Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2019-02

2019 Ombuds Commission announcement

Full announcement text (click to expand or collapse)

Hello all,

I'm writing with information about the Ombuds Commission (OC), the small group of volunteers who investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, and in particular concerning the use of CheckUser and Oversight tools, on any Wikimedia project for the Board of Trustees.

I apologize for the length of the announcement. :)

The application period for new commissioners for 2019 recently closed. The Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work.

As with last year, this year’s OC will consist of eight members, with a two-member advisory team who will guide the new commission and also, if necessary, fill in in the event that a Commission member is unable to act due to incapacity or recusal.

I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2019 OC:

DeltaQuad

Amanda has been editing Wikipedia since 2009, when she made her first edits to English Wikipedia. Since then, she has served as an administrator, checkuser, oversighter, member of the Arbitration Committee, and Arbitration Committee clerk. She also helps to develop the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) and Account Creation Tool (ACC) used by English Wikipedia.

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Dyolf77

Habib started editing in 2010 and has been heavily engaged in community affairs, both onwiki and as part of user groups, for years. A native of Tunisia, he has been a free-culture advocate on a wide range of issues in and beyond the movement. Onwiki, you can mainly find him helping out on Commons, where he is a sysop, as well as the Arabic and French language editions of Wikipedia. He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2018.

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EVinente

Edilson has been contributing to Wikimedia projects since 2013. He is primarily active on the Portuguese Wikipedia, where he is a checkuser, oversighter, and administrator.

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Elmacenderesi Elmacenderesi has been working on Wikimedia projects since 2007, primarily on the Turkish Wikipedia. There, he has been a CheckUser and a Bureaucrat since 2008 and an Oversighter since 2011. He is also a member of Wikimedia OTRS and serves as a global outreach coordinator, working with academic institutions and GLAMs, for The Wikipedia Library. He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2018.

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Galahad

Carlos, currently editing as user:Galahad, has been contributing to Wikimedia Projects since 2009. He is a member of Wikimedia Venezuela and Wikimedistas de Perú User Group. He primarily contributes to Spanish-language projects including Spanish Wikipedia and Spanish Wikivoyage. He has been an administrator and bureaucrat of Spanish Wikivoyage since 2013.

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Jamie Tubers

Sam, who edits as Jamie Tubers, joined the English language Wikipedia community in 2011 and has over the years expanded his activities into a wide range of movement activities including co-founding the Wikimedia user group Nigeria and helping to organize events like Wiki Loves Africa and Wiki Loves Women. He is dedicated to correcting our content gaps and biases related to Africa and raising awareness of the projects on the continent. He also just kickstarted a project called "The AfroCine Project" which is a wikiproject dedicated to encouraging the contribution of content that relates to the cinema, theatre, and arts sectors of several African countries, the Caribbean and the diaspora to Wikimedia projects.[1][2] He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2018.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_AfroCine_Project [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfroCine

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Emufarmers

Emufarmers has been editing Wikimedia projects since 2005. He is a Metapedian who primarily edits the English Wikipedia; he is also a bureaucrat and sysop on MediaWiki.org, and has provided software support to many third-party, non-Wikimedia wikis over the years. He has served as an OTRS administrator since 2015.

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Wikilover90

Rupika has been editing Wikimedia projects since 2015. She is the co-founder of Punjabi Wikipedians. A free knowledge advocate, she edits primarily on Punjabi Wikipedia and Meta and organizes events such as Wiki Loves Love.

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The 2019 OC’s advisors are:

Krd

Krd, who is primarily active on German Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, and also serves at the Volunteer Response Team as an agent and OTRS admin, and is a member of the German Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2017.

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Teles

Lucas became a Wikipedian in 2007 and started to engage with CheckUser rights in 2009, when he became a local CU on the Portuguese Wikipedia. He held both Oversight and Checkuser rights on Ptwiki between 2015 and 2017, when his term with the rights expired. He is currently an administrator on Commons and Ptwiki. His traditional main focus has been on anti-vandalism work. In 2012, the global community elected him as a steward, a position he has held since. He served on the Ombuds Commission for 2018.

