Robert Scott Horning wrote:
I've been trying to find out the origin of a
"policy" on Wikimedia
projects, and I'd like some help to see just where the discussion
about this is at and where the origins of the policy came from. Most
of the Wikimedia projects copy the help pages from Meta, usually with
a strong disclaimer that you shouldn't edit the copied pages but
instead try to contribute to the pages on Meta.
My question is this: Why are the pages copied to the other projects
at all? Is there a strong technical reason to have this content
duplicated multiple times across multiple projects? Who made the
decision to have all of this content duplicated? Where is an
appropriate forum for even discussing this policy and where is the
policy even written down?
The same thing has been happening at Wiktionary with the same bot has
been doing this on Wiktionary as on Wikibooks. It seems to have started
about a month ago but I did not notice it until recently. That comes as
no surprise since experienced participants don't normally have a need to
look at the help pages. If I hadn't wanted to do some editing of
newcomer information it could have gone on unnoticed mudh longer. I
have thus far blanked the disclaimer template. Until this can be
resolved Wiktionarians should feel completely free to edit these pages,
and overwriting their edits with this bot should be subject to being
reverted. I have also asked the owner of the bot to stop. If need be I
will have no qualms about blocking the bot if it does any further importing.
It would make sense to use such pages on a new project that has not yet
established its own procedures; that project could then feel free to
modify these pages as its circumstances required. As you can see I
attach very high importance to the autonomy of the projects, and except
for a few obviously necessary principles such as NPOV, each project
should be free to set its own policies.
In theory the discussion would be taking place on some Meta page, and
all the people who regularly participate in Meta would have the right to
have input into the policy. Extending the theory further the least that
should happen if you are going to have these policies affect other
projects is to notify the separate communities that the discussion is
about to take place. This has not been done at Wiktionary, and it is
apparent that it has not been done at Wikibooks either. Even if the
discussins were to take place on Meta, what provisions would there be to
prevent a "tyranny of the majority" from imposing its views on projects
that may be doing things differently. Wikis depend very much on
respecting the rights of members to establish their own rules, and
policies. By making these pages effectively uneditable by anyone in the
project (by saying that any edits will be ignored and botted over) this
person has clearly gone against the openness that characterizes a wiki.
I got into an editorial dispute with another admin on
Wikibooks, where
I was having the help pages simply redirect to Meta (including the
MediaWiki:Edithelppage location) to point users directly to the
original source rather than trying to duplicate the content on
Wikibook. These changes were reverted back, so I started a VfD on
Wikibooks over this whole thing to get community input on the
concept. So far, it is accepted as gospel fact that this content must
be duplicated, but I am challenging that assertion and trying to find
out why it is done in this manner.
I've just read through the Wikibooks VfD discussion on this, and find it
unfortunate that this was the avenue chosen for this discussion. I
don't think that it's a deletion issue at. Some of the pages are
probably very useful; if one of them fills a policy hole I don't mond
it's staying there for the time being. It's really a question of
project members' rights to edit the pages. A see also link to the
corresponding page in Meta should be adequate for having access to the
information there.
My main argument for getting rid of these pages on
Wikibooks (and
perhaps other Wikimedia projects) is that not only do they take up
server space, but they are also vandalism targets and seldom on the
watchlist of any users. In addition, because the editorial effort is
taking place on Meta they tend to go stale rather quickly and don't
the the attention of the active regular users on the project. Making
the help pages protected may be an option, but that keeps the pages
"frozen" with no ability to update the content if it improves on Meta
except through direct admin intervention. I am not advocating the
removal of the Help namespace, just the end of duplication of the
MediaWiki handbook.
Right now a user on Wikibooks has created a 'bot (without the bot flag
in place as well... another issue for another day) that occasionally
duplicates the help content on Meta and copies it over to Wikibooks
and other Wikimedia projects as well. As this is just a single user's
pet project, there is no scheduled update for transfering the help
pages either. This also causes problems typical of a 'bot like
overwriting talk page discussions, but it does help keep the help
pages coordinated.
The operation of these rogue bots is another issue. The purpose of bot
flags has been only to prevent these edits from appearing on Recent
Changes. Bots often continue to function without approval as long as
its edits come within easily achived guidelines for frequency of use. I
think that projects need to develop much tighter controls over the
operation of bots, but that's a major other topic.
Mind you, I'm not trying to disparage the very
valiant effort of those
who have been writing this content for the MediaWiki handbook. This
is a largely thankless job that is critical to all of the MediaWiki
users, beyond just the Wikimedia sister projects. Steady improvements
in the content have occured over this past year, together with minor
changes in the MediaWiki software that have generally been reflected
in the documentation as well. A general thank-you to all who have
been involved with its development is certainly in order.
I agree with you there too. Most of the content is indeed very good and
useful. It's the duplication that is mindless, along with the total lack
of provision to change or even comment about it on the talk page.
Ec
Ec