Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 6

Original post on Wikimedia-l. Consultations will begin in February for an update to the terms of use, with planned changes including:

• Universal Code of Conduct
• CC BY-SA 4.0
• Complying with the European Digital Services Act

The terms of use were last updated in 2015. I have no opinion on these changes yet, but I plan to try to post interesting WMF-related things here more as I run across them. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

The mailing list email in question is also visible at m:Wikimedia Foundation Legal department/2023 ToU updates. The legal team says it will post updates on this page and use it for consultation. isaacl (talk) 14:18, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

• The WMF botched the process for the Code, botched the Code itself, has never even sought community approval of the code, failed to get consensus for the proposed Code-enforcement, and the Foundation is going back to their old habits of trying of just steamrolling forwards their assigned work with complete disregard for the fact that they failed 4 step ago. If they want an enforceable Code, if they want to add a Code to the Terms of Service, they have to go back and develop a new Code with actual community consensus. Alsee (talk) 21:07, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Community Tech, STei (WMF) 12:59, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Voting has ended. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:52, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

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Best wishes, Arupako-WMF (talk) 09:37, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

when I came to the main page just now, without logging in first, I saw a large banner announcing a fundraising drive for the WMF. it was a message from Jimmy Wales. is the WMF currently posting banners for fundraising? I thought there had been some community discussion in the past about that. Sm8900 (talk) 00:55, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

There was, at Wikipedia:Fundraising/2022 banners. In the end, the community and the WMF agreed on some re-worded banners. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:00, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The current banner campaign runs from 29 Nov to 31 Dec. Banners in other countries and e-mail campaigns run at various times of year. Certes (talk) 11:42, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

See also Slate article: "The Huge Fight Behind Those Pop-Up Fundraising Banners on Wikipedia". Andreas JN466 11:49, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

uh-huh. one question... What's the relevance of asking for "two dollars"? ...click the preceding link to see my full thoughts on this topic. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 13:40, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

TIL I got quoted in Slate. I gotta say I’m not entirely comfortable with the attention but it’s still better than the last time I got noticed offwiki. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 06:13, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

When are we not having a fund drive? Dronebogus (talk) 16:00, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

There's a list of local fund-raising efforts around the world somewhere on Meta or a similar forum but I can't currently find it. There are short gaps between the drives. Certes (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Just to point out Wikipedia:Fundraising/2022_banners#English_fundraising_campaign_ended in case you missed that. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:30, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

The list is here: m:Fundraising#Current_fundraising_activities. See also m:Fundraising/Reports. Andreas JN466 08:46, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. There's another table somewhere, with each row having a language (or country?) and dates, but it wasn't up-to-date and may have been deleted or replaced by a current but less detailed summary. I seem to recall there was something going on somewhere in most months of that year. Certes (talk) 14:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

You may simply be remembering an earlier version of that page, like this one or this one. At any rate, there are indeed lots of campaigns throughout the year, in different countries. The campaign just ended only ran in US, CAN, UK, IRE, AUS, NZ, GER and CH. Andreas JN466 16:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Don't know where to report this, so I'm posting here. ghostarchive.org has been used as a paywall bypasser, which is against

For instances of use, see this diff where I removed it, and search insource:"ghostarchive.org" On most articles I've seen, it's being used to bypass paywalls, not to archive dead links.

It's used on 500 articles, if I'm using Petscan correctly. To clear the current copyvios, I recomment we remove all these links entirely from the archive-url parameter; IABot can then re-rescue the links with archive.org, if they're really dead. DFlhb (talk) 01:27, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The issue might be discussed at

WP:VPR if ready to make a specific proposal. Usage: 77 http links + first 500 https links. Johnuniq (talk

) 03:20, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

BTW, the generic term for this is license washing or license laundering. See c:Commons:License laundering for a discussion of it in the context of images, but it's the same idea. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks to both of you for your guidance; I've reported it to

WP:ELN, and linked to the previous noticeboard discussion. DFlhb (talk

) 10:06, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I think we had a discussion about the Foundations investigations to COI editing in the MENA area. This clearly relates.[1] Quoting from the article, readers here may rememberthat " Wikimedia last month announced global bans for 16 users “who were engaging in conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia projects in the Mena [Middle East and North Africa] region”. In an investigation that started last January, Wikimedia said it “was able to confirm that a number of users with close connections with external parties were editing the platform in a coordinated fashion to advance the aim of those parties”. "One administrator was jailed for 32 years, and another was sentenced to eight years, the activists said." NOTE that this happened in 2020 (the arrests, that is, not sure about the sentencing). Doug Weller talk 13:22, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

While this is technically beyond the scope of the English Wikipedia, I think it's in line with our goal of free knowledge to do whatever we can to support editors in nations that suppress free access to information. Are there any ongoing efforts in this regard? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller OsamaK's sentence was recently (August 2022) substantially increased on appeal. See

https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-agents-infiltrate-wikipedia-sentence-independent-wikipedia-administrators-to-prison/

https://alqst.org/en/post/extreme-jail-terms-in-saudi-arabia-signal-new-phase-of-repression

https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-appoints-agent-involved-in-khashoggi-murder-cover-up-as-president-of-counter-terrorism-court/

Andreas JN466 09:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I was just commenting on when this started - presumably the WMF knew about it then. Doug Weller talk 13:33, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

You said you weren't sure when the sentencing happened, so I thought I'd help you out – Osama was in fact sentenced twice, once to five years by a lower court, and then last August to 32 (!) years by the Specialized Criminal Court on appeal.

It seems he was caught up in a Saudi drive to increase punishments for social media posts critical of the King and the government (other people's sentences were increased as well; the third article linked above mentions 34 and 45 years imprisonment against women whose only crime was tweeting in support of reform.

It's somewhat odd that no one at the WMF appears to have commented on these jail sentences to date, apart from Jimmy Wales in this tweet, which doesn't do the subject justice. Andreas JN466 13:57, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't know those dates. Doug Weller talk 16:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

If it's true that Wikimedia has not shown adequate support to the jailed Wikipedians if they were jailed unjustly, I can only say SHAMEFUL! Thinker78 (talk) 03:10, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Correct indeed. Given the flimsy shameful Wikimedia response even when it received widespread attention, there's good reason to suspect that such problems are more widespread than what were uncovered, across many Wikipedias not excluding here. We are thus forced to consider the possibility that many otherwise useful contents have been lost or otherwise warped due to such interferences.

At this point it's time for all of us to consider content boycott wherein from now on just stop contributing new content here and instead consider using alternative fork sites instead.

Financial cancer

? Let 'em rot!

• Encycla (Git-based)
• Justapedia (Created by User:Atsme, rumors are that it's in closed beta now and may be released sometime this year).

After all it's already a bad idea to put so many eggs in a place for so long. The free knowledge movement doesn't have to been restricted to a single platform. 2A04:2180:0:1:0:0:89E4:DE0D (talk) 18:13, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

You have a strong point. It's not in my mind boycotting Wikipedia/Wikimedia, but I do think that it is important to seek a way to let them know our displeasure for the lack of solidarity and empathy, if that's the case (maybe they took actions in favor of the jailed editors that we don't know). I will follow your advise though about seeking alternatives to contribute in addition to Wikipedia because as you say, the free knowledge movement doesn't have to be restricted to a single platform. User:Dennis Brown, User talk:The Transhumanist, User:GoodDay, User:SMcCandlish Thinker78 (talk) 19:04, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I try to stay away from Middle East-related topics. GoodDay (talk) 19:07, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

If you want to boycott one of the most popular websites in the world in favor of a Conservapedia clone, I say good luck. The rest of us will work on fixing these issues. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:36, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that the Foundation can say much, if you look at the situation beyond the surface. This isn't a simple matter. If you want to know when Freedom of Speech began it's decline, look no further than the Patriot Act. Americans started this. If the self-proclaimed protectors of Free Speech won't even protect their own citizens, it emboldens other countries to clamp down, and that is exactly what has happened over the last 20 or so years. That Saudi Arabia would do this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:11, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

  We should start asking tough questions. For example, how many Wikipedia editors have been jailed or sent to mental hospitals or been victims of "crime" in the US and elsewhere because of their editing efforts? Let's not kid ourselves, Wikipedia is a platform that gets around 300+ million views per day.^[1]Some Wikipedia editors do a lot of investigating that surpass in objectivity that of mainstream journalists. With their findings, they on occassion may inadvertently touch raw nerves in the system. There is no original research, but connecting multiple reliable sources that become their own data sets can be infuriating to state and other actors, as the government of Saudi Arabia and even France have shown.^[2]

  Conspiracy theory? I live in Guatemala, where the government over 4 decades killed more than 100,000 Guatemalans during its internal conflict, many times torturing them to death in what eventually was the Guatemalan genocide. Sometimes even students would get disappeard for talking to the wrong person or reading the wrong book. I mean if the Obama DOJ justified assassination of US citizens,^[3] the questions are how extensive are such and similar actions beyond what is known and how safe are we editing? In solidarity, Thinker78 (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

  WP:SOAPBOX about how oppressed Wikipedia editors are, then you might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your opinions. Thebiguglyalien (talk

  ) 23:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

  @

  WP:CIVIL, one of the characteristics of direct rudeness is ill-considered accusations of impropriety. In light of these arrests, it is perplexing that you want to unduly censor this discussion, when actually Censorship of Wikipedia is a thing. Somehow the identities of those editors were made known to Saudi authorities. If you don't want us to think how things like that can happen or what dangers we may face as editors, that's a bit concerning. Thinker78 (talk)

  00:41, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  Per OP (Doug Weller) initial post, another question I have is, how can we tell if some users are working with external parties to advance the aim of those parties (not talking about simple

  WP:COI issues) and maybe even putting us in danger somehow? Or is it possible that we can notice? What can we do to stay safer while editing? Any guidance about this? I notice that Wikipedia doesn't allow vpn. Could that have been a reason why the Saudi authorities were able to trace more easily the two editors? Thinker78 (talk)

  00:45, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  But, see Wikipedia:Open proxies#Editors who need to use proxies. Donald Albury 02:22, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  There is a request I started because of this discussion. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Allow registered editors to use vpn (open proxies) Thinker78 (talk) 17:16, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Continuing my efforts to post WMF-related stuff here so that people don't have to keep

Thank you. I'll put this on W-Ping but I hope we get a louder reminder when voting opens. Certes (talk) 12:02, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Novem Linguae for the ping here. I will make sure to also ping the messages here in the future. JPBeland-WMF (talk) 23:18, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Note: See Approval of Enforcement Guidelines without first approving a Code of Conduct. (link fixed, new section with revised question) Alsee (talk) 04:28, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Anyone know of any voter guides or summaries of the UCoC? One paragraph summarizing what's in it, and one paragraph summarizing why WMF thinks we need it, would be useful. There's an incredible amount of information to read through on meta and it's a bit overwhelming. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:14, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The first section in m:Universal Code of Conduct, "Why we have a Universal Code of Conduct", gives an overview of what the code of conduct is intended to help enable. The rest of it is not too long so I'd suggest just reading it to see what's in it. m:Universal Code of Conduct/FAQ might also be helpful. Although overall it has many paragraphs, each answer is just one paragraph. The first question briefly covers what triggered the development of the code of conduct. isaacl (talk) 03:07, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Voting is now open. Please register your choice here. Certes (talk) 11:30, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I am ineligible to vote, despite 0 blocks and clearly sufficient activity on enwp. Is there a glitch? Anyone else? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 19:21, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

You should email ucocprojectwikimedia.org and they can hopefully help you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:29, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Vector 2022 deployment update. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:26, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Just a ping here for this message: Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 73#Voting now open on the revised Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct. JPBeland-WMF (talk) 00:15, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Update from Wikimedia Foundation. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:16, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

There is an RfC on whether Vector legacy should be restored as the default skin on the English Wikipedia. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC: Should Wikipedia return to Vector 2010 as the default skin?. Thank you. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Note: the RFC is at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022 -- RoySmith (talk) 18:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at meta:Talk:Community Wishlist Survey § Why I'm so fatigued with the wishlist. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:26, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello Sdkb! You may be interested in this: m:Community_Wishlist_Survey_2023/Larger_suggestions/Dismantling_of_the_annual_Wishlist_Survey_system Theklan (talk) 17:17, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I remember when Wikipedia content began appearing within the first five results of a Google search (a proud moment indeed). Soon after, our content consistently appeared as the first result after any paid ads. This has been the default condition for so long now that I have become accustomed to it, even expectant. Today, I was disconcertingly surprised to see content from "Disney Wiki | powered by Wikia" delivered ahead of Wikipedia content when searching "Michael Clarke Duncan", a subject covered in Wikipedia. If this is the begining of a trend, it is rather ominous in my opinion and I earnestly hope it is a short lived trend that we can help correct. I am keen to see what others say about this, and what others think is the meaning or cause. Thank you. --

Monopolies are rarely a good thing. If there is any particular reason why monopoly-Wikipedia appearing at the top of monopoly-Google should be an exception to this, I can't think of one. Maybe the Wikia article is better? Haven't looked. Don't particularly care. Write good encyclopaedic content, attract readers looking for good encyclopaedic content, and let the readers decide for themselves what they want to read... AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:53, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I mean regardless, Jimbo's probably happy about it :) (note: I don't know how involved Jimbo is involved with Fandom/Wikia nowadays, but he did co-found it). ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 11:01, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes it is losing ground. Especially in niche topics (which we keep out the door) we are starting to see plain better websites than Wikipedia. These websites have more information that people are looking for (read cannot be answered by wikipedia), are 'reliable enough' and many of them are updated faster. And the rest goest to TikTok. This has been happening for a while, but i'm glad more people are starting to notice. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:50, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Our goal is to write the best encyclopedia we can. Google's goal is to sell advertising. Sometimes those goals align, sometimes they don't. Worry about doing what we do and let Google worry about what they do. The alternative is we start down the slippery slope of search engine optimization, which would be a serious mistake. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:22, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

What Roy said. Wikipedia's main job is to write high quality, well-researched encyclopedia articles. If no one read those articles, that would still be our goal. Which is not to say that people shouldn't read them. But we write to write, and let everything else figure itself out. --Jayron32 16:32, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I also agree with what Roy said; with the caveat that I don't believe it comes down to "either or", I perceive a middle ground of other options that we could do, ought do, and ostensibly, should already have done. From such a premise, the problem I associate with letting things resolve themselves, is: it feels like "kicking the can further down the road", procrastinating well into tomorrow things that would have more prudently been resolved yesterday. Having said these, I yield. Best regards and be well. --

