Wikimedia-l August 2014

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161 participants
121 discussions

VisualEditor Office Hours for August and September
by Erica Litrenta 12 Aug '14

12 Aug '14

Hi all, this is just a reminder that the next VE office hour is on Thursday 14 August at 900 UTC, in case you want to add it to your calendar. Hope to see you there, Elitre (WMF)

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Flags!
by Richard Symonds 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

Hi all! Both the Wikimania flags are missing. The poles have come back, but not the flag itself! We wanted to get one of these signed by everyone who helped with Wikimania and display it in the UK office so we are a bit sad that they're missing. They probably vanished in the final drunken packing last night. I'm sure there was no ill intent, but if anyone knows where one of them is, please drop me an email - or put it in the post to FREEPOST WIKIPEDIA and we'll pay the postage. No questions asked! Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

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Wikimania 2014 Feedback
by Fæ 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

I thought a thread on Wikimedia-l might be useful for folks to share feedback and their experiences, good or bad. I understand there is a survey which we should remember to complete, and there has been a lot of chat on Facebook, but I have a natural aversion to that space. :-) My tuppence worth of feedback is that volunteering is fun, I encourage others to offer to help out with future Wikimanias. I was on helpdesk at the start of the hackerthon, meaning that for around 5 hours I sat in the main foyer at a well signed desk wearing a red volunteer shirt and helping people find things (a great way to say hello to many old friends arriving at the event), answering all sorts of questions. This ranged from helping BBC journalists meet up with their team and work out where best to go to find the action (this turned into the Newsnight feature that evening), to helping older ladies find out about the Barbican fashion exhibition. At the same time I was logged in to the official help desk phone number through Skype, and keeping an eye on the official twitter, email and IRC channels to be able to respond to questions from attendees (my puny netbook was struggling). 5 hours was a long time, but by the end of lunchtime I had helped a lot of people, which is immensely rewarding. Tip for the Mexico conference team - I was *very* impressed at how the conference staff changed processes on the fly (great Agile processes Ed), so based on me mentioning that people were finding it hard to find free drinking water, a massive supply of water bottles were ordered and appeared in the main hackerthon space that afternoon, and a casual mention that helpdesk folks had varied technical experience so many would find IRC etc. a struggle, resulted in a change to who was placed where, so there was always a "brain" handy on each helpdesk. I guess I was the default brain on the main helpdesk. :-) All Saturday morning I was officially the "host" for the GLAM stream of presentations. It was a great excuse to met my friends on the GLAM network, and having someone with a GLAM background was appreciated, as this helped me negotiate slight changes to the schedule and put presenters at their ease, even when we were scrabbling about getting laptops to display properly on the main screen. The wifi had some problems late morning, so the IRC channel where volunteers were coordinating was dropping out, however the "control room" was responsive to the problem and my "team leader" was physically checking in with me to make sure I had everything I needed. On Sunday I was on the other side of things, giving a presentation on the GLAMwiki Toolset, and the volunteer hosting my session was on the ball, spotting that my netbook was running out of battery during my presentation and sorting out the power supply before I had even noticed myself. What an impressive service! I was invited to join in with a volunteers party at the end of Sunday, but after a late Saturday night with the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group on a gay pub crawl in Soho, I was totally exhausted from several long days and short nights, so getting home and crashing out on the sofa with my husband was a treat. I like to personally thank Ed for pushing and staying incredibly positive for so long. Back in 2012 Ed was enthusiastically approaching the Wikimedia UK board when I was a trustee, and I was one of those giving him a hard grilling on plans and financial controls. I think the governance structure that resulted from those discussions, along with feedback from earlier proposals from the Wikimania bid review team helped to ensure everyone was confident and well prepared for the 2014 Wikimania. It worked, it was a brilliant experience, and when the final statistics get published, I expect it to be a case study of good value that we can all learn from. Thanks, Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Where did noboards go
by Erlend Bjørtvedt 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

I know this is probably not the right spot, but since the WMF site does not state who is responsible for the chapter sites, I am sorry to post this question here> Where did the boards/chapters pages go, like this one https://noboard.chapters.wikimedia.org/wiki/ when I enter it, it says that it does not exist. If these sites have moved, I would be overwhelmed to know where they are to be found, since they contain much valuable information... Best regards -- *Erlend Bjørtvedt* Nestleder, Wikimedia Norge Vice chairman, Wikimedia Norway Mob: +47 - 9225 9227 http://no.wikimedia.org <http://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Options for the German Wikipedia
by Magnus Manske 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 3:12 AM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: > Using the title blacklist, the AbuseFilter > extension, site-wide JavaScript and CSS, and other techniques, it's > possible to fully disable reading and/or editing of the German Wikipedia > until an amicable solution can be found. > > > Strange. I seem to distinctly remember that, yesterday on Wikimania, many (most) of us agreed that Wikipedia is an incredibly valuable resource to the world, and that it is our mission, as a community, to protect and improve it, and to make it available to even more people. Your suggestion to sabotage that resource, even if it's just (!) in German, because a few long-time editors there now have to (once) click a checkbox to *not* see the Media viewer, strikes me as somewhat incompatible with that mission. The discussion about how the activation of the Media viewer on German Wikipedia came to pass should not affect the reader, no matter what. [Disclaimer: I am an editor on German Wikipedia (user ID 12), and I don't really like the Media viewer, as it is.] Cheers, Magnus

