Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay) Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 2/25/11 3:11 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 11:18 PM, dex2000@pc.dk wrote:
.. I think it could also be considered to divide our huge language wikis into smaller parts. The existing WikiProjects could be made virtual wikis with their own admins, recent changes etc. That way, each project is in fact like a small wiki to which the newbie could sign up according to 'hers' area of interest and where the clarrity and friendlier atmosphere of the smaller wikis could prevail.
This is the best solution, in my opinion.
Yes, the larger wikis need to become WikiProject-centric. First step in doing this would be to create a WikiProject namespace. Second step would be to make WikiProject article tagging/assessment part of the software instead of template-based.
I can see how those would be useful steps, however I think those steps are part of a 10 year plan.
A 10 year plan will be overrun by events.
We need a much more direct plan.
I recommend breaking enWP apart by finding easy chunks and moving them to a separate instance, and having readonly copies on the main project like we do for File: pages from Commons.
IMO, the simplest and most useful set of articles to break apart is BLPs. The criteria is really simple, and those articles already have lots of policy differences around them.
By the time we have perfected this system with the BLPs, the community will have come to understand the costs/benefits of moving other clusters of articles to separate projects, and we'll see other clusters of articles migrated to sub-projects.
btw, this idea is not new, but maybe its time has come. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=29729
-- John Vandenberg
To the extent that the enWP is a project to build a practical encyclopedia, it seems to have been getting increased acceptance as it gets larger. There is no indication that this trend is ceasing or or even faltering.
To the extent that WP is an experiment, the experiment has already succeeded beyond the limits of similar projects, and there is no reason to stop at this point. Predictions that there would be a size beyond which it no longer scales have so far all of them been wrong. Splitting the encyclopedia is irreversible--we can always decide to split, but it is very unlikely that after sections develop separately they will be able to recombine. But there is nothing to stop anyone from making a split if they desire while leaving the actual Wikipedia as it is. I think WP can only benefit from serious competition.
I agree the role of the wikiprojects should be increased and perhaps formalized, but already over the last few years at the enWP, some of the various WikiProjects and less organized impromptu groups of people interested in various aspects have made decisions that the community has not supported. There is an advantage in having an Encyclopedia with uniform policies that have general agreement--people read it as a whole & have common expectations.
And with respect to BLPs, the biographical information about living people permeates most areas of the Encyclopedia, not just the articles with a living person's name as the title.
On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 7:33 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay) Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 2/25/11 3:11 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 11:18 PM, dex2000@pc.dk wrote:
.. I think it could also be considered to divide our huge language wikis into smaller parts. The existing WikiProjects could be made virtual wikis with their own admins, recent changes etc. That way, each project is in fact like a small wiki to which the newbie could sign up according to 'hers' area of interest and where the clarrity and friendlier atmosphere of the smaller wikis could prevail.
This is the best solution, in my opinion.
Yes, the larger wikis need to become WikiProject-centric. First step in doing this would be to create a WikiProject namespace. Second step would be to make WikiProject article tagging/assessment part of the software instead of template-based.
I can see how those would be useful steps, however I think those steps are part of a 10 year plan.
A 10 year plan will be overrun by events.
We need a much more direct plan.
I recommend breaking enWP apart by finding easy chunks and moving them to a separate instance, and having readonly copies on the main project like we do for File: pages from Commons.
IMO, the simplest and most useful set of articles to break apart is BLPs. The criteria is really simple, and those articles already have lots of policy differences around them.
By the time we have perfected this system with the BLPs, the community will have come to understand the costs/benefits of moving other clusters of articles to separate projects, and we'll see other clusters of articles migrated to sub-projects.
btw, this idea is not new, but maybe its time has come. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=29729
-- John Vandenberg
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 2:35 PM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
And with respect to BLPs, the biographical information about living people permeates most areas of the Encyclopedia, not just the articles with a living person's name as the title.
Another good reason to drop the B and just call it Living persons. Stick with the B and we will never escape the narrow focus on biographical articles.
--- On Sat, 26/2/11, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
From: John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay) Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 2/25/11 3:11 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 11:18 PM, dex2000@pc.dk
wrote:
.. I think it could also be considered to divide
our huge language wikis
into smaller parts. The existing WikiProjects
could be made virtual wikis
with their own admins, recent changes etc.
That way, each project is in
fact like a small wiki to which the newbie
could sign up according to
'hers' area of interest and where the clarrity
and friendlier atmosphere
of the smaller wikis could prevail.
This is the best solution, in my opinion.
Yes, the larger wikis need to become
WikiProject-centric. First step in
doing this would be to create a WikiProject namespace.
Second step would
be to make WikiProject article tagging/assessment part
of the software
instead of template-based.
I can see how those would be useful steps, however I think those steps are part of a 10 year plan.
A 10 year plan will be overrun by events.
We need a much more direct plan.
I recommend breaking enWP apart by finding easy chunks and moving them to a separate instance, and having readonly copies on the main project like we do for File: pages from Commons.
IMO, the simplest and most useful set of articles to break apart is BLPs. The criteria is really simple, and those articles already have lots of policy differences around them.
By the time we have perfected this system with the BLPs, the community will have come to understand the costs/benefits of moving other clusters of articles to separate projects, and we'll see other clusters of articles migrated to sub-projects.
btw, this idea is not new, but maybe its time has come. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=29729
-- John Vandenberg
Rather than breaking the project up, one way to achieve the same thing would be to apply a type of protection to BLPs that restricts BLP editing to users who have a "BLP flag" set on their account. Having that flag would be like having a user right, a privilege that can be earned or lost, for example by adding unsourced negative material to a BLP.
In terms of administration, you could create a noticeboard where non-policy- compliant edits are reported, along with an elected BLP committee that can remove the flag from an account for a certain time period, just like arbcom does desysops today. I guess the rules would need to be applied leniently at first, to allow newbies to learn, and to avoid excessive drama. Perhaps a three-strikes-and-you're-out system might work to address good-faith errors (edits that are correctly sourced but constitute undue weight, etc.).
One thing is certain: reducing the number of people able to edit BLPs would make BLPs a lot more stable, and less likely to contain libel or vandalism.
It would reduce the amount of real-life drama for BLP subjects and OTRS volunteers - see
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-caught-in...
while probably increasing the amount of drama inside Wikipedia. That's a problem, but in the end, if you think about it, the concerns of BLP subjects should take precedence over community concerns. It's just a question of being responsible about things; losing the BLP flag doesn't ruin anyone's life, whereas losing the ability to travel because of what a Wikipedia article says about you does.
Not sure how you'd handle the ability of newbie accounts to create BLPs. It would be invidious for a new account to be able to create a poorly sourced but good-faith BLP, and then not be able to correct a typo once it's been categorised as a BLP.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
The intention of this proposal, and this thread, is _not_ to improve our processes/handling of BLPs, however that is one of the likely outcomes of splitting BLPs to a separate project.
The intention of this proposal is to split English Wikipedia into more than one project, so different editing policies/guidelines and administration practices can form.
I proposed BLPs as a candidate for a new project because they are the simplest set of pages to define and it is accepted that the current structure results in new BLP violations every minute, and many of these are not addressed for months. The main wikipedia project would still need strong policies to ensure BLP violations can be dealt with in articles that are not biographies.
-- John Vandenberg
Thoughts?
The intention of this proposal, and this thread, is _not_ to improve our processes/handling of BLPs, however that is one of the likely outcomes of splitting BLPs to a separate project.
The intention of this proposal is to split English Wikipedia into more than one project, so different editing policies/guidelines and administration practices can form.
I proposed BLPs as a candidate for a new project because they are the simplest set of pages to define and it is accepted that the current structure results in new BLP violations every minute, and many of these are not addressed for months. The main wikipedia project would still need strong policies to ensure BLP violations can be dealt with in articles that are not biographies.
-- John Vandenberg
Stovepiping is already a problem. Breaking up the project in this way would make a science of it, creating a plethora of petty tyrannies in the style of Wiktionary and Wikipedia Commons but even less responsive.
