Note the suggestion: set aside $1m of tech resources for community-chosen work.
Heck, projects other than Wikipedia might get the slightest attention.
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
Date: 26 October 2012 09:25
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Improving dialogue between editors and "tech people"
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi Guillaume,
Firstly move Bugzilla to Meta. Currently it is a different user experience
to the rest of our wikis, and it isn't even part of the Single User Login.
Secondly try to shift from a developer led Software program to more of a
community led one. Yes of course there are going to be things going on
which have to happen anyway for valid technical reasons, from what I've
seen the WMF has a significant budget to invest on programming changes. But
there isn't a way for the community to prioritise development projects. So
part of the clash is the dissonance between the community empowerment ethos
which is the norm for most community activities, and the disempowerment
that characterises community involvement in IT development. If a million
dollars of the annual IT budget was set aside for projects that the
community could suggest and prioritise via a page on meta, then the
relationship between IT and the community would be transformed, as would be
the project.
WSC
On 25 October 2012 14:07, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> [Posting this from my personal address because I'm not subscribed to
> the list with my work account.]
>
> I've started a discussion on the technical Village pump on how to
> establish a better dialogue between editors and "tech people"
> (developers, Wikimedia engineers, etc.):
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Improv…
>
> I'd love to get more comments and suggestions, so that the outcome
> isn't only representative of the subset of the community who reads
> VP/T.
>
> You can participate there or here on the list, I'll follow both. Also,
> feel free to advertise this discussions to fellow editors,
> particularly those whom you know to be interested in these issues.
> Thanks!
>
> Below is the text I've posted on VP/T:
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi. I'm posting this as part of my job for the WMF, where I currently
> work on technical communications.
>
> As you'll probably agree, communication between Wikipedia contributors
> and "tech people" (primarily MediaWiki developers, but also designers
> and other engineers) hasn't always been ideal. In recent years,
> Wikimedia employees have made efforts to become more transparent, for
> example by writing monthly activity reports, by providing hubs listing
> current activities, and by maintaining "activity pages" for each
> significant activity. Furthermore, the yearly engineering goals for
> the WMF were developed publicly, and the more granular Roadmap is
> updated weekly.
>
> Now, that's all well and such, but what I'd rather like to discuss is
> how we can better engage in true collaboration and 2-way discussion,
> not just reports and announcements. It's easy to post a link to a new
> feature that's already been implemented, and tell users "Please
> provide feedback!". It's much more difficult to truly collaborate
> every step of the way, from the early planning to deployment.
>
> Some "big" tech projects are lucky enough to have Oliver Keyes who can
> spend a lot of time discussing with local wiki communities, basically
> incarnating this 2-way communication channel between users and
> developers. The $1 million question is: how do we scale up the Oliver?
> We want to be able to do this for dozens of engineering projects with
> hundreds of wikis, in many languages, and truly collaborate to build
> new features together.
>
> There are probably things in the way we do tech stuff (e.g. new
> software features and deployments) that drive you insane. You probably
> have lots of ideas about what the ideal situation should be, and how
> to get there: What can the developer community (staff and volunteers)
> do to get there? (in the short term, medium term, long term?) What can
> users do to get there?
>
> I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, and I can't do a
> proper job to improve things without your help. So please help me help
> make your lives easier, and speak up.
>
> This is intended to be a very open discussion. Unapologetic
> complaining is fine; suggestions are also welcome. Stock of ponies is
> limited.
>
> --
> Guillaume Paumier
> [[m:User:guillom]]
> http://www.gpaumier.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I owe a number of good people an apology. I have worked for several
self-protecting bureaucracies myself, and it
is possible, though not easy, , for individuals to do good work there.
I never intended to imply that everyone there is incompetent, though
it is certainly my opinion that some of the people assigned to some of
the programs I have been involved in have been. I admit that my anger
is an inappropriate reflection of my frustration at my inability to
work with those in one particular program.
