Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2021-09-26

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2021-09-26. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Community view: Is writing Wikipedia like making a quilt? (9,102 bytes · 💬)

• It's really interesting to hear about WikiProject Craft! I'm a knitter myself and what I've mostly noticed about craft-related content is that what's on Wikipedia is mostly uncited and written in the early 2000s. But that's from my glances as a reader, I haven't really edited the topic much. Part of it is because I think the best sources for those wouldn't nessecarily be online but in more specialized craft magazines/books (which I don't have many of), especially since a lot of online content is more tutorial/how-to in nature in contrast to what you would be writing about in an encyclopedia. Clovermoss (talk) 00:34, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• The whole area of the applied or decorative arts, of which "craft" is a particular (rather modern, rather Western) slice, is extremely weak on WP, despite many of the more general articles we have getting rather strong views. I hope this new effort avoids concentrating on individual producers too much - these get far fewer views. Johnbod (talk) 03:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Will WikiProject Craft also encompass the ~700 articles (according to transclusion count of the banner template) from the now-defunct WikiProject Woodworking, given that woodworking appears to fall into its bounds? eviolite (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• I've been hoovering up Japanese crafts articles for a while now - the issue I've come across, as I have for many of the textile arts articles, is that several haven't been touched since their inception between 2008 and 2012, resulting in a lack of wikilinks, roughshod writing style and tone, and a lack of references (or inappropriate ones). Many articles are complete orphans, and I'd imagine the same is true for several crafts articles and topics covering those from countries that do not speak English - for example, the article Japanese clothing during the Meiji period only just got created (thank you, Jevella!), but the article Victorian fashion, which covers a timespan some 30 years wider than the Meiji period, was created in 2002.
  If any editors are interested in improving our crafts articles, I'd love them to keep in mind that non-Western craft articles often need even more love - the addition of language tags (like {{transl}} and {{lang}}), good referencing, etc. The world is obviously huge, so even focusing on the crafts of one country is enough effort - if everyone did as such, we could have a good run at it. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Though I will note - not every English-language source on the crafts of non-English speaking countries is made equal. I've managed to sift out the worst offenders for Japanese articles and am pretty happy with the sourcing and information we have on, say, kimono, but, having briefly had them on my watchlist, articles like hanfu and qipao need much more work - even for basic things like the definition of and their origins.
    I know where I would go to find the right sources on these - English-language information on foreign clothing online is weirdly spread out, information on Chinese fashion and sources on I can find on Tumblr, but Vietnamese clothing information I think I'd have to go to Facebook for - but you'd really need your wits about you to grapple with those articles, and that isn't something I have the time or necessary existing information to do well. Contributors who know both English and other languages, are familiar with crafts from those countries, and have the time to make some worthwhile, highly-necessary edits are something we are in short supply of at times. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 16:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Excellent, @Ineffablebookkeeper: I encourage you to tag articles that need some love with a variant of {{WikiProject Craft |class=Start |importance=Low |needs-image=yes }} so that we can easily find them. And yes, finding sources can be a challenge. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 13:20, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• A great article on a subject area Wikipedia has a systemic bias against. — Bilorv (talk) 16:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
  • We don't have a "systemic bias", we just don't have many editors interested in the area. Johnbod (talk) 17:27, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

    I don't think it's just that simple. :) Our description of systemic bias describes it as, "the inherent tendency of a process to support particular outcomes". So if the English Wikipedia community doesn't support editors interested in this area – attracting and sustaining their participation – that's a bias. One where our support systems work against the outcomes we desire. In this case seeing the subject area of crafting present within our collective work. Given that crafting is just one among a long list of challenges we face I argue it's a just description. Ckoerner (talk) 18:11, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

    And what exactly creates the "inherent tendency" in WP to not have editors interested in this area, and how could our "support systems" remedy this? In fact, as someone who works a lot in the decorative arts area (as I prefer to call it), it is in many ways much easier than other areas, not least because you are normally able to get on with it almost completely undisturbed. Johnbod (talk) 21:11, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

    Oh, you do work for the WMF - your vocabulary made me suspect as much! Johnbod (talk) 21:13, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

    And what exactly creates the "inherent tendency" in WP to not have editors interested in this area – Our gender and class systemic biases. It's right there in the article: Craft is often divided from fine art because of its utility and the class status of its practitioners. Objects made in a domestic context have been gendered as women's work. With a project of this size, there's not just coincidentally going to be significantly fewer people interested in a huge topic area for no reason. — Bilorv (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

    And these are Wikipedia's biases? The "bias" towards "fine art" has been ingrained for many centuries. Blame Vasari if you must. Is the huge over-representation of sport Wikipedia's fault, and how can the WMF put people off writing about it? Actually the great majority of the workers/artisans/artists creating the sort of stuff I write about were men. Johnbod (talk) 04:22, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

    I don't think that a community failing to attract and sustain participation in a given area is the same as its processes tending to support particular outcomes. I think the concept of systemic bias would be spread too thin if it were applied to any area that didn't get enough participation, as all shortfalls in content would then be covered by it. I would agree though that there is a self-selection bias that affects what gets written about, which is related to attracting editors with different areas of interest and ties back to what Johnbod said. What is more of a systemic problem is that appropriate source material for an encyclopedia article is easier to find for some topic areas, such as those with a lot of online media coverage, and thus it's relatively easier to get more volunteers to write about those topics. isaacl (talk) 20:42, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is a place where random strangers are allowed to tell each other to f off. Fix that first, then you might attract people who are interested in crafts enough to want to learn how to edit Wikipedia articles on craft, and more importantly, how to do it well. Until then, they will always be deserted wastelands where people like Johnbod go for their Wikipedia down time. Cony Island Kook (talk) 23:16, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Well they are often not deserted by the readers, just the editors. Johnbod (talk) 04:22, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion report: Editors discuss Wikipedia's vetting process for administrators (34,011 bytes · 💬)

Correction

• @Mikehawk10: KevinL and L235 are the same person. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:05, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Fixed. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:15, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Main issue: toxic, hostile, etc.

The main issue seems to be finally some discussion on the toxic environment at RfA which for years has been largely avoided except by Jimbo Wales and those advocating reform. This statement: For at least the last 15 months or so, and arguably much longer than that, there have been regular discussions at WT:RFA and elsewhere about problems with RfA and possible solutions seems a bit incongruous especially as that particular talk page has been pretty much a desert since before the 2018 seminal trilogy on RfA in The Signpost, and has just entered its longest hiatus ever. The WT:RfA with 3,571 editors, 3,702 watchers, and 951 page views in the last 30 days, but less than a handful of posts, Wikipedia's once most popular forum and only 110 takers for Barkeep's survey there does seem to be a general apathy surrounding all things adminship. There are a few days left for the discussion...

The RfC talk page is almost as revealing as the marathon 2-hour questionaire itself and fortunately only takes a few minutes to read. Among the many comments are:

• Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. – The Blade of the Northern Lights
• I've talked to two editors considering RfA in the near-ish future who said that they are hesitant to even comment at this RfC because they're afraid that their opinions, whatever those opinions might be, will get used against them somehow at their RfA. I think that's a pretty clear signal that something is wrong with RfA. Admin candidates shouldn't have to be playing that kind of politics. – GeneralNotability
• if I was planning to run RfA I would stay a mile from this RfC.– Ymblanter
• I'd have to agree that commenting on this RfC might in fact be used to oppose candidacy. – Valereee

Biblioworm's 2015 article in TheSignpost was obviously a precursor to his valiant December RfC. The few successful reforms nevertheless did not improve anything for the underlying issues with RfA: the dearth of candidates, and the "horrible and broken process". The 2018 trilogy in The Signpost, a light hearted approach to the problems but with some serious undertones, received an unusual number of positive readers' comments.

The first part 'Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?' began with: 'Wikipedia Talk:Requests for adminship, once the most lively forum on the project with the exception of ANI, is becalmed. The babble of noise at peak times akin to the background din of a noisy Manchester pub on a Saturday night has dropped not just to a whisper, but to a stony silence. It's become an empty space. Walk through it and you'll make conspicuous footprints in the dust gathering on the floor. Your footfall echoes in the deserted room...'

The second installment 'What do admins actually do?' opened with: 'In last month's Signpost we reported that discussions about adminship had dropped not just to a trickle, but had dried up completely.' The article which included admins' views on their work and a curious twist on admin abuse produced a massive 70,000 byte river of comment, positive and objective.

Episode 3, 'The last leg of the Admin Ship's current cruise', culminated with a revealing survey on what admins have to say themselves about the process, among them, this gem from Mkdw: RFA has been a safe haven for incivility, disruption, and soapbox.

Bri followed up almost exactly a year later with his special report in The Signpost which also brought many comments including the piercingly apt 'I have yet to see anyone present a reason why any sane person would ever want to be a Wikipedia Administrator. First you go through hell at RfA, then you are either constantly attacked for doing your job or you get tired of the constant attacks and become a "deadweight admin". Maybe being willing to accept the position of admin should disqualify you from being an admin on grounds of insanity. Would anyone here like to try giving me one reason why I would ever want to become an admin?' from Guy Macon.

