[Wikimedia-l] Re: Launch of Justapedia

[Vi to]

Indeed Venn diagrams are a left-wing-woke-cancel-culture propaganda.

Vito

Il giorno mar 12 set 2023 alle ore 08:15 Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> ha scritto:

> The logo is quite funny. According to that Information + Disinformation =
> Facts. It might be that they don't know what a Venn diagram is, or simply
> that they actually think that.
>
> Don't worry, this is just one more project that will fall into oblivion.
>
> Galder
> --
> *From:* Lauren Worden 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 12, 2023 12:42 AM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Launch of Justapedia
>
> The only specific and non-contradictory complaints about Wikipedia
> bias I can find on
> https://justapedia.org/wiki/Justapedia:Justapedia_Foundation are
> climate change and COVID-19, which are areas in which I think
> Wikipedia excels. The complaints about politics go in both directions.
>
> Perhaps Atsme can clarify?
>
> -LW
>
> On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 3:18 PM Andy Mabbett 
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, 10 Sept 2023, 14:31 Rey Bueno via Wikimedia-l, <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Justapedia
> >
> >
> > It's laughable, as the logo [1] that (inadvertently,?) shows
> "disinformation" and "lies" being given equal weight with "information" in
> determining "truth" suggests.
> >
> > But this [2] hints at the darker underbelly:
> >
> > "The Editorial Review Board (ERB) [...] will make binding decisions
> regarding the retention and rejection of article content, as well as serve
> to resolve content disputes, and notability issues... ERB members are
> required to have a high level, native understanding of written English"
> >
> >> Besides, there are alarming rumors I saw in Y Combinator [...]
> >
> >
> > Oh, please. Do better than that.
> >
> >
> > [1] https://justapedia.org/wiki/File:Hands-circ-sifts-sources-Sm.png
> >
> > [2] https://justapedia.org/wiki/Justapedia:Editorial_Review_Board
> >
> > ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Use of this email list for anti-LGBTQ myths

[Vi to]

While I think you're plainly right and her behaviour can't be tolerated, I
think you probably confused Wikimedia-l with Wikimania-l

Vito

Il giorno gio 29 giu 2023 alle ore 13:57 L C  ha
scritto:

> In the light of the posts by Mina Theofilatou, could the list admins
> take action to either ban the use of this list by Mina or moderate all
> future posts in line with the UCoC and TCoC?
>
> The facts are that in these posts:
> 24 June:
> Mina presented as a "valid concern" for Wikimania that there have been
> incidents of trans women harassing women at events. This promotes that
> myth that trans women are more dangerous than anyone else.
> 29 June:
> Mina promoted the myth that there is a "era of self-identification",
> where trans women might "exits the bathroom stall with his penis in
> his hand" which spreads fear of trans women and attempts to normalize
> the idea that trans women are exposing penises - and it's normal to
> call trans women men, so it's normal to misgender trans women if you
> feel like it.
> Mina attacked trans men using myths about fear of their menstruating.
> Mina derided the idea of respecting trans people by presenting her
> clearly transphobic views as self-evident "common decency", therefore
> making everyone genuinely respectful of LGBTQIA inclusion outside of
> common decency.
>
> Hopefully after these long confessional emails from Mina, no Wikimedia
> funded events will be hosting Mina or her unnamed friend who is
> irrationally frightened of trans women. This would be perfectly in
> line with Wikimedia event and Wikimania safe space policies. I
> recommend we also remove this email list platform as a way for Mina to
> permanently publish and promote transphobic myths.
>
> As a reminder, persistently avoiding calling trans women "trans women"
> or trans men "trans men" by using peculiar terms like AMAB, AFAB, MTF,
> born male, "males who identify as women", is itself an expression of
> transphobia. It is a sure sign that someone has spent far too long on
> anti-LGBTQ forums.
>
> Reference
>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimani...@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/5LQ26JNUNC5ROWJ42MYVWWLCSSBQ5WHG
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: How does the selection of WMF expert board members happen?

[Vi to]

It's commendable your attempt to broaden the discussion into something more
general, aimed at preserving board prestige.

I concur that as a first step there should be a clear stance about "what
the board seeks into its appointed member(s)?".

Vito

Il giorno lun 12 dic 2022 alle ore 17:43 effe iets anders <
effeietsand...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Given that the actual appointment is about a year ago, it may make sense
> to shift this conversation and these great questions into a more general
> domain: what is the current procedure the WMF follows when encountering a
> vacancy for an expert board member?
>
> I imagine we could rephrase some of these questions into more general
> language (although the original questions from Scann may still be valuable):
>
> - What does the search strategy look like, and is the movement engaged in
> it? How? (I would add the same question for the other stakeholders,
> including staff)
> - How are the elements of the ideal profile determined (e.g. US vs
> worldwide, social good vs commercial, etc)
> - To what extent are demographic criteria used in setting a profile for a
> specific recruitment (rather than at the high level 'we want to be diverse')
>
> I think we could add to that how the WMF does a 'background check' (in the
> broadest sense possible), although I doubt everything we discussed would
> always come up. But in two or three occasions over the past years we have
> had appointments result in some controversy, and it would be interesting to
> better understand whether WMF was aware but didn't consider it important
> enough, whether WMF feels that these issues are not relevant enough to
> begin with or whether WMF would have expected to have been aware, but
> wasn't.
>
> I realize that board appointments like this are rare events, and it's hard
> to really analyze them for that reason. Each appointment has its own
> quirks, and I'm pretty sure nothing you'll say or do will truly satisfy the
> entire community. I personally don't think it's realistic to pre-announce
> any appointment to the community before formalizing, but it would also be
> interesting to think about how we can leverage the community better. I'm
> thinking about identifying specific experts, committees or focus groups
> (but I'm confident there's more ways available). And maybe the WMF is
> already doing all this and we're just under-appreciating it!
>
> All in all, these questions don't necessarily have to reflect on Luis'
> appointment - they are interesting in their own right.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2022 at 3:02 PM  wrote:
>
>> To add to the conversation, I'm wondering several things.
>>
>> 1. Was there actually an outreach strategy to recruit for this type of
>> technologist profile? Was it communicated to the movement? We could have
>> helped.
>>
>> 2. Why the decision on someone whose only relevant background as
>> technologist is on US corporate technology companies? As several people
>> have pointed out, Luis doesn't seem to have any relevant experience in
>> enterprises that contribute to the larger social good; some of them are
>> significantly controversial (Rappi, Loft); and all of them seem to be very
>> much US-based.
>>
>> 3. Why a guy? It would have been significantly better to bring a woman
>> into this position. If the problem is retention, I actually think that a
>> woman would have been a way better fit to understand what's failing in
>> terms of business culture that's creating challenges to make people stay.
>>
>> There are several other things that could be said about this decision but
>> I think others have already said them -- like the whole NFT & blockchain
>> thing and the "fintech for young people", which is already a huge, huge,
>> huge red flag.
>>
>> cheers,
>> scann
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Long Reddit post laying out inner workings of English Wikipedia

[Vi to]

Indeed, didn't want to sound ad hominem, but definitely some AN/I drama,
the second most popular source of grandiose criticism after being the
subject of a deleted bio.

Vito

Il giorno lun 12 dic 2022 alle ore 19:25 Dan Rosenthal 
ha scritto:

> Man, that essay reads like someone spent a grand total of 5 days reading
> Wikipedia policies, ventured into some politically fraught articles with a
> right-wing agenda, got taken to AN/I for it, and subsequently blocked or
> banned.
>
> Dan
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2022 at 6:41 AM Vi to  wrote:
>
>> I don't know whether crossing the line "musk [...] fixing [...]
>> Wikipedia" gives me more disgust or fear.
>>
>> Vito
>>
>> Il giorno lun 12 dic 2022 alle ore 05:12 reybueno1--- via Wikimedia-l <
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> ha scritto:
>>
>>> This just up in /r/trueunpopularopinion and YCombinator:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/zieyyf/wikipedia_is_not_so_great_and_is_overrated/
>>>
>>>
>>> Quoted below because it was explicitly released under public domain:
>>>
>>> You all have heard by now that Elon Musk said that Wikipedia has a "left
>>> wing bias" when the article about Twitter Files had been suggested for
>>> deletion. This has been received with mixed responses from liberals and
>>> conservatives alike; the former dismissing it as "an attack on free
>>> knowledge" and the latter cheering the move as "against censorship" and
>>> vindication of their beliefs that Big Tech is biased against them.
>>>
>>> True, Wikipedia is supposedly editable by anyone around the world and I
>>> had been an on and off editor there for years mostly doing small-ish edits
>>> like fixing typos and reverting obvious vandalism. This is done while on IP
>>> as opposed to using accounts because I would rather that some edits (i.e.
>>> sensitive topics like religious and political areas) not tied to my name
>>> and identity. However, reality is far from the preferred sugar-coated
>>> description of Wikipedia, particularly its editing community.
>>>
>>> The editing community in overall is best described as a slightly
>>> hierarchical and militaristic "do everything right" structure,
>>> traditionally associated with Dell and recently Foxconn and now-defunct
>>> Theranos. Exceptions apply in quieter and outlier areas such as local
>>> geography and space, usually the top entry points for new users wanting to
>>> try their first hand. There are higher tolerance of good-faith mistakes
>>> such as point-of-view problems and using unreliable resources, which are
>>> usually explained in detail on how to correct by them rather than a mere
>>> warning template or even an abrupt block.
>>>
>>> Ultimately those sub-communities which can be said as populated by
>>> exopedians, have relatively little to no power over the wider and core
>>> communities, mostly dominated by metapedians. A third group called
>>> mesopedians often alternates between these inner and outer workings.
>>> Communities can have shared topical interest which are grouped by
>>> WikiProject, an example being WikiProject Science
>>>
>>> I spend a lot of time casually browsing through edit wars (can be so
>>> lame at times) like a fly on the wall, along with meta venues of Wikipedia
>>> such as Articles for Deletion, Centralized discussion Neutral Point of View
>>> Noticeboard, Biographical of Living Persons Noticeboard, Conflict of
>>> Interest Noticeboard, Administrator's Noticeboard Incidents, Sockpuppet
>>> investigations, Arbitration Committee noticeboard which is the "supreme
>>> court" in Wikipedia community for serious behavioral and conduct disputes.
>>> Therefore I can sum up how the editing community really functions, although
>>> not really as extensive as you might expect because I am not a
>>> "Wikipedioholic" with respect to inner workings.
>>>
>>> Deletionism and inclusionism
>>> This has been very perennial and core reasons for just about any
>>> disputes on Wikipedia ever D Deletionists treat Wikipedia as another
>>> "regular encyclopedia" where information has to be limited once it become
>>> very much to be covered; like cutting out junk, while inclusionists treats
>>> Wikipedia as a comprehensive encyclopedia not bound by papers and thus can
>>> afford to cover as much informati

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Long Reddit post laying out inner workings of English Wikipedia

[Vi to]

I don't know whether crossing the line "musk [...] fixing [...] Wikipedia"
gives me more disgust or fear.

Vito

Il giorno lun 12 dic 2022 alle ore 05:12 reybueno1--- via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> ha scritto:

> This just up in /r/trueunpopularopinion and YCombinator:
>
>
> https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/zieyyf/wikipedia_is_not_so_great_and_is_overrated/
>
>
> Quoted below because it was explicitly released under public domain:
>
> You all have heard by now that Elon Musk said that Wikipedia has a "left
> wing bias" when the article about Twitter Files had been suggested for
> deletion. This has been received with mixed responses from liberals and
> conservatives alike; the former dismissing it as "an attack on free
> knowledge" and the latter cheering the move as "against censorship" and
> vindication of their beliefs that Big Tech is biased against them.
>
> True, Wikipedia is supposedly editable by anyone around the world and I
> had been an on and off editor there for years mostly doing small-ish edits
> like fixing typos and reverting obvious vandalism. This is done while on IP
> as opposed to using accounts because I would rather that some edits (i.e.
> sensitive topics like religious and political areas) not tied to my name
> and identity. However, reality is far from the preferred sugar-coated
> description of Wikipedia, particularly its editing community.
>
> The editing community in overall is best described as a slightly
> hierarchical and militaristic "do everything right" structure,
> traditionally associated with Dell and recently Foxconn and now-defunct
> Theranos. Exceptions apply in quieter and outlier areas such as local
> geography and space, usually the top entry points for new users wanting to
> try their first hand. There are higher tolerance of good-faith mistakes
> such as point-of-view problems and using unreliable resources, which are
> usually explained in detail on how to correct by them rather than a mere
> warning template or even an abrupt block.
>
> Ultimately those sub-communities which can be said as populated by
> exopedians, have relatively little to no power over the wider and core
> communities, mostly dominated by metapedians. A third group called
> mesopedians often alternates between these inner and outer workings.
> Communities can have shared topical interest which are grouped by
> WikiProject, an example being WikiProject Science
>
> I spend a lot of time casually browsing through edit wars (can be so lame
> at times) like a fly on the wall, along with meta venues of Wikipedia such
> as Articles for Deletion, Centralized discussion Neutral Point of View
> Noticeboard, Biographical of Living Persons Noticeboard, Conflict of
> Interest Noticeboard, Administrator's Noticeboard Incidents, Sockpuppet
> investigations, Arbitration Committee noticeboard which is the "supreme
> court" in Wikipedia community for serious behavioral and conduct disputes.
> Therefore I can sum up how the editing community really functions, although
> not really as extensive as you might expect because I am not a
> "Wikipedioholic" with respect to inner workings.
>
> Deletionism and inclusionism
> This has been very perennial and core reasons for just about any disputes
> on Wikipedia ever D Deletionists treat Wikipedia as another "regular
> encyclopedia" where information has to be limited once it become very much
> to be covered; like cutting out junk, while inclusionists treats Wikipedia
> as a comprehensive encyclopedia not bound by papers and thus can afford to
> cover as much information as it can take; one man's junk could be another
> man's treasure. Personally I support the latter and often the conflict
> between two editing ideologies leads to factionalism, where attempts to
> understand mutual feelings and perspectives are inadequate or even none at
> all.
>
> There are no absolute standards of what defines "encyclopedic knowledge"
> and "notability". Inclusionism posits that almost everything could become
> valuable and encyclopedic in the future, even if they're aren't today. An
> example I can think of is events, figures and stories from World War II.
> Deletionism has been closely related to "academic standard kicks" and rely
> on the premise that Wikipedia has to be of high standard and concise. There
> are people who deem an addition of something as useful, and there are those
> who think it's "trivia" or "crufty" something that is nominally discouraged
> if not prohibited by Wikipedia's documentation (see this in particular,
> although sometimes exceptions are applied through the spirit of "Ignoring
> all rules for sake of improvement", which are frequent at entertainment and
> gaming topics).
>
> On pages, notability debates around a person subject and otherwise are
> frequently the main point of discussion in Articles for Deletion threads,
> where articles deemed not substantial enough (such as very few sources) are
> suggested 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open letter of support for Les sans pagEs

[Vi to]

Criticism and harassment must be told apart. I feel like LSP letter in
French does, while supporting letter on meta doesn't.

In collaborative projects driven by volunteers criticism should never be
downplayed, even when actively contrasting its specific instances.

Paid editing, neutrality, inclusion criteria are matters of substance which
are primarly up to Francophone community and are subject to different
opinions, while harassment is not susceptible of opinion but rather of
being stopped and sanctioned through the proper means.

Vito

Il giorno gio 22 set 2022 alle ore 17:31 Lane Chance 
ha scritto:

> A detailed response by LSP to questions raised on the French
> Wikipedia, and a summary of the context of being subject to an
> unpleasant pile on, and direct personal attacks on the team, was
> published yesterday at:
>
> https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pagEs/Réponses_aux_questions_posées_à_l'association_LSP
>
> If you can't read French, Google translate does a perfectly adequate
> job to do the necessary reading everyone is expected to do as a *basic
> courtesy*, before publishing opinions.
>
> Lane
> On Tue, 20 Sept 2022 at 07:34, Todd Allen  wrote:
> >
> > It is hard to determine what is being complained about, when the letter
> does not actually link to any of the threads it complains about. If it did
> that, it would be much more easily possible for someone to look into the
> substance of it. It states that it has been linked to "continual bad-faith
> arguments" (itself concerning; that's not a neutral summary) of discussions
> "on the project’s talk page, on the administrators’ bulletin and on Le
> Bistro and a formal RFC — including calls for the disestablishment of the
> project on the basis of concerns around Conflicts of interest and Paid
> editing."
> >
> > Where are the links to those discussions? Where can I see what concerns
> were raised? If there is paid editing going on, that's a substantial
> concern, as is COI. If the arguments are in bad faith, well, that should be
> readily apparent, too. But where are the links?
> >
> > Todd
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 5:17 AM Lane Chance  wrote:
> >>
> >> Responding to LGBTQ minority communities raising legitimate, evidence
> >> based, concerns of systemic bias with "stay in your lane"?
> >>
> >> I don't think I've read anything more tone deaf.
> >>
> >> The give away is "Without having looked into the actual substance". Do
> >> the research before rushing to punch down the voice of minority
> >> groups.
> >>
> >> Lane
> >>
> >> On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 01:25, Yair Rand  wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Without having looked into the actual substance of whatever dispute
> is going on among frwiki and LSP, I want to put forward some good general
> principles:
> >> > * The individual hiring and firing decisions of our organizations
> should be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the entities assigned those
> responsibilities. Public community pressure should not be able to get
> someone fired or hired, or prevent any particular hiring or firing
> decision. A public protest against someone's hiring is unproductive and
> damages the collaborative environment.
> >> > * Responding to a community's attitude by sending out a
> monodirectional communication, organized off-wiki and listing supporters'
> affiliate positions, is basically the most conflict-oriented way possible
> to approach this.
> >> >
> >> > How an affiliate manages their individual hires is the affiliate's
> business. HR activities are complicated, and do not need to be handled in
> the public sphere. If an affiliate wants to hire whoever, the community
> doesn't get to veto it.
> >> >
> >> > How a community reacts to an affiliate's actions is their own
> business. Affiliates do not get a say in local community affairs. A
> usergroup's or chapter's collective opinion is completely irrelevant in a
> community dialogue. If the community wants to ban someone, or even the
> entire membership of a group, they can do that, and affiliates don't get to
> veto it.
> >> >
> >> > (Seriously: It doesn't matter if you're the WMF's Board Chair, the
> CEO, or whatever, you don't get an extra vote in an RfC.)
> >> >
> >> > (It should go without saying that hostile/uncivil behaviour,
> harassment, and accusations of bad faith are not acceptable.)
> >> >
> >> > Everyone, please stay in your lane. This is like the only place on
> Wikimedia where we clearly even _have_ obvious distinct lanes, it should be
> manageable.
> >> >
> >> > -- Yair Rand
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > ‫בתאריך יום ו׳, 16 בספט׳ 2022 ב-4:30 מאת ‪WM LGBT‬‏ <‪
> wikimedial...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬
> >> >>
> >> >> Link:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_letter_of_support_for_Les_sans_pagEs
> >> >>
> >> >> Over 35 Wikimedia organisations and many individual Wikimedians have
> >> >> signed in support of the initiative of our Wikimedia Affiliate Les
> >> >> sans pagEs professionalising their work by hiring Nattes à chat as
> >> >> executive directo

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

In practical terms the only working point for category #1 is the last one,
which is already done *in theory*. Yes, proxying systems from countries
affected by such problems can generally be exploited from elsewhere. About
category #2 the first point is great, but it needs a committed development
effort, point 2 a temporary GIPBE can be a good idea.

Vito

Il giorno mar 3 mag 2022 alle ore 03:31  ha scritto:

> I've been getting really helpful replies both here and in the Meta
> discussion, thank you very much. I'm going to summarize what I'm seeing so
> far, and ask some new questions.
>
> One thing that's come up is that there are many kinds of good-faith people
> who experience collateral damage from the current practice — people in
> Africa and South/Southeast Asia who are automatically in proxies thanks to
> their ISP (the folks who started the conversation), and also people who
> live in countries where contributors risk harassment or legal action,
> including queer editors who live in countries where queer sexualities are
> criminalized.
>
> Right now, I'm thinking about the different kinds of "pain" involved on
> all sides. Just for the sake of this conversation, I'm using the word
> "pain" to mean something that's frustrating, time-consuming, dangerous,
> obstructive, or otherwise negative. Admins & stewards who spend all of
> their free time trying to block IP-hopping abusers experience "pain", users
> who get doxxed or harassed by IP-hopping abusers experience "pain",
> organizers with editathon participants getting blocked experience "pain",
> editors who are blocked from contributing experience "pain".
>
> So: is this a zero-sum game, where one group's pain relief = another
> group's pain point? Right now, I think the expansion of proxy blocks since
> last year has been reducing the pain for vandal/abuse fighters, which has
> increased the pain for good-faith users (especially in Africa/South Asia).
> For stewards, it may have just shifted the work: less work blocking the
> vandals, but more work granting block exemptions.
>
> If it's a zero-sum game, then we're trying to find an acceptable balance
> among these groups, which is difficult and makes everyone unhappy. I'm
> hoping there are things that we can change in the software that make this
> more of a non-zero-sum game, so that relieving pain for one group doesn't
> increase it for someone else.
>
> The ideas so far break down into two categories: #1) making proxy blocks
> less frequent or more nuanced so that we don't need an unblocking request
> process, and #2) making the unblocking request process easier or more
> efficient. The IPBE process is kind of the pivot point in the problem. From
> a software design perspective, the fact that IPBE even exists is a failure
> state — we're not doing our job properly making a website that anyone can
> edit, if good-faith people are blocked and other good-faith people are
> spending time unblocking them. So the ideal solutions would be focused on
> #1, because if we solve those, #2 doesn't exist anymore.
>
> Here are some of the ideas suggested so far:
>
> Category #1: Making proxy blocks less frequent, or more nuanced
> * Instead of auto-blocking, wait for someone to vandalize before blocking
> that open proxy
> * Tag edits made through open proxies, so that admins can give them more
> scrutiny
> * Throttle edits made through open proxies, to discourage vandals (and
> good-faith people)
> * For Apple's Private Relay, rangeblock the regions where vandalism is
> coming from rather than blocking the whole service
> * Treat ISPs in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia that use
> carrier-grade NAT differently, instead of making them auto-blocked open
> proxies
>
> Category #2: Making the IPBE process easier, or more efficient
> * Make the local/global distinction easier to understand and navigate by
> signaling to users that they've got a local or global block, and guiding
> them in the right direction
> * Let trusted users like campaign organizers submit lists of accounts to
> be automatically exempt (but obviously blockable if those accounts are used
> badly)
>
> Are there other suggestions for either category? What have I missed?
>
> One thing I'm curious about: for the "treat ISPs in Africa/South Asia
> differently" idea — would people in other regions be able to abuse those
> services? Would a bad actor in Europe be able to make edits through an
> unblocked ISP in Ghana?
>
> Also: What happens if the open-proxy block only applies to anon edits, and
> allows edits from people with accounts? I know that the basic answer is
> "then the bad-faith people create accounts, so there's no point" — but does
> that at least reduce the amount of "pain"/damage to a more acceptable
> level?
>
> I'd also like to know what happens if a wiki chooses to block all
> unregistered edits, like Portuguese WP and Farsi WP are doing right now?
> Would we still need to auto-block open proxies, if there was no more
> anon

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

Btw a general observation about something which seems to be neglected in
general discourse: legal accountability.

Wikimedia is not Wikileaks, we protect users as soon as they contribute in
good faith to the project and a certain level of liability should be
present. It is quite a complex and dangerous matter as soon as surely a
"libel case" from a notorious dictatorship is obviously not the same as
posting pedo content.

Today I've found an apparent newbie with very bordeline behavior about
depiction of minors. Guess the kind of IP their edits come from?

Vito

Vito

Il giorno dom 1 mag 2022 alle ore 05:08 proc  ha
scritto:

> I agree with the problem. There's also an issue where a lot of wikis are
> duplicating these IP blocks (eg enwiki also blocks open proxies locally),
> so having global-IPBE will not let people edit these local projects. They
> would have to get local IPBE on each project with local open-proxy blocks,
> as well.
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 7:21 PM Florence Devouard 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> Short version : We need to find solutions to avoid so many africans being
>> globally IP blocked due to our No Open Proxies policy.
>> *https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking
>> *
>>
>>
>> Long version :
>>
>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>
>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>> policy [1]
>> In particular africans.
>>
>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
>> all other Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>
>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
>> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
>> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
>> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>>
>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>
>>
>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
>> those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
>> proxy with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using
>> an open proxy
>>
>>
>> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
>> They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>>
>> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
>> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
>> New editors just as old timers.
>> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
>> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
>> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
>> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>>
>> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
>> regular occurence.
>> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
>> Several complaints per week.
>> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
>> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
>> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
>> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
>> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>>
>>
>> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
>> blocked, it is recommended
>>
>>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting 
>> and
>>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>>
>>
>> So...
>> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
>> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
>> IP block exemption list.
>> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
>> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
>> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
>> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>>
>> As a consequence, most editors conc

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

"lack of infrastructure" and lack of "current volunteers" weren't addressed
in your email at all, given that you're relying upon wrong premises by
assuming checkusers' bad faith and non-existing practices.

Vito

Il giorno sab 23 apr 2022 alle ore 19:58 Lane Chance 
ha scritto:

>
> On Sat, 23 Apr 2022 at 15:17, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi Lane,
>>
>> I would appreciate if you could take the time to learn about an issue
>> before holding strong, accusatory opinions about it.
>>
>
> Maybe reading the facts in my email would be a good starting point. Your
> response has not refuted any of those facts, in fact as a checkuser you no
> doubt could confirm exactly how many times in the past checkuser tools have
> been misused and how they are still open to being misused.
>
>
>> gIPBE is granted to people in China and other areas where they want to
>> use proxies for security reasons. A significant portion of current gIPBEs
>> are for people in China. The issue here is not people being declined gIPBE,
>> it’s the sheer amount of people who need it and the lack of infrastructure
>> for current volunteers to handle those requests.
>>
>
>  Declining was not mentioned and is not the issue. Alternatives for "lack
> of infrastructure" and lack of "current volunteers" was addressed in my
> email. Lacking volunteers is not a reason to fail to provide access to new
> joiners editing in good faith.
>
>
>
>> What isn’t feasible is automatically giving everyone IPBE, global or
>> local, as it would make CU next to useless. Anyone intent on abuse could
>> just flip a VPN on. This isn’t “the convenience of current checkusers”,
>> this is an indisputable fact. People subject to bans often try to get IPBE
>> so they can edit on a VPN without concern for that account being found in
>> relation to previous ones. Any human review is better than mass-granting it
>> to tens of thousands of accounts. We just need to speed up the time it
>> takes to do that human review.
>>
>>
> No, it would not "make CU next to useless". If people are contributing as
> part of editathons or similar, and if 100% of all their contributions are
> valuable good faith contributions, nothing else should matter. Literally
> they are not using the account for anything wrong, so why would anyone
> care? It is not the job of checkusers to be secret police and see all new
> joiners in bad faith, that is neither useful, nor a good use of volunteer
> time.
>
>
>> Regards,
>> Rae
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 04:48 Lane Chance  wrote:
>>
>>> "Granting IPBE by default to [...extendedconfirmed]/etc. users is not
>>> feasible."
>>>
>>> Granting IPBE to large groups of good faith editors is feasible, such as
>>> entire classes of people during editathons, all registered accounts joining
>>> a virtual conference, or everyone with more than 1,000 edits on wikidata.
>>>
>>> "also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts
>>> the convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against
>>> the safety of new and regular users.
>>>
>>> Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and
>>> in the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private
>>> records, despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to
>>> vanish without any serious consequences.
>>>
>>> Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment or
>>> harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
>>> information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
>>> preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
>>> competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
>>> Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
>>> checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
>>> service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
>>> even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
>>> verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
>>> lobbyists.
>>>
>>> Lane
>>>
>>> On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
>>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It would result in every block effectively being anon-only, and it
>

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

I'm skeptical about solution #1 (we lack candidates rather than roles) and
#3 (without actual data is not possible to find the best solution,
yesterday alone I think I wrote 30 times through VRTS "hey, you forgot to
turn this VPN off"). Instead, I wholeheartedly endorse improving blocking
messages. I've tried to write down a stub of wizard at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Vituzzu/wizard but I lack
the time to do it). Also I'm quite skeptical about the technical support,
for the issue. This proposal
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022/Admins_and_patrollers/Allow_global_whitelisting_of_IPs_subject_to_global_rangeblocks
has been around since 2014, lack of global block for accounts is already a
meme.

In short, stewards and global patrollers are left alone fighting against
machines (it took ages to improve the NTSAMR spammers situation) and deeply
dedicated trolls (Rgalo and his T-MO block is immensely expensive in terms
of resources) almost by hand.

