User talk:LilaTretikov (WMF)

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Charter of Wikimedia Movement (WMM)

WMF. Matrix of Participation by iCIV
Levels of participation and influence of iCIV		Six circular steps of a WMF-process
Partnership	+++	Agenda setting  ► Drafting     ▲   ▼    Reformulation  ↻  Decision    ▲   ▼      Monitoring  ◄  Implementation
Dialogue	++
Consultation	+
Information	0
This figure is a derivate of an adoption by the     Congress of International Non Governmental Organisation (CE)

The Wikipedia Movement (WMM) is an out-standing project and its developement must be out-standing too to stick to the successful basic idea: Testing new proposals of cooperation beyond existing limits. In Working Together Lila Tretikov as the Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has anounced an approach of a new Wikipedian Life at New Frontiers (3 days to go till publishing). Wellcome to all explorers on the new track of cooperation, diversity and subsidiarity, the future Guiding Principles of Wikimedia Movement (WMM) – This shall be On the Scale of Billons. Next - let´s try a Request for Comment (RfC): Charter of Wikimedia Movement (WMM-Charter) - with Lila´s new proposals as a solid base to develope further requirements and on-going interests of the international Community of Individual Volunteers (iCIV).

Hongkong, San Francisco. You name it! WMF has responsibilies to develope the free knowlegde of the world and its own organizational conditions so people can contribute in a ballanced way of mutual interests and diversity growing - in a world changing day after day, fate by fate. --Edward Steintain (talk) 05:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
P.S. Please, don't give people instructions but set new trends how to cooperate as partners at every level.

The Wikimedia Foundation has no rightful claim to speak for the movement, and —sorry to be blunt— has certainly abrogated the right to talk about 'working together" since their recently demonstrated policy has been to tell the community to go screw themselves. --Pi zero (talk) 14:12, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I declare: The term Movement (WMM) and its definition are in possession of the Movement of the international Commutity of Individual Vontunteers (WMM of iCIV) participating with Wikimedia. iCIV as the community and movement shall write the Charter of Wikimedia Movement applying the good idea of Bylaws: ARTICLE II - STATEMENT OF PURPOSE too. iCIV shall coordinate contributions of WMF – to be fair to WMF while iCIV is developing the Charter of Wikimedia Movement (WMM). I tend giving to check the idea of cooperation, diversity, and subsidiarity a chance - despite of … (please teach me what I must do to forgive.) --Edward Steintain (talk) 18:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

What is really important here is that Edward is looking forward into what needs to be done, vs. what has been done. We have a rich and important history, yet my (and yours if you choose to accept it) job is to ensure we are healthy and relevant in the future -- in the world that is rapidly evolving. With that, I am watching for those who are willing and able to engage in looking forward. -- LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Lila, in your position there's a trap you can easily fall into. The problem is, where to set your threshold for who to respond to. There's no point in responding to cranks... right? But, suppose you were, for whatever reason, in the position of advocating something that, for reasons you're not seeing, was a truly bad idea. If you set out to only respond to people who are "being productive", and if your definition of "being productive" excludes those who say what you're doing is a truly bad idea, then you may end up, for seemingly practical and non-ideological reasons, preventing yourself from becoming aware that what you're doing is a truly bad idea. The problem is further compounded if you've come into the middle of a situation that's been brewing for a long time, and resentments are already running high; because this will tend to raise the level of annoyance and distrust by those speaking to you from certain perspectives, and if you disregard comments based on annoyance/distrust level you will therefore end up disregarding comments based on perspective.

What I see here is that you're starting from the assumption that certain kinds of things "have" to be done, and those who say they don't have to be done will get statistically filtered out of dialog with you. I'm not saying this is an easy problem to solve; that's yet another thing I don't like about AGF, that it tries to trivialize a genuinely difficult problem. The current negotiations being hosted by Egypt between Israel and Hamas are described as "indirect negotiations", which as best I can figure means these folks can't stand each other to the point where they probably can't even be safely put in the same room together, so the Egyptians have to go back and forth between them. But it's important to recognize that it is a problem; that your quest for civil dialog can sometimes isolate you from things when you most need to hear them. --Pi zero (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I think I am pretty clear that I embrace discourse. I think plurality of opinions is important to progress. What I am staying clear of is emotional wight that brings no additional benefit to conversations. I do not plan to engage in shouting matches, insults, or sarcasm. Not only do I think it is bad form, I think it is damaging to our culture and our project. This does not mean I don't like anyone personally and that I would not talk to them: I would be happy to speak with anyone who is genuinely and mutually respectful. -- LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 20:38, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

"I think I am pretty clear that I embrace discourse." You do enunciate this claim clearly. However, saying that is easy and, given the history here, carries no weight. When you say something like (as you did say, just above)

What is really important here is that Edward is looking forward into what needs to be done, vs. what has been done. We have a rich and important history, yet my (and yours if you choose to accept it) job is to ensure we are healthy and relevant in the future -- in the world that is rapidly evolving. With that, I am watching for those who are willing and able to engage in looking forward.

what that sounds like is, you are willing to listen to someone who agrees with you in the agenda you have decided is "necessary" in order to do what you have defined as "moving forward" (well, okay, maybe it's the agenda your employer has instructed you to beleive is necessary). In other words, those who disagree with you are not looking forward and therefore aren't to be listened to. There's good reason to suppose that's what your words actually mean, because Jan-Bart's statement a while back overtly stated that anyone in the community who disagrees with the way the Foundation has decided to go should leave. That was followed by that extraordinarily tone-deaf joint letter from you and Erik.

Here's a peripherally related anecdote. Somewhere in all this I was describing the interactive tools I'm developing, the discussion got into specifics, and I remarked that —as is routine with wikis— when occasionally you need a bit of markup that's complicated, you'll usually be able to just copy a similar bit previously written for a similar purpose, and make the obvious changes for what you need now. The response I got was a sneer about "cargo-cult programming". The lesson of this story: Imitation is at the forefront of how non-text wiki markup gets written. By expressing contempt for that technique, the respondent was expressing contempt for ordinary wiki contributors. That's the deep-seated default attitude from which a typical professional programmer would likely start when contemplating the volunteer community of an open wiki. You won't get wiki-nurturing decisions, large or small, out of that kind of environment, whatever "compensating" measures you try to take.

