Wikiquality-l September 2007

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22 participants
19 discussions

Information Week article
by David Gerard 22 Sep '07

22 Sep '07

Thomas Claburn actually called me last night. I think I got the most important things across, i.e. nothing is set in stone as yet, and the quality.wikimedia.org address! http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=J0LUB3AAPT… - d.

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Quality initiative hitting the papers: Daily Telegraph (UK) tomorrow
by David Gerard 21 Sep '07

21 Sep '07

Call from Nicole Martin, Daily Telegraph, asking after the article that was in yesterday's New Scientist: http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19526226.200-wikipedia-20… (full article only with login) The NS article apparently talks in detail about "only editors with 30 edits in 30 days" and so forth. I said that wasn't set in stone at all - there will probably be a low hurdle like that, but all the details are still being worked out. Points I repeated a few times: * Casual readers will see the marked-stable version by default, logged-in editors will see the current live version * Anyone can still edit, anonymous or not (you still won't need a login to fix a spelling error) * Details are NOT fixed yet, resolving over the next two months * Almost certainly will go live on German Wikipedia in November this year * No timeline for other editions, particularly English, though we're enthusiastically watching * English has notably worked to increase quality over the past couple of years, adding references, marking unreferenced articles, etc., so readers will at least know what they're getting * http://quality.wikimedia.org/ - I asked her to include the URL in the article, strongly suggested she read up on things there. (Please correct me as needed!) The article will be in tomorrow's paper, likely to go online tonight. - d.

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Definition of quality
by Lars Aronsson 20 Sep '07

20 Sep '07

Looking at the current http://quality.wikimedia.org/ it seems that "Wikimedia Quality" is just a new name for Wikipedia 1.0 or "stable versions". It might be a good name. >From another perspective, the word "quality" can be understood in many different ways. One of them is the international standards in the series ISO 9000, deployed in most industries in the western world in the 1980s and 1990s. Do the founders of Wikimedia Quality have any background in industrial quality management, quality assurance or "six sigma"? I'm not saying that all methods used in manufacturing industries are directly applicable in Wikipedia. But I think that being completely clueless can be harmful. So is there a need to read up? In the modern industrial sense of "quality", it is always a measurable entity, compared to a stated goal. It is essential that the producer and consumer share an understanding of the purpose of the delivered product or service, before you can start to measure how well that purpose is met. A car with an expected life of 5 years can be of good quality if this is what the customer wants and expects and the car does last for 5 years. This is in sharp contrast to the common view of the "man in the street", who believes a car is of better quality if it lasts for 70 years than if it lasts for 40 years, the longer the better. If a car lasts 40 years, increasing its life expectancy to 70 years might include gold-plating all electrical connectors. This might make the car a lot more expensive, and that would be a waste if this customer only needs this car to last for 5 years. Other "improvements" might make the car more bulky and less economic in other ways. Avoiding such suboptimal "improvements" is much what quality control is about. In designing for quality, it is essential that customer/user expectations are investigated and fed back. There needs to be a feedback loop of expectations and learning from experience into the producing organization. This is usually illustrated as a cycle of four steps: Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA). There's even a Wikipedia article about that, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA In my opinion, the sharpest difference between proprietary, commercial software and free software of the same kind, such as Microsoft Office and Open Office, is that success or failure in sales and marketing causes a strong feedback to the developers of Microsoft Office. If the product fails to sell because it lacks some feature, there is a very strong incentive to add that feature in the next release. Even if free software is often stable and reliable, its evolution is often slow and unpredictable and seldom guided by the needs of potential users. I'm not advocating properietary and commercial software. I'm a Linux user since 1992 and an Emacs user since long before that. What I'm saying is that "their system" (Microsoft's and Oracle's) has a feedback loop that we could wish for. Since Wikipedia has borrowed so much from the free software movement, it has also inherited the lack of this strong feedback loop. Both free software and Wikipedia do have another feedback loop, where each user is encouraged to become a programmer and/or text editor, but this mechanism is a lot weaker. Most dissatisfied users will not become programmers/editors, but will just silently drop out of the loop. In terms of control theory, this is equivalent to attenuating the feedback loop, causing a much slower signal response, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory So, one way to improve the quality of Wikipedia could be, I think, to somehow capture that lost feedback. Is this on the agenda for Wikimedia Quality? Should it be? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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List should now be open
by Erik Moeller 17 Sep '07

17 Sep '07

This list should now be open for subscriptions; I'll send a quick announcement (together with a first version of quality.wikimedia.org) later. -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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quality.wikimedia.org - first look & plans
by Erik Moeller 11 Sep '07

