Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[FT2]

I don't think we get to make grand claims about what "the vast majority"
think, without some good basis for it.

More pragmatically, I suspect that most editors think of themselves as
Wikipedia/other project *editors*.  But those who truly think of themselves
as members of a *movement* - our GLAM volunteers, our regional/country
bodies, volunteers in outreach and universities, editors and others who
truly see themselves as members of a movement and not just editors of
knowledge - probably don't think of it in terms of "only limited to
Wikipedia", but in far broader terms - and if they don't, then we might
want to gently suggest that broader vision to them and not just concur that
it's limited in that way.


On Thu, 18 Apr 2019 at 07:32, Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> >
> > You can't be a member of "The Wikipedia Movement".
> >
> >
> I suggest that this claimed impossibility is in fact exactly what the vast
> majority of the volunteers believe that they are.
>
> JPS
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Jennifer Pryor-Summers]

>
>
> You can't be a member of "The Wikipedia Movement".
>
>
I suggest that this claimed impossibility is in fact exactly what the vast
majority of the volunteers believe that they are.

JPS
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Jennifer Pryor-Summers]

Dan

I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without
> community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
>

The problem with failing projects like Wikinews and Wikiversity is that
there is not a critical mass in their community.  I wouldn't go so far as
to say there is no community, but for all practical purposes that might as
well be true.  In such cases there isn't a realistic prospect of community
involvement and the WMF needs to decide how to manage that situation on on
of their projects.  A small investment to set up a user group to own the
new project under a new brand, move the content off the WMF servers,
removing the Wikim/pedia branding on the way, and maybe pay a few years
hosting charges as a sign of goodwill seems the right way to go.

JPS
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[FT2]

On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 19:54, Pharos  wrote:

> One thing that this corporate rebranding after our most popular product
> would erase is the "Wikimedia movement" - a social movement that is the
> leading modern manifestation of the Free Culture movement that attracted me
> as a member of Student For Free Culture a decade ago.  Rebranding ourselves
> after a mere product is in some ways an erasure of the underlying social
> movement.  When one is part of the "Wikipedia movement", one is just a user
> of a specific website, and it sounds as empty as the "Facebook movement".
>

Yes. You can't be a member of "The Wikipedia Movement".

(And if you could, you'd exclude all other projects + scope from the
movement and erase the breadth that gives life to it. )

FT2
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[FT2]

I agree with both views expressed (the desirability of, and concerns about,
the Foundation name/brand), and I suggest a solution that might work for
both problems.

One the one hand, Wikimedia vs Wikipedia is confusing and Wikimedia is
little recognized. I'm not actually sure if that's a problem, because the
Foundation is only public facing in contexts where people will be fine with
that name (donations campaign, approaching 3rd parties for projects).

So do we actually have a problem? For example, do we really believe that
renaming the Foundation will actually increase donations or add to any
joint projects in a material way, or is this just that the Foundation
should have a widely recognised name but not a real problem if not?

Calling the entire foundation "The Wikipedia Foundation" enhances one (best
known) project but at the cost of marginalizing all others. Most of my work
is at Wikipedia but even so, I don't think that's a good thing at all,
other projects need a higher profile if anything, not more in Wikipedia's
shadow.  Also it narrows our focus as a project because now our entire
project name is just limited to Wikipedia, hampering our efforts to place
other projects at the "front of the stage" or make them big things. I don't
like that outcome at all.  Also it would be much harder to keep foundation
and community with their separate roles and identities, too much risk of
"blurring".  Those are real harms.

I agree a name change could have benefits, but if done, it must build on
(and "cap") all projects, not just "step into Wikipedia's shoes" only.

How about "The Wiki Knowledge Foundation"? Perhaps styled as "The
WikiKnowledge Foundation"?


   - It follows the naming pattern of * all * projects (Wikipedia,
   WikiNews, WikiCommons, WikiSource ... WikiKnowledge?)
   - It reflects the common aim of * all * projects
   - It keeps the "Wiki" part which is what has recognition beyond all, and
   is clearly distinct from "Wikipedia", but is not confusing, because it's
   clear what it means.
   - "Knowledge" is sufficiently broad that we would probably never have a
   project with that name.
   - There doesn't seem to be an active website with "wikiknowledge", so
   perhaps there's no risk of complaint is the name is used.  As a domain, "
   wikiknowledge-foundation.org" seems to be OK.


