Donations - show the editors you care? - Wikimedia-l

Joseph Seddon

6 Dec 6 Dec

4:21 p.m.

Short answer: I don't think it's a cynical lie. I think that the donations our donors give do results in benefits to the community, even if they aren't transactional or tangible things. We definitely don't want to give any misleading impression that the benefits are tangible so we will look into this and if we can, try and to improve it. Long answer: If I look at where things are now versus where things were when I first started editing, it's amazing the amount of progress the editing experience has made. Even some of the projects with the bumpiest entries into the movement have been profoundly impactful. Some might raise an eyebrow in my use of it as an example, but I am astounded by how much easier the visual editor makes writing articles. Especially with the tools that are built into like Citoid. It is a dream to use. Or on the multilingual front with the content translation tool which has seen 700,000 articles at last count? In the last couple of years we will finally have integrated editor onboarding tools that are being worked on which are critical for the health of our communities? From personal experience, having better onboarding will massively improve community projects that aim to engage and bring in new editors to the movement. At one level you have the discrete improvements being worked on or completed with things like partial blocks, revision scoring, visual diffs, real time watchlists. At a more global level things like Structure Data on Commons or Abstract Wikipedia have the potential to solve massive problems the community has faced like multilingual categories or global templates. Those have the potential to bring huge benefits to the editing community on the projects. The benefits aren't always tangible to a specific individual and can often be invisible even if it enables or supports community focused work further downstream. It's worth noting that many of the pragmatic and mission driven choices made cumulatively over 15 years have made this work harder for us. The limited resources in the earlier years meant that we accumulated a huge amount of technical debt and digging out of that is always harder after the fact. I'd defer to the opinions of my colleagues but the increasing investment over the last few years has allowed us to start actually making headway, even if there is still a long way to go. On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 1:37 PM Pelagic via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

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[ Cross-posted from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Donations_-_show_the_editors_you… ] I had the misfortune of visiting Wikipedia logged-out the other day, and was struck by the large size of the donation banner, and the odd wording of the appeal. (Something about awkward and humble.) Re-checking now, the "awkward" bit is gone, but the following sentences are still there: "If Wikipedia has given you $2.75 worth of knowledge, take a minute to donate. Show the editors who bring you neutral and verified information that their work matters." As an occasional editor I want to know: how do the donations show me that the work matters? Is there some W?F "appreciation fund" that's going to start handing out disbursements to editors? Will the money hire more dev's to implement all the unfinished items from the Community Wishlists? Will funds be used to run better "community consultations" where the communities are actually listened to? Or is it just a big fat cynical marketing lie? [Add: okay, I get it that donation appeals have to phrased in a way that actually causes people to donate. But this skates very close to implying that Wikipedia's editors are paid from donors' money.] Cheers, Pelagic _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- Seddon *Senior Community Relations Specialist* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*

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Joseph Seddon

11:31 a.m.

I believe the nature of the edits speak for themselves. Seddon On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 5:55 AM Demian <aronmanning5(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Hey Seddon, On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 at 16:23, Joseph Seddon <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Short answer: I don't think it's a cynical lie. I think that the donations our donors give do results in benefits to the community, even if they aren't transactional or tangible things. We definitely don't want to give any misleading impression that the benefits are tangible so we will look into this and if we can, try and to improve it. Long answer: If I look at where things are now versus where things were when I first started editing, it's amazing the amount of progress the editing experience has made. Even some of the projects with the bumpiest entries into the movement have been profoundly impactful. Some might raise an eyebrow in my use of it as an example, but I am astounded by how much easier the visual editor makes writing articles. Especially with the tools that are built into like Citoid. It is a dream to use.