Their willingness to remain, to bring their familiarity with processes and their experience to the new arrivals, is greatly appreciated!

Please join me in thanking the following outgoing volunteers, who have given substantially of their time to serve the commission:

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Billinghurst

Billinghurst is a long-term global, Wikimedian who served as a steward from 2012 to 2016 and still serves as a global sysop. He considers his home wiki to be the English Wikisource where he's performed over 260,000 edits and focuses on transcribing biographical reference data from the 19th and early 20thC. In addition, however, to serving as a local administrator on Wikisource he also holds the sysop hat on Commons, Meta and the English Wikipedia racking up almost 700,000 edits across the projects with almost a million edits when you count his bot. He claims to still have a bit of wisdom and knowledge to give. He joined the OC in 2018.

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Saileshpat

Saileshpat started editing Wikipedia in 2012 and soon became deeply involved in the Odia community. He has helped organize outreach events and done a lot to spread awareness in his region. In addition he was one of the co-organizers of WikiConference India 2016. Saileshpat has helped in a content relicensing process, where the Government of Odisha decided to release content under Creative Commons licenses. Online he is mainly active on the Odia Wikipedia and Commons. Sailesh joined the OC in 2018.

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Pajz

Pajz has edited the Wikimedia projects since 2005. He was a Wikipedia administrator between 2007 to 2016 and is a member of the Volunteer Response Team. He served as one of the OTRS administrators from 2013 to 2015, before being first appointed to the Ombudsman Commission in 2016.

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Góngora

Góngora, J. Gustavo Góngora-Goloubintseff, primarily edits Spanish Wikipedia, Catalan Wikipedia and Norwegian bokmål Wikipedia. He has been an administrator and bureaucrat on the Spanish Wikipedia since 2007, and an administrator on the Catalan Wikipedia from 2010 until 2017, where he is also a CheckUser. He was a member of the Spanish Arbitration Committee in 2008, before it was dismantled. He was a board member of Wikimedia España in 2011. He is currently a member of both Wikimedia España and Wikimedia Norge. He joined the OC in 2017.

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And finally, a posthumous thank-you to user:Lankiveil:

Lankiveil

Lankiveil was a long-term user, admin, and oversighter on the English Wikipedia, having made his first edits in 2004. He served as a clerk to the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee and as an OTRS volunteer. He also sometimes edited at Irish Wikipedia and Commons. He was a native speaker of Australian English and was a member of Wikimedia Australia. Lankiveil died in April 2018, while a member of the Ombuds Commission.

I'd also like to say a big thank you to those returning and those coming aboard for the first time, as well as to all those applied. Again, it was an extremely able group of volunteers, and while this mix of users may best serve the need for this year, I hope that those who applied will consider applying again for future commissions.

Regards, Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 12:10, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

The composition on the 2019 Ombuds Commission has just been announced on Wikimedia-L. The full announcement text is above. In a nutshell and in alphabetical order, the OC in 2019 will consist of:

• DeltaQuad
• EVinente
• Dyolf77
• Elmacenderesi
• Emufarmers
• Galahad
• Jamie Tubers
• Wikilover90

Serving in an advisory capacity, and filling in if necessary, will be:

• Krd
• Teles

Many thanks also go to the departing members of the 2018 OC for their service: Billinghurst (served on OC since 2018), Saileshpat (served on OC since 2018), Pajz (served on OC since 2016), Góngora (served on OC since 2017). And a special posthumous thank-you to Lankiveil, who passed away in 2018 while serving as an Ombuds Commission member. Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 12:10, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Partial blocks for namespace now live on Testwiki and Italian Wikipedia

Screenshot of Special:Block with Namespace partial blocks added

Hello all, Special:Block is now updated on Testwiki and Italian Wikipedia to add partial blocks for Namespaces.

For example, a user can be blocked from editing in Main namespace but be allowed to edit in all other namespaces. Or a user can be blocked from Category name space and not be permitted to create new categories but still able to edit in all other namespaces.

There is no limit to the number of namespaces that can be added to a partial block. Namespace and page blocks (introduced last month) can be done together.