You're in a difficult position: you have to simultaneously go about making decisions in the right way and end up making the right decisions. When you don't listen to things you don't want to hear (and your remark that I quoted above is essentially stating that intention), some people may object on procedural grounds; but you're also going to get yourself in trouble on the making-wrong-decisions front. --Pi zero (talk) 13:18, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

In 3 days Lila will present a new approach of cooperation and WMF has a historical chance to out itself as a supporter of the New World of participation by Cooperation, Diversity, and Subsidiarity. In this situation I set a nomark (dtsch: Neinzeichen): Two opposit dots at the Phoenician N. (Dtsch: Das um zwei gegenüberliegende Punkte ergänzte phönizische N wird als neues Satzzeichen zur kulturellen Bewährung angeboten und Neinzeichen oder Verneinungszeichen (engl.: Negationmark) genannt. Es markiert das Ende eines Satzes mit einer Ablehnung. In seiner kulturellen Wirkung signalisiert das Neinzeichen den Bedarf zur Kooperation: Die Punkte als Opponenten stehen sich einander gegenüber, nähern sich anfangs auf abweichenden Wegen, um sich dann auf einer gemeinsamen und verbindenden Linie zu treffen.)

… en:nomark/de:Neinzeichen: Yes of cause, say NO and keep on marking it. But starting as one of the opposit dots keep on trying to meet on the nomark-middleline with common (bilateral) interests. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:11, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Nomark has been called Negationmark (Negociationmark, Neinzeichen, Verneinungszeichen), too ;-) Let´s try to be aware of listening to NO and then get together, you can call coordination too (Say it in Old broken WMF English: coordination!)

WMF is in competition, said by LT (SF). What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding? Is WMF getting old? The future of WMF and WMM: when the last bubble is plopping. Please give me a straw to hang and blow on! WMF has severe problems to meet marketing demands of contributors and customers. As a warning a nomark (negationmark, dtsch: Neinzeichen) was set. --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Is Wikimedia Movement a historical repercussion of conciliate or collide? In a few days (3) we shall know. --Edward Steintain (talk) 07:32, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

The expression shows a negative number for about a week... So, did you find out..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 01:42, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

It was a calculation for a certain time of duration. The underlying computing expression to calculate a difference of days was only valid till November 19, 2014.</ref> Thanks for asking. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Please let me suggest that the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF, the donator of the wiki-idea) and Wikimedia Movement (WMM, the donator by contribution), represented by the international Community of Individual Vonlunteers (iCIV) shall ask the International Non-Governmental Organizations of the Council of Europe (INGO of CE) for support to develope the Charter of Wikimedia Movement (Chater of WMM). --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:08, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Cooperation evolves if I am prepared to wait with an attitude of tolerance in a situation of diversity. A nomark (negationmark) signals the demand for bilateral developement and the retention of newcomers and oldhanders ready for foot voting (which accually means shunning – no cooperation). --Edward Steintain (talk) 10:00, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

The What´s To Do List of Charter of WMM (QIOP)

Questions

1. WMM as an organisation of WMF and iCIV is in a wilderness of interpersonal interaction. The administrations of WMF and the Chapters of iCIV overrule commitments of the wiki-idea in a battle of their underdeveloped rules of cooperation. Who is going to describe what tolerance realy means to WMM (call it double-u / double-m, Wikimedia Movement) in future? --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:35, 26 November 2014 (UTC) A Nomark points out objections. Some need a nomark to realize that there are problems. Lots of nomarks signal the urgent demand for change. Please, let´s try to give Nomark an ASCII-Code. A mutual Nomark is quite unbloody.
2. Who is a specialist for the practical application of cooperation? – Please name one or three names for every continent/chapter to enshure diversity and subsidiarity. --Edward Steintain (talk) 08:43, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Is WMF going to develope the splendid Wiki-idea to be the first global internet-based Tante-Emma-Laden of free knowlegde? --Edward Steintain (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
4. Cooperation is based on trust. Which signals inspire trustworthiness? --Edward Steintain (talk) 06:33, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
5. What are the most important first hundred words of the world and what comes first in this list: Knowlegde or Cooperation? --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:18, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
6. Small events of daily wikipedian life – simple details: http://tools.wmflabs.org/wikiviewstats/ is not working any more. Which intervention ruined the project? Who's investigation clarifies this? --Edward Steintain (talk)
7. Does the wiki-idea need advertisment for the new deal: Cooperation? (Please compare Informations, Nr. 7). --Edward Steintain (talk) 22:49, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
8. Will new administrators and WMF-staff have to participate in a basic training programm about cooperation to get a licence to apply for administrator-election or to be a WMF-supporter of the iCIV = international Community of Individual Volunteers? (WMF and WMM have no certified quality-management = global Tante Emma Laden of free knowledge in future) --Edward Steintain (talk) 23:02, 4 December 2014 (UTC) | staff training: compare foreign chambers of commerce in Chile.

   Solution. Costs are estimated to be 50 to 100 k€ to develope a basic training programm of cooperation and tolerance. Particiation in a training programm is as everthing in the WMM absolutely voluntarily. What to gain by a c&t-training (the mission statement) shall be developed by WMM and WMF in cooperation/coordination. --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:07, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

   It takes about the same amount to develope and introduce the programm „Train-the-Trainer of c&t“ who are the one´s to transfer principles of cooperation and tolerance to WMM and WMF. --Edward Steintain (talk) 12:46, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

   On this possible way to future do not hesitate to contribute your objection. Mark it with a preliminary acronym of the new nomark (dtsch. Neinzeichen, Neinzeichen is a Satzzeichen). As an acronym of a nomark use :ϟ. Every voice counts! Dare to write YES! or NO:ϟ or I DON'T KNOW? in public and mark it as your personal contribution to the community you are living in and how it shall be developed. Good luck --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:48, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

9. What has been lost or is rotten with the wiki-idea if I am the only one who is testing QIOP? How is the community handling new suggestion? Is this a wikipedian ha-ha – keep unpredictible living lifestock out? Peace and tolerance: Everthing is on a voluntary base - just like a bit of life! --Edward Steintain (talk) 23:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
10. Is the process of developement unstructured in part? (please compare Where are we?) The Working together of WMM and WMF requires a commitment to ISO 9000+. --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:11, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
11. Failures happen. Do WMM and WMF need a critical incident reporting system (deutsch de:CIRS) with contributions by anonymously written letters as part of a quality management which will support cooperation? --Edward Steintain (talk) 07:27, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
12. Cooperation and tolerance need to have a nursery. In some chapters or parts of WMF inherited developements are not productive by the means of cooperation and tolerance. Does Wikipedia need patrols (dtsch Streife) to enshure cooperation and tolerance and to suggest to the one how is meant to be an offender a discussion and inviting the one „who has been picked up“ to participate (on a subsidiarity base) to talk with trained „cooperation specialists“ of WMM and WMF? --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:30, 13 December 2014 (UTC) (This is a suggestion to Don't excluded:ϟ. Give a chance for inclusion!)
13. Losing contributors. Could one reason possibly be bullying in one or the other chapter? (Janice Harper, Ph.D.: Three Faces of Bullying, Psychology Today, New York, March 22, 2013 in Beyond Bullying). --Edward Steintain (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
14. Wiki is a very successful idea millions are contributing to. Who is meant if Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is writing we? --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:48, 19 December 2014 (UTC) We do not appreciate the we of WMF – we declare which is me being a voluntary member of Wikimedia Movement (WMM).
15. During zwo or three thousand years mankind has worked very hard to understand tolerance and paid a lot. The next step will be positive reciprocity – I suggest. This shall be called cooperation beyond the reciprocity known today. Wiki is not post-modern any more, it is going to be „structured cooperation“ which will be developed after having started with free knowledge. What shall we do with free knowledge next? Push the broom on-wiki? Consensus is getting old (while wiki is still young) and has to be adapted. Cooperation is only named once on Consensus. --84.62.140.174 19:28, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
16. Could it be possible that WMF was wounded or is suffering from conflicts and some battles and is now getting to the stage of bargaing? iCIV (WMM) has a strong hand to reach out. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Informations

