I am not sure this is something we should be discussing on this mailing list. Please, contact the bot operator or raise it with the arwiki community. Regards, Isaac. On Dec 29, 2017 10:26 AM, "K. Peachey" <p858snake(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I can estimate the number of welcomes I received to roughly 300, most of these languages I cannot even copypaste from. While these messages are useless for sure I don't see any reason to be bothered of them. Vito 2017-12-29 10:25 GMT+01:00 K. Peachey <p858snake(a)gmail.com>om>:

Looping in the Arabic Wikipedia mailing list. FYI Samir Elsharbaty Communications|Wikimedia Foundation On Sat, Dec 30, 2017 at 5:02 AM, John Erling Blad <jeblad(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Link on my email. On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 10:25 AM, K. Peachey <p858snake(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Ting, You make a fair point about culture, but the impression I got is that the welcomes were being sent to people who were not intentionally editing the arwiki, or aware that they were doing so, which makes this a cultural thing imposed on people who were not aware of it or expecting it, and who did not have a way to avoid it even if they had known it might happen, which is a bit beyond local culture. For myself I am not bothered by messages from other Wikis, even if I can't read them. I am used to it, but some people are more paranoid than me, sometimes for good reasons. Cheers, Peter -----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ting Chen Sent: 30 December 2017 11:38 To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Welcome messages at arwiki Hello Amir, I think what you are questioning is right. And it is necessary to ask such questions. In my day job it is my duty to ask and discuss such questions with my customers. But, with the time I sort of see that these pure utilitarian questions are not the only questions that we need to consider. I start to ask questions that are beyond or below (according to the perspective) these pure utilitarian questions. I find the answer Meno25 gave on Meta a very interesting one in this respect. In his answer he was not arguing about if the welcome-bot is useful or meaningful. He said it is their custom to do so. What he is pointing to is culture. See, why do we hug, shake hands, nod, or rub noses, or kiss? From a pure utilitarian point of view these behaviors are not only meaningless, they are even potentially dangerous for our health. If we just want to meet other people and talk to them why do we not just directly talk about what we want to talk about and make it behind us? And this is why in my opinion it is good that every project has its own way to handle welcome message: Because the welcome message is not only a utilitarian thing, there is culture beyond or below it. There is culture encompassed from the societies where the project community is embedded in and there is culture that was created and developed by the project community. This is why in my opinion as long as the message is not malicious how every community handles this is their own thing. Greetings Ting Am 30.12.2017 um 09:29 schrieb Amir E. Aharoni: _______________________________________________ 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> --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com

Oh, I absolutely agree that there is an important cultural aspect here. That's why towards the end of the email I acknowledged that this has been done for many years. Nevertheless, it's worth occasionally stopping and thinking about the usefulness. These messages are supposed to be sent to new users, but the culture we're talking about is the culture of new users; and at the same time, we're often saying that many new users have a hard time getting into Wikipedia. So the welcome templates may—or may not—be part of this problem. This is just one example of a question worth asking. בתאריך 30 בדצמ׳ 2017 11:38,‏ "Ting Chen" &lt;wing.philopp(a)gmx.de&gt; כתב:

I'm scared of the solutions that will "fix" this. I expect something as dramatically useful as the removal of "unblock this IP" button for IPs caught by autoblocks of registered users. Vito 2018-01-01 22:46 GMT+01:00 Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