11 Sep '07

http://quality.wikimedia.org/ User: Reader Password: qareader Do not pass it on quite yet, but please feel free to make basic edits or layout improvements & do provide feedback here or off-list. Plan: 1) At least two beta sites will be set up using the FlaggedRevs extension[1] in two different configurations; these will contain some English language and some German language demonstration content. Repeat, DEMONSTRATION CONTENT ONLY. NO REAL WIKIMEDIA PROJECT. Philipp Birken from WM-DE and I will provide the configuration for these sites to Brion, who is expected to conclude a security review of the extension this week. The page [[Wikiquality]] on Meta will also describe these configurations, along with some other general info. It is currently non-existent (do not report). 2) These FlaggedRevs demo sites will go live probably next week. I suggest a target date of September 20; Sue will finalize this. Should there be major security or scalability concerns even for a demo, we can roll back. 3) quality.wikimedia.org: The point is to have portals for major quality initiatives in Wikipedia and other projects, and an associated open mailing list. (The list is currently still closed, as it was used for discussions about FlaggedRevs development.) These portals should be fairly basic & only point to information elsewhere. I expect that we will give interested people from the community & translators access to editing quality.wikimedia.org. Ironically the site itself would benefit from a FlaggedRevs configuration, which we may very well put into place if it turns out to be useful. Originally I wanted to co-launch this with the beta, but New Scientist is going to publish a larger piece about Wikimedia quality initiatives on Thursday, so I thought it would be good to have it up by then, since it also very visibly suggests making a donation & we don't know if we might see a bit of a media cascade. I can quickly fix up some links (link to an off-site demo of FlaggedRevs for now), open the site & list, and announce them to various Wikimedia mailing lists before Thursday. If this is _not_ desired, please let me know, and I'll email New Scientist & ask them to remove the link. But IMHO there is no real risk in going live with it. Even if we don't take the beta live as expected it'll be a useful site to have. 4) If there are no remaining security or scalability concerns, after a declared date, which I suggest to be November 20 (which is also the middle of the fundraiser and hence a good attention-grabbing moment), we'll give Wikimedia project/language communities the _option_ of turning on the extension. To do so, they'll have to point to a consensus or vote that also explains the configuration they would like to use (the extension is very flexible). I expect that de.wp already has such a consensus so they will probably go live at that date. It may well be possible for en.wp to obtain a consensus during the beta, in which case it would launch at the same time. But IMHO the correct answer for press inquiries of "who will be using the extension" is "this will be determined during the beta, most likely the German Wikipedia will be among the first". BugZilla will be used to track these site requests, as was done for semi-protection. Once again, the above date will be finalized by Sue. Comments? [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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Fwd: [Internal-l] quality.wikimedia.org - first look & plans
by P. Birken 10 Sep '07

10 Sep '07

Crossposting with internal I"m again on a conference right now and will be back next Saturday, so starting on 20. September sounds very good. As for the starting date, I suggest actually doing this sooner. If it turns out that one month of Beta is sufficient, we should turn on this long-awaited extension. I don't think it is necessarily bad if the good news of stable versions first sinks in and after some weeks, we ask perople for money. Bye, Philipp 2007/9/10, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>: > http://quality.wikimedia.org/ > > User: Reader > Password: qareader > > Do not pass it on quite yet, but please feel free to make basic edits > or layout improvements & do provide feedback here or off-list. > > Plan: > > 1) At least two beta sites will be set up using the FlaggedRevs > extension[1] in two different configurations; these will contain some > English language and some German language demonstration content. > Repeat, DEMONSTRATION CONTENT ONLY. NO REAL WIKIMEDIA PROJECT. > > Philipp Birken from WM-DE and I will provide the configuration for > these sites to Brion, who is expected to conclude a security review of > the extension this week. > > The page [[Wikiquality]] on Meta will also describe these > configurations, along with some other general info. It is currently > non-existent (do not report). > > 2) These FlaggedRevs demo sites will go live probably next week. I > suggest a target date of September 20; Sue will finalize this. > > Should there be major security or scalability concerns even for a > demo, we can roll back. > > 3) quality.wikimedia.org: The point is to have portals for major > quality initiatives in Wikipedia and other projects, and an associated > open mailing list. (The list is currently still closed, as it was used > for discussions about FlaggedRevs development.) > > These portals should be fairly basic & only point to information > elsewhere. I expect that we will give interested people from the > community & translators access to editing quality.wikimedia.org. > Ironically the site itself would benefit from a FlaggedRevs > configuration, which we may very well put into place if it turns out > to be useful. > > Originally I wanted to co-launch this with the beta, but New Scientist > is going to publish a larger piece about Wikimedia quality initiatives > on Thursday, so I thought it would be good to have it up by then, > since it also very visibly suggests making a donation & we don't know > if we might see a bit of a media cascade. > > I can quickly fix up some links (link to an off-site demo of > FlaggedRevs for now), open the site & list, and announce them to > various Wikimedia mailing lists before Thursday. If this is _not_ > desired, please let me know, and I'll email New Scientist & ask them > to remove the link. But IMHO there is no real risk in going live with > it. Even if we don't take the beta live as expected it'll be a useful > site to have. > > 4) If there are no remaining security or scalability concerns, after a > declared date, which I suggest to be November 20 (which is also the > middle of the fundraiser and hence a good attention-grabbing moment), > we'll give Wikimedia project/language communities the _option_ of > turning on the extension. To do so, they'll have to point to a > consensus or vote that also explains the configuration they would like > to use (the extension is very flexible). > > I expect that de.wp already has such a consensus so they will probably > go live at that date. It may well be possible for en.wp to obtain a > consensus during the beta, in which case it would launch at the same > time. But IMHO the correct answer for press inquiries of "who will be > using the extension" is "this will be determined during the beta, most > likely the German Wikipedia will be among the first". > > BugZilla will be used to track these site requests, as was done for > semi-protection. > > Once again, the above date will be finalized by Sue. > > Comments? > > [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs > > -- > Toward Peace, Love & Progress: > Erik > > DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of > the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. > > _______________________________________________ > Internal-l mailing list > Internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l >

