Erik -

Thank you for confirming that English Wikipedia does not have a choice in whether or not this tool is deployed on our project.

Just a quick reminder of the words of William Pietri, who was the lead developer of this project until the day after the first trial took place:

"This is, as the community requested, a 60-day trial. At the end of that, unless the community clearly requests otherwise, we'll turn it back off. Assuming that the trial starts on time, it will also end on time."[1]

Well, that obviously didn't happen, and now we know why. If William did not have the authority to make that statement, it was your place to have corrected him forthwith. How unfortunate that you have placed a respected developer in this position.

Risker/Anne

[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/106702/...

On 28 September 2010 16:15, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:

Risker,

we've consistently communicated that we'll iteratively update the Pending Changes codebase with fixes to address known issues, as documented on:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Pending_Changes_enwiki_trial/Roadmap#November_...

This is the assumption on which hundreds of people voted in the enwiki poll that just took place, where this date was explicitly referenced. We're going to do our best to meet that deployment date.

How and under what conditions Pending Changes is used is up to the enwiki community. All we're doing is leaving the feature in place: the community can decide to defer its continued usage, to narrow it, to broaden it, to restrict it in the scope of a trial, or to discontinue it. We're going to base our resource allocation for future development as much as possible on the emerging consensus in the enwiki community, and we'll try to support that continuing process with data as much as possible. It's evident that these discussions are still very much in flux.

See more at:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Pending_Changes_enwiki_trial/Roadmap#Current_S...

Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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2010/9/28 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Closure

Correct link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Straw_poll

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Straw_poll_on_interim...

In both these polls, strong majorities _opposed_ disabling the feature, which is why we haven't turned it off. All we're doing is keeping the software running and making fixes we know need to be made. The process for the English Wikipedia community to determine what it wants to do with this technology, if anything, continues.

-- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2010/9/28 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:

Ummm, no, Erik. The objective was to have consensus to KEEP it on, not consensus to turn it off, and that was always the agreement. There was never, until the lack of consensus to keep it on became clear, a direct suggestion that we'd be stuck with it.

Anne, there are no obvious answers here. Two thirds of the community told us "Please keep this feature enabled", some of whom said "we should expand this to all (BLP|high-risk articles|whatever)". Jimmy posted interpreting this as direction-setting for continued testing and development, and asking us to provide a development timetable, which we did. Had we then said "Oh, sorry, no consensus for anything, we'll just turn it all off for now", we'd have a different set of people heaping blame on WMF right now. At the end of the day it's just a feature that we're continuing to improve, and it's up to the enwiki community to figure out how/why/where it wants to use it. We have no stake in this, other than wanting to support the project as best we can.

On 28 September 2010 18:10, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:

Without having formed in opinion either way to what has come out of the trial or the straw polls, I don't understand why there is such importance placed on *technically* disabling the feature. If en.WP doesn't want to use it, why don't they not just move all the articles back to semi-protection? Empty out the pending changes from the on-wiki interface. This would likely have to be done *before* disabling it anyways. Just because the extension is installed doesn't mean it has to be used. I can see no reason why Erik or Danese should be being asked to determine consensus.

Nobody was asking Erik or Danese to determine consensus. They were asked to give their word that our consensus would be respected after the polling of the community following a second trial. Consensus doesn't mean majority rule, as has always been very clear on this project.

It's now on record that any further trials are moot, and that the tool is going to be left in place with absolutely no intention of disabling it regardless of the wishes of the project.

I get that this is an important political issue for various people. I don't get why the devs are being focused on. Please let the devs out of the argument. I can't imagine why any of them would want to touch that button with a ten-foot pole until you have clearly decided. Especially as it isn't really necessary for them to be involved in achieving a negative result.

The developers were being focused on because they have been the face of this project from Day One, and all communication with the community has been through them.

Risker/Anne

Brigitte, I owe you and everyone else on this list an apology for bringing English Wikipedia business here. This post was initially sent to multiple lists, and it came through only on my Wiki-en-L tab, so I believed I was replying there, not to Foundation-L.

This is, indeed, a discussion appropriate to our own project.

Risker/Anne

On 28 September 2010 20:25, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:

--- On Tue, 9/28/10, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

...

From: Risker risker.wp@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Pending Changes development update: September

27

...

To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <

foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>

...

Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 5:22 PM On 28 September 2010 18:10, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:

...

Without having formed in opinion either way to what

has come out of the

...

trial or the straw polls, I don't understand why there

is such importance

...

placed on *technically* disabling the feature.

If en.WP doesn't want to use

...

it, why don't they not just move all the articles back

to semi-protection?

...

Empty out the pending changes from the on-wiki

interface. This would likely

...

have to be done *before* disabling it anyways. Just

because the extension is

...

installed doesn't mean it has to be used. I can see no

reason why Erik or

...

Danese should be being asked to determine consensus.