Vito

Il giorno ven 22 apr 2022 alle ore 14:43 Florence Devouard <
fdevou...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> I have read all the comments and discussed privately with a few people.
>
> There are some elements of answers that are purely in the hands of
> stewards, they have to discuss and find common grounds, in particular to
> implementing blocks, so that they limit damage on good people, whilst
> preserving the projects from vandals.
>
> However, the general observation is that the current system to report an
> unfair block to stewards and get unblocked by them is largely broken.
> 1) process is not simple to understand by the user
> 2) complicated to implement on the steward side (requires back and forth
> discussion, checking legitimacy of request, copy pasting information etc.)
> 3) the steward pool of volunteers is limited, whilst the stewards willing
> to do that job is even smaller (I heard the VRT queue is overflowing)
> 4) the process reveals IP private info
> All this creates a bottleneck.
>
> There is one path we could explore, a feature to simplify the process of
> "adding legitimate users" to the Global IPblock exemptions list, in a
> process inspired from the Global renamers one.
> * new functionary role (eg Global IPblock exempters) : populated by
> stewards, or people appointed by steward
> * interface directly on wiki (bypass of VRT, bypass of copy pasting
> between tools)
> * a process which would NOT require revealing the IP address to the
> functionary (it is sufficient that the system recognise the person is
> blocked in relationship with an Open Proxy/TOR stuff)
> * a process which could provide info to the functionary to very quickly
> assess whether the person is a legitimate editor or not (every person
> fighting vandalism know how to do that... display last contribs... block
> log... number of edits... etc. or simply direct links to those info to
> simplify the functionary job)
> * a process allowing various "unblocking" options, day, weeks, indef
> listing, pretty much as the blocking feature permit, so as to grant indef
> listing to the super trustworthy individuals, and a time limited listing to
> those more questionnable
> * add a checkbox system where requesters can give pre-loaded reasons for
> their asking (edit-a-thons etc.), which will help make the system
> multilingual and language neutral for the functionary (in most cases, no
> need to discuss with the user)
> * add any feature necessary to limit the risk of vandals abusing the
> feature (forced loging before submitting the request, capcha stuff)
>
> In short, simply make the "add to the Global IP block exemption list"
> process fluid with removal of the current bottle neck (stewards), which in
> turn will be able to focus on more important security issues.
>
>
> Is there any reasons why this would technically and socially not work ?
>
> Flo
>
>
> Le 22/04/2022 à 13:25, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l a écrit :
>
> Hi all,
>
> About unblocking IPs that geolocate to Africa, it’s not as though the
> blocked IPs are random. The problem with these affected ISPs are that they
> have many users on the same IP address. They aren’t traditional proxies
> (and traditional proxies will not be unblocked, that isn’t the issue here),
> they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if there would be more
> vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I think it should be done.
>
> “Smart blocking” would be a bad idea. It would take *a lot* of work to
> implement and would be a net harm to our ability to deal with abuse. I am
> strongly opposed to creating this. Also remember to a large extent the
> issue with these IPs isn’t a range, it’s that there’s multiple users on the
> *same* IP.
>
> Regarding IPBE, the issue isn’t that we’re declining requests, it’s that
> we don’t get to them in a timely manner. There are a lot of requests.
>
> I’ve tried to clear up a number of other misconceptions in a comment on
> the Meta-Wiki page as well.
>
> Best regard

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

Thank you so much Rae. Reading some emails it seems that stewards spend
their days trying blocking random people.

Vito

Il giorno ven 22 apr 2022 alle ore 13:32 Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> ha scritto:

> Hi all,
>
> About unblocking IPs that geolocate to Africa, it’s not as though the
> blocked IPs are random. The problem with these affected ISPs are that they
> have many users on the same IP address. They aren’t traditional proxies
> (and traditional proxies will not be unblocked, that isn’t the issue here),
> they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if there would be more
> vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I think it should be done.
>
> “Smart blocking” would be a bad idea. It would take *a lot* of work to
> implement and would be a net harm to our ability to deal with abuse. I am
> strongly opposed to creating this. Also remember to a large extent the
> issue with these IPs isn’t a range, it’s that there’s multiple users on the
> *same* IP.
>
> Regarding IPBE, the issue isn’t that we’re declining requests, it’s that
> we don’t get to them in a timely manner. There are a lot of requests.
>
> I’ve tried to clear up a number of other misconceptions in a comment on
> the Meta-Wiki page as well.
>
> Best regards,
> Rae
>
> On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 07:03 WereSpielChequers <
> werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yesterday I was on a conference call that included several Nigerian
>> Wikipedians, I was surprised at how much of their problems editing
>> Wikipedia were over blocks.
>>
>> The English language Wikipedia doesn't have an overall problem with
>> editing numbers, nearly eight years on, editing volumes are still clearly
>> above the 2014 minima. But we do have huge geographic skews and in
>> particular we badly underrepresent the English speaking parts of Africa in
>> our community and in our Projects. I don't know if other languages have
>> similar issues, but it would not surprise me.
>>
>> I get that lowering our guard overall against IP vandals would increase
>> the workload of  those who'd rather be improving Wikipedia than clearing up
>> after vandals. But there are a couple of things that could fairly easily
>> be done if we  want a more global community.
>>
>> Firstly, unblock IPs that geolocate to countries where we lack
>> contributors.Yes we will get more vandalism in those countries, but far far
>> less than if we also unblocked all IPs in countries where we have lots of
>> editors.
>>
>> Secondly, implement "smart blocking", especially with range bocks. Yes
>> there will still be lots of collateral damage where someone in the same
>> range has the same sort of device/, O/S etc as the person who did the edit
>> that prompted the block. But anyone in the same range who uses a different
>> type of hardware  operating system etc would not be caught by a smart block.
>>
>> Thirdly, especially if we can't do the first two, be more liberal with IP
>> block exemption for accounts in countries where we lack editors and have
>> problems with a limited number of often blocked IPs.
>>
>> WSC
>>
>>>
>>> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

IPBE for autoconfirmed is a local matter, it would imply that any block
(TOR included) will, in practice, almost turn into anon-only.

Expiration is an option, as for any global group.

Vito

Il giorno gio 21 apr 2022 alle ore 19:51 Nathan  ha
scritto:

> How significant is the risk in just granting autoconfirmed (or similar)
> users IPBE by default? Why does IPBE expire anyway?
>
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:50 AM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Thanks for raising the topic. Being a steward for 14+ years, I've
>> followed closely the evolution of that problem.
>>
>> “When I noticed that range blocks caused more harm than good (countless
>> mails to stewards), I started to reduce the length of any such block (if
>> necessary at all; I check every single range intensively if a block would
>> case more harm than good). The situation with OPs is a bit different
>> because they obfuscate the original IP address which is pretty often needed
>> by checkusers and stewards to stop harm against the projects. For that
>> reason, I agree that we cannot give up on OP blocking. The only way to get
>> out of these problems are (much!) easier reporting ways, more people who
>> can give out exceptions (locally and globally) and check outdated OPs and
>> IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give long-term users an option to
>> self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x hours for such cases like
>> edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would still be reported (in
>> order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one moment would be
>> solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”
>>
>> Why the quotation marks? Because I've posted that very same message to
>> the metawiki page
>> 
>>  and
>> understand it as one step towards a solution. In my opinion, it makes way
>> more sense to talk publicly about the issue and possible solutions than
>> losing good ideas (and there have been some already in this thread!) in the
>> wide world of this mailing list. Let's have that conversation onwiki—and I
>> also encourage the WMF tech departments to join in that conversation.
>> Because we as stewards have reported our problems with the current
>> situation multiple times, sought for technical solutions (e.g., better
>> reporting tools), indeed did get a better rapport with the WMF teams but
>> still are not where we need to be in order to serve both interests
>> (openness and protection). Unsurprisingly, also stewards are individuals
>> with different opinions and (possible) solutions to that one problem. As
>> Vito said, we will once again discuss it and will share our thoughts and
>> solutions.
>>
>> Best,
>> DerHexer (Martin)
>>
>> Am Mittwoch, 20. April 2022, 20:19:48 MESZ hat Florence Devouard <
>> fdevou...@gmail.com> Folgendes geschrieben:
>>
>>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> Short version : We need to find solutions to avoid so many africans being
>> globally IP blocked due to our No Open Proxies policy.
>> *https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking
>> *
>>
>>
>> Long version :
>>
>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>
>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>> policy [1]
>> In particular africans.
>>
>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
>> all other Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>
>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
>> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
>> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
>> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>>
>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>
>>
>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
>> those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
>> proxy with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using
>> an open proxy
>>
>>
>> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
>> They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>>
>> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
>> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
>> New editors just as old timers.
>> Une

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

Exactly, cgNAT is a pain. I think we should shorten global block, and turn
them into soft blocks for countries where carrier-grade NATs are in use.
Then, I don't expect to be hard to tell legit users apart from abusers.

Vito

Il giorno mer 20 apr 2022 alle ore 23:42 Mario Gómez 
ha scritto:

> Hello Florence,
>
> Thank you for bringing this up and collecting all this feedback.
>
> Here's the announcement of the new P2P proxy blocks on English Wikipedia,
> it includes information about the origin of the blocks for this particular
> proxy service:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive335#Recent_proxy_blocks
>
> These blocks from English Wikipedia are now also imported to Spanish
> Wikipedia, as well as global blocks (the ones by Tks4Fish). The blocking
> system has received some tuning over time to decrease the number of
> affected users, but it's clear that it's not enough, in particular for some
> countries like Ghana or Benin. So we need further tuning, or rethink
> how/when we apply the blocks.
>
> This is not meant to be a definitive answer, but I hope the additional
> context is useful.
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 8:21 PM Florence Devouard 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> Short version : We need to find solutions to avoid so many africans being
>> globally IP blocked due to our No Open Proxies policy.
>> *https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking
>> *
>>
>>
>> Long version :
>>
>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>
>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>> policy [1]
>> In particular africans.
>>
>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
>> all other Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>
>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
>> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
>> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
>> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>>
>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>
>>
>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
>> those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
>> proxy with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using
>> an open proxy
>>
>>
>> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
>> They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>>
>> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
>> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
>> New editors just as old timers.
>> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
>> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
>> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
>> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>>
>> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
>> regular occurence.
>> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
>> Several complaints per week.
>> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
>> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
>> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
>> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
>> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>>
>>
>> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
>> blocked, it is recommended
>>
>>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting 
>> and
>>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>>
>>
>> So...
>> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
>> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
>> IP block exemption list.
>> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
>> look at 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

FYI, I've moved this page to the "talk" namespace.
Anyway, I've notice this specific kind of proxy block has too many
collaterals, so I planned to rise the issue with fellow stewards next
weekend. Those blocks will probably end up being handled differently.

Vito

Il giorno mer 20 apr 2022 alle ore 20:21 Florence Devouard <
fdevou...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hello friends
>
> Short version : We need to find solutions to avoid so many africans being
> globally IP blocked due to our No Open Proxies policy.
> *https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular occurence.
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
> Several complaints per week.
> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>
>
> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
> blocked, it is recommended
>
>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and
>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>
>
> So...
> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
> IP block exemption list.
> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>
> As a consequence, most editors concerned with those global blocks... stay
> blocked several days.
>
> We do not know know why the situation has rapidly got worse recently. But
> it got worse. And the reports are spilling all over.
>
> We started collecting negative experiences on this page [4].
> Please note that people who added their names here are not random newbies.
> They are known and respected members of our community, often leaders of
> activities and/or representant of their usergroups, who are confronted to
> this situation on a REGULAR basis.
>
> I do not know how this can be fixed. Should we slow down open proxy
> blocking ? Should we add a mecanism and process for an easier and quicker
> IP block exemption process post-blocking ? Should we improve a proces

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Give WMF feedback on model cards

[Vi to]

 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

Vito


Il giorno ven 18 mar 2022 alle ore 19:49 Jonathan Morgan <
jonnymorgan@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> +1. it’s a great forward-looking move. thanks teams!
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Mar 18, 2022, at 9:09 AM, Steven Walling 
> wrote:
>
> 
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 3:50 PM Hal Triedman 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> The WMF Privacy and Machine Learning Platform teams are developing model
>> cards to increase visibility, transparency, and accountability of
>> algorithmic decision-making on WMF platforms. The broad goal is for every
>> ML model hosted by WMF to have a model card for the community and public to
>> understand, discuss, and govern that model.
>>
>> We would love for you to give some feedback on the talk page of our
>> prototype:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:HTriedman_(WMF)/Language_Agnostic_Link-Based_Article_Topic_Model_Card
>>
>> Thanks so much!
>> Hal
>>
>
> This is awesome. With all of us living our digital lives subject to so
> many invisible filter bubbles this is a great approach to ensuring a good
> outcome for Wikimedia readers, editors, and developers. Thanks for the work
> the team is doing here!
>
> Steven
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Our World in Data (OWID)

[Vi to]

Quite impressive, really.

Vito

Il giorno mar 1 mar 2022 alle ore 22:53 James Heilman  ha
scritto:

> We at Wiki Project Med are working to get Our World in Data (OWID) working
> within a mediawiki environment.
>
> 1) We have created a mirror of their website on WMF servers
> . Hopefully
> this has allowed us to address security and privacy concerns.
>
> 2) We have created an extension
>  that
> allows the use of this content within a mediawiki install
>
> 3) We have made a bunch of changes to formatting, such as removing the
> logo, to make it compliant with WP practice and style. You can see an
> example on MDWiki in the infobox here
> .
>
> My question to the movement is are their communities interested in using
> this technology? There are about 4,000 of these graphs
> . We of course will also need to
> develop a framework for translation.
>
> Best
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: "content was" when deleting pages - is it useful?

[Vi to]

On it.wiki we removed both this and "the only editor was..." which proved
to be misleading for newcomers, e.g. "I don't think that being the sole
editor is a valid reason for this deletion".

Vito

Il giorno lun 17 gen 2022 alle ore 15:19 Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> ha scritto:

> Hallo!
>
> There's an old MediaWiki feature: When an administrator deletes a page, a
> bit of its content is automatically added to an edit summary. This is later
> viewable in deletion logs.
>
> If you edit in the English, German, or Italian Wikipedia, then you haven't
> actually seen this feature in years, because administrators in these wikis
> essentially removed it by locally blanking the system messages that make it
> work.
>
> In many other wikis, however, this feature is still working.
>
> Is it actually useful? Or should it perhaps be removed?
>
> Here's a Phabricator task about it:
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T299351
>
> If you have an opinion, weigh in there or here.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> ‪“We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Luis Bitencourt-Emilio Joins Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[Vi to]

I'd generally second this, but honestly a big "it depends" is due. Being an
HR manager from Kellog's would be a disqualifying attribute, same for a
personal interest in building and using rolling coals.

The *Bored Ape Yacht Club *is something more than an incidental interest,
but I think the board has already weighted pro and cons.

Vito

Il giorno gio 13 gen 2022 alle ore 21:02 Yair Rand  ha
scritto:

> I'm going to strongly disagree with this.
>
> People are allowed to have outside interests. Being incidentally
> interested in blockchain tech is not a disqualifying attribute. Having
> worked in large technology companies is not a disqualifying attribute.
> Neither of these things should even be counted negatively. If the Board has
> ascertained that the new trustee fits the relevant needs of expertise,
> experience, values, and level of commitment, as well as furthering the
> Board's goals of having a diverse set of backgrounds and competencies, then
> wonderful. The idea that a trustee's background interest in NFTs (which, if
> I may remind people, is something the general public has by-and-large never
> even *heard of*, let alone have strong opinions on) will affect Wikimedia's
> reputation is, frankly, beyond silly.
>
> Welcome to Wikimedia, Luis Bitencourt-Emilio. Apologies for the
> less-than-ideal reception.
>
> -- Yair Rand
>
> ‫בתאריך יום ה׳, 13 בינו׳ 2022 ב-13:53 מאת ‪Lane Chance‬‏ <‪
> zinkl...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬
>
>> Dariusz, Chair of the BGC: "Cryptocurrency and blockchains were not a
>> factor here – the Governance Committee, and then the Board, were
>> considering other things..."
>>
>> This is so wrong it's painful to read. The fundamental job of the
>> Governance Committee is to ensure that appointed trustees do not come with
>> the potential to cause harm to the Wikimedia 'brand' and the community.
>>
>> A WMF trustee that promotes Bitcoin and NFTs? Compare with the WMF
>> statement "We at the Wikimedia Foundation strive to ensure that our work
>> and mission support a sustainable world" - now in the bin as it lacks any
>> credibility from here on, as the governance committee and therefore the
>> board of trustees does not believe in these values. This is not a
>> successful appointment, Luis Bitencourt-Emilio is not welcome as they are a
>> controversial and damaging addition to the board.
>>
>> Ref:
>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/19/how-the-wikimedia-foundation-is-making-efforts-to-go-green
>>
>> On Thu, 13 Jan 2022 at 13:40, Dariusz Jemielniak 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Dan,
>>>
>>> Thank you for the feedback!
>>>
>>> The search for a trustee with an expertise in product and technology
>>> began a few months ago. One of the problems we identified was that the
>>> Wikimedia Foundation CTOs (Chief Technology Officer) are usually not
>>> staying for a long period of time, and then there was also a CPO (Chief
>>> Product Officer) transition. It was also important that the new CEO (Chief
>>> Executive Officer) would like to have a trustee with relevant experience
>>> and leadership in the tech world (as would the Board itself), but also with
>>> the understanding and experience of how technology and communities can work
>>> together, so, as you said, Reddit experience is very relevant.
>>>
>>> The other critical factor was diversity – the search was prioritizing
>>> candidates with experience outside of Silicon Valley, in non-English
>>> speaking countries, preferably from the Global South.
>>>
>>> And, of course, we also needed a commitment to spend enough time on the
>>> Board work – to be engaged and present. For example, Luis met online and
>>> offline with Wikimedia volunteers from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking
>>> communities, he is eager to help us with his knowledge and experience.
>>> Cryptocurrency and blockchains were not a factor here – the Governance
>>> Committee, and then the Board, were considering other things Luis brings to
>>> the table, the needed expertise, diversity and commitment.
>>>
>>> I personally am not particularly fond of cryptocurrencies, even though I
>>> appreciate blockchain as a technology, and support e.g. decentralized
>>> science (https://decentralized.science/). We as a movement have not had
>>> a uniform stand on this, and I’m not sure if we should, though.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Dariusz (chair of the BGC)
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 1:40 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Thanks for the update, Nataliia. Knowledge and expertise in product and
 technology is a skill set that has been lacking on the Board, and it's
 great to see the Board addressing this by co-opting product and technology
 leaders. Luis's experience, such as his time at reddit, will likely be very
 applicable to our movement.

 However, I'm surprised that the Board chose to co-opt someone who seems
 to have such a public focus on technology like blockchains and
 cryptocurrency, and that this focus of his was omitted from thi

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Luis Bitencourt-Emilio Joins Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[Vi to]

OMG.
I've just committed a rightclickcide.

Vito

Il giorno gio 13 gen 2022 alle ore 06:07 Brion Vibber 
ha scritto:

> To make sure, is this the same guy?
>
> https://twitter.com/luisatlive
>
> -- brion
>
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 9:20 AM Nataliia Tymkiv 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Please join me in welcoming Luis Bitencourt-Emilio to the Wikimedia
>> Foundation Board of Trustees. Luis was unanimously appointed to a 3-year
>> term and replaces a board-selected Trustee, Lisa Lewin, whose term ended in
>> November 2021 [1].
>>
>> Currently based in São Paulo, Luis is the Chief Technology Officer at
>> Loft, a technology startup in the real-estate industry. He brings product
>> and technology experience from a globally diverse career that has spanned
>> large technology companies including Microsoft, online networking sites
>> like Reddit, and a series of entrepreneurial technology ventures focused in
>> the USA and Latin America. Luis has led product and technology teams across
>> Latin America, the United States, Europe and Asia. He is passionately
>> involved in building and promoting the entrepreneurial ecosystem for Latin
>> American-based startups.
>>
>> Luis has more than two decades of experience across product development,
>> software engineering, and data science. At Microsoft, he led engineering
>> teams shipping multiple Microsoft Office products. At Reddit, he led the
>> Knowledge Group, an engineering team that owned critical functions such as
>> data, machine learning, abuse detection and search. He was deeply involved
>> in Reddit’s growth stage and worked closely with Reddit’s communities in
>> that evolution. Luis also co-founded a fintech startup to help millennials
>> manage and automate their finances.
>>
>> His career has also been shaped by a visible commitment to recruiting
>> diverse leaders. At Reddit, Luis was a key member of the recruitment
>> efforts that achieved equal representation of women engineering directors.
>> Luis says his proudest achievement at Microsoft was building their
>> Brazilian talent pipeline by working closely with local universities to
>> place thousands of engineering candidates at Microsoft, as well as his
>> involvement in expanding global recruitment to markets including Ukraine,
>> Poland, Great Britain, the EU and Mexico.
>>
>> Luis was educated in Brazil and the United States, receiving a Bachelor
>> of Science in Computer Engineering with Honors from the University of
>> Maryland. He is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and English. He is also a
>> proud father and dog lover.
>>
>> I would like to thank the Governance Committee, chaired by Dariusz
>> Jemielniak, for this nomination process as well as volunteers in our
>> Spanish and Portuguese speaking communities who also met with Luis or
>> shared their experiences.
>>
>> You can find an official announcement here [2].
>>
>> PS. You can help translate or find translations of this message on
>> Meta-Wiki:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/January_2022_-_Luis_Bitencourt-Emilio_Joins_Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees
>>
>>
>> [1] Lisa Lewin served from January 2019 till November 2021:
>> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Renewing_Lisa_Lewin%E2%80%99s_Appointment_to_the_Board_of_Trustees,_2021
>>
>> [2]
>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/01/12/luis-bitencourt-emilio-joins-wikimedia-foundation-board-of-trustees/
>>
>> Best regards,
>> antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
>> Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>>
>> *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal
>> working hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during
>> weekend. You should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off.
>> Thank you in advance!*
>>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: RfC: Stop accepting cryptocurrency donations

[Vi to]

Implying the most common cryptos are actually safe by this pont of view.

Vito

Il giorno mer 12 gen 2022 alle ore 13:37 Nickanc Wikimedia <
nickanc.w...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> I am honestly shocked about how the whole discussion does not touch the
> fact that for many people in many countries supporting wikimedia is
> politically inconvenient and doing so in a very transparent way such as
> through the banking system might result in a backslash from the authorities.
>
> We should first of all be neutral towards our readers on the question "do
> you trust the state?", if their answer is no, a covert zero-trust way to
> donate should be available.
>
> Il Mar 11 Gen 2022, 04:25 GorillaWarfare <
> gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I have created an RfC at Meta to discuss no longer accepting
>> cryptocurrency donations. You can read the proposal, discuss, and vote at
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Stop_accepting_cryptocurrency_donations
>> .
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Molly White (User:GorillaWarfare)
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GorillaWarfare
>> she/her
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: RfC: Stop accepting cryptocurrency donations

[Vi to]

Long overdue!

Vito

Il giorno mar 11 gen 2022 alle ore 04:25 GorillaWarfare <
gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hello all,
>
> I have created an RfC at Meta to discuss no longer accepting
> cryptocurrency donations. You can read the proposal, discuss, and vote at
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Stop_accepting_cryptocurrency_donations
> .
>
> Sincerely,
> Molly White (User:GorillaWarfare)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GorillaWarfare
> she/her
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Are we losing our readers?

[Vi to]

Yeah, although I think every user will, eventually, actually open our pages
several times, although less frequently because of smarter search engines.

Vito

Il giorno sab 8 gen 2022 alle ore 13:20 Gnangarra  ha
scritto:

> Falling readers means less awareness of being able to edit, that means
> less contributors, and less donations.  Over the last 10 years we've put a
> lot of effort and support into the basic contribution processes, but the
> contributions need to shift to more of what our new audiences are expecting
> from websites.  With such a change there is both a need to embrace it and
> to facilitate learning the skills, investing in that learning curve.
>
> We cant stay where we are, and we cant move forward without bringing the
> community along
>
> On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 19:59, Vi to  wrote:
>
>> Just a couple of minutes ago I wanted to point out while chatting that
>> two (shitty) singers work together because they work for the same major. A
>> bunch of years ago I had to open some Google result to find such info, now
>> I don't.
>>
>> Loss of readers is not bad in itself, it can be if there's a significant
>> number of potential new editors among the readers we lose in this way
>> (also, readers could affect fundraising, but I think we already make enough
>> of it). Anecdotically I think new editors rather come from those who look
>> for info which cannot be found in knowledge graph, but surely this requires
>> a proper investigation.
>>
>> Vito
>>
>> Il giorno sab 8 gen 2022 alle ore 12:39 Francesc Fort <
>> taronjasatsu...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>>
>>> The slow but steady decrease in readerships is known and has been
>>> identified for a long. An important niche of readership are quick answers
>>> for trivia (such as "what's the capital of X country") and there are tools
>>> (some of those, powered by Wikidata) working better than a classical google
>>> search and clicking on the Wikipedia article.
>>>
>>> I mean, we talked a lot about this during Strategy. We just must find a
>>> solution.
>>>
>>> F.
>>>
>>> Missatge de RonnieV  del dia ds., 8 de
>>> gen. 2022 a les 10:03:
>>>
>>>> Could there something be wrong with the presentation?
>>>>
>>>> The total number of edits at the English Wikipedia should have dropped
>>>> 21,23% https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org
>>>> <https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org]>
>>>> The numbers at
>>>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/contributing/edits/normal|table|2-year|~total|monthly
>>>> do show 63.8M edits in 2021 and only 61.5M in 2020.
>>>>
>>>> Do I misinterpret the graph?
>>>> ---
>>>> Met vriendelijke groet,
>>>>
>>>> RonnieV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga schreef op 2022-01-07 18:51:
>>>>
>>>> There's another option: the 2020 pandemic lockdowns made a huge peak on
>>>> views, so year on year, 2021 has worse results.
>>>>
>>>> 2022(e)ko urt. 7(a) 18:41 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Anders
>>>> Wennersten ):
>>>>
>>>> When I look at statistics for mature wikipedias: en, de pl, nl they all
>>>> show a decrease of views of 13-15% in last 12 months from a year ago,
>>>> and number of active editors down 10- 20 % (with exception of en).
>>>>
>>>> Has this been analysed somewhere, are we losing our readers and
>>>> contributors or is it mostly Google that access our info "smarter" not
>>>> creating "views"
>>>>
>>>> Anders
>>>>
>>>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/de.wikipedia.org
>>>>
>>>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org
>>>>
>>>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/nl.wikipedia.org
>>>>
>>>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/pl.wikipedia.org
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>>>> guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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>>>

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Are we losing our readers?

[Vi to]

Just a couple of minutes ago I wanted to point out while chatting that two
(shitty) singers work together because they work for the same major. A
bunch of years ago I had to open some Google result to find such info, now
I don't.

Loss of readers is not bad in itself, it can be if there's a significant
number of potential new editors among the readers we lose in this way
(also, readers could affect fundraising, but I think we already make enough
of it). Anecdotically I think new editors rather come from those who look
for info which cannot be found in knowledge graph, but surely this requires
a proper investigation.

Vito

Il giorno sab 8 gen 2022 alle ore 12:39 Francesc Fort <
taronjasatsu...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> The slow but steady decrease in readerships is known and has been
> identified for a long. An important niche of readership are quick answers
> for trivia (such as "what's the capital of X country") and there are tools
> (some of those, powered by Wikidata) working better than a classical google
> search and clicking on the Wikipedia article.
>
> I mean, we talked a lot about this during Strategy. We just must find a
> solution.
>
> F.
>
> Missatge de RonnieV  del dia ds., 8 de
> gen. 2022 a les 10:03:
>
>> Could there something be wrong with the presentation?
>>
>> The total number of edits at the English Wikipedia should have dropped
>> 21,23% https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org
>> 
>> The numbers at
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/contributing/edits/normal|table|2-year|~total|monthly
>> do show 63.8M edits in 2021 and only 61.5M in 2020.
>>
>> Do I misinterpret the graph?
>> ---
>> Met vriendelijke groet,
>>
>> RonnieV
>>
>>
>> Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga schreef op 2022-01-07 18:51:
>>
>> There's another option: the 2020 pandemic lockdowns made a huge peak on
>> views, so year on year, 2021 has worse results.
>>
>> 2022(e)ko urt. 7(a) 18:41 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Anders Wennersten
>> ):
>>
>> When I look at statistics for mature wikipedias: en, de pl, nl they all
>> show a decrease of views of 13-15% in last 12 months from a year ago,
>> and number of active editors down 10- 20 % (with exception of en).
>>
>> Has this been analysed somewhere, are we losing our readers and
>> contributors or is it mostly Google that access our info "smarter" not
>> creating "views"
>>
>> Anders
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/de.wikipedia.org
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/nl.wikipedia.org
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/pl.wikipedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: 100$ million dollars and still obsolete

[Vi to]

Regular contributors experience is quite different from less frequent
contributors and (above all) readers. People into user interfaces design
surely have a proper word for this, but we're used to a variety of small
tricks/habits which are somehow expensive to change.

For example, since OOUI's developed I've been upset because it seems to
need some more keystrokes for blocks and deletions. I, for one, am still
using monobook, and I won't change it unless forced.

Introducing visual editor implied a cost for the communities to fix garbage
wikicode introduced by VE during its first weeks/months, some years later,
linterrors became the best game for our bots.

So I can confirm the inertia of regular editors about user interface is,
usually, humongous, but also the project themselves have an enormous
inertia since they are collections of terabytes of wikicode created during
almost two decades.

I feel like this problem has never been addressed in a wide, strategic,
way, leaving developers being torn apart by conflicting needs.

Vito

Il giorno ven 15 ott 2021 alle ore 19:11 Eduardo Testart 
ha scritto:

> Hi all,
>
> A good example around this subject was the Visual Editor tool
> implementation, strongly opposed by the community in the beginning, and
> developed by the WMF, as it was probably necessary to turn Wikipedia into a
> more modern website.
>
> A lot about the latter can be found and read as a real example of this
> debate
>
> The cultural behavior of the group is a big factor on any technological
> implementation on the Wikimedia world, and to change culture, you need much
> more than money.
>
> Sorry if this was mentioned before.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> El vie., 15 de oct. de 2021 07:13, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> escribió:
>
>> No, I don't have all the answers. Is just that every time someone says:
>> "hey! this is broken!" and receives an excuse and then says again "HEY!
>> THIS IS BROKEN!" the answer is not: "ok, we'll try to figure out how to
>> solve it" but: "don't use caps". I'm a volunteer. I have spent lots of time
>> trying to solve issues. Most of this time wasn't about the issue, was about
>> someone trying to convince me that the bug was a feature. And now, when I
>> tell here where "I THINK" that the problem is, I get a "you are being rude"
>> excuse. Great. I'm being rude. Now, can we fix the problem?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Galder
>> --
>> *From:* Dan Garry (Deskana) 
>> *Sent:* Friday, October 15, 2021 12:08 PM
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: 100$ million dollars and still obsolete
>>
>> On Fri, 15 Oct 2021 at 11:03, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
>> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Dan for using the Excuse 6: *At this point in the circle, there
>> is some volunteer who wants to fix this and raises the tone of the request.
>> Then we find the mother of all excuses, the wild card: you are being rude
>> and do not assume good faith. Excuse 6.*
>>
>>
>> I guess you've got all the answers then, eh?
>>
>> I think we're done here.
>>
>> Dan
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Movement Charter Drafting Committee elections are now open!

[Vi to]

Exactly this, according to the tool I'm somehow far from Risker but reading
her replies I feel quite close.