John Cline (talk

) 04:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Michael Clarke Duncan is still the top result for me, but Disney Wiki populates the Knowledge Panel, which is surprising. I don't know if I've seen that for anything other than niche topics. I guess there are three considerations here: is Wikipedia doing something differently or otherwise becoming less popular; are other sites doing something to appear higher up in the results; and has the Google algorithm changed in a way that affects Wikipedia. I suspect it's mostly the latter. Unfortunately, one of the big problems with the giant tech companies is they closely guard those processes, making it hard to tell what/if/when something changes (in another tab, I'm writing about how hard it is to study YouTube in part because in addition to the challenge of studying video content at scale, they don't disclose basic statistics about the site and make it really hard to create a sample of videos unfiltered by the recommendation/prioritization algorithms). IIRC Wikipedia's prominence in the rankings dropped somewhat when, first, Google started incorporating more of our content into e.g. the knowledge panel, and second, when companies like Google and Amazon started using our content more via virtual assistants? Not sure, though. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:57, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I think this has it right. I think part of the hope of

Wikimedia LLC was to make providing data easy enough to Google that this wouldn't happen. FWIW, when I searched on Bing, we were the source of the infobox and we were the #1 result on Duck Duck Go (no infobox presented). Best, Barkeep49 (talk

) 17:07, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps relatedly, some searches now use Google's own content for the Knowledge Panel instead of Wikipedia.

talk

) 01:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Michael Clarke Duncan is still the top result for me as well. So that one may not be the best example of Wikipedia's Impending SEO Death

listicles. I find myself adding the word "reddit" to search terms to get away from listicles and blogs and to see what regular people think. –Novem Linguae (talk

) 19:27, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Just a passing comment thast my search, in regular & incognito mode, with and w/out quutes, still gives me Wikipedia as #1. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Our goal is to write good encyclopedia articles? Well, we could broaden it to say that's our means to the end, the end goal being to inform the world, which doesn't happen if the world doesn't read our product. So, maybe a slight unease is appropriate even though it's far from being necessarily the brink of a slippery slope down to the pit of doom of Wikipedia. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:32, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Important followup question: And if so, is that a bad thing? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

If our goal is to inform the world, and somebody else comes up with a better way to do that, we should celebrate the advancement of our goal. Paintings on the cave walls were a tool. Stone tablets were a better tool, as were papyrus scrolls, the printing press, and wikipedia, each in turn. There will be better tools in the future. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:16, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi All,

I would like to bring this scholarly article to your urgent attention: Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939) Even though it's title is somewhat suspicious it describes a very specific problem on English Wikipedia which is tragic and unacceptable.There is already a discussion about it here but I believe it requires attention and action from WMF.

Best wishes, Adam Harangozó (talk) 09:57, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Summary of the issue please?

Probably doesn't belong on this particular noticeboard, btw. This noticeboard is for discussing things that the WMF is involved in. The WMF isn't some high court that can overrule enwiki content disputes. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:56, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

It's about much more than just a "content dispute", and it involves what would today be treated as possible COC violations by a group of editors over several years. Disclosure: I'm one of the editors who were interviewed for this essay. François Robere (talk) 16:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

It reads like a laundry list of past grievances, and it appears most of the links to Wikipedia are malformed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:39, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Again, it's more than that. The essay is two-pronged: one prong is a factual review of several en.Wiki articles on the Holocaust in Poland, which demonstrates a consistent bias towards nationalist Polish narratives; the other is an analysis of the processes and social dynamics that lead to this bias, and why the en.Wiki community and the WMF have failed to address it over the span of years. Most importantly: it highlights some of the community's most glaring blind spots, which leave it vulnerable to certain forms of manipulation and disruptive behavior.

I assume that glitch will be fixed soon enough. In the meanwhile, the links work if you just copy-paste them. François Robere (talk) 21:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Francois Robere, since you participated very extensively in the Icewhiz case, posting comments supporting him, and since you subsequently made numerous efforts to have him rehabilitated and to relitigate the case, even after you became well aware of his extensive harassment of Wikipedians, and since you also apparently provided commentary to the authors of this article, perhaps your opinion here is not particularly useful? Volunteer Marek 03:22, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Piotrus and Levivich also provided commentary to the authors of this article, is their opinion not particularly useful? You are covered extensively in the article, is your opinion not particularly useful? For consistencies sake you should take a step back and let uninvolved editors take it from here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:26, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia being biased towards nationalist narratives is nothing new. I don't see how this is a WMF issue. CMD (talk) 00:14, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

m:Croatian Wikipedia Disinformation Assessment-2021. Levivich (talk) 00:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

en.wiki is not remotely near that. CMD (talk) 03:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

hr.wiki had fundamental issues. This is not that. Curbon7 (talk) 03:58, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

We should put out fires even if they're smaller than the biggest fire we've put out. Levivich (talk) 04:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Crying wolf is not a proof of a fire. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:19, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

So, like they did with the Croatian Disinformation Assessment, let's have the WMF spend some money on an investigator to see if there's a wolf. Levivich (talk) 04:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

They already did spend time and presumably money investigating this (Trust and Safety globally banned Icewhiz for crying said wolf, after all, I assume they have some salaried investigators on the team?). But maybe an independent, neutral investigation by disinterested parties (which is not the way we can describe the essay discussed here) would be good to put this to bed once and for all. I for one would be happy to cooperate with such an effort; I mean, I did get interviewed for this essay already (although sadly for naught, as far as I can tell nothing I tried to clarify or explain has made in into it, hence the clear one-sidedness of the resulting work). Well, in either case, I am sure WMF is aware of this issue, through this venue and likely others. Time will tell if they decide there is anything here to investigate or just a rehash of aspertions by a harasser they've already site banned. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm quite willing to believe we have an issue with POV in articles regarding Poland, we do in a lot of areas. But the interweaving of certain individuals as almost heroically standing against the tide cuts its credible to shreds. Without excusing the behaviour of others, those editors where banned because of their behaviour. Behaviour that went far outside what should be expected. By not handling that issues, or that other editors had or have their own POV issues, the arguments it makes are undermined. Or to put it in a simpler way, my original comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 09:32, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

"Those editors"? Who? They certainly don't portray icewhiz as heroic (see the quote HEB posted), and I'm not aware of anyone else who was banned. I don't see them portraying any banned editors as heroic. Levivich (talk) 12:24, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Sure, that's a very balanced and neutral portayal of Icewhiz's history: "The 2019 Arbitration Committee case ended dismally for defenders of historical accuracy." :P _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:26, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

That's not the only quote, or the only banned editor. I'm not going into names, much like the article should'nt have. Any discussion of it will become bogged down in internecine back and forth, look no further than this discussion. If it had stuck to a scholarly review of the articles and their problems it could have been of great use. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:29, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested Exactly. Most of them were brought to ArbCom already in the past and acted upon (or deemed inactionable). There are some content issues that may be worth discussing on the talk pages for some articles, but regarding "the processes and social dynamics that lead to this bias", this "analysis" is very problematic as it rehashes claims made by a site-banned editor (Icewhiz), claims already reviewed and discarded by said ArbCom proceedings, and ones that were intended to win a content dispute through destroying the reputation of certain editors (hence, the harassment/site-ban conclusion). Disclosure: I'm also one of the editors who were interviewed for and are discussed in this essay. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The authors also conclude that "Icewhiz himself may have strengthened the hand of the distortionists." Its a balanced piece even if you don't like what it has to say about you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:54, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The piece is anything but "balanced". Seriously, that is the last thing this piece is. Volunteer Marek 03:19, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

And you are in a position to judge that objectively because... ? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:27, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh please. The article's authors complain about how "Icewhiz was unfairly banned". Oh really? Faking quotations, lying about sources, turning BLPs into attack pages, using racist language, making false accusations against other users... "unfairly banned"... riiiggghhht. Then the article is, well, pretty much forced, to admit that Icewhiz has been socking like a madmen ever since his ban (that's the "may have strengthened the hand" part. Love that "may" they threw in there. Can't even come out and say it without being mealy mouthed). But they whitewash that too. They only mention his socking. They kind of have to since they use statements of his obvious socks as "evidence" (sic) and because they wish to give some space to our own Levivich here to make an appearance (Levivich complains about people who complain about Icewhiz socking). But what's the part they leave out? Oh yeah! The death threats. The doxing. The posting of detailed personal information of Wikipedia users children. The rape threats against those children. The harassment at work. And all that stuff that really matters. No no no all this poor guy did was just a lil' ol' socking. Such a victim!

"Unfairly banned". "Balanced". Uh huh. I would laugh if this wasn't so messed up. Volunteer Marek 07:03, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Did they reach out to you for an interview? Also I think you should stop pinging Chapmansh, its starting to look like harassment. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:19, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Faking quotations, lying about sources, turning BLPs into attack pages, using racist language, making false accusations against other users are both

WP:BLPVIO without evidence. It's also really, really untoward that you keep trying over and over to connect these authors with rape threats against children. These two people have nothing to do with it, and you're going to get yourself in (more) serious hot water writing such things in public. Levivich (talk

) 17:25, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

(oh yeah, I forgot all about the "create sock puppet accounts which impersonate real life people" part of Icewhiz's "unfair banning") Volunteer Marek 07:31, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The very sentence you cite shows the balance, or the lack of it, by qualifying one side, in editorial tone, as "distortionist", and other, as, by virtue of ommission of such qualifier, as not distortionist. It's a very white and black story. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Spade is spade. Sorry. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:30, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

And proof by assertion is a fallacy. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

50+ pages, 300+ footnotes is more than "assertion". Levivich (talk) 03:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Assertion can be lenghty. To quote from our article on this topic: "The proposition can sometimes be repeated until any challenges or opposition cease, letting the proponent assert it as fact, and solely due to a lack of challengers (argumentum ad nauseam)." _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Levivich, as Icewhiz told us once on twitter, the number of footnotes (or citations) doesn't matter if none of them actually show what they claim they show. Volunteer Marek 06:14, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back you wrote here that G. and K. essay is: - a balanced piece 🤦🏻‍♀️ - Let me confirm that - Do you really believe that it is a %100 balanced? Not even a little unbalanced? Just a little bit? Confirm that %100, yes or no, (if you doin’t mind) 🙂 - GizzyCatBella🍁 08:35, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

IMO that's not how balance works. Its a spectrum not a point. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:48, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I won't say much here, because I don't have time to do justice to such an important topic, but I find the use of the word "intentional" in the title of this piece questionable, to say the least. Various editors of Wikipedia have different intents from each other, but the title seems to say that Wikipedia intends this. Does it mean the WMF, the generality of editors or admins or what?

Phil Bridger (talk

) 16:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

You are right in noting that the title implies that "Wikipedia intends this", which is questionable. Whether this is a deliberate distortion by Wikipedia, or a deliberate distortion by a group of like-minded editors that hijacked Wikipedia, depends largely on what kind of response the Wikipedia community will be able to make. One option is "attention and action from WMF", as suggested in the OP, some kind of independent review and disinformation assessment. Another option is: no response at all, either because this happens all the time or because nothing has happened. Are there other options available? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The article by Grabovsky uses wording like Another form of antisemitism in Wikipedia’s coverage of World War II in Poland..., Wikipedia’s insinuation that Jews played a key role in perpetuating this massacre..., and so on. Those are serious accusations. Is any truth here? I think mostly no. Yes, he is right to some degree. Sure, WP is not an RS, everyone knows that. Furthermore, yes, there are biases. One can reasonably argue about a "leftist bias", "progressive bias", "USA bias", etc. Actually, everyone with specific cultural background (Polish, Russian, American, whatever) introduces a bias, even by selecting certain subjects of their interest for editing. But no, the article by G. uses incorrect reasoning. For example, it says: a contributor Poeticbent made an incorrect edit X, same with other edits by others. Yes, sure, people make lots of more or less incorrect/imperfect edits around here. But this is not a proof of intentional distortions, as Grabovsky incorrectly implies. This is content by amateur contributors who have limited time to contribute. This is not a high quality content by professional historians one would expect to receive as a publication in a journal. WP is not a scientific journal. Every version is wrong version around here. It can be improved, but never made perfect only through collective editing. My very best wishes (talk) 17:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Among other typical bad faith assumptions by Grabovsky: This entire context is tellingly absent from the discussed [WP] article.. Yes, perhaps it is absent because no one included it, but same thing is happening with most pages in WP. Any external expert can select a set of 20 WP pages from the area of his expertise and easily show how bad, biased, uninformative or missing context some of them are. Moreover, even professional historians frequently accuse each other of the same, and perhaps some of them are right. My very best wishes (talk) 19:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

This is all assuming that the criticisms by Grabovsky were valid. It well could be he is wrong about everything. However, being poorly familiar with these subjects, I can not assess it, and leave this to other contributors, for example [2]. My very best wishes (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

You were one of them, were you not, MVBW? You are mentioned eight times in the article. Users who belong to the group that "steered Wikipedia's narrative of Holocaust history away from solid evidence-based research" should take a step back and let uninvolved editors take it from here, as suggested by Horse Eye's Back. At the very least, they should disclose their conflict of interest. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:10, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh man, you never "drop the stick". What COI are you talking about? I do not see it. Can you clarify please? My very best wishes (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

(@My very best wishes 🙂) - @Gitz6666 drop the stick, seriously. People know about your prior conflicts with @My very best wishes and @Volunteer Marek that resulted in you being topic banned. I hope your TP will be vacated soon (you are a valuable contributor in my opinion) but comments like yours above advising people to step back are not necessary now. Drop it pal. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:05, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

This whole thing probably had to be ignored per

WP:DENY. The claims of malice by Grabovsky are wrong and sound like a personal attack. For example, they accuse me of malicious intentions simply because I commented in a few discussions and made this single revert on a page [3]. In addition to comments on talk, I say in edit summary that I "do not see any BLP violations or other reasons to remove" the content. Indeed, I did not see why one should remove content (for example, 2nd para starting from "According to the American Jewish Year Book..."), and how this can be regarded a BLP violation. Saying that, I did not see the edit by P. on page Stawiski [4] that he made 10 years ago. I did not even know that Stawiski exists until today. If I saw that edit, I would talk with P. (exactly as he suggested in edit summary), and that would be quickly fixed. But P. is not around, hence this is all moot. My very best wishes (talk

) 16:46, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Any decisions should be made by uninvolved editors if possible. But if a user's name has been invoked (especially in an external publication), I think they're entitled to say something in response. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree, but where is the line between saying something and making the conversation a continuation of their feud? The vast majority of the contributions here are from editors named in the article. François Robere, Volunteer Marek, Piotrus, My very best wishes, Levivich, and GizzyCatBella (apologies if I missed anyone) are all in the article. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:21, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

This is true but what do you expect? This is one more reflection of how we are allowing an indefinetly banned user, Icewhiz, to still influence Wikipedia content, policies and discussions, almost three years after their site ban. As

WP:OUTTING policy. Volunteer Marek

19:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

You were already asked to stop gratuitously pinging Chapmansh[5], it is really looking like WP:harassment at this point. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry but are you Chapmansh? If Chapmansh wishes to ask me not to ping them then they can do that (I've only did it a few times where it was pertinent). And can I inquire why you find it necessary to reply and comment on almost every single comment I make? This is getting extremely tiresome and is looking like WP:harassment at this point. Volunteer Marek 00:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Unwanted communication which forces a user who apparently does not want to interact with you to interact with you to end the communication is harassment. Unless "almost every" to you means less than 10% that's not an accurate statement, please do not make false accusations. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I got halfway through Grabowski's "article" abstract and just gave up. This isn't an objective view of anything, it is a hit piece on Wikipedia. This doesn't mean that there are no problems (I have no idea) but an "article" like this, which spills it's bias out under the guise of objectivity, isn't how you shed light. But it isn't designed to shed light, it is designed to manipulate the reader. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:41, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

You mean halfway through the article, or halfway through the abstract? Because halfway through the abstract is only like 100 words. Levivich (talk) 18:54, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Levivich I only got through a 1/4 of that hit piece (through the article 🙂 that is) and gave up.- GizzyCatBella🍁 00:12, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

This is a very long article that I've spent most of the day reading. As @

failed verification

from three articles.