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Options for the German Wikipedia
by Nathan 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

On Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 10:12 PM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: > > > * Disabling editing and/or reading of the German Wikipedia, using a > variety of tools. Erik's declaration of war makes this option viable, but > it should likely be used only as a measure of last resort. If Erik is > truly hell-bent on damaging or destroying the wiki model, perhaps the wiki > should simply cease to be. Using the title blacklist, the AbuseFilter > extension, site-wide JavaScript and CSS, and other techniques, it's > possible to fully disable reading and/or editing of the German Wikipedia > until an amicable solution can be found. My view is that this is a tempest in a teacup. Take a step back and look at the stakes here - the implementation, or not, of a relatively minor change in how images are viewed on a few websites. There is no need to use terms like "declaration of war" in these circumstances. There's a disturbing lack of reflection on the broader trends here; the change aversion of the tech community, the desire of some to wrest control from the WMF and to increase tension between communities and the WMF, and the WMF's consistently disorganized approach to deployment and failure to properly anticipate potential problems. Instead of escalating individual incidents to the Wikimedia equivalent of thermonuclear war (hijacking accounts and shutting down projects, which will inevitably lead to the global permanent blocking of the offending users and perhaps even referrals for criminal prosecution), let's focus on process changes that can be made to reduce tension and conflict and address the recent trends in development and deployment. A development steering committee sounds like a good start.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Options for the German Wikipedia
by Romaine Wiki 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

If it is true that the software deployment of the visual editor is again going hastily and with negative repercussions as a result, it is disappointing that apparently nothing has been learned from the largest failure of any software implementation in the Wikimedia movement ever: the implementation of the visual editor a year ago.There have been massively protests going on, on various wiki's. Such must had a signal to WMF that this way is totally unacceptable to the community, so why is this behaviour continued? The visual editor is the biggest change in software in years, the community expects that such change is deployed in such way that fits: it has been tested with care, it is communicated in a proper way, deployed in a good way, and the community involved in a nice way. In 2013 it was too much rushed, in 2014 it appears to be rushed again sadly. I heard that the visual editor was deployed in 2013 because it was planned so, and a reason given to deploy it, instead of waiting until it is actually ready, was that it WMF thinks it is important to stick to how it was planned because people expect that plans are to be followed. So it appears to be that sticking to a plan is more important to WMF, than delivering a good product that has no critical problems. Mistakes can be made, but ........... If a plan is wrong, the plan should be changed, not rushing broken software, and not putting the trust of the community at stake! Watching the communities on several wikis for more than 5 years now, it seems that they all like the idea of a visual editor very much. I think it correct to say it is the most wanted software of the past 5 years. If then such wide opposing rises up, alarm bells must go ringing: something is terrible going wrong. And I can add, at the Dutch Wikipedia we examined the working of the visual editor on articles. In 2013 we found issues we consider critical, and recently we examined them again and still several of these issues are present. We had a voting about this with the result that as long as these critical issues exist, the Dutch community is against that the visual editor is switched on by default. Greetings, Romaine 2014-08-11 4:12 GMT+02:00 MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com>: > Hi. > > The German Wikipedia has evaluated and decided against the default use of > MediaViewer on its project (preferring opt-in, rather than opt-out). Erik > has made it his mission to impose MediaViewer on the German Wikipedia > using Wikimedia Foundation staff coercion (cf. > <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/153302> and > <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/153345>). Both changes have been pushed > through hastily and have had negative repercussions as a result (missing > translations, disrupted workflows, etc.). From a recent Bugzilla comment > about the latter change, "it's clear this change was a kneejerk reaction > without a lot of thought as to the effects." > > The security of the entire MediaWiki infrastructure, which in turn is the > security of a large portion of Wikimedia wikis, heavily relies on the idea > that local administrators can be trusted. With his provocative actions, > Erik has declared war on the German Wikipedia. > > Given this, there are options for the German Wikipedians. This is a > non-exhaustive list and may not reflect the latest waste of developer and > system administrator resources coerced by Erik. > > * Local disruptive accounts (such as "User:Eloquence" and "User:JEissfeldt > (WMF)") can be locally blocked by German Wikipedia administrators for > conduct unbecoming. > > * Global accounts can have their privileges removed by stewards, who are > intended to serve as the "root" users of Wikimedia wikis. > > * While the German Wikipedia's "MediaWiki:Common.js" has been > super-protected, there are other pages such as "MediaWiki:Vector.js", > "MediaWiki:Monobook.js", and "MediaWiki:Group-user.js" that can probably > be used to achieve the same effect. > > * Importing edits on top of an existing page should replace the content > and bypass any protection, though this theory needs additional testing. > > * Certain pages in the MediaWiki namespace such as "MediaWiki:Copyright" > still allow raw HTML, which can be used for a direct "<script>" insertion. > > * JavaScript gadgets can be enabled by default across a wiki. > > * CentralNotice from Meta-Wiki can be used to deploy JavaScript to the > German Wikipedia. > > There are also more extreme options available. > > * Using per-user CSS or JavaScript to forcibly hijack Erik's or another > staff member's account. This can be done locally on any wiki, including > sites such as Meta-Wiki. > > * Disabling editing and/or reading of the German Wikipedia, using a > variety of tools. Erik's declaration of war makes this option viable, but > it should likely be used only as a measure of last resort. If Erik is > truly hell-bent on damaging or destroying the wiki model, perhaps the wiki > should simply cease to be. Using the title blacklist, the AbuseFilter > extension, site-wide JavaScript and CSS, and other techniques, it's > possible to fully disable reading and/or editing of the German Wikipedia > until an amicable solution can be found. > > * A Wikimedia-wide vote of no confidence for Erik. Again, this is an > extreme option, but given Erik's behavior over the past few weeks > (including his actions on the English Wikipedia, which resulted in an > arbitration case involving him), beginning a vote of no confidence is an > idea worthy of consideration. > > There are also alternate options. > > * Disabling the MediaViewer extension by default on the German Wikipedia, > as requested by the German Wikipedia community. > > * Accepting Erik's authority over the technical infrastructure of > Wikimedia wikis and allowing him to rule as a technical autocrat. > > I'm interested to read others' views about options and ways forward here. > > MZMcBride > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect user right, Comming to a wiki near you
by Fæ 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