In the next few weeks, partial blocks will be introduced into 2 or 3 more Wikimedia wikis. Let me know if your home wiki is interested in being one of the first wikis to try this new feature. You can try out partial blocks on testwiki. Let me know if you are an administrator on another Wikimedia wiki and want administrator access on testwiki. SPoore (WMF) Strategist, Community health initiative (talk) 23:00, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have seen this work on testwiki: but don't have access to these capabilities on w:it:. Thanks again to all who worked on implementing this! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:16, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Request page translation update

Hello, we recently changed board at Amical Wikimedia and I was wondering whom should we contact for allowing translation updates of that page (as seen Special:PageTranslation). How should it be done for this and other future pages? Thanks! --Toniher (talk) 16:55, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Done @Toniher: Marked it for translation. Usually these requests would be handled at Meta:RFH as it is a local issue.  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:20, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello, sorry for the ignorance, what is Meta:RFH. Thanks! --Toniher (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2019 (UTC) I understand it is this. --Toniher (talk) 20:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Partial blocks on Meta-Wiki

Hello Meta contributors,

Anti-Harassment Tool team's is doing ongoing work to improve Special:Block. Last month partial block was introduced on Italian Wikipedia and is now being used on on a regular basis to address vandalism and other kinds of abusive edits. During this first month, the majority of partial blocks set on Italian Wikipedia were to ip contributors and newly created named accounts that are doing vandalism and other common types of abuse. There were also a few partial blocks of ip range blocks making similar abusive edits. Partial blocks makes it possible for the block to be targeted to specific pages and prevent collateral damage that can happen with range blocks.

Since Italian Wikipedia found partial blocks useful and there are no serious known issues or bugs, our team is planning to slowly introduce partial blocks into more Foundation wikis. Our team decided to prioritize deploying to Meta before other wikis because there is the added benefit of giving Meta admins the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the best uses for partial blocks before it comes to their local wiki. Of course, the primary reason for deploying on Meta is so that Meta admins can get the full benefit of all Special:Block's features.

It is scheduled to SWAT deploy to Meta on Thursday, February 21 at 00:00–01:00 UTC (Wednesday 16:00–17:00 PST.) The interface will change and the new partial block function will be added. I anticipate that the most common uses will be similar to requests for blocks made on Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat. Since currently Meta does not have a detailed policy about blocks, more documentation and discussion about partial blocks uses is probably not needed before the feature is introduced.

For anyone interested in a more detailed policy or guideline, Italian Wikipedia wrote a page that explains the use of partial blocks. Something similar could be added to Meta.

Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about introducing partial blocks on Meta. For the Anti-Harassment Tools team. SPoore (WMF) Strategist, Community health initiative (talk) 23:00, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello SPoore (WMF). I think this would be better in Meta:Babel. In any case, please let me thank you and the AHT team for all your work. I'm sure it's sometimes thankless or sometimes goes unnoticed, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and say that your work is appreciated. Best regards. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 23:10, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, MarcoAurelio. I appreciate you noticing. And also your suggestion. I posted there and also a few other pages to get higher exposure without being too spammy. SPoore (WMF) Strategist, Community health initiative (talk) 23:20, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Wiki for Activities

I'm propposing a wiki for activities! --190.36.249.90 21:15, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

See Proposals for new projects. I would also encourage you to get an account so that people are able to directly ask questions of you, and to allow for notifications to you.  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:39, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Partial Foundation bans

Yesterday the Partial Foundation ban was added as a primary office action. About three hours later it was implemented on dewiki against a user, whose three accounts were already indefinitely banned. The page Office actions/procedures does not outline the process followed for this new type of office action. This Partial Foundation ban lead to considerable discussion on dewiki (e.g. on de:WD:Kurier).

I have a couple of questions regarding partial foundation bans:

1. What is process followed for Partial Foundation bans?
2. For the sake of transparency will statements be made about the reasons for implementing a Partial Foundation ban? Even a statement like "For legal/... reasons we cannot supply further information" would help.
3. Is the WMF planning to become more active in implementing office actions like this on wikis which have so far been mostly self-governing?
4. Why were the indefinite bans on dewiki not deemed sufficient in this particular case?

