User talk:LilaTretikov (WMF)

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WMF superblocks its community

Hi,

since Erik doesn't answer, I'm now sending this remark to some other WMF officers and board members. I apologize for using your time.

I'm a crat in german wp. The so-called super-protections that Erik Möller/User:Eloquence and User:JEissfeldt (WMF) have put on our common.js on sunday, acting officially on behalf of WMF, have left some blood on the carpet. Many fellow wikipedians are upset, even those who accept the media viewer (which had been the conflict's origin). Several long-time contributors have left or stopped editing due to this. Journalists picked up the case.

Personally, I strongly protest against the WMF's action, and it's failure to communicate afterwards. Our communities are capable, and willing, to handle problems like this without office-actions.

There have been no official or private comments from WMF in the last days, so I'd like to suggest you have a look and give some response to the criticism.

(apologize again, for my translation errors)

Rfc: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_comment/Superprotect_rights

Links to ongoing discussions in german language: [1], [2], [3]

Greetings, -MBq (talk) 20:11, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, i second MBq request and especially this post by Rich. This issue is not taken lightly especially among german wikipedians. Regards, Ca$e (talk) 20:52, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

This is a temporary measure to prevent churn on the file for the lack of a better process currently in place (more on this here). LilaTretikov (talk) 21:19, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Lila, please stay that sober and unintimidated. I wholeheartedly agree with such a minimal invasion. Instead of blocking or deadminining an entire camp of notorious know-betters, just one template was commensurately frozen from those administrators' access for them to cool down and stop them from disrupting the public user experience with their edit wars. Commentor 188.61.148.188 summarized it well on their central protest page:

Funny: Someone at the Foundation is passing the same medicine to the German admins that they have been passing their authors for years. And now the German admins react with insult since they realized how it feels to be given such medicine. The San Franciscan physician has thus contributed much to the climate and future quality of the German Wikipedia, either by self-aware admins diminishing their kindergarden behaviour in the future or by at least giving their mere mortal victims another parody on the wikihierarchy to laugh about. Also very amusing how the German admins voluntarily put up squeakingly green bars on every page linking to their own idiocy.

Wishing you good luck and the proper amount of patience: IM Serious (talk) 09:27, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Somehow liberally translated. I wrote "humiliation" ("Schmach"), not "idiocy". --188.61.148.188 14:12, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Right! Thank you: IM Serious (talk) 01:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello, for two years I was member of german arb-com (only just for your information).

Your post above is no answer. It maybe denote as a declaration of war. Is it that what you want? I hope not.

Please remember, that your money is earned by voluntary!

If we go away, you will earn no money! Okey, no problem for you, because you will get a new job after this...

Nearly 3 hours ago I postet that at de:wp: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_Diskussion%3AKurier&diff=133016777&oldid=133016774 perhaps this would be a possibility to... I don`t know the right word for: "Das Gesicht wahren" --Hosse (talk) 22:28, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Hosse, in response to your suggestion, while we will not remove the software feature, we would be happy to immediately remove the protection of common.js on de.wp if there's agreement by admins that we will continue the conversation on the basis of the current state and improve it together, rather than disabling the feature. What do you think would be a reasonable way to establish that agreement? And yes, we're absolutely happy to continue the conversation on a page dedicated to this purpose. Thanks for the constructive suggestions! --LilaTretikov (talk) 23:01, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The reasonable way is to comply to the bugreport regarding the community consensus of German Wikipedia (then also no hack is needed). You work now with and for volunteers. Noone of them has bad intentions, but the WMF lost much trust in the last two, three years for its actions. Why don't you work to convince us instead of forcing? With force you don't get anywhere in the end, you just show how weak your positions and the results of the work of the Foundation are. --Julius1990 (talk) 23:05, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

@LilaTretikov: Thank you, but no, thank you. The volunteer community have never agreed to the superprotection feature in the first place. The only real way forward for you is to unprotect MediaWiki:Common.js, take the superprotect user right from the global staff user group, and then disable this feature altogether. To have this threat of your unilateral and unlimited use of this feature hanging constantly over our heads cannot be accepted at any point in the future. odder (talk) 23:09, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

To prevent "churn on the file", direct WMF staff to quit editing it to overrule consensus, don't "superprotect" it. Seraphimblade (talk) 22:36, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Lila, I created a page at de:wp. Thank you for your nice answer. I hope you (really you) and the staff will take the chance to come into conversation with the German wikipedia. --Hosse (talk) 23:37, 12 August 2014 (UTC) PS: Sorry for my bad English

Hosse -- I will keep an eye on progress there. Looking forward to it! Thank you! LilaTretikov (talk) 00:29, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Lila, "preventing churn" is a task that is dealt with daily on many Wikimedia projects, and I think it's fair to say that Wikimedians have developed sophisticated methods of doing so. Before we talk about super-protection, we should talk about normal protection for a moment, and the practices that have evolved around that. Protecting an article on Wikipedia always involves a judgment about which version is correct, and which is incorrect; therefore, there are some best practices administrators are expected to adhere to when protecting a page. I will speak only in broad strokes here, but I would encourage you to talk to some experienced administrators about this, and explore their wisdom drawn from dealing with this kind of conflict many times, in many kinds of circumstances.

There are some important principles, though, that you will surely hear about if you talk to some administrators:

1. The person protecting a page should not be involved in the dispute, and ideally should not have a very strong opinion on it at all; if the topic is Israel vs. Palestine, for instance, the ideal admin to protect a page might be a career mathematician from Kansas who has never bothered to think much about religion or the Middle East;
2. The protection is considered a temporary condition, not a decision; it is intended to encourage discussion, which is where the actual decision gets made;
3. In discussion, it is generally advised to get more uninvolved editors to give it some thought and weigh in.

These sorts of disputes are brought successfully to resolution on a daily basis throughout our projects. If they weren't, we wouldn't be a successful web site, we would be Encyclopedia Drammatica. The experience and practices that apply to resolving editorial disagreements can certainly be applied here, but they cannot be applied if the organization taking the more radical approach ("We must enable this software because we said we must enable this software") is the one applying the kind of fix that is meant to be temporary ((super)protection), and pointing to no realistic longer-term dispute resolution process on an even playing field.

If you must stick to your staff's decision, so be it; but the credibility of your organization, among a stakeholder group whose paticipation is necessary to the site's survival, is at stake. So please choose wisely. -Pete F (talk) 01:48, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Lila, please remove the superprotect feature and refrain from using it. In my humble opinion, it is not acceptable to overrule a RfC in a community-based project, especially for these reasons. Best regards, --Ghilt (talk) 07:46, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the details, Pete F. I am not sure the analogy is exactly applicable for software, but it is helpful nevertheless. I think the conversation we actually want to spur is specifics on what we need to have changed in the feature in question. I am asking the team to engage everyone here on user tests so we can do just that. -Lila Tretikov 13:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I assume this comment above is from Lila -- I have changed the IP address to your name, please revert me if I am incorrect.

My comment was not meant to precisely correlate these admittedly different situations, but to highlight one specific practice that has been found to work very effectively in resolving disputes -- and maybe I did not make this clear enough:

Reverting something to the state it was in prior to the dispute is a tremendously powerful technique for setting the stage for dispute resolution.

With the Visual Editor, the WMF did in fact revert the feature, but as far as I know it did not take steps to continue the discussion in a more generative way. This may have been a missed opportunity. (I am not intimately familiar with how things went with VE, and I know it was before your time.)

With the Media Viewer, however, the WMF is continuing to refuse to take the one step that is guaranteed to interrupt the drama and discord: simply revert the default enabling of the software. The software doesn't have to be removed, none of the 3 projects that have had RfCs have called for its complete removal. But reversing the ill-considered decision to enable it by default on, at least, these 3 sites is a very clear precondition for more sober reflection and deliberation. And let me be clear: I am not stating a personal boundary or condition here, and I am not in a position to negotiate. I am simply stating what the clearly expressed expectation of a very large group of users is. I have no ability to change those expectations, any more than you do.

But as I said initially -- please find some Wikipedia or Commons administrators who have actively worked on dispute resolution, and ask them about these things. You needn't take my word for it -- we have a great many people in our community with deep experience in these matters, much deeper than mine. And a great many of them have not bothered to comment on the Media Viewer situation, and so they might be in a position to give you a more dispassionate and less biased opinion than I am. -Pete F (talk) 19:07, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

You and Erik claim superblocking is a temporary measure but you also name a precondition (if there's agreement by admins…). So if there is no agreement then superblocking won't be temporary, am I right? Somehow this sounds like teaching Wikipedia's community for educating the world. I cannot believe that this is of interest to the Foundation. Please remove the superprotect feature. Maybe this feature is needed but first of all we need a discussion when this feature shall be used and by whom. NNW (talk) 08:18, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

It is temporary for many reasons, including that we are planning to make process changes. But you are right, the timeline is an issue right now. We need to resolve the MV issues so we don't have this corse-grained hammer that only can do on or off switch. We need to collaborate to improve, rather then flipping switches. -- 2601:6:2080:187:A54B:B04B:FB9:1FDE 13:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Lila, your accountability as the Executive Director: „Your are the person ultimately responsible for the direction and actions of the WMF.“ Could you please explain what position WMF takes on the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO) – refering to WMF superblocks its community. --Edward Steintain (talk) 15:08, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Location of this discussion

Somewhere above Lila said she's not sure where this discussion should happen. The solution is rather simple, she can move the whole content of this page at Requests for comment/On a scale of billions or similar and continue operating in the same way but in a more "official" setting. --Nemo 07:10, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I think, you don’t mean "move", but copy and paste it there, do you? Because it wouldn’t be good to move (with the function "move") a user talk page to an RfC page, there were also other personal comments on the talk page (also archived ones) before this discussion which shouldn’t end up in a version history of an RfC. But as the comments here all have signatures (or should have), so the authors are clear, there wouldn’t be a problem with copying and pasting the whole discussion to the target RfC page. It would be best, if the RfC page will link to the version history of this user talk page afterwards. The RfC is a very good idea for this discussion, better than here. --Winternacht (talk) 21:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to copy this if you think the new page is a better place. Note the new process page we are pulling together as well. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Pete F can you please copy not delete. Also could you please not copy the Working Together section as it is septate. Thank you! -- LilaTretikov (talk) 22:26, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

OK -- I think having the discussion happen in two places will be really confusing but...I'm happy to revert everything I just did. -Pete F (talk) 22:28, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@LilaTretikov: Sorry if my move wasn't the way you wanted it to work -- I've reverted, and will let somebody else handle it -- as far as I know there really isn't any perfect way to do it, and I don't want to mess it up. -Pete F (talk) 22:31, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Pete, my bad. I am not 100% up to speed on talk page mechanics... -- LilaTretikov (talk) 00:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Not to worry! I just realized that there was a potential for it to become a big mess, and wanted to revert what I did before it was too late. It looks like @Winternacht: has done a better job of it now. If I could suggest, finding somebody to mark the RfC for translation ASAP would probably be a really good step. -Pete F (talk) 01:05, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

If there are any sections in the RfC that don’t fit there, they can also be placed here again instead.

Translation would be a good idea, I just don’t know how that could be done with these lots of comments there. Or do you mean, the initial statement On a Scale of Billions and Lila’s questions shall especially be translated? That would be a very good idea, because they are essential to the RfC. --Winternacht (talk) 01:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Could you create sections for those here so they are visible in the TOC please? In all honesty thought it is easier for me to watch this -- more pages strain my bandwidth for sure. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 15:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it’s better to copy and paste the discussion, meaning that the content (not the page itself) will move to the RfC. If it is only copied (but not deleted here), then the same discussion will be on two different pages which isn’t good. So, now the question seems to be, which parts of this page shall get into the RfC and which ones should stay here. Perhaps, it would be best to leave the first section #WMF superblocks its community here and start the RfC with the second section #On a scale of billions which shall be the title of the RfC. And as Lila said above, the #Working Together shall also stay here. So all other sections can get into the RfC (copy and delete here and paste it there). Is that ok? --Winternacht (talk) 22:46, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

And, not mentioned, this section should surely also stay here. In the beginning of the RfC, there can be placed a permanent link to the top section here, so that the connection to it will be clear and that it was a response to the questions raised and the discussion there. --Winternacht (talk) 22:59, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

So, I’ve tried to do this. Now the content is at Requests for comment/On a scale of billions. I hope, this is ok this way. If any section shall be at another place now, it can also be copied and pasted this way. --Winternacht (talk) 00:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the top of the RfC could clarify a bit more about the RfC, I don’t know. I tried to put some initial information into it. If you or someone else have a better idea for that, please improve it. --Winternacht (talk) 00:55, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

How do you guys do this???

I am just SOOOO amazed you all are able and willing to make your way through these pages. This takes serious dedication! I am even more amazed how new editors survive this antique experience. This IS the stuff we've got to focus on. MV is such peanuts, we should really not be spending our joint mental cycles on. It will take all of us a lot of time to make this basic stuff work: conversations, data normalization, messages, etc. work... -- LilaTretikov (talk) 15:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

We (the users) spend a lot of our time and knowledge in this project. And we were proud to be part of the knowlege project. We are not happy with the MediaViewer at this stage and didnt want to use it in the DE:WP. You will be able to get a true translation of the "Meinungsbild".
But we are really upset and agry, that the developer of this tool can overrule the communities just because he can, in his own case. I called that "Führerbefehl" on this discussion page, which is something that the Americans tried to eliminate from Germany. Perhaps thats the reason for the strong reaction from the DE:Community.
You have to put the superprotect back in the garbagebin. Then we will discuss further on the MV, its merrits (yes he has some) and his deficits. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 15:45, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Eingangskontrolle; BITTE! Godwin’s law. Das muss doch nun wirklich nicht sein! ...Sicherlich ^Post 16:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@LilaTretikov: its far less about the MV then about the force you use ...Sicherlich ^Post 16:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

LilaTretikov, that's exactly the wrong attitude. This does work. It works well. We've communicated this way with each other for a long time and have very few complaints about it (well, until WMF broke sections of it with Echo, very few ... now just "few"). Telling us that everything about the way we communicate is wrong, the things we are upset about are "peanuts", and your highest priority is to make us do everything differently is exactly why we get angry and frustrated with the WMF. Kww (talk) 16:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I did not mean to say it was "wrong", I said it was "hard", especially for new people. Big difference in those two. And I also did not say that you are upset about "peanuts", but that maybe lost in translation, I said that MV should be low priority when we have really major issues to work on. Does that make more sense? -- LilaTretikov (talk) 16:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, you said it didn't "work". I agree with you that MV should be a low priority: since it isn't useful for much and isn't critical for anything, there's no reason for the WMF to insist on it being on the German Wikipedia against their will. It's creating a battle over nothing when there are important things to work on, and alienating an important core group of editors for no purpose.Kww (talk) 16:53, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

This was a rhetorical question :) Editors should be spending time on content, right?, not on learning (or dealing with) antiquated software -- I hope we agree there. And we should have clear parameters for "good enough" and strive for an objective Meinungsbild (if I understand the word correctly). What I am saying is that some things are not worth spending OUR (community, which includes the WMF) time... But I understand the anger -- as unintended as it was and, as I mentioned, we are working to lift the superprotect and create a process around managing changes, which we need. Frankly I think that's the real issue, MV is...well... just a symptom that is consuming more time that is due for it. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 16:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

But that is a matter of point of view. When i want to programm something, i have to learn the coding language. And for Wikipedia youa lso have to learn certain things, what is quite easy since a technical not very understanding guy I learned to edit Wikipedia well. And we see every day that new users can cope with it. A certain level that must be reached also prevets people who are not able to really contribute to our mission to take part. Your own research signifies this: what holds readers back from becoming editors is their lack of interest in this possibility and their lack of knowledge, technical problems are far less important than the WMF likes to pretend always.