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 8:54 PM, David Goodman <dggenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> One obvious possibility for support is the chapters and the thematic
> organizations; even if the WMF continues these fellowships as it
> should, the other bodies in the movement should supplement them--it is
> good to have more than one source of funds and more than one body
> deciding on requests. But whether their work can be actually
> implemented at those levels is another matter.
>
> The proposal at meta says "the Wikimedia Foundation was never able to
> resource the fellowships to the point where they could achieve
> significant impact: " I don't think the resource at issue is primarily
> money, considering that in all recent years we have had not only
> surpluses, but greater than expected surpluses. The resource which is
> lacking is sufficient qualified people at the Foundation to work with
> the fellows and help implement their projects. Rather than get such
> people--which admittedly would require a change in WMF culture--the
> WMF staff finds the easiest thing is to not even attempt to make the
> improvements; it is too troublesome to deal with the good ideas of the
> community, so the reaction is what one expects of self-protecting
> incompetent bureaucracies: diminish the flow of good ideas.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Steven Zhang <cro0016(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> In my opinion, the value of fellowships in my opinion is huge, and I feel that ceasing to support projects like the Teahouse would be a real shame. That said, I do feel there are other ways that individual editors could get the support they need to work on critical projects. As long as this remains in some capacity, then I think that could work too.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Steve Zhang
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 22/10/2012, at 10:25 AM, Jacob Orlowitz <wikiocaasi(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> A letter in support of the Community Fellowship program from past,
>>> current, and prospective Fellows,
>>>
>>> The WMF has expanded profoundly over the past decade, and especially
>>> in the last few years. Recently initiatives to streamline and focus
>>> the WMF have been undertaken; while these efforts are worthy in spirit
>>> and necessary at some level, one useful if not vital program has been
>>> caught in that process: The Community Fellowship program. We would
>>> like to express our strong support of this valuable and important
>>> program.
>>>
>>> The Fellowship program is first and foremost a community-based
>>> program. It selects editors to work on projects -- those which are
>>> novel and have yet to be tried, those that have been tried but have
>>> not been rigorously developed or tested, and those otherwise that need
>>> financial, technical and institutional backing to succeed. It
>>> represents a direct line of support from the WMF to
>>> community-organized, community-driven, and community-maintained
>>> projects.
>>>
>>> We strongly believe that the Fellowship program is a great way to jump
>>> start many projects cheaply, efficiently, and with low-risk. Most
>>> importantly, because Fellowship projects are community-organized,
>>> there is high potential for their broad community support.
>>>
>>> We recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation’s allocation of funding
>>> must reflect the priorities of the Foundation’s annual and strategic
>>> plans, and we understand that the future of the Fellowship program is
>>> at risk under the justification that it does not fit within those
>>> plans.
>>>
>>> The Fellowship program of course has a cost, but it is one we believe
>>> is well justified by its impact. The following reasons explain why we
>>> think the program is a worthwhile asset to the WMF and one that will
>>> ultimately help it succeed in its strategic goals:
>>>
>>> 1) The program has a track record of producing successful projects,
>>> with promising upcoming efforts that would be interrupted by a loss of
>>> funding. Most recently a new-editor community called the Teahouse was
>>> developed directly through the Fellowship program. The Teahouse, as
>>> well as other projects have targeted goals which often match up with
>>> those identified by the Foundation as urgent, such as new editor
>>> engagement and editor retention. Other projects besides the Teahouse
>>> have worked on improving our dispute resolution processes, our small
>>> language wiki development, improving the usability of help
>>> documentation, and facilitating cross-wiki translation efforts.
>>> GLAM/Wikipedian-in-Residence positions were pioneered under the
>>> Fellowship program as were studies in long term editor trends through
>>> Wikimedia Summer of Research. (See the full list of past projects).
>>> These projects are of great value and exist in areas that the
>>> community had or has not made sufficient advances in on its own.
