Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-12-22

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2016-12-22. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Blog: Winning photos in world's largest photography contest reveal a world of monuments—and the volunteers who love them (326 bytes · 💬)

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Good report writeup, particularly "a million-star hotel" :) Thanks. Brandmeister^talk 12:33, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

In focus: Active user page filter prevents vandalism and harassment (6,849 bytes · 💬)

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Is this filter active on all User pages? Will editors be notified if it prevents an edit to their userpage? Can it be opted out? John from Idegon (talk) 04:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@John from Idegon: It is active for all user pages, with exception for Jimbo Wales (who has an explicit invitation for anyone to edit the page). I don't think editors are notified, but the filter is public and logged. As noted in the article, MusikAnimal and xaosflux have been discussing/working on an opt out mechanism that should be available soon via a template that you (and only you) can add to your own userpage. I JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 04:47, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Why aren't talk pages filtered? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:49, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@Smallbones: User talk pages weren't part of the original proposal. I could be wrong, but I think a lot of folks feel that editors should be able to communicate with other editors via their user talk pages, even if they are unregistered. I JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 04:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@Smallbones: User talk pages were part of my original proposal on the Inspire Campaign, but I was convinced to limit the RfC to just base user pages, for the reason I JethroBT mentioned above. Funcrunch (talk) 05:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, JethroBot. One further question. Where is the filter log located? Good to hear from you, as always. John from Idegon (talk) 05:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@John from Idegon: The relevant edit filter log is here. Funcrunch (talk) 05:39, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Hey! The work has stalled, but I think all we need to do is test the new opt-out system before enabling it for everyone. Will try to get the ball rolling soon. Indeed, it's very much preferable that talk pages be open. There's generally not a compelling reason that a new user would edit your personalized userpage, but the talk page is for communication, which is essential for collaboration. Especially when they need to reach out for help, etc. — MusikAnimal ^talk 08:27, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

This seems like an impactful solution to a real problem, where a lot of folks came together and opted for a good solution with immediate value rather than waiting for a perfect one. Thank you for documenting it, I JethroBT! Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 17:00, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• Why don't we put an active filter on the article pages rather than waiting for the ClueBot to revert vandalism? Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:26, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: There are a ton of filters active for article pages for specific kinds of vandalism (e.g. Special:AbuseFilter/815 and Special:AbuseFilter/260, so there's some of that preventative work going on already. A filter like this one for the article space would need some careful consideration, I think. It's true we get a lot of vandalism from unregistered editors, but they also make a considerable number of productive edits to this project. Do we want to require registration for people to contribute to the sum of all human knowledge? You might also want to check out a 2014 Wikimania presentation by Halfak (WMF) and Steven Walling on unregistered editors: Hi, my name is 192.195.83.38: unmasking anonymous editors on Wikipedia. They talk about how unregistered editors are contributing around the 8:00 mark. I JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 03:00, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not a Wikipedian, so I can't view the AbuseFilters, but I'll take your word for it. I wasn't thinking about cutting off unregistered editors, just preventing obvious vandalism. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:27, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, several other language Wikipedias filter their articles by default. Perhaps it was pending changes—doubt it was semiprotected by default czar 00:16, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I just want to express my appreciation for all who involve themselves in protecting our user pages from this playful fellow and many others, some of whom are far less lighthearted. – Athaenara ✉ 19:32, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Great initiative :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:39, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand, how does the new filter work? Are only edits of new editors affected? What if a newbie wants to contact a mentor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.34.44.188 (talk) 10:00, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

How it works is that if an anonymous or new (less than four days/10 edits) user attempts to edit the user page of another editor, they get a notice that such edits are not allowed. User talk pages are not affected, so anonymous and new editors can still contact others that way. Funcrunch (talk) 17:07, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

In the media: Coverage of gender gap initiatives, banner fundraising, and more (722 bytes · 💬)

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If at some point, if 17% of Wikipedia profiles become male, can we point to these articles, and these article authors, as sexist? Either these accusations of sexism are wrong, or this is one giant page of sexism.

Be wary of conflating gender discrimination, as these articles are clearly doing, and sexism. And be wary of claiming that affirmative action for males, or females, is not gender discrimination. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 15:24, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

News and notes: Strategic planning update; English Wikipedia ArbCom election results (1,451 bytes · 💬)

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The Foundation has been flailing about for some time now. They are rudderless, unprofessional, and lacking sufficient ability to set things right. I hold almost no hope they can fix the very serious problems they are facing. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:32, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

We have a new ED as this "flailing" was widely recognized. Moral at the foundation is much better now than this time last year. I think the WMF has made some definite improvement and I am personally happy to give her more time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:19, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I am still unsure about this strategic planning. Since the WMF is an umbrella for many projects, for both content and infrastructure, shouldn't the projects' leadership and communities be asked to make strategic plans? At least this would encourage some intra-project and inter-project discussion, and I think it would also relieve alot of pressure on WMF leadership. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 14:54, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Op-ed: Operation successful, patient dead: Outreach workshops in Namibia (16,357 bytes · 💬)