The article is about the coverage of articles about the Holocaust in Poland. Its basic thesis is that this subject has been captured by a small group of editors (variously referred to as "nationalists" and "distortionists"), who have worked in close collaboration to push a certain

point of view

onto these articles. An overview of the main points here:

• This group of editors have worked together to promote
  consensus
  over disputed sources where there was none.
• In working together in such close collaboration, these editors have created a
  battleground over this topic, edit warring
  as a means to ensure their control over the subject area and to freeze out any opposing viewpoints. Sometimes this even involved some pretty nasty personal attacks against other editors. This has lead to many editors abandoning the subject out of exhaustion, with some mentioning it has detrimentally affected their mental and physical health.
• Attempts to resolve this long-running conflict via arbitration completely broke down. This was largely due to administrators not wanting to get involved in what they perceived as content disputes, but also involved a couple cases of admins wanting to wash their hands of the situation - thus letting the offending parties off with barely a slap on the wrist. This has lead to a disillusionment in the arbitration process by a number of long-term editors.
• The authors suggested that editors become involved in the subject in order to refocus these articles on
  synthesis of material and abusive behaviours by long-term users. They specifically proposed that the Wikimedia Foundation initiate an investigation like the one regarding the Croatian Wikipedia
  .

Personally I agree with the conclusions drawn by the authors, based on the evidence that they have provided. I think this is something that needs to be taken very seriously and agree that an independent investigation into this subject is desperately needed. Should such an investigation take place, I may even be in favour of a broad topic-ban for involved parties (on both sides) until a conclusion can be drawn. Regardless, this should be taken as an opportunity to strengthen our arbitration processes, our mechanisms to counter systemic bias and our zero-tolerance policies.

In this thread, it appears that many of the involved parties mentioned in the article are now here attempting to shape discussion about this conflict. This includes four editors from the so-called "distortionist group" (GizzyCatBella, Piotrus, My very best wishes, Volunteer Marek) and two editors that attempted to confront them in the past (François Robere, Levivich). As other editors have suggested, I would really strongly urge involved parties disengage from this discussion, in order to allow it to take its course without disruption.

Apologies for the long post. Summing up such a long article is hard and I've probably missed some stuff. -- Grnrchst (talk) 19:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

"I agree with the conclusions drawn by the authors, based on the evidence that they have provided" - Grnrchst, the links which are supposed to "provide evidence" in the article don't even work. Furthermore, as has been pointed out several times already, almost all of the diffs used by the authors are the same diffs that user Icewhiz presented in multiple venues, or that have been presented by other editors, they have been looked at, examined, administrated and in virtually none of these cases have Icewhiz's claims been confirmed. Really, as it turned out it was Icewhiz, along with some others who were found to promote fringe theories, used unreliable sources (especially in BLPs) and engaged in original research. In this article however, the authors for reasons only known to themselves, took Icewhiz's claims at face value, despite the fact that they were aware that he had been topic banned, and then site banned for extensive and vile harassment of other Wikipedia editors.

As far as "involved parties disengaging from this dispute", no, that's not a legitimate request. When you are falsely accused of something so serious, you have a right to defend yourself. And in fact that should be expected. Volunteer Marek 19:31, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The links work, you just have to copy-paste them into your browser instead of using the auto-generated link. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Mmm, no, that doesn't work either. However if you read the link you can figure out the page it's referring to and then go and find the page yourself. Either way, these diffs don't show what the authors claim they show. Volunteer Marek 19:56, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Don't tell me what does or doesn't work for me. I'm sorry it doesn't work for you. Copy pasting works on my browser and on wikipedia [6]. Since they work on wikipedia you could get around your browser malfunction by just copy pasting them into a sandbox and using the preview function. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:02, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't telling you what works for you. I stated that it didn't work for me. Now. Can you please drop this and just in general alter your approach to our discussions? They always end up being stochastically enervating and pointless. Volunteer Marek 20:10, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Does the wikipedia link not work for you? I don't understand how solving your problem and letting you assess the source for the first time is stochastically enervating and pointless. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:14, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Grnrchst. That's a better summary of the article than I could have written, and I will follow your suggestion and disengage from this discussion. Levivich (talk) 19:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I've only looked at a fraction of the document. Some of the claims stack up, others don't. Three examples (quotes from the paper in red):

1. "Another form of antisemitism in Wikipedia’s coverage of World War II in Poland comprises fantastical accusations of Jews as perpetrators of wide-scale crimes. In March 2011, in an article about the northeastern Polish town of Stawiski, Poeticbent wrote that [...] 'Ethnic Polish families were being rounded up by newly formed Jewish militia, and deported to Siberia.'" Introduced by long-blocked
   User:Lewinowicz in 2011, reverted back into the article by User:Poeticbent after it was deleted by an IP in 2013, edit summary "r/v unexplained removal of sourced material, please clarify in talk". As explained years later at AE by User:Ealdgyth, this wording took unacceptable liberties with the source (which maybe wasn't that brilliant a source to begin with). Then again, I would have been more open to the argument made by User:Volunteer Marek in that AE discussion that User:GizzyCatBella only reverted to an old stable version to edit it, and minutes later had already deleted
   the offending passage. Yet the paper celebrates GizzyCatBella's resulting AE sanction as a rare instance of the system working.
2. "Wikipedia’s coverage of Polish–Jewish relations contains both subtle and overt prejudices against Jews. [...] Take the claim in the ‘History of the Jews in Poland’ article, that Jews have ‘specific physical characteristics.’" The phrase "physical characteristics" was actually copied from the holocaustsurvivors.org encyclopedia entry for "Hidden Jews". This describes the difficulties Jews had trying to blend in: Appearance-Jews with the physical characteristics of curly black hair, dark eyes, dark complexion, a long nose were in special jeopardy; The problem was that so much had been copied verbatim from holocaustsurvivors.org and other sources that back in 2009, User:Moonriddengirl slapped a big Copyvio template on it. In response, User:Piotrus spent half an hour doing copyright cleanup work, in the process shortening the sentence Jews with the physical characteristics of curly black hair, dark eyes, dark complexion, a long nose were in special jeopardy, which plagiarised holocaustsurvivors.org, to Jews with the specific physical characteristics were particularly vulnerable, thus establishing the wording that offended Grabowski and Klein almost 14 years later.
3. The article claims that "the Polish Underground State’s wartime Underground courts investigated 17,000 Poles who collaborated with the Germans; about 3,500 were sentenced to death. Some of the collaborators––szmalcowniks––blackmailed Jews and their Polish rescuers and assisted the Germans as informers, turning in Jews and Poles who hid them, and reporting on the Polish resistance." This excerpt implies that the Polish underground was preoccupied with penalizing the blackmailers of Jews. In reality, no more than seven out of thousands of the people involved in this activity were actually sentenced to death and executed I am not sure the passage did imply that to the reader, all the more so if you look at how it came about: what Piotrus inserted seemed more related to what preceded it.

To my mind, based on what I've reviewed so far, the paper is a mixed bag. It points out some real problems that need urgent addressing, but is not a gold standard source where every imputed motive or every account of every content dispute necessarily stacks up to scrutiny. What sucks is that it takes hours to trawl through edit histories to figure out what really happened – in some cases ten, fifteen years ago. --Andreas JN466 23:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah these are all accurate summaries of these incidents. I would be genuinely interested in hearing which parts you think are claims which "stack up". Also your observation about "What sucks is that it takes hours to trawl through edit histories to figure out what really happened" is exactly on point. It takes a single sentence to make a false accusation. It takes paragraphs and hours of time to refute it. As they say, by the time the truth gets a hearing, the lie has already traveled across the world. This is precisely what people like Icewhiz always counted on. Volunteer Marek 23:48, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The sentence "Ethnic Polish families were being rounded up by newly formed Jewish militia, and deported to Siberia", sourced to [7], was unacceptable.

The wording "Jews with the specific physical characteristics were particularly vulnerable" was not good. :/ It can easily be construed as anti-Semitic and will have sounded like that to some readers. (I don't think that was the intent, but it's disappointing that it stayed in the article for fourteen years.) Andreas JN466 00:10, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah yes that incident. Here are the two edits: 16:26 [8] and then, 8 minutes later, self reverted [9]. Much like with the GCB incident you describe above Icewhiz, and now G&K, would only show the first edit but not the almost immediate self reversion. The phrase itself is from here (pg. 63), a book by Dov Levin, an Israeli historian and jurist, with the one difference that it says "local Poles" rather than "ethnic Polish families". One can argue that it is cherry picked or irrelevant to this article which is indeed why I removed it myself. Volunteer Marek 00:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Grabowski and K. didn't understand that there is an edit history button for each article open for them to look at. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:33, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps this will help. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC) 👍

I agree with the general point made by Andreas: the article points out some real problems but is not a "gold standard source", it can occasionally be flawed. But the analysis in No. 3 does not convince me. It seems to me that the article's reading of this diff [10] is justified if one takes into account not only the resulting text, but also the text that was removed. After the edit, the szmalcowniks become a subset of the 3,500 who were sentenced to death. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:50, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree it can be read that way. I am just not sure that that was the intent. Basically, the edit did two things: (1) It added figures to the statement about executions or death sentences, and it reversed the order of the two sentences (the other sentence remained almost unchanged).

I am just not sure what motivated the reversal of the two sentences. To my mind, it might as well have been to bring the death sentences into closer proximity with the last sentence of the preceding paragraph, "While many bureaucrat and police reluctantly followed German orders, some acted as agents for the Polish resistance". If so, then the statement about the blackmailers following on the heels of that sentence may just have been an unintentional side-effect. I have committed far greater blunders editing – stuff like this happens. Anyway, that was my thinking. It's hard to know what went through my own head five years ago, even harder to know what went through someone else's. Andreas JN466 01:10, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Just a few minor questions regarding this particular example: 1) what and whose exactly was unacceptable (the edit by the sock? if so, why, given your analysis I am replying to?) 2) can we conclude that the unacceptabe edit was "an intentional effort to distort history"? Also, for the clarity, you may want to edit your interesting post above with three examples to clarify if the analysis you provide shows claims that "stack up" or don't. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:31, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I thought the edit by the (apparent) sock was indefensible. The source says at one point that a total of 22,353 Poles, including entire families, were deported to Siberia from the regions of Łomża and Białystok. Then, over 600 words later, the source mentions that [...] Musiał found that in many cases Jewish militia members directly participated in mass arrests and deportation actions.

The sock turned that into Ethnic Polish families were being rounded up by newly formed Jewish militia, and deported to Siberia. That doesn't seem like a neutral summary of the source. The revert by Poeticbent was at the very least a bad error but I know people will sometimes reflexively revert IP edits that appear to delete sourced material. Still, it's better to actually look at the source before doing so. If Poeticbent was aware of what the source said and didn't say, then their edit was as poor as the sock's. Andreas JN466 16:24, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

If.

WP:AGF is, however, the recommended way to look at this kind of stuff, isn't it? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here}

16:30, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about those edits, VM. I was talking about [11] (unacceptable, by a sock blocked twelve years ago) and [12] (a revert of a removal of that passage by an IP). That sentence Ethnic Polish families were being rounded up by newly formed Jewish militia, and deported to Siberia then lasted five years, until User:Icewhiz took it out, which was the right thing to do. :/ Andreas JN466 00:55, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, I agree with that. Here is the thing though. G&K's article has a kind of implicit assumption of "collective responsibility" sneaked into its presentation. It assumes that if one, supposedly Polish, editor makes a "bad edit", like... eight years ago, then somehow, currently active editors who are Polish are to blame for that. This kind of approach blaming people on basis of shared nationality is deeply problematic. I am not responsible for what some sock blocked twelve years ago did, whatever the nationality of that sock was (and if this was a Loosemark sock then that guy wasn't even Polish afair!) but G&K structure their narrative to imply that this is somehow the case.

Nota bene: these diffs are the FIRST diffs that Icewhiz presented in his request for case at ArbCom back in May 2019 [13]. If you're wondering why Icewhiz was presenting diffs from editors who hadn't made edits to Wikipedia in very long time... yeah. Volunteer Marek 01:33, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, interesting. Andreas JN466 09:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

If there is distortion it is because we are reflecting what RS say. It is not "intentional" and I consider the claim to be highly offensive. Slatersteven (talk) 11:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I know very little about the Icewhiz case as I wasn't very active on the en.wiki at the time.And to be honest, I don't really feel like reading these endless discussions :) But to be serious, I think that the topic cannot be completely ignored, because Grabowski is a name, and the Journal of the Holocaust Research is not Gazeta Wyborcza or Haaretz, and this article itself is a high level RS. The more so that in several places he points out the actual deficiencies of the articles, but in general the tone of the whole article is full of reluctance and negative attitude, there are also some factual errors or a very one-sided presentation of the matter. It seems to me that part of this can be explained by ignorance of how Wikipedia works (i.e. that sources essentially have the same value unless they are unquestionably considered unreliable, and that it is easier to add something new than to remove something old or rewrite it).