Vito

Il giorno gio 14 ott 2021 alle ore 15:38 Risker  ha
scritto:

> Adam, you may find the tool discussed here
> 
> to be helpful.  It is created by one of the candidates, is based on the
> information submitted by candidates for the election compass, and is quite
> visual.  (Disclosure: I am also a candidate.)
>
> I'd also suggest that the written answers illustrate the differences
> between candidates a little more specifically than the general five-point
> compass.  Perhaps, also, part of the reason that there's some consensus
> amongst candidates (at least on the surface) is that they could be
> representative of a pretty broad consensus throughout the global community
> on some points.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2021 at 09:26, Adam Wight  wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 12:02 PM Kaarel Vaidla 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Additionally, we are piloting a so-called “Election Compass
>>> ” for this election.
>>> Click yourself through the tool and respond to the 19 statements, and you
>>> will see which candidate is closest to you!
>>>
>>
>> Hi, thank you for facilitating this process and for sharing the
>> interesting "election compass" experiment.  After trying the tool, I urge
>> you to take it offline.  Its algorithm is opaque, and in my opinion very
>> unlikely to give a helpful result.  It's explicitly meant to influence how
>> we vote, but without us having done any validation of what it's actually
>> calculating.  If you want to test this tool, you could position it as an
>> "exit poll", to compare the tool's results with how each person actually
>> voted, or you could turn off the "alignment" scoring.
>>
>> My suspicions started with the fact that I answered "strongly support" or
>> "support" to almost every question, which suggests that the axes were not
>> chosen in a way that differentiates between the candidates.  Instead, it
>> seems like it's going to amplify tiny differences like "strongly" vs
>> "support"—is this true?
>>
>> Was the tool analyzed with this sort of concern in mind?  Are there
>> reasons to believe that the "alignment" scores are meaningful in our
>> scenario?
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Adam Wight
>> [[mw:User:Adamw]]
>> Writing in my volunteer capacity.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Quick upvoting of statements for the Movement Charter Election Compass until Sunday, Oct 3

[Vi to]

There was that fancy series of js buttons for stewards' elections
autosaving the vote, I think it will help voting on so many statements.

Vito

Il giorno mer 29 set 2021 alle ore 16:39 Cornelius Kibelka <
ckibelka-...@wikimedia.org> ha scritto:

> TL;DR: Upvote your favorite Movement Charter Election Compass statements
> 
> until October 3rd.
>
> ///
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> in roughly 10 days, on October 11, we will start the voting on the
> community candidates for the drafting committee that will draft the
> Movement Charter. We got 72 candidates running for the committee!
>
> To be able to guide all of you through so many candidacies, we want to
> provide a Voting Advice Application. You can find the prototype here on
> Toolforge .
>
> Over the last week, we got 110 statements proposed by community members:
> On values and principles, on resource allocation, on the charter drafting
> process. Thank you very much!
>
> *The next step is now to select 15 to 20 of these statements for the final
> advice application -- your turn! *Upvote the statements you would like to
> see included in the voting advice application:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Election_Compass_Statements
>
> You can vote on as many statements as you like, but only one vote per
> statement. *Think about which statements you would like to see the
> candidates positioning themselves to, which might help you in your
> decision-making.* The ~20 statements with the most votes will be selected
> and send to the candidates on Monday, October 4th.
>
> All of this is an experiment, we're happy to get feedback!
>
> Best regards
> Cornelius
>
>
> --
>
> Cornelius Kibelka (he/him)
>
> Event Coordinator
>
> Movement Strategy + Governance
>
> 2030.wikimedia.org
>
> 
>
> *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate.
> *
> 
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: About raising money

[Vi to]

Hr.wiki case proves that some very basic things must be enforced, anyway.

Vito

Il giorno mar 28 set 2021 alle ore 23:29 Todd Allen 
ha scritto:

> If UCOC is such a great idea, it should be made opt-in, or at least
> opt-out. After all, if it's so brilliant, surely everyone will want it
> anyway, right?
>
> It is the imposition of "You will get this whether you like it or not"
> which is the problem.
>
> Todd
>
> On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 4:39 AM Vi to  wrote:
>
>> UCOC must surely be ruled out of this list. The reasons behind its
>> creations are indisputable.
>>
>> Anyway donations are collected because of volunteers' work, but should be
>> mainly bound to readers' (donors') will.
>>
>> Vito
>>
>> Il giorno mar 28 set 2021 alle ore 10:19 Todd Allen 
>> ha scritto:
>>
>>> It's not only that.
>>>
>>> When the WMF uses its funds to actively act against its volunteer
>>> community (ACTRIAL, MEDIAVIEWER, FRAMBAN, and more lately UCOC), that
>>> raises issues beyond disgust. The projects we spent our time building are
>>> now actively being used to do things we don't want to do. It is not just
>>> that WMF is using its money on frivolous or useless projects (though that
>>> would be a problem), it is that WMF is using its funds from what we built
>>> to actively punch us in the face and act against us.
>>>
>>> If WMF were using its funds to take trips out to Barbados for no reason,
>>> well--we'd probably still be irritated about that. But use our funds to
>>> actively stomp on our volunteer community, and ignore what they say?
>>>
>>> Well that's not just disgust. That's anger, and that's what you're
>>> seeing.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Todd Allen
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 2:51 PM Guillaume Paumier <
>>> gpaum...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> (Sending this as a personal opinion, albeit one informed by my work on
>>>> revenue strategy in the past few years.)
>>>>
>>>> Discussions about fundraising in the Wikimedia movement often involve
>>>> the same arguments over time. My theory, after observing and participating
>>>> in those discussions for 15 years, is the following.
>>>>
>>>> Objections to Wikimedia fundraising (and, more broadly, revenue
>>>> generation) tend to stem from three main sources:
>>>> * the moral superiority of financial disinterest
>>>> * outlandish budgets and fundraising goals
>>>> * improper means used to raise money.
>>>>
>>>> The first one is relatively simple. A significant number of us find any
>>>> relationship between money and free knowledge viscerally disgusting. We've
>>>> been editing as volunteers for years, devoting our free time to the
>>>> advancement of humankind through knowledge. We have done so through
>>>> countless acts of selflessness. Our financial disinterest is
>>>> inextricably woven into our identity as Wikimedians. The Foundation should
>>>> only raise the minimum funds required to "keep the lights on." Anything
>>>> more is an attempt to profit from our free labor, and that's revolting.
>>>>
>>>> This is not unlike discussions of business models in the libre software
>>>> community; we can also see those arguments surface in discussions around
>>>> paid editing. I will leave the moral argument aside, because little can be
>>>> done to change individual identities and moral judgments of money. But
>>>> let's name them explicitly, in hopes that we can separate them from more
>>>> fact-based arguments, if we are willing and able.
>>>>
>>>> The second point of contention is how much we raise. To those of us who
>>>> remember the early years ("May we ask y'all to chip in a few dollars so we
>>>> can buy our second server?!"), raising $150+ million a year these days
>>>> seems extravagant, and probably always will. The much smaller budgets from
>>>> our past act as cognitive anchors, [1] and in comparison recent budgets
>>>> appear greedily outsized. Instead of being outraged by the growth of the
>>>> budget, we should instead ask ourselves how much money we really need.
>>>>
>>>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)
>>>&g

[Wikimedia-l] Re: About raising money

[Vi to]

UCOC must surely be ruled out of this list. The reasons behind its
creations are indisputable.

Anyway donations are collected because of volunteers' work, but should be
mainly bound to readers' (donors') will.

Vito

Il giorno mar 28 set 2021 alle ore 10:19 Todd Allen 
ha scritto:

> It's not only that.
>
> When the WMF uses its funds to actively act against its volunteer
> community (ACTRIAL, MEDIAVIEWER, FRAMBAN, and more lately UCOC), that
> raises issues beyond disgust. The projects we spent our time building are
> now actively being used to do things we don't want to do. It is not just
> that WMF is using its money on frivolous or useless projects (though that
> would be a problem), it is that WMF is using its funds from what we built
> to actively punch us in the face and act against us.
>
> If WMF were using its funds to take trips out to Barbados for no reason,
> well--we'd probably still be irritated about that. But use our funds to
> actively stomp on our volunteer community, and ignore what they say?
>
> Well that's not just disgust. That's anger, and that's what you're seeing.
>
> Regards,
>
> Todd Allen
>
> On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 2:51 PM Guillaume Paumier 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> (Sending this as a personal opinion, albeit one informed by my work on
>> revenue strategy in the past few years.)
>>
>> Discussions about fundraising in the Wikimedia movement often involve the
>> same arguments over time. My theory, after observing and participating in
>> those discussions for 15 years, is the following.
>>
>> Objections to Wikimedia fundraising (and, more broadly, revenue
>> generation) tend to stem from three main sources:
>> * the moral superiority of financial disinterest
>> * outlandish budgets and fundraising goals
>> * improper means used to raise money.
>>
>> The first one is relatively simple. A significant number of us find any
>> relationship between money and free knowledge viscerally disgusting. We've
>> been editing as volunteers for years, devoting our free time to the
>> advancement of humankind through knowledge. We have done so through
>> countless acts of selflessness. Our financial disinterest is
>> inextricably woven into our identity as Wikimedians. The Foundation should
>> only raise the minimum funds required to "keep the lights on." Anything
>> more is an attempt to profit from our free labor, and that's revolting.
>>
>> This is not unlike discussions of business models in the libre software
>> community; we can also see those arguments surface in discussions around
>> paid editing. I will leave the moral argument aside, because little can be
>> done to change individual identities and moral judgments of money. But
>> let's name them explicitly, in hopes that we can separate them from more
>> fact-based arguments, if we are willing and able.
>>
>> The second point of contention is how much we raise. To those of us who
>> remember the early years ("May we ask y'all to chip in a few dollars so we
>> can buy our second server?!"), raising $150+ million a year these days
>> seems extravagant, and probably always will. The much smaller budgets from
>> our past act as cognitive anchors, [1] and in comparison recent budgets
>> appear greedily outsized. Instead of being outraged by the growth of the
>> budget, we should instead ask ourselves how much money we really need.
>>
>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)
>>
>> And the fact is that, as a movement, we need as much money as we can get
>> to advance our mission. Our vision is so ambitious and expansive that it is
>> also bound to be inevitably expensive. This is something that the Board
>> understood: shortly after endorsing the Strategic Direction in 2017, they
>> directed the Foundation to prepare to raise more funds than usual, to be
>> able to move towards our collective vision for 2030. [2] My fellow members
>> of the working group on Revenue Streams for movement strategy also
>> understood the scope of the movement's ambitions: the first guiding
>> question for our work was how to "maximize revenue for the movement". [3]
>>
>> [2]
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/November_2017_-_Statement_endorsing_future_resourcing_and_direction_of_the_organization
>> [3]
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Revenue_Streams#Guiding_Questions
>>
>> People who attended the meeting of strategy working groups in Berlin in
>> early 2018 might remember a thought exercise led by the Revenue Streams
>> group. In it, we estimated that coming closer to our vision would probably
>> require an annual budget for the movement in the vicinity of a billion
>> dollars. There is nothing intrinsically outrageous about that amount, as
>> long as the money advances the mission efficiently and equitably. The
>> International Committee of the Red Cross had a global budget of $1.6
>> billion in 2016.
>>
>> And that's the heart of the argument abo

[Wikimedia-l] Re: About raising money

[Vi to]

Mentioning the first two points can be either red herring or an interesting
digression to read, I'll opt for the second interpretation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross had a global budget of $1.6
> billion in 2016.
>

Quite a rilevant comparison, I'd say.

Discussions on this mailing list and elsewhere are a classic example of the
> concept of voice, as formalized by Albert Hirschman in his work on
> responses to decline in organizations. [4] We are unhappy with a decision
> but reluctant to simply exit the group, either because we don't
> see an alternative, or because of the sunk costs of emotional investment,
> or because of the sense of identity that comes with belonging to the group,
> or because ultimately we can live with the decision. And so, with exit not
> available as an option, we use our voice instead, even though it has proved
> to only have a very limited effect on making different decisions. (And also
> because we *do* love to argue.)
>

"Cope or go away" in this context is interesting rather than simply rude
highlighting some widespread misconception about what is the most
interesting part of the Wiki-ecosystem for the majority of people around.

So now we're left with how we raise money, and the common complaints about
> the size, frequency, and tone of fundraising banners. The argument is that
> fundraising messages use unduly alarmist language, and that donors are
> therefore misled into thinking that Wikimedia is facing imminent danger. I
> do believe that not enough credit is given to the people who craft those
> messages in banners and emails. These people care an extraordinary amount
> about doing the "right thing." They have literally spent years doing A/B
> tests to soften the tone and figure out the least alarming language
> possible to raise the required amounts. All that while enduring constant
> criticism of their work. They are heroes.
>

They don't do the "right thing", instead, they do the "most effective
thing". Also, * to raise the required amounts* is not true, given that
targets were always exceeded.


>  if we look beyond privileged communities and we strive to make up for
> historical oppression. The modesty of financial ambitions reflects a
> certain privilege and ignores the vast resources required to actually focus
> on communities left out by structures of power and privilege. If we are to
> live up to our commitment to epistemic justice, we must give ourselves the
> financial means to do so. The longer the injustice persists, the more
> compounding harm is done. Our work *is* urgent, even if it's not the same
> urgency that drives donors.
>

There we go with this strawman, once again. Totally unrelated to how
donations are asked, definitely unrelated to how funds are currently
allocated.

Summing up a long, brilliant, essay to justify ambiguity in banners.


Vito
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: About raising money

[Vi to]

False urgency in fundraising has been a problem for years, including the
years before the fiscal years I'm referring to.
Expenditure on infrastructure and software (both essential and
non-essential) development hasn't been the main inbalance item for many
many years.
There's nothing wrong with allocating more resources on "improving",
"growing" and "evolving" the projects, but this can be made clear to
donors, without being sold as a "struggle to survive".

I didn't yet check old banners but I perceived, in years, a shift in
fundraising from "help Wikipedia [with less frequent mentions of other
projects] grow" to "Wikipedia [alone] is gonna running out of funds".

Also, is there any formal commitment to "prevent Wikibase from collapsing"?

Vito

Il giorno sab 25 set 2021 alle ore 10:55 Gerard Meijssen <
gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hoi,
> You are wrong. First, fundraising and budgeting is aimed at the future,
> they aim to enable the needs defined in the present. When you refer to an
> audit, particularly one that is two years in the past, it reminds me of
> obligatory messaging for investment products in the Netherlands: "results
> from the past do not predict results for the future". Apparently you are
> not aware that the engine used for Wikidata/Wikibase will not suffice and
> is likely to break our service. You ask about efforts from the past;
> developers new at the time have analysed and optimised the performance of
> MediaWiki (and related) code. It resulted in a huge improvement in our
> service. MediaWiki used to work properly only for desktop computers, at
> this time mobile phones are supported. However editing on a mobile is still
> not very inviting.
>
> You repeatedly state that the fundraising message is a lie. It is not, the
> facts do not support your notions.
>
> Fundraisers that lie find that they may gain more money for the moment. In
> the long run it is detrimental for the fundraising capacity. I know, I
> raised funds for charities.
>
> On Sat, 25 Sept 2021 at 09:48, Vi to  wrote:
>
>> * do fundraisers require a compelling message? *could be reworded into *do
>> fundraisers need to lie?*
>>
>> Once again, you say that "Wikidata is about to crash", "we don't properly
>> deliver our contents everywhere", but according to FY2019-2020 audit
>> report
>> <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2019-2020_Audit_Report.pdf>
>> while inbalance increased of 23%, hosting expenditures increased of 2,7%,
>> the "other" item (which includes, among many things, *funding of the
>> Wikidata project*) increased of 15%, in-kind expenses, partially
>> related, decreased of about 70%. Undeniably 32% growth in (combined) wages
>> and awards (grants) items also impact infrastructure. These figures surely
>> don't highlight an infrastructure which is about to collapse or, at least,
>> not a sense of urgency towards preventing it from happening.
>>
>> Please correct me if I am wrong by pointing out how much money was spent
>> on the priorities you highlight.
>>
>> Vito
>>
>> Il giorno sab 25 set 2021 alle ore 09:19 Gerard Meijssen <
>> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>>
>>> Hoi,
>>> Please read carefully. I do point out that there is an existential
>>> threat to "Wikipedia", I do point out that we need fundraising to stay
>>> independent.
>>>
>>> I do point out that the fundraising message is on point.
>>> Thanks,
>>>   GerardM
>>>
>>> On Sat, 25 Sept 2021 at 09:12, Vi to  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Once again this is not what the fundraising messages point out.
>>>>
>>>> This is just a quite shareable list of top priorities in your opinion.
>>>>
>>>> Vito
>>>>
>>>> Il giorno sab 25 set 2021 alle ore 09:00 Gerard Meijssen <
>>>> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>>>>
>>>>> Hoi,
>>>>> I presented two existential threats to our ecosystem. We have a
>>>>> technical debt in the legacy software we use for our functionality. The
>>>>> engine for Wikidata is not likely to survive, it desperately needs
>>>>> replacement. When the question is: are we in dire straights, yes we are. 
>>>>> Is
>>>>> this about fundraising, hell yes. Do fundraisers require a compelling
>>>>> message, they do. I remind you of this "branding" issue. We are raising
>>&

[Wikimedia-l] Re: About raising money

[Vi to]

* do fundraisers require a compelling message? *could be reworded into *do
fundraisers need to lie?*

Once again, you say that "Wikidata is about to crash", "we don't properly
deliver our contents everywhere", but according to FY2019-2020 audit report
<https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2019-2020_Audit_Report.pdf>
while inbalance increased of 23%, hosting expenditures increased of 2,7%,
the "other" item (which includes, among many things, *funding of the
Wikidata project*) increased of 15%, in-kind expenses, partially related,
decreased of about 70%. Undeniably 32% growth in (combined) wages and
awards (grants) items also impact infrastructure. These figures surely
don't highlight an infrastructure which is about to collapse or, at least,
not a sense of urgency towards preventing it from happening.

Please correct me if I am wrong by pointing out how much money was spent on
the priorities you highlight.

Vito

Il giorno sab 25 set 2021 alle ore 09:19 Gerard Meijssen <
gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hoi,
> Please read carefully. I do point out that there is an existential threat
> to "Wikipedia", I do point out that we need fundraising to stay
> independent.
>
> I do point out that the fundraising message is on point.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On Sat, 25 Sept 2021 at 09:12, Vi to  wrote:
>
>> Once again this is not what the fundraising messages point out.
>>
>> This is just a quite shareable list of top priorities in your opinion.
>>
>> Vito
>>
>> Il giorno sab 25 set 2021 alle ore 09:00 Gerard Meijssen <
>> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>>
>>> Hoi,
>>> I presented two existential threats to our ecosystem. We have a
>>> technical debt in the legacy software we use for our functionality. The
>>> engine for Wikidata is not likely to survive, it desperately needs
>>> replacement. When the question is: are we in dire straights, yes we are. Is
>>> this about fundraising, hell yes. Do fundraisers require a compelling
>>> message, they do. I remind you of this "branding" issue. We are raising
>>> money for Wikimedia.
>>>
>>> The notion of a budget is to fulfill ambitions. We have gone over the
>>> message, let's talk about the mission. It is about "sharing the sum of all
>>> knowledge". Opening up Commons in a Wiki way to nine year old children
>>> worldwide is easy, we already have the software and it will cost money
>>> to implement properly. It needs an integral implementation that fits our
>>> infrastructure. There are other examples that demonstrate that we do not
>>> even "share the knowledge available to us". Increasing a budget to fulfil
>>> ambitions is what you do to get things done. Fundraising is what we do to
>>> pay the cost of enabling the fulfilment of what is budgeted.
>>>
>>> The Wikimedia Foundation has the best platform to raise funds. Much more
>>> is possible. We can easily get more institutional money. However, it is
>>> well known that the WMF retains its independence by keeping a balance
>>> between public and institutional funding. Therefore the fundraising is
>>> essential for "Wikipedia" to retain its independence.
>>>
>>> What I point out is not new, it should be well known. To me your point
>>> of view is bizarre. It is only about appearances and numbers without a
>>> context in what we do
>>> Thanks,
>>>   GerardM
>>>
>>> On Fri, 24 Sept 2021 at 16:26, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Gerard,
>>>>
>>>> Do you think the banners *have* to paint a mental picture of Wikipedia
>>>> being in dire financial straits for people to donate? With wordings like
>>>> "We need you to make a donation this Friday so that we can continue to
>>>> protect Wikipedia's independence"?
>>>>
>>>> Isn't it pretty bizarre to portray your financial situation in this
>>>> way, when you're planning to increase your expenses by 40% from one year to
>>>> the next, and are literally taking 10 times more money from the public per
>>>> annum than you did ten years ago?
>>>>
>>>> It's not about the money per se – there are surely few people and
>>>> organisations who would say that they couldn't do with some more money than
>>>> the amount they have – but about whether you give the public and
>>>> prospective donors a more or less accura

[Wikimedia-l] Re: About raising money

[Vi to]

Once again this is not what the fundraising messages point out.

This is just a quite shareable list of top priorities in your opinion.

Vito

Il giorno sab 25 set 2021 alle ore 09:00 Gerard Meijssen <
gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hoi,
> I presented two existential threats to our ecosystem. We have a
> technical debt in the legacy software we use for our functionality. The
> engine for Wikidata is not likely to survive, it desperately needs
> replacement. When the question is: are we in dire straights, yes we are. Is
> this about fundraising, hell yes. Do fundraisers require a compelling
> message, they do. I remind you of this "branding" issue. We are raising
> money for Wikimedia.
>
> The notion of a budget is to fulfill ambitions. We have gone over the
> message, let's talk about the mission. It is about "sharing the sum of all
> knowledge". Opening up Commons in a Wiki way to nine year old children
> worldwide is easy, we already have the software and it will cost money
> to implement properly. It needs an integral implementation that fits our
> infrastructure. There are other examples that demonstrate that we do not
> even "share the knowledge available to us". Increasing a budget to fulfil
> ambitions is what you do to get things done. Fundraising is what we do to
> pay the cost of enabling the fulfilment of what is budgeted.
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation has the best platform to raise funds. Much more
> is possible. We can easily get more institutional money. However, it is
> well known that the WMF retains its independence by keeping a balance
> between public and institutional funding. Therefore the fundraising is
> essential for "Wikipedia" to retain its independence.
>
> What I point out is not new, it should be well known. To me your point of
> view is bizarre. It is only about appearances and numbers without a context
> in what we do
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On Fri, 24 Sept 2021 at 16:26, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
>> Gerard,
>>
>> Do you think the banners *have* to paint a mental picture of Wikipedia
>> being in dire financial straits for people to donate? With wordings like
>> "We need you to make a donation this Friday so that we can continue to
>> protect Wikipedia's independence"?
>>
>> Isn't it pretty bizarre to portray your financial situation in this way,
>> when you're planning to increase your expenses by 40% from one year to the
>> next, and are literally taking 10 times more money from the public per
>> annum than you did ten years ago?
>>
>> It's not about the money per se – there are surely few people and
>> organisations who would say that they couldn't do with some more money than
>> the amount they have – but about whether you give the public and
>> prospective donors a more or less accurate impression of your financial
>> situation and your spending intentions.
>>
>> Do you think the current fundraising banners do that?
>>
>> Andreas
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 2:50 PM Gerard Meijssen <
>> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hoi,
>>> No it is not. When we do not find a solution for the technical issues
>>> for Wikidata it will crash and burn..
>>>
>>> The ferocity that some people display about the WMF fundraising astounds
>>> me. We are operating one of the biggest websites in the world, it is hugely
>>> problematic in that its bias for English prevents us from providing a
>>> service that is of the same quality for everyone. The legacy that exists in
>>> our code and the rising expectations are obvious signs that we are under
>>> investing, not over investing. There is a limit to the growth of our
>>> organisation as such I applaud the WMF even though it could and should be
>>> so much better.
>>>
>>> On Fri, 24 Sept 2021 at 15:25, Vi to  wrote:
>>>
>>>> This is exactly the previously mentioned idea of "collect money, then
>>>> we will find a way to spend it".
>>>> Instead, we should be honest with donors and volunteers, the urgency
>>>> portrayed by banners is not true, there's no risk of closing our projects.
>>>>
>>>> *Assumes that there is only one project* is true, but in terms of
>>>> current fundraising communication.
>>>>
>>>> Vito
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Il giorno ven 24 set 2021 alle ore 14:50 Gerard Meijssen <
>>>> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>>>>
>>>>> Hoi,
&g

[Wikimedia-l] Re: About raising money

[Vi to]

This is exactly the previously mentioned idea of "collect money, then we
will find a way to spend it".
Instead, we should be honest with donors and volunteers, the urgency
portrayed by banners is not true, there's no risk of closing our projects.

*Assumes that there is only one project* is true, but in terms of current
fundraising communication.

Vito


Il giorno ven 24 set 2021 alle ore 14:50 Gerard Meijssen <
gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hoi,
> There are some people who repeatedly argue that we raise way too much
> money. Given a set of assumptions an argument can be constructed to make
> this point. In my opinion there is little merit to the argument. We do need
> money to operate the Wikimedia projects and a positive outcome per year
> enables us to do more.the next year. I have some ideas about raising money
> and raising expectations.
>
>- We want to raise less money in the Anglo-Saxon world. When people
>donate money everywhere they too will gain a sense of ownership. This sense
>of ownership is to be distributed more equally around the globe
>- With our projects owned more equitably around the globe, the notion
>that "any child of nine year old can find pictures in Commons" is
>reasonable and self-evident; the world pays for  results that
>are globally relevant ..
>- We need a delivery manager, his/her task is to research and define
>what it is our projects deliver to their public. The objective is to
>increase both quantity and quality of what is delivered by a project and
>discuss with project communities what it is that can be done to improve the
>service to its public. Commons does provide material to Wikipedia, that is
>good but not  enough.
>
> Both the Wikimedia Foundation and the Internet Archive have projects to
> document all scientific papers / output. The Internet Archive provides an
> important service to the Wikimedia Foundation and we can integrate the two
> projects, reduce costs and have the WMF pay the IA for its services. Closer
> ties with the Internet Archive provide many other benefits. One of these
> benefits is that we can bring the Wikipedia references into a modern age.
>
> For Wikidata there is a technical limit in what we can achieve on the
> current platform. Because of Wikidata the WMF is a very big fish in the
> data pond. We need to (imho) pick up the challenge and develop our own
> software. This will cost significantly and it demonstrates that we accept
> that Free software is not Free as in Beer. With the IA as a partner, we may
> find a partner in this endeavour.
>
> The notion that we raise too much money, the notion that there is no
> urgency is a fallacy. It is all too easy to identify how our service is
> lacking and where we can improve our service. The arguments why the WMF
> raises too much money assumes that there is only one project, their project
> and they consider that its status quo suffices. The question is, sufficient
> for who,for what and for how long.
> Thanks,
>GerardM
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Endowment reaches initial $100 million goal and welcomes new board members

[Vi to]

Wording could had been better, but it's not an attack. Nobody blames
fundraising people for their ability, not even the sense of urgency in
banners is their fault in absence of an explicit guideline.

Andreas pointed out a problem which lies in the performance indicators
of fundraising along with its goals.

Vito

Il giorno ven 24 set 2021 alle ore 12:09 Christophe Henner
 ha scritto:
>
> I will answer to the end of your email only as it shocked me.
>
> Le ven. 24 sept. 2021 à 10:33 AM, Andreas Kolbe  a écrit :
>>
>>
>> No doubt the architects of this development will eventually leave the WMF 
>> with résumés highlighting by how much they increased revenue over 
>> such-and-such an amount of time, how they built a $100M endowment in half 
>> the time planned (this target was achieved five years early), and move to a 
>> different employer who values these abilities.
>
>
> This is totally out of place. First of, it's their work and praising on their 
> achievements is nothing shameful. I hope they see their work as good work.
>
> Second, the Fundraising team is made of deeply engaged people. I will not 
> list them all, but I am pretty sure that teams have some of the "older" 
> employees in the Foundation. If you take the three first names of the staff 
> list, the three (Lisa, Megan and Guillaume) all have been at the Foundation 
> for over 10 years.
>
> So your attack is out of place, unfounded and totally wrong. They are staff, 
> they are professionals, they are highly engaged people and part of our 
> movement as we all are.
>
> So please, stop attacking people.
>
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Endowment reaches initial $100 million goal and welcomes new board members

[Vi to]

I know the purpose of the endowment, but our fundraising relies upon a
sense of urgency which is, simply, fake. It was already not true before,
but now that we have a massive endwoment it became even more untrue. I was
once told "I see Wikipedia is in a financially dire situation" "heck! where
did you read this?" "in a banner".

Each year fundraising surpasses its goals, the endowment itself reached the
100M goal in roughly half the expected time. Do we really seek an infinite
growth?

Vito

Il giorno ven 24 set 2021 alle ore 01:17 phoebe ayers 
ha scritto:

> Thanks Christophe, SJ and all! Lisa, agreed - it's taken a lot of work
> over the years from many people to get here. A big thanks to all of the
> endowment staff past and present and especially to you Lisa, who has been
> there as an advocate from the very beginning "what if we made an
> endowment?!" days. Also thanks to my fellow current and former trustees on
> the WMF & Endowment boards who have supported this effort. I'm honored and
> excited to be a part of the next chapter of the endowment, and I hope to
> hear community members' thoughts on the best way an endowment could support
> the very long term future of the Wikimedia projects and free knowledge too.
>
> Galder -- though the endowment may only ever indirectly support this, yes
> to a wishlist system that fulfills more wishes. I want to see this too.
> Cunctator -- this seems like a different topic for a different thread?
> Vito -- Good meme usage. I can't find the perfect meme to answer so I'll
> just say that (as I expect you know) the endowment is meant to support the
> projects in perpetuity, which means it isn't there to replace daily
> operation funding or annual fundraising. The 100M is meant to generate
> investment income (which best case scenario will still only be a fraction
> of the current WMF budget.) Changing fundraising strategies really means
> changing the size and scope of the WMF annual plan, including affiliate
> grants; the need for fundraising follows from the budget. While that's a
> good conversation to have, I don't think the existence of the endowment
> will direct it (or our larger movement strategy conversations).
>
> cheers,
> Phoebe
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 1:21 PM Lisa Gruwell 
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you, Christophe and SJ.  You both were great supporters of this
>> effort when you were on the WMF board and it wouldn't have gotten off the
>> ground without you.  It takes a lot of vision and trust to do something
>> long-term like an endowment.  Thanks for giving that to us!
>>
>> Best,
>> Lisa
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 1:52 AM Christophe Henner <
>> christophe.hen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Congratulations Lisa and team, I know how much energy you pour into it!
>>> That is an amazing step. And great to see the endowment becoming its own
>>> organization.
>>>
>>> And "welcome" to the "new" endowment board members! :)
>>>
>>> Few people might know Doron, but he is not a stranger. He has been
>>> supporting the movement for a very very long time and knows us very well. I
>>> remember back in 2016, he understood very very fast why it was critical to
>>> invest in Wikidata and that lead to the Structured Data grant:
>>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data/Sloan_Grant.
>>>
>>> Phoebe, Doron and Patricio are great additions to the endowment board!
>>>
>>> All good news, thank you again Lisa!
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Christophe
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, 22 Sept 2021 at 16:58, Lisa Gruwell 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Dear all,

 Today I am very happy to announce the Wikimedia Endowment [1] has
 reached its initial $100 million goal. The Endowment was started in 2016 as
 a permanent fund to support the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity [2].

