Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Community Affairs Committee

Portuguese Wikipedia needs a BoT resolution to fully implement a community decision

The Portuguese Wikipedia decided in 2020 for mandatory registration to edit articles, after the decision I write this message to Board of Trustees asking a resolution or a statement, but only people that aren't BoT members discussed the subject, the Board didn't manifest, and without a Board statement on the matter the system administrators refused to apply the decision in the MediaWiki configuration. We had to implement the decision using script, IP range blocks and abuse filter, but that is not the ideal way to do that, that bring some problems, for example non logged users can not see the source-code of pages. Some months after the decision this study was published by the Anti-Harassment Tools Team showing that the results of the decision was positive, and that is also the thinking of the majority of ptwiki editors community, we can not image go back to the situation we had before the mandatory registration. We need a BoT resolution that says Wikimedia project editors communities can decide to make registration mandatory to edit. Without a resolution some people will keep saying that it is against the wiki philosophy, we have already argued against that thought, require a very simple registration that does not ask any private data is not a big barrier to edit, the study confirmed that, and many other arguments can be found in the discussions. I hope this committee can help us to complete the implementation of our decision and make our opinions be respected. Danilo.mac talk 19:50, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Danilo.mac, thanks for your patience while we have been looking into this. This is a big question with a lot of possible implications, and we have taken some time to understand what they are. It is important to stress that as a group, the CAC feels it would only be able to authorize changes to the founding principles if there were a clear request from the global community to do so. This is something that would come from a process like a global RfC or another consensus-based discussion. Before looking further into a process, though, we want to understand the risks and opportunities associated with a change like this. In particular, we want to determine what it could mean from a legal perspective, as well as from a global movement point of view. We have asked for more information on these topics from Foundation staff in the coming months. So this is mainly to update you that we are working on it and will be sure to update you here when we know more. All the best and happy holidays if you are celebrating them, Shani, on behalf of the CAC. ~~~~ Shani (WMF) (talk) 22:59, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Shani (WMF) and CAC membres: Thank you for the update. The discussions we had on that matter with the global community in the past was not productive, you can see in the discussions in meta and phabricator that the global community has difficulty in understand why we took that decision, and they have a tendency to vote against because they don't see the problem we had with IP editing in their home wikis and don't see how much we tried to deal with the problem with alternative ways before take that decision. Only who contribute in a wiki for long time can deeply understand all problems that wiki has. If you decide the global community has to discuss that, it has a high probability that it will create a conflict between ptwiki community and the global community and make the ptwiki community blame me for start the conflict with this request. We are not in a hurry, 99% of what we want is applied and working well for more than 2 years, we don't want to restart all the discussion we had in the past because of that 1% that still need to be applied, the majority of our community don't even know the decision is not fully applied and consider that is a settled matter. So, take your time, we prefer to wait more 2 years for a peaceful conclusion than more 2 months of conflicts. A global RfC can create more problems than solutions. Danilo.mac talk 02:56, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

@Danilo.mac, Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Just noting that though I did not mention it in my reply, the CAC is very much aware that this is a complex matter, one which may be experienced quite differently depending on the size and maturity of a specific Wiki project. That is why we have first requested more details on the legal aspects of it. As you have asked the Board to intervene, the first step for us (as in any request), is understanding the bigger picture and its implications. So step by step. We'll update. And it's really good to hear you are not in a hurry. Board business may take time, and it's helpful to know that this is not an urgent matter. Best, Shani (WMF) (talk) 21:07, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

• @Danilo.mac and Shani (WMF): Global RfC always create more problems than solutions - many editors and staff are ideologues rather than pragmatic. This CAC comment comes as a surprise to me where I and other users have been informed recently quite clearly and unambiguously that the processes of the individual Wikipedias are, and I quote: "..not in the Board's 'remit' ". The question of IP editing is within the franchise of every separate Wikipedia. It is not subject to globally assumed WMF founding policies that have been used as a justification by developers not to implement some of the very granular options available in the MediaWiki settings.

The key precedent for overuling an assumed foundation 'policy' came with the desire by en.Wiki to restrict the creation of new articles to autoconfirmed users (users with accounts that are at least 4 days old and have made at least 10 edits). One of the largest debates in Wikipedia by over 500 users with an overwhelming consensus, it was blocked for 6 years on these so-called 'founding principles' even by the use of well documented incivility and personal attacks at the volunteers by WMF staff. en:WP:ACTRIAL was finally given the go-ahead after the community threat of applying the restriction themselves with a local filter. The WMF, still determined the thwart an urgent local request conceded to carrying out a scientific study and analysis of the trial which proved beyond all doubt how totally wrong they (the WMF) had been with their presumptions.

In short, the permanent rollout of the new restriction, now called en:WP:ACPERM had a hugely positive impact by reducing the number of inappropriate new articles and thereby significantly lowering the workload of the New Page Patrolers - which it was intended to do. However, facing new challenges, there is now also growing momentum on en.Wiki to restrict editing to registered users. This would also have a hugely positive impact for many reasons I won't go into here - they've already been documented by the pt.Wiki trial - but first and foremost: the WMF encyclopedias are not the only open source web-based crowdsourced projects on the Internet, but they still remain the only freely content-contributory websites, fora, and social media that do not require registration.

