The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2016-02-03. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.
The 2016 Committee appears to be favoring the idea of dealing with matters as quickly as possible—for the first time in recent memory, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Current is completely devoid of on-wiki arbitration proceedings. A notable event that's absent from this report was the way ArbCom handled the Future Perfect at Sunrise request, just barely declining the case by a vote of 6-7, favoring a motion instead by vote of 7-5. I suspect that had this been the 2015 Committee, we might very well be dealing with a full case right now. Mz7 (talk) 03:40, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I didn't know how to write up that request. I agree that a case should have been made. GamerPro64 03:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Yup, without a doubt. I am not one to readily and openly express misgivings about the mops, but I have to say it seems beyond question to my experience that Future Perfect and TheRamblingMan are amongst the most problematic admins we have had in many years, albeit in very different ways (one is horrifically uncivil but has never so much as twitched towards abusing his tools, whereas the other is generally fairly civil, but has shown a regular and increasing propensity for using their tools in and WP:involved manner to win disputes). When those two began circling each-other, it was obvious that things were about to get really ugly for everyone in their general radius of operation, but the one silver lining that I could see to the situation was that ArbCom's bright light would inevitably be shown on the situation and the above issues hopefully addressed, by desysops if necessary. I have to agree that the decline of this obvious case of a mutual display of conduct unbefitting two admins, which reflects very poorly on the admin corps and the community at large, can only really be explained by timidity in the new committee so soon after it's reconstitution. More's the pity--who knows where this goes now... Snowlet's rap 08:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Well done for spotting that this map is of the wrong Bristol. There are various images on Bristol or associated commons category which could be used more appropriately.— Rodtalk 08:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
OK I've changed the category for the image on commons to stop this happening again. There are so many places named "Bristol" around the world it is an easy mistake to make.— Rodtalk 09:27, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Greetings, While updating the WP Tip of the day there is an open spot (February 28) for a new tip. I did a spinoff of this posting, with a title of Write articles for the Signpost. The first draft is here. It would be posted at the Tips library for the Other ways to contribute section. And BTW a very good writeup asking for help-clear & to the point. Regards, JoeHebda(talk) 15:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Just to be somewhat fair, some of the "Discovery" staff are working on maps + geo / openstreetmap support for our projects and are getting stuff done that has been long requested by the community. (+ the Graph extension is also quite nice)
Also, some of the "discovery" staff has been involved / integral in implementing the Wikidata Query Service [1]) which has also long been needed.
The staff have been lumped together into "discovery" and makes them sound extra well-staffed, but think only some of the staff would be involved in work related to the grant. Aude (talk) 18:05, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
And I can't really comment regarding the grant since i'm not informed enough etc. and want to stay somewhat out of the politics aspects. but am saddened by the entire situations and stuff going on :( Aude (talk) 18:08, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes and to clarify, I am not directing any "fault" at the staff on the discovery team. There are some great programmers there who have been doing excellent work, much of which is definitely needed. This is more about the long term plans for that team as have been expressed to a third party. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
AFAICS, the "Discovery" team has nothing to do with mw:Extension:Graph?! (Yurik announcing live graph extension on May 5, 2015: "Project history: Exactly one year ago, Dan Andreescu (milimetric) and Jon Robson demoed Vega visualization grammar <https://trifacta.github.io/vega/> usage in MediaWiki. The project stayed dormant for almost half a year, until Zero team decided it was a good solution to do on-wiki graphs. The project was rewritten, and gained many new features, such as template parameters. Yet, doing graphs just for Zero portal seemed silly.") --Atlasowa (talk) 19:32, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Yurik is working in the "Discovery" team and continues to support + improve the Graph extension. The initial concept was indeed implemented at the Zurich hackathon in 2014 and used initally for Zero. (anyway, just saying how staff got "lumped" together in the reorganization back in May, and not sure about "extra well staffed" in relation to "knowledge engine". Maybe "well staffed"...) Aude (talk) 23:01, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
@Aude: I hope this includes working on maps + geo / openstreetmap support for the Wikidata Query Service, ala GeoSPARQL. ;) int21h (talk · contribs · email) 02:15, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
