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Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

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Contents

Restrict or abolish local file uploading to Meta-Wiki[edit]

The following discussion is closed: This discussions is closed. The results are 38 support vs. 19 opposes (there is a rough tally in the notes, at the bottom). From the discussion, there is enough support for restricting local file uploads, but there are genuine concerns here for uploads related to chapter reports, wikimania bidding, etc.. hence, if this is abolished there should be an alternative presented - either an uploader usergroup or some form of concession to not impede the existing usage of meta. Theo10011 (talk) 20:48, 10 June 2013 (UTC),
TL;DR: Whether Meta-Wiki should abolish or restrict local file uploading, jump to conclusions

I would like to propose that we either abolish file uploading entirely in favor of Wikimedia Commons, or that we restrict the right to upload files to Meta to an 'uploader' usergroup.


I.- Introduction

Most of what is uploaded here is:

a) deleted (copyvios, out of scope stuff, etc.).
b) files perfectly suitable for Wikimedia Commons.
c) files missing essential information of source/licence/permission (but once linked anywhere Meta:Deletion policy prohibits deleting which is nonsense).


II.- Abolition

Meta-Wiki does not have a fair use policy. Meta:Fair use has been in draft status since 2008 and was never approved nor half discussed. All files tagged as such are in violation of the wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy. In a recent RFD in which several people participated we deleted several files irregulary hosted as "fair use" images based on the absence of a local EDP and the WMF resolutions.

As I see things, there's no reason why freely and appropiately licensed files should be uploaded here rather than to Wikimedia Commons, where they for sure will be best mantained. I can't see a reason of allowing local file uploading given the existence of Wikimedia Commons unless the project does explicity accept fair use, which is not our case.

It is also notable that there are not much people interested in doing image maintenance here. That has the potential result of off-topic files and copyright violations to be hosted here for a long time before anyone notices, as it's happening now.

Given that, I propose that we abolish file uploading to Meta. We have a central Wikimedia Commons project with a very active community specialized in image maintenance which can be used for this. They have the tools for that.


III.- Restrictions

If, on the other hand, Meta still wants to keep the ability to upload files locally, I'd beg to consider placing a restriction on who can upload files here. Most of what is (correctly) uploaded and licensed here could have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons without any problems.

a) If local uploading is kept, I think that we should restrict such uploading to the strictly necessary. That is currently things which can not be uploaded to commons because of —primary— commons:COM:PS (since copyrighted files aren't suposed to be stored here either) and to users that know what Meta is about. I'd suggest to restrict uploading to autoconfirmed users and/or administrators as some projects already do. This will ensure a low level of uploads, and from people that is expected to know basics for licensing and copyright (hopefully).
b) And just in case Meta-Wiki decided that fair use should be allowed here; I'd suggest to restrict local uploading to a 'uploader' usergroup (and admins) so that only approved users could upload files here that are not suitable for Wikimedia Commons due to licensing problems. The uploader permission would be granted to users that has basic understanding of licensing issues (esp. fair use) so they could just upload fair use files locally, uploading the free files on Wikimedia Commons.
IV.- Conclusion

I think that the most simple action would be to abolish entirely local uploading and start transferring local freely licensed files to Wikimedia Commons.

But I also can see a possible need of having local uploads in case a copyrighted files need to be uploaded because there's no free substitute for it (ie.: on bids, grants, fundraising, etc.). For that we would need to develop a decent EDP. However if we're going to host images (specially non-free) we need people interested in oversighting such activities or DMCAs and lawsuits could start to fly.

Please share your thoughts and opinions. I hope that this is not Yet Another Ignored ThreadTM on this subject. Thanks for reading.
-- MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:52, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

