Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki and OpenID Connect

[Adam Sobieski]

David,



Pertinent data to our discussion includes the number of occurrences of 
sockpuppetry, bots, trolls, spam, vandalism, fake news, disinformation and 
election interference on Wikipedia. Are these not important problems to be 
solved?



Regarding online harassment, which I opine is also an important problem to be 
solved, there could be a number of categories of scenarios to consider: whether 
the harassing party is anonymous, pseudonymous or using their real name, and 
whether the harassed party is anonymous, pseudonymous or using their real-name. 
There appears to be a total of 9 categories of scenarios to consider and that 
could be a part of the complexity discussing the topic of mitigating online 
harassment. I can put some thought into innovations for Wikipedia in this 
regard.



You might be interested in: Jang, M., Foley, J., Dori-Hacohen, S., & Allan, J. 
(2016). Probabilistic Approaches to Controversy Detection. In Proceedings of 
the 25th ACM International on Conference on Information and Knowledge 
Management (pp. 2069–2072). New York, NY, USA: ACM. 
https://doi.org/10.1145/2983323.2983911 . As we can consider the detection of 
controversy, we might also be able to algorithmically detect occurrences of 
harassment in Wikipedia discussion areas.



Regarding whether real names promote safer or less safe communities, I observe 
from your hyperlink that those voicing concerns with respect to Facebook and 
real names, the Nameless Coalition, include: Access, ACLU, Center for Democracy 
and Technology, Digital Rights Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation, 
#forabetterFB, Global Voices Advocacy, Human Rights Watch, Internet Democracy 
Project, One World Platform, Point of View and Take Back the Tech.



Providing options for users to display a real name or pseudonym, including 
after optional account verification processes, seems to address the specific 
concerns raised by the Nameless Coalition.





Best regards,

Adam




From: Wikitech-l  on behalf of David 
Barratt 
Sent: Monday, May 7, 2018 9:49:35 AM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki and OpenID Connect

"As aforementioned, system administrative configuration options could
include allowing verified users to choose whether to display their real
names or to display their usernames."

I think you might be missing the point, we don't even want to collect that
data in the first place, let alone allow non-marginalized users to display
their real name (thereby identifying the marginalized users who opted out).

It is clear that using your real name has real-world harm (
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/facebooks-real-name-policy-can-cause-real-world-harm-lgbtq-community)
and there is a coalition to stop Facebook from enforcing this policy (
https://act.eff.org/action/dear-facebook-authentic-names-are-authentically-dangerous-for-your-users
).

In fact, Wikipedia itself recommends against using your real name (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy). I truly regret
using my real name in my personal user account (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Davidwbarratt), just from my
contributions (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Davidwbarratt) you can
very easily figure out the region where I live. Next, put my last name into
a public record search for my region (
http://www.ocpafl.org/searches/ParcelSearch.aspx) and you will have my
physical address and a nice picture of where I live.

Thankfully I am not in a marganziled group, but I hope you see how easy
that would be. Even if the identity is not displayed, if it's stored in our
database, there is a potential for that data to be exposed.

I will probably take a moment at some point to change my username to a
pseudonym (when I come up with a good one), but username changes are
public, so it would be pretty easy to search for my new username and find
the record of the name change.

The pew study you referenced (
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/) does not suggest
that users were anonymized only that a plurality of the victims of
harassment "said a stranger was responsible for their most recent
incident." Also, correlation does not imply causation (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation).

There are many things we could do to mitigate harassment on Wikipedia, but
a real name or account verification is not one of them. As an experiment, I
would recommend finding, and attempting to go through, all of the steps
required to report harassment. It's depressingly difficult. Another thing
we can do is implement granular blocks (
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T190350) to block accounts from specific
pages, categories, or namespaces rather than a whole site block.

There are probably many more ideas that can be implemented, but again, I
don't know of any evidence that a real name or 

Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki and OpenID Connect

[Adam Sobieski]

Masti,



Technically speaking, OpenID Connect includes user information 
(https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#UserInfo , 
https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#StandardClaims) and this 
data, possibly extending to include “name_verified”, “account_verified” and 
“account_verification_score”, facilitates the corroboration of user data across 
accounts and account linking.