@Int21h: I think that does. The query service is being updated to use blazegraph 2.0 which supports + will allow more geo support. Aude (talk) 09:36, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
User:Doc James concluded his tribune by let the facts speak for themselves. Indeed ! The preceding story on the mailing lists was DJ has been ousted for sympathy with the rank and file staffers, against their terrific directors. Not a great success. And now we have: the $250,000 Knight's Grant is the emerging part of a Trojan iceberg. About this new story, one can at least say that "what 10% of our engineering resources are being spent on (ie what exact the discovery team led by Wes Moran is doing)" should be replaced by what 15% of the 90 staffed Product Department lead by Wes Moran are being spent on (i.e. what exactly the 14 staffed Discovery Team led by Tomasz Finc is doing) or by what are doing 8% of the 103 Engineers across the WMF or by anything else that fits the source, i.e. wmf:Staff and contractors. By the way, a detailed review of wmf:Template:Staff and contractors is interesting. First of all, everything has been handwritten, day after day, leading to an horrible mess in the hierarchy of sections. This can reflect some uncertainty in the represented hierarchical structure, or the <joke>difficulty of extracting a view from a database</joke>. Perhaps wmf:User:LilaTretikov should also explain the conspiracy that resulted in ousting the TOC from that page. Pldx1 (talk) 10:16, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
James Heilman: ... following pressure which included comments about potentially removing members of the Board. (7 Nov 2015). What is this? I'm sure Jimmy Wales can assure us that this did not happen at all. -DePiep (talk) 20:17, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I am struggling with the entry for Nov 7, 2015 in the timeline and wonder why in the end Doc James supported the grant. As the entry is written, it leads to the assumption that Doc James supported the Knight Foundation grant more or less because of "pressure which included comments about potentially removing members of the Board". Really? Was this indeed one of the reasons? Would have Doc James opposed the grant or abstained when there would have been no pressure? --AFBorchert (talk) 18:07, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Me too. Let us connect the dots: In the Grant & Knowledge Engine discussion James Heilman received 'comments' about enforced leaving the WMF Board. He then "complied" (gave in). After this, Jimmy Wales correctly (!) can state: "The removal of James as a board member was not due to any disagreement about public discussion of our long term strategy". Indeed: because at that time he had given in to the pressure. (So what new 'discussion' happened after Nov 7?)
And let us not forget: this is about expelling a Board member to decide, not about reaching a decision by discussion/voting. -DePiep (talk) 19:28, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
I see. Check that reply quote, pure gold (bold added):
A poor idea. One of the great strengths of our board is that we have a culture of open, honest, challenging conversations within the board. People are able to raise controversial points privately, and explore "devil's advocate" positions freely. Live broadcast of board meetings would lead to board meetings that would be like the board panel at Wikimania - informative for the community, but not conducive to deep exploration of issues. In particular, this approach would seriously damage the community-elected board members as they would have to gauge their every word against the public perception.
To state the obvious: really, Jimmy Wales does not need to protect community members this way and in hindsight at that to selfserve. He should have stand for such protection when it was needed. Nov 7 for starters. -DePiep (talk) 20:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
These are some interesting documents that will hopefully help connect a few more dots.[3]Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:47, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Yep. For example: "1. Software: ... With the [Knight] Foundation's prior written consent, Grantee [WMF] may use another open source software license approved by the OSI" (p. 5/13 pdf). -DePiep (talk) 21:55, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Posting similar content from JWs talk page. And another few key passages include:
"Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia will be the Internet's first transparent search engine, and the first one originated by the Wikimedia Foundation"
"a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy public information on the Internet"
"would users go to Wikipedia if it were an open channel beyond an encyclopedia"
"federation of open data sources"
"proceed with the search engine project as deliberately as possible - which is what the Wikimedia Foundation is doing"
User:WMoran (WMF) went so far as correcting the Discovery FAQ here on November 5th to clarify that the answer to the "are you building a new search engine" question was not "no" but "we are not building Google". Of course we are not building Google. That product has already been build by someone. And than User:Peteforsyth corrected the question to match the answer on Jan 9th.[4]
Regarding the "WMF staff have responded" bit: there has been no reaction since the error they made was identified: they count all responses, regardless of the value entered. (The first two days the survey was online, users had to specify "times experienced" for all the types of harassment listed, skipping items was not allowed).
