Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2020-04

Block

I was given a global IP block exempt flag by a steward.

But am still blocked on device.

Whoever is blocked is in North Carolina. I am in Georgia.

"My IPv6 is: 2600:387:2:80f::1a My Public IPv4 is: 107.77.235.170

Sotiale (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sotiale) global blocked range of 2600:387:2:80f:0:0:0:0/64"

Nantucketnoon (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Never mind, I fixed it. Nantucketnoon (talk) 23:10, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 23:29, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Meta?

Why was my page & history erased?

Why is there the empowerment of despots on Wikipedia?

Nantucketnoon (talk) 06:27, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

What page, what history? Do you have other usernames? Stryn (talk) 07:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@Nantucketnoon: I am an admin at four of the five wikis where you have edited. I see zero deleted contributions at those four wikis, so can I suggest a bit of chill, and a little bit of civility. If you can explain with less angst and more detail, then we may be able to assist.  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:32, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 06:37, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to Wikimedia Café Sat 25 April 2020

Everyone is invited to the monthly Wikimedia Café video chat on Saturday 25 April 2020. See the project page for details on this upcoming meeting and notes on previous meetings.

• Wikimedia Café

The agenda for this month includes discussing maps on Wikipedia and Wikimedia community fundraising outside the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikimedia Café is a modest, one-hour, monthly online meeting which for the past few months has had fewer than 10 attendees. At these meetings anyone can propose to discuss any topic of broad Wikimedia community interest, as if we all were able to meet in person over coffee. The meetings themselves are an experiment in small group Wikimedia community conversation with video chat, phone access options, and online shared notetaking. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I've made a note in my calendar! Vermont (talk) 01:36, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 11:01, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello

I am an English wikipedian. I have a idea for sockpuppets. Here's how it goes. 1. We rename the sockpuppet, like bob124, to 2h41h3hd, 2. The name bob124 is released again to the name pool. Why? To help get New users the usernames. New3400 (talk) 15:06, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

New3400: We have Usurpations. Esteban16 (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• (This appears to be a followup from w:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#Sockpuppets.) --Yair rand (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 11:01, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Planned maintenance operation on 30th April and May 7

30th April @ 05:00 AM UTC

A maintenance operation will be performed on Thursday 30th April at 05:00 AM UTC. It impacts all wikis and is supposed to last a few minutes. During this time, new translations may fail, and Notifications may not be delivered. For more details about the operation and on all impacted services, please check on Phabricator: phab:T250733.

7th May @ 05:00 AM UTC

A maintenance operation will be performed on Tuesday 7th May at 05:00 AM UTC. It's expected to last for 15 minutes. CentralAuth-based services (rename account, change password, etc.) may not work. See also: phab:T251157

-- Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 19:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 11:00, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposed Crisis-Wikis

(Apparently others strongly agree that Wikimedia Foundation should leverage the awesome power of Wiki to help in times of widespread crisis. Therefore, upon collecting and considering the 2 current proposals below, further propose:)

Setup:

• To reduce the chances of information for unrelated crisis-situations getting all mixed up, each such crisis should have its OWN completely separate mini-wiki with its own separate URL domain name.
• Said wiki should be managed just like any other small sister project, but would specifically encourage ORIGINAL research that would otherwise violate important wiki-policies.
• Said wiki should have a red, PERMANENT and uneditable, one-line disclaimer banner at the top of each page, stating name and start-date of crisis, and stating that all information therebelow is not verified, and only for use at own risk.

Usage:

• Whenever a situation becomes a recognized widespread crisis, Wikimedia should immediately create one such mini-wiki with minimal default table of contents, and begin PUBLICLY promoting it.
• For duration of crisis, said wiki should also be promoted with a small light-red ONE-line announcement at the top of EVERY Wikimedia-project wikipage.
• If there are alas multiple current crises then said announcement should link to a crisis-list page.
• Said announcement should also urge experienced wiki-editors to come help out as overseers, with a hover-popup suggesting such things as organizing, indexing, cross-linking, formatting, vandalism, etc.
• When crisis is finally over, all promotion of said crisis-wiki should end; and said disclaimer banner should be updated to add end-date of crisis, and changed to yellow -- and the wiki itself will simply assume normal status.

