In December 2005 during the John Seigenthaler biography controversy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_contr...) it was decided to require that users create an account and log in before starting a new article. The ability of people to make changes without logging in remained unchanged.
Some people believed that Wikipedia's the high rate of growth may have outpaced its community's ability to monitor new articles, contributing to the Seigenthaler problem. It was hoped that the limitation of page creation would increase the quality of newly created pages, increase oversight over newly created pages, and avoid the creation of hoax articles. Since that point several attempts to study the impact of the change have been conducted. These studies have been unable to produce conclusive findings.
Around the time of the Seigenthaler controversy Wikipedia underwent a dramatic and discontinuous increase in traffic and editing activity beyond the high rate of growth Wikipedia had long been experiencing. It is very likely that the press surrounding this incident contributed to this increase. This increase had made it impossible to make conclusive statements about the impact limiting page creation.
Furthermore, if we ignore the growth effects the data suggests that the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia. I must emphasize that all results have been inconclusive. We just can't tell.
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
I hope that we can all look at this matter with optimism. If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately. If you have ideas on additional measurements we can perform after making this change or if you'd like to volunteer your effort for helping to perform a manual new article quality study next month, please let me know.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
Out of curiosity, was this discussed or presented to the community at large before a decision was made?
--Darkwind
On 26/10/2007, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
Out of curiosity, was this discussed or presented to the community at large before a decision was made?
--Darkwind
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See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Anonymou... we can discuss it there, yes?
Majorly wrote:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Anonymou... we can discuss it there, yes?
Oh, I'm perfectly willing to discuss it *now*, but I suppose my point was that the initial e-mail certainly made it seem as if the decision were already final, and it's things like that which cause the paranoiacs to complain that there's a cabal...
--Darkwind
On 10/26/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Oh, I'm perfectly willing to discuss it *now*, but I suppose my point was that the initial e-mail certainly made it seem as if the decision were already final, and it's things like that which cause the paranoiacs to complain that there's a cabal...
The long term decision isn't final: the community will need to decide if we re-disable anonymous page creation. But we can't fairly make a decision on that until we have some usable information to go on.
On 10/26/07, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I've a few thoughts, certainly, on a benefits v. disadvantages viewpoint, we won't know until we have some facts and figures to dissect,
Right. The issue at hand is that we don't have much information right now, and we can only obtain information by making the change again.
but I can't help but get the feeling we're returning to focus on quantity over quality, anonymous users can still improve almost all articles on the project and that's where we should be focusing our attention.
I'd like to suggest that re-enabling anonymous page creation isn't at all mutually exclusive with quality over quantity.
None of the data we have today supports the conclusion that disabling anonymous page creation increased quality. If it did there would be little reason to turn anonymous page creation back on.
I'd personally consider a substantial increase in the percentage of new pages deleted to be a reason to turn anon-page creation back off. But that will ultimately be the community's decision once it has the information.
On 2007.10.26 16:41:01 -0500, RLS evendell@gmail.com scribbled 0 lines:
Majorly wrote:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Anonymou... we can discuss it there, yes?
Oh, I'm perfectly willing to discuss it *now*, but I suppose my point was that the initial e-mail certainly made it seem as if the decision were already final, and it's things like that which cause the paranoiacs to complain that there's a cabal...
--Darkwind
Hey, if it was imposed by the cabal, I don't mind it being unimposed by the cabal...
-- gwern SACS IW 5.53 Sayeret NRO Tower cybercash delay Rome bet
Gwern Branwen wrote:
Hey, if it was imposed by the cabal, I don't mind it being unimposed by the cabal...
Heh, I suppose you have a point. I don't know what the circumstances were surrounding the removal of anon page creation (I was on extended wiki-break), so if this mirrors the process that took place when the change was first made, I suppose I shouldn't complain now.
--Darkwind
On 10/26/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
Hey, if it was imposed by the cabal, I don't mind it being unimposed by the cabal...
Greg appears to have a very charming and unusual way of, erm, proposing things. ;-) But since the decision he proposes makes sense, I think we can overlook that.
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On 26/10/2007, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
Out of curiosity, was this discussed or presented to the community at large before a decision was made?
" If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately." - this *is* the discussion :)
Jolly good idea I say. Some of our best anonymous editors just don't want accounts.
--Darkwind
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On 10/26/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiosity, was this discussed or presented to the community at large before a decision was made?
Hopefully you realize any such discussion would reach a perpetual stalemate, and nothing would ever happen. And then the explicit "lack of consensus" would be used as an argument against any "let's just be bold and try it" maneuvers, even by people a handful of people who would otherwise support such an action. There has to be a word for this phenomenon, but I can't find it at the moment.
—C.W.
Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 10/26/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiosity, was this discussed or presented to the community at large before a decision was made?
Hopefully you realize any such discussion would reach a perpetual stalemate, and nothing would ever happen. And then the explicit "lack of consensus" would be used as an argument against any "let's just be bold and try it" maneuvers, even by people a handful of people who would otherwise support such an action. There has to be a word for this phenomenon, but I can't find it at the moment.
I wasn't trying to assert any view on the productivity of such a discussion. Rather, it was a roundabout way of saying "you know, this is why people think there's a cabal." Those who are paranoid about that sort of thing would have had a field day with GM's original message, and probably wouldn't have paid any attention to the ensuing discussion that he felt this was the most effective way to get action started, and that no "cabalized" decision had been made.
If one were concerned about en.wp's culture *appearing* open to everyone to participate in the decision-making process, one wouldn't present proposals that way. That's all.
--Darkwind
On 27/10/2007, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 10/26/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiosity, was this discussed or presented to the community at large before a decision was made?
Hopefully you realize any such discussion would reach a perpetual stalemate, and nothing would ever happen. And then the explicit "lack of consensus" would be used as an argument against any "let's just be bold and try it" maneuvers, even by people a handful of people who would otherwise support such an action. There has to be a word for this phenomenon, but I can't find it at the moment.
I wasn't trying to assert any view on the productivity of such a discussion. Rather, it was a roundabout way of saying "you know, this is why people think there's a cabal." Those who are paranoid about that sort of thing would have had a field day with GM's original message, and probably wouldn't have paid any attention to the ensuing discussion that he felt this was the most effective way to get action started, and that no "cabalized" decision had been made.
If one were concerned about en.wp's culture *appearing* open to everyone to participate in the decision-making process, one wouldn't present proposals that way. That's all.
On the contrary, I think a community that allows anyone to make proposals regardless of their role, status, &c. is freer than your alternative (freedom of opportunity in a very non-political sense). All it requires is initiative - the community weeds out unpopular proposals if they are done on-wiki and in a transparent way.
On 10/27/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
If one were concerned about en.wp's culture *appearing* open to everyone to participate in the decision-making process, one wouldn't present proposals that way. That's all.
The claim that it was "a proposal" was Erik's, not mine.
This had previously been proposed, and approved by the community in near unanimous discussions where *I* the biggest thing resembling disagreement.
My message was not a proposal, except in the sense that just about any action any participates makes is subject to the review of the community.
Some people might think that the decision to give notice an time to respond downgrades something to mere "proposal" status, but that certainly isn't my view.
The primary proponent of the original change doesn't support it anymore. A significant part of the foundation staff would like to change it back. ... and, of course, The date was set far enough out for the community to shoot it down, though since there is no data and since there was no sign of that in prior discussions I would have been surprised.
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from Sue or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed down. Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both cases the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take initiative on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from Sue or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed down. Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both cases the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take initiative on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
I trust that "watery tart" was not intended as a sexist comment. ;-)
Ec
You're not suggesting that there exists some EnWikipedian who would not get a subtle monty python ref. Are you??
:)
(Google the text I had in quotes)
On 10/27/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from Sue or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed down. Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both cases the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take initiative on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
I trust that "watery tart" was not intended as a sexist comment. ;-)
Ec
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Gregory Maxwell wrote:
You're not suggesting that there exists some EnWikipedian who would not get a subtle monty python ref. Are you??
:)
(Google the text I had in quotes)
Seems like my apologies are in order for failing to recognize an important cultural antecedent. I was looking more at somethng like [[KinK]] or [[Sin Cities]]. :-[
Ec
On 10/27/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from Sue or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed down. Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both cases the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take initiative on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
I trust that "watery tart" was not intended as a sexist comment. ;-)
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from Sue or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed down. Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both cases the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take initiative on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
I trust that "watery tart" was not intended as a sexist comment. ;-)
Ec
what does that mean Ec ?
Ant
Florence Devouard wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from Sue or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed down. Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both cases the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take initiative on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
I trust that "watery tart" was not intended as a sexist comment. ;-)
what does that mean Ec ?
It means first that I botched Greg's allusion to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" See http://arago4.tnw.utwente.nl/stonedead/movies/holy-grail/scene-03.html for the context.