It would be great if someone from WMF Trust and Safety involved with this matter could provide some answers.

Best regards, --Count Count (talk) 14:09, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

+1--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 21:13, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Dear Count Count,

Thank you for bringing these concerns and questions to us, which we have seen from other members of the German speaking community, too. I will try and answer your questions in order:

1. As an office action the process leading up to a partial Foundation ban is the same as the one laid out for Foundation global bans here.
2. The reasons for implementing a partial Foundation ban will be the same as the ones for a global ban with one exception - the problematic actions have not taken place across multiple projects.
3. The Foundation will continue to investigate cases under the framework of the existing office actions policy. The only change is that it now has new tools that are less intrusive in addressing certain types of concerns.
4. The investigation explored the community’s deliberations late last year but also took into account that not all of the blocked accounts of the individual were also banned.

You can learn more about this case in the clarifying note on office actions available on the Kurier’s talk page.

I hope the above helps, best regards, --WMFOffice (talk) 10:15, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply. From your answer I got the impression that the main reason why you deemed the actions already taken on dewiki insufficient is that two of the three accounts still had "voluntarily blocked" set as block reason. Is that correct? --Count Count (talk) 12:25, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Count Count,

The aspect you raise did play a role. As noted in the statement on the Kurier talk page yesterday, not all relevant accounts were covered by steps the community had taken last year. The office actions policy covers bans against individuals and looks at blocks against accounts primarily in such a context. --WMFOffice (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk to us about talking

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.

We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.

We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.

We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

1. First, sign up your group here.
2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
3. Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
   1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
   2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
   3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
   4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
   5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
4. Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.

Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.

You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you.

Trizek (WMF) 15:00, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF): Why is this not taking place on the community venue of the wikiverse, i.e. here, but on the strictly programming only Mediawiki? On MW it's just about the technical implementation of some desired community tools, how they should look like and what features they should have should not be restricted to the pure technical nerds, but those, who have to use those work pages to create better articles. The move from here to MW was definitely a wrong one, as it's not a technical issue but a community issue. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:21, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

User:DannyH (WMF) moved it from the community space over to the nerd space. Why did you, Danny, do this? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:28, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

It would seem that the issue has been identified and it is working to a mediawiki (software) solution, rather than identifying whether there is a problem. It would also seem that this is being considered a bigger issue than just wikimedia wikis. After consultation at wikis, I would hazard a guess that it is taking conclusions to developers for next steps, rather than discussion here about whether we have an issue. With regard to Danny shifting the page that he started, I am not sure of your concern. There are many like pages that have moved from metawiki to mediawikiwiki when they are bigger than just the wikimedia wikis.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:41, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

This is about talk pages in the Wikiverse, I couldn't care less but about those other projects, that use our software as well. The central and all encompassing use-case is the Wikiverse, all others have to use, what the Wikiverse will offer them. Whether rechenkraft.net or any other users of our software will have minor problems with it, is not of any concern for us, as long as the Wikiverse gets exactly what it wants. And what the Wikiverse as a community wants ist usually discussed here, on Meta. And of course in the decentrale projects as well. If this is again taken as a pure technical issue, I expect the same disaster as with VE (first implementation) and MV and Flow: some programmers with obviously no real grasp of the projects they are serving with their menial work create some shiny bling that flat out rejected by those, who have to really work with this stuff. Some antisocial dickhead will again use superputsch to get this unwanted bling implemented against the wishes of the only valuable instances: the communities of the running projects in the Wikiverse. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:53, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I note that maintaining talk pages as we know them (status quo) is explicitly marked as a non goal. I do not feel invited to contribute then, but I'll try my best; and overall looks like some people is attempting to force onto us a new Flow 2.0. No thanks. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 12:23, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Sänger, billinghurst and MarcoAurelio: The purpose of the consultation is to collect information about how people are using (or not using) wiki talk pages, and then discuss possible conflicts and tradeoffs in order to get to a rough consensus on a product direction that we can work on. There's no preconceptions on our part about what the result is going to be. The reason why "status quo" is listed as a non-goal is that there are requests for changes even by people who like the existing talk page system -- like being able to use VE on talk pages, or being able to follow individual threads. It's also possible that we design more than one feature, based on different use cases. Those are all on the table as possibilities, and where we end up depends on everybody's participation.