Déjà vu? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:55, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Meanwhile we are down from 500 active admins at the time of my report to 434 today (see bot edit summaries at WP:List of administrators/Active), which appears to me to be an all-time low. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:59, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

In reality it's less than that, Bri, much less. The criterion for 'active admin' is ridiculously misleading. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Rick Bot seems to have something against u-z. I think some of those users would be surprised to know they're inactive Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:44, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comma: "Some participants, such as Andrew Davidson argued" – comma required adter Davidson. deisenbe (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
• I think it's hypocritical that Vami IV talks about the hostile environment and negativity at RfA given the reasons why their RfA failed. I'll only mention the former candidate's onwiki activity, such as stereotyping editors from the "Indian subcontinent" in their CCI bingo on their userpage. [1] Given that the candidate wanted to work in copyright, a success without any scrutiny would mean we'd be in a situation right now where an admin who openly stereotyped Indian editors could be reviewing them at CCI. What kind of atmosphere does that create for editors from the Indian subcontinent? That would certainly be a "corrosive" atmosphere. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 02:40, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Chess: And the irony goes beyond just Vami IV's RfA. In my experience the vast majority of oppose votes are motivated by a fear that the candidate, for reasons of attitude, experience, or whatever, will use the tools badly and in doing so alienate other editors. It's hard to phrase these concerns in a constructive way, even though they're legitimate, and even if you do there is a good chance you will be jumped on by upset supporters and blamed for a "hostile environment" anyway. – Joe (talk) 06:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Chess: Your accusations of racism, veiled as they are, are unfounded and deeply offensive to me. And as for your question, nothing, because I work at CCI with an Indian editor, who was among those editors also hurt by my RfA, and who was one of the few with which I was in contact in the bitter immediate aftermath. I want you to stop talking about me, or at the least to stop casting the aspersion that I am a blight on this project. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Vami IV: I said that it's stereotyping Indian editors and that it would create a corrosive atmosphere for editors from the Indian subcontinent. While I was 100% willing to stop talking about you and leave the issues at the RfA at that RfA, if you're going to make public statements several months after the fact calling out the opposes at your RfA I don't see how it's fair to get mad that people who opposed at your RfA are telling their side of the story. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:12, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  Your comment is also wrong because the reasons why their RfA failed were that consensus was made that I am neither mature nor competent at copyright. Strike your comment. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  The direct reason why your RfA failed was because you withdrew. Because of this, Bureaucrats didn't evaluate any consensus in the opposes. There were a lot of people who opposed based on copyright competence but there were also a lot of people who opposed based on other reasons. The "Indian subcontinent" entry at CCI bingo was one of the reasons why some people opposed. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:22, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  Note that being an admin does not make you a copyright clerk, similar to SPI clerks, non-admins can and do close/open CCIs as well as dealing with issues at the Copyright Problems board. — Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 06:42, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Vami IV is understandably upset by his negative RfA experience, but since his quoted account of events mentions me by name (posted there, and repeated here, without a courtesy ping), I have to point out that it isn't actually what happened. – Joe (talk) 05:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  That is not correct. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:23, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  I don't have a "general attitude" towards you, Vami. I barely recognised your username before the RfA. I do have a "general attitude" towards fascists. The more you defend your past use of fascist imagery, the more you prove that you should not be an admin. – Joe (talk) 06:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  That is one of the most rotten, evil, and misbegotten things ever said of me. I am not defending the display of that eagle. In fact, I think that I should have been indefinitely blocked for displaying it. I was and am just angry and very, very hurt that the very fact of my change has been rejected and that I was and have been identified as a pathogen. Your "general attitude" towards me is the unearned hostility with which you treated me and those who tried to testify to my changed character and/or explain the inappropriateness of that edit summary. And if you think I am still a fascist, then you can go and ask the editors with whom I am working at Léon Degrelle. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:59, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  You're defending it when you whine about yourself being an RfA martyr; when you point to my comment (which merely said that we should think about the consequences of electing to give someone who used to be an open fascist the bit) as an example of "hostility"; and when you call those who voted against you because of it "stupid". And you do that a lot. There are real problems with hostility in this community—ones that systematically exclude whole swathes of people—but I'm afraid a shortage of white American kids with a penchant for 'edgy' humour in the admin corps is not one of them. I'm glad that you've realised how reprehensible your former views were, but changes in the way we see ourselves are not automatically reflected in how others see us, and your inability to see that is yet another sign of immaturity. Your RfA failed because you would not be a good admin. Get over it. – Joe (talk) 07:59, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  I think you will find that its the white British kids in the admin corps with a penchant for edgy humour. The American ones have a penchant for edgy humor. Personally I prefer dry to edgy and all I can say is that I hope you know a good glazier. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 07:30, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  The RfA was headed towards failure because a significant minority community thought that Vami wouldn't make a good admin, not because editors knew that Vami wouldn't make a good admin. I can think of at least one recent RfA that generated significant opposition and barely passed, yet the editor is a perfectly fine admin. —Danre98^{(talk^contribs)} 22:52, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Did anyone involved in the writing of this article check with Vami before using that rather large block quote? It's the only quote that's large enough to be offset (it's about 10% of the article's length by word count), and it seems to call particular attention to him in a way that's now resulted in comments dredging up issues from the RfA, as if that hadn't already been done to death at the RfA. I'm sure that is not what the author intended, but perhaps it's something to be considered for the next piece. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:38, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  This. And if someone is going to be criticised by name in that quote, it would be nice if they were also asked to comment, or at least notified. – Joe (talk) 07:49, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  This isn't about you, Joe, and in any case the lack of a direct notification doesn't seem to have impeded your ability to make unnecessary bad-faith comments. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:56, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  That's what "and" means, PMC. And I thought we'd already had our conversation about "unnecessary bad-faith comments". – Joe (talk) 08:01, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  I seem to recall it ending with you saying you wanted to steer clear of drama going forward, and yet here you are stirring it up again. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:05, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  I will again point to the above, Google-indexed article in which I am the only named person blamed for creating a "corrosive atmosphere" at RfA. I think it is reasonable that I respond to that. On the other hand, I can't see any reason why you would show up here other than because your Discord protégé is throwing another tantrum. – Joe (talk) 08:11, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  Again with the bad faith accusations and uncollegial attitude. I don't think it will be productive for me to respond any further. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:24, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  (Redacted)

  — (Redacted), (Redacted)

  uncollegial attitude

  — Premeditated Chaos, September 2021

  – Joe (talk) 08:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  Discord logs are to be treated as IRC logs, per RFC. If you do not have consent to publish them they should not be here. Sennecaster (Chat) 12:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  "This isn't about you" when Joe Roe is directly mentioned in the blockquote as an example of the corrosive attitude. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:05, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

For transparency, I have removed and oversighted the above (Redacted) content. Discord logs are not permitted, per the result of this RfC. I accidentally removed the content {{Blockquote|uncollegial attitude|{{u|Premeditated Chaos}}, September 2021}}, which I have restored in this edit. Many thanks ~TNT (she/they • talk) 12:38, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was going to say that PMC is welcome to ask me to remove the quote if she considers her hypocritical Discord rant about me "personal private information", but I see TheresNoTime has already oversighted it. Interested readers can see it for themselves by logging on to the public Wikipedia Discord server, channel #english-wikipedia, and scrolling up to 5/6/2021. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I assume there's a very good reason that we have this rule. – Joe (talk) 12:44, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but what are we to find there? – Anon423 (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Wow . . . Even report about RfA has started war in comment section. How will RfA experience become better then ??? -- Parnaval (talk) 14:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Hmmm. My 2015 failed RfA was part of the impetus for some of the subsequent 2015 reforms too. The number one problem with the entire process is that a small group of disgruntled users can derail the process, particularly for long-time, experienced editors. In parallel, people who manage to fly under the radar sometimes can be too easily approved without an adequate track record. I have considered RfA2 from time to time since then ( I think the stats were that I had the most total support votes of any failed RfA in quite some time), but I have to find several weeks of my life I will never get back, as it is not only the Wikipedia RFA process that is a problem, it is also the off-wiki doxxing (I had contacts that indicated people had even found my home address and an employer) and attacks that come from assorted users who, yes, will find decade-old posts, find out of context diffs, and then flood the field with them. Basically, the candidate and their friends have to not only watch the RfA itself, but also patrol everything from certain WP criticism sites to Yelp, Google, and so on. In terms of reform, I think the first step is that the bureaucrats need to be assigned to these candidacies with round-the-clock coverage to remove personal attacks, comments that have been edited without acknowledgment of having been changed, and to move arguments on the voting page over to the discussion area as quickly as possible. I also think that while off-wiki attacks cannot be stopped by WP, it wouldn’t hurt if the WMF could reach out to some of the criticism sites based in the USA and have a frank discussion about the difference between criticizing Wikipedia and going after otherwise private individuals in real life. Montanabw^(talk) 15:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Second point: The toxicity of the desysop process is also a problem, and easily manipulated by a small number of disgruntled trolls, as one can see from the actions taken against admins such as RexxS and worst of all, Flyer22reborn. Montanabw^(talk) 15:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Montanabw, nobody nowadays wants to be an admin and be expected to work at the drama boards. The Sword of Damocles is just too dangerous. There are too many vindictive users out there including Arbcom members themselves, who will blow a case up out of all proportion by taking things cleverly out of context as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, and the result is a desysoping. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:36, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Montana, I think it is simplistic thinking to label people who present evidence in a desysop case as trolls. If only it were that simple, trolls can easily be ignored, evidence cannot. These cases are no fun for anyone involved, but it is perhaps one of arbcom's most important functions. Making the workshop phase optional was something I proposed specifically to make desysop cases less horrible. Does the committee always arrive at the correct conclusion? No, it doesn't, but blaming that on trolls is not correct either. (I'm also not at all sure what you mean by bringing up Flyer22, who was never an admin) Beeblebrox (talk) 01:28, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

• One only needs to look at this RfA to understand how high the expectations of voters are sometimes: the RfA failed because the candidate had a pool of GIFs on his/her talk page which randomly changed and that GIF which was displayed the day of the RfA was found to be chocking by the voters. Also, this one was refused because the candidate, to quote a user, made "not one but two sides of poor judgement at AfC" recently. Veverve (talk) 05:51, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• That first one seems to have an at least as much opposition based on the extremely low percentage of mainspace work by the candidate, which is a perfectly valid concern. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:35, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

On removing names from this article and these comments

Mikehawk10 has asked me to look at a request by a user to have their name removed from this article. The request IMHO applies to another user as well - if one name is removed, so should the other. In general I am not averse to removing the names of innocent bystanders who are innocently included in a Signpost article. But in examining the article, I don't see anything extraordinary in the mentions of the names. Neither seems to be an innocent bystander. Rather there are 2 people who like to argue mentioned a total of 3 times in the article. These folks seem to have argued at an RfA, and then at the RfC about RfAs, and then here in the comments page (a total of about 20 times here). The problem is not in the article, Mikeh seems to have described the situation very accurately. Folks who don't want to be described in The Signpost as disagreeing, shouldn't disagree so much. We won't be removing the names in the article, Those who want to remove their names in the comments section here should remove all their comments as well as redacting their names in other's comments - remove just your name and replace it with "[redacted]". That's all I can say about people who seems to be trying to be disagreeable. The Signpost won't be taking any action. If you want to appeal this decision - well there are many admins on this page - take it to one of their pages but do not continue to discuss it here Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:34, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

In support of RfA

My own RfA was in late 2007. Most of the editors who participated were reasonable people who were deciding for themselves whether or not I could be trusted with administrative tools. That's a fair description of RfAs I've seen for subsequent nominees in the years since then: the only basis participants have for an opinion is the body of the nominee's contributions and associations, so that's what they evaluate.