  • Support Support Obviously a good idea. No reason to host files here generally. There may be some very valid reasons for one or two people uploading them but that can easily be dealt with (I'm thinking WMF report type ones). --Herby talk thyme 15:57, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Support for restricting local file uploading. Mathonius (talk) 16:01, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • support, reasonable idea. As a minimum, it should be restricted to autopatrolled users (this way the right can also be "managed" a bit). Creating yet another user group (uploaders) seems unnecessary to me. --MF-W 17:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • It seems awfully premature to discuss restricting uploading here when nobody has reviewed what's already been uploaded here. I'd start by moving files to Commons where appropriate and deleting anything that's no longer needed. Then we can see where we are and how we want to move forward with what's remaining. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
    • What do you mean? I do know what kind of files appear on Special:Log/upload. --MF-W 00:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
      • I believe MZ is suggesting that we should go through the files that already exist on Meta (of which there are many!) to evaluate whether they should be moved to Commons. However, Meta does seem to get quite a steady stream of uploads so restricting existing uploads could help with the clean up as it would ensure no more files could be added to the clean up workload unnecessarily. Thehelpfulone 00:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
        • Yes, I'm suggesting going through Special:ListFiles and moving files to Commons as appropriate or deleting files as appropriate. Once we do that, we can see what remains here at Meta-Wiki and determine whether restricting local uploading makes sense. If local uploading needs to be restricted right now due to misuse or abuse, there's always the AbuseFilter. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
        • Coordination draft page. Feel free to improve: Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta/Image review 2013. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 20:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
          • Well, but when I look at Special:Listfiles and/or Special:Log/upload, I see that most uploads are either from/for chapters (unfortunately often without license info - to be changed of course), or get deleted as out of scope for Meta. Restricting uploads to e.g. autoconfirmed users would probably already take away most of the out of scope stuff, which gets randomly uploaded here (without license info, of course). --MF-W 01:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
            • "Restricting uploads to e.g. autoconfirmed users would probably ..." Except that it is already restricted to the autoconfirmed/confirmed users. Ruslik (talk) 03:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
              • Autoconfirmed isn't great for this, as attaining autoconfirmed status here is trivial. Something like Special:AbuseFilter/66 might do. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:24, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
                • Oh, I meant autopatrolled. --MF-W 15:19, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
                  • Hmm, autopatrolled wouldn't be helpful either. It is also a trivial right and we currently have 1,382 users flagged as such. If we choose to restrict file uploading (and not the option to abolish it entirely) I think we need a more restricted group for this IMHO, so we can ensure that uploads are being done by people who knows what they're doing :) -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support I have never really seen why this project needs local files. Non-free files are not allowed here, and other files should ideally be on Commons. Also, files in Category:Images with unknown source and Category:Images with unknown license tend to remain here for several years whereas Commons deletes them a lot faster. Commons users are better at handling these kinds of things. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support abolishing local uploading all-together. Just no need to put files here. Courcelles 15:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support abolishing local uploads, in accordance with the Licence policy of the WMF. Also meta:Fair use is not only a proposed policy from 2008, it also is not in accordance to copyright laws in the US and thus is inegible as an EDP.--Snaevar (talk) 19:22, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Strong support, per above. On Wikidata, we have completely disabled uploading (see). --Ricordisamoa 19:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Most projects don't need local uploads, and having allowed it here is redundant at this point. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support restricting to uploader group only, and immediately, with clean-up to follow. I spend a fair amount of time reviewing images uploaded here and most are out of scope, copied from Commons, or not tagged properly for copyright. What remains are suitable for Commons. Tagging them for {{nld}} results in no, or very delayed, action from the Meta sysops. I've raised this before that I don't see the point in actually tagging files for delayed deletion because nobody seems very interested in dealing with it, so let's move it to Commons. QuiteUnusual (talk) 09:14, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support This is a good idea. If specialized projects don't need a function that will only be prone to abuse, there is no reason to keep it around. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:05, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Until/unless a non-free policy is approved, there's really no reason to have local uploads here. Free and appropriatly documented files used here will automatically be "in scope" at Commons, so no problems on that count. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support I don't see much point. Numbermaniac (talk) 10:43, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support - Like above, I don't see a point in uploading here... iXavier (talk) 22:24, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support For totally abolish local uploading here. --Γλαύκος (talk) 06:09, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support - Free-licensed files on Commons will definitely be better maintained. Plus we don't have a local fair use policy. -Mys_721tx(talk) 20:07, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support Actually, a fair use policy was drafted for meta. Nonetheles, I still think that Commons is where all of these questions will be dealt with more expertise. Therefore, Meta images should be uploaded on Commons, strenghtening the connection between the projects, and shifting the workload of maintaning images here Phelps246 (talk) 06:11, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support cutting off new uploads to Meta. Existing files can then be transferred to Commons or deleted as necessary. The only reason why local uploads would ever be necessary on Meta would be for fair-use media, which for some reason seems unlikely on such a website as Meta. harej (talk) 21:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support, per Herby. Trijnsteltalk 09:40, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support CFynn (talk) 06:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC) In the long run, it should be much easier to manage and maintain things by keeping all media on Commons. There is already a common log-in for all sites.
  • Oppose Oppose and what about chapters reports, financial statement , fudnraising agreements, etc.? these files have nothing to do on Commons. Charles Andrès (WMCH) 08:07, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    Why not? commons:Category:Wikimedia chapters contains several subcategories of local chapters that have uploaded there those financial statements and chapter reports, etc. over there (ie: commons:Category:Wikimedia France). -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:37, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    See my comment below. Deryck C. 15:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    Maybe because we should stop to fill Commons with documents that have nothing to do with the purpose of this project? Meta is here for global coordination, Commons is one project, I think it's a severe bias to use commons as a repository for wikimedia movement entities.--Charles Andrès (WMCH) 06:24, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose per Charles Andrès. Not all documents produced or curated by Wikimedia initiatives are CC-By-SA compatible. For example, working documents of Wikimania bids and other Wikimedia conferences are often produced by a third-party. These are customarily uploaded to Meta, but since they're produced by a third-party without being explicitly licensed as CC-By-SA, they'll be deleted if uploaded to Commons. Abolishing local uploading for autoconfirmed users would mean there's nowhere these documents could go, and would ironically give disproportionate power to, erm, Wikimedians who are close friends with Meta admins. Deryck C. 15:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support, but with an exemption policy covering some sorts of files—for instance those mentioned by Stefan2 below and Deryck just above me. (I can be persuaded that we can use external links for pictures of buildings in FOP-less countries.) In the latter case, I think that Meta should only allow files which are not own work of the uploader, for instance scans of documents and letters of support created for bidding purposes. All materials which are created entirely by chapters and which could be copyrighted by them or their employees should go directly to Commons. odder (talk) 16:22, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Comment (edit conflict): note Grants:Retrospective 2009-2012#Require grant reports to be entirely hosted on Meta, or another Foundation site. If that becomes a legal/official/codified requirement on WMF's end, restricting uploads on Meta won't be possible, unless unfree uploads are allowed on Commons instead (or a new wiki is created on purpose...). --Nemo 16:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Can't we just require those to be licensed under some free licence? --Stefan2 (talk) 16:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
      • Precisely — I cannot see a reason for them not to be released under a free licence if they are created by chapters or other Wikimedia entities. odder (talk) 16:58, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
        • No, we can't, if it's really all documents. Letters from others, receipts, estimates and all sorts of documents produced by others will not be under a free license and there's no way to force them to. --Nemo 06:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose. ALTERNATIVE: Something along the lines of MarcoAurelio's temporary measure makes more sense to me. No one is saying that more than a relatively tiny number of files (at most) each of which took a lot of effort to create, need to be uploadable here. So limiting the number of uploads (e.g. to 1 per 30 edits) and requiring a captcha would address the problem while creating less of a problem than abolishing uploads. We certainly shouldn't be deleting or refusing to host Wikimania bids. We should have a proper EDP. And, the idea of deleting stuff that has a valid fair use claim (and is otherwise appropriate here) is an impressively inane and pointy non-solution to the problem of needing to adopt one.--Elvey (talk) 21:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    • All users who can upload files also have the "skipcaptcha" user right, so the captcha would automatically be skipped. Why can't we demand a free licence for Wikimania bid files? --Stefan2 (talk) 21:39, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
      • Um, no. You're confused or making a straw man argument. I'm proposing requiring a captcha be solved for each upload, period. Not for each user without the skipcaptcha user right or any other right. (Excluding admins would be fine though.) I'm not concerned ATM with the technical implementation of my proposal. Because it would discourage bids, and complicate others, etc. Question has already been asked and answered differently elsewhere. --Elvey (talk) 21:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
  • My opinion has been repeatedly requested on this matter. I oppose this idea. Meta-Wiki already suffers from too many restrictions, it needs to be more open. --Nnemo (talk) 22:40, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    What other restrictions? Meta is the project where any autoconfirmed user can edit the Main Page. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:28, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    Are you kidding ? For example, the other day I wanted to edit the huuuge edit notice here : meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Main_Page/WM_News&action=edit. First problem : it was sooo difficult to find where it is. And, once I had found the place of this edit notice, second problem : it is locked. So I left this edit notice in its poor state. --Nnemo --Nnemo (talk) 18:40, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support I believe that Meta-Wiki should stay 'meta' and the uploads should be moved on to Commons as even the existing data on other wikis is being transferred. Cyan.aqua (talk) 10:28, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose What is the point of requiring reports (I'm thinking in particular of financial reports) to be freely modifiable ? As such, they should not be uploaded on commons; instead, if the meta policy does not allow for these files, the policy should be modified. There is no reason to call them copyvio or to talk about fair use -- I agree that they should be freely distributable (I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise), I agree that some of the content should be reusable in other contexts (e.g. template, maybe some text), but a free license allowing any kind modification sounds wrong. Schutz (talk) 11:23, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    The point in requiring to be freely modifiable: 1. It's a wiki principle. 2. What if someone wants to make a new report and copy the format of an old one? PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:28, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    And, of course, to make the license compatible with other projects. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:31, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    1. We are not talking about wiki pages here, but e.g. PDF documents. And a principle should not be applied blindly; what works for articles, photos, etc, does not automatically translate to any kind of document. Looking at a couple of examples (e.g. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Jul-Dec%2712_Mid-year_financials2.pdf), even the WMF does not tag its financial report with a free licence. 2. Yes, I mentioned this above, but it's a huge stretch from "copying the format" and "allowing any modification, including changing some figures and redistributing the file". Schutz (talk) 20:01, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose. I do agree that there is a lot of useless images here at Meta, and staff like File:Feldmark2.jpg (just a random pick) should go to Commons or be deleted. However, at least three types of files definitely should be allowed: 1
    1. photos of non-free buildings. If there is no way to upload photos here and they are systematically deleted from Commons, countries without FOP will be disadvantaged during all biding processes - e.g. Wikimédia France will either have to choose old venues that are at least 70 years old or be unable to illustrate their bid with pictures of the venue.
    2. documents that concern Wikimedia projects but were not created by their volunteers (e.g. letters of support, government resolutions if they are not PD etc.)
    3. internal documents (e.g. financial reports) that are free to distribute but just do not need be modified and have nothing to do on Commons
    I think an EDP is definitely needed for Meta, as none of the abovementioned points is againts the free culture spirit and all of the above is definitely useful for Meta — NickK (talk) 23:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support I see three problems with uploading files to Meta-Wiki:
  1. Unnecessary maintenance of multiple sites for uploaded content instead of managing centrally on Commons, with all associated benefits i.e. Commons users who are familiar with, even prefer to work with uploaded content;
  2. Lack of effective filtering for uploaded files; On Commons, bots and editor-initiated processes are well-established. They flag or confirm license status, otherwise vet uploaded files, assign categories etc. Meta-Wiki does not have, nor does it need that. Meta-Wiki's function is not as an encyclopedia, but as WMF administration (non-computing "back end" for Wikipedia?)
  3. Website security can be compromised by file uploads from users. It happened at Adobe. I don't know what measures are in place to mitigate such exposure on Commons, but I'm not concerned. Commons has system admins who watch for that sort of trouble. Meta-Wiki is very different than Commons or local Wiki's, e.g. traffic volume, type of edits. It shouldn't be used for purposes that it wasn't designed, as that will potentially cause unnecessary vulnerability and exposure. File upload-related security problems aren't necessarily malicious by intent! A file containing malware could be uploaded without knowledge that it was harmful.
I DO believe that files needed by Meta-Wiki to conduct Meta-Wiki related business should reside on the Meta-Wiki website, not Commons. That's part of an EDP discussion though. --FeralOink (talk) 04:53, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose per Charles Andrès. Some files actually make sense to host here. Kaldari (talk) 07:46, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support Remove all files from Meta and disallow future uploads. Arguments in opposition by Charles Andrès, Deryck C, Elvey, and Schutz are not persuasive to me and the arguments in support are. Some of the reasons for opposition include Commons not being a repository for documents, but I think that it should become one. Some files uploaded on Meta are not free files and cannot be uploaded on Commons, but neither are they legally allowed on Meta and should be deleted from here anyway. Some documents are not modifiable, but I think they should be if anyone chooses to adapt them. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Strong support I really do not see any valid logical reason to upload anything here instead of at commons. Especially when I look at uploads like (arbitrarily selected) Jimmybannerfeb5.png stating This file is from Wikimedia Commons and may be used by other projects. --SaS-137 • Talk to me on de.wikimedia.org 07:41, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Strong support. All these documents are intended to be made by and for the community. Commons is the place for these documents. Only the documents made and protected by the WMF, with an exclusive WMF copyright, because they are official statements of the Foundation (including Board meeting minutes, resolutions, official policies, legal statuses and statements) should be uploaded in the WMF site which is already restricted. All other documents should be modifiable by the community, shared freely and openly, and reusable ; note that some WMF documents will need to be translated, and the WMF site should still include a section for hosting non official translations that will be contributed, but published with a restricted copyright under a different policy. The WMF may want to freeze some translations that have been reviewed. For now these documents are initially translated on Meta, but links are difficult to verify so the WMF site should include a distinct namespace fpr translations without using Meta, or Meta could host an unofficial copy of all protected contents in the WMF site used only as a monolingual reference (and not needing any translation, except those that the XMF will occasionally approve; the WMF site can provide a link to Meta for informational translations and for the associated community talk pages). verdy_p (talk) 01:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose If for some reason uploading a file to Commons - essentially the place for it - is denied or unsuccessful, there is a need for an escape. What better alternative we have than Meta ? Greetings and salutations from a too cold Tuscany,  Klaas|Z4␟V:  12:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support restriction to an "upload" usergroup. Pseudonymous Rex (talk) 20:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support of course. Having documents here sucks, makes it impossible to include them on other wiki's. Multichill (talk) 20:04, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Strong support Mi ecx proponis ion simile en Vikipedio/Incluso propuse algo similar en Vikipedio (Esperanto). --Flag of Santiago de Cali.svg Remuxx - Nunca Olvidaré, que me enamoré de la más hermosa flor. Cxu mi povas helpi vin iel? 02:41, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose the wholesale deletion of non-free files without any regard for their usefulness or importance for the movement. It's not clear that Meta even needs an EDP, and if it does, it could easily have a simple one that satisfies the need to host Wikimedia-related non-free documents while barring others. The urge to delete everything in sight should be resisted. Nathan T 16:37, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Strong support --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose, until an EDP can be assessed. There are many documents that make sense to have on Meta (non-modifiable reports, documents that contain material developed by a third party that may not be freely licenceable, eg: external audit reports), which cannot go on Commons. Obviously any file that can go onto Commons should be moved there and removed from Meta. Craig Franklin (talk) 04:08, 1 June 2013 (UTC).
  • I agree with Nathan and Craig Franklin. We should move slowly and carefully to ensure that important files don't get lost (accidentally deleted) or mangled in transfer to Commons, where appropriate. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:11, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support SupportMeta is not particularly effective at enforcing what policies it does have, and with the half-hearted nature of most policy discussions here it seems unlikely there will ever even be a local policy on non-free images, which meta doesn't really need anyway. Better to just not have local uploads at all than to do a shoddy job at it. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose The idea is not bad in it self, but I have a gut feeling that there is more to it (I mean negative sideeffects we do not think of right now). Soulman (talk) 16:23, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
    • OK, but that could apply to any change of any kind. If an unexpected problem occurs (can't imagine what it would be, assuming the restriction rather than outright ban is implemented, and if one does we can fix it then or if necessary roll ourselves back the previous state. Herostratus (talk) 04:08, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Neutral Maybe. No way I could support an outright ban on uploading. Limiting it to a small class of editors with a special userright would be fine. (I don't see a problem with creating and deploying an "uploader" userright.) After all, it's not like Meta needs huge numbers of files, and as the nom points out that, unlike Commons and the encyclpedias, Meta is not really set up to have a file-vetting group, and apparently doesn't have one, and so we have a bunch of questionable files, and that's not acceptable. The reason I can't support an outright ban on uploading is that there is a movement to spin off Commons into an independent organization, and while this seems unlikely now, this movement may some day succeed. And then Meta would have no way to get files. Herostratus (talk) 04:08, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose I oppose abolishment of uploading to meta, but I support requiring a fairly easy to get user flag/group based on interwiki (SUL) status/contributions on primary project(s) to upload. Technical 13 (talk) 19:16, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support Similar thing exists in Russian Wikipedia. --Синкретик (talk) 10:38, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose per above; people want the WMF to do more work on public wikis, which means uploading more reports and documents here. Similarly, there is information related to Wikimania and the affiliated orgs, glam work, etc (sometimes non-free files) that makes sense to end up on meta. I sympathize with the problem of copyvio images getting uploaded here, but there are some kinds of files that I think make sense to have on meta. I'd support an edit restriction and/or file policy to tighten down on inappropriate uploads, as discussed below. -- phoebe talk 18:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support --Glaisher (talk) 12:16, 5 June 2013 (UTC)Good idea
  • Support Support Es:WP has voted for not to upload images several years ago. Meta doesn't need any picture - could take everything from Commons, as es:WP make every day since 2006. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 11:01, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Follow up

As a temporary measure while this is resolved I have just activated the proposed MZMcBride's edit filter, raising the limits to 30 edits before a user is able to upload anything. As we speak, Meta continues to be flooded by innapropiate files and I'm deleting a bunch of recent copyvios now. From those that have commented here I see there's consensus in favor to restrict local uploading. If so, which restriction do we want to set? Absolutely no local uploads or allow certain users to upload, and under which conditions? -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