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Usability Points
by P. Birken 08 Sep '07

08 Sep '07

Hiho, I'm not sure about two issues. 1) In the box used for reviewing, a checkbox for watching the page is provided. I'm not sure we need that in the box in the first place, but at least it should swap places with the comment box, since the comment box belongs functionally to the upper part of the box. 2) I'm also not convinced about the usefuleness of the "stable version" button next to the article button. This is what the GUI also does and therefore, users have two ways of doing stuff, whereas both GUIs are more powerful. Shouldn't we remove that button? Also, the number of buttons has become quite large already, in particular for users with a lot of rights? Bye, Philipp

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Re: [Wikiquality-l] stable versions... a few thoughts
by Aaron Schulz 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

It's been considered. I've never really got the reasons for it though. Who determines whether the stable version is the default or not? I don't like it being sysops, and if is 'sighters'/whatever, then what would that really accomplish? If the issue is that is would get outdated, then people shouldn't review things no one will follow up on enough. It also requires another table just to store whether to make the stable version the default. Plus, it makes the interface more complicated and what version is the default seems more random and confusing to readers. Also, please use wikiquality-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org for stable versions stuff ;) -Aaron Schulz >From: Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> >To: jschulz_4587(a)msn.com >Subject: stable versions... a few thoughts >Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:50:49 -0400 > > >I think it is absolutely (absolutely!) imperative that stable versions has >to be enabled and disabled per-page, like protection or semi-protection. >If it is not, then there is just absolutely no way it will ever go on >English Wikipedia - and not likely anywhere else either. > >Is that contemplated? Can we make sure it does that? _________________________________________________________________ Now you can see troublebefore he arrives http://newlivehotmail.com/?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_viral_protection_0507

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Issues with FlaggedRevs
by Erik Moeller 04 Sep '07

04 Sep '07

I'm trying out FlaggedRevs to see how far we are from deployment. I'm seeing the following issues right now (local install, default configuration): * Diffs that are not to the current revision point to the wrong version. (i.e. the review panel at the bottom will tag the current revision, even if neither of the two revs are current). * Edits by users who can review should not need to be reviewed at least at the basic level; is there any way to configure this? It seems pointless to flag edits by trusted users as being in need for vandalism review. * When the last sighted version and the current version are identical, anon users (if so configured) still have to click through to the "current" (identical) version to edit. This seems an unnecessary hoop to jump through. These seem like core issues to me. In addition, some wishlist items: * In the original specs we suggested that users can approve unreviewed changes with a collapsible diff + checkbox on the actual edit page when editing an unreviewed version; this still seems like a very simple way to integrate review into normal editing workflow. * Switching the default view for all non-registered visitors would be a very radical thing to do when we haven't figured out yet how scalable the system is. Changes might end up being unreviewed for weeks as a result, rendering articles about current events unusable and making it much harder for new users to discover the site. It seems more sensible to change the default view on a per-page basis for some highly problematic pages which are currently semi-protected, and to gradually increase the number of pages that are in this mode. I'll try to come up with some more feedback regarding the UI. -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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Wikiquality-l September 2007