A tart is a mostly British term for a prostitute, and in the Monty Python skit the reference was to the Lady of the Lake who rose up from the water to give King Arthur his sword. In the skit a peasant challenges this as an inappropriate means of choosing a leader.
Ec
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I may be mistaken but I think what Florence was asking is what "Ec" means? Something I too would like to know :)
- -- Gary Kirk
On 28/10/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from Sue or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed down. Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both cases the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take initiative on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
I trust that "watery tart" was not intended as a sexist comment. ;-)
what does that mean Ec ?
It means first that I botched Greg's allusion to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" See http://arago4.tnw.utwente.nl/stonedead/movies/holy-grail/scene-03.html for the context.
A tart is a mostly British term for a prostitute, and in the Monty Python skit the reference was to the Lady of the Lake who rose up from the water to give King Arthur his sword. In the skit a peasant challenges this as an inappropriate means of choosing a leader.
Ec
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I don't think she meant what does "Ec" mean, Ray is one of the most active contributors on the mailing lists (second only to Brion, I believe) so she would have many other chances over the years to ask him that. ;-) (Also, what he was writing about was a cultural reference, so it isn't a surprise that an international user might not get it ;-).)
However, I always assumed "Ec" was referring to the first two letters of his username: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Eclecticology. (I know, before I knew his username I was always like "who *is* this guy?!")
On 10/29/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
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I may be mistaken but I think what Florence was asking is what "Ec" means? Something I too would like to know :)
Gary Kirk
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org
iD8DBQFHJV0j+2nUI1W2UMIRAkDEAJkB0hcEhPRMxj6Qs0nFhiLOHeTOvwCfYVLy vkZa3pJesR03CJTO3sKl1H4= =vy8C -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- On 28/10/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses"
The real situation would have been no different had a message from
Sue
or the board. Had the pitchforks come out they would have backed
down.
Or the change could have just been made without notice. In both
cases
the community will have ultimately decided this one as well.
If it will make people happier, next time I decided to take
initiative
on a fairly clear cut matter I will make that that I find a watery tart to throw a sword at me first. ;)
I trust that "watery tart" was not intended as a sexist comment. ;-)
what does that mean Ec ?
It means first that I botched Greg's allusion to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" See http://arago4.tnw.utwente.nl/stonedead/movies/holy-grail/scene-03.html for the context.
A tart is a mostly British term for a prostitute, and in the Monty Python skit the reference was to the Lady of the Lake who rose up from the water to give King Arthur his sword. In the skit a peasant challenges this as an inappropriate means of choosing a leader.
Ec
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-- Gary Kirk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Casey Brown wrote:
I don't think she meant what does "Ec" mean, Ray is one of the most active contributors on the mailing lists (second only to Brion, I believe) so she would have many other chances over the years to ask him that. ;-) (Also, what he was writing about was a cultural reference, so it isn't a surprise that an international user might not get it ;-).)
However, I always assumed "Ec" was referring to the first two letters of his username: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Eclecticology. (I know, before I knew his username I was always like "who *is* this guy?!")
On 10/29/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
I may be mistaken but I think what Florence was asking is what "Ec" means? Something I too would like to know :)
ROTFL. Thanks for explaining that interpretation of the question. Florence and I have both been around a long time. That kind of made understanding the question that way inconceivable. I'm glad to hear that Gary was baiting.
Ec
Charlotte Webb wrote:
Hopefully you realize any such discussion would reach a perpetual stalemate, and nothing would ever happen. And then the explicit "lack of consensus" would be used as an argument against any "let's just be bold and try it" maneuvers, even by people a handful of people who would otherwise support such an action. There has to be a word for this phenomenon, but I can't find it at the moment.
Initiative?
Ec
On 26/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In December 2005 during the John Seigenthaler biography controversy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_contr... ) it was decided to require that users create an account and log in before starting a new article. The ability of people to make changes without logging in remained unchanged.
Some people believed that Wikipedia's the high rate of growth may have outpaced its community's ability to monitor new articles, contributing to the Seigenthaler problem. It was hoped that the limitation of page creation would increase the quality of newly created pages, increase oversight over newly created pages, and avoid the creation of hoax articles. Since that point several attempts to study the impact of the change have been conducted. These studies have been unable to produce conclusive findings.
Around the time of the Seigenthaler controversy Wikipedia underwent a dramatic and discontinuous increase in traffic and editing activity beyond the high rate of growth Wikipedia had long been experiencing. It is very likely that the press surrounding this incident contributed to this increase. This increase had made it impossible to make conclusive statements about the impact limiting page creation.
Furthermore, if we ignore the growth effects the data suggests that the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia. I must emphasize that all results have been inconclusive. We just can't tell.
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
I hope that we can all look at this matter with optimism. If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately. If you have ideas on additional measurements we can perform after making this change or if you'd like to volunteer your effort for helping to perform a manual new article quality study next month, please let me know.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Anonymou...
I think we should discuss it *on* the wiki, at the above location. Thanks,
I've a few thoughts, certainly, on a benefits v. disadvantages viewpoint, we won't know until we have some facts and figures to dissect, but I can't help but get the feeling we're returning to focus on quantity over quality, anonymous users can still improve almost all articles on the project and that's where we should be focusing our attention.
On 26/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In December 2005 during the John Seigenthaler biography controversy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_contr... ) it was decided to require that users create an account and log in before starting a new article. The ability of people to make changes without logging in remained unchanged.
Some people believed that Wikipedia's the high rate of growth may have outpaced its community's ability to monitor new articles, contributing to the Seigenthaler problem. It was hoped that the limitation of page creation would increase the quality of newly created pages, increase oversight over newly created pages, and avoid the creation of hoax articles. Since that point several attempts to study the impact of the change have been conducted. These studies have been unable to produce conclusive findings.
Around the time of the Seigenthaler controversy Wikipedia underwent a dramatic and discontinuous increase in traffic and editing activity beyond the high rate of growth Wikipedia had long been experiencing. It is very likely that the press surrounding this incident contributed to this increase. This increase had made it impossible to make conclusive statements about the impact limiting page creation.
Furthermore, if we ignore the growth effects the data suggests that the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia. I must emphasize that all results have been inconclusive. We just can't tell.
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
I hope that we can all look at this matter with optimism. If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately. If you have ideas on additional measurements we can perform after making this change or if you'd like to volunteer your effort for helping to perform a manual new article quality study next month, please let me know.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
In December 2005 during the John Seigenthaler biography controversy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_contr...) it was decided to require that users create an account and log in before starting a new article. The ability of people to make changes without logging in remained unchanged.
Some people believed that Wikipedia's the high rate of growth may have outpaced its community's ability to monitor new articles, contributing to the Seigenthaler problem. It was hoped that the limitation of page creation would increase the quality of newly created pages, increase oversight over newly created pages, and avoid the creation of hoax articles. Since that point several attempts to study the impact of the change have been conducted. These studies have been unable to produce conclusive findings.
Around the time of the Seigenthaler controversy Wikipedia underwent a dramatic and discontinuous increase in traffic and editing activity beyond the high rate of growth Wikipedia had long been experiencing. It is very likely that the press surrounding this incident contributed to this increase. This increase had made it impossible to make conclusive statements about the impact limiting page creation.
Furthermore, if we ignore the growth effects the data suggests that the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia. I must emphasize that all results have been inconclusive. We just can't tell.
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
I hope that we can all look at this matter with optimism. If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately. If you have ideas on additional measurements we can perform after making this change or if you'd like to volunteer your effort for helping to perform a manual new article quality study next month, please let me know.
Interesting... Well, I do not know who exactly made that decision, but I am happy of it. I was never really convinced it was a good idea.
One thing I am very curious about is to know what the english speaking community will decide regarding the stable version system (display of flagged version, or display of current versions). I am personally VERY VERY much in favor of displaying the live version. But I have no idea if this has been discussed here and if so, what the general position was.
Anthere
On 27/10/2007, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Interesting... Well, I do not know who exactly made that decision, but I am happy of it. I was never really convinced it was a good idea.
One thing I am very curious about is to know what the english speaking community will decide regarding the stable version system (display of flagged version, or display of current versions). I am personally VERY VERY much in favor of displaying the live version. But I have no idea if this has been discussed here and if so, what the general position was.
Anthere
There isn't one really. Until en sees stable version in action on a major wiki there are more immediate conflicts to settle.
On 10/26/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
One thing I am very curious about is to know what the english speaking community will decide regarding the stable version system (display of flagged version, or display of current versions).
What would be the point in having "stable versions" if random drive by viewers would see the current version by default? (or is "current version" not the same as the "last edited" version?)
"Random drive by viewers" i.e. anons would see the sighted version (the stable one, the one reviewed as without vandalism, the flagged one). Logged in users would see the current revision, whether or not this is sighted.
On 10/26/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/26/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
One thing I am very curious about is to know what the english speaking community will decide regarding the stable version system (display of flagged version, or display of current versions).