In any case, I read the article paragraph by paragraph and address the individual objections to indvidual articles. I did so in Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust, I'll try to do it with the other articles. Marcelus (talk) 20:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to address these Marcelus. Your efforts are appreciated and I hope they can lead towards much improved articles. :) -- Grnrchst (talk) 09:02, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @Grnrchst for the summary! Is there an essay/guidelines of things to look out for for editors interested in cleaning up these biases? On one hand, we can call/request experts to give insights, but in the meantime, we all have a collective responsibility to spot what may be weasel wording/dubious sourcing and at least request/re-examine them. I really enjoyed this essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-04-26/Op-ed which discusses the Myth of the clean Wehrmacht and how it permeates on Wikipedia, which later became a focus within Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. With all due respect to the other editors bickering here, if you have active content disputes, please raise them (ideally on talk page/wiki projects), but no one really cares about re-digging old interpersonal grievances. If there are active conduct issues, raise them at AN/I. I also think it's worth reaching out to the author of this article, to at least show them the discussion, specifically that some of the problematic content has bee quickly reverted, or more banally problematic, rephrased/trimmed from even worse text, without being adequately addressed. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Maybe @K.e.coffman who cleaned up the Myth... article (which I translated to pl wikl a while back, surprisingly it is not a big thing in Polish historiography) can link to some other material; their OP-ED is excellent, just like the work they did.

Realistically, I think we can just look at the issues the authors raise, leaving aside the (sigh) "old interpersonal grievances". Once these are filtered, a few likely errors or omissions will remain. Editors have already started discussions on the talk pages of some affected articles, and a bit of content has been changed already. I guess it helps the coverage is in English; the primary author (G.) raised pretty much the same points two years ago in a Polish newspaper, and I copied his review of the relevant articles, with notes about the possible issues, to our talk pages (see Talk:Szmalcownik#Grabowski's_press_review_of_this_article and several others), sadly, most of this did not generate any action back then. Now we are seeing a bit more interest, which is good (more eyese... etc.). As for reaching to the author, good lack. I tried back them, replying to his newspaper article with my own, and invited him to edit Wikipedia or have his students do it, but you can see from the current dramu how well did my efforts end. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Arbcom case

Note an Arbcom case has been initiated by Arbcom itself. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Holocaust_in_Poland ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

"Wikipedia’s ‘Supreme Court’ tackles alleged conspiracy to distort articles on Holocaust" Levivich (talk) 20:24, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

"Supreme Court" Huh? I can see the connection. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:35, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

From Arbitration Committee: The English Wikipedia's ArbCom acts as a court of last resort for disputes among editors and has been described in the media as "quasi-judicial" and a Wikipedian "High or Supreme Court", although the Committee states it is not and does not pretend to be a formal court of law. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:37, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh. Alright then. I"m very unfamiliar with Arbcom (and frankly don't want to be familiar with it unless it's necessary) so I thought that was simply the media comparing a Wikipedia process to something they're more familiar with. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

No it's the media doing exactly that and then our article reflecting that the media does that. But at least this one put Supreme Court in quotes. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah fair enough. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

The paper’s reach was fueled by its analysis, unprecedented in the academic literature on Wikipedia, and its finding that a dedicated group has for some 15 years manipulated a source of information used by millions in ways that lay blame for the Holocaust on Jews and absolve Poland of almost any responsibility for its record of antisemitism. Do these people really believe what they write? Seriously, does anyone seriously believe that Wikipedia has been saying for 15 years that the victims of the Holocaust are responsible for the Holocaust? Marcelus (talk) 20:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I think so. For example, Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League tweeted "This is a good article about the pernicious efforts of Polish nationalist revisionism on Wikipedia articles related to the Holocaust in Poland. I've encountered similar revisionists numerous times over the years." [14] Levivich (talk) 20:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Pure madness. Even the Grabowski and Klein article demonstrated literally a few actual misrepresentations that could be considered misleading, and in rather peripheral articles. The rest are simply articles that are not of a very good standard, like 90% of Wikipedia Marcelus (talk) 21:02, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Three and a half years ago, historian Havi Dreifuss, director of Yad Vashem's Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland, talked about Poland and Holocaust Wikipedia articles:

I saw articles changing dramatically, in front of my students' very eyes ... In recent years, when I examined certain articles with them, I noticed that the text and some of the visual aspects were altered. Holocaust revisionism in Wikipedia deserves to be studied in its own right ... in the [English] article on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the fighting forces [that battled the Germans] are misrepresented in the info box on the side. A reader that is not well versed in history could think that it was a joint struggle by four equally important organizations - two Polish groups and two Jewish ones. But that’s not true, the uprising was the result of Jewish actions and the Jewish organizations led the fighting, while Polish groups played an extremely marginal role. There are other much more serious examples.

I think this is about more than articles that are not of a very good standard. The infobox at Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was fixed after that article quoting Dreifuss came out on October 4, 2019. Look at the infobox on Oct 1, 2019 and compare it to the infobox at Warsaw Ghetto Uprising now. These examples that historians point out are real. And just like the cleanup that happened after the 2019 article came out, there is a cleanup that's happening now (which you and I are both participating in). "The proof is in the pudding": the changes made to the articles, after problems are pointed out, are proof that the problems existed in the first place. Levivich (talk) 21:24, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

One aspect that I haven't seen raised at all yet is the coverage in Polish Wikipedia. For example, Grabowski and Klein say that even after addition of the Obama and Razem episodes, "Muszyński’s [English Wikipedia] biography, over 50 percent of which is authored by Piotrus,[156] continues to read as a list of accolades", the implication being that this is a severe indictment of English Wikipedia. So what exactly does it say about the Polish (or English?) Wikipedia that pl:Wojciech Muszyński reads entirely like a (far longer) list of accolades, without any mention of controversy at all? Pundit, do you have any thoughts on this? --Andreas JN466 21:31, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

In his 2020 newspaper article, Grabowski explicitly said that Polish Wikipedia is "better" than English... shrug. From [15]: In the Polish Wikipedia, the above entries are presented in a much more objective way, without absurdities and distortions. At home, they are simply subjected to quite rigorous scrutiny by historians, people familiar with professional literature and facts. Meanwhile, in the English version, "editors" can bend them and write nonsense... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:53, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

That's actually interesting. Why is it that among the "collaborators" of the German Reich, the Blue Police, which did not take part in the suppression of the ghetto uprising, but only guarded the area around it, is mentioned, while the actual participation of the Home Army and the Communist People's Guard is omitted? I don't know what was the participation of the Sonderdienst, but both Sonderdienst and the Blue Police were not collaborationist formations, but German ones. So they shouldn't be addressed as such. I think we should discuss this on the talk page of the article. But this example already shows that we are not dealing with misrepresentation here, just a different point of view.Marcelus (talk) 21:47, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. When the head of Yad Vashem's Center for Holocaust in Poland says "X" and a Wikipedia editor says "not X", that is not "just a different point of view" because only one of those people is a reliable source, an expert in the field. Levivich (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't of course talking about mine POV, but about different historians that can see things differentely than Dreifuss. Also I'm not arguing against her really. She is absolutely right that AK, GL should not be shown in the same way as ŻOB or ŻZW. But that doesn't mean they should be left out. They can be added with the annotation "Supported by:" for example. Marcelus (talk) 21:59, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes that's true, and you're also right that it's really a matter for the article talk page. But to answer your question, do people really believe this? Yes, some very qualified people believe this, like Dreifuss of Yad Vashem and Pitcavage of the ADL. (And Levivich of Wikipedia.) Levivich (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

And that's pretty sad really, but I guess it's a result of the imposed narrative Marcelus (talk) 22:05, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

It's much sadder if it's true. If it turns out to all be a bunch of BS, that would be the happy ending. The sad ending would be if it's true. Levivich (talk) 22:10, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

My only comment on this entire incident will be to say that everyone is biased, to varying extents. Even academics and even field experts are biased, particularly in such an emotional and deeply personal field as the Holocaust. It is very difficult to push back against a scholar writing about the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective such as Grabowski for having factual inaccuracies because of how pervasive anti-Semitic tropes and conspiracies are. Concurrently, it is very difficult to push back against scholars writing about the Holocaust from a Polish perspective for having factual inaccuracies because of how mainstream Polish revisionism about the Holocaust is. I do not envy the position ArbCom has been placed in. Curbon7 (talk) 18:14, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Universal Code of Conduct revised enforcement guidelines vote results. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:20, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I am thinking of transcoding large MPEG videos like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:My_wish.mpg and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TRAPS-Brao_people.mpg to a better format like VP8 or VP9. What do you think? -Yuhong (talk) 02:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

This belongs on Commons. This noticeboard is for discussions of the relationship between the English Wikipedia and the Foundation. Donald Albury 14:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

All videos are already transcoded to vp8 and vp9 automatically. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:25, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at

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This newsletter includes two key updates about the Editing team's work:

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The Editing team is nearly finished with this first phase of the Talk pages project. Nearly all new features are available now in the Beta Feature for Discussion tools.

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The Editing team is beginning a project to help new editors of Wikipedia. It will help people identify some problems before they click "Publish changes". The first tool will encourage people to add references when they add new content. Please watch that page for more information. You can join a conference call on 3 March 2023 to learn more.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to ARamadan-WMF because I think this is likely the best way to get more members of the community involved. I don't want to speak for you, so maybe you could explain? This page is almost guareenteed to get more eyes than my Signpost essay (views usually fade quickly over time although the talk page got more engagement than usual even then). Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:29, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Clovermoss!

There are two points we would like to announce:

-We are having our first office hour on the 24th of March at 5 pm UTC; please find all the details on how to join and enjoy the conversation about the current features and the roadmap we are working on from here.

-Also, we are working on an anti vandalism tool for Android; we would like to invite whoever could be interested in testing the first iteration of the patrolling tool designs. Your input at this stage will allow us to improve the tool before development as well as gather important feedback for the second iteration of the tool.

Please email or ping me if you are interested to join us! ARamadan-WMF (talk) 12:08, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to ping people who commented at the Signpost talk page to see if anyone's interested: Neiltonks, HJ Mitchell, dlthewave, Bilorv, TheDJ, LumonRedacts, Jahaza, jengod, epolk, and TadejM. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:21, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@Clovermoss can you link to your Signpost essay, because I can't remember what this is about? Jahaza (talk) 23:56, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jahaza: Of course: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-01-01/Essay. It's okay if your interest doesn't extend beyond reading this, I just figured it was worth a shot to try. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:47, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia Talk:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022 § Proposal for next steps following the closure of the Vector 2022 RfC. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 22:39, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at meta:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024/Draft/Product & Technology. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:35, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Followup: If you were interested in that notification, then you're probably interested in "part 2" of this Annual Planning work from the product and technology departments: The draft Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

This was published today and represents a more complete, tabular, draft version of all the priorities for the work of these departments' teams for the 2023-24 annual plan. Please bring your comments and feedback to the relevant subsections on the talkpage. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Upcoming WMF fundraising campaign in India. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like they'll be hosting a Vector 2022 zoom meeting. From this diff:

We would like to propose a session with Selena, our CPTO, and some of our staff to talk together about how the Vector process has gone, hear thoughts from the community on the current plan, and plan the future of software decision-making together. We can also take some time to go over our current prototype and other plans for improvements to the skin in the future. This session will take place on Thursday, April 13th at 18:30 UTC on Zoom (click here to join / dial by your location). We look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments. Thank you! OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

–Novem Linguae (talk) 20:49, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

See meta:Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024/Draft/Product & Technology § The draft Objectives and Key Results are now published ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:34, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Here's a more direct link. meta:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024/Draft/Product & Technology/OKRs. Happy reading. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

You both beat me to it! :-) If you've other places you'd recommend I notify, please ping me. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I've already mentioned this on

WP:AN, where WE1:2 is of primary interest. -- RoySmith (talk)

15:33, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at meta:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:50, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Elections Committee: Call for New Members. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:52, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Even though climate change is considered as the biggest threat I do not see much about it in the main page of Wikipedia. Some news outlets not so much neutral, silence it from their reasons, but I do not think Wikipedia should follow them. The main page of Wikipedia has around 125 millions pageviews per month so it can be compared to BBC or CNN, it is important.

I will try to submit news at least those who are in the consensus, in the category "in the news" but I think it will be a little bit difficult to express the importance of the issue with this, because:

• I admit that even though it is considered as the biggest threat it will look strange if for example, 80% of news will be about it as in all other news outlets the situation is different.

• It is not so much "newsy" event: the weather is getting worse today, it got worse yesterday and will probably get worse tomorrow.

• It is hard to find an event in the news completely unrelated to climate change but it is not always easy to explain the links.

So I has 2 ideas:

FIRST IDEA:

Almost all large companies in the world have something about their environmental footprint on their site. Including digital like Youtube. The fossil fuel company ExxonMobil has it in the top of its main page. Bayer also. So why not Wikipedia? It will be honorable for Wikipedia and for Wikimedia Foundation if it will put a feature about it in the main page, with link to a page with detailes.

Something like:

" Wikipedia is part of Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia foundation is caring about Sustainability and stopping climate change. It trying to lower its environmental impacts.. for this it is doing... The total emissions on 2022 were 2,955 metric ton of Co2... while during this year environmental pages in Wikipedia only included in WikiProject Climate Change has 346 millions views... for more information look here"

The link that I put is to a special page about environmental footprint of Wikimedia. It includes the report of 2022 from where I take the numbers.

SECOND IDEA:

In the Main page of Wikipedia at the bottom of the cathegory "In the news" there is a category "ongoing events". I think we should enter below this line another line:

" Permanently ongoing event: Climate change".

It is really a permanently ongoing event. From one side it is not always has "breaking news", but from other side while other issues loom and then dissapear, it is constantly present. And it is enough important if only the pages in Wikiproject climate change have 346,000,000 pageviews per year, and climate change exist sometimes in the list of 25 most viewed articles (for example one month ago).

What do you think about it?

--Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 13:53, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

While I absolutely agree with your sentiment, it is simply not appropriate for Wikipedia to be pushing any one point of view, especially on the main page. It is appropriate for WMF to be thinking about climate change. Their servers consume power. They fly employees around the world for meetings. These activities have impact on the world's climate. But WMF is not enwiki. This project is an encyclopedia which steers clear of endorsing or supporting any political or social issues. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:15, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Where have we come as a society where supporting sustainability plus preventing imminent and catastrophic climate change is something that is considered "political"? ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

The user page, talk page, and edit history of this account bring me pause. This account looks like an

WP:ADVOCACY that's not sufficiently fluent in English. Thebiguglyalien (talk

) 22:58, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

See m:Sustainability Initiative. Frostly (talk) 04:24, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I think you should just find a concrete news story such as the wildfires in the Mediterranean region and write about it for

WP:ITN Andre🚐

15:57, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@Gnangarra, @JVillagomez (WMF), and @MIskander-WMF, I find it rather disgraceful that the Wikimedia Foundation accepted only 197 of the 1209 completed scholarship applications for this year's Wikimania conference, or 16%. While I recognize that travel scholarships aren't cheap, I presume that a sizable portion of the applicants are heavily involved in Wikimedia projects, devoting many hours a week to volunteer work. Wikimania scholarships are one of the few ways the WMF can use its ample financial resources to show tangible appreciation to volunteers and aid participation in the movement. You could have afforded to assist more than 16% of applicants, and it's disappointing that you deemed the expense not worthwhile when you put together your budget. I would appreciate a response from you on this topic. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:58, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Sdkb Chiming in here as part of the team at the Foundation that work with each year's Wikimania hosts. The Foundation sponsors the whole event—not just the scholarships—and in this year's Annual Plan, despite reducing expenses across the Foundation, funding for Wikimania increased. Not to undermine any disappointment that any applicant may feel for not having been selected, of course that’s completely valid and understandable, but it does feel relevant to mention that this year there are ~200 scholarships, around 66% more than the ~120 from the last in-person Wikimania in 2019. Together with each year’s Core Organizing Team, the Foundation always thinks about how to spend the funds to reach the most Wikimedians possible, because we completely agree with you that recognizing people for their contributions is critical. This year, that meant increasing the number of scholarships that could be awarded by the volunteer subcommittee, working to keep virtual registration free despite the costs of the virtual event, and working to keep the in-person ticket subsidized. I know it's of course still disappointing for anyone who wanted to attend in person and didn’t get selected. I really do hope those people will consider applying again for future Wikimanias. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 16:21, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF), "it was even worse last time" is not exactly a strong justification. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:39, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

"it was even worse last time" is not what was said, ELappen said despite all the people losing jobs, all projects being ended the WMF has increased funding for scholarships and for other Wikimania expenses so as many people as possible can be supported in attending. This year its all online and interactive, not just in person as well which is a significant new cost that wasnt part of 2019, while everyone would like to travel everyone can still be there. Gnangarra 00:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

It's always been competitive, I've been rejected atleast twice or thrice, it's easy to look at the paltry number and think it's very low compared to the entire population, but scholarships are, at the end of the day, competitive. You have to demonstrate why it's needed for you to receive one, sure it would be great if more of us could attend, but I don't think there's added incentive in keeping numbers low, it's a purely logistical decision in the end. --qedk (t 愛 c) 10:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): this year there are ~200 scholarships, around 66% more than the ~120 from the last in-person Wikimania in 2019 - the 2019 figures break down full vs. partial scholarships. Were the proportions the same this time? It'd be interesting to see those proportions by geographic area, too. I'm curious if the goal is to select recipients based on involvement/contributions and give them the best chance of being able to attend, or to maximize the number of scholarships/attendees by granting full scholarships just to those who wouldn't need an expensive flight. Probably some mix, I suppose. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:28, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd also like to generally agree with Sdkb. It's great that the foundation has increased spending on Wikimania, but I'd argue it's long been underfunded and still is. It's the main event for getting the international community together, learn from each other, foster a shared sense of purpose, involve people in discussions that affect the movement as a whole, etc. We're otherwise just on our computers talking to faceless usernames. A few of us live in places with robust local meetup groups, but not everyone has that. Even if everyone did, Wikimania is where those local groups connect with each other and where we can meet everyone who doesn't live nearby. Wikimania should be one of the primary ways the foundation expresses that it values the community -- it should be huge. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:08, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• I would just throw in my hat to say that in-person meetings are extremely important to community building, and should be a priority. You do work with someone differently, and have a higher level of implicit confidence when you've broken bread. GMG^talk 13:53, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  I agree, and any of you who are in London on the second Sunday of the month would be welcome to join us. We can and do have meetups that have zero budget - I think that Wikimedia UK bought some nachos about a hundred meetups ago when we combined a London meetup with a WMUK AGM. But Wikimania is special because of its scale, and its ability to reach across geographic and other boundaries. ϢereSpielChequers 07:57, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• TBH somewhere between 10% and 20% seems about right, the key is to make sure that the percentage doesn't fall as applications increase. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Why would it be based on a % of applicants? By that logic, if there were only 10 applicants, and they're all great, we'd only give a scholarship to one regardless of the amount of money available? There's not real scarcity here. Nor is the scarcity the number of qualified applicants. If 400 out of 1100 applicants were qualified, what would the justification be for only admitting 200? The $ is there. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:43, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Presumably the number of applicants will increase annually. Can you provide some documents for your assertion that "The $ is there" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-06-26/Special report or basically half of the Signpost articles Jayen466, et al. has written over the last decade. The point is the WMF can afford to allocate more to Wikimania, bringing more of the community together, and that the conference is presently underfunded. It could simply decide that it's worth supporting the broader community in that way. What "documents" are you looking for? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:40, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Most charitable organizations can afford to allocate more to throwing parties and conferences... The question is should they? We're an online community, there is no actual need to get anyone together. The broader community doesn't attend Wikimania, that is not support for the community at large. From what I can tell Wikimania is well funded, what makes you say its underfunded? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:49, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• The goal should not be to reach any particular number but rather to have enough funding to be able to support every sufficiently well-qualified applicant. The scholarship committee is clearly unwilling to provide anything more than token transparency about this topic, but if they were, I would be curious to know how many applicants were either admins or had more than 10,000 edits (the rough floor for admin consideration). That's obviously far from a perfect proxy, but it'd at least give a sense of the pool. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 14:45, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'd caution against relying on metrics. 10k is a rough expectation for enwiki, but not on most projects, and even here there are a lot of people with edit counts smaller than mine who spend a lot more time than me volunteering in various ways. It should be a qualitative evaluation first. Edit count is a fine data point, but not enough on its own (even if the number is very high -- it's more about who would benefit most from this sort of thing and who would contribute most to this sort of thing IMO). What is clear to me, based on the number of people I've talked to over the years whose applications were rejected it's clear there's no shortage of people applying with experience and involvement, who would also benefit from and contribute to the conference. If the Sdkbs and Qedks of the world are getting outright rejected, it's underfunded. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:56, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, the evaluation should absolutely be qualitative. When it comes to that, I hope that the scholarship committee gives due weight to online contributions, not just offline affiliate work. The limited info released about the evaluation process this year (e.g. +1 bonus point for supporting outreach, judging competitions, +1 bonus point if they are looking to make connections to establish a project like a Wiki Loves after the event, or create an affiliate, with no bonus points for online equivalents) makes me suspect that that is not currently happening. Perhaps that's to be expected, given that being on the scholarship committee is affiliate-type work that will naturally be filled by affiliate-type editors. Still, it's a lost opportunity to bridge the cultural divide between the online editor community and the affiliate world, and Wikimania would benefit from more presence of the online editor community. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:29, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I see you have an axe to grind with the scholarship committee, if you wouldn't mind limiting your response to me to what I said I would appreciate it. Completely meeting the needs of the qualified applicant in a scholarship setting where there is no limit on the number of applicants is simply not possible, not with a billion dollars could that be made to work (if you've got ten we can talk). Its a nice idea, but its not very practical. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• I am unconvinced there is any benefit to the vast majority of readers and editors in having in-person Wikimania at all. A better use of donor's money, which would actually have an impact on editors and readers, would be plowing the money into significantly improved software (e.g. the mobile version is still not fit for purpose). Or a trial effort to hire professional mediators to try to resolve complicated disputes. And/or training existing editors to do so. Or expanding the laudable WP library initiative even more, to even more directly connect editors with references. Wikimania is primarily a fun little mini-Davos for the WMF elite, and scholarships - even if tripled or quadrupled - are just a way of expanding the elite slightly. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:46, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  I agree. A better use of the money would be to make the product better and continue investing in the tech infrastructure. I've been using the new skin and I think it's a net improvement now that they've worked out a few of the kinks with the inner window size and margins. I will note that a lot of people in the community offered a big petition to the foundation asking for moderation tools for new page patrol. There's also work needed for citation management tools. Or better tools to stop sockpuppetry and deal with IPV6 abuse. It's cool that the foundation is funding some conferences too, but it's largely a PR feel-good thing in my view (I've not attended Wikimania but I've been to the NYC meetup years ago). Not to mention there's still an active pandemic in much of the world that recently rebounded off a bottom and started rising again. So personally I'm satisfied as a volunteer that the foundation is funding some travel. I'm sure if there were any specific cases of individuals who wanted to go but couldn't due to financial issues could bring it up and maybe an exception could be made, or help extended, if there is support and a good reason. Andre🚐 15:56, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  +1 --qedk (t 愛 c) 15:58, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  Shoot. It's still better than spending a zillion years on a code of conduct that most people on most project aren't even aware of. GMG^talk 16:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  UCoC is creeping its way into block and global lock rationales, too. Not sure how I feel about that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:55, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  +1 Levivich (talk) 16:10, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  I agree that all those initiatives would be a great use of WMF funds. And I think that having more community editors in-person at Wikimania to advocate for them is exactly the sort of thing that could incrementally move the needle toward getting them prioritized. It's easy for @MIskander-WMF to decide to ignore my ping and not comment in this discussion and others, but harder to avoid in-person interaction with volunteers at a conference. As Rhododendrites has pointed out, the WMF has ample financial resources, so it's not as if it has to choose between funding Wikimania and funding technical improvements — it can do both. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  Every $ spent on Wikimania is a $ not spent on software. When we forced them to change their ads this past winter and they ended up with a 5% budget shortfall, they laid people off. They didn't just pull the 5% out of their cash reserves and keep on trucking. The already-increased spending on Wikimania this year comes after those layoffs. (I bet the people who lost their jobs aren't happy about increased Wikimania scholarships.) Wikipedia shouldn't use donor money to send editors to a meetup in Singapore (or anywhere). There are better uses for the money, like hiring more or better software engineers (among other professionals). In my opinion, they already spend way too much money building a "movement" or "community," and way too little building software. Levivich (talk) 16:33, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  I mean, don't get me wrong, Lord knows they spent more money on the last CEO's $600k golden parachute than they spent on Wikimania scholarships, so if I were making the cuts, the scholarships wouldn't be my first target, but still. Software is where they need to be spending more right now, nothing else. Levivich (talk) 16:37, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  It is possible to spend huge amounts on software that doesn't address the problems of the users of the software. Wikimania is among other things an investment in improving the dialogue between the volunteer community and the developers. I think it could do with more emphasis on the existing community - it isn't a good venue for outreach. But maybe we should have an EN Wikipedia meetup separate to Wikimania as we aren't going to have a significant proportion of the EN community at a Wikimania unless it is in New York or London again. ϢereSpielChequers 08:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  An organisation with a $200m income should be able to fund both Wikimania and working software. If they really can't manage both, let's concentrate on the software while we look for better managers. Certes (talk) 10:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• I attended my first in-person conference in May of this year, and it made me feel very connected to the movement. Was really nice to get faces to the names. So I am all for spending money on conferences and conference scholarships. Let's get as many active contributors to these things as possible.
  Our movement certainly does have a lot of money, but it looks like there is a lot of disagreement about where to spend it. The things that directly affect en-wikipedians (in my opinion) are software (especially community tech), and conference scholarships, so we en-wikipedians are always going to want more of WMF's money spent on those things. En-wikipedians are less likely, imo, to want the money spent on things that don't directly affect them, such as weird software projects, other wikis, the "global" movement, affiliates, machine learning, data science, the knowledge equity fund, and the endowment. For various reasons, these are also WMF priorities, and are competing for time and funding.
  Enwiki is in this weird situation where we bring in a big chunk of the donation money, but the money isn't always spent on our priorities. We are competing with 891 other projects for money, developer time, and scholarships. This may be a source of some of the tension we're seeing, where the WMF is not really prioritizing things like software and scholarships as much as we would like. Software and scholarships are very reasonable things to prioritize, so I think it's good we're speaking out about this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:40, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

  Speaking of priorities, the WMF recently spent nearly $1 million on golden parachutes for two executives. I estimate that this was considerably more than the total cost of these 197 scholarships. Andreas JN466 08:45, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  Hey now. Let's not be hasty. How else are we going to find someone with...a uh...degree in Middle Eastern Studies, to head a major tech related non-profit, among the most visited websites in the world, and the largest online collaborative project in history... GMG^talk 11:03, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Given the problems that some past Wikimanias have had with getting visas for applicants from certain parts of the world, I like the way that the Singapore event has skewed things to reach out to parts of the world that can't attend events in relatively closed countries such as here in the UK. However there was a skew in the selection criteria towards outreach, rather than content, software testing or governance. I think that should change in the future. Wikimania is not just an opportunity to discuss outreach - it is also an opportunity for developers to meet users, except that experience of testing new Wikimedia features did not get preference for scholarships. It is also an opportunity to discuss governance issues, but again no preference for that in the scholarship process. (disclosure, I usually apply for a scholarship, and was successful for Mexico and had a partial scholarship for one earlier Wikimania plus I've travelled to two at my own expense). If you are active in Wikimedia and can afford to go I recommend Wikimania. ϢereSpielChequers 11:24, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  +1 {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 11:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

We are excited to announce a fantastic volunteering opportunity for all Wikipedia iOS users out there. We are currently working on enhancing the "Watchlist" feature for our app, and we need your valuable feedback to create the best user experience possible.

Your input will play a significant role in shaping the initial version of this feature. We value your insights and ideas, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the design.

You can check out the project's page on Mediawiki for more information: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/iOS/Watchlist/Design_Feedback_Frequent

If you're interested in being part of this exciting project, feel free to reply to this post or send me a direct message if you have any questions or inquiries.

Your contributions will undoubtedly make a difference in creating an exceptional user experience in Wikipedia iOS app!

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 16:04, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

mw:Wikimedia Apps/Team/iOS/Watchlist/Design Feedback Frequent — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 08:05, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

How do you want feedback? On the discussion page? SWinxy (talk) 02:49, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

nvm there are sections for that on the page. SWinxy (talk) 19:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

section break 1

Hello everyone,

I hope this message finds you well. My name is Amal Ramadan, and I am a Senior Community Relations Specialist supporting the Apps team at the Wikimedia Foundation.