Proposed Coronavirus (COVID-19) sub-wiki

Note: This post was not meant as merely a commentary-comment (henceforth italic) on responses to the above #Message to readers from Wikimedia Foundation post, but rather as an actual proposal intended to help address the issues listed herein -- and importantly, the same basic concept would have been helpful in other major disaster situations needing mass efforts to expediently find and implement local and especially microlocal solutions, such as the BP Horizon oil spill. Also see new post #Weaponizing Wikimedia to fight the coronavirus). Wikicat (talk) 04:00, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

(Kind of amazing, yet somewhat understandable given this weird world, how even the simplest seemingly good intentions can turn into such controversy. Came back to WP specifically to suggest something similar, that would NOT show just once, but rather more like CONTINUOUSLY, though seeing all the above objections, perhaps every 15 minutes would be a compromise given the critical global situation and how the world desperately needs volunteer efforts of all sorts. As to the main point...)

While there are already quite a few pandemic-related OPEN SOURCE projects scattered across the internet, too many are CLOSED VIEWING so visitors have to sign up just to even see their work, like [1], [2], [3]; or have clumsy editing and/or presentation interfaces, especially compared to WP, like [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]; or are open but with no way to freely participate, eg: [9], [10], [11] -- and all, including the freely editable (but most not wiki-like), such as [12], [13], [14] are too isolated, cannot be readily interlinked at whatever desired level of detail, and have to rely mostly on referrals from one-line links and various posts, like [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20].

Therefore, propose that Wikimedia Foundation should set up a special (using the name MOST people know) Coronavirus sub-wiki to facilitate or even help existing and new volunteers better organize, coordinate, and consolidate their efforts; and direct interested visitors thereto by means of a small light-red ONE-line announcement at the top of each hosted wikipage -- and in this case the Wikipedia:NOBLECAUSE is very much bigger than the usual non-profit effort. Given that Wikipedia is like a well established lighthouse for seekers of information of EVERY kind, many will hopefully see said announcement and thus also seek to contribute however they can.

Suggest: [ In response to the current pandemic, Wikimedia Foundation has started a special Coronavirus wiki. Please view and participate here. ]

Provided that even just Wikipedia itself has ample space to keep growing, this should take up practically no significant resources, as well as be very quick to implement.

Wikicat (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Weaponizing Wikimedia to fight the coronavirus

I proposed a project named WikiCrisis. This can be an effective but simple and no cost weapon in combating the coronavirus Here's a prototype to give you an idea: http://covid19.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page.

For example, WikiCrisis/Covid19 allows anyone in the world to get vital information about the Covid-19 pandemic in his/her local community, organization, village/baranggay, city, province/state, country and the world all in one central location. Each community, village/baranggay, city, province/state and country is responsible for creating and maintaining their own Covid-19 information page (wiki page). This allows leaders at various levels to give timely updates or changes on statistics and quarantine orders and instructions to their constituents. This also allows leaders to monitor the latest news and status of other jurisdictions near them, below them or above them so they can make better decisions and collaborate with other leaders. The leaders can give instructions to their citizens on the best way to contact them for questions and concerns. This allows anyone to monitor or get up to date status of their hometown if they happen to be far away so they can make better decisions in helping their love ones.

Based on my observations, many people are clamoring for a single go to place to seek vital information about the Covid-19 pandemic. People are worried sick about their love ones due to lack of information.

The great thing about this idea is that it can be used for future pandemics, epidemics or other calamities or natural disasters. I do not wish or expect any credit or acknowledgment on this idea. I simply want to help.

