Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-12-22/Year in review
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More to highlight for 2016
[edit]I wish this wasn't as WMF focused. Did we achieve so little as a community this year that we don't have much to highlight other than what is in the last paragraph ? That's a bit sad. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:17, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- TheDJ, my estimate of the number of important things I missed is about 9,000,000. There is so much going on in our world! I hope you and others will add items here in the comments. (But I do hear your concern, thanks for the feedback.) -Pete Forsyth (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Missed highlights
[edit]- Inaugural WikiConference North America
- Inaugural Bay Area WikiSalon
- 5 millionth enwiki article by Casliber — Preceding unsigned comment added by Checkingfax (talk • contribs) 18:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- The start of the Challenge series of contests to improve content -- many with cash prizes. (About time people who write content got to directly benefit for their efforts.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:23, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
- ... add your suggestion above this bullet point
Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 17:55, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- @Checkingfax: The 5 millionth article happened in 2015.
See last year's Signpost. Mz7 (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- I think everyone agrees that one article cannot hope to cover the full spectrum of such a complex worldwide movement. At the Signpost, we would love to see more news writers. It's hard with so few. Tony (talk) 10:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Concurring with Tony, I note that several here have written or outlined items that could easily spin off into separate articles or be incorporated in a report like this. I hope Peteforsyth doesn't mind if I suggest that anyone who might be interested in contributing to a future edition of the Signpost should drop Rosiestep, our HR specialist, a line to see how to get involved. Pinging Mz7 and Checkingfax in particular. Go Phightins! 06:22, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Done [1] Mz7 (talk) 07:56, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
- Concurring with Tony, I note that several here have written or outlined items that could easily spin off into separate articles or be incorporated in a report like this. I hope Peteforsyth doesn't mind if I suggest that anyone who might be interested in contributing to a future edition of the Signpost should drop Rosiestep, our HR specialist, a line to see how to get involved. Pinging Mz7 and Checkingfax in particular. Go Phightins! 06:22, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
How very 2014
[edit]"no substantial change in the overall decline in Wikipedia contributors that began in 2007" would have been trueish in an annual review of 2014 but things have moved on a bit. After the rally of 2015 numbers now seem stable, though below the 2007 peak (individual language communities will vary). Since I broke the story of the editing rally over a year ago in the Signpost it seems odd to recycle a 2014 story today. If you want to be specific to the English Wikipedia numbers are clearly up on the 2014 minima with User:Katalaveno/TBE showing a shift from 10 weeks per ten million edits to more like 9 weeks.ϢereSpielChequers 16:57, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- I've removed the incorrect info ϢereSpielChequers 22:56, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for this, WereSpielChequers, I regret the error. I do think it's worthwhile to note that even if stabilized, the trend has not substantially reversed -- but you're quite correct that my phrasing was inaccurate. I've restored the original text, but made reference to your comment, which should make things a bit more consistent and informative for our readers. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 02:04, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, I don't dispute that the stats are complicated and among those who see the editing decline as a problem, the jury is out as to whether things are stabilising, rebounding or it is just a pause. Of course if it does continue to grow the glass half empty brigade will start to lament that we are no longer making big reductions in vandalism edits by faster reversion and edit filters. Most of the big wins there have already happened and unless someone designs some effective anti-spam filters future reductions in badfaith editing due to filter improvements will be minor. The unfortunate thing is that we don't know whether such positive reasons for the decline in raw edits are more or less significant than negative reasons such as the difficulty of tablet editing and near impossibility of smartphone editing. But if we are both still around in a year would you like a paragraph from me for the 2017 year in review? ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Yes please! WereSpielChequers, I would certainly appreciate that, and if for some reason I've been succeeded by new editor I'm confident they will feel the same. To be perfectly honest, I can't be confident that I will remember at the relevant time...I will try to find a convenient place to leave a note, but it would be most helpful if you could also reach out in, say, November. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 18:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, I don't dispute that the stats are complicated and among those who see the editing decline as a problem, the jury is out as to whether things are stabilising, rebounding or it is just a pause. Of course if it does continue to grow the glass half empty brigade will start to lament that we are no longer making big reductions in vandalism edits by faster reversion and edit filters. Most of the big wins there have already happened and unless someone designs some effective anti-spam filters future reductions in badfaith editing due to filter improvements will be minor. The unfortunate thing is that we don't know whether such positive reasons for the decline in raw edits are more or less significant than negative reasons such as the difficulty of tablet editing and near impossibility of smartphone editing. But if we are both still around in a year would you like a paragraph from me for the 2017 year in review? ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for this, WereSpielChequers, I regret the error. I do think it's worthwhile to note that even if stabilized, the trend has not substantially reversed -- but you're quite correct that my phrasing was inaccurate. I've restored the original text, but made reference to your comment, which should make things a bit more consistent and informative for our readers. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 02:04, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
750 millionth edit
[edit]A better stat to have included would have been that the English Wikipedia's 750 millionth edit took place on the 17th November 2016. OK the actual edit was a vandalism, but it is an impressive stat. ϢereSpielChequers 19:16, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
The year of user rights
[edit]On the technical side, we saw three new user access levels created this year: extended confirmed, page mover, and new page reviewer.
