain that it is worth abandoning this part of our mission for. Mz7 (talk) 08:13, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Wikipedia should generally be apolitical, but we have a right to defend ourselves, and this copyright directive could destroy Wikipedia as we know it. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 14:01, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Installing censorware would be unacceptably abandoning our mission. Autotomizing everything in Europe is the more acceptable option, but still abandons a substantial chunk of the mission, and doesn't magically keep the news searches and sources we would like to cite from going away. Wnt (talk) 14:02, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • oppose per Wnt--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:11, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I'm usually not a fan of political banners, but this is one case where we need to do something, and it's the kind of thing where it makes sense to have a statement on behalf of the entire community. (I'd even support a day of blackout.) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:05, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose - putting aside non-wiki interests, the copyright directives have been written so badly that even a focused exception fails miserably. NPOV should not be the answer when doing so threatens Wikipedia. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:40, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's OK to shun attemps to influence things happening in the world outside wikipedia, but not OK when there is an existential threat. – Uanfala (talk) 21:48, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong support Wikipedia's mission must never become corrupted by political advertising. Ever. No matter the cause. The SOPA blackout was before my time as an editor, but if I had been on WP then, I would have opposed it on similar grounds. Let that be the last time we make this mistake. Jakob (talk) 23:50, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia should not be partisan nor should it take political stances in general, but when it directly affects our core mission and principles, we have a duty to take a stand. If you value being appearing "non-political" over our core mission, why are you here? Gamaliel (talk) 02:00, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support and just because Jimmy is proposing it doesn’t make it any more bad that we keep discussing this until the people who oppose a banner give up. Enough with the politics. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support: as the second-best choice. Simply because I agree to a heavily watered-down banner (which I drafted) does not mean I fully believe that a banner remains necessary. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 04:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Letting more people know about this important vote seems like a good idea, especially since it will likely effect Wikipedia and other free culture projects. Kaldari (talk) 07:05, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is a genuinely important issue that very negatively affects all of us. David A (talk) 11:15, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia is a top-ten web site. The others can take a stance, and we're the only not-for-profit, so our voice is unique. Potentially if we don't speak for ourselves, nobody defends the rules we need. We can stand for good institutions that enable good web sites with good rules. Copyright issues, and a few other things, are in our zone and we can speak out. -- econterms (talk) 11:33, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Summary as of Noon UTC July 2nd: Oppose 26 (84%), Support 5 (16%) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:17, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose - Banners are cheap and the directive is a threat to our mission and purpose. I've only read about half the discussion above and may have missed something, but I wonder why the WMF doesn't have a war chest for lobbying against such measures. - MrX 🖋 12:31, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is a major piece of legislation that can affect not just those in the EU but also many outside the EU. To much to lose by not drawing the needed attention to it. ContentEditman (talk) 19:24, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If we allow the EU vote to pass, then that defeats the entire purpose of this project, regardless of what your political opinions are. I think Wikipedia should display a banner so that people at least know about the vote, so they can support or oppose it or whatever. epicgenius (talk) 21:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support in principle per what I wrote above. I'm afraid it looks like there will be a banner, so I would just like to take this time to encourage my fellow Wikipedians to be far more cautious about using Wikipedia's platform as a means for advocacy in the future. Wikipedia's neutrality is one of its fundamental principles. It is not really something that's supposed to be negotiable or situational. Wikipedia should be a space where people can have the sides explained to them, rather than have someone telling them what they should believe. When the Wikipedia editorial community puts up a banner like this, we jeopardize this part of our mission for our readers. We can argue about whether this legislation poses a fatal threat to the project, but perhaps it is the Wikimedia Foundation's role to lobby governments on our behalf, and not the editorial community. I would honestly prefer it if the WMF Board of Trustees took a vote and decided by fiat to put up a banner, instead of having it come as a consensus of the editorial community. Simply put, it is anti-Wikipedia to come out as an editorial community and endorse political opinions in the way the editorial board of a newspaper might. It sets what I see as a dangerous precedent for more banners in the future. I hope I am wrong. Mz7 (talk) 08:55, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Pretty much per nom, if we get involved in this we are not (not just not being seen as) neutral. And any article we have on the subject will be seen n that light. That must (ultimately) affect the overall reputation of the project. If you want us to be taken seriously we must be apolitical.Slatersteven (talk) 09:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I am opposed to all political banners as Wikipedia needs to remain neutral. I have worked here since 2006 under the impression that my contributions would not be used for personal crusades or political campaigning. I am not comfortable that after twelve years of work on Wikipedia that the sweat of my brow is to be used to influence due political process. That is not what I signed up for. As regards the proposed directive, Wikipedia is excluded: "Providers of services such as non-for-profit online encyclopaedias, non-for-profit educational and scientific repositories, non-for-profit open source software developing platforms, as well as internet access service providers, online marketplaces and providers of cloud services which allow users, including businesses for their internal purposes, to upload content for their own use shall not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this Directive". We would be compromising our neutrality for nothing, and making fools of ourselves. SilkTork (talk) 12:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion

  • I don't know enough about this to draft any text but the current options have problems, mainly that there is no mention of any problem for Wikipedia. Option 1 suggests something will affect the internet and Wikipedia might express an opinion. Option 2 has far too much advocacy with no indication of a problem for Wikipedia. Unfortunately these will not get due consideration, particularly given the recent and poorly framed RfCs. Johnuniq (talk) 23:19, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
  • None of those banners tell me, presumably the person who would see them - what it is that I need to actually do - I'm not represented by anyone in the "European Parliament" - what am I supposed to do here? Is this intended to be a geo-notice? — xaosflux Talk 23:46, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
    Yes the plan is for a geo notice. The prior discussion leaned towards a banner that informs rather than directs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:27, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • As the previous discussion's closer, I'm hesitant about the wordings of either proposed option here. The proposal calls for a neutrally-worded banner, but neither option seems neutral to me as they still appear to be advocating for a position. If the WMF decides to put up a banner regardless of community consensus, there's nothing I can do on that part, but right now as it stands, neither banner is "neutral". Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:02, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • No matter how reluctant I am to admit that a banner is needed, and, maybe, just maybe, one is, I cannot endorse the syntax of either banner: both seem to be non-neutral to me. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 04:06, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
    User:Narutolovehinata5 and User:Javert2113 do you have any suggestions? Or can you explain which parts you see as non-neutral? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:24, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
    Sure, Doctor. First, the non-neutral parts, as I see them: "These changes threaten to disrupt the functioning of the open Internet that Wikipedia is a part of." While true, they can be seen as Wikipedia passing judgement on the proposed directive/legislation itself, which isn't neutral. Likewise, "Speak up now for creativity, free culture and an open Internet." seems to intimate that the bill's passage would lead to deleterious effects for creativity and free culture, which are both somewhat too intangible to be expressed so. (For instance, I could see graffiti protesting this law should it pass; would that not be creative?) Anyway, regarding alternatives, hmm. It's late, so I'll probably re-visit this in the morn, but...
On 5 July, the European Parliament vote on whether or not to approve a new copyright directive. Make your voice be heard. Join the discussion.
How's that? —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 04:49, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks and agree it is an improvement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:13, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
As for how neither proposed banner is neutrally-worded, one makes the claim that the directive will "disrupt the functioning of the open Internet that Wikipedia is a part of", the other banner uses words like "rubber stamp" and "speak up now". Option 1 expresses a particular opinion, Option 2 requests making a stand. They seem pretty far from "neutrally-worded" to me. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 04:53, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
As I mentioned in both the net neutrality RfC and the previous EUP directive discussion, I'm opposed to a banner, even a neutrally-worded one, of any kind. Personally I myself have concerns about the implications of the directive, but Wikipedia, as a neutral website, shouldn't really involve itself in political affairs. Even the mere presence of a banner, even a neutrally-worded one, can be interpreted as Wikipedia taking a stand on an issue. With that said, if a banner has to be implemented (most likely by office action), it has to be carefully worded and ideally should link to a website that only shows facts and does not advocate a certain position (so no SaveYourInternet.eu). But in any case, I still am unconvinced that we need a banner on the main site. There are other alternate venues, such as social media and the Wikimedia Foundation's own website, where the WMF position can be stressed, but Wikipedia itself may not be the right place for this. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 04:53, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
Taking the stand that people should be informed, is at a level a political position, as of course some believe that people should not have the opportunity to be informed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:17, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Moved some discussion to Meta-Wiki

Please see

and subpages

Meta-Wiki is the place for cross-wiki discussions, including discussions among Wikipedias of different languages and the various Wikimedia projects like Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. I moved the discussion about potential banner text on English Wikipedia to there because the proposed banner is a multi-lingual, global issue.

Community organization is hard and it is very challenging for the Wikimedia community of volunteers to respond to complicated government policy proposals very quickly. The rumor in circulation is that the proposed policy is an existential threat to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects as it exists now. I as a Wikimedia community member am unable to evaluate this claim but I see urgent messages

I recognize that the English Wikipedia community historically tries to stay neutral about most legal controversies and I think that is for the best. Despite all these statements I am unclear on what is happening here, but if I am reading this correctly, the lawyers and experts in the Wikimedia Foundation are in great fear of disruption in publishing and presenting Wikimedia projects.

I expect that the Wikimedia community can always protest and oppose direct threats to the existence of Wikipedia. An easy political position for us to take is that no law can threaten the fundamental existence and operation of Wikipedia. If this is what is at stake then banners on English Wikipedia or anywhere else seem fine. Since this seems like a multi-national, global issue then discussing this on Meta-Wiki seems best so I moved the text and some discussion there.