Wikipedia can deploy this weapon to the entire world by simply insert an announcement in all your Wikipedia pages to ask the user to create a covid-19 Wikipedia page and pressure the media and their administrative head of government (mayor, governor, president/prime minister) to inform the public about it. Here's a sample message:

sample message --------------------------------

Dear fellow citizens of the world,

Anyone in the mood for making history? Never in the history of mankind has there ever been a place, virtual or physical, where all levels of government in the entire world comes together to collaborate and share vital information to accomplish a common goal.

A very effective but simple and no cost weapon in combating the coronavirus is in your hands at this very moment: WikiCrisis/Covid19 can be used as a collaboration tool that allows anyone in the world to get vital information about the Covid-19 pandemic in his/her local community, organization, village/baranggay, city, province/state, country and the world ALL IN ONE CENTRAL LOCATION. Each community, village/baranggay, city, province/state and country is responsible for creating and maintaining their own Covid-19 information page (wiki page). this allows leaders at various levels to give timely updates or changes on statistics and quarantine orders and instructions to their constituents. This also allows leaders to monitor the latest news and status of other jurisdictions near them, below them or above them so they can make better decisions and collaborate with other leaders. The leaders can give instructions to their citizens on the best way to contact them for questions and concerns. This allows anyone to monitor or get up to date status of their hometown if they happen to be far away so they can make better decisions in helping their love ones.

[Basic editing is very simple: Simply type your text. There is no need to learn any special text-editing functions or commands. However, for more formal presentation... Wikicat (talk) 04:00, 8 April 2020 (UTC)] It only takes 15 minutes for an entry level web developer to learn the basic syntax of this powerful tool. An administrative head of government (president/prime minister, governor, mayor, village/baranggay captain) simply has to assign anyone with at least entry level web developing skills to read the main page of the covid-19 Wikipedia site. It only takes 30 minutes to create.

The staff at Wikipedia humbly and sincerely asks you to do your part in deploying this weapon. Create a Covid-19 wikipage for your town, city, province/state or country or ask someone you know with basic web developing skills to do it for you. Then go to the facebook pages of your local media and administrative heads of governments to pressure them to inform the public about the Covid-19 wiki site.

Together, we can stop this virus.

Sincerely, Wikipedia

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by IanCJCrystal (talk) - 06:33, 6 April 2020

Wikidebat : Evaluation of a new proposal

Hi, new project sister based on web semantic and natural language processing here : wikidebat. Do not hesitate if have you any comments! Wiikkkiiii (talk) 16:55, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: add CC0 copyright terms to heading of etherpad instances

See discussion at

• Talk:Etherpad#Add_copyright_license_to_default_starting_text

With so many meetings happening virtually the Wikimedia etherpad instance has become much more popular to use.

When many people contribute to these text file there is lack of clarity in the copyright. It has always been a convention to transfer the content of these etherpads to Wikimedia projects. Let's alighn copyright statements. I think Creative Commons Zero is best. Please comment on the etherpad talk page. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposal towards a multilingual Wikipedia and a new Wikipedia project

Given the topic just above this one, I see that this might be the right place for this proposal.

As some of you know, I have been working on the idea of a multilingual Wikipedia for a few years now. Two other publications on this are here:

• Capturing meaning: Toward an abstract Wikipedia
• Collaborating on the sum of all knowledge across languages

I've also been giving talks about the topic in several places about this idea, some of them have also been recorded:

• SWAT4HCLS keynote
• EMW Con keynote

I gathered some awesome feedback in those few years (also from some people on this wiki, thank you!), and I also implemented a few prototypes trying out the idea, learning a lot from that.

All of this has helped to sharpen the idea and come up with a more concrete proposal. In short, the proposal is that we do a two-step approach: first, allow for capturing Wikipedia content in an abstract notation, and second, allow for creating functions that translate this abstract notation into natural language (For simplicity, I gave this two steps names, Abstract Wikipedia for step 1, and Wikilambda for step 2. I realize that both names are not perfect, but that is just one of the many things that we can figure out together on the way).

I wrote up this proposal in a paper, which I uploaded to my Website almost two weeks ago, and I also submitted it to Arxiv. And as soon as it was published on Arxiv, I wanted to share it with you and see what you folks think (I wanted to wait for it as Arxiv would allow the URLs to remain stable - my Website has gone down before and might so again).