Nobody was asking Erik or Danese to determine consensus. They were asked to give their word that our consensus would be respected after the polling of the community following a second trial. Consensus doesn't mean majority rule, as has always been very clear on this project.

It's now on record that any further trials are moot, and that the tool is going to be left in place with absolutely no intention of disabling it regardless of the wishes of the project.

And how should they know what the consensus is which they should promise to respect without determining it? They can't very well just turn off an extension while it is use on hundreds of articles. If the consensus is so clear (that Danese and Erik would not be required to make a judgment call) that en.WP doesn't want to use Pending Changes, then why are en.WP users *still using it*?

...

...

I get that this is an important political issue for

various people. I

...

don't get why the devs are being focused on.

Please let the devs out of the

...

argument. I can't imagine why any of them would want

to touch that button

...

with a ten-foot pole until you have clearly

decided. Especially as it isn't

...

really necessary for them to be involved in achieving

a negative result.

...

The developers were being focused on because they have been the face of this project from Day One, and all communication with the community has been through them.

And since it has worked so very well, you think it best continue with that pattern?

Seriously, do whatever you want to about Pending Changes on en.WP. You are complaining about WMF not respecting en.WP decisions. You don't need some formal announcement of respect. Just make your own decisions without asking WMF to approve. That is what real respect is. Is something you give to yourself by having confidence enough in your decisions to move forward with them. Asking others to promise to approve of your decisions undermines respect. There is a giant gap between not interfering with a decision and endorsing it. And respect is only about the former. WMF doesn't need and shouldn't have to go around endorsing decisions made on each of the wikis. In this aspect, en.WP has failed to mature to the level of most of the other wikis for far to long. Self-governing means doing it yourself.

I don't think you realize how absolutely disrespectful tone of the entire "en.WP wants to trial run an implementation of Flagged Revisions" has come across to me as someone who is associated with other WMF wikis. From the very beginning and still continuing with your recent posts; and I even edit en.WP significantly. Do you realize the development man-hours that have been put into adapting the extension to the very specific set of requirements that en.WP demanded on having before you all were even willing to even talk about whether you might permanently use it? And the entire time you all constantly complained about what was taking the devs so long to fulfill your detailed demands? (It was at some phases comparatively quick or at the very worst normal) I frankly hope you all decide to stop using Pending Changes and to forget about ever further testing it. Maybe then some developer will find some time to work on Lilypond. Or *any* somewhat functional way to do musical notation. I am not picky at all, because what there is now is NOTHING. And that is Bug 189; as in it was the one-hundred and eighty ninth bug placed on Bugzilla back in 2004. And even if not Bug 189, there may more be time for one of the numerous other development issues which is not even a blip on en.WP's political radar. Just hopefully, at the very least, it will be something that can possibly be used somewhere else in WMF land *in addition* to en.WP.

Birgitte SB

Here is a challenge for anyone else on the list who is as turned-off as I am about how many of the en.WP editors have approached this whole issue from Day 1: Let's make an effort only to respond to threads for the rest of the year when we can provide examples of the issues from wikis other than en.WP.

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On 29 September 2010 01:25, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:

And how should they know what the consensus is which they should promise to respect without determining it?   They can't very >well just turn off an extension while it is use on hundreds of articles.  If the consensus is so clear (that Danese and Erik would not >be required to make a judgment call) that en.WP doesn't want to use Pending Changes, then why are en.WP users *still using it*?

Because there are not that many admins prepared to walk into a direct conflict with Jimbo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Protect-text&diff=pr...

And since it has worked so very well, you think it best continue with that pattern?

Seriously, do whatever you want to about Pending Changes on en.WP.  You are complaining about WMF not respecting en.WP >decisions.  You don't need some formal announcement of respect.  Just make your own decisions without asking WMF to approve. >That is what real respect is.  Is something you give to yourself by having confidence enough in your decisions to move forward with >them.  Asking others to promise to approve of your decisions undermines respect.  There is a giant gap between not interfering with >a decision and endorsing it.  And respect is only about the former.  WMF doesn't need and shouldn't have to go around endorsing >decisions made on each of the wikis. In this aspect, en.WP has failed to mature to the level of most of the other wikis for far to long. > Self-governing means doing it yourself.

The problem with that is that when the foundation decides to do something it usually translates into doing it to en. Any self goverment on en will get overruled by the foundation far more often than it does on any other wiki which makes things tricky.

I don't think you realize how absolutely disrespectful tone of the entire "en.WP wants to trial run an implementation of Flagged >Revisions" has come across to me as someone who is associated with other WMF wikis. From the very beginning and still >continuing with your recent posts; and I even edit en.WP significantly.  Do you realize the development man-hours that have been >put into adapting the extension to the very specific set of requirements that en.WP demanded on having before you all were even >willing to even talk about whether you might permanently use it?

So you object to en trying the self government thing and saying that it really didn't want Flagged revs.