As you indicate, these unfolding topics could be, instead of a technical 
discussion, a community discussion. It seems that the mitigation of 
sockpuppetry, bots, trolls, spam, vandalism, fake news, disinformation and 
election interference, on the one hand, is being weighed against optional data 
collection on the other hand (see also configurability discussed at: 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2018-May/089922.html).



That is an excellent point about GDPR. I will read more about GDPR.





Best regards,

Adam




From: Wikitech-l  on behalf of masti 

Sent: Monday, May 7, 2018 10:05:09 AM
To: wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki and OpenID Connect

Adam,
this is not technical but community problem. That should be first
discussed with the communities - all of them - not only en.wiki whether
there is any need for that solution. Which I doubt.

I do not see many positives coming from using it but a lot of negatives.
Enforcing that would mean having much less contributors.

Also as already stated it would force us into getting more information
about contributors which is not what the communities want. Especially in
the moment of upcoming GDPR regulation that affects whole commmunity.

masti

On 04.05.2018 22:21, Adam Sobieski wrote:
> Wikitech-l,
>
> Greetings. I would like to describe an exciting scenario possible with OpenID 
> Connect.
>
> In the scenario, after choosing to verify their name on their Wikipedia 
> account, a user logs onto Wikipedia and uses OpenID Connect to link their 
> Wikipedia account to multiple verified accounts, for example their Facebook 
> and LinkedIn accounts. At the end of the process, we can envision the user 
> obtaining a checkmark next to their full name on Wikipedia, their real name 
> and a verification icon appearing next to their edits and on their user page. 
> There might even be, per user settings, hyperlinks to their Facebook and 
> LinkedIn pages on their Wikipedia user page. With such features, we can 
> envision allowing groups of users or admins to determine that certain 
> articles require a verified account to edit.
>
> Presently, OpenID Connect functionality is available for MediaWiki as an 
> extension. I would like to see the OpenID Connect functionality under 
> discussion expanded to support scenarios including aforementioned and also 
> integrated into MediaWiki.
>
> Thank you. I hope that the above ideas are also interesting to you in the 
> Wikitech-l community.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Adam Sobieski
> http://www.phoster.com/contents/
>
> ___
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> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


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[Wikitech-l] Discovery Weekly Update for the week starting 2018-04-30

[Chris Koerner]

Hello friends,
A short and simple update this week from the Search Platform team.

As always, feedback and questions welcome.


== Highlights==
* Maps update: mapframe was installed on English Wikipedia [0]

=== Search ===
* Trey has created a Slovak Elasticsearch Plugin/Analysis Chain using
a Slovak Stemming Algorithm and is moving ahead with adding an
Elasticsearch plugin for it. [1]

[0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Uca6loi6wxwy4rvg
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T190815]

---

Subscribe to receive on-wiki (or opt-in email) notifications of the
Discovery weekly update.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Newsletter:Discovery_Weekly

The archive of all past updates can be found on MediaWiki.org:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discovery/Status_updates

Interested in getting involved? See tasks marked as "Easy" or
"Volunteer needed" in Phabricator.

[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/qW51XhCCd8.7/#R
[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/5KEPuEJh9TPS/#R


Yours,
Chris Koerner
Community Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation

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[Wikitech-l] IRC Meeting for RFC "Come up with a strategy for handling interface changes"

[Kate Chapman]

Hi All,

We ended up scheduling this a little late so it didn't go out on the
TechCom Radar.

There is a IRC meeting on 2018-05-09 at 2pm PST(22:00 UTC, 23:00 CET) on
#wikimedia-office channel for RFC: Come up with a strategy for handling
interface changes 

Thanks,

-Kate

-- 
Kate Chapman
TechCom Facilitator (Contractor)


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[Wikitech-l] Introduction : Ujjwal Agrawal ( GSoC 2018 )

[Ujjwal Agrawal]

Hello Everyone!

I am Ujjwal Agrawal, third-year B.Tech. Undergraduate at Indian
Institue of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, and I've been selected for GSoC
2018. I have a keen interest in Android App development and I will be
implementing a feature to browse/search the Wikimedia Commons
Repository from Commons App >, as a part of my
intern program.