  • It will not made sense to me to allow local uploads if we do not allow unfree content. And if we are going to allow unfree content, do we have the capacity (community interested, tools, etc.) to oversight how that unfree content is being uploaded and kept? I do not think we have any of this right now sadly. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I think we do if we make it a bit harder to upload stuff. The problem isn't very big even without your temporary measure, I see under 3 uploads on most days and 0 uploads in the last 10 days; we have make the problem pretty damn small with your fix and the one I proposed above would make the oversight an even smaller job. There's no need to smash a fly with a sledgehammer, as this proposal would do if implemented.--Elvey (talk) 04:13, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't see any point in accepting local file uploads if Meta only allows files which are allowed on Commons anyway. If an EDP is created, it may be better to restrict uploads to a separate uploader usergroup which is granted to users who need to upload files. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I see no reason for an EDP here. Disable local uploads completely. --MF-W 13:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I do see use for an EDP - and have run into it myself. Meta can be used for many things, including talking about what is happening on other projects. Since there is no way to transclude files from a non-Commons project, if you are writing an essay or using examples from projects that have an EDP, the related materials (or remixes of them) should be hostable here. Similarly, partner press releases that might include fair use media should also be hostable here.
My proposal: have an EDP which is, roughly, the union of all other Wikimedia EDPs. (Derivatives of files that are allowed on at least one of our wikis should be allowed here - under the same fair-use or other conditions.) Uploads should be restricted to a usergroup. MZM's hack should be ok for now; a proper usergroup makes sense. –SJ talk  14:36, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
How would that EDP work? For example, the EDP on English Wikipedia heavily depends on how you wish to use an image and on which page you wish to use it. A file which is OK on one page may be unacceptable on another page, and Meta will obviously not use the file on the same page. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Per Stefan2. That EDP would be too wide in scope that would defeat the purpose that fair use should be kept at minimal and to be used only when really needed. Such a wide in scope EDP would even tresspass IMHO the borders of the fair use doctrine, pretending that a Wiki policy is above of the Law; not to talk that fair use is ilegal in most countries. If an EDP is to be developed, it must be strict and well written. Franckly, it's not worth to try. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 16:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I do see the use of an EDP, as per Sj. I like the idea of a "cross project" EDP. I would up the minimum number of edits though (100?) as understanding the cross EDP thing might be too complicated after only 30 edits ;) notafish }<';> 18:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • What on earth is an EDP? An edit filter or something like that? --– Geitost diskusjon 20:31, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • A complete ban on image uploads makes the most sense to me for the time being. Whether we should have an EdP and what should be covered by it should be treated separately and allowing certain users (perhaps staff and admins) to upload can be discussed then. Until/unless an EDP is approved, there's no reason for having local uploads and therefore no reason for having local uploaders. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support banning To confer with en:wikt, where they don't have uploads, the only exceptions are screenshots of buggy software or extensions which can be uploaded locally but aren't put on Commons because they aren't really of use to anyone else. With the caveat that maybe uploads of that sort could be allowed here. Alternately, there's no really good reason someone couldn't use Flickr for those screenshots... I'd certainly like it if the only file here was File:Wiki.png (better yet, an SVG version). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:36, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Restricted uploaders please appreciate that chapters are required to use this site for reporting and applications for funding. These types of files don't seem appropriate for commons. I therefore support restricting uploaders. Alan.ca (talk) 19:30, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Question Question: Commons currently doesn't accept photos of buildings from certain countries unless the architect has been dead for at least 70 years (sometimes a different number of years depending on the country). For example, looking at Wikimania 2013 bids, I see that there were Wikimania bids from Indonesia, Italy, the Philippines and France, and Commons doesn't accept photos of recent buildings from those countries. Would Meta need photos of recent buildings from cities from which there is a Wikimania bid, such as the buildings in which Wikimania would be held? If so, we may need to copy over w:Template:FoP-USonly and keep local uploads enabled. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:07, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Per Philosopher, though I can understand SJ as well but I have no idea how to solve that problem. Trijnsteltalk 09:40, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Question Question: Oppose Oppose i believe that all the wikis, including this one, are a resource intended to be shared and updated by all users.such a limit would go against it, if i'm not mistaken... Billycop32 (talk) 03:46, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    In fact the proposal would allow much more sharing by moving and deferring the uploads to the shared repository so they can be used everywhere included Meta. Commons can be editted by anyone in the same way as Meta; with the big difference that Commons is a specialized project for multimedia content and thus have a community interested and specialized in curating those, as opposed to here where copyvios and crap sits for years until somebody notices and delete them. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:37, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I would oppose a complete ban on local uploads in the current situation. Meta has traditionally been used for a lot of reporting work, some of which is (as pointed out above) not really compatible with licenses that allow modification at will. These reports also do not really belong on Commons, as much of it has no value to any of the other projects (Would a financial report of a Wikimedia chapter be in scope on Commons? It doesn't have any obvious educational value. Or is that covered by "A media file that is in use on one of the other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation is considered automatically to be useful for an educational purpose"?) We should find a solution for such reports, and restricting file uploads does not seem to be that solution unless additional options are created. I suppose that technically these not-entirely-free files have never been allowed here, but it hasn't really come under close scrutiny until recently. I would be very grateful if we could find a workable solution to that problem before we start completely banning local uploads or mass-deleting them. Bumping the threshold for uploading to 30 edits seems to make sense for now, to keep the (reported) incoming deluge of copyvio images at bay. I could also live with local uploaders, but all of that is a temporary solution. Paul B (talk) 16:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Case in point for why this whole "let's make averything free and move it to commons" seems to me to be a really bad idea: This file is a draft budget, developped for a very clear purpose, with a context etc.. What kind of value does it have as "educational material" for our thousands of users if we put it on commons? In my opinion, absolutely none. It simply does not belong on Commons. It does, however, definitely belong on meta. Others have made good use cases for other sorts of material (fair use or whatnot) that just belong here and do not really sit well with a free license. I understand the problem about having too many crap uploads from things that are no use to even meta, but I don't see any value in abolishing uploads on meta. I think it will just limit its usefulness (as well as open the door for even more crap to find its way to commons). notafish }<';> 22:27, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Actually, File:20120710- budget WCA draft.pdf has a non-commercial licence, so it can be speedily deleted per criterion 1 at WM:CSD. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
      • I know, I put the license on it. Well, my conclusion at least is that there is in the end probably no suitable "all free" policy on meta concerning files, if free means they have to go to Commons right away. In any case, I think that Commons' way of absorbing *everything* that's free is harmful to the project, but that's another debate entirely. notafish }<';> 23:53, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Notice of this discussion has been given to mail:wikimania-l [1] and chapters-l (private mailing list for Wikimedia chapters). Deryck C. 16:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose this alternative as well. Nathan T 16:37, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose I oppose this RFC. I think it is not really thought out and badly written. Worst of all it is most likely to backfire. I suggest you try making simpler and smaller suggestions in the future. OrenBochman (talk) 15:39, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose I oppose removing uploading entirely on this wiki. There are many things mentioned here that (in my opinion at least) do not belong on or need to be hosted on Commons but are perfectly logical to host here.

Support Support I support the creation of a new special permission of uploader (or something similar) as long as it is relatively easy to obtain; something similar to Commons:License review would be adequate to demonstrate to the potential uploader that this is something different from a run-of-the-mill upload feature.
Support Support I also support the Exemption doctrine policy proposed by Deryck C., since it is logical, flexible enough to be usable, and strict enough to be enforceable.
—Willscrlt ( “Talk” • “w:en” • “c” ) 07:33, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Oppose Oppose have you ever try to upload a file at all? For those of you not familiar, there's no option on which license to go. I also put projects here where it has logos etc. For artistic reason, I put the logo, it's been DELETED and leave the page blank. I am also being harassed in commons, I hate it there - so I put stat capture and statistic in here directly for project report. If I can't do it here, then I will put every project report in English language in Wikimedia Indonesia page directly. Because it is easier and less problematic. Siska.Doviana (talk) 09:32, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Well, it's not Commons' problem that you cannot attribute authorship of files that you upload, and also give them ridiculous names. Wanna accuse anyone of behaving like Aaron Swartz's prosecutors again? odder (talk) 09:43, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Comment I don't know what Wikipedia Meta-wiki is, what this proposal is or why I was blocked from looking at my watchlist on Wikipedia unless I came here to voice my opinion which was apparently sought. Now that I've clicked here I seem to have access to my watchlist again. I have nothing to add to this discussion and hope I'm not forced here again in the future. --FLStyle (talk) 15:51, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Support I see no reason why any files would be needed to be uploaded to Meta. Other wikis accept fair use files-all of Meta's visuals were created by the WMF and Wikimedians themselves, so I see no need for them to be uploaded here if all of them can be uploaded at Commons. Citrusbowler (talk) (contribs) (email me) 23:49, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Closing notes- 33 in support and 13 opposes before MarcoAurelio's Followup. After that, there are some repeat votes from users voting against the alternative mixed in with new users voting to the original proposal. Please correct me if I'm missing anything. Individual note on votes-

  • Alan.ca says "restricted uploaders" which would imply he wants to abolish local uploaders, while his explanation seems to the contrary, so I considered it as an oppose. Please correct me if that is not the case.
  • OrenBachman's oppose is to the RFC itself, and considers it poorly written. His oppose doesn't seem to be directed at the policy.
  • There are Maybe and neutral votes which were not counted.
  • A couple of voters didn't sign their votes, and at least one doesn't seem to have any edits before this vote.

Theo10011 (talk) 20:48, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposed exemption doctrine policy[edit]

There seems to be much demand for someone to draft an EDP, so as the person who kicked up a lot of fuss about the use of non-CC-BY-SA-compatible media in Wikimedia events coordination, here's the proposal. Now I'd be seriously disappointed if this doesn't go anywhere. Deryck C. 23:58, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Comparing Arabic Words to Hebrew's[edit]

Hello,

I am a native Hebrew speaker with some fair knowledge of Arabic.

I am curretnly engaged in a PERSONAL project of comparing VOCABULARY between the 2 languages & am wondering if my work may be revelvant/ useflu to your (this Wikimedia) wesbite & if its input can be incorporated in it. Ideally, it should be ALPHABETICALLY!

I am NOT Wiki-technically inclined-so, in case of relevance, I'd need someone's help guiding me how to do things...

I'd appreciate an early response on it & look forward to it :)

Kind thanks,

Avi

Welcome! I do not think that it would be appropriate to host such a list on this Wiki (the Meta wiki) (just so you know, Wikimedia is the organization that runs Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Meta, etc.). However, such information could well have a place on a relevant Wikipedia article, in a Wikibook, or at Wiktionary.
Regarding not being wiki-technically inclined - wikis are designed to be (relatively) easy to edit and contribute to. And with the edit bar at the top of the edit box, that should simplify it a bit. If you start, it shouldn't be too hard to learn. If you are interested, you could read this editing tutorial on Wikipedia. Also, if you have any questions about anything in specific, you could ask me at my talk page, and some other Wikimedians would also doubtless be happy to help you. Gottistgut (talk) 10:37, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia is also not the appropriate place for these personal researches and experimentations. You could think about Wiktionnary to host these terminological lists but Wiktionnary is not intended to compare languages and it works differently than a simple list of terms and requires more data.
So try first tour work in Wikibooks, and if some community interest emerges that would create an interesting resource for use in Wiktionnary, it will be done in appropriate time. verdy_p (talk) 01:40, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Great job now, User: Meta Wiki Welcome[edit]

I'm so proud that you're here. In Wikipedia, I never saw that nice present from you! (Son Phan) (talk) (UTC) 2:05 5 May 2013

Wikimedia Foundation elections 2013[edit]

Should not they be linked from the main page? I tried to find the page, and I am a relatively experienced meta user, but it still took me five minutes to check that there is no link on the main page, there is no sitenotice (I think it was at some point but now I do not see it), and that Meta:Elections is a red link. Well, I would probably be able to find it anyway, but I see absolutely no reason why it should not be in the current events.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:33, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Anything in the Meta: namespace would relate to the administration of Meta itself (i.e. Meta:Requests for adminship.) --Rschen7754 08:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
This is fine, but this is not my point. My point is that if someone heard about the Foundation elections and has come to Meta to look at the schedule/ look at the candidates / ask a question / vote there is no easy way they can find the relevant pages. Linking from the main page (we have there Goings-on) would be natural.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I'd suggest to add those to Template:Main Page/WM News (which transcludes on Goings-on and on Main Page). -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:37, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I think it is pretty fine as a news item.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Feel free to add it to WM News. I can help add it if you want. PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:43, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
I would appreciate your help, since apparently the markup is too complicated for me. I would like to insert the following text (feel free to change): Candidate nomination at [[Wikimedia Foundation elections 2013|Wikimedia Foundation elections]] started. Questions to the candidates can be asked now. May 17 is deadline for nominations; voting starts June, 1. , probably as of April, 24. Thanks in advance.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:12, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I missed this completely, sorry! Can you write an updated version? PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
Oops, now I missed it. I guess the same, but the voting starts (as it currently stands) June, 8.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:01, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for adding it. I can only find the link through my watchlist :P -- phoebe | talk 18:30, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Allow admins to grant and revoke the "confirmed users" user right[edit]