I wish that this matter was easy to identify as "direct existential threat to Wikipedia with no ambiguity". That is what I am reading out of this. If anyone has doubts then please raise them. I presume that if this is such a threat then everyone would support opposition. We are all in agreement here that no law or policy is good if it directly attacks the existence of Wikimedia projects. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:20, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what the copyright directive would do to Wikipedia. All of the WMF's posts on this have been terribly uninformative. I'd like for someone at the WMF to write up something like a "day after" plan, for what Wikimedia would likely do in the immediate aftermath of the passing of this law, which would help people determine what we're dealing with here. (If the answer is "nothing, this doesn't directly affect us in any way", that would also be informative. --Yair rand (talk) 23:56, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
The day after would probably look very similar today. I think the big concerns are "what ifs", not "for certains". That said, I too would like to see more information on what the expected effects would be. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 03:26, 2 July 2018 (UTC)'
Well the next vote on July 5th in the EU is about if the entire parliament should discuss and vote on the directive or just accept the conclusions of a small committee. Raising awareness will hopefully allow further discussion of what the effects of this directive will be. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Mass ping: Neutral banner

@Adam9007, Alanscottwalker, Ammarpad, Bellezzasolo, Beyond My Ken, Bluerasberry, Carwil, Chetsford, Chris troutman, Daß Wölf, Doctorow, Doktorbuk, Double sharp, EllenCT, Epicgenius, Finnusertop, Galobtter, GenQuest, Grin, Guy Macon, Hawkeye7, HiLo48, InsaneHacker, Insertcleverphrasehere, Jimbo Wales, Jo-Jo Eumerus, and Joe Roe: @John Cummings, Joshualouie711, Justlettersandnumbers, Khajidha, Kudpung, Kusma, L235, Masem, Mike Linksvayer, Natureium, Nocturnalnow, Nyttend, Only in death, Pharaoh of the Wizards, Power~enwiki, Sadads, Sandstein, SilkTork, Slatersteven, Sphilbrick, TheDJ, TonyBallioni, Trovatore, Winged Blades of Godric, Winner 42, Wnt, Wumbolo, Yair rand, and Yann: Pinging previous participants who have not yet participated here. Apologies for any missed, redundant, or unwanted pings. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:07, 30 June 2018 (UTC) Preceding exceeded 50. Retrying the excess. @Winged Blades of Godric, Winner 42, Wnt, Wumbolo, Yair rand, and Yann: Pinging previous participants who have not yet participated here. Apologies for any missed, redundant, or unwanted pings. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:16, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mandruss: FYI, I didn't get this ping. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 05:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
@L235: Thanks for the feedback. I had received a system-generated notification reading: "You tried to mention more than 50 users. All mentions above that limit were not sent." That didn't give me a warm fuzzy but I had to assume that all "mentions" below that limit were sent or risk sending 50 notifications twice. On the strength of your comment I'm now going to retry the 50; if none of those editors report that they received the first one I'll take the issue to WP:VPT. Notifications have become too important to tolerate fixable bugs and false feedback. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Adam9007, Alanscottwalker, Ammarpad, Bellezzasolo, Beyond My Ken, Bluerasberry, Carwil, Chetsford, Chris troutman, Daß Wölf, Doctorow, Doktorbuk, Double sharp, EllenCT, Epicgenius, Finnusertop, Galobtter, GenQuest, Grin, Guy Macon, Hawkeye7, HiLo48, InsaneHacker, Insertcleverphrasehere, Jimbo Wales, Jo-Jo Eumerus, and Joe Roe: @John Cummings, Joshualouie711, Justlettersandnumbers, Khajidha, Kudpung, Kusma, L235, Masem, Mike Linksvayer, Natureium, Nocturnalnow, Nyttend, Only in death, Pharaoh of the Wizards, Power~enwiki, Sadads, Sandstein, SilkTork, Slatersteven, Sphilbrick, TheDJ, TonyBallioni, and Trovatore: Pinging previous participants who have not yet participated here. Apologies for any missed, redundant, or unwanted pings. To help resolve a technical question regarding pings, please also respond if you received a similar ping on 30 June (it should still be in your notifications history, accessible via the bell icon). ―Mandruss ☎ 09:10, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

That's a confusing message. Am I supposed to reply here? I got the ping. Didn't get one on 30 June. HiLo48 (talk) 09:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
@HiLo48: Thanks for the response, although it was unnecessary if you didn't get the 30 June ping (per the confusing message). The ping had a dual purpose: increasing participation in the neutral banner question, and trying to resolve the tech issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
@Mandruss: I only got the second ping, and was going to consider the proposals before chiming in, but the discussion closed before I did – which doesn't matter, as I fully respect the consensus that resulted. (I happen to agree with it, as I would support option 1 and oppose the others myself, but I would of course respect it regardless of whether or not I happened to agree with it.) Double sharp (talk) 15:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Likewise on both counts. I only got the second ping. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:55, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The tech issue is now at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Pinging over 50. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Further statements from the WMF on June 29

  • Here
  • And one from the board of the WMF here

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:43, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

For those who want to help this effort, the better our article on Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is the better the chances that the politicians will make a decision that doesn't harm Wikipedia. Staffers, constituents, and sometimes the politicians themselves often turn to Wikipedia for information on an upcoming vote. If we can also create/improve similar articles in French, German, etc. on those Wikipedias, all the better. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:34, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • That statement lends itself to a better banner than any of the options above. Removing some commas and changing "the proposed directive" for clarity:
Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation unanimously and strongly urge the European Parliament and Council to oppose the EU copyright package in its current version and stand on the side of the people in Europe. Please read the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on EU copyright reform and take action at ChangeCopyRight.org.
I rather like that one. Wnt (talk) 21:10, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
Could it be tweaked to remove the ambiguity? Right now it could mean that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees stands on the side of the people in Europe or it could be asking the European Parliament and Council to stand on the side of the people in Europe. Other than that, I like it. I like it a lot. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:47, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
I also very much like this version. We're getting short on time. Is anyone going to turn this into an RfC so we can get consensus, or what are we planning? — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 04:48, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
We have people voting above on 4 proposals. This is slated to close at noon UTC which is slightly less than three hours from now. A little rushed I agree but to be effective needs to go live on the 3rd. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:29, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Italian banner went live today

Can be seen HERE. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:42, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

And the other languages? XOR'easter (talk) 20:43, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Here is the English text of the Italian blackout notice. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

And this BBC news article shows that such action is effective in spreading our message. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:03, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Spanish press release went live today

Here is Spanish blackout notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 07:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Latvian press release went live today

Here is the Latvian blackout notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 07:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Estonian press release went live today

Here is the Estonian blackout notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 08:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Polish press release went live today

Here is the Polish blackout notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 23:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Catalan press release went live today

Here is the the Catalan blackout notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 23:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Euskara press release went live today

Here is the Euskara blackout notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 23:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Galician press release went live today

Here is the Galician blackout notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 23:10, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Hungarian banner went live today

Here is the Hungarian banner notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 23:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Slovenian banner went live today

Here is the Slovenian banner notice. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 23:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Summary as of noon UTC July 2nd 2018

There is strong numerical consensus for banner option 1 and 3. And consensus against "no banner" and option 2. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:22, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and if this is being voted on in three days, why is a banner (any banner; some banner; all banners) not already live? - MrX 🖋 12:42, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Note that 1 of the supports for Option 1 said that they preferred Option 3 (Wnt), while there were 7 supports of Option 3 that were either weak supports or said they preferred Option 1 (dimi_z, Headbomb, Pbsouthwood, Ahecht, XOR'easter, Yann, and Kaldari). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:53, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
It would seem that while both options 1 and 3 gained significant support, option 1 has the most support of the two. We should implement this soon, or this whole discussion will be moot. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 17:30, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Will be going live on July 3rd per my understanding. Folks at the WMF have agreed to take care of the technical aspects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:37, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
No, there is not. We just had this discussion. Three times. It would be silly for everyone to specifically say yet again that they oppose political banners every single time. And the idea that "no banner" is an equivalent option needing equivalent consensus in favor of "no action" is incorrect. --Yair rand (talk) 17:35, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
A few things. 1) More has become known since the last discussion. 2) The last discussion was "no consensus" not outright opposition 3) It left "open the possibility towards proposing a neutrally-worded banner" which is what we have been discussing here and which is what has gained consensus. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:40, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
@Doc James: Tbh, I suspect that we've somehow become less-informed since the previous discussion, including some people seeming to think that the passing of this would mean that the project would be killed outright. (If they're right, please say so as soon as possible.) Most or all of us are running completely blind here, and we're talking about going into a major political action, in a discussion that discounts almost everyone who has commented on the proposal because a mostly-irrelevant detail was changed after everyone got tired of having the discussion restart. Many individuals who participated in the previous three discussions made it completely clear that they oppose political banners. Discounting those because they did not keep coming to vote again and again is really unfair. As you'll notice, almost all who participated even in the most recent discussion did not participate in this one.
Whether there's consensus is something for the closer of this discussion to try and figure out, but regarding the issue itself... @Doc James, I'd consider you to be a trustworthy source of information here, and you were presumably at the WMF board meeting on this topic last week, and likely received some details regarding what there is to worry about. Are you personally sure that there's a risk of this directive would really harm Wikipedia in a substantial way? If you can vouch for that, I'll take your word for it. --Yair rand (talk) 00:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
User:Yair rand we have an excellent legal team at the WMF who have raised significant concerns about the proposed legislation. [2] I was at the meeting in question. We also have a bunch of other organizations I highly respect including Creative Commons and Internet Archives who strongly opposed.
Wikipedia functions within a wider open movement. This proposal I do believe has significant potential to harm not only Wikipedia but the entire movement we function within. As another example github shares open code but also is a commercial plateform. Well we may get exceptions to parts of the legislation others we rely on do not.
I would not describe this as a "major political action". Blacking out Wikipedia for a day would be that. This is simple a proposal for a fairly bland banner, present for a day, asking people to inform themselves. A fair number are requesting we do more than this but that currently lacks consensus. Also this is a push to have the entire parliament consider this legislation rather than just a small part of the partliament. Whether you support or oppose the underlying ideas in the directive getting copyright law correct is critical.
Italian Wikipedia has done more today and is currently "blacked out"[3]Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
@Doc James: Have you looked at the banner? It links to an external advocacy website with a giant "CALL NOW" button, asking all users to phone their MEPs. (Linking from a CentralNotice to an external website is, incidentally, in violation of CentralNotice policy.) This is not what users above were discussing, and I don't think it's fair to say that this is just "asking people to inform themselves".
(Thank you for the information on the directive, though.) --Yair rand (talk) 07:28, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
(Also, it appears to be scheduled for 44 hours, not just a day.) --Yair rand (talk) 08:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
You mean the link to Mozilla.org to help people reach out to their MP's? That was used in a number of language banners I think. I imagine legal at the WMF okay-ed that link. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:27, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not strongly opinionated regarding what should be done for this particular situation, but I'm concerned with the process. If it is desirable to have a community consensus because it is a "much more powerful message when coming from the community", then for better or worse, sufficient time must be given to allow the community as a whole to participate (consensus requires patience). Even under ideal circumstances, it takes time to build a real consensus, and it's worse with English Wikipedia, where a) the group of persons who participate in such discussions are only a small fraction of the entire community, and likely not representative, and b) there is insufficient alignment of purpose amongst its editors for a decision to be reached quickly. To say that a message is coming from the community based on maybe a couple dozen voices weakens the message, in my view. I appreciate the time-sensitive nature of the intended message, but the fact that a vote was coming (even if the exact date was not known) is not a surprise. To be asked to make a decision like this in a few days feels like brinksmanship, and it's not a pleasant feeling.

Also, to be honest, a simple banner feels like a mismatch with the community's skill set (though I understand the outreach goal of the banner and its importance to try to influence the vote). If the community's forte is compiling information and editing it into a cohesive narrative, then a way to deploy these skills in support of this issue could serve both readers and those seeking to safeguard an online knowledge-sharing ecosystem, while at the same time showcasing the strengths of fostering this ecosystem. isaacl (talk) 06:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The other view

The directive aims to protect those who earn their money by creating text or other material, by limiting the ability of websites to upload their material without payment or acknowledgement. Not for profit online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia are exempt from the directive. By supporting this banner you are supporting the notion that other websites (not Wikipedia as it is exempt) may steal other people's work.