1. Prototype of WMM-Charter: WMF pays for professional assistance to develope structured cooperation in the chapters which shall narrow or close the gap between the rule-ridden Wikipediator and the brave (new) Contributor. The easiest way of cooperation is to be tolerant by simply waiting instead of executing immediately. --Edward Steintain (talk) 09:36, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
2. Solution. It only needs a couple of 100.000 Euros or US-Dollars per selected chapter (as a prototype) to simulate new structures of cooperation under professional assistance. The Wiki-idea is a precussor of developements pointing into future of now-a-day mankind: This means structured cooperation. Cooperation is very effective and successfull – being proofed yesterday, today, and tomorrow. --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:16, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
   Chapters, please apply at WMF to be the first of the WMM (Wikimedia Movement). You are dug in by administrating Wikipedia. Get out of your hole: Support free knowledge by structured cooperation to be developed. WMM is facing new frontiers everyday. Please, help to go beyond.
3. People know much more than what can be quoted from written stuff. Competitors of Wikimedia offer with their systems a better chance for people to interact and cooperate than Wikimedia does. Wikipedia offers no chance to pick-up (controverse) topics and develope a lemma - it has to be “wp:relevant”. Wikimedia should have a look at en:Debategraph. Wikimedia has competence in knowledge. The next step shall be collecting and applying it in cooperative systems – starting with WMM and WMF. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:11, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
4. Wikipedia is a global role model to create and deliver free knowledge. It can be developed to a global role model how this is done in the best of possible ways: by structured cooperation of an organization and volunteers. --Edward Steintain (talk) 06:08, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
5. Next to wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/... once there will be wikimediamovement.org/wiki/... (WMF is exposed to competion – generally on a global scale and intraorganizationally with a global community.) Compare Superprotect with Superneglect. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:30, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
6. Wiki-Idea: Talking to eachother by written words is a repercussion of Babylon. I don´t want this Brave New Wiki-World:ϟ (:ϟ meaning nomark). New online-trends need to feed realty social interactions. Wiki means to be a member of The Movement (WMM) – hand in hand physically: A life beyond electronic visual displays. --Edward Steintain (talk) 21:45, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
7. Gossip is a cultural intervention that frames the reputaion of an organization – over years. The new signs for cooperation have to be very distinct and convincing. --Edward Steintain (talk)
8. Software is not softskill (please compare infrastructure). --Edward Steintain (talk) 17:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
9. Solution. Chapters will be made responsible to develope structures to prevent bullying by their acknowledgement „not to look away“. Citation: „... in workplace bullying, the instigators are very often people in positions of organizational leadership, or who have the organizational support of someone in a position of leadership.“[1] Someone might call this a vertical tolerance of now-a-day Wikipedia which was a widely accepted principle 900 to 1.600 years ago by the one´s in power. (Rainer Forst. Toleranz im Konflikt, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2003, p. 27-127) --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
10. Cooperation could be a fair solution of Some thoughts here and there. Communication is a good start. WMF needs a management for communication by an agreed practice. The principles of communication will be develope by the „Chater of Wikimedia Movement“. Generally WMF is prone to use a structured quality management in detail to promote the wiki-idea of free knowledge. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
11. Who ever thinks „You are wrong:ϟ“ (acronym for nomark (dtsch: Neinzeichen)) I tell you: „You are right!“ Decissions in a voluntary system have to be made together to start working together (which can be called a new structured cooperation on-wiki with tolerance - WMM and WMF). My [en:Self-esteem self-esteem] (dtsch: [Selbstwert https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstwert] is vanishing participating with Wikipedia. I am one of a million of the WMM (Wikimedia Movement). My wife says: „Forget it! There is no solution in sight and there never shall be one. I would not object if Wikipedia blocks you.“ I love my wife – she became a co-wikipedian - involuntarily, she wants to point out.. I respect her feelings. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Objections

1. People – not even WMM ones – have never been taught how to cooperate. It´s a matter beyong binary flatland. I refuse to be binary. I go multinary. --Edward Steintain (talk) 21:11, 26 November 2014 (UTC) To be honest, civilication has no cooperative rules and only very few practical hints how to cooperate – the knowlegde of the world reduces to the state of the art by WMM: Next, we are going for more free knowledge by structured cooperation – that´s the way the world and WMM as a preliminary precursor of the future might not crumble.
2. Do long-term conbriturors like Aschmidt, Drahreg01, Winternacht, Nemo, and Pizero – and even Lila know what comes after Loss aversion in the end? --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:36, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Forget it: No trust. WMF makes announcements and does not deliver in time. --Edward Steintain (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Problems

1. WMF-Staff and adminsitrators of the chapters are very much alike. --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:56, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
2. There are fields of never ending struggle with no sulotion in sight. Lucky the ones who leave in time (compare shunning). I am prepared for change – ready to be a wikipedian premigrant on the run, one of a million. --Edward Steintain (talk) 22:50, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Be bold does not name the adverse effects of Being bold. The recognition of interests of the one´s who are being bold is often hurt. Wikipedia reviewers as Wikipediators have no will (and no structure) to feed an on-going cooperation. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:06, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
4. WMF has no structured Contributor Complaint Management. WMF has no structured Contributor Relation Management (compare Customer Relation Management (CRM)). WMF lacks of CRM and longs for CRM. Hongkong and San Francisko: The Wiki-idea and others starting with opening frontiers to the future are based organizationaly on structures of the middleages. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:36, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
5. Over time problems can pile up so the starting point of a conflict cannot be seen any more. --Edward Steintain (talk) 06:26, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
6. Nobody wants loss. Failures happen but WMF does not react. (comp. Swiss cheese model (deutsch Schweizer-Käse-Modell)). --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:13, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Steps to balance