As I wrote on the talk page: The raw data proves that the response count they based the percentages on included responses where users entered '0' (or at least values smaller than 1), since the average and standard deviation listed for "hacking" and "revenge porn" are impossible when all values fall within the range 1 to 100 (Bhatia–Davis inequality). If they claim otherwise, they should publish all the responses given for either "hacking" or "revenge porn". Or let an independent third party examine the data. Prevalence (talk) 07:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
61% of people who claimed to experience harassment in Wikimedia experienced Revenge Porn? I find that number somewhat incredible. Even if we assume that every respondent who experienced harassment responded to this survey (and thus avoid trying to extrapolate the percentages), that means that 3845*0.38*0.61=EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY ONE Wikimedians experienced revenge porn as harassment. Were there really 891 separate incidents of revenge porn harassment on WMF sites since Wikipedia's founding in 2000? 60 a year? Is anyone aware of a single case of revenge porn harassment of Wikimedians? I'm not going to ask for a link or even description; wouldn't want to promote such conduct if it's occurred, but to me these numbers just strain credulity. Maybe I'm underestimating what gets uploaded to Wikimedia's image servers, though. 97.93.100.146 (talk) 00:21, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
This is yet another piece of work that WMF have invested in that is pretty much news to me. Time and again, project after project, we see the WMF taking some unilateral action that affects, or has the potential to affect, enwiki without this community being consulted. But this is telling:
"However, I was too afraid of engaging the community early on.
Why do you think that was?"
The enwiki community seems, in my view, to have become incredibly conservative when it comes to embracing new ideas, and often expresses that conservatism in bitey ways that often involve ganging up on WMF staff and verge on incivility. It's little wonder the WMF are afraid to engage with the community at the inception of these projects; we, the enwiki community, make it incredibly hard for them, especially when a concept isn't yet fully formed (which is exactly when it's most important that the engagement takes place).
I'm not making excuses for the WMF's lack of engagement with the community over projects like this, Gather, and others. But I do appreciate that engaging with us lot has become a daunting task and if we want WMF to engage more, we as a community need to be a bit more receptive to new ideas and welcome that engagement when it comes. WaggersTALK 09:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I am not sure that it is limited only to verging on incivility. MPS1992 (talk) 19:09, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Some like the Community Tech team[5] however do an excellent job intereacting with the wider movement. Our communities realize that we have issues and have many ideas regarding how to improve things. The EN community does not wish to stay exactly the same but contains the knowledge of what has been tried previously and some of the reasons why other things may not have succeeded. Other communities contain similar knowledge basis. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:44, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Lila Tretikov asking "Why do you think that was?" is a bit 'rich' as in 'poor', given that everybody is shoutingly asking: "why did you think that?". -DePiep (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
The WMF I think knows that we don't need them. Ms. Tretikov is hesitant to address the community and well she should be, because she knows she's an interloper diverting funds raised by our work. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I sincerely applaud that you are defending Lila Tretikov, Waggers. It is easy to be too harsh in criticizing both her & the Foundation for their recent actions. However, I must point out that it is the paid job of the CEO or ED of a corporate body to do hard things. Going to the volunteer communities to sell the Knowledge Engine, on a scale of 1 to 10, is about a 5: while there will be a lot of volunteers who will criticize it properly for not being what the majority considers a top priority, there are also a lot of volunteers who could be convinced to let her do it -- if she made the effort to reach out. And if she is skittish about talking to the community about something that is a challenge -- but not a serious one -- how is she going to handle a real challenge? Standing up to Jimmy Wales when he is wrong about something is easily a 9. (And yes, Wales has been known to be wrong. More than once.) If she admits that she can't do hard tasks, then maybe she should find somewhere else to earn her paycheck. -- llywrch (talk) 06:25, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
On the point about James Heilman shepherding the first Wikipedia article through peer review in an academic journal, I agree, it's a very significant milestone.
Those interested in the idea of Wikipedia publishing reliable versions of our articles should also be aware of Daniel Mietchen's achievements. Among his many roles, Daniel is the editor of PLOS Computational Biology's"Topic Pages", where topics not covered (or just stubs) on en. Wikipedia are written up as articles, submitted to the journal for peer review and published under a Wikipedia-compatible license, like "Inferring Horizontal Gene Transfer". The peer-reviewed version is then pasted into Wikipedia with attribution like this: Inferring horizontal gene transfer. So, Daniel's model is the reverse of James's - Daniel's begins with a journal article that is then republished in Wikipedia, James's with a Wikipedia article that is then republished in a journal. But both have the same very valuable result: a version of the article hosted on Wikipedia that is a Wikipedia:Reliable source.