I wanted to inform you about an ongoing project we are currently working on for the Android version of the Wikipedia app. This project focuses on machine-assisted article descriptions. For more details about this project, please visit the following link.

At this time, I would like to reach out to the English Wikipedia community and invite volunteers to join us in this important endeavor. We are specifically looking for individuals who can help us evaluate and provide feedback on the English translations we have.

If you are interested in participating, I would be delighted to provide you with further information and complete details. Please feel free to get in touch with me or reply to this post, and I will be glad to assist you.

Thank you for considering this volunteering opportunity, and I sincerely appreciate your valuable contributions in advance.

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 10:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@

WP:VPT may be the best location, unless people there suggest something else). In general, it regularly creates long descriptions which are cut off rather randomly, generating incomplete descriptions (test with e.g. "Hunger". And in too many cases the suggested description is wrong (I tested it with 3 suggestions, and usually at most one is good). Examples I got at the testing place

:

• "Deforestation in Nigeria" gives "Forest in Nigeria", "Forest deforest" or "Forest"
• "Star" gives "Large star in the constellation of the Sun" (er, what?), "Large star" or "star" (as can be seen here, capitalization of the first letter of the description is completely haphazard in many cases, and sometimes further on as well, I once got "Traditional Food" as a suggestion)
• "Leopold II" (a disambiguation page) gives "Emperor of Belgium" (right???), "King of Belgium", and "pope" (even better!)
• "Isaac Newton" gives three descriptions which all start with "English physicist, physicist"
• "Benjamin Netanyahu" has one good description (Prime Minister of Israel) and two totally wrong ones ("Prime Minister of Israel (1927-2018)" and "Prime Minister of Israel (1996-2019)")
• "Murder" gives "Killing of another without justifies", "Killing of another" and "Criminal punishment"

This doesn't seem ready at all.

Fram (talk

) 10:07, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh dear. Disambiguation pages should not have manual short descriptions. (Nor should redirects, in case that wasn't obvious.) Descriptions should never begin with a lower-case letter. (We might allow "iPhone model" or "eBay trader" but these are so rare that false positives would dwarf them.) Does the suggestion list include WikiData's description? It often exhibits excessive verbosity (why settle for a star when you can have an "astronomical object consisting of a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity"?) but may be suitable for pruning manually to provide a good SD if you uppercase its initial first. Certes (talk) 11:52, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

...and to echo one of Jonesey's points below: articles which already have SDs are certainly not a priority for receiving a new SD and should probably never be changed by this tool. (I thought that was obvious, but apparently not.) Certes (talk) 15:34, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi @

WP:SDNONE

appropriately?

You will want to change your nomenclature, as well, as the expression "Article description" means nothing here. The term consistently used for the last six years, ever since these things were invented, is "Short description". Use of the word "short" is of real practical importance, as new users often tend to assume that descriptions of 60 or even 80 characters are OK. The fact that your system easily generates impossible suggestions of over 90 characters (eg "Hunger") tells me straight away that you haven't considered

WP:SDSHORT

.

You seem to be running a multi-language project that doesn't so far as I can tell take any account of the rules and customs here. I suggest you might like to seek advice from Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions, which is pretty active. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:39, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

ARamadan-WMF: I'm interested in further testing of the tool. From what I tested, using this tool without supervision is a no-go, but I guess it could eventually be good enough to give multiple suggestions for a human to choose one (or reject all). MarioGom (talk) 09:44, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments.  I have taken comprehensive notes and will pass them along to the product team.  I'm also going to recommend that they read this discussion themselves.For clarity, I am not recommending that this be released to editors at the English Wikipedia.

Again, I appreciate your assistance. ARamadan-WMF (talk) 15:03, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

section break 2

Further test issues: tool doesn't seem to work on Uptown Theater (Kansas City, Missouri). No idea why it turns Beier Ko in all three suggestions into a purely Canadian person. For Napoleon, the three suggestions in full are "1804-1815", "1799-1815" and "1804–1815". The suggestions for Barack Obama are "44th President of the United States" (fine), and "48th President of the United States"(!) and "29th President of the United States". Okay, one could say, just take the first suggestion then, but e.g. for Emmanuel Macron the first suggestion is "Prime Minister of France", a post he never held. For Alpine, King County, Washington, the first description is "village in the Philippines" (what?), second is "Civil parish" (again, what?), and the third is the correct but rather general "village". Oh, and take your pick, is the 2013 Asian Athletics Championships – Women's heptathlon a "Judo competition", a "heptathlon competition", or a "Karate competition"? Note again the inconsistent capitalization.

In general, there is much wariness on enwiki to let any AI tools loose on the contents, whether it is fully automatic or human-assisted like here. I doubt, in its current state, that this tool will be an exception to that rule.

The tool seems to like "Prime Minister". Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, is either "Prime Minister of Germany (2005-2018)", or "Prime Minister of Germany (2005-2019)" or "Prime Minister of Germany (2005-2018)". On the other hand, Olaf Scholz, the current chancellor, is, according to the tool, "Former Federal Chancellor of Germany" or "Former German Chancellor of Germany" or "Former German Chancellor".

@ARamadan-WMF, please do not allow anyone to use this tool for editing if it messes up BLPs like this. —Kusma (talk) 13:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

ARamadan-WMF, the attention to detail surrounding this tool is indicative of a project that is not refined enough to meet the needs of the English Wikipedia. The very first thing I noticed when I went to the tool's page is that one of the option boxes is labeled "number beams" instead of "number of beams" (I see that "beam" is jargon for what we call "short description"). That may seem like a small problem, but when I see small small problems of this type in a project focused on getting wording correct, I know that the project is nowhere near ready for deployment.

I clicked the "Submit" button while leaving the text box blank in order to get suggestions for random articles. I got the following (I have not removed or selected from the results; these are all of my results):

• Walwyn's Castle: Human settlement in Wales (correct); village in the United Kingdom (failure to capitalize); Human settlement in Wales, England (very wrong). Note that this article already has a short description, which you can tell because it is in the category Category:Articles with short description.
• Zorn, Texas: Unincorporated community in Texas, United States (correct); unincorporated community in Texas , United States (failure to capitalize); human settlement in Texas, United States of America (failure to capitalize). Note that this article already has a short description, which you can tell because it is in the category Category:Articles with short description.
• Socioeconomic status and mental health: Studies about the relationship between socioeconomic status and mental health (bad: repeats the title in the SD); Studies about the relationship between socioeconomics and mental health (worse: repeats the title in the SD and uses a word that does not exist in English); Social causation theory (very wrong). Note that this article already has a short description, which you can tell because it is in the category Category:Articles with short description.
• Matthijs Vermeulen: Dutch composer (inadequate); Dutch composer and journalist (acceptable); composer (inadequate and uncapitalized). These are all worse than the existing short description of "Dutch composer and music journalist". Note that this article already has a short description, which you can tell because it is in the category Category:Articles with short description.
• Siemens-Schuckert B: reconnaissance biplane (failure to capitalize); German reconnaissance aircraft (correct); reconnaissance aircraft (failure to capitalize). Note that this article already has a short description, which you can tell because it is in the category Category:Articles with short description.

So that's 15 suggested short descriptions on five random articles, all of which already had short descriptions, so they should have been ignored by this suggestion tool. Of the 15 descriptions, just 4 were acceptable, and zero of them were better than the existing short descriptions. That is utter failure and not indicative of a tool that is ready for deployment on the English Wikipedia. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:51, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I had a look at some articles and got the same sort of results as others above.

• Battle of the Beanfield: "Human settlement in England" (incorrect), "A battle in 1985" (not incorrect but not very useful), "conflict" (vague to the point of being useless). The exiting short description "1985 conflict near Stonehenge, UK" is superior to all of the suggestions.
• Fire engine: "Vehicle used to carry water" (techinically correct for a subset of fire engines, but miseading), "Vehicle used to fire" (what does that even mean?), "Type of vehicle" (much too vauge). The existing short description "Emergency vehicle intended to put out fires" is superior to all of the suggestions.
• Wat Tyler: "1381 rebellion" (incorrect), "English rebellion leader" (not bad), "1381 rebel" (not incorrect but a bit vauge). The existing short description "Leader of the 1381 Peasants' Revolt" is superior to all the suggestions.
• Railfan: "person who is recreationally interested in trains" (too wordy and incorrectly capitalised), "An railway buff or train buff" (gramatically incorrect and not very helpful), "An railway buff" (gramatically incorrect and not very helpful).
• Open Championship
  : "golf tournament held annually in Prestwick, Scotland, UK" (incorrect and incorrectly capitalised), "golf tournament held in 1860" (incorrect and incorrectly capitalised, "golf tournament" (vauge and incorrectly capitalised). The existing short description "Golf tournament held in the UK" is superior to all the suggestions.
• British Rail Class 230: "diesel electric multiple unit of battery" (incorrect and incorrectly capitalised), "locomotive class" (incorrect and incorrectly capitalised), "diesel electric multiple unit" (incomplete and incorrectly capitalised). The existing short description "Diesel-electric or battery-electric multiple unit passenger train" is superior to all the suggestions.
• Penis: "organ of the reproduction animal" (???), "organ of the animal" (arguably correct but very vague), "organ" (far too vauge and, like the others, incorrectly capitalised. The existing short description "Primary sexual organ of male animals" is superior to all the suggestions.
• The Boy Bands Have Won: "2008 studio album by Chumbawumba" (correct and identical to the existing short description), "2013 studio album by Chumbawumba" (incorrect), "2010 studio album by Chumbawumba" (incorrect).
• Love: "Emotional state of love" (tautological), "Emotional state of feeling" (arguably sort of correct), "Emotional state" (arguably sort of correct). The existing short description "Emotion" is superior to all the suggestions.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned by others is that the tester says "Seems wrong? Leave feedback on Phabricator." with a link to phab:T318384, but that is a very specific technical subtask of the ML programme ("Put API on Cloud VPS") that has been closed as resolved since December 2022.

This project is not ready for beta testing, let alone production. Thryduulf (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think she is suggesting letting it loose on en:wp. She says "We are specifically looking for individuals who can help us evaluate and provide feedback on the English translations we have", and she seems to have come to the right place! I tried a few, with similar results to you & Fram. Johnbod (talk) 15:36, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

It is very unclear what is being suggested and in what fase we are. From the link given: "As a first step in the implementation of this project, the Android team will develop a MVP [...] Should the 30 day experiment show promising results based on the indicators above, the team will introduce the feature to all users and remove our 3 edit requirement for suggested edits. [...] The team will partner with volunteers to patrol edits made during the time of the experiment and assign a grade to the edit." (these seem to be the volunteers asked for here). So it looks as if a 30-day period started on 10 July, and after this (i.e. now) it would be turned on "for all users". But it seems the experiment already ran in April/May[16], and the findings should have been published in June[17], though I can't find them. The actual status and planning for this tool are to me rather unclear.

Fram (talk

) 16:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree with @Thryduulf. this project is not ready for beta testing, or production, or implementation. Sm8900 (talk) 16:37, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

More evidence of how bad this is really isn't needed, but I've been having another play and the last two articles I tried have been particular lowlights - Nicola Sturgeon was variously described as "Prime Minister of Scotland", a position that doesn't exist, and a Scottish politician born in 1984 or 1994 (she was born in 1970, so these two at least are BLP violations); and Tower Bridge described as "Lighthouse in London, England", "Lighthouse in London" and "bridge" - the first two are particularly perplexing as the word "lighthouse" (or "light house") appears nowhere in the article. Thryduulf (talk) 17:26, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, well said indeed. a human editor would never make those mistakes. and since we do seem to have lots of humans here as editors... so therefore, the question arises.... why is this app needed ....at all....? Sm8900 (talk) 17:30, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

is this a version of

Vaal? Sm8900 (talk

) 17:36, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sm8900 that is a good question, especially given that nearly every article either already has a short description or has been assessed as not needing one (the title provides a complete description). I can understand that a project with this goal might be useful for smaller wikis, but only if the output was very significantly better than the examples here. Thryduulf (talk) 17:42, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@

WP:Identity, the title is both the basis of identity and nutshell formulation of the article's topic. well said! Sm8900 (talk

) 17:48, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Fitzgeraldo Fitzgeraldo Absentree (talk) 06:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

That would be a very ambitious project. For comparison, there is a project to produce audio versions of English Wikipedia articles. After many years, there are 1,710 (out of more than six million) articles with audio versions, and some of those have not been updated in 17 years. Remember, all (with very specific and limited exceptions) of the content in Wikpedia is contributed by volunteers, so what you propose would require large numbers of volunteers to contribute time and effort to the project. Donald Albury 13:38, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

These are very different arts. Many millions of people have been taught how to write a crude essay or research paper, and when I teach people from among the small fraction who have done these things outside class, it's easy. I just have to explain how a Wikipedia article differs; they already know things like exposition vs persuasion and the structure of a paragraph. Few have been taught how to organize an illustrated lecture or a drama, so the pool of easy candidates is small. Even elementary things like paragraph structure are different, and then, the script is only a small part of the work of video production. As for VR; c'mon! Hardly anybody is good at that; it's a pioneer art. So yes, when such products are made, they should be uploaded to Commons and appropriate articles should link to them. But it's going to be very small for many years. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:55, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Reminds me of the time my boss suggested we video my training sessions for staff and show the video to later groups. I knew just enough about what it would take to do that properly to know I didn't have the experience, time or desire to attempt it. Donald Albury 17:21, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Whole different art. In the 20th century cheap videotape came along, and since the 2000s everybody carries a video camera / recorder in their pocket. Cheap laptops can run decent editing software with timelines, splices, dissolves, and so forth. The result is, as hoped, a vast output of video shorts on many topics, but it ain't Hitchcock or Goddard or Kubrick.

What we get from Youtube and Vimeo and their competitors are a few somewhat useful Khan Institute items, even fewer, somewhat better TED talks, and a huge volume of poor shooting, poor editing, and very poor reading of a badly written script. As a fairly experienced still photographer, when I point my camera on a tripod at a Wikimedia Lightning Talk podium and set it for video, I don't bother viewing the result; I hand it over to someone who might edit and upload it. Generally they do their job at least as well as I do mine, but it doesn't much matter.

So, when we read an article and wish for a video version, what we should do is search for someone else's already not-bad online video that is relevant, and link to that. Maybe we should have a task force or other organization to search, catalog, and link useful videos. Running our own video operation, analogous to the way we organize text production, is unlikely to create much. And VR? Well, sure, if someone has already put something relevant online. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:37, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Whole different art. In the 20th century cheap videotape came along, and since the 2000s everybody carries a video camera / recorder in their pocket. Cheap laptops can run decent editing software with timelines, splices, dissolves, and so forth. The result is, as hoped, a vast output of video shorts on many topics, but it ain't Hitchcock or Goddard or Kubrick.