There were a few editors who had taken a dislike to me, and some of their opposes were lengthy. One assumes in good faith that they were sincere. That some of it was unpleasant was not the fault of the RfA process, which is a public discussion of the merits of a nominee. It just attracted anybody who cared to express an opinion or hoped to influence the outcome, which is what posting an RfA is supposed to do.

It's unfortunate that this Signpost report spotlights Vami_IV's RfA experience as if it had been typical. It was not, and framing RfA as gruesome is not helpful. – Athaenara ✉ 19:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Athaenara, this is a report on the community discussion; are you saying the reporter "framed RfA as gruesome" or the community did? By my review the phase 1 discussion had more comments on E. Corrosive RfA atmosphere than any other topic, and the response to the proposition The atmosphere at RfA is deeply unpleasant. This makes it so fewer candidates wish to run and also means that some members of our community don't comment/vote. was overwhelmingly in support of that statement (45:3 currently). In other words, the reporter did their job correctly in focusing on this issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:11, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

I guess it's helpful as a stimulus. My point is that it's not the RfA process itself that is to blame, but the degree of tolerance of disruption. For example, there's a some yardage of abusive crosschat (most of it in Oppose sections) which should properly be moved to RfA talk pages. – Athaenara ✉ 21:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm scratching my head over this. If as you say the process is tolerant of a degree of disruption that makes the process ineffective at bringing new sysops to the project, then in my view the process is broken. Maybe you are distinguishing between the current administration of the process and some ideal administration that has yet to exist. Even so, again, the discussion has to occur to determine what that ideal administration is. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:53, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Moving distracting sideshows from main RfA to RfA talk pages isn't a matter of administration, it doesn't need someone stepping down from on high, it just needs participants willing to do it, and they often do. I couldn't give you statistics on that without devoting days or a week to checking every RfA which ever ran. Stray examples:

• screenloads of argument at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/GreenMeansGo
• discussion of opposes at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Hog Farm
• discussion of an oppose moved to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Ashleyyoursmile
• screenloads of hairsplitting Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/BusterD 2

I'm not saying this proves anything, just saying that it's easy to do and doesn't require supervisory intervention by someone with more powers outside the discussion. – Athaenara ✉ 22:28, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Athaenara, ...it's not the RfA process itself that is to blame, but the degree of tolerance of disruption. This is correct. For decades RfA has been the one venue where editors can break every sense of propriety with impunity and they will vote down any attempt to have their playground placed under supervision. The 'distracting sideshows' however, are a fairly recent phenomenon - a trend (one dosen't need to 'to checking every RfA which ever ran'.). And of course RfA just gets worse, even if it's down to less than a dozen a year. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:07, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

The swing of the pendulum?

So now we feel standards at RfA are too high ... how long ago was (or wasn't?) it that far too many people thought they were too low? Daniel Case (talk) 22:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Speaking as someone with only relatively recent wikipedia experience whenever I’ve had an interaction with an admin that leaves me going “How the F did they ever become an admin?” its been an admin who became an admin in the early days (sometimes within a year of signing up, a feat which would be herculean if not entirely impossible today). Never run into that with a post 2010 or so admin. I can’t tell you when the standard changed, but I am almost certain that at one point it was much lower than it is currently. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:35, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Some of us accomplished a lot within our first year. I built a Wikipedian signature gallery while I was learning wikipedia formats and markup (and exasperating more experienced editors [my own sig was downright grotesque for awhile then]), wrote several articles and learned the ins and outs of citing reliable sources without making a page unreadable, got involved in the Third Opinion Project to help editors who were in conflict, helped out at the Biographies of living persons noticeboard, got involved in the then-brand-new Conflict of interest noticeboard which turned out to be a huge help in fighting spam and spammers (I remember breaking my mouse from archiving over there when the traffic just exploded because the forum's utility became so obvious so fast and demand mushroomed). Once in awhile another editor would say hey, you should do RfA and I'd be all gaaah, all this responsibility piling up and you want me to take on more? ... a lot can happen in a year. – Athaenara ✉ 11:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Many wikipedia editors accomplish a great deal within their first year. In 2007, the year in which you became an admin, 408 new admins were minted (an all time high). Last year it was 17, not 170 but 17. Do you really think thats because modern editors fail to accomplish as much in their first year as your class year did? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:26, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I make no such assumptions about "modern editors" and I don't know why you'd infer that from my post. An admin void at the time needed filling because there was more to do. For example, there were backlogs such as a now-defunct "Temporary Wikipedian userpages" category with thousands of pages awaiting deletion, and vandals accustomed to fewer consequences did more damage with impunity when we had fewer admins to block them. – Athaenara ✉ 05:40, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

So you’re saying standards were lowered at the time but it was justified by a pressing need? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:01, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

No, and I don't know why you'd infer that either. – Athaenara ✉ 06:22, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

So if the amount accomplished within the first year has nothing to do with it and the admin void has nothing to do with it why bring them up? Are you just getting defensive because you feel that I am challenging the validity of your adminship specifically (I am not, you currently seem like an excellent admin)? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:59, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

• Fifteen years ago, administration and ideas of the proper functions of administrators were still somewhat unclear. Now most editors take the existence of adminstrators for granted as a natural part of the usual scenery. In the timeline, it's clear that the community woke up to the idea that it needed more administrators and guidelines for what to expect of them: it tackled both those issues with a whole bunch of RfAs and lots of discussions of what should be expected of them. It was part of the oganic development of the encyclopedia anyone can edit, not a watershed that needs repeating. – Athaenara ✉ 19:37, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Disinformation report: Paid promotional paragraphs in German parliamentary pages (9,432 bytes · 💬)

• Readers might want to know that the folks at enwp Conflict of interest noticeboard had to clean up many of the Kosinski articles and sort out fraudulent Articles for creation approvals. Several ended up draftified or deleted. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:52, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
• Is it just me or did anyone else read "promotional" as "p*rnotional" and do a double take? I really need to avoid the internet before 9:00 AM (not that it will make any big difference in how alert I am, haha). As for the response by "This!", (King George III impression as in Hamilton) Awesome, wow. Is that sort of response common from people and companies that try to pull off this sort of BS? Tube·of·Light 03:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I haven't really asked that many. I tried sending something similar to Burger King, who had replaced the entire lead of the Whopper article with adverting text that was meant to be read by Alexa or some home bot set off by a 30 second TV commercial. There wasn't a direct email address available for the head marketing guy, so he may have never got the message, but he didn't answer when the story got into Adverising Age and about 10 similar publications. The advertising industry gave him an award. Some folks think "I don't care what you say about me as long as you mention my product and spell my name right." I consider that to be a testable hypothesis. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:35, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Wow, turns out BK just loves controversial advertising (link to USA Today). I really don't know what is the most surprising part to me, the fact that BK thought this would be even remotely okay, or the fact that even Google was taking action against this, or the fact that BK got an award for this. BTW, did you use 5 tildes instead of 4 when signing, Smallbones? Tube·of·Light 03:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
• The Kosinsky case is a sad breach of trust of the community, and raises questions about whether the best-intentioned users involved in such projects or perhaps Wikimidians-in-residence may fall into a Stockholm syndrome-like situation or simply lower themselves to corrupt opportunism when placed in such key positions. I'm not sure what exactly we can do other than encourage community oversight of people in these positions. -Indy beetle (talk) 10:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• I don't think it's accurate to say that the YouTube comments, instead of "blaming Wikipedia for being unreliable, easily manipulated and totally corrupt", had "quite a positive bent". The top comment, with 4.2K upvotes (ten times as many as the comment quoted by the Signpost above), says, "I can hear some teacher from my school now saying 'I told you, Wikipedia doesn't count as a source.' I can feel the sound waves." --Andreas JN466 19:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

That's true, but I really would have expected all comments tk be negative, in the vein of "you trust what you read on Wikipedia?" That anyone at all in YouTube comments came to our defense was quite unexpected for me, already. Zarasophos (talk) 23:01, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. It was a much more positive set of comments than I've come across about Wikipedia elsewhere. The top comment is one of the largest cliches about Wikipedia, but not one of the most wrong. (And of course, the response is: no, you can't cite Wikipedia as a secondary source in a serious work, but you can use it as part of the research process, particularly as a way to find reliable references.) — Bilorv (talk) 14:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'll just note that Bri really wanted the blurb to be "Schmutziges Wikipedia-Geheimnis", ("filthy wiki-secret") which is a quote from the comedian. If I could have figured out a way to properly attribute the quote in a video in a foreign language in a blurb (on the Table of contents page) to avoid BLP/quote attribution problems, I'd have seriously considered it. Now that's a schmutziges Wikipedia-Geheimnis. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:02, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

German proposal

• The German WP has been much more friendly that we are to declared paid editors--and I can understand why, because some of them are excellent and know how to do NPOV work, which is rarely the case at enWP. I'm glad they've acknowledged that there is a corresponding part below the surface. We should adopt their statement that

edits made by PR service providers for pay to be not permitted. Ceding a verified account to a PR service provider to this end is not permitted either. This is valid for all namespaces. Rule breaches will lead to a permanent ban of the used accounts upon becoming known. PR service providers means persons or organisations that offer the creation or editing of a Wikipedia article for pay as a service to customers.