There is, of course, a petition in support of the directive. Don't be mislead. Look into the issues yourself. And if we are to have a political banner, I would prefer we had one in support of the directive, not against it, as while I enjoy the idea of everything being for free, I recognise that a lot of people make their living from making music, writing text, taking photographs, etc, and we shouldn't be campaigning to allow websites to steal from them.

The other petition: Makeinternetfair. SilkTork (talk) 13:13, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Extract:

We, creators from all artistic fields and from all over Europe, call on you, EU decision makers, to put a stop to the funneling of value away from the creators to a number of online platforms.

You have rightly acknowledged that user uploaded content (UUC) platforms are now the main point of access to our works online, but unacceptably do not, or only barely remunerate us for their exploitation. The viability of cultural and creative industries, which create significant growth and jobs for the EU economy, is threatened by this transfer of value.

We want an environment that fosters growth for new and legitimate businesses, including UUC platforms, while providing legal certainty for consumers, and ensuring that this is paired with appropriate remuneration for creators. UUC platforms have built their businesses on people’s desire to access and share our works, and should not put the burden of liability on consumers or creators.

The current situation is a race to the bottom that drives down the respect for and value of creative works. We depend on copyright/authors’ right as this is our pay and the only leverage we have to negotiate fair remuneration for our works.

The forthcoming legislation on copyright is your opportunity to stop these freeriding platforms.

We therefore call on you to:

clarify that UUC platforms like YouTube are involved in reproducing and making our works available under copyright laws; ensure that the safe harbour non-liability regime does not apply to them as it is meant for technical intermediaries only.

The European Commission’s fair and balanced approach on this issue was a step in the right direction. We count on the European Parliament and the European Council to build on and further develop the solution proposed by the Commission to ensure a sustainable environment for all.

There are two sides to this story. SilkTork (talk) 13:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

NGOs like Wikipedia may have some exceptions but are not exempt to the entire package of changes.
Saying that Wikipedia may "steal other people's work" is not accurate. We do get take-down notices, most of which are unfounded.
Those supporting this are not looking for "acknowledgement". That would be an easy and supported request by all here.
The vote that is coming on July 5th, 2018 is NOT about whether to approve or reject this legislation, it is about whether or not the ENTIRE parliament should consider what is being proposed to make sure it is clear, unambiguous, and fair. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:39, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
I think it very important to note that I completely reject the idea that my opposition to Article 13 as currently written is in any way involves "supporting the notion that other websites... may steal other people's work". That's a pretty outrageous take on the matter. Badly written laws proposing measures which are not likely to help, while at the same time imposing burdens on innocent people, can be opposed even when the alleged goal is noble. We might as well say that opposition a law mandating mandatory breath tests before getting behind the wheel of a car is supporting the notion of drunk driving.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:57, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
To be fair, it'd probably be cheaper and more accurate to install a breathalyzer in every steering wheel than to have everyone engineer a version of Content ID that actually works. —Cryptic 09:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

WMF has taken action / Banner went live

Screenshot of the banner from a German IP address

As pointed out above in the previous section on the banner [4], WMF has enabled a banner for en.wiki in European countries as seen here meta:Special:CentralNotice. I think that makes any further discussion on banners unnecessary. --Masem (t) 13:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As noted in the other discussion above, a banner was added as meta:Special:CentralNotice by WMF staffer User:Seddon (WMF):. Different verbiage was selected, with about 90% of the banner linking to changecopyright.org. As Doc James mentioned, you can see what it looks like by following this link.

It is targeting viewers in the following countries: AT, BE, BG, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HR, HU, IE, IT, LT, LU, LV, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SE, SI and SK. This banner is currently set to expire on 2018-07-04 23:59. — xaosflux Talk 13:52, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Update: Rejected by 318 votes to 278

The directive was voted down by 318 votes to 278, with 31 abstaining. [5] TeraTIX 12:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Update on protests

As of right now, Italian, Latvian, Polish, and Spanish Wikipedia are dark to raise awareness of the EU Copyright Directive. I have seen an email sent around by a copyright maximalist lobbying group complaining about the Wikipedia community's direct action here - the attitude appears to be that back room deals in Brussels by highly paid lobbying firms is fine, but the public speaking and responding is not. I am reminded of the famous case of Chris Dodd of the MPAA complaining to Congress in the US "Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake" and also calling our action an "abuse of power". As I said then, millions of people calling their lawmakers is not an abuse of power: it's democracy.

The Polish Wikipedia in particular moved very quickly from a proposal to a blackout. I'm not suggesting that we can do the same here, but I am wondering what others think. English Wikipedia is the loudest voice for free culture in the world, and our banner certainly is helping... I just fear that it may not be enough. If we could black out for just 4 hours before the vote (which is at noon Brussels time tomorrow) then I think we'll get their attention at just the right moment.

To remind you - a "No" vote tomorrow just means that there will be a wider debate in European Parliament, involving the entire chamber, in September. Amendments can be offered and our action will make sure that free culture has a voice at the table. A "Yes" vote tomorrow means that our only choice will be to try to kill the entire thing in September... when it is only Articles 11 and 13 which are the problem. (The rest, I am told by activists, is pretty straightforward and useful modernization.) Obviously it will be harder to kill a mixed bill then, and a shame to kill it. So I am keenly hopeful that tomorrow goes well.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:44, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

FWIW we have Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market that should include any major coverage of the protests or reaction to the protest. --Masem (t) 17:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I would firmly oppose an enwiki blackout for this. While it's an important matter, it's not exactly an existential threat that would justify such an extreme measure. A blackout would adversely impact our readers with no real upside.- MrX 🖋 18:02, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
The upside: stopping a terrible anti-consumer anti-free culture law in its tracks, showing that this is not an area that moneyed lobbyists can tread into without fear from a reaction from the public. The downside: a few hours of inconvenience. It is no contest.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I'd support a localized SOPA-style blackout from now until the vote on July 5th personally (or until September if this passes with no option but to kill it in full in September). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree that geotargetting to Europe would be best.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Given that our servers, if I'm not mistaken, are mainly based in the United States, and, as a result, the Wikimedia Foundation is subject to U.S. jurisdiction and law, I would wholly oppose any English Wikipedia blackout that could be seen as a political action to cajole, coax, interfere, or otherwise effect a response from lawmakers and representatives of other nations and states, which would in no way affect U.S. law. It would, as Mr X says quite plainly, detrimentally affect our user-base, as well, in the United States, Australia, and other English-speaking, non-UK nations, which would hurt us severely regarding editor retention, too. I cannot, for these reasons, support any sort of black-out of English Wikipedia. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 18:21, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
This is a very narrow view which I hope we could not take. This will hurt the entire free culture movement, including Wikipedia, worldwide. If we do not take a principled stand that open culture matters, then we will be increasingly boxed in. If we were a for-profit company, or if we were narrowly a non-profit organization, then we might take such a narrow view. We are neither. We are a community with a great deal of power to help Internet users world wide, and I think with that kind of power comes responsibility.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, Mr. Wales, I certainly recognize your position, and though I continue to disagree on the possible impact of this legislation, I think a compromise might work: geo-targeting Europe, as you replied above, would be an acceptable policy (whether or not that includes the United Kingdom, I leave up to you, the Trustees, and the Foundation). I certainly wouldn't object too strenuously to that, though I opine that open knowledge means open to all, regardless of location, political pressures, or public opinion. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:01, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
The geotargeting is pretty much assumed. The SOPA blackout was only in the US and the banner was only in the EU. I have been working with the EFF to (depending on how the current vote goes) have them pick a blackout date and start asking websites to join. I have explained to them that while Reddit or Facebook can make such a decision in days, it will take us a lot longer, so the date should be set sooner rather than later. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:25, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
There is nothing more disruptive to our primary goal than the erosion of the open internet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales: Do you believe that if this passes, Wikipedia will cease to exist? --Yair rand (talk) 00:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
So it is your position that we should not oppose anything that hurts Wikipedia, no matter how badly, unless it actually causes us to shut down the encyclopedia? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:25, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I think that even if the Wikimedia Foundation were to be shut down by the US Government, Wikipedia would survive. If we come to a dystopian totalitarian future and had to go into hiding and work to reassemble secretly and edit articles, like the characters in Fahrenheit 451, I think we would, and my life work would be to help lead that in any way that I could, and Wikipedia would survive. My point is that I don't think much can cause Wikipedia to "cease to exist". Wikipedia is an idea. Wikipedia is a community. Wikipedia means something to people, and we will persevere even under great pressure. My point is really that I don't think "Wikipedia will cease to exist" is the right filter for deciding when to act. We should act when we see something that will significantly damage the free culture movement, that will undermine the view that people have the right to upload things to the Internet without a prior assumption of potential criminality, and when we see that we actually can make a meaningful difference. There will be many cases where we should not act, and there will be cases where reasonable people will disagree on whether we should act or how we should act. But I don't think that "We only act when Wikipedia will cease to exist if we don't" is particularly meaningful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. I think this very much is relevant to the English Wikipedia, and anyone around the world reading it, because the standards sets by the European Union will affect any website with clients within the EU, which is basically every website everywhere (see how the recent privacy bill created a global standard). Article 11 would allow websites to demand that we purchase a license from them when quoting their text (even small snippets), which would make life miserable for us trying to maintain neutrality and due weight in articles by writing thoughts as quotes attributed to wherever they came from. Meanwhile, Article 13 creates some unspecific obligation to filter copyrighted content (with whether our systems are sufficient being anyone's guess), then bungles an attempt to create an exemption for us, so that whole thing is asking for regulatory creep. Overall, the whole thing is quite menacing to our project and goals, and I'm more than willing to sacrifice a couple hours to help stop it. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 18:51, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    @Compassionate727: As with one of the comments above, something I think is missing is the enforcement part of this rulemaking, and what the projected impact of that would be, do you have a good way to explain it to the common reader what happens if: (a) These new EU rules become active and (b) Wikipedia just ignores them. — xaosflux Talk 20:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    If the answer is "fines" include and and (c) ignores the penalty. — xaosflux Talk 20:44, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I think this is the right approach to take in terms of thinking about it. What happens if this passes and we ignore them? Then the major platforms extend their monopoly power, as competition is suppressed. (Google and Facebook can afford this - their smaller competitors cannot.) That increased power means more and more leverage to squeeze out free culture entirely. A symbiotic relationship will emerge between the copyright lobby and big platform lobby, with ordinary people left out. There is only one group who has both the power, and the motive to defend free culture. That is us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you Jimbo Wales this is the part of the message that I think is missing, while I think WMF can "ignore this" for direct impact, the indirect impact (e.g. on availability of sources, local governments restricting access) demonstrates how this may hurt many more people. When trying to engage our readers I don't think we are giving a very solid message - we are saying "we think this is important" but not why "this matters to you". Unfortunate for this matter our huge North American readership doesn't have representation to engage though. — xaosflux Talk 03:31, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Enwiki Blackout both strategically and logistically it would be better to do so in advance of a September vote rather than doing so for the current one. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:27, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I support a blackout in advance of the September vote and will campaign for it if necessary. But I think it would be strategically sub-optimal. As explained above, the chances of victory in September are much lower, and the vote tomorrow is about allowing for debate in Parliament in September. It is therefore easier to convince parliamentarians now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support The site was blacked out for the Americans for SOPA on the understanding that similar action would be taken for other countries. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:01, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    @Hawkeye7: one big thing to consider is audience. enwiki has a huge US readership that has representation related to SOPA, but much less for EU matters (i.e. our US/CA readers are not governed or represented by the EU), so the geonotice makes more sense. — xaosflux Talk 03:34, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. This seems to me to be an existential threat to Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 23:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. stand in solidity with EU Wikipedia.Italian, Spanish, Latvian, Estonian, Polish, Catalan, Galician Wikipeida went dark and Slovenian and Hungarian sites put up banners. A few hours in convenience in EN Wikipedia is too small to compare with the threat to free culture worldwide. I remembered when SOPA incident before I join Wikipedia, seeing that was profoundly important in understanding of such threat. It is general Wikipedia do not involved in political matter, but an existential threat to Wikipedia is another matter all together. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 00:33, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Tentative Support. A blackout would definitely send a message, although I wonder if it would be better timing to save it for the September vote instead. There is also the already-running banner to consider. I don't believe a blackout for a few hours would have a significant adverse impact our users, though. The world can survive without us for a few hours. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 03:49, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I do not believe this passing will result in Wikipedia ceasing to exist, but I do believe that this passing in its current form will significantly affect the functioning of Wikipedia. The lack of freedom of panorama makes Commons super complicated. Imagine if how many words we can use within a quote varied by the EU country of publication? Upload filters would suck for commons (it is not clear we are truly exempt per the entire sentence in the document in question). While the media and publishing groups are trying to frame this as a disagreement between them and Google, I do not believe that. Google in fact may benefit from the current proposal. This is more the large platforms and publishers attempting to divide the Internet between themselves while pushing out the open movement. We need to stand up for and defend our movement and an open Internet. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:59, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Gamaliel (talk) 11:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • If a September blackout still seems necessary at the time (cynical prediction: yesofcourseitwill), we should be planning for it more than two or three days in advance; we missed our chance this time around, though it was ultimately unnecessary. I'm not comfortable putting a bolded support here, though, since I don't geolocate to Europe and so presumably will be unaffected. —Cryptic 11:34, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
    • Actually, I think it would be prudent if we could go over the text as it was, and annotate it collectively. Noting concerns with the areas in question, indicating what usecases we consider to be critical to be possible within the framework, red lines, alternative suggestions etc. and then providing this as feedback to MEPs. Anyone else willing to work on something like that ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:46, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
      • The directive should be getting a substantial reworking. Hopefully what comes out of that will take our and others concerns into account. But if it remains problematic we need to be ready to act again. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:49, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose any further activism, until we have a clear consensus-based guideline to handle such situations. The constant disregard for valid concerns from a significant large number of editors and the rushed PoV pushing in favor of yet more activism are deeply worrying. As noted, I am not totally against emergency actions in exceptional cases. But the current handling ignores the underlying fundamental question (should Wikipedia be politically active and if yes, when and how?) and cements a notable divide within the community instead of looking for an acceptable and clearly-worded general consensus. GermanJoe (talk) 13:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I have avoided these debates and decisions, including this one, since before SOPA basically because 'I don't get it' and 'it's not my field'. That, I suppose, makes me truly neutral. On the other hand, I am not institutionally opposed to us supporting the other language projects with a black-out or banner (after all, we run a banner and notices for other things and no-one expects such a thing to be wholely "neutral"). As far as it is suggested that Wikipedia is neutral about Wikipedia, that's seems a paradox, and a sophistry -- in many ways it makes no sense to anyone that an organization is neutral about itself (no matter, how much it tries) -- if the organization continues, than it must wish to continue as is, and is not neutral on itself, even if it loves and hates itself, that is not neutral. As for the current system of making the editorial decision organically within the basic Consensus model, that does seem the most "neutral" way to decide because there is no, it must happen, here, and must not happen there -- editor/editor(s) perceive a need, advertises centrally, and persuades others -- we already know the initial individual and institutional response is 'don't bother' and 'don't bother me', and that response will win-out most days and years, regardless of any politics. But if you are an editor that sees a need for more 'rules' in these decisions, go for it and get Consensus, but see above about the potential immovable object you will likely run into. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:11, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