I just noticed when Steven gave the "confirmed user" right to DPeterson (WMF), a WMF volunteer for Communications, that neither admins nor crats are able to grant this right to users (and so this was done through an account with the global staff flag). I don't see any harm in giving admins the ability to grant and revoke this right here on Meta, as is the case for both Commons and the English Wikipedia. Thoughts? Thehelpfulone 19:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Sure, though a separate rollbacker group may be helpful as well (though I don't want to hijack this discussion). --Rschen7754 20:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't see why not. -Mh7kJ (talk) 20:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • No. There is no need for this user right here on meta at all. Vogone talk 20:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Don't see any harm in doing that, though I'd prefer giving this right only bureaucrats. I don't see the need for admins (neither for local rollback btw). Trijnsteltalk 20:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Maybe it would be good to give bureaucrats the ability to remove, but not to grant the right (for cases like the one you mentioned). Regards, Vogone talk 20:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't see a pressing need for this, as I don't remember this was used much before (and also the example of DPeterson (WMF) apparently was only by accident, as the account was also autoconfirmed and Trijnstel removed the rights a few minutes later). In my opinion stewards & staffers (for other staff accounts) can handle this sufficiently well, if it's ever needed. But also don't care much (maybe it should be set as standard on all projects to make the group assignable locally?). --MF-W 15:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Per MF-W. I don't see the need. Some stats on how many times this userright was needed here would be good. If we had the need to assign this right regulary I'd probably change my opinion, concurring with Trinjstel's appreciations on bureaucrats. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 18:29, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
    I cannot imagine a single situation where this right could be of use. I guess, there are only quite few accounts who are less than 4 days old and the only permission which might be of use here is the autoconfirmed permission, which lets users editing half-protected pages. An urgent need for that is quite unlikely for a new account. Giving bureaucrats at least the ability to remove it from accounts might be useful, though as it gets redundant quickly. Regards, Vogone talk 19:26, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
    I mostly agree with you, Vogone. This is why I am asking to keep the current status of the system, because it is not worth the config change in light of the very sporadic cases where this right was ever needed. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 20:13, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
    'Autoconfirmed'='confirmed'. So 'confirmed' usergroup permits users to edit semi-protected pages as well. It was actually created in order to make it possible to grant users (auto)confirmed status before they become autocomfirmed naturally. (As 'autoconfirmed' is an implicit usergroup.) Ruslik (talk) 10:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • This should be the case globally. Also at en-WP, de-WP, fr-WP and others, if any user shall get the confirmed right, there has to be a request on the stewards permission page. There’s no need for this at all, since sysops can also give and take away other rights which do harm more than just confirmation. They can give and take away the editor right and the ipblock-exempt right. To have to go to Meta each time, a person may need the confirmed right, is just an unneeded burden and it should be changed globally and not locally. --– Geitost diskusjon 18:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
    • If people should think that the confirmed right isn’t of any use, then there shouldn’t be this right at all. If it is of use, then there’s no reason that no sysop can grant that right, it’s just stupid the way it is. --– Geitost diskusjon 18:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Is there any reason why someone whose account has existed for less than four days would need to edit a semi-protected page? PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:16, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
    • He or she could have the wish to move own articles from the user namespace into the article namespace or pages of a wikibook that (s)he is editing at the time (I once had such a case) and had to request the right on Meta for the user because no sysop/admin (is there any difference between it, by the way?) or bureaucrat could help him. And why should users be asked to wait a few days before they can do that, if they have at that time the time for editing? And why should others move pages for mentees, because they may not do it themselves? --– Geitost diskusjon 18:54, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
    • There also may be blind users who want to add useful external links and always get Captchas and have difficulties with that. --– Geitost diskusjon 18:55, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
      • OK, I'm convinced. This seems reasonable. PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
        • I'm not really convinced. 1. Where is the difference between asking for a flag and performing the action then and asking another autoconfirmed user for doing it directly? 2. Meta is not Wikipedia. Here are neither CAPTCHAs nor books or anything similar. I agree with you regarding to Wikipedia, but where is the need for meta? Vogone talk 13:12, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, it makes sense to me that admins should be able to grant this flag. –SJ talk  15:54, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I do see a need for this for a long time. But not admins doing rights, let bureaucrats handle rights subjects, that is what the bureaucrats role is for. Romaine (talk) 15:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm alarmed by the notion of admins revoking autoconfirmed status, because I think it would be abused (at least on some projects) as a method of denigrating certain users. Wnt (talk) 15:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
    Any admin on any wiki is already able to do that. Theoretically, every user who has access to abuse filters. Vogone talk 11:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes. This should be default on all wikis. To Wnt: I don't think THO is proposing that autoconfirmed status can be revoked, but that where a user isn't autoconfirmed, a sysop can manually grant or revoke confirmed status. Deryck C. 10:43, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
    This is a proposal about metawiki only, though. Vogone talk 11:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Sure, I support this too. Theo10011 (talk) 21:33, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Move meta.wikimedia.org to www.wikimedia.org[edit]

Hi.

The multilingual portal for Wikipedia is at www.wikipedia.org. Same for Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikiversity, etc. Even Wikidata and MediaWiki are multilingual projects located at www.

I propose moving meta.wikimedia.org to www.wikimedia.org. This is a variant of an older proposal, but is much more limited in scope. This proposal is only about changing the URL from "meta.wikimedia.org" to "www.wikimedia.org". Other redirects (such as http://meta.wikipedia.org) would continue to work.

Consequences

Feel free to edit this list to add good or bad consequences of this proposal.

Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 04:14, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Currently, this website is known as Meta-Wiki, or Meta. Would the website at its new location be called "Wikimedia.org" or something like that? harej (talk) 04:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
That's a good question. I have no idea. I don't see any good reason to change the site name (or project namespace). This site will still be a meta-wiki. I'd say the site name is outside the scope of this proposal, but I'd be interested to hear what others think. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:19, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
The site name is very much part of the proposal if you're proposing eliminating the current site name from the URL. Right now, we have a website called Meta that is logically at meta dot wikimedia dot org. Eliminating that and just making it wikimedia.org would create a disconnect between the URL of the website and what it's actually called, and I hate when people do that. harej (talk) 04:25, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
It'd be more logically at meta.org or metawiki.org. :-) I agree that you raise a good point to consider. I just personally don't see the two as being as tied together as you do. That is, it doesn't bother me to use www.wikimedia.org and continue calling the site Meta-Wiki. Perhaps I'm alone in this. It would bother me to call the site "Wikimedia.org," I think. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
This is "Wikimedia Meta-Wiki", so it's at meta.wikimedia.org. The www. subdomains should only used when there is no other project, like for mw.org and Wikidata. For "Wikimedia", we however have also Wikimedia Incubator, Wikimedia Outreach, Wikimedia Commons, etc. --MF-W 14:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
No. I'd preferr to keep things as they are. The current URL makes more sense than the proposed. Meta is not the whole Wikimedia, and as MF-W says, other projects use the same terminology. This is Meta, at meta.wikimedia.org; not very hard to remember. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:35, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
What about links like https://www.wikimedia.org/wiki/? They currently redirect to the Foundation wiki, so this may create a few broken links. PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
They should never have been used. Luckily, only MZ abuses them as far as I can see. :) --Nemo 16:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't see any benefits. Personally, I also don't see meta being a frontispiece for any of that WMF stuff, nor the need for it to be. Meta is inwardly customer focused, it supports the broader wikis, and is mechanistic, not leading with content, especially not for the casual visitor. If someone comes to wikimedia.org, I am pretty certain it is not meta for which they are looking. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:51, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
    What are they looking for then? There's no reason whatsoever to visit www.wikimedia.org. --Nemo 16:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
    I think it's still fairly common for people to type in "noun" + ".com" when looking for something on the Internet. For example, if you want shoes, you'd go to shoes.com. If you want porn, you'd go to porn.com. For information about Wikimedia, you'd go to wikimedia.com (which kindly redirects to wikimedia.org). --MZMcBride (talk) 18:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
    And surely they don't find anything relevant at the current portal. :) I don't know what they're looking for, but certainly not what there is now. By the way, I think people are more likely to type noun+whatever in Google: yes, I saw them, they are lazy like that. And here's what they get.
    File:Google2013-wikimedia-com.png
    google:wikimedia.com
    --Nemo 09:42, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose People going to www.wikimedia.org are probably not looking for Meta-Wiki. Meta-Wiki is a background project which not too many people know about. More likely, they are looking for information about the Wikimedia Foundation or any of the projects run by the Foundation. Instead, I suggest moving the link to wmf: to some place more prominently on that page, with links to individual projects below, or even moving wmf: to that location. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:24, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • &   the current template rightfully points users to the wide array of projects that compose wikimedia and allow them to find what they're looking for. Snowolf How can I help? 12:23, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose Meta and wikimedia.org cover quite different "communities":
    • here we have policies for admins, CU, and so on hwo reflect a community caring for meta-wiki affairs; this project could be seen as a "Times Square", a "Campo", where people coming from from many places meet and talk, discuss, chat, sometimes quarrel about WMF projects.
    • www.wikimedia.org has a stricter and stronger need for security and control, and a foundation managing and regulating in terms of economy and law a wide array of projects; this site can be compared to a skyscraper of corporate presence facing Times Square, or the Public Palace in Siena.

Square and buildings can be part of the same landscape, but are built for complementary but different activities. - εΔω 15:05, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Oppose Oppose - this proposal breaks in my opinion more than it solves. If the page www.wikimedia.org is a problem, just let it redirect to the front page of Meta. I certainly do not see the consistency, www.wikipedia.org is the same as www.wikimedia.org, and many others, that is consistency. People are used to Meta, all links point to Meta, it has taken years for communities to get used to Meta, please not again. Romaine (talk) 15:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
    • A redirect to Meta is a good idea. --Nemo 10:46, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose This wiki is know as meta. If it as a move from meta.wiki to www.wikimeta.org then I would support it. It also breaks incubator.wikimedia.org and other wikimedia projects. Carsrac (talk) 09:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose Commons and Incubator get more difficult to find. --Rschen7754 10:58, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
    • One could also say the opposite, because on the Meta main page we are able to explain what they are and translate the explanation, while the current portal can only have a logo. But I see your point; we'd need to make the projects list more prominent in the main page, either moving it up or making it a sort of sidebar: doesn't sound too hard. If we wanted to, of course. --Nemo 11:12, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose If you really need a www url for this project www.metawiki.org would make more sense. Amqui (talk) 03:28, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose - it may well have been a good idea in 2002, but it creates chaos to move site names. It's the kind of thing corporate geniuses frequently come up with in boardrooms when they want to figure out a way to kill traffic to their site. Wnt (talk) 15:48, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose Meta (interwiki coordination) != www.wikimedia.org (general index page, general domain) --Alan (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose per Alan.--Steinsplitter (talk) 12:00, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose This site is an entirely different purpose from what I would expect to find at www.wikimedia.org. Unless people want to completely overhaul and change the way the main page and top-level help and other similar articles are written (a slight overhaul might be overdue anyway, but that's another topic entirely), it would be something of a disaster, I think. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” • “w:en” • “c” ) 07:38, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose per Alan --Glaisher (talk) 12:25, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Move wikimediafoundation.org to wikimedia.org[edit]

Extracted from section above for separate discussion.
  • I'd rather wikimediafoundation.org be moved to wikimedia.org. It would be consistent with the various WMF chapters (such as uk.wikimedia.org), and at this point, I think the WMF is what people generally look for when they visit wikimedia.org. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 09:25, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • This suggestion is good. The Foundation is the top level and should get the central domain, which is wasted on the current content of wikimedia.org. — Scott • talk 09:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • + 1, like Minh above me. If you look at Wikimedia, en:Wikimedia, de:Wikimedia, fr:Wikimedia you won’t get any explanation about Meta-Wiki, but about the foundation which is responsible for the wikis, so it could be the only wiki that can use this name. --– Geitost diskusjon 18:29, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Explain: My comment here was originally about moving meta.wikimedia.org to www.wikimedia.org, not about moving the foundation wiki. I would rather move the foundation wiki to wikimedia.org than the meta wiki, that’s what I mean and meant. But that doesn’t mean at the same time that there is a need to move it or to move anything anywhere, it doesn’t have to be moved, it could also stay as it is. But if something should be moved, then it would be better to move this wiki than the other one. Now that my comment has been placed in a section with another title, it could be misunderstood. It’s no good idea to move comments for a section to another section with another name. If nothing is to be moved at all and wikimedia.org remains to be as it is with links to many wikis including the foundation wiki and the meta and commons wikis and so on, that would totally be ok for me. I don’t see a need for moving anything to wikimedia.org. But I think it would be a very bad idea to move the meta wiki to wikimedia.org, so this comment was about moving the meta wiki. --– Geitost diskusjon 19:04, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
  • + 1 to Minh above. ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 18:30, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • &   the Wikimedia Foundation is a distinct entity from the volunteer run project. This is especially important when it comes to the OTRS email addresses, which are answered by volunteers and not WMF personnel. Also, several volunteer-run wikis are housed under *.wikimedia.org and it would be wrong to put them under the foundation's own wiki, especially given the recent events regarding the kicking out of all volunteer admins from wikimediafoundation.org . Solution in search of a problem imo. Snowolf How can I help? 12:21, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The Wikimedia Foundation is, as the name suggest, a Wikimedia Foundation — it's not Wikimedia. Wikimedia is the movement (community) around Wikipedia and its sisters projects that encompasses a variety of groups and organisations—of which the Foundation is only one example. Therefore, wikimedia.org should be a portal through which people can access those projects, and if necessary, also websites of those organisations—a role that it's playing now, so there's no need to change it. odder (talk) 16:11, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Per Odder. Furthermore, moving a wiki would be quite unnecessary effort. Vogone talk 16:17, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The top level of the Wikimedia movement is the Wikimedia community, not the Wikimedia Foundation. Also as having seen the discussion around the situation on WMF wiki, and being a closed wiki and acting like that is certainly not something we should put on top. Romaine (talk) 15:08, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • A move from wikimediafountation.org to wmf.wikimedia.org is more logical. So also I'm against this proposal. But closed and open wiki bring under one roof is another discussion. Carsrac (talk) 09:41, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose basically per Romaine considering the foundationwiki scandal. --Rschen7754 10:56, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Weird vote, neither yes nor no nor neutral. The non-use of www. is obviously something that can be fixed, but moving the foundation pages is too drastic. Even redirecting consistently to the foundation may be questionable. But still, it would be nice to see www. be open to volunteer effort to improve it - for example, there ought to be a row of flags or other icons representing popular languages so that someone coming to the site who only speaks, say Russian can immediately click on the tricolor and get links to all the ru.*.orgs . So there should be a way to log in to the site, to discuss edits there to the main splash page, to set up other navigation subpages, to run multilingual newsletters showcasing content, etc. One consequence of this would be that some www.wikimedia.org pages would redirect to other projects, with the Foundation being a major recipient of links. Wnt (talk) 15:56, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose per Snowolf. --Alan (talk) 19:52, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose per Snowolf. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:57, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose - they don't deserve it (per Snowolf)  ℳono  17:19, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose Per above, the community is the highest authority on Wikimedia. Ajraddatz (Talk) 17:29, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposed modification of WM:DP[edit]

Summary: Whether it should be possible to delete files with unknown copyright status or unknown origin if the file is in use.