On 11 August 2014 03:19, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Lila, > > I hope you are aware of the issues being described in this thread. Would > you please state your views on this situation? > > Pine +1 It would be great to hear from Lila on the current decisions being taken by her employees. The discussion on this has now involved threats to take serious action on both "sides". I find the idea of blocking dissenting voices repugnant and fundamentally against the Community value of openness and transparency. Dissent is not the same thing as disruption or being uncivil, I think the lines are becoming dangerously blurred in this area and we are in danger of seeing a super stupid dramafest being fuelled. For what it's worth, anyone with admin powers that starts blocking people would be a major wally, and might take care to consider the potential "boomerang" effects that are likely to undo anything positive they hope to achieve. On my favourite friendly Wikimedia project, Commons, we have the concept of staying mellow, even when dealing with seriously difficult discussion, so keep it mellow. I will skip reading emails here that look ranty, life's too short. Cheers, Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Options for the German Wikipedia
by Brad Jorsch (Anomie) 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

*Note these are entirely my own personal opinions as a community member and in no way at all represent anything official.* On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 3:12 AM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: > > I'm interested to read others' views about options and ways forward here. > People could realize that demagoguery and warring is going to make everything much harder that it needs to be, and decide to block the people trying to escalate the issue so that more rational people can work out a rational solution. On the enwiki VPT thread about this, User:Fluffernutter suggested that we could eliminate 90% of the drama over software deployments by topic-banning a small number of people from the discussions. That'd probably be a much more productive topic than trying to brainstorm ways to make the situation worse.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Translators-l] Thank you for Tech News & see you soon
by svetlana 10 Aug '14

10 Aug '14

On Mon, 11 Aug 2014, at 04:07, Tomasz W. Kozłowski wrote: > Philippe, > the patch is not for the MediaWiki software but for the configuration > of Wikimedia wikis (it's in the operations/mediawiki-config repository > on Gerrit). > > It has been merged and deployed on the production cluster. The user > right has been added to the global staff user group, and it has > already been used to protect the MediaWiki:Common.js page on the > German Wikipedia so that no one can edit it except Wikimedia > Foundation employees. > > Wikimedia Foundation is using this user right to actively fight its > community of volunteers. > > This is something I cannot and will not support. > > Tomasz > completely agree with 100% of the above cc'ing 2 more lists ftr, the change discussed is: <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/153302/>

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Wikimedia-l August 2014