We did it!

No proposal here, but as this has been widely discussed here I thought it appropriate to note. We won as the EU Parliament voted NO.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Depends on who "we" are, but a good result, whoever did it. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 12:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales: I thought the vote today was to have the whole EU parliament consider it in September with amendments. Is that still the case, or has the bill been fully rejected/killed in whole? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:43, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
This is basically simple an approval to consider further in September. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:50, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Yeah they pretty much kicked the stone down the road here, but this gives us more time to prepare. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
True. And more time for a thoughtful, reasoned debate about how and when we should take political action. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 15:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
This discussion has been about as thoughtful and reasoned as it gets at Wikipedia. Ideological differences are not resolved by debate but by numbers. Whatever the outcome, we should refrain from unsubstantiated statements (and section headings) implying a causal effect of presence or absence of a Wikipedia banner. Correlation is not causation. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:55, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom wants the community to come up with infobox inclusion criteria

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes § ArbCom wants there to be an RfC and the drafting of infobox inclusion criteria

Short version: In two RFARBs, the Arbitration Committee has said that it can/won't resolve the perpetual "infobox warring" problem, because this is a content and policy decision that the community has to make. We've been asked repeatedly by ArbCom to develop inclusion criteria for infoboxes so that "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article" does more than resolve (or devolve) to "fight about it endlessly article by article and category by category". But this has yet to happen, and it won't be easy.

The discussion now open isn't an RfC for !voting, but a place to discuss drafting such criteria for eventual RfCing at Village Pump.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:14, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Rate limits for autoconfirmed users.

I just had to undo a bunch of disruptive moves from draft to mainspace by a newly autoconfirmed user (whom I've blocked). I'm sure we have some rate limits already (if somebody could point me to the details, I'd appreciate that), but whatever they are, they're not strict enough. This user was executing several page moves per minute. Surely that's not something most users need to be able to do. I'm sure a rate limit of one page move and/or creation per hour would satisfy the needs of 99.999% of our users. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:22, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

See 2 sections up, abuse filter 68. —Cryptic 14:26, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@Cryptic: please note filter 68 does not apply to autoconfirmed users. @RoySmith: the autoconfirmed move limit is 8 moves per 60 seconds. Please note most moves are 2 moves (page+talk). — xaosflux Talk 14:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Are you certain re 68? That regex in line 3 won't match "autoconfirmed". —Cryptic 14:41, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@Cryptic: oops, yes you are correct - however the threshold for this is still quite low. — xaosflux Talk 17:30, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Whew, thought I was going crazy. Second question: where are you getting the 8 per 60 seconds figure? I don't see any other filters restricting page moves in general, as opposed to ones by specific LTA. (They aren't particularly straightforward to search, though admittedly they aren't remotely in my bailiwick.) It's not in core or another extension, is it? —Cryptic 18:04, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@Cryptic: it is a configuration parameter here (search for # wgRateLimits @{). — xaosflux Talk 18:08, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
8 per minute is too high a limit. Good point about the talk page doubling, but 8 is still pretty high. Do we have the ability to implement burst limits with the current software? I.e. 2/minute and 20/day? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:53, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes. —Cryptic 18:04, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Per Xoasflux, one per hour would prevent moving any page along with its talk page. Moving a template could easily require 8 moves (template, template talk, /sandbox, /sandbox talk, /testcases, /testcases talk, /doc, /doc talk), or more if there are archived talk pages. 8/minute is a sensible burst rate, but a limit of something like 24/hour may make more sense. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Several (avoidable) issues about pagemove by new and newly-autoconfirmed editors/vandals have been resurfacing in the recent with filters proving ineffective. It is time for concrete proposal to restrict (move) ability to only Extended confirmed users. There are cogent reasons favoring this in this archived discussion which was incorrectly closed as SNOW. I am yet to see any reason not do this, except the usual and banal cliché that "this is a wiki that anyone can edit". –Ammarpad (talk) 16:21, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
    • Do we have a sense of how often pagemove vandalism happens compared with how often there are legitimate mass-moves done by autoconfirmed users? -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:33, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
    • I don't regularly clean up pagemove vandalism, but I'd find it roughly the same amount of work to revert ten page moves as to properly histmerge even one good-faith cut-and-paste that should've been a move instead. And we'd see a lot more of the latter if we did this. —Cryptic 18:04, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
    re Ajr, Not sure if there's such stats, but it's pretty recurring issue lately. I saw many discussions on ANI and VP on this within past few weeks. –Ammarpad (talk) 18:08, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
    New editors cut-and-paste moving instead is a good point. I think limiting page moves to EC could cause more disruption than it would eliminate. Natureium (talk) 22:18, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
    This is a really good point. Its easy for an admin to clean up page move vandalism. A single messy history merge is going to be as much work as correcting a fairly large number of bad page moves. Page move vandalism is fairly rare too... Monty845 00:51, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
    • The extended confirmed permission was created to enfore a specific arbcomm remedy on editing certain pages in inflammitory topic areas. Extending this to cover unrelated permissions to combat run-of-the-mill vandalism is a huge amount of scope creep. I know I supported this proposal the last time around, but the more I've thought about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that it would likely not have a net positive empact on the encyclopedia. --Ahecht (TALK
      PAGE      ) 18:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
      That was before. Extended confirmed is no longer used only to enforce arbitration remedy. And this has nothing to do with scope-creep, it is simple technical restriction not screed of text advising new editors not move pages. –Ammarpad (talk) 18:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Does this have anything to do with why I was hit with a rate-limit error yesterday? Damnedest thing; I'd never seen one before.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:57, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Autowelcome new registrants

  • Newcomers need a few reading links before they begin editing, and definitely before they begin creating articles or drafts. AfC provides too many reading links, and is geared towards someone already committed to writing a new topic. The welcome template reading links will catch many of them before they commit to an ill-advised topic. Too many newcomers' talk pages are created by speedy deletion notices or AfC decline notices.


It's a very old perenial proposal, but I can't find anything in any archive that provides a good reason to not do it.

Perenail proposal links are:

The reasons sound as if they have been unreviewed for about six year.

Responses to the reasons for previous reject:

  • 1. If bot-weloming is cold and impersonal, then being completely ignored is absolutely shilling.
  • 2. Vandals can be exposed by a red user_talk link? True, but primitive, and the technique still works by looking at the color of the user link.
  • 3. An estimate 1000 welcomes for every non vandal that edits? This is a WP:PERFORMANCE objection, and it reveals a lack of value for the registration process. It is not trivial to register, stuff to read, having to find a likeable never-used username, auto-welcome is far less an expenditure for the project than for the registrants.