All articles like these, that have a version that meets en.Wikipedia's reliable sources guideline, should be celebrated, and should have a prominent badge at the top, linking the reader to the peer-reviewed version (either off-wiki, or in the article's revision history). --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:13, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Signpost advised "This (Lila Tretikov post about Knowledge Engine) is worth reading in full". I took it.
I heartily agree that when in June 2015 one thinks "I had begun visualizing open knowledge existing in the shape of a universe" (the shape of a universe?!), with a "rocket": That is not suitable for an open discussion. Instead, I say, someone should call a doctor at that point. (It does serve great as a claim for 'I invented', though). Surprisingly, without being tested in any way, that universe + rocket visualisation already had materialised in a serious multi-staged project funding. "This work is fundamental and core to our longterm progress" says Jimbo Wales. This all written in hindsight.
Then, enters the Doctor we asked for! (James Heilman, to be precise). Itchingly, Lila Tretikov stops her (post-time) description of her thinking/acting process right when James entered the Board. Six months not thinking/acting, James leaves the Board, and uppa: thinking/acting again.
In short: the personal-only talk (Jimmy Wales supports) is missing six months. Exactly those with & about James Heilman. What a lousy piece. I feel abused. -DePiep (talk) 00:38, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I think there is an argument of "you can't compete with google or other corporations", but open source field has many successful examples before us. I mean firefox vs. IE, Linux vs. Windows... I just don't understand why people get so pessimistic and insist to have the grant to use elsewhere... --Liang (WMTW) (talk) 11:03, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
We can definitely can compete with Google, look at Google Knol. We just cannot compete with Google using the same methods as Google (ie we cannot compete with Google without the direct and sometimes messy involvement of all of us) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I have to admit, even having followed this issue intently for a while, I've been having an exceedingly difficult time deciding--once we put the aggravating transparency issues, which are a concern unto themselves, to the side--if this is a matter we should all be deeply concerned about or just a great deal of unnecessary hand-wringing. But I will say this much: what worries me most is the suggestion that there is serious investigation of whether or not to alter the core function of the Wikipedia.org domain. The Knowledge Engine in itself is an interesting concept, assuming the reading above is essentially accurate--I certainly take a similar view away from the slides and the other scant communicated details. But where I can see it as a potentially powerful tool in the Wikimedia hierarchy, occupying a role a parallel to (and somewhat between) Wikipedia and Wikidata, the notion that it might be merged with (some might even say, supplant) the current project that sits in that space today, with profound implications for the encyclopedia, its community of contributors and the movement at large is a disorienting enough idea that there's no way even initial investigation into the technical mechanics should have been explored before vetting the general concept with the community.
I'm usually a staunch defender of the WMF's pereogative on these sorts of matters, and their need to lead an innovate to some degree. But I'm starting to be won over by the critics here; there seems to be fundamental change in the outlook of the foundation taking place, and I really hope some efforts can be made fast to arrest the growing gulf between it and the community of volunteers. Jimbo, as always, seems to be the man to take the lead here; I for one have not been disabused of the notion that he is genuinely dedicated to transparency and to avoiding anything that even resembles a commercialized model for WMF projects, but at present, not nearly enough is being done to get us all on to the same page as to how we further adapt the project without jettisoning some of the fundamental concepts that have gotten us where we are today. I'm a little unnerved about where this might all go. Snowlet's rap 21:48, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm a brand new contributor, as in, I have just created this account today. I can tell you guys for a fact that the reason I have not contributed thus far is because I don't agree or enjoy the fact that all this information is being collected from me. I know it's something that's agreed to upon choosing to use the site. I am one of the few determined dorks that still reads the entire pricy policy and EULA for all the products that I use. (although, you ought to really make those a little bit easier to understand, no one appreciates purposeful lawyer jargon) I'm aware of what's happening, (at least now I am) It's still a bit uncomfortable to take in. Here's the thing, at first I don't know if it was my imagination or what, but it felt like these articles changed so rapidly, or the content was so efficiently user data generated, the site had a mind of it's own. If I come on a site to do research and to learn something new, I want to do just that. I personally want to put the work into it. I don't what the site itself trying to over convenience my search because then I might miss out on stumbling upon something else that's extra fascinating. When I do come on to wikipedia, I no longer use is as a source of reference because it is inherently distracting I can't even stay on the same topic for more than 5 minutes without it demonstrating 6 degrees of separation in terms of content. I use it to keep myself occupied, but I don't use it as a stable trusted resource. I think it's getting out of hand. What's even crazier to me is how finely pinpointed data driven ads have become now too not just in the realm of wikipedia. I swear on my life, when data triggered capabilities were becoming newly implemented, I thought someone was playing a cruel joke on me my phone would be so creepily specific. I was sure when of my more intelligent friends was getting the better half of me. Either that, or my phone computer and other devices had suddenly become sentient. All of these new ideas seem backed by the nobel cause never ending pursuit of knowledge. I'm completely for that! But knowledge doesn't come from my computer or tablet. It doesn't come from what I click on my tablet, or what I've been recorded saying or doing. Sure, you can breach my privacy and learn 'stuff' about me. But stuff and knowledge isn't the same guys. Computers will always lack the most wonderful parts of the living, human, cognitive process. Tech will always lack the flaws, the creativity, the vulnerability, the emotion. It just simply doesn't translate right and never will, we're meant to learn form each other. The internet was absolute wonderful for bringing us closer than ever as a global society, but when you let the machines do all of the work, they just butt in and further the widen.