And the entire time you all constantly complained about what was taking the devs so long to fulfill your detailed demands? (It was >at some phases comparatively quick or at the very worst normal)

No some from en were. The opposition to flagged revs generally kept quiet on the subject.

I frankly hope you all decide to stop using Pending Changes and to forget about ever further testing it.

Sounds great doesn't it? Unfortunately things get kinda political. See the foundation has for years been bouncing off various media scares about accuracy by saying this flagged revs thing will come along soon and fix everything. Makes it hard for the foundation to accept that it won't work. Throw in Jimbo's support for flagged revs and you've got a lovey political mess. Thats before you get to the internal en politics.

Maybe then some developer will find some time to work on Lilypond.  Or *any* somewhat functional way to do musical notation.  I >am not picky at all, because what there is now is NOTHING.  And that is Bug 189; as in it was the one-hundred and eighty ninth bug >placed on Bugzilla back in 2004. And even if not Bug 189, there may more be time for one of the numerous other development >issues which is not even a blip on en.WP's political radar.  Just hopefully, at the very least, it will be something that can possibly be >used somewhere else in WMF land *in addition* to en.WP.

Err we got Tiff files not much I know. In practice however it appears there are only 2.5 people on earth who know mediawiki well enough to do code review. 0.5 are ill, 1 is about to become a father and 1 has only recently been rehired on a 2 hour-per-day contract. I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Here is a challenge for anyone else on the list who is as turned-off as I am about how many of the en.WP editors have approached >this whole issue from Day 1:  Let's make an effort only to respond to threads for the rest of the year when we can provide examples >of the issues from wikis other than en.WP.

You might want to go careful there. Things like the current state of de are part of the fight over flagged revs on en.

Amazingly convoluted reply, good sir. And amazingly contradictory in tone.

Keegan Peterzell (also) wrote:

...

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People/Drafting_pages/R...

...

ommendations_to_the_Board_of_Trustees/Draft

<

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People/Drafting_pages/R...

...

commendations_to_the_Board_of_Trustees/Draft>Point 4.

Instead of link-spamming, could you share with the list the status update of these recommendations? The draft you linked was last edited in May.

Ask the Board, that's when it was handed to them on a silver platter.

Ah, so it's not going to be the Sue Gardner office hours, it's going to be the Pending Changes office hours. Well, I suppose that makes sense.

One very large part of the disconnect, I will note, is that a very significant proportion of the editors who voted to stop the trial on the second poll are the people who were actually involved in the trial, either as reviewers, administrators, or editors who regularly watched articles that were involved in the trial. A near majority of the editors who supported continuation and expansion were not involved in the trial in any significant way. ALL of them were told they were voting for another trial, with the tool left on in the interim, not for permanent installation. And even with it just being put forward as a second trial, the support for continuing dropped 10% in two weeks.

You're losing the hearts and minds battle here, guys.

Risker/Anne

Hi Risker,

I think Erik has already covered a lot of ground in this thread, but additionally, I'll point out that many of us were already planning to be present talk about Pending Changes at the IRC office hour that Philippe announced below, so that would seem a great time to cover the disconnect here.

Rob ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Philippe Beaudette pbeaudette@wikimedia.org Date: Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 10:02 AM Subject: [Foundation-l] Office hours with Sue Gardner To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org, English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org, wikibooks-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Mailing list for Wikiversity wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org, wikiquote-l@lists.wikimedia.org, wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Hi all,

Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, will be having office hours this Thursday (September 30) at 23:00 UTC (16:00 PT, 19:00 ET, 01:00 Friday CEST) on IRC in #wikimedia-office.

If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat using a web browser: First, using the Wikizine chat gateway at http://chatwikizine.memebot.com/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi. Type a nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and #wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join.

Or, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning, which you can click to accept.

Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other relevant email lists you happen to be on.

---

Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation

philippe@wikimedia.org

Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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David Gerard wrote:

On 28 September 2010 23:12, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

...

You're losing the hearts and minds battle here, guys.

There'll be new hearts and minds along in eighteen months.

Come now, regardless of how one feels about the status of this particular feature (one for which community views and consensus have always been a challenge to interpret, so I would be happy to see a little less strident claims about what the current consensus is or isn't): The notion that we can just pass over disagreement based on participant turnover smacks of treating people as disposable, and is really inappropriate. We would be better off with more people working seriously to figure out the best answers to the issues this feature addresses, plus whatever issues there may be with the feature itself, rather than having a debating duel about the significance of a set of polling statistics. It's like having politicians decide how to govern entirely based on opinion polls.

--Michael Snow

On 28 September 2010 18:58, Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral315@gmail.com wrote:

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 6:44 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia@frontier.com

...

wrote:

...

We would be better off with more people working seriously to figure out the best answers to the issues this feature addresses, plus whatever issues there may be with the feature itself, rather than having a debating duel about the significance of a set of polling statistics. It's like having politicians decide how to govern entirely based on opinion polls.