>>>
>>> In the works are projects to create a sense of community around the
>>> sorely lacking female demographic, to build a game which would ease
>>> new editors through the maze of skills needed to be effective, a
>>> Wikipedia Library initiative which would outfit our most experienced
>>> editors with access to high quality resources through a single sign-on
>>> portal, and a Badges experiment to employ a proven approach to
>>> recognizing, motivating, and rewarding the efforts of our users.
>>> Without the Community Fellowship program, those efforts may stall or
>>> collapse.
>>>
>>> 2) The Fellowship program's core strength is as a laboratory of agile,
>>> community-driven creativity and innovation. The program has nurtured
>>> projects that require more investment and organization than the
>>> community alone can support, but that innovate in areas of importance
>>> to both the community and the Foundation. The Fellowship program has
>>> the asset of targeted flexibility and cost-effective implementation.
>>> Fellowship projects require few if any development resources,
>>> substantially reducing their burden on the Foundation. Through its
>>> varied portfolio of projects the Fellowship program can address any
>>> number of key goals, and do so in a lightweight but meaningful way.
>>>
>>> 3) The Fellowship program is committed to demonstrating results and
>>> making data-driven recommendations that help meet Foundation targets.
>>> Fellowship research projects have set and maintained a high standard
>>> for reporting results and making actionable recommendations. The
>>> Teahouse pilot reports and metrics reports, the dispute resolution
>>> survey results, and the template A/B testing projects are excellent
>>> examples of this commitment to transparency and accountability. The
>>> Foundation has benefitted from these data: results from fellowship
>>> projects have been featured at Wikimania. Deputy Director Eric
>>> Moeller’s presentation on supporting Wikiprojects drew extensively on
>>> Fellowship project findings, and E3’s template testing presentation
>>> was based substantially on Fellowship research. Fellowship research
>>> has been a frequent feature on the Wikimedia blog, and has generated
>>> good press for the Foundation.
>>>
>>> 4) The Fellowship program been instrumental to our understanding of
>>> the editor decline, and how to stop it. Fellowship projects have
>>> yielded many valuable & actionable insights into the editor decline:
>>> such as the negative impact of the gradual increase in newcomer
>>> warnings and newcomer reverts, and the recent decline in participation
>>> in community processes by newer groups of editors. Fellowship
>>> research has also refuted several prominent decline theories, such as
>>> the theory that the quality of new editors has decreased over time, or
>>> that the workload of vandal fighters has increased. In short,
>>> Fellowship research allows Wikimedia to prioritize promising work and
>>> make decisions about which decline theories to address based on actual
>>> data, rather than anecdotes, accepted wisdom, or intuition.
>>>
>>> 5) The Fellowship program builds good will between the WMF and the
>>> community by spotlighting and bootstrapping community-driven
>>> initiatives. Fellowships are devised by community members, endorsed
>>> by community members, implemented with community involvement--and the
>>> community reaps the benefits of those initiatives. The Foundation
>>> gets to play the vital role of supporting projects that otherwise may
>>> have floundered, sat idle, or been ignored completely. The community
>>> appreciates this and recognizes the Foundation’s pivotal part in
>>> making these projects happen. Also, not continuing the program would
>>> mean not just removing funding from the recipients of Fellowships and
>>> their projects, but also losing the community infrastructure and
>>> networks that have been developed as a result. The Foundation is the
>>> keystone to continuing this progress.
>>>
>>> 6) The Fellowship program gives the Wikimedia Foundation one of the
>>> only channels to directly fund individual editors. And not just any
>>> editors but some of the most active, engaged, driven, and enthusiastic
>>> editors Wikipedia has. Funding those editors directly enables them to
>>> devote a degree of focus and commitment to Wikipedia that they might
>>> not otherwise be able to balance while meeting other constraints in
>>> their lives. The Foundation has become a recipient of a great amount
>>> of donations, but much of that financial support is unavailable to
>>> individual editors. There is not yet a grant-making process which
>>> doesn't run through Chapters. The Fellowship program is one lifeline
>>> to those editors, and it is a good one.