Fred
On 14 March 2011 10:50, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
Stovepiping is already a problem. Breaking up the project in this way would make a science of it, creating a plethora of petty tyrannies in the style of Wiktionary and Wikipedia Commons but even less responsive.
Some WikiProjects already tend this way.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/lt/the_robbers_cave_experiment/
"The experiment, conducted in the bewildered aftermath of World War II, was meant to investigate the causes - and possible remedies - of intergroup conflict. How would they spark an intergroup conflict to investigate? Well, the 22 boys were divided into two groups of 11 campers, and -
"- and that turned out to be quite sufficient."
- d.
On 03/14/2011 11:50 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Stovepiping is already a problem. Breaking up the project in this way would make a science of it, creating a plethora of petty tyrannies in the style of Wiktionary and Wikipedia Commons but even less responsive.
How are Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons "petty tyrannies"?
That was sortof the point behind proposed changes - some articles deserve more scrutiny applied to edits.
However politics pretty much killed the idea on en. On Mar 14, 2011 6:33 AM, "John Vandenberg" jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Thoughts?
The intention of this proposal, and this thread, is _not_ to improve our processes/handling of BLPs, however that is one of the likely outcomes of splitting BLPs to a separate project.
The intention of this proposal is to split English Wikipedia into more than one project, so different editing policies/guidelines and administration practices can form.
I proposed BLPs as a candidate for a new project because they are the simplest set of pages to define and it is accepted that the current structure results in new BLP violations every minute, and many of these are not addressed for months. The main wikipedia project would still need strong policies to ensure BLP violations can be dealt with in articles that are not biographies.
-- John Vandenberg
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 9:51 PM, Stephanie Daugherty sdaugherty@gmail.com wrote:
That was sortof the point behind proposed changes - some articles deserve more scrutiny applied to edits.
However politics pretty much killed the idea on en.
If there was a community/project devoted to English-language BLPs, .. my guess is that ..
the RFA process would focus on a different set of criteria, inc. delicate handling of difficult issues present all too common in the biographies of living people.
other processes would remove problematic contributors from the project.
and a community poll on a feature like proposed/pending changes would have an outcome that is more reflective of the administrative need for the tool.
-- John Vandenberg
--- On Mon, 14/3/11, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
From: John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, 14 March, 2011, 10:33
Thoughts?
The intention of this proposal, and this thread, is _not_ to improve our processes/handling of BLPs, however that is one of the likely outcomes of splitting BLPs to a separate project.
The intention of this proposal is to split English Wikipedia into more than one project, so different editing policies/guidelines and administration practices can form.
I proposed BLPs as a candidate for a new project because they are the simplest set of pages to define and it is accepted that the current structure results in new BLP violations every minute, and many of these are not addressed for months. The main wikipedia project would still need strong policies to ensure BLP violations can be dealt with in articles that are not biographies.
-- John Vandenberg
John, how would your proposal be realized, technically?
I presume BLPs would still be hosted on the same xx.wikipedia.org site, be wikilinked to, and so on. Is that correct?
If so, how would the proposed spun-out BLP project, with its own admins and so on, assume jurisdiction of these articles? Could you explain how you had envisioned this to work?
A.
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:29 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
John, how would your proposal be realized, technically?
I presume BLPs would still be hosted on the same xx.wikipedia.org site, be wikilinked to, and so on. Is that correct?
If so, how would the proposed spun-out BLP project, with its own admins and so on, assume jurisdiction of these articles? Could you explain how you had envisioned this to work?
This is explained in the first email in this thread.
-- John Vandenberg
--- On Mon, 14/3/11, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
From: John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
John, how would your proposal be realized,
technically?
This is explained in the first email in this thread.
Okay. Upon rereading I find you stated:
I recommend breaking enWP apart by finding easy chunks and moving them to a separate instance, and having read-only copies on the main project like we do for File: pages from Commons.
So that would mean exporting all BLPs to a completely separate project, like Commons, which hosts and edits these BLPs, which are then available as read- only pages in Wikipedia. The existing BLPs in Wikipedia would be deleted, and any BLPs created in Wikipedia would be instantly deleted, or moved to the other project if they show promise.
Thank you. (Let me know if I have still misunderstood.)
Andreas
On 03/14/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
So that would mean exporting all BLPs to a completely separate project, like Commons, which hosts and edits these BLPs, which are then available as read- only pages in Wikipedia. The existing BLPs in Wikipedia would be deleted, and any BLPs created in Wikipedia would be instantly deleted, or moved to the other project if they show promise.
Taking that one step further, when the subject of one of these biographies dies the article would need to move back; the proper article history would also need to move. Moves would also involve making sure that a lot of links are repaired.
Ec
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 2:26 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
On 03/14/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
So that would mean exporting all BLPs to a completely separate project,
like
Commons, which hosts and edits these BLPs, which are then available as
read-
only pages in Wikipedia. The existing BLPs in Wikipedia would be deleted, and any BLPs created in Wikipedia would be instantly deleted, or moved to the other project if they show promise.
Taking that one step further, when the subject of one of these biographies dies the article would need to move back; the proper article history would also need to move. Moves would also involve making sure that a lot of links are repaired.
Ec
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
That reiterates my point: BLP policy /does not only apply to the deceased/.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP#Deceased
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 2:31 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
That reiterates my point: BLP policy /does not only apply to the deceased/.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP#Deceased
-- ~Keegan
*recently* deceased.
--- On Tue, 15/3/11, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
On 03/14/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
So that would mean exporting all BLPs to a completely
separate project, like
Commons, which hosts and edits these BLPs, which are
then available as read-
only pages in Wikipedia. The existing BLPs in
Wikipedia would be deleted,
and any BLPs created in Wikipedia would be instantly
deleted, or moved to
the other project if they show promise.
Taking that one step further, when the subject of one of these biographies dies the article would need to move back; the proper article history would also need to move. Moves would also involve making sure that a lot of links are repaired.
That sounds complicated. A user right for BLP editing in Wikipedia would not have these drawbacks. As long as an article is in the living persons category, editors would need the BLP user right to edit it; once the article is no longer in the category, it would become open to any and all editors again.
Incidentally, having the BLP user right would also be a reflection on the editor's work, and a content-based "badge" to strive for that is separate from adminship. And something that editors would be loath to lose.
It is not a perfect solution because, as others have pointed out, BLP- sensitive material is not just contained in BLPs. However, the majority of BLP problems that subjects are justifiably aggrieved about do occur in their actual biographies.
The fact that we cannot implement a perfect solution does not mean we should not implement a solution that would help address a majority of the problems and would help foster a culture of responsibility.
So, how about it?
Andreas
On 03/15/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
--- On Tue, 15/3/11, Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net wrote:
From: Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net On 03/14/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
So that would mean exporting all BLPs to a completely
separate project, like
Commons, which hosts and edits these BLPs, which are
then available as read-
only pages in Wikipedia. The existing BLPs in
Wikipedia would be deleted,
and any BLPs created in Wikipedia would be instantly
deleted, or moved to
the other project if they show promise.
Taking that one step further, when the subject of one of these biographies dies the article would need to move back; the proper article history would also need to move. Moves would also involve making sure that a lot of links are repaired.
That sounds complicated. A user right for BLP editing in Wikipedia would not have these drawbacks. As long as an article is in the living persons category, editors would need the BLP user right to edit it; once the article is no longer in the category, it would become open to any and all editors again.
Incidentally, having the BLP user right would also be a reflection on the editor's work, and a content-based "badge" to strive for that is separate from adminship. And something that editors would be loath to lose.
It is not a perfect solution because, as others have pointed out, BLP- sensitive material is not just contained in BLPs. However, the majority of BLP problems that subjects are justifiably aggrieved about do occur in their actual biographies.
The fact that we cannot implement a perfect solution does not mean we should not implement a solution that would help address a majority of the problems and would help foster a culture of responsibility.
These special rights for some class of editors is only one more example of the control freaks wanting to limit the participation of others. These "badges" just add one more level of bureaucracy. I'm involved because I generally want want more and better information available to the public, not to play games striving for status as you are proposing, nor in the egotistical exercises of bringing an article to feature status. BLP rules are already a too-rigid set of artificial structures that are a poor substitute for good judgement.