What would be the point in having "stable versions" if random drive by viewers would see the current version by default? (or is "current version" not the same as the "last edited" version?)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I think this would be more likely to avoid disaster if it were possible to compartmentalize NewPages so these can get separate attention. Can this be done?
On 10/26/07, Casey Brown cbrown1023.ml@gmail.com wrote:
"Random drive by viewers" i.e. anons would see the sighted version (the stable one, the one reviewed as without vandalism, the flagged one). Logged in users would see the current revision, whether or not this is sighted.
On 10/26/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/26/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
One thing I am very curious about is to know what the english speaking community will decide regarding the stable version system (display of flagged version, or display of current versions).
What would be the point in having "stable versions" if random drive by viewers would see the current version by default? (or is "current version" not the same as the "last edited" version?)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
What, like Special:Newpages?
On 27/10/2007, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
I think this would be more likely to avoid disaster if it were possible to compartmentalize NewPages so these can get separate attention. Can this be done?
On 10/26/07, Casey Brown cbrown1023.ml@gmail.com wrote:
"Random drive by viewers" i.e. anons would see the sighted version (the stable one, the one reviewed as without vandalism, the flagged
one). Logged
in users would see the current revision, whether or not this is sighted.
On 10/26/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/26/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
One thing I am very curious about is to know what the english
speaking
community will decide regarding the stable version system (display
of
flagged version, or display of current versions).
What would be the point in having "stable versions" if random drive by viewers would see the current version by default? (or is "current version" not the same as the "last edited" version?)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails
sent
to this address will probably get lost. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 27/10/2007, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
I think this would be more likely to avoid disaster if it were possible to compartmentalize NewPages so these can get separate attention. Can this be done?
[[Special:Newpages]]? We're not short of patrollers, which is why over half of the new articles as it stands are shot on sight. I expect this only to go up. Still, we should get some decent stuff we wouldn't get otherwise.
- d.
On 27/10/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Still, we should get some decent stuff we wouldn't get otherwise.
Indeed, as someone wrote on the village pump, CSD is faster than AFC.
Hmm, good point. I hadn't though of that. I used to do AfC work and it is kind of slow.
Majorly wrote:
On 27/10/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Still, we should get some decent stuff we wouldn't get otherwise.
Indeed, as someone wrote on the village pump, CSD is faster than AFC.
-- Alex (Majorly)
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Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 10/26/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
One thing I am very curious about is to know what the english speaking community will decide regarding the stable version system (display of flagged version, or display of current versions).
What would be the point in having "stable versions" if random drive by viewers would see the current version by default? (or is "current version" not the same as the "last edited" version?)
Providing a link at the top of each page, linking to the last flagged version ?
Providing a dump version of the latest flagged articles, thus reducing the risk of providing versions with vandalism ?
For one, I think this is long overdue. We rely on the good faith of Strangers, to paraphrase Tennessee Williams.
We really need those eyeballs to spot all the ways we have gone astray. We don't git thim, if we spit at 'im.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
I hope that we can all look at this matter with optimism. If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately. If you have ideas on additional measurements we can perform after making this change or if you'd like to volunteer your effort for helping to perform a manual new article quality study next month, please let me know.
Huzzah! I want to volunteer my efforts. What page is the study being run out of?
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods [...]
Who is "we"? The Gregory Maxwell committee? Obviously it wasn't a Board decision, if Florence knows nothing about it. And if it was an executive decision, why isn't it being announced by Sue, or one of the staff?
-- Tim Starling
On 27/10/2007, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods [...]
Who is "we"? The Gregory Maxwell committee? Obviously it wasn't a Board decision, if Florence knows nothing about it. And if it was an executive decision, why isn't it being announced by Sue, or one of the staff?
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
I agree, it's a good idea. That doesn't give any individual the right to say "we're doing this on such and such a date". This should have been proposed, not stated.
On 10/27/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
I agree, it's a good idea. That doesn't give any individual the right to say "we're doing this on such and such a date". This should have been proposed, not stated.
You're talking here about the experiment, or the ending of it?
On 27/10/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
I agree, it's a good idea. That doesn't give any individual the right to say "we're doing this on such and such a date". This should have been proposed, not stated.
That's a matter of wording. GM proposed this using the language of statement (an effective technique to get things done). Ultimately, if enough are/were opposed to the proposal, it wouldn't be carried out.
That's a matter of wording. GM proposed this using the language of statement (an effective technique to get things done). Ultimately, if enough are/were opposed to the proposal, it wouldn't be carried out.
Sometimes wording is important. Wikipedia always requires positive consensus, not negative. If we can't agree on something, we stick with the status quo. GM's email is worded as if he intends this to work the other way around, and he has no authority to decide that.
On 10/27/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That's a matter of wording. GM proposed this using the language of statement (an effective technique to get things done). Ultimately, if enough are/were opposed to the proposal, it wouldn't be carried out.
Sometimes wording is important. Wikipedia always requires positive consensus, not negative. If we can't agree on something, we stick with the status quo. GM's email is worded as if he intends this to work the other way around, and he has no authority to decide that.
GM is undoing something that there was no initial positive consensus for. The precedent (see the original nofollow controversy) is that when a decision does not have positive consensus behind it, there needs not be a positive consensus to undo it.
Johnleemk
Thomas Dalton wrote:
That's a matter of wording. GM proposed this using the language of statement (an effective technique to get things done). Ultimately, if enough are/were opposed to the proposal, it wouldn't be carried out.
Sometimes wording is important. Wikipedia always requires positive consensus, not negative. If we can't agree on something, we stick with the status quo. GM's email is worded as if he intends this to work the other way around, and he has no authority to decide that.
The fact is that it takes more than a consensus to get things done. If there is a general and obvious consensus to do something, and nobody accepts the responsibility to act upon that consensus, then the consensus might just as well have been to do nothing.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
That's a matter of wording. GM proposed this using the language of statement (an effective technique to get things done). Ultimately, if enough are/were opposed to the proposal, it wouldn't be carried out.
Sometimes wording is important. Wikipedia always requires positive consensus, not negative. If we can't agree on something, we stick with the status quo. GM's email is worded as if he intends this to work the other way around, and he has no authority to decide that.
The fact is that it takes more than a consensus to get things done. If there is a general and obvious consensus to do something, and nobody accepts the responsibility to act upon that consensus, then the consensus might just as well have been to do nothing.
The obvious next step, after consensus is achieved, is to file a bug report, then find a sysadmin to fulfill the request for you. This is a simple configuration change, we just need a bugzilla request for tracking plus a demonstration of rough consensus.
-- Tim Starling
On 10/27/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Sometimes wording is important. Wikipedia always requires positive consensus, not negative. If we can't agree on something, we stick with the status quo.
Maybe you haven't visited AfD lately; that's not really the way it works any more.
One example of many possible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_snowclo...
-Sage
On 10/27/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
That's a matter of wording. GM proposed this using the language of statement (an effective technique to get things done). Ultimately, if enough are/were opposed to the proposal, it wouldn't be carried out.
Agree, it's refreshing really. I haven't seen anyone think this is actually a bad idea, and many people have raised the opinion that anon restrictions were detrimental since they were implemented. Are we seriously upset now because someone is taking some initiative? Having data before a discussion is never a bad thing, and it's not like one month of anon creation will destroy Wikipedia in any event. We'll probably get thousands of good new articles (and lots of crap of course, but hey).
On 27/10/2007, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods [...]
Who is "we"? The Gregory Maxwell committee? Obviously it wasn't a Board decision, if Florence knows nothing about it. And if it was an executive decision, why isn't it being announced by Sue, or one of the staff?
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
P.S. Just as a point of discussion: the Foundation was created to make certain processes easier and to centralise fundraising, &c. Why is a non-Foundation decision or initiative somehow less valid than one led by the Foundation?
Yes, the Foundation holds the purse strings (and does a very important job), but the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. The Foundation also has a tendency to consolidate power and remove community-based decision making processes (e.g. the lack of consultation in the latest fundraising drive).
Oldak Quill wrote:
P.S. Just as a point of discussion: the Foundation was created to make certain processes easier and to centralise fundraising, &c. Why is a non-Foundation decision or initiative somehow less valid than one led by the Foundation?
Yes, the Foundation holds the purse strings (and does a very important job), but the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. The Foundation also has a tendency to consolidate power and remove community-based decision making processes (e.g. the lack of consultation in the latest fundraising drive).
The key word there is "given". You use a passive verb. Who did the giving? How often do you see someone saying that we should first seek the authority of the Foundation before taking action. The tendency to consolidate power is not new to the Foundation. Ruling bodies tend to step in and make decisions when an organization which proclaims democracy is paralyzed by indecisiveness, and that paralysis would result in a default decision that nobody wants. I don't blame the Foundation in this, but on the community that fails to realize that its own inability to make decisions defaults to small groups with the courage to impose their own agendas. The Foundation is not the only such group in WP.