I’d like to thank my mentors Nicolas Raoul and Neslihan for giving me
this wonderful opportunity!

Regards
Ujjwal Agrawal
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Re: [Wikitech-l] 2018-05-02 Scrum of Scrums meeting notes

[Marshall Miller]

Thanks, Bartosz -- that's right.

I'm Marshall Miller ;
newly a product manager at WMF and working with the Community Tech team on
the "AFC improvement" project, which will be taking place over May and
June.  The effort is geared toward increasing the efficiency of the Articles
for Creation

process in English Wikipedia, which will be getting increased traffic as a
result of the recently implemented ACPERM policy
.
You can read more about the background to the project here
,
and the latest the likely development here

.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to be involved,

Marshall

On Mon, May 7, 2018 at 6:59 AM, Bartosz Dziewoński 
wrote:

> On 2018-05-06 08:33, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
>
>> Jargon such as "AFC improvement" would use a link.
>>
>
> Assuming you meant to ask what it means, I believe this refers to English
> Wikipedia's "Articles for Creation" process:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation
>
> --
> Bartosz Dziewoński
>
>
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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-- 
Marshall Miller
marshall.h.mil...@gmail.com
(240) 418-7271
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Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki and OpenID Connect

[masti]

Adam,
this is not technical but community problem. That should be first 
discussed with the communities - all of them - not only en.wiki whether 
there is any need for that solution. Which I doubt.


I do not see many positives coming from using it but a lot of negatives. 
Enforcing that would mean having much less contributors.


Also as already stated it would force us into getting more information 
about contributors which is not what the communities want. Especially in 
the moment of upcoming GDPR regulation that affects whole commmunity.


masti

On 04.05.2018 22:21, Adam Sobieski wrote:

Wikitech-l,

Greetings. I would like to describe an exciting scenario possible with OpenID 
Connect.

In the scenario, after choosing to verify their name on their Wikipedia 
account, a user logs onto Wikipedia and uses OpenID Connect to link their 
Wikipedia account to multiple verified accounts, for example their Facebook and 
LinkedIn accounts. At the end of the process, we can envision the user 
obtaining a checkmark next to their full name on Wikipedia, their real name and 
a verification icon appearing next to their edits and on their user page. There 
might even be, per user settings, hyperlinks to their Facebook and LinkedIn 
pages on their Wikipedia user page. With such features, we can envision 
allowing groups of users or admins to determine that certain articles require a 
verified account to edit.

Presently, OpenID Connect functionality is available for MediaWiki as an 
extension. I would like to see the OpenID Connect functionality under 
discussion expanded to support scenarios including aforementioned and also 
integrated into MediaWiki.

Thank you. I hope that the above ideas are also interesting to you in the 
Wikitech-l community.


Best regards,
Adam Sobieski
http://www.phoster.com/contents/

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Re: [Wikitech-l] 2018-05-02 Scrum of Scrums meeting notes

[Bartosz Dziewoński]

On 2018-05-06 08:33, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:

Jargon such as "AFC improvement" would use a link.


Assuming you meant to ask what it means, I believe this refers to 
English Wikipedia's "Articles for Creation" process: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation


--
Bartosz Dziewoński

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Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki and OpenID Connect

[David Barratt]

"As aforementioned, system administrative configuration options could
include allowing verified users to choose whether to display their real
names or to display their usernames."

I think you might be missing the point, we don't even want to collect that
data in the first place, let alone allow non-marginalized users to display
their real name (thereby identifying the marginalized users who opted out).

It is clear that using your real name has real-world harm (
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/facebooks-real-name-policy-can-cause-real-world-harm-lgbtq-community)
and there is a coalition to stop Facebook from enforcing this policy (
https://act.eff.org/action/dear-facebook-authentic-names-are-authentically-dangerous-for-your-users
).

In fact, Wikipedia itself recommends against using your real name (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy). I truly regret
using my real name in my personal user account (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Davidwbarratt), just from my
contributions (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Davidwbarratt) you can
very easily figure out the region where I live. Next, put my last name into
a public record search for my region (
http://www.ocpafl.org/searches/ParcelSearch.aspx) and you will have my
physical address and a nice picture of where I live.