This is really a much better point than I made.

Yes it is, and it's an important one. Several of us had already been working on a plan for the second trial, and those of us discussing had widely agreed that it would be much more likely to be successful if more of the recommendations on improving the software were incorporated, thus our recommendation that it not proceed so rapidly.

It's pretty hard to maintain motivation, though, when it's clear that the software's going to be a permanent feature regardless of what the project does or thinks, and that any further "trial" is not going to change that fact.

I don't often write to this list, and I realise that I sound fairly negative in this thread. The fact of the matter is that I personally entered more articles into the first trial than any other administrator (20% of all articles involved), that I actively and strongly encouraged other administrators to do so as well, that I pushed hard to ensure that the largest number of editors possible received reviewer permissions, and I was one of the few people who trialed the version on the test wiki in the two weeks before it went live, finding a significant number of problems (some of which were addressed in advance of the release). I was also the person who made sure that the WMF spokesperson with respect to the trial was in agreement with the prior stated position of the community, and that the feature would be turned off if there was not clear and unambiguous support for it at the end of the trial, just to make sure we were all on the same page.

So, yes...right now I (and several other administrators who were very active in this trial) are very disturbed at what has happened here. We felt there was a clear criterion for continued use of the tool, which was worthy of our collective time, energy and powers of persuasion. With that in mind, it's almost impossible to consider developing a second trial, since it doesn't seem like it will matter what criteria for continued use the project determines.

Risker/Anne

On 9/28/2010 4:41 PM, Risker wrote:

On 28 September 2010 18:58, Ryan Lomonacowiki.ral315@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 6:44 PM, Michael Snow<wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:

...

We would be better off with more people working seriously to figure out the best answers to the issues this feature addresses, plus whatever issues there may be with the feature itself, rather than having a debating duel about the significance of a set of polling statistics. It's like having politicians decide how to govern entirely based on opinion polls.

This is really a much better point than I made.

Yes it is, and it's an important one. Several of us had already been working on a plan for the second trial, and those of us discussing had widely agreed that it would be much more likely to be successful if more of the recommendations on improving the software were incorporated, thus our recommendation that it not proceed so rapidly.

It's pretty hard to maintain motivation, though, when it's clear that the software's going to be a permanent feature regardless of what the project does or thinks, and that any further "trial" is not going to change that fact.

Aside from the point already made regarding the desires of projects other than the English Wikipedia - I guess I struggle to see what's so demotivating about the prospect of a feature being "permanent" in the sense of being written into MediaWiki code while the English Wikipedia community still has the full ability to decide not to implement it on that project. Is it the potential of having to withstand continued political battles seeking to have it activated? That would implicitly acknowledge, at the very least, that there is some need not being met, meaning that alternative solutions are required.

Further improved trials might get us closer to such solutions, and we should keep experimenting where we can. I'll reserve comment as to whether we have the right balance between urgency in tackling serious problems and exercising patience to maximize our chances of success.

I don't often write to this list, and I realise that I sound fairly negative in this thread. The fact of the matter is that I personally entered more articles into the first trial than any other administrator (20% of all articles involved), that I actively and strongly encouraged other administrators to do so as well, that I pushed hard to ensure that the largest number of editors possible received reviewer permissions, and I was one of the few people who trialed the version on the test wiki in the two weeks before it went live, finding a significant number of problems (some of which were addressed in advance of the release). I was also the person who made sure that the WMF spokesperson with respect to the trial was in agreement with the prior stated position of the community, and that the feature would be turned off if there was not clear and unambiguous support for it at the end of the trial, just to make sure we were all on the same page.

So, yes...right now I (and several other administrators who were very active in this trial) are very disturbed at what has happened here. We felt there was a clear criterion for continued use of the tool, which was worthy of our collective time, energy and powers of persuasion. With that in mind, it's almost impossible to consider developing a second trial, since it doesn't seem like it will matter what criteria for continued use the project determines.

From this characterization, my impression is not so much that there is a conflict between the community consensus and the developers; much more, it strikes me that the extent of adoption and publicity for this feature remains tremendously limited, so that it's extremely difficult to say it's been adequately evaluated or speak of a consensus about it. If the Wikimedia Foundation has fallen short, then, it's not by disregarding the will of the community, but in a responsibility shared with community leaders, of gaining attention from a wider group of participants. I would guess that the vast majority of people actively involved in the English Wikipedia still barely know any of what's going on with this. That may be somewhat surprising to those of us who have been involved in Wikimedia projects for a long time and think of this as a perennial proposal for addressing longstanding issues. But I think not only do people see this proposal through very different lenses, but for many the lens is focused elsewhere anyway, and they are watching different trees in the forest. Part of the challenge is figuring out when and how it's appropriate to interpose "corrective" lenses to guide people's energy in certain directions.