Visual Editor was a big step for the WMF. I appreciate very much that it exists, along with other projects, like Flow and MediaViewer, despite the community's initial/final rejections (respectively). Unfortunately, I can only use it effectively when I don't plan on editing templates or links, those workflows are inefficient and easy to make mistakes. I like to use Citoid, but I always have to fix up the result. With the lengthy loading time, every time I have to weigh whether it's worth the time using Visual Editor. As a result I use it roughly once a month (estimate), although I wish it would be feasible to use it more often. Looking at the greater picture I'm happy that new editors are somewhat more likely to use the Visual Editor, proving its benefit. On the other hand, as a senior software architect who had worked on improving Visual Editor, I am aware of the technical reasons that caused the community's low acceptance - and how it can be fixed -, therefore I fully understand the community's response. With these different aspects in mind I wonder why you find the Visual Editor a dream to use, given that on average at most 4 in 500 of your edits <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20201127030700&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29> (2 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20200714140036&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>, 3 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20200218092358&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>, 4 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20200113155502&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>, 5 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20191017132130&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>, search: "visual edit") are made using Visual Editor. Aron *Senior Software Architect and Analyst*

Or on the multilingual front with the content translation tool which has seen 700,000 articles at last count? In the last couple of years we will finally have integrated editor onboarding tools that are being worked on which are critical for the health of our communities? From personal experience, having better onboarding will massively improve community projects that aim to engage and bring in new editors to the movement. At one level you have the discrete improvements being worked on or completed with things like partial blocks, revision scoring, visual diffs, real time watchlists. At a more global level things like Structure Data on Commons or Abstract Wikipedia have the potential to solve massive problems the community has faced like multilingual categories or global templates. Those have the potential to bring huge benefits to the editing community on the projects. The benefits aren't always tangible to a specific individual and can often be invisible even if it enables or supports community focused work further downstream. It's worth noting that many of the pragmatic and mission driven choices made cumulatively over 15 years have made this work harder for us. The limited resources in the earlier years meant that we accumulated a huge amount of technical debt and digging out of that is always harder after the fact. I'd defer to the opinions of my colleagues but the increasing investment over the last few years has allowed us to start actually making headway, even if there is still a long way to go. On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 1:37 PM Pelagic via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

[ Cross-posted from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Donations_-_show_the_editors_you… ] I had the misfortune of visiting Wikipedia logged-out the other day, and was struck by the large size of the donation banner, and the odd wording of the appeal. (Something about awkward and humble.) Re-checking now, the "awkward" bit is gone, but the following sentences are still there: "If Wikipedia has given you $2.75 worth of knowledge, take a minute to donate. Show the editors who bring you neutral and verified information that their work matters." As an occasional editor I want to know: how do the donations show me that the work matters? Is there some W?F "appreciation fund" that's going to start handing out disbursements to editors? Will the money hire more dev's to implement all the unfinished items from the Community Wishlists? Will funds be used to run better "community consultations" where the communities are actually listened to? Or is it just a big fat cynical marketing lie? [Add: okay, I get it that donation appeals have to phrased in a way that actually causes people to donate. But this skates very close to implying that Wikipedia's editors are paid from donors' money.] Cheers, Pelagic _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- Seddon *Senior Community Relations Specialist* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)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 and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- Seddon *Senior Community Relations Specialist* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*

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Dan Garry (Deskana)

2:02 p.m.

On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 at 12:38, Demian <aronmanning5(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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I'm assuming this points to the namespace of the edits, although it's not clear. It's unfortunate that Visual Editor can only be used in mainspace, I wish that wasn't the case, but to be exact, I was looking to understand why only 2.8% (47 out of 1668 <https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/meta.wikimedia.org/Seddon_(WMF)#year-counts>) of your mainspace edits since 2016 are made with Visual Editor. To answer Dan: I was unaware of the personal account with 189 <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon&offset=&limit=600&target=Seddon> /399 <https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Seddon#year-counts> mainspace visual edits since 2016, which makes the grand total 11.41% (236 out of 2067) of mainspace edits.

At this point, I think looking at the editing environment Seddon used across his staff and personal edit history has dubious value to furthering this discussion about fundraising.

...

While Visual Editor has its benefits and I also use it on meta with similar success rate, for me the dream would be an editor that I can use at least 80% of the time, and the ultimate would be 100% like the service provided by Dropbox Paper, Google Docs, Coda and Nuclino for example.