Ec
On 27/10/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Oldak Quill wrote:
P.S. Just as a point of discussion: the Foundation was created to make certain processes easier and to centralise fundraising, &c. Why is a non-Foundation decision or initiative somehow less valid than one led by the Foundation?
Yes, the Foundation holds the purse strings (and does a very important job), but the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. The Foundation also has a tendency to consolidate power and remove community-based decision making processes (e.g. the lack of consultation in the latest fundraising drive).
The key word there is "given". You use a passive verb. Who did the giving? How often do you see someone saying that we should first seek the authority of the Foundation before taking action. The tendency to consolidate power is not new to the Foundation. Ruling bodies tend to step in and make decisions when an organization which proclaims democracy is paralyzed by indecisiveness, and that paralysis would result in a default decision that nobody wants. I don't blame the Foundation in this, but on the community that fails to realize that its own inability to make decisions defaults to small groups with the courage to impose their own agendas. The Foundation is not the only such group in WP.
Ec
Indecisiveness in Wikipedia arises from the methods of determination we use (our policies, &c). The community can go some length in correcting these, but the Foundation should encourage decisiveness and decisionmaking-in-the-community. The way to ensure that this occurs is to make the Foundation more accountable to the Wikimedia community, define (limit) it's capacity to interfere in project issues and define the relationship between projects and the Foundation.
Oldak Quill wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods [...]
Who is "we"? The Gregory Maxwell committee? Obviously it wasn't a Board decision, if Florence knows nothing about it. And if it was an executive decision, why isn't it being announced by Sue, or one of the staff?
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
P.S. Just as a point of discussion: the Foundation was created to make certain processes easier and to centralise fundraising, &c. Why is a non-Foundation decision or initiative somehow less valid than one led by the Foundation?
Yes, the Foundation holds the purse strings (and does a very important job), but the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. The Foundation also has a tendency to consolidate power and remove community-based decision making processes (e.g. the lack of consultation in the latest fundraising drive).
{{cite your sources}} :-)
Honestly Oldak, this seems to me to be largely a string of statements which are seriously lacking backing up. I suppose we may have done sometimes what you are blaming us for.
But look, here, you are accusing us of having removed power from you on fundraising issue. I would agree that you were perhaps less consulted than you would have wished to be, but how can you talk about removing power from you when several of the main concerns voiced by the english community over the fundraising drive have been precisely acknowledged and that modifications have been implemented in the following few hours ? It seems to me that there might be an unsufficient "consultation", but I see not where the lack of authority and power really was. If what you are suggested is that you should have the power to decide when we need to do a fundraising, indeed, I would disagree with you. I do consider that a significant authority of the Foundation over fundraising issues is mandatory, because ultimately, in case the Foundation gets in financial troubles, the board will be the one responsible in front of the law, not a vague, amorphous and often anonymous community. We strive to listen as much as possible, but ultimately, once there is responsability over something, there must be authority somehow.
You also mention that the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. I would be happy to hear more about his and understand what your concerns are.
Thanks
Ant
PS: note that the Foundation has never imposed that the creation of pages by anonymous be prevented, or on the contrary be allowed. That's not a Foundation issue, that's a community issue. It is YOUR responsability to make that decision. However, we are free to have an opinion on the topic, just as you are free to have an opinion as well.
On 27/10/2007, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Oldak Quill wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods [...]
Who is "we"? The Gregory Maxwell committee? Obviously it wasn't a Board decision, if Florence knows nothing about it. And if it was an executive decision, why isn't it being announced by Sue, or one of the staff?
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
P.S. Just as a point of discussion: the Foundation was created to make certain processes easier and to centralise fundraising, &c. Why is a non-Foundation decision or initiative somehow less valid than one led by the Foundation?
Yes, the Foundation holds the purse strings (and does a very important job), but the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. The Foundation also has a tendency to consolidate power and remove community-based decision making processes (e.g. the lack of consultation in the latest fundraising drive).
{{cite your sources}} :-)
Honestly Oldak, this seems to me to be largely a string of statements which are seriously lacking backing up. I suppose we may have done sometimes what you are blaming us for.
The Foundation has made questionable encroaches in the past (e.g. influencing the content of Image:Missionary Sex Position.png at en.wiki). I'm not suggesting that the Foundation routinely does this or that when the Foundation does this it is particularly terrible.
But look, here, you are accusing us of having removed power from you on fundraising issue. I would agree that you were perhaps less consulted than you would have wished to be, but how can you talk about removing power from you when several of the main concerns voiced by the english community over the fundraising drive have been precisely acknowledged and that modifications have been implemented in the following few hours ? It seems to me that there might be an unsufficient "consultation", but I see not where the lack of authority and power really was. If what you are suggested is that you should have the power to decide when we need to do a fundraising, indeed, I would disagree with you. I do consider that a significant authority of the Foundation over fundraising issues is mandatory, because ultimately, in case the Foundation gets in financial troubles, the board will be the one responsible in front of the law, not a vague, amorphous and often anonymous community. We strive to listen as much as possible, but ultimately, once there is responsability over something, there must be authority somehow.
Was hardcoding the banner necessary?
You also mention that the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. I would be happy to hear more about his and understand what your concerns are.
Thanks
Ant
PS: note that the Foundation has never imposed that the creation of pages by anonymous be prevented, or on the contrary be allowed. That's not a Foundation issue, that's a community issue. It is YOUR responsability to make that decision. However, we are free to have an opinion on the topic, just as you are free to have an opinion as well.
Wasn't anon page creation turned off by Jimmy (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village%20pump%20%28tech... If so, wasn't that a Foundation action (if Jimmy was just acting on his own, where is this stated?)?
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
On 10/28/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
Wasn't anon page creation turned off by Jimmy (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village%20pump%20%28tech... If so, wasn't that a Foundation action (if Jimmy was just acting on his own, where is this stated?)?
It wasn't a Foundation decision. I'm not sure where this was stated publicly, though.
On 28/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/28/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
Wasn't anon page creation turned off by Jimmy (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village%20pump%20%28tech... If so, wasn't that a Foundation action (if Jimmy was just acting on his own, where is this stated?)?
It wasn't a Foundation decision. I'm not sure where this was stated publicly, though.
Jimmy Wales announced an end to anon page creation on this list (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html): "Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for anonymous users in the English Wikipedia."
I had taken "we" to mean the Foundation. It certainly wasn't a community (and therefore wasn't a project) decision.
On 10/28/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/28/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
Wasn't anon page creation turned off by Jimmy (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village%20pump%20%28tech... If so, wasn't that a Foundation action (if Jimmy was just acting on his own, where is this stated?)?
It wasn't a Foundation decision. I'm not sure where this was stated publicly, though.
Jimmy Wales announced an end to anon page creation on this list (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html): "Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for anonymous users in the English Wikipedia."
I had taken "we" to mean the Foundation. It certainly wasn't a community (and therefore wasn't a project) decision.
I think the "we" meant Brion, but maybe someone else flipped the switch. "Originally Anonymous page creation was originally presented as Jimmy's sole initiative." And some emails I had with people back when this proposal was announced confirm that.
I'd say it was a project decision, just not a community one. Doesn't Jimmy Wales retain some sort of monarch role in the English Wikipedia? De facto, he did in December 2005, as evidenced by his ability to single-handedly implement the experiment we're talking about.
If the English Wikipedia wants any chance at community governance, they've gotta come up with something more realistic than "consensus".
I'd say it was a project decision, just not a community one. Doesn't Jimmy Wales retain some sort of monarch role in the English Wikipedia? De facto, he did in December 2005, as evidenced by his ability to single-handedly implement the experiment we're talking about.
De facto., not necessarily de jure.
KTC
Was hardcoding the banner necessary?
The whole point was specifically so an admin can't just remove it.
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
The board of trustees can't reasonably be expected to be restricted by what they can or cannot do (except by law) in the interest of the charity. The members by law have to put the charity interest first and foremost, even if it means possibly going against the wises / view of the wider membership. The membership can of course decide to remove the board / member(s) though.
And yes, more accountability is always good.
KTC
On 28/10/2007, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
Was hardcoding the banner necessary?
The whole point was specifically so an admin can't just remove it.
Says who? Sounds like an odd intention.
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
The board of trustees can't reasonably be expected to be restricted by what they can or cannot do (except by law) in the interest of the charity. The members by law have to put the charity interest first and foremost, even if it means possibly going against the wises / view of the wider membership. The membership can of course decide to remove the board / member(s) though.
And yes, more accountability is always good.
We can't remove the board, our only option if we disagree with them is to fork. We aren't members of the charity in the legal sense, legally speaking the board appoints all board members itself. The "elections" we have are purely advisory, there is nothing legally stopping the board from ignoring them.
On 10/28/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/10/2007, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
Was hardcoding the banner necessary?
The whole point was specifically so an admin can't just remove it.
Says who? Sounds like an odd intention.
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
The board of trustees can't reasonably be expected to be restricted by what they can or cannot do (except by law) in the interest of the charity. The members by law have to put the charity interest first and foremost, even if it means possibly going against the wises / view of the wider membership. The membership can of course decide to remove the board / member(s) though.