  • Hostbot? Run by User:Jtmorgan, good, but, the welcome givne has zero reading links, too few. I see from a look at a few authors of new drafts that it is not catching many authors. Looking at new authors, it is common for the registrant to make their first edit, a draft page creation, a few hours after registering. I think for them, the welcome links would help and not hurt. It is also common for new registrants to wait a long time before their first edit, in which case Hostbot misses them.


There is an interesting discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention/Archive_3#Response_of_New_Editors_to_a_Welcome (August 2012)

  • I agree with User:Berean Hunter 21:08, 26 August 2012 "The real purpose of the welcome is about getting them off to a good start with some links".
    Welcomes are for giving the basic starting information, initiating a conversation is not a high objective.
  • User:Steven Walling 22:13, 26 August 2012 conclusion from a a German Wikipedia experiment, rings true, that: Shorter welcome templates are more effective.
  • My feeling is that template:Welcome is about right, not too many links. Line links for reading/following. Maybe a few less would be better. Template:Welcome only, with zero reading links, has too few.


The most common theme of opposition is that autowelcoming robs human welcomers of the chance to be first to give the welcome. While I agree that this is a downside, it is far short of compelling. Human welcomers, like Hostbot, wait for edits. Newcomers need access to the reading links before they start editing. Also, a great many editing editors are never welcomed.
I suggest that human welcomers, and even Hosbot, could continue to thank new users for their first edits. A slight differentiation of the templates would be easy.


The proposal:

  • All new registrants on en.wikipedia.org are to have their user talk page created with {{subst:Welcome}}, with the modification to the signature to explain that this is an automated welcome. This should be done by WMF software working straight from the registration process, to be developed if the proposal is supported.
  • Accounts from other WMF projects, such as other language Wikipedias, will not be welcomed.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:03, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: are you aware that everyone who registers already gets a notification linking to Help:Getting_started? — xaosflux Talk 03:48, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I didn't, but as per the Steven Walling 22:13, 26 August 2012 point, Help:Getting_started is way too heavy, WP:TL;DR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
  • No. Sorry to be a wet blanket but a hand-crafted welcome is much better than a machine that welcomes silly vandalism. I put {{subst:welcome}} ~~~~ on a new user's talk page, but only when I think it would help the encyclopedia. Some people do not like receiving an automated welcome, and often they are the kind of academic person that we really need (I have seen that a couple of times, but can't provide a link). Edits made by someone with a red-linked talk page need extra scrutiny and a bot should not hide that. Welcoming vandals makes us look dumb and would encourage some personalities to think Wikipedia needed to be attacked because such a system is obviously silly. Johnuniq (talk) 03:53, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
    • The "hand-crafted welcome is much better" response I think is well answered by "hand-crafted welcomes are woefully failing to welcome newcomers when they need it most, which is after registration, and before their first edit.
Some people do not like receiving an automated welcome, sure, but the solution is to keep is brief, to the point. Most unlike Help:Getting_started. In this world, it is a common thing to sign up to things, and to immediately receive an emailed welcome providing the basic information. "red-linked talk page need extra scrutiny", yes, as do redlinked user pages. The counter point is that a newcomer seeing their own redlinked usertalk page is feeling a cold shoulder.
Welcoming vandals makes us look dumb? That's almost funny. Welcoming them before the vandalise looks like AGF not dumbness. I guess you really mean that welcoming obviously bad usernames looks dumb? I don't think so, everyone can understand what registration auto-welcome is. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:30, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the ping. If you check out the summary of message testing results the tl;dr is that even with automated messages delivered via tools like Huggle, a shorter message that is written in an informal, first-person language performs better. If we do want to try out an automated welcome, I'd just suggest writing it in a style that still feels like a person wrote it just for you. Additionally, some of the best help in such a message is to tell people how to contact a real fellow editor, not just give them FAQs or policy pages to read. Steven Walling • talk 04:22, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks User:Steven Walling. You were writing some very interesting things on this topic six years ago. At the very least, I think it is time for a review. I think, going on feelings, that newcomers these days, setting aside the very much large number of spammers, are arriving with less patience, and your point is even more important now than then. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:33, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Per Steven Walling, a message simpler than {{welcome}}, but not with zero reading links like {{welcome only}} I think might be good. Perhaps a single reading link, to WP:5P? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:36, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
  • pinging @DRAGON BOOSTER: as he does a lot of welcoming. L293D (☎ • ✎) 14:27, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - I'm leaning to oppose because redlink talkpages are useful for detecting potential vandals and give an indication of "newbieness". My replies to redlink TP users are always different than my replies to bluelinked ones. I would propose a banner or automatic editnotice for newcomers instead. L293D (☎ • ✎) 14:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't think warning every new account is helpful. If the link they are pinged to isn't helpful, propose to change that page. I don't see how a redlinked talk page could feel like a cold shoulder. If they asked a question and no one answered, sure, but this isn't a social network, and we don't need to send everyone an impersonal automatic message. Natureium (talk) 14:46, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - same reason as L293D, redlinked talk pages are the number one reason that I review an edit on my watchlist. It is very important to look at the first couple of edits made by a user to detect if they are vandalizing Wikipedia. It also allows me to add specific messages to their talk page (for example, if they are making good edits but using primary sources to cite the information). Daylen (talk) 06:46, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per L293D and per the fact you'd just be welcoming vandals..... which would send out the wrong message, Also worth noting not everyone who registers immediately edits and some never do so again there would be no point welcoming them ...... –Davey2010Talk 12:07, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a trial. There needs to be concrete data and proper A/B testing to test an automated welcome message's effect on editor retention and rates of vandalism. Darylgolden(talk) Ping when replying 05:21, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
    • I suggest looking at the quality of newcomers first edits, comparing new registrants pointed to 5P in a brief message, against new registrants ignored. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:05, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support trying out the use of a bot for this purpose; if the biggest concern regarding this proposal is that we'd welcome some bad-faith editors who don't "deserve" to be welcomed, and it would clearly help new users who are here to contribute constructively find their way around, that's definitely a good idea. Everymorning talk to me 00:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support something different: We should be auto-delivering some pointers to basic editing how-to, key policy summaries, etc. so people can get started. "Welcome" sentiments are something that real humans should deliver.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • What we should be doing is either rewriting Help:Getting started to be digestible, instead of the overgrown designed-by-committee monster it is, or making a new page and retargeting the hooray-you-just-created-your-account notification there. Save the talk-page messages for a human welcomer. —Cryptic 11:11, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

New proposal

Instead of autowelcoming new users, how about an automatic editnotice for their first ten edits? L293D (☎ • ✎) 14:11, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

You know, that's a rather brilliant idea. I'd support that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I think that’s an excellent idea, but not instead. I think new users need to see WP:5P, that shouldn’t hinder a notice on their tenth edit. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:25, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
There already is a notification for the tenth edit. (And the first, and hundredth, and each power of ten up to the millionth.) List of text here. Easy enough to customize that. —Cryptic 10:56, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I think the proposer means an actual WP:Editnotice, at the top of the editing window, not an Echo notification. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:VP talk pages

Yes, it's odd to discuss a talk page on its associated non-talk page, but proposals tend to go here, so we thus end up with a slightly odd self-referential discussion. Wikipedia talk:Village pump isn't a good place, because it's so rarely used (just six sections in the last two years, several of which don't deal with the VPs), and I don't want to propose this at one talk page and leave out anyone who cares about the others but not the one where I propose things.

Why do the various VPs need to have separate talk pages? The Reference Desks share a single talk page (see Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Humanities, for example), as do WP:AN and WP:ANI. WP:AN3 has a different talk page, but it has a different structure: each section's completely isolated, and it's template-populated, versus discussions at AN and ANI. How are the various VPs at all different from each other from a technical perspective? Aside from our choice to put proposals here, ideas at the idea lab, etc., is there any difference among them? It seems to me we could just merge all of them into one, and either we could retain the existing archives or we could dump everything into one big page, rearrange them chronologically, and create a single unified archive system for everything. Nyttend (talk) 02:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Suppose Wikipedia talk:Village pump would suffice if going this way. — xaosflux Talk 04:33, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I have a feeling this has come out on the Village Pump before, although I do not recall what the discussion said. Vorbee (talk) 06:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Link to a related discussion here. TeraTIX 07:18, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I think that's actually a bit different; the person asked why the VPs have any talk pages at all, while I'm simply asking about merging them all into one. Nyttend (talk) 12:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
That's why I said 'related' instead of 'previous' or 'another'. TeraTIX 01:44, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Do you mean that what ever section of the Village Pump one is on, clicking on the talk page will take you to the same talk page? Vorbee (talk) 14:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I believe that's what they mean. I personally am not sure about it, but can see the argument either way Nosebagbear (talk)

Suggestion: Prohibiting anons from contributing to Wikipedia

This doesn't have a snowball's chance of passing, for background see Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Prohibit_anonymous_users_from_editing. Will follow up on proposer's talk. — xaosflux Talk 14:07, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hi,

Recently, I’ve heard of anons vandalizing pages, spamming on talk pages, etc. I really want to stop contributions from anons coming to us, not only to make Wikipedia free of clutter and vandalism, but also to prohibit under-13s from editing here according to COPPA. Anyway, bye! Peppa Pig the Second (talk) 13:55, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I suggest that Special:Recentchangeslinked be expanded to also list changes to associated talk pages. Now, a link list page must have links both to the subject page and to the talk page in order for talk page posts to be listed. This could be done easier with links just to the subject page, and have the "related changes" list talk page posts as well. Iceblock (talk) 09:42, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

You can already elect to see (related) changes to "Talk" namespace only: example here showing changes to the pages that link to Talk:Wikipedia only. I hope this is what you're looking for. –Ammarpad (talk) 05:05, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
If I view related changes to Category:Moon, only article-space pages are shown. Changes to Talk:Moon are not shown. The same thing happens when I create a page linking to Moon. Changes to Talk:Moon are not shown in this case either (unless there also is a link to Talk:Moon). What I propose is to include associated talk page changes to these lists. Iceblock (talk) 20:02, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Click on the "hamburger" icon to access the filters. Scroll down to "advanced filters". Click "namespaces". Select which namespaces you want.
Or you can put the page on your watchlist and the talk page comes along for the ride. --Khajidha (talk) 12:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Inform of noindexing before user page creation

(non-admin closure) There is a consensus against this proposal. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Currently, all pages in the User: namespace are automatically noindexed by the software. I think if we simply tell people about this, we might stop a few spammy userpage creations.

We already have {{Base userpage editnotice}} which only shows for base userpage creations (not subpages). I think if we change it from:

to something along the lines of (alternate phrasings welcome of course):

then maybe some spammers will think "why bother?" They'd have figured it out soon enough after they created the page, but this way they don't waste our time.

