Cross-wiki watchlist controversy; and is "go file a bug" really a useful response?

At 16:47 on May 10, the $wgShowUpdatedMarker configuration variable was set to true for the English Wikipedia (server admin log). Over the next 48 hours, the wiki's Technical Village Pump doubled in size as users discussed whether or not using bold type for "unread" watchlist changes was a desirable addition to what is often an editor's single most visited page on the site.

Although the configuration variable merely allows for the styling of "unread" changes rather than forcing it, the default bold styling quickly proved unpopular among editors with large watchlists. (There was far less opposition to new users enjoying the styling, by comparison, and indeed many English Wikipedians already use the feature while visiting other Wikimedia wikis where they keep shorter watchlists.) The discomfort was mirrored by several users on the German Wikipedia, which experienced the same configuration change. Other groups of users on both sites posted to show their support for the change nonetheless.

Unlike many previous controversies, the watchlist formatting change was the result of a real local consensus, although questions are now being asked as to whether or not two dozen editors should be considered to have surpassed a requisite quorum for such changes. Other participants in this week's discussions have drawn attention to the divergence between the original community request (closed as in support of the change, despite no consensus on the correct formatting being reached) and the result (bold formatting for all). Consequently, no firm plan had been agreed among English Wikipedians as to how to respond when the configuration change was finally made, causing it to go bold by default, and then flick through alternative styles as editors tried to change the default to something more universally acceptable.

As of time of writing, the English Wikipedia had reverted to include styling for "unread" changes by default, though unlike before users are now able to "opt in" to show the changes in bold, italics or other styling by way of personal preference. As with other recent preference change debacles, it is unclear if there yet exist the technical means to set "what new editors will see" without affecting existing users, an issue at the heart of the current strife.

Signpost poll

Internal search

You can now give your opinion on next week's poll: Which of the following best describes your thoughts on Wikimedia's bugzilla installation?

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.