These are really *great* questions and comments. We are working on the strategy and an update for you sometimes in January and I will incorporate some of these into that update. Much of this is still "on the move" as we shift priorities internally and working through some research. I will also spend some time and give you my thoughts here when I can. -- LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 02:54, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

A quick update on where we stand now, even if it is on a meta level like that all deployment is frozen for the moment, or that there is internal discussion on how to improve discussions with the local communities, and how to better understand their requirements and needs (I think that's the case, but I'm just guessing really) would be very welcome on the main flow page, which according to the page on meta is the page on mediawiki, and according to the page on mediawiki is the page on en.wiki would be very welcome. I've got the feeling good things are happening and the current radio silence is a good thing to normalize things, too long a time might lead some people to believe there is an unpleasant surprise in the works. If that's not the case, and I hope and think it's not, but I've been unpleasantly surprised in the past to keep all options open, keeping everyone posted would help relations IMO. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:13, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Martijn, fair point. We had to push back the strategy consultation and with the fundraiser it has been a very busy time.

The product team has been drafting a version of the "product development and rollout process" and I have been urging this is made available on wikis ASAP. I am requesting this is done in December so people can see and comment.

We are doing massive amount of "catch-up" on fundamentals, things like understanding basic data (unique visitors, referrals, completion rates) -- basics we should have had years ago, but never instrumented for. There is a lot of change internally and I think the perceived silence is a side-effect of this. We are moving towards quarterly reports, so if there is something specific that you suggest we cover in those, let us know. --LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I admit, I don't trust the WMF to correctly interpret data. I actually don't trust just about anyone to correctly interpret data, in any soft-sciences context (hard-science data being... slightly less prone to rampant misinterpretation, though there are always folks pushing an agenda who are willing to give it a try). The "lies, damn lies, and statistics" quote is at least as relevant in the second decade of the third millennium as it's ever been. --Pi zero (talk) 00:34, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

It is a challenge and a chance to find out how cooperation on a higher level works sufficiently if we (WMM and WMF) are willing to accept diversity and subsidiarity as major components of cooperation: Balance = Gleichgewicht. If indeed a sophisticated supported process of new cooperation will be started it has to be fair otherwise foot-voting will decided. --Edward Steintain (talk) 08:03, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

1 (one) instant of communication with the communities in over two weeks, that's quite some silence. I really wonder how community input should be believed in, if you decide simply not to communicate with the communities at all. The communities are what matters, the WMF is just the professional organisational entity of the communities. How do you intend to deal with your real bosses in the future? --♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 11:40, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

That's a bit of a cheap shot IMO. Lila has been communicating here and somewhat on the mailinglists. I don't believe as a ED it's her position to take the lead in communication with the communities; statements from the ED are important in their symbolic value (which I think what's needed right around now), but not in the day to day communications. Listening - and it seems that she's been doing that - is more important IMO. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:53, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd say it is less cheap than you think. It might be true that Executive Director not communicating here is not that big of a problem by itself, but doing so after claiming that it is a priority (Special:Diff/10432105) is a bigger problem. If that's how a priority is being handled, what happens to everything else..? Or do you think she claimed that is a priority when it is not really so? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Lila. Trying to use the time till January 2015 I suggest a Request for Comment trying to find the best possible question to ask for contributions and developements how to induce a higher level of cooperation. The intension is not to name a solution for new cooperating systems but the right and best possible question to find out what the new WMM- and WMF-cooperation could mean and how to achieve it. I think it´s known that the right question(s) has/have to be asked to get on the track of a promissing solution. --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:20, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

RfC: What are the improtant questions for the developement of advanced cooperation? Please let us try to use (what I call and what I have applied above) QIOP (the mediation methode of dynamic facilitation). --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:36, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I think your conceptualization is well taken. Our biggest issue is with scale: at a ration of 200:100,000 or 200:500,000 RfCs are very hard to scale. We are still using a system that worked well in 2005, but in 2014 it is limiting our ability to be inclusive and effective. It would be great to get a system of feedback and contribution that scales better to the size of our user base so we can run many conversations in parallel. I am not sure what it would look like... yet. Ideas welcome. -- LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

(quote) I think your conceptualization is well taken. Our biggest issue is with scale: at a ration of 200:100,000 or 200:500,000 RfCs are very hard to scale.(quote-end)

(just teasing) I think your conceptualization is well taken. Our biggest issue being a member of WWM is with scale (WMF:WWM): at a ration of 20:1,000,000 or 20:5,000,000. RfCs are very hard to scale. Nevertheless - some how the wiki-idea has to get input. WMF can pay for global research too – the scent of groups like Contributors, Wikipediators, Readers, and Supporters – seasoned with a pinch of future. Let´s start cooking and fry the onion first (cooperation within the Chapters - subsidiarity). Lila, are you going to ask the Congress of International Non-Govermental Organisations (CE) and some of its experienced members for support? It´s worth a try to get access to the network. Be brave! --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:48, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Could you, please, write down what exactly looks wrong to you about RFCs? Without all this "managerese" like "it is limiting our ability to be inclusive and effective" that seems to be mostly meaningless?

Unfortunately, if it is not really meaningless, it reads a bit too much like "We use RFCs and keep getting the answers we do not like. What can we change about that?"... I hope you do understand why even misleading hints of such attitude are not generally adored...

Also, how many RFCs have you actually read? There are different kinds of RFCs. Some are simply discussions, some are mostly votes.

Finally, concerning scale. Let's say every reader of Wikipedia will write a word. Just a word, not a sentence. Even that would be a lot to read. Would you read it? If the answer is "No.", forget about it and be happy that RFCs have less participants. Also, why would the readers participate? What will motivate them? I am pretty sure that should be enough to shut down the most ambitious ideas about changing ways of communication. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:49, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @LilaTretikov (WMF): I'm a bit confused about what you actually mean: in "a ratio of 200:100,000", I guess by "200" you mean the number of people contributing to one of the larger RFCs, but what's the 100,000? The number of users who would have something interesting to say if we knew how to ask them? What system has a problem with the size of the user base? And by users, do you mean readers or editors? Are there not millions of conversations running in parallel on all the projects right now?
  I'd be happy to try coming up with one or the other idea, but for the qestion at hand here, my best answer would be "42" ;-) — HHHIPPO 23:07, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Please compare Questions, Nr. 4. --Edward Steintain (talk) 06:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