And yes, more accountability is always good.
We can't remove the board, our only option if we disagree with them is to fork. We aren't members of the charity in the legal sense, legally speaking the board appoints all board members itself. The "elections" we have are purely advisory, there is nothing legally stopping the board from ignoring them.
Yup and this was discussed in detail during the most recent board elections. (For more information, see < http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws%3E).
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Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 28/10/2007, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
Was hardcoding the banner necessary?
The whole point was specifically so an admin can't just remove it.
Says who? Sounds like an odd intention.
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
The board of trustees can't reasonably be expected to be restricted by what they can or cannot do (except by law) in the interest of the charity. The members by law have to put the charity interest first and foremost, even if it means possibly going against the wises / view of the wider membership. The membership can of course decide to remove the board / member(s) though.
And yes, more accountability is always good.
We can't remove the board, our only option if we disagree with them is to fork. We aren't members of the charity in the legal sense, legally speaking the board appoints all board members itself. The "elections" we have are purely advisory, there is nothing legally stopping the board from ignoring them.
Hmmmmm. More or less, Thomas is correct. Legally speaking, you may not remove a member. And even if you vote, I think we can legally choose to refuse the elected person. And of course we may at any time decide to remove the voting system and rely only on 100% appointed members. Legally speaking, this is true.
However, I think you guys have a huge power nevertheless, and would be largely responsible if such a mess occurs :-)
First, you guys chose, at some point or another, 4 of the board members currently on the board. Hence, a majority. So, if the board was right now deciding something very shocking to you (such as deciding to stop the entire election system altogether), you would only have two approaches * Either remember that you elected these guys, so whilst you might scream after the board, not forget YOU chose these people. So, you are responsible for choosing the wrong ones :-) * Or remember that you elected these guys, and trust them, and delegated them the responsability of making the right decisions at the right moment. So, their decision seems odd, but maybe is it the best one ?
To be fair, I hear from time to time some criticism, but I hear no one saying "The board is just doing an horrible job and just taking all the wrong decisions, it is a disaster; how could we get rid of them ?". Generally, I see support for what we do (which is reassuring). Some people would have done differently (which is fine), but generally, most are okay.
Second, I think that if you guys, for whatever reasons, decide that one board member you elected is really really really wrong, you have the power to make his life a misery. You really do :-) And do not forget that board members are volunteers. Without financial compensation, what they get as benefit is mostly 1) the warm feeling that they are doing the right thing, 2) the public recognition ? 3) "business" connexions ? Well, you have the power to work on any of these three points if you really want to :-) For example, if 500 people start harassing me publicly and says "she is so stupid, it is a disaster we have such a bad person on the board", I will not try to stick to the job. I'll resign, no hassle. If only 1 person complains, why should I care ? If 50 people complain, it is certainly worth listening.
Third, the Foundation has few staff members. Which means that most of what it succeed to do rely on volunteers from the projects. Without even talking of forking, simply stopping to help on such areas that the Foundation needs, can do wonders.
Never undervalue group power :-)
As for now, I will just keep for me this little sentence "The Foundation is generally very good". Thanks :-)
ant
Quoting Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
*snip*
Second, I think that if you guys, for whatever reasons, decide that one board member you elected is really really really wrong, you have the power to make his life a misery. You really do :-) And do not forget that board members are volunteers. Without financial compensation, what they get as benefit is mostly
- the warm feeling that they are doing the right thing,
- the public recognition ?
- "business" connexions ?
Well, you have the power to work on any of these three points if you really want to :-) For example, if 500 people start harassing me publicly and says "she is so stupid, it is a disaster we have such a bad person on the board", I will not try to stick to the job. I'll resign, no hassle. If only 1 person complains, why should I care ? If 50 people complain, it is certainly worth listening.
I would hope given that we all have the same goals and our part of the Wikiprojects overcommunity(metacommunity? What's the right here?) that expressions of displeasure would come in a more civil and productive form.
Second, I think that if you guys, for whatever reasons, decide that one board member you elected is really really really wrong, you have the power to make his life a misery. You really do :-)
If we decide that, then yes, but without the minutes of board meetings being published, we have no way to know who to blame. We can only blame the board as a whole. We get the results of individual votes with names (in most cases, anyway, there seem to be some missing), but that doesn't really tell us much. They are almost all universally supported, which suggests to me you wait until everyone is happy before voting (essentially consensus based decision making, which is nice to see), so we don't know who forced certain compromises, who gave in to pressure on certain issues, etc.
I can't remember the reasons given for keeping the minutes confidential, but I imagine it has to do with privacy issues. I imagine the vast majority of things discussed in board meetings are not private, so why can't the minutes be published with the board going into closed session just to discuss certain issues?
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
The board of trustees can't reasonably be expected to be restricted by what they can or cannot do (except by law) in the interest of the charity. The members by law have to put the charity interest first and foremost, even if it means possibly going against the wises / view of the wider membership. The membership can of course decide to remove the board / member(s) though.
The WMF has no membership.
On Sun, 2007-10-28 at 14:57 -0400, Anthony wrote:
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
The board of trustees can't reasonably be expected to be restricted by what they can or cannot do (except by law) in the interest of the charity. The members by law have to put the charity interest first and foremost, even if it means possibly going against the wises / view of the wider membership. The membership can of course decide to remove the board / member(s) though.
The WMF has no membership.
What I said about restriction on what the WMF (as it runs the project) and in particular its board (as trustees) can do still applies.
Oldak Quill wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Oldak Quill wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/10/2007, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods [...]
Who is "we"? The Gregory Maxwell committee? Obviously it wasn't a Board decision, if Florence knows nothing about it. And if it was an executive decision, why isn't it being announced by Sue, or one of the staff?
This "experiment" needed to be concluded by someone and it seems that the board haven't taken any steps in this direction. Two options when it comes to concluding this experiment are declaring it a success and making it permanent or declaring it failure and ending the ban. Since the motivation for the trial was PR and since the ban has probably done more net harm than good, I welcome Gregory Maxwell's initiative.
P.S. Just as a point of discussion: the Foundation was created to make certain processes easier and to centralise fundraising, &c. Why is a non-Foundation decision or initiative somehow less valid than one led by the Foundation?
Yes, the Foundation holds the purse strings (and does a very important job), but the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. The Foundation also has a tendency to consolidate power and remove community-based decision making processes (e.g. the lack of consultation in the latest fundraising drive).
{{cite your sources}} :-)
Honestly Oldak, this seems to me to be largely a string of statements which are seriously lacking backing up. I suppose we may have done sometimes what you are blaming us for.
The Foundation has made questionable encroaches in the past (e.g. influencing the content of Image:Missionary Sex Position.png at en.wiki). I'm not suggesting that the Foundation routinely does this or that when the Foundation does this it is particularly terrible.
No. The Foundation has not taken ANY position on the image you are talking about. You would have proving that we regularly do that, because we simply do not. I have no memory we ever voted on any resolution related to this image, nor on sex-related issues on Wikipedia, nor even actually on content itself.
I think what might have happened is that Jimbo might have made a comment, or might have taken a position on this matter. And you concluded that this was the Foundation position.
As far as I am concerned, I am not informed that we took a decision here.
But look, here, you are accusing us of having removed power from you on fundraising issue. I would agree that you were perhaps less consulted than you would have wished to be, but how can you talk about removing power from you when several of the main concerns voiced by the english community over the fundraising drive have been precisely acknowledged and that modifications have been implemented in the following few hours ? It seems to me that there might be an unsufficient "consultation", but I see not where the lack of authority and power really was. If what you are suggested is that you should have the power to decide when we need to do a fundraising, indeed, I would disagree with you. I do consider that a significant authority of the Foundation over fundraising issues is mandatory, because ultimately, in case the Foundation gets in financial troubles, the board will be the one responsible in front of the law, not a vague, amorphous and often anonymous community. We strive to listen as much as possible, but ultimately, once there is responsability over something, there must be authority somehow.
Was hardcoding the banner necessary?
Yes. Last fundraiser was absolutely horrible to handle, because we run nearly 10 projects and some projects exist in over 200 languages. And we had to go set up and edit every site notice, one after the other. It was a nightmare. Not all site notices were saying the same things. Some sites had no site notice at all. And there were several days of difference depending on sites when we finished the fundraising. We have come to a time when it becomes necessary to centralize certain things if we want them to simply work. So, it is hardcoded, which did not prevent you to give opinions and that the most clear and vocal suggestions were taken into account.
By the way, some people are working on alternative site notice mocks up here:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Jp-sitenotice-mockup.png Have a look.
You also mention that the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority on Wikimedia issues. I would be happy to hear more about his and understand what your concerns are.