If that doesn't work , there are countless variants that might work - wiki
learning foundation, wiki information foundation, wiki projects foundation
for example.

FT2


On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 19:54, Pharos  wrote:

> I concur with Phoebe and others that the time for such a change was 10 or
> 15 years ago, and would not be appropriate or productive now.
>
> One thing that this corporate rebranding after our most popular product
> would erase is the "Wikimedia movement" - a social movement that is the
> leading modern manifestation of the Free Culture movement that attracted me
> as a member of Student For Free Culture a decade ago.  Rebranding ourselves
> after a mere product is in some ways an erasure of the underlying social
> movement.  When one is part of the "Wikipedia movement", one is just a user
> of a specific website, and it sounds as empty as the "Facebook movement".
>
> That said, I do agree with common-sense changes like WikiCommons and
> perhaps others.  But I don't think that just because we have more money
> now, and maybe it would have been a good idea 10 years ago, that corporate
> rebranding around our most popular product is a good thing to do at this
> stage in the evolution of our movement.
>
> Thanks,
> Pharos
>
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:01 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > When I joined Wikimedia in 2009 I also tried WikiNews, which looked yet
> > another fantastic Wikimedia project. I soon realized, however, that it
> was
> > just a repeater of CC-BY sources of news, with very residual (if any)
> > proper production. When an handcrafted news-piece I've made was merged
> with
> > one of those automatic repeaters, I left that project and never looked
> > back. As far as I now it never was attractive, it never managed to
> > congregate any proper community worth of that name (at least the
> Portuguese
> > version) - It was kind of a failed project already 10 years ago. And that
> > was one of the reasons and motivations for Jimbo trying to reshuffle the
> > thing as his new child WikiTribune. Personally, I do not need that
> project
> > at all. When some news is notable enough (like the tragic Notre-Dame fire
> > yesterday) I create the article for it and build it as an encyclopedic
> > article, which is much more motivating and permanent than whatever is
> made
> > in WikiNews.
> >
> > Personally, I see this branding project as a two headed beast: In one
> head,
> > WMF trying to take undue credit from the Wikipedia brand; on another
> head,
> > some incipient Wikipedia dream of colonization towards other projects. As
> > many, I started my contributions in t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] branding is bikeshedding, how about CTO criteria or working group lists instead?

[James Salsman]

Jennifer,

> I think what you really mean is that you want (1) for yourself as
> opposed to the movement in general to be personally involved in
> the decision-making process,

I would be happy if the Foundation was doing anything to involve
the community in the process. We are constantly told to get involved,
but if the search process isn't open, how are we supposed to?

> so that you can (2) promote your pet notions about privacy,
> back-doors in hardware and other opinons.

I plead guilty, I want privacy and all the other questions I raised to be
part of the CTO search process, but they are hardly my pet notions,
and again, I'd gladly abstain if the community was made part of this
process. There was one item on the list you could call my pet, since it
has been the source of 98% of my income for the past eight years, but
it wasn't either of the two you guessed. Here is enumerated list, in
hopes that this makes it easier.

Is the Foundation looking for a CTO who can help:

(1) reinforcing their privacy infrastructure;

(2) moving away from providing personally identifiable information
to the dozens of researchers worldwide under nondisclosure agreements;

(3) finding a fuzzing middle ground to provide approximate but non-
personally identyding readership log information;

(4) explore alternatives to staying with PHP long term;

(5) build a strategy to combat censorship in Turkey and China;

(6) support IPFS with more than just dumps;

(7) execute on the industry-wide Encrypted-SNI project with devoted
headcount and budget;

(8) commit to open source hardware, e.g. www.opencompute.org servers;

(9) ramp up Community Wishlist implementation as long term
Foundation technology supporters wrap up or transition to support mode;

(10) fix tools that have fallen into disrepair (e.g., Categorder which sorts
the WP:BACKLOG categories by pageviews on enwiki)

(11) produce a Course Management System for Wikiversity;

(12) produce a pronunciation tutor for Wiktionary;

(13) remain competitive with other top-ten website compensation by
paying SF-livable salaries;

and what search criteria are they using to find candidates that can?