I don't see how it could we could word it better. DGG ( talk ) 03:22, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• Paid editors (minus Wikipedians in residence and limited other educational work) are parasites who we would be better off without. It doesn't matter whether it's a relatively good company like This! or a human rights-violating one like fast fashion and food brands: we should be writing the article about them, with complete independence. Unfortunately, we cannot be free from paid editing, any more than we can be free from vandals. Each Wikipedia's goal with paid editing rules should be to minimise the amount of infestations that occur, and be able to deal with them as quickly as possible with as few side effects as possible when detected. On en.wiki that might mean compromising and letting through some of the tidiest and least overtly promotional content, so rules on disclosing COIs aren't simply ignored... any more than they will be anyway. I hope de.wiki finds the right solution for them. — Bilorv (talk) 14:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd support the basic German proposal here. But one problem is that we don't have "verified accounts" here. My understanding of this is that celebrities, paid editors and perhaps others submit contact information to the German VTRS, which they verify, perhaps via email or maybe even a phone call. That could solve many, many problems here, e.g the Philip Roth case. But it could also cause a few very difficult problems - think of what might happen if a movie star changes agents, or just the general Brittny Spears case. And would our VTRS volunteers even be willing to do the work? I'd support creating verified accounts if it was clear what VTRS or ordinary editors could do with them. I'd suppose the usual thing to happen would be something like this: a verified account goes to an article talk page and states e.g. "my client categorically denies that ..." to which the proper response should be - "get that fact reported in a reliable source, at at least issue a press release with their name and your contact on it, which we can quote."

This brings me to my basic complaints about paid editing. Other than the basic dishonesty of most paid editors (trying to slip in unnoticed an advert into an educational resource without paying for it), the main problem is that we "allow" them to publish unsigned, unverified press releases in the encyclopedia. Paid editing is like a press release in that it is a message (paid for by the company) by the company's representative (with an inherent COI) intended to promote the company (yes, that's why they have to pay for it), but we don't require that paid editors prove that they actually represent their presumed client. All real press releases will have contact info for further contact and detail. Of course they are usually useless to us. But an unconfirmed press release via a paid editor is even more useless. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:03, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Zach Horwitz pled guilty today [2] and will be sentenced on January 2, 2022. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:26, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

In the media: The future of Wikipedia (4,680 bytes · 💬)

• Wow, this seems like a lot more news stories about Wikipedia than in a standard month. I find it interesting to read journalists/readers' perspective on the project because it can be so different from an editor's point-of-view. Elements that frustrate, perplex or challenge us on a daily basis are invisible to those who write about Wikipedia. Still, sometimes they can offer a big picture, forest viewpoint that is hard to see down here in the weeds.
  Thanks for pulling this together, Signpost gurus, I always enjoy scanning the news stories you compile each month for this column. And it also serves to remind me that Boing Boing still exists. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:07, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, there was a lot of news this month! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
• Great work on the expanded paper. Great to see the story on Coffman!! scope_creep^Talk 21:17, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comma: "Perhaps the most interesting section is how Bomis, his internet startup suddenly started": comma required after "startup". deisenbe (talk) 23:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I've edited the page to fix the typo. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:43, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• But Kontactu says — "Kotaku". FTFY. (Literally.) 😉 -- FeRDNYC (talk) 13:05, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Cool, I started Catherine Nakalembe (mentioned above). IP:s tried to add her name to her husbands page without BLP-good refs. At the time I couldn't find a ref for them being married, but I did find refs for an article about her. And later I started one for the award she won. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:46, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Unfortunately, not all the Washington Post's facts are accurate: "former Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher, who since taking the reins of the organization in 2014 had grown Wikipedia into one of the world’s most widely cited sources of information." - make that 2016 (initially as temp stand-in), & this was not I think the period when WP became "one of the world’s most widely cited sources of information" (a rather odd way of putting it), nor a period of very "rapid growth". Johnbod (talk) 03:42, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  I have noted before that WP is a difficult topic for journalists. Which make sense, since it can be a difficult topic for Wikipedians too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:35, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Congrats to K.e.coffman for being the subject of the excellent Wired piece. A good piece of reporting by the journalist IMO. Has anyone played Neurocracy? It sounds really interesting. I'm immediately a fan of anything that might get casual readers to realise there's a page history for Wikipedia articles, a good place from which to go down the rabbithole and discover how much there is behind the scenes (and how much you can do to help!). — Bilorv (talk) 22:53, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
• For the WMF's decision on Chinese Wikipedia, there are actually far more media coverage (in different languages) than listed above, see this page on zh.wiki. (Some listed in the page are not reliable sources but they might still be worth mentioning here.) Actually, most of the news coverage did not notice that not all the banned or desysopped users were from mainland China. Sun8908 _Talk 01:43, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

News and notes: New CEO, new board members, China bans (15,499 bytes · 💬)

• "The mainland group say that, if it is subordinate to the foundation, the Wikipedia movement is dead in mainland China."

  ...what does that even mean? All language Wikipedias are "subordinate" to the Foundation, they are language variants organized and run by the Foundation itself. And, yes, there are global Wikimedia rules that need to be followed. And that includes not bringing harm to other users. Does this group really think everyone else doesn't see the BS PR they're pushing? It's pretty plain to see that they want to both promote the censorship of the Chinese government and to use Chinese Wikipedia as a front to identify and hunt down "dissidents". Silverseren^C 21:57, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

  • @Silver seren: It is pretty hilarious how they get all pearl-clutchy at the very suggestion they could be involved in "community capture", and in the very next breath they declare Wikipedia dead to the entire community if they don't get their way. Making the prosecution's case, as it were. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 12:59, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
    • @Silver seren and FeRDNYC: That simply seals the case that those in charge of WMC only interested in taking over, not in taking part in the global movement. Nevermind that Wikipedia has already been officially dead in China for a decade. It's a classic case of WP:NOTHERE. Deryck C. 12:31, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Normchou ^💬 04:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• Hard-fork? What's that? The fork link doesn't mention that type. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I presume it means a full copying of Wikipedia that isn't making a mirror or some sub entity. They're just going to take all the content and make their own thing. Silverseren^C 00:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Yeah, Jim. It means a complete split, Zh.wiki keeps what's there and does whatever it wants. WMC.nonwiki starts with the same articles and does whatever they want to do with it. I think it also implies "and never the twain shall meet again" Smallbones, 00:23, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
      • Though wouldn't even hard forks have to still give attribution, due to Wikipedia's editor copyright? Or are they likely to go the "Copyright doesn't exist in China for things made not in China" route that several other product makers have done for other things? Silverseren^C 00:26, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
        • As POV-pushy as they are, the WMC folks have enough self-respect to not go to Baidu Baike. I believe they will keep the attribution just fine. --Artoria2e5 🌉 03:46, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • "Hard fork" is used in the open-source world and in cryptocurrency context. It occurs in Fork (blockchain)#Hard fork, maybe it needs to be added at Fork (software development). ☆ Bri (talk) 04:42, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
    • All right, so it seems "hard" here means they copy, once, all the pages of that particular language's Wikipedia, not just the articles, and don't copy later versions of WP pages but rather only use their own updated versions if any. As I understand it, Everipedia also did that. If they were to use versions updated by WP edits, it would be called a "mirror" rather than a "fork". So, is a "fork" necessarily a "hard fork" or are there also softer kinds? Though, perhaps Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks would be a better place to discuss nomenclatorial questions. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
      • In software a soft fork means the new code is backwards compatible but that doesn't really make sense for a human readable work. I am not sure myself if there is a difference for a WP fork. The word "hard" might be superfluous. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
        • The Fork (software development) article already defines a "soft fork" in terms of friendliness and intention. I guess that would be enough. --Artoria2e5 🌉 02:58, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
• Congratulations to the new CEO— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirbopher2004 (talk • contribs) 2021-09-27T03:09:18 (UTC)
• A question for Iskander: "What experience do you have of contributing to Wikimedia projects? Do you have an active account on Wikipedia or another project?" Modest Genius ^talk 11:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Though legitimate, this is a loaded question. And personally, I don't think that you need to have an extensive experience as an editor to be at the helm of the Foundation. You learn nothing about managing a non-profit by editing Wikipedia, and you don't need to have 50k edits and 12 GAs to understand how Wikipedia works. What her job entails is mostly managing a huge stack of cash and setting the priorities as to how that cash should be spent. The most relevant experience here is business management. From what I could read, she understands and respects the work of the volunteers as well as the "separation" between the Foundation and the content, and has a sound vision of Wikipedia's purpose—and that's all I need to know. This is much more preferable to an executive that would have 50k edits and 12 GAs and, on that basis, would pretend to order us around or tell us how to do our job. JBchrch talk 16:21, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

It's not a loaded question, I'm just interested. I'm not implying that such experience is required - I recognise that they're different jobs. You're inventing your own criticisms. If someone became CEO of a sports team it would be reasonable to ask if they had ever played the sport, or ask the new CEO of a coffee chain whether they ever drink coffee. Those things are not necessarily required to do a good job, but are relevant and of interest to stakeholders. Modest Genius ^talk 11:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