If you want to help people joining technical: Make a good turtorial where they learn the basics from setting a link to using refernces and so on. Every little computer game uses this way, here it would help also. For the rest of the questions we have a mentoring programm at de:wiki and other place where newbies can reach for help and support. But you have to understand that the goal the everyone takes part is neither realistic nor would it be good. --Julius1990 (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, of course it should get better, and your passion for making it better, and knowledge about technical options, are going to be a great asset. I suspect that the skepticism you hear from @Kww: is a reflection of the dynamics @Theo10011: brought up. "These things could be better" is a very positive sentiment, and should be applauded. But it can be a very small step to "I know what is better for you, and here is how it will be." Especially in the wake of superprotect, I think you may find that many people respond as kww did. -Pete F (talk) 16:18, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I worry about that use of the term "antiquated". I favor well-chosen software improvements (in fact, I'm donating huge amounts of my time to that end), but not all new software is an improvement on old software. I'm pretty appalled by Flow, for example; I don't think anyone around here has yet come up with anything as good, for general discussion, as directly editing the wiki markup of a talk page. (I've also remarked elsewhere, I think VisualEditor is likely to seriously damage the long-term future of the wikimedian movement, exactly because it prevents the user from working direclty with wiki markup, and thereby cripples their ability to see the markup others have written.) So, depending on what you mean by "learning (or dealing with) antiquated software", you may find we won't all agree. --Pi zero (talk) 16:52, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Pi zero, VisualEditor is in no sense intended to replace wikitext. For example, there are some places where using VisualEditor makes next to no sense and the wikitext editor will be the default (e.g. the editing of pages in the template namespace). But, more generally, wikitext is not going anywhere, and in fact the Editing team has recently taken on ownership of the wikitext editor as well, so that the editing experience can be looked at and improved holistically. You can ask James Forrester for more information about this topic, if you like. --Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:52, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

That's what I'd call 'tentatively reassuring'. And yet, I've actually seen the phenomenon of a user baffled by how to do something they've seen others doing on wiki pages, because they've been using VE so they couldn't see the wiki markup. --Pi zero (talk) 20:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I might clarify, that it's tentatively reassuring in the sense that it isn't as bad as it could be. However, there is really no situation in which it wouldn't be better for the wiki to not divert users from experiencing the wiki markup itself; reducing exposure to wiki markup is always damaging. Perhaps the editing experience can be improved; but I believe doing so to be less of an issue in new-editor retention than other issues that nobody wants to face up to because they're 'too hard'. --Pi zero (talk) 21:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

To echo what Kww said, the way these talk pages work isn't really the problem. Editing encyclopedias, correcting typos, arguing for weeks over hyphen, em-dash and en-dash, is not a task everyone excels at for a good reason - very few do, even fewer enjoy it. Editors don't mind the antiquated software - some enjoy it, some specialize in it. A good majority of tools, bots were built by those community members before there was this version of WMF - I'm sure they are still more qualified than your staff at it. The learning curve here is steep but most get a hang of it in a few days - you will too. You see this was never meant to be facebook, all our communication is incidental to the larger task. Of course, this seems antiquated, and it is - but that's why we're here. One can argue encyclopedia itself are a pretty antiquated thing, or typing away and researching pages and pages of text about obscure topics for nothing in return. Those new editors that you do bring in who treat this like FB, will not do the "curation" work that rebuilds wikipedia daily. I'm sure, you can "hip it up" with a slick interface which makes everything look quick but you might alienate more than half the community that built it. A slicker system of communication will not change people's opinions - there will still be mountains of tomes to work through when WMF disrespects them openly. If you limit that, then again, off they go with a fork - it's quite easy to mimic this antiquated system too. Anyway, you are probably headed in the wrong direction if you are undermining MV and want to replace the underlying software all together. Theo10011 (talk) 16:57, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Drifting a bit right? :D - I think the idea of the visual editor is quite okay. For new users it might be more easy; if it works properly! - While earning my money I do that with WYSIWYG-software as well so why not in WP. ... Of course, and I include myself, experienced wikipedians might not use it as they dont need it. But as long as an editor can choose; why not giving the option? ... Becuase wasted money? Maybe but we (actually not us but WMF) has more then enough. so spending some on software might not be the worst idea :o) ...Sicherlich ^Post 17:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"This was a rhetorical question :) Editors should be spending time on content, right?, not on learning (or dealing with) antiquated software -- I hope we agree there.

Hi, thank you for getting involved in the discussion. However, I'm afraid we don't agree on that point, for two reasons:

1. There is already one assumption (that the software is "antiquated") leading to one implication (that it is no longer fit for purpose). I do not feel that is a fair representation of the current state of the software--it is quite possible that it needs some improvements, but those should be evolutionary rather than "revolutionary". On a project of this scale you don't really have much choice (take a look at Unix/Linux) for an example of a project were change is "done right", i.e., a small bit of change at a time, and mostly following demand rather than making it up.

2. I realise than in order for the WMF to stay relevant and keep raking money in (which is your job, after all) the project needs to attract some new blood. However, I will posit that you do not want to lower the barrier to entry too much--there must be some moderate level of effort that a candidate editor should have to go through in order to show his motivation to contribute meaningfully to the project, least you end up trading quality for quantity. For example, learning wiki syntax (about twenty minutes) is in my opinion appropriate for someone who wants to make some entry level editing--perhaps correcting a few typos or adding a few links, categories, etc. Someone a bit more advanced and willing to dedicate more time will naturally want to interact with other editors and will end up having to learn about the mechanics of Talk pages and the like (I agree those should not be too arcane, but I don't think they currently are: I'm not even an editor myself and can figure them out just fine... except on some pages where some template tries to make them look like discussion forums, I get lost there actually). Eventually anyway, you are going to end up getting to a point where even the easiest editing / chit-chatting tools in the world are not going to be any help: if you get involved too much you will end up needing to learn about all the (constantly changing) policies and idiosyncratic stuff that more or less governs this whole thing. People are going to have to invest time learning those too.

But the most important point is: the WMF should not be there trying to second-guess Wikistuff users. The WMF should limit itself to 1) running the day-to-day technical and administrative bits and 2) acting upon community requests for improvements to the project and, perhaps very occasionally, new developments. Let us not forget that this project was built not just for users: it was built by users too. Trying to take it off their hands is just begging for trouble.

So, my apologies for being slightly long-winded, but in answer to your question ("How do you guys do this?"), I suspect the answer is: they are a bunch of motivated people who are willing to invest the time to learn how to participate. You would have to ask an editor, which I am not, however. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 2a00:1028:83a0:291e:762f:68ff:fe2d:429e (talk) 00:18, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@LilaTretikov: You wrote "MV is such peanuts, we should really not be spending our joint mental cycles on." - If it is such "peanuts" for you, then why do you not just switch it to "opt-in" in those 2 wikis? All the wasting of time will be immediately reduced to a minimum! --92.226.45.154 09:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

+1. However, i am a bit astonished that, you, Lila, seemingly still not realize why such "peanuts" caused such well-grounded uproar. First, as was explained several times already, it was not caused by MV in itself, but by the behavior of WMF, where on enWP e.g. threating admins and on deWP, superprotect was merely the last straw. This "peanuts" was thus seen as a clear manifestation of an attitude by WMF that we will not accept. Now, we see that we were right in this perception, as Jan-Bart and others are currently laying out their vision for WMF's "future" clearly. There simply will be no more "OUR (community, which includes the WMF)" in this "future". The current "WE" was based on principles such as the 4th mentioned several times here, the rules for WMF office action excemptions and so on. By breaking and ignoring those rules (Jan-Bart: it "applies to some degree"), you have killed this "WE". You also seem to have no idea of how the software you call "antiquated", being software that actually works, relates in comparison to what you spend your money on.

I think, there would be a very time-efficient way to shorten nearly all of these discussions you find so astonishing. I freely translate from User:Micha H. Werner:

I have a proposal for all current and future WMF members: They all have to write 9 articles of high quality, applying our state-of-the-art rules and methods [i take this to include image upload and inclusion]. The topics will be preselected. They will only research and write the contents for themselves. 3 articles they have to write in the "classical" way. The next 3, however, with VisualEditor. 3 they have to write with the new editing functions of the mobile apps on iPhone/iPad. For the last 3, they are only allowed to upload images with the commons-App. Of those 9 topics, 3 might be irrelevant. It will be guaranteed that some will be proposed for deletion. They will have to provide successful defense in these deletion discussion. For 3, there are sources, but hardly so. When they have done so, and all 9 articles are included in article space, and by that time none of them has been blocked because of rude behavior, they may go on and develop and maintain their software. Let's just see, what kind of software we will then have to expect and how priorities for development will then look. -- Micha 00:39, 20. Aug. 2014 (CEST) PS: in the US, people could call it "eating your own dog food" ...

I suggest Jan-Bart should start first... Ca$e (talk) 09:37, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

---

Dear Lila,

I had the honor to see you in London. I saw with (positive) surprise, how you are responding here. My deep respect for that. Thank you.

I have to admit, that I am very straightforward. But after reading Editors should be spending time on content, right?, not on learning (or dealing with) antiquated software, I can not hold back anymore and have to share my thoughts.

• in fact, learning (and teaching) is a big motivation for me volunteering at Wikipedia
• here are a lot of people, becoming good photographers because they are contributing to Commons, dealing with the difficulties at hand
• here are a lot people, becoming good software developers (you are even temporarily employing some without a high-school diploma) dealing with antiquated software
• here are many people editing code the first time in their life.

Erik asked in London if there are any editors without a certain background, who ever edited templates... I am one of these. I did it, because I saw others were able to do it. 12-year-olds were able to do it. (Because they are aloud to play around.) I experienced a lot of encouragement of my colleagues. So I tried... Doing it the first time it gave me a boost of motivation. Motivation a little "thank you"-notice would never be able to produce, because I had learned something knew. I was able to do something new...

I am spending time on content, to learn... The time I won't learn something new anymore, will be the time I do leave this project and spend my time somewhere else...

I am here, because I was treated with some earnest respect, not as a dump editor, contributing some low-cost-content to an online paper, like The Huffington Post. Wikipedia gave me something back - education, knowledge, self confidence, even some friends. I never wanted to become a regular Wikipedia-editor, but I am. I never wanted to organize an event, cause I did not know how to do. I learned. My second WikiConvention, nevertheless my second one as a member of the organisation-team, will take place 3. to 5. October. The first meeting of Austrian, Czech, German and Polish editors took place in May... followed by a second one with Czech, German and Slovakians in Poland[4]...

Nothing of that would happen, if Editors should be spending time on content, and on content only.

All about Wikipedia and other projects is about learning. Not only about reading a text and contributing text. Taking this away with "hipper software", this experience of doing something new, of helping each other, of seeking and getting help, will do a lot of harm to the movement.[5] More harm, than seeking help of the WMF and getting nothing back, will ever do.[6] The last one is a longtime everyday experience of "just editors", so we learned to expect nothing, the only thing we are hoping for: don't make it worse. Even one click more to be able to edit[7] is worse. A development a company would never tolerate, because it costs time of employees[8] and therefor a lot of their profit.

Today, some of us are feeling used like beeing Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times.[9][10] The only advantage we have: we don't have to build the Tin Lizzy to feed our kids.

Software has to be changing, to improve, not to do the same a different way or to build Potemkin villages and leave the mess behind. New software has to be inviting. 19% of our "future editors" are unaware anyone could edit. Only 6% are not comfortable with tech.

If new potential editors are worth the effort (advertisers are not), today we do start with something people are comfortable with: writing e-mails, encouraging them to use the talk page, showing changes to improve articles, inviting them to edit-a-trons and meetups. It took me months to get a donation of photographs. Time I am willing to spend, writing e-mails, explaining copyright, cc-licenses and the upload-wizard - only to be uploading these pictures myself, waiting for the OTRS-ticket to arrive, half the time. The other half I get nothing. I'd be aloud to use it on Wikipedia, but not with a free license (too much to read). To be able to start a cooperation with a GLAM-institution is a highlight.

The problem we are facing is not an old-style-talk-page or an immature MV. The problem we are facing is: people do not know that there is a talk-page at all. Most readers do not know that there is a history. Readers do not know, that they are able to view a picture with higher resolution by clicking on it. The only thing, most readers do know: there is an article to read. (I got this information while talking to people face to face. People watching me editing and asking questions on a train, in a hotel bar or a library - experiencing for the first time: "I can edit Wikipedia!")

The biggest problem is not the antiquated software at hand. The biggest problem of potential new editors is the unawareness of the possibility to contribute. --Anika (talk) 18:54, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Working Together

Thank you everyone for the insights and arguments you’ve shared with me and each other over the past week -- I am continually using them to inform my thinking. Your passion is undeniable, and I want you to know that my passion for this movement is too. I’ve read what you’ve sent my way these past few days. In return I want to share with you my thoughts on where I think we are, and where we need to be.

The Board brought me into this project in order to lead a transformation at the WMF. I accepted the challenge because I believe you’ve created an incredible project that has changed the way the world experiences knowledge. However, I also believe both your contributions and our movement’s mission are at risk of being lost as a result of changing technologies, much as Encyclopedia Britannica was in the 90s.

This means we must make some changes. And we must make them together. I spoke about this at a high level at Wikimania, but in action this means we must:

• Improve our process for software design, user and community feedback, and operations;
• Learn how to work together through disagreements and make decisions that have global impact with objectivity;
• Improve our product consistency globally and think of ourselves as the world’s source of free knowledge;
• Increase the responsiveness and speed at which we develop and deliver product; and the rate of innovating; and
• Do this with mutual understanding and respect.

This weekend I posted a set of questions here, on my talk page. They represent the issues I am grappling with, and the things I wish to understand in order to assess the specifics of changes we need to make. I appreciate the responses you’ve shared so far, and look forward to receiving more. I would like to quote Martijn Hoekstra, who stated on this page that it is “the burden of the person with the initiative to initiate the dialog. In case of WMF software projects, that's the WMF.” We are going to do that.

I want you to know that I hear you, as different as you all are. Everyone has legitimate concerns about the current situation: not just the recent issue involving the WMF and the de.wp community, but the ways in which we work together overall. I actively engaged with you to solve this. We need to transform our conversations into an ongoing and improving process with common goals.

While we are all part of a larger community, we have different tasks. Of our movement entities, the Wikimedia Foundation is in the unique position to lead the continued development of the technology making these projects possible. This means we understand ourselves as a technology organization. This also means we are a global organization responsible for technology powering 800+ projects.

Yet many of you need to be able to influence and affect the direction our projects take -- this means being heard and taken into account even on things you don’t directly work on. We need to find a way for all of the contributors from all of those 800+ projects to participate. You need opportunities to review the development of product earlier and during critical junctures. Our approaches need to evolve and mature. We need to find a better way to collaborate.

The WMF is a part of our community -- the part that is responsible for developing and maintaining software and servers. We all want to want to participate in deciding which features get implemented and how, but the current approach of voting on them post-rollout is disruptive and inefficient. We need to change our processes so that they are iterative, incremental, and inclusive of feedback throughout. We understand that our recent decision to restrict edits to site-wide JavaScript on German Wikipedia was a surprising move that upset a significant number of people - we’re sorry for that. At the same time, it gave visibility to an important issue: we need a better mechanism for managing changes that impact all users -- the way the MediaWiki: namespace works right now is not sustainable. Let's use this opportunity to improve.

At the WMF, we’re preparing to unprotect the disputed page on German Wikipedia, but we need to do so within a framework that allows us to come to reasonable resolutions -- giving everyone a voice and a say in the process, but also understanding WMF’s leadership role in technology. We will post thoughts on how this can be accomplished (and in what timeframe), in partnership, in coming days, starting with a brainstorming process.

As part of this process, we have heard feedback that WMF employees should have distinct accounts for their WMF-related actions as opposed to their personal actions on the projects. We accept that feedback and will put in place such a system within the next month.

In summary:

• You have my commitment that we will work towards a constructive resolution of this current and any future disputes together and in good faith.
• We intend to undertake a review of our present processes immediately and propose a new approach that allows for feedback at more critical and relevant junctures in the next 90 days. This will be a transparent process that includes your voices.
• We will establish improved centralized communications for all wiki software changes.
• All future updates and current developments will be based on this new process.
• For the purpose of additional clarity regarding roles and responsibilities, we will put in place a clear distinction between work and personal accounts for all WMF employees by September 15.

I hope we can agree to exercise restraint in this transformative time so we can work together in good faith and in concert. As Magnus Manske said in his recent blog, “the house that is Wikipedia cannot stand without a foundation, and a foundation without a house on top is but a dirty pond.”

