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Affiliate role accounts[edit]
(Previously posted at Talk:Role_account#Affiliate_role_accounts, without response, so reposting here.)
Several affiliates seem to have created role accounts which are active on Meta: User:Wikimedia Österreich, User:Wikimedia Bangladesh, User:Wikimedia Nigeria. Per Role account, such accounts require consensus in advance. Was consensus established for any of these? (Pinging listed WMBD contact User:NahidSultan. The WMNG and WMAT accounts have no listed contacts.) --Yair rand (talk) 04:41, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
- Yair rand, it appears that the assertion that consensus is required was added to that unofficial, non-policy page here with no discussion by an account that got a checkuser block the next week. It is possible that the page does not fully reflect reality. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: Huh. Okay then. Personally, I don't think we shouldn't have role accounts except in very limited circumstances, but if this isn't a concluded policy issue, I don't think it's worth it to try to generally figure out the issue from scratch here just for these three accounts, so I'll go ahead and close this. (No idea what to do with the Role accounts page itself.) Thank you. --Yair rand (talk) 08:24, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
- Generally they should be discouraged. There is a whole lot of reasoning at the WPs about accounts belonging to an individual, and really how would the wikis and us manage their ownership, management and transferral. I wouldn't want to see them editing on content pages at any content site. I would prefer that they not be used, and don't see a good reason for their active editing. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:55, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
- The English Wikipedia has some of the strongest opposition to them, but Commons seems to like them. It simplifies some of their copyright patrolling work, if you know that an image is being uploaded from the official organization, with OTRS permissions already secured once for the whole account/whole organization. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:28, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: I was indicating content wikis. I can definitely see that Commons and Meta being the points of difference, and relating to official function of the organisation in the broadest sense, maybe at content wikis in project namespaces. Can we meet halfway and refine our statements to be Generally they should be discouraged from being used on content wikis, and ... (let us find some words) I don't have a particular issue with them where they are purposefully and assiduously controlled. I feel there needs to be a process to demonstrate that they are controlled by the organisation, and they have a process to manage them. I would prefer to see their creation restricted to CREATOR+ accounts if that can be done tidily. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:10, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- These associated role accounts should be clearly identified to the organisations, their editing scope identified on their meta user pages, and means of escalation about their (ab|mis)?use. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:13, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- Billinghurst, I think that the German-language Wikipedia also accepted role accounts. I agree that the best practice is for these accounts to be identified and documented (a global userpage is nice, but maybe not necessary if you're only planning to edit on Commons), but I'm less certain that we could realistically ban them from the content wikis (including Commons) if any local community finds value in accepting them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing Not in disagreement with anything that you are saying. Set the principles, point to existing practices that should guide their operation, maybe reserve some keywords, manage expectations, and remind them that they are not exempted from local rules.
I still prefer that, where possible, editing is undertaken an individual account, not behind a group account, which was my meaning with discourage which perhaps needed the qualification. I would not expect a group/role account to be the first choice, and their use should be of limited and focused scope (part of the principles). They should not be a means for an individual to obfuscate their editing within such a role account. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:08, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- One of these days, we might sort out the practical consequences of Help:Unified login, i.e., that a username that is welcome at one wiki might be banned at another. We might actually need a global username policy. It would step on a few toes (one wiki used to ban usernames of 21+ characters, e.g.,
User:Billinghurst in public); AFAIK another still has an admin who blocks anyone who puts a 3 where he expects an E, even if the user has never made an edit), but I think the benefits will eventually be worth it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
- One of these days, we might sort out the practical consequences of Help:Unified login, i.e., that a username that is welcome at one wiki might be banned at another. We might actually need a global username policy. It would step on a few toes (one wiki used to ban usernames of 21+ characters, e.g.,
- WhatamIdoing Not in disagreement with anything that you are saying. Set the principles, point to existing practices that should guide their operation, maybe reserve some keywords, manage expectations, and remind them that they are not exempted from local rules.