--Michael Snow

2010/9/28 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:

If the trial said the extension would be turned off, and it didn't get turned off, then whatever the reason...

As a reminder, there was a post-trial poll with very broad participation and 65% of support for continued use of PC. Jimmy then put on his traditional leadership hat and quite clearly laid out his view for a way forward that could help en.wp to get towards consensus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&action=h...

All WMF did is to not _disable_ a feature that enjoys 65% support. Had we disabled it in spite of the above events, I have no doubt that we would now be discussing a different set of objections and concerns, from some of the same people and some different ones. We're talking about an environment in which people are already putting Pending Changes related slogans into their user signatures and user boxes; this is clearly a heated and divisive internal debate. It seems entirely reasonable to me that the best environment in which to continue a discussion that's clearly ongoing is one in which WMF doesn't close off options prematurely, but one in which the community can flexibly design and execute experiments, and WMF largely steps away from the keyboard, except for supplying code and data unless/until it's clear that this is a dead end.

2010/9/28 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:

IMO, the foundation could look to strengthen its global policies regarding content where living people are a subject. i.e. worded more like the non-free content resolution.  Then the projects _need_ to find appropriate solutions to conform to the WMF requirements, and tools like pending changes will be used if they help achieve compliance with the WMF policy.

You've seen the BLP resolution?

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people

This has inspired lots of cross-language work on BLP policies, and is referenced in many of them. It specifically asks for "investigating new technical mechanisms to assess edits, particularly when they affect living people, and to better enable readers to report problems".

2010/9/28 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:

Of course I have seen it.

I've learned to not assume such things, John. :-) I respect the work done by the task force, and it's up to the Board to answer whether it wants to adopt or build upon any of this work. My own take, FWIW, is that within the scope of the existing Board-level policy, there's both the impetus and the scope for action -- development of policies, processes and tools -- across projects.

2010/9/28 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:

This doesn't answer my question, which was:

_When_ will the board _review_ [the task-forces output]?

I'm sorry I didn't answer your question, John. Please note that I'm neither on the Board, nor am I part of Board meetings, nor do I serve as a conduit for them; the agenda for Board meetings is set by Sue together with the chair of the Board and other Board members. My understanding via Sue is that they'e focused so far on the high-level priorities articulated in the strategic plan, and my sense is that if individual task forces have items that they'd like to get the Board's review or input on, they should bring this to the attention of the Chair of the Board (tchen at wikimedia dot org) or an individual Board member they know. But others can chime in and correct me on this if needed.

It sounds your take is that the existing WMF policy is sufficient for the present time?

My take is that plenty of stuff can happen without waiting for the Board to pass new policy. I think that at least on the technology front, there are still some low-hanging fruits that would be relatively easy to pick (that is, to get consensus for), such as better reader-facing tools for reporting BLP issues (we've already thought a tiny bit about extending the new Article Feedback tool in this direction), generally better content patrolling/labeling tools, an evaluation and improvement of the effectiveness of the abuse filter, OTRS process improvements and support etc. That is not to say WMF can take all of these on, but all of them are actionable by anyone with enough time and motivation. On the policy front, my impression is that we're now dealing with genuinely difficult editorial borderline questions, and that the basics of policy are pretty solid at least in the mature projects.

The harder decisions are, as always, those where multiple perceived goods are in conflict, especially the good of openness to contribution/participation, and the good of minimizing harm to individuals -- semi or PC protection for all BLPs, for example. My view is that one shouldn't set unattainable standards; a clear labeling system for unreviewed edits, where we strive to reduce review time to as close to zero as possible, without going all the way to deferring the view of the latest revision, seems entirely ethically defensible for an encyclopedia developed in real-time. But, I can see the argument in favor of a Pending Changes type approach on all BLPs, and if that -- or stronger actions -- are what you believe is necessary, then yes, I think you'll need to persuade the Board of that for it to ever happen across all projects.

Erik Moeller wrote:

2010/9/28 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:

...

This doesn't answer my question, which was:

_When_ will the board _review_ [the task-forces output]?

I'm sorry I didn't answer your question, John. Please note that I'm neither on the Board, nor am I part of Board meetings, nor do I serve as a conduit for them; the agenda for Board meetings is set by Sue together with the chair of the Board and other Board members. My understanding via Sue is that they'e focused so far on the high-level priorities articulated in the strategic plan, and my sense is that if individual task forces have items that they'd like to get the Board's review or input on, they should bring this to the attention of the Chair of the Board (tchen at wikimedia dot org) or an individual Board member they know. But others can chime in and correct me on this if needed.

To elaborate, this particular task force recommendation was called to my attention shortly before I completed my term as chair, but we did not have an opportunity to put it on the agenda in that brief window. I relayed it to Ting as part of our transition of responsibilities, so it has been passed along, and no doubt people are welcome to inquire as to its current status. But since I'm no longer privy to board deliberations, I can't provide much insight on its perceived priority relative to the larger strategic issues facing the board.