Thank you, -- LilaTretikov (talk) 16:22, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Working Together Comments

Dear Lila, thank you very much, i really appreciate this notice. However, i cannot agree with your proposition "the current approach of voting on them post-rollout is disruptive and inefficient". This should rather read: The current approach of WMF of ignoring important (among them legal) issues, clearly and repeatedly voiced months ahead, and nevertheless rolling out broken und unfixed software, is disruptive and inefficient. Also, i do not agree that establishing "product consistency globally" would be in every case fortunate. Especially, communities should decide on the status of critical new software (beta/opt-out/opt-in) and also, opting-out should always be possible when proposed new software does not include all capabilities of working software (please - as has already been spelled out above - keep this in mind for future software projects). Again, please check out Jimbo's principles: "Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible. We need to make sure that any changes contribute positively to the community, as ultimately determined by the Wikimedia Foundation, in full consultation with the community consensus." This implies that you should never, ever, find yourself in a position to enforce critical software changes, and especially not broken software like MV, against evident community consensus. Can we agree on this principle? (Else, the conditions for "working together" would have to be rewritten from the start, and it would be very open which part of current communities would accept the outcome. I suspect: not very many!) Ca$e (talk) 17:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

We are looking in the particular issue of potential legal implication. If it is a legal issue -- it will be treated as a blocker. If not, we will attempt to fix. From what I understand the issues is affecting about 1% of the images, but I have asked to confirm. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 21:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

CC-BY_SA-3.0 requires at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. [4.c.iv]

Legal issues are two-fold:

1. By breaking this term we are breaking copyright law on around (by your 1% estimate) 220,000 images. (Of course some are PD.)

2. By selectively breaking copyright the Foundation is not acting neutrally, and hence could loose DMCS safe harbour protections under section 230.

Rich Farmbrough 15:23 20 August 2014 (GMT).

As there again are a few postings beside the crucial points below (not of course by you, Rich!), i want to make sure you, Lila, or the legal consultants you are asking, get at least aspects of the basic problem: Check out examples like https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:2014_-_Olympic_Stadium_(Athens).JPG#mediaviewer/Datei:2014_-_Olympic_Stadium_(Athens).JPG . Neither copyright holder nor correct license information are given via MV and especially not with the function to provide a re-usable inclusion code. It has been pointed at many times, but i should probably state it even once more: CC-by-sa 3.0 requires to give appropriate credit, provide licensing information, e.g. by a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. Omitting the link to the correct license is also a breach of licensing. Ca$e (talk) 15:10, 21 August 2014 (UTC) PS: Also, check https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69496 . Ca$e (talk) 10:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear ca$e, the way the viewer works (the only way it can work) is by extracting machine-readable information via an API. There's a standard for such machine-readable info that the community has developed, here. It's evaluated by the CommonsMetadata API. We made efforts to reach out to the communities as early as November to collaborate on the adaptation of templates [11] [12]. However, I'll acknowledge that these efforts didn't go far enough. The viewer links through to the File: page as a fallback with a clear "View license" label, and for cases where there isn't even a standard template on the file page, it's hard to do better. Really in those cases the only way to fix this is to fix the descriptions -- this doesn't just affect tools like the viewer, but practically any automated re-use. So we really have a shared interest in addressing any remaining cases irrespective of what you think about the viewer. We just posted a fix for the German {{Information}} template here and are happy to apply it ourselves if desired. This should do the trick, but we'll help if there are still are problems after it's applied.--Eloquence (talk) 16:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

My own opinions do not matter. I would just switch it off. I am concerned for our users. What you should do in case you cannot give necessary information is say so. This especially holds for the function where re-using users should get a working URL with author + linked license info. When MV cannot give it, it should not misleadingly suggest so. This, however, is only my personal opinion. On a completely different point stands the deWP community consensus and the way you reacted to it. Ca$e (talk) 16:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Regarding your mail from November 2013: In relation to your colleague's misinformation that "announcements are posted through a number of channels" (see below), posting it to only an obscure mailing list is rather ridiculous. Further, am right in taking this as clear proof that 1) you knew especially of this problem since November, that 2) you knew that you communicated it unsuccesfully, that 3) you knew that communities had not yet themselves provided means so that MV could serve correct license information in those cases, that 4) you knew that we knew of this and warned you especially explicitly in our Meinungsbild, but that 5) you nevertheless chose to ignore this Meinungsbild and enforce a software of which you knew that it would cause legal problems. 6) Did you sufficiently inform your superiors of all that mess before they chose to back you in this matter? A simple yes or no would suffice. Thanks, Ca$e (talk) 10:12, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, and this does only in part concern legal problems, below you find my quick translation of the relevant parts of the deWP "Meinungsbild" that WMF chose to ignore and aggressively overrule.

The "old" page for the file description, which included way more information than can be shown via MediaViewer, can now be reached only via detours. This includes most toolserver-expansions and commons-templates. A few examples of a list that could easily be prolonged as there are quite a low of useful templates and tools on commos:

1. While the short version of the license identification is shown, e.g. CC-by-Sa, elucidating templates (e.g. {{Cc-by-sa-1.0}}) of the file description page are included only if mentioned in the "license" parameter of the template {{Information}}. According to the Template Information, however, bigger license-information, that make up their own section, should explicitly not be included there, the field should then rather be kept empty! The omission of templates for summarizing licenses and warning in MediaViewer is promoting "wrong" re-use. For example, {{PD-Pre1978}} warns that a picture should probably not be used in germany following the Rule of the shorter term. One example, where the warning is missing with MediaViewer, thus suggesting that the file would without restrictions be usable everywhere: Stones ad 1965.JPG; especially misleading in this context is the text below "Bedingungen ansehen" (view conditions) and in the bar below the image the term „Gemeinfrei“ (public domain). As MediaViewer invites users to re-use the file, without having checked the file description page first (via the button to re-use, that provides download and inclusion of the file and sharing of the URL independently of the file description), this handles templates that warn of certain conditions for re-use as if they were unnecessary accessories. The provision of an option to download and include without those warnings is in some cases wantonly negligent.
2. 5 years ago, the Credit line-template was introduced on Commons in order to facilitate the correct attribution for re-use cases. It is currently used for more than 194.000 pictures. However, it is completely ignored by MediaViewer (example: Arena AufSchalke Innen bei Konzert.jpg; the Credit-line-content is normally given in the field „Namensnennung“ (name of contributor)). WMF's developers have been warned of this problem May 17th. Since then, nothing has been changed. As the requirements of the author are legally binding, by omitting the credit-line-content, WMF puts re-users into higher risks to provide illegitimate attributions and breaching of licensing and their effects - and this knowingly, thus wantonly negligently.
3. Detailed file descriptions, such as are necessary to understand the caption for maps, are not shown; example: EU member states (using the template {{Legend}}); also, the citation of the historical original text of the map, not being included in the template {{de}}, is not included.
4. In cases where the descriptions are all in template parameters that are ignored by MediaViewer, the misleading information "No description available" is given. Example: Mona Lisa (Commons) vs Mona Lisa (MV). In this case, the informations regarding the original title of the image, the painter, painting technique, current place, inventary number and place of production are actually descriptions, however.
5. Information that appears on mouse-over, such as can be provided on Commons as annotations to images, are practically lost (see c:Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator/de). Example: historical image of Dresden, which should show descriptions for individual buildings on mouse-over.
6. For images with geo-data, the file-description-page gives links to 4 systems of maps. 3 of them include markings with further Commons-images, enabling the user to discover the surroundings, see building of Berlin Reichstag.
7. Only via detours the ZoomViewer can be reached, which provides targetted, gradual zooming into bigger images like maps. MediaViewer, however, being intended for improving image viewing, lacks such capabillities. Example: below the image, the link to ZoomViewer on Commons and in ZoomViewer.

I hope this concludes a view pointless discussions that have developed especially below. Keep in mind that those are only a quick selection of many more problems caused by MediaViewer. Ca$e (talk) 15:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

+1. I appreciate the communication by Lila, but the software features like Visual Editor and Media Viewer were far from being ready to be rolled out since essential problems were still existing. And the communities get ignored on that (still they are). Also i agree with Ca$e that this "consistency" is not a valuabel goal for cultural projects like encyclopedias. This might be nice for Facebook et al, but every Wikipedia should be sensiblel to it readership regarding its cultural background (also on questions of design). The way to go is to build a module based technical infrastructure from which the communities can decide how to serve their respective readership best. And that is not a matter of money as often voiced in the discussions. The WMF has likely more money then it should have (much growth which was not thought through properly happend just because money was there), and there will be more coming in if it doesn't keep on discuraging the people who make such great products that sell so well to the donors. --Julius1990 (talk) 17:25, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

In terms of "ready" we need to define an objective definition of readiness. We can do this together. Current RfCs are not objective, but, by the same token neither is the WMF. So let's find a better solution. Consistency is important from both user experience and cost standpoint. We are a global site with local communities. Technology needs to provide a consistent and predictable foundation for all of them. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 21:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Lila, this is no science. As long as the Media Viewer is not able to display every media file with the right attribution and liscence there can't be a full roll out. Same on the Visual Editor: As long as it was not able to perform at least the mayority of tasks like editing tables and so on but is just useful for typography edits and with saving even caused many deletions of texts as it was during the roll out last year, it was not ready. And I seriously doubt it is now. And instead of taking those concerns seriously I heard developers complain that our editor is simply too complex. Now, our editor works for all the tasks needed. As long as they can't develop something that does the same, no readyness for roll out is given. Beta means fixing up the details to me, not that software features with problems at the core are put to all users. And with doing this, forcing features with core problems on the editors you (meaning the Foundation) destroyed the good faith of many editors in the last years. And with the good faith it is like with the trust that especially Erik Möller destroyed in the current case. The destroying takes short time, building it up again takes much, much longer. That's why you should take us more seriously than you did before and do right now. Even if, as I said your communication right now is good (I haven't seen Sue ever engaging this deep with community memebers online, no offense to her, but a cudo for you) and you still have more trust than the "Community Advocate" or Erik Möller because you didn't destroy it so far. I just can recommand you to act wisely and not to destroy it. Because what is destroyed takes long to be rebuildt. And that'S also a reason for many offensive speech on that. There is so much bitterness caused by the WMF in the last two, three years ... and by Superprotect you gave the people teh feeling of authoritarism and insults are also a form of resistance when you feel overpowered by a much more mighty institution who doesn't seem to want to act anymore according to its Mission Statement, Values and Jimbos Principles. According to Jimbos Principles you should comply to the bug report that asks for your acceptance of teh German Wikipedia vote. A vote that is not against the MV itself, but against teh full roll out while still core problems around teh attribution and license exist. --Julius1990 (talk) 21:54, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Let's decouple some of the issues: we have painful history, let's look forward and try to improve how different parts of the community complement each other. I believe that is important. And it does take time and effort to understand you guys :) Now, on the software side... Actually saying that every corner case needs to be satisfied is a huge product design fallacy. You might be familiar with the 80/20 rule, where you get 99% of the benefit from satisfying 80% of the requirements. This also means that hitting every corner case is completely inefficient from cost standpoint. This is where the tough decisions need to be made. Between us here, no article and no piece of software is ever perfect, but it has to be good enough and we need to decide what that means. I know this is all product mumbo-jumbo, but this does not come from me. So unless we truly have a legal issue, not every corner case should be solved. On the other hand there are other creative ways to solve these corner issues. Since some of them come from template typing we may do better writing a script to convert that specific template over to something more typical. Especially as we move closed to a normalized way to view data with Wikidata project. I am not going to problem solve here. Just outlining the options. And again -- thank you for the feedback (and, frankly, for encouragement) as this can get really tough to stomach! -- LilaTretikov (talk) 22:04, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

But Lila, that the Media Viewer doesn't violate our licences and attribution is not a corner case. It is the most central point according to our free licenced media files. It is at the very core, not some halflid corner ... And the same goes for the Visual Editor. A VE that isn't able to work on most of teh tasks needed to write our articles, but basically is just good for correcting typography has not some pretty unnecessary corner cases that would be nice to be fixed. It has problems at the very heart. And both were because of this not ready for such a roll out as it took place. And the Wikidata has also a core problem: Many data sets are without valid source, because bots simply putted them there before any clear policy was established. A Wikipedia version like the German with its focus on quality won't be able to accept Wikidata as a working tool until this is solved.

The problem basically is that apparently noone at the WMF seems to have any idea what is core case or corner case when it comes about software for the different projects. Maybe everyone of you should be encouraged to use half a workday per week to work on one of the projects, writing articles, doing clean-up work, whatever ... so you can understand the projects from within. Or you need to listen when one or in this case three mayor projects (Commons, de:wiki, en:wiki) tell you what are the core problems to them and what needs to eb fixed before they can accept on their projects a full roll out. Especially since people told on the mailinglist already in spring that this problems would occur.

The very core are also the actions that happend right now and how you deal with them. You do as if this is a pointless looking in the past. But if you don't resolve it, such things will remain and poison all your efforts. I ask you: Do en:User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles still exist? Then why did the WMF especially Erik Möller violate principle 4? Do the Mission Statement and the Values of the Foundation still exist and have meaning? Then why is the Board backing up such actions that clearly violate such three chartas of principles that to em were the fundament of the WMF-communities relation? This needs to be fixed before there can be a moving on from my side. Yes, i could say "let's move on, everything fine", but this would be a lie and this issue would remain in me, decouraging me from further work in the Wikipedia. --Julius1990 (talk) 22:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Internet lawyer, is not a good use of any anons time. In the few "corner case" files, attribution is given in the link, that satisfies attribution. This has to be so, because on the face of wiki articles, where we display the image in content, we do not identify the CR owner there, either. At any rate, you're not the WMF's lawyer. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:07, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Do I claim that? No. But that is the critic of many in de:wiki and the Foundation is not able to convince us otherwise. And to us it is the core case of the feature. You can make it easy and label it different to a corner case. But that won't convince for obvious reasons. You have to take the issues raised by the communities as core case seriously or you can just openly confess that you don't care and go for leading the projects in an autocratic way. Then just say it and I won't bother any more with my comments here and my articles on Wikipedia. Heard there are many other nice hobbies around, but then the Foundation will mourn again the loss of more editors and all the classical "we need more editors" stuff starts again ... --Julius1990 (talk) 13:16, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Taking it seriously means analyzing the compliant. You have made a legal complaint, but without competence or responsibility to do so, and moreover are wrong -- that's what taking it seriously looks like. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:50, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, yes, surely the German Wikipedians with interest in this aspect and expertise have to be fully wrong. Just sad that users with a certain profession on it proofed the complaints to be serious. But you can do the Pippi Langstrumpf version of handeling things. But it's not the way you seriously handle the problems that occured and it certainly is not convincing the German Wikipedia community. --Julius1990 (talk) 13:55, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The expertise you claim is inaccessible to everyone but you, that's what is meant by 'on the internet no one knows who you are'. Your claimed inability, indeed refusal, to consider, with competence or responsibility, demonstrates you are being unserious. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:09, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure ... the points were made on the German Meinungsbild and convinced the voters. The Foundation didn't proof otherwise and you do neither but claiming. The same you say applies to your own comments. I tell Lila what for the German community is the core problem and that it believes that this is not solved. If it would be, you easily can show and concvince with arguments, not with your claims. I don't claim to be wrong or right, i just claim to say what for the German voters was one of the core problems. And as i said before: denying this and labelling it to a "not core" problem won't change anything on this tied up situation. --Julius1990 (talk) 14:18, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

No. No one of any responsibility or seriousness is going to put legality to a vote. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:46, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You try really hard to miss any point i make. Noone voted if there is legality or not. But the argumentation refered often to legal concerns that the WMF neither could solve with arguments nor did it with actions on its product to make those worries loose their substance. --Julius1990 (talk) 16:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You just said it again, they voted on "legal concerns" -- and that makes no sense. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I imagine that Lila's statement probably is a huge step forward for the WMF, regarding what had happend before during the past week. But what strikes me is that it seems that the superprotect right still will not be abolished. If I got this correctly, I don't think this will bring us much "forward" after all.--Aschmidt (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

haha yeah. But sorry Aschmidt; "we’re preparing to unprotect the disputed page on German Wikipedia, but we need to do so within a framework that allows us to come to reasonable resolutions" - means nothing else then; if the german wikipedia does as WMF wants, then WMF will unprotect the page. If not, then not. That is not a step forward. its the same situation since the superprotection was put in place. Just nicer wording :) ...Sicherlich ^Post 18:38, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

So I got it right again. Thanks for confirming, Sicherlich. (I didn't want to be that cynical.)--Aschmidt (talk) 18:52, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

All we are doing is asking everyone to hold the current state until we jointly find a better way to make decisions on product. This includes lifting superprotect. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 21:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

You ask us to accept the dagger in our chest until the argument has been sorted that has led to the fight. Sorry, but the most pressing issue is not software deployment. It is the superprotect mode and the mindset it stands for.---<(kmk)>- (talk) 22:31, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

+1. The "current state" is strictly not acceptable and also goes against the principles that govern the relationship between WMF and communities. There is no ground for discussion or cooperation unless this issue is resolved. You notably did not answer my question from above: Please check out Jimbo's principles: "Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible. We need to make sure that any changes contribute positively to the community, as ultimately determined by the Wikimedia Foundation, in full consultation with the community consensus." This implies that you should never, ever, find yourself in a position to enforce critical software changes, and especially not broken software like MV, against evident community consensus. Can we agree on this principle? (Else, the conditions for "working together" would have to be rewritten from the start, and it would be very open which part of current communities would accept the outcome. I suspect: not very many!) Ca$e (talk) 22:38, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

But "the current state" is the one imposed by the WMF against German Wikipedia's will. You are, indeed, saying "we won't remove the superprotection until German Wikipedia has agreed on a version of Media Viewer that it will accept as default", which is basically "we won't remove the superprotection until German Wikipedia agrees to lose the dispute." Why not remove the superprotect, set Media Viewer back to opt-in, and turn it to opt-out only after German Wikipedia agrees you've done a good enough job with it for it to be default software? Why is a feature that we did without for over a decade worth forcing on one of the communities? Why is it necessary for you to hold the software in a state where you have effectively won the dispute instead of yielding gracefully?Kww (talk) 23:01, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I wouldn't view this as being about winning or losing, prevailing or yielding, but rather about reestablishing trust in a partnership and working towards a win-win. Unfortunately I currently don't see this happening for the reasons you and Ca$e state. I don't understand what the foundation's problem is. Lila: What stops you from switching MV to opt-in for the time being as requested in the German Meinungsbild and enwiki's RfC and remove the superprotect right until we (the communities and the foundation) have established proper guidelines on how, where, when and by whom it shall be set and unset? Then we have all the time in the world to discuss visions, goals, products and processes to implement them. Cheers --Millbart (talk) 23:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

We don't have that much time as those guys have to discuss and we don't have the money to buy huge Conferences with glamorous key notes of outstanding testimonials. Please just stop disruptive sanctions for now. The readers will be thankful, promised :-D --Sargoth (talk) 18:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

My two cents on the key points.