For Sänger's concern about which wiki the centralized project page is on, I disagree with your interpretation of the symbolism (project page on Meta means we care about users, project page on Mediawiki means that we don't). There are going to be lots of conversations hosted all around the Wikiverse; we're asking right now for people to sign up to help host a discussion on the wikis and in the groups that they call home. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 19:59, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Technical proposals

I am a collaborator in different Wikimedia projects. In the coming months I plan to develop a series of technical proposals within the Rapid Grants program of the WMF, with the participation of the communities of the different projects. In a first phase already started, I am compiling opinions on this user subpage of Wikipedia in Spanish, and now I am asking if other projects are interested in having those proposals carried out in them as well. For this, I would like whoever is interested, or is willing to act as an intermediary to facilitate the adaptation to a project, sign on this subpage. Thank you in advance. -jem- (talk) 14:02, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Plain and generic messages?

I was working on improving the abusefilter messages, but I was informed that the messages are to be plain for some reason or the other. As such, I have now stopped them for the time being.
I wonder why the community decided to take this route (see MediaWiki_talk:Abusefilter-disallowed for an example). Insight on this would be helpful, thanks. Leaderboard (talk) 17:11, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

The primary reason is that these don't use localized translation units, and this is a multi-lingual site; Adding cosmetic markup to only one language results in an inconsistent interface to users of every other language. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:32, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Video tutorial regarding Wikipedia referencing with VisualEditor

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Hi, I have received a grant from WMF to support production of a video tutorial regarding creating references with VisualEditor. I anticipate that the video will be published in March 2019. Depending on funding considerations, this tutorial might be published in both English and Spanish. If this tutorial is well received then I may produce additional tutorials in the future. If you would like to receive notifications on your talk page when drafts and finished products from this project are ready for review, then please sign up for the project newsletter. Regards, --Pine^✉ 05:15, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

German wrong link

In List of Wikipedias, please change [[Deutsche]] to [[Deutsche Sprache|Deutsche]] on the first table. --151.49.64.189 07:38, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Please add the request to Talk:List of Wikipedias and add {{editprotected}} and someone will come past and assess the request. Thanks.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Billinghurst (talk)

@Billinghurst: can you check if I requested correctly? --151.49.64.189 19:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Edit conflict and heavy handed response and threat to block myself

Editing a Liverpool page. I have been on Wiki for a number of years recently started editing again on Wikimedia. I have come in to conflict not once but twice now with a user. I am 100% right with what I have edited and after the first edit a few days ago I was 'told off' by said editor for not discussing it with them first even though I knew I was correct. The conflict has re-occurred today with another edit and whilst I did engage with the user politely after said editor reversed my edit. The user repeatedly ignored what I was advising and threatened to stop me from editing.

I don't think I am able to edit now so appears the editor has swiftly carried out his threat. I may have been blocked. How can this happen? Can someone intervene or help resolve this? I am quite disgusted with the other users attitude frankly and as I am correcting something I have 100% knowledge about knowing I am correct to do so, find what's happened to be totally unwarranted.Babydoll9799 (talk) 22:13, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@Babydoll9799: you do not appear to be blocked on any projects. Are you having a problem here on the meta-wiki, or on another project such as Commons or the English Wikipedia? Try your edit again, if you are blocked you should get a specific message with details how to proceed. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:51, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry it is Wiki Commons. I however am being threatened by an admin. I feel this is quite volatile. User_talk:Rodhullandemu. Admin is quite difficult. Because of a disagreement on a subject location

I am being threatened to be "blocked forever" unless I do as I am told. Babydoll9799 (talk) 23:07, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is the latest threat.