As a part of the image cleanup and disabling of local uploads discussed above, I suggest that we make a few modifications to the deletion policy on this project.

Proposed modifications:

In the section "Special cases for images and media" under "Consensus deletion process":

In the section "Images" under "Criteria for speedy deletion":

Reason:

Per the licensing policy, Meta can only accept images which are available under a free licence. If the file has no licence, then it isn't available under a free licence, even if it is in use somewhere. If we don't know where the image comes from, then we don't know whether any licence claim is valid, and we can only keep the image if the licence claim is valid. Please state your opinions below. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:45, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Support because as WM:DP is currently written it obviously hinder the maintenance of this site. I'd preferr to repeal the current deletion policy and create a new updated one; but until that happens this proposed modifications will obviously help resolving the annoying situation with problematic files on Meta. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 13:36, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • There are a lot of files with historical value to the Wikimedia movement here on Meta-Wiki. I'm concerned that they're going to be deleted when they should really either be left alone or moved to Commons if necessary. (My hesitation with moving files to Commons is that (a) Commons has a tendency to delete files it shouldn't; and (b) there's no clean way to move the files, as far as I know [it always results in the upload history getting horribly mangled].) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:48, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support the deletion rules need to follow copyright. It does not really matter whether the current rules are compared to EU or US copyright laws, neither one of them allows copy violations to be kept just becouse they are in use.--Snaevar (talk) 18:59, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support changes to deletion discussion scope; oppose changes to CSD because speedy-deletion of files currently in use is almost always a bad idea. Deryck C. 14:01, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Please solve ca.wikipedia.org scandal[edit]

What about dates of birth/death?[edit]

Et les dates de naisance et déces ?

Je m'étonne que les dates de naissance et, eventuellement, de décès, ne figurent toujours pas parmi les données pouvant être attachées à chaque page.

Pour ce qui est des personnages historiques, la période de vie (auxx moins, les années) est une donnée fondamentale liée à ce personnage: par exeple Henri Andrillat (1925 - 2009), Paul d'Ivoi (1856 - 1915), [Pierre Boulle (1912 - 1994) Vercingétorix (-80]] - -46) etc. Date qui permet, au premier coup d'oeil, de classer la personne comme contemporaine, médiévale, antique ou préindistrielle.

En ce qui concerne les édifice, villes, institution, navires, oeuvres d'art... la date de "naissance" sera bien sur celle de leur construction, fondation, lancement, création,... et la date de "décès" sera celle du naufrage, de la mise à la casse, de la dissolution... de l'entitée en question. Exemple : URSS (1922 - 1991)

Une donnée d'une telle importance ne peut être passée sous silence, c'est pourquoi j'attire votre attention sur ce manque qui, n'en doutons pas, sera promptement comblé.

--Jean-François Clet (talk) 19:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm amazed that dates of birth and, where applicable, death are not always among the set of data that are attachable to every page.
For historical figures, their vital statistics (the years, at least) are fundamental pieces of data related to the person: for example Henri Andrillat (1925 - 2009), Paul d'Ivoi (1856 - 1915), [Pierre Boulle (1912 - 1994) Vercingétorix (-80]] - -46). These dates enable one to see at a glance whether the person should be thought of as contemporary, medieval, ancient, or pre-industrial.
With respect to structures, towns, institutions, ships, works of art, the "birth" date would of course be that of their construction, foundation, launch, creation and so on, and the date of "death" that of the wreckage, destruction, dissolution, etc. of the entity in question. Example: USSR (1922 - 1991).
One cannot very well skip an item of this degree of significance, which is why I call your attention to this omission which, we can be sure, will be quickly taken care of.


Mathglot (talk) 05:59, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

You'll be glad to hear that a whole WikiProject is now dedicated to solve this problem by cross-checking different Wikimedia wikis: Death anomalies table. See also wm2013:Submissions/Collaboration across many languages - the death anomaly case study. Deryck C. 10:37, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

resolution info template[edit]

Is there any way to make the {{resolution info/Affcom}} template translatable along with the pages it is embedded into? --Bence (talk) 11:48, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

(For the record the template is here: Template:Resolution info/AffCom). To be seen, for now I encountered bugzilla:48869. --MF-W 18:58, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Replied on bugzilla. The only things in the switch statement that should be translated anyway are "Resolution", "passed", and "failed". Don't translate switch arguments, they won't work the same way in different languages. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:23, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
I facepalm myself for filing that bug. – I think this page could very well be marked for translation, it's just that Resolution {{#switch:{{{status}}}|yes|passed|accepted=passed|rejected|no|failed|not accepted=failed|unknown|#default={{{status}}}}} with {{{yes}}} votes in favor{{#if:{{{no|}}}|, {{{no}}} votes against|}}{{#if:{{{abstention|}}}|, {{{abstention}}} abstentions|}}{{#if:{{{noncast|}}}|, {{{noncast}}} votes not cast|}} on {{{date}}}. is terrible to translate. But it's of course possible to do it if you really put this in one message, so that the sentence can be arranged as needed for translations. --MF-W 19:32, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, that's not great. Should I try to modify it to make it more "translator-friendly", or is it OK? The {{{status}}} argument won't work with translation nicely... PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks guys. In practice the status part is not modified as much as would be suggested by the template, so feel free to simplify. –Bence (talk) 20:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

New account creation and login[edit]

After months of testing, we're finally ready to enable the new designs for account creation and login, and did so a few hours ago. If you're interested in the background, there is documentation about why we did this and how we tested it. (I previously posted about it here.)

As we announced on the blog a while back, if you see any lingering translation issues, please either fix them on translatewiki.net (where the volunteer translation for software is done) or speak up here. I did some MediaWiki namespace changes to fix up the look for Meta already.

Many thanks, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 02:02, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

The blue and green buttons are really jarring. I may switch them back to look like standard user interface buttons (i.e., unstyled). --MZMcBride (talk) 02:05, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
In Vector, if you choose a language other than English, it links to Meta:Username policy. Do we need to make a username policy? PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:08, 30 May 2013 (UTC) seems fixed now, sorry for the triple post. PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:11, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Createacct-helpusername, hrmmmm. This seems like a wonky default. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Steven's edit to that page might fix it for English, but what about other languages, like French? PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:17, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
You were the one to strike your comment; I was the one to point out the default state of the form (i.e., outputting a help me choose link by default) is probably wrong. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 02:27, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Technically, the default state of the form in core is that this and a few other messages are blank. Since the need for a username policy or help link is fairly Wikimedia-specific, the text is inserted via Extension:WikimediaMessages. To answer PiRSquared's localization question: you can fix this by creating the message in its own langcode here. You can see an example of this on Chinese Wikipedia (which supports a bunch of dialects). MZ: there is no easy way to please everyone on this front, and local customization has been pretty much a requirement. Some wikis that are key really want and need some mention of their username policy, like Wikipedia in many languages. Others don't. Either someone has to go around inserting it for those that do want it, or someone has to go around removing/customizing for those that don't. Either way, work is involved. Considering I've been the one doing most of that work so far, I don't think it's such a bad deal. I'm happy to fix up other languages here on Meta too. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 03:52, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Why is the style of UserLogin in Monobook different from that in Vector? PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:09, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
bugzilla:47698 --MZMcBride (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for you work on this, Steven. I was wondering if perhaps MediaWiki:Captchahelp-text should be translated in to other languages to help users that don't speak English. 64.40.54.14 02:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
    • That special page is actually created by the extension that creates our CAPTCHA. Normally it is localized in the language of the wiki at hand, but isn't quite set up to handle multilingual wikis like Meta, to my knowledge. The best solution would probably be to create a normal wiki page here on Meta, and have that translated, which isn't too hard. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 03:42, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Steven. I created Meta:Captcha help and slapped a translation template on it as a starting point. But I'm no expert and don't really know what I'm doing. Perhaps somebody could move it to a better name and include a link to it in MediaWiki:Captchahelp-text as I can't edit interface pages. 64.40.54.14 04:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
I've linked that MediaWiki message to it now. I think you constructed that page just fine. Thanks for your help, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 04:51, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

w:en:Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Move.2C not merge.2C Meta to the Commons[edit]

There is a proposal to move Meta-Wiki to Commons that is taking place at the English Wikipedia. Interested editors may wish to comment. --Rschen7754 05:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I do not support this, of course, and this is ill-placed, but this is being posted under the principle that communities affected by the proposal to close a wiki should have a chance to comment. --Rschen7754 05:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
Why should this discussion take place on the English Wikipedia? PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
That is a very good question. I wish I knew the answer to that. --Rschen7754 05:14, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
It just feeds the notion that the English Wikipedia is the overlord wiki or something. Killiondude (talk) 01:59, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Comment Comment This discussion was quickly closed on en:wiki for the obvious reasons mentioned above. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” • “w:en” • “c” ) 07:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Move, not merge, Meta to the Commons[edit]

Please see discussion here:

Comment Comment As noted above, this discussion was quickly closed on en:wiki for the obvious reasons mentioned above. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” • “w:en” • “c” ) 07:43, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1[edit]

Why is FuzzyBot (Translate extension) logged out? PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:02, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I guess it stopped, because FuzzyBoy is now logged in. Just strange to see localhost moving pages... PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:59, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
bugzilla:49066 --MZMcBride (talk) 19:39, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Okay, now it started to complete a translation deletion I ordered. The deletions show up in the log ([2]), but not in Special:Log/127.0.0.1. WTF? PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:36, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

[edit]

These categories should be merged, but which one should be kept? PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:08, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd say the singular version should be merged into the plural. - dcljr (talk) 20:50, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:38, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Do we have a bot or script to do this quickly, other than replace.py/AWB/going to every page with HotCat? (vaguely related: Why isn't mass-category-renaming built in to HotCat? Maybe because it could be misused?) PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:41, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Information about 100 random pages[edit]

Is this a large enough sample to determine e.g. what percentage of pages are in English? (see Talk:Multilingualism - it's outdated) PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:32, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Programs namespace[edit]

Hi everyone! Hope ya'll are doing well. WMF is creating a name space here on Meta for "Programs". This is a super important, as it will serve as the user hub for Grantmaking and Program Development. This space will house two portals: a portal for Grantmaking and a portal for my team, Program Evaluation and Design. Note, Education will not be a part of this hub. Anyway, I'll be co-developing The Workshop, the portal space for the Program Evaluation and Design community of program leaders (which hopefully includes some of you :) ). So, I just wanted to give meta users a heads up so they were aware of what we are doing. I'm not going to be involved in building the Grantmaking section, as that's not my department.