• Improve (...) user and community feedback (...). -- There already was feedback galore. Rather than feedback, more feed forward is needed. Communicate to the community early and often. Sell your plans to us before the first line of code is written, persuade us, make us part of the process from day one.
• Learn how to (...) make decisions that have global impact with objectivity (...) Improve our product consistency globally (...). -- That is, ignore the explicit wish of local communities in favour of global uniformity? Since when is global uniformity a necessity? German Wikipedia has sighted revisions in effect and is happy with it since a digital eternity. This is a rather far reaching difference in the UI. Still, the wikipedia as a whole does not seem to suffer tremendously.
• Increase the responsiveness and speed at which we develop and (...) -- I couldn't care less for speed of software development. Do it fast, or do it slow, whatever you feel appropriate. What I do feel, though, is that bugs need to be less long standing. See for example the problems with SVG. The contents are sufficiently accessible with current software. Eye candy is nice to have but in the end it is just that. The fundamental asset of the wikipedia is its content, not its presentation.
• Do this with mutual understanding and respect. -- I hope, these buzz words translate to "Embrace the community. Do not even think to fight against it"

---<(kmk)>- (talk) 22:17, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

"we jointly find a better way to make decisions on product." - we means WMF? ... and the better way means a better technical way to prevent the community to do changes? ... or it really about the decision making? By the community? De-WP had a straw poll on the MV so you want something better? And de-WP has a poll against the superprotect - you ignore it as well. ... So it leaves me to the conclusion that the opinion of the community is not what you accept as a good way. ... Interesting. ....Sicherlich ^Post 07:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

(BK) Rather embarrasing to read Lila's responses overnight. I second the critical remarks from my fellow German editors. I also would like to add that we are here to write an encyclopædia, not for giving feedback to software development.--Aschmidt (talk) 07:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC) To make it absolutely clear: This is not about lifting superprotect, but about doing superprotect away, abolishing superprotect.--Aschmidt (talk) 08:38, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

If we are here to write encyclopeida and not give feedback about software -- why there is so much commotion about it? -- LilaTretikov (talk) 16:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll answer that, although I suspect it may have been rhetorical. Firstly, the volunteer encyclopaedia writers use the software; secondly, the set of volunteer encyclopaedia writers includes most if not all of the set of volunteer software developers; thirdly, most of the software was written by those volunteer developers for and in cooperation with the volunteer writers; fourthly the volunteer writers have largely not been consulted by or involved with the work of the paid developers; fifthly the volunteer writers experience is that the work of the paid developers is not always fit for purpose; sixthly, the volunteer writers have been sent the unwelcome message that in future they are to be made subordinate to the paid developers. I hope that helps. Deltahedron (talk) 16:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

because you (as always: not you in person, but WMF, of course!) are enforcing upon as dysfunctional software that causes problems for us in writing an encyclopædia as we intend to, given, among other concerns already voiced on this very page, we are writing (and illustrating etc etc) with the intention to produce free and quality content. You enforce software that encourages breaking free licenses, that leads to an overflood of unusable pseudo-content we then have to filter again etc etc. You misuse developer resources for unwanted broken pieces of software, while we are waiting for years for these developers to repair critical bugs, to provide much needed functions, etc. We also want to write within a working community, encouraging others to join the effort, while you enforce software that makes recruting fellow editors harder and harder, and, even more hazardously, you severly harm our community e.g. by breaking previous rules of our relationship with you. We e.g. now extensively have to deal with how to react to this misbehavior of WMF, and also to radically unwanted tendencies such as laid out by your head of board on this very page. Given that several fellow colleagues, among them people who did very critical jobs that can hardly be replaced by anyone else, already left us because of your aggressive misbehavior, you already have destroyed very critical parts of our community, and that will hold for quite some time! What is more, many others have already declared, that, should such a "vision" for WMF's "future role" as laid out by our head of board prevail, they will want nothing to do with it! All this in effect stops us from what we would rather do. Ca$e (talk) 16:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Because when the WMF makes a change that is disliked or broken, they refuse to disable it. That's what causes the fuss, LilaTretikov: it's not that anyone expects the software to be perfect upon initial release, it's that we expect you not to make it the default software until there's a consensus that it is ready, useful, and an improvement over the current state. Instead, we get new rights invented in order to force the software to stay in place before the repairs are made and threats made against administrators that disable it.Kww (talk) 20:22, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

On Working together: Well, you got your requested comments, when are we going to get our single issue here fulfilled? Please remove superprotect and never use it again. It is an unnecessary (existing means of dispute resolution were not used), previously undocumented and massively unsocial feature for a commons-based community like ours. --Ghilt (talk) 08:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way, not only because of reasons already explained, i do not see any basis to discuss in a platform like Community_Engagement_(Product)/Process_ideas. The "status quo" there is not only described with an ridiciulous bias, but simply wrong. "announcements are posted through a number of channels" - that may be your perception, our perception is that they more often than not do not reach us in time and when they do, our input is ignored anyway. "Significant-scale rollouts are staged from smaller wikis to the largest ones" - that is often untrue. "After deployments, ad-hoc straw polls and RFCs/votes are sometimes organized by community members" - that is also misleading. See above where i corrected your own phrasing: The current approach of WMF of ignoring important (among them legal) issues, clearly and repeatedly voiced months ahead, and nevertheless rolling out broken und unfixed software, is disruptive and inefficient. "When following a defined process, these requests sometimes culminate in a request for a configuration change via Bugzilla." - that is also misleading. It should rather read: "Oftentimes, critical and high-priority problems are many months before rollout highlighted by expert community members via several channels, among them Bugzilla, but get ignored or handled with utmost neglect." Also, there is a very criticial point not mentioned about status quo: Oftentimes, WMF produces broken and decidedly unwanted software, and, when it is even after rollout remembered that communities voiced months before that they will not accept anything as broken (and causing technical and even legal issues, not to speak of problems for recruting new editors) as that, this is not even recognized, but the unwanted software change is just stoved down the throat of communities, while WMF-employees threaten admins with revoking user rights and even implement new user hierarchies and superblock their community to enforce such unwanted implementations of broken software. Something like that would fairly describe the status quo. "the editors think the readers can be ignored" - i will not even go into details as to why that is not only untrue but an inacceptable affront in itself towards almost every editor (see Kww above on this topic e.g.). You cannot expect community members to discuss anything 1) before the current unacceptable situation, uniliteraly created by WMF, is resolved by WMF, 2) in a not only highly biased put pullulated with untrue descriptions, environment established by members of WMF, being the party who caused and not yet resolved the affrontation against communities. Ca$e (talk) 09:30, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Lila, I would also like to express my gratidue for the time and effort you take to address this problem - it makes me feel that you take our concerns seriously and this is definitely a good first step. A problem that I see here is that two issues are closely intermingled: The question of how to move forward with the MV in particular and software development in general on the one hand, and the problem of the relation between the foundation and the communities on the other. Concerning the former, you are right, we need to talk with each other and think deeply about issues of speed, direction, uniformity vs. diversity etc. And this probably takes some time and we should not rush our fences on it.

But the other issue is much more pressing right now, and it requires quick and determined action from your side. It all boils down to the matter of trust: The foundation has lost a tremendous amout of trust in the German community over the past few years because many in the community feel that the foundation doesn't listen to their concerns and doesn't respect their specific needs and generally moves on to be something that uses the content we generate to make money, but is not willing to give anything back. Whether this view is justified or not is another question, and I'm probably not the right person to judge this. But that is the prevailing view in many discussions about the foundation.

On the other hand, the use of superprotect makes a very strong impression that the foundation, in turn, has lost their trust in the community, in particular in our ability to resolve wheelwars as the one that happened there. Just in case you don't know: RfC are generally considered as binding for the German community and DaB's edit was not covered by the RfC on the MV. Thus, I am pretty sure that this change would not have prevailed long. The fact that now he is getting a lot of approval for this action is precisely due to the unfortunate action of superprotecting the page. You guys unintentionally put him into the role of the rightful avanger against the evil system, to exaggerate a little (but just a little - that is the sad part).

To make a long story short, I would heartly recommend you to take one step after the other, that is: First unprotect the disputed page without any conditions, just to show that you are willing to trust our ability to resolve possible edit/wheelwars ourselves. Then, start/continue the discussion on the relation between foundation and communities, involving the question of how to deal with similar situations in the future, and the discussion about software development. In the current situation, I'm afraid that most of the community is not able or willing to discuss about content, when feelings are still being hurt. But a clear sign of goodwill could well put a beneficial dynamic into running.

Best wishes, Darian (talk) 09:50, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Lila: You say: From what I understand the issues is affecting about 1% of the images, but I have asked to confirm. No, it affects every single media file. If author and licence are not immediately and intuitively accessible especially for the un-experienced user, violations of authors' rights and licences are bound to occur, due to the failure of WMF. This is definitely a legal matter. Moreover, further information about the media files should also be readily and easily accessible (which is not a legal issue but an issue of our mission as an encyclopedia, and as such no less important).--Mautpreller (talk) 13:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

1) Incorrect and outside competence, see my comment above. 2) Further information is available. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:45, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it's simply correct. It took me, as a truly experienced user, enough time to find the information relevant, due to the misleading buttons and arrows. There are other problems as well (zoom!) but these are the most important ones. And who should be a competent judge as to intuitive accessibility but a user?--Mautpreller (talk) 13:52, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

No, your first legal point is incorrect and without competence. As for your second, it is your intuitive feeling -- that's fine but your intuition, is your intuition. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

.:Thanks a lot, I see now what you (a least) mean by "working together" and "feedback". As to legal issues, the point is not that the MV itself violates law but that it is apt to promote violations of law because it fails to give easy and immediate access to the information relevant. As to intuition, look at the results of the RfCs on en.wp and de.wp as well as the reader experience collected by WMF. Seems that my "intuitive feeling" is shared by a good many users, editors as well as readers. Maybe a software developer shouldn't discard such user experiences as irrelevant?--Mautpreller (talk) 14:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"Apt to promote" -- that's rather nonsensical, when you look at this page [13] and see how it identifies no rights holder. Apparently, you admit that MV gives easy access for 99%, but you focus on the 1% -- now if one looks at that objectively that is a mountain out of less than a molehill (and the molehill is largely fictitious). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:43, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

In order to compare, you should better have a look at this one.--Mautpreller (talk) 16:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually no, in order to compare you should look at it in media viewer where the rights holder is named in the immediate window, unlike what you are linking to where the rights holder does not appear on the screen without manipulation. Moreover, you are fixating on a 1%, which is either a matter of misplaced angst or hypocrisy: (rights holder not identified) Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The crucial difference is between https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Freiberger_Dom_11.JPG and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Silbermann#mediaviewer/Datei:Freiberger_Dom_11.JPG. It is easy to see how different the accessability to vital information is. You know youself that pictures (and videos), having only one author and forming a separate file, are a much more problematic issue in terms of licence and authors' rights and other information than texts (or the interface of Wikipedia articles as a whole). Comparison obviously requires the status-before and the status-after.--Mautpreller (talk) 18:16, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

And the media viewer puts the rights holder and licence in the immediate screen (unlike what you apparently prefer) -- and everything else is accessible in MV. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

So how will an un-experienced user will find all the information (including licence text, description, date and so on) that exists for this file and that he will need for using it? He never even is informed about what the picture shows!! The absolute minimum would be a clear link to the description page on Commons, visible immediately for everyone without any extra activity, stating: if you want to know something about the picture (e.g. what it shows ...) and possibly use it, click upon this link. I prefer to jump right to Commons but that may be an individual feature. But it is absolutely indispensable that you can find your way there as an unexperienced user.--Mautpreller (talk) 19:32, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It says "Freiberg Cathedral" right there (should I Use !!) in the immediate MV window right over the rights holder's name. If you want to know more on the licence, point to where it says exactly what the licence is, right there in the window (!!) Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:43, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The picture does not show "Freiberg Cathedral". The object of the picture is named in a description line on the Commons page but not on the MV page (and hardly to find from there). What you need is a link to all relevant information including full licence text, viz. a link to the Commons page right there in the window. This is far better in the old version (and best if you immediately jump to the Commons page). The picture looks fine in the MV presentation but that's all, you have no indication where to find context information (even the meaning of the licence is not evident, you haven't even a hint that you should click upon it). To put it otherwise: presentation seems more important than information (in an encyclopedia! an absurd idea to my thinking). One could improve the way of presentation of the information relevant, good idea; but the media viewer does not do that. It hides the information so that you do not know where it is or even whether it exists in the first place.--Mautpreller (talk) 22:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The picture shows a part of Freiburg Cathedral, and because that is what the rights holder named his composition. It's his composition, remember. The specific description is there in the Media Viewer -- sure it's below the fold, which is the exact same position as on the Commons page (below the fold), but the media viewer is superior for information because it has more information above the fold. What's important is all there. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:18, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Lila Tretikov. Please recommend to the international Communtity of Individual Volunteers (iCIV) the developement of a Charter of Coordination in coordination with the Wikimedia Foundation. Bylaws Article II (Statement of Purpose) mentions the coordination of WMF and the iCIV but does not say how. In On a Scale of Billions it was stated: „This process must have multiple opportunities for community feedback. We realize that has not always been the case in the past, but this will be one of my top priorities as Executive Director.“ and you have discribed further details in Working Together. In terms of "coordination" we need to define an objective definition of how to coordinate.

Please support this recommondation and please compare the Code of Good Practice for Civil Participation in the Decision-Making Process adopted by the conference of international non-govermental organisations (Council of Europe). There has been spent very much and useful work with a high level of agreement – some of it could be copied easily for ccordination, you might call balance, too. --Edward Steintain (talk) 15:07, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

____

All we are doing is asking everyone to hold the current state until we jointly find a better way to make decisions on product. -- Lila, the current state is hurting the dewiki community, because it says: "We don't trust you." WMF has driven a bolt into the community's delicate machinery. Here you wrote: I care and am sincerely sorry for any hurt feelings stemming from this. Then, please stop hurting us! Every "day under superprotect" deepens the scars and damages the community's trust into WMF. There is an increasing group of users starting to hate WMF for that. Are you not aware of this, or do you deliberately accept it?

Though the community is hurt and still angry, it just unlocked Eriks account de:Benutzer:Eloquence, because it realized that this was wrong and as a sign of goodwill. Please do the next step and unlock de:Mediawiki:Commons.js. --PM3 (talk) 19:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Our Future and the role of the Foundation

Hi Everyone

This note reflects my personal opinion and might not represent the view of the entire board :)

I am a volunteer. I volunteer for something incredibly special, something that 30 years from now people will either say “That was quite something, whatever happened?” or they will say “I cannot believe it started in such a simple way, and has grown to become a worldwide resource, free for everyone."