The turnout of the German RFC on the superprotect flag was actually 800... ---<(kmk)>- (talk) 00:08, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Of course, You must weight the ratio. The action of one can have the weight of 100.000. On the other side, 800 is only the number of the complete active community on de:wp with more than 100 edits/month, a "few hundred", which have the weight of zero, because they have to be changed anyway. The only thing, that will surely never change, is that kind of thinking here. --Magiers (talk) 15:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia on stage: „The Play of History“. Please support the developement of cooperation and tolerance naming existing on-wiki links of seeds to grow. That is what wikipedia will be tomorrow. Try to keep me to be a member of the WMM. WMF and WMM have to work very hard to convince me of not to I Don't Play any more:ϟ (as many did before). Cooperation and tolerance of wikipedia is unstructured; this is wikipedia as an organization loosing (z. B. mich (engl. me)). --Edward Steintain (talk) 22:01, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

In fakt one possibility to get out of a dilemma is DON'T PLAY (Gordon Tullock, Adam Smith and the Prisoners' Dilemma, 1985) Wikipedia has quite some experience with. Albert O. Hirschman calls it Exit, (1970) --Edward Steintain (talk) 08:27, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Lila´s team is kindly asked to prevent automatic (bot) archival of the given thread and apply „Do not archive until ...“ which could be February 14th, 2015 – Valentine's Day.

There were many outstanding proposals and profound complaints on Lila's talk page which pointed towards a new possible direction for WMM and WMF. I have tried to condence very many useful comments and your honest feelings as a contributer written so often and sometimes saying: This is not right:ϟ . Everybody has a right to say NO:ϟ (and mark it when and where ever you want. This can be counted on the internet (or YES! or I don't know?) and could give useful impulses. – I have introduced my suggestions to take steps towards future which are only a tiny part of the rightous interests of millions partcipating as an international community of individual volunteers (iCIV).

This is Wikipedia with a potentionally brilliant outlook providing free knowledge with an advanced level of Cooperation and Tolerance. We are talking about software which is only the organizational hardware of WMM and WMF in working together. This Hardware and WP-structure are perfect excisting hard-skills to develope new soft-skills like cooperation and tolerance, I am suggesting to the Wikimedia Movement (WMM) and Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Have fun to consider it or discussing it and get hopeful. Loving seasonal greetings. --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Summary with an open end: The wiki-idea is part of future

Working together of Wikipedia Movement (WMM) and Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is a principle of cooperation once we know about. Cooperation is useful to develope the wiki-idea which is young and has only started. Some following steps will follow. They shall be:

• WMF will deliver! --Edward Steintain (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
• Newikis:Policies and guidelines will be updated to emphazies cooperation and tolerance whose understanding WMM will develope in coordination with WMF. --Edward Steintain (talk) 18:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
• The Mould (Mold) of Wiki will get a new shape. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:06, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
• Competition by Cooperation. Step by Step. --Edward Steintain (talk) 22:35, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
• Shaping a new Mould: WMM and WMF represent the ancient virtue of Prudence. A next organized step of the four cardinal virtues shall be Justice acquired by something like Community organization. Does the knowledge of Wikipedia need conflicts with unsolved Elitarian Gewix while basic problems of mankind are not solved? If I ask my neighours they the No:ϟ -- Edward Steintain (talk) 19:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• ...

Good Luck, --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:16, 9 December 2014 (UTC) What shall we discuss about in 2016 or one year later after finishing this job of cooperation and tolerance?

Self-efficacy (WMM)

Self-esteem is a part freedom (Mill). What is the WMF-understanding of (percieved) Self-efficacy – which could lead to cooperation? --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

31 – 31 devided by 3 is the Conflict of All Problems. (comp. Adiaphora) --Edward Steintain (talk) 21:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

WMF has to coordinate (matching working together) two moral precepts: Guardian Syndrome and Commerce Syndrome (Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs to serve the perceived self-efficacy of each individual (diversity of iCIV / WMM). This might be a basic rule for cooperation and tolerance in the Charter of WMM. --Edward Steintain (talk) 10:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Once this was called Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, I suggest as a topic to be discussed in Charter of WMM. --Edward Steintain (talk)

User profiles for Mobiles

Hi Lila! Today, I discovered for the first time a Special Page "user profile" at deWP. It is, sadly, not listed at de:Special:SpecialPages so that I do not know if the same exists The feature seems to exist at all Wikimedia projects (see i.e. here and at Commons). This "user profile" shows your last edit in the project including an article's first image, your last upload at Wikimedia Commons, the last "Thank you" to that user, his or her amount of uploads at Commons, the amount of edits in the particular project. The results of such a "profile" can be very puzzling and even somehow misleading like in this example (derived from de:Spezial:Benutzerprofil/Achim_Raschka). In a discussion at the German Signpost equivalent "Kurier", we wonder if we could deactivate these profiles if the communty would decide to do so? Whom would we have to address? Thanks for your time and consideration. --Martina Nolte (talk) 19:49, 24 February 2015 (UTC)/21:38, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

NSFW images used as example
Example (1) of a user profile Example (2) of a user profile

Hey Lila. I want to keep myself short, but still it's some more words I want to speak out related to the "user profile" issue pointed out by Martina in particular and based on that some more general words on the WMF's software development process.

There are very many software requests by the authors in the German Wikipedia who contribute to our encyclopedia project by high-quantity and high-quality edits. Some of these requests have been open for round about ten years now, are still up-to-date (i.e. not yet even planned to be realized) and would be extremly helpful for editing Wikipedia articles -- actually, surprisingly, unbelievably, this is some daily business of few leftover Wikipedia authors!