 My deep gratitude goes out to our generous donors, the Endowment board,
 Foundation staff, and volunteers who made this possible. I am grateful
 to the future-focused community members who began considering the idea of
 an endowment years ago, to those who participated in community
 conversations on Meta [3] to help us think through initial decisions
 regarding its launch, and to all contributors whose work creating
 Wikimedia content has brought free knowledge to the world.

 As part of this milestone, the Wikimedia Endowment Board has also
 welcomed three new members: Phoebe Ayers, Patricio Lorente, and Doron
 Weber, bringing in important expertise of the Wikimedia movement and
 priorities as well as in nonprofit management.

 You can read more about this milestone, what it means for the movement,
 and what comes next for the Endowment on Diff [4] and the Endowment Meta
 page [5]. We invite you to share any questions or feedback on the Endowment
 talk page [6].

 Thank you to everyone who has made this incredible achievement
 possible.

 Best regards,

 Lisa

 [1] https://wikimediaendowment.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Endowment reaches initial $100 million goal and welcomes new board members

[Vi to]

Great now but now...

(https://imgflip.com/i/5o0v9y if you don't want to download the attached
picture)

Vito
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikipedia issues in UNDARK.org #Opinion article to check...

[Vi to]

I've been involved with hr.wiki case as a steward. I suggested to take a
series of quite bold actions but there were reasonable concerns in terms of
legitimacy among stewards, there were the ability of smart dudes in the
cabal to hijack discussions, there was the reluctance of meta people due to
nPOV concerns, [some more very polemic things I prefer to omit], etc etc.
Putting it simply hr.wiki case showed some limit of our model, the model I
was born and grew up as an user.
The *wiki process* of a medium-sized community went broke, with a language
(even weaker than some Central Asia wikis) barrier lowering the wiki's
accountability, nobody had formally the role to step in.
I got my personal dose of clamor during my annual confirmations which
probably sounded quite intimidating for anyone willing to tackle the issue.

Probably the lesson to be learnt is the need for an audit of contents and
some structure with the means to investigate a very very narrow set of very
complex complaints, although both things (the first one in particular) are
very sensitive in terms of culture neutrality.

Vito

Il giorno lun 23 ago 2021 alle ore 14:22 Andreas Kolbe 
ha scritto:

> Mike,
>
> The corruption of the Croatian Wikipedia began in 2009 and became front
> page news in Croatia in September 2013. The term "fake news" hadn't been
> invented yet, but the Croatian Education Minister issued a public warning
> to the country's youth in 2013 that they should avoid the Croatian
> Wikipedia, as much of its content was "not only misleading but also clearly
> falsified".
>
> So I can't agree that this "was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as less of
> a problem" at the time. It's hard to imagine how it could have been more
> prominent.
>
> The matter was even discussed in the US mainstream media, hardly known for
> detailed coverage of Croatian affairs. In October 2013 the Croatian
> Wikipedia's subversion was the subject of a dedicated article by Tim
> Sampson in the Daily Dot. In 2014 it received a mention from Caitlin Dewey
> in the Washington Post. (You can read all about this timeline in the
> English-language Wikipedia article on the Croatian Wikipedia, and the
> sources cited therein.)
>
> Compared to the level of public interest eight years ago, the press had
> actually been quiet about this decade-long scandal in recent years – more
> due to topic fatigue, I think, than anything else – though there was a
> smattering of articles published by the Balkan Investigative Reporting
> Network in 2018, concluding with a report stating that the Wikimedia
> Foundation had refused to respond to their inquiries.[1] Ouch.
>
> So it was all the more welcome that the WMF finally did something this
> year and commissioned an expert to write a report, after a decade of
> complaints from media and the volunteer community.
>
> The idea to have an outside expert look at how human rights violations by
> political regimes are covered (or covered up ...) in various Wikipedia
> language versions, and summarise their observations in a public report, is
> an obvious one. (I suggested as much back in 2015.[2])
>
> The costs of doing this now will hardly have been prohibitive.
> Commissioning a report like this would have been well within the WMF's
> means in 2013 as well. (The WMF reported a budget surplus of $13 million in
> 2013.) So I stand by my assertion: the WMF could have done then what it has
> done now, but lacked the will, or courage.
>
> You are right about one thing – in matters like this, both action and
> inaction can be construed as a moral failing. I absolutely applaud the
> decision made in this case, but can also imagine that, the precedent having
> been set, scenarios might arise some years down the line, under different
> leadership, where the same type of WMF action could be more problematic.
> This is something for the community to watch out for.
>
> Andreas
>
> [1]
> https://balkaninsight.com/2018/04/23/wikipedia-not-replying-to-inquires-on-croatian-entries-04-20-2018/
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Freedom_Index
>
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 11:33 PM Mike Godwin  wrote:
>
>> I think you're indulging in the common tendency of inferring that if WMF
>> did not do something a decade ago that it had the legal right to do, it
>> follows that it lacked the moral courage to do that thing (or else that it
>> had moral courage then but lacks it now--the moral-judgment fantasy can run
>> in both directions).
>>
>> Given that concern about disinformation on Wikipedia and elsewhere was
>> less prominent in public discourse a decade ago, Occam's Razor suggests
>> that the primary reason for any change in willingness to engage in top-down
>> intervention was that disinformation was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as
>> less of problem. In addition, you assert (without any facts offered in
>> support) that WMF was just as well-positioned to directly intervene in
>> disinformation problems a decade ago as they may 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 257, Issue 1

[Vi to]

Given that Hillbillyholiday is moderated biting replies aren't much fair.

Vito

Il giorno lun 30 ago 2021 alle ore 03:05 Mike Godwin 
ha scritto:

> Someone with the entirely authoritative email address "
> hillbillyholi...@gmail.com" writes (apparently under the impression that
> I don't know who Andreas is) the following:
>
> 'I am appalled by your sneering condescension of Andreas.'
>
> This is an unusual misreading of a fairly straightforward, even though
> ironic, text. A careful reader will have noted that did not dispute
> Andreas's research or recitation of any facts. What I did dispute is his
> characterization of motives, which is ungrounded in any of those facts.
>
> In a subsequent message, Hillbillyholiday says somethingsomethingsomething
> about me being a nazi, haha.
>
> In the land where I grew up, soi-disant "hillbillies"--whether on holiday
> or not--knew their Bible verses. So perhaps Hillbilly will understand why
> the verse that comes to mind in reference to his attempt at a riposte is
> Job 38:4.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 3:35 AM 
> wrote:
>
>> Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
>>
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikimedia-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>>
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>> wikimedia-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>1. Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021 (Kiril Simeonovski)
>>2. Re: Wikipedia issues in UNDARK.org #Opinion article to check...
>>   (hillbillyholi...@gmail.com)
>>3. Re: Wikipedia issues in UNDARK.org #Opinion article to check...
>>   (Gerard Meijssen)
>>4. Re: Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021
>>   (Ashwin Baindur - User AshLin)
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 22:21:50 +0200
>> From: Kiril Simeonovski 
>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021
>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> Message-ID:
>> > uefwammj5fu1mf9lefe_e2b8qeg...@mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>> boundary="622d7805ca7c1e12"
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I would like to announce the Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021
>> ,
>> which
>> is scheduled to take place from 5-7 November and will be a virtual event
>> for a second consecutive year.
>>
>> This year's conference will be labelled with the slogan "Meet for a Better
>> Future!" and its programme will be mostly filled with session proposals
>> received through a call for submissions, while there will also be a
>> handful
>> of sessions that will feature keynote speakers or will be formatted as
>> plenary discussions on important topics from the Wikimedia movement. *You
>> can submit your session proposal
>> <
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Submissions
>> >
>> until
>> the extended deadline of 30 September 2021.*
>>
>> Considering that the event will take place in an online environment and
>> there are no significant barriers for participation, we would like to
>> encourage participation and session proposals by people from outside the
>> region of Central and Eastern Europe.
>>
>> In case you have any questions regarding the conference, please do not
>> hesitate to contact the Organising Committee members
>> <
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Development#Organising_Committee
>> >.
>> You can also read the official blog post
>> <
>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/07/20/announcing-the-wikimedia-cee-online-meeting-2021/
>> >
>> announcing the event in order to get more information about it.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Kiril Simeonovski
>> -- next part --
>> A message part incompatible with plain text digests has been removed ...
>> Name: not available
>> Type: text/html
>> Size: 2787 bytes
>> Desc: not available
>>
>> --
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 23:55:40 -
>> From: hillbillyholi...@gmail.com
>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikipedia issues in UNDARK.org #Opinion
>> article to check...
>> To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Message-ID:
>> <162993574052.25702.10662504817674886...@lists1001.wikimedia.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> Mike,
>>
>> I am appalled by your sneering condescension of Andreas.
>>
>> This is a researcher and journalist who has worked diligently for a
>> decade to identify, examine and expose the systematic failings which beset
>> Wikipedia. He generously offers practical soultions to problems the WMF is
>> unaware of.  It is unquestionable that he has knows more about and has done
>> more to improve the encyclo

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Flourishing of the Endowment

[Vi to]

Sooner or later the increasing uneasiness with the continous call for
donations, even if we really don't know how to properly spend them, should
be tackled.

I think this is probably due to the idea of measuring the performance of
people working on this in terms of collected money growth, I feel like
we're cutting the branch we're sitting on.

Vito

Il giorno ven 30 apr 2021 alle ore 16:03 Andreas Kolbe 
ha scritto:

> Hi SJ,
>
> Long time no speak. :)
>
>
>
> As explained on Meta, it is inaccurate to think of the endowment as "an
>> investment that the WMF is the beneficiary of". The endowment is there to
>> support the Projects, rain or shine.
>>
>
>
>
> I don't think you can separate the WMF from its projects, which are the
> WMF's wholly owned property and its whole raison d'être.
>
> The Wikimedia Endowment page on Meta[1] actually states very clearly in
> its lead paragraph who benefits from the Endowment. It says,
>
> "The funds may be transferred from Tides either to the Wikimedia
> Foundation or to other charitable organisations selected by the Wikimedia
> Foundation to further the Wikimedia mission."
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation alone controls how the funds are used (limited
> only by whatever UPMIFA or donor-specific constraints apply).
>
> Moreover, as I'm sure you know, the Endowment is actually about to be
> returned in full to the WMF, to be placed into a new 501(c)(3) organisation
> the WMF will set up. If anyone familiar with the matter could outline the
> envisaged legal structure of that future organisation, that would be great.
>
>
>
>
>> To quote from my initial proposal
>>  (*NB: past proposals
>> may not reflect current or future endowment goals; among other things I
>> don't know that we've ever tried to narrowly define and optimize core
>> services ;*) :
>>
>> "The endowment should be large enough to sustainably support the basic
>> operation of the Projects (see iii. below), able to grow with inflation
>> while supporting any needed central server farms and technical support with
>> its interest, and of a size that we can raise."
>>
>>
>
>
> Including the $100 million endowment, the WMF will now have investments of
> around $200 million (excluding cash and cash equivalents), for an annual
> investment income of over $10 million. That is already enough to run core
> services. Wikimedia posted total expenses of $3.5 million in 2007/2008, a
> year after Wikipedia became a global top-ten website.
>
> The problem for me – and many other rank-and-file volunteers – is not the
> idea of an endowment as such, but fundraising messages saying "Wikipedia
> really needs you this Tuesday" to donate money so Wikipedia can "stay
> online", "protect its independence", etc., or "to show the volunteers their
> work matters".
>
> The WMF creates the impression that it struggles to keep Wikipedia up and
> running; people then feel scared or guilty, think Wikipedia is struggling,
> or dying, or will soon put up a paywall;[2] and the WMF does little to
> correct that mistaken impression, even when directly asked about it as in
> Katherine's recent The Daily Show interview[3]. One is left with the
> uncomfortable conclusion that the WMF creates and fails to correct that
> false impression because it benefits financially from it.
>
> If tens of millions of dollars of the money collected under that false
> premise, that Wikipedia is struggling, then end up in an endowment grown to
> $100 million in half the time originally planned for, that is unseemly. No
> one should beg for money claiming to be penniless if what they're actually
> doing is building up a $100 million investment portfolio in record time.
>
> The last phrase ("show the volunteers their work matters") is
> objectionable for a different reason, and people at the WMF I think are
> well aware that volunteers object to it. Nevertheless, it just ran again on
> fundraising banners in Brazil, only to be withdrawn after complaints from
> the pt.WP community.[4] I would love it if this one could really be phased
> out now!
>
>
>
>
>> 2. Would it be possible to provide, say, monthly updates for the
>>> Endowment on Meta?
>>>
>>
>> Once a year is standard and would suffice here, I should think.
>>
>
>
>
> I disagree, SJ. The Meta page[1] has a blue progress bar showing how much
> money is in the Endowment. To me it is incompatible with the idea of a wiki
> – a website designed to support continuous updates – for such a progress
> bar to be up to a year out of date. It's not what a reasonable reader of
> that page would expect.
>
>
>
>
>> 3. Could a mention of the Endowment, and the fact that the posted
>>> expenses include $5 million paid to the endowment, be added to the FAQ?
>>>
>>> (The FAQ refers to the most recent audited accounts, and thus is still a
>>> live document. For Awards and grants, which includes the $5 million paid to
>>> the endowment, the FAQ summary is: "We increased our awards and

Re: [Wikimedia-l] COVID-19 second wave and protection of our most valuable movement asset

[Vi to]

Choosing to help a certain category (moreover likely to be less exposed
than average, moreover scattered across each country) in an overwhelming
emergency is both practical infeasible and unethical.

Money is probably not the top one need (instead of some specific
goods/resources) but we don't have anything better to offer.
WMF is quite full of money which surely cannot be spent on anything more
worth than this.

Moreover lobbying for this:
https://healthpolicy-watch.news/who-welcomes-un-security-council-resolution/
should be considered.

Vito

Il giorno sab 24 apr 2021 alle ore 20:39 Chris Keating <
chriskeatingw...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

>
>> Personally I feel, insuring individuals against COVID-19 or helping
>> people to get vaccines or sending other supports can be better handled
>> locally by local affiliates (or local committees as proposed by Tito,
>> whichevers seems fit) instead of a central organization like WMF. Local
>> affiliates have better information about the vulnerable section of the
>> community, government orders concerning the available vaccines, local
>> market value of insurance premiums, vaccines, disinfectants etc. Sometimes
>> they even have the money and/or the intention to extend this kind of
>> support too, all they need is just a permission from the donor i.e. WMF
>> Grants team.
>>
>
> The more I think about this, the more I come to think that we should at
> least attempt it.
>
> It might be unusual for a nonprofit to provide this kind of support to its
> volunteers, but this is a truly exceptional situation. And while the entire
> world is struggling with Covid, the nature of the struggle is deeply
> different in most wealthy countries compared to what India is going through
> now. And India will probably not be the last nation to see its healthcare
> system not just threatened but entirely overwhelmed.
>
> Of course the WMF is not going to be able to start airlifting
> Wikimedia-branded vaccines or oxygen supplies, but there must be some form
> practical help that can be given to support Wikimedia volunteers.
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is it time for a Global Username Policy that is similar to Global Rename Policy?

[Vi to]

Username blacklist has already been global since 2015, see
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T38939

Vito

Il giorno ven 26 mar 2021 alle ore 10:06 William Chan  ha
scritto:

> Hi,
>
> I have observed that there is a global renaming policy but a global
> username policy is absent? As we all know that usernames are global
> following SUL, and literally the same username will be used across multiple
> wikis.
>
> So, a very simple question is raised: shall there be a draft of the global
> username policies, considering usernames are now global?
>
> Also, also due to SUL, it seems that username blacklists should be put at
> a global scale, or it may just be not logical as one may just escape one
> wiki's username blacklist through creating it at another project, and use
> SUL to circumvent such block.
>
> I hope for broad input, considering this may mean a broad policy change,
> and what I have in my mind is just a very primary idea to install a Global
> Username Policy that acts similar to the current Global Rename Policy that
> is in enforcement.
>
> P.S. I put it here before placing it on meta RFC is not to avoid
> circumvention but hope to seek more input instead of just bumping a very
> large policy change without any external input.
>
> Regards,
> William
> User:1233
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Surveys using third party tools on Wikimedia projects

[Vi to]

People living in these countries already know which services they can use
and which one they shouldn't. We don't actually expose them to threats by,
instead, we prevent them from using the feature relying upon these services.
Several users probably won't trust these services even if our legal
agreements with relevant providers are fine.

So I think we definitely should start relying upon our internal resources
for this, even a closed source solution hosted by WMF is better than 3rd
party services.

Vito

Il giorno lun 15 feb 2021 alle ore 07:59 Gnangarra  ha
scritto:

> I don't live in a country where I need to be worried about the
> anonymity and privacy, but that doesn't prevent me from  appreciating that
> there are people in countries like Myanmar, Iran, Syria, and many others
> who need the assurity of privacy to contribute to the movement.
>
> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 at 14:12, Risker  wrote:
>
>> To clarify to anyone who doesn't want to read the actual proposal, which
>> Fae did not repeat here:
>>
>> *Proposal*
>>
>> It is proposed that on Wikimedia Commons that there must be no promotion
>> of surveys or questionnaires which rely on third party sites and closed
>> source tools, such as Google Forms. This should be interpreted as a ban
>> against engaging volunteers by mass messaging, use of banners or posts on
>> noticeboards.
>> *Recommended consequential action*
>>
>> Banners and posts which go against this proposal may be removed by
>> anyone.
>>
>> Posting account(s) may be blocked or have group rights removed at the
>> discretion of administrators, such as all rights that enable mass
>> messaging. In a persistent case, blocks and rights removal may apply to all
>> accounts of the person responsible. A rationale of doing their job as
>> part of being a WMF employee is not considered an exemption.
>>
>>
>> Nowthis applies to everyone who posts about a survey at Wikimedia
>> Commons, as this proposal is strictly related to Commons. It is not a
>> global proposal.  However, it would apply to researchers, to WMF staff, to
>> anyone who uses closed-sourced tools.  There is no suggestion at all about
>> suitable alternative tools.  In fact, there is a severe dearth of quality
>> open source tools.  Researchers may be bound by their facilities to use
>> certain types of tools.
>>
>> Surveys and questionnaires are always voluntary. There's some
>> responsibility on the part of the user to read the privacy statements and
>> use of information statements that are normally mandatory for any
>> legitimate surveys.  More than once I've started to participate in a survey
>> and decided it was asking questions I didn't want to answer, and just never
>> saved them.
>>
>>
>> I think it would also be helpful if someone from WMF Technical could take
>> the time to discuss with the broader community what arrangements have been
>> made in their contract with Google to ensure that the information on those
>> documents (of whatever nature) are not in fact accessible to Google for
>> their data gathering or any other purposes.  There is, of course, a certain
>> irony that three of the four people who have commented on this thread so
>> far all have Gmail email addresses.
>>
>>
>> Risker/Anne
>>
>> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 at 00:24, Gnangarra  wrote:
>>
>>> I agree with Fae's proposal if we are using tools that exclude community
>>> members out of safety and privacy concerns then we arent fulfilling the
>>> equity goals. I also recognise that alternatives need to be available but
>>> with no incentive for them to be used then there is no development of such
>>> tools, or improvements to their functionality. Faes proposal is putting the
>>> WMF on notice that there are steps we need to take to ensure equity,
>>> safety, and privacy in participation.
>>>
>>> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 at 09:08, Łukasz Garczewski <
>>> lukasz.garczew...@wikimedia.pl> wrote:
>>>
 With respect, Fae, if you're going to propose banning an existing
 solution, it is on you to propose a suitable alternative or at least a
 process to find it before the ban takes effect.

 I write this as a signatory of Free Software Foundation Europe's Public
 Money? Public Code open letter . I
 am wholeheartedly a proponent of open source software.

 At the same time, I am a firm believer in using the best available tool
 for the job.

 Our mission is too important to hold ourselves back at every step due
 to a noble but often unrealistic wish to use open source solutions for
 everything we do.

 Last year, because of my drive to use proper open source solutions,
 WMPL wasted hours and hours of staff time (mostly mine) and a not
 insignificant amount of members' time because:

- Zeus, a widely used, cryptographically secure voting system is
impossible to setup and maintain and has very sparse documentation,
- CiviCRM, the premier open source

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Treatment of newbies with mild CoI

[Vi to]

Not really, drawing practical advices/lessons (e.g. "differentiate among
kinds of COIs") is the only sensible path towards solving issues.
"Let's be kind" is close to a tautology.

Vito

Il giorno mer 26 feb 2020 alle ore 09:59 Andy Mabbett <
a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk> ha scritto:

> On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 at 20:36, Vi to  wrote:
> >
> > Hard to tell anything without the relevant link(s).
>
> For you, maybe. Others have already given helpful replies.
>
> My question was generic, and not about the specific case I gave as an
> example.
>
> I chose not to post links to to the example, both in order to avoid a
> pile-on, and to avoid us being distracted by the minutiae of the
> incident concerned.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Treatment of newbies with mild CoI

[Vi to]

Hard to tell anything without the relevant link(s).

Vito

Il giorno mer 19 feb 2020 alle ore 22:35 Andy Mabbett <
a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk> ha scritto:

> I have just come across a case on en.Wikipedia where the daughter of
> an article subject added details of his funeral (his death in 1984,w
> as already recorded) and his view about an indent in his life.
>
> Her six sequential edits - her first and only contribution to
> Wikipedia - totalled 1254 characters, and were conducted over the
> space of 30 minutes. They were no the best quality, lacking sources,
> but were benign, and exactly what one might expect an untutored novice
> to do as a first change.
>
> As well as being reverted, she now has three templates on her talk
> page; two warning her of a CoI, and sandwiching one notifying her of a
> discussion about her on the COI noticeboard. These total 4094
> characters or 665 words.
>
> How do other projects deal with such cases?
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [LGBT] Best practices for awarding scholarships

[Vi to]

Making their data publicly available? Yiiikes!

Vito

Il giorno lun 7 ott 2019 alle ore 22:39 Lane Rasberry 
ha scritto:

> Hello,
>
> I have wished that eventually when people apply for scholarships or even
> when they attend wiki events they create profiles for themselves in
> Wikidata so that we could generate visualizations of the demographics of
> participants.
>
> I do not think the wiki movement is quite ready for this, but if we
> actually want to track and report demographics, doing so in Wikidata is
> probably the way most natural for the wiki community.
>
> On Mon, Oct 7, 2019 at 9:27 AM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Plans for a Wikimedia LGBT+ conference and workshops in 2020 are
> > moving forward. We would very much like to learn and borrow successful
> > experiences from other conferences. This conference is expected to be
> > relatively modest in size, around 50 attendees, and is to be hosted in
> > Linz, Austria.
> >
> > We are planning on opening up applications for scholarships very soon,
> > to allow several months for early booking of travel tickets and visa
> > applications where needed. Naturally this means we have to create a
> > process for assessing applications to a hopefully short and
> > non-subjective checklist (we are all volunteers after all!).
> >
> > Can anyone recommend documented good practices for assessing
> > applications for travel grants and expenses for similar sized events?
> > Some issues we have discussed that need to be addressed before
> > finalizing our policies are:
> > * Creating a fair assessment process that balances the diversity of
> > attendees against other metrics like on-project experience, for
> > example ensuring that we have a healthy gender balance and a wide
> > geographic representation
> > * Whether it may be better to prefer the simplicity of assessing for
> > full scholarships, or whether partial payments are a good way of
> > ensuring wider access
> > * How to draw up rules for travel and partial scholarships for folks
> > planning on making this part of a holiday, as often happens for those
> > travelling long distances
> > * When to recommend that specific Wikimedia Affiliates should provide
> > grants and expenses, which may have additional requirements for
> > applications and reporting
> > * How to build in incentives for greener travel options, even where
> > this may not be the cheapest option
> >
> > You can read the conference proposal at
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Conference/Kawayashu/Queering_Wikipedia
> > and everyone is welcome to provide suggestions and feedback on the
> > discussion page there, if on-wiki editing works better for you than
> > email. :-)
> >
> > Thanks
> > Fae
> > --
> > Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > ___
> > LGBT mailing list
> > l...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/lgbt
> >
> > Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.
> > Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.
>
>
>
> --
> Lane Rasberry
> user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
> 206.801.0814
> l...@bluerasberry.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Huhall] Viola wikipedia

[Vi to]

That's the reason why the idea of "reciprocating" via Wikipedia is always
wrong.

Vito

Il giorno gio 3 ott 2019 alle ore 11:27 Antoine Musso 
ha scritto:

> On 01/10/2019 17:46, Samuel Klein wrote:
> >  From a Harvard biology list, via my friend Chris: a newly named species
> of
> > Viola !
> > /SJ
> >
> > == Forwarded message ===
> >
> > Many of you may use Wikipedia.
> >
> > Here is a plant name (*Viola Wikipedia*), which may be first name to
> honor
> > Wikipedia.
> >
> >
> > Viola wikipedia J.M.Watson & A.R.Flores, Int. Rock Gard. 117: 47. 2019
> >
> 
> Hello,
>
> According to the international plant names index [0], the name is
> illegitimate [1] and the plant actual name is "Viola angustifolia".  We
> should probably have the created articles to be renamed toward the
> legitimate name instead :]
>
> It is still a great token of appreciation, and I am quite happy to see
> Wikipedia being of good use for plant research!
>
> [0] https://www.ipni.org/n/77202100-1
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomen_illegitimum
>
> --
> Antoine "hashar" Musso
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banning real identities

[Vi to]

Putting it simple WMF/functionaries/the community itself should take the
less invasive actions needed to protect themselves.

A public list of "persona non grata" for events is needed for sure, but I
don't see any practical need to have it publicly shared.

Vito

Il giorno ven 5 lug 2019 alle ore 13:41 Andy Mabbett <
a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk> ha scritto:

> > Den fre. 5. jul. 2019 kl. 11.53 skrev Thomas Townsend <
> homesec1...@gmail.com
>
> > > You don;t explain why being "doxxed" was a bad thing for you, or
> > > indeed what the downside is for anyone,  You simply assert that it is
> > > a Bad Thing and must not happen.  Would you like to give your reasons
> > > for those assertions?
>
> I lost my wallet to a pickpocket last week. Do I now need to give
> reasons why this was a bad thing?
>
> Quite apart from the fact that you ignore the text "It may get them
> jailed for the wrong reasons. It may get them harmed for their genuine
> contributions."
>
> On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 at 12:25, Thyge  wrote:
> >
> > - and please explain the meaning of 'doxxed" as well. Is that US slang?
>
> If only there was some sort of free online encyclopedia, where such
> things could be looked up:
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Vi to]

I've never seen a self-citing encyclopedia.

Given its open editing structure it would be so easy to game the system by
creating a series of cross-references. In short forbidding citing Wikipedia
on Wikipedia avoids such short-circuits.

No text is 100% accurate, Wikipedia relies upon the bet that by widening
the editorial community accuracy will asymptotically converge. Traditional
textbooks, scholarly articles, any different knowledge aggregation system
is characterized by a different funding premise.

In my opinion the "no autocitation" principle is a direct consequence of
our fundamental principles, therefore a self-citing Wikipedia is possible,
but it wouldn't longer be Wikipedia.

Vito

Il giorno lun 17 giu 2019 alle ore 19:55 Mister Thrapostibongles <
thrapostibong...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Dennis,
>
> I started this thread to discuss both conduct and content policies on
> Wikipedia, and indeed how the two interact.  Wikipedia is a project to
> build an encyclopaedia.  By its own criteria, encyclopaedias are reliable
> sources and Wikipedia is not a reliable source; hence by its own criteria,
> Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia.  That is, it is currently in a state of
> failure with respect to its own mission.
>
> One of the reasons for that state of failure is indeed the failure to
> provide a collegial working atmosphere.
>
> Thrapostibongles
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 2:19 PM Dennis During  wrote:
>
> > "One (and not the most important) pieces of evidence for Wikipedia being
> in
> > a failed state is precisely that
> > it does not, by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
> source
> > "
> >
> > You have made this argument more than once. That might be a piece of
> > evidence seems both wrong and not relevant to the sense in which people
> > here as saying WP has failed, which is as a welcoming, "safe" environment
> > for contributors and would-be contributors.
> >
> > It is good policy to make sure that contributors reach out to other
> > sources, even when one believes that Wikipedia is as reliable as the
> > average tertiary source we allow as a reference. It prevents us from
> > relying exclusively on what can easily turn out to be a very narrow set
> of
> > points of view.  Does/did the Encyclopedia Britanica cite other EB
> articles
> > as references rather than include them as "see alsos"?
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:27 AM Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Vito
> > >
> > > This rather tends to support my point.  One (and not the most
> important)
> > > pieces of evidence for Wikipedia being in a failed state is precisely
> > that
> > > it does not , by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
> > > source:whereas "Reputable tertiary sources
> > > , such as
> > > introductory-level university textbooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias,
> may
> > > be cited".  So Wikipedia fails in its aim of being an encyclopaedia on
> > one
> > > of the most important tests one could imagine, namely reliability.
> And a
> > > reason for that is its lack of effective content management policies
> and
> > > mechanisms to put them into effect (in the old days we called that
> being
> > an
> > > editor, but that word on Wikipedia now is more or less a redundant
> > synonym
> > > for contributor).
> > >
> > > Now suppose that Wikipedia had effective editorial policies and
> processes
> > > that allowed it to assume the status of a reliable source, just like
> the
> > > encyclopaedia it aims to be.  You say that even in that situation, it
> > would
> > > be easy to manipulate.  On that assumption, how much easier it must be
> to
> > > "trick" it today when it has no such effective policies and processes
> in
> > > place!
> > >
> > > Thrapostibongles
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Dennis C. During
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation management of volunteers

[Vi to]

Honestly I cannot imagine a functional Wikipedia citing itself.
Such Wikipedia would be so easy to trick.