Truth is, we are at a crossroads, and unfortunately have been for quite some time. Blaming each other for being there does not make much sense, as it would probably result in us spending more time at that crossroads. If you want me to take part of the blame, I will.

Other internet projects (not limiting ourselves to websites) are passing us by left and right, and none of them have the non-profit goals that we have. In fact, some of them, with more commercial propositions, are actively undermining us.

When we started our search for a new Executive Director, we set out to find someone with a strong executive product background and solid hands-on experience. After years of building up the organization from scratch, Sue made it clear that we needed an expertise different from her own in order to take us all to the next level.

We found Lila, and she is exactly what we need: someone to look at our special thing with a different view. We are unique in many ways, but not unique enough to ignore basic trends and global developments in how people use the internet and seek knowledge. We have to get better at software development, roll-out, and user adoption. And Lila is helping us do exactly that. (a discussion on process ideas has been started here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_(Product)/Process_ideas )

But at the same time, change works both ways. There is no point in getting better at the development of software if the roll-out of these new features is going to be partial.

We talk often about “the community” (although in reality we have a lot of different communities, with different characteristics). One thing is clear to me: we need to grow that community - not just in numbers, but also in maturity in welcoming newcomers, accepting change (sometimes for the sake of others), dealing with non-productive discussions, and quickly scaling successful new initiatives.

On Wikimedia-l and in some other places I hear a lot from the few and the angry. There is an argument I hear a lot: “We are the community, without us the projects would be nothing. We are the ones who got us here.” That is true, to a degree. But at the same time… we don’t want to be here…. We want to be much further along the road.

1. We want to attract new editors. They don’t have to become heavy editors, they could even contribute once in a while, as long as we get lots of them. We have to make it easy enough for anyone to contribute so that people once again feel that “anyone can edit.”
2. We want to have our information everywhere. Not just on your browser, or integrated in your operating system and phone (as they are now), but everywhere. While 500 million readers a month may sound like a lot, it’s a fraction of whom we need to reach.
3. We need to move faster than ever before. This means we need to be tolerant of things we may not like and let experimentation happen. We also need to remove things we are attached to that don’t have wide adoption.
4. We need to act as one community, not 1,000. This means we cannot enact the wishes of a few hundred, but have to build processes that support the successes of millions.

All of this is going to require change, change that might not be acceptable to some of you. I hope that all of you will be a part of this next step in our evolution. But I understand that if you decide to take a wiki-break, that might be the way things have to be. Even so, you have to let the Foundation do its work and allow us all to take that next step when needed. I can only hope that your break is temporary, and that you will return when the time is right.

There is one thing will never change, and that is our commitment to providing free knowledge to everyone in the world. And while software development is a part of this, we have a lot of areas in which we also need to make progress -- and these are the areas where we look to you to take the lead. I am looking forward to working with you, the individual volunteers, and all our movement organizations in order to grow our successes.

Jan-Bart de Vreede
Jan-Bart (talk) 15:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

PS: Unfortunately I am in a location where I have extremely limited bandwidth (loading and saving this page takes up to five minutes each time) and am not really in a position to reply to most messages here. I will try to find a better place to respond in a few days, but this situation could last until the 1st of September. I will come back to the points made here at some time. Jan-Bart (talk) 07:02, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Simple questions: Do en:User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles still exist and have a meaning? Then why did the WMF especially Erik Möller violate principle 4? Do the Mission Statement and the Values of the Foundation still exist and have meaning? Then why is the Board backing up such actions that clearly violate such three chartas of principles that to em were the fundament of the WMF-communities relation? This needs to be fixed before there can be a moving on from my side. Yes, i could say "let's move on, everything fine", but this would be a lie and this issue would remain in me, decouraging me from further work in the Wikipedia.

Why do you think that a way of thinking that works good for Facebook and Google could be any good to cultural projects? We need not growth for the sake of the growth. You sound like a manager of a company listed at the stock exchange who needs to satisfy stakeholders. That is not the right way to handle Wikimedia projects. Encyclopedias are culural products, they reflect the cultural area they are made from and for. With thinking that one solution serves all the same well, you are wrong. And you are just wanting a corporate identity like Google or Facebook. But that is definately not the way o go for the future. We need localization. What do you know about German readers, their cultural backrounds? Or those in China? The local communities do and they are in constantly exchange with their readers who are their target group for every action they take. We need a foundation who understands that. But you are not understanding your own limitations. And when you argument with that Wikipedia is the number 5 page in the internet, it gets totally ridicoulus. You have left serving our mission by thinking like a Google manager. --Julius1990 (talk) 16:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Julius1990, thanks for your comments. I think that the 4th principle applies to some degree. The ultimate responsibility lies with the Foundation, but the foundation should be careful in implementing new features. However, our community does not limit itself to the editors. For far too long we have not paid enough attention to the readers and their experience on different platforms. While I agree with you that editors are constantly thinking about how to best write an article to serve their local reader, they are NOT constantly thinking about the "web-experience" of their local users (sorry if that is too corporate for you). With regards to "one solution", I think that there might be some exceptions, but why would reading an encyclopedic article be so completely different from any other experience on the internet that we have to essentially ignore all webtrends and keep our interface the way it looked 10 years ago? Change is hard, but soon our data will be consumed less on the web than all the other means combined (if that is not the case already, but I don't think we have the data, at least I don't). And seriously, thinking like a Google manager ("how to I reach my audience in the most effective way") might not be so bad for us, because we have a lot of catching up to do... and if we are able to convert a fraction of those new readers into editors by making it easy for them to contribute, then that would really help us Jan-Bart (talk) 18:40, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Jan-Bart, thanks for your comments, which lay out the choices before us all very frankly and usefully. I may not like them, but that's another matter. I take issue with your comment "editors ... are NOT constantly thinking about the "web-experience" of their local users". Well, mathematics editors are not constantly thinking about the web experience, but we have been expressing dissatisfaction with the state of rendering of mathematics for readers for some time. Unfortunately, WMF have not been able to allocate paid developer effort to improving the state of MathJax rendering, and the limited volunteer effort has been held up by difficulties I do not fully understand in integrating their code into production. As you are doubtless aware, Jimmy Wales asked us to state a case, which we did, and which he supported. Unfortunately, we have just been told that it is not on the roadmap for the forseeable future: [14]. So there you have it. A group of editors very seriously concerned about the web-experience of their readers, a well-argued and well-supported case for specific low-cost improvement -- and WMF declines to support them. This does not seem entirely consistent with your new thinking. In what way did our proposals not align with your vision for what we as editors should now be doing? Please help us tounderstand so that we can do better next time. Deltahedron (talk) 18:54, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You want convienent contributions of quality mathematics content. WMF wants billions of visitors, contributing what-the-hell-we-dont-care, but make it billions, make it top 5, make it fast (if previous community core does not like it, fork off)! It's not so hard to see the difference, is it? Ca$e (talk) 19:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You may be right, but I'm hoping the WMF will say so explicitly whether that is indeed the case. If mathematics content is no longer a desirable goal of the WMF, and a fork becomes the least worst option, then the sooner we know it the better, so that we have good time to prepare a graceful exit. So -- over to Jan-Bart. Deltahedron (talk) 20:01, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that the 4th principle applies to some degree. Wrong answer. The principles including the 4th apply to full degree. They are full policy (remember that there wasn't yet any WM Foundation when the founder of Wikipedia declared these principles. Compared to Englisch history these principles are the Magna Charta, and the WMF at the moment tries to be Jack I. --Matthiasb (talk) 09:38, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Jan-Bart, I appreciate your frankness. Your statement shows me very clearly that we work in totally different directions. I can't find a single word in it that refers to the goals I am pursuing with passion in the Wikipedia. About empowering readers to judge for themselves whether a Wikipedia article is good or bad; about dissolving the borders between producers and recipients; about quality issues; about interdisciplinary issues (one of the greatest potential assets of the Wikipedias); about decision and communication structures between volunteers; about self-education in writing; about all that is unique in the Wikipedia universe. My opinion is that software development basically and fundamentally has to serve encyclopedic aims, not necessarily the ones I value most, but definitely encyclopedic issues, however you don't lose a word about these issues. Obviously this is not your aim. You want quantity and velocity and growth, I cannot hear anything from you about the qualities of Wikipedia (with the exception that they be "unique"); I cannot hear anything about what is to grow, where to go to ("faster"), more quantity of what. Maybe I misjudge your statement, in this case I am very open to any correction.--Mautpreller (talk) 17:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"you have to let the Foundation do its work" - not at all. Let's leave it at that. See where you will end with this arrogant approach. Ca$e (talk) 18:25, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Mautpreller, I think we are more of the same mind than you think. I just happen to disagree with the way to get there. It should be easy to contribute knowledge and everyone should be able to do it, not just the chosen few. Our strength lies in numbers and diversity, and the English Wikipedia is a good example of where we are not growing those. And with regards to our readers: I see people building applications around our data simply because they find our interface to be too ancient. Our data is being used in phones and operating systems and yet we have no idea how to to facilitate the parties using our data. It is one thing to build an encyclopedia of high quality, and quite another to get it into the hands of every human being on the planet, in their own language. I think that Lila and her team are on the right track to help further those goals. If that means changing the dynamic, this might very well be the time that we have to do that... But I think we share the same goals. Jan-Bart (talk) 18:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"we share the same goals" - No we definitely do not. Ca$e (talk) 18:25, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Jan-Bart, but I strongly disagree. Unfortunately, we are not only on different tracks but also on tracks leading in opposite directions. You say: "It should be easy to contribute knowledge and everyone should be able to do it." But in fact it is never easy to "contribute knowledge" and not everyone is able to do it from scratch. Even use and application of knowledge is never easy. You have to learn how to contribute knowledge (and how to use knowledge as well!) and that is the task we should facilitate as much as we can: the task of learning. This is not only true for beginners but also for experienced users. We need learning editors and learning readers (and learning "users of data", as to that). Learning is never easy. However, Wikipedia offers enormous potentials to learn without unnecessary bareers, potentials I never saw elsewhere but these potentials are hardly realized. My understanding of your statement is that you want use and contribution of knowledge an easy thing that can be done without an effort, but this is an illusion (which fits in with the reduction of "knowledge" to "data"). The Media Viewer is, in my eyes, a (minor) materialization of this tendency: It shows the picture and nothing else, pretending to give the "whole thing" - but this is not true. Media are never usable and understandable without context, and an effort is needed to learn this.--Mautpreller (talk) 18:44, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in that case we do disagree. I do agree that there is learning involved before one can contribute knowledge, but that should never be an effort focused on technology. Technology should never be a barrier to sharing knowledge, and right now it is. Jan-Bart (talk) 18:57, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

No, technology should not be a barrier to sharing knowledge, I agree. But again, technology should not deliver a simplified picture because this picture is wrong and prevents learning. If, for example, a better way for referencing (adding sources) could be established, that would be a fine thing, because the way we do this now is very un-intuitive (an unnecessary technological barrier). But an "express way" to isolate a picture from its vital context is just the opposite, it creates an illusion. - My experience is: It is a big mistake to think that an article evolves by way of multiple "contributions of knowledge". Articles need integration, and this is something one has to learn (and many an experienced user has much to learn there, including myself). Not an easy task. However, usually not for technological reasons but rather for social reasons - and most notably for reasons that are in the very nature of knowledge and learning itself.--Mautpreller (talk) 19:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

After this statement, I see clearly, how far away the Foundation and especially its Board is away from the Communities and how disrespectful they are acting. You say clearly, You don't care about a single editor, not even hundreds of them, because You want to reach millions. Of course this is just an excuse, that You never have to listen to anything, that comes out of the communities, because they only speak for hundreds or thousands, You always speak for the potential millions. You also state, how different the communities are (meaning, the vote of one single community is not important) and at the end all communities must act as one (meaning of course following the direction, that is given by the Foundation). You may not care about a single person, that is lost for the wikipedia because of Your actions. I care of them. I see, how much they are missing in the daily work of the German wikipedia, every one of them. And I am happy, that I am able to respect them as fellow humans and fellow editors, who sacrificed a big part of their lives for working at the same goal as me, meaning, making the German Wikipedia a better place for readers and other editors, and do not see them only as replaceable numbers and their work as something, that is disrespected as "we don’t want to be here…. We want to be much further along the road." --Magiers (talk) 19:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

That is really not what I wrote, I do care about individual editors and respect them, and I care about their concerns, but its not fair to characterize our need to innovate as "not caring". Jan-Bart (talk) 19:42, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes it is. You - as an organziation - are not caring. We explained it often enough now. Ca$e (talk) 19:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC) PS: to be more precise, see Julius1990 below: You "spit in the editors faces". If it is fair to characterize this as "innovate", i leave this up to you. Ca$e (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You wrote: "we cannot enact the wishes of a few hundred", which is completely ridiculous if You would ever have worked in a Wikipedia project and would realize, how a few people, some dozens, in best moment hundreds do all the work at every little corner in the projects, and what a deep hole is torn by everyone who is leaving. But hey: "that might be the way things have to be", if just the Foundation is not disturbed in whatever they want to do. --Magiers (talk) 20:56, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Magiers, it's even more ridiculous since Jan-Bart represents the wishes of a group of 10 ... --Julius1990 (talk) 20:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Jan-Bart, I am puzzled by your statement, "Other internet projects (not limiting ourselves to websites) are passing us by left and right, and none of them have the non-profit goals that we have. In fact, some of them, with more commercial propositions, are actively undermining us." How are these other projects passing Wikimedia by?

Excuse me for replying at length, & with numerous instances I have found that proves this statement false, but this is a point that is repeated at Wikimedians time & again without any elaboration. Perhaps the people who repeat this assertion are looking at something I am unaware of.

Consider Wikipedia, for which VE, MV & eventually Flow have been written? How is it failing? It is one of the top 10 sites on the Internet; to my knowledge, there is no other up-to-date general encyclopedia available online or in print as complete as it in any language (Encyclopedia Britannica is on life support); & it is frequently cited as a source of information everywhere I look. Not to say that there aren't problems with its software & community dynamics, but I haven't encountered any online community without problems. (See below for some examples.)

In the case of Commons, I can't think of any alternative to it. I understand that it is harder to upload files to it than it should be, but since I haven't uploaded files there in years, I can comment on that.

As for Wikisource, it has serious competition in the form of Project Gutenberg, archive.org, & books.google.com, but each appears to have defined its own niche & make an effort to work with each other: if I look for a public domain text at archive.org, it is as likely to direct me to Google for an ebook as to its own collection.

Wiktionary also has serious competition from Urban Dictionary, but I find Wiktionary far more useful in general than Urban Dictionary. (I've often used it to translate unfamiliar German & French words -- although that functionality could be made easier to use.)

I'm a member of a number of other websites, & I feel the Wikimedia software compares favorably to those. Both Deviant Art & Tumblr have interfaces suffer from interfaces where features break & get fixed without any warning -- & the relationship between the community & the staff is actually worse at both than here most of the time. (At least here before Visual Editor.) The software at Daily Kos may be better in supporting comments & interpersonal communications, but the feature set is limited & the advanced features harder to sue than any Wikimedia project. (I have yet to figure out how to upload an image there, or to find specific ones from the many in their collection -- unlike using images from Commons.) DK's purpose is to promote political agendas, not to make knowledge accessible, so that may not be a fair comparison. Lastly, many websites have problems with the software engine running their comments board -- Talking Points Memo has gone through several, before settling on using Disqus, none of which support Linux -- making the Wikimedia Wiki software looking not only very solid (comments are rarely accidentally lost) but surprisingly flexible.

If you're talking about comparing any Wikimedia project to Facebook, you'll find you're in a distinct minority. While there are a few ideas worth stealing from there -- as with probably all social networking sites -- it's purpose is entirely different from those at Wikimedia. And every established volunteer knows that. I suspect this difference is one reason for the decline in volunteer numbers from 2007: a lot of people who joined then did so because they thought it was the k-rad kewl place to be, discovered it was full of odd people who were busy writing articles, not exchanging messages on the latest Internet memes, & decided to move on to fora like Facebook, Something Awful or 4chan. And as people have posted time & again, more volunteers do not inevitably translate to better content, so a decline in numbers may not be a bad thing.