>>>
>>> 7) The Fellowship program provides a pipeline of trusted and
>>> knowledgeable editors to contribute to the Foundation's efforts. Many
>>> of those editors would be ideal candidates for positions within the
>>> Foundation, and the Fellowship program is a great way to identify,
>>> enlist, and onboard those individuals. Maryana Pinchuck and Steven
>>> Walling were Fellows, as were Liam Wyatt, Lennart Guldbrandsson,
>>> Stuart Geiger, Diederik van Liere, Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, Melanie
>>> Kill, Aaron Halfaker, Achal Prabhala, Jonathan Morgan, and James
>>> Alexander. While being a training ground for future Foundation
>>> staffers, advisors, or researchers is not the stated purpose of the
>>> Fellowship program, it is nonetheless a positive side-effect.
>>>
>>> 8) The Fellowship program partners with and complements other WMF
>>> initiatives. The fellowship program enhances programs such as Editor
>>> Engagement Experiments by experimenting with community features rather
>>> than just interface features. Creating new spaces for new editors to
>>> find help and build community, identifying pain-points in existing
>>> community processes by surveying editors, and organizing cross-wiki
>>> translation efforts are excellent ways of improving the editor
>>> experience on Wikipedia. Fellowship projects have also benefitted
>>> existing WMF initiatives by providing necessary services: for
>>> instance, the Teahouse has served the needs of students enrolled in
>>> Global Education programs that do not have access to Classroom
>>> Ambassadors. The impact of the Fellowship program scales and exceeds
>>> the scope of the individual projects to numerous other forums and
>>> facets of the community.
>>>
>>> For these reasons, we urge the Wikimedia Foundation to reevaluate the
>>> worth of the Community Fellowship program and to continue it in its
>>> original or a similar capacity. The Fellowship program is an
>>> impactful, flexible laboratory of creativity which connects the
>>> Foundation and the community's best and most passionate editors.
>>> Having it has been a huge gain, and losing it would be a significant
>>> loss.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> * Anya Shyrokova User:Anyashy, prospective Fellow
>>> * Jake Orlowitz User:Ocaasi, prospective Fellow
>>> * Jon Harald Søby User:Jon Harald Søby, former Community Fellow
>>> * Jonathan Morgan User:Jtmorgan, former Research Fellow
>>> * Liam Wyatt User:Wittylama, former Cultural Partnerships Fellow
>>> * R. Stuart Geiger User:Staeiou, former Wikimedia Research Fellow
>>> * Peter Coombe User:The wub, Community Fellow
>>> * Steven Zhang User:Steven Zhang, Community Fellow
>>> * Tanvir Rahman User:Tanvir Rahman, Community Fellow
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
>
>
> --
> David Goodman
>
> DGG at the enWP
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
--
David Goodman
DGG at the enWP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGGhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
>
> From: WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
Date: 26 October 2012 09:25
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Improving dialogue between editors and "tech people"
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
> Firstly move Bugzilla to Meta. Currently it is a different user experience
> to the rest of our wikis, and it isn't even part of the Single User Login.
>
My god, please, no! I think the lived in experience that Meta shows us is
that while Wikis are good for some things, for tracking things like bugs
and discussions, they're really terrible. Use a tool that's fit for
purpose, and don't try to bang a wiki-shaped peg into a bugzilla-shaped
hole.
(single sign-on across to bugzilla would be very cool though!)
Cheers,
Craig Franklin
Amir is right, without judging this specific case, the pattern describe here is a problem.
Especially the massive revert attitude , it's really a challenge for retaining new specialist editor.
Charles
___________________________________________________________
Charles ANDRES, Chairman
"Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge –
www.wikimedia.ch
Skype: charles.andres.wmch
IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch
Le 26 oct. 2012 à 13:43, "Amir E. Aharoni" <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> a écrit :
> Shortened, and grossly over-simplified:
> A biologist wrote some things about biology and they were not challenged.