- Billinghurst, I think that the German-language Wikipedia also accepted role accounts. I agree that the best practice is for these accounts to be identified and documented (a global userpage is nice, but maybe not necessary if you're only planning to edit on Commons), but I'm less certain that we could realistically ban them from the content wikis (including Commons) if any local community finds value in accepting them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- These associated role accounts should be clearly identified to the organisations, their editing scope identified on their meta user pages, and means of escalation about their (ab|mis)?use. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:13, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: I was indicating content wikis. I can definitely see that Commons and Meta being the points of difference, and relating to official function of the organisation in the broadest sense, maybe at content wikis in project namespaces. Can we meet halfway and refine our statements to be Generally they should be discouraged from being used on content wikis, and ... (let us find some words) I don't have a particular issue with them where they are purposefully and assiduously controlled. I feel there needs to be a process to demonstrate that they are controlled by the organisation, and they have a process to manage them. I would prefer to see their creation restricted to CREATOR+ accounts if that can be done tidily. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:10, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- The English Wikipedia has some of the strongest opposition to them, but Commons seems to like them. It simplifies some of their copyright patrolling work, if you know that an image is being uploaded from the official organization, with OTRS permissions already secured once for the whole account/whole organization. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:28, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
- Generally they should be discouraged. There is a whole lot of reasoning at the WPs about accounts belonging to an individual, and really how would the wikis and us manage their ownership, management and transferral. I wouldn't want to see them editing on content pages at any content site. I would prefer that they not be used, and don't see a good reason for their active editing. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:55, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: Huh. Okay then. Personally, I don't think we shouldn't have role accounts except in very limited circumstances, but if this isn't a concluded policy issue, I don't think it's worth it to try to generally figure out the issue from scratch here just for these three accounts, so I'll go ahead and close this. (No idea what to do with the Role accounts page itself.) Thank you. --Yair rand (talk) 08:24, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Heads-up about MassMessaging for annual survey[edit]
This is a gentle note to mention that I'm posting some messages in a couple of wikis. I apologize if these messages are viewed are disruptive. The intent here is to request users attention about an e-mail they received earlier this month and which may have been marked automatically as spam. The annual survey is an important way for the communities to share their views and concerns with the Foundation. Based on community feedback from the previous years, we’re considering moving away from the three repeated pings historically used. The e-mails we've sent request the consent (opt-in) of contributors so that, moving forward, we can e-mail them instead of sending on-wiki messages. So the plan is to eliminate the annual disruption and rely only on opt-in email recipients. You may read more about the discussion surrounding this survey here.
Should you have any questions or suggestions, please leave me a note.
Many thanks for your understanding. Samuel (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- I think the message you sent me was deleted long ago: I can't find it, anyway. I'm happy to respond to anything you put on my talk page. Andrew Dalby (talk) 19:01, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- I appreciate Wikipedia and Wikisource. I do think that Wikipedia is no longer an "anyone can edit" place. I was quite annoyed to discover that an article which I compiled about the early 20th century Scottish Bible college principal and currently in-print author David McIntyre (see http://reynoldsbooks.weebly.com/peterreynoldsbookscom-news-9658/david-mcintyre-of-the-bible-training-institute-wikipedia-article) had been deleted by the author of an article about a Canadian hockey player of the same name who may be famous now but will be forgotten pretty soon. OK Rev McIntyre is not particularly famous now, but he influenced a lot of people and was the ministerial colleague and successor of Andrew Bonar who *is* famous - and he is mentioned at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Christian_College. I don't have time to work out how to challenge such practices, and am also disillusioned by the persistent description of Evolution (a theory) as fact - Evolution being a theory