@Modest Genius: I'm sorry that I misunderstood your comment. But if you ask a question that begins with "What experience do you have of...", it may give a wrong impression of your intentions... JBchrch talk 22:18, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Businesspeople are going to make bad decisions if they don't understand the purpose of the non-profit they are leading. For instance, I don't want the WMF to grow the most that it can, to increase its reader donation pot or to hire many more employees. Those things will be neutral or negative to the actual grassroots movement that the WMF sits on top of. As for spending a stack of cash, you need to know what's cost-effective, morally appropriate and what the community want most and why. You may not have to have 50,000 edits or 12 GAs to understand Wikipedia, but if you do have those then you probably do understand a lot about Wikipedia. But since 99% or more of Wikipedia readers don't actually know what Wikipedia is, you need something to show why you're fit—we have one of the most complex bureaucratic, technical and norm-based process systems of any community I can think of. I'd be interested to hear, with a completely open mind (her CV looks alright to me), why Iskander thinks she can make the best decisions for me and my community. — Bilorv (talk) 22:24, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• During the introduction on wikimedia-l she got a (reasonable IMO) advise to create but not disclose an account end edit anonymously for some time.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:35, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Another question for Iskander: What is your understanding of disinformation on Wikipedia, how are you going to tackle this problem and how would you determine an adequate level of resourcing? MER-C 12:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• @MER-C, JBchrch, and Bilorv: what a lot of people didn't understand is that the recently vacated post of CEO, despite the job description was not not a managerial position - at least if that was intended, it's not what it turned out to be. Even in times of crisis the best the incumbent could manage were a couple of hurried Tweets. That job became a more representative function like that of a non-executive presidency or the work of Senior Royals. I'm not saying that it did not generate more donations (hopefully more than the salary and travel bill), but there was no shop floor management of any kind that reached the notice of the volunteer communities. The actual hierarchy of the WMF still remains enigmatic. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:08, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• User:Super Wang [...] looks forward to editing Wikipedia again – on the hard-fork. Well, if it's a hard fork... he wouldn't be, would he? He might look forward to once again editing an online collaborative encyclopedia, and may well end up doing so, but that (mainland-hosted, forked) encyclopedia wouldn't be Wikipedia. I'm fairly confident the WMF are protective enough of their brand that they'd force them to at least not use the name Wikipedia, even if all the content originated from there (before being subjected to a thorough government scrubbing). -- FeRDNYC (talk) 12:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • About that government scrubbing - I wonder if they will suppress censored versions from the history of all the articles. That would be lot of work! If they don't, then it would open the possibility for mainland Chinese to view uncensored Wikipedia articles via the article history tab. I'll be interested to see how this plays out. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:26, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Or could just don't import any article of sensitive topic, that would be much easier, and much safer for the fork itself located in the mainland China overall. —— Eric Liu_（Talk） 13:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
      • @Ericliu1912: Oh, I think they'll definitely do that, for sure. But Mr. Stradivarius makes a good point, there are likely to be unacceptable versions of articles on topics they do want to keep. Rather than having to sanitize all the histories, I suspect they'll just drop them entirely, and only clone the current content of each article as the starting point for their fork. (IANAL, but that would seem to fall well within the terms of the CC-BY-SA license. At most they'd just have to provide a list of everyone who contributed to the article in its current state, in lieu of the edit history.) -- FeRDNYC (talk) 23:35, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
• The legitimacy of the voting in the latest Russian Arbitration Committee election (AK-32) has been challenged. [...] According to Levg "there is a probability that AK–32 will be asked to investigate it, or more likely – to establish a kind of 'Investigation commission'." — What is AK-32? The first sentence says it is the election, but then "AK–32 will be asked to investigate" makes no sense. —2d37 (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the question. Short answer (AK-32) is the name given to the Russian arbitration Committee, version #32, and also can refer to the election of that committee. The need for the numbering is that they have an election every six months! So the abbreviation might have been (Arb Kom-elected May, 2021). It's a confusing story that I've been following for over 2 months and I think it's important. Trying to make sense of it has been fairly difficult however. I think where it stands now is that A) it will just be easier now to wait until the AK-33 election, B) the lack of members on AK-32 makes it difficult for them to investigate their own election, C) everybody is sick of it, D) perhaps any investigation may be conducted by unusual means. Take your pick of any or all of those! I decided to report the story because I think it could be very important. OTOH telling our readers exactly what happened or even what is happening is not possible. Usually what we'd do on a story like this is to say that "an investigaion is happening ..." but the news here is now something like "an investigation is apparently not happening". I hope this helps. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:38, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
  • @2d37: Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
    • I wonder if they'll have the same naming convention in seven years time. MER-C 17:04, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

      Yes, this is something which has been discussed there for years (I was in AK-8 and AK-10, and it was already a hot topic), so I would expect yes, until it gets completely disrupted by these external forces.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:13, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

    • @Smallbones: I hope this helps. — Yes, thank you. I'm sorry if I accidentally implied the story is unimportant. —2d37 (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

News from Diff: Welcome to the first grantees of the Knowledge Equity Fund (19,368 bytes · 💬)

Knowledge equity "around the world" actually means 3/6 of the grantees are American focused on American issues and a complete ignorance of the Indian subcontinent. This is obviously because America is the most important and worst country in the world. Also pretty much everyone in the Indian subcontinent is brown anyways right?? So they must all love each other and are basically the same why would there ever be equity gaps between different communities over there that need to be remediated? After all skin colour appears to be the overriding factor, given that in America it is the number one separator between communities it follows that the rest of the world also has that exact same issue. I hope the WMF in the future switches to spending all of their money on America, after all, how else are they supposed to get street cred at their San Francisco parties? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 03:26, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I do understand what you are trying to say and I do agree as an Indian, but it sounds (reads?) like you are ranting instead of calmly explaining your point (but then again your mood is understandable given that it's been years). Tube·of·Light 04:01, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• While I sympathize with Chess that much of what the WMF does these days plays very well in "woke" virtue signaling circles (the blurb for SeRCH Foundation checks all the boxes a San Fran PR person could ever dream of), I'm willing to give the organisation some of the benefit of the doubt here. The favoring of US organizations probably emanates some from practical concerns; the US nonprofit community talks to each other and there are interlocking boards of directors and staff connections, so making those grants was probably relatively easy, not to mention the WMF and Wikipedia have higher standing in the US (both at a common social level and among the media and professional nonprofit sector) relative to some other places in the world. That said, I think it is totally appropriate to push for more grants to different organizations and initiatives around the world, the foundation certainly has the money for it! I for one am excited about the grants to the Arab & West African investigative journalism centers. And on the whole, the end goal of these grants should be to produce more reliable secondary sources that can be used to build Wikipedia articles about undercovered subjects. I think that is cause for celebration! I hope the WMF will make sure of that. Chess' criticism of the focus on racial matters is fair enough in the sense that the WMF is tackling something from a very US point of view. Race and the challenges it can present vary across the world, and it many places it is eclipsed by more pressing social categories and concerns. -Indy beetle (talk) 10:42, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not sure I understand the sarcastic part of skin colour appears to be the overriding factor ... it follows that the rest of the world also has that exact same issue given that, from the experience of people I know, across Asia and Africa there is often more overt colourism than in America, whether that manifests as a small amount of white people in the country experiencing immense privilege (South Africa) or discrimination against darker-skinned people in a country of more homogeneous race (India, Jamaica). I might say it's internalised prejudice as a consequence of European colonialism, but regardless of the cause, I have to say that Black, Indigenous, and communities of color around the world seem like a good focus for the WMF globally. — Bilorv (talk) 16:57, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Non-transparent process

The way this fund came about was highly irregular. $5 million were diverted to non-WMF ends at some point during the 2019/2020 financial year. This decision was taken without community involvement, bypassed all the usual grants processes, and only became public months later, when the audited financial statements were published. See discussion on Meta for further details (including a little more info on the grantees): meta:Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund. --Andreas JN466 20:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• I concur. While all projects seem like worthy causes, I am concerned that many do not seem to have much connection to the Wikimedia movement. Who approved this? Community or just the board? Ping User:Pundit, maybe you can answer my question? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:10, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
• Me too. I'm puzzled that the Foundation would fund these outside groups before even acknowledging the obvious & growing need for resources to write articles. Which, IIRC is what draws people to Wikipedia & our related projects.
  Over the years I've had to use my own money to obtain books, articles, & more recently interlibrary loan materials. Which has blocked be from writing any number of articles. Meanwhile, the Foundation grants process appears aimed at every conceivable needs except enabling access to information. You want to have an Edit-thon? The Foundation will buy you pizza & drinks, no problem. You need an expensive book to write a series of articles? There is no hint the Foundation will even consider the request. -- llywrch (talk) 19:25, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
  • @Llywrch and Jayen466: The discussion here seems stalled, but I think we need to continue it somewhere. Village pump, anyone? Or meta? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:10, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
    • Piotrus, it's stalled on Meta as well. If you'd like to raise community awareness of the equity fund and related issues, beyond the individuals who have commented on Meta and Wikimedia-l to date, one of the busier Village Pump sections probably makes the most sense at this point.
    • llywrch, I feel you ... much the same sentiments here. However, the WMF and/or affiliates do occasionally approve microgrants for expensive books. Here is an example: https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Microgrants/KFC And you're probably aware of the Wikipedia Library, the offer of free JSTOR subscriptions etc. It's not nothing, though it all seemed "little and late", almost like an afterthought, when one might have thought it would have been one of the first things to come to mind. Best, --Andreas JN466 13:42, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

      @Jayen466 Can you link the meta discussion?

      @Llywrch Are you aware of Z-library? Great resource. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:49, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

      • Piotrus: See meta:Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund Best, --Andreas JN466 14:19, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

        Jayen466, Thank you. I posted some questions there. I am in general quite pro-WMF, but this strikes me as a terrible idea that was very badly executed. I don't wan to say "corruption", but this is far from "best practices". Frankly, what it looks to me would be plainly described as "irresponsible waste of money" tied to some very bad "mission creep", and WMF should apologize, perhaps fire whoever was responsible for this, and introduce regulations that community money is not wasted like this. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:30, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

        Piotrus, great. It will be good to have a bit more discussion. However, note that in one of her earlier replies Nadee Gunasena clarified that there was no open call for applications, and in fact no organisations submitted any grant applications. The entire process was driven by WMF staff, who invited two community members to join them on the EF committee. As for diverting funds away from the Wikimedia Community, you might find this mailing list post from Guillaume Paumier (Principal Program Manager, WMF Advancement) of interest: [3] The way I understand his post, Wikipedia is to serve as a cash cow, with a medium-term goal of having it bring in as much as a billion dollars per year (the goal for next year is $150M, up from $108M), most of which will go to initiatives outside the Wikimedia universe. Would you agree that's a reasonable inference? --Andreas JN466 11:50, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

        @Jayen466 This is... not the direction for the WMF that I support. Not unless we really exhaust options for spending funds to improve Wikimedia community (and software). Which, IMHO, we are still far from. This needs a major community review. Will you start an RfC in the Village Pump? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:10, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

        Piotrus I'd be happy to see and contribute to any further discussion of this topic, but I don't think I should be the person starting a Request for Comment process on the Village Pump. I've already written about this off-wiki, on the mailing list and on Meta ... it becomes counterproductive (not to mention exhausting ...) if it's "always the same guy" banging on about this. Actually, from the WMF's point of view, I believe this is all part and parcel of the 2030 Strategic Direction, and it's taken as read that this expresses the will of the community, or the "Wikimedia Movement" as a whole. Best, --Andreas JN466 15:44, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

        A number of people have questioned the amount of money the Foundation raises besides Andreas, but these discussions have never coalesced into any grass-roots action because, like the RfA process, no one has come up with a workable proposal to address the issue. But unlike the RfA process, for the average volunteer it's easy to overlook or ignore the Foundation's pile of cash & how it is harming the projects: we don't see the money, so we don't think about it.