1. Get off the horse 2. Drop the stick and walk away 3. Stop obfuscating 4. Provide a reliable source that that bridge is in Norris Green, as against than a definitive legal source that says it's in Clubmoor. As for respect, sorry, you have to earn it here. If you won't revert the edit to suit me, ok, but please revert it to suit the facts. That is my last word. If you persist in failing to remove false information, go you must. Rodhullandemu (talk) 23:03, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

The dispute from this user appears because the user believes a particular and legal source to question the locality of a particular image. The 'legal source' isn't wholly accurate and I have challenged the user and gave examples to show this. This is how I am being treatedBabydoll9799 (talk) 23:11, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Having the complaint here is not particularly going to lead to any particular resolution. If you want informed assistance, then you should take your concerns to c:Com:ANI where the Commons community can assist. There is no evidence that your account has been blocked at Commons, so it is truly better to address your issues there.  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes this is on Commons and I have not yet been blocked. With my limited experience I have added a RfC but I'm not sure I've done it right. Thank anyway.Babydoll9799 (talk) 10:18, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

WikiArchive

Hi everyone :)

Maybe this has already been discussed, if this is the case, please pardon me and guide me to the corresponding thread, I will appreciate this :)

WikiArchive:

A record of, fact-checked important information like: - versions of laws - dated and located images - Government declarations - Judgement Resolutions - Dated webpages content - Any other (brainstorming needed)

A process for defining what information is "genuine" should be created.

The innovative point is BLOCKCHAIN! the information will be recorded in a public blockchain.

Advantages of this are that the "genuine" information recorded, will be immutable! that is how it should be because is "genuine" so there is no need for any kind of modification.

(example: If Trump's declarations on the 14 Feb 2019, were: blablabla, blabla, bla; this will be "genuine" information, so there will be no need to change this information never, as this was his declaration)

With this, we can build a "genuine" history book of humanity, as seems like some people (winning the war in the future) would like to change the history according to their interest.

There is a famous quote "history is written by victors",

The purpose of WikiArchive will be to ensure that "History is written as it happened" (need to find a better quote, I know :D )

Another advantage of using blockchain is that availability will be highly distributed, not only ensuring immutability, also the access to the information :)

There are plenty of technical and consensus difficulties to bypass, but I think the idea worth it.

A "genuine" history book of human events, available to everyone is right that we should win ;)

This is high-level Ideas, please share your comments and useful information.

Thank you very much if you have read my words and tried to understand them with an open and positive mind,

Kind Regards,

<3 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Guillermohierro (talk) 15:07, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

WMF's proposed brand shift from "Wikimedia" to "Wikipedia"

The Wikimedia Foundation recently published the blog post "Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030":

But while “Wikimedia” may not be widely recognized outside our movement, there is a clear way to use our existing brands to better bring in the billions of people who have yet to join us in our vision. We can center our brand system around Wikipedia, one of the world’s best-known brands. […]

The proposed system change suggests elevating Wikipedia into a high-visibility entry point that can be used to better introduce the world to our range of projects and their shared mission. The proposal also recommends retaining project names as they are, while shortening “Wikimedia Commons” to its nickname “Wikicommons” to fit the “wiki + project” name convention. […]

By definition, Wikimedia brands are shared among the communities who give them meaning. So in considering this change, the Wikimedia Foundation is collecting feedback from across our communities. Our goal is to speak with more than 80% of affiliates and as many individual contributors as possible before May 2019, when we will offer the Board of Trustees a summary of the community’s response.

If there has already been community discussion of this proposal elsewhere, please direct me to it. I'm very curious to see what people's reactions are. Regards, PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I haven't seen any on-wiki discussion yet. I'm a fan myself, except for the Wikicommons part which sounds weird. But I expect that the community, particularly the Meta community, might take issue with it. – Ajraddatz (talk) 01:20, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Even I take issue with this.--AldNonymous^Bicara? 01:23, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