There are a lot of SUL issues that are waiting to be addressed. One for example is the definition of what is not "appropriate" as a name. Another one is a centralized interface for preferences, a third one is a centralized management of key user information, a forth one is the possibility to disactivate crosswiki ping services so you can manage them only when you want to... and so on... one reasonable thing you can ask is that the message is not inserted in the talk of people with no edits, for example. Or that the welcome messages are progressively standardized, with a clear layout for the message that can be declined with the users' language preferences when they are declared. Sure, there is no point in linking me again to the five pillar, but a link to some key pages might still be useful. In any case I cannot think of it as really important, and it is to me less important than other issues related to the SUL interface. Right in these days one of my friends that I registered years ago or that was already registered (in any case a very minor contributor, with only a superficial involvement on wiki platforms) received one of this welcome message in one "non-western language". He/She found it funny. I probably have very tolerant friends... good for me! But so far I still feel that this is a problem only for a small fraction on  mid-term and long-term users than for the rest of the world. I believe that if you make an extensive research these messages might have no effect (especially if left by bot), they probably have some effect if they are part of a human interaction, and there is a minority who will disagree with them strongly. Based on the human interactions and experiences in my life at the workplace, I kinda suspect that for many of these people this could be also their general attitude in other fields. Don't get me wrong, I am concerned by the abuse of psychometric and personal data on modern internet platform, I'll do whatever I could to prevent it that's why I really don't understand why these messages given by an open and linear process are such a big deal per se. To me it's like overthinking something quite superficial and that's unfortunately rarely in the interest of taking care of the real big deal, such as e.g. your personal metadata being sold to big conglomerates without your "active permission". So are my friends, and, surprise surpirse, they don't care about these welcome messages too. Il Mercoledì 24 Gennaio 2018 4:41, Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto: FYI for those on WIkimedia-l who may be interested, conversation about this matter is ongoing. I am waiting a response from WMF Legal, and there may be others who have opened their own lines of inquiry. If I don't receive a reply from WMF Legal that I feel is satisfactory, or if I don't receive one at all, then I plan to set up an RfC about this matter. Pine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CatherineMunro/Bright_Places> On Mon, Jan 1, 2018 at 2:17 PM, Vi to &lt;vituzzu.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ 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>

If it has been discussed before, then it would be nice if someone can provide a pointer to that discussion. Den ons. 24. jan. 2018, 11.29 skrev Joseph Seddon &lt;jseddon(a)wikimedia.org&gt;rg>:

The information is so noisy (transclusions may trigger autocreation) and irrelevant (no information about pages, just wikis) I don't see an issue worth resolving. Vito 2018-01-25 22:54 GMT+01:00 Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

you are not "exposing the user unknowingly visiting the site" with the bot itself...when you visit the site you are integrated in the SUL, it's public information since ages. The fact that a bot takes care of it or a human being leaves a message does not tell you a lot more. Sometimes on certain wiki welcome messages are delivered sometimes they are not. Sometimes immediately, sometimes later. It's a very fragmented situation so the bot tells you basically nothing per se, it simple makes some people aware that the information of visiting a site exists and it is public.  So the question is not about the bot, the question is if when you do thishttps://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&a… and you can read that it's public that for example I was attached on fawiki on 21:41, 11 April 2012, which is basically when I visited it the first time. Although not strictly, I could have visited it and the system having problem and log me out (that also happen) so technically this is not even true sometimes... But even if it was precise, is the public knowledge of this information really a threat to my privacy? or it is justing many of the things I implicitly agree when I make an account? The "violation of privacy" of such information, it's not even comparable with dozen of other things in your life. But seriously if THIS is a problem and had to be "put secret" than I'd expect to be informed when a check user look at my data. You know.... a few group of people decide when it's right or wrong to look at my personal data and not informing me when they do it probably because they found nothing (but they have such information in their hand now, don't they? Shouldn't I generic user be informed about it?), that's not very nice for the privacy of anyone. So the core point is not that I receive a message once a year that makes me aware that the SUL information exist, but that I don't receive a lot of other messages that I should receiving about who's looking at many others of my personal data. Privacy is a serious matter. I expect RfC for things that have impact. Now imagine that I go to people that are worried and tell them the nobody really cares that they are not informed when someone look inside their provider data (because put in the end of a small group of people is "enough") or that the disaggregated information of CU activity is not public for the majority of platforms... but someone cares so much if they receive a welcoming message by bot when they visit a platform for the first time. I am quite sure that the users I know will not be impressed. Il Venerdì 26 Gennaio 2018 0:27, John Erling Blad &lt;jeblad(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto: I can't see that T42006 is relevant in this case. It is about abusive use of a bot, not about creation of the central account in itself. The existence of a central account leads to creation of the local account. This is probably acceptable. Then this may lead to the abusiv behavior, ie exposing the user unknowingly visiting the site. This is probably not intended and not acceptable. I wonder if the solution is to filter down the new users to real contributors, that would be pretty simple Den tor. 25. jan. 2018, 22.55 skrev Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: _______________________________________________ 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>