involving the gain of information by Natural Selection, as opposed to Natural Selection itself which can be demonstrated but can only be demonstrated to involve at most the loss of information, sometimes only the temporary rearrangement of information. There are powerful people on Wikipedia whose opinions count, regardless of what other people may say. So I hardly ever edit Wikipedia these days, though I've done quite a bit on Wikisource in more recent times. --PeterR2 (talk) 19:20, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- If the emails go to spam, it may be because of poor wording or because Qualtrics.com is perceived as a spammer. Switching to a LimeSurvey instance, which could be configured to send emails from Wikimedia Foundation domains, could help here. Nemo 06:56, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- @Samuel (WMF): Personally I much prefer stuff onwiki, and wish to see fewer things in my mailbox (grown to hate email) I do hope that an onwiki notification is able to be maintained. I am also a little gobsmacked that people complain about wiki notifications when they are here to edit wikis—that said, people are weird. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
- I am a bit astonished by this… "We sent you an e-mail", really? Why not something even less specific like "Notification for you" or "Please respond"? And if you have to link to a diff in the body of the message to avoid spam complaints… perhaps something is wrong here and the message should not be sent at all? I was honestly a bit puzzled to see this originated from the WMF, it seems to be at odds with the communication standards I generally witness from them. And it is just a really bad strategy as far as I can see - if you annoy people about this, at least give them a direct link to the survey in your on-wiki message. If they first have to dig up an email in their spam folder, it is a bad start (see the first reply above). − Pintoch (talk) 06:23, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- I suppose the link gets sent by email from Qualtrics.com itself in order to use response tracking (so that each link can only be used once, hopefully by the intended recipient), which is harder if you send a link publicly. WMF's usage of such tracking features is often not clearly specified anywhere, although WMF spends a lot of bytes creating boilerplate pages with a "privacy policy" for each (?) survey. Nemo 06:56, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- The extremely generic wording of this message is more suitable for phishing than for a legit message about Wikimedia activities. At a minimum, next time please try to follow MassMessage guidelines (such as the usage of a proper signature), otherwise your MassMessage sender rights may be revoked. Thank you, Nemo 06:49, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- I don't think we've ever revoked anyone's MassMessage rights over using four tildes, even though it results in the bot signing rather than a human. Everyone knows that happens on occasion and is just a harmless mistake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:28, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
- Well, WMF T&S can add any flags they need/want, whatever the community thinks of it. (Well, actually doing it - that is going to be a bit of controversy but that's a different story) — regards, Revi 16:13, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Samuel (WMF): maybe forgot that he had left a "heads-up" here, so I've asked him to reply. I could have send an email I suppose :) Andrew Dalby (talk) 16:07, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
Global ban RFC for Nrcprm2026/James Salsman[edit]
Nrcprm2026, better known as James Salsman, has an active discussion regarding a possible global ban.--GZWDer (talk) 07:53, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Wiki of functions naming contest[edit]
Please help translate to your language.
Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Wikimedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki where the community can work together on a library of functions. The community can create new functions, read about them, discuss them, and share them. Some of these functions will be used to help create language-independent Wikipedia articles that can be displayed in any language, as part of the Abstract Wikipedia project. But functions will also be usable in many other situations.
There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with voting beginning on 29 September and 27 October. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on 8 December. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)20:53, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric[edit]
Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language.
Today the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees starts two calls for feedback. One is about changes to the Bylaws mainly to increase the Board size from 10 to 16 members. The other one is about a trustee candidate rubric to introduce new, more effective ways to evaluate new Board candidates. The Board welcomes your comments through 26 October. For more details, check the full announcement.