- Extended confirmed
The first, extended confirmed, was originally intended solely as a means of enforcing the various arbitration remedies that prevented editors with under 30 edits/500 days threshold to edit various topic areas, such as Palestine-Israel articles – see this village pump discussion in February authorizing its creation. In a widely attended request for comment in July and August, the community expanded the scope of extended confirmed protection to include "any form of disruption (such as vandalism, edit wars, etc.) on any topic", so long as semi-protection has proven to be ineffective. Supporters argued that an intermediary between semi-protection and full protection was needed, while opponents argued that the widespread implementation of the new protection level would discourage newcomers – a consensus developed that extended confirmed protection should not be used as a first resort and that all implementations would be posted to User:MusikBot/ECPMonitor/Report, transcluded on WP:AN. There is currently a request for comment in progress as to whether the scope should be expanded to include high-risk templates and creation protection.
- Page mover
The second, page mover, received wide support from the community for its creation – see the request for comment in April and May. The RfC simultaneously approved the flags to be added to the new user group: suppressredirect (which allows users to move pages without leaving a redirect behind) and move-subpages (which allows users to move subpages when moving their parent pages). There were additional proposals to include the ability to override title blacklist, the ability to apply move protection, and an increased throttle limit for page moves to the user right, but those did not receive consensus.
- New page reviewer
The third, new page reviewer, was a bit more complicated. In late August and September 2016, a request for comment discussed a proposal for a new user right called “New Page Reviewer”, whose stated purpose was “to ensure that users are suitably experienced for patrolling new pages.” The RfC’s introduction presented arguments stressing the importance of the new page patrol process and the need to get it right in order to avoid biting newcomers. There was significant opposition within the RfC to any restriction to accessing functions of Twinkle, but that was ultimately deemed beyond the scope of the RfC, and it closed with a “clear, community-wide consensus for the technical changes proposed.” A second RfC was then held in October 2016 to determine the qualifications for granting this newly endorsed user right, proposing a set of criteria which received wide community approval. These guidelines for granting the permission may be read at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers.
In accordance with these consensuses, on 16 November 2016, the technical ability to mark pages as “patrolled” was restricted to users with the newly created new page reviewer right, as well as administrators. As this transition took place, a dispute was brought to ANI revolving around whether users without the “new page reviewer” user right were still permitted to identify themselves as “new page patrollers” through user boxes like {{User Newpages with Twinkle}} and {{User wikipedia/NP Patrol2}}. Some said no, arguing that as a result of the prior RfCs, users without the “new page reviewer” user right should no longer participate in the new page patrol process. Others said yes, arguing that the prior RfCs only restricted the technical ability to mark pages as “patrolled” to a group of editors, and that the general tasks of “new page patrolling” (e.g. adding maintenance tags, copyediting, nominating for deletion) could still be performed by anyone. A request for comment was started late November to resolve that dispute, which is still partially open as of now. Mz7 (talk) 17:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
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