Why I am telling this? Because there are new features (...) being set live to the Wikipedia regularly that have not been requested, not been tested by the community and are not at all helpful to editing or using Wikipedia -- for neither read-only users nor editing authors. This, until here, I consider the business of WMF to decide whether these software features are supposed to be developed or if the WMF rather wants to focus on actual-helpful tools for readers, authors or photographers. However, much too often there are tools I do not only consider senseless but furthermore harmful. The "userprofile" page is one of those. Not only that users have (the opportunity of creating) a user page to tell exactly as much about themselves as they want to (this is the senseless part of the feature), but also it sets the users in a context (pictures / photos included) they not at all want to be set in. I added two examples (anonymized by me, the original screenshots of course contain the usernames), depicting pictures of a "bleached butthole" or an "Uncircumcised and circumcised penis" respectively (both original photo titles) -- because the users did minor edits in the related articles. Both users contribute with their real names; this is the harmful part of the tool. I hardly believe any user wants his real name being illustrated with a butthole or penis. However, it might make users leave the projects when they are scored off like this. // In a nutshell my appeal to you: Please, Lila, please start a process of working out how new software extensions can be tested and "approved" by the communities before setting them live without giving any notice to the communities. The WMF needs to understand that at least in certain aspects WMF and community have to work together. Instead, people feel this is another example how little the WMF cares about the editors, pushing on processes that probably want to make Wikipedia more social-network-like -- in doubt at the editors' cost which is nothing but sad. Thanks for reading, kind regards from Germany, Yellowcard (talk) 21:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@Jalexander-WMF: So you agree with us that this "feature" is not a good one, as it's responsible for this pictures in so-called "profiles" that are anything but profiles. Or why did you hide this screenshots of the profiles, if this is OK. If the profiles are fine, there would be nothing to hide. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 21:47, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@Sänger S.G: I completely agree that results like that are a problem, I am just not able to respond about the feature fully and so am poking the people who can. While I agree that those are problematic I didn't want to cause more issues forcing anyone who came to this page to see them without warning too. Jalexander--WMF 21:57, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Hi all, this is an easy fix. We'll remove images from the last edited field in the profile (ticket). It's unfortunate, since 99% of the time those are a nice visual indication of a user's last edit. But we certainly don't want active vandalism patrollers to be associated with inappropriate images just because those pages are so often vandalized. Thanks to Jalexander-WMF for clarifying the issue for me :) Cheers, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I still fail to see any use in this totally misnomed "profile", that has nothing to do with a profile. I don't know the reason why anyone created this futile thingy, I can't comprehend any, but absolutely nothing would be missing if it would be ditched completely. I has no use at all, so there's no need to tweak it. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 22:33, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Maryana, thank you for taking care of the most obvious problem with those user profiles. Maybe you can also answer my question? It was: Could we deactivate these profiles if the project communty would decide to do so? If so, whom would we have to address? Thank you. --Martina Nolte (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe even more important, Maryana, why are the users not asked if this could be a useful feature before putting effort on it? I certainly didn't notice any outreach to de:wiki what is one of the most active projects. --Julius1990 (talk) 00:31, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Maryana, please carefully note that absolutely no one requested that the pictures be removed from the profile page. The dick-pics aren't the problem. The entire page is the problem. The question that was asked was: If the Community reaches a formal decision that the entire page should be removed, CAN we get the entire page removed? And if so, who do we talk to to get it done? We don't think we should be posting this stuff on the personal talk page of the Executive Director. Alsee (talk) 19:11, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation mobile team inserted Special:UserProfile into the MobileFrontend extension because there was and is absolutely no consensus to implement such a feature in MediaWiki core or even in a separate extension. If a new extension had been proposed for deployment to Wikimedia wikis or this feature had been proposed for MediaWiki core, it would have appropriately received sufficient scrutiny and would have never been deployed to the wikis in its current state.

If we remove images from Special:UserProfile, the page becomes even more useless. As I suggested at phabricator:T90632, we should probably just kill the page altogether rather than making a bad product worse. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:45, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Do I get this right: They implemented it in a more hidden part of the wikiverse, because they feared the communities on this? Why are they so community-averse? If such stuff is not community-vetted, it's illegitimate. Not asking the communities about such stuff shows a hige amount of disrespect towards the core of the wikiverse, the community. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 05:46, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

As far as I see those profiles show the users in a certain way, and just because it is for Mobile you didn't see the necessity to ask us - the users that you presented with it? Really unbelievable ways of thinking exist in the foundation. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't a hopeless case in the end. --Julius1990 (talk) 07:47, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Apparently, the profile assumes that a Commons user and a Wikipedia user are the same person if they use the same user name. Where this is not the case (i.e. in cases where a Commons user has the same account name on Commons as a Wikipedia user has on a Wikipedia project), it mixes data from different contributors, ascribing the Commons upload to the Wikipedia user. Andreas JN466 08:34, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

After the SUL-Finalization (which is due "real soon now") that should not be a problem anymore … it shouldn’t be possible anymore that two accounts with the exact same username on different projects belong to different people … or am I missing something here? Troubled @sset   ^{Work  •  Talk  •  Mail}   09:24, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear Lila, the main problem, besides NSFW images, is that the user does not have control over the content of Special:UserProfile. And every link to the normal user page in MobileFrontend is replaced with Special:UserProfile. *My* user page is de:Benutzer:Raymond and not https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Benutzerprofil/Raymond . Maybe the userprofile was born because a lot of normal user pages look really weird on mobile? My one too: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Raymond . I suggest to create a possibilty where users can style their user page mobile friendly. Raymond (talk) 14:18, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

@Maryana (WMF): would you please comment if that is correct (user cannot control visibility of profile)? If so this needs to get fixed.

I see two issues at hand: user requests on current features not being addressed effectively. UP feature requirements not clear/potentially problematic.

1. WMF has one of our 2015 goals to have dedicated resources to working on the bug/feature backlog coming directly from the communities' requests (we don't yet have the prioritization process in place, but that will need to be a part of it).
2. UP feature is designed for building mobile-friendly profiles. As we continue to work on mobile a simple user page is a basic building block for that. LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 22:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

LilaTretikov, this feature was built and went live over a year ago, while I was not working with the mobile team, but I'll do my best to answer these questions:

User requirements: I believe they were gathered by the PM and designer with input from the community, onwiki. mw:Structured profiles has more info and documentation.

Visibility: The profile displays information that is public (edits, uploads). The visibility of this information cannot be changed because it is public by design on all wikis. The only exception is the "last thanked by," which is not displayed elsewhere onwiki.

AFAIK, the thinking at the time was for this profile to be used in combination with the watchlist to quickly get a snapshot of a user's recent activity for vandal-fighting purposes. It was a pretty bare-bones MVP and is very much open to being revisited. HTH, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually it was part of designers' abandoned plan of "humanizing" WP. Very abandoned. Max Semenik (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