Most leading Internet scientists, including the inventors of the Word Wide Web itself, concur that such a situation is inadmissible in today's Internet. Unfortunately, many members of the WMF and it controlling bodies hardly remember a world without the Internet but remain fixated on these 20-year-old founding 'policies' and are inflexible towards necessary organic change. With 6.5 million articles, the en.Wiki for example, has reached its pinnacle of growth and no longer needs the inclusion of the IP trash that discourages the vandalism fighters, recent changes patrollers, and New Page Reviewers from doing their work. The empirical and anecdotal experience of veteran Wikipedia editors is a testament to the lack lack of institutional memory that now prevails among the WMF and its many senior staff changes.

Shani's committee has however made noises in the right places on behalf of the en.Wiki NPP operators and thanks to her influence NPP is now receiving attention from the very top, but that's probably pretty much all the Board itself can do, but they can review the WMF's policies if they want to, and act accordingly by providing sensible advice. We would see more of this kind of involvement on the 'factory floor' by the Board as an important and welcome step forward. Kudpung (talk) 04:13, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Not commenting on the actual content of the comment here, but as I appreciate accuracy, noting that while I am the founding Chair of the CAC, this is not my Committee. The CAC is a Board Committee, and like all other Board Committees, there are multiple Trustees donating their time, energy and efforts, to be involved with its work. We are all doing our best and hopefully fulfilling our Charter goals. Shani (WMF) (talk) 21:13, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Please not that the expression "Shani's committee" is a perfectly normal expression in English in this context. We fully understand that the WMF generally prefers to have non native speakers on its board. Kudpung (talk) 04:55, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

This is an interesting question as to whether there actually is such a "founding principle" that IP editing is an integral component of "anyone may edit" that it would require both global consensus and BOT signoff to action. I, too, think that it would be difficult to make that case.

Don't get me wrong, if a local community someday said that they wanted to vet people before granting an account editing capacity then I do believe that would be in violation of such. But requiring accounts is a far smaller impact than, say, Flagged Revisions is.

It is worth noting that I don't believe there is no scope for global rfcs (though the space to improve them is substantial) to be beneficial and there certainly have been positive ones.

If pt-wiki believes there's no rush then obviously its their project to know best. The only other note I'd highlight is that multiple projects, including en-wiki, have mulled that implementation of IP masking may result in an equivalent act (the WMF has specifically noted this as a risk as well). I've no idea what the current status of that is, but obviously best to have this resolved before suddenly lots of projects start considering it more seriously.

Thanks for reading and for the responsive comments above. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:55, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

May 18, 2023: "Conversation with the Trustees" session

Does it make sense to have the conversations on Ascension Day when many community memebers might be on a leave for a long weekend? Just some thoughts … —DerHexer (Talk) 12:18, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the flag, DerHexer. Unfortunately April and May are pretty packed with holidays around the world... As always, for those who can't make it, we have the option to submit questions ahead of time and catch up with the recording. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Quality of the spoken word

Thanks so much for offering the 'Conversation with the Trustees' format. In my opinion a brave and stimulating concept. Because I personally had troubles in understanding everything, and probabbly others too, here some polite suggestions that might help to make the format even more welcoming and inclusive:

• use better microfons, especially by the Trustees, so the sometimes very low sound quality will be lifted and will become good enough to listen to on avarage mobile devices
• mount the mikes in a position that gives best results in sound quality
• make the people who speak most, aware of the fact that it is sometimes pretty difficult to understand what they're saying - the native english speakers because they talk fast, the not-native speakers because their accent is strong and neither visitors nor the automatic translator is able to pick up all the right english wordings. It would be good when everyone would speak slower and clearer.
• use positions where the viewer can see the mouth speaking
• make use of a plain background with bright even lighting and try to eliminate reflections
• make clear through name and function or role in the conversation who the person is that speaks

Realising that it's much easier to comment from the sideline than standing at the helm or perform yourself, I thank for your attention and engagement! Kevin Bouwens (talk) 17:48, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Kevin Bouwens thanks for these constructive suggestions--I really appreciate you taking the time to think about how we might help make the speakers on these calls more understandable! I'll make sure to relay these points to the trustees before the next one of these happens in this format, which will be in November. In between we'll have a Conversation with the Trustees in-person at Wikimania (Friday 9 August at 11am Poland time). For that the setup will be quite different, but I can make sure to reiterate the point about speaking slowly. You can see the whole Wikimania program and register for the online event if you're interested.

I'll note that trustees are also volunteers and may not always have the ideal setup. However, I think we can take some steps to support them with equipment, positioning, etc. Thanks again for the feedback! --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 14:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello @ELappen (WMF), thank you for the detailed reply. Yes, I'm aware that the Trustees also are volunteers and their engagement is appreciated very much. I did think twice before posting this comment and do hope everyone notices the goal, to make better understandable what everyone is saying. So that the volunteering work can have a bigger impact and reach a broader range of people. Very practically: the WMF could offer each Trustees a conference-call set of semi-professional quality; WMF background screens; text prompting tools, a training how to use them, etc.. This way everyone wins. :) Kevin Bouwens (talk) 07:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)