But this is all supposition on my part, Jan-Bart. What do you mean when you say "other internet projects (not limiting ourselves to websites) are passing us by left and right"? Please provide specific examples, not vague statements like that. Who knows? I may end up agreeing with you in some or all cases. -- Llywrch (talk) 19:42, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the clarifying question. Some examples I am thinking of are Quora (who are better at both interface and engaging users), a recent article on Techcrunch and some of the interface of Facebook and the like (because they simple make it a better experience). And to argue that there is no competion to our encyclopedia is probably making the same mistake that Encyclopedia Britannica made several years ago :( Jan-Bart (talk) 19:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Your comment shows that you know nothing about why such classical encyclopedias got smashed by Wikipedia. It was because of us editors who contributed more detailed, more accurate, more recent content that was simply better. And we still do by our constant updating and working to fill in the gaps of knowledge. But what do you do? You have big visions about Facebook-like experiences and same time spit in the editors faces. By saying Jimbos Principle 4 is not applying always (it itself states not that there are such cases and no other of the principles do) you deny what made Wikipedia and the other projects big and successful. If you don't stop and rethink, Wikipedia in two years will look like Facebook, but every of it's qualities drops because the people left and the people that came new were into the Facebook experience, not into writing encyclopedia (a strange, somewhet boring and intrinsincly conservative hobby). And by occupying the movement with your "Top-5-internet-company"-vision you as the WMF Board violate also your Mission Statement and your Values that are about encouraging the editors. You do the exactly opposite. To think it to the end: Your denying of Principle 4, Mission Statement and the Values is like a putsch. --Julius1990 (talk) 20:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, only that i call it a breach of contract, not a putsch. Ca$e (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

“Even so, you have to let the Foundation do its work and allow us all to take that next step when needed.” … that's not how a community project like Wikipedia works and which will always result in conflicts, either with hundreds or millions. Proposals, discussions, arguments, stepping back, understanding, rethinking, excuses, compromise, that's our daily bussiness and only that way we all can move forward, together with the WMF which involves us in their software programs. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 20:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I only want to focus on Jan-Bart's last point of the four ones above: We need to act as one community, not 1,000. This means we cannot enact the wishes of a few hundred, but have to build processes that support the successes of millions. As a German, this reminds me of a totalitarian nightmare. I will not be a part of a Gleichschaltung Foundation.--Aschmidt (talk) 20:15, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

+1. We don't need the Nazi comparison, but true is: the ignorance for the differences is the ignorance for the biggest values the movement holds. --Julius1990 (talk) 20:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The phrase "the wishes of a few hundred" is presumably an oblique reference to the various RfC processes that have gone against the decisions of WMF to roll out various software products. Unfortunately, as a governing principal, it has unwelcome implications for the contributors interested in writing mathematics, of whom I imagine there can be at most a few hundred, and so I guess that this is why our communal proposals for the WMF to allocate resources to improved mathematics editing and rendering were, and will continue to be, unsuccessful. Deltahedron (talk) 20:26, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

We want to attract new editors - by getting rid of the old ones? The men with the beards? Good idea. I wish you luck. By the way, those millions that you imagine supporting you are not excisting in reality but if they do, they did not chose you to speak for them. Maybe those millions would rather support the old editors who created the content for them. --Sargoth (talk) 21:02, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"the wishes of a few hundred" - Just count how many edits that few hundred have done in the past ten years. It is not ok to compare accounts which have corrected some spelling mistakes with, for example, the Swiss user "Voyager" which has written 6486 articles in the German Wikipedia so far. [15] And he is not a bot! He don't uses software for creating that articles! He is just an author which spends the most of his free time for Wikipedia! But actually with your meaning and your idea that he belongs to "only a few (unimportant) hundred" you just kick his ass and the asses of a lot similar people of that community. --Micha (talk) 21:12, 20 August 2014 (UTC) And only that you guys of WMF can imagine it now: We need only 270 guys like Voyager and they write the German Wikipedia (~ 1750000 articles)! You need only 1000 interessted people and the Wikipedia is written. And that is it what acutally happened. Actually the german Wikipedia is written by only a "few hundred people"!!! If you believe what often stands in the media and written by naiv journalists that thousends of people have contributed to Wikipedia and that is the reason why Wikipedia is so huge then you believe wrong. --Micha (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more: Many of "the few hundred" are part of what I would call the "core community" that does a major part of the actual work on content in Wikipedia and other wikimedia projects. Of course there are many, many thousands of contributors, but those "few hundred" wo tend to voice their opinion in community polls etc. tend to be the same few hundred who are the most passionate and productive contributors. Maybe this comparison isn't entirely unfitting: Like Micha, I'm from Switzerland. Switzerland practices direct democracy on all levels of government, including the municipal level. I live in a municipality with a population of approximately 3800. About 2500 of them are Swiss citizens entitled to vote (the others are foreign nationals or under 18). Major decisions are made by the Gemeindeversammlung (a kind of "town meeting") - the legislative body of the municipality consisting of all entitled citizens who decide to attend. Are 2500 citizens attending? No. 2000? No. 1000? No. 500? No, never. Usually, there are not more than 50 to 100 people attending. These 50 to 100 make the decisions binding for all of us in this small Swiss community - every one of the other 2400 would be very welcome to take part, but for some reason or other they abstain. But they know perfectly well that the ones who decide to get involved are the ones making the decisions, and no one would question the validity of the decisions made. The attendees don't have more rights than the others - they just decided to be an active part of the community. And that's IMHO what happens in Wikipedia communities: Some decide to be an active part, and if you don't want to, then you can't say that you're part of some "silent majority" and therefore the decisions made by the active volunteers are invalid. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jan-Bart: I am devastated by your approach of comparing Wikipedia to Facebook or other social sites which are no Encylopedia. That completely misses the point. We are making and sustaining an encyclopedia here, which includes a very unique community with a unique culure and unique tools, adjusted on all levels for the needs of encyclopedic authoring. If you try to dilute this with concepts of some arbitrary social media, you will destroy its uniqueness and strength. That can't work out - you are risking the top performers to fork off into an own project. As Micha correctly said: The majority of encyclopedic and administrative work here is done by some hundred people. If you put them off, you can shut up the shop. --PM3 (talk) 22:38, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

To make this clear: Many of the people answering here are not the "grumpy old men" or "rampaging minority" as some in the Foundation might want to picture it. PM3 for example is trying to defend the Foundation on German Wiki, trying to reach there, what he think is a constructive compromise. Comments like this from the head of the Board stab these efforts in the back. It is not about the Mediaviewer anymore, even not about the Superprotect. It is about the complete lack of understanding for the principles of the Wikipeda-projects and their daily procedures, that speaks out of comments as above. And it is about an alarming arrogance that is shown from the responsible people in the foundation against the people in the Communities, that do all the work. This is burning the bridges of any compromise about Mediaviewer or Superprotect and of any future trustful cooperation. --Magiers (talk) 06:12, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't like your term of "defending" (which implies attacking). There is lots of misunderstanding here, and all parties should engage in trying to understand each other. Jan-Barts statement shows little understanding of encyclopedic work, while the statements of some community activists show little understanding of software development. I have done both, developing/managing software projects of different sizes (including a community-driven website) and lots of encyclopedic authoring, and from this background I am sad abot the lack of understanding between WMF and Community. Just sad and terrified about the amount of damage which is done to our common thing, and the resposibility for this damage is not solely with the WMF. --PM3 (talk) 18:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The Foundation staff gets paid, for that we can expect a far better performance than they do. The Board is right now happily breaking the contract that was holding the projects and the foundation together for so long. Have you read any serious excuse for all that? No. Instead the Board talks about visions for which a former German chacellor would have send them to the doctor, and he would have been totally right with it. We were for years patient with the Foundation, now they have put a drop to much in the glass. And they are not sorry for it or think in seriously changing. The Board is telling us that we should go, Erik Moeller tries to make things go so slow that teh community simply will give up out of frustration after some time. No, they crossed a line. --Julius1990 (talk) 18:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@PM3: You may be right in the both sides of the misunderstandings, but there is quite a difference in the significance of them. Understanding enyclopedic work is a must for the WMF and every person in a higher position in the Foundation, while understanding software development can not be expected from the users of the software. I am not worried, that the software development process will make steps forward in the future (starting from a quite low level). But I am very worried about the lack of interest in encyclopedic work - and the lack of respect for the people, that have done this work in the past. I quote: "if you decide to take a wiki-break, that might be the way things have to be. Even so, you have to let the Foundation do its work". If this is the mindset behind the disturbing actions of the last two weeks, I see the responsibility of the disconnect clearly on the side of the WMF. --Magiers (talk) 20:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jan-Bart: Your premise that we need lots and lots of new casual editors is incorrect. As the main active WPs "fill up" with content, our need is for specialized, academic expertise. We don't need 100,000 Facebookers to roll by and "crowdsource" half a dozen inept edits each — we need serious scholars to source out, expand, and improve esoteric coverage. As long as WMF remains oblivious to this simple truth, we've got problems... You have grandiose goals for readership but a basic misunderstanding of the actual needs of content creation. Carrite (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Every day the English Wikipedia gets lots of new editors, mainly from IP addresses. Unfortunately they are mostly vandals, and we need an increasingly sophisticated set of bots to detect and revert them. I hope that the WMF Board have taken into account that the more editors we get, the more vandalism we will have to cope with? Especially on the more mature wikiepedias where many of the "easy" edits have already been done. Deltahedron (talk) 18:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Jan-Bart, I have to say that your statement in this section is highly confusing, and doesn't seem to portray any actual understanding of Wikipedia's goals. This is quite disturbing since you head a service organisation that is supposed to provide what Wikipedia needs. Particularly, I have no idea why you view attracting editors as a goal as opposed to producing a product that attracts readers. Why do you think a large number of editors is a goal in and of itself.?Kww (talk) 03:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I quite understand Jan-Bart's message, although as I say I don't agree with it. WMF projects in general, and Wikipedia in particular, are not where the WMF Board want them to be. They want it to change, and to go somewhwere else. In particular, WMF want the experience of reading and writing WMF projects to be more up-to-date. What they want is probably not what some of the old guard, who actually wrote the encyclopaedias as they stand today, want: but the WMF Board gets to decide. Those who don't like it can leave. That all seems pretty clear. Deltahedron (talk) 06:28, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Additional: I just realised that the message is eerily similar to that of Brecht's en:Die Lösung: the current editors have lost the confidence of the Board and can regain it only be redoubled efforts. The Board's intention is now to dissolve the current community and elect another. Deltahedron (talk) 14:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that anyone who wants to make Nazi comparisons first listens to the venerable Richard von Weizsäcker (search on Youtube for "Weizsacker Rede zum 8. Mai 1985 1"), and only then decides whether he really wants to go on with that. --Ziko (talk) 09:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@User:Jan-Bart . You wrote, that the Statement of principles by Jimbo "applies to some degree". Do you know George Orwells Animal farm? If not please read it. ...Sicherlich ^Post 13:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Just a thought to "they could even contribute once in a while" and "to make it easy enough for anyone to contribute so that people once again feel that “anyone can edit.”" - making it easy okay. But people who once in a while contribute with them you're getting excellent content? Seems for more like you are looking for quantity not quality. But for that we already have bing/google/yahoo... just a thought. Not so long ago it was diversity, before it was women now its the masses. Looking forward what's going to be in 10 years? Maybe you want the Alumni back working? :oD ...Sicherlich ^Post 13:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC) I'm not at all against new members and not at all against better software. But new and good once and better; not only new

Honestly I personally don't care about the "Media Viewer". It is IMHO only a question of design, nice, but not realy a cornerstone of the project to create a encyclopedia. The majority of my fellows in the german writing Wikipedia voted in an another way. What is realy worrisome is the reaction after the voting: The Weelwar was not o.k. - no question. But to create Superprotect was very unclever in a social community like Wikipedia. Wikipedia lives by contribution of many, but less than it sometimes seems from the outside. I contributed only a few hundred articles, but I know a little bit my fellows. They wanted to be treated with some kind of respect. Or in the words of Principle 7: "Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity. They should be encouraged constantly to present their problems in a constructive way. Anyone who just complains without foundation, refusing to join the discussion, should simply be rejected and ignored. Consensus is a partnership between interested parties working positively for a common goal. We must not let the "squeaky wheel" be greased just for being a jerk." By overruling the votes in such a way it is no surprise, that the community feels not treated with the utmost respect and dignity. I feel particularly with regard to fact that is only a question of design concerned that the situation need something like Superprotect.--Kriddl (talk) 20:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, just a few points in reference to the remarks made above (I am not going to make them inline because I have limited bandwidth and because a lot of points are repeated here. If I didn't get to your point, I am sorry, After my trip I will be in a better position to go into points that I missed.

• Although I made it clear that this is my personal opinion, a lot of people equate my opinion with "the board" wants a new community. That is both misrepresting my statement and the breadth of it. I don't want a new community, I would like our community to change, and just like some of you argue that you don't want change, I argue that I do.
• I am being accused of forgetting the most important part of our goal: creating an encyclopedia... In actual fact I think that our goal happens to be to get the sum of all knowledge into the hands of all people in the world. Our premise is that people who have access to information are able to make better informed (life)-decisions. That information has to be be relevant, and preferably in a language that makes it easy to digest. That means we need to reach our readers in languages and platforms that they use every day (which might not be a website, and will hopefully be in a local language). The discussion here focuses a lot on the larger projects, and that is way too limited to serve our goal.
• A lot of people argue that not everyone is capable of adding good encyclopaedic content, and that having a hard core group of editors is essential. While I do not disagree that having a very active group of individuals is important, I strongly disagree that not everyone should be able to contribute. When people refer to our core principles with regards to the software deployment, are we conventiently forgetting that the other principle "You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do'. Because a lot of seem to argue that you are free to edit as long as you have reached a certain skill level in both technology and knowledge dissemination. This seems to limit "you" to a small group of people... which is not going to help us get to the goal of the sum of all knowledge available to everyone.

small subpoint: this is one of the reasons why I am really disappointed that the "oral citations" project never got further than it did. Our entire approach on knowledge dissemination is based on the western idea of an encylopedia and referencing other written sources in order to back up articles. Yet a lot of cultures around the world have a different way of disseminating (and consuming) knowledge. We should be able to get adapt our model to these cultures as well (celebrating the diversity and seeing new opportunities). I see some great examples of this kind of work by local chapters and that is the kind of work which was also showcased at Wikimania.

• Acting as one community as compared to 1000 does not mean that we have to lose our diversity, we have to understand and cherish our diversity. There are MANY smaller projects who stand in the shadow of en.wp and de.wp, yet they might help us reach new audiences which do desperately need the information we have available.
• Listening to others without being offended and triggered into an aggressive response takes two people (the author and the reader). I am sorry if some of my text offended you, it was however intended to give a different view on the issues that we are currently dealing with. If that is not a helpful view in your opinion, I am sorry.
• I have learned that Facebook is a trigger word :) Yes I am aware it is a completely different concept, YET (here I go again) I think we can learn a lot from Facebook and similar popular websites with regards to interface design. But NO we are in no way comparable to facebook, none whatsoever, really NONE (ok?)

Jan-Bart (talk) 11:01, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

WikiWand

So the Foundation fears that readers will flock to WikiWand (note their Media Viewer) and other providers like that which piggy-back on Wikipedia with a better-looking reader interface, and Wikipedia.org will lose its top-10 Alexa ranking. This seems to be what all of this is about. Andreas JN466 10:11, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually no, I am not worried about that. I think that the open nature of our content allows people to do as much as they want with it, great! Especially when these initiatives add value to our information. BUT: if the only added value is a good interface, then I have to wonder: why don't we have that interface? Jan-Bart (talk) 11:01, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Leaving out that there is much more to it that "all of this is about" (a general vision that goes against basic principles for relationships between WMF and its former community), you are absolutely right. I commented on this aspect e.g. on Requests_for_comment/On_a_scale_of_billions#A_few_comments_and_additions_by_ca.24e: "You should realize that very many (myself e.g. included, in cases where i really only want to read - in every other case, i, like Kww, curse the mobile version and switch to the desktop view!) often read WP by other means: For mobile phone and tablet users, there are apps that provide a very convenient layout (one popular example for deWP would be http://dasreferenz.com/), or web services (like e.g. http://www.wikiwand.com), or readers such as getpocket.com for longer articles. I also find the idea mistaken to invest larger resources in developing an environment to edit WP from phones or tablets. The time has long passed that we would have profited from stubs of, say, the length of a twitter post. We also do not at all need millions of useless pictures, and especially not without proper licensing. What we need, at the moment and in the coming future, are more well-versed experts on topics where WP still severely lacks in article quality. For these topics, we need profoundly worked-out articles which people will, probably for several years to come, not write on their phone or tablet, but on their desktop."