i think many people might not understand what is the real problem here with this aspect in the general framework. I might make a brutal simplification, of course. In any case, if you manage to make the moment when a logged-in user is connected to a platform for the first time a secret, that basically do not have a big impact on anything most of the people do, so I can probably tell you to go on. What would be the effect? The info will disappear from the SUL table or something like that. Whatever. But I guess, cynically, that a "non-solution" of "don't use the bot" is much more fitting for the "social ecosystem" and the way it evolves on wiki platforms. This way you did not address a higher level aspect of the issue, you remove the global feeling of alert down a notch and you can act in any case as if you did something in that direction. Also, it makes no solid precedent when future real privacy problem are discussed.  That's why asking to remove the info completely, from my point of view, it's even slightly better.  At least next time we discuss privacy in other matter I have a strong precedent case to cite. I mean... if people make a fuzz about this, I expect they really care about other things. I could ping all the favorable to such information removal one by one in a future RfC. Alex Il Venerdì 26 Gennaio 2018 3:37, John Erling Blad &lt;jeblad(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto: Fine! If people refuse the easy way out, then create an Rfc, and start the process to make creation of new user accounts non-public information. Den fre. 26. jan. 2018, 03.04 skrev Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l &lt;wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;rg>: you are not "exposing the user unknowingly visiting the site" with the bot itself...when you visit the site you are integrated in the SUL, it's public information since ages. The fact that a bot takes care of it or a human being leaves a message does not tell you a lot more. Sometimes on certain wiki welcome messages are delivered sometimes they are not. Sometimes immediately, sometimes later. It's a very fragmented situation so the bot tells you basically nothing per se, it simple makes some people aware that the information of visiting a site exists and it is public.  So the question is not about the bot, the question is if when you do thishttps://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&a… and you can read that it's public that for example I was attached on fawiki on 21:41, 11 April 2012, which is basically when I visited it the first time. Although not strictly, I could have visited it and the system having problem and log me out (that also happen) so technically this is not even true sometimes... But even if it was precise, is the public knowledge of this information really a threat to my privacy? or it is justing many of the things I implicitly agree when I make an account? The "violation of privacy" of such information, it's not even comparable with dozen of other things in your life. But seriously if THIS is a problem and had to be "put secret" than I'd expect to be informed when a check user look at my data. You know.... a few group of people decide when it's right or wrong to look at my personal data and not informing me when they do it probably because they found nothing (but they have such information in their hand now, don't they? Shouldn't I generic user be informed about it?), that's not very nice for the privacy of anyone. So the core point is not that I receive a message once a year that makes me aware that the SUL information exist, but that I don't receive a lot of other messages that I should receiving about who's looking at many others of my personal data. Privacy is a serious matter. I expect RfC for things that have impact. Now imagine that I go to people that are worried and tell them the nobody really cares that they are not informed when someone look inside their provider data (because put in the end of a small group of people is "enough") or that the disaggregated information of CU activity is not public for the majority of platforms... but someone cares so much if they receive a welcoming message by bot when they visit a platform for the first time. I am quite sure that the users I know will not be impressed.     Il Venerdì 26 Gennaio 2018 0:27, John Erling Blad &lt;jeblad(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:  I can't see that T42006 is relevant in this case. It is about abusive use of a bot, not about creation of the central account in itself. The existence of a central account leads to creation of the local account. This is probably acceptable. Then this may lead to the abusiv behavior, ie exposing the user unknowingly visiting the site. This is probably not intended and not acceptable. I wonder if the solution is to filter down the new users to real contributors, that would be pretty simple Den tor. 25. jan. 2018, 22.55 skrev Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: _______________________________________________ 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>

Possibly because they have been busy with other things? Cheers, Peter -----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Renée Bagslint Sent: 01 January 2018 00:10 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Welcome messages at arwiki I'm surprised that this whole thing is even an issue at this late date. Considering the importance to the projects of recruiting and retaining contrbutors, how is it possible to be in a position where the various projects do not have a comprehensive understanding of, and well-researched evidence-based policies for, welcoming new contributors, and efficient and effective tools in place to implement those policies? Indeed, why were these things not all sorted out at least a decade ago? On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 9:20 AM, John Erling Blad &lt;jeblad(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ 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> --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com