You'll see me fiddling around with The Workshop space and developing it with Heather Walls (who was part of the Teahouse team with me. It'll house all things program evaluation and design - communications, resources, community discussion, and so forth. I've already stated in an area I threw together for Program Evaluation and Design. You'll most likely see that area nominated for deletion once we get parts of The Workshop up towards the end of this month. Thanks everyone for all you do here on meta and else where. Feel free to ping me with any questions. SarahStierch (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Since when does the WMF decide about namespace creation on this wiki? Meta is a community wiki, and you need to ask the community first. (You can create as many custom namespaces as you want on the WMF wiki, BTW.) odder (talk) 17:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
AFAIK, the Grants and Research namespaces were created by the WMF (with a tiny bit of discussion here). The "Zero" and "Schema" namespaces were announced here prior to being implemented, but some people wish the WMF had just used the MediaWiki namespace (or a private wiki?). And the Iberocoop namespace is a bit confusing to me... PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:11, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
The iberocoop ns was requested as a public alternative to the private iberocoop wiki. Sarah: I agree that for such a short-lived namespace, using a temporary wiki, or subpages of a topic page, makes more sense. Platonides (talk) 17:14, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi. By the concept of "short lived" I'm a little confused on what you're referring too. "Programs" is a permanent fixture at WMF, so are both the Grantmaking and Program Evaluation and Design teams. I really do hope we can get this namespace. Thank you. SarahStierch (talk) 17:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm a bit lost now. Are you just hoping you can get this namespace, or are you informing us that the WMF is creating it? There is a huge difference between the two… odder (talk) 17:49, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi. As I said previously, based on previous discussions like this I was unclear that I needed actual consensus to get a namespace. I was told by people who have worked on namespace requests that it was not necessary to get consensus in the traditional sense since namespaces don't directly effect the editing landscape that much, not cause any major hiccups in the system. Perhaps I'm wrong. I couldn't find any directions, as I said previously, on how to request a namespace. I have filed a bug, asking for the namespace. I figured this would be pretty low maintenance, especially since it's a space that I'm helping to create for the community to develop evaluation processes for programs they do. (and I do, too, being a community member myself). Of course, I'd love to have community blessing on all projects and things I do - whether it's editing article about women's history and developing a WikiProject like Women scientists, or developing this space on meta for a team I'm excited to be on (I wouldn't have applied for the job if I wasn't stoked about learning how to better evaluate programs with my fellow community members). I was unclear on the process, and with the Wikipedia Zero project it appears that they just said they were creating the space. I'm confused too on what the process is, since it appears there really isn't a formal written down one anywhere. SarahStierch (talk) 17:56, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
That's bug #49312, BTW. odder (talk) 18:38, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi Odder, I was told that this was the process for a namespace creation, as it does not effect the user experience for editors on meta so a consensus process was not a necessity. This is based on discussions held here and here. I was also unable to find instructions on meta on how to proceed with namespace requests. I apologize if I did this incorrectly. I hope you can assume good faith. Meta is a space for the community, and it's critical that we have The Workshop on meta as it's a place that will be a the working space for all program evaluation which is done by the community (not by me and the team I'm on, we just provide the resources and support). We're hoping to have a space developed in time for our workshop in Budapest at the end of the month. Thanks and I hope this can go smoothly and all can assume good faith! It makes more sense to have it here than on the other website. SarahStierch (talk) 17:14, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
And like I said below, I'm really hoping I can get our portal space developed on Meta, since the community is going to start working on evaluation after our June Budapest workshop. It'd be sort of anti-climatic to not have a namespace for The Workshop so community members can develop and share evaluation and program successes. Based on the Wikipedia Zero conversation, I was using that as inspiration by simply declaring that we'd be creating a namespace, since it appears they did not go through a traditional consensus process. Thank you again. SarahStierch (talk) 17:58, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
@Platonides. Hi. I guess I'm confused on why a space (like The Workshop for Program Evaluation and Design) would be on MediaWiki when it's not a tool project per se, and it's going to be the social space for all things program evaluation where Program Leaders - community members like myself and others - will be working on sharing and developing things. You can see an example of what I'm talking about here: Program Evaluation and Design/Share Space. I'm not sure how that could be utilized if it's on a private Wiki. Thank you again for your consideration. SarahStierch (talk) 17:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I think this reply was intended for PiRSquared17. Not sure if your reply refers to MediaWiki ns or mediawiki.org, though. Platonides (talk) 17:20, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I was replying to odder's "Since when does the WMF decide about namespace creation". The WMF made the "Grants", "Participation", "Research", "Schema", and "Zero" namespaces. I was stating that I remember there being some discussion of using the mediawiki namespace instead of creating a separate "Schema" one. It has nothing to do with the Program namespace. PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Oh, OK. I clearly misunderstood! I haven't had my coffee yet this morning :) SarahStierch (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there any reason we need a namespace and you can't just use subpages/categories? PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:19, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. I have been using subpages and categories for now. For design and for the portal space it has been suggested to have a namespace, like Wikipedia Zero and other projects have. We want to make sure that the community is able to easily access the gateway (which will allow community members to select Grantmaking or Program Evaluation) and instead of having "The Workshop" as a category or subpage - which would be just way too long at this point if we use "Program Evaluation and Design/The Workshop" And like any project on Wikipedia (like the Teahouse or GLAM stuff) I assumed it was a good idea, since that's what I've done on Wikipedia for years in my other projects. I'm really unclear on how it'd effect anyone's editing habits or admin work here on meta - I hope people can assume good faith and trust that we want this space to do nothing more than provide the community with an easily accessible and navigable environment to support them in their program evaluation and design (and grantmaking) work. Thank you. SarahStierch (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Just Say No folks! Theo10011 (talk) 18:07, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm Saying No! And Wonder What Happens Next… odder (talk) 18:09, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I personally don't see the benefit of this namespace, reading through the discussion above. It seems to work fine in subpages. I would also appreciate it if the WMF occasionally remembered that they serve the community, not the other way around. Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Oppose No. The grant making process already has a namespace, and categories can have subcategories, therefore there is no reason to create yet another namespece in this wiki. Béria Lima msg 19:18, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm surprised and a little disappointed by these responses. It'd be easy to add a namespace to Foundationwiki instead, sure -- but to deflect this request in this manner is to precisely reciprocate the attitude of distrust that was implicit in the Foundationwiki policy changes and that the community (rightly, in my opinion) criticized. I think we ought to work harder not to bubble ourselves in echo chambers, and MetaWiki is vital to that, because it gives space to cross-cutting domains of activity and to conversations about them. Using a namespace to demarcate a specific type of content strikes me as an elegant and respectful way of accomplishing that, because it does not disrupt existing content and workflows, and gives editors and admins software tooling for working with this content, as opposed to it being vermischt with unrelated things, forming an undifferentiated soup. Take the Schema namespace: prior to its introduction, the scope and purpose of data collection jobs was opaque, and there was no systematic, structured way for anyone to learn about, scrutinize, improve, or challenge what the Foundation was doing. Now you can go to Special:RecentChanges, filter for the Schema namespace, and get a precise overview of recent activity that pertains to data modeling and data logging. You can go to the associated Talk page to criticize or inquire. You can edit the schema (it's not restricted to Foundation staff!). In the case of some severe breach of trust, the community has the ability to delete or suppress schema. (I hope this never needs to happen, but the capacity for oversight is there.)
So I think that staging meta conversations on MetaWiki, using namespaces as a hint to MediaWiki about how to manage this content in bulk, is a positive move, expressing confidence in the ability of the Foundation and the community to jointly govern the content. It's something that parties interested in accountability and dialog should encourage, rather than thwart. --Ori.livneh (talk) 19:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi, Ori. You and Frank both have a calming presence. I just wanted to respond to you quickly. There seems to be 2 issues you are alluding to. One, is the more political aspect and the current scenario we find ourselves in. Your entire argument seems the other way round, wmf wiki is a bubble now and an echo chamber. There attitude of distrust was shown by the staff through removal of volunteers - nothing remotely close to that is happening here. The critique that you saw on Wikimedia-l was where it remained, there were no influence from that on Meta. A lot of people here barely even follow those developments. If you read my second point carefully you will notice that there are objective reasons for why this is being opposed and this request is not new, if you follow the developments here. There were large cleanup drives just last year for organizing things and cleaning up here. Some of those efforts are still ongoing.
Second, I would argue that namespaces actually ruin things on Meta if you want community participation. For example, Today was the first time I found out we had a schema namespace - in your comments! Granted I'm not technically versed with what it would entail, I do recall seeing mentions of it now and again, not to mention I do tend to miss a lot of things that fall in between. But as an Admin and an active commentator, I should monitor those - and speaking more generally, several people have a tendency to miss those, even those who monitor recent changes. You might want to take a look at the currently existing namespaces - Participation, Iberocoop, not to mention the research one(that Erik forced some time ago with no prior discussion and even against some opposition) You would notice that almost all are barely active, and the ones that are similar to Zero, CNBanner, Grants are primarily monitored and maintained by staff members. They get little community interaction, some aren't intended to have any at all but yet there they are. Then the history, of similar requests that we've seen on Meta. We still don't have a chapters namespace after 10 years, which arguably can fit half or more of Meta in it alone and yet every new request is entertained. WMF can force a namespace if it wants, but if the goal is community participation, I would urge them to reconsider. Regards Theo10011 (talk) 20:26, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
P.S. "vermischt" is really not a common english word. I know what it means, but others might not. ;) Theo10011 (talk) 20:26, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
(ec) I was one of the admins working here last year to clean up all the excess Help: namespaces we had on Meta to move pages from language based Help namespaces to appropriate subpages of the English "Help:" namespace, as we typically do with translations. I think the main problem here is that Sarah's original message (which seems to be from a volunteer account instead of a staff one.. but that's a separate issue) gave the impression that Meta didn't get a choice whether we had the namespace or not. I understand that there has been some confusion with regards to whether consensus was required or not, but perhaps some people expected that Sarah would consider asking if consensus was needed (through her experiences of being a long time Wikipedian), instead of just stating it was coming.
Nonetheless, we should assume good faith, and I think the lack of clarity for the process of changes to Meta has caused this hostility. In the past an additional namespace for Meta has actually been requested through the private RT (the Participation: namespace in March 2012) instead of Bugzilla, so credit to the Foundation for making some progress in making these changes more public and open to comment.
I think part of the confusion here is the number of different namespaces and what they're used for. The custom namespaces we have on Meta, most of which have been added by the Foundation (either directly or indirectly through an extension), with an accompanying "talk:" namespace are:
  • Grants: Used for the IEG and other grants for individuals, groups and organisations. The FDC isn't part of this though, maybe FDC pages should be moved into the Grants namespace too?
FDC will be moving to Grants namespace in the upcoming revisions. I think. There was an issue because those funds are not technically grants, if I remember correctly, so there was a question about whether they should be housed there originally. I will make a note at FDC portal when I know for sure. Heather Walls (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Research: Used for WMF research and the Research Committee.
  • Participation: Used for participation grants - I'm not sure if the rationale for this as a separate namespace instead of Grants: is public. Could someone explain this please?
  • Iberocoop: For the Iberocoop, I fail to see a need for this namespace given how few pages are in the namespace, could someone link to the discussion for this namespace? We should consider removing the namespace and moving these pages into the namespace if there are not going to be that many additional pages in it in the future.
    discussion 1, 2 PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
    Thanks. I see we did bring this up before, and Nemo suggested to to keep it for now to allow users the chance to move things across. If this will result in content being moved from another wiki to be centralised on Meta then this still seems like a good idea, perhaps we should give it another 6 months or so. Is there anyone that we could contact to ask them about whether there are still intentions to use this namespace? Thehelpfulone 22:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Schema: Not sure what this is for, is there an explanation somewhere?
    Meta:Babel/Archives/2012-12#New_namespace_on_Meta - mw:Extension:EventLogging. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Zero: Recently added to configure Wikipedia Zero access through Meta. Ori: in response to community oversight of this namespace, editing access is restricted to zero administrators, which is fine as it's important to make sure that anyone can't edit it, but was it intentional that bureaucrats can't add people to the zero admin group? Currently you need global staff rights (or stewardship) to add people to the group, and stewards don't typically handle local rights changes on Meta (unless they are crats themselves).
Dunno, you'd have to ask Yurik. I had the Schema NS in mind, above. --Ori.livneh (talk) 11:12, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Module: I believe this was recently added for Lua scripting.
    This exists on most, if not all, WMF projects now IIRC. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
    Sorry yes you are correct, this isn't specific to Meta. Thehelpfulone 22:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
  • CNBanner: Needed for the Central Notice.
  • Translations: Used by the Translate extension.
Sarah: your original message stated the namespace would be used in part for Grantsmaking things, but why can't the Grants: namespace be used for this? Frank's explanation below of what "programs" actually means helps to clarify the rationale for this namespace, especially if we want to move things from Outreach Wiki to Meta in the long term (so as to merge Outreach into Meta). Thehelpfulone 20:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi there. I'm unable to make a call about the Grants section. That is up to Anasuya, and maybe Frank, to decide. I'm not a part of the Grants team, we only work with them sometimes. I think the goal of the main page on the Programs namespace (the first page you see when you click on the link "Programs") would have an arrow pointing to the grantmaking team pages. I'm not sure what they will be housing there, or if that means pointing to the Grants section. I'll ask Frank and Anasuya to stop by and perhaps comment about that.
I was unaware about the situation regarding namespaces. I will assure you, as Frank described below, our Programs namespace would be used by the Program Evaluation and Design team (three of us- me, Frank and Jaime (Program Evaluation Specialist) and any community member who is involved in program leadership - people like me who throw edit-a-thons and do GLAM partnerships. We'll all be working together to do awesome evaluation projects so that we can make sure we're doing impactful and great programs. I'm excited about it - and we'd love to have it on meta. If this isn't the right place for it, I'll propose this at Outreach.
I surely did not intend on stirring the pot with this! I am really sorry! Lesson learned for all of us: Meta needs a space explaining name spaces and the procedure for requesting one - we should never assume that anyone should "ask consensus" when others have failed to do so in the past (like Wikipedia Zero). I assumed I didn't need to go through a formal process, when others clearly believe otherwise. Assumptions on both sides is clearly a fail, and I apologize for the assumptions I made based on the good faith advice of others. And I'm not involved in the tech side of things, so I wouldn't know that the WP Zero folks made their own space without asking. I just followed the advice of WMF folks who recently had namespaces made. As a long time community member, I should have known better.
Also, I have only used my WMF account once, I think on office. I don't even remember the username or password for it. I'm unaware of a policy about me having to use that account. We're happy to proceed however is best, we just think that the namespace would be ideal for organizing the structure of at least our department. I'll ask Frank and Anasuya to comment about the Grants namespace, since that's outside of my jurisdiction. SarahStierch (talk) 21:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your prompt reply, I totally understand where all this confusion has come from and am not personally opposed to the additional namespace - I just think that from what has happened it'd be good to define the purposes of the different namespaces and how to go about requesting a new one. :-) There is clearly a good reason for the Programs activities to have their own namespace instead of using Grants:, I think some people (myself included) may have been confused because you mentioned Grants in your original message, but now that we've clarified that I'm happy to support this additional namespace on Meta instead of Outreach. With regards to your WMF account, I recommend you that chat with Oliver about the policy for staff accounts vs volunteer accounts for wiki editing. Thanks for asking Frank and Anasuya to comment here, I believe Winifred originally requested the Participation: namespace, if that helps to figure this out. Thehelpfulone 22:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
@THO: Schema is for the EventLogging extension, Meta:Babel/Archives/2012-12#New_namespace_on_Meta. I think I'll try to put more info on a page like Meta:Namespaces documenting all the existing Meta NSs. Actually, there's a nice (if I say so myself) list of them in the table on WM:4WP. Each namespace listed there has a link to a description. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
The extension default namespaces list on MediaWiki.org is useful, too. --Ori.livneh (talk) 04:21, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey all, maybe I can provide you with a bit more background about the request: we're planning to add a lot of information for chapters and other stakeholders who are running programs. The purpose is to support those people with information about evaluation and program design. This information is intended to help them with making their programs more effective and more impactful. We thought that Meta would be a great place to share this information and also to create a place where people could discuss things. In the past, I've heard people complain about information being scattered across different wikis and not being on Meta. That's why we thought we'd create something here. Creating a namespace would help to organize that information better. However, we don't want to impose anything on the community here and if you think we should have our pages somewhere else (e.g. on the Outreach wiki), then please let us know. As a long-term Wikipedian, I'm totally aware that some of the things that the Foundation is doing can come across in the wrong way… so, let me assure you that we're listening to people here on this wiki and we're truly interested resolving this in a way that works for all of us. Again, the namespace would help a lot with organizing a ton of information that will support chapters and other people who're running programs. Thanks, --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 18:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and when we're talking about programs, we're referring to things like GLAM content donations, Wikipedia editing workshops, Edit-a-thons, Wiki loves/Wiki takes and so on. I'm apologize for not being more clear about this in the first place. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 18:57, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
  • This seems fine to me, though various parts of the user interface are beginning to feel the weight of these additional namespaces. We should try to find ways to enhance the user experience when there are a large number of additional namespaces (thinking in particular of Special:Search, Special:PrefixIndex, Special:AllPages, etc.). --MZMcBride (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Gerrit change I2a1ade44a (not merged yet) adds a Programs namespace and its concomitant, Programs_talk. I reason that this request is consonant with the purpose of MetaWiki and its inclusion policy; that it was made in good faith, representing Sarah's conviction that the namespace would amount to a positive and relevant contribution to MetaWiki; that Sarah is a prolific and well-liked editor and an English Wikipedia administrator, and that her conviction is therefore plausibly correct; that the credibility of the request was independently affirmed by two MetaWiki administrators; and that the impact of this change on those who oppose it would be minor. In light of the above, my intent is to merge and deploy this change on Tuesday, barring a clear and decisive argument against it. --Ori.livneh (talk) 04:50, 9 June 2013 (UTC) Sarah asked me to step back, which marks the end of my involvement with this issue. --Ori.livneh (talk) 17:48, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