Now, i, as most other contributors, have no problem at all with wikiwand, other apps etc. They after all enable readers to read the contributions of my fellow colleagues in a more convenient way than anything WMF ever came up with. The distribution of quality content for as many readers as possible was our goal from the start, after all! Why does WMF have a problem with it? This connects with what i cited there by H-stt: "The unlimited money supply from the fundraising campaigns shows the tremendous enthusiasm of our readers, but it has seduced people into hiring staff without first agreeing on goals and methods. This excessive staff and bureaucracy then very quickly became estranged from its base, the community, and is now fighting for self-preservation." When people read WP content with convenient tools such as dasReferenz, WikiWand etc, less people will see WMF's campaigns for funding. What they are thus trying to do, and failing miserably, is copying parts of what WikiWand etc do. However, with WMF's development work being as desastrous as it is, and its stance to stubbornly ignore large amounts of community input, we have more often than not now seen what results this brings. In the process of this ignorant self-preservation-attempts (here again applies H-stt's comment), WMF has come to the stance that those former communities will just have to accept broken software being stoved down their throats (or may simply leave). Thereby, WMF naturally alienates itself from its former communities. This will lead exactly towards what WMF fears. For why should we, who make up all the difference to mere content consumption, have anymore any interest in supporting a business that does not support but alienate us? WMF seemingly also has realized that by ignoring former communities, they will need new communities. So, they decided to focus on people who have no ideas at all about content quality control - people like many twitter/facebook users. We have seen where this will lead to, check [16] for example. Who will filter such pseudocontributions? We? Why should we anymore? Ca$e (talk) 10:47, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• Gosh, talk about en:Streisand effect! I had never heard of en:WikiWand before, and probably never would have if it hadn't been for this discussion. But now, I'm impressed. Rather parochially, it seems to have much better and fast rendering for mathematics. Does anyone know how they do that? Could we do that here too please? Deltahedron (talk) 11:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Just in case: You probably are aware of the option to switch on MathJax in your user settings? Ca$e (talk) 14:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes: there is a long back-story here, see en:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive/2014/May#VisualEditor_math_formulae, en:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive/2014/Jun#A_challenge_from_Jimbo_Wales, en:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#A_response_from_WMF. Deltahedron (talk) 14:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• • Heh, it is rather amazing that Wikiwand manages to display maths equations in the same font as the rest of the text. Beautiful (if not yet quite perfect). Perhaps they should be donating programmers rather than money to the Foundation ... but then, of course, they'd be losing their raison d'être. By the way, some interesting figures about VisualEditor from the French Wikipedia. According to that post, for >90% of edits, people prefer the old wikitext editor, even though VE is the default there. Ever onward. Andreas JN466 14:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Jayen, Two question: What is their raison d'être? Is their software freely licensed? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:47, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

For anyone reading this Jayen kindly pointed me to [17] previously linked by Jan, that Wand's efforts arose form "their own frustration with Wikipedia’s user interface". As for their business model the article says: "In the future, the company plans to monetize by integrating targeted ads for textbooks, articles, and classes." Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The font matching probably has more to do with Wikiwand choosing a serif font "Lora" [18]. The equations come from wikimedia PNG rendering which also happen to be a serif font, probably Times or a LaTeX font. The problem for wikipedia which uses a san-serif font for text is than maths equation generally look wierd in san-serif, so a font miss match is unavoidable.--Salix alba (talk) 23:05, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• For a year, I have recommended that the WMF outsource the software engineering tasks, for which it has proved only incompetence, to companies with records of delivering quality software. For example, I have suggested that the WMF outsource Visual Editor to the producers of Scientific Workplace and similar systems.

  Perhaps there is something to Reagan's "Magic of the Marketplace", because WikiWand seems to have delivered an improved interface at no cost to the WMF. Indeed, WikiWand treats the writers with greater respect, in terms of respecting their traditional interface.

  Indeed, Wikiwand stated that it is donating 30% of its profits to the WMF, a terrible waste of its shareholders' value with no discernible benefit. Better for Wikiwand to have targeted giving that focuses on supports writers and maintainers of quality articles and that focuses on the problems of exploiting child labor and harboring child predators. The WMF still has not released its updated child-protection policy. To get Lila to act may take a county prosecutor and grand jury investigating a child-endangerment case.

  Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 13:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

“That was quite something, whatever happened?". That's exactly what I think right now. The Foundation has finally lost whatever little connection to Wikipedia communities they might ever have had. A failed project, not due the many problems inherent in Wiki culture and free knowledge, but due to a complete lack of goodwill and competetent, community-aware staff. --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 14:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC) (donator of tens of thousands of photos for the Commons, admin on de.wikipedia since 2004, but probably not much longer)

CRM

The deletion discussion for Jan-Bart de Vreede led me to the article about the WMF where I noticed that it uses CiviCRM. As your recent background is in CRM and the foundation is having a difficult relationship with its customer community, this could be a fruitful priority. I'm an active editor and volunteer but the chapters, projects and foundation seem to do a poor job of recording my identity and interests. For example, I was a volunteer at Wikimania, where I heard you speak on the need for change, but all the processes and systems for engaging with me as a volunteer and chapter member seemed quite ad hoc and diffuse. Wouldn't it be good to develop and integrate the profiles of our stakeholders? This might help improve your understanding of what we want and so help you better direct the foundation's resources so that we can pull together in the same direction. For example, I often try using Wikipedia through my smartphone but find the interface weak. You have mobile use as a high priority and I'm keen to support you in this. As your systems could do a better job of bringing us together, what are your plans to improve them, please? Andrew (talk) 08:50, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Edits of WMF employees

'We have heard feedback that WMF employees should have distinct accounts for their WMF-related actions as opposed to their personal actions on the projects. We accept that feedback and will put in place such a system within the next month."

Thats too late. You can write a memo to every employee, that they should use strictly separate accounts as private persons and employees. To be in force immediately. Something like User:Lila Tretikov (WMF). Later you can implement software, that disables normal users to use (WMF) in their signature. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 15:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

no need for rush here IMO. Most of them are not active on Wikipedia anyways. ...Sicherlich ^Post 16:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Most stupid idea ever, which will only further widen the gap between WMF and community, but it seems that all reasoning has gone out the window, and we must let WMF employees bleed and we will brandish them... If I were an employee I would start making all my edits using my personal account and never use my WMF labelled account anymore. For the majority of them, the reason for working there is personal commitment to the goals of the movement, so they will want to express that. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 08:03, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"For the majority of them, the reason for working there is personal commitment to the goals of the movement" - if that would be so, they would have fired their board already, which explicitly tramples on those values. Ca$e (talk) 08:05, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Or perhaps there are different perspectives, all of value and all shaped by the roles and responsibilities that each and every person has. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 08:36, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course there are. But the values we are talking about are stated explicitly. For WMF, the community must be its biggest asset, WMF "must respect the work and the ideas of our community. We must listen and take into account our communities in any decisions taken to achieve our mission", WMF has to "empower" and "support" us [19]. You can check how big of an asset, how listened to, how respected and how empowered and supported we feel e.g. here. Now go and read Jan-Bart's statement and tell me again that this is a matter of perspectives and Jan-Bart's stance could be somehow reconciled with WMF's mission. Ca$e (talk) 08:39, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Some answers (Man77)

Hi Lila,

thanks for honestly joining the debate, this is already more than many expected :)

Well then, your questions, to some of which I'd like to post a comment:

WMF and the whole wiki movement(s) have obviously quite a lot to do with technology, therefore it would not make much sense to believe that WMF is no tech org at all. However, what kind of tech org is it? If you compare Wikimedia with other top-traffic websites you'll probably find more fundamental differences than similarities. The common goal of the Wikimedia wikis has been so far, at least I suppose that's the case, free content for everyone, as much as possible and as good as possible. I actually don't think being a top 5/top 10 site has ever really been in our focus (nor that there has ever been a strategy), this rather happened because what we offer seems to have been pretty attractive to quite a lot of people. The offer came and comes from almost uncontrollable idealists who also administer the offer, our visitors came and come for information (be in as a text or as a picture or as a sound), not for being entertained or impressed by software fads or gimmicks. This does not mean that our software should never be updated, but I'd like to stress the point that (for me) first and foremost WMF is not a software development organization, but rather a digital (and free) content organization.

The wikis have developped and administered themselves quite independently so far. Their communities have been and will be among WMF's most valuable forms of capital (see Bourdieu). Erik's actions were quite a shock to our community (German language Wikipedia) and paralyzing to a certain extent, even though they did not happen all out of a sudden. Many of us have the impression that WMF (or at least some of its staff) disrespects and devalues its communities, that our arguments do not bother anyone, that the amount of autonomy that we thought we had is under attack or simply gone. Even worse than that, this "annexation" happened without being deducible from the guiding principles or the WMF charta and it clearly misses the requirements for an office action. And worse yet, the process from an idea to implementation and use of superprotect happened overnight, without proper review and without any guideline about the use of this new feature. In most cases software updates take months or years from the first request to being finally in use. In this case we still don't know if it was an office decision to implement a superprotection level or merely an Erik action, carelessly sacrifizing the community advocate. And finally superprotect as a group right demonstrates a gap between staff and all the others with the staff being in ultimate position of power in a legal vacuum.

Which proofed to be a paralyzing action for de.wp's community. I would say that every editor as much replaceable as he or she is irreplaceable, and everybody has the right to leave at any point, but right now the consequences are definitely negative to daily life in our project, as some of our most vital accounts (experienced sysops, specialized editors, important bots) stopped doing what they have been doing for a couple of years. Which for sure was avoidable. That however left a gap that will take quite some time to be appropriately closed and obstructs our natural development and growth. For me, the superprotection case caused a greater damage to de.wp than what the media viewer or any other new gadget can bring as a benefit in the medium term. Again for me, this should be reason enough to forgo superprotection now and to chose a less extreme interim that does not stand as a symbol of distrust.

Who decides? WMF won't decide those deletion requests, block appeals etc. that would have been executed by those who currently are on strike. Placing the threshold is difficult, but things that directly affect a community should not be imposed against a clear community consensus, unless you have a really good (for instance, legal) reason which I don't see here.

Where communication is concerned, I'd recommend to listen to what those communities really require. Balance prestigious projects "from above" such as MV or VE and work on bugs and requests "from the bottom" better than it appeared to be lately. Last fall there was a survey at de.wp about technical wishes (w:de:Wikipedia:Umfragen/Technische Wünsche) which is now getting slowly evaluated by WMDE. Some of the top wishes have been in bugzilla since 2004/05 (!), to which I refer as "my would-like-to-see features". I, for example, appreciate Echo (which still could be made a lot better) which worked well from the very beginning. VE and MV were simply not ready at the time of their rollout and thus quite a mess. Please keep that in mind for future "big things". (And maybe arrange surveys about WMF plans and community requests once or twice a year.) As Austrian I suppose that WMF had a better reputation if they had a self-conception similar to the Austrian chapter.

Would I write if nobody were reading? Nobody reads what I write. Almost. I cover rather exotic topics. I do it for the idea of an open project of free content about any (notable) topic, not for a specific reader or use. You can't control the personal interests of "the editors", but you will ever need them. The mission is not just about the editors, but the mission depends on their editing.

Thanks again, good luck on your journey, Europe is watching you. :-) → «« Man77 »» ^[de] 18:54, 20 August 2014 (UTC) (currently sysop and arbcom member of de.wp)

Just a few

Hi Lila, Erik and Jan-Bart, you claim again and again that 64+90+190=344 are too few to decide for millions. Now (again) please tell us, how many were you? When you did this decision. --Trofobi (talk) 21:58, 20 August 2014 (UTC) (PS. 627 + counting...)

We did not decide for millions, we rolled out on all wikis incrementally. If we got pushed back along the way we would have stopped, fixed, then moved forward. We are at the last step. At the last push we got some pushback from a few hundreds. However a few hundred can have valid issues, and when we agree on them we should fix them. We are reviewing just that. Is there a disagreement with that? -- LilaTretikov (talk) 23:55, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Also -- forgot to mention that about 250,000,000+ were on the platform at the time of the roll-out with NPS in 60-70% at that time. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 23:57, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@LilaTretikov: What does "NPS" stand for? --92.226.45.154 09:18, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

"If we got pushed back along the way we would have stopped, fixed, then moved forward" -- If that is truly the case, that is a great departure from how software deployments have gone in the past. If you had clearly communicated that you plan to run things so differently, perhaps volunteers would have approached this differently. The thing is, the timetables that seem to work so well for the WMF make very little sense if you are outside the WMF office -- and I say this as a former employee.

And -- "would have...fixed" -- have we even arrived, yet, at a shared understanding of what would constitute "fixed"? How can you claim you would have done something that is even still undefined? -Pete F (talk) 00:12, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Would fix the reasoned objections, as they have several times. Are you claiming they have not, because if you are that means you are obtusely and stubbornly ignoring the fact that several changes to MV have occurred. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Certainly there have been some improvements, but not nearly at the scale that is needed. And I believe it is WMF's responsibility to generally get something to a releasable state, without "crowdsourcing" central design issues to volunteers. If I bought a car from a dealership, I might want to customize the color and the seat material; but if they arrived with a pile of wheels, nuts, and bolts, a lawnmower engine, a jet engine, and a few cans of paint, I'd walk away. The situation we're in now is more like the latter -- except that the dealer is insisting that our readers must drive to work every day in the pile of scrap until we can figure out how to build a car out of it. -Pete F (talk) 02:37, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Your comment is absurd: it's 'you rely on us too little -- no, you rely on us too much'. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Your comment, Pete, is exactly to the point. Thanks, Ca$e (talk) 08:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

OK now I am confused -- I though you wanted to participate and be relied on? As for the car -- are we comparing Wikipedia to car manufacturing? If we think it is a useful analogy -- let's think about which parts should be customizable and what are the constraints (how many colors?). Let's list them and work towards a secure system that allows for just that. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 15:54, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@LilaTretikov: Can you say more about your confusion -- what comment does this seem to contrast with? Maybe this will help: I have some, but certainly not all, of the qualifications needed to design a better media viewer. But just because I have them, does not mean I wish to donate my time to WMF for the privilege of working alongside people who are being paid for their time, and have the ability to overrule me at their whim, and who do not make an effort to design an interaction process that lets me use my time efficiently, not have to repeat myself, etc. Is there some reason you think WMF is entitled to the expertise of its community, in the service of its own goals, without offering compensation?

As I think I've made adequately clear in many venues, I'm not willing to work on the design of the Media Viewer while it remains enabled by default, against the explicit wishes of three project communities. -Pete F (talk) 19:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

To reuse that analogy: While you would be right under normal conditions, that is, where we can actually buy and configure cars, we are not really offered cars by WMF, but rather a pile of crap (i am not exaggerating at all, see above, as correct license attributions are a key element for a mediaviewer, as is, say, being able to control driving speed, and this also holds for other WMF projects, as was also pointed out already), and we are not offered it, but it is forcefully stoved down or throats, even after we warned months ago. Maybe you get the point with a modified analogy by MZMcBride: "I continue to get the sense that the Wikimedia Foundation is looking for ways to ask (and re-ask) how much would you like to pay for this horse? and the editing community is responding with no thank you, but we would perhaps consider a car.". Now, what would normal conditions look like? Developers with a large userbase like here normally find themselves in the position where users are eagerly asking for some end product, but they first want to fix this minor design flaw first and then that, while voices get louder to finally release the much awaited product (there actually are very many functions we do ask WMF for, some of them for like 10 years on!). Instead, you not only provide but force upon us broken pieces of software we never even requested - and which also are hardly needed, given that convenient mere reading capabilities are already provided, e.g. by WikiWand, dasReferenz etc (on which, see previous posts on this very page) - compared to which, on the reader UX side, WMF's products not even side like the horse against the car! Thus, i do not see that the actual situation connects very much with your example where just minor modifications are concerned. Ca$e (talk) 16:17, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The main difference is that those few hundred people are the ones that are supposed to make the decision as to how German Wikipedia will operate and what its default settings will be. Dismissing them in the way you do is the problem.Kww (talk) 00:43, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

"We did not decide for millions, we rolled out on all wikis incrementally.". By deciding to develop and implement a change that nobody had requested, did you not decide for millions?