Ec
During the strategy taskforce, the quality team came to two conclusions that are similar to some ideas in this thread, but avoid the issues mentioned.
We didn't consider breaking up the projects, but we did feel that the concept of subject-related collaboration (ie WikiProjects) were not being used to best advantage. We considered it could help the project if WikiProjects were accessible between different wikis, so that users would more commonly work with others on a topic area and gain from doing so. Specifically we thought about the advantages of global WikiProjects. By way of example, a global MilHist WikiProject would allow all editors with an interest in Military History to collaborate across different wikis. It would give users editing in that field in small wikis access to the resources, information, collaborative support of those on larger projects and users on larger projects access to knowledge from countries they might not cover well for lack of knowledge. It would mean that sources could be located in foreign languages (including English sources which are "foreign" on most wikis by definition). Users who might feel isolated could find peers on other projects in the same field. Knowledge could better flow between wikis to the benefit of smaller projects needing help. users who might be the only ones focusing on a topic area on a smaller wiki could be part of a larger collaboration on that subject with users from other cultures rather than isolated. It would also mean that experts who did not want to argue with trolls, high school editors or POV warriors could have a more clear role where they could help, providing responses and reviewing articles as requested, within the topic area WikiProject, where trolling is unlikely. (To clarify one point, the concept is one of collaborative editorship and support across projects, we rejected any kind of control over articles or wikis, nor overriding local WikiProjects)
The other thing we thought was that there is benefit in recognizing editors whom the community agrees are competent, edit well sourced neutral good quality material, and act well, across the board. If that's what we want then let's find ways to develop and encourage it. At the moment adminship is granted following a searching process but there is no equivalent for editors who seek recognition as competent and consistently good quality editors. If there were some way to communally recognize such users (call them "proven editors" lacking a better term) it would have some immense advantages. Right now every editor who is autoconfirmed but doesn't write FA's is pretty much in the same category of editorship. Newcomers can't distinguish those who edit well and those not shown to edit well. Users should be helped to improve themselves as editors - setting some kind of formal recognition they can achieve will help focus that. Recognition becomes something all good-faith users aspire to, and once acquired they will not want to lose it by poor editing or poor conduct. So it locks in our goals as a community (good editors) and aligns them with a personal motive.
The aim is to make recognition of this kind very widespread within the community and to actively coach and encourage uptake and success -- a recognition routinely won by many editors who have been active for over a year or so. It means that one can see easily in an article history which edits were made by users the community recognizes as proven editors and one can focus on other edits for issues. It encourages holders to act to the standards expected and encourages others to seek that recognition for themselves, and therefore to learn to be better editors. In edit wars it provides a bias towards endorsement of probably better edits. In the case of massively disputed topics such as ethnic wars it provides a dispute resolution tool - editing might be restricted for a time to those editors considered "proven" by the community. Finally it is egalitarian (or at least as much so as anything on the wikis) -- it is a recognition anyone can achieve from the community by editing and behaving well, and anyone can lose by editing or behaving to a visibly poor standard. It carries no formal powers, but by peer pressure alone encourages improvement generally. Two ideas.
FT2
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:13 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
--- On Sat, 26/2/11, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
From: John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay) Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 2/25/11 3:11 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 11:18 PM, dex2000@pc.dk
wrote:
.. I think it could also be considered to divide
our huge language wikis
into smaller parts. The existing WikiProjects
could be made virtual wikis
with their own admins, recent changes etc.
That way, each project is in
fact like a small wiki to which the newbie
could sign up according to
'hers' area of interest and where the clarrity
and friendlier atmosphere
of the smaller wikis could prevail.
This is the best solution, in my opinion.
Yes, the larger wikis need to become
WikiProject-centric. First step in
doing this would be to create a WikiProject namespace.
Second step would
be to make WikiProject article tagging/assessment part
of the software
instead of template-based.
I can see how those would be useful steps, however I think those steps are part of a 10 year plan.
A 10 year plan will be overrun by events.
We need a much more direct plan.
I recommend breaking enWP apart by finding easy chunks and moving them to a separate instance, and having readonly copies on the main project like we do for File: pages from Commons.
IMO, the simplest and most useful set of articles to break apart is BLPs. The criteria is really simple, and those articles already have lots of policy differences around them.
By the time we have perfected this system with the BLPs, the community will have come to understand the costs/benefits of moving other clusters of articles to separate projects, and we'll see other clusters of articles migrated to sub-projects.
btw, this idea is not new, but maybe its time has come. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=29729
-- John Vandenberg
Rather than breaking the project up, one way to achieve the same thing would be to apply a type of protection to BLPs that restricts BLP editing to users who have a "BLP flag" set on their account. Having that flag would be like having a user right, a privilege that can be earned or lost, for example by adding unsourced negative material to a BLP.
In terms of administration, you could create a noticeboard where non-policy- compliant edits are reported, along with an elected BLP committee that can remove the flag from an account for a certain time period, just like arbcom does desysops today. I guess the rules would need to be applied leniently at first, to allow newbies to learn, and to avoid excessive drama. Perhaps a three-strikes-and-you're-out system might work to address good-faith errors (edits that are correctly sourced but constitute undue weight, etc.).
One thing is certain: reducing the number of people able to edit BLPs would make BLPs a lot more stable, and less likely to contain libel or vandalism.
It would reduce the amount of real-life drama for BLP subjects and OTRS volunteers - see
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-caught-in...
while probably increasing the amount of drama inside Wikipedia. That's a problem, but in the end, if you think about it, the concerns of BLP subjects should take precedence over community concerns. It's just a question of being responsible about things; losing the BLP flag doesn't ruin anyone's life, whereas losing the ability to travel because of what a Wikipedia article says about you does.
Not sure how you'd handle the ability of newbie accounts to create BLPs. It would be invidious for a new account to be able to create a poorly sourced but good-faith BLP, and then not be able to correct a typo once it's been categorised as a BLP.
Thoughts?
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On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 05:35, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
The other thing we thought was that there is benefit in recognizing editors whom the community agrees are competent, edit well sourced neutral good quality material, and act well, across the board. ... If there were some way to communally recognize such users (call them "proven editors" lacking a better term) it would have some immense advantages. ...
The aim is to make recognition of this kind very widespread within the community and to actively coach and encourage uptake and success -- a recognition routinely won by many editors who have been active for over a year or so.
This is a good idea, but your first and second paragraphs contradict themselves somewhat. If "proven editor" were a status people had to strive for, and really didn't want to lose, it couldn't be something awarded routinely to anyone active for over a year. We have lots of people active for over a year who are very poor editors. They currently have no reason to improve themselves, because so long as they don't engage in behavioral problems their status continues uninterrupted.
If we could create a carrot -- "proven editor" or whatever we call it -- that required the acquisition of editorial skills that were within the reach of just about anyone who applied herself, it would give people something to aim for other than adminship. But there would have to be a real improvement in their editing, not just "you've shown that you're not a complete idiot," otherwise it's patronizing and worthless.
Sarah
Hello,
I think we should think a bit out of the box here. If we are thinking about breaking the English Wikipedia apart, we might as well consider other "revolutionary" ideas. What we see here, in fact, is a slow but persistent collapse of Wikipedia's management system. This is hardly surprising. First of all, the community of editor is huge, and more complex mechanisms are needed to make things work. All attempts to create such mechanisms (e.g. Arbitration Committee, WikiProjects etc) have failed. Another problem is that the popularity of Wikipedia encourages people to use it manipulatively. The reaction to that is offering the admins more and more "weapons" which are too often used excessively and deter new editors from joining in.
WikiProjects have become "cabals", something Wikipedia wished to prevent from its very beginning. It would be wrong to encourage this trend by labeling users. We also have an obligation to assume good faith and to encourage collaborative work. Defining certain users as "trust-worthy" is counterproductive in this sense, and invites all kinds of manipulations we wouldn't like to see.