--Michael Snow

First off, this is getting a little hot under the collar. Cucumbers, people. Cucumbers.

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 12:10 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:

2010/9/28 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:

...

IMO, the foundation could look to strengthen its global policies regarding content where living people are a subject. i.e. worded more like the non-free content resolution. Then the projects _need_ to find appropriate solutions to conform to the WMF requirements, and tools like pending changes will be used if they help achieve compliance with the WMF policy.

You've seen the BLP resolution?

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people

This has inspired lots of cross-language work on BLP policies, and is referenced in many of them. It specifically asks for "investigating new technical mechanisms to assess edits, particularly when they affect living people, and to better enable readers to report problems". -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Second,

<cough> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People/Drafting_pages/L...

On 9/29/10 12:51 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:

IMO the English Wikipedia community should be allowed to continue to review the results of their trial, and/or discuss how the next trial will occur.

I agree with you completely, but also want to point out that this is exactly where we are right now.

A discussion of the details of how the next trial will occur is already starting on-wiki, and I think that wide participation in it is really important. Tests can be run right now. Criteria can be discussed and implemented in anticipation of the next trial.

What is really important, in my view, is that the next poll have absolutely clear and unambiguous conditions for various states, including shutting it off permanently, shutting it off temporarily, leaving it on temporarily while asking for specific developer resources for a V3, or accepting it permanently.

I will personally guarantee with all the resources at my disposal that when we have a clear and unambiguous set of conditions, I will do everything possible to make sure what the outcome of the poll is, absolutely determines what happens next.

(I say it in such a cautious way because of course I am just one board member and can't really control what the Foundation does.)

--Jimbo

Bonjour,

Le vendredi 01 octobre 2010 à 11:10 +1000, John Vandenberg a écrit :

Have the software changes in the last 12 months addressed the issues raised by French Wikipedia?

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Sondage/Flagged_revisions

If so, maybe they would like to do a trial?

I doubt it. The "issues" raised by the French Wikipedia are much more "philosophical" than they are technical.

In other words, most of the people who opposed in this poll just don't like the feature. I don't think it has anything to do with specific issues.

On 9/28/10 7:41 PM, Risker wrote:

Yes it is, and it's an important one. Several of us had already been working on a plan for the second trial, and those of us discussing had widely agreed that it would be much more likely to be successful if more of the recommendations on improving the software were incorporated, thus our recommendation that it not proceed so rapidly.

I respect what you are saying here, very much. But I think the right approach is always "release early, release often". There is no need to rush, but there is also no reason not to release fixes as they are available, because there is no particular "ship date" with marketing, etc.

It's pretty hard to maintain motivation, though, when it's clear that the software's going to be a permanent feature regardless of what the project does or thinks, and that any further "trial" is not going to change that fact.

I think that's very very far from true. I think that everything the Foundation has said, and everything that I have said, and everything that (nearly) everyone on all sides has said, indicates nearly 100% universal agreement that in order for the feature to be enabled permanently, it has to achieve consensus.

Consensus is not a "hold one vote and give up if you don't make it" process, but rather an iterative give-and-take.

If I believed that the current version was the best that the Foundation could deliver, I would be adamant about just shutting down PC as soon as is practical, and believe that the right way forward would be to push for major expansion of the use of semi-protection. I would hate to do that, because I think that a well-implemented PC is a better solution than semi-protection, striking a better balance.

My point is this: I think it very far from a foregone conclusion that we will have PC in use in the longterm. It has to improve a lot before that can happen. The early signs, though, are that it was popular.

--Jimbo

On Sep 29, 2010, at 10:00 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

On 29 September 2010 21:07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:

...

On 9/28/10 7:41 PM, Risker wrote:

...

Yes it is, and it's an important one. Several of us had already been working on a plan for the second trial, and those of us discussing had widely agreed that it would be much more likely to be successful if more

of

...

the recommendations on improving the software were incorporated, thus our recommendation that it not proceed so rapidly.

I respect what you are saying here, very much. But I think the right approach is always "release early, release often". There is no need to rush, but there is also no reason not to release fixes as they are available, because there is no particular "ship date" with marketing, etc.

Jimmy, here's where you're wrong. The first version was marketed as the solution that would allow the [[George W. Bush]] article to be publicly edited - it was marketed that way on and off wiki - and instead we had 40 hours of non-stop IP vandalism and browser crashes for almost every reviewer. (The first problem was easily anticipated by just about every administrator on the site, and the second one by anyone who'd already seen what had happened with other very large articles.)

This "product" has to be sold to admins to get them to use it; they saw the first version and all of its significant problems and aren't very interested. And until there is a product that passes their smell test, they still won't be interested. So installing an "upgrade" that hasn't resolved ALL of the significant issues is not going to interest the "consumers".