MVP? -Pete F (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry Maryana (WMF), but the displayed information is public, but still noone seems to have asked us contributers if we wish this form of presentation (what would occur to me as the most basic respect for the volunters!). Since the beginning of all, we were allowed to decide on our own how we present ourselves. Who gave anyone at the WMF the mandate to change this pattern? Seriously, you sit in the ivory tower and have lost us completly out of sight. If you want better profiles for mobile then you can offer a settings menu, where the user can control which information gets displayed or help by creating a customed page that fits mobile requirements, but you can't simply set up profile pages, no matter if the data is publically accesible. This is not how you work for communities like those we have here ... --Julius1990 (talk) 08:40, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Mmh, I am not really convinced or even nearly happy with this ... As you can see, one of the snapshots in the hodden part of this discussion was taken from my user profile - it was the last edit on "Human Penis" (with picture) in combination with an upload of a picture from a German festival - slightly after that I loaded "Stolpersteine" (memorials for killed jews in the WWII in Germany) to the commons and the combination of penis / Stolperstein was even worse. At this minute the profile shows my last edit in Mosul museum again with a band picture I uploaded on commons - none of those article/picture combinations is typical for my work in the German Wikipedia and if I would be asked I would never chosse this combination to show my profile to the public and interested peaople. As you also can see in the profile, I did nearly 100.000 edits in the Wikipedia and uploaded a very high number of pictures to commons - If I hat to choose how to present myself it would be nothing with numbers - 100.000 edits do not count for me as much as the real work on quality I did over the last 11 years in writing articles with more than 100 selected as good or featured in the German Wikipedia; that would be the topic I would choose to present myself to the public, that's what I am working for to rise the quality of the Wikipedia not the quantity of edits. Why is there no option to choose what will be shown to mobile users - and even worse: Why was there never a question to myself or even a message that this profile exist - to be honest I did not know about that befor it came to the discussion on it. Those are the questions I have on this tool - for me in the moment it is more a bug than a feature, sorry. -- Achim Raschka (talk) 14:41, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer, Lila. My question is yet unanswered: Is a single project allowed to decide about deactivating this feature "user profile"? Whom would we have to contact after a community consent? (I do not want to start a community poll without knowing if that could actually lead us to anything.)
I agree to Achim. Same concerns here. My "profile" actually shows an upload at Commons taken by someone else. Before that, I overwrote someone else's image of week quality by a (sligtly) better version; this image did also not nearly represent my photography contributed to Wikimedia projects. As the "profile" shows minor changes in articles it also does not reflect my main article contributions. Thus, this "profile" is pretty misleading. Depending on where and what I edited the last time, it does not even serve as a "looks nice gimmick". I personally would like to see this feature deactivated - better yesterday than tomorrow - and thus am planning to start a community poll at deWP on this. But first of all, I need to know if WMF would be willing, and technically able, to deactivate the feature for a single community.
@Maryana (WMF): You wrote "... for vandal-fighting purposes" - This kind of profile is quite useless for vandalism patrollers. They use special scripts to immediately see recent changes as diffs. If WMF would like to give them enhanced tools (which would probably be very welcomed), you would better ask them directly and specifically about their workflows and needs. --Martina Nolte (talk) 17:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Another opinion from dewiki: As a regular mobile frontend user I’ve taken notice of this feature several months ago, and I find it very useful as a “replacement” of user pages on mobile devices. User pages can be very large (you don’t know in advance of loading it) or non-existent and additionally most of the time they aren’t even displayed properly on small devices. However, as the others outlined above, there are basically two serious issues:

1. The naming. The feature is called “Special:UserProfile”, although it isn’t a typical user profile as we are used to know them from other online services. A simple renaming procedure could solve that problem. It would be great if the primary purpose of this feature (usage on mobile view) is reflected in a new name to avoid confusion.
2. The content it shows. I’ve seen a lot of these pages in the past months, but I wasn’t aware of the fact that penises and NSFW stuff could appear there. Please review, which information is useful and required on this page. Most of the stuff that is displayed at the moment is indeed useful: XYZ is a user for 2 years, has made 7k edits, has made the last edit 3 hrs ago, is member of the groups “editor, …”, thanked by User:ABC, add links to user page, user talk page, and contributions. Stuff like this. However, inclusion of detailed information about recently edited pages and new files is not at all important for the feature and very often misleading, so please consider removing it. If the page should be “sexy” (i. e. containing images) then invent a way to pick one or several images from the user page, possibly as an opt-in feature.

In conclusion: in my opinion this is indeed a neat feature for mobile usage in general, but it is seriously flawed at the moment and should be improved. —MisterSynergy (talk) 18:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

This mobile "user profile" shows again two key problems of nearly all software developments in the last years:

• It shows no clue about the every day working process in the projects. Obviously someone was thinking "Wouldn't it be nice, if someone, who edits a Kitty article gets a Kitty pic in his profile." Problem is: most user don't work on Kitty articles, they work on the whole range of possible topics, of which some may be totally controversial. In these pages there is no "nice Kitty pic", but maybe a picture of Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Not quite what I wish to represent me on my profile. Furthermore the topic of the last edit says nothing about all people, who make minor corrections, who control the recent changes or revert vandalism. If I know, a picture of every article I edit, is shown in my profile, I will avoid from now on all articles with controversial topics and only revert vandalism in Kitty articles.
• Second, and this is even worse, it shows again no interest in the communities at all. Just because You can, You decide how everyone will be presented. You have not asked for the people's opinion, You have not even informed them. The individualization of a user profile is one of the most common ways, to make a user feel "at home" in a project. To take this individualization away, because WMF "knows better", sends a sign, that volunteers shall not feel at home in the projects. --Magiers (talk) 18:15, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

There is still no answer to where this community "feature" was discussed and vetted by the communities. Something like a user profile has to be developed with the communities, a development without extensive discussions within the communities must be impossible. It as well must be very easy for the developers of this "feature" to point to this discussions, as they have to have them somewhere in their posting logs.

In my first ticket I asked the following questions:

• Why was this invented?
• Who asked for it?
• Where was it discussed?
• Why is it named UserProfile?
• What's the official purpose of this?

Still nobody answered any of them. I think this shows quite a lot of disregard to the communities.

BTW: I had to file the ticked twice, as the WMFers didn't like colourful language in their hiding place phabricator, the new one is this one

Ah, and I got my account disabled because I dared to voice my opinion there, but as those responsible for this "feature" didn't give any other place in some wiki (what they had to know off-hand where they anyhow interested in the communities), of course I used the place I know and was in. I'll probably ask some time in the future to re-enable it, but not yet. I don't think this here is the right place for such discussions, but as long as the WMF only talks about community inclusion, but doesn't act accordingly, we probably have to write here instead of the proper place. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 19:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Sänger S.G, please calm down. I’m not surprised that WMF officials aren’t willing to “discuss” with us, if we show up as the dewiki crowd on maximum attack mode. Offer suggestions for improvements instead of just dropping crude and demanding complaints here (or at phabricator).

User:Maryana (WMF) has already outlined the purpose of this feature earlier in this section. In spite of her being slightly unsure about details, her answer is in fact sufficiently substantial to understand the general intention behind Special:UserProfile. As an actual mobile interface editor I can confirm that the page is indeed useful and I would strongly endorse its availability in future (with improvements, e. g. as suggested above by myself). Given the fact that User:Maryana (WMF) even stated Special:UserProfile to be “a pretty bare-bones MVP and … very much open to being revisited” (MVP=minimum viable product), it seems as if WMF considers it to be neither perfect nor complete. Thus, they will probably be happy about incoming suggestions for improvements. (What’s the correct place for those, btw? phabricator?)