As a first step, I think it would be useful to appoint an ombudsman to Wikipedia, either one to all of them or to each one. We can start with the English Wikipedia. This ombudsman will be identified by her/his real name and receive complaints from editors and from people who are subjects of articles. While this person can use help from other Wikipedians, it is important that there would be one person who would lead this work and be known, reachable and responsible to answer every complaint. The idea that anonymous admins, who act mainly upon their own personal judgment, can handle every problem, should be cast aside. It is also important that such ombudsman publish a public report about the complaints received in a certain period of time and how they were handled. It is also important that s/he would have the authority to intervene in the decisions of admins in certain cases, e.g. BLP.
While I am quite sure about the problem, I am not so sure about the solution I'm suggesting here. Other solutions should be considered. And yet, we have to bear in mind the principle. We have to aim to equality among editors rather than create "classes", we have to encourage new editors rather than give too much power to veteran ones, we have to create an atmosphere that would encourage collaborative work. This is not the atmosphere on the English Wikipedia at this point in time.
Dror K
בתאריך 14/03/11 14:20, ציטוט SlimVirgin:
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 05:35, FT2ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
The other thing we thought was that there is benefit in recognizing editors whom the community agrees are competent, edit well sourced neutral good quality material, and act well, across the board. ... If there were some way to communally recognize such users (call them "proven editors" lacking a better term) it would have some immense advantages. ...
The aim is to make recognition of this kind very widespread within the community and to actively coach and encourage uptake and success -- a recognition routinely won by many editors who have been active for over a year or so.
This is a good idea, but your first and second paragraphs contradict themselves somewhat. If "proven editor" were a status people had to strive for, and really didn't want to lose, it couldn't be something awarded routinely to anyone active for over a year. We have lots of people active for over a year who are very poor editors. They currently have no reason to improve themselves, because so long as they don't engage in behavioral problems their status continues uninterrupted.
If we could create a carrot -- "proven editor" or whatever we call it -- that required the acquisition of editorial skills that were within the reach of just about anyone who applied herself, it would give people something to aim for other than adminship. But there would have to be a real improvement in their editing, not just "you've shown that you're not a complete idiot," otherwise it's patronizing and worthless.
Sarah
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On 14 March 2011 12:53, Dror Kamir dqamir@bezeqint.net wrote:
As a first step, I think it would be useful to appoint an ombudsman to Wikipedia, either one to all of them or to each one. We can start with the English Wikipedia. This ombudsman will be identified by her/his real name and receive complaints from editors and from people who are subjects of articles. While this person can use help from other Wikipedians, it is important that there would be one person who would lead this work and be known, reachable and responsible to answer every complaint. The idea that anonymous admins, who act mainly upon their own personal judgment, can handle every problem, should be cast aside. It is also important that such ombudsman publish a public report about the complaints received in a certain period of time and how they were handled. It is also important that s/he would have the authority to intervene in the decisions of admins in certain cases, e.g. BLP.
Something like this is how it works now - if stuff gets to the BLP queue in OTRS, the experienced editors who deal with such things do descend on said articles, editorial axe in hand. This mechanism has the general support of the community, the admins and the arbcom.
The main problem I've found is that aggrieved BLP subjects don't understand that they can actually email info@wikimedia.org and have someone seriously look at the problem.
- d.
First of all, I am not talking just about BLP. This is part of the problem. I am also concerned about new editors who were treated badly (that happens more often than you think), about unreasonable decisions of admins etc. Secondly, such ombudsman should keep a certain distance from Wikipedia's "corridors", namely, s/he must not be an administrator nor bureaucrat, and while s/he should be well acquainted with Wikipedia, perhaps it would be better if s/he won't edit. Furthermore, it is crucial that this person be identified by her/his real name and be reachable in various ways, not only through an e-mail address. It is also important that this person give a public account on the problems s/he handled and measures s/he took to solve them. The very existence of such a report is the guarantee that all complaints be addressed properly, and in addition it would increase transparency and let us have a clear picture of the Wikipedian scene.
Dror K
בתאריך 14/03/11 15:18, ציטוט David Gerard:
On 14 March 2011 12:53, Dror Kamirdqamir@bezeqint.net wrote:
As a first step, I think it would be useful to appoint an ombudsman to Wikipedia, either one to all of them or to each one. We can start with the English Wikipedia. This ombudsman will be identified by her/his real name and receive complaints from editors and from people who are subjects of articles. While this person can use help from other Wikipedians, it is important that there would be one person who would lead this work and be known, reachable and responsible to answer every complaint. The idea that anonymous admins, who act mainly upon their own personal judgment, can handle every problem, should be cast aside. It is also important that such ombudsman publish a public report about the complaints received in a certain period of time and how they were handled. It is also important that s/he would have the authority to intervene in the decisions of admins in certain cases, e.g. BLP.
Something like this is how it works now - if stuff gets to the BLP queue in OTRS, the experienced editors who deal with such things do descend on said articles, editorial axe in hand. This mechanism has the general support of the community, the admins and the arbcom.
The main problem I've found is that aggrieved BLP subjects don't understand that they can actually email info@wikimedia.org and have someone seriously look at the problem.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
First of all, I am not talking just about BLP. This is part of the problem. I am also concerned about new editors who were treated badly (that happens more often than you think), about unreasonable decisions of admins etc. Secondly, such ombudsman should keep a certain distance from Wikipedia's "corridors", namely, s/he must not be an administrator nor bureaucrat, and while s/he should be well acquainted with Wikipedia, perhaps it would be better if s/he won't edit. Furthermore, it is crucial that this person be identified by her/his real name and be reachable in various ways, not only through an e-mail address. It is also important that this person give a public account on the problems s/he handled and measures s/he took to solve them. The very existence of such a report is the guarantee that all complaints be addressed properly, and in addition it would increase transparency and let us have a clear picture of the Wikipedian scene.
Dror K
Having a layer of decision makers deciding content or making editorial or administrative decisions that have no experience editing or administrating is pretty much a non-starter. Exposing them to social, economic, and legal pressure from aggrieved parties is not a good idea either. Publishing their decisions and interventions, all ordinary edits and edits are already published, breaks down precisely in the case of material that is deleted or suppressed now, publishing it is inappropriate, or even actionable.
Fred
--- On Mon, 14/3/11, Dror Kamir dqamir@bezeqint.net wrote:
From: Dror Kamir dqamir@bezeqint.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, 14 March, 2011, 13:27 First of all, I am not talking just about BLP. This is part of the problem. I am also concerned about new editors who were treated badly (that happens more often than you think), about unreasonable decisions of admins etc. Secondly, such ombudsman should keep a certain distance from Wikipedia's "corridors", namely, s/he must not be an administrator nor bureaucrat, and while s/he should be well acquainted with Wikipedia, perhaps it would be better if s/he won't edit. Furthermore, it is crucial that this person be identified by her/his real name and be reachable in various ways, not only through an e-mail address. It is also important that this person give a public account on the problems s/he handled and measures s/he took to solve them. The very existence of such a report is the guarantee that all complaints be addressed properly, and in addition it would increase transparency and let us have a clear picture of the Wikipedian scene.
Having a single person would not work, as people would assume that a single person may have their own personal biases affecting their judgment.
An elected committee might work, and I do think we should look at empowering such a committee to remove the right to edit BLPs from editors who repeatedly abuse it, and at creating the technical means to do so.
Whether that is by creating a separate BLP project, as John has proposed, which can block or ban its own editors, or as part of a BLP flag system in Wikipedia, is relatively immaterial.
Andreas
On 14 March 2011 13:46, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
Having a single person would not work, as people would assume that a single person may have their own personal biases affecting their judgment. An elected committee might work, and I do think we should look at empowering such a committee to remove the right to edit BLPs from editors who repeatedly abuse it, and at creating the technical means to do so.
An elected committee to deal with editor disputes ... we could call it the Arbitration Committee!
Except the arbcom feels it has lost so much community confidence it doesn't even feel it has the power to enforce long-standing fundamental policies:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-January/108319.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-January/108321.html
(The context there being that they feel they can't maintain the rule "no personal attacks" even to the admins.)
Are you suggesting something like a second, parallel arbcom if the first has finally stalled?
- d.
An elected committee to deal with editor disputes ... we could call it the Arbitration Committee!