• Architecture for a multilingual Wikipedia

The new proposal is much more concrete than the previous proposals (and therefore there is much more to criticize). Also, obviously, nothing of this is set in stone, and just like the names, I am very much looking forward to hear suggestions for how to improve the whole thing, and I will blatantly steal every good idea and proposal. I am not even sure what a good venue for this discussion is, I guess, eventually it should be on Meta?, but also about that I would like to hear proposals.

Abstract Wikipedia is a proposed extension to Wikidata that would capture the content next to the Wikidata items. Think of it as a new namespace, where we could create, maintain, and collaborate on the abstract content. Similar to the Wikidata-bridge, there should be a way to allow contributions from the Wikipedias to flow back without too much friction. The individual Wikipedias - and I cannot stress this enough - have the choice to use some or any or all or none of the content from Abstract Wikipedia, but I most definitely do not expect the content of the current Wikipedias to be replaced by this. In fact, I have no doubt that any decent article in any language Wikipedia will remain superior to the outcome of the proposed new architecture by far. This is a proposal for the places where the current system left us with gaps, not a proposal to turn the parts that are already brilliant today dull and terrible tomorrow.

Wikilambda is a proposed new Wikimedia project that allows us to share in a new form of knowledge assets, functions. You can think of it as similar to Modules or Templates, but a bit extended, with places for tests, different languages, evaluation, and also for all kind of functions, not only those that are immediately useful for one of the Wikimedia projects, and most importantly, shared among the projects. So one of the first goals would be to increasingly allow fo a place to have global templates, another idea that has been discussed and asked for for a very long time. Wikilambda, just as Wikidata, is expected to start as a project supporting the immediate needs of the sister projects, and over time to grow to a project that stands on its own merits as well.

We don't really have an effective process for starting new projects, so I am trying to follow a similar path that we took for Wikidata back then. And back then it all started with Markus Krötzsch, me and others talking about the idea to anyone who would listen until everyone was bored of hearing it, trying out prototypes, and then talking about it even more, and improving all of it constantly based on your feedback. And then making increasingly concrete proposals until we managed to show some kind of consensus from the communities, you, and the Foundation to actually do it. And then, well, do it.

So, I've done some of the talking, with researchers, with the public, with some of you, and also with folks at the Foundation, to figure out what next steps could be, and how this can be made to work. Here's a more concrete proposal. Now I am here to see whether we can find consensus and be bold. I want to hear from you. I want to hear what you think what the right place is to discuss this (here, on meta? One of the mailing lists? Wikidata? Some Telegram or Facebook group? (OK, I was joking about the latter)). Which parts of the proposal are good and which need improvement? Where is more detail or clarification needed to allow for a meaningful discussion?

Just as with Wikipedia and Wikidata and our other projects, this is a crazy idea at first. Maybe even more crazy than our other projects. And the only way there is a chance of us being successful is, if, eventually, thousands of us work together on it. The only way this worked in the past is by being open, start out collaboratively, discuss the path forward, and work towards creating the project together.

Stay safe. --denny (talk) 01:01, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I read your paper, and I love it! It is an ambitious, crazy idea, but I think it gets at something important regarding making knowledge more available regardless of language (one reason my editing has shifted toward Wikidata in the past few years). A couple of related thoughts: When I read over an entity name in a given Wikipedia language edition, red link or even plain text, I don't immediately know whether other language editions might have an article about it. Also, in the process of working on my own project (CauseGraph), I've been thinking about Wikidata completeness; there are many links that appear in multiple language editions of Wikipedia (even dozens of them), but not in Wikidata. Abstract Wikipedia seems like it would be a great place to put these more common links, and to determine whether statements about them should be added to Wikidata. Perhaps an editing interface for Abstract Wikipedia could even suggest these common links to editors who aren't sure what an article might be missing. Thanks again for the ideas; I might have to read over your paper again today! --Jamie7687 (talk) 11:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the nice message, I really appreciate it! :)

You should also check out Amir Aharoni's talk from last year's Wikimania, where he was talking about a more powerful link.

