Aye, what Vito said.
For some context the WP0 team reached out to me when the partners started flagging some of this as well. We've been considering a couple different options which I think should be wider discussed. Part of that was also a realization that we needed a way to actually tell if something was coming from WP0 compared to a non-WP0 user and they implemented technical changes with ops so that a header is passed through flagging that early this year allowing for more targeted actions to be taken. Completely figuring out the extent of the problem has also been though since it seems that even when Wikipedia Zero is blocked the users most set at getting around restrictions (which are, of course, the most dangerous in many ways) also use other options such as Facebook's Internet Basics/FB0 which also apparently gives free access to our sites.
Some of the options considered (not yet implemented though I'd be interested in peoples thoughts on them):
- Edit filters (targeted specifically to WP0 or otherwise) flagging abnormally large files when compared to the stated file type or files coming in through WP0 in general. - File upload blocks or other filtering (such as file sizes over X or videos https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T126696) specifically on WP0 ranges. - More technical measures to try and detect abnormal images or PDFs that hold hidden files (apparently this is actually very difficult).
We've been talking with multiple groups within Engineering and given the new information and options are going to continue to do so. I do think that it is overall a "good" thing that people are trying to edit (originally all we saw was the bad uploads and organized copyright violations which was much less of a good thing...) but it's definitely true that we don't want to overwhelm the current community in such a way that we not only lose those new editors but old ones as well (or push them back so hard given the necessity of protecting the wiki that they never come back). I think it would be really good to think about ways to help deal with that.
James Alexander Manager Trust & Safety Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Vi to vituzzu.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Anytime a new linguistic group joins Wiki* we should expect a looooooong September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September which will sooner or later end. Meanwhile what might become *so* problematic (and then must be stopped asap) is the usage of Commons as a file sharing platform. There's a series of technical countermeasures (stopping truncated files, setting requirements for upload of videos...) which don't imply blocking editing from Zero.
Vito
2016-03-20 17:05 GMT+01:00 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org:
In a way, it is great to hear that Wikipedia zero is attracting new editors! That is what I hoped for more than increasing readership.
The general question on how to stimulate positive edits while
discouraging
negative contributions is the tricky part. What we always tell outsiders
on
why we can cope with vandalism or simply bad edits is that we made it easier to identify and revert it than to make them.
Maybe a superfluous question, but can we still differentiate individual devices from each other somehow? I can imagine this is a tricky part if not...
Besides the obvious downside, are the positive sides also visible? Do we see more edits on Angola relayed topics? Do you see more positive active users from Angola?
Lodewijk
Op zondag 20 maart 2016 heeft Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
het volgende geschreven:
Hoi, Realistically. Wikipedia is very much an enabler.
Your ease to consider "simply" disabling mobile edits or uploads I find appalling. People in countries like USA or UK are very fortunate.
Nobody
would ever argue to disable their edits or uploads. At the same time
as a
movement we desperately need more and more diverse involvement. While
you
may say what you want, it is unconscionable for us to do as you suggest
as
it is fully contrary to what we aim to achieve.
What we are experiencing is a bump in the road. We have to deal with it
but
throwing the baby with the washing water? REALLY !! Thanks, GerardM
On 19 March 2016 at 15:03, David Emrany <david.emrany@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
Hi Adele
Can we have a clear picture of Wikimedia's ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality - 1year on from the Washington Post story [1]
Can we also have specific figures on how much of WMF's traffic has been lost / gained from key markets in Latin America and Asia after regulators have blocked zeropaid schemes due to local concerns.
WMF's "complicated" stance has also turned off many like-minded support groups who stand for pure net neutrality - and not WMF's or Facebook's ersatz versions [2]
Lastly, if the primary aim of Wikipedia Zero is to gain readership, why not simply disable all mobile edits / uploads from these
accounts.
David
[1]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/11/25/wikipedias-comp...
[2]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/01/wikipedia-zero-and-net-neutrality-prot...
On 3/19/16, Adele Vrana <avrana@wikimedia.org javascript:;> wrote:
Hi Teles,
As the head of the Wikipedia Zero program, I would like to respond
and
provide more context to the important challenges you are bringing
up.
Last year, the Foundation increased our security and privacy by
requiring
HTTPS to access all Wikimedia projects. That change has greatly
impacted
the Wikipedia Zero program, and most importantly has also allowed
editing
(and not only reading) and extended the scope of zero-rated access
from
just Wikipedia to all Wikimedia projects. However, our banners do
not
reflect this additional zero-rating, but still only appear on
Wikipedia.
In your message you highlight two main concerns. One would be the
upload
of
copyrighted materials and overall abuse on Commons. The other
concern
regards how the editing community should deal with an influx of new
good
faith edits and potential editors in Portuguese, with particular
challenge
of the extra work this causes for existing community members.
Regarding Commons, we have experienced abuse from a few subscribers
of
a
Zero partner in Angola. Typically what happens is that the pirates
upload
copyrighted movies to Commons either directly or in a concealed
form
(like
huge/split PDFs or JPEGs). Then they promote the links on Facebook
or a
similar public forum for others to download. When partners become
aware
of
this they have flagged it to us and we've, in turn, flagged it to
Community
Engagement who has worked with editors to try and make sure it's
removed.