What DID inspire me to contribute to the post today specifically, was the (only slightly) larger presence of clear concise information you all have presented about your ideas, where the sites going, etc. I've probably found a couple dozen other open dialogs around here that are similar, but everyone sure likes to tiptoe around the issue. I, like many others, truly appreciate honesty and transparency. I think that even though this can be a tough and scary conversation, that people will form their negative or positive opinions regardless once they finally figure it out. And I feel that you're a big enough enough company that you'll do what you want anyway. Theres no reason to hide or dodge it. It's more respectful to engage your users and allow them to more easily know your ambitions and intentions as a company. If people are anything like me, they'll dig and find out what they need to know anyway.
I just have one more thing to say, although my response today may have come off a bit hypercritical, I want to say don't think the sites ambitions are a bad thing. I think that your actions are justified. I still don't necessarily agree with the concept personally, but I still always like maintain an open mind. I would love to hear some more from you guys! How does the grant work, anyhow? I would really love some more information on that too. I apologize for the length, I had so much to say. Hopefully this at least gives you some valuable insight.
One of the causes of tension between the WMF and the community is that instead of investing in the IT changes we think we want the WMF invests in software that they think we want. Hence the despair of anyone like myself who has tried to make suggestions through phabricator and bugzilla. There are a bunch of search related software investments that I think the community would welcome:
The Geograph cracked locality years ago. Their site includes tabs for things like "more images nearby", it would be great if Wikimedia Commons, WikiTravel and yes maybe even Wikipedia had this at least as an option.
I talked recently to some Georgian wikipedians who have problems with the way search engines don't include their version of Wikipedia. I think they need something like redirects to articles written in Georgian for people typing Georgian terms with Latin or Cyrillic alphabets; But I'm sure whatever their IT needs some direct dialogue with the WMF and some programmer time would be welcome.
I've tried to interest the WMF in some presentations I've attended here in the UK on image recognition software. Imagine how much more effective categorisation would be on Commons if you could search for images that look like the one in front of you.
Along with users Leutha and Rich Farmbrough I have been working on image adding both as a new newbie activity and to digest the vast amount of imagery coming from programs such as GLAM. Search and discovery could make a huge difference here.
If the Knowledge Engine is merely a concept in search of some concrete suggestions then I'd like to offer those four as a starter for things that search and discovery could do. If however there are some concrete but not yet disclosed suggestions as to what the Knowledge engine will mean then the sooner they are revealed the less additional anger in the community. ϢereSpielChequers 16:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales should clean up his language
I hope that was just a conversation which was intended to be private (but nothing on Wikipedia really is) and not an official statement.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:56, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Grant Paperwork
Grant paperwork is only relevant if this is a WMF initiated project.
To me it sounds like it is an externally initiated project, which can only be realized in a WMF context.
I surmise therefore that some external entities has approached the WMF with this project and the money to pay for it.
In which case grant paperwork is not relevant.
Jan Pedersen (talk) 14:27, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Per the paperwork below this was a WMF initiated project. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
I was going to comment on an obvious problem, but this is Wikipedia. I can change it!— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:38, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
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