• Bugzilla: in need of replacement? Yet another thread detailing the problems with – and suggesting alternatives to – Wikimedia's installation of bug reporting and feature request system Bugzilla was opened this week on the wikitech-l mailing list. The thread, a response to a detailed, overwhelmingly critical post by WMF Community Liaison Oliver Keyes, has not yet managed to get past the overwhelming inertia that has kept Wikimedia and MediaWiki using Bugzilla for the last eight years; despite the fact that few consider Bugzilla ideal software, proposals to replace it, which tend to surface every few months, have historically failed to provide sufficient evidence to outweigh considerations in favour of retaining the existing system (switching costs, concerns about using proprietary software and a "better the devil you know" consideration, for example). In related news, WMF developer Timo Tijhof announced this week the creation of a new portal, aimed at more efficiently directing both staff and volunteer developers to high priority bugs (wikitech-l mailing list).
• Wikimedia MediaWiki configuration files Gerrit-ified: Future updates to Wikimedia's own MediaWiki configuration files – that is to say, the files which govern the specific setup of each of the Wikimedia Foundation's hundreds of individual wikis – will now be processed via code review tool Gerrit, bringing them into the same code review framework as any changes to the underlying MediaWiki software which the wikis run on top of (wikitech-l mailing list). Previously, community-oriented developers could only suggest alterations to various settings (including namespace names and user rights groups), having to then wait for one of a small number of staff developers to effect those changes at a later date; now, all developers will be able to submit patchsets that can be reviewed and quickly and transparently pushed live by staff.
• MediaWiki library in possible license violation: MediaWiki developers are facing the possibility of having to write their own CSS "flipping" code from scratch after the licensing requirements of the standard "Janus" library they have relied on for the last 18 months had been found to be (potentially) incompatible with those of MediaWiki as a whole (wikitech-l mailing list). Janus, used for CSS flipping (the automated conversion of styles written by Western developers and optimised for left-to-right writing systems into their right-to-left equivalents), has been included with MediaWiki since August 2009 without legal challenge; consequently, developers such as Director of Platform Engineering Rob Lanphier have said they are confident that a mutually acceptable solution can be found. Such a solution is needed if MediaWiki developers are to avoid having to reimplement from the ground up the functionality currently provided by Janus under version 2 of the Apache License – an open source licence thought to be incompatible with MediaWiki's GPLv2 because of its more stringent "patent termination and indemnification provisions". The discussion mirrors a problem MediaWiki encountered early last year when another library was found upon belated review to include the extra licensing condition that it "be used for Good, not Evil", rendering it also legally incompatible with the GPL.
• translatewiki.net considering allowing OpenID logins: translatewiki.net, an externally-run MediaWiki-based wiki, is considering accepting logins not just via local registration and/or via Wikimedia SUL, but via OpenID, a mature system of centralised authentication designed to merge a user's many different website registrations into a single account authentication process. The result of the discussion will be of considerable interest to Wikimedians, and not only because translatewiki.net provides translations for the MediaWiki interface: the wiki has something of a trendsetting reputation, often being the first major wiki to try out so-called "bleeding edge" code before it hits Wikimedia wikis. As such, a successful implementation of OpenID on translatewiki.net could well be taken as an important sign that the technology is mature enough for consideration by Wikimedia developers.
• New Pages Feed tested on English Wikipedia: The prototype for a new New Pages Feed (formerly "New Page Triage"), designed as an alternative to Special:NewPages, has now been deployed on the English Wikipedia; currently semi-private, the feed will be tested for bugs ahead a full deployment some time before Wednesday, Oliver Keyes reported this week. He will be holding an office hours session on May 16 at 21:00 in #wikimedia-office ^connect to show it off, get feedback and plot future developments and he welcomes all those interested to attend, according to his regular newsletter. The successful deployment followed two unsuccessful attempts reported last week. Any questions can be directed to the talkpage for the project.
• DigiCert take on Wikimedia SSL certificate responsibility: Utah-based DigiCert has been hired "to secure [Wikimedia's] web and mobile properties": or in plainer English, to manage and maintain Wikimedia's portfolio of SSL certificates and to conduct related business. Such certificates form the backbone of secure online transactions (denoted to the user by the protocol https: and an accompanying padlock, tick, or other graphic); crucially, DigiCert offered to manage SSL coverage of Wikimedia's many domains and subdomains in a more flexible manner than most other providers, allowing for new wikis to be created and enabled without prompting the appearance of security-related error messages. The exact cost of DigiCert management is unknown and apparently contractually prohibited from being disclosed; Director of Technical Operations CT Woo did however describe the arrangement (which replaces the procurement of SSL certificates on a more ad-hoc basis) as a "good deal".
• Two bots approved: 2 BRFAs were recently approved for use on the English Wikipedia:
  1. Hazard-Bot's 8th BRFA, updating links to userboxes in userspace because of the Userbox Migration;
  2. TPBot's 2nd BRFA, adding a "title" to format=inline on the {{coords}} template if it does not already exist on the page;

At the time of writing, 14 BRFAs are active. As usual, community input is encouraged.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-14/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-14/Opinion

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More articles

Ground shifts while chapters dither over new Association 18 June 2012 Foundation finance reformers wrestle with CoI 11 June 2012 Finance debate drags on as editor survey finds Wikipedia too bureaucratic 14 May 2012 Projects launched in Brazil and the Middle East as advisors sought for funds committee 9 April 2012 Funds, fiduciaries, and the Foundation: the complex dynamics of scaling 9 April 2012 Berlin reforms to movement structures, Wikidata launches with fanfare, and Wikipedia's day of mischief 2 April 2012 An introduction to movement roles 2 April 2012 Chapters Council proposals take form as research applications invited for Wikipedia Academy and HighBeam accounts 19 March 2012 Sue Gardner tackles the funds, and the terms of use update nears implementation 12 March 2012 Chapter-selected Board seats, an invite to the Teahouse, patrol becomes triage, and this week in history 5 March 2012 Finance meeting fallout, Gardner recommendations forthcoming 27 February 2012 Fundraiser row continues, new director of engineering 20 February 2012 Fundraising proposals spark a furore among the chapters 13 February 2012 Wikimania a success; board letter controversial; and evidence showing bitten newbies don't stay 8 August 2011

Plans for the long-awaited volunteer-run Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) are now being debated on Meta. The FDC will represent a historic change in the financial arrangements of the Wikimedia movement, by advising the foundation on how a significant proportion of the movement’s funding is allocated.