Best regards,
Jim

On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 11:33 AM Jennifer Pryor-Summers
 wrote:
>
> Jim
>
>
> >  I would like to comment on the search and requirement
> > criteria. In particular, I'd like to know [...] I would love to know any of
> > this far more than anything about branding.
> >
>
> Yes, but what would you *do* with the answers to all those questions?
> You're not on the search committee, so it seems that what you want is for
> the WMF to answer questions from the 36 million or so account holders, and
> get 36 million comments.   That's useless to them and to us.  I think what
> you really mean is that you want (1) for yourself as opposed to the
> movement in general to be personally involved in the decision-making
> process, probably so that you can (2) promote your pet notions about
> privacy, back-doors in hardware and other opinons.  Perhaps you should try
> standing for election to a community seat on the Board?
>
> JPS
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Andrew Lih]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:24 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> I see no reason to shut down projects, nor to tell participants to stop
> collaborating on X in the spirit of a Wiki.
>

Unfortunately, in theory, projects in zombie mode should not pose a problem
on their own.

In practice, they do affect our guidance to users in other projects and
often results in poor, contradictory or confusing advice. At least in
English Wikipedia, Wikinews keeps being referred to as a legitimate place
to steer people, either out of aspirational hope or ignorance of just how
dormant Wikinews is. Just peruse the Wikinews Recent Changes log, and on
most any given day you're hard pressed to find any meaningful edits. The
bulk of the changes are automated talk page additions, spam blocking, or
maintenance edits.

On the English WP:NOT page, we are serving users poorly by promoting the
fantasy that it is a legit companion to Wikipedia when we know it is not
the case.

In the spirit of comity, we tend not to detail the hard truths about the
deficiency of projects. (Actually we don't really have good ways to put
anything in review or probationary status.) Instead, when well-meaning
editors try the softer approach of removing over-enthusiastic endorsement
of failed projects in policy pages, we see the edit warring below.

Should we be OK with directing people in good faith to Wikinews in its
known failure state?

-Andrew


---

Over the years, it has been revert city regarding conflicting advice on
Wikinews in en:WP:NOTNEWS:

Wikinews is not a place to steer people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=763544913&oldid=763543985&diffmode=source

Yes it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=763547213&oldid=763544913&diffmode=source

No it isn't:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=869215367&oldid=868178515&diffmode=source

Yes, it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=869218732&oldid=869215507&diffmode=source

No it isn't:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=892851061&oldid=892427747&diffmode=source

Yes it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=892895993&oldid=892851061&diffmode=source

And so on.



-- 
-Andrew Lih
Author of The Wikipedia Revolution
US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016)
Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015)
Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM
Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American
University, Columbia University, USC
---
Email: and...@andrewlih.com
WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado
PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Yaroslav Blanter]

My understanding is that this is exactly what we are discussing now. In the
scenario proposed by Asaf there is a vote (RfC) in which keep votes of the
Wikinews community would go against delete votes by Wikimedia users not
interested in keeping Wikinews.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:17 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) 
wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:41, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the
> > project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down
> > against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or
> > perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask
> > myself  whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where
> we
> > have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day
> > against the will of the community, just because we are not successful
> > competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for
> example.
> >
>
> I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without
> community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
>
> Dan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Ad Huikeshoven]

Shutting down Wikinews is not the only strategic option. Wikinews is now
hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. In the future it could be hosted by
another organization. For example Wikia. Or maybe the current users start a
Wikinews Association or Foundation and will start self hosting. Someone
from the Wikimedia Foundation should weigh in with a marginal cost estimate
of hosting Wikinews. It probably might be not much more than the cost of
the domain registration. For the Wikimedia Foundation the financial cost
saving would be not more than those domain registration fees. Currently
there is no case the existence of Wikinews hurts the reputation of
Wikimedia or Wikipedia in my opinion.

Regards,

Ad Huikeshoven

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:17 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) 
wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:41, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the
> > project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down
> > against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or
> > perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask
> > myself  whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where
> we
> > have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day
> > against the will of the community, just because we are not successful
> > competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for
> example.
> >
>
> I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without
> community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
>
> Dan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Dan Garry (Deskana)]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:41, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the
> project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down
> against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or
> perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask
> myself  whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where we
> have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day
> against the will of the community, just because we are not successful
> competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for example.
>

I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without
community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.

Dan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Jennifer Pryor-Summers]

Peter

Putting your brand on a project that is visibly failing also sends out a
message, to the world at large.  Is that a message you want to broadcast?