I think we'd all love that. I certainly would. Making that happen would probably be a large organisational pivot; I can't find any statistics about how big the team is that made, say, Google Docs, but I suspect it's larger than the entire Wikimedia Foundation. This topic would probably have been better discussed in the movement strategy conversations, as a thread on a mailing list won't make it happen.

...

Therefore my concern is if Visual Editor met your expectations well, what was the reason not to use it for 1800+ edits, which includes most major edits on meta?

I'm sure the Editing team would appreciate your help with conducting systematic user research. Have you reached out to them? Dan

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Joseph Seddon

11:12 p.m.

The simple answer to a simple question is that I created my User:Seddon volunteer account in 2006 and Visual Editor was first made available to users seven and a half years later.

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Christophe Henner

10:41 a.m.

Hi, I consider a bike to be an amazing transportation tool, yet I haven't biked for months because it is not appropriate to how I commute. I am not sure invalidating someone's opinion based on its edit count is a good way to have that discussion . All the statistics I have ever seen on Visual Editor for years are supporting evidence it helps newcomers. I haven't found very recent ones though, but I cannot see why it would have changed. Perhaps one of you have a more recent study I couldn't find. If someone has, please share it! I love numbers :D As for the initial message, contributing financially to Wikimedia projects is a way to contribute and show support. When a reader gives money, they are showing that the work volunteers do matter to them. It is on of the way to contribute and to show gratefulness. If what we did stop being relevant to readers, they would stop donating. It is not as much as the amount that matters but the act of giving. So this sentence strikes me as a good way of saying it actually. What do you think Pelagic? Le mar. 8 déc. 2020 à 9:52 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)gmail.com> a écrit :

...

But the statistics we are talking about are from 2016 not 2006... And I think this is good point as I rember similar discussion in Polish Wikipedia when strong supporterts of Visual were found actually not using it on regular basis. Answering the question why you are personally not using it althgough you claim it is so wonderful might help with future development of this tool... pon., 7 gru 2020, 23:13 użytkownik Joseph Seddon <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> napisał:

The simple answer to a simple question is that I created my User:Seddon volunteer account in 2006 and Visual Editor was first made available to users seven and a half years later. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: 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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Željko Blaće

8 Dec 8 Dec

8:18 a.m.

It would be awesome if this list could either have basic moderation and/or an option to opt out of threads. On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 at 23:37, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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I think it would be great if this sub-thread could come to an end and we could stop having the list clogged up with questions about one person's editing history. Also, I can't quite remember the list policy on people who are blocked from one or more Wikipedias for disruptive behaviour contributing here. Could one of the list admins clarify?

...

Thanks, Chris _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: 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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Andreas Kolbe

14 Dec 14 Dec

7:58 p.m.

Hi, I'd just like to revive the point made by Pelagic in the post that started this thread. I was just now once again presented with this banner wording, "Show the editors who bring you neutral and verified information that their work matters." I find this wording very offensive, as it implies that the WMF is the one doing that work of bringing the public "neutral and verified information" – which it is not – and that the WMF should be given money to honour that work. I'd much rather the WMF were highlighting what *it* is doing in its fundraising appeals. Surely this is not too hard to understand? Andreas On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 1:37 PM Pelagic via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

[ Cross-posted from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Donations_-_show_the_editors_you… ] I had the misfortune of visiting Wikipedia logged-out the other day, and was struck by the large size of the donation banner, and the odd wording of the appeal. (Something about awkward and humble.) Re-checking now, the "awkward" bit is gone, but the following sentences are still there: "If Wikipedia has given you $2.75 worth of knowledge, take a minute to donate. Show the editors who bring you neutral and verified information that their work matters." As an occasional editor I want to know: how do the donations show me that the work matters? Is there some W?F "appreciation fund" that's going to start handing out disbursements to editors? Will the money hire more dev's to implement all the unfinished items from the Community Wishlists? Will funds be used to run better "community consultations" where the communities are actually listened to? Or is it just a big fat cynical marketing lie? [Add: okay, I get it that donation appeals have to phrased in a way that actually causes people to donate. But this skates very close to implying that Wikipedia's editors are paid from donors' money.] Cheers, Pelagic _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: 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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