        IMHO, one reason the Foundation keeps raising more money is the inherent structure of the fundraising department. In order to keep their jobs &/or receive money, the fundraisers must raise more money this year than last, despite the fact the Foundation has no need of more money. Then faced with this excess money -- which can't be distributed to the volunteer base for numerous reasons (some reasonable, some not, & which I won't go into here) -- the response of Foundation management is to use these excess funds to hire more employees, which encourages empire-building inside the Foundation. (As well as dubious activities as "re-branding" the Foundation.) Which all would agree is not a healthy path to take. -- llywrch (talk) 17:01, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

        @Llywrch I think it's totally fine for WMF to raise funds, the more the better, since I see plenty of ways in which such funds can be spend. To just name one example that I suggested in my peer reviewed research about Wikipedia, WMF should hire therapists/mediators/etc. who would carry out an active outreach targeted at volunteers who have been burning out. They could also fund more physical awards (clothing, plaques, etc.) that could be given out to prolific volunteers. Etc. There's plenty of ways to spend $$$ on the community before we have the need to disperse it among random social justice projects, which while in general commendable have little to do with Wikimedia. The goal of WMF is to make the world better through improving Wikimedia projects, not by becoming some fort of disbursement funds for random other NGOS. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:55, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

        @Piotrus: I'm not opposed to the WMF raising funds to provide services to the volunteer communities. That is a big unmet need, & here we are in agreement -- especially on your examples. But what I've seen is that (1) the fundraising group increases the amount they take in without any idea what the money will be used for (IMHO, they raise more money to justify raises in their pay); (2) all of the projects more or less muddle on without receiving services from the Foundation other than hardware/software support (at least in the short term); (3) it is difficult for Foundation employees to identify how which services they should provide without encountering legal issues (most notably section 230); thus (4) the extra money ends up spent on internal Foundation stuff (e.g. more pay, more headcount, re-branding, donations to outside groups).

        I believe that, in the short term, the Foundation needs to put a cap on their fundraising, perhaps even cut back on staff, until they find a way to constructively engage with the volunteer communities, thus knowing exactly what needs to be done to (if I may quote you) "make the world better through improving Wikimedia projects". -- llywrch (talk) 16:10, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

• Thank you for that link, very informative. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:25, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Draft RfC

I don't mind being the person to start a WP:VP RfC about this. Below is my short draft, please let me know if anyone has any remarks/comments, I'll review them before starting the RfC in a few more days (maybe I got some of my facts wrong, which would be good to catch before RfC starts...). Ping editors involved in the discussion here and on meta: @Llywrch, Jayen466, Pundit, Yair rand, Nemo bis, and ThurnerRupert:. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:20, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Piotrus. I've made some copyedits below, in particular integrating what transpired in the WMF responses in the Meta discussion (i.e. that none of the grantees applied, so there were none that were rejected, etc., as outlined in this reply on Meta). I will also ping User:Theklan who I believe might also be interested in this topic. Best, --Andreas JN466 17:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Draft 1:

Recently the Signpost published an article (Welcome to the first grantees of the Knowledge Equity Fund) about the WMF's pilot program, the meta:Knowledge Equity Fund, in which the WMF disbursed some funds (~1M USD total) to several grantee NGOs. This was done with what I and some others ([4]) believe may be insufficient transparency and oversight, coupled with mission creep, i.e. 1) there was no open competition for the funds; 2) their recipients were chosen based on unclear criteria in a non-public discussion by WMF staffers - no scoring criteria were published; and 3) the chosen recipients are both unlikely and in fact not required at all to produce any tangible benefits for our community - there is no indication that any of the grantees will produce content usable on Wikimedia projects (be it Wikipedia articles, images or other media, code, or whatever). Please note that I am speaking as someone who in the past and even now is still pro-WMF in general, but from where I am sitting this looks like a few WMF staffers and two arbitrarily chosen volunteers constituting the Equity Fund Committee decided to give away over a million dollars (with at least three more earmarked for further rounds) that people donated to Wikimedia to a few random organizations with zero oversight involved. This is a far cry from any best practices I can imagine (it seems extremely unprofessional and even corruption-prone) and should lead to both tightening the oversight on how WMF money is spent to avoid any malpractices, as well as cutting down on mission creep (WMF goal is to make the world better through improving Wikimedia projects, not by becoming some sort of disbursement fund for random other NGOs). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:20, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Op-Ed: I've been desysopped (16,088 bytes · 💬)

There is no "mainland China". Using that as a part of your group's name is inherently political and pretty explanatory toward your group's purpose. There is the country of China and there is the country of Taiwan. They are two separate countries. Silverseren^C 23:32, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Aren't Hong Kong and Macau typically not considered as being part of Mainland China, despite being recognized as a part of the PRC? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

^ I really don't think the OP was trying to be political. --Firestar464 (talk) 01:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• I was referring to the WMC group in general, not OP. And the group existed back before Hong Kong was a part of China. But I guess Macau applies. Do we have a lot of Wikipedians from Macau where you'd have to differentiate Chinese Wikipedians from it? Silverseren^C 01:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I understand: the return of Hong Kong to China predates the founding of Wikipedia. Are you referring to some other event? isaacl (talk) 01:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Yep, when the government of Taiwan give up the Chinese elements in the constitution and his title of "Republic of China", at that time, it should really reconsider the political entity relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. --Cwek (talk)

I think that some members of WMC really contribute to the Wiki movement. Some editors can indeed write good entries involving local content, but there seems to be radical nationalism and coterieism that plague WMC. I think this may lead to some innocent scapegoats. --Cwek (talk) 01:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the Signpost give a forum for the WMC users; that said, this read just like half of the outraged blocked users I've ever seen. "The WMF gave no reason why I was de-sysoped! [... a couple paragraphs later ...] I was de-sysoped for canvassing, but that's just because they didn't like the winner of the vote! [... and later still ...] The WMF didn't actually know or care about anything going on, but some tattletales complained and they broke the sacred status quo for them!"

I don't know much about or have personal experience with this issue, but I feel like I've heard this song many, many times before in different contexts... --PresN 02:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

This article disgusts me - WMC members don't seem to spend a minute to reflect themselves, but outright recycle their old talking points and try to paint themselves as the only legitimate mainland Chinese wikipedian group, gaslight other wikipedians. Let me be CRYSTAL clear to my fellow wikipedians: They're not. In zhwp, wikipedians across mainland China, HK/MO, and TW despise them. WMF has also made this clear, it's not about political views, but their actions fundamentally trying to undercut the foundation of wikipedia.

• I've witnessed WMC members brutally bomb other hardworking wikipedians' RfA, even they're apolitical, just because they're not one of WMC. They said one third hardworking sysop are from WMC, that's because they active caused it.
• Everyone can see CheckUser info anonymously leaked on VP, how are other wikipedians suppose to feel safe about that?
• They lambast WMF for not giving zhwp community fund, wait, didn't WMC spend a big amount of their time to smear another Chinese user group, WUGC and its members for misusing funds, to the degree they left zhwp?
• "No wikipedians have been arrest China" but didn't you guys try to submit HK wikipedians to HK police under HK NSL? Everyone in WMC's filthy QQ group knew if they're fake - Stop gaslighting other wikipedians.
• In addition, didn't WMC try to incite Chinese ultra-nationalism https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/57-ZszlOY-T3BM8meSd5Tw web outlets to doxx other zhwp sysop, paint them as "pro Taiwan independence" and "pro Tibet independence", even when they reiterate they're just for NPOV, including China's view?

But more than anything, I'm deeply disappointed in Signpost allowing such a biased Op-ed to be posted. Yes, I'm posting this using a puppet, in fear of being subjected to similar doxxing and smearing, but Signpost is not a talk page, unless you're whistleblowing something, an Op-ed shouldn't be anonymous.

And WMC is not a representative of mainland Chinese wikipedians, not in the past, not now, and won't be in the future. At the end of day, they should face the music. Fremoy (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Just some quick facts.

1. A zh-wiki administrator (bureaucrat) was banned from leaving the Chinese border, likely due to participation in international or inter-regional Wikipedian activities.
2. A Chinese netizen got administrative punishments from public security officers. [for vising Wikipedia – A.]
3. As the previous comment from Fremoy mentioned, some of the leading members in WMC threatened to report ("jvbao") Hong Kong Wikipedians to the national security forces.
4. WMC has always claiming to be representatives of mainland Chinese Wikipedians (even in their statement after the WMF movement), while many mainlanders prefer not to participate.
5. Most WMC members disclosing their political standings are pro-CCP, and most of those who disclose their support for CCP are radical supporters.
6. The title of their statement is Throw away illusions and prepare to fight, which coincides with Mao Zedong's essay attacking intellectuals escaping to Taiwan in 1949. The second-to-last paragraph of the statement containing the aggressive sentence "fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again...until [we get the] victory", which also coincides with a sentence repeated in Mao's essay.

--Yangwenbo99 (talk) 03:03, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

To add to many mainlanders prefer not to participate -- the initial target of questionable actions by WMC's members (no, WMC wasn't formed yet) was not non-mainlanders, but other mainlanders who disagreed with their Shanghainese faction, mainly the WUGC members. See zh:User:PhiLiP/WMCTimeline and Boxun report, both in Chinese but likely okay through machine translation.

Still, I should note that the op does not report any WMC affiliation and that the desysop decision appears pretty blanket-ish – appearantly anyone with an irregular positive RfA vote is affected. I believe that the OP can re-apply and likely regain sysop after the pause on RfA is lifted. –Artoria2e5 🌉 03:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Heck, I would say that if I was someone that was accidentally caught up in this, I would still be glad for it happening as a whole due to it getting rid of the known bad elements from the community. A price worth paying and all that. Silverseren^C 03:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• I don't have too much familiarity with zh.wiki, but the unadulterated POV nonsense needed taming and the threatened tattle-tailing to Big Brother for having opinions ought to get one exiled from the planet. Good riddance if WMF threw out the users who were posing a threat to the liberty and safety of other users. -Indy beetle (talk) 10:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Normally, requesting IPBE permission is because they come from Mainland China and need to use VPN/proxy to edit. Per user right log and user creation log, before office action happened (i.e. 3 months before), there were more than 10 sysops granted IPBE, included about 3-4 desysoped sysops. After office action happened, there have been sysops still handled IPBE requests and granted IPBE. Moveover, AFAIK before office action, the processing speed was very slow since few sysops handled IPBE requests. So IMO office action may cause slow process speed of IPBE request, however, that will not cause "hurts the mainland users" and OP 's opinion seems exaggerate the impact. Thank you. --SCP-2000 15:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Regarding the concerns about a lack of financial support for wikipedians in China from WMF isn’t that sort of support highly illegal under most circumstances? Foreign NGOs generally can’t do that in China. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
• It seems like about some innocent people who is mis-desysoped by WMF at first, but when I look again the first statement from "Mainlander Group" about WMF Office action(in English and in Chinese). It turned out to be the rephrasing of this statement(starting from "I was shocked on 13 September..." to the end) and it convinces me that at least desysoping the author(giving that he/she did not lying) by WMF is rightful. --Cmsth11126a02 (talk) 15:25, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

"Infiltration"

I think it was a mistake on the part of the WMF to speak of "infiltration". "Infiltration" makes it sound political, as though any mainland Chinese editor/admin is, by definition, an "infiltrator" rather than a volunteer, i.e. someone whose very presence is undesirable just because of their nationality. It's easy to see and portray that attitude as prejudiced.

It would be better for the WMF to stick to purely behavioural points (threats of outing etc.), just as is done on-wiki – comment on the edits, not the editor. That would keep the conversation from going off-track.

Lastly, I appreciate being able to read the viewpoint expressed in this op-ed in the Signpost. --Andreas JN466 20:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• I think you have misunderstood the term. Infiltration here mean getting into the Wikimedia system in order to gather personal information of editors. For example, in a semi-hypothetical case, organizing editathons in the name of a user group and require all participants to show their personally identifiable document, thus collecting real life identity of participating Wikipedian and connect them with their online accounts, in a country where people have been charged for visiting Wikipedia. Doing anything like this using their position would obviously threaten the personal safety of involved editors, especially those other editors in Mainland China. If there are anyone committing acts like this, and are organizing such event specifically for such outcome, then it can be said they infiltrated the system to obtain such personal information of participating editors.C933103 (talk) 00:30, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Especially if, hypothetically, the same infiltration happened in a security state where every private organization was monitored, and the Internet activity the org is designed to encourage was illegal yet, somehow, the members say they have avoided the ire of the same state. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:34, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
  • @C933103:Your semi-hypothetical case is indeed what had happened to Chinese editors. Won’t say too much about so but they always have a reason, as with Cwek.—1233 ( T / C） 19:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Regarding the requirement of registering personal information for WMC offline activities, I really feel that I am not comfortable with it, because this is not necessary for offline activities in long long age, and at the same time, I do like to maintain a proper sense of anonymity. However, considering that the predecessor of WMC involved disputes caused by an offline activity of the Shanghai group at that time, perhaps they did not want to attract troublesome people with political motives to participate in offline activities. --Cwek (talk) 01:17, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
  • You can say it, but I'd say it isn't clever to do so. All the hypothetical actions you've described can be described without using the word "infiltration" (as you've just proved). It adds nothing of value, because it's the other actions you've described, in themselves, that are the problem. Read some of the state media responses to this event to see how they've seized on the word, and you might see what I mean. Andreas JN466 01:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
    • The actions I have described are "infiltration" in nature. They cannot describe the situation using words like what I have written, because they cannot reveal the nature and extent of the event involved nor could they reveal evidents they have gathered, due to possibility of putting people at risk if they do so. C933103 (talk) 00:12, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
    • I agree with the idea of finding another word, but as I have nothing useful to add (such as, say, proposing such a word!) I am going to write this a low-level comment. WMF has tried to clarify that the "infiltration" can be totally unintentional in the OA statement, but that's not what most people -- including news media -- reads from that. What brings to mind for them instead is commie spys doing spywork and well, McCarthyism if they are on the side of the WMC folks. --Artoria2e5 🌉 03:05, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Opinion: Wikimedians of Mainland China were warned (17,024 bytes · 💬)

• Don't get me wrong, Nazis should not be welcome in Wikimedia, but a community choosing not to make an editor delete their userpage (no matter how offense, so long as not illegal) is not something that has me up in arms—we take a fairly strict view on userspace, but other communities may have reason to allow almost anything. (Better to keep the userpage as evidence and block the editor.) So, what is the actual effect the WMC or "Chi-nazi-fication" is having on the Chinese encyclopedia (mainspace)? Are we talking Holocaust denial, or false statistics about deaths under Maoist China, or a more amorphous bias towards the modern Chinese government? Other than some un/blocking abuse that could create bias (but not necessarily misinformation), I'm just not seeing what part of this article relates in any way to the claim: It is clear those in charge of WMC are not here to build a global knowledge movement but to impose the Chinese Communist Party's ideology of information warfare onto Wikimedia. — Bilorv (talk) 23:21, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
  • If someone is claiming to be a Nazi and that people with opposing opinions should be gotten rid of, that is not someone conducive to building Wikipedia. Silverseren^C 01:34, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Quite apart from the Nazi userpage, reading the WMC's official statement in response to the Office actions is not encouraging. It begins and ends with Maoist slogans, is written exactly like CCP's foreign office statements, and the English translation, probably deliberately, leaves out the statement that the actions are the job of "white leftists" (白左, "Baizuo") which is there in the Chinese-language version. The fact that they ran an article on pro-CCP state media does not help matters, nor does the fact that they keep calling the WMF an arm of the US Government in a wildly malicious statement they made later (it's in Chinese, I used Chrome's Google translation). Apparently they can call the WMF an arm of the US Government all they like, but they themselves must not be called pro-CCP. (Cannot provide links as they are blacklisted, but all three pages - the original Chinese-language statement, the English translation, and the later statement - are available on their quiwen dot wmcug dot org dot cn website, and also saved on Internet Archive). W. Tell DCCXLVI ^{t | c} 06:03, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Oh btw since you asked about mainspace, this HKFP article summarises the content disputes. W. Tell DCCXLVI ^{t | c} 06:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
      • Okay, so some subset of Chinese Wikipedia users support the Chinese government. And? Why would that be surprising? The "encyclopedia" part of Wikipedia isn't a "by the way", it's the purpose we're all here. I've read the HKFP article and it is showing some anti-Hong Kong source bias and "no consensus" on a pro-Chinese government source that we've deprecated for factual inaccuracies, but it's not showing Maoist or Nazi revisionism in terms of factual content. At least, not so far as I can see. Based on the seriousness of the WMF response, I was really expecting articles that engage in genocide denial or similar. I couldn't care less about what the WMC called the WMF—I saw English Wikipedia users saying worse during Framgate. — Bilorv (talk) 11:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
      • I know I am a little late to the party here but, we don't need to feed the trolls -- Cocoaguy ここがいい 18:26, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
      • I'm glad someone brought up the "genocidal denial" point. Uyghur genocide is named similarly in most wikis, except the Chinese Wikipedia where active campaigning by pro-Beijing editors led to a three month long debate, resulting in the article being renamed from "Xinjiang genocide" to "Allegations of genocide in Xinjiang". There you go. Deryck C. 09:59, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• I think it's interesting that the author of this essay claims that the dispute over at zhwiki was a dispute over incivility/pov-pushing/onwiki conduct. While I'm not active on zhwiki nor do I have any first hand experience with it, the WMF's statements on the matter led me in the direction of thinking that this banned group of editors were doxxing/outing Chinese editors to the central government for offwiki punishment. Hence the removal of CUs a while ago and access to non public information more recently with the claim "we know that some users have been physically harmed". The allegations in this op-ed, while concerning, appear to be far less serious than the accusations made by the WMF. Some guy posting about being a Nazi on his userpage is far less of an issue in my opinion than someone who collaborates with the Chinese government to bring physical harm to editors as a result of their actions on Wikipedia. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 01:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't think OP would have direct information on what the CUs were doing and why the WMF took the action it did. And I think they're just using examples of the off-wiki Canvassing to try and control and silence the community. Silverseren^C 01:34, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Some clarification: local CheckUsers had their right removed on 31 March 2018 due to an investigation on the CU data leak years ago. Definitely not this issue but it clearly states that something is going very wrong within the Chinese community. Well I tried fixing so but in no avail.—1233 ( T / C） 19:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
  • The authors clearly state they only comment on "two aspects of the action". side stepping the decision of WMF all together as far as I can see. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:29, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Well I'm just commenting on what they concern, but it seems that they way how they expressed so matched what Hong Kong editors fear - ultra-nationalists disregarding civility effectively controls the group. If you ask what I personally feel, feel free to look back on the mail exchanges days after the foundation action at the wikimedia-l mailing list.--1233 ( T / C） 05:21, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Disappointed that the article doesn't mention that a number of the banned are not in mainland China and not pro-China. Some of them are in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and some of them are in non-Chinese-speaking countries, even with citizenships of those countries. It's been years that the Hong Kong and Taiwan people are trying to report Chinese user they hate, and they win this time, using the name of privacy. But they actually do not care about privacy at all. A great number of Wikipedians are investigated and publicly shamed on their websites, but no one cares. Privacy is a joke, since the Hong Kong users remove the content involving personal attack and privacy breach and photos from their website after it was reported to the CA, pretending nothing has happened (in the webpage, even banning has not happened). Stereotyping the group with some "evil" characters is apparently an effective work here and I applaud to these users for their years' efforts. Thanks for purifying the community with your hard work! It is of course a pity that the Chinese government does not share certain universal values, but it is also a pity to always associate government support or propaganda with the issue. When spontaneous behaviour is always doubted, everything will be "intentional" and looks like a conspiracy until it becomes a conspiracy. --HNlander (talk) 00:50, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
    • Only one banned user is from Hong Kong (according to the declaration on the user page before the office action). All other banned users are from mainland China. The desysopped users are not necessarily related to the group but might be supported by the group (with socking) during the RfA without having the nominee known... in my opinion, that's why they are desysopped but not banned, and can be elected through RfA again in the future. For the Reddit link, it's not related to Wikimedia, Hong Kong and Taiwanese users do not report users simply because they hate, but violating laws. We appreciate Chinese users participating in building the Wikiverse, but without disrupting the communities. Hong Kong netizens are sometimes hostile to mainland Chinese because of the 50 Cent Party but are friendly to people who debate peacefully with evidence. Reporting is often only the final way to cease them from promoting propaganda, and it's because of their violation of laws. The Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities in Hong Kong on Wikia is non-related to Hong Kong users on Wikipedia. Although some of the users have accounts on both sites, it is still separate. There are also some pages that are promoting hatred to users on Chinese Wikipedia including pro-democracy ones. And it cannot represent the Hong Kong community and it's just a wiki about Hong Kong. Everyone can register an account and start editing there. Sun8908 _Talk 10:19, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