JPS

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 3:32 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all
> volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.
> Is that a message we want to broadcast?
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk
> Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand
> system for our 2030 goals]
>
> Hello,
> Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did
> not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing
> from time to time.
> But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept.
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
>
> Samuel Klein  schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
>
> > Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
> and
> > internal narrative of the projects and movement.  A classic branding
> issue
> > ;)
> > * On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
> topical
> > subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
> major
> > language Wikpiedias'?  some obvious names have already been taken)
> > * On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
> > overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or
> > synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
> >
> > We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects
> > trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the
> > world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects:
> >  I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers.   They
> > all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can
> > accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
> date
> > of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion
> > about how to do it better.  When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
> exactly
> > what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling
> > and satisfying to them.  However as there is no central cafe or village
> > pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible
> > to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage
> > with them...
> >
> > This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways
> > for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel,
> > advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and
> > coalescence, for awareness and thanks.  We have tried many small steps in
> > this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple,
> > functional tools of alignment.
> >
> > SJ
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Andrew
> > >
> > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
> > that
> > > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a
> > > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
> Wikipedia
> > is
> > > a success as a news-gathering operation.  These seem inconsistent to
> me.
> > > However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
> is
> > to
> > > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia.  Is that right?
> > >
> > > JPS
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
> Wikipedia
> > > > seems
> > > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
> > its
> > > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason.  Maybe the WMF
> > should
> > > > > sort out the demarcation issues.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Jennifer,
> > > >
> > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
> vast
> > > > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
> Wikinews
> > > > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
> > properties.
> > > >
> > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
> > > given
> > > > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct
> > > > observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
> that
> > > make
> > > > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
> > > >
> > > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research
> > > > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources
> > > > Wikipedia:V - verifiability
> > > > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is n

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Research Showcase] April 17 at 11:30 AM PDT, 19:30 UTC

[Janna Layton]

The Research Showcase will be starting in about 30 minutes. Topics today
are WikiProject and the "Thanks" feature. Info below:

On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 2:57 PM Janna Layton  wrote:

> Just a reminder that this Showcase will be happening on Wednesday.
>
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 4:49 PM Janna Layton 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello, everyone,
>>
>> The next Research Showcase, “Group Membership and Contributions to Public
>> Information Goods: The Case of WikiProject” and “Thanks for Stopping By:
>> A Study of ‘Thanks’ Usage on Wikimedia,” will be live-streamed next
>> Wednesday, April 17, 2019, at 11:30 AM PDT/19:30 UTC.
>>
>> YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmb5LoJzOoE
>>
>> As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research.
>> You can also watch our past research showcases here:
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase
>>
>> This month's presentations:
>>
>>
>>
>> Group Membership and Contributions to Public Information Goods: The Case
>> of WikiProject
>>
>> By Ark Fangzhou Zhang
>>
>> Abstract:
>>
>> We investigate the effects of group identity on contribution behavior on
>> the English Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia that gives free
>> access to the public. Using an instrumental variable approach that exploits
>> the variations in one’s exposure to WikiProject, we find that joining a
>> WikiProject has a significant impact on one’s level of contribution, with
>> an average increase of 79 revisions or 8,672 character per month. To
>> uncover the potential mechanism underlying the treatment effect, we use the
>> size of home page for WikiProject as a proxy for the number of
>> recommendations from a project. The results show that the users who join a
>> WikiProject with more recommendations significantly increase their
>> contribution to articles under the joined project, but not to articles
>> under other projects.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for Stopping By: A Study of ‘Thanks’ Usage on Wikimedia
>>
>> By Swati Goel
>>
>> Abstract:
>>
>> The Thanks feature on Wikipedia, also known as "Thanks," is a tool with
>> which editors can quickly and easily send one other positive feedback. The
>> aim of this project is to better understand this feature: its scope, the
>> characteristics of a typical "Thanks" interaction, and the effects of
>> receiving a thank on individual editors. We study the motivational impacts
>> of "Thanks" because maintaining editor engagement is a central problem for
>> crowdsourced repositories of knowledge such as Wikimedia. Our main findings
>> are that most editors have not been exposed to the Thanks feature (meaning
>> they have never given nor received a thank), thanks are typically sent
>> upwards (from less experienced to more experienced editors), and receiving
>> a thank is correlated with having high levels of editor engagement. Though
>> the prevalence of "Thanks" usage varies by editor experience, the impact of
>> receiving a thank seems mostly consistent for all users. We empirically
>> demonstrate that receiving a thank has a strong positive effect on
>> short-term editor activity across the board and provide preliminary
>> evidence that thanks could compound to have long-term effects as well.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Janna Layton (she, her)
>> Administrative Assistant - Audiences & Technology
>> Wikimedia Foundation 
>>
>
>
> --
> Janna Layton (she, her)
> Administrative Assistant - Audiences & Technology
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>


-- 
Janna Layton (she, her)
Administrative Assistant - Audiences & Technology
Wikimedia Foundation 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Andy Mabbett]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:31, Peter Southwood
 wrote:

> Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers
> that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.