Executive director Sue Gardner's recommendations to the board on how to structure the new body and its activities are due by June 30. In April, Gardner set up an advisory group to facilitate the process and to work with Bridgespan on these tasks; Bridgespan are the non-profit consultants who supported Wikimedia’s development of the Strategic Planning document in 2009–10.

The first FDC concept draft was published on May 4. This took into account the basic design principles already established, and interviews at the Berlin conference and elsewhere. Under the draft, the FDC will advise on the distribution of a defined portion of the funds exclusive of what is (i) required to keep the projects operational (the "core"), or (ii) transferred into the WMF’s "rainy-day funds" for future safeguarding of the core.

In other developments, the scope of eligibility has been more clearly defined to exclude individuals and groups that are not officially recognized by the WMF board; and along with recognized chapters and partner organizations, parts of the WMF’s own programs will need to go through the FDC process.

Grant requests by applicants who do not meet these criteria will continue to be handled by the volunteer-reviewers of the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC), which has apparently not yet managed to sort out fundamental aspects of its structure and procedure, such as how to replace its own membership. This scenario has dragged on since September 2011, and no solution has yet been reached, despite the recent WMF resolution on standards and practices of Wikimedia committees.

At this early stage, the community can provide input to the process on Meta, where Bridgespan have prepared questions on the shape and the overall process of the FDC.

Editor survey results

Findings published by the WMF's research team indicate that new editors favor simpler rules and improvements in the interface on the English Wikipedia, while seasoned contributors care about better social behavior.

46 percent of new login-account editors (from one to nine edits) see the complex rule books of Wikipedia as an issue making it harder for them to contribute. This proportion falls to 44 percent of users (10–100 edits), and 34 percent of "highly prolific" Wikipedians (> 5000 edits).

59 percent of highly prolific editors felt that social problems on wiki are important, falling to 53 percent for editors with > 1000 edits, and only 22 percent of users with fewer than 100 edits.

This third release of results from the editor survey conducted in December 2011 also finds that roughly 60 percent of editors started as anonymous contributors before setting up a user account to track their own edit history, create a personal watch list, or start new articles. While some mature wikis such as the German Wikipedia allow users without a login account to create new articles, the English Wikipedia does not, but only 39 percent of English Wikipedia users cited this as a negative part of its culture, compared with the 54 percent average for all Wikipedias.

Personal "lack of time" is quoted by 59 percent of users as a reason for the decline of on-wiki activity, mainly by "active" editors (> 100 edits). These days Wikipedia competes for the spare time of its active volunteers not only with offline activities such as reading (44 percent) or school or academic work (34 percent), but online systems such as Facebook and Twitter that were not around in the early days. 23 percent of respondents pointed to these newer activities.

The detailed findings of the second editor survey can be found at the survey's opening.

In brief

• Creative Commons 4.0: The ongoing consultations on the working drafts for the next Creative Commons license version are open for input by the community; the CC license involves all foundation projects. Intending participants are invited to peruse several questions that focus on attribution.
• WMF intern research on legal issues: Law student interns working with the WMF's legal department over the summer have prepared legislative summaries and other documents on 13 issues, among them the multinational Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the US Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) and Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection (CISPA) Acts, and the copyright of NASA images.
• Arab language initiative in Algeria: A two day-workshop was held at the Médéa University in the Médéa Province. 130 students took part in the first and up to 30 in the second day, thereby creating 18 new entries on Wikimedia projects.
• Chapter-selected WMF board seats: The selection process, originally scheduled to be concluded by May 15 (see previous Signpost coverage), has been extended by five days.
  

• WMF report for April 2012: The foundation's activity report for April 2012 has been published. Highlights include progress in Indian language outreach, the reaching of mobile page-view benchmarks, a new deployment cycle for the Tech department, and the new Wikimedia finance and entity models.
• Milestones: The following Wikipedia projects reached milestones this week:
  • The North Frisian Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
  • The Occitan Wikipedia has reached 60,000 articles.
  • The Veps Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
  • The Nepali Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
  • The Bulgarian Wikinews has reached 1,000 articles.
  • The Zhuang Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-14/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-14/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-14/In focus

2012-05-14

R&I review closed, Rich Farmbrough near closure

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By Lord Roem

The Arbitration Committee closed one case this week, bringing the number of open cases to one; that one open case is also in the process of being closed. When that happens, it will be the first time in twenty-two months that the Arbitration Committee would have no cases pending.

Closed cases

Race and intelligence review (Week 9)

A review of the Race and intelligence case was opened in mid-March as a compromise between starting a new case and proceeding with a ruling by motion. The review was intended to be a simplified form of a full case, and had the stated scope of conduct issues that have purportedly arisen since the closure of the 2010 case.

The final decision includes principles that clarify harassment policies and sockpuppet investigation procedures.

Specifically, a passing principle states that it is not harassment for one editor to warn another about disruption or incivility if the warning is presented civilly, in good faith, and in an attempt to resolve rather than escalate a dispute.

The decision lists a long series of findings of fact, which form the basis of sanctions against several editors.

In the last days of the case, new proposals were posted. This caused some controversy on the case talk page because the new proposals added new parties to the case. One involved party told the Signpost by email that the new parties "weren't notified of the review until after the voting for them to be sanctioned had already started, so they didn't have the chance to respond to the evidence against them or present any of their own." Drafting arbitrator Roger Davies responded to such criticism on the case talk page by arguing that the committee should not ignore "compelling new evidence that goes to the heart of the case purely on procedural grounds." He explained that he did in fact notify the new parties of these developments, over a week before the case closed.

When asked about the length of the case review and the delay in posting these new findings, Roger Davies explained to the Signpost that "the main difficulty has been that the case spans about three years, with thirty-plus dispute related processes". On the case talk page he directed specific blame for the delay on one party. "Not only has Ferahgo made an unprecedented number of private submissions, but they have been engaging in serial canvassing and serial procedural manoeuvring. The effect has been to delay the case by two, perhaps three, weeks."

The closure of the case comes more than a month after the review's estimated final decision time.

Open cases

Rich Farmbrough (Week 6)

A case involving accusations of disruptive editing against Rich Farmbrough has ended with the editor's desysopping and a bar on his use of automation.

A motion to close was adopted with the support of five arbitrators on 13 May.

The final decision was drafted by arbitrator Kirill Lokshin. The decision's framework centers around principles of collegiality and behavior with automation tools. The decision removes full administrative privileges from Rich on the qualification that he can seek a new RfA at any time. His ban on using automation is to be imposed in a very strict manner. According to the decision, "... any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so."

Significantly, Rich Farmbrough was just desysopped rather than banned. Only two arbitrators maintained their support for a ban throughout the voting. Kirill Lokshin gave his reason for supporting the ban: "Given Rich's history of using automation without disclosing it ... it is apparent that we have no effective means of enforcing [the] remedy [without] ban from editing entirely." However, arbitrator Courcelles described the ban proposal as "too draconian". Rich Farmbrough told the Signpost via email that he considered the site-ban option "extreme", but the Signpost received no comment on the decision to desysop alone.

Other requests and committee action

Ban appeal successful

Altenmann won an appeal to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee (BASC). After agreeing to a series of restrictions on his editing, and with the blessing of community consensus, Altenmann was formally unblocked by the subcommittee on 9 May. Community comments were largely positive, with one editor detailing how "Altenmann was a valuable, intelligent contributor and a reliable, sensible admin."

A small minority of editors did oppose the unban proposal.

'Secret mailing list' case rejected

An editor's request for arbitration was rejected last week, after seven sitting arbitrators voted to reject the case. Anupam alleged that other named editors were using a mailing list to coordinate disruptive editing. However, no material evidence was provided to substantiate the claim, leading arbitrator SirFozzie to say "I strongly suggest that if they can't show such evidence, that they not make such remarks. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-14/Humour

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