And I really like the idea of using the existing link structure to help grow the content. I think that's really worthwhile to pursue, and may help with kick-starting the project. Great idea! Thanks! By the way, this could also be interesting for Wikidata - some app that says "oh look, this item is linked from this item a lot, maybe they are related with some property?" - and then even provide some guesses, based on either a classifier or on the P31 of the items. Just an idea. That could make a fun game. --denny (talk)

• As a Wikidata admin, I think Wikilambda would be valuable for Wikidata. It would be very useful to generate item description with Wikilambda that translate into all languages. It would similarly be valuable to translate edit descriptions that currently suffer from being monolingual.

It's my impression that it would be good if Wikilambda has it's own governance distinct from Wikidata. As such I think Meta-Wiki is the right place to hold the discussions. In particular https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects does provide a channel for proposing new projects. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 13:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes! In fact, Daniel Kinzler made that proposal long time ago to me, when I started talking about this idea. Magnus Manske had this idea independently and actually implemented it with Autodesc. I also think that have that in Wikilambda could be an interesting start, and make this functionality maybe a bit easier available.

I agree that Wikilambda should have it's own governance, so Meta is a better place than Wikidata, I think you're right. I will take another look at the proposal page you linked, but I am not sure about its efficacy. --denny (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@ChristianKl: Thank you for suggesting the Project proposal page. I have now followed the instructions there, and the proposal is up on Wikilambda. Any form of support would be very welcome! --denny (talk) 19:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• As one aspect of your proposal you write that you want scientific papers to be able to directly refer to function published on Wikilambda, yet the paper makes no argument for why a scientific paper would prefer that approach over linking to Github. One way to provide an improvement over Github would be to give each function a clear IPFS address. An IPFS basic architecture might be used a lot more outside of Wikimedia because it provides an aspect current hosting of code doesn't provide. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 13:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments!

There are pros and cons between Github, IPFS and Wikilambda, and I think it is too early to really detail those, as Wikilambda is only an idea, but I think there is plenty of space to allow Wikilambda to play a role in this. And if not, there are sufficient other use cases. But I think the potential ease of use of the collaborative aspect of Wikilambda and the possibility to have a shared canonical identifier-space could create an interesting environment for referring to functions. --denny (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: the proposal is now here. Please check it out and sign here if you support it, or if you have arguments against. --denny (talk) 20:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

 This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. @Denny: Please ensure that you put an announcement onto the templates that appear on the front page.  — billinghurst sDrewth 03:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Thanks, I think I did so. That isn't the easiest part of Meta, to be honest. I hope I did it right. --denny (talk)

When checkusers wrongly accuse you of making physical threats

I have no idea where to go. Wikimedia has a problem with procedures. Namely, those that don't seem to exist.

Checkusers Magog the Ogre accused me of making physical threats and Krd did the same. Jameslwoodward suggested this happened off-wiki. At least that's how most of the community interpreted it, the same wording could apply to something that was posted using an IP.

But I didn't. Everything there is is on-wiki. It's not even oversighted or revision deleted. They can link the diff, but when asked, Krd refused.

So I try to set this straight. I hope nobody will ever find themselves in my situation:

• Admins: can't do anything, checkusers have to be trusted and they claim to be unable to talk due to privacy policy.
• Checkusers: I don't feel safe trying to contact them. Also, what would I ask? Please hand over your nonexistent evidence?
• Ombudsman: they were contacted by GreenMeansGo. Never heard back afaik. Also, it may not be within their scope because I don't think this is about violating the privacy policy. But I could be wrong?
• T&S (by mail): we feel that this is something that is best handled by the community, the local Oversight team more specifically
• Oversight: We've discussed the matter on the mailing list and have agreed that none of the content you requested for review falls under the oversight policy.