Except the arbcom feels it has lost so much community confidence it doesn't even feel it has the power to enforce long-standing fundamental policies:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-January/108319.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-January/108321.html
(The context there being that they feel they can't maintain the rule "no personal attacks" even to the admins.)
Are you suggesting something like a second, parallel arbcom if the first has finally stalled?
This was also a part of the discussion of the Quality Taskforce/Strategy mentioned earlier by FT2 in this thread. One of the ideas of getting the "trusted editor" status, whatever it means and whatever are the criteria to get it (if I remember correctly, we never came down to such details) was that these trusted editors can resolve disputed related to content (POV etc), whereas the arbcom role is to resolve conflicts between users. These are two different issues and require two different (possibly overlapping) sorts of arbitrators: to fix the POV or BLP issue one has to be experienced in writing Wikipedia articles, whereas to solve for instance a personal conflict one has to be a good mediator but not necessarily a good article writer.
Cheers Yaroslav
To clarify/correct this - the idea was not that they can be "given the role of" resolving disputes. Rather, their conduct in helping (as ordinary editors) to resolve disputes, can be relied upon.
They will follow (as editors) dispute resolution, focus on project-related issues, look at the topic neutrally, ask about policy related issues, be fair and courteous, etc.
FT2
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ruwrote:
Are you suggesting something like a second, parallel arbcom if the first has finally stalled?
This was also a part of the discussion of the Quality Taskforce/Strategy mentioned earlier by FT2 in this thread. One of the ideas of getting the "trusted editor" status, whatever it means and whatever are the criteria to get it (if I remember correctly, we never came down to such details) was that these trusted editors can resolve disputed related to content (POV etc), whereas the arbcom role is to resolve conflicts between users. These are two different issues and require two different (possibly overlapping) sorts of arbitrators: to fix the POV or BLP issue one has to be experienced in writing Wikipedia articles, whereas to solve for instance a personal conflict one has to be a good mediator but not necessarily a good article writer.
Cheers Yaroslav
On 14 March 2011 09:53, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 14 March 2011 13:46, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
Having a single person would not work, as people would assume that a
single
person may have their own personal biases affecting their judgment. An elected committee might work, and I do think we should look at
empowering
such a committee to remove the right to edit BLPs from editors who repeatedly abuse it, and at creating the technical means to do so.
An elected committee to deal with editor disputes ... we could call it the Arbitration Committee!
Except the arbcom feels it has lost so much community confidence it doesn't even feel it has the power to enforce long-standing fundamental policies:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-January/108319.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-January/108321.html
(The context there being that they feel they can't maintain the rule "no personal attacks" even to the admins.)
Are you suggesting something like a second, parallel arbcom if the first has finally stalled?
David, I strongly object to your continued twisting of my words, and your personal crusade to turn the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee into a "personal attacks" police force. That was never the intended scope of the committee, and it remains outside of its scope. We're currently working through a desysop process in which one of the elements in evidence is the administrator's alleged incivility: I'm not seeing a huge groundswell of support from you or any other former arbitrators for the Arbitration Committee having tackled this issue, and I don't see any historical evidence of committees prior to 2009 having addressed this issue either, including the time that you were on the committee.
Risker/Anne
On 14 March 2011 15:01, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
David, I strongly object to your continued twisting of my words,
The link to your precise words is there. It's what you actually said.
Or are you claiming those links are not to your words?
- d.
On 14 March 2011 11:03, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 14 March 2011 15:01, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
David, I strongly object to your continued twisting of my words,
The link to your precise words is there. It's what you actually said.
Or are you claiming those links are not to your words?
Nowhere in my words did I say anything that in any way implies that either I or the Arbitration Committee as a whole "feels it has lost so much community confidence it doesn't even feel it has the power to enforce long-standing fundamental policies".
The Arbitration Committee is not a police force, it was never intended to be, and there was never any interest on the part of the community for it to become so. There was no loss of community confidence in Arbcom's policing functions, because those functions never existed.
But for the second time now, you are derailing a discussion on one topic (in this case, whether there is a benefit in breaking up large projects, and in the prior case, how to attract and retain female editors) so that you can focus on your preferred topic of berating a committee for not doing what it's not intended to do. I cannot speak for others, but I find that to be quite inconsiderate to the other editors participating in the respective threads. Some might even consider it....uncivil.
Risker/Anne
On 14 March 2011 15:21, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
But for the second time now, you are derailing a discussion on one topic (in this case, whether there is a benefit in breaking up large projects, and in the prior case, how to attract and retain female editors) so that you can focus on your preferred topic of berating a committee for not doing what it's not intended to do. I cannot speak for others, but I find that to be quite inconsiderate to the other editors participating in the respective threads. Some might even consider it....uncivil.
I think what you mean here is that you don't like being called on what you said two months ago
If you no longer believe what you wrote, then say so, rather than attempting to divert attention from your words.
I will note also that if curious readers go to the links I gave and follow the threads, they will see many others, not just me, also incredulous at your claims of ArbCom powerlessness to *enforce basic policies*. Claiming it's all me is (as I noted in that thread) you attempting to shoot the messenger. Again.
The ArbCom feels it doesn't have much workable power on en:wp. Is a parallel construction that does the answer?
- d.
On 14 March 2011 11:29, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 14 March 2011 15:21, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
But for the second time now, you are derailing a discussion on one topic
(in
this case, whether there is a benefit in breaking up large projects, and
in
the prior case, how to attract and retain female editors) so that you can focus on your preferred topic of berating a committee for not doing what it's not intended to do. I cannot speak for others, but I find that to
be
quite inconsiderate to the other editors participating in the respective threads. Some might even consider it....uncivil.
I think what you mean here is that you don't like being called on what you said two months ago
If you no longer believe what you wrote, then say so, rather than attempting to divert attention from your words.
I will note also that if curious readers go to the links I gave and follow the threads, they will see many others, not just me, also incredulous at your claims of ArbCom powerlessness to *enforce basic policies*. Claiming it's all me is (as I noted in that thread) you attempting to shoot the messenger. Again.
The ArbCom feels it doesn't have much workable power on en:wp. Is a parallel construction that does the answer?
I do believe what I wrote, David, but I also believe you have deliberately and completely mischaracterized what I wrote for your own purposes, which appears to be publicly berating the Committee that you are no longer in a position to directly berate or manipulate privately. The Arbitration Committee is not a policing body, it never was even under your tenure as an arbitrator, and complaining that it is not is like complaining that one's snowmobile keeps getting bogged down in the sand.
Clearcut personal attacks on the English Wikipedia are addressed on a daily basis by the hundreds of administrators and other community members with actions ranging from quiet, personal reminders to redactions and warnings through to blocks of varying lengths. As you well know, the Arbitration Committee is a dispute resolution body of last resort tasked primarily to binding decisions about behavioural issues, which normally only enters the scene after other attempts to resolve the situation have been unsuccessful. It's not a front-line policing body, it's not a governing body, and it's not a court. Not quite two years ago, the Arbitration Committee attempted to promote the idea of a similar dispute resolution body to address content disputes, and that concept was soundly derided by the community. I do not see any reason to believe that a front-line policing body tasked to addressing personal attacks is any more likely to be acceptable to the community, particularly as they are already routinely addressed on a regular basis.
Risker/Anne
David, I strongly object to your continued twisting of my words, and your personal crusade to turn the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee into a "personal attacks" police force. That was never the intended scope of the committee, and it remains outside of its scope. We're currently working through a desysop process in which one of the elements in evidence is the administrator's alleged incivility: I'm not seeing a huge groundswell of support from you or any other former arbitrators for the Arbitration Committee having tackled this issue, and I don't see any historical evidence of committees prior to 2009 having addressed this issue either, including the time that you were on the committee.
Risker/Anne
I'm not following current cases. I hope you all are doing good work. However, we did address both incivility and personal attacks regularly. Much of the Connally and Giano fuss had its origin in proposals for brief blocks related to personal attacks.
Nothing to do with breaking Wikipedia into sections though, other than possible license for stricter or looser policies in separate departments.