Thanks
Ant
PS: note that the Foundation has never imposed that the creation of pages by anonymous be prevented, or on the contrary be allowed. That's not a Foundation issue, that's a community issue. It is YOUR responsability to make that decision. However, we are free to have an opinion on the topic, just as you are free to have an opinion as well.
Wasn't anon page creation turned off by Jimmy (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village%20pump%20%28tech... If so, wasn't that a Foundation action (if Jimmy was just acting on his own, where is this stated?)?
Jimmy was acting on his own. The board was not involved in that decision. Where is this stated ? Well, I believe that the normal way of doing things are that a person acting on his own states when he does so, not that the board states that an action done by an individual was not a board decision.
We now have a rather well defined decision making system. You may find all the actions collectively agreed by the board here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions
(/me notes that Erik did not report latest resolutions on this page, will remind him to do so).
Any other moves is likely to be "personal action" unless stated otherwise.
For example, you will find no resolutions here, related to english wikipedia arbitration committee. And you probably know that Jimbo is approving membership of this committee. Conclusion: this is not a Foudation activity, this is a Jimbo activity.
The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
I am fine with the set up of more formal restrictions, but I think these ones should not come from the Foundation, but from the community :-) So, I am listening to which restrictions you suggest.
As for more accountability, I am also listening to your suggestions. I have tried as much as possible to be "accountable" to the community, but I guess I have no more ideas of what is still missing now (or I may have some ideas, but these are practically not possible to implement right now). So, any further suggestion is welcome.
An example of one thing I would love: I would love to be sure that ANY member of the community is informed at least one month in advance that a fundraiser is planned and will start mid-october. However, there is just so much we can do to announce that. We can send email to a list, but should we send an email to the perhaps 300 lists used by the community ? We can post on each pump, but there are about 500 pumps right now. Etc... There is NO technical way we can make sure we reach absolutely everyone in the community (except through a hardcoded sitenotice perhaps :-)). We need to rely on "relays", community member who choose to help to relay the information. But if relays do not relay, then so what ?
Ant
On 10/27/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods [...]
Who is "we"? The Gregory Maxwell committee? Obviously it wasn't a Board decision, if Florence knows nothing about it. And if it was an executive decision, why isn't it being announced by Sue, or one of the staff?
Ha.
The complete series of events that caused me to write the email are slightly complex and offtopic for this thread. Oldak Quill has found the most effective short explanation: We means 'we the project'. The message was written as an assertion because I felt it was reasonably justified and expected that to be the simplest and most effective approach. My decision to take some leadership on this is partially a result of my own guilt in prolonging the current situation, and partially the result of no one else bothering to do it.
The longer story is:
I met with Sue, Mike Godwin, and Kat for a friendly "people are in town" meeting a few hours before sending the message.
During the meeting someone (i.e. not me, I believe) brought up anonymous page creation and there was a general discussion about why it hadn't been undone yet. Mike suggested that the board write a resolution making it so, Kat responded that in her opinion she didn't think the board should decide over it since it was an enwiki decision and not originally a board decision. Originally Anonymous page creation was originally presented as Jimmy's sole initiative.
I pointed out that Jimmy had said that we should change back on several occasions, spanning all the way back to Wikimania Boston. Jimmy has also publicly stated "And preventing anons from creating new pages was an example of a restriction that, as far as I am aware, has not been particularly successful."
Our meeting moved on to other topics without finding a good path to bring this matter to conclusion.
There also seemed to be a concern that the community would oppose making the change, but that was not a concern I shared in this instance. This seemed to be to be one of those issues where everyone thinks everyone else will complain but almost no one actually does.
When I got back my office I did some research, saw that the two prior public discussions were nearly unanimous on the subject of turning it back off and, in fact, I'd played a non-trivial role in disrupting an effort to do so.
As such I decided to step up to move this forward. If the community didn't like it they could blame me... I made sure that they would be reasonably well informed and have a chance to comment, unlike some other unfortunate recent decisions.
I didn't propose it as "lets have a debate over" partially because we've already had public discussions (Sept 2006), and mostly because without more information there is nothing more to debate:
"It will break things", "No it won't", "anons create bad pages", "people who create bad pages seem to log in just fine" "there will be more" "no there wont" ... Right now, neither side in a debate site any strong facts to make their argument.
Why invite an unproductive discussion unless one is needed? Besides "the unilateral statement of fact" approach is a time honored tradition of successful enwp policy revision, and I think this one isn't even half as unilateral as many decisions.
...Especially considering that this was originally stated to be "an experiment", that it was pushed out without community consensus and amid some community opposition, and that its original proponent no longer supports it.
I selected dates that would avoid other changes which would disrupt data gathering and which gave enough time to hold any pre-change discussion. Other dates would have worked equally well, and in the absence of other factors having a decision is better than not.
Had I been looking to perform this as an act of authority from above I would have flipped to my @wikimedia.org address.
When I checked with Mike he indicated that he wouldn't see a problem with me publicly positioning this as a direct result of our meeting, ... and I admit that doing so now would be a fun response to Tim and Erik's somewhat sharply pointed messages, but ultimately I don't think thats the best approach.
I did get a private query along the lines of "where did this decision come from", which I responded to which a longer explanation. The person who asked seemed happy with my response. I also responded privately to Anthere's message as soon as it went out. Hopefully everyone elses curiosity on this point will be satisfied.
I can't help but feel a little depressed about the control battles that go on around here ... but I am happy that the discussion on this subject has been reasonable.
Cheers
On 10/26/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Seems like a fine plan. I was never really of the opinion that blocking anons would help issues like Seigenthaler. Seemed more like a PR thing to do. Coupled with the real concern that anons want the ability, mentioned by others, this seems like about time.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
In December 2005 during the John Seigenthaler biography controversy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_contr...) it was decided to require that users create an account and log in before starting a new article. The ability of people to make changes without logging in remained unchanged.
Some people believed that Wikipedia's the high rate of growth may have outpaced its community's ability to monitor new articles, contributing to the Seigenthaler problem. It was hoped that the limitation of page creation would increase the quality of newly created pages, increase oversight over newly created pages, and avoid the creation of hoax articles. Since that point several attempts to study the impact of the change have been conducted. These studies have been unable to produce conclusive findings.
Around the time of the Seigenthaler controversy Wikipedia underwent a dramatic and discontinuous increase in traffic and editing activity beyond the high rate of growth Wikipedia had long been experiencing. It is very likely that the press surrounding this incident contributed to this increase. This increase had made it impossible to make conclusive statements about the impact limiting page creation.
Furthermore, if we ignore the growth effects the data suggests that the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia. I must emphasize that all results have been inconclusive. We just can't tell.
Numerous discussions with Wikipedians, Foundation leaders, and Foundation staff going back for more than a year have generally been positive about the idea of re-enabling anonymous page creation.
In the time since late 2005 the English Wikipedia community has grown substantially. The nearly exponential growth rate in articles we previously experienced has stopped. Even if disabling anon page creation was beneficial then, there is no current evidence suggesting that the change continues to be beneficial. As such, barring complications, anonymous page creation will be re-enabled on English Wikipedia on Friday November 9th.
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
I hope that we can all look at this matter with optimism. If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately. If you have ideas on additional measurements we can perform after making this change or if you'd like to volunteer your effort for helping to perform a manual new article quality study next month, please let me know.
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Sure, I've got a strong, factually-grounded reason why this should not be done. WP:AFC has been set up as a mechanism for articles to be submitted anonymously. The page has a big, clearly-worded instruction page at the top as to what to submit and what not to submit, far more help than one normally gets just clicking on a redlink and creating a page.
Well with all that extra help, most of the articles must be accepted, right? I mean, it gives you a step-by-step guide as to how to get an article accepted!
Not so.
Yesterday's AFC: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creati...
42 articles proposed. 3 accepted, of which 2 were redirects as proposed and one only needed redirection to an existing article. 39 garbage articles easily kept off without any chance of slipping through newpage patrol.
Well, maybe that was a fluke? Again, not so.
On the 26th, 53 proposals, of which 5 were accepted. 2 of those were redirects, leaving 3 decent articles out of 53. Other days are all similar, a few (usually very marginal) articles out of dozens of garbage ones.
And that's -with- significantly more help and instruction than the creator of a page normally gets. Anons are not creating a flood of great pages, they're creating a flood of garbage. That's already been shown by AFC. We don't need to have mainspace crapped up to prove it, the ratio there, if anything, would be worse, due to the comparative lack of instruction. If anything, require registration for a week and/or a minimum of 30-50 edits before creating pages. If you've managed to make a few dozen edits and not get yourself blocked, maybe -then- we can trust you to create pages. Pages created by new accounts and anons are almost uniformly worthless. We would do ourselves far better by freeing up known good contributors from having to constantly clean up the crapflood.
On 10/28/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure, I've got a strong, factually-grounded reason why this should not be done. WP:AFC has been set up as a mechanism for articles to be submitted anonymously. The page has a big, clearly-worded instruction page at the top as to what to submit and what not to submit, far more help than one normally gets just clicking on a redlink and creating a page.
