User talk:Nosebagbear

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Breitbart article

Hi, I saw your comment here. You may not be aware, but I am the author of the article and had plenty of experience editing Wikipedia. Could you explain to me what errors you felt were present in my piece?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 20:23, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

@The Devil's Advocate: - hello. So my counting of the proposal to ban the WMF actually was very slightly in favour of the opposes (though functionally NC); I assumed that in several circumstances calling a ban when in fact it was a block was a reasonable change to avoid confusing non-editors before you cover it specifically later; I don't believe the request against Fram editing about Laura was "vague" (at least it's vagueness was mixed) - it's unclear about being a ban, but it wasn't vague about what he couldn't/shouldn't do;

More importantly, I also feel that the lack of mention of the internal support for the WMF's actions (whether against Fram or even generally) would be warranted (I don't agree with them in the non-Fram aspects, but it's certainly to be considered).

I also realise I specifically should have noted in my original post that I particularly liked the frequent links to particular bits of on-wiki discussion/evidence. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:43, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

I count 32 opposes and 33 supports including Fastily, who proposed it yet did not vote directly. The warning did seem vague about what Fram could do or what exactly would happen if he did have some kind of interaction with her. Did mention administrators resigning out of frustration with the community, but limitations on length meant I trimmed some side-drama involving those supporting the ban. At the time I first wrote it ( over a week ago) there also wasn't as much support being expressed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:19, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I can accept the week ago (I'm not sure about it, but obviously I don't have an exact knowledge of what the support % was either way) - obviously like any reader I have to judge it at the point of publication Nosebagbear (talk) 13:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

WikiDirect

• Hello! This message is a sincere request from the proposer of WikiDirect. Please, if you have any time, take a look at the project proposal and give your opinion (possibly show us your support). Thank you... Arep Ticous 15:42, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

UCoC

Hi. As promised, I have relayed to the UCoC team the question about ratification and process. For what it's worth, my expressed understanding of the boundaries of the consultation was based on my reading of this Board of Trustees statement. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 15:49, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Global Conversations registration reminder

Hi Nosebagbear,

This is a reminder that if you have not yet registered for the Global Conversations on Nov. 21 and 22, please do so! Register here. Registration closes by Nov. 20. We will email you the login information for Zoom prior to the call. Thank you. Looking forward to welcoming you this weekend.

MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2021: Invitation

The 2021 Community Wishlist Survey is now open! This survey is the process where communities decide what the Community Tech team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to submit proposals until the deadline on 30 November, or comment on other proposals to help make them better. The communities will vote on the proposals between 8 December and 21 December.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate them for you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!

SGrabarczuk (WMF)

18:25, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2021

We invite all registered users to vote on the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. You can vote from now until 21 December for as many different wishes as you want.

In the Survey, wishes for new and improved tools for experienced editors are collected. After the voting, we will do our best to grant your wishes. We will start with the most popular ones.

We, the Community Tech, are one of the Wikimedia Foundation teams. We create and improve editing and wiki moderation tools. What we work on is decided based on results of the Community Wishlist Survey. Once a year, you can submit wishes. After two weeks, you can vote on the ones that you're most interested in. Next, we choose wishes from the survey to work on. Some of the wishes may be granted by volunteer developers or other teams.

We are waiting for your votes. Thank you!

SGrabarczuk (WMF)

16:09, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Templates translation wish

Hi!

During the discussion stage, you wrote an insightful comment at Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Translation/Templates translation.

I think that at its current state the wish is in a reasonable size. If you think it's OK, can you please vote for it, and also tell your friends about it? :)

Thanks! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:00, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Confirmations process – your comments were reverted by ElectCom