> Then he wrote some things about dinosaurs, and they were reverted. If
> I understood correctly, the reason for the reverts was that it
> appeared to be original research (WP:NOR).
> And now the biologist is pissed off, possibly for a good reason, and
> wants his previous contributions removed, too.
>
> This is a story that repeats itself quite often, with surprisingly
> similar details: an expert does some acceptable things, then doing
> some things that turn out to rouse controversy, then wanting to retire
> with a storm. I'm not implying that the expert is bad, absolutely not;
> I'm just noting a pattern.
>
> Whatever the details of the story are, it's not good and it may
> justify discussion.
>
> But as a meta-comment, it should be done on wikien-l or on
> wikimedia-l, and not on this list, which is called "wikipedia-l", but
> is not active in practice.
>
> --
> Amir
>
> 2012/10/26 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>
>>
>> TL;DR (Too long; didn't read.)
>>
>> Please provide a summary that makes clear what point you are trying to make...
>>
>> On 26 October 2012 11:55, John Jackson <strangetruther(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Greetings –
>>>
>>> I hope this is a good place to send a weighty message to Wikipedia.
>>> You’ll want to read all through.
>>>
>>> I am a scientist who has always liked the Wikipedia idea, and I like
>>> your implementation. Lately I’ve started making contributions.
>>> Although I’m a cognitive scientist who taught biological psychology at
>>> degree level for several years and have done AI research since the
>>> ‘80’s, I’ve diverted for a decade or more to resolve a set of major
>>> evolutionary puzzles.
>>>
>>> Fairly peripheral but within the overall project was an investigation
>>> of bird breathing, and I decided to piece together the research into
>>> it, and deliver it properly to the public. Trust me, the finer
>>> details were obscure. On the way I discovered why penguins’ lungs
>>> don’t collapse even at 500m when whales’ lungs collapse by 100m; I
>>> found out what the neopulmo did (though not why) and why penguins
>>> don’t have it, and I changed our understanding of flow within it; I
>>> also resolved the old chestnut of whether birds had counter-current
>>> exchange in their lungs. That is, completely discovered, not just for
>>> myself. By careful editing and addition including the long overdue
>>> diagram the subject needed, I converted the two Wikipedia pages
>>> dealing with bird breathing from an incomplete mire to a place of
>>> revelation (though the German version needs starting afresh, and
>>> Duncker agrees). But it was an honour do so.
>>>
>>> More central to my overall project was cladogenesis, the heart of
>>> palaeontology and just the thing that I, as an MSc in info. sys.
>>> engineering would be expected to get into. I’ve written my own clad.
>>> software, invented and implemented my own heuristic version, proved
>>> the theorem in graph theory that resolves an issue in checking
>>> evolutionary trees by time and rooting them, and highlighted a serious
>>> statistical fallacy invalidating another major current of work in the
>>> time-checking of trees.
>>>
>>> In these activities I was almost entirely alone as regards other
>>> workers in the overall field, since that field, dinobird
>>> palaeontology, is notorious for its abuse of the lack of scientific
>>> and indeed academic constraint that all historical disciplines are
>>> prey to. Applicants for research positions into that biological
>>> science, which relies heavily on computer science and statistics, are
>>> usually accepted with just a geology first degree. Put succinctly but
>>> honestly, the standard of science amongst professional dinobird
>>> palaeontologists is crap, so much so that I’ve never taken the idea of
>>> publishing formally in the field very seriously. I do from time to
>>> time in AI, but any scientist with something sensible to say in
>>> dinobird palaeo will always be violating sacred errors and be blocked.
>>> Although useless, the field is very proud and stubborn.
>>>
>>> But there is a layer of humanity too stupid even to become
>>> professional palaeontologists – and guess what? They’ve established a
>>> self-aggrandising population in the basement of Wikipedia, grooming
>>> their egos by becoming gatekeepers. I’m sick of the sight of their
>>> pathetic award stars.
>>>
>>> I wasn’t surprised; in fact I’d been surprised by the ease with which
>>> my bird-lung editing had been accepted, which is why I’d turned my
>>> attention to another problem page that was actually even more of a
>>> mess.
>>>
>>> Most people, even those interested in the subject, have no idea why
>>> dromaeosaurs had such strange claws, teeth and tails. Many even doubt
>>> that the special foot claw was a weapon. And because they have no
>>> understanding of the vital importance of backtracking in knowledge
>>> engineering, they can’t escape the rut of believing dromaeosaurs were
>>> “pre” flight (“pre” of course being a very dodgy evolutionary
>>> concept). But solving this kind of thing was easy compared to related
>>> subjects, and other visionaries such as Paul and Osmolska had made
>>> their contributions and published some of the basics. The four-winged
>>> flight of volant dromaeosaurs was harder but I found a solution to
>>> that too (...though you’re not going to like it; even I didn’t).
>>>
>>> I know what you’re thinking – Original Work. But of course that was
>>> taken account of: much of the problem with the Velociraptor page was
>>> balance – some theories had been simply ignored, even though works
>>> mentioning them were already in the citation list. Other problems
>>> were solved by pointing out glaring illogicalities: ensuring the
>>> explanation of a difference between two things must be based on some
>>> other difference applying to them. Things like that don’t need
>>> citations, things that needed them were given them, and when necessary
>>> I cited my own book. That after all is very common in Wikipedia, and
>>> there’s no point frowning on the basic principle (especially when it’s
>>> a good book!).
>>>
>>> As you may have guessed or already knew, anyone bringing much-needed
>>> but unfamiliar and unwelcome science (i.e. any science) to dinobird
>>> palaeontology is automatically put on the hate list and from then on
>>> it’s just sociology. Pointing out that modern science knows better
>>> than to talk of “facts”, is the kind of thing that sets the idiots
>>> off, but is one essential principle Wikipedia needs to take on board.
>>> Luckily the pseudo-scientists usually give themselves away, as they
>>> did on the Velociraptor page most bizarrely. First, they insisted the
>>> tail couldn’t bend vertically, alongside a picture showing the last
>>> two-thirds bending up through 60º. Then they insisted its prey only
>>> had one leg whereas two could be seen even in the thumbnail. No
>>> accusations of original work at risk there. Nonetheless they kept on
>>> reversing EVERYTHING I’d written – the illogicality-busting, the
>>> theory-balance restoration, and even corrections to their crap which
>>> was contradicted by the images in front of their eyes.
>>>
>>> The result? Someone’s stopped the repeated reversals, and of course,
>>> they chose to stop it on the lunatic side. Irrespective of the
>>> “Protection is not an endorsement of the current text” message, this
>>> “temporary” status is a massive insult to science, which is why it’s
>>> important, and a massive insult to me which has ensured my action.
>>>
>>> I’m going to find the 100 most influential loud-mouthed Wiki-haters on
>>> the net, show them the crucial photos, and the illogicalities, and I
>>> hope I’m going to be able to say: “Look – some tiny-minded
>>> pseudo-scientists started to infect Wikipedia filling even science
>>> pages with blatant rubbish, but see how good it is? It put them in
>>> their place!”
>>>
>>> I know an organisation of your size won’t bother with anything that
>>> can’t affect it, and I haven’t time to dissolve you with charm. I’m
>>> considering removing all the good work I’ve done in the bird breathing
>>> pages, and their talk pages that explain it, as a token of what you’ll
>>> lose if you reward my kind of work with insults. I was happy to give
>>> it free but people can always buy the book. Put it back if you want,
>>> but if you don’t, the pages will lose a lot and if you do you’ll
>>> underline my value. And of course there’s the stuff above that could
>>> go one way or another depending on you. Much will be done before the
>>> election and as much as is necessary when it’s over. Don’t just hand
>>> this over to another of the dinosaur Wiki-wankers, and don’t let them
>>> keep spuriously using the word “source” to justify feeding the world
>>> crap.