The advantage of a coordinated effort of a new trial with an upgraded release that has addressed all of the significant issues *and* has been well-tested on the test wiki is that it can be used to market the tool. It doesn't matter whether or not it works well if the people in the position to use the tool cannot be persuaded it is worthy of their attention. Take a look at the stats, Jimmy: Six administrators were responsible for entering 80% of the articles into the first trial, and another 12 responsible for the next 17%. Most administrators were not interested the first time around.

...

...

It's pretty hard to maintain motivation, though, when it's clear that the software's going to be a permanent feature regardless of what the project does or thinks, and that any further "trial" is not going to change that fact.

I think that's very very far from true. I think that everything the Foundation has said, and everything that I have said, and everything that (nearly) everyone on all sides has said, indicates nearly 100% universal agreement that in order for the feature to be enabled permanently, it has to achieve consensus.

...

Consensus is not a "hold one vote and give up if you don't make it" process, but rather an iterative give-and-take.

If I believed that the current version was the best that the Foundation could deliver, I would be adamant about just shutting down PC as soon as is practical, and believe that the right way forward would be to push for major expansion of the use of semi-protection. I would hate to do that, because I think that a well-implemented PC is a better solution than semi-protection, striking a better balance.

My point is this: I think it very far from a foregone conclusion that we will have PC in use in the longterm. It has to improve a lot before that can happen. The early signs, though, are that it was popular.

I'm really curious to know what metric you're using to determine that it was "popular". The *idea* is popular with a significant segment of the community, which is where much of the support in the two polls came from; but the *tool* itself wasn't very popular with many editors. And the concept of administrator-granted "reviewer" permissions went over like a lead balloon with a pretty big segment of the community.

Put the upgrades on the test wiki. Recruit a pile of editors (not just administrators) to really put it through its paces and drive it hard, both those who are technically savvy and those whose strength is content. These editors are your potential change agents; if they're convinced it's working satisfactorily and that major issues have been resolved, they will spread the word on-wiki. Sticking poorly tested software upgrades onto the #7 website, and expecting people to be enthusiastic, is remarkably optimistic.

Risker/Anne

Regret I was really not involved much in the trial or polls (mostly been on wiki break for the past ~9 months) but quite concerned now given Risker's concerns about the software being buggy and other issues.

And seeing people that I have lots of respect for in hot debate (both sides) concerns me... seems tricky to find the right balance and solution for moving forward.

[maybe setting rights to bureaucrats or some higher level for now? Allowing only more narrow testing maybe in non-article space or something? Until we can decide what/how/when to move forward with next trial...just throwing ideas out]

Anyway, I would like to be more informed and try testing in some test space (is there a test wiki for this?) and some summary of the key issues that I can see?

@aude

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On Sep 29, 2010, at 10:46 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

On 29 September 2010 22:37, Aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:

...

<snip>

Regret I was really not involved much in the trial or polls (mostly been on wiki break for the past ~9 months) but quite concerned now given Risker's concerns about the software being buggy and other issues.

And seeing people that I have lots of respect for in hot debate (both sides) concerns me... seems tricky to find the right balance and solution for moving forward.

[maybe setting rights to bureaucrats or some higher level for now? Allowing only more narrow testing maybe in non-article space or something? Until we can decide what/how/when to move forward with next trial...just throwing ideas out]

Anyway, I would like to be more informed and try testing in some test space (is there a test wiki for this?) and some summary of the key issues that I can see?

The test wiki is here: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (MZMcBride seems to be the most responsive local bureaucrat, if you want to have admin permissions there.)

The current list of bugzillas being worked on is here (cribbed from RobLa's post)

We're currently tracking the list of items we intend to complete in Bugzilla. You can see the latest list here: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=25293

Many of the items in the list are things we're looking for feedback on: Bug 25295 - "Improve reviewer experience when multiple simultaneous users review Pending Changes" https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25295

Bug 25296 - "History style cleanup - investigate possible fixes and detail the fixes" https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25296

Bug 25298 - "Figure out what (if any) new Pending Changes links there should be in the side bar" https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25298

Bug 25299 - "Make pending revision status clearer when viewing page" https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25299

Bug 25300 - "Better names for special pages in Pending Changes configuration" https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25300

Bug 25301 - "Firm up the list of minor UI improvements for the November 2010 Pending Changes release" https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25301

Also cribbed from RobLa's message: Ongoing use of Pending Changes is contingent upon consensus after the deployment of an interim release of Pending Changes in November 2010, which is currently under development. The roadmap for this deployment is described here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Pending_Changes_enwiki_trial/Roadmap

On looking at the bugzillas, I note that many of the more serious issues identified in the Roadmap are not addressed. I will leave it to RobLa to explain that rationale.

Thanks. Will look tomorrow.

Don't know if I can be much help (I tend to stay far away from hot potatoes like this) but maybe someone w/ fresh eyes (me and others?) can look at the situation and help suggest ways to alleviate concerns that are agreeable to people on both sides of the debate and help move things forward.