Hello, I'm Martin Urbanec, a member of the SE2021 ElectCom. I noticed that you commented on several confirmations. However, the confirmation process did not yet start (it will start tomorrow, February 05, 2021, at 14:00 UTC). No comments can be made before confirmations start. Unlike new candidates elections, there is no period for question asking. Please do not hesitate to contact the ElectCom if you have any question about SE2021/confirmations. Thanks, --Martin Urbanec (talk) 14:11, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your question: stewards have no specific mandate to deal with meta RfCs. Instead, most stewards don't consider their group to execute any such thing. Our policy demands from us not to override consensus. There is, for sure, a lack of any such body which can deal with intercultural conflicts and global-related RfCs as pointed out in a talk which I gave at Wikimania 2019. Meta RfCs can be processed by every metawiki contributor and outcomes implemented by stewards if need be. But as a Wikimedia body, stewards cannot be called as a group to find a solution because they are neither responsible nor necessarily skilled for that. For example, as an individual user of metawiki I don't know way too few about such intercultural conflicts that I could make a good summary. My main fields of work are elsewhere (technology-centric), not within global politics or conflict resolution. Best —DerHexer (Talk) 14:16, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@DerHexer I just happened to see this, apparently we pass a new global policy Requests_for_comment/Policy#Closure of RFCs last year which reads "Only Meta administrators and stewards can close RFCs. Only stewards can close any RFC requiring steward action or changing global policy.". Hence, the community does look up to us (speaking with meta admin hat) or you all (speaking to stewards) as the groups responsible to deal with RFCs. I personally agree with your point that RFC should be able to be processed by every metawiki user (I missed the RFC to set the policy), but for now these hard decisions had to be taken by stewards and to some degree meta sysops. The 2nd paragraph of this global policy also points to us having the mandate to review conflicts if it's credible, I will say with the global policy things had changed slightly, so Nosebagbear concerns are sort of valid but I will note the RFC that changed these mandate took place very late last year which isn't too fair to fault stewards on, and when the RFC was started in 2019 and most part of 2020 the situation is what DerHexer had mentioned above. I hope this helps, just my 2 cents. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 17:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Requests_for_comment/Reforming the RFC process#Proposal_8:_Closing does not seem to have seen many feedbacks from stewards or meta administrators. In fact, only one steward added a vote out of the handful of people who commented at all. It does seem very weird to me, to put a duty on a group without asking the group whether or not they want to do it, be it meta administrators or stewards. At least I am not aware of any such conversation. Besides that, this topic has not been adopted to the Steward handbook or Steward policy which handle the duties of Stewards. Besides that, I'm convinced that less than a handful of stewards are aware of their new duties. All in all, I don't think that this is validly active, to be honest …
But irregardless of that, it is not my field of work (and that's what Nosebagbear wanted to know from me). —DerHexer (Talk) 17:37, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@DerHexer I will support removing the requirement if there is a new RFC being held to review that particular clause. I for once was unaware until after I think a RFH thread pointed me to the policy. Let me see if I had time to start some discussion to reconciliate this issue. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 17:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@DerHexer and Camouflaged Mirage: (firstly, thanks for the comments) - this actually does raise a collateral issue that while it's easy to find out which Stewards can speak which languages, finding which Stewards to ask to do which things is much trickier. Beyond that, there was (or, perhaps, will be, since I'll re-add them tomorrow, though not to DerHexer who has already gone ahead and responded) the secondary question of "if not within remit, suitable etc etc" Stewards should have communicated that. With regards to the newer RfC policy, I would note that were I non-involved, it would have been a staggering decision for me to close an RfC with such impact on a project even though I have RfC-closing experience - Stewards are the only ones who can make such a close and have it legitimately feel like its within their remit. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Continuation

In case you might be the one person in this whole movement that actually might want to protect children from abuse, the rest obviously only having self protection on their minds, I thought you deserved to know what my reply would have been, had we not been rudely interrupted....

The theory is simple. Wikipedia is currently the only biographer of this man. Your Wikipedia page, and those two tabloid reports, is the sum total of what a Google knows about this man. He could quite easily use it to further offend, simply by showing it to a child, while not showing them the tabloid reports. It would be a little more complex than that, but it is also as simple as that. Preventing that risk, matters more than Wikipedia editor's desire to see any and all tabloid reporting expunged from Wikipedia. That is their campaign. It is hateful. It uses pejorative terms like "Daily Fail" and "Kill It With Fire". It eschews facts and presents opinion instead. The single example of Amanda Knox, online for all of two minutes, is used by these local actors as their whole entire evidence base for believing one of these tabloids cannot be trusted not to fabricate quotes from judges. And they're proud of that logic, not ashamed. No action is taken. No Administrator discounts these arguments or their evident bias. It is generally accepted practice. It also has consequences like this, because the world of sourcing is not black and white, where sources are either reliable or unreliable. Context matters. Decisions must take account of circumstances and evidence (which is actual Wikipedia policy). One of which is that the likelihood of a false report goes down, as the predicted negative consequences for the publisher of a false report goes up. They don't get worse than here. Damages in the millions of pounds, would be due. Facts like that, do matter. The local reliable source dogma has failed here, because a scenario has been found where the typical reliable sources are staying silent, and Wikipedia editors simply blindly refuse to admit that the allegedly unreliable sources that are available, in context, would appear to be reliable, based on all available facts and context. Their only objection, is their prejudice. Deeply held and immovable. Not an aspersion, an evidence based observation. Dispute resolution doesn't work here, because people holding to dogma and prejudice, are by definition, not open to reason. Anyway, what do I know? I'm only a degree educated gainfully employed journalist. This is all probably far too complex for little old me. I can write about this man if you want, I am considered a reliable source when I put my mind to it, but it won't spare Wikipedia's blushes. I would rather be writing a piece about how Wikipedia was able to do the right thing in the end, once it had been shaken out if its stupor. Don't like tabloids? Fine. Deleting the article is literally a zero cost high reward solution. Seems obvious to me. What am I missing? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doctor Bod (talk)

Firstly, if you're going to communicate with people, please sign your messages with ~~~~ . There is indeed sourcing nuance, on en-wiki they fall into the "somewhat reliable" category, but to avoid having to discuss every, single, source use of whether a source is reliable, we have both generally reliable and not reliable categories. In regards to Deleting the article is literally a zero cost high reward solution the problem there is that there is literally no policy basis on en-wiki (which is what I assume you are talking about) for that - if the referencing was good enough to make that basis it would be included in the article. Since it's not, it wouldn't suffice for some arbitrary deletion. Beyond that, decisions like deletion and whether a source is reliable, are made by the Community. I think you have a significant misconception about what administrators do - we don't have any higher decision-making authority, we execute consensus decisions, and so differ from, say, Reddit mods. If you're a journalist in a reliable publication you could always cover the topic yourself and generate a source by that means, but as a final point, you keep commenting here but you haven't raised the discussion on the actual article talk page. That page is the one where editing disagreements and proposals for change happen. Why haven't you raised it there? Nosebagbear (talk) 21:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

My responses to your IP masking questions

Hi, I had a look at your questions. Here is my shot at answering them:

• While legal cannot unilaterally disclose the reasoning because of attorney-client privilege, the WMF – being the client – absolutely can. So if privilege is the argument for being obscure, why doesn't the WMF at least partially waive it or provide a statement itself? Your own response was, "Legal has functionally said it would hurt their defence too much. It was not clarified why they claimed privilege as their reasoning on not answering to start with". The WMF legal department uses the phrase, "we're not allowed to say X because of attorney-client privilege", when instead they mean, "we don't want to say X because it would hurt the WMF". I also find that annoying but it doesn't change much.

• Does legal believe that we may currently be open to litigation because of existing laws? Yes, that is the entire reason behind the change (see below)

• If not, why are we citing no specific legislation while also citing privilege to avoid disclosing anything? Your own response was, "Indicated as not going to be stated". WMF is not citing specific legislation because doing so would give people a "blueprint" to go after the WMF.

• Is there any current or pending litigation regarding privacy of IPs on Wikimedia projects? Your own response was, "No comment given. This logically would not be private, so would state if occurring?". It might hurt the WMF's position in any ongoing and/or future litigation to answer this question.

• Is this being done to avoid future liability because WMF legal believes that laws that might make public disclosure of IPs illegal will be passed? Your own response was, "Not stated". That is definitely one of the reasons (besides the need to follow existing laws).

• If so, why is the feature not just developed and shelved until such laws potentially come into effect, given the strong opposition by the community? Your own response was, "As point above was indicated as not going to be stated, this will fall into that". We are currently in violation of existing laws, so we must start following those ASAP.

• If so, why can we not be more open about what those future liabilities are, given that they are not currently a threat? We are currently in violation of existing laws (see below).

• Has the Board endorsed this decision? If not, what is the most senior level it has been endorsed at? Your own response was, "Not stated, without reason for not stating.". AFAIK, this was raised with, but not discussed or endorsed by, the board, meaning it has been endorsed by the previous CEO prior to her departure.

1. If not showing IP addresses to the general public was a legal requirement, why was this only stated as such after the community clearly opposed this proposal? Your own response was, "No reason was given by Legal for why they changed their position only after significant Community time had already been spent". AFAICR this was clearly stated from the beginning.
2. Does showing IP addresses to the general public violate the black-letter law in any jurisdiction in which the WMF is subject to the laws of? Your own response was, "Indicated as not going to be answered (thus for all sub-questions)". Yes.
   1. If so, which jurisdiction? In the European Economic Area.
   2. If so, which law(s)? Specifically, we are currently in clear violation of article 5(1)(c) GDPR.
   3. If so, why hasn't IP editing been disabled while this is in process? IP editing is fine, it's publishing full IP addresses for everyone to see in the edit history which is the problem.
   4. If so, why can we still show old IPs? No.

• Does this mean even users, who has the ability to view full IP addresses, will be forced to unmask every IP separately, by doing some action on every masked IP on page's history?
  • [Ed:] This is somewhat operational and Legal. In effect it's checking if there's a Legal restriction that can't be worked around (say, by recording all IPs the viewer can have seen. To avoid adding every history log an admin ever sees, it could be, say, one click to reveal all IPs on the history page they're viewing, with all added to the log Your own response was, "Not answered, and it would have been useful". No.

• Johan, relating to a brief section back on the 26/27th October 2020, you concurred that a large number of our most active RCPers and counter-vandals were under-18. It is likely that a significant number of these would even be under 16. Would these groups still be fine to accept the agreement by ticking-in? Your own response was, "Stated as still under consideration, will be at least 16". From a GDPR perspective, that's actually not set in stone.

• [Rephrased] - in effect, will a mask count as sufficient detail for a CCBYSA release? Your own response was, Confirmed as yes". I don't understand this question but apparently it has been answered.

• Given the multitude of clear evidence that this information is used for the effective functioning of Wikimedia, and not all changes can be worked around, surely a clear Legitimate Interest defence for use of this public information (to use GDPR's language) could be made? If not, why not? Your own response was, "Not answered". Because the law does not allow us to continue to continue to show full IP addresses of logged-out users for everyone to see as long as it is possible to limit access to this information to certain users with a reasonable effort.

Hope that helps! --Gnom (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Gnom: a few comments, beyond a thank you for your thoughts: you say "my response" which is a bit odd - I could have given my own views on why certain things were said or not said, with a number being similar to you. "My response" here is more "My best summary of the WMF's response (or lack thereof)". With regards to "AFAICR this was clearly stated from the beginning." - could you find an edit that shows this? About 2 months ago I re-read every single edit on the history of ~~this page~~ the IP masking page, and it definitely was not indicated as a clear-cut "X will happen" at the start, hence why Johan would ultimately need to make it clear after several months of discussion and I recall comments by him of either changing understanding by Legal and/or a miscommunication by them to him (that's a little blurry, as most early communication was done with NKohli). The fact that it was raised with the Board can't be used as clear inference that the CEO signed off on it. We don't know if, say, GC Amanda Keaton could have done so, etc. Could you expand on why commenting on if there was any currently existing IP-based litigation against the WMF would "It might hurt the WMF's position in any ongoing and/or future litigation to answer this question."? Nosebagbear (talk) 15:56, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Johan (WMF): - are Legal able to answer if some method short of logging individually click-to-show revealed IPs can be used, as if that is the only way it's going to pose an unacceptable grinding nature to the process. Revealing, say, a page worth (50) of IPs in view history would seem a viable compromise over just logging every IP that anyone with the userright could see vs rendering ip-checking 5x slower.