For some value of "lost" - it's likely, in this case, that all the
content would be preserved, either by making the wiki read-only, or
perhaps migrating articles to, say, Wikisource.

Sure, things like some portal pages, templates and categories might be
discarded, but that can happen to the work of any of us, on any
project, anyway.

We have a related, but different, issue at Wikispecies .Technically at
least, that project is now (or could soon be, with a few tweaks)
wholly redundant to Wikidata, and could be populated using
Listeria-like scripts or templates, from what is held in Wikidata.

The Wikispecies community vehemently resist this, and respond with
suggestions that data in Wikispecies (held in a variety of templates,
as well as much unstructured prose) should be what is edited, and
should be used in a reverse of the above process to somehow magically
populate Wikidata.

So we continue to maintain versions of the same data on two (or more:
Wikipedias and Commons also do their own things with biological
taxonomy) vastly different projects, diluting the impact of all of our
volunteer-hours. Anyone who commissioned a system like this in a
professional capacity would be sacked for incompetence.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Samuel Klein]

I see no reason to shut down projects, nor to tell participants to stop
collaborating on X in the spirit of a Wiki.

I see a great reason not to limit conversation about what a project around
X *could be* to the current state of a project that has that domain name.
There is plenty of energy around using wikis for news, or wikis for
courses, which is absolutely not captured by any of our current Projects or
projects.

We need
* Flexible ways to modify, fork, and experiment with names and projects
* Flexible ways to redirect, merge, and split projects and namespaces (as
half-successfully attempted with the incubator) without losing history or
editability

SJ

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 10:41 AM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the
> project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down
> against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or
> perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask
> myself  whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where we
> have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day
> against the will of the community, just because we are not successful
> competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for example.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:32 PM Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all
> > volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.
> > Is that a message we want to broadcast?
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk
> > Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand
> > system for our 2030 goals]
> >
> > Hello,
> > Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It
> did
> > not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing
> > from time to time.
> > But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept.
> > Kind regards
> > Ziko
> >
> >
> >
> > Samuel Klein  schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
> >
> > > Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
> > and
> > > internal narrative of the projects and movement.  A classic branding
> > issue
> > > ;)
> > > * On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
> > topical
> > > subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
> > major
> > > language Wikpiedias'?  some obvious names have already been taken)
> > > * On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
> > > overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or
> > > synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
> > >
> > > We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects
> > > trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in
> the
> > > world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects:
> > >  I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers.
>  They
> > > all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can
> > > accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
> > date
> > > of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic
> discussion
> > > about how to do it better.  When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
> > exactly
> > > what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was
> startling
> > > and satisfying to them.  However as there is no central cafe or village
> > > pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are
> impossible
> > > to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to
> engage
> > > with them...
> > >
> > > This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back:
> ways
> > > for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel,
> > > advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and
> > > coalescence, for awareness and thanks.  We have tried many small steps
> in
> > > this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple,
> > > functional tools of alignment.
> > >
> > > SJ
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Andrew
> > > >
> > > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
> > > that
> > > > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
> are a
> > > > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
> > Wikipedia
> > > is
> > > > a success as a news-gathering operation.  These seem inconsistent to
> > me.
> > > > However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
> > is
> > > to
> > > > fold the Wikinews operation into W

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the
project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down
against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or
perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask
myself  whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where we
have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day
against the will of the community, just because we are not successful
competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for example.