      In fact, you are using the same tactic that the mainland users are defending their fellows' speech about reporting, that is, claiming it to be the last resort. However, you can never know who is reporting and who is not. It is a good imagination of community that the community will "only" do sometimes, regardless of the individual difference. However, you confirm to me and the community that the Hong Kong and Taiwan users are reporting Chinese users as their last resort, which is a real threat. Surely, I feel threatened when privacy is collected and handled by the off-site Wiki, only to publicly shame users on Wikipedia, whether pro-democracy or not, for such a long time. I don't see any evidence that those people, whether pro-democratic or not, are hired by the Chinese government, yet they are still hated so. So, the hatred is non-related to the Chinese government at all. It is even hardly believable that such detailed content on the off-site Wiki is not written by anyone on Chinese Wikipedia. Even if it is not a representation of Hong Kong users, they are threatening the community with public shaming. --HNlander (talk) 12:45, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

      What I meant by "reporting" is reporting commentators outside the Wikiverse, or reporting users to AN/WMF. Reporting the real identity of wiki users because they edit poorly is always not appreciated. Without evidence, I cannot confirm if anyone would have reported users to somewhere. There are a huge number of people who hate some users on zh.wiki without engaging in the community for a long time. There is no way that you can avoid all the potential threats. Wiki is publicly available, users should be doing their best to protect their privacy. It is impossible to keep eye on all the people around the world to have threatened Wiki users or not. Why the users are banned is that there is non-public evidence. They might have done a lot of things that violate the policies. (I was a bit off-topic. I was not saying the users on Wikipedia are 50 Cent Party, but the commentators outside the Wikiverse.) Sun8908 _Talk 14:31, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

      This is interesting as the Reddit post you claim to have read is about teaching people how to report Chinese netizens to the Chinese government. You also admit that they are "potential threats" which means that you acknowledge that they could be a real threat in the end, which is exactly how people attach those chatting about this on QQ or elsewhere. It is even more weird that you first claim that "Hong Kong netizens are sometimes hostile to mainland Chinese because of the 50 Cent Party", and then when we talk about those Wikipedians hated by Hong Kong netizens, you said they are not the 50 Cent Part, so I now just don't understand why they are hated. Also, thank you for pointing out that they are hated, no matter whether they are pro-democracy or not, so this is not just about political propaganda. Anyway, the real issue here is how the off-site infiltration has disrupted the local rules, which should clearly apply to both sides fairly. Deletion of the content or any other forms of cover-up will not prove these users to have done nothing to threat or publicly shame the mainland users. --HNlander (talk) 21:40, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

• There is an unclosed quote in the paragraph immediately following the subheading ("has malign intentions...") and I don't know where it ends. Can someone fix that? I'm not sure what the italics there is supposed to denote either.
  On a more dire note, I'm not clear on why "an overwhelming majority of users on zh.wiki voting to remove any links to websites controlled by the WMC user group" is "proof that the WMC user group hijacked the community at large". If there are links to websites controlled by you on the wiki, why would you want them removed? Something must be missing in the paragraph. Nardog (talk) 08:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Fixed the unclosed quote. This was done due to the short time of copyediting and publishing time. At the same time, '' and " are similar. For the second question: why the vote can now work now? Because WMC members are suddenly told their leadership is as rot as a rotten apple. And here means links to webpages controlled by the user group which its founders and core members are banned and warned, not normal ordinary members who were neither warned nor banned.--1233 ( T / C） 12:25, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the fix. Oh, so you're saying a vote to remove the links was held prior to the office action and it was unsuccessful, and the one held after the action was successful? So the community was hijacked by the WMC user group, and it no longer is? Nardog (talk) 12:41, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
      • Explaining what happened here: there wasn't a vote to remove the links before the action. However, after the office action, because of how the user group and its friendly users act, a vote happened to remove all such links from being used in the zhwp. Similar issues of personal attacks not removed can be seen in user pages where users (even including me) was reluctant to remove policy-violating userpages because of the pressure from the WMC side.--1233 ( T / C） 09:13, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Recent research: Wikipedia images for machine learning; Experiment justifies Wikipedia's high search rankings (5,731 bytes · 💬)

• "Wikipedia is ranked highly because people are looking for it" - in other news, water is wet 😜. Seriously though, it is interesting (but not surprising) that many "high-level" (if that term makes sense) researchers use Wikipedia in their research. I do understand that the information boxes by different search engines do help make things easier for people (and I myself do skip reading the actual article if I get what I wanted from the box), but somehow, I can't get rid of the feeling that "search engines not having to pay the WMF for information to use in information boxes is ethically wrong" though I know that all information here is under CC. Tube·of·Light 04:12, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Sample bias seems an obvious possible flaw, as DuckDuckGo is one of the less used Web browsers. Its users, being few, are surely unusual in some ways, and their attitude towards the usefulness of Wikipedia might be of of those ways. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
    • True that. I wonder if Google would be willing to modify their search engine to hide the information box for a couple of days and let us know how big the impact was (but then again, there is no way I am going to ask them to do so). And just to let you know, DuckDuckGo is a search engine (a website that gives search results like Google does), not a web browser (a program like Chrome, that lets you access web pages) Tube·of·Light 02:58, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
      • @Tube of Light: Google conducts studies like that all the time, using their search page. They'd be bonkers not to, considering their search-request logs are one of the greatest troves of population behavioral data ever amassed, and it's right there at their fingertips. You rightly frame the $100,000 question, though: would they be inclined to share the results with us (or anyone else)?

They're certainly under no obligation to, of course. Though I know they do either directly conduct, or authorize others to perform, research into the (presumably-anonymized, possibly aggregated) trending for certain search queries. Which is how we (the global "we") know, for instance, that Google can reliably predict (or at least detect) regional flu outbreaks by watching for an uptick in the frequency of certain search terms employed by multiple users in close geographic proximity.

I suspect any A/B testing they do on things like infoboxes is purely marketing-driven, though, and geared only towards determining which search features maximize their ad revenue. (In fact we'd better hope that the same studies that find infoboxes driving clicks through to Wikipedia also determine that they increase search engagement or return visits, because we know that driving traffic here isn't really a profit motive for Google.) -- FeRDNYC (talk) 14:30, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

• "Individual-driven versus interaction-driven burstiness in human dynamics: The case of Wikipedia edit history": I have tried so hard to understand this article but it feels like it is missing the part where it actually states how their math addresses their core question. The key sentences seem to be: "The large value of AUC for an article-ego pair implies the dominance of individual-driven burstiness over interaction-driven burstiness and vice versa. By correlating the AUC value with several measures for temporal and editorial correlations, we find the tendency of the AUC values to be larger for weaker (stronger) temporal correlations of the ego (the alters) and/or stronger editorial correlations in the edit sequences." If anyone is able to figure out what this means, I would be grateful to know.~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • This might be helpful: receiver operating characteristic. Basically AUC is a measure of how well a mathematical model classifies a group into some yes/no scheme based on some presumed characteristics. MER-C 17:03, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
    • AUC = area under the curve. More (higher values) is better for a receiver operating characteristic, if the classifier is working right. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
      • Thank you! That helps a little with the first half of the sentence. And I can tell that the bit in parentheses is offering an alternative. So it is something like, "We find a better classifier fit for individual-driven burstiness... for weaker temporal correlations of the ego and/or stronger editorial correlations in the edit sequences." Still not entirely sure what the implications of that are, but willing to let it go... ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:42, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
• "Wikipedia is ranked highly because people are looking for it" - very interesting writeup. I remember the concern that the knowledge boxes would decrease click-through to Wikipedia - good to see a solid A/B test confirming otherwise. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Traffic report: Kanye, Emma Raducanu and 9/11 (1,586 bytes · 💬)

• I learned about Girls Aloud thru Nicola Roberts (participant and later guest judge in the UK's version of The Masked Singer), it's a pity to learn that one of the group members passed away this month -Gouleg🛋️ ^harass/_hound 14:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Man, people cared more about Emma Raducanu more than they did 9/11 the day of the 20th anniversary. Really gets on my nerves for some reason. Panini!^🥪 12:34, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• @Panini!: I don't think it should be analysed as such. Everybody knows what 9/11 is, so for many there's no reason to look it up on Wikipedia, whereas a lot of people knew little to nothing about Raducanu and wanted to know more about her. —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) ^{(/tɔːk/ – /ˈkɒntɹɪbs/)} 08:07, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• That's fair, but tennis is stupid. Panini!^🥪 11:25, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

WikiProject report: The Random and the Beautiful (2,281 bytes · 💬)

There is a project for this? I've been using "Random article" on occasion to find articles in need of clean-up or deletion for a while now, and though I realized others were engaged in a similar practice, I was unaware that there was a coordinated effort underlying this - as User:Rodney Baggins says, an effort to increase awareness might generate some excellent returns, and hopefully this Signpost article does exactly that. BilledMammal (talk) 02:11, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

"Coordinated" might be a strong word imo, but it's a great group of folks and you should add your name to the list if you're interested! Ganesha811 (talk) 15:00, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for conducting this great interview Ganesha811 and to all the participants for giving their time to be interviewed. Tom (LT) (talk) 22:40, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
• As one of those interviewed participants, I too would like to say thank you Ganesha811 and to your editor-in-chief Smallbones for including your piece in this month's issue. At first I was concerned that I didn't have enough tenure in the RPP to merit being interviewed, but I was glad that you stuck with me and that you made the whole process effortless all the while being courteous and professional. Although this was my first time reading the Signpost, I hope to see more content from you in the future, now that I am a subscriber. — WILDSTAR^talk 18:17, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
• Great article Ganesha811, thank you. :) -- œ^™ 06:17, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank you all - Tom (LT), WildStar, OlEnglish. Ganesha811 (talk) 10:58, 5 October 2021 (UTC)