"If we got pushed back along the way we would have stopped, fixed, then moved forward". Pushed back by whom? By one? A couple dozen? A few hundred? Ten thousand? Or would every user on the planet would have to write to you personally and tell you he doesn't like this or that feature you have imposed on them? That's exactly what I'm doing here, btw. As I have mentioned already, I am just a user--I do not bother editing here, and now I know I never will, especially seeing as the WMF seem to have decided that they want a Facebook Web 2.0-y me-too. If you manage it, you will get exactly the same content quality as Facebook. I don't use or read that, why should I read Wikipedia? To tell the truth, since the Media Viewer thing caused me to take an interest on how this project works, I find myself avoiding Wikipedia most of the time. Whereas before I would just search for a subject directly on Wikipedia, now I Google it and go to the most promising non-Wikipedia links. I'm not boycotting though, more like preparing myself for a post-Wikipedia web. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 2a00:1028:83a0:291e:762f:68ff:fe2d:429e (talk) 00:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

"some pushback from a few hundreds" ... what of the 3,552 people who said that the Media Viewer was not useful for viewing images? And anyway, I would have given feedback earlier in the process if I knew this was coming. But you did absolutely no outreach that I can tell to readers. And yes, I do take issue with how you're going about this. Media Viewer has been unequivocally rejected by the the people you claim to work for, your users. They say it should be disabled by default. If you want to improve Media Viewer, why don't you listen to the people you actually work for and disable it. Then work on it. Then get the community buy in to push it by default. But stop rejecting the feedback that you don't want to hear—that Media Viewer should be disabled. You say you are listening, but you are doing the exact opposite of what people are telling you to do. You're listening, but what you're doing is worse than ignoring people. -- 98.207.91.246 01:12, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

We clearly need to improve communication and roll-out -- we are not arguing that here. Let's work on what his should look like together -- on the comment's page. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 15:54, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Can we fix the bigger issues, first? You keep on changing the topic from faithfully executing your duties by being a servant of the community to something else. Back out superprotect and make the changes mandated by community consensus. Then we can talk about fixing the damage the WMF has caused and how to prevent similar events in the future. Until then, you're just being a dictator trying to soothe concerns rather than solve problems. This is infuriating. We're playing a rigged game here where nothing we can do can change your mind. --98.207.91.246 16:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, you are (intentionally?) unaware of the owner of these sites, and you're dictatorial directive is ironic. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Apparently you are unaware that wikis are owned by the communities that write them. Apparently you are unaware that the WMF was created to serve the community, not rule it. Apparently you are unaware that wikis are governed by the consensus of the community. Unfortunately, the WMF is apparently unaware of this these days as well. --98.207.91.246 16:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• Participation and reliance -- Confusion possibly arises from an unsopisticated model of how to merge paid, directed effort with unpaid, undirected effort. I have had this conversation before with other members of WMF staff. In fact WMF relies almost totally on the volunteers to write the encyclopaedias (and other content), which they do within an agreed and externally maintained context (the five pillars, for example). On the engineering side, some members of WMF staff have said that they cannot, will not or do not direct volunteer effort at all (and speak as if this would be anathema to the volunteer community). The result is that volunteer effort, aspiration and requirements are divorced from staff planning, design and implementation until far too late a stage, and leads to imbroglios like the VE and MV rollouts. Meanwhile, volunteer effort, devoid of meaningful input from WMF (one senior engineer does not even know where to go to talk to volunteer developers) or engagement with WMF development processes, withers on the vine. Volunteering is not about doing whatever you like whenever you like. It needs a context, and a reasonable degree of commitment. From my own experience, when I volunteered to feed dementia patients in a hospital, I needed to commit to turning up for certain shifts and feeding certain groups. If I didn't they could have gone unfed. I was expected not to come for ther shifts, and certainly not to try my hand at brain surgery instead because it was more exciting. I accepted the responsibility and in return the hospital provided me with the training and equipment I needed to do my job properly. On the other hand, they did not tell me which order I needed to feed the patients in; nor did I have to design and build my own equipment; nor did I have to pay for the food; nor did the hospital suddenly decide that a new piece of equipment, which almost worked for some but not all the patients would replace the older more serviceable items. Similarly, when I was an officer on a charity's board of trustees, I was trained to do the work and given the support I needed from the paid staff to do my job: in return, I did what needed to be done (or got someone else to do it) using my professional knowledge, expertise and experience, without interference and micromanagement. If I had a problem, I talked it through with the paid officers and the other trustees.

The common elements to all of this: the volunteers engaged in a constructive dialogue with the paid staff; they were given a clear context to do the work; they were provided with what they needed to do the job; they were relied on and trusted to do what they had said they would do; and they did it. Can WMF say that currently all these elements are present in their relationship with the volunteer contributors and developers? Are any of them present? If not, how do we get there from here? Is alienating the current set of volunteers and replacing them with a new set solving the problems or just kicking them down the road? Deltahedron (talk) 16:29, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear @LilaTretikov: Thank you for again not answering our questions, who were the executives responsible for the enforced MV-Rollout and the Superprotect operation. (And me, too, asks what en:NPS does stand for in your comment? before I respond to your details. neuropathic pains? ;)) --Trofobi (talk) 05:33, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Check this. We could go into details as to why WMF's methodology was dubious at best, but some of that has already been explained with less jargon. Ca$e (talk) 08:24, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Your Recent Comment

"All we are doing is asking everyone to hold the current state until we jointly find a better way to make decisions on product. This includes lifting superprotect. -- LilaTretikov (talk) 21:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)"

No. As someone else has remarked, this is like sticking a dagger in someone's chest, then saying that you'll leave it there until we can jointly negotiate a mutually agreed solution. How can you not see the astonishing damage you're doing? I'm not an administrator, or anything else particularly special in Wikipedia. I wouldn't even know about this problem if my partner (who isn't a Wikipedia editor) hadn't had a problem with the insanely incompetent Media Viewer (whoever ran that roll-out should be summarily fired, as they're clearly not up to the job). But the more I dig into this issue, the more I see that the entire supporting structure is rotten. I know you want to save face, but this is not the time for that. This whole issue is now percolating down from the hugely committed highly active editors to the ordinary guys like me, and the more that happens the more difficult it will be to repair the damage. The best thing you could do would be to completely retract all your team's actions over the last 3 months (roll back superprotect, Media Viewer, etc.), and give full, complete apology, with an undertaking to work more collaboratively in future. RomanSpa (talk) 06:19, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

"How can you not see the astonishing damage you're doing?" - i think it's become pretty clear by now. Just have a look at the previous paragraph where Jan-Bart lays out its vision for WMF's brave new "future". Sticking daggers to a few hundred chests does not count that much if you virtualize billions applauding you on your way towards an imaginative top5-facebook-twitter-super"consistent"-lookalike (do not attempt to argue that something like that would not be possible - you are talking with people who never even really used the software they stove down your throats!). You do not like this "innovative" vision? Fork off! Ca$e (talk) 08:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Our projects are not Flickr

Lila, I have been very active, and successful, in getting photographers/organisations/governments to relicense their photographs on Flickr to a CC licence. Over the last 12 months I have uploaded around 325,000 images from Flickr as a result of these efforts. The other day I experienced something I have never experienced before. I was contacted on Flickr, not Commons, by someone who wanted to use an image that I had uploaded to Commons. I informed them that I was not the photographer, and pointed them to the photographer on Flickr whom they could contact.

Their response to me, apart from thanking me, was "This is so confusing". I put this down purely to Media Viewer inserting information that is somewhat irrelevant (e.g. who uploaded the image rather than only the author/copyright holder), making it harder for people to contact people on our projects, and generally making it harder to find pertinent information that our re-users require. The person was lucky that my Flickr username is the same as my WMF username, otherwise this person would have been stuck not knowing what the hell to do.

Media Viewer would be great if our sites were purely a Flickr-type site where people basically view photographs. But this is not our "mission". Our entire mission is built not just on the supply of freely licenced content, but re-using that content by anyone for any purpose. Anything that places an obstacle in the way of the average person re-using that content should seriously be reconsidered.

My comments are not being made in relation to SuperProtect, for if Media Viewer wasn't a useless piece of junk, none of the current drama would have ever occurred. We need to fix the ultimate cause, rather than focussing on the effects---which is what is occurring in the community at the moment.

It would be great if you could comment on this general issue in the context in which I have just explained. Russavia (talk) 10:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Antique versus modern

I was interested by your comment "I am even more amazed how new editors survive this antique experience." [20] A number of people have taken issue with it, but I think there is a point that has been overlooked. The experience has been evolved by a large number of volunteers, almost all also editors, members of and in constant touch with the community of users: the result is that, by and large, it works: indeed, the encyclopaedia was built that way. Replacing it by a more modern experience would only make sense if that more modern software actually works. It would be interesting to hear your views on this particular point. Whatever the aspirations, design goals, consultations and so forth, is your view that Visual Editor actually works? Does Media Viewer actually work? In each case, if not, what plans are there for making it work? Deltahedron (talk) 13:20, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

When I started authoring at WP eight years ago, I was also wondering how new editors survive this experience, which was already looking "antique" then compared to state-of-the-art web UI technology. But I learned that this odd-looking software tools of WP have some special magic, a magic which makes authors work together in a transparent way and encourages them to learn how to master it. These tools are deeply connected to the culture of WP authoring, so they should be evolved carefully and with respect to this culture. The large Wikis like enwiki and dewiki have the complexest and most elaborate and "finalized" culture and community social structure, which is the reason why they react most sensitive to disturbances by abrupt software changes and need special care.

Things that are modern today will be outdated tomorrow. This is especially true for the user interfaces of the digital world. I doubt that the ripe Wiki communites like en and de are able to synchronously follow such fast trends, that would be too disuptive to their culture and work. Seeking a timeless user experience with carful evolution might be the better idea. Not running after trends -- but confidently ignoring them and setting own standards, that's what ingenious tech companies do. It's what Steve Jobs did.

Another wise decision may be to stick to what we are: An encyclopedia, a quality-oriented collection of the world's knowledge, not an arbitrary social network or Q&A website. As encyclopedia, we are in the comfortable position of being the absolute and unchallenged market dominator. So besides of asking "what can we make even better", we should also ask "what are our strengths which brought us here". And besides the spirit of the community, I would not be surprised to find out that among these strenghts are some quirky-looking old software tools. --PM3 (talk) 19:22, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

In 1982, the U.S. newspaper USA Today launched with a bold emphasis on the design of the front page. When the New York Times first ran a color photo on the front page 15 years later, in 1997, was that in response to an emergency? When the Wall Street Journal did a major redesign of its front page in 2001, was that because it was about to slip into irrelevance due to the fancy full color USA Today front pages? Or is it possible that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal had established strong reputations independent of their cover design, and earned the ability to make such changes on their own schedule, and on their own terms?

What is the emergency around photo viewing that requires us to keep the Media Viewer software active? -Pete F (talk) 19:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Pete, you can go further and point out that these actions by the Board seem to precede the decrease in editors. The reason why editors are leaving is interference from the top bureaucracy (WMF) or from a mid-bureaucracy (ArbCom). It is the behavior of people unqualified to interact with others that causes this. A lot of good people have been treated like utter crap. The WMF makes money off of the work of other people. The content producers do not make any money from their work. They are also treated like crap. The WMF employees and their fellows throughout act like entitled, spoiled brats even though they get in the way of the content instead of increasing it. Lila is incapable of recognizing that, which shows that the WMF should probably be done away with as a whole. It serves as an entity only to hijack and destroy, not help, the projects. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Ottava, you are welcome to say those things, of course. I'm not sure why I would say them, considering I don't believe them. -Pete F (talk) 19:44, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The "you" was the plural sense, i.e. anyone could go further to say such. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Ottava, i concur with the first part of your post, not the later part. Especially, we are not yet in a position to judge what Lila might be capable of. We can now, however, where WMF's board and especially it's head are concerned. Those should probably in fact "be done away with", exactly. Ca$e (talk) 20:15, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to Lila in that, but the many developers of these really awful projects that have a strong track record of making nasty comments and waging war against content producers on the Wikis, in the Lists, and on IRC. I can name 3 major offenders that show that the WMF not only encourages but funds those who represent the exact opposite of what our standards say how to behave while treating the content people like crap. The Queen of Hearts has a far more logical and just way of treating people. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:30, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

An ideal WMF, which would be the only way to truly satisfy the legal requirement that they are not content producers to keep their immunity, would be one that merely operates the servers and is a host only. I would say there could be no more than 10 people in total employed, and the only time they would be allowed to ask for money through banners and the rest is when they prove they need more funds for servers. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:33, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

As one of the top content producers across any project, I have always despised any of the changes and found that they got in the way. The original format was clean, simply, and precise. It allowed for the creation of a true piece of information. All of the other stuff is just unnecessary dressing that takes away from the information and makes it seem less precise, amateurish, and awful. The use of "antique" vs "modern" is like saying there is a difference between graffiti is preferable to the Sistine Chapel simply because your college drop out buddy was the one to create it. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

As the person who asked the question, let me remind you that the question addressed to Lila was Whatever the aspirations, design goals, consultations and so forth, is your view that Visual Editor actually works? Does Media Viewer actually work? In each case, if not, what plans are there for making it work? Deltahedron (talk) 19:49, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

My view: VisualEditor will probably never work in the sense that it could replace working without it. That might at least theoretically be possible in principle, in, say 5 years maybe, with constant input of very large amounts of developer resources -- almost all of which should be much better spent elsewhere. In the meantime, VE could serve special opt-in roles for subparts of what an actual WP editor does, but never of course as default. Flow definitely will impossibly ever work. People who stand behind Flow have evidently no idea how e.g. the actual moderation of discussions works in a very fluent collaborative project that is trolled more every second, that by the minute needs to move discussion threads from here to there, that needs frequent and convenient cutting and pasting of subthreads, on-the-fly indentions, adaptions of signatures, almost all and much more of that also to be done by bots, etc etc. If Flow could be made completely backward-compatible and then also serve a special opt-in role might be open for discussion, but i severely doubt it, maybe subparts of its code could be reused within a proper project design. With MediaViewer, making it actually work is in principle possible -- depending on what it should achieve. If it should achieve all that is currently achieved, it will still take much time. If however it shall serve just as an optional viewer, without pretending to actually provide useful information especially about license and image content in almost any case, that's not that much of an issue. But whether in that case it should be made opt-out instead of opt-in should be decided very carefully and by the respective communities. Not at all by WMF, who also has multiple times now proven to be incapable of judging on such issues competently. How many board members have even a marginal expertise in what Commons admins are doing on a daily basis? And these people stand behind enforcing such broken software! Ca$e (talk) 20:33, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Welcoming encouragement

Hi Lila, Welcome Aboard! You've got your work cut out for you, as no doubt have already discovered with Media Viewer.

A decade ago, unilateral action like the Superprotect would have made me quite angry-- and even now, I certainly can certainly understand the emotions of those who are presently upset with the process.

But the simple fact is-- we must change. Wikipedia is dying. Our community is dying-- Newbies no longer convert into veterans. Our software looks antiquated in compared to the modern web, pictures and videos are still too hard to upload and include. There used to be a philosophical debate between "Inclusionists" and "Deletionists", but that debate is now over and the deleters do much to discourage newbies.

For-profit sites that lack our values have taken over the innovation we once prided ourselves on-- people routinely choose Wikia or private hosting for specialist Wikis. My father, a genealogy aficionado, shells out $20 a month, EVERY month, to a for-profit company-- renting the 'right' just to access public historical records-- records that WMF could host at little or no cost, if we had the will. I see so much good WMF could do-- if only we could regain the flexibility to innovate once again.

Standing in the way of innovation are two main obstacles. One obstacle is that our existing communities are quite happy with existing system, which seems to works well for them, even if it's toxic to newbies. The other obstacle is that Wikipedia is now mission-critical: our planet is not prepared for a day without Wikipedia. We can't make dramatic and bold changes the way we could during the early days-- too many people depend on us.

Potential Solution

My own humble thinking on the problems is that we need new projects, and hundreds of them. If I want to create a new subreddit or a new FB group or a new Wikia project, I can do so with a few short clicks. But here, it's still 2002-- we only allow one community per language-- we permit only one way of doing things per language.

So long as there's only one project per language, change is nearly impossible. Look at all the backlash even a relatively minor change like MediaViewer is causing-- if the ED can't get consensus for even minor innovations, what hope does the average user have?

I think the solution is to allow new "feeder" projects. When Nupedia was too closed to outsiders, we created Wikipedia as a feeder project. Now that Wikipedia has become Nupedia, perhaps its time to allow new feeder projects to grow.

This would allow our existing community to keep the status quo that works well for them, but it would also allow the Foundation and others to build a better project without having to consult anyone, without having to ask permissions for every change, however small. Those of us who want change could be free to change, without stepping on the toes of those who like things as they are.

Thanks

Welcome aboard, Lila! It is my sincere hope that your joining the foundation will usher in a new era of innovation and the end of our stagnation. --AnonymousCoward8222104 (talk) 10:41, 22 August 2014 (UTC)