Well with all that extra help, most of the articles must be accepted, right? I mean, it gives you a step-by-step guide as to how to get an article accepted!
Not so.
Yesterday's AFC:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creati...
42 articles proposed. 3 accepted, of which 2 were redirects as proposed and one only needed redirection to an existing article. 39 garbage articles easily kept off without any chance of slipping through newpage patrol.
Well, maybe that was a fluke? Again, not so.
On the 26th, 53 proposals, of which 5 were accepted. 2 of those were redirects, leaving 3 decent articles out of 53. Other days are all similar, a few (usually very marginal) articles out of dozens of garbage ones.
And that's -with- significantly more help and instruction than the creator of a page normally gets. Anons are not creating a flood of great pages, they're creating a flood of garbage. That's already been shown by AFC. We don't need to have mainspace crapped up to prove it, the ratio there, if anything, would be worse, due to the comparative lack of instruction. If anything, require registration for a week and/or a minimum of 30-50 edits before creating pages. If you've managed to make a few dozen edits and not get yourself blocked, maybe -then- we can trust you to create pages. Pages created by new accounts and anons are almost uniformly worthless. We would do ourselves far better by freeing up known good contributors from having to constantly clean up the crapflood.
Just speaking for myself, I would not have bothered with using AFC as an anon. You can't really draw firm conclusions from AFC about the entire population of anon editors because it's self-selecting - those who *really* want an article, as opposed to those who casually think "Hey, I could start a one-para article on this thing I know" are probably more inclined to use AFC. Unsurprisingly, those are the people with vanity, spam, etc. - not those with useful articles to contribute.
I'm not saying your conclusion is wrong - just that it is difficult to reach on the basis of the evidence you've presented.
Johnleemk
Just speaking for myself, I would not have bothered with using AFC as an anon. You can't really draw firm conclusions from AFC about the entire population of anon editors because it's self-selecting - those who *really* want an article, as opposed to those who casually think "Hey, I could start a one-para article on this thing I know" are probably more inclined to use AFC. Unsurprisingly, those are the people with vanity, spam, etc. - not those with useful articles to contribute.
But surely those vanity, spam, etc. anon that *really* want an article will just create an account to create it in the first place.
Note: I'm all in favour of turning it back on for a month and see how that goes, so that there is some definitive data to refer to when seeing which of the two choice is preferable.
KTC
Kwan Ting Chan wrote:
Just speaking for myself, I would not have bothered with using AFC as an anon. You can't really draw firm conclusions from AFC about the entire population of anon editors because it's self-selecting - those who *really* want an article, as opposed to those who casually think "Hey, I could start a one-para article on this thing I know" are probably more inclined to use AFC. Unsurprisingly, those are the people with vanity, spam, etc. - not those with useful articles to contribute.
But surely those vanity, spam, etc. anon that *really* want an article will just create an account to create it in the first place.
Note: I'm all in favour of turning it back on for a month and see how that goes, so that there is some definitive data to refer to when seeing which of the two choice is preferable.
KTC
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Those "Hey, I'll start a one-para article on something I know" are generally just as bad or worse, and harder to remove.
On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
Those "Hey, I'll start a one-para article on something I know" are
generally just as bad or worse, and harder to remove.
I'm missing, I think, why this is bad.
-Phil
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
Those "Hey, I'll start a one-para article on something I know" are
generally just as bad or worse, and harder to remove.
I'm missing, I think, why this is bad.
-Phil
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No sources, half the time ("half" being probably an underestimation) on very, very borderline subjects that -just- duck speedy to start with, usually most of what's there is wrong (because it's pulled from memory, not sources), etc.
On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 01:11:17AM -0600, Todd Allen wrote:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
Those "Hey, I'll start a one-para article on something I know" are
generally just as bad or worse, and harder to remove.
I'm missing, I think, why this is bad.
-Phil
No sources, half the time ("half" being probably an underestimation) on very, very borderline subjects that -just- duck speedy to start with, usually most of what's there is wrong (because it's pulled from memory, not sources), etc.
I think that the majority of articles were probably pulled from memory and then later the author or others added sources and modified the article to match the sources. One reason why wikipedia is so successfull is that the collective memory of people is massive. Do not knock it? If we relied on people going to sources first all the time, the place would be much less successful, much less interesting and much smaller. The collective knowledge of people is what WP has tapped into.
Brian.
Brian Salter-Duke wrote:
On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 01:11:17AM -0600, Todd Allen wrote:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
Those "Hey, I'll start a one-para article on something I know" are
generally just as bad or worse, and harder to remove.
I'm missing, I think, why this is bad. -Phil
No sources, half the time ("half" being probably an underestimation) on very, very borderline subjects that -just- duck speedy to start with, usually most of what's there is wrong (because it's pulled from memory, not sources), etc.
I think that the majority of articles were probably pulled from memory and then later the author or others added sources and modified the article to match the sources. One reason why wikipedia is so successfull is that the collective memory of people is massive. Do not knock it? If we relied on people going to sources first all the time, the place would be much less successful, much less interesting and much smaller. The collective knowledge of people is what WP has tapped into.
Exactly. That's why lack of sources by itself should never be a basis for speedy deletion. If Todd wants to make this about "borderline subjects" that's a completely different criterion that needs to be investigated separately. "Borderline" suggests uncertainty, and that too makes speedy inapplicable.
"Collective memory" is a tough idea for some people out there at the triple point of knowledge. Those standing on solids still need the wisdom to distinguish between the gas and liquid states.
Ec
On 10/29/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
Those "Hey, I'll start a one-para article on something I know" are
generally just as bad or worse, and harder to remove.
I'm missing, I think, why this is bad.
-Phil
No sources, half the time ("half" being probably an underestimation) on very, very borderline subjects that -just- duck speedy to start with, usually most of what's there is wrong (because it's pulled from memory, not sources), etc.
Is it your position that having no sources should constitute a criterion for speedy deletion?
Johnleemk
On 10/29/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/29/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
No sources, half the time ("half" being probably an underestimation) on very, very borderline subjects that -just- duck speedy to start with, usually most of what's there is wrong (because it's pulled from memory, not sources), etc.
Is it your position that having no sources should constitute a criterion for speedy deletion?
Johnleemk
Well, in all fairness, this would be more concrete and objective criterion than the ones we've got. I mean right now I go could write a stub that does cite three or four sources and undoubtedly some chowderhead will want it speedy deleted, arguing that said article does not adequately assert "notability or significance", whatever that means.
—C.W.
Quoting Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
On 10/29/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/29/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
No sources, half the time ("half" being probably an underestimation) on very, very borderline subjects that -just- duck speedy to start with, usually most of what's there is wrong (because it's pulled from memory, not sources), etc.
Is it your position that having no sources should constitute a criterion for speedy deletion?
Johnleemk
Well, in all fairness, this would be more concrete and objective criterion than the ones we've got. I mean right now I go could write a stub that does cite three or four sources and undoubtedly some chowderhead will want it speedy deleted, arguing that said article does not adequately assert "notability or significance", whatever that means.
—C.W.
When people do that and I'm going through the speedies I routinely remove the A7 notes. I would hope that others would do so as well. On the other hand, if the claim is obviously not true but is a claim of notability such as "X is the King of the Universe!" I'll treat that as a blatant nonsense. I however would be very worried about making no sources be a speedy criterion.
On 10/29/07, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
When people do that and I'm going through the speedies I routinely remove the A7 notes. I would hope that others would do so as well. On the other hand, if the claim is obviously not true but is a claim of notability such as "X is the King of the Universe!" I'll treat that as a blatant nonsense. I however would be very worried about making no sources be a speedy criterion.
Well so would I. It's hard to eliminate/reduce the cognitive bias factor without also eliminating/reducing the common sense factor. Double-edged sword.
—C.W.
The most recent donation comment to go across the banner was "For tripling the number of elephants in Africa!" from an anonymous donor.
On 30/10/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
The most recent donation comment to go across the banner was "For tripling the number of elephants in Africa!" from an anonymous donor.
Heh. We should get our numbers up by having a donation comment competition, I think.
I have to confess I really appreciate having the donor comments appear on the top of the page. I saw one contain "Dream extra large" and instantly knew it had to be someone from my old university...
Steve
On 10/30/07, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
The most recent donation comment to go across the banner was "For tripling the number of elephants in Africa!" from an anonymous donor.
My favorite was "Less annoying than an NPR fundraising drive"
On 10/29/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I have to confess I really appreciate having the donor comments appear on the top of the page. I saw one contain "Dream extra large" and instantly knew it had to be someone from my old university...
Steve
On 10/30/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I have to confess I really appreciate having the donor comments appear on the top of the page. I saw one contain "Dream extra large" and instantly knew it had to be someone from my old university...
Yes, they're at least fans of the Wiki Model.
John Lee wrote:
On 10/29/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
Those "Hey, I'll start a one-para article on something I know" are
generally just as bad or worse, and harder to remove.