Fred
Fred
Fred
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:01 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 14 March 2011 09:53, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
David, I strongly object to your continued twisting of my words, and your personal crusade to turn the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee into a "personal attacks" police force. That was never the intended scope of the committee, and it remains outside of its scope. We're currently working through a desysop process in which one of the elements in evidence is the administrator's alleged incivility: I'm not seeing a huge groundswell of support from you or any other former arbitrators for the Arbitration Committee having tackled this issue, and I don't see any historical evidence of committees prior to 2009 having addressed this issue either, including the time that you were on the committee.
There isn't really a good community venue for thanking the Arbitration Committee for picking up a case, particularly sensitive ones, particularly involving administrators. It's hard to comment on the Arbcom talk pages; it's hard to comment like that on case pages, as it's not really germane to cases, etc.
With that said - Let me, as an interested party and community member, say this - THIS community member is extremely grateful that Arbcom has picked up that case, and attempted to handle it with discretion, though the user did not ultimately wish to avail themselves of that.
Please do not mistake the general public silence on this matter as disapproval. I read a lot of people's concern in their posts on events leading up to the initial action, and I believe that had Arbcom not acted the community would have had to in not too distant future, and that would have been undoubtedly a messier situation.
Thank you, all of you.
--- On Mon, 14/3/11, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
From: David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, 14 March, 2011, 13:53 On 14 March 2011 13:46, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
Having a single person would not work, as people would
assume that a single
person may have their own personal biases affecting
their judgment.
An elected committee might work, and I do think we
should look at empowering
such a committee to remove the right to edit BLPs from
editors who
repeatedly abuse it, and at creating the technical
means to do so.
An elected committee to deal with editor disputes ... we could call it the Arbitration Committee!
What I had in mind was a committee looking at BLP editing issues. That does not mean that there must have been an editing dispute at the article concerned. If someone added inappropriate information to a series of minor articles three months ago while no one was looking, and the matter is brought to the committee's attention, they could warn the editor or remove their BLP editing right, temporarily or permanently. They could even patrol BLPs themselves, if they run out of things to do, and contact editors who have a history of inserting problematic material off their own bat. That would actually be a BLP policing job and is different from the way arbcom works in en:WP.
Again, any action taken by the committee should be taken by the committee as a whole, rather than any individual member of it, so no one can abuse the position to even scores with old adversaries. Arbcom could be appealed to if any editor feels aggrieved by the actions of the BLP committee; to have checks and balances, it would be useful to have these be two different bodies.
Andreas
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 07:18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The main problem I've found is that aggrieved BLP subjects don't understand that they can actually email info@wikimedia.org and have someone seriously look at the problem.
David, in the BLP policy we advise people to contact info-en-q@wikimedia.org.
Is info@wikimedia.org a better address, or do they end up in the same place?
Sarah
On 14 March 2011 13:34, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 07:18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The main problem I've found is that aggrieved BLP subjects don't understand that they can actually email info@wikimedia.org and have someone seriously look at the problem.
David, in the BLP policy we advise people to contact info-en-q@wikimedia.org. Is info@wikimedia.org a better address, or do they end up in the same place?
I don't think it matters, because a BLP problem to the wrong queue rapidly ends up in the right one :-)
It's more a public relations problem for Wikipedia: people have NO IDEA what to do about a bad article about themselves. They see this big scary 900lb gorilla of a site they don't understand and they don't know what to do.
If we have structures in place to cope with the flood of mail that will definitely result ... we should put up a Wikimedia blog post and ping our favourite press contacts to run stories.
- d.
On 14 March 2011 13:34, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
David, in the BLP policy we advise people to contact info-en-q@wikimedia.org.
Is info@wikimedia.org a better address, or do they end up in the same place?
Basically, the same place. info@ means it gets manually sorted to the correct queue; info-en-q@ will put it directly there. (There are other shortcut addresses for vandalism reports, copyright issues, etc, working in the same way).
The main benefit of using info@ is that it's easier for people to remember once we've given it to them!
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 13:22, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
On 14 March 2011 13:34, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
David, in the BLP policy we advise people to contact info-en-q@wikimedia.org.
Is info@wikimedia.org a better address, or do they end up in the same place?
Basically, the same place. info@ means it gets manually sorted to the correct queue; info-en-q@ will put it directly there. (There are other shortcut addresses for vandalism reports, copyright issues, etc, working in the same way).
The main benefit of using info@ is that it's easier for people to remember once we've given it to them!
Thanks, Andrew. I think I'll add that second email address to the policy.
On 14 March 2011 19:29, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks, Andrew. I think I'll add that second email address to the policy.
In fact, if info@wikipedia.org doesn't exist then it should be created to point to info@wikimedia.org - so that it can be communicated verbally with reasonable accuracy.
- d.
The contradiction resolves in that "routinely" means "commonly" not "automatically". Your 2nd paragraph says it -- a carrot that required the acquisition of editorial skills that were within the reach of just about anyone who applied herself, and which passed the scrutiny of the community as good quality editor activity, not just non-idiocy.
Many newcomers (POV warriors, trolls etc) wouldn't care but the kind of users we want to see more of and nurture, would care. We could provide a route and coaching, so that most users who cared to try, would be able to gain that community recognition after some time (I've suggested typically after a year).
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:20 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
This is a good idea, but your first and second paragraphs contradict themselves somewhat. If "proven editor" were a status people had to strive for, and really didn't want to lose, it couldn't be something awarded routinely to anyone active for over a year. We have lots of people active for over a year who are very poor editors. They currently have no reason to improve themselves, because so long as they don't engage in behavioral problems their status continues uninterrupted.
If we could create a carrot -- "proven editor" or whatever we call it -- that required the acquisition of editorial skills that were within the reach of just about anyone who applied herself, it would give people something to aim for other than adminship. But there would have to be a real improvement in their editing, not just "you've shown that you're not a complete idiot," otherwise it's patronizing and worthless.
Sarah
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:24, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
The contradiction resolves in that "routinely" means "commonly" not "automatically". Your 2nd paragraph says it -- a carrot that required the acquisition of editorial skills that were within the reach of just about anyone who applied herself, and which passed the scrutiny of the community as good quality editor activity, not just non-idiocy.
Many newcomers (POV warriors, trolls etc) wouldn't care but the kind of users we want to see more of and nurture, would care. We could provide a route and coaching, so that most users who cared to try, would be able to gain that community recognition after some time (I've suggested typically after a year).
It's an excellent idea. It could make a huge difference to the quality of content; and it would give editors a tangible way of improving their editing and having something to show for it, which might encourage them to stay too.
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:35 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
During the strategy taskforce, the quality team came to two conclusions that are similar to some ideas in this thread, but avoid the issues mentioned.
[snip]
First, let me apologize beforehand for sounding too cynical, but I have many years of experience with Wikipedia, and I have seen many attempts to deal with trolls, POV pushers and otherwise substandard editors (I even initiated one or two myself), and I have not seen a sign of any of them actually working.
The other thing we thought was that there is benefit in recognizing editors whom the community agrees are competent, edit well sourced neutral good quality material, and act well, across the board. If that's what we want then let's find ways to develop and encourage it. At the moment adminship is granted following a searching process but there is no equivalent for editors who seek recognition as competent and consistently good quality editors. If there were some way to communally recognize such users (call them "proven editors" lacking a better term) it would have some immense advantages. Right now every editor who is autoconfirmed but doesn't write FA's is pretty much in the same category of editorship. Newcomers can't distinguish those who edit well and those not shown to edit well.
Why would a newcomer be supposed to care about that? Does it matter whether my article gets edited by a 'good' editor or by a 'bad' editor? Am I supposed to revert a bad editor but leave a good editor alone if he makes the same edit? Or should I better leave the edits of the bad editor alone, because he's probably a troll who will chase me away if I revert him?
Even more so - the 'bad' editor may be an excellent editor who just has not yet had the time to prove him- or herself.
The aim is to make recognition of this kind very widespread within the community and to actively coach and encourage uptake and success -- a recognition routinely won by many editors who have been active for over a year or so. It means that one can see easily in an article history which edits were made by users the community recognizes as proven editors and one can focus on other edits for issues. It encourages holders to act to the standards expected and encourages others to seek that recognition for themselves, and therefore to learn to be better editors. In edit wars it provides a bias towards endorsement of probably better edits.