What we get from Youtube and Vimeo and their competitors are a few somewhat useful Khan Institute items, even fewer, somewhat better TED talks, and a huge volume of poor shooting, poor editing, and very poor reading of a badly written script. As a fairly experienced still photographer, when I point my camera on a tripod at a Wikimedia Lightning Talk podium and set it for video, I don't bother viewing the result; I hand it over to someone who might edit and upload it. Generally they do their job at least as well as I do mine, but it doesn't much matter. So, when we read an article and wish for a video version, what we should do it look for someone's already not-bad video that is relevant, and link to that. Maybe we should have a task force or other organization to search, catalog, and link useful videos, but making our own video operation is unlikely to create much. And VR? C'mon. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:37, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

FWIW,

Google Earth VR does something close, and I think they take snippets from Wikipedia. SWinxy (talk

) 20:18, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

The Online News Act is a new law in Canada which gives news organisations the right to claim funding from "digital news intermediaries". It takes effect at the end of 2023 but is already having an effect as Meta is now blocking Canadian news links from its platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

This may affect Wikipedia as it is a digital news intermediary too. I noticed the issue when working on the Yellowknife evacuation story at In the News where the issue is having an impact – see Yellowknife wildfire: communication issues and Facebook news ban hamper evacuation efforts.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

What is your point here? If Wikipedia is or will be affected by the Canadian law, then that is something the WMF have been/are/will be dealing with there is nothing we can do here. The ITN link seems to be just you disagreeing with a very clear consensus (something that is quite common at that venue). Thryduulf (talk) 10:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

No idea why @Thryduulf is balking at the thread. Per the header of this page, Editors or Wikimedia Foundation staff may post and discuss information, proposals, feedback requests, or other matters of significance to both the community and the foundation. Andrew Davidson has information, a concern that may be of significance to the community. So it belongs here to be discussed. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 03:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I do indeed expect that the WMF will be taking an interest in this. And so that's why I started some discussion here, as this page is for such WMF-related issues, right? There's another act in the offing in the UK – the Online Safety Bill – and that may have some impact too. "Forewarned is forearmed"! Andrew🐉(talk) 11:16, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I very much doubt that the Online News Act has direct relevance for Wikipedia. I see nothing that affects citing and linking to sources. Unlike Meta or Google Wikipedia doesn't show snippets or previews, nor does it embed content. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 15:31, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

The Online Safety Bill on the other hand could have very real implications.[18] -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 15:33, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, although the WMF is clearly well aware of it, since they formally stated they wouldn't carry out age checks in direct response to the OSB. It's terrible in both core aspects and in actual execution of those aspects, and despite a majority of parliamentarians disliking it, I suspect whipped votes will see some form into being. Nosebagbear (talk) 01:32, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Disallow access to the world's encyclopedia? That would be playing with political dynamite. In the free world, access to this essential knowledge resource has become a cherished civil right. If the UK blocked Wikipedia as the Guardian suggests could happen, [19] imagine the backlash. Disgruntled users may protest en masse, very well flooding the streets. Therefore, blocking Wikipedia as a whole is highly unlikely.    — The Transhumanist   06:26, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

It's more likely that the UK will follow China and Russia in allowing only partial access to Wikipedia. The UK government has form for this, when requests to Wikipedia were routed via a proxy which blocked an article about an album illustrated by its cover which depicts a naked child. It caused chaos for editors, whose contributions (including those from vandals) all appeared to come from one IP address, and was quickly reverted. That's still not a great result for anyone, and would put the UK firmly on the list of repressive regimes. Certes (talk) 10:25, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Russia allows full access to all Wikimedia projects at this point. Ymblanter (talk) 14:33, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

"Disgruntled users may protest en masse". Sadly, I doubt it. I mean governmemnts historically have committed the worse atrocities many times without people doing anything about it. People are more likely to riot because their sports team won or lost. If there are concentrated efforts to organize protests by powerful groups (like with the BLM situation), people are more likely to protest than waiting for organically to happen. Spontaneous protests do happen but they are a whim of randomness. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 00:11, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

@Random person no 362478479 Per the lead of the article Online News Act, "or facilitating access to their content via their platforms.". Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia does facilitate access to their content. Besides, governments often love to abuse their power and many times come with novel and sometimes even arbitrary interpretations of their laws. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 03:39, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I assumed that the ONA restricts directly presenting (parts of) the content of a news site, e.g. in the form of previews or snippets. I don't think that any news corporation has an interest in restricting mere links to their content. But the law is indeed hopelessly vague in this respect. The text is:

Making available of news content
(2) For the purposes of this Act, news content is made available if
(a) the news content, or any portion of it, is reproduced; or
(b) access to the news content, or any portion of it, is facilitated by any means, including an index, aggregation or ranking of news content.
— http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent#ID0E02D0AA

It is indeed possible (maybe even natural) to read (2)(b) as including simple linking.[20] -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

[...] the news content, or any portion of it, is reproduced. This is literally Wikipedia! @SMcCandlish:. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 00:38, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm no expert in Canadian media and free-expression law, but that does sound vaguely worded enough to accidentally net Wikipedia and anyone else who ever just quotes ("any portion of") or links to ("access ... is facilitated") any Canadian news source for any reason. It's apallingly poor policy writing, and I think the Canadian courts would recognize that such a strict interpretation would be overreaching in the face of section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Candian Supreme Court caselaw permits the government to impose some "reasonable" limits on freedom of expression, but this clearly wouldn't be reasonable. However, a test case could take years to work its way through the court system, and one might not happen anyway if no enforcement action is taken in the direction of this strict interpretation.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

It sounds as if we need someone who is an expert in Canadian media and free-expression law. I trust that the WMF can find funding to consult such a person. Certes (talk) 13:16, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

What can we do about it, anyway? The Canadian government will not be able to charge the Wikipedia community with breaking the law. Most of us are beyond their reach. Their target for enforcing a strict interpretation of the law, if they should choose to do so, would be the Foundation, but the Foundation is a corporation in the US. Also, the Foundation has a legal staff, who are better qualified than I and almost all other editors are to judge the impact of that law on the operations of Wikipedia. This is something that I will gladly leave to the Foundation to worry about. Donald Albury 02:38, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

@Donald Albury you stated, "The Canadian government will not be able to charge the Wikipedia community with breaking the law." Except of course, Canadian Wikipedians.

• Wikipedia admin jailed for 32 years after alleged Saudi spy infiltration^[1]
• The
  Wikimedia France, under threat of detention and arrest, into deleting an article about the Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station.^[2]
• A country has the right to prevent the world’s Internet users from accessing information, Canada’s highest court ruled[3]

Really worrisome! Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 03:52, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

@Oshwah, Koavf, and The Transhumanist: Thinker78 (talk) 04:00, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Super-interested in the topic, but not 100% clear on why I was pinged. Is there something you think I in particular can add to this conversation? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:30, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I can't see where this actually impacts Wikipedia at large. It's a US corporation. It might suck for Wikipedia users in Canada, though. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 05:00, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

First, I think it is important to display empathy for Wikipedia editors in Canada (I mean, I shouldn't really need to say this). They are Wikipedia. Second, it may have legal repercussions to the display of information in Canada. Third, the world is interconnected. Laws in Canada and their influence in other countries could have impacts in Wikipedia around the world. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 01:42, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you that this sucks for Canadian users who could lose access to Wikipedia. I just don't think this is something WMF will be affected by. I'm not entirely sure what Canada intends to do if they don't comply. -- Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 00:29, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Unless "digital news intermediary" ends up being defined to include individuals with no formal relationship with an on-line organization, I do not see how individual editors, Canadian or otherwise, can be forced to enter into bargaining with Canadian news organizations for payment for linking to stories published by those news organizations. Donald Albury 11:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

OK. An extreme reading could indeed include quoting. This is really worryingly vague language. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 13:38, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I must state that I do not see how the Online News Act would apply to Canadian Wikipedians. The act affects "digital news intermediaries", not individuals. The act defines "digital news intermediary" as an online communications platform, including a search engine or social media service, that is subject to the legislative authority of Parliament and that makes news content made by news outlets available to persons in Canada.^[4] The Foundation, as the operator of an "online communications platform", is a potential target of this legislation. If the Canadian government succeeds in enforcing this law against the Foundation, it will harm Wikipedia. However, I do not see how an individual editor could be made a target of this legislation. - Donald Albury 12:03, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Editors may be interested in

 You are invited to join the discussion at

I'm probably over-reacting at this job posting, but at best the job title troubles me -- "Group Product Manager, Contributors". (So are we volunteers now a "product"?) At worst, this position should be put on indefinite hold until all of the volunteer communities have had a chance to offer input, & the duties re-written. Or maybe this is another case where all of the decisions were made & the die has been cast, & none of us volunteers can change anything about this. -- llywrch (talk) 07:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps a little unfortunately worded (would contributor tools be better?), but the role seems to be a relatively standard software UX sort of thing? I wouldn't mind having someone to "understand and faithfully represent the needs and requirements" of the volunteer community, it would probably help with the changing things. Alpha3031 (t • c) 08:48, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you're overreacting. "Contributors" refers to the area of work done by the former Contributors team at the WMF. The posting says, "..managing the product managers of the Editing, Growth, Campaigns, and Moderator Tools cross-functional teams", explicitly not contributors like us. Legoktm (talk) 09:42, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Llywrch -- thanks for checking out the job posting and reflecting on it. I'm Marshall Miller; I'm a director of product at WMF and the hiring manager for the role. I know that our structure at WMF and the jargon we use can be opaque, so I'd like to take this opportunity to explain it a bit and see what you think.

Much of WMF staff are inside the Product and Technology department, which is run by the Chief Product and Technology Officer, Selena Deckelmann. I report to her. There are a lot of different teams inside the large department, but basically responsibility for all the different parts of the Mediawiki software and all the technologies that operate on the wikis are divided up amongst those teams. Many of the teams are responsible for parts that we don't really see as day-to-day readers and editors of Wikipedia, like the servers, the databases, the APIs, etc. But many of the things that day-to-day readers and editors do encounter are part of the "Core Experiences" group, which is responsible for the software behind much of the user experience -- things like the visual and wikitext editors, the skins for reading, the recent changes feed, discussion tools, notifications, and the iOS and Android apps. I'm the director of product for that group, which means I manage the product managers, who are the people that set the roadmap for their respective teams. There is another director for the group who manages the engineers, and another leader who manages the designers.

The Core Experiences group has about ten teams in it, and that necessitates some additional structure. We're going to be grouping together four of the teams that work mostly on editing functionality: Editing, Growth, Moderator Tools, and Campaigns. I actually used to be the product manager with the Growth team, but my role has since grown. We're calling the group "Contributors", not because it manages contributors, but because contributors are the people whose experience the group is going to be working to improve. The idea is that we always want staff in the group to remember who they're trying to help. And so this role that's posted is going to be working with those four teams and trying to think at a high level how all the different features should fit together to be a coherent whole for the editors, rather than a disjointed and confusing set of tools. For instance, right now there are a couple teams thinking about how machine learning can be used to prevent obvious vandalism -- but we don't want to end up building two features to do the same thing (without a good reason). Does that all make sense? Let me know if there's anything else I can try to explain.

And like @Alpha3031 said, this person will be listening closely and working with volunteers, since those are the people who will be using what the teams build. It's definitely not going to be an easy job -- because our communities of editors are so energetic, creative, and unique. Please let me know if there's anything in particular you're thinking about or caring about as we look for the right person for this job. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for responding Marshall. I think it's great when WMF folks answer community questions clearly like you did here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:50, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Good post, thanks :^) jp×g 08:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Further information is here if people are interested. There's also a related MediaWiki page. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 07:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, @Clovermoss, for sharing the info about the upcoming office hours, this will be considered in our future announcements. and rest assured, we're already on it to fix the red link problem. ARamadan-WMF (talk) 12:30, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

A forum to which I belong recently had one of its best liked members pass away. The family suggested donating to Wiki in lieu of sending flowers. Several of us have done so but noted that it would have been nice if we could have specified who the donation was in commemoration of.

So i propose that Wiki add an item to the donation page letting a donor say eg 'Given in fond memory of', and 'on behalf of' whatever forum, club etc the decedent was a member of.

I think having such an option would add a level of meaning to the act of giving, also that the number and amount of donations would increase. Passécomposeé (talk) 15:39, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

It is not possible to donate directly to Wikipedia. Donations from the Donate link on this page and other sources go to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which determines how the money is spent (or retained). One of their many functions is to provide the infrastructure for English Wikipedia. The WMF collects millions of donations each year, and I am not aware of any procedure for marking individual donations as you would wish. Certes (talk) 15:53, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the OP is asking for such a procedure to be added. If it's just implemented a comment field in which the donator can explain why they are donating then I can't see any significant harm in it, and potentially some benefit (e.g. if many people mention X when donating then mentioning X in fundraising banners may be worthwhile). Obviously any free text field can be abused, and reading comments does take time, so it isn't free, but it's not something to be dismissed out of hand. Thryduulf (talk) 19:46, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Thryduulf, that is what I had in mind. I hadn't realized there would be an expense in time but hopefully allowing such comment fields would be productive enough to make it worthwhile. Passécomposeé (talk) 20:35, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Dear @Passécomposeé

Thank you for your suggestion here. I am Julia and I work for the WMF's Advancement department (which is where the fundraising department sits). Thank you for your generosity in wanting to make a donation in memory of another person, I regret to tell you we currently do not have the functionality to offer this option. Your suggestion to add this method is a good one, and I have passed this on to the team and we hope to be able to implement it soon.

Thank you again for your support, and please don’t hesitate to ask if we can be of further assistance.

Best, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 12:53, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Julia! Passécomposeé (talk) 13:59, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

The WMF fundraising banners have been up for months now. Surely they serve no further purpose - anybody who was actually going to donate would have by now, and it's not like actual editors see a cent of this anyway. Can't we just dispense with them? Rattus.nonnus.existus (talk) 23:45, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you can, in your preferences. Cabayi (talk) 14:00, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Currently, at Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects there are two email addresses suggested for an article's subject to contact Wikipedia when legal issues are concerned:

• Under The information in your article about me is wrong. How can I get it fixed? It says:
  • "For serious legal issues, including libel, please send an E-mail to [email protected]."
• Then, under I would like to sue you for lying about me in your article. How do I proceed? It says:
  • "If you have a genuine legal concern, tell us about it by emailing [email protected]."