I'm missing, I think, why this is bad.
-Phil
No sources, half the time ("half" being probably an underestimation) on very, very borderline subjects that -just- duck speedy to start with, usually most of what's there is wrong (because it's pulled from memory, not sources), etc.
Is it your position that having no sources should constitute a criterion for speedy deletion?
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Maybe not speedy. But they certainly shouldn't be allowed to stick around indefinitely either. My idea was a PROD-like system specifically for sourceless articles, under which one can remove the prod by adding a minimum of one relevant source. We pay lip service to sourcing, but we don't -enforce- it. It's a bit like saying "Really, vandalizing is bad, we mean it, don't do that", but then never actually blocking anyone for vandalism. In the same vein, we should either do away with the source requirement, or enforce it by -actually- removing unsourced content. Bet you can guess which I would like to see.
(As an aside, if we implemented a system like that, I'd be all for anon page creation, especially since we seem to have plenty of newpage patrollers right now.)
On 10/29/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
John Lee wrote:
Is it your position that having no sources should constitute a criterion for speedy deletion?
Maybe not speedy. But they certainly shouldn't be allowed to stick around indefinitely either. My idea was a PROD-like system specifically for sourceless articles, under which one can remove the prod by adding a minimum of one relevant source. We pay lip service to sourcing, but we don't -enforce- it. It's a bit like saying "Really, vandalizing is bad, we mean it, don't do that", but then never actually blocking anyone for vandalism. In the same vein, we should either do away with the source requirement, or enforce it by -actually- removing unsourced content. Bet you can guess which I would like to see.
(As an aside, if we implemented a system like that, I'd be all for anon page creation, especially since we seem to have plenty of newpage patrollers right now.)
Have you ever {{prod}}ded a newly created article with no sources and had that {{prod}} tag removed but no sources ever added? I would think if at least one source couldn't be found showing that something existed a {{prod}} deletion would be a slam dunk. But maybe this is just wishful thinking.
Anthony wrote:
On 10/29/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
John Lee wrote:
Is it your position that having no sources should constitute a criterion for speedy deletion?
Maybe not speedy. But they certainly shouldn't be allowed to stick around indefinitely either. My idea was a PROD-like system specifically for sourceless articles, under which one can remove the prod by adding a minimum of one relevant source. We pay lip service to sourcing, but we don't -enforce- it. It's a bit like saying "Really, vandalizing is bad, we mean it, don't do that", but then never actually blocking anyone for vandalism. In the same vein, we should either do away with the source requirement, or enforce it by -actually- removing unsourced content. Bet you can guess which I would like to see.
(As an aside, if we implemented a system like that, I'd be all for anon page creation, especially since we seem to have plenty of newpage patrollers right now.)
Have you ever {{prod}}ded a newly created article with no sources and had that {{prod}} tag removed but no sources ever added? I would think if at least one source couldn't be found showing that something existed a {{prod}} deletion would be a slam dunk. But maybe this is just wishful thinking.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I've had that experience many times. Usually the prod is removed by the creator, but under the rules for prod, even a removal by the creator with zero explanation as to why prevents deletion.
On 10/28/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Just speaking for myself, I would not have bothered with using AFC as an anon. You can't really draw firm conclusions from AFC about the entire population of anon editors because it's self-selecting - those who *really* want an article, as opposed to those who casually think "Hey, I could start a one-para article on this thing I know" are probably more inclined to use AFC.
Or create an account, which is the *first* suggestion in the "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact title" text.
In that sense I think "turning off anon article creation" is a positive thing. At least it encourages people not to reveal their IP address when creating an article.
Make it easier to create an account (put account creation/login at the bottom of edit/create page), and I could see "turning off all anon editing", since it'd actually be making anon editing *more* anonymous.
Hi Greg,
On 10/26/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I<snip>
After a one month period, on December 9th, we will re-evaluate this decision using previously established methods (average article lifespan, rate of deletion, manual quality classification, random samplings of newly created articles, and most importantly, community discussion). If there is evidence of harm, anonymous page creation will be disabled to collect more data and provide time for discussion. If there is no significant evidence of harm, the issue will be evaluated again after six months. Further milestones and actions may be proposed at that time.
Finally the community will have the chance to make an informed decision on this subject. It would have been best if that had happened initially, but it wasn't possible then.
I hope that we can all look at this matter with optimism. If you are aware of a strong factually-grounded reason why this should not be done please provide it as soon as possible, either as a response to this list or emailed to me privately. If you have ideas on additional measurements we can perform after making this change or if you'd like to volunteer your effort for helping to perform a manual new article quality study next month, please let me know.
I know as research officer you are well aware that the results from such an experiment will be of interest not just to the en: community itself, but also to the wider wiki research community. Is there a page detailing the metrics you have in mind, and listing possible studies that could be done to determine "evidence of harm" from the switch? It seems like this is a good chance for brainstorming on-wiki with both the research community and the newpage patrol folks about possible ways to measure quality, etc., of new articles, a discussion that seems overdue anyway given some general unhappiness about deletion practices.
Also, before taking on such an experiment, it seems like it would be worthwhile and sensible to run any intended metrics & studies on the current state of affairs *first*, so there is something to accurately compare to. AFAIK our understanding of what gets deleted, how many pages get deleted versus kept; how many articles are speedied a day out of these, etc. is imperfect; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'd also be interested in seeing which studies you're referring to that inclusively suggest that "the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia"; I'm not familiar with that work and it seems like a tough thing to measure given overall explosive growth in this timeframe.
cheers, Phoebe
On 10/29/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Greg,
I know as research officer you are well aware that the results from such an experiment will be of interest not just to the en: community itself, but also to the wider wiki research community. Is there a page detailing the metrics you have in mind, and listing possible studies that could be done to determine "evidence of harm" from the switch? It seems like this is a good chance for brainstorming on-wiki with both the research community and the newpage patrol folks about possible ways to measure quality, etc., of new articles, a discussion that seems overdue anyway given some general unhappiness about deletion practices.
Also, before taking on such an experiment, it seems like it would be worthwhile and sensible to run any intended metrics & studies on the current state of affairs *first*, so there is something to accurately compare to.
I'd suggest not making such metrics public until after the experiment is over. It'd be way too easy to manipulate the experiment if you did. As it stands now it's probably already too easy to manipulate the experiment.
AFAIK our understanding of what gets deleted, how many pages get deleted versus kept; how many articles are speedied a day out of these, etc. is imperfect; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'd also be interested in seeing which studies you're referring to that inclusively suggest that "the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia"; I'm not familiar with that work and it seems like a tough thing to measure given overall explosive growth in this timeframe.
This would be useful. The recent studies I've seen suggest to me that this change has had virtually no effect on anything. Of course, I'm biased, that's the effect I expected it to have.
On 2007.10.29 13:25:52 -0700, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com scribbled 0 lines:
Hi Greg,
...
I know as research officer you are well aware that the results from such an experiment will be of interest not just to the en: community itself, but also to the wider wiki research community. Is there a page detailing the metrics you have in mind, and listing possible studies that could be done to determine "evidence of harm" from the switch? It seems like this is a good chance for brainstorming on-wiki with both the research community and the newpage patrol folks about possible ways to measure quality, etc., of new articles, a discussion that seems overdue anyway given some general unhappiness about deletion practices.
I'd just like to make the general point that the experiment here is not turning off the disabling; the experiment was the disabling in the first place. All Greg and us supporters are suggesting is ending the experiment.
There is no evidence of harm for a reversion to the ''status quo ante Seigenthaler'' (if I may coin a phrase) - just like there is no evidence of benefit for the disabling in the first place. (And there are other considerations of benefits from this as well as more prosaic observations like us having better tools and more editors this time around.)
Also, before taking on such an experiment, it seems like it would be worthwhile and sensible to run any intended metrics & studies on the current state of affairs *first*, so there is something to accurately compare to. AFAIK our understanding of what gets deleted, how many pages get deleted versus kept; how many articles are speedied a day out of these, etc. is imperfect; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'd also be interested in seeing which studies you're referring to that inclusively suggest that "the change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia"; I'm not familiar with that work and it seems like a tough thing to measure given overall explosive growth in this timeframe.
Yes, all these statistics would have been nice to have the first time around. Someone should tell Jimbo that for the next time. There are some retrospective efforts, though, like [[User:Dragons flight/Log analysis]]. You can interpret those charts basically one way: that the disabling had minimal effect. I take this to mean that the benefits postulated by supporters of disabling, and the things they warn of should we return to the status quo - that is, the numerous comments along the lines of 'My god, have you seen Special:Newpages or WP:CSD lately? We will be buried!' - never materialized, and thus that such arguments overestimate the net effect (I'm not sure whether by exaggerating the risks or by underplaying the benefits).
cheers, Phoebe
-- gwern 1ee NSAS Mat'Kal investigation Shipiro sweep IWIS Shayet-13 Avi codes