The OS policy allows oversighting "potentially libelous information" in two cases: "on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel" (Legal) or "when the case is clear, and there is no editorial reason to keep the revision" and since the checkusers won't talk, it ain't clear.

• Legal: I think T&S communicates with Legal. Legal@ was added to the CC on April 16. Haven't heard anything back. Legal@ is for "For third-party legal issues and threats.", but it's unclear to me what a "third party" is in this context. Anyone who doesn't have a wiki account? Anyone who doesn't work for the WMF?

All in all this took a whole month with nothing to show for it. It's nothing short of Kafkaesque and it is affecting my health in a negative way.

In desperation I mailed legal@, T&S and oversight once more 9 hours ago, asking them to work together and resolve this. I have this sinking feeling I am going to witness an example of the bystander effect.

I am close to just crying and pulling my hair out. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 19:31, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The reason you was blocked was misuse of multiple accounts. Have you ever used other accounts? Ruslik (talk) 20:07, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ruslik0: this isn't even about my block anymore. I just want to get my name cleared. That won't necessarily result in an unblock, but that's something to worry about some other day. I've detailed some things about the matter on my user page here. Yes, I created User:Grilling the Sheriff and yes, that was stupid and I've shown some uncivil behavior. But I haven't made physical threats. Yet the checkusers make it sound like I've been threatening them off-wiki or something. But that's just a myth. But how do I prove it is a myth? — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 20:29, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

[21] was a poor edit summary to use if you didn't want the other edit to be interpreted as a physical threat. --Rschen7754 00:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The whole account was stupid and pointless in hindsight (which is always 20/20), but going from meaningless wordplay on the title of a Bob Marley song to Krd saying Commons checkusers were forced to make thoughts about their physical safety during this case after personal threats. seems like a very, very long stretch. Besides, if that were it, why the secrecy? Just link it. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 01:34, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: (T&S actually became part of Legal several months ago.) Seems clear to me that this is entirely up to the local community on Commons. There's nothing anyone here can/should do about this. --Yair rand (talk) 20:49, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Yair rand: Thanks for the information, so T&S is Legal. But the question remains. How is the local community supposed to deal with this? The checkusers claim that nonpublic information is involved and what can the community do but assume "that there is some terrible secret about me"? But that can't be the end of it, because what the checkusers say isn't true. But how do I prove that to the community? Or how can anyone prove that? How can the local community deal with this when the community isn't given correct information? — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 22:00, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

It's getting to a point where I wonder if I could/should ask T&S to investigate the claims about physical threats and either globally ban me (but.. T&S knows about all this! they didn't ban me!) or hope they can make a public statement that those physical threats don't exist. Because there is a procedure for investigating threats. But it's the world upside-down: I (not the party who claims to have been threatened) would request an investigation into myself based on rumors that I know are inaccurate. I'd basically ask them to waste their time only so they can report that they've been wasting their time. But maybe that's really the way to go? As I sit here thinking about it, maybe it is. Unless someone convinces me otherwise, I think I'll contact emergency@ on behalf of those who claim to have received physical threats and request that they investigate the matter and if at all possible, make a public statement about the outcome. This is crazy. Maybe crazy is needed. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 22:15, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Do not do that. This is not reasonable behaviour. It's time to take a step back from all this. (Frankly, going ahead with it might be grounds for banning on its own. Please stop digging yourself deeper.) --Yair rand (talk) 22:25, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Yair rand: so what do I do? I know it's not reasonable and I know I'm losing my mind over this. But I did take a step back when I handed the case over to T&S. And they told me to ask OS. So I did, and I waited. And OS couldn't do anything either. And now we are here. And I'm falling apart. Nobody seems to know what to do. I am losing my mind and I don't know what to do or who to ask. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 22:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