We agree that this is not an ideal way to handle this problem, and
we
would
prefer to catch it much earlier or simply prevent it outright
(without
significant limits being placed on good faith editors). Last fall,
we
had
internal discussions on finding technical solutions for this
problem.
However, we discovered that we could not widely identify traffic
from
zero
rated partners, and that ability was a prerequisite to address this
issue.
As of December 2015, the Ops team was able to complete that work.
With this task completed, our team, in coordination with community engagement and engineering is working on finding the best approach
to
resolve this issue. Do you have suggestions or guidance? We are
eager
to
examine multiple approaches and this is a great time to open the discussion. As we evaluate different approaches, we can also update
you
and
the list here.
On the editing topic, the primary goal of Wikipedia Zero is to
increase
readership. This is measured in potential reach (through subscriber
counts)
and pageviews within regions with Wikipedia Zero partnerships.
There’s
not
enough information to show that Zero can also increase editorship,
but
it
is something we believe is furthered by expanding reading access.
So
if
that is what is happening in Angola, we see that is a great thing.
However, we understand that it’s challenging for our existing
editing
community to handle a sudden influx of new editors. This seems to
be
a
crucial and important conversation for the movement at large to
have. I
hope we can figure out a way to turn this moment in Angola into an opportunity to learn how to deal with new readers and editors.
Best regards, Adele
On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 4:50 PM, Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com
javascript:;> wrote:
some of the issue stems form the copyright laws of Angola, which
are
really interesting to read -- read them in english -- https://www.copyright-watch.org/files/Angola.pdf of course I
dont
expect
people to know their copyright laws in detail or to have read them
but
they do know the principles of it and what they can do
some points of interest
- Non protected works Article 9 section c -- news of the day
published
by the press or broadcast
- Chapter IV Uses lawful without Authorisation article 29
section
b -
reproduction by photographic process or process analogous to photographic process by <snip> documentation centres <snip> or teaching organisations ..... refers to minimum amount of copies necessary, but wither
way
Wikipedia would fall into either of these definitions as
permitted
to
reproduce
- article 30 - is the key here it enables translation into
Portuguese
after 3 years without any real restrictions - hence why the
pt.wikis
are having so much of an issue and by extension commons where they encourage uploading of media
Wikipedia zero implementation needs to also consider the
implication
of
local laws especially copyright on the projects where the laws are
this
outdated and effectively enable copyright issues then WP Zero
could
provide a read only option for IP's or a no upload option, with a rights
request
process on commons
On 19 March 2016 at 00:45, Lucas Teles <teleswiki@gmail.com
javascript:;> wrote:
> Hi, everyone. > > It is being recently reported on Portuguese Wikipedia and
Commons
(at
> least) the increasing ammount of improper editing coming from IP addresses > located in Angola. Some users believe that this may be related
with
> Wikipedia Zero and a partnership between WMF and a cellphone
company
[1]
> that allows reading and editing at free cost. > > One of the first reactions to that is a large range block that
was
just
set > on Commons in order to prevent these edits [2], as they are
being
done
in a > way that volunteers can't handle. > > That seems to be some kind of "second wave" as the first that
hit
> Commons > [3] had been already reported months ago [4] and seemed to be
controled
or > just paused for a while. On Portuguese Wikipedia, one thing that
seemss
to > be clear is that edits are done in good faith. However, they end
by
> being > undone as they are incorrect for some reason, whether being
pages
of
files > about themselves or just test edits. One of the users identified > actually > confirm [5] that he is editing through Wikipedia Zero. > > Concerning that more partnerships may occur in future, I think
it
is
> time > for us to start talking about ways of dealing with that, other
than
> blocking. Sadly, I don't have an answer to that problem, but I
tend
to
> believe that some way of mass reaching these potential users
should
be
made > out. > > The current process is that editors will be the ones to notice
that
(as
> I > am not aware of any kind of follow up by WMF on that) and they
will
try
to > solve their way, which may cause too many collateral damage. > > I wonder if there is any kind of way to diminish the problem, by
using
any > off-wiki strategy. > > Kind regards. > > Teles > > [1] - > >
http://www.telecompaper.com/news/movicel-offers-free-access-to-wikipedia--11...
> [2] - > >
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Steinsplitter&...
> [3] -
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Teles/Angola_Facebook_Case
> [4] - > >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Forum&oldid=12835...
> [5] - > >
https://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usu%C3%A1rio_Discuss%C3%A3o:Darwi...
> > > *Lucas Teles* > > *+55 (71) 98290 7553Steward at Wikimedia Foundation.
Administrator *
> *at Portuguese Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.*-
wikipedista.com
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:;
?subject=unsubscribe>
-- GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:;
?subject=unsubscribe>
-- *Adele Vrana* *Strategic Partnerships* Wikimedia Foundation +1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6773 avrana@wikimedia.org javascript:;
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
in
the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate. https://donate.wikimedia.org/* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:;
?subject=unsubscribe>
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:;
?subject=unsubscribe>
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe>
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe