[Foundation-l] SUL pilot and renaming issues

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Nathan

19 May 2008 19 May '08

1:18 a.m.

I'm not a subscriber to Wikitech-l, and I should probably ask there, but how has the pilot of SUL been proceeding? I just happened to be drawn to this: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Darkoneko#User:Serein.40enwiki and it made me curious as to whether similar issues have occurred elsewhere. Globalisation of features and policies inevitably leads to conflicts between meta and local policies and initiative, how and by whom are these types of conflicts being handled in relation to SUL? Nathan

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Gerard Meijssen

19 May 19 May

4:54 a.m.

Hoi, Actually the discussion about POLICIES and the differences between conflicts between global vs local policies is best done at this list and not wikitech-l. There is a sufficiently large group of people who are of the opinion that there is a need to have a platform to discuss these things and come to a resolution. At this moment any community can throw spanners in the works. Single User Login is to be used on all projects for all users. The notion that one project would be against this is anathema to getting this sorely needed project implemented on all projects. I have read what has been referred to and the only thing I find is that a steward cannot do this thing because there are bureaucrats on the en.wikipedia. Jeez, what are we talking about? This seems to me a straightforward situation where the bringing together of all users is a foregone conclusion. The only argument is a formality ??? Really, GerardM On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 1:18 AM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I'm not a subscriber to Wikitech-l, and I should probably ask there, but how has the pilot of SUL been proceeding? I just happened to be drawn to this: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Darkoneko#User:Serein.40enwikiand it made me curious as to whether similar issues have occurred elsewhere. Globalisation of features and policies inevitably leads to conflicts between meta and local policies and initiative, how and by whom are these types of conflicts being handled in relation to SUL? Nathan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Robert Rohde

5:51 a.m.

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 7:54 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Currently, the Meta usurpation rule says that local projects decide when usurpation is appropriate. Given that, it is expected that Stewards (who will in general be less familiar with the policies on individual projects) should defer to local Bureaucrats when they are available. Darkoneko acted outside of that and executed a usurpation that violated enwiki policy. For which Darkoneko has apologized. I don't think the specifics of Darkoneko's actions are very important, but the general principle are. Should Usurpation policy be dictated by individual wikis? And if not, what should a global usurpation policy look like? In the case at hand, the enwiki account that was usurped had ~6000 edits, but hadn't edited in over a year. Even if there was a global usurpation policy, I'm not sure I would want us to go around usurping accounts with that had thousands of edits since it strikes at the heart of the user's expectation of attribution under the GFDL. Currently enwiki policy says that an account can only be usurped if it has no substantive edit history, out of concern for the GFDL. -Robert Rohde

Gerard Meijssen

6:06 a.m.

Hoi, The number of edits of an account has been a consideration in that the one with the biggest numbers can have the price. With 6000 edits a user can be found with less edits then a user from another project. By giving precedence to admins of projects a new ballgame may exist. There are many people in this group who are active in MANY wikis and when you combine their number of edits, you may find really high numbers. I do not think that usurpation policies should be determined by individual projects. There are too many of them, some 700, and consequently things would break down. Thanks, GerardM On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:51 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 7:54 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Robert Rohde

6:16 a.m.

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 9:06 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

The principle behind enwiki's policy is still reasonable though. Attribution is a fundemental legal expectation under the GFDL. We attribute edits under our self-chosen psuedonyms. I'm not convinced that involuntarily renaming accounts that have an established edit history is either ethical or legal. I know the SUL proposal has been to give the account to the most established user, but it's not clear to me that doing so is appropriate. An unfortunate consequence of that is that some popular names might never be unified, but personally, I'm inclined to think that the only way to be fair to some existing users may well be to frustrate others. -Robert Rohde

Gerard Meijssen

6:26 a.m.

Hoi, This discussion was finished a long time ago. We are passed the point where objections on principle are even reasonable. As I indicated earlier, a single project cannot and should not stand in the way of the implementation of global policies. This was discussed ad nauseam. Even when a local policy is "reasonable", it does not make it reasonable in the larger scale of things. There is no reason why the attribution is to be linked by the self chosen user name, the only thing relevant is that it is correctly attributed to the user involved. This argument is problematic anywaw as people can request a name change and in that case attribution changes as well. Indeed it can be frustrating for some and it will be frustrating to some. This was understood from the start. Thanks, GerardM On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 9:06 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hoi, The number of edits of an account has been a consideration in that the

one

with the biggest numbers can have the price. With 6000 edits a user can

found with less edits then a user from another project. By giving precedence to admins of projects a new ballgame may exist. There are many people in this group who are active in MANY wikis and when you combine their number of edits, you may find really high numbers. I do not think that usurpation policies should be determined by

individual

projects. There are too many of them, some 700, and consequently things would break down. Thanks, GerardM

Robert Rohde

6:49 a.m.

The discussion you think is finished resulted in a policy on Meta that defers to local communities and at least one community that adopted a standard of zero edits. I would say that is prima facie evidence that the discussion was not finished the way you think. -Robert Rohde On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 9:26 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 9:06 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hoi, The number of edits of an account has been a consideration in that the

one

with the biggest numbers can have the price. With 6000 edits a user can

be > found with less edits then a user from another project. By giving > precedence > to admins of projects a new ballgame may exist. There are many people

> this group who are active in MANY wikis and when you combine their

number

of edits, you may find really high numbers. I do not think that usurpation policies should be determined by

individual

projects. There are too many of them, some 700, and consequently things would break down. Thanks, GerardM

but

personally, I'm inclined to think that the only way to be fair to some existing users may well be to frustrate others. -Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Gerard Meijssen

7:45 a.m.

Hoi, When it comes to establishing consensus or policy, there is the Foundation mailing list, the Meta, MediaWiki and Wikimediafoundation wikis and then there are the mailing lists and wikis not open to the general public ...... Any of these can claim to reach or make consensus, in the end none of them really do. This is one of those issues that would be a good subject for a council to deal with... It is just one of the issues that prove the need for such a body. Thanks, GerardM On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 6:49 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hoi, This discussion was finished a long time ago. We are passed the point

where

objections on principle are even reasonable. As I indicated earlier, a single project cannot and should not stand in

the

way of the implementation of global policies. This was discussed ad nauseam. Even when a local policy is "reasonable", it does not make it reasonable

the larger scale of things. There is no reason why the attribution is to

linked by the self chosen user name, the only thing relevant is that it

correctly attributed to the user involved. This argument is problematic anywaw as people can request a name change and in that case attribution changes as well. Indeed it can be frustrating for some and it will be frustrating to some. This was understood from the start. Thanks, GerardM On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 9:06 PM, Gerard Meijssen < > gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Hoi, > > The number of edits of an account has been a consideration in that

the

> one > > with the biggest numbers can have the price. With 6000 edits a user

can

be > found with less edits then a user from another project. By giving > precedence > to admins of projects a new ballgame may exist. There are many people

> this group who are active in MANY wikis and when you combine their

number > > of > > edits, you may find really high numbers. > > > > I do not think that usurpation policies should be determined by > individual > > projects. There are too many of them, some 700, and consequently

things

> > would break down. > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > > The principle behind enwiki's policy is still reasonable though. > > Attribution is a fundemental legal expectation under the GFDL. We > attribute > edits under our self-chosen psuedonyms. I'm not convinced that > involuntarily renaming accounts that have an established edit history

either ethical or legal. I know the SUL proposal has been to give the account to the most established user, but it's not clear to me that doing so is appropriate. An unfortunate consequence of that is that some popular names might never be unified,

but

_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Waerth

10:27 a.m.

Ok a littlebit offtopic to this I know, but. When can simple wikimedians like myself sign up for SUL. I have many little Waerth-accounts over many many projects (40-50 I estimate) and it would be nice to reunite them all. I think I only confirmed the nl, de and en ones though .... Waerth

Robert Rohde

12:20 p.m.

Out of curiousity, I went on a Google Translate assisted tour of Usurpation policies. DE, PL, and IT wikis appear to be modeled on EN, and prohibit usurpation if the target account has any meaningful edit history. AR and ZH wikis apparently allow usurpation of any inactive account that has failed to respond after a 7 day notice period. FR wiki was a vaguely defined rule allowing usurpation of accounts with only a few or old contributions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of these appear to allow a foreigner to take over an actively used account name on the local wiki. -Robert Rohde

Casey Brown

21 May 21 May

1:05 a.m.

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 4:27 AM, Waerth <waerth(a)asianet.co.th> wrote:

...

I didn't see anyone respond to this yet... we are currently just going through the pilot of SUL (ie. it's only enabled for admins). If all goes well, the developers will open it up to regular users after they review the results of the pilot. So, unfortunately, you can't sign up for SUL yet unless you are an admin on a Wikimedia project (and no, for any of you out there who are thinking it, you *can't* get temp-sysoped on testwiki to unify you accounts :P). -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 --- Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost.

Mark Williamson

5:30 a.m.

Let me remind you all that that is an admin on ANY project - I was disappointed to not be allowed to unify my accounts until I remembered that there are a couple of small Wikipedias I am a sysop on. I unified my accounts at nv.wp. Mark 2008/5/20 Casey Brown <cbrown1023.ml(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 4:27 AM, Waerth <waerth(a)asianet.co.th> wrote:

Tim Starling

19 May 19 May

2:03 p.m.

Nathan wrote:

...

The pilot is coming along just fine. The stewards, as usual, will have to interpret community consensus and decide on a policy amongst themselves. The tech team certainly won't wait for them to do this before we enable the feature. -- Tim Starling

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participants (7)

Casey Brown
Gerard Meijssen
Mark Williamson
Nathan
Robert Rohde
Tim Starling
Waerth