At the very least, some degree of information should be made public about the mentioned off-wiki threats, even if it is only confirming that such evidence exists, which would not violate the privacy of anyone involved. Vermont (talk) 23:40, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if the checkusers on Commons may relay the information they have to other functionaries on projects elsewhere, for a further analysis of the threats and an assessment of the appropriateness of their handling. There isn't a sufficient number of checkusers available on Commons to correctly scrutinise the actions that have been undertaken, with the resulting problem that it's easy for all the functionaries on that project to become involved or to lack the necessary distance to make a fair and balanced assessment of the situation. Nick (talk) 23:05, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Nick: that sounds very reasonable. Also, if I could review the information beforehand the entire report could probably be made public depending on exactly what is in the report. I'd obviously want my IP to be redacted in it, as well as accounts that haven't been abused, though I would assume such things wouldn't be in there anyway as it's irrelevant. For example, I'm not the only Wikimedian on this IP. An uninvolved checkuser could confirm that logged-out edits play no role here, so the IP can be scrapped from the report. Beyond those specific bits I'm guessing all the information could just be made public. In fact, it kind of already is, just a bit scattered. The problem here is that I'm not comfortable at all to ask the checkusers for this, which I hope is understandable given the circumstances. As for sending the whole report (including IP etc) to uninvolved checkusers, I don't see any problem with that. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 00:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

There are two points, however: 1. Will Commons CheckUsers agree? 2. Will other functionaries review the evidence, in case Commons CU team agrees? I once thought of asking English Wikipedia's ArbCom, but I'm not sure if both Commons CheckUsers and the ArbCom will agree. Moreover, I think CheckUsers can clarify this (at least partially) without breaching the privacy policy. Ahmad^talk 00:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Nick, Ruslik0, Vermont, Ahmad252, and GreenMeansGo: but where to go from here? Probably ask the checkusers some questions?

• Where are the supposed threats? On-wiki or off-wiki?
• Assuming they are not going to boldly lie (as there hasn't been any recent off-wiki contact of any kind), link the diffs of whatever they perceived as a physical threat. As Rschen7754 suggested it could theoretically be a threat made by an IP, I hereby give permission to link that as well. There's no such thing, so no need to hide behind the privacy policy.
• Ask them to mail me all relevant information their decision is based on. I'll review it and it can most likely be made public with little to no redaction. That should remove the need to treat my block as a checkuserblock. Actually, the two questions above are kind of redundant if they can do this..

But I'm extremely uncomfortable to contact any of them myself. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 00:07, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, the point is that, apparently, CUs aren't willing to talk about the details (see Krd's response to AFBorchert's question regarding those threats), And there are no uninvolved CUs to intervene. That's a rather big part of the situation: on Commons, if CUs are not willing to intervene, there is nothing others can do. Ahmad^talk 01:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I hope one of you will manage to convince them to talk and/or send all the information to me. And towards the future something needs to change. Whenever the CU-team makes a mistake, no matter the reason, there is no appeal. No second opinion. But checkusers are just humans, so they make mistakes. One has to be able to question them. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 04:51, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't expect anyone is near listening to me on the subject. But short of voluntarily agreeing to an independent review, as far as I am aware, T&S/OMB are the only recourse. If they won't intervene, then I don't know what else to suggest. GMG^talk 12:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo: can anyone who isn't me ask the CU team to send whatever information they based their decision on to me? (or send it to you+4nn1l2+Vermont and have one of you forward it to me so you three could confirm the information integrity if I publish it) — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 12:26, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

As far as I am aware regarding current practices (given that Commons has like three sentences on CU policy), no, a user cannot request that a functionary release information to a third party. Even if we had a reasonable expectation of open communication on the matter, I'm not sure I'm the right messenger. GMG^talk 16:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Also I did hear back from OMB, but nothing other than the fact that they had received my message. GMG^talk 16:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Alexis Jazz, could you please send a summary of events to cu-ombuds-l(at)lists.wikimedia.org? Be as complete as possible, and send any communication you've had with the Commons CU team. Thanks, – Ajraddatz (talk) 16:42, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz: You've got mail. Let me know if you need anything else. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 07:31, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

To go anywhere words “truth” and “justice” have some meaning. When Lot flees the city, those left behind don’t care. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:58, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 03:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)