Cheers
Yaroslav

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:32 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all
> volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.
> Is that a message we want to broadcast?
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk
> Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand
> system for our 2030 goals]
>
> Hello,
> Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did
> not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing
> from time to time.
> But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept.
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
>
> Samuel Klein  schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
>
> > Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
> and
> > internal narrative of the projects and movement.  A classic branding
> issue
> > ;)
> > * On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
> topical
> > subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
> major
> > language Wikpiedias'?  some obvious names have already been taken)
> > * On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
> > overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or
> > synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
> >
> > We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects
> > trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the
> > world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects:
> >  I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers.   They
> > all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can
> > accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
> date
> > of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion
> > about how to do it better.  When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
> exactly
> > what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling
> > and satisfying to them.  However as there is no central cafe or village
> > pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible
> > to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage
> > with them...
> >
> > This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways
> > for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel,
> > advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and
> > coalescence, for awareness and thanks.  We have tried many small steps in
> > this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple,
> > functional tools of alignment.
> >
> > SJ
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Andrew
> > >
> > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
> > that
> > > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a
> > > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
> Wikipedia
> > is
> > > a success as a news-gathering operation.  These seem inconsistent to
> me.
> > > However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
> is
> > to
> > > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia.  Is that right?
> > >
> > > JPS
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
> Wikipedia
> > > > seems
> > > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
> > its
> > > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason.  Maybe the WMF
> > should
> > > > > sort out the demarcation issues.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Jennifer,
> > > >
> > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
> vast
> > > > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
> Wikinews
> > > > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
> > properties.
> > > >
> > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Peter Southwood]

Yeah, Right.
P

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Paulo Santos Perneta
Sent: 16 April 2019 20:38
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system 
for our 2030 goals]

The WMF should not sort out any demarcation issues. In fact, it should not
sort out anything at all in the Movement. The WMF is administered by the
Movement, and it's main purpose and mission is to serve it, not do dictate
anything there. That is a boundary that should never be crossed.

Best
Paulo

Jennifer Pryor-Summers  escreveu no dia
terça, 16/04/2019 à(s) 19:27:

> Dan
>
> Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia seems
> to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its
> encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason.  Maybe the WMF should
> sort out the demarcation issues.
>
> JPS
>
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:38 AM Dan Garry (Deskana) 
> wrote:
>
> > Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
> >
> > On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Compared to Wikitribune it is!  But more importantly, if Wikinews is
> not
> > > thriving, then why not?  Does it lack resources?  What could or should
> > the
> > > WMF do to revive it?
> >
> >
> > In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out,
> > and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
> trying
> > to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
> Wikimedia
> > Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the
> > project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in
> > bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
> For
> > me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just
> > isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
> >
> > Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
> things
> > but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan
> > reflects that it is trying to do so.
> >
> >
> > > Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would
> > > be better spent on the  projects that are not doing so well as the big
> > > Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
> > down,
> > > on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
> > >
> >
> > I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding
> > effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external
> > consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages
> to
> > solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
> might
> > take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
> project.
> > I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
> yes,
> > I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
> >
> > Dan
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Peter Southwood]

Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers 
that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day. Is that a 
message we want to broadcast?
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Ziko van Dijk
Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system 
for our 2030 goals]

Hello,
Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did
not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing
from time to time.
But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept.
Kind regards
Ziko



Samuel Klein  schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:

> Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image and
> internal narrative of the projects and movement.  A classic branding issue
> ;)
> * On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about topical
> subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the major
> language Wikpiedias'?  some obvious names have already been taken)
> * On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
> overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or
> synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
>
> We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects
> trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the
> world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects:
>  I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers.   They
> all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can
> accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to date
> of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion
> about how to do it better.  When I pointed out that Wikipedias did exactly
> what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling
> and satisfying to them.  However as there is no central cafe or village
> pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible
> to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage
> with them...
>
> This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways
> for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel,
> advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and
> coalescence, for awareness and thanks.  We have tried many small steps in
> this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple,
> functional tools of alignment.
>
> SJ
>
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Andrew
> >
> > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
> that
> > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a
> > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia
> is
> > a success as a news-gathering operation.  These seem inconsistent to me.
> > However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is
> to
> > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia.  Is that right?
> >
> > JPS
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih  wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
> > > seems
> > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
> its
> > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason.  Maybe the WMF
> should
> > > > sort out the demarcation issues.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Jennifer,
> > >
> > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast
> > > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews
> > > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
> properties.
> > >
> > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
> > given
> > > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct
> > > observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
> > make
> > > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
> > >
> > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research
> > > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources
> > > Wikipedia:V - verifiability
> > > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
> > >
> > > Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
> > and
> > > realize it is a poor fit.
> > >
> > > However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
> > celebrate
> > > the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
> to
> > > minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
> know
> > > it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
> the
>