I don't know what to do about subpages. We might not want to irritate frequent userspace-draft creators with a garish editnotice like this. But if there is some way to only display a notice to new users, something similar could be created. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:11, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Have two new permissions: File and Page Remover

(non-admin closure) There is a consensus against this specific proposal, though there's not a clear consensus on the general principle of whether deletion can be devolved to non-admins in some way. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:47, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hello. I am proposing that we should add two new user permissions: File and Page Remover. The reason why we should have these permissions is that if an discussion at WP:AFD and WP:FFD outcome is delete, someone with the permission could delete it and they wouldn't need to wait for an admin. The rules for Page Removers should be:

  • The user should have an account on Wikipedia for at least a year.
  • The user must have made at least 2,500 edits.
  • The user must display levels of familiarity with doing actions per consensus.
  • The user must be active on WP:AFD
  • The user must not have performed any obvious vandalism for at least a year before applying.
  • The user also should have no WP:3RR and/or behavioral blocks for at least a year before applying.
  • The user must not delete pages without consensus, unless they are obvious vandalism!

The rules for File Removers should be the same :

  • The user must have an account on Wikipedia for at least 6 months.
  • The user must display familiarity with the guidelines of WP:NONFREE and their files should show this.
  • The user must have at least 2,000 edits
  • The user must be active on WP:FFD
  • The user must not have performed any obvious vandalism for at least a year before applying.
  • The user also should have no WP:3RR and/or behavioral blocks for at least a year before applying.
  • The user must not delete files without consensus.

These permissions would absolutely improve the convenience of WP:AFD and WP:FFD discussions, it would also help to rid Wikipedia of attack pages and other vandalism. Thank you. In Memoriam A.H.H.What, you egg?. 09:31, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose The problem with that proposal is that such users would be unable to fix any mistakes they might make. We can't grant them the ability to undelete content because then they could potentially view sensitive material, and allowing them to view such material would require them to go through an RFA-like process anyway. I'm also not sure what problem this is supposed to solve. You wouldn't be granting these users the ability to do speedy deletions, deletions through AfD and FfD are not urgent, and there isn't a problematic backlog of AfDs and FfDs waiting to be deleted. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 17:14, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    Not an actual problem. If the page should not have been deleted, any admin could undelete it. The rate of errors, versus rate of business as usual, would be low, so it would be a net increase in productivity.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:33, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose If we trust a user enough to delete pages, then we can trust them with the entire admin toolset. Related: Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Hierarchical structures -FASTILY 06:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    While I don't support this proposal, I have to point out that your comment isn't responsive to the nature of the proposal, which is to get more hands on deck for one particular bit of maintenance, not to vet them for adminship. WP:RFAs fail all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with the candidate's understanding of and trustworthiness around page deletion (most often for civility problems, or failure to fully understand some other, completely unrelated, policy or guideline). All it takes is one slip-up, e.g. pursuing the wrong person at WP:SPA, or having breached WP:3RR and accusing someone of vandalism when the community decides it was a legit content dispute, or insert a zillion other deletion-unrelated things.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:40, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support unbundling the delete permission in general, but I'm not sure about this proposal. I don't think there should be two groups for deleting (especially since the software isn't set up that way currently). I don't think that being unable to revert your action is a serious argument against unbundling; event coordinators can only assign the confirmed permission and stewards can globally suppress an account name but under certain circumstances need to ask a local oversighter to undo it, to give two immediate examples of this that come to mind. I also don't think that people who can delete are instantly trusted by the community with the full toolset. I would personally trust them with everything, but I think there's a case to be made that 'block' is the big ticket item that prevents the community from handing out adminship more liberally. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    Somewhat OK with this. Agree not being able to undelete shouldn't be a showstopper here. Agree this should not be separate groups. Basically bring the "eliminator" group here. If so I think they should get: delete, deletedhistory, and maybe browsearchive. — xaosflux Talk 18:51, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    Yes, though I personally dislike the name eliminator and didn't use it when making Pathoschild's global group (:P). Worth noting that other wikis tend to include undelete in the package but also have a one-week discussion period, making eliminator a sort of admin-lite with all the same bureaucracy to get it as regular adminship. I wouldn't want the same process to apply here, though it might be worth having a bit more in-depth process than PERM, whatever that might look like. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:28, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    @Ajraddatz: would prob be best to use that on the back-end since it is common, but we can of course localize it. — xaosflux Talk 00:02, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    @Xaosflux and Ajraddatz: see my comments below. I can’t imagine granting the ability that delete without the ability to view deleted content. We know the WMF won’t consent to that without an RfA equivalent process, which is one of the many reasons unbundling delete always fails to gain consensus: it’d turn into RfA, Jr. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    Why does it need to come with the ability to view deleted content? Strange without I suppose but not technically required. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 00:58, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    "Hi there. Seven months ago you deleted this page under the obvious vandalism! clause. I don't see how that can be, I remember it being perfectly reasonable. Please justify yourself immediately or I and nineteen of my closest friends will devote an entire WP:ANI archive page to making you look irresponsible. ~~~~" —Cryptic 01:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    Heh, fair point. A sysop could always provide the deleted content or speak to it in such a case, though that would certainly not be ideal. Then again none of this is ideal; but if we want to better utilize the hundreds of users who are involved in deletion-related processes who have no desire to go through RfA this is something we should start to think about. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Regardless of the merits, I don't think "backlogs via NACs" at AfD and FfD are a pressing enough (or at all) concern to justify this proposal. Basically, I think the above is coming at this from the wrong direction and on unsure footing. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    Agree with this - a better rationale for general unbundling of the delete permission would be to allow trusted users to become involved in the deletion process (beyond NACs) without needing to get the full sysop bit, with the need part being the distinct lack of people willing to go through RfA. This could apply to CSD tagging and deletion discussion closing. I doubt that unbundling the delete permission would ever get serious support, especially since a couple of RfAs have passed this year so people think the process is unbroken again and thus further devolution isn't needed. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:28, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree with Fastily. If someone can be trusted with page deletion, why not trust them with all the tools? If there's really a problem with not enough admins, make adminship "no big deal" again. Natureium (talk) 19:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Users carrying out administrative tasks should be held to WP:ADMINACCT whether or not they have the admin bit. You can't do that with deletions unless you have deletedhistory and deletedtext permissions, too. —Cryptic 19:40, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment This would be useful beyond the cases mentioned here. Last week I had a new page in my user space, but when I went to move it to the mainspace, I was unable to do so due to a redirect page being in the way For some reason I mistakenly thought that I could move a new page over a redirect. Had I known that I could not, I would never have created the new page in the first place. If I had this permission, I could have deleted the redirect page and then moved my new page. As it was, I had to file a WP:Requested Moves request. Of course, this was not obvious vandalism, but an uncontroversial technical move (G6). I would expect thoigh that it could be used on any Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:17, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose as the ability to delete needs to come with the ability to undelete abd view deleted content. The WMF will not consent to this without an RfA equivalent process for legal and political reasons. Community opinion on this simply doesn’t matter as it would be vetoed by the office. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:09, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support in theory but not this particular proposal. Deletion is not as dangerous as people think it is (it can always be undone), but various aspects of this are a bit daft. We don't have hard requirements of a sort this specific even for full adminship, for starters. A more specific criticism would be that being active at AfD doesn't indicate anything. There are AfD regulars who are rabid inclusionists and rabid deletionists who are both too often wrong. There are also rubber-stampers who never !vote at AfD unless they're already sure where the consensus will go, because they're trying "sculpt" their AfD stats for a run at WP:RFA some day. Doesn't indicate any understanding of deletion policy. A solid WP:CSD-tagging track record would be a better indicator.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I'm not sure I can fully support this proposal as written, given the low standards required. It, indeed, might be best for us to revert to the "RfA is no big deal" if this gains traction: I am entirely uncomfortable with the idea of particular users, through user permissions (which, though no offense is intended to the administration, are granted solely by one person, and sometimes as a matter of course), being able to delete pages without the whole of the community weighing in on said person's suitability. (Moreover, if this passes, the inherent security issues glossed over in the proposal are a serious concern.) In short, the RfA process is the right place to go for this, and not a new permission. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 00:49, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I would be very surprised if (delete), (block), or (protect) ever get unbundled from the administrator toolset. Everything else, maybe, but these three seem to be the "core" set of admin tools. I'm not too familiar with WP:FFD, but at least for the past year administrators have been pretty good about closing WP:AFDs on time. The administrative backlog isn't so egregiously long that we need to change our process from how it's been for 15 years. Mz7 (talk) 02:21, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose really don’t see the need for this, and some of the criteria seem pretty arbitrary. Aiken D 18:22, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose While I would actually rather enjoy being able to close FFD discussions properly and completely since file maintenance is my specialty I still do not believe that delete, protect, or block should ever be unbundled from the admin toolkit. Those three all play off well with each other and like others have mentioned, if you delete it you should be able to bring it back. If you want any of three abilities WP:RFA is your only option and I would prefer if it stayed that way. --Majora (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose deletion is best left to admins, this would cause many errors Atlantic306 (talk) 20:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Bot archive all article talk page sections unchanged for five years