Just don't like seeing good folks split like this.

@aude

Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 9/29/2010 7:00 PM, Risker wrote:

On 29 September 2010 21:07, Jimmy Walesjwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:

...

On 9/28/10 7:41 PM, Risker wrote:

...

Yes it is, and it's an important one. Several of us had already been working on a plan for the second trial, and those of us discussing had widely agreed that it would be much more likely to be successful if more of the recommendations on improving the software were incorporated, thus our recommendation that it not proceed so rapidly.

I respect what you are saying here, very much. But I think the right approach is always "release early, release often". There is no need to rush, but there is also no reason not to release fixes as they are available, because there is no particular "ship date" with marketing, etc.

Jimmy, here's where you're wrong. The first version was marketed as the solution that would allow the [[George W. Bush]] article to be publicly edited - it was marketed that way on and off wiki - and instead we had 40 hours of non-stop IP vandalism and browser crashes for almost every reviewer.

Whether or not it was reasonable to expect the feature to solve this problem on the first try, I don't think we should settle for that as our goal. This particular kind of case is mostly driven by media appeal and is not the best objective to focus on for accomplishing our mission. What the English Wikipedia really needs is to be able to reverse the situation that has prevailed since the Seigenthaler incident, so that people can write new articles and material without having to create an account or endure a waiting period, and the project can stay closer to the notion of being an encyclopedia anyone can edit. For me, any attraction that developing a "flagged revisions" or "pending changes" feature has ever had is connected to the potential that it would lead to an environment in which we can restore that ability for unregistered contributors.

--Michael Snow

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:41:28 -0400, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

Yes it is, and it's an important one. Several of us had already been working on a plan for the second trial, and those of us discussing had widely agreed that it would be much more likely to be successful if more

of

the recommendations on improving the software were incorporated, thus

our

recommendation that it not proceed so rapidly.

Did the idea of the second trial get any momentum in the end of the day? As a en.wp newbie, I could only find the poll that the trial has been discontinued, but nothing after that.

Cheers Yaroslav

Look, Pending Changes was and still is doomed.

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod@mccme.ru

...

wrote:

Did the idea of the second trial get any momentum in the end of the day? As a en.wp newbie, I could only find the poll that the trial has been discontinued, but nothing after that.

Cheers Yaroslav

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Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Pending_changes/Req...

-- ~Keegan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod@mccme.ru

...

wrote:

Did the idea of the second trial get any momentum in the end of the day? As a en.wp newbie, I could only find the poll that the trial has been discontinued, but nothing after that.

Cheers Yaroslav

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Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Pending_changes/Req...

So, the conclusion is that after months of hard work for getting this working for the English Wikipedia it still failed. I guess I should be happy that my opinion to implement it on nl: failed too then? But how come it does work on de:?

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:

IMHO it worked just fine, but there were too many restrictions on when it could be used. So actually…Mono is right, it was doomed to fail from the beginning, regardless of its merits.

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It's the problem of the English Wikipedia not knowing what it wanted aside from knowing it wanted something. Some wanted stable revisions (an approved form of an article), others wanted protection but editable, others wanted enhanced review of content before publishing, etc. Pending changes, as a software package, is a bit of an amalgamation of all the things the community requested. Unfortunately, we never agreed on what exactly it was supposed to be. The Foundation put plenty of resources in the product, but we were like a focus group trying to describe the perfect product without any concrete idea of what we were missing with the product we had.

Sad, really.

2011/8/2 Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru:

Any chance it would be agreed in the future? There are at least three working versions on big projects, German, Polish, and Russian Wikipedias (though I believe in Russian Wikipedia it was recently killed by users trying to set records and consequently reviewing 500 articles per hour, but at least the idea was nice and worthwhile to discuss); it has also been implemented on smaller-scale projects like Hebrew or Hungarian Wikipedias and other projects.

Just for the record: It was implemented on the Hebrew Wikisource, not the Hebrew Wikipedia.

On 28 September 2010 18:35, Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral315@gmail.com wrote:

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

...

And even with it just being put forward as a second trial, the support

for

...

continuing dropped 10% in two weeks.

You're losing the hearts and minds battle here, guys.

Risker/Anne

I haven't followed the discussion at all, but I have two statistical quibbles: First, characterizing a drop from 65 to 59% as a "10% drop" is misleading - while (65-59)/65 is 10%, it's really a 6% drop.

That's 10% of the support that's disappeared in two weeks.

Second, A drop from 65% to 59% is not very statistically significant. It could very easily be explained if more of the people who voted against the first time came back for the second vote. But even if both polls are a representative sample of the English Wikipedia as a whole, both polls will have a margin of error of a few percent.

Any "voting" type process on the English Wikipedia that garners participation from 500 users in a week is about as statistically significant as anything you're ever going to get.

Risker/Anne