Vito

Il giorno dom 16 giu 2019 alle ore 16:54 Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoeks...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> I disagree that Wikipedia not considering Wikipedia as an admissible source
> is indicative of Wikipedia being a failure.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 14:18 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> > The discussion triggered by recent WMF T&S actions has tended to focus on
> > the merits or otherwise of that specific action (even though as I have
> > pointed out elsewhere this is very much a case of those who know don;t
> talk
> > and those who talk don't know).  So I though it might be helpful to try
> and
> > abstract some more general points for discussion.
> >
> > The long-term future of the Community, and the relationship between the
> > Foundation and its volunteers is under discussion in an elaborately
> > structured consultation announced already here in September 2017.  It
> would
> > not be particularly helpful to try to run a parallel discussion here.
> But
> > in the short to medium term, it seems that it will be necessary for the
> > Foundation to take a different stance with respect to the management of
> the
> > various projects, and the English Wikipedia in particular.
> >
> > It is often said that "The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works
> in
> > practice. In theory, it can never work."  Well, that's half true.  What
> the
> > experiment has proved is that the theory was indeed correct -- Wikipedia,
> > as currently constituted, does not work.  There are two inter-related
> > aspects to its failure: content and conduct, inextricably related in a
> > project founded on crowd-sourcing.
> >
> > Let's look at the content first.  Even on Wikipedia's own terms, it has
> > failed.  It is a principle that Wikipedia is founded on reliable sources,
> > and by its own admission, Wikipedia itself is not such a source.  That
> > bears repetition -- a project aiming to be an encyclopaedia, that
> compares
> > itself with Britannica, explicitly is not reliable.  Foundation research
> > has shown that about one fifth of Wikipedia articles are supported  by
> > references that are inadequate to support the text or simply are not
> > there.  That's about a million articles each on of the larger Wikpedias.
> > Some thousands of those are biographies of living people and in view of
> the
> > risk of defamation, no such articles should exist on Wikipedia at all.
> > There are several thousand articles that are possible copyright
> violations:
> > again such articles should not be there.  And when I say "should not", I
> > mean according to the rules adopted by the Wikipedia volunteer community
> > itself.
> >
> > This links to the conduct aspects.  The self-organising policies of the
> > "encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" have flattened out the formal
> > hierarchy to the extent that it has been replaced, necessarily, by an
> > informal but strong hierarchy based on a reputation econiomy.  This
> creates
> > an unpleasant and hence ineffective working environment, and makes it all
> > but impossible to organise a volunteer workforce into coping with the
> major
> > violations of content policy alreay mentioned.  Indeed, the conduct
> policy
> > makes it all but impossible to effectively handle cases of major abuse,
> > witting ot uwitting.  For example, one reason for the failure to manage
> > copyright violations is that some thousand of articles were written by a
> > volunteer who was unable or unwilling to comply with the copyright
> > requirements applicable to their contributions   There is simply no
> > mechanism that allows for contributions to be effectively checked either
> > when contributed or subsequently, bcause there is no mechanism that makes
> > it possible to manage or organise the work of the volunteers, and
> existing
> > community norms will not accept such a degree of organisation.
> >
> > These mutually reinforcing failures make to necessary for some degree of
> > organisation and management of content and conduct to be imposed from
> > outside the volunteer community.  The Foundation has the resources and is
> > the only entity that can acquire and deploy the expertise required to do
> > so.  No doubt this is unpalatable to some of the more vociferous members
> of
> > the community -- those who stand highest in the reputation economy and
> have
> > most to lose by it being replaced by an effective management policy.  But
> > the fact remains -- Wikipedia is failing, and in its present form will
> > inevitably continue to do so.
> >
> > Foundation or failure -- which is it to be?
> >
> > Thrapostibongles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Vi to]

I disagree with using this kind of metaphor as long as they imply an
overestimation of the importance of the fictional universe we're dealing
with.
For sanity sake it's always useful to remember this is just "a strange
website".

Vito

Il giorno sab 15 giu 2019 alle ore 21:55 Dennis During 
ha scritto:

> It seems perfectly reasonable to use metaphors based on legal systems,
> including human rights, in discussing these matters, which do, after all,
> involve rules of human behavior and their adjudication by authorities.
> Fairness and justice are constantly invoked in all sorts of everyday
> matters, from sports to baking.
>
> On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 3:32 PM Dan Rosenthal 
> wrote:
>
> > I didn't put my words in your mouth -- I quoted your own words precisely,
> > and the implication you were trying to make is obvious; so respectfully,
> > please refrain from gaslighting here. I simply suggested dropping the
> > hyperbole of  "star chambers and kangaroo courts", "secret trials
> punishing
> > people who don't know they're being accused' and "very basic principle[s]
> > of Human Rights and dignity" over someone getting banned from a website
> > over bad conduct issues.  You need not reply -- I'm done with this
> portion
> > of the conversation.
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 1:03 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I have never said that this is a human rights violation, so please
> don't
> > > put your words on my mouth.
> > >
> > > I have said that the general principles of equality, right to fair
> trial,
> > > not having ones honor damaged by baseless accusations, etc. which are
> > > present at the UDHR are being forgotten here.
> > >
> > > Of course you may argue that since the WMF is a private organization,
> > they
> > > are free to engage in this kind of secret trials, star chambers and
> > > kangaroo courts at will. As others already stated, the matter here is
> not
> > > if they can, but if they should be engaging on those schemes, as they
> are
> > > now.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > A sábado, 15 de jun de 2019, 18:39, Dan Rosenthal <
> swatjes...@gmail.com>
> > > escreveu:
> > >
> > > > There is no "very basic principle of Human Rights and dignity" to be
> > free
> > > > from the presumption of guilt by others.  You may be confusing
> Article
> > 11
> > > > of the UHDR, but this applies explicitly only to "penal offenses."
> > > Unless
> > > > Fram is getting locked up in prison for his actions, let's drop the
> > > absurd
> > > > hyperbole that this is somehow a human rights violation.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Dan Rosenthal
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 11:35 AM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > > > paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > People shouldn't be going with any random option, but rather
> presume
> > > the
> > > > > innocence of others unless guilt is proven by some legit process.
> > > > > It seems that this very basic principle of Human Rights and dignity
> > is
> > > > > being forgotten.
> > > > > There is not the least appearance of due process happening there,
> but
> > > > that
> > > > > has not stopped people from finding themselves their guilty part of
> > > > > election, using their own bias to evaluate the case.
> > > > > Including some Wikipedia related social network accounts that
> should
> > be
> > > > > acting more responsible and wiser than joining the rabble in the
> > > offwiki
> > > > > harassment of their guilty part of choice.
> > > > >
> > > > > Best,
> > > > > Paulo
> > > > >
> > > > > geni  escreveu no dia sábado, 15/06/2019 à(s)
> > > 17:15:
> > > > >
> > > > > > On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 at 00:04, David Gerard 
> > > wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > If you really think Fram's framing of events here is even
> > > plausible,
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > What you are calling Fram's framing appears to be a the WMF's
> > version
> > > > > > of events as told to fram. The WMF does look slightly better if
> you
> > > > > > remember that T&S arw trying to improve behaviour through threat
> of
> > > > > > blocks not file a diff heavy arbcom case.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >  >let alone the story
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Given that the other versions of "the story" are T&S's PR waffle
> or
> > > > > > conspiracy theories it understandable that people are going to go
> > > with
> > > > > > the option that at least gives them something to work from.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --
> > > > > > geni
> > > > > >
> > > > > > ___
> > > > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > > > > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Vi to]

Il giorno sab 15 giu 2019 alle ore 04:32 David Goodman 
ha scritto:

> From my perspective of 4 years on enWP arb com, there is no question that
> the enWP does not deal well with routine low-level harassment in the
> absence of something really awful.
>

This happens everywhere, though I don't have out of the box solutions at
all.


> I am not however saying that I personally find the actual sanction here
> totally unwarranted.  The problem is rather that it sets a terrible
> precedent.


The precedent is already set, the difference seems to be in collective
perception. I'm not aware of the rationale for this ban and it seems
community members complaining about it don't have a clue too.

Vito
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Vi to]

Sometimes is hard to tell a harsh dispute from lack of civility.

Generally it's easy to focus on form rather than on substance.

Some issues are very complex to handle, for example some weeks ago,
criticizing someone (who wrote an aggravating email on this thread) brought
me to receive some truly nice insults in a private email. It's a very
complex case of a behavior which is formally "right" but which is widely
considered as destructive within the involved community.

WMF bans are meant to handle issues which cannot be handled by ordinary
community means, above all because they involve out-of-wiki elements.

In a recent incident I advocated for some changes in WMF ban (namely,
giving a wider framework to people which are supposed to help enforcing
them) but in my experience none of WMF ban I have sufficient background to
judge was unjustified.

Vito

Il giorno ven 14 giu 2019 alle ore 22:52 Andy Mabbett <
a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk> ha scritto:

> On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 at 19:18, Kirill Lokshin 
> wrote:
>
> > Rather, the problem occurs when a *popular* competent editor violates the
> > civility policy (or, for particularly popular editors, virtually any
> other
> > policy); the traditional consensus-based approach to policy enforcement
> > makes it difficult, if not impossible, to effectively sanction an editor
> > with a substantial contingent of vocal supporters who will argue against
> > any such sanctions whenever the opportunity arises.
>
> This.
>
> And a number (not everyone, of course) of those screaming loudest
> about the WMF's recent action are those whose style of behaviour would
> see them sanctioned if a civility policy were properly enforced.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiJournals: A proposal to become a new sister project

[Vi to]

Il giorno mer 5 giu 2019 alle ore 12:00 John Erling Blad 
ha scritto:

> > > One reason; reach.
> > >
> >
> > In academia reach -per se- is not a big deal, while impact is.
>
> Reach leads to impact. You can't get impact without reach, but reach
> in non-scientific communities does not necessarily turn into reach in
> scientific communities.
>

Apart from the hype I wouldn't releate reach and scientific impact. Most of
research community is forced to seek for impact, bibliometric indicators
and abiding by the publish or perish principle.


> There are nothing that blocks Wikipedia from doing peer review. (It
> has implicit peer review.) What you propose for WikiJournal is to make
> peer review a policy. That does not in itself turn articles into good
> research.


I disagree with this, Wikipedia doesn't make original research by
definition.
I concur we have something similar to peer review, though ours is less
"autorithy-centered".

Vito
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiJournals: A proposal to become a new sister project

[Vi to]

 Thanks anyone of the interesting replies!

Il giorno lun 3 giu 2019 alle ore 17:03 John Erling Blad 
ha scritto:

> One reason; reach.
>

In academia reach -per se- is not a big deal, while impact is.

At nowiki we vere approached some years ago by a
> university about publishing cutting edge research in fish farming. We
> could not publish their work because some claimed it to be "original
> research". Sure it was, and it was darn good original research too. I
> don't think that was a single occurence, other communities has
> probably had similar questions.
>

On Wikipedia you have no means to tell what is a good research, anyway.

Il giorno mar 4 giu 2019 alle ore 03:20 Thomas Shafee <
thomas.sha...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

>
>- Accountability to the academic community - indexing by cope
>, doaj ,
>pubmed , scopus
>, web of science
>, free journal network
> etc all require *extensive *external
> auditing
>of processes. Each journal has to apply for these individually and they
> are
>challenging to gain and retain.
>

Yup, indexing is definitely needed, though challenging.


>3. Cynical academics may be drawn by the likely high impact that the
>journal will likely get form publishing a lot of broad review articles
> and
>the exposure of those through wikipedia
>

I'm not sure it would be auspicable to cite "our journal" on Wikipedia,
also it may boost COI.


>   - It could be a way to peer review parts of wikidata (e.g. whether
>   the Drug interactions (P769) property set is up to date, and what
>   references should support any additions)
>

That's way interesting, though some mechanism of automatic update would
have the drawback of making some papers incoherent.


> *Democracy*
> So far the only inherently undemocratic part of the project has been the
> strict requirements on the peer reviewers.
>

Our inner "gerarchy" is somehow based upon committment/process knowledge
rather than competence in specific fields. While academia is (well, should
be) exactly the opposite, both systems works where they are supposed to
work, I hope they'll work the same if mixed up!

Translation is a complex issue.
Using English as the lingua franca for science deeply boosted
internationalisation of research, but also added an extra requirement for
researchers. Translation also adds a non negligible delay in information
spread. I, for one, don't judge scientific article worth translation, but I
wouldn't oppose it.

I think the ND in plan-S is meant to address the plagiarism (also
self-plagiarism) problem/fears.

Vito


Il giorno mer 5 giu 2019 alle ore 07:27 Thomas Shafee <
thomas.sha...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Such translation of CC content is pretty much unpreventable and can be a
> benefit or a drawback depending on the author's own opinion.
>
> From the point of view of an official 'version of record' (i.e. what the
> doi points to) the authors would be named along with attribution of all
> contributors. If there are translations, they'd likely be marked as
> somethign like "adapted by translators XYZ from article XYZ by original
> authors XYZ under a CC-BY license", though details would need to be decided
> if it came up. See this 2008 article
>  for some ideas
> floated previously floated. I'll admit I've limited knowledge of
> translation practices though, so the project would need advice!
>
> For some existing Wikipedia-based examples:
>
>- PLOS article
><
> https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002803
> >
> and
>uk.wp page
><
> https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B5_%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%94%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8F
> >
>- PLOS article
><
> https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004095
> >
> and es.wp page
><
> https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiriendo_transferencia_gen%C3%A9tica_horizontal
> >
>
>
> Thomas
>
> On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 12:48, James Heilman  wrote:
>
> > When we publish CC BY SA on Wikipedia, we allow translation into other
> > languages without having any control over the translations (but we
> require
> > our name to be attached in some fashion). So right now we do all the
> time.
> > Most of my academic publications are CC BY which is even more permissive.
> >
> > James
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 7:27 PM Thomas Townsend 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 18:46, James Heilman  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Wiki Journals use CC BY SA. We do not support or want to us ND as
> that
> > > > would prevent translation into other languages. That is why I
> disagree
> > > with
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiJournals: A proposal to become a new sister project

[Vi to]

En.wikiversity user I'm dealing with was a custodian (in other words a well
established user within the community).

Keeping it short my main concern is: we are a naturally democratic
community, while the science cannot be. Also, we've been attracting low
quality "research" for years.

Vito

Il giorno lun 3 giu 2019 alle ore 16:36 James Heilman  ha
scritto:

> The peer review process and the editors of the journals in question. This
> is the same mechanism that prevents gibberish from getting into all peer
> reviewed literature.
>
> J
>
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 6:30 AM Vi to  wrote:
>
> > In years I've seen countless attempts to put gibberish on our projects
> > which were eventually defeated by the "no original research"  principle.
> > Even en.wikiversity struggled with a now banned user (and his
> > friends/enablers) pushing lots of gibberish about cold fusion, paranormal
> > and Wikimedia user themselves. So I ask, what will prevent this kind of
> > gibberish from slowing infiltrating such project?
> >
> > Don't get me wrong but I think this is the first question in order to
> > define a "business model" for the project: why would a "serious" research
> > group choose to publish there instead of already existing OA journals or
> > classical PR journals?
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > Il giorno lun 3 giu 2019 alle ore 04:16 Thomas Shafee <
> > thomas.sha...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> >
> > > Yes, we put together a little checklist back in round one (*link*
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:WikiJournal_User_Group#Notes_on_Plan_S_compliance_criteria
> > > >
> > > ).
> > >
> > > Initially there were a few items that are currently not achieved (e.g.
> > > JATS-compliant XML formatting). The revised Plan_S has reduced
> stringency
> > > and all the items that weren't hit happen to be optional. That being
> > said,
> > > things like JATS-compliant XML and citation metadata would be valuable
> to
> > > implement anyway for machine readability.
> > >
> > > Thomas
> > >
> > > On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 04:53, James Heilman  wrote:
> > >
> > > > It already is Plan-S compliant :-)
> > > >
> > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S#Licensing_and_rights
> > > >
> > > > Plan-S unfortunately is looking at allowing ND content.
> > > >
> > > > James
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, Jun 2, 2019 at 8:14 AM Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Thomas
> > > > >
> > > > > Is it intended that the journals should be Plan-S compliant?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thrapostibongles
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sun, Jun 2, 2019 at 9:01 AM Thomas Shafee <
> > thomas.sha...@gmail.com>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Hello Wikipedians,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group
> > > > > > <https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group> has
> been
> > > > > building
> > > > > > and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a
> mediawiki
> > > > > > platform. The main types of articles are:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >- Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review
> and
> > > > > feedback
> > > > > >(example <https://doi.org/10.15347/wjs/2018.006>)
> > > > > >- From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to
> > > > Wikipedia
> > > > > (
> > > > > >example <https://doi.org/10.15347/wjm/2018.001>)
> > > > > >- Original research articles that are not imported to
> Wikipedia
> > > > > (example
> > > > > ><
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Acute_gastrointestinal_bleeding_from_a_chronic_cause:_a_teaching_case_report
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > *Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project
> > > > > > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal>*
> > > > > >
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiJournals: A proposal to become a new sister project

[Vi to]

In years I've seen countless attempts to put gibberish on our projects
which were eventually defeated by the "no original research"  principle.
Even en.wikiversity struggled with a now banned user (and his
friends/enablers) pushing lots of gibberish about cold fusion, paranormal
and Wikimedia user themselves. So I ask, what will prevent this kind of
gibberish from slowing infiltrating such project?

Don't get me wrong but I think this is the first question in order to
define a "business model" for the project: why would a "serious" research
group choose to publish there instead of already existing OA journals or
classical PR journals?

Vito

Il giorno lun 3 giu 2019 alle ore 04:16 Thomas Shafee <
thomas.sha...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Yes, we put together a little checklist back in round one (*link*
> <
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:WikiJournal_User_Group#Notes_on_Plan_S_compliance_criteria
> >
> ).
>
> Initially there were a few items that are currently not achieved (e.g.
> JATS-compliant XML formatting). The revised Plan_S has reduced stringency
> and all the items that weren't hit happen to be optional. That being said,
> things like JATS-compliant XML and citation metadata would be valuable to
> implement anyway for machine readability.
>
> Thomas
>
> On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 04:53, James Heilman  wrote:
>
> > It already is Plan-S compliant :-)
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S#Licensing_and_rights
> >
> > Plan-S unfortunately is looking at allowing ND content.
> >
> > James
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 2, 2019 at 8:14 AM Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Thomas
> > >
> > > Is it intended that the journals should be Plan-S compliant?
> > >
> > > Thrapostibongles
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jun 2, 2019 at 9:01 AM Thomas Shafee 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hello Wikipedians,
> > > >
> > > > Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group
> > > >  has been
> > > building
> > > > and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki
> > > > platform. The main types of articles are:
> > > >
> > > >- Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and
> > > feedback
> > > >(example )
> > > >- From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to
> > Wikipedia
> > > (
> > > >example )
> > > >- Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia
> > > (example
> > > ><
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Acute_gastrointestinal_bleeding_from_a_chronic_cause:_a_teaching_case_report
> > > > >
> > > >)
> > > >
> > > > *Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project
> > > > *
> > > >
> > > > From a Wikipedian point of view, this is a complementary system to
> > > Featured
> > > > article review, but bridging the gap with external experts
> > > > <
> https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Peer_reviewers
> > >,
> > > > implementing established scholarly practices
> > > > <
> > https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Ethics_statement
> > > >,
> > > > and generating citable, doi-linked publications
> > > > .
> > > >
> > > > Please take a look and support/oppose/comment!
> > > > All the best,
> > > > Thomas Shafee
> > > >
> > > > ps, We are attempting to improve awareness within the existing
> > wikimedia
> > > > community, so feel free to share with others.
> > > > ___
> > > > 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,
> > > > 
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > James Heilman
> > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Vi to]

Il giorno mar 14 mag 2019 alle ore 15:46 Yann Forget  ha
scritto:

> Le mar. 14 mai 2019 à 15:32, Andy Mabbett  a
> écrit :
>
> > On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 04:50, Yann Forget  wrote:
> >
> > > Currently, we require a confirmation via OTRS if an image was
> previously
> > > published elsewhere before being uploaded to Commons.
> >
> > Really? can you provide a link to a policy age proving that assertion?
> >
> > Your claim rather makes a mockery of the suggestion that people should
> > publish to, for example, Flickr before importing to commons
> >
>
> Unless the external publication is done with a free license, of course.
> AFAIK, there is no "official" suggestion that people should publish to
> Flickr before importing to Commons.
>

For EU citizens upload at Flickr could actually reduce our
GDPR-responsibility as platform.

Il giorno mar 14 mag 2019 alle ore 16:03 Lane Rasberry <
l...@bluerasberry.com> ha scritto:

>
>
> The answer is not to lower the quality of our content, but rather to
> communicate more effectively the standard of quality that we require. With
> our standards already being so low, requiring things like proof of legal
> compliance, minimal verifiability, and having brief civil conversations in
> case of difficulty, it is challenging for me to imagine us reducing any of
> these already reasonable expectations.
>

+10

Il giorno lun 13 mag 2019 alle ore 21:42 Isaac Olatunde <
reachout2is...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Not all local sysops have a strong knowledge of image licensing and I think
> allowing local sysops not familiar with image licensing and how Commons
> community works in general to delete\undelete files would be
> counterproductive.
>

I still think they can just left performing actions at their own
responsibility.

Il giorno mar 14 mag 2019 alle ore 15:25 Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Nah, of course they do. We are using filters at the Portuguese Wikipedia
> since 2009, and I can say, without blinking, that if it was not for
> filters, IPs would have ceased to be allowed to edit at all there for good
> now, so much it is the amount of IP vandalism that they automatically catch
> and block... per hour. With some false positives in the middle, of course,
> but nothing is perfect.


 I agree, but most of abusefilter effectiveness lies in 'block' option,
which is not so common among wikis.

Vito
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Vi to]

Many are.
I've always been in favour of a "do what you think you can do under your
responsibility"-model.

Any steward can do any action, still they don't do what they are not
familiar with. For example I seldom use central notice.


Vito

Il giorno dom 12 mag 2019 alle ore 22:28 Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Anyone doing Commons stuff has to do have Commons skills. Wikipedia sysops
> are not asked to have them, and do not have them by default.
>
> If Wikipedia sysops that deal with copyright want to be Commons admins,
> they can apply anytime for that role. Otherwise, render to Caesar the
> things that are Caesar's.
>
> Paulo
>
>
> Vi to  escreveu no dia domingo, 12/05/2019 à(s)
> 21:13:
>
> > Major projects surely deal with a significant amount of uploads in an
> > efficient way.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > Il giorno dom 12 mag 2019 alle ore 17:31 Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > paulospern...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> >
> > > I absolutely disagree with this. A Wikipedia sysop do not necessarily
> > has -
> > > and from my experience, most of the time hasn't - the necessary skills
> to
> > > deal with copyright.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > > A domingo, 12 de mai de 2019, 14:35, Vi to 
> > > escreveu:
> > >
> > > > I wonder wheter local sysops could be allowed to delete/undelete
> images
> > > on
> > > > commons in order to reduce workload. Most risky commons' uploads come
> > > from
> > > > cw-upload, allow local sysops to handle them could work.
> > > >
> > > > Vito
> > > >
> > > > Il giorno dom 12 mag 2019 alle ore 15:31 James Heilman <
> > jmh...@gmail.com
> > > >
> > > > ha scritto:
> > > >
> > > > > It is hard to get the admin bit there aswell. Is Commons interested
> > in
> > > > > having more admins?
> > > > >
> > > > > James
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 5:41 AM Fæ  wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay
> for
> > > > > > access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
> > > > > > copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
> > > > > > terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to
> > see
> > > > > > if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
> > > > > > reduced.[1]
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
> > > > > > image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make
> > mass
> > > > > > housekeeping very easy.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic
> image
> > > > > > hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a
> Commons
> > > hat
> > > > > > on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use
> > than
> > > > > > mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to
> > suck
> > > > > > up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long,
> > that
> > > > > > several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
> > > > > > originally interested have since retired. Without some positive
> > short
> > > > > > term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the
> useful
> > > > > > experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Links
> > > > > > 1.
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
> > > > > > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Fae
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani <
> ladsgr...@gmail.com
> > >
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Vi to]

Major projects surely deal with a significant amount of uploads in an
efficient way.

Vito

Il giorno dom 12 mag 2019 alle ore 17:31 Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> I absolutely disagree with this. A Wikipedia sysop do not necessarily has -
> and from my experience, most of the time hasn't - the necessary skills to
> deal with copyright.
>
> Best,
> Paulo
>
> A domingo, 12 de mai de 2019, 14:35, Vi to 
> escreveu:
>
> > I wonder wheter local sysops could be allowed to delete/undelete images
> on
> > commons in order to reduce workload. Most risky commons' uploads come
> from
> > cw-upload, allow local sysops to handle them could work.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > Il giorno dom 12 mag 2019 alle ore 15:31 James Heilman  >
> > ha scritto:
> >
> > > It is hard to get the admin bit there aswell. Is Commons interested in
> > > having more admins?
> > >
> > > James
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 5:41 AM Fæ  wrote:
> > >
> > > > A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay for
> > > > access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
> > > > copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
> > > > terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to see
> > > > if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
> > > > reduced.[1]
> > > >
> > > > Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
> > > > image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make mass
> > > > housekeeping very easy.
> > > >
> > > > A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic image
> > > > hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a Commons
> hat
> > > > on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use than
> > > > mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to suck
> > > > up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.
> > > >
> > > > Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long, that
> > > > several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
> > > > originally interested have since retired. Without some positive short
> > > > term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the useful
> > > > experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.
> > > >
> > > > Links
> > > > 1.
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
> > > > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash
> > > >
> > > > Fae
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani 
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores
> support
> > > for
> > > > > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> > > > >
> > > > > Best
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter  >
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> > > > amount of
> > > > > > material it has to deal with.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Cheers
> > > > > > Yaroslav
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> > > > benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or
> > > capable
> > > > to
> > > > > > do
> > > > > > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <
> polime...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all
> undeleted.
> > > > > > > >
> &

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Vi to]

I wonder wheter local sysops could be allowed to delete/undelete images on
commons in order to reduce workload. Most risky commons' uploads come from
cw-upload, allow local sysops to handle them could work.

Vito

Il giorno dom 12 mag 2019 alle ore 15:31 James Heilman 
ha scritto:

> It is hard to get the admin bit there aswell. Is Commons interested in
> having more admins?
>
> James
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 5:41 AM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay for
> > access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
> > copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
> > terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to see
> > if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
> > reduced.[1]
> >
> > Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
> > image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make mass
> > housekeeping very easy.
> >
> > A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic image
> > hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a Commons hat
> > on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use than
> > mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to suck
> > up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.
> >
> > Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long, that
> > several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
> > originally interested have since retired. Without some positive short
> > term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the useful
> > experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.
> >
> > Links
> > 1.
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
> > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash
> >
> > Fae
> >
> > On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support
> for
> > > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> > amount of
> > > > material it has to deal with.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > > Yaroslav
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> > benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or
> capable
> > to
> > > > do
> > > > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz 
> > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> > > > GLAM-related
> > > > > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing
> > what it
> > > > > is
> > > > > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can
> > create a
> > > > > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with
> > Common's
> > > > > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you
> > > > project
> > > > > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do
> something
> > > > > similar.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but on
> > the
> > > > > other
> > > > > > hand it is constantly flooded by hundreds  of copyright violating
> > > > files a
> > > > > > day:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > See the list from just one day:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > >
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2019/05/01
> > > > > >
> > > > > > so this hostility works both ways - Common's admins have to cope
> > with
> > > > > > aggressive hostile copyright violators every day, and after some
> > time -
> > > > > > decide to leave or became being hostile themselves... and the
> other
> > > > issue
> > > > > > is decreasing number of active admins and OTRS agents.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I think - sooner or later - all this system - uploads - screening
> > > > uploads
> > > > > > by admins, and OTRS agreements - needs deep rethinking.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > niedz., 12 maj 2019 o 10:48 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > > > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> > > > > >
> > > > > >> Hello all,
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons
> > > > > components
> > > > > >> of The Community, judging by the article "Wikimedia Commons: a
> > highly
> > > > > >> hostile place for multimedia students contributions" at the
> > Education
> > > > > >> Newsletter

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamil Wikipedia elects 10 sysops at a time

[Vi to]

Meh, sysops are a mean, not a goal. Bureaucrats even less.

On a wiki with just 302 active users according to mediawiki's loose
definition of activity this rings me the "bureaucracy explosion" bell.

Even with very low activity requirements I wonder how many administrative
tasks can be performed upon a 450 edits/day overall activity.