(non-admin closure) There is consensus against doing this automatically on all pages. Individual editors can use User:MiszaBot/config to configure automatic archiving on a per-page basis. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:50, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Several years ago I proposed something like this here, and was told by one of the regulars (in a frankly patronising manner) that there was no need to worry about this, as in a matter of months if not weeks the old talkpages would be swept away by the new social media-style set-up, Wikipedia:Flow. Well, here we all are, and the average less-frequented talk page still goes back to say 2006. So once again I propose we set up a bot that auto-archives all article talk page sections that have not changed for 5 years (or 7, or 3, whatever). Few of the ancient points are still at all relevant, and the pages give a very bad impression - often referring to a totally different text. I'd imagine this is fairly easy to get set up, if the support is there. Johnbod (talk) 23:40, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Thumbs up icon social media didn't replace talk pages. Pros and cons with proposal. Archiving makes information discovery harder, finding unknown unknowns. Posts are dated so no chance of old threads being mistaken for new and they can contain FAQs and other still-relevant material. They can also contain outdated information and embarrassing comments from early career days. In balance I would weigh on keeping data as open and accessible as is practical ie. not archiving except for constraints of size or frequency. -- GreenC 00:24, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
On highly-viewed or well run talk pages old threads are archived long before this, but on neglected ones they just sit there forever. There is every chance of "old threads being mistaken for new" - I not infrequently see people "replying" to random comments over 10 years old, clearly without realizing this. Many inexperienced users assume the newest posts are at the top. Actual FAQ sections should of course not be affected. Johnbod (talk) 01:56, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Doesn't seem to be a problem on articles where the talk page is actually active. Johnbod (talk) 14:45, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Rather, it's that on those talk pages, the benefits of archiving are considered to weigh up against the downsides; on inactive talk pages, the benefits of archiving are significantly lesser and do imho not weigh up. While yes, inexperienced users (as well as folks just not paying attention) may occasionally mistakenly respond to a really old comment, they likely were already looking to post something on the talk page. People, especially new editors, generally only visit the talkpage to either use it or see if something's been said about a particular subject. In effect, it doesn't matter particularly much whether their response is to a decade-old comment or on a freshly archived talk page: when a talk page hasn't received edits in five years, it's close to a given that unless attention is attracted to said talkpage comment by other means (e.g. helpdesk or teahouse, or by means of the editor committing problematic edits resulting in heightened scrutiny on all their edits) no one is going to respond either way. If the talk page has received more recent edits, it's just particular sections that haven't, it's likely to be on people's watchlists and much like folks are perfectly capable of handling new editors who respond on the wrong part of a user talk page, they're perfectly capable of handling new editors responding in the wrong section of an article talk page. (And if it isn't on people's watchlists, much the same goes as for the fully-dead talkpages: it wouldn't matter whether they respond in the right or wrong section when no one's around to reply anyway) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 20:34, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I really don't see the problem with talk pages containing old posts. Ideally, we would want to have all the past discussions clearly visible on one page, and noramlly archiving enters the picture only when that page starts getting too long. I don't think we should be fragmenting the history and making it more difficult to access past discussions unless there are clear benefits and they outweigh the risks. I don't know how common it is for new users to reply to old posts mistakenly taking them to be still relevant, I can't recall seeing that happen. I do recall seeing new users make proposals that have been rejected before simply because they haven't learned about the archives, and I've seen editors mess up the templates so the link to the archives disappears witout anyone noticing for years. – Uanfala (talk) 11:54, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Really, do any of you ever look at unarchived talk pages? They are very very rarely worth reading at all beyond 3 years back, and give a pretty bad impression to the uninitiated. Typically there are complaints from c. 2006 about basic failings that were no doubt justified at the time, but are now completely irrelevant. If any good point is raised and a discussion started, that is liable to get archived anyway. A properly-written bot would get the edits right. Johnbod (talk) 14:45, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Almost all of the article talk pages I look at are unarchived. If there are old posts on a talk page that an editor deems distracting, they can always set up the archive themselves. – Uanfala (talk) 20:41, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
  • On less active topics, old posts are often very relevant. See Talk:Tirana for example, which has never been archived, and is currently at 32,160 bytes (not too large). See Talk:Tirana#About the name! which still ought to be of interest to current editors. Someone started that thread in 2005, and there is a new (apt) contribution from 2008. Also Talk:Tirana#Tirana or Tiranë. It's a perennial proposal to change Albanian cities to the indefinite form (ë instead of a) and that talk thread is quite germane. It was started in 2007 and there is a later contribution from 2009. Under the above mass-archiving proposal, both of these useful threads would be sent away into Archive 1. EdJohnston (talk) 15:32, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, unless saved, before or after archiving, by someone adding some comment now (like "Best not archived"). Or by making/adding to an FAQ header. Incidentally the top section here illustrates one of my points: a post from 2003 is replied to in 2005 and then in 2012, probably without the last poster realizing he is talking to departed users. Johnbod (talk) 16:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Actually I only meant article talk pages, & have amended at top to clarify. The talk pages of the types you mention normally so rarely have anything at all I agree it's not worth it. And when they do it is more likely to have lasting relevance. Johnbod (talk) 21:09, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the note, weaker oppose - but would still want to see some numbers (and we would never approve a BRFA that can't estimate the load - and if it would be 100,000+ pages it will need a LOT of consensus). — xaosflux Talk 02:21, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
I'd see this as something that only needs to run say annually or bi-annually, and is obviously not urgent, so could be broken down into manageable chunks. I'd like to see some figures too, but I'm afraid I've no idea where/how to get them. Anyone? Johnbod (talk) 13:57, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Actually, no it doesn't; at all. In fact the default 90-day archiving is part of a rather different problem, giving us a bunch of talk pages with 60 or 70 archives that contain almost nothing. Of course the page you link to is entirely incomprehensible to those not professional or keen amateur IT people, and I suspect to quite a few who are. You don't "just add" that at all - it seems you have to go off to a choice of other incomprehensible pages (selected how?) and do something or other there. Then it will archive far more frequently than is usually desirable, annoying User:GreenC, Johnuniq, and others above, as well as me - I don't usually like to see anything more recent than about 9 months archived. These are the reasons such auto-archiving is rarely found, and sometimes removed when it has been added. If there was a simple template for a one-off archive of sections unaltered for over x years then yes, that would go about 10% of the way to solving the problem. But apparently there isn't. Johnbod (talk) 00:05, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
So then people can change the day can't they?..... it's not rocket science and we shouldn't be treating people like they're thick nor should we be spoon feeding them, "You don't "just add" that at all" - Well .... you do .... you copy and paste it = problem solved, Well if you dislike seeing anything over 9 months you're more than welcome to use WP:1CA, Again I feel this is a solution looking for a problem. –Davey2010Talk 01:53, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
That only does a section at a time, and "due to Technical 13's indefinite ban, it is currently unmaintained". Not the same at all. Johnbod (talk) 02:00, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Try the similar tool by Sigma: User:Σ/Testing facility/Archiver. --Izno (talk) 02:36, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Ok, thanks - that looks like about 15% of what I'd like. Johnbod (talk) 13:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Well doing a section at a time hardly takes up a lot of time does it ? .... But now that issue's been resolved I'm still seeing no reason for this.... –Davey2010Talk
  • Oppose per Ed. If there's barely anything happening on a page, it's nice to have context. Do people sometimes ignore or miss the dates, and necropost? Sure. Does it really matter at all? No. Not sure what the harm is in having someone try to comment on an old post; if folks are watching, it'll get replies, and if people aren't watching, then no harm done! Don't see any gain or benefit. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:08, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Based on my experience – which I readily grant is not everyone else's experience, but which is also sufficient to not be dismissed with a "Really, do any of you ever look at unarchived talk pages?", eh? – I would have qualms about an automated implementation of across-the-board archiving.
    Yes, I do see very infrequent instances of less-experienced editors posting replies to talk pages without realizing that they are adding to threads which have been quiet for years. More frequently, however, I see less-experienced editors creating redundant new threads on talk pages, dealing with issues that were talked to death in threads already archived. Out of sight is out of mind. If we are attempting to protect newbies (and not-so-newbies) from confusion and wasted effort caused by old talk pages remaining visible, we cannot discount the confusion and wasted effort suffered by newbies (and not-so-newbies) who don't know there's another layer of extra-buried talk pages behind the regular talk page.
    Speaking anecdotally, I know that less than 24 hours ago I made improvements to an article driven by fresh comments in a talk page thread last edited in 2013. Infrequently-edited talk pages are often associated with infrequently-edited articles; issues that existed five years ago can and do linger unresolved.
    Consequently, a blanket imposition of automated archiving is problematic. If a talk page isn't desperately cumbersome, 'cosmetic' archiving provides little benefit. Manual or semi-automated archiving (where the talk page's and article's editors determine acceptable thread counts, talk page sizes, and so forth, within reason) is much less likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and helps to retain a talk page's focus. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:37, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Talk page threads, if closed/handled, give users a glimpse in how the article reached its current status: reading a discussion on why a certain section is written in a certain way is much easier than digging the history. If not handled, discussions may be relevant for many years to come: there is no deadline and I often find useful suggestions which are 5 or even 10 years old. Age is not a predictor of usefulness. --Nemo 14:27, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • oppose The only reason, ever, to archive talk pages is because they have become unmanageably long. Simply archiving them because they are old hides useful information. Mangoe (talk) 15:24, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes User:Mangoe agree that is the main problem. Maybe just auto archive the ones that are too long. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:49, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Oh, you misssed "Few of the ancient points are still at all relevant, and the pages give a very bad impression - often referring to a totally different text", expanded on by various people above. Our talk pages are so full of crap it discourages people from looking at them or using them; we can at least get rid of the really old crap, which is either the usual nonsense, or if there is a valid point, it will almost always have been fixed many years ago. Johnbod (talk) 02:20, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose archiving talk pages for any reason other than the one expressed in the lead sentence of Help:Archiving a talk page: "It is customary to periodically archive old discussions on a talk page when that page becomes too large." Lightly used talk pages should never be archived, especially if such pages contain discussions crucial to the substance of the article's content or if there are past exchanges regarding WP:Requested moves.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 03:25, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I cannot see the use of this, quite frankly. I follow several articles and talk pages that are long enough, chronologically, to be archived should this proposal pass, but they're simply not long enough in terms of length; archiving for archiving's sake is rather unnecessary, I believe. And there's really no issue here that requires a resolution; moreover, I believe this idea, if implemented, might substantially degrade the rate of usage of talk pages. I mean, to drop the high-falutin' talk for a second, let's be real: if Alex Q. Public saw an empty talk page (with archives and whatever) for article Orange, do you think they would add to it? No: it's hard being the person who speaks up, more so when an empty page exists. I rest my case. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 04:12, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I don't think there's a pressing need to archive *every* talk page on Wikipedia. Generally, if I come across an old Talk page with lots of old comments, I'll manually archive it or set up an archive bot. It's a bit of a hobby of mine. I think that is sufficient for dealing with the rare page that has gone too large without archiving. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:51, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Odds are that a talk page that hasn't been archived in five years is talking about issues that nobody has settled in five years. It seems excessively optimistic to imagine that there are gnomes running around fixing problems on a mainspace page without dumping some manner of poo on the talk page in sufficient quantity to have forced an archive. Wnt (talk) 21:12, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Most of the time it's going to be appropriate, but it's not worth those few times that a thread does pick back up after several years, or those times when an older thread provides important context on little-watched pages. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:49, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Not a good idea. See the first section of Talk:Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, which began in 2012 and has just been resumed. Yes, this is an unusual situation, but "do X in all situations" is appropriate only if X will never be problematic, or if doing X is a significant improvement and it's worth a few problems. This isn't a significant benefit: if you ignore talk pages with banners only, most of our article talk pages have had only a tiny number of comments, and archiving would be confusing. One week ago, this is what Smith-Stanley's talk page looked like. Even if the issue had gotten resolved in 2012, why archive? It's just one discussion, and you'd be creating a separate archive page for it. I just now hit "Random article" until I found one with a talk page comment, Talk:Quantum mirage. Is it a good idea to have a bot create an archive for pages with this history? This one's exceptional, with no datestamp, but if that post had been properly signed, it wouldn't affect my argument. Nyttend (talk) 11:39, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don’t really agree that the reasons suggested for auto archiving are pressing enough for it to be done. Aiken D 18:26, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support: Stuff that old is rarely relevant, and more often than not already resolved, weird old rants by anons, or weird old rants by editor A against editor B for some alleged slight and either of them active editors any longer. WP's talk pages are for working on content not memorializing people's ability to ignore WP:NOT#FORUM.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:56, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I frequently come across stubs that were tagged for notability 10 years ago and haven't had any major edits since. Often a quick peek at the talk page will reveal concerns that have not been addressed or plans to "wait and see if this topic becomes notable." Sometimes there will even be copyvio or promo content that was removed long ago and reinserted by a single-purpose account. There's no reason that this backstory should be more than a click away. –dlthewave ☎ 12:35, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the concerns above, plus I prefer not to have my watchlist filled with a bot archiving 5000 talk pages. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 03:29, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose unless the talk page is long. The talk-content may be highly relevant, if the article has also been inactive for years. Alsee (talk) 13:19, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Remove .svg as a permitted file type