If I may ask... why? Switching to a more recognizable brand could help gain attention and increase use. My personal concern is that a) we don't need much more attention in the developed world, and b) that rebranding won't help increase use in the developing world, where Wikipedia is largely unknown and those that do know of Wikipedia often consider it foreign. – Ajraddatz (talk) 01:27, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) I'm not a regular contributor to meta discussions, but I have concerns that the general public would have greater issues finding out about other WMF projects if the WMF renames itself to "Wikipedia". Things that might help would be things like white-hat search engine optimizations for all the projects, not just the English Wikipedia. This would include non-English projects directed at people who aren't searching in English. I dream of horses (talk) 01:30, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) I have different opinion about this User:Aldnonymous#Commentaries_on_Emerging_Countries_and_Global_South. And it's like, the contribution of user who work in the background being merged into Wikipedia, despite I know some of us never ever edited Wikipedia in their entire life and focused on the background.--AldNonymous^Bicara? 01:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree with what you say on your userpage about the WMF and the Global South. The WMF makes token efforts to promote growth in those areas of the world at best. – Ajraddatz (talk) 01:37, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I just found Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 research and planning/community review and its talk page, where some discussion has already taken place. Neither of these pages were linked in the blog post. PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:42, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Don't we have better places where to spend donor money instead of this needless change? —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:12, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Is central banner needed to announce WMF's branding strategy proposal?

I've been thinking. If central banner announcing WMF's branding strategy proposal is posted throughout most (if not all) wiki sites, many more feedback comments will be created. Banners to protest EU's copyright reform were posted in numerous non-English Wikipedia sites. Why can't the branding strategy have the central banner? I originally posted the idea, but then I've not received responses. Here I am re-posting the idea here. George Ho (talk) 06:23, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Usually it's easier to have a banner or notification with a clear request for participation. If the WMF is not going to put its final proposal up for confirmation in a referendum, we could organise a multilingual RfC in Meta and try to get a few thousands participants in it. Nemo 07:29, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

But the feedback cycle will end somewhere in May, so could the RfC be concluded in that amount of time? George Ho (talk) 05:32, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

If it starts in early April I don't see why not. Nemo 13:48, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Please feel free to create the RFC then. I've not yet seen a central banner as of date, but I don't feel confident that the proposal would receive enough support in that amount of time. George Ho (talk) 01:18, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

PiRSquared17 and Nemo, as a remedy for this I would and have suggested to name things "a sister of Wikipedia" which in my opinion can be better than "a Wikipedia project": retaining a sister relationship and making it more clear that these projects' policies vary. Perhaps this can be included in any banners or requests for comment that take place. (Not sure whether they have occurred somewhere, or not.) --Gryllida 11:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Gryllida: I agree that "a sister project of Wikipedia" or something along those lines would be an improvement over "a Wikipedia project". @George Ho and Nemo bis: As for whether any CentralNotice banners or MassMessages have been sent out, I haven't seen any. I really think that there should have been some form of community notification about this branding change. It might be too late by now, however. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:24, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I recall the English Wikiversity receiving a notification about this brand change some time ago. Discussions are linked here and here. Certainly a bizarre move from the Wikimedia Foundation. There are many editors who'd prefer to stay far from certain projects, an example being Wikipedia (I'm echoing David's comments on WV Link #2). I personally feel like there could be more important changes that time invested [in those changes] would be more beneficial, nevertheless, it's a change with a good intention. I don't have a clear stance on this yet. Will have to do more digging and reading. —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 22:35, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@Atcovi, Nemo bis, and George Ho: Should we propose adding a banner on CentralNotice/Request? PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:12, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I would support that. —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 23:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

But how do one of us create a mock banner? Just text or insert images? George Ho (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@George Ho: I'm not sure. Back when I used to handle a lot of CN banner requests, people usually just specified some text and an image and we would stick them into a default banner template. The new workflow for requesting CentralNotice banners, despite supposedly being more mainstreamed, seems more complicated and I don't know how to proceed. Maybe look at what recent successful requests have done and imitate them? PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:13, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Set up a suitable destination under RfC or whatever and the process for a banner will be the least of your problems. Once you make your request, it can always be fixed (I can help with that too). Nemo 17:45, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Created CentralNotice/Request/Community feedback on WMF's branding proposal. George Ho (talk) 23:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)