Vito

Il giorno ven 26 apr 2019 alle ore 00:41 Asaf Bartov 
ha scritto:

> This is not India-specific, and may be of interest to other communities
> struggling with such a question.
>
>A.
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: Ravishankar 
> Date: Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 3:05 PM
> Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamil Wikipedia elects 10 sysops at a time
> To: wikimediaindia-l 
>
>
> Hi,
>
> Tamil Wikipedia elects 10 sysops at a time after a gap of almost 5 years.
>
> After 2013, we hit a policy deadlock where we couldn't agree on how to
> elect a new sysop, what are the qualities of an ideal sysop, etc.,
>
> Even after repeated attempts, we could not solve this as the fear of being
> not able to easily desysop someone made us look for higher and higher bars
> for a perfect admin.
>
> So, how did we solve?
>
> Recently, MediaWiki allows someone to get sysop access for limited periods
> of time like 1 month, 3 months, etc., This is how Stewards grants adminship
> in many small wikis.
>
> We felt when there is the possibility of granting adminships for trial
> periods and renew them thereafter, we don't need to keep the bar for
> adminship very high.
>
> We also proposed to start a Wiki Admin School where others can mentor the
> new admins.
>
> So, after a month long discussion and community consensus, we conducted our
> sysop elections and elected 10 sysops at a time.
>
> Right now, we have 42 sysops  with one of the highest sysops per users
> ration among all global Wikis.
>
> We plan to elect 6 new sysops every quarter and are discussing a similar
> policy for bureaucrat election.
>
> We strongly believe having a diverse pool of sysops makes them feel
> empowered to serve the Wikimedia movement for a long period of time.
>
> If you are interested in knowing more, take a look at the policy here
>  and the discussion in the related talk
> page.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ravi
> ___
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>
>
> --
> Asaf Bartov
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
> https://donate.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]

[Vi to]

Wait, wait. The risk to shut down to get enough consensus to shut down a
project with an active community which is not systematically violating any
fundamental principle is zero.

Vito

Il giorno gio 18 apr 2019 alle ore 10:45 Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> ha scritto:

> The difference here being that it is not a professional system. If you
> mess with the crowd the crowd does not generally go where you prefer it to,
> it goes home.
> Other potential contributors see what has been done, and decide not to
> waste their efforts where outsiders can throw their work away. (outsiders
> meaning people not from the project that is being closed).
> Preserving as read only in another place is far more acceptable and
> indicates respect for one's efforts, even when times have changed. Internal
> deletion, change and general editing is a completely different issue. It is
> a given when you start. It is implied by CC-by-sa licence.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Andy Mabbett
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 6:50 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand
> system for our 2030 goals]
>
> 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] How diverse are your readers?

[Vi to]

Il giorno mar 12 mar 2019 alle ore 06:16 David Goodman 
ha scritto:

> "with popular topics cannibalizing resources."
>
> What resources can be cannibalized?   The limiting resource in WP is
> interested people writing, improving, and validating  articles.  People
> choose their own topics.  This is different from an organization where
> staff can be directed to work on what the management think is important.


I was exactly making reference to this.
Editors' interests are hard to change and, actually, it wouldn't be
auspicable to do it.

The only resources which can be moved are those related to outreaching,
editathons, various kinds of online and offline projects.

Keeping it short I disagree with choosing topics for editathons and similar
initiatives basing on topic popularity since this will be in contrast with
any commitment to diversity, even more it will push a wrong model of
encyclopedia.


When you state that Mr Trump does not know about Indian-Pakistan conflicts,
> does he know that a Nigerian governor outspends presidents of neighbouring
> countries.. There are elections for Nigerian governors...
>

I didn't wrote this actually, inaccurate quoting of others' opinions can
poison any discussion.
Trying to rephrase, I wrote it would be better to cover things which suits
more the mission of an encyclopedia and which get less attention by media,
as Indian-Paki conflicts background, rather than mr. Trump's covfefes.


>
> What is the propblem with providing what people are looking for?
>
> I often look for bus schedule 😉

Vito
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] How diverse are your readers?

[Vi to]

That's an unstable process on a long-term, with popular topics
cannibalizing resources. Top read articles are already about two or three
sports, some TV series and three or four music topics.
These are also the most popular topics among editors but if you'll start
focusing energies on these already popular topics you'll end up having no
resources to be spent on "female combatants during Russian civil war",
"near to extinction languages in Brazil", "computational chemestry in late
XX century".

The way we self-identify as a project  deeply affects our results:
promoting the idea of Wikipedia as "the pop encyclopedia" (instead of "the
free encyclopedia embedding pop topics") will weaken our commitment to
diversity and quality.

Also, topic popularity is mutable on a daily basis and it's driven by a
very narrow number of media (basically Google/YouTube and Facebook) which
will gain a complete influence over us.

To me the mission of an encyclopedia is providing the *knowledge* (not
*information*) which is worth collecting and preserving. The information
people need/want is likely to be a subset of this.

If Wikipedia is also an educational medium we should find a way to ask the
ordes of people looking for new mr. Trump's bizarreness "hey, do you know
the background of India-Pakistan conflicts?"

Vito

Il giorno lun 11 mar 2019 alle ore 06:19 David Goodman 
ha scritto:

> The idea of an encyclopedia is to provide the information people need or
> want  that's appropriate to the format. It would be useful to see what they
> want that is appropriate but we do not have -- and also useful to see what
> they look for that isn't appropriate for us. Within what's appropriate, I
> see no reason why selection of topics should not be driven by reader
> interests as much as by editor interests. Our purpose is not to practice
> our writing skills for our own benefit.
>
> On Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 6:58 PM Vi to  wrote:
>
> > The idea of a popularity-driven encyclopaedia scares 😱
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > Il giorno dom 10 mar 2019 alle ore 22:26 Gerard Meijssen <
> > gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> >
> > > Hoi,
> > > I have been thinking about it.. There is a place for research but
> really
> > > why can we not have the data that allows us to seek out what people are
> > > actually looking for and do not find.. Why can we not promote what
> proves
> > > to be of interest [1] ?
> > > Thanks,
> > >  GerardM
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-marketing-approach-to-what-it-is-that.html
> > >
> > > On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 22:13, Leila Zia  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi all,
> > > >
> > > > As I mentioned in an earlier thread [1], we will be running reader
> > > > surveys across a number of Wikipedia languages to learn about the
> > > > reader needs and motivations in these languages as well as some of
> > > > their demographic information (and perhaps the correlations between
> > > > demographics and user motivations and characteristics).
> > > >
> > > > If your language community is interested to have statistics on the
> > > > distribution of reader gender, age, education, native language, and
> > > > geographic region (rural/urban) in your language (and depending on
> how
> > > > much data we collect in your language, perhaps more insights), this
> is
> > > > your chance to indicate interest at:
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Characterizing_Wikipedia_Reader_Behaviour/Demographics_and_Wikipedia_use_cases#Interested_languages
> > > >
> > > > I initially communicated 2019-02-15 as the deadline to sign up. Since
> > > > then, we have run a pilot test on enwiki and we are investigating
> some
> > > > of the results to see if any changes in the survey questions are
> > > > needed. You have now time until 2019-03-15 to indicate interest.
> > > >
> > > > As always: this call is primarily a service to your language
> > > > community. If you like it, take action on it. If you don't, no action
> > > > is needed. :)
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > > Leila
> > > >
> > > > [1]
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2019-February/091762.html
> > > >
> > > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] How diverse are your readers?

[Vi to]

The idea of a popularity-driven encyclopaedia scares 😱

Vito

Il giorno dom 10 mar 2019 alle ore 22:26 Gerard Meijssen <
gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hoi,
> I have been thinking about it.. There is a place for research but really
> why can we not have the data that allows us to seek out what people are
> actually looking for and do not find.. Why can we not promote what proves
> to be of interest [1] ?
> Thanks,
>  GerardM
>
> [1]
>
> https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-marketing-approach-to-what-it-is-that.html
>
> On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 22:13, Leila Zia  wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > As I mentioned in an earlier thread [1], we will be running reader
> > surveys across a number of Wikipedia languages to learn about the
> > reader needs and motivations in these languages as well as some of
> > their demographic information (and perhaps the correlations between
> > demographics and user motivations and characteristics).
> >
> > If your language community is interested to have statistics on the
> > distribution of reader gender, age, education, native language, and
> > geographic region (rural/urban) in your language (and depending on how
> > much data we collect in your language, perhaps more insights), this is
> > your chance to indicate interest at:
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Characterizing_Wikipedia_Reader_Behaviour/Demographics_and_Wikipedia_use_cases#Interested_languages
> >
> > I initially communicated 2019-02-15 as the deadline to sign up. Since
> > then, we have run a pilot test on enwiki and we are investigating some
> > of the results to see if any changes in the survey questions are
> > needed. You have now time until 2019-03-15 to indicate interest.
> >
> > As always: this call is primarily a service to your language
> > community. If you like it, take action on it. If you don't, no action
> > is needed. :)
> >
> > Best,
> > Leila
> >
> > [1]
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2019-February/091762.html
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Hiding versions because of copyright violation

[Vi to]

At it.wiki:
*copyvios are hidden as soon as they're caught. Also precautionary hiding
is frequently used
*gross insults in summaries and revs are hidden in a discretionary way
*phone numbers and mild leaks are hidden
*profanities are always hidden.

Suppression is very rarely used, also because abusefilter log details are
private, thus reducing the need for suppressing abuselog details which can
only be suppressed.

AFAIK that's the wider revdelete usage across major wikis and likely the
most strict usage of suppression.

Vito

Il giorno lun 14 gen 2019 alle ore 19:20 effe iets anders <
effeietsand...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Thanks for those questions.
>
> Just as clarification, I'm talking about hiding revisions with the effect
> that the revisions are greyed out in the history, but that admins can still
> see their content. But I realize that oversight policies (the effect of
> oversight is stronger) may be more prominent, and that perhaps the
> ecosystem of different options should be considered in such a question :) .
>
> Thanks Anne for clarifying terminology - I am mostly aware with the
> terminology we use in Dutch, so may mistranslate some things.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 10:13 AM Risker  wrote:
>
> > I think one of the issues here is that we are not all using the same
> > terminology.
> >
> > "Hiding", on English Wikipedia, is generally reserved for some weird
> > extensions that had to have special features built in because
> > revision-deletion, deletion, and suppression did not work with them.  I
> > think all of those extensions are now disabled on English Wikipedia.
> >
> > "Revision-deletion" (which has the effect of removing a revision from the
> > view of the reading public and users who are not administrators or
> > equivalent) or complete page deletion is used for most copyright
> violations
> > on English Wikipedia.  Copyright violations should not be publicly
> > available, since it does not meet even the most basic requirements of
> edits
> > to the project; I have a hard time seeing why any project would leave
> them
> > in the page history, since that is the equivalent of leaving them in the
> > project.
> >
> > "Suppression" is an even higher-level form of revision-deletion that
> > removes the revision from the view of everyone except oversighters.  It
> > replaced the old "oversight" extension in 2009, and it is my
> understanding
> > that all of the revisions that were historically removed using the
> > oversight tool have now been returned to page history and suppressed.
> > (There are some exceptions.) Suppression is used on English Wikipedia for
> > most personal information, which can include anything listed in the WMF
> > privacy policy.
> >
> > There are variations in the use of the deletion/suppression tools: for
> > example, since 2009 we have been able to either "delete" or "suppress"
> > usernames and edit summaries that are highly inappropriate. The ability
> to
> > "suppress" usernames is sometimes used when someone edits while logged
> out,
> > not realizing their IP address will appear in the history.
> >
> > I suspect that English Wikipedia has lower thresholds for both
> > revision-deletion and suppression because it has historically been the
> > project that is most abused, sometimes in ways that I'd be hesitant to
> > publicly describe.
> >
> >
> > Risker/Anne
> > (English Wikipedia oversighter)
> >
> > On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 at 12:29, effe iets anders  >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> This is one of these things that seems particularly hard to find, so I'd
> >> like to pick your collective brains on this:
> >>
> >> What are the various policies across our little universe on using the
> >> 'hide
> >> version' functionality to hide historical versions of articles? I would
> >> especially appreciate it if you could elaborate a bit on how it's used
> in
> >> practice with regards to privacy violations (what is the threshold of
> >> private information that would justify hiding versions) and copyright
> >> violations (when do you actually hide the versions, rather than just
> >> remove
> >> it from the current version and leave it in the history).
> >>
> >> Are there any global policies on this? I think not, but always better to
> >> double check :).
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Lodewijk
> >> ___
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> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> >> 
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Vi to]

>
> I would suggest Iceland. But there are several other possibilities, Ireland
> and New Zealand for starters.
>

An alternative to be solid should be technically and economically feasible.
Ireland may be ok though I suspect is less cheap than Netherlands or
Germany, I suspect Iceland is even more expensive, while New Zeland is
"far" from most of our audience.

I suppose in Italy we'd worry
> about Beppe and criminal libel statutes,


Their allies from lega nord are even worse.

Vito
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Vi to]

AFAIR CODFW can serve as a complete (tested) backup for EQIAD. If the same
would be implemented (though it's not a 5 minutes task) to ESAMS that would
be a first step towards a more distributed infrastructure.

Vito

Il giorno mar 8 gen 2019 alle ore 18:17 Fæ  ha scritto:

> Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> following,
>
> For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming
> to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
> politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
> inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not
> inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
> decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
> virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]
>
> The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot
> switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could
> continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from other countries
> has been raised on this list several times over many years. The WMF
> and its employees are heavily invested in staying in Silicon Valley,
> and that will stay true unless external risks become extreme.
>
> However, there has never been a rationale to avoid investing in a Plan
> B. A robust plan, where the WMF can switch operations over to a
> hosting country with a sufficiently welcoming with stable national
> government and legislation, that our projects could continue to meet
> our open knowledge goals virtually uninterrupted and without risk of
> political control. A Plan B would ensure that if the US Government
> started to discuss controlling Wikipedia, then at least that published
> plan would be a realistic response. If they tried doing it, we could
> simply power off our servers in the USA, rather than compromise our
> content.
>
> If anyone knows of committed investment in a practical WMF Plan B, it
> would be reassuring to share it more widely at this time. If not, more
> of us should be asking about it, politely, persistently but perhaps
> less patiently than indefinitely. :-)
>
> Links:
> 1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46739180
> 2. http://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/research/updates/populism
> 3.
> https://www.cnet.com/news/obama-signs-order-outlining-emergency-internet-control
> "... this order was designed to empower certain governmental agencies
> with control over telecommunications and the Web during natural
> disasters and security emergencies."
> 4.
> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418
> "The president could seize control of U.S. internet traffic, impeding
> access to certain websites and ensuring that internet searches return
> pro-Trump content as the top results."
> 5. Bizarro, as used in the title of this email:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Vi to]

By the way, please do not intervene en masse. They (the user involved) have
a strong tendency towards using "colonialism" as a general purpose excuse
for their action, as I experienced myself a bunch of months ago, along with
a series of references to Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
This kind of excuse is easily is fed by this kind of intervention. Talkpage
contents is a trivial matter compared to insults and abuse of
administrative privileges. While the latter one is solved the first one is
yet to be handled.

Vito

Il giorno lun 7 gen 2019 alle ore 15:56 James Heilman  ha
scritto:

> While we give individual languages / projects a great deal of autonomy,
> they are not completely autonomous and remain accountable to our global
> norms. We have a shared brand to uphold. Glad to see a strong position has
> been taken by the community against discrimination based on sexual
> orientation.
>
> My 2 cents
> James
>
> On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 6:39 AM Ariel Glenn WMF 
> wrote:
>
> > A note that the user's talk page
> >
> >
> https://am.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%8A%A0%E1%89%A3%E1%88%8D_%E1%8B%8D%E1%8B%AD%E1%8B%AD%E1%89%B5:Codex_Sinaiticus
> > may or may not reflect all of the comments made at any given moment,
> since
> > the user has been engaged in deleting large parts of the discussion.
> You'll
> > want to double-check the history to see what's been written.
> > ___
> > 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,
> > 
>
>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Vi to]

The lobby of high voltage warning signs disagrees.

Vito

Il giorno lun 7 gen 2019 alle ore 11:37 Yaroslav Blanter 
ha scritto:

> Well, in 2019 people should already have come to the notion that blocking
> locally an acting steward is not really a good idea.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 11:21 AM Vi to  wrote:
>
> > Because of a truly great idea
> > <
> >
> https://am.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E1%88%8D%E1%8B%A9:Log/block&page=%E1%8A%A0%E1%89%A3%E1%88%8D%3ATeles
> > >
> > the involved user's admin/bureaucrat access was revoked
> > <
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=rights&user=&page=Codex+Sinaiticus%40amwiki&wpdate=&tagfilter=&subtype=
> > >
> > by Marco Aurelio.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > Il giorno lun 7 gen 2019 alle ore 11:02 Amir Sarabadani <
> > ladsgr...@gmail.com>
> > ha scritto:
> >
> > > Given the response on the talk page [1] I think it's clear violation of
> > > nondiscrimination policy [2]
> > >
> > > [1] "promotion of homosexuality will not be tolerated here nor will it
> be
> > > forced down our throats to suit anyone's international political agenda
> > if
> > > you expect Ethiopians to take part."
> > > [2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Nondiscrimination
> > >
> > > Best
> > > On Wed, Jan 2, 2019, 23:09 Risker  wrote:
> > >
> > > >  I note that we are talking about the block of one single user on one
> > > > single project; this particular account has thousands of edits over
> > > about a
> > > > dozen projects, but is "attached" to hundreds of Wikimedia projects.
> > The
> > > > majority of these "attached" accounts are likely because the editor
> > > > "visited" the various projects while logged in, activating the
> > automatic
> > > > account creation algorithm.  The account was created 8 years ago, and
> > has
> > > > actively edited a wide variety of  projects, including several
> > > wikipedias,
> > > > Commons, Wikidata, and Meta. While English Wikipedia is the account's
> > > > "home" wiki, about 55% of the account's global edits have been made
> on
> > > > Marathi Wikipedia. The Amharic Wikipedia account does not appear to
> > have
> > > > edited, which suggests that it was automatically created when the
> > editor
> > > > was "looking at" the project on 9  February 2018.  The block for
> > account
> > > > name was made on 22 October 2018.  I note that accounts were created
> on
> > > > over a hundred projects over the course of a few days in February
> 2018.
> > > >
> > > > The point being raised in this thread is that it appears this editor
> > was
> > > > blocked on one of the 381 wikis on which they have an account,
> > explicitly
> > > > because of the perception that their username calls attention to the
> > > sexual
> > > > behaviour of the editor. What we do not know is (a) whether that is
> in
> > > fact
> > > > a legitimate username block reason on Amharic Wikipedia, or (b) if it
> > is
> > > a
> > > > legitimate username block reason, *why* it would be a username block
> > > > reason. We don't know why this block was applied so long after the
> > > account
> > > > was created. We don't know the username policy on Amharic Wikipedia,
> > nor
> > > do
> > > > we know how it is applied; for example, we don't know if a username
> > like
> > > > "StraightGuy101" would be blocked.  We do know that there are only 4
> > > > administrators on Amharic Wikipedia, and that there are fewer than 50
> > > > active users working on the project, which may be part of the reason
> > for
> > > > the delay between automatic account creation and the account block.
> > > >
> > > > We also know that one of the challenges of single user login for all
> > > > Wikimedia projects has highlighted the fact that certain usernames
> that
> > > are
> > > > acceptable on some projects are blocked on other projects; we've
> known
> > > that
> > > > for years. We know that each project establishes its own policies
> when
> > it
> > > > comes to usernames. There are le

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Vi to]

Because of a truly great idea

the involved user's admin/bureaucrat access was revoked

by Marco Aurelio.

Vito

Il giorno lun 7 gen 2019 alle ore 11:02 Amir Sarabadani 
ha scritto:

> Given the response on the talk page [1] I think it's clear violation of
> nondiscrimination policy [2]
>
> [1] "promotion of homosexuality will not be tolerated here nor will it be
> forced down our throats to suit anyone's international political agenda if
> you expect Ethiopians to take part."
> [2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Nondiscrimination
>
> Best
> On Wed, Jan 2, 2019, 23:09 Risker  wrote:
>
> >  I note that we are talking about the block of one single user on one
> > single project; this particular account has thousands of edits over
> about a
> > dozen projects, but is "attached" to hundreds of Wikimedia projects.  The
> > majority of these "attached" accounts are likely because the editor
> > "visited" the various projects while logged in, activating the automatic
> > account creation algorithm.  The account was created 8 years ago, and has
> > actively edited a wide variety of  projects, including several
> wikipedias,
> > Commons, Wikidata, and Meta. While English Wikipedia is the account's
> > "home" wiki, about 55% of the account's global edits have been made on
> > Marathi Wikipedia. The Amharic Wikipedia account does not appear to have
> > edited, which suggests that it was automatically created when the editor
> > was "looking at" the project on 9  February 2018.  The block for account
> > name was made on 22 October 2018.  I note that accounts were created on
> > over a hundred projects over the course of a few days in February 2018.
> >
> > The point being raised in this thread is that it appears this editor was
> > blocked on one of the 381 wikis on which they have an account, explicitly
> > because of the perception that their username calls attention to the
> sexual
> > behaviour of the editor. What we do not know is (a) whether that is in
> fact
> > a legitimate username block reason on Amharic Wikipedia, or (b) if it is
> a
> > legitimate username block reason, *why* it would be a username block
> > reason. We don't know why this block was applied so long after the
> account
> > was created. We don't know the username policy on Amharic Wikipedia, nor
> do
> > we know how it is applied; for example, we don't know if a username like
> > "StraightGuy101" would be blocked.  We do know that there are only 4
> > administrators on Amharic Wikipedia, and that there are fewer than 50
> > active users working on the project, which may be part of the reason for
> > the delay between automatic account creation and the account block.
> >
> > We also know that one of the challenges of single user login for all
> > Wikimedia projects has highlighted the fact that certain usernames that
> are
> > acceptable on some projects are blocked on other projects; we've known
> that
> > for years. We know that each project establishes its own policies when it
> > comes to usernames. There are legitimate reasons why a username that is
> > acceptable in one language is not acceptable in another language, even in
> > cases where the editor had no knowledge that the chosen username would
> be a
> > problem in another language. We do know that there have been lots of
> cases
> > where usernames have been blocked for "username policy violation" on all
> > kinds of projects, despite the account operating productively on other
> > projects.
> >
> > I also note that there is nothing in this thread that confirms the editor
> > themself has raised any concerns about this block, and I am always wary
> of
> > turning an editor into a "martyr for a cause" without their direct
> > agreement, as that can be as abusive as the original action. So the first
> > step in this situation would be to confirm with the individual editor
> > whether or not they want their "case" to be examined.
> >
> > Should the editor be agreeable, I suggest that the next step is for
> someone
> > who has the ability to converse in Amharic to contact the Amharic
> Wikipedia
> > and find out why the block has been issued, how it is consistent with the
> > username policy on Amharic Wikipedia, whether that policy is driven in
> part
> > by external considerations (e.g., does the project risk heavy
> governmental
> > scrutiny if it appears to "promote" locally unacceptable activities). I
> am
> > personally curious as to why it took over six months to identify that
> this
> > account did not meet the local username policy, and whether there was
> > internal or external discussion about the username.
> >
> > It is not clear to me what the desired outcome is in this case - at least
> > in part because we have no idea o

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Croatian Wikipedia: persisting far-right bias?

[Vi to]

A quick comment: there are some sympthoms the process is totally broken
there. Reasoning about sources works fine when the process works, it's
completely useless otherwise.

See Dalibor Bosits@hrwiki

for example.

Vito

Il giorno mer 28 nov 2018 alle ore 13:09 Dennis During 
ha scritto:

> My cellphone spellchecker substituted "faith" for "fact".  I was trying to
> encourage the use of your approach.
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 06:43 Gerard Meijssen  wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > I take offence calling it a faith-based process. We have a database with
> > the citations of all Wikipedias. We have overriding principles that
> include
> > the NPOV and what the role of functionaries is in Wikimedia projects.
> When
> > they are a faith, they are our faith.
> >
> > My question to you is, why are you reluctant to start a process that will
> > bring down many hobby horses including yours and the ones in your
> favourite
> > project. Why not start where we face an urgency? An urgency that
> undermines
> > Wikipedia as NPOV!
> > Thanks,
> >   GerardM
> >
> > On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 at 00:31, Dennis During  wrote:
> >
> > > Why not test-run the process on my favorite project - or yours?  We
> > should
> > > get started.
> > >
> > > I am skeptical of the quality of judgment without a foundation of
> facts.
> > > At Wiktionary we have two main definition evaluation processes, one
> > > dependent on citations to which interpretative judgment is applies. IMO
> > > this process works very well.  The other depends on opinion, votes,
> > > supported by whatever facts or authority or bluster (my specialty)
> > > advocates bring to bear.  That process, though adequate, is not as
> > > satisfactory.
> > >
> > > Gerard Meijssen has suggested a faith-based process. If it is almost
> > ready
> > > to go, let it be validated and put to use.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 16:45 Benjamin Lees  > >
> > > > On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 8:06 AM Dennis During 
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Who is the judge? Are we going to join Facebook, Google, Twitter,
> et
> > al
> > > > as
> > > > > the new press barons?
> > > >
> > > > All of our work on the projects necessarily involves making
> judgments.
> > > > As a movement we have largely decided that editors on individual
> > > > projects should be the ones to make those judgments.  But in some
> > > > extreme cases, our judgment may be that we need different judges.
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 1:03 PM Dennis During 
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > It is important that any wiki process be applied fairly.  In this
> > case
> > > I
> > > > > think the Croatian wiki cannot be the first to have a new process
> > > > applied.
> > > >
> > > > I don't know whether this is the process we want.  But if it is,
> > > > somebody's gotta go first.
> > > >
> > > > ___
> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > > 
> I
> > > ___
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> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Inc. working with Go Fish Digital, a company that whitewashes Wikipedia

[Vi to]

I concur, this seems to be a clear violation of our TOS.

Vito

2018-07-22 20:34 GMT+02:00 Mario Gómez :

> Actually, it took just a couple of hours to find:
>
> * Two obvious Go Fish Digital sockpuppets.
> * One article with high amount of evidence of COI / paid editing.
> * A few other articles with possible COI / paid editing.
> * Possible links to multiple big sockpuppet farms that were already
> blocked.
>
> Since this involves a lot of research outside Wikipedia itself, as well as
> personal details of Go Fish Digital employees, I'll wait for guidance about
> how can this be disclosed. Also, with this evidence, it seems clear to me
> that legal should be involved as soon as possible and consider stop sharing
> Wikipedia data with this company.
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 6:42 PM, Mario Gómez 
> wrote:
>
> > There, is at least, one user that works for Go Fish Digital with a
> > sockpuppet account in English Wikipedia and has denied conflict of
> interest
> > or paid editing disclosure even if he was asked too, since some user was
> > suspicious. Should I send this privately? I don't want to incur in
> spurious
> > ousting/doxxing.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Mario
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 12:24 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> >
> >> Hi.
> >>
> >> Go Fish Digital is a company that whitewashes Wikipedia. From its own
> >> site:
> >>
> >> >The primary platforms that define your online reputation include:
> >> > [...]
> >> > * Wikipedia
> >> > [...]
> >> >
> >> > With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the
> >> >positive information easy to find.  At the same time, we use many
> >> >different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative
> >> >content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether.  The end
> >> >result is a positive online reputation because when people search your
> >> >name or brand, they immediately find positive content.
> >>
> >> Source: https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management
> >>
> >> Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been working with this company on search
> >> engine optimization: . I
> have
> >> a
> >> few questions about this work.
> >>
> >> How was this vendor chosen? Which other vendors were considered?
> >>
> >> Why is this work being undertaken? At least the English Wikipedia has
> some
> >> of the best search engine results placement of any site on the Web, so
> I'm
> >> curious to know who's prioritizing Wikipedia's search engine
> optimization
> >> and for what reason.
> >>
> >> How is it appropriate for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to work with a
> company
> >> that is, by its own admission, whitewashing Wikipedia? Doesn't this give
> >> Go Fish Digital a ton of legitimization by now being able to say it
> works
> >> directly with Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("with Wikipedia")?
> >>
> >> Is it appropriate to give a company that sells whitewashing Wikipedia
> >> services access to private user data, as was done in
> >>  and
> >> ? The Wikimedia Foundation
> >> Inc.
> >> legal department apparently approved this access, but I'm curious to
> know
> >> why, given the company's role in selling an "Online Reputation
> Management"
> >> product. This looks bad to me.
> >>
> >> MZMcBride
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ___
> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik
> >> i/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik
> >> i/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] Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS

[Vi to]

Small wikis are, from this specific security issue, full of risks. I think
this element should be taken into account.

Restricting css/js editing may be a patch for a short time, but our
infrastructure is pretty vulnerable, our users can be injected with
malicious js by editing thousands of pages on any among hundreds of wikis.

Vito

2018-07-10 20:51 GMT+02:00 Strainu :

> 2018-07-10 20:38 GMT+03:00 Alex Monk :
> > On 10 July 2018 at 12:06, Bodhisattwa Mandal <
> bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> 1) Not all communities have been informed about this future change (
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Distribution_list/
> Technical_Village_Pumps_
> >> distribution_list
> >> )
> >
> > The plan appears to be to do this, maybe it just hasn't happened yet:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Creation_of_
> separate_user_group_for_editing_sitewide_CSS/JS#Announcement_plan
> >
> > 2) The comments in the meta talk page suggests that there is no intention
> >> to get opinions from editor community members. Everything seems to be
> >> pre-decided by the developer community and we dont have other options
> but
> >> to accept the proposal without proper discussion.
> >> (
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Creation_of_
> separate_user_group_for_
> >> editing_sitewide_CSS/JS
> >> )
> >>
> > It's a software security decision so editor community acceptance of this
> > change is optional, but there is an attempt to get the opinions of editor
> > community members (if there wasn't there wouldn't even be a page on meta
> > about this). These rights should never have been bundled with sysop
> rights,
> > they are incredibly dangerous and more on the level of bureaucrat/steward
> > than anything else in the sysop rights list.
> >
> > 3) Many admins from smaller wikis have expressed their concerns that this
> >> decision will severely affect the workflow of those wikis, but none of
> >> these concerns are addressed.
> >>
> > I don't see how. The current local group the rights are granted by is
> > bureaucrat-grantable, and the new local group the rights will be granted
> by
> > will be bureaucrat-grantable.
>
> The problem is that smaller wikis don't have bureaucrats either and
> there have been some very harsh proposals on that talk page with
> regards to how the user right should be provided by stewards. Having
> some kind of global policy (like the one you propose below) before
> deploying would probably ease a lot of the fears.
> >
> >
> >> 4) Many editors have expressed concern over just 2 week short notice
> period
> >> for this transition. But that concern is also not addressed.
> >>
> >
> > If we were to say that stewards would be allowed to assign the rights to
> > any existing local admin (without extra discussion) on the conditions
> that:
> > 1) they were an admin at the time of the group losing its rights and have
> > not lost any local rights since
> > 2) there have been no local bureaucrats active on the wiki since the
> change.
> > I think this would be fine.
>
> I agree with the proposal, but it seems rather orthogonal to the
> transition period. There are all kinds of possible situations and
> communities are rather responsive more than pro-active on these
> subjects. As someone pointed out on the talk page, there is no real
> reason to hurry the deployment so much. The fact that it was announced
> in the tech news is a good first step, but it seems like a good idea
> to now take the time to do thinks properly.
>
> Strainu
>
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Vi to]

Sorry but historical research is a bit more complex. Primary sources need
to be interpreted. For instance, until late XVIII most of records dealt
with "firesides" meaning "nuclear family" corresponding to a different
population according to time and place.