Watchlist expiration[edit]
Hi, just a query, anyway to "opt-out" of this. Not that useful for me. Do we have some buttons in beta or etc to opt-out? Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:35, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
- See Tech#"Watch_This_Page",_"Permanent". Stryn (talk) 19:02, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks Stryn, I am thinking is there a way for there to be a non css / js opt out manner, like a watchlist button that says opt out of watchlist expiration (like the rollback prompt thing, there's a mediawiki optout manner - or rather opt in depeding on wikis). Is it more suitable for discussion on Tech or can a local consensus here for a mediawiki based solution be acceptable if filled as a ticket on phab and how likely developers will accept it. I mean at least on metawiki I don't watchlist pages temporarily, for content wiki yes. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:59, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Camouflaged Mirage: put in a phab: request, if you want it, hundreds or thousands of others probably do too, either on some or all wikis. It should be pretty easy for them to build it into the preferences, and I was surprised that it is not there as part of the rollout. <shrug> what do I know? — billinghurst sDrewth 22:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks billinghurst. Filed. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 12:39, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Camouflaged Mirage: to give direct feedback to the team, see also mw:Talk:Community_Tech/Watchlist_Expiry#Requesting_feedback_on_testable_version. Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:00, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Qgil-WMF: Thanks. I will leave a link to this discussion there. :) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:56, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Camouflaged Mirage: put in a phab: request, if you want it, hundreds or thousands of others probably do too, either on some or all wikis. It should be pretty easy for them to build it into the preferences, and I was surprised that it is not there as part of the rollout. <shrug> what do I know? — billinghurst sDrewth 22:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks Stryn, I am thinking is there a way for there to be a non css / js opt out manner, like a watchlist button that says opt out of watchlist expiration (like the rollback prompt thing, there's a mediawiki optout manner - or rather opt in depeding on wikis). Is it more suitable for discussion on Tech or can a local consensus here for a mediawiki based solution be acceptable if filled as a ticket on phab and how likely developers will accept it. I mean at least on metawiki I don't watchlist pages temporarily, for content wiki yes. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:59, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
- It is always possible to create a gadget. Ruslik (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Stryn, Camouflaged Mirage, Billinghurst, and Ruslik0: Hello! Thanks for sharing this question. The watchlist expiry feature was developed as a Community Tech project, after receiving some of the highest votes in the 2019 Community Wishlist Survey. As for the pop-up, it is actually nearly the same as the old pop-up when you watch a page via star. It displays for the same amount of time before being automatically dismissed (about 5 seconds) and it can be manually dismissed the same way (i.e., click on the pop-up). Furthermore, the default selection (to watch permanently) was the same behavior before the feature was enabled. The only difference is that you now have an option to change the watch status from permanent to a temporary selection. Overall, if you watched items via star in the past, and if you want no changes to that experience, your user flow is the same. However, if you would like a workaround and return to the older success message, you can modify the CSS. For example, you can find a workaround provided in T249259#6562737. Thanks! --IFried (WMF) (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- Can I ask for the code to use should we decide to put it as a gadget here only on meta. @IFried (WMF):. Thanks. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:59, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Camouflaged Mirage: Sure! You can find the details of the code here. Thanks! --IFried (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @IFried (WMF): Thanks. I meant can I have some help to write the mediawiki code for the gadget for meta. I will continue on your talkpage. Thanks so much for the response. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 17:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- For the people who want to save one click:
.mw-WatchlistExpiryWidgetwatchlist-dropdown-label, .mw-watchexpiry.oo-ui-dropdownInputWidget, #mw-editpage-watchlist-expiry { display: none; }
- — regards, Revi 20:37, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Camouflaged Mirage: Sure! You can find the details of the code here. Thanks! --IFried (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- Can I ask for the code to use should we decide to put it as a gadget here only on meta. @IFried (WMF):. Thanks. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:59, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Stryn, Camouflaged Mirage, Billinghurst, and Ruslik0: Hello! Thanks for sharing this question. The watchlist expiry feature was developed as a Community Tech project, after receiving some of the highest votes in the 2019 Community Wishlist Survey. As for the pop-up, it is actually nearly the same as the old pop-up when you watch a page via star. It displays for the same amount of time before being automatically dismissed (about 5 seconds) and it can be manually dismissed the same way (i.e., click on the pop-up). Furthermore, the default selection (to watch permanently) was the same behavior before the feature was enabled. The only difference is that you now have an option to change the watch status from permanent to a temporary selection. Overall, if you watched items via star in the past, and if you want no changes to that experience, your user flow is the same. However, if you would like a workaround and return to the older success message, you can modify the CSS. For example, you can find a workaround provided in T249259#6562737. Thanks! --IFried (WMF) (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Important: maintenance operation on October 27[edit]
Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language
The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, October 27 2020.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.
- You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).
- If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.
Other effects:
- Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
- There will be code freezes for the week of October 26, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
-- Trizek (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Revoke A's global renamer permission - proposal[edit]
Hello, I've created Requests for comment/Revoke A's global renamer permission, as a proposal to revoke A's global renamer status, due to sharing his account access. I'd like to invite you to join the discussion in the RfC. Best, --Martin Urbanec (talk) 18:34, 22 October 2020 (UTC)