What kind of a tactic is this? Who do you think you are? - Some kind of a bully. You'll merge the patch Tuesday? - well do it whenever, you really don't care to listen to anyone besides your own self. The reasoning is perhaps as asinine as possible - Sarah is well liked? and she is prolific and did it in good faith? - Wow, clear and decisive arguments there - "You like her" more or less, or you think others do. If you wanna use a policy to push it through, don't worry we can always re-write it, I don't recall the staff writing or using those to begin with. And I'm sure your great work on MetaWiki allows you to speak on her positive impact, all of us have just been sitting here for years. I'm not sure what "affirmed by two metawiki administrators" means - Mz is the only one who is neutral to this, every admin that commented on this topic above - opposed it, so lets say 3 out of 4 that commented opposed it. I hope we can do this for every new user who is well liked on their wiki and requests a namespace here (I'm not even sure most people share your personal opinion of Sarah). I don't know you Ori, but you are off to a great start by forcing this. I thought from your first response that you were a reasonable man who cared to talk this out - I was wrong.
Frank, If you are behind him pushing this through, this is not how things should be done, and you know it. I hope it is worth it for the ill will it creates. Theo10011 (talk) 12:12, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
So basically now the devs are going to do stuff for people they like regardless of community opposition? That is a very nice patch you both are going into, one that we know how well it turn out last time it was tried. Béria Lima msg 13:18, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
Eek! Wow. OK. Frank and I talked about the lessons learned from this and thank Theo and other folks for consulting with Frank (and others with myself) individually about this off meta and on meta. We've learned a lot, and are eager to reach (hopefully a positive) consensus. We decided to continue to await for the process to work itself out and not to proceed with creating any namespace of any kind in the mean time. I contacted Ori and asked him to retract his Gerrit submission and also verify publicly that Frank and I did not ask him to proceed with this. This was a surprise I woke up to as much as everyone else here. So the Program Evaluation & Design Team is hoping to develop a consensus and we are not proceeding with the creation of any namespace on Tuesday (unless positive consensus is magically decided upon by then :) ) (And yes, me being "liked" has nothing to do with consensus getting for a namespace, unfortunately! ) SarahStierch (talk) 17:43, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
"Sarah is a prolific and well-liked editor and an English Wikipedia administrator, and that her conviction [Viz: "that the namespace would amount to a positive and relevant contribution to MetaWiki"] is therefore plausibly correct." --Ori.livneh (talk) 17:55, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Sarah, and please pass on my gratitude to Frank as well. As stated repeatedly, I have no strong objections here. Please don't let any of this silly debate make you or Frank re-consider the work here - this should be on Meta, and I'd be happy to help if I can. You can either a) Start off your work with sub-pages and revisit the need for a namespace when you guys feel you have enough activity, or b) you can wait a bit longer for discussion and consensus, if you *really need* the namespace before getting started. Either way, I'll support if I can. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 18:26, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Given that about half of Meta-Wiki is about "programs", if this namespace is created, and especially if it's created under this name, please add to Meta:Namespaces a clear definition of what's supposed to belong there, and stick to it. I expect the proposers to personally take care of ensuring that the pages falling within their own definition are in such namespace. Thanks, Nemo 12:47, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
    I think it will only apply to stuff the WMF's "Grantmaking and Program Development" team creates, not all existing programs. If it applies to all existing Wiki Loves stuff, GLAM, etc., then we might have to do a lot of moves. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:53, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
    Indeed. We can however assume everyone agrees that namespaces are defined by purpose and not by who happens to create a page? Otherwise, among other things, when looking for some page I should know its history before finding it. :) --Nemo 17:31, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
    The "Project" namespace on mediawiki.org has had this issue. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:36, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Actual opposition?[edit]

Theo10011: you seem to be pretty critical of a new namespace, but I've re-read your comments here twice now and I still can't figure out why. I don't need a long paragraph, a short one will do: why do you object to a "Programs" namespace on Meta-Wiki?

The only argument I could find from you was that there are currently other namespaces that you just noticed ("today was the first time I found out we had a schema namespace")—which seems to pretty well establish that adding a namespace is a very low-impact change for you and the community. What is your actual opposition to this proposed namespace?

The other arguments in this section largely have to do with process and tone, which isn't relevant to the end result (though I agree both could be better). And there are a few suggestions that Sarah and her team are choosing the wrong way in which to organize their content (preferring a namespace over subpages or categories), but I think we should generally defer to the judgment of those doing the work over those simply commenting on a proposal to move forward with the work. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:16, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Just to clarify, do you plan to request everyone to reiterate their reasons in this new sections if they don't want them to be ignored, or only Theo10011? --Nemo 17:31, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Reiteration requires a first iteration, of course. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:37, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
What are you talking about with "those simply commenting on a proposal to move forward with the work"? It would be simpler to just mention who you mean there. I don't even have a strong objection to the namespace. This was brought up on a Friday, there are some questions and objections listed above as you can see - of course, you don't have any this time to add, but they are there. It was/is Saturday, when Ori announced that he has the patch and will merge it unless someone makes him reconsider. You might still remember that consensus and discussions take time, usually more than a single day over a weekend.
After Frank's post I was about to move on and wanted to tally the unused namespaces below for cleanup later. I had actually moved on from this until Ori got involved. I wanted things to run their course, and see what others thought.
I am strongly against this kind of heavy-handidness from the staff. I have no strong objections to the namespace, but I have very strong objections when devs who are supposed to be in charge of merging things or making the changes, just brush everyone aside and go "I'm doing this Tuesday unless you can stop me." It might be from the few times when devs actually asked to see local community consensus before adding an extension or merging something. He is getting involved in the community discussion while also holding the final check to enact or reject it - it is unfair for him to abuse process.
Lastly, I'm making a note about "defer to the judgement of those doing the work" - I suppose by virtue of that argument, you could have taken the same explanation for your rights removal from WMF wiki, and yet nothing stopped you from objecting. Anyway, I'll be sure to remind you when you object to one of these changes next time. I also have a feeling that your response would have been different if it wasn't someone you knew personally asking for this. Theo10011 (talk) 17:37, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
Before anyone mentioned Tuesday, your comment was "Just Say No folks! Theo10011 (talk) 18:07, 7 June 2013 (UTC)"
Was this just sarcasm that everyone missed? It's difficult to believe you don't object to this proposal when this was your first comment (and all subsequent comments have the same underlying message/tone).
The timeline to implementation does seem like a legitimate objection. How much time do you think should be allotted for this? A week? Thirty days? I think Sarah and Ori can wait.
And the people doing most of the work on wikimediafoundation.org were the ones who had their rights unfairly removed. I don't see how the situation is comparable. If you're planning to do work on the Grantmaking and Programs pages, please voice your opposition to this namespace in that context. That is, if you honestly believe that a separate namespace is a bad idea, explain why. As I said previously, your current objection to the proposed namespace seems to focus on the fact that you don't notice new namespaces. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:43, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes, and please see my statement above. I woke up totally shocked to see that the submission was made to Gerrit. Frank and I talked and were eager to continue working with the community to develop a consensus and also reflected on the lesson learned from this - including the history of problems with the namespace issues on meta which we both were unaware about. We were told to go about the process one way, and realized it was the wrong way within minutes (As you can see above!). We DO NOT intend on moving on with any namespace AT ALL until consensus is met. And if all else fails, we'll pitch it at Outreach hopefully correctly this time :) There was no guidance at the Namespace information pages on Meta, but, I've admitted above I should have known better than to assume that consensus was NOT needed. Thanks for the reconsider, and I am SO sorry for the drama this has brought on! SarahStierch (talk) 17:47, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks sarah, but I was edit conflicted. Please allow me to finish my reply to Mz-
Yes, My comment 'Just say No' was in Jest, but it was also an effort to move a long and winding discussion towards a simple vote. I'm sure you don't employ sarcasm or irony or plain ridicule in your comments, or maybe everyone just misses those too. If you notice my comment came after 12 or so others from 4 different users on Meta, almost all objected to different parts of the first message. While you can single me out now, I didn't start out objecting to it, 4 other users did that before me.
I'm not sure what a reasonable timeline should be. I know what is not reasonable to say you achieved consensus - less than 2 days over a weekend falls short by most mark on most wikis.
As I will reiterate now for the third time - I don't have any strong objections to the new namespace, I never did to begin with. I think it's a bad way to go about it, but I'm fine with it. My opposition is completely and solely to the manner Ori left a message that he will merge on Tuesday - nothing more, nothing less. Again, you are singling me out, but you can read 2 other admins above and a couple of users who don't notice or use those namespaces either - half of those are useless. I strongly believe you are in the minority who actually use those namespaces or think they have any use like 'participation' or 'schema', I don't think anyone has access to 'zero'. Theo10011 (talk) 17:58, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Following up - how to proceed[edit]