Some trivial information may be referenced with primary sources but most
cannot at all: forbidding original research is one of the pillars of
Wikipedia. You can allow them, but you'll obtain something which no longer
is Wikipedia.

Vito

2018-05-12 14:27 GMT+02:00 Paulo Santos Perneta :

> A parish book, with all records signed by the priest (and witnesses), and
> reviewed by the Diocesis, is a primary source, and immensely more reliable
> than any secondary sources quoting it.
>
> As we say in Portugal, who tells a story adds something. I'm pretty much
> sure there is a similar saying in English as well.
>
> There is not any reason that I can foresee why a secondary source should be
> used instead of a primary source in those situations.
>
> Paulo
>
> 2018-05-12 6:49 GMT+01:00 Peter Southwood :
>
> > Maybe there is, but maybe they are in fact conceptually similar, and have
> > similar problems. You will have to clarify:
> > In what way are primary sources "as in history" more reliable and
> > verifiable?
> > Also, how does "as in history" distinguish them from other primary
> sources
> > produced by the subject?
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of Paulo Santos Perneta
> > Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 10:25 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
> >
> > Isn't there an endemic confusion in the Wikipedias between what are
> primary
> > sources (produced by the subject) and primary sources (original sources,
> as
> > in History)? While the first should be avoided at all costs, the second
> > should be preferred over secondary sources most of the time, as they
> > generally are more reliable and verifiable. I keep seeing this confusion
> in
> > Wikipedias, all the time, with disastrous results on the quality of the
> > articles.
> >
> > Paulo
> >
> >
> > 2018-05-11 5:49 GMT+01:00 Cameron :
> >
> > > Well audio recordings or video recordings of oral histories and
> > traditions
> > > come to mind. However I'm not sure how comfortable I am with an
> > > encyclopedia using such sources.
> > >
> > > Now as an aspiring historian (Only one semester left on my degree), I
> use
> > > primary sources quite often for papers, and projects however those are
> > > generally frowned upon for Wikipedia; mainly because Wikipedia is an
> > > encyclopedia not an academic journal. Good encyclopedias are typically
> > > sourced from secondary sources, and ocassionaly tertiary sources.
> > >
> > > Now compiling a repository of such orally transmitted histories and
> > > traditions would be an amazing idea for a new project in my opinion. My
> > > personal thought on this issue is keeping our current verifiability and
> > > notability requirements is a good idea. In some areas I think we
> include
> > > far too much (fan cruft anyone?).
> > >
> > > - Cameron C.
> > > Cameron11598
> > >
> > >  On Thu, 10 May 2018 21:34:15 -0700 peter.southw...@telkomsa.net
> > > wrote 
> > >
> > > If not written, how would they be referenced and verified?
> > > Cheers,
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > > Behalf Of Jean-Philippe Béland
> > > Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 6:28 AM
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
> > >
> > > You are missing the whole point. I'm not talking about second guessing
> > > sources but rather changing our narrow point of views of what we
> consider
> > > sources of knowledge. A lot of cultures are of oral tradition and not
> > > written.
> > >
> > > JP
> > >
> > > On Thu, May 10, 2018, 16:42 Todd Allen,  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Abandoning notability and verifiability is a wide open sign for
> > spammers
> > > > and hoaxers. We have enough of that without giving them an engraved
> > > > invitation.
> > > >
> > > > If published sources are biased, the efforts to correct that should
> be
> > > made
> > > > at the source (literally) level. Just like rather than "disputing" a
> > > > reliable source, if we found evidence that contradicts them, we'd ask
> > > them
> > > > to correct, and then once they do we'll update the article
> accordingly
> > > > based on their correction. Wikipedia is not there to second-guess
> what
> > > > sources choose to publish or find "alternative" or "non-western" or
> > > > whatever else have you types of information. If our references are
> > > flawed,
> > > > the solution lies in getting them to correct what they're doing, not
> > > > "correcting" for any perceived bias by editors. We reflect sources,
> we
> > do
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Vi to]

 "Mussolini's speech relating Mussolini's speech contents -> best possible
sources"?
Even worse than speech themselves.


Vito

2018-05-12 0:39 GMT+02:00 Paulo Santos Perneta :

>  Mussolini's speech relating WWII -> was produced by the subject: to avoid
> Mussolini's speech relating Mussolini's speech contents -> best possible
> source you can have.
>
> Both kinds are described by the Wikipedias policies as "primary source",
> and yet they have very different, and often opposed values of verifiability
> and fiability.
>
> As I said, there's an endemic confusion with primary sources in Wikipedia.
>
> Paulo
>
> 2018-05-11 22:19 GMT+01:00 Vi to :
>
> > Policies about primary (en.wiki's one for example
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:PRIMARY>) tell a
> > different story and I, for one, concur with them.
> >
> > An extreme example: Mussolini's speech (primary source) will tell you
> WWII
> > was caused by the Allies, any history book (secondary or tertiary) shows
> > that's a blatant lie. To state such a simple truth without doing an
> > original research you need a secondary source.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > 2018-05-11 22:24 GMT+02:00 Paulo Santos Perneta  >:
> >
> > > Isn't there an endemic confusion in the Wikipedias between what are
> > primary
> > > sources (produced by the subject) and primary sources (original
> sources,
> > as
> > > in History)? While the first should be avoided at all costs, the second
> > > should be preferred over secondary sources most of the time, as they
> > > generally are more reliable and verifiable. I keep seeing this
> confusion
> > in
> > > Wikipedias, all the time, with disastrous results on the quality of the
> > > articles.
> > >
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > >
> > > 2018-05-11 5:49 GMT+01:00 Cameron :
> > >
> > > > Well audio recordings or video recordings of oral histories and
> > > traditions
> > > > come to mind. However I'm not sure how comfortable I am with an
> > > > encyclopedia using such sources.
> > > >
> > > > Now as an aspiring historian (Only one semester left on my degree), I
> > use
> > > > primary sources quite often for papers, and projects however those
> are
> > > > generally frowned upon for Wikipedia; mainly because Wikipedia is an
> > > > encyclopedia not an academic journal. Good encyclopedias are
> typically
> > > > sourced from secondary sources, and ocassionaly tertiary sources.
> > > >
> > > > Now compiling a repository of such orally transmitted histories and
> > > > traditions would be an amazing idea for a new project in my opinion.
> My
> > > > personal thought on this issue is keeping our current verifiability
> and
> > > > notability requirements is a good idea. In some areas I think we
> > include
> > > > far too much (fan cruft anyone?).
> > > >
> > > > - Cameron C.
> > > > Cameron11598
> > > >
> > > >  On Thu, 10 May 2018 21:34:15 -0700 peter.southw...@telkomsa.net
> > > > wrote 
> > > >
> > > > If not written, how would they be referenced and verified?
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Peter
> > > >
> > > > -Original Message-
> > > > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org]
> On
> > > > Behalf Of Jean-Philippe Béland
> > > > Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 6:28 AM
> > > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
> > > >
> > > > You are missing the whole point. I'm not talking about second
> guessing
> > > > sources but rather changing our narrow point of views of what we
> > consider
> > > > sources of knowledge. A lot of cultures are of oral tradition and not
> > > > written.
> > > >
> > > > JP
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, May 10, 2018, 16:42 Todd Allen, 
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Abandoning notability and verifiability is a wide open sign for
> > > spammers
> > > > > and hoaxers. We have enough of that without giving them an engraved
> > > > > invitation.
> > > > >
> > > > > If published sources are biased, the efforts to correct that should
> > be
&

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Vi to]

Policies about primary (en.wiki's one for example
) tell a
different story and I, for one, concur with them.

An extreme example: Mussolini's speech (primary source) will tell you WWII
was caused by the Allies, any history book (secondary or tertiary) shows
that's a blatant lie. To state such a simple truth without doing an
original research you need a secondary source.

Vito

2018-05-11 22:24 GMT+02:00 Paulo Santos Perneta :

> Isn't there an endemic confusion in the Wikipedias between what are primary
> sources (produced by the subject) and primary sources (original sources, as
> in History)? While the first should be avoided at all costs, the second
> should be preferred over secondary sources most of the time, as they
> generally are more reliable and verifiable. I keep seeing this confusion in
> Wikipedias, all the time, with disastrous results on the quality of the
> articles.
>
> Paulo
>
>
> 2018-05-11 5:49 GMT+01:00 Cameron :
>
> > Well audio recordings or video recordings of oral histories and
> traditions
> > come to mind. However I'm not sure how comfortable I am with an
> > encyclopedia using such sources.
> >
> > Now as an aspiring historian (Only one semester left on my degree), I use
> > primary sources quite often for papers, and projects however those are
> > generally frowned upon for Wikipedia; mainly because Wikipedia is an
> > encyclopedia not an academic journal. Good encyclopedias are typically
> > sourced from secondary sources, and ocassionaly tertiary sources.
> >
> > Now compiling a repository of such orally transmitted histories and
> > traditions would be an amazing idea for a new project in my opinion. My
> > personal thought on this issue is keeping our current verifiability and
> > notability requirements is a good idea. In some areas I think we include
> > far too much (fan cruft anyone?).
> >
> > - Cameron C.
> > Cameron11598
> >
> >  On Thu, 10 May 2018 21:34:15 -0700 peter.southw...@telkomsa.net
> > wrote 
> >
> > If not written, how would they be referenced and verified?
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of Jean-Philippe Béland
> > Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 6:28 AM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
> >
> > You are missing the whole point. I'm not talking about second guessing
> > sources but rather changing our narrow point of views of what we consider
> > sources of knowledge. A lot of cultures are of oral tradition and not
> > written.
> >
> > JP
> >
> > On Thu, May 10, 2018, 16:42 Todd Allen,  wrote:
> >
> > > Abandoning notability and verifiability is a wide open sign for
> spammers
> > > and hoaxers. We have enough of that without giving them an engraved
> > > invitation.
> > >
> > > If published sources are biased, the efforts to correct that should be
> > made
> > > at the source (literally) level. Just like rather than "disputing" a
> > > reliable source, if we found evidence that contradicts them, we'd ask
> > them
> > > to correct, and then once they do we'll update the article accordingly
> > > based on their correction. Wikipedia is not there to second-guess what
> > > sources choose to publish or find "alternative" or "non-western" or
> > > whatever else have you types of information. If our references are
> > flawed,
> > > the solution lies in getting them to correct what they're doing, not
> > > "correcting" for any perceived bias by editors. We reflect sources, we
> do
> > > not second-guess, dispute, or correct them.
> > >
> > > Todd
> > >
> > > On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 10:46 AM, Peter Southwood <
> > > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > When Wikipedia was new and unknown there were not so many people
> > wanting
> > > > to use it for purposes that conflict with our purposes. Times change.
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Peter
> > > >
> > > > -Original Message-
> > > > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org]
> On
> > > > Behalf Of Jean-Philippe Béland
> > > > Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2018 5:30 PM
> > > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
> > > >
> > > > If we where that septic at the beginning, we will never have started
> > > > Wikipedia to begin with. Really, an encyclopedia written by anyone
> > > without
> > > > any authority to double check before it is published? It is doomed to
> > > fail.
> > > > Yes, in theory, but practice showed us otherwise. The question is not
> > to
> > > > remove notability and verifiability requirements, but to change those
> > > > requirements to be more inclusive of different ways of sharing
> > > knowledge. I
> > > > think practice can show us otherwise in that case too if we are ready
> > to
> > > do
> > > > that leap of faith, the same way we did at the beginning of Wikipedi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Does anyone know what wikimedia france are up to with the Request Network ?

[Vi to]

You surely saw the same dudes who sold anything as "Internet of things" a
couple of years ago selling the same black boxes as "blockchain" now. I
expect these black boxes to be labeled as "enhanced by artificial
intelligence" by mid 2019 :D

Vito

2018-04-27 20:05 GMT+02:00 David Gerard :

> On 27 April 2018 at 17:21, geni  wrote:
>
> > Not really. At best you end up with a less efficient version of a
> > downloadable database. People claiming that "blockchain technology" is
> > useful for things are either cyptocurrency advocates (with the usual
> > conflicts of interest) or third parties trying to be nice to them.
>
>
> seconded. Actual blockchain expert here! As in, I wrote a book about
> it that's sold well and the BBC calls me an expert now.
>
> Just for readers of this list, as copyright holder I hereby grant you
> permission to download this copy:
>
> http://libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=41A766EE9752E757169A46C936C2EC17
>
> (like I could stop anyone anyway)
>
> tl;dr "blockchain" anything is a boondoggle at best and horribly
> damaging at worst, and you really don't want to go near this actively
> terrible rubbish.
>
>
> - d.
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The fact-checked encyclopedia

[Vi to]

"🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥The encyclopedia of evil people, by evil people, for evil
people 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥" + a winking Baphomet as logo

I find close to pointless derailing any discussion into a incircumstantial
series of tirades.

Vito

2018-04-15 16:21 GMT+02:00 Leigh Thelmadatter :

> Not just English Wikipedia. All of the projects are hostile to "outsiders"
> Those not in English might even be worse for several reasons
>
> Enviado desde mi LG de Telcel
>
> -- Original message--
> From: Robert Fernandez
> Date: Sun, Apr 15, 2018 9:17 AM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List;
> Cc:
> Subject:Re: [Wikimedia-l] The fact-checked encyclopedia
>
> Considering the barriers to entry, growing thicket of policies,
> organized group harassment, and open hostility on the English
> Wikipedia, I'm not sure we can even call it "the encyclopedia anyone
> can edit" anymore.  So I'd say fact-checked is a more accurate and
> relevant claim these days.
>
> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 8:53 AM, Anthony Cole  wrote:
> > I just googled “wikipedia” and the first result was a Google ad linking
> to
> > wikipedia.org.[1] It calls Wikipedia the fact-checked encyclopedia. We
> used
> > to call it the encyclopedia anyone can edit. The latter seems more honest
> > than this new formulation which to me implies a degree of reliability and
> > oversight I'm not sure we can ethically assert. I missed the discussion
> > about this new self-description. Did it happen on meta? Is anyone else
> > uncomfortabe with this?
> > --
> > Anthony Cole
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] De-recognition of Wikimedia user groups in Brazil

[Vi to]

Given Teles' insight I must admit *I was wrong* in using the adjective
"fair", not so much right with "reasonable", while I expected something
like this. My apologies.

I may have an incomplete view of the situation but parties didn't deserve
the same treatment.

Vito

2018-04-08 21:32 GMT+02:00 Vi to :

> Sad outcome though fair, reasonable and expected.
> I hope some new group will arise from these ruins.
>
> Vito
>
> 2018-04-08 20:19 GMT+02:00 Kirill Lokshin :
>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> Recognition as a Wikimedia movement affiliate — a chapter, thematic
>> organization, or user group — is a privilege that allows an independent
>> group to officially use the Wikimedia trademarks to further the Wikimedia
>> mission. To receive and maintain their status as recognized Wikimedia
>> affiliates, groups are required to comply with certain requirements, which
>> are identified in each group's individual chapter, thematic organization,
>> or user group agreement.  In particular, the terms of the Wikimedia User
>> Group Agreement and Code of Conduct prohibit user groups from engaging in
>> activity that poses significant risk to other Wikimedia organizations or
>> Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> As many of you doubtlessly know, the two Wikimedia user groups based in
>> Brazil — Wikimedia Community User Group Brasil and Wiki Education Brazil —
>> have been engaged in a severe and protracted conflict, which has resulted
>> in significant harm to past, ongoing, and planned Wikimedia movement
>> activities in Brazil.  As all reasonable attempts to resolve the conflict
>> have failed, the Affiliations Committee is left with no choice but to
>> withdraw the groups' recognition as Wikimedia affiliates.
>>
>> Consequently, the recognition of Wikimedia Community User Group Brasil and
>> Wiki Education Brazil as Wikimedia user groups has been revoked, and the
>> Wikimedia Foundation's legal department has been requested to formally
>> terminate their respective user group agreements as soon as practicable.
>> Further, the specific individuals who served as the primary contacts for
>> these user groups will be prohibited from serving as primary contacts for
>> any user group application or existing user group for a period of one
>> year.
>>
>> The Affiliations Committee recognizes that this is an unprecedented and
>> unfortunate development. However, we hope that this step will allow the
>> Wikimedia community in Brazil to work towards a new organizational
>> structure and model that will better serve the needs of movement
>> participants and stakeholders in the country.
>>
>> Any questions regarding this matter should be addressed directly to the
>> Affiliations Committee.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Kirill Lokshin
>> Chair, Affiliations Committee
>> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] De-recognition of Wikimedia user groups in Brazil

[Vi to]

Sad outcome though fair, reasonable and expected.
I hope some new group will arise from these ruins.

Vito

2018-04-08 20:19 GMT+02:00 Kirill Lokshin :

> Hello everyone,
>
> Recognition as a Wikimedia movement affiliate — a chapter, thematic
> organization, or user group — is a privilege that allows an independent
> group to officially use the Wikimedia trademarks to further the Wikimedia
> mission. To receive and maintain their status as recognized Wikimedia
> affiliates, groups are required to comply with certain requirements, which
> are identified in each group's individual chapter, thematic organization,
> or user group agreement.  In particular, the terms of the Wikimedia User
> Group Agreement and Code of Conduct prohibit user groups from engaging in
> activity that poses significant risk to other Wikimedia organizations or
> Wikimedia projects.
>
> As many of you doubtlessly know, the two Wikimedia user groups based in
> Brazil — Wikimedia Community User Group Brasil and Wiki Education Brazil —
> have been engaged in a severe and protracted conflict, which has resulted
> in significant harm to past, ongoing, and planned Wikimedia movement
> activities in Brazil.  As all reasonable attempts to resolve the conflict
> have failed, the Affiliations Committee is left with no choice but to
> withdraw the groups' recognition as Wikimedia affiliates.
>
> Consequently, the recognition of Wikimedia Community User Group Brasil and
> Wiki Education Brazil as Wikimedia user groups has been revoked, and the
> Wikimedia Foundation's legal department has been requested to formally
> terminate their respective user group agreements as soon as practicable.
> Further, the specific individuals who served as the primary contacts for
> these user groups will be prohibited from serving as primary contacts for
> any user group application or existing user group for a period of one year.
>
> The Affiliations Committee recognizes that this is an unprecedented and
> unfortunate development. However, we hope that this step will allow the
> Wikimedia community in Brazil to work towards a new organizational
> structure and model that will better serve the needs of movement
> participants and stakeholders in the country.
>
> Any questions regarding this matter should be addressed directly to the
> Affiliations Committee.
>
> Regards,
> Kirill Lokshin
> Chair, Affiliations Committee
> ___
> 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] YouTube shooting and risk assessment

[Vi to]

I read/receive related craps

on
a daily basis but it's hard to tell an idiot from a psychopath, so it may
become a risk for WMF offices.

Vito

2018-04-05 17:33 GMT+02:00 Andy Mabbett :

> I'm sure most of you will be aware of the unfortunate events at
> YouTube's HQ a couple fo days ago:
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting
>
> Without giving away anything that might reveal vulnerabilities, does
> the WMF have contingency plans for such an incident? What about at
> community events in the US, and elsewhere?
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] About Facebook Linked in some of Wikimedia projects

[Vi to]

The two cases some referred to
https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sitenotice and
https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bản_mẫu:AdvancedSiteNotices

I don't like facebook at all but it's a de facto standard for
communication/outreaching. If "official" groups meet a series of
requisites. For example being managed by a sufficient number of trusted
users, respecting "something recalling" friendly space expectations, etc.

Vito

2018-03-01 3:01 GMT+01:00 Erik Moeller :

> On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 5:31 PM, James Heilman  wrote:
> > I am not seeing any link to Facebook here?
> >
> > https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeniyetm%C9%99_(roman)
>
> It's part of a banner, not sure the banner is set to 100%. It says:
>
> "Azərbaycanca Vikipediya ilə daim əlaqədə olmaq üçün bizi "Facebook"da
> izləyin!"
>
> in small font at the top, with a link to:
>
> https://www.facebook.com/azvikipediya
>
> Personally, I'd love to see WMF or a chapter set up a public Mastodon
> instance; the project has matured significantly since its first
> release and is at least a viable free/open alternative to the
> Twitter-ish forms of social networking. FB still has event management
> functions that are difficult to substitute, however.
>
> Erik
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation

[Vi to]

(This thread is getting terribly interesting)

I generally think Wikipedia should be a strictly non interfering observer
for various aspects, language included. I fear if a wiki tries to set a
model for a language it may be a model which doesn't represent the reality
of that language: small wikis are often monopolized by a few users. That's
not a fault per se but it may introduce a significant bias in linguistic
models used.

About one of Amir's emails I think a "small" Wikipedia edition is sign of a
series of situations, one of the most common of is an endangered language.
While planning should differentiate between endangered and non endangered
language I think most of problems we have to face are related to languages
endangered at various levels.

On a more practical and less ideological note, I should note that even
though I didn't run the numbers, I strongly suspect that translating 10,000
articles to 100 languages is considerably cheaper than teaching 7 billion
people English.

I don't why but I tend to second your suspects :p


Vito

2018-02-27 16:53 GMT+01:00 Peter Southwood :

> If the people creating the basic encyclopaedic terminology and style in
> the language are native speakers, then it would not be a thing imposed from
> outside. It would be a development within the language, just like it was
> with the languages that already have encyclopaedias. The basic
> encyclopaedic terminology and style in languages that have then also had to
> be created before it existed, it just happened earlier. Living languages
> evolve to deal with the realities of the present. Those which don’t, tend
> to die out as they become less useful. Cheers, Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Vi to
> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2018 1:43 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation
>
> I see Amir's points, which are pretty reasonable, but I fear this would
> suit languages with a significant presence on the web.
>
> Among them I agree with points 1, 3 and 4 while I'm not sure about #2
> "creating basic encyclopedic terminology and style in that language", if we
> want to preserve a language we shouldn't create a thing.
>
> By the way I was wondering my concerns about cultural colonization may be
> addressed -for wikis which has some contents (let's say at least 1000
> articles)- by starting expanding existing articles instead of translating
> new ones. This would solve the problem of choosing what to translate though
> would leave problems about the perspective contents are created.
>
> Vito
>
> 2018-02-27 12:31 GMT+01:00 Amir E. Aharoni :
>
> > 2018-02-27 13:00 GMT+02:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
> > psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Le 24/02/2018 à 18:08, Vi to a écrit :
> > >
> > >> *finally I think paid translators would hardly turn into stable
> > >> Wikipedians.
> > >>
> > >> I think this misses an important point that is, we don't need the
> > initial
> > > translator to turn into a sustaining editor, we need the article to
> > evolve
> > > with call to action incentives. And articles which don't exist at
> > > all – even as a stub – or don't meet an audience of potential
> > > contributors will never catch such an evolving cycle.
> >
> >
> > This is one of the issues with what I alluded to in my earlier email
> > in this thread: the privilege that the "big" languages have. It's the
> > privilege of already having other encyclopedias, textbooks, public
> > education, etc., in this language. A lot of languages don't have these
> > things. When you speak a language that has had these things before
> > Wikipedia came along, it's hard to perceive the world like a person
> > who speaks a language that doesn't perceives it.
> >
> > If you define the purpose of paying somebody to translate as "turning
> > the paid translator" into a sustaining editor, then this is indeed
> > likely to fail.
> >
> > But if you define the purpose differently, it may succeed. For
> > example, you may define the purpose as one or more of the following:
> > * Demonstrating that it's possible to write an encyclopedia in that
> > language
> > * Creating basic encyclopedic terminology and style in that language
> > * Creating a bunch of basic articles that would appear in
> > interlanguage links in Wikipedias from bigger languages (English,
> > French, etc.)
> > * Creating a bunch of basi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation

[Vi to]

I see Amir's points, which are pretty reasonable, but I fear this would
suit languages with a significant presence on the web.

Among them I agree with points 1, 3 and 4 while I'm not sure about #2 "creating
basic encyclopedic terminology and style in that language", if we want to
preserve a language we shouldn't create a thing.

By the way I was wondering my concerns about cultural colonization may be
addressed -for wikis which has some contents (let's say at least 1000
articles)- by starting expanding existing articles instead of translating
new ones. This would solve the problem of choosing what to translate though
would leave problems about the perspective contents are created.

Vito

2018-02-27 12:31 GMT+01:00 Amir E. Aharoni :

> 2018-02-27 13:00 GMT+02:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
> psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
>
> >
> >
> > Le 24/02/2018 à 18:08, Vi to a écrit :
> >
> >> *finally I think paid translators would hardly turn into stable
> >> Wikipedians.
> >>
> >> I think this misses an important point that is, we don't need the
> initial
> > translator to turn into a sustaining editor, we need the article to
> evolve
> > with call to action incentives. And articles which don't exist at all –
> > even as a stub – or don't meet an audience of potential contributors will
> > never catch such an evolving cycle.
>
>
> This is one of the issues with what I alluded to in my earlier email in
> this thread: the privilege that the "big" languages have. It's the
> privilege of already having other encyclopedias, textbooks, public
> education, etc., in this language. A lot of languages don't have these
> things. When you speak a language that has had these things before
> Wikipedia came along, it's hard to perceive the world like a person who
> speaks a language that doesn't perceives it.
>
> If you define the purpose of paying somebody to translate as "turning the
> paid translator" into a sustaining editor, then this is indeed likely to
> fail.
>
> But if you define the purpose differently, it may succeed. For example, you
> may define the purpose as one or more of the following:
> * Demonstrating that it's possible to write an encyclopedia in that
> language
> * Creating basic encyclopedic terminology and style in that language
> * Creating a bunch of basic articles that would appear in interlanguage
> links in Wikipedias from bigger languages (English, French, etc.)
> * Creating a bunch of basic articles that would appear in search results
> from internet search engines
>
> The existence of these things may bring in people who will become volunteer
> sustaining editors.
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> ‪“We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation

[Vi to]

Any "global" list reflects (and I fear it will always reflect) the
Weltanschauung of those cultures which are stronger on the web.

I'm deeply concerned about cultures being eaten up by globalization but
attempts to preserve them should take into account the risk of ending up
preserving just "our" view of these cultures.

I also agree with WereSpielChequers' comments about mixing paid and unpaid
editing. What I think it can be done is a system of prizes/contests (maybe
evaluated by paid experts) focused on attracting people on Wikisource and
Wiktionaries, Wikipedia can follow if a critical mass is eventually reached.

Vito

2018-02-25 15:16 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad :

> Sorry, but this does not make sense. The core articles apply globally.
> There will although be articles in additions to a list of core articles,
> but I don't try to advocate any of those lists as the one and only list.
> Actually I have toyed with an idea of automatically create a list of core
> articles, and that would identify important articles no matter if they are
> from a big western language or a minority language.
>
> The main problem is NOT that minority languages should have articles about
> the major cities and important philosophers, *the main problem is that
> minor languages can't get started because they lack content*!
>
> On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 2:41 AM, Vi to  wrote:
>
> > Cultural appropriation is something different, by "forcing" the contents
> in
> > a minority language we would actually be at risk of implementing a form
> of
> > "cultural colonialism" which is the opposite of a cultural appropriation.
> >
> > NOTE: I refer to "the Western" in both cultural and "Wikipedian" sense: I
> > mean cultures with a strong presence on the web plus developed and
> > flourishing Wikipedia communities.
> >
> > Helping minority languages with funds/workforce is not bad in my opinion,
> > but I think a bottom-up process must be followed, with the "bottom" being
> > as closer as possible to relevant linguistic/cultural communities. A
> > Wikipedia full of "what the Westerns think is important" in a minority
> > non-Western language would definitely fail project scopes.
> >
> > This kind of problem almost does not arise with minority language
> > associated to Western cultures since they share the same cultural
> > backgrounds: back to my previous example the cultural background of
> > Sicilian is substantially equal to Italian one. Still, as I already
> wrote,
> > wikis in minority languages should focus on a certain aspect of wiki
> scope:
> > Wiki has roughly two main scopes: 1) sharing knowledge in a certain
> > language 2) also preserving the cultural heritage associated with
> different
> > languages. For languages mainly spoken as first language the "sharing
> > knowledge" aspect is predominant, while the second should take precedence
> > in languages whose speakers are native speakers of a "bigger" language.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > 2018-02-24 22:58 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad :
> >
> > > Seems like this is mostly about cultural ownership and appropriation.
> Not
> > > sure if it is possible to agree on this.
> > >
> > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 6:08 PM, Vi to  wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'll reply to the most recent email just for laziness.
> > > >
> > > > I'm doubtful for a series of reasons, most of were already expressed
> > in a
> > > > better way by others:
> > > > *a remuneration in terms of quantity will weaken the quality of
> > > > translations unless there's a strong mechanism of quality
> verification
> > > > requiring a quantity of resources comparable to translations
> > themselves;
> > > > *articles are the result of a long process which reflects cultural
> > > identity
> > > > of different communities, I'm not confident with transferring them
> to a
> > > > different "weaker" cultures. My usage of "weaker" adjective only
> > focuses
> > > > about the strength of a cultural presence on the Internet;
> > > > *articles to be translated are at high risk of reflecting the
> cultural
> > > > identity (and biases) of the Western culture;
> > > > *finally I think paid translators would hardly turn into stable
> > > > Wikipedians.
> > > >
> > > > IMHO some paid editing may be better exploited in order to digitalise
> > > texts
> > > > of un

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation

[Vi to]

Cultural appropriation is something different, by "forcing" the contents in
a minority language we would actually be at risk of implementing a form of
"cultural colonialism" which is the opposite of a cultural appropriation.