In general I don’t understand why WMF should ask the communities about the introduction of quasi-beta features like this one. Fortunately, they are adding mobile functionality at the moment, which is absolutely essential in future. Since Mediawiki is a very complex piece of software, certain things need to be simplified and Special:UserProfile is a result of that. I am really happy that new features are released to the communities early in a beta-like state, because it allows user feedback and therefore prevents the foundation to develop something useless. Regards, —MisterSynergy (talk) 22:06, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

A feature called "UserProfile" is something about the personal representation of users in the community, and as such has to be discussed by those, who are ultimately responsible for this: the communities. I agree, that the current user profiles, i.e. the user pages, are sometimes a bit too mobile-unfriendly, and something leaner should be developed with the communities. So far there was no hint whatsoever about any user/editor involvement at all (I don't blame Maryana (WMF) for not knowing this off-hand (I only blame her for using in-speach like MVP without explanation, thanks for resolving that), as it seems to have been developed before her tenure, but somebody over in Frisco has to have some recollection about this "feature").

Regarding "maximum attack mode" of deWP: the maximum attack was started by the WMF with the implementation of SuperPutsch explicitly against deWP, to make those unwashed masses kowtow towards their highnesses in Frisco. They declared an open war against deWP and up to now never apologized for this. As long as they don't apologize, why should we be willing to work calmly for them? They are supposed to work for us. --♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 22:36, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

MisterSynergy, asking before means reducing complaints after. And when we see the examples, no wonder why the foundations gets critizied. And after all what happend, there is also no AGF anymore. The foundation wants to get better, then they need to put the users in the center of everything, and not put own ideas infront which mistakes everyone could have point out with some little thinking. While the WMF seems to lack this "expertise". --Julius1990 (talk) 23:01, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Too sad that some colllegues use this thread to express, and argue about, their personal judgements. I would like to stay focussed on my two questions: Can a single project decide to deactivate these profiles? If so, whom would we have to address? --Martina Nolte (talk) 14:50, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, Martina, to have disgressed. I don't like to discuss such stuff here (or @Jimbo in enWP, another user talk page abused for meta-talk), as there has to be some proper place. Probably the place xou asked for, as the "whom" from your question should not be a single person. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 18:09, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

If I get this right, and gerrit is definitely something far too nerdy for my programming skills, there is a patch in the making about this. Looks at first sight at the explanation like a good intermediate solution, but again no place for real discussions mentioned. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 14:24, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Someone should take the above comment from Julius1990 -- asking before means reducing complaints after -- and engrave it on a huge brass plaque to be posted above the entrance door to WMF, where they will see it every day as they come and go. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:41, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello everyone! A better place to discuss this issue is the page where it started here. We agree that further research needs to be done in order to define how a userpage on mobile can best support user engagement on mobile devices. Constructive feedback on how you used the feature, and suggestions on how it could be adjusted to be more engaging, are evry helpful :). Thanks @MisterSynergy: for your input, and rest assured that communication is key. Happy to discuss useful ideas that can help enhance it. Thanks!--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 13:00, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I still don't see the links to the dozens of discussions in the different community, that's just some techno-lingo ingroup non-valid discussion for something called "profile", thus something only the communities have a say in. Only 40 edits at all in that discussion, the last one (before mine from last month) from 2013, that has no validity at all for something called profile. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 19:05, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Flow

Could you please clarify the situation? It looks like the devs are still actively developing new Flow features, and the Flow page on Wikipedia still declares an intent to eliminate our talk pages and replace them with Flow. Alsee (talk) 08:50, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I am also very interested in an answer to this. I'm a random Wikipedia 99.99% reader / 0.01% editor who dislikes the Media Viewer because it breaks standard web interactions and replaces simple HTML with less-simple Javascript, which is a peeve of mine. It eliminates my ability to rapidly view image details by loading the full image and using the pinch/pan gestures. (I use the desktop version on mobile, I have a large-screen device with a capable browser) After cursing Media Viewer for months, and recently discovering how to turn it off (and noticing the "feedback" link), I've voraciously read every bit of archived feedback and discussion its implementation and the politics surrounding it. Thus learning about Flow. I find myself taking the side of "the community" very strongly, and don't want to see the forest (totally editable medium) be mistaken for the trees (discussion forum). Deep creation is stifled by purpose-built appliances that don't serve as tools. It has also been fun to observe the software development process, and as a software author I'd love to contribute to the Wiki community's code-in-progress on e.g. Github. I will say that It's very encouraging that I can type this and expect a reply. That's a "wow" from a random contributor, so thank you Lila. 98.192.36.116 23:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you

for the New York Times op-ed "Stop Spying on Wikipedia Users" 10 March 2015, and for taking the action described therein. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:58, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, let's start with banning user profile generating tools at Wikimedia Labs! That's spying, too, and can be stopped quite easily. NNW (talk) 14:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, thank you! I do edit articles about islamist ideologues, that are considered dangerous by states in Europe (with very good reasons) and i do worry about becoming a target for surveillance. I believe it is important to watch and edit those articles, because people should be able to get good information about those "preachers" that target youngsters and disseminate selfaggrandizing propaganda. If "normal", "neutral" editors, that have no stake in these causes, like myself, are feeling the chilling effect of surveillance, then these articles will be left to those that have a stake and that will fill these articles with selfserving propaganda. I look at cases of french and arabic Wikipedians and it worries me for the future of Wikipedia. And the NSA is a major cause of concern, but sadly far from the only one. --Atlasowa (talk) 15:50, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Lila, for being a voice for freedom on the internet, I have gained much respect for you and WMF for the lawsuit. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 01:58, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Indian blogs are circulating the Anna Hazare organization in India called India Against Corruption has filed a lawsuit against Wikipedia for manufacturing and distributing child pornography from India. Any comment or rejoinder to this. IndiaLiveViews

I did some extensive Googling, I got one blog ranting that (1) WMF gave some kids access to computers, and (2) Wikipedia isn't censored. Therefore they took the work "child" and wrote it next to the word "pornography". I particularly enjoyed the part about how we're "brainwashing" children. This all appears to be entangled with three Indian political factions battling over the name India Against Corruption, and a lot of disruptive accounts that have been blocked on EN Wiki. Alsee (talk) 23:48, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

We get 3 blogs. Google search in India throws up different results. So thanks for confirming that (1) WMF gave some kids in India access to computers with Wikipedia projects, and (2) Wikipedia isn't censored and children can use it. Since the blogpost you got was circulated to many members of India's ruling BJP party, we shall be running this story with your comments. IndiaLiveViews 05:39, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, Are you aware of this legal case between WMF and the Indian party and filings described in paragraph 5D - http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2014-2261 IndiaLiveViews 06:26, 16 March 2015 (UTC)