Hi everyone. It's past Tuesday now and Odder was kind enough to ping on Bugzilla about how we should proceed. Is there any solid opposition or is the community comfortable with this space being created? Please let me know how we (we being community/WMF/any stakeholder) should proceed. I don't know how to submit something to Gerrit, etc, so I might need some guidance for that, or someone to step up to lend a hand, so any help would be great if the community says that it's OK to proceed. I'm excited about the space and can't wait to start to move the work I've been doing on meta to the namespace (and start building the space itself look/feel/community wise). So anyway, just let me know how we/I/we all should proceed on this. Thanks everyone for your patience and understanding in this process. SarahStierch (talk) 16:41, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I can just re–submit the patch Ori created, it shouldn't take more than a minute, and then it will only need accepting by someone with direct commit access to the Git repo. odder (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
I hadn't seen this section yet when I commented at bugzilla:49312#c14. Yes, I think you're good to go now.
I re-read parts of the above discussion just now and it seems that there were very few objections. There was a pretty classic example of Poe's law, however (Theo and odder's initial objections were not intended to be taken seriously, I don't think). This was made all the more confusing by the fact that their comments were quickly followed by two sincere, legitimate objections. None of this was particularly obvious at the time (or even now, for that matter), leading to a lot more confusion and hurt feelings than were necessary. And, of course, the general tone of the opening post wasn't great, but given the example of the Zero/Zero talk namespace, the notification of a creation of a new namespace (which should have been a discussion about a proposed namespace) was clearly made in good faith. Lessons learned on all sides, I think. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:55, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Indeed MZ!! Thanks. I'll ping on bugzilla. SarahStierch (talk) 16:59, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Merged / deployed. --Ori.livneh (talk) 23:06, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks guys. What happens now? I'm preparing to travel for our first Program Evaluation & Design workshop which takes place this weekend, and will be offline for a while. Frank is on vacation until Friday, so he's offline, too. Of course, Rome wasn't built in a day, but, I do want to make sure I can help with anything as the week progresses to the best of my ability. Thanks! SarahStierch (talk) 14:42, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

"anything i need to do?": yes, see above. Even though MZ likes it to be so, I don't plan to repeat every thing I say twice or more. --Nemo 14:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Restricting Blocked users access across WMF wikis[edit]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I've heard (at w:WP:Ignore Meta, an essay for Wikipedians to ignore Meta), that people who were banned from the English Wikipedia would hang out around here at Meta. If this is true, that users blocked on one wiki are not blocked on other wikis, I propose a motion. We already have unified accounts. I propose that if users are blocked from one wiki, their block is applied globally throught WMF wikis. It will prevent disruption throughout wikis, and will also simplify the process of combating cross-wiki vandals and spambots. Citrusbowler (talk) 00:14, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Please see Global blocking. --Rschen7754 00:21, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, I change the motion so to give administrators on all WMF wikis an option for a global block (when it is implemented) in extremely serious cases. However, I say that stewards must review all global blocks within 15 days of implementation.
No. odder (talk) 00:35, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Administrators of one wiki should have absolutely no control over other wikis, so no. --Krenair (talk • contribs) 00:35, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
No. Other than that, IGNOREMETA is a pretty bad essay that reeks of butthurt from an incident a year back now, don't give it too much credibility. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:36, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
I rescind. And what incident are you talking about? Citrusbowler (talk) 00:37, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
This, I think. Please don't judge all users (or admins) of Meta by one essay like that. I won't say anymore, because I really don't think we need to revive this drama. Meta and Wikipedia should be sister projects working together as part of the Wikimedia movement, not fighting :) PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:56, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Heck no. Adminship requirements vary too widely across all Wikimedia wikis for something like that. Misguided proposals like this are why the rest of Wikimedia hates English Wikipedians (and I hold sysop there as well as here). --Rschen7754 00:38, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I see it was the stupidest idea I ever made. I will never again try and base another proposal on an essay ever again. I will try not to Bigwikithink. Citrusbowler (talk) 00:50, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Well to be fair, there's a lot of enwiki users that have similar attitudes towards the other 700+ WMF sites. One of the things I want to do is try and start some sort of program on enwiki to better crosswiki relations, but it's still in the planning phases. --Rschen7754 01:07, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
That sounds good. I would be happy to help forward the proposal to w:WP:Village pump. Citrusbowler (talk) 01:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Following up on namespaces[edit]

The recent request brought up the faint reasoning on some of these separate namespaces. A few mentioned above came to mind, as largely having been ignored by most of us. I wanted to follow up on some of these, and I started asking and looking for the "owners" of these changes. Since, their addition was mostly forced without any discussions or consensus, this might be a good time re-evaluate their effectiveness. There seems to be some correlation there where separate namespace actually automatically mean lower community participation which actually might not be the intent since they are doing it on an open wiki. Maybe this would be useful for record or for later cleanups, so I'm just separating the points from above and reviewing them. So, here it goes-

  • Grants: Used for the IEG and other grants for individuals, groups and organisations. - To be merged with FDC but not certain. It seems reasonable and generally active.
  • Research: Used for WMF research and the Research Committee. - mostly enacted by staff without prior discussion. Mostly only active with staff edits.
  • Participation: Used for participation grants? - redundant, unnecessary, not clear about the objective there. Also not very active, with mostly staff edits.
  • Iberocoop: Unnecessary, not sure why this got approved in the first place. Should be re-factored/removed. Suggest further deprecation.
  • Schema- Meta:Babel/Archives/2012-12#New_namespace_on_Meta - mw:Extension:EventLogging. Apparently.
  • Zero: - followed up with yurik, two reasons. One was technical, something about being on the same cluster as production wiki, needs to reset memcached server when updated, and on a separate namespace because, different content handler. Also mentioned that access is restricted for now, but might get non-staff participation later.(knowing as things stand, I wouldn't hold my breath either on that one)
  • Module:Lua scripting, exists on most wikis.
  • CNBanner: Needed for the Central Notice.
  • Translations: Used by the Translate extension.

Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 00:45, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

On Iberocoop: did you read this discussion I started? PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:46, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Nope, and since that is from December last year, I wouldn't have even seen it till late Jan to comment there. I dont agree with Nemo's argument there and he does suggest re-evaluation within a year - it seems like an year to me so I'll re-evaluate. :P It should also bear mentioning that this was more of a political move than anything born out of necessity. When this request was originally made, it was rejected by the admins and didn't get a lot of attention from what I recall. We should reconsider removal/merger of this. The opinions then were strong enough. Theo10011 (talk) 02:07, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
There's around 20 or so pages there after 11 months. This is really not worth a namespace. Theo10011 (talk) 02:19, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree. Remove it. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
ContentHandler refers to a component of MediaWiki designed to introduce a consistent notion of content type to MediaWiki pages. It was developed as part of the Wikidata project. ContentHandler makes it straightforward to extend MediaWiki to support media other than wikitext. There is a natural affinity between the notion of media type and the notion of namespaces. This has a long history, going back to 'File:'. The DataPages example extension shows how an extension could implement an XML namespace. On MetaWiki, the Schema: and Zero: each implement a JSON-based content type.
I think it's a hugely significant change, making MediaWiki a platform for collaborative creation, curation & modification of content of any kind. The introduction of content types for structured data like JSON or XML provides a means for managing many more configuration settings on-wiki, and I believe that this will be hugely empowering for admins in the long term.
I predict that the introduction of ContentHandler will be see namespace utilized more extensively across MediaWiki wikis, not just Wikimedia wikis. The question is what role MetaWiki will play in this evolution. I don't speak for the Foundation, but I don't think anyone intends to force through new namespaces in face of community opposition. There really wouldn't be a point: the whole reason for adding namespaces to MetaWiki is the belief that this is where people who care about this sort of stuff are likely to congregate. If MetaWiki isn't willing to house this activity, it'll quietly go elsewhere, without much of a fight. I do think that this would likely be accompanied with a natural gradual diminution of MetaWiki's significance, which might make it easier to administer, but also less interesting and vital.
It's true that the addition of any new namespace means new potential ways for making a mess, but I think MZMcBride's suggestion above that an increase in the use of namespaces be accompanied with improved tooling and interface refinements is a good one. You can be liberal and optimistic about additional namespaces without being naive about it. I think that's the way to go, personally. --Ori.livneh (talk) 04:05, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
bugzilla:40446, by the way. (And the URL attached to that bug report.) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:34, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Hello. I don't care much for what Mz thinks on this. Ori, I don't know if you are intentionally trying to obfuscate your explanation with technical info above, because it surely wouldn't make much sense to most of us, the first paragraph I mean, you should re-read that and imagine how many of us non-native, non-tech oriented users would take away from that.
You are making a facile argument that namespace would mean a separate work-space where like minded individuals can congregate. First, this was the exact explanation for different wikis at some point until that idea was considered bad, and second, evidence would show that separate namespaces as reiterated and listed above, get lower than average, actually much lower than average participation from the community - they are ran and maintained by staff members even after an year or two. If the intention is to have another walled garden here in between, by all means, this should be approved and merged. If it is to co-operate and get general participation, it might be better to start the work and revisit the issue at a later time. Lastly, there is no fight here, and no one wants anyone to leave. You want opinions of others - you had it above, you can accept it, debate this, or like the last few times, this can be done without any consensus.
I'm also not sure why we are talking about this anymore. This was about general namespace cleanup for other admins to note and follow up on. If anyone wants another namespace, go ahead and either discuss or even force it. If you want consensus, no one else seems to be responding anymore. I'm not sure how I can change any of that. Theo10011 (talk) 22:20, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
I predict that ContentHandler won't have any serious effect on a wider usage of custom namespaces, and even less on the usage of Meta-Wiki. On the other hand, making "user-limited namespaces possible a priority" probably would. --Nemo 13:24, 9 June 2013 (UTC) P.s.: To be clear, nobody cares about Zero and Schema namespaces outside the minuscule circle we're in. Moreover, a separate namespace wasn't even required for that content.

Translation mark up[edit]

Hi all,
could some nice and kind translation admin enable the translation extension for these two pages 1 & 2? Thanks! --Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE) (talk) 08:09, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Done. Vogone talk 12:02, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
as this one as well please? Thx. --Jcornelius (talk) 14:26, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
You know the software will always treat the source as being English? --MF-W 20:20, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia servers and NSA wiretapping[edit]

With the recent news in mind, is there a way to ensure that the people of the world can access Wikimedia servers with as few possibilities of third party government wiretapping as possible? Is it possible to "clone" Wikimedia content to servers in other countries so that individuals aren't wiretapped when accessing it?

I admit that I don't know as much about server technology as many of you, but I thought I would bring up the idea. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

As far as I have understood, setting up a server in one other country isn't always enough. For example, if someone in Europe tries to access a web page in Asia, then you will find that the page is sent via several other countries, potentially including the United States. Thus, if an Asian person tries to access Wikimedia's servers in the Netherlands, data may still go via the United States in some cases. I'm not sure if there's an easy solution to this. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:30, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
I understand that it isn't going to be easy. So far Wikimedia has servers in Tampa, FL, Ashburn, VA, and Amsterdam. Considering that data usually takes the cheapest route rather than the most direct, where else should the foundation get servers? We have to take in consideration money that the WMF has and the political inclinations of the countries where the new Wikimedia servers are set up. For specific locations, would anyone like to evaluate the following locations? Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, South Africa... and I am not sure if the political climate in Dubai would support a WMF server there WhisperToMe (talk) 23:06, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:H:f_Help's pages[edit]

I think something should be done with pages listed in Template:H:f_Help. I think most of them should be moved to mww (as they describe wiki-markup and mw features only) and updated. --Base (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

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