Actually, no it doesn't. The way to behave in an edit war to avoid being singled out as a bad editor is to stay away from it. Is that the way we want our editors to act? Be afraid to revert, not because they might be wrong, but because there might be people who think they're wrong?
In the case of massively disputed topics such as ethnic wars it provides a dispute resolution tool - editing might be restricted for a time to those editors considered "proven" by the community.
Currently such pages tend to be locked to all but admins. That doesn't work either - people just keep on their fighting on the talk page until someone gives up, after which the page is unlocked and their opponent can declare their victory on the page. Or the fight simply moves to the next page.
Finally it is egalitarian (or at least as much so as anything on the wikis) -- it is a recognition anyone can achieve from the community by editing and behaving well, and anyone can lose by editing or behaving to a visibly poor standard. It carries no formal powers, but by peer pressure alone encourages improvement generally.
So we are supposed to add a load of work to the editors' workload in judging the edits of prospective proven editors, but then don't even make that choice have any real effect? I don't feel safe in voting for someone to be considered a 'good' editor in this sense unless first checking a few hundred of their edits. And definitely in the beginning there will be several such applicants per week, certainly if we are going to make this something for 'everyone' to aim for. Either that, or having the title will be as much a sign of being interested in the title as it is of being a 'good' editor.
Again, forgive me if I sound too cynical, but I do get the feeling that such a system might well be a nice thing to have, but would be as effective in promoting good editing behaviour as a Barnstar.
On 14 March 2011 12:51, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
Currently such pages tend to be locked to all but admins. That doesn't work either - people just keep on their fighting on the talk page until someone gives up, after which the page is unlocked and their opponent can declare their victory on the page. Or the fight simply moves to the next page.
Note that this is already a problem with BLPs. The rules apply not just on the articles named after living persons - but to statements about living persons anywhere in the encyclopedia, and even on talk pages. This is precisely because those who mistake the encyclopedia for a venue for activist journalism have an observed tendency to continue their fight wherever they can.
Putting the BLPs elsewhere will move the battle to other pages in the main, more open, wiki. Ultimately, if people can write things, they can write things that violate rules. The question then is whether it will be more manageable or less. This would require numbers, with evidence, to support any proposal.
- d.
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.comwrote:
(snip) First, let me apologize beforehand for sounding too cynical, but I have many years of experience with Wikipedia, and I have seen many attempts to deal with trolls, POV pushers and otherwise substandard editors (I even initiated one or two myself), and I have not seen a sign of any of them actually working.
Efforts are incremental. This isn't aiming to "deal with trolls" per se, but to improve the quality of the editorial community as editors. Right now we leave people to themselves, and possible benefits that could be gained from recognizing accomplished proven editors aren't gained. The conclusion was that if this is given a leg-up, then it will have positive effects on other areas including issues of poor editing. Most approaches to improvement are narrow-focus, they fix a specific issue. This one tries the flip side: - if general quality increases and we recognize the users that we believe won't POV war or be biased and will act well even on difficult subjects, then we have ways to approach disputed areas that we didn't have before and we could remotivate and encourage users who got fed up, as well as providing something positive for people to aim to once they get "into" editing.
Newcomers can't distinguish those who edit well and those not shown to edit well.
Why would a newcomer be supposed to care about that? Does it matter whether my article gets edited by a 'good' editor or by a 'bad' editor? Am I supposed to revert a bad editor but leave a good editor alone if he makes the same edit? Or should I better leave the edits of the bad editor alone, because he's probably a troll who will chase me away if I revert him? Even more so - the 'bad' editor may be an excellent editor who just has not yet had the time to prove him- or herself.
Newcomers care because they look for easy ways to identify users who can
help them, or whose advice in discussions is more reliable. If I have a technical problem my first issue as a newcomer is "who of all these mass of people should I ask? Who might know? Whose answers on policy are more likely accurate? It makes it easier for informal coaching to take place (user can post "I see you are experienced here, I have a question" or can I come back to you if I need more help") Making participants of proven quality easier to identify helps in other areas of life. There is every reason to expect it is helpful here.
There is a big difference between "not yet proven" and "bad", so your last point isn't an issue. A means to formally recognize such users does not mean others are "bad" any more than the existence of a "junior swimmer's" badge for children means all other children can't swim. Given users don't seem to have a problem with reverting admins, I think they wouldn't have a problem reverting any other user :)
In edit wars it
provides a bias towards endorsement of probably better edits.
Actually, no it doesn't. The way to behave in an edit war to avoid being singled out as a bad editor is to stay away from it. Is that the way we want our editors to act? Be afraid to revert, not because they might be wrong, but because there might be people who think they're wrong?
Disagree. The point is that if there is an edit war, users arriving (eg
from noticeboard discussions) initially have to work out what's going on. Often they don't know any (or most) of the users concerned at the start and it's all a big pile-on mess to them. This discourages experienced editors from getting into complex disputes and in some cases lets edit warriors get away with tendentiousness longer than is needed. If it were easier to see that participants XYZ are recognized by the community as competent level headed editors whose editing is consistently good quality, then it immediately orients the new visitors to the dispute. It may be the other "side" are also good editors, or that the respected users are acting badly. But in most cases this is useful information and helpful. As a side effect it makes it easy to see when someone who gained community recognition for their editing quality is acting badly, and so it will tend to discourage them doing so. Right now there's no consequence so we often see otherwise-good users behaving badly in this or that dispute.
In the case of massively disputed topics such as ethnic wars it provides a dispute resolution tool - editing might be restricted for a time to those editors considered "proven" by the community.
Currently such pages tend to be locked to all but admins. That doesn't work either - people just keep on their fighting on the talk page until someone gives up, after which the page is unlocked and their opponent can declare their victory on the page. Or the fight simply moves to the next page.
Yes. Now imagine we had 3000 users whom the community has scrutinized their editing and conduct and feels they act well and edit well across the board. We don't have to lock down the article to admins, we can restrict editing to any of those 3000 users, and anyone else who wishes to edit can seek community recognition and then do so as well. The editing is then open, but undertaken by users who have proven they know how to cite, discuss, seek NPOV, etc. Give it 3 or 6 months the article (or topic area) will probably be in good order and can tentatively be unrestricted again.
Note I have very severe "mass participation" edit wars such as ethnic topics in mind here, where we have tried for years to bring good editing. We don;t have any solution. This could help. It means that instead of locking articles down to admins (who mustn't edit anything contentious), or snails pace development, we can restrict it to proven editors of which we have thousands, and anyone gaining that recoignition can join them. The article stays open, but poor conduct and mis-citing or tendentiousness vanishes - because any "proven" editor who does act up will be in a peer group of users who are overwhelmingly good quality, proven, who know bad conduct when they see it, and know how to deal with it appropriately.
Finally it is egalitarian (or at least as much so as anything on the wikis) -- it is a recognition anyone can achieve from the community by editing and behaving well, and anyone can
lose
by editing or behaving to a visibly poor standard. It carries no formal powers, but by peer pressure alone encourages improvement generally.
So we are supposed to add a load of work to the editors' workload in judging the edits of prospective proven editors, but then don't even make that choice have any real effect? I don't feel safe in voting for someone to be considered a 'good' editor in this sense unless first checking a few hundred of their edits. And definitely in the beginning there will be several such applicants per week, certainly if we are going to make this something for 'everyone' to aim for.
I would expect we can find a way to do it that is fairly straightforward. How it works is a separate issue, I think solvable, but for now I'm looking at the principle of it. In the beginning I would suggest we "Grandfather" in groups that are broadly trustworthy, such as "all users who have written 2 GAs or one FA and also passed RFA - between these criteria we can be fairly sure they can edit well and also know policy and conduct norms well.
Again, forgive me if I sound too cynical, but I do get the feeling that such a system might well be a nice thing to have, but would be as effective in promoting good editing behaviour as a Barnstar.