Hi, sorry for using "your response" in this way – I was aware of what you were doing. I cannot point you to where I learned that this change will be made to comply with existing laws, it might be that I just assumed this from the start with my legal background. Concerning your follow-up question: If, for example, the WMF were to publicly state that they were found to be in violation of the GDPR somewhere, others (governments, individuals) might feel 'inspired' and also start taking action against the WMF. --Gnom (talk) 16:35, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Nosebagbear: We're planning to have some method to unmask a larger number of IPs at once if necessary, yes. We don't want this to be as time-consuming as the checkuser process. We haven't a proposal for exactly how yet, but there are no legal blockers – we just need to make sure it's properly logged. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

This has come up before, so I've now added this to the FAQ on the main project page. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

IP Masking

I've emailed you my opinion on a few things. I don't expect an answer, but in closing you may wish to catch up on what others say before reaching any hard and fast conclusions. Google Translation will help with any parts that are in Portuguese (which I can read fluently anyway). These venues in English will clear up all other misunderstandings:

• the facts
• the data
• on going work at Phabricator.

Kudpung (talk) 03:45, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Kudpung: I'll definitely take a look, likely tomorrow - I did send a reply yesterday, so please let me know if you didn't receive it and I'll resend. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:37, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Post-mortem

Hello, some of your questions are being discussed on the more active page Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Post mortem. Nemo 19:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations

Belated congrats on your election to the Drafting Committee. Kudpung (talk) 01:49, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Kudpung: - much appreciated, thank you Nosebagbear (talk) 08:31, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Renaming username

Hello Nosebagbear! I want to change my username but I am currently blocked in en wiki. Will this block really interrupt my wish for changing my username? Haoreima (talk) 08:12, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello, it's fairly rare to rename a user blocked, especially for sockpuppeting. It's not impossible, but I'm not able to really expand on the exact situation - I only handle fairly simple renamer requests Nosebagbear (talk) 13:29, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I will try to unblocked myself first. And one day, I will come back to you again! Until we meet again, cheers! :) :) Haoreima (talk) 15:25, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks

Hey, thanks for your support, this really means a lot. I was wrong in my earlier post btw, it is global traffic that has tripled since the beginning of the war, but Russia-based downloads have increased fifty fold. Cheers, The other Kiwix guy (talk) 08:34, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Self-test

This is a conversation test to see how things work with the new discussion tool

Universal Code of Conduct Nosebagbear (talk) 09:36, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Leadership Development Working Group: Reminder to apply by 10 April 2022

Hello Nbb! I know you're probably quite busy, though I still wanted to reach out with a signal boost request. The call for applications for this working group ends soon.

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You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to your language

The Community Development team at the Wikimedia Foundation is supporting the creation of a global, community-driven Leadership Development Working Group. The purpose of the working group is to advise leadership development work. Feedback was collected in February 2022 and a summary of the feedback is on Meta-wiki. The application period to join the Working Group is now open and is closing soon on April 10, 2022. Please review the information about the working group, share with community members who might be interested, and apply if you are interested.

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Thank you in advance for sharing with any interested parties =) Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:21, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Xeno (WMF):, thanks for the invite (we had indeed received it through the MCDC bit before) - alas, currently burning so much time on Wikipedia already that I think I'll give it a miss (I fear that this may well be the case for quite a few others currently on committees and what have you) Nosebagbear (talk) 09:31, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Nosebagbear: I figured as much- and almost didn’t send to the sitting members. Ultimately I figured you all know others who may be interested so took a chance with the extra can of spam :) Xeno (WMF) (talk) 11:49, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Meta:Civility

Hello, this message I am placing it because the thread has been opened at WM:RFH regarding this diff. I just wanted you to respect other users whatever the situation may comes in. I hope you read our policy, Meta:Civility and respect it. Thank you for your understanding. Kind regards, — Tulsi 24x7 04:16, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Tulsi I have indeed read it before, and would still stand by my position that the editor (blocked on three projects, and then their behaviour on meta) in question was trolling the discussion, and was being overly dramatic, but can certainly use a less inflammatory accurate descriptor Nosebagbear (talk) 11:53, 5 September 2022 (UTC)