I'm guessing any difference between the two domains is irrelevant, and emails sent to either one will all end up going to the same place — but I'd like to know for certain. Thanks in advance for any info on this! Regards,  Spintendo  15:33, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Probably both of those should be changed to [email protected]. Izno (talk) 17:04, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

no, there's a gatekeeping function at VTRS to filter out the stuff that really needs goes to legal and that which doesn't. Sending mail direct to legal loses that function. Nthep (talk) 17:11, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

My concern is more so the domain and not really the prefix. It was my understanding the domain has always been wikimedia. But this last February, an editor made this edit which inexplicably changed the domain to Wikipedia. When the editor changed the domain, the first email addy was changed....but there are actually two places on that FAQ page where the email addy was displayed. The one which was changed was towards the top of the page, but the second one is further down on the page and somewhat hidden. That one wasn't touched; It still uses the wikimedia domain. In 5 years of reviewing COI edit requests, I've found myself having to give out that email address perhaps only six times. Every time I do, I always double check with the FAQ page (just in case anything has changed). That's when I noticed the difference in domains. So I thought I would bring it here to check if there was a mistake.  Spintendo  22:10, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Both domains will work and end up in the same place. Nthep (talk) 22:20, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that's good to know. Much appreciated! Regards,  Spintendo  22:31, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello, the Wikidata for Wikimedia Projects team at Wikimedia Deutschland is investigating the different ways Wikidata is being used in the Wikimedia projects. If you would like to speak with us about your experiences with integrating Wikidata in Wikimedia wikis, please sign up for an interview in this registration form. Please note that currently, we are only able to conduct interviews in English.

For more information, visit our project page. Feedback is always welcome here. Thank you.-- Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 10:46, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Close appeal of Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 6#RfC to issue a non-binding resolution to the Wikimedia Foundation. Mach61 (talk) 13:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Post-close

A small note of elaboration. I have determined that the Wikipedia Village Pump has issued the three non-binding resolutions, due to the support of discussion participants outweighing opposition. I have not stated whether this is supported by English Wikipedia, and the absence of reference to the Wikipedia community in the closure statement should not be seen as summarising the discussion. There is clear support that this discussion page supports these resolutions, with the third resolution being supported especially strongly.

1. The English Wikipedia community is concerned about the distribution of grants related to activity on the English Wikipedia that will either not contribute to our goals of building an encyclopedia or will actively hinder those goals. We request that the Wikimedia Foundation informs the English Wikipedia of all non-trivial grants that will result in activity on the English Wikipedia through the opening of a discussion at the
   Village Pump (WMF)
   prior to the grant being issued.
2. The English Wikipedia community is concerned that the Wikimedia Foundation has found itself engaged in mission creep, and that this has resulted in funds that donors provided in the belief that they would support Wikimedia Projects being allocated to unrelated external organizations, despite urgent need for those funds to address internal deficiencies.
   We request that the Wikimedia Foundation reappropriates all money remaining in the Knowledge Equity Fund, and we request that prior to making non-trivial grants that a reasonable individual could consider unrelated to supporting Wikimedia Projects that the Foundation seeks approval from the community.
3. The English Wikipedia community is concerned that the Wikimedia Foundation has neglected critical areas of the project, and that continued neglect of these areas may endanger the project.
   To improve the resilience of the project, we request that money be reallocated to hiring more technical staff, whose role will be to fulfill requests from the community such as those expressed on the Community Wishlist, as well as restoring access to tools such as grapher extension.
   To improve knowledge equity we also request that that the Foundation provides funding to assist established editors in accessing the resources they need to improve the encyclopedia, such as by increasing the number of libraries accessible through the Wikipedia Library and by giving micro-grants for the purchase of backlogged items at Resource Request.

Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:16, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm still quite peeved that statement 2 directly targets the KEF for liquidation. It just seems unproductive to phrase it that way, which is a shame because the first portion of statement 2 raises a solid point regarding the apportionment of WMF funds. All I'm saying is it would have been far more productive to request that the WMF focus on WMF projects first for funding rather than just saying "Nuke it!!!!". Curbon7 (talk) 18:02, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The resolutions can be amended by consensus as well. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

For clarification, I'm not just whining because my position did not achieve consensus. I am well-aware that my support of the KEF is a minority position here on en.wp. I'm just trying to say that there is a more tactful way to word that statement. Curbon7 (talk) 05:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip, I'm concerned regarding the lack of coverage regarding opposition for the resolutions in your close. Please consider amending it to be more detailed in summarizing the discussion rather than only providing a broad result.
Additionally, I see in the discussion that while there is a numerical consensus for the resolutions, there are also quite reasonable arguments opposing it. I encourage you to weigh the content of the discussions rather than merely the quantitative !votes.
(involved) — Frostly (talk) 04:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe I have implied that there was more opposition to the first and second resolutions than there was to the third resolutions, without giving undue weight to that opposition. I have been purposefully concise to avoid amplifying any particular arguments.

Regarding the opposition to the first two resolutions, I could not find any objective reason to weigh the minority view disproportionately in its favour. There is much less scope to weigh the minority view greater than the majority view in a non-editorial discussion such as this, where editing policies don't apply. As a neutral closer, I cannot find (or should disregard) that one argument is subjectively or arbitrarily better than another, though I do not mean to suggest that I think you are saying I should. I can add the underlined to the closure comment. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:04, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Wait what? (involved): 1. I thought this closed like two months ago? 2. I have determined that the Wikipedia Village Pump has issued the three non-binding resolutions, due to the support of discussion participants outweighing opposition is the least best closing rationale I've seen outside AfD. Folly Mox (talk) 04:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  It did close a while back, was reopened, and then archived without close if I remember correctly. And now reclosed. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 05:07, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I closed it and the close was overturned. Honestly this RfC is so stale I doubt the WMF will draft a response to it. Mach61 (talk) 05:25, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  There is simply not much more to say. There is greater support for the three resolutions than opposition, not only in number but in relative weight as well. I have elaborated above that there is a lack of any compelling reason to give disproportionate weight to the minority view, rather than a reason to not do so. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:11, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I could have been a lot kinder in my characterisation of your closing rationale, but what about identifying common themes, subtopics, and rationales? I thought a close was supposed to summarise the discussion. See example. Folly Mox (talk) 07:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I appreciate that discussion closures can be longer, but I did not feel it was appropriate in this case to summarise the points of the discussion. Unlike closing a discussion for an editorial dispute, determining the reasons for the consensus wouldn't provide further editing guidance. The unusually lengthy closure comment in your example helps editors contribute to the article further than the direct question being discussed. There is not much more to summarise this discussion than editors choosing to support these resolutions, and I aim to avoid expressing an opinion on which reasons are good or bad. I would encourage anybody to summarise the arguments of the discussion. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:53, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I think for long RFCs, long closes are better. Part of a good close is summarizing the discussion. The participants need to feel like you read everything and understood it, and enough of the closer's thought process needs to be disclosed to make the participants feel like the close is within closer discretion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:40, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae:

  Summary: Resolutions supported due to discussion participants' concerns over Wikimedia Foundation funds being provided for non-encyclopaedia initiatives, funding of activities which cause article quality issues requiring editors to resolve, lack of notice to the community regarding grants being awarded, and desire for technical upgrades to Wikipedia. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• @Onetwothreeip: Regarding:

I have determined that the Wikipedia Village Pump has issued the three non-binding resolutions, due to the support of discussion participants outweighing opposition. I have not stated whether this is supported by English Wikipedia, and the absence of reference to the Wikipedia community in the closure statement should not be seen as summarising the discussion.

I find this a little confusing - it makes it unclear to me how the support of the Wikipedia community could ever be determined, if a CENT-listed RfC in the Village Pump is insufficient to do so. I think it would be helpful to close this as we would any other global discussion; simply stating whether this or isn't a consensus, without making the consensus limited to a specific area that doesn't reflect the true scope of the discussion.

Would you be willing to update the close to do so? BilledMammal (talk) 03:54, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

It is certainly unclear how the support of the Wikipedia community can be determined, without far greater participation. There have been discussions and votes on Wikipedia with hundreds of supporters (38, 45 and 78 supporters for these three resolutions). I found consensus for these resolutions, but there is not enough to say that the Wikipedia community supports the resolutions directly. Instead, it can be said that the Wikipedia Village Pump believes that English Wikipedia should issue these resolutions. I am willing to update the close to describe that this is not limited to a specific area, but neither should it be implied that it is unlimited. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:04, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I am willing to update the close to describe that this is not limited to a specific area, but neither should it be implied that it is unlimited.

Can you specify how you would update it?

It is certainly unclear how the support of the Wikipedia community can be determined, without far greater participation

In the past, a CENT-listed RfC at the village pump that comes to a consensus on the question asked. Can you clarify on what basis, and what policy or guideline supports that basis, that lead you to decide that it was insufficient in this case? BilledMammal (talk) 05:41, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

It can be described that the consensus is not necessarily limited to this talk page, but the closer can't determine the extent of the consensus beyond what they can see in front of them. I did not decide that anything was insufficient in this case and I made no decisions about how the Wikipedia community feels. The close was purely regarding how this talk page feels. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:26, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

It was listed on

T:CENT and had at least 78 participants. I do not think that saying It is certainly unclear how the support of the Wikipedia community can be determined, without far greater participation is accurate. To request any higher sets the bar way too high, to a number that is unachievable, imo. This was, by all measures, a well-attended RFC that was advertised in all the places necessary to make it a community-wide consensus rather than a local consensus. –Novem Linguae (talk

) 00:42, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip: I agree with Novem Linguae here; I think your close was broadly appropriate, except where you try to say that there was only a local consensus; I don't believe that such a statement is supported by policy. Would you be willing to adjust your close, or failing that revert it and allow another to close? BilledMammal (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Well I don't say that it's only a local consensus, it just can't be determined how broad the consensus is. If the resolutions had a thousand supporters for example (rather than thirty-eight), it would be much easier to determine a project-wide consensus. I could add this detail to the closure comments. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I feel like if you believe this, you should close the entire RfC as no consensus. That's generally what closers have done when they feel a higher quorum is necessary to justify changes. Mach61 (talk) 05:44, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe that a higher quorum is necessary. There is enough consensus here to determine that the Village Pump supports these resolutions. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:28, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

The difference between this and other RfCs is they don't explicitly claim to speak on behalf of the entire website/community. There have been very few other RfCs along those lines before, and they've more often been styled more like an open letter, or have gotten more support than these got (e.g. the SOPA/PIPA blackout). I'm involved, of course, but it does seem like a good point that if the RfC is framed as speaking for the entire Wikipedia community, it's setting itself up for failure because it would need a high degree of participation to be justified. Even if it's listed at CENT, if only a small number of people support something it's hard to close as consensus on behalf of the entire site. IMO the discussion didn't need unarchiving and closing. The WMF has certainly already seen it, has seen that there was more support than opposition, and has seen the arguments on both sides. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:37, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-11-20/News and notes has a update on Wikimedia's financial health, including an audit report for FY2022–2023. Income is up $25m at $180m. Expenses are up $23m at $169m, including salaries up $13m to $101m and hosting up $0.4m to $3.1m. Certes (talk) 11:35, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to propose an enhancement to Preferences to add a feature enabling a user to enter a list of their own commonly used edit summary phrases, and then present them in the "Common edit summaries" dropdown that appears in Preview mode below the Edit summary input field.

In my case, I rarely use any of the potted ones, but I do have ones I use all the time, and this would be a real productivity enhancement. Probably one set per namespace to match current dropdown functionality, but just implementing mainspace would be a good start. (If I had my choice, I'd have the offerings be additive, i.e., organized as checkboxes, or permit multiple choices in the dropdown via Ctrl+select so I could assemble my edit summary by picking several, but this is probably a separate proposal.) Extra credit: in Preferences, if my custom edit summary list is empty, then prepopulate it grayed out with my top ten summaries in my last 500 edits (or top seven, as mainspace common summaries dropdown length is now). In the Preview mode dropdown, place user-defined list at the top, and if not fully filled out, then fill in remaining slots below from the potted summaries. When the cheers die down, extend to other namespaces. Mathglot (talk) 23:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

• Great idea. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:52, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Does your browser not save them for you? Firefox does for me, so all I need to do is start typing and then select from the options FF gives me. Nthep (talk) 14:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Editting the desktop site via mobile and the keyboard does all this for you, including narrowing selection based on what has already been typed. Most of my summaries take no more than two or three taps. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:45, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I use section edits almost exclusively (for many reasons, including ease of use, faster, fewer ec's, etc.) and the browser suggestions have to match from the very first character. For this section, it has to match /* Proposal: add user-defined Common edit summaries to Preferences */ which means there aren't any, except for my OP and further edits here. Same thing in, say, Mainspace or User talk space, where this feature would be really handy, and where browser suggestions help barely at all. Mathglot (talk) 00:32, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Copy and pasting are also easier on mobile. I cut the section details get the summary I need, and paste the section details back at the front. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:35, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

phab: is the right place for proposing new features in MediaWiki. But an easier way to implement it would be add this feature to MediaWiki:Gadget-defaultsummaries.js gadget. – SD0001 (talk) 18:45, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Added to the Gadget talk page; thanks. Mathglot (talk) 01:44, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Dear all,

The WMF is running its annual banner fundraising campaign for non logged in users in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US from 28th of November to the 31st of December 2023.

Thank you to everyone who has worked together to prepare the campaign this year! We’ve built up the collaboration process this year on the community collaboration page, at in person events (e.g. Wikimania and WikiCon North America), and in other individual discussions. More information around the campaign, like example banners and messaging, can be found on the community collaboration page. We continue to welcome ideas on the page.

Some more resources around the fundraising campaign:

• Love Wikipedia? Get to know the nonprofit behind it by Maryana Iskander
• ABC for Fundraising: Advancing Banner Collaboration for fundraising campaigns by Julia Brungs
• Preparing Together: Updates on 2023 English fundraising by Julia Brungs
• The Fundraising Report 2022/23
• 7 reasons you should donate to Wikipedia by Lisa Seitz Gruwell

Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact me directly at jbrungs at wikimedia dot org, or the team:

• On the talk page of the fundraising team
• If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket
• If you see a donor on a talk page, VRT or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donatewikimedia.org

Thank you for the collaborative effort this year,

Julia JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 12:35, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

It's starting now? Then why have we had banners up for a month or so? There have been complaints here and at the Teahouse.

talk

) 19:04, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks for all your hard work this year, for both you personally Julia and the entire team. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 07:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)