NOTE: I refer to "the Western" in both cultural and "Wikipedian" sense: I
mean cultures with a strong presence on the web plus developed and
flourishing Wikipedia communities.

Helping minority languages with funds/workforce is not bad in my opinion,
but I think a bottom-up process must be followed, with the "bottom" being
as closer as possible to relevant linguistic/cultural communities. A
Wikipedia full of "what the Westerns think is important" in a minority
non-Western language would definitely fail project scopes.

This kind of problem almost does not arise with minority language
associated to Western cultures since they share the same cultural
backgrounds: back to my previous example the cultural background of
Sicilian is substantially equal to Italian one. Still, as I already wrote,
wikis in minority languages should focus on a certain aspect of wiki scope:
Wiki has roughly two main scopes: 1) sharing knowledge in a certain
language 2) also preserving the cultural heritage associated with different
languages. For languages mainly spoken as first language the "sharing
knowledge" aspect is predominant, while the second should take precedence
in languages whose speakers are native speakers of a "bigger" language.

Vito

2018-02-24 22:58 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad :

> Seems like this is mostly about cultural ownership and appropriation. Not
> sure if it is possible to agree on this.
>
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 6:08 PM, Vi to  wrote:
>
> > I'll reply to the most recent email just for laziness.
> >
> > I'm doubtful for a series of reasons, most of were already expressed in a
> > better way by others:
> > *a remuneration in terms of quantity will weaken the quality of
> > translations unless there's a strong mechanism of quality verification
> > requiring a quantity of resources comparable to translations themselves;
> > *articles are the result of a long process which reflects cultural
> identity
> > of different communities, I'm not confident with transferring them to a
> > different "weaker" cultures. My usage of "weaker" adjective only focuses
> > about the strength of a cultural presence on the Internet;
> > *articles to be translated are at high risk of reflecting the cultural
> > identity (and biases) of the Western culture;
> > *finally I think paid translators would hardly turn into stable
> > Wikipedians.
> >
> > IMHO some paid editing may be better exploited in order to digitalise
> texts
> > of unrepresented cultures (wikisource) or preserving their vocabularies
> > (wiktionary).
> >
> > Also those languages which are secondary for all their speakers should be
> > dealt with in a different fashion. I, for one, am a native speaker of
> > specific variant of Sicilian, Sicilian is a secondary language to any of
> > its speakers. Honestly, I'd find pointless to read the biography of
> > Leonardo da Vinci in Sicilian while I can find thousands of books about
> him
> > in Italian. Also I find this kind of translation creates a fake
> "literary"
> > language totally detached from reality: there's no "encaustic painting"
> in
> > Sicilian, still a Sicilian article about Leonardo will invent one.
> >
> > As a general principle we should always collect, rather than create,
> > knowledge.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > 2018-02-24 16:30 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad :
> >
> > > My reply can be read as a bit more harsh than intended, it was merely a
> > > statement about my present experience about translators in general.
> > >
> > > The problem with lack of contributors (and translators) in a
> specialized
> > > area is that there is a small community, and within this community some
> > > kind of selection is made. Each time a selection is repeated the
> > remaining
> > > group shrinks. Specialize the selection sufficiently many times and
> there
> > > will be no contributors (or translators) left. It is simply a game of
> > > probabilities. Thus, to make such a project work it must have a
> > > sufficiently broad scope for the articles. Articles about public health
> > > services will probably work even for a pretty small language group, but
> > > specialized medical articles might create a problem. But then you find
> > > a retired
> > > orthopedic surgeon like Subas Ch

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation

[Vi to]

I'll reply to the most recent email just for laziness.

I'm doubtful for a series of reasons, most of were already expressed in a
better way by others:
*a remuneration in terms of quantity will weaken the quality of
translations unless there's a strong mechanism of quality verification
requiring a quantity of resources comparable to translations themselves;
*articles are the result of a long process which reflects cultural identity
of different communities, I'm not confident with transferring them to a
different "weaker" cultures. My usage of "weaker" adjective only focuses
about the strength of a cultural presence on the Internet;
*articles to be translated are at high risk of reflecting the cultural
identity (and biases) of the Western culture;
*finally I think paid translators would hardly turn into stable Wikipedians.

IMHO some paid editing may be better exploited in order to digitalise texts
of unrepresented cultures (wikisource) or preserving their vocabularies
(wiktionary).

Also those languages which are secondary for all their speakers should be
dealt with in a different fashion. I, for one, am a native speaker of
specific variant of Sicilian, Sicilian is a secondary language to any of
its speakers. Honestly, I'd find pointless to read the biography of
Leonardo da Vinci in Sicilian while I can find thousands of books about him
in Italian. Also I find this kind of translation creates a fake "literary"
language totally detached from reality: there's no "encaustic painting" in
Sicilian, still a Sicilian article about Leonardo will invent one.

As a general principle we should always collect, rather than create,
knowledge.

Vito

2018-02-24 16:30 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad :

> My reply can be read as a bit more harsh than intended, it was merely a
> statement about my present experience about translators in general.
>
> The problem with lack of contributors (and translators) in a specialized
> area is that there is a small community, and within this community some
> kind of selection is made. Each time a selection is repeated the remaining
> group shrinks. Specialize the selection sufficiently many times and there
> will be no contributors (or translators) left. It is simply a game of
> probabilities. Thus, to make such a project work it must have a
> sufficiently broad scope for the articles. Articles about public health
> services will probably work even for a pretty small language group, but
> specialized medical articles might create a problem. But then you find
> a retired
> orthopedic surgeon like Subas Chandra Rout…
>
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 4:04 PM, James Heilman  wrote:
>
> > I agree with John that it is very difficult to turn a translator into a
> new
> > editor. I also agree with Jean-Philippe that it is key to have
> involvement
> > of the local projects and preferable if they lead the efforts. Of the
> > languages we worked in only one explicitly requested not to be involved /
> > have translations from TWB.
> >
> > James
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 7:59 AM, John Erling Blad 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > You can turn it around; give added credits for translations from small
> > > language projects and into the larger ones, that is a lot more
> > interesting
> > > than strictly translating from the larger language projects.
> > >
> > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 3:55 PM, Jean-Philippe Béland <
> > > jpbel...@wikimedia.ca
> > > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I think the request for such projects should come from the concerned
> > > > language projects, same for the list of articles. If not, in my
> simple
> > > > opinion, it is a form of coloniasm again.
> > > >
> > > > Jean-Philippe Béland
> > > > Vice President, Wikimedia Canada
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 9:40 AM John Erling Blad 
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Should have added that the remaining points are somewhat less
> > > interesting
> > > > > in this context. Preloading a set of articles is a bad idea, the
> > > > > translators should be able to chose for themselves. Articles should
> > > also
> > > > be
> > > > > pretty broad, not very narrow technical or medical, ie vertical
> > > articles,
> > > > > as the number of editors that can handle those will be pretty
> small.
> > > > >
> > > > > In particular: Do not believe you can turn a teanslator into a new
> > > > editor!
> > > > > You can although turn an existing editor into a translator.
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 3:34 PM, John Erling Blad <
> jeb...@gmail.com>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > 1) You must start with high quality content and thus all articles
> > are
> > > > > >> extensively improved before being proposed for translation.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Note that to much pressure on "quality" can easily kill the
> > project.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 3) The "Content Translation" tool developed by the WMF made
> efforts
> > > > more
> > > > > >> efficient than handing around word documents. Would love to see
> > that
> > > > > t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Welcome messages at arwiki

[Vi to]

The information is so noisy (transclusions may trigger autocreation) and
irrelevant (no information about pages, just wikis) I don't see an issue
worth resolving.

Vito

2018-01-25 22:54 GMT+01:00 Pine W :

> Joe,
>
> I believe that the issue of a potential privacy violation was first raised
> on this list on December 30th, and I first emailed WMF Legal about this
> issue on January 1st. Keeping in mind that the issue involves potential
> privacy violations, I think that it's reasonable to think that this issue
> should have been reviewed within days, not weeks. I disagree with the
> statement that "A subsequent review is clearly going to be a low priority
> task as I am sure you can understand Pine." If anything, I think that the
> situation is clear to the contrary and it should have been reviewed within
> days.
>
> For me, an RfC about this matter would be for the purposes of (1)
> encouraging WMF to give more attention to this matter, (2) attempting to
> establish community consensus about whether the matters being raised here
> involve privacy violations, and (3) what should be done, if anything.
> Personally, I think that the status quo does involve privacy violations and
> that there should be changes. Whether that view is shared by others is
> something that the RfC would attempt to measure.
>
> In this circumstance I consider RfC to be similar to a ballot measure, and
> I think that it's appropriate for me to say that if I think that there are
> problems then I may use tools that are available to me to attempt to
> address them, preferably with WMF's cooperation, but without WMF"s
> cooperation if necessary and if possible.
>
> John,
>
> A previous discussion about the privacy issues occurred in
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T42006. I received a new email from WMF
> Legal in which they affirmed their department's 2012 view on this matter.
> The most recent email gave me the impression that they are receptive to
> discussion about whether there should be changes although there may be
> resource limitations. That sounds like a good starting place for a
> conversation, and I think that on the community's side an RfC is the best
> way to gauge the community's views. I am busy for the next few days but
> I'll try to set up an RfC on Meta during the weekend.
>
> Pine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CatherineMunro/Bright_Places>
>
> On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 2:29 AM, Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
>
> > This conversation started in the middle of the Christmas break following
> > which I suspect many staff took extended holidays, most departments are
> in
> > the middle annual planning and this week WMF are gathering for their
> annual
> > all hands meetings. So lets firtst consider the fact that senior legal
> > staff have a lot on their plate.
> >
> > This problem has been discussed before and reviewed by legal as
> acceptable.
> > A subsequent review is clearly going to be a low priority task as I am
> sure
> > you can understand Pine.
> >
> > Making threats to handle ones demand and only in a manner that is
> > acceptable to you is hardly going to make staff receptive to expediting
> > your request. Lets give the good people time, afford them patience on our
> > behalf and let them do their jobs.
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 2:04 AM, Pine W  wrote:
> >
> > > FYI for those on WIkimedia-l who may be interested, conversation about
> > this
> > > matter is ongoing. I am waiting a response from WMF Legal, and there
> may
> > be
> > > others who have opened their own lines of inquiry.
> > >
> > > If I don't receive a reply from WMF Legal that I feel is satisfactory,
> or
> > > if I don't receive one at all, then I plan to set up an RfC about this
> > > matter.
> > >
> > > Pine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine>
> > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CatherineMunro/Bright_Places>
> > >
> > > On Mon, Jan 1, 2018 at 2:17 PM, Vi to  wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm scared of the solutions that will "fix" this.
> > > > I expect something as dramatically useful as the removal of "unblock
> > this
> > > > IP" button for IPs caught by autoblocks of registered users.
> > > >
> > > > Vito
> > > >
> > > > 2018-01-01 22:46 GMT+01:00 Pine W :
> > > >
> > > > > I have created https://phabricator.wikimed

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Welcome messages at arwiki

[Vi to]

I'm scared of the solutions that will "fix" this.
I expect something as dramatically useful as the removal of "unblock this
IP" button for IPs caught by autoblocks of registered users.

Vito

2018-01-01 22:46 GMT+01:00 Pine W :

> I have created https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183876 and am pinging
> Legal to request a review of this matter.
>
> Happy new year,
>
> Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Welcome messages at arwiki

[Vi to]

I can estimate the number of welcomes I received to roughly 300, most of
these languages I cannot even copypaste from.
While these messages are useless for sure I don't see any reason to be
bothered of them.

Vito

2017-12-29 10:25 GMT+01:00 K. Peachey :

> Have you asked the user how the finding the users?
> Have you considered other steps than just jumping to mailing list?
> Where are the complaints from the other users to show this is a long
> running issue?
>
> On 29 December 2017 at 19:20, John Erling Blad  wrote:
> > Users on other projects are complaining about the welcome messages at
> > arwiki. A bot at that project are welcoming people that has no activity
> at
> > that project at all. The bot operator claims the activity is valid, but I
> > can't see that this is a well-behaving bot at all.[1]
> >
> > I suspect the bot is welcoming every user it can find, but using user
> > accounts from central login and not users that has local contributions at
> > arwiki.
> >
> > Can someone shut down the bot until the user fix the spam problem.
> >
> > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Meno25#Welcome_messages
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimédia France new Board members

[Vi to]

I concur, it's more appropriate to say "good luck" rather than "congrats" ;)

Vito

2017-12-10 12:40 GMT+01:00 Frans Grijzenhout :

> Hi Nadine, thank you for letting us know that your board is now complete
> again. I wish all of you a good term and I hope there is also time to enjoy
> your difficult work as well. Good luck, Frans
>
>
> *Frans Grijzenhout*, voorzitter / chair
> +31 6 5333 9499
> --
> *Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland*
> Mariaplaats 3  -  3511 LH Utrecht
> Kamer van Koophandel 17189036
> http://www.wikimedia.nl/
>
> 2017-12-08 17:11 GMT+01:00 Nadine Le Lirzin :
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> >
> > We’re glad to briefly present to the community the two new members
> elected
> > on December 2 to Wikimédia France Board of Trustees by our General
> > Assembly.
> >
> >
> > — Pierre-Selim, 35, is a Product Manager and Data Scientist. Long-time
> > wikimedian, he enjoys contributing with his pictures to Wikimedia
> Commons.
> > He has already served on the board of Wikimédia France previously, in
> 2013
> > and from 2015 to Spring 2017. His term runs until October 2019.
> >
> >
> > — Hélène Masson, aka Edhral, is a 41-year-old Business Analyst. She has
> > been a Wikimedian since 2006 and strives to explain how Wikipedia works
> to
> > all her relations. Her term runs until October 2019.
> >
> >
> >
> > Three other members of the Board, who had been elected in September for
> > this very short period, have been successfully reelected too.
> >
> >
> > — Kvardek du, 22, has been contributing to Wikimedia projects for 7 years
> > and organizes events like Art+Feminism editathons in Paris. Their PhD
> > research focuses on operational management in transportation. Their term
> > runs until October 2019.
> >
> >
> > — Lucas Lévêque, 29, a librarian and a passionate wiktionarist, arrived
> in
> > the association in 2014. He co-founded Lingua Libre and he registers
> > regional languages for the Wiktionary. His term runs until October 2019.
> >
> >
> > — Florence Raymond, 37, is an assistant curator, at the initiative of
> > Wikimuseum Project since 2016. She works for a better place of common
> goods
> > (photos and contents) in cultural structures. Her term runs until October
> > 2017.
> >
> >
> > We are now 10 members at the board, but there's work for all :)
> >
> >
> > Nadine Le Lirzin
> >
> >
> > *Board member*
> >
> > *Wikimédia France*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Esra’a Al Shafei to Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[Vi to]

I think Esra’a and the WMF people already took into considerations these
risks.

Though I fear it's impossible to prevent pictures from "leaking", I trust
their judgment on the matter.

Since I never attend events I, for one, can do few, apart from supporting
any effort to prevent Esra’a's photos from being shared.

Vito

2017-12-03 22:33 GMT+01:00 James Salsman :

> > But clearly my worry isn’t significantly shared by others, so I’ll park
> this here.
>
> It's shared by me, but first let me agree with you on this:
>
> > to be clear, I think Esra’a is an excellent addition to the WMF board.
>
> I do too. The problem with the photography restriction is that we've
> had a substantial number of deliberately anti-social detractors over
> the years, including moderately well-organized trolls, many of whom
> are still active, and a few of whom that have managed to consolidate
> substantial power among the alt-right and would love to humiliate the
> WMF and Ms. Al Shafei. What reasons are there to think that the state
> actors from whom we are trying to hide Ms. Al Shafei's  images would
> not be prompted by her appointment to try to obtain such photos, too?
>
> I would prefer that we go a bit further than simply asking people to
> refrain from taking photographs, and provide some sort of measures to
> prevent them. I have no idea of the pros and cons of different
> solutions, but a few that come to mind, roughly ordered from easiest
> to most difficult, are: veils, room-dividers or opaque audio booths in
> group events, photography-capable-equipment-at-the-door social rooms,
> private entrance/exit accommodations, and security details.
>
> If you simply ask people to refrain from taking photos, not everyone
> will comply, some out of spite, and some because it may be their job.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jim
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Legal status of Wikimeida lists [Was: Re: The other side of the crisis at WMFR]

[Vi to]

N00bs are usually taught "public" has nothing to do with copyright ;)

Vito

2017-11-24 15:57 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen :

> Hoi,
> You deny the existence of copyright.. It being public does not mean that it
> is fair game for any and all purposes.
> Thanks,
>  GerardM
>
> On 24 November 2017 at 14:39, Vi to  wrote:
>
> > Archives are public, so, IMHO, the list is.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > 2017-11-24 11:11 GMT+01:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
> > psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
> >
> > > Saluton ĉiuj,
> > >
> > > Le 23/11/2017 à 20:54, Emeric Vallespi a écrit :
> > >
> > >> I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the
> > >> community, which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not
> > >> deceived by a scenario built from scratch.
> > >> Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public
> > accusations
> > >> still shows that only personal interests and vainness matter in this
> > >> conflict with some people.
> > >>
> > >> I seize the opportunity to ask: what is the legal status of the list?
> Is
> > > it considered public?
> > >
> > > I mean, it's easy to subscribe for anyone, but you still have to
> > > subscribe. And as far as I know, accessing archives require to login.
> Now
> > > there are other website which make crawled archives publicly
> accessible,
> > > but just because some do that doesn't mean it's legal.
> > >
> > > Also I'm not aware of any license regarding posted emails, so plain
> > > copyright probably apply, minus any exception related to epistolary
> > > material that might exist.
> > >
> > > It might be interesting to make any post to our mailing list a free
> > > licensed material. I've been thinking about that as I had the idea to
> > > extensively analyse the wikidata-l mailling list and publish a side by
> > side
> > > statements and extracted keywords elements, but from a legal point of
> > view
> > > it is probably not feasible. That might be circumvented with links, or
> > > providing a software which generate the expected table from provided
> > > references, but anyway it's less practical than a straight published
> > table.
> > > Having this material published under a free license would make it far
> > more
> > > useful in any kind of study with such an extensive goal in its
> > publication.
> > >
> > > Now, switching to a free license would not make the change retroactive,
> > > but it would already cover new material. Also it should be possible to
> > > contact most posters through their email and ask permission to release
> > > their previous publications under one or more free licenses and change
> > > archive metadata accordingly.
> > >
> > > Legale,
> > > mathieu
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality

[Vi to]

I have to rely upon my knowledge of plans in EU, I may be wrong with other
"rich Countries", if so please make me aware of.

Time-based tariffs are in "rich countries" are almost out of business. Also
data, cheaper data plans currently includes enough data to make surfing WMF
sites impact very few upon overall consumption. How can you tell "who" is
eligible for WP0? By "who" I mean which countries/places, telco users, etc.
A line between "rich" and "poor" countries is "easy" to draw, others aren't.

Making zero-carrier a default for all of the World would make me drop my
objections. But we firstly need to find a safe and cheap (in terms of
efforts) way to stop abuses, though most of abuses come from Countries
where data traffic is really expensive.

Finally a question: do we have reports about WP0? I mean, traffic, number
of users served, pages delivered, costs?

Vito

2017-11-26 4:32 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen :

> Hoi,
> While the USA is considered a developed country, the people in the USA who
> have least to spend are probably as deserving of zero rated Wikimedia
> service as many of the people who do get Wikipedia Zero elsewhere. The
> article indicates that our mission is to bring information to people and
> that is no different in the USA.  With Wikipedia and its sister projects
> considered as a way to bring quality, neutral point of view information, it
> would even serve as a means to combat the misinformation that will benefit
> from zero rating of information.
>
> Zero rating is bad in so many ways but your argument does only say that it
> was originally intended for developed countries. When there is a benefit to
> our readers I only see upsides in promoting the use of Wikimedia content in
> this way and no reason not to have Wikimedia Zero in the USA.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
>
>
> On 26 November 2017 at 03:56, Mz7  wrote:
>
> > The relationship between net neutrality and the Wikimedia Foundation has
> > been described as “complicated” – see [1]. Considering the that the
> > Wikimedia Foundation has a zero-rating program of its own (see [2][3]),
> I’m
> > not exactly sure how much this would affect Wikimedia, whether positively
> > or negatively. On the one hand, we could take advantage of the change by
> > expanding Wikipedia Zero into the United States. On the other hand,
> that’s
> > probably not a good idea because the program is designed to promote
> access
> > to free knowledge in developing countries, where access to the Internet
> may
> > be prohibitively expensive. In a developed country such as the United
> > States, that’s not really a prioritized issue.
> >
> > Mz7
> >
> > [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/
> > 11/25/wikipedias-complicated-relationship-with-net-neutrality/
> > [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
> > [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
> >
> > --
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mz7
> >
> > > On Nov 24, 2017, at 5:06 AM, Gerard Meijssen <
> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Hoi,
> > > With the demise of net neutrality in the USA, have their been
> > consideration
> > > for the impact it may have for the services provided by the Wikimedia
> > > Foundation?
> > >
> > > We are reliant on servers in the USA, as the quality of the service in
> > the
> > > USA is no longer a given, what are the risks?
> > > Thanks,
> > >  GerardM
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality

[Vi to]

In most of the "Western" Countries traffic plans for mobile users cannot be
significantly affected by traffic towards WMF sites. So WP0 should not be
expanded to "the North".

I'm actually puzzled by the possibility for providers to ask fees to WMF in
order to retain a decent quality of service .

Vito

2017-11-26 3:56 GMT+01:00 Mz7 :

> The relationship between net neutrality and the Wikimedia Foundation has
> been described as “complicated” – see [1]. Considering the that the
> Wikimedia Foundation has a zero-rating program of its own (see [2][3]), I’m
> not exactly sure how much this would affect Wikimedia, whether positively
> or negatively. On the one hand, we could take advantage of the change by
> expanding Wikipedia Zero into the United States. On the other hand, that’s
> probably not a good idea because the program is designed to promote access
> to free knowledge in developing countries, where access to the Internet may
> be prohibitively expensive. In a developed country such as the United
> States, that’s not really a prioritized issue.
>
> Mz7
>
> [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/
> 11/25/wikipedias-complicated-relationship-with-net-neutrality/
> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
> [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
>
> --
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mz7
>
> > On Nov 24, 2017, at 5:06 AM, Gerard Meijssen 
> wrote:
> >
> > Hoi,
> > With the demise of net neutrality in the USA, have their been
> consideration
> > for the impact it may have for the services provided by the Wikimedia
> > Foundation?
> >
> > We are reliant on servers in the USA, as the quality of the service in
> the
> > USA is no longer a given, what are the risks?
> > Thanks,
> >  GerardM
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Legal status of Wikimeida lists [Was: Re: The other side of the crisis at WMFR]

[Vi to]

Archives are public, so, IMHO, the list is.

Vito

2017-11-24 11:11 GMT+01:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:

> Saluton ĉiuj,
>
> Le 23/11/2017 à 20:54, Emeric Vallespi a écrit :
>
>> I think it was important to re-explain all those points so that the
>> community, which is - again - unnecessarily taken as witness, is not
>> deceived by a scenario built from scratch.
>> Again, to discredit the movement by such erroneous but public accusations
>> still shows that only personal interests and vainness matter in this
>> conflict with some people.
>>
>> I seize the opportunity to ask: what is the legal status of the list? Is
> it considered public?
>
> I mean, it's easy to subscribe for anyone, but you still have to
> subscribe. And as far as I know, accessing archives require to login. Now
> there are other website which make crawled archives publicly accessible,
> but just because some do that doesn't mean it's legal.
>
> Also I'm not aware of any license regarding posted emails, so plain
> copyright probably apply, minus any exception related to epistolary
> material that might exist.
>
> It might be interesting to make any post to our mailing list a free
> licensed material. I've been thinking about that as I had the idea to
> extensively analyse the wikidata-l mailling list and publish a side by side
> statements and extracted keywords elements, but from a legal point of view
> it is probably not feasible. That might be circumvented with links, or
> providing a software which generate the expected table from provided
> references, but anyway it's less practical than a straight published table.
> Having this material published under a free license would make it far more
> useful in any kind of study with such an extensive goal in its publication.
>
> Now, switching to a free license would not make the change retroactive,
> but it would already cover new material. Also it should be possible to
> contact most posters through their email and ask permission to release
> their previous publications under one or more free licenses and change
> archive metadata accordingly.
>
> Legale,
> mathieu
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia movement under DMCA attack!

[Vi to]

This is a very complex long-term "war" which, in my experience, never ends
in a "reconciliation".

Also, honestly, I don't think how can this comply with wikiversity mission.

Vito


Mail
priva di virus. www.avast.com

<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

2017-11-06 15:30 GMT+01:00 mathieu stumpf guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:

> Thank Chico and Henrique for your reports and related links.
>
> I encourage both of you to document further this topic. But as the mailing
> list format might quickly turn it into a flameware, to avoid list
> moderators some disagreeable work, you could preferably find more suited
> place to develop your points. Punctual feedback on the list to signal
> creation or update of additional external resources is welcome, as far as
> I'm concerned.
>
> You might, inter alia, use wikimedia-timeline[1] to generate an overview
> of main statements you are claiming, each linked to related resources which
> let reader deepen their inquiry on the topic if they have interest and
> resources to do so.
>
> If you are interested to turn that in a research project as objective as
> you might be able to create, I also encourage you to open a research
> project on a Wikiversity instance, after a check of how such a project
> might be conducted on the selected instance. You might also like to create
> and conduct some interviews and publish them on Wikinews.
>
> I hope that the difficult situation you are passing through will end up in
> the most contributive, positive and placid possible resolution.
>
> Kind regards,
> mathieu
>
> [1] https://github.com/molly/wikimedia-timeline
>
>
>
> Le 06/11/2017 à 11:59, Chico Venancio a écrit :
>
>> Ended up with out the links, sorry:
>> [1]http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/wikibrasil.org.html
>> [2]https://www.whois.com/whois/107.180.2.118
>> [3]http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/L9610.htm#art24
>>
>> Chico Venancio
>>
>> 2017-11-06 7:53 GMT-03:00 Chico Venancio :
>>
>> To all on the list, *this is characterization is filled with obvious
>>> lies.*
>>>
>>> The DMCA was filed a month ago simply *DID NOT TAKE the site down*.[1]
>>> Henrique quickly took down the article offending copyright and Godaddy
>>> allowed it to continue to be hosted.[2]
>>>
>>> Henrique is a paid contractor of the user group Wiki Education Brazil
>>> that
>>> has repeatedly harassed several members of our user group (Joalpe and
>>> myself included). And is probably here acting as a Meatpuppet of another
>>> user who is under an Office action interaction ban to interact with
>>> either
>>> myself or João.
>>>
>>> That he goes on an international platform to call on the Dean of the
>>> university were João works is egregious harassment and WMF should not
>>> only
>>> impose severe sanctions, but review both the grant and affiliation
>>> agreements with the "user group" were this comes from.
>>>
>>> On the merits, after the event the organizer harassed several of our
>>> members, and to me it is completely understandable that João does not
>>> want
>>> his name attached to an event that harassed him and others. There was on
>>> more than one occasion hints of physical violence from a member of Wiki
>>> Education Brazil, and at one point those hints came to level of actually
>>> using the words "beating" in reference to another member of our user
>>> group,
>>> Teles, who was also called a famous Wikipedia despot, that he needed
>>> psychiatric attention, and that he needed to find a boyfriend on a public
>>> facebook thread.
>>>
>>> The CC-BY 3.0 Henrique alleges to have on the article is clearly invalid
>>> for several reasons, one being he did not have one from the co-authors of
>>> the work. Even if he did, Brazilian law supersedes it and clearly states
>>> that the author has the inalienable moral right to revoke any license and
>>> remove from circulation in any form when the use represents an affront to
>>> his image or reputation.[3] That Henrique confesses that he, and the user
>>> banned from interacting with myself or Joalpe, knew that license was not
>>> given by João and that an explicit revocation was placed onwiki, only
>>> makes
>>> the copyright violation willful and demonstrates that no assumption of
>>> good
>>> faith can be reasonably made. This was an explicit provocation from the
>>> "User Group" Wiki Education Brazil to João.
>>>
>>> Best to all on the Wikimedia Movement,
>>>
>>> Hoping for a movement with less tolerance for harassment,
>>>
>>> Chico Venancio (User:Chicocvenancio)
>>>
>>> 2017-11-06 1:08 GMT-03:00 Henrique de Andrade <
>>> henriquedeandr...@gmail.com
>>>
 :
 Friends, it took me a month to join forces and get the courage to write
 the
 story below.

 The Wiki Education Brazil user group has had it

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Women in red

[Vi to]

2017-10-16 20:03 GMT+02:00 Lodewijk :


>
>
> While this particular topic seems enwp specific, its theme isn't.


Definitely

The topic is more generic though: should we support projects that are
> considered by some to be a little rough on the edges, or should we only
> pick 'safe' projects that will land well with the community. And how much
> of 'be bold' can be applied to projects that operate at a somewhat larger
> scale.


I think projects with a serious plan to improve contents or expanding
userbase are worth funding. I don't think monetary prizes are the right way
to do it, also I think projects related to contents should focus on quality
rather than quantity, or, at least, they shoul set some decent (and
measurable) quality target.

Vito
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Women in red

[Vi to]

2017-10-16 18:27 GMT+02:00 Robert Fernandez :

> So those who call out sexism are the real sexists, amirite?
>

I wrote a pretty different thing: those who use label as "sexist" anyone
who doesn't *completely* agree with them share a rethorical mean with
sexism.


>
> Some people are allowed to make broad, unsupported, sweeping
> generalizations about the motives and actions of others and that's
> considered just fine,


You're perfectly describing Ori Livneh's statement against me.


2017-10-16 19:11 GMT+02:00 Todd Allen :

>
> But I'm unsure how asking the question "Is it wise to offer money in
> exchange for creating large numbers of articles without consideration of
> quality?" or "Will this effort have the intended result?" is sexist. The
> same question would apply if the proposed articles were about Russian
> literature or asteroids. It is not sexist to ask the question just because
> of what the subject happens to be.


\o/

Vito
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