Not quite. A barnstar means one person, somewhere, wanted to say "well
done". It doesn't mean the user's work generally or their conduct generally is good quality, that they generally edit neutrally or cite well, or treat others well, or that the wider community has reached agreement they are of proven competence and approach. Once you have that, you can do good things like motivate and coach newcomers, provide goals to head to, or develop new dispute handling methods. If you can draw on a pool of a few thousand users whose capability and appropriate behavior can largely be assumed.
FT2
I may sound negative, as said, I know much has been tried, and little succeeded. I do really hope this does work, and am well willing to think along to try to make it that way. In fact, it is not that far from ideas that I have developed myself or with other users on IRC as well - although I was putting my emphasis a bit differently - on neutrality and expertise rather than editing quality as such (the two do of course overlap, neutrality and correctedness are important parts of good editing, and writing good articles would in my scheme be the major evidence of expertise, but there are important differences as well, for example in that expertise is much more subject-dependent than editing quality).
Still, apart from being afraid it all will not be successful (but at least it's worth a try), I do see some problems. One problem is still at the entrance. I don't see your community of 3000 users come about - although that may have to do with me not being from the English but the Dutch Wikipedia. There's two possibilities - either the good editor title is seen as not much at all, and many good editors won't bother trying to get it, or it _is_ seen as a great deal, and then there will be less (but still a substantial number) in that camp, but added to that there will be those who don't want it because of the responsibility that comes, and others that are more looking for the prestige than for the good editing that it comes with.
To explain a bit more of my skepticism, let me tell you the following anecdote:
Once I found on my user talk page a call from someone, who asked me to let my neutral eye go over an article with a fierce content dispute. Although I was a bit hesitant at first, after a little prodding I agreed. I went to the university library to read about the subject of the article, and that gave me a rather good idea what was going on. One of the main contenders (let's call him A and his opponent B) was basically adding original research - his edits were not backed by literature, not even by the source he did provide for his edit. I wrote this, proposed a toning down and shortening of his material, and proposed some improvements in other parts of the article. I discussed a bit with A, B and others in the days following, but soon A and B were throwing personal attacks at each other again, and I left in disgust. Maybe I could have done better. Maybe not. Still, being recognized as a good editor in the end did not help me in resolving this conflict - at best it stopped me from being the target of the mud being flown around. In the end, A got a long-term block - not for POV editing, not for doing original research, not for misrepresenting his sources - he could have gone on with all those without strong consequences. But he made the mistake of making repeated personal attacks on his opponents. If not, the article might well still be locked today.
--- On Mon, 14/3/11, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
From: Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com
In the end, A got a long-term block - not for POV editing, not for doing original research, not for misrepresenting his sources - he could have gone on with all those without strong consequences. But he made the mistake of making repeated personal attacks on his opponents.
That's precisely the problem. Being able to remove the right to edit BLPs from a user, irrespective of whether they have been uncivil etc., just based on the nature of their edits, is the only thing that will solve it.
Knowing that this is a potential outcome will also, surely, lead to better and more careful BLP editing than we have today.
Andreas
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:57 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
That's precisely the problem. Being able to remove the right to edit BLPs from a user, irrespective of whether they have been uncivil etc., just based on the nature of their edits, is the only thing that will solve it.
Knowing that this is a potential outcome will also, surely, lead to better and more careful BLP editing than we have today.
Would not have helped, since this conflict was over the biography of a person who has been dead for over 1000 years.
Why single out BLPs for such a treatment, and why the need to move them to a separate place? All that is needed is a sufficient number of good, trusted editors that get the right to make judgements of the kind "Mr. A is not allowed to edit on subject X any more, and can be reverted and/or blocked if he does."
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:57 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
That's precisely the problem. Being able to remove the right to edit BLPs from a user, irrespective of whether they have been uncivil etc., just based on the nature of their edits, is the only thing that will solve it.
Knowing that this is a potential outcome will also, surely, lead to better and more careful BLP editing than we have today.
Would not have helped, since this conflict was over the biography of a person who has been dead for over 1000 years.
Why single out BLPs for such a treatment, and why the need to move them to a separate place? All that is needed is a sufficient number of good, trusted editors that get the right to make judgements of the kind "Mr. A is not allowed to edit on subject X any more, and can be reverted and/or blocked if he does."
-- André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com
I can see where this ends: biased editors in control; no discussion, no appeal, disagree and you're history.
Fred
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:24 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I can see where this ends: biased editors in control; no discussion, no appeal, disagree and you're history.
That is indeed a risk. There seems to be no way out. Either you treat trolls as deccent editors, or you treat decent editors as trolls... There seems to be no way in between. I hate this fucking world.
This is getting kind of stuck on the specifics of BLPs being separated (or not).
Can we step back and address the generic idea again. A restatement of the intended benefits and advantages of splitting the project would be appreciated.
Fra: George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com Til: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Dato: Man, 14. mar 2011 23:31 Emne: Re: [Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart
This is getting kind of stuck on the specifics of BLPs being separated (or not).
Can we step back and address the generic idea again. A restatement of the intended benefits and advantages of splitting the project would be appreciated.
The discussion has taken even bigger swings than usual for this list, and my above suggestion is now under the misleading heading "breaking en:wiki apart". That was not my intention at all. Please consider the benefits of "segmentation" or "virtual wikis" instead.
According to John Wandenberg, that is a 10-year plan. I don't agree and consider it a 6-months plan
Let each project have it's own admins, recent changes, mailing list etc. but still under the umbrella of the language wiki in question. Admins and contributors will be able to aggregate knowledge of the project's subjects, sources etc in a much deeper way than now.
FT2 has even pointed to the strategy discussion about the possibility of adding an international perspective on cooperation of projects across languages with further benefits, especially maybe to narrower subjects.
The big wikipedias would benefit in numerous areas by being project-driven to a much larger extent. Let a newcomer join one or more projects instead of the huge Wikipedia - let the project welcome her, discuss what contributions she wants to make and what she is able to do, hand out tasks that are unfinished etc.Think it over once again.
Regards, Sir48/Thyge
The big wikipedias would benefit in numerous areas by being project-driven to a much larger extent. Let a newcomer join one or more projects instead of the huge Wikipedia - let the project welcome her, discuss what contributions she wants to make and what she is able to do, hand out tasks that are unfinished etc.Think it over once again.
Regards, Sir48/Thyge
It doesn't work. Even now, if you show up on some projects, create a new category, write a few new articles, you have to claw your way through nominations for deletion and a blizzard of nonsense from regulars, based on being "new". Not that I can't do it, but it is just wasted energy.
Fred
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 12:39 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.netwrote:
Even now, if you show up on some projects, create a new category, write a few new articles, you have to claw your way through nominations for deletion and a blizzard of nonsense from regulars, based on being "new". Not that I can't do it, but it is just wasted energy.
Fred
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The great point that Fred makes is that while we make these discussions en.wp specific, the issue of attracting new users is entirely dependent on the environment of every single wiki.
I revisited Wikipedia as a newcomer to test the idea and newcomer experiences a year ago and didn't really see that. What I *did* experience was that it was complicated and *that* was discouraging. Part of the issue is that standards are stricter and quality expectations are such that newcomers are less likely to edit appropriately first time round, and therefore some kind of support or inculturation is needed that wasn't in 2004 - 05. Some knowledge is needed before (or as) you "edit this page" whereas before intuition was enough. Our approach to new joiners has not updated to reflect the fact that "just get on with it and find your own way" is no longer appropriate.
Specifically, we aim to encourage groups who are not net geeks, and therefore need a different kind of support and induction, and at the same time the project has got more quality conscious and there are more policies affecting what may and may not be done than there were in 2004 - 05.
Both of these argue that our means of inducting joiners is hopelessly out of date, and it is this which causes newcomers to leave or be discouraged; what is perceived and sometimes described as a hostile environment is mostly a reflection of the divergence it involves.
FT2
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 5:39 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
It doesn't work. Even now, if you show up on some projects, create a new category, write a few new articles, you have to claw your way through nominations for deletion and a blizzard of nonsense from regulars, based on being "new". Not that I can't do it, but it is just wasted energy.
Fred
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