>>>
>>> John V. Jackson.
>>> http://sciencepolice2010.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/sciencepolice2010-launche…
>>> http://sciencepolice2010.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/sciencepolice-14-lates…
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>... I have reason to believe that about 18% of English Wikipedia
>> administrators are living below the poverty line, ...
>
>... citation desperately needed for this stat.
In February I performed a survey of over 300 inactive English
Wikipedia administrators based on a survey which had been approved on
the Strategy Wiki more than two years prior. I added financial
demographic questions to the survey. Steven Walling, who I thought had
agreed to act as the Foundation point of contact for the survey during
a public IRC office hour (he disagrees) has access to all of the
original data I collected as a Google Forms document available to his
Google Drive account.
Shortly afterward, I was told that the survey was a violation of
policy (two months later I was told it was not), and that I was
violating the privacy policy because I asked for contact information
to follow up. I was banned from Meta and told to contact the Legal
Department if I had further questions. I did, and I am still waiting
for their response. After several weeks without reply from the Legal
Department, I followed up with some of the respondents, and performed
an additional survey which I do not wish to describe in detail until I
have an answer to my questions from the Legal Department.
If the statistic is in doubt, I suggest that the Foundation perform
their own survey of long term contributor financial status. As of May,
by the way, more than 30 of the original survey respondent
administrators had returned to active status, having made more than 50
edits each after having gone at least six months without editing.
Sincerely,
James Salsman
Again, I'm not going to go into detail about how I arrived at the 18%
figure for enwiki admins under the poverty line until the accusation
that I violated the Privacy Policy is withdrawn or my questions about
it are addressed. I am confident that it's accurate within a few
percent. Instead of criticizing my spelling, I think it would be
better if Foundation officials determined the figure for themselves.
It is sad that those who are very well off are so quick to exclude the
possibility of helping impoverished long term contributors.
The Funds Dissemination Committee was originally proposed by Sue to
the board with explicit support for both groups and individuals,[1]
but at some point after, all mention of individual editors was
removed.[2]
Could someone please say whether this was the decision of the board,
someone else's decision, or a mistake? I ask because I have reason to
believe that about 18% of English Wikipedia administrators are living
below the poverty line, and it seems that support for such individual
editors is reasonable. Local fire departments and the International
Red Cross both have paid personnel and volunteer staff working
alongside each other without any motivational crowding.
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Draft_FDC_Prop…
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_criteria
Hi.
This is just a heads-up that you'll start seeing a "Page information" link
in the sidebar (under "Toolbox") in the coming days on Wikimedia wikis. It
is deployed now to a few wikis already. This "Page information" link leads
to a newly reimplemented info action:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=info
Many, many years ago, the info action was added to MediaWiki, but due to
performance issues, it was quickly disabled by default and was mostly
forgotten about. This year, with the wonderful help of Madman, Krenair, and
others, we have reimplemented the info action to provide an information
dashboard of sorts about a particular page title to users.
This dashboard includes a variety of metadata about the page, including the
page's protection status, length, default categorization sort key, internal
page ID, templates used on the page, and more. The content is somewhat
dynamic: for some pages it will omit certain irrelevant fields and for some
users (such as administrators), certain additional fields (such as the
number of page watchers) will be displayed. This will slowly allow for the
deprecation of outside tools that currently provide information of this
nature.
The hope is that this action will evolve over time to become a valuable
resource for users. If you can think of data points that are missing from
the current action's output or have other ideas to improve the info action
(it desperately needs a little design love), please feel free to e-mail this
list or file a bug at <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/>.
MZMcBride
> the biggest problem with editor retention at the moment is the
> second edit.
True. The ratio of new users over the past month with one or two edits
to those with three or more would make a great new metric. I hope it
shows up on the report card.
Thanks to Jonathan Morgan for investigating adding new users with
fewer than ten edits who've used the "<ref" tag to the Teahouse
invitation list. I am sure that will be well worth the effort.