Thankfully I am not in a marganziled group, but I hope you see how easy
that would be. Even if the identity is not displayed, if it's stored in our
database, there is a potential for that data to be exposed.

I will probably take a moment at some point to change my username to a
pseudonym (when I come up with a good one), but username changes are
public, so it would be pretty easy to search for my new username and find
the record of the name change.

The pew study you referenced (
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/) does not suggest
that users were anonymized only that a plurality of the victims of
harassment "said a stranger was responsible for their most recent
incident." Also, correlation does not imply causation (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation).

There are many things we could do to mitigate harassment on Wikipedia, but
a real name or account verification is not one of them. As an experiment, I
would recommend finding, and attempting to go through, all of the steps
required to report harassment. It's depressingly difficult. Another thing
we can do is implement granular blocks (
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T190350) to block accounts from specific
pages, categories, or namespaces rather than a whole site block.

There are probably many more ideas that can be implemented, but again, I
don't know of any evidence that a real name or account verification policy
actually works, but there's a growing consensus that the policy causes more
harm than good.

On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 7:50 AM Adam Sobieski 
wrote:

> Thank you again for the concerns and comments responded to in the
> following letter.
>
> INTRODUCTION
>
> Two distinct topics are discussed: (1) MediaWiki should provide its
> software users with OpenID Connect functionality including to verify their
> names and accounts via account linking, and (2) Wikipedia should make use
> of such MediaWiki features.
>
> On topic one, there are a large number of MediaWiki software users [1][2]
> and use case scenarios. On topic two, “MediaWiki's most famous use has been
> in Wikipedia” [3], thus it makes sense to carefully discuss MediaWiki
> software and Wikipedia simultaneously.
>
> CONFIGURABILITY
>
> Importantly, we can consider options for configuration for system
> administrators (users of MediaWiki software) and their end users. For
> example, a system administrative option could be whether to activate the
> account verification features. Account verification could then be either
> optional or required for their users. Allowing their users to verify their
> accounts, system administrative configuration can specify whether their
> verified users have a configuration setting with regard to whether to
> display their real names or their usernames.
>
> Configuration options for MediaWiki system administrators and subsequently
> contingent configuration options for end users can maximize utility for all
> parties concerned across a large number of MediaWiki use case scenarios.
>
> In this way, Wikipedia can choose whether and configurably how to utilize
> MediaWiki account verification features in a manner that exactly aligns
> with their policy.
>
> SOCKPUPPETRY
>
> “In 2012, Wikipedia launched one of its largest sockpuppet investigations,
> when editors reported suspicious activity suggesting 250 accounts had been
> used to engage in paid editing.” [4]
>
> “On August 31, 2015, the English Wikipedia community discovered 381
> sockpuppet accounts operating a secret paid editing ring.” [5]
>
> PAGE PROTECTION OPTIONS AND ACCOUNT VERIFICATION
>
> System 

Re: [Wikitech-l] Adding a category to json page

[יגאל חיטרון]

Thanks a lot. A pity.
Igal


2018-05-07 16:35 GMT+03:00 Yuri Astrakhan :

> It has been requested a long time ago, but I don't think anyone is
> currently working on anything dataset related. See
>
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T155290
>
> ‪On Mon, May 7, 2018 at 4:13 PM ‫יגאל חיטרון‬‎ 
> wrote:‬
>
> > Hello. Is there a way to add a category to json contentmodel page? Thank
> > you.
> > Igal (User:IKhitron)
> > ___
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Adding a category to json page

[Yuri Astrakhan]

It has been requested a long time ago, but I don't think anyone is
currently working on anything dataset related. See

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T155290

‪On Mon, May 7, 2018 at 4:13 PM ‫יגאל חיטרון‬‎ 
wrote:‬

> Hello. Is there a way to add a category to json contentmodel page? Thank
> you.
> Igal (User:IKhitron)
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[Wikitech-l] Adding a category to json page

[יגאל חיטרון]

Hello. Is there a way to add a category to json contentmodel page? Thank
you.
Igal (User:IKhitron)
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