Proposal was based upon false information as to what browsers running on OS X do and do not display. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:11, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

.SVG files are unopenable on OS X devices. This makes it impossible for a user to upload a new version of an image, so they would have to upload a completely new image to replace it. Computer40 «»(talk) 06:36, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

  • SVG is the open standard for vector images and we're certainly not giving it up. I have no idea how your device can fail to support it, but certainly it would be a bug worth raising with your vendor. --Nemo 08:08, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Inkscape —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:10, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
In case this could help, SVG image previews are normally smaller PNG. If that is not the case, perhaps disabling the media viewer may help. Another relevant preference is related to math formula rendering: you could select PNG mode. I would still be surprised if no available browser for OSX can display SVG. —PaleoNeonate – 08:28, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
@Computer40: sorry, but this is nonsense. I prepared File:Alternation of generations simpler.svg on a Mac (I never use anything else) using EazyDraw. The SVG file displays perfectly correctly in Firefox, Safari and Opera – I checked just now. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:16, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
@Computer40: I'm very surprised that you would say this, because I'm using a Mac and SVGs open in Firefox and Safari just fine. (Safari's SVG support is terrible, but that's irrelevant.) You can also open, edit and save them in TextEdit or another text editor like BBEdit (you might have to override the application selector to use "All Applications"). I've uploaded thousands of SVGs with this Mac. As mentioned, Inkscape+XQuartz also exists. Jc86035 (talk) 10:44, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
I too am am on a Mac and have no problems editing and creating SVGs, using InkScape or editing the source in simple cases. As for opening apart from InkScape I can view them in Safari, use Quick Look to view them in the OS, and have a number of apps that can import them to other formats such as bitmap graphics. If the OP is having problems it is likely with particular files; despite SVG being a standard different apps have their own idea of the standard and sometimes output incompatible files. InkScape is good at opening such problematic files in my experience. If all else fails ask at the Graphics Lab for help with a particular image.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 10:55, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
For those prepared to pay, I find EazyDraw easier to use than Inkscape (which may just be familiarity). Its export to SVG has improved greatly in recent versions. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:29, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
  • It's absurd to suggest you can't open an SVG file on OSX. The OS may not come with the software to do that out of the box, but there's certainly plenty of apps around to edit SVG on OSX. I use OmniGraffle, which is a commercial product. MacSVG looks like a reasonable open-source tool, and others have been mentioned above (much as I despise XQuartz). — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 15:30, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Greater consistency

In fairness to those who create articles, can something be done to bring together the rather loose criteria applied by those who review articles and the very rigorous criteria of those who are dedicated to trimming and deleting? Jzsj (talk) 20:22, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

You should make a more specific proposal. Ruslik_Zero 21:35, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I would propose that whenever a reviewer passes an article (as notable), that this must follow a check of references to assure that at least one reference is given that passes WP:SIGCOV. If they do not find such a reference and they still pass the article, then they must place a warning on its Talk page that it does not pass WP:SIGCOV and may be deleted. Jzsj (talk) 22:28, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I suggest that you consider writing up an essay and posting it in your userspace. Some user essays are used a lot; I often get comments about my essay at WP:1AM. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:23, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
But, 1AM's a policy, Guy.  %-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:15, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
We don't review for WP:SIGCOV, but for WP:SIGNIFICANCE, a lower bar. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:13, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Where is the official guideline for reviewers that directs that you follow this essay rather than WP:SIGCOV? Thanks with help on this. @Hawkeye7: Jzsj (talk) 05:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I think it's in the speedy deletion criteria, esp. A7: Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#A7; no essay needed. That is, there's a specified pretty low bar needed to avoid speedy deletion. SIGCOV is still required, but this gives more time to work on that, and then off to AfD if it can't be found. Dicklyon (talk) 06:09, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
That's right. The NPP works to WP:NPPCSD: "In particular, an article should not be tagged for speedy delete under CSD A7 where you think the topic is not notable, or does not prove notability by the references included. This is a common misunderstanding. The standard under A7 is solely whether the content contains a credible assertion of importance or significance (whether it actually is notable is a subject for an AfD discussion, not for speedy deletion). Consider using a Notability tag instead of a speedy deletion tag." This links to the aforementioned essay, as does WP:CSD, which is a policy. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:12, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
This proposal is a poster child for the existence of VPI. IMO, this page is for well-formed proposals, not a place to develop a proposal.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I am in the process of trying to make my way through all the policy and guidelines related to this and will reformulate my above proposal, possibly where proposals are developed rather than here. So let me call this one off, though I appreciate the guidance so far given. Jzsj (talk) 16:54, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Meta: Consultation on the creation of a separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.
Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Meta: Consultation on the creation of a separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS
 – --Pipetricker (talk) 09:19, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Remove the perennial suggestions section

This is stale and it isn't going anywhere. Also the proposer has been indef blocked for 'NOTHERE'. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:27, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In my opinion, the perennial suggestions section is useless. What if the community's opinion changes over time? Instead their opinions are censored to a box. The perennial section needs to go. Axumbasra (talk) 08:53, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Nothing is censored, however, it does help cut down pointless, hopeless discussions before they happen. New person comes in, they don't know that RFA reform has been talked to death. This is where they learn it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:21, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Headbomb; the perennial box lets people know a subject has been done multiple times already. If the person reviving an old conversation has new information or some other reason to believe the situation has changed since the last edition, they should explain that reasoning in their post. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 12:10, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia: Village pump (proposals) does have a note saying "Check to see whether your idea has already been discussed at perennial proposals" so it might be an idea to look there for newcomers to the Village pump. Vorbee (talk) 15:56, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I see keeping it as helpful. On top of reducing unintentional rehasing of old arguments, someone who wants to make a new case can look up why it was previously rejected and use that info to create a new proposal that addresses the previous objections.--76.65.41.59 (talk) 14:02, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree with User 75.65.41.59. 81.133.110.208 (talk) 12:43, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Schedules and salaries

No. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:06, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I think admins, bureaucrats, and all other approved editors should get paid for the work they do here. All approved editors other than RC patrollers, admins, and bureaucrats should be paid by the edit. Approved RC patrollers should be paid by the hour. Admins and bureaucrats should be salaried. Admins, bureaucrats, and approved RC patrollers should also have schedules. All bureaucrats should be scheduled M-F 8am-4pm except for major holidays in their country, Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve. There should be admins and RC patrollers scheduled at all times. I think this system will really work well for Wikipedia. 2602:306:3357:BA0:446A:81FF:8391:EC1D (talk) 02:45, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello anonymous editor. We are all volunteers here because we want to be here. If no one wants to be here they can just move on with their lives. There are numerous restrictions on paid editing including terms of use requirements as well. Inflating your edit count just to get paid screams conflicts of interest and your edit count means nothing. Thanks for the suggestion but this isn't going to happen. --Majora (talk) 03:47, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Turn off Wikidata weekly summaries

Snow Wihdrawal. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:01, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User_talk:Timathom is an example of how much space these take up. The page is at 2 MB already, and growing every week.

Instead, the Wikidata weekly summaries should be posted to a single page on the English Wikipedia and anyone interested should be encouraged to put that page on their watchlist.

We might want to do the same with some of the other entries at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/MediaWiki_message_delivery that are spamming huge amounts of text unto multiple talk pages every week.

Alternate proposal: Send everyone who receives on of these weekly text bombs a message asking them to opt-in if they want to continue receiving them. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:54, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the proposal. They did opt-in. You're suggesting that they must re-confirm that they want to receive them, in case they change their minds? --Yair rand (talk) 04:16, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
My first choice is to not send them at all. Let the user "opt in" by watching a page where new Wikidata weekly summaries are posted.
My second choice is that they reconfirm. Many people abandon their Wikipedia accounts, and many others never bother reading their talk pages, yet the spam[note] keep arriving. Have you looked at User_talk:Timathom? How is this sort of thing beneficial to the encyclopedia?
Note:
Man: Well, what've you got?
Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam; spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.
Wife: Have you got anything without spam?
Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wife: I don't want ANY spam!
--Guy Macon (talk) 05:48, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose They aren't spam. Individual users subscribe to them if they want to, and they can also unsubscribe from them if they want to, same with signpost, glam, education, etc. - and there is a long history of such newsletters being posted on user talk pages (the first one I received was August 2006, I believe). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:33, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment This seems like a performance problem impacting other users, which is a proper reason to archive someones talk page FOR them. See no reason to change the delivery for everyone. I do also think that people who have not edited in 2 years qualify to be auto unsubscribed from newsletters as well. See no reason to change the newsletter delivery in general. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:36, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
    Which is now done. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:53, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose the options given. It's really easy to miss updates when having to rely on the watchlist to catch them, at least if one has a sizeable number of pages on the watchlist. A one-time reconfirmation thing wouldn't solve the problem (in so far as there even is a problem rather than a minor annoyance) just postpone it; doing repeated reconfirmations is going to get on people's nerves fairly quickly.
That said, while I don't consider newsletters spam by default, I do agree there is not much use to newsletters being posted to the user talkpages of long-inactive users. I could support a bot being ran every now and then to check the subscription lists and template subscriptions (which at least the Signpost offers as option, not sure if any other newsletters do too) for editors that haven't been active for over a year and remove those and post a message on the relevant user talk 1. that their subscription was cancelled due to inactivity and 2. how to re-enable their subscription if/when they return. That'd reduce the amount of automatically-delivered messages to long-term inactive editors without creating unnecessary hoops for active subscribers to jump through and while still keeping it easy for returning editors to renew their subscriptions. AddWittyNameHere 07:49, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Regarding this specific newsletter bring it up at meta:Talk:Global message delivery/Targets/Wikidata and/or to the recent delivery person User:Lea Lacroix (WMDE); they may receptive to removing inactive accounts without any fuss. — xaosflux Talk 12:57, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks for pinging me. I wish we could let people decide if they want to receive the newsletter on their talk page or not. I learned during the last survey about the Wikidata newsletter that people have many different reading habits, some get it via their talk page, some via a dicussion page, some others on the social networks. I want to let them the opportunity to follow the newsletter, the way they prefer.
I agree though that some inactive accounts could be removed from the list of subscribers. That would cause less spam, and also help me having a better view of how many people are actually following the newsletter. We currently have no automatic cleaning or bot, I'd be interested in digging more into that option. Do you know who takes care of it for the Signpost? Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 20:20, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_151&oldid=1143708531"