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• This article is the second place in the last week or two that I've seen mention of the number of active Wikipedia editors. I'm interested in learning more about that. Where are these numbers coming from? What is the best way to verify them? PS Thank you for the article, my friend. An insightful read! Bobnorwal (talk) 03:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • @Bobnorwal: The official page for statistics for Wikimedia projects is https://stats.wikimedia.org/ . From there, you're a click away from the page showing (third line of data) that the English Wikipedia had 3340 very active editors in October. If instead you select the "About" tab, you'll see information about who compiles these statistics. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Peter, thank you for your work in outreach and for this article. You probably have a similar success rate as most other workshop providers, or editathon sponsors (assuming you define success as recruiting future very active editors). Is this really "the worst possible method?" I'm not sure, but I don't know any better recruitment method. We do need to try some different methods, perhaps brainstorm to come up with different methods. Purely online methods might work, but probably not in Namibia. Photo uploading might be an easier way to attract interest and I'm sure there is no surplus of Namibia photos at Commons. Perhaps new editors just come to Wikipedia on their own when they are ready? Maybe, but you are helping by letting people know (maybe at 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hand) that new editors are wanted and needed. University Wikiclubs have been used in several places. There's a definite need to come up with several new approaches and just keep plugging away. Thanks again. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:36, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Really interesting. Peter, thanks for being so honest. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 08:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • +1. --Gnom (talk) 08:44, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• This experience is not unusual. Some things we've learned in NYC: For a single isolated workshop the goal should be to help people understand WP by hands-on practice, not to produce content or inspire people to become active editors, but a series of workshops in which people can develop can produce more lasting results. It also helps very much to work with a predefined group who already know each other and have a purpose compatible with WP, and it helps to have people some of whom already edit WP. not just to teach but to produce some articles of their own. And it is very useful to have preselected articles to start or improve. and provide reference material that will be pertinent. DGG ( talk ) 11:19, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• Thank you, Peter, for your extraordinarily frank and insightful exposé. Living and working here in Thailand on outreach, I'm very much aware of the challenges you are faced with even though Thailand is probably in many ways very much more developed than Namibia. It's always been a pleasure meeting you and discussing your projects over the years - maybe we can work together on one of them one of the days. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
• Just to add something I've found frustrating as a grant reviewer on Meta over the years: many workshops/editathons seem to have spent too much time showing participants how to create articles, rather than how to edit them (and indeed in many language-WPs, how to improve translated articles). We have zillions of stub-articles in all languages, and I've been present at an editathon where a deletion notice has been slapped on a participant's new article during the session—not very good for morale. I think the WMF, and possibly affiliates, could add great value to our spending on meetups by publishing material on how to structure and run them. Producing good material beforehand is essential (like exercises in referencing, and extracting paraphrased material from a reliable source or two, which needs to be rather stratified in a workshop). It's really hard to design a good workshop. Tony (talk) 10:38, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
• Thanks for the candid report. So far as I know, the common wisdom is that no one has identified an outreach method which results in a conversion rate of more than 2% turning participants into regular Wiki contributors. Most outreach programs have lower conversion rates. In New York City in 2015 and 2016 there were 100 public wiki meetups and perhaps 30 private ones. On this scale of outreach we are recruiting new regular contributors, but many of those first attend multiple events and many people have only become regulars after considering it for 2+ years. Getting institutional partnerships has been key for us, and nowadays, most events have a nonprofit partner who advertises the event to their own community and brings them in as participants. The labor investment in all of this is huge, and I worry that it is not efficient or the most productive use of time, but there are probably 50 people in the city who have organized more than 3 events so at least the labor is dispersed. I struggle to imagine how outreach can work on a smaller scale without dependable, regular, workshops that are well attended and well supported by 10+ major institutions. The administrative burden on presenting any event is huge and I think throughout the Wiki community, there is a misjudgment in perceiving that event organization is easy even for a person acting alone when actually it is time consuming and challenging even for teams of professionals.

Personally I would like to see more funding being used to build minimal community infrastructure in underserved regions. There is a cost to organizing volunteer events and recruiting volunteers, and it might happen that the cost of outright paying an organizer to present regular events could be less than the price of recruiting a volunteer. Time is urgent also and wiki is generally underrepresented in Africa. If someone, perhaps a librarian at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, could be funded part-time to assist in presenting Wikipedia events 4-6 times a year, then I think the regularity of that service would give more people time to think about contributing to Wikipedia. When an organization puts its own reputation at stake to make a wiki event successful, then it is more likely to be successful, and having staff involvement in the actual organizing is the best way to get institutional buy-in. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

• I'm a fan of editathons, providing we get back to the original idea of editathons as a meetup focused on improving or creating articles, ideally with experts on hand. They are effective ways to get existing editors to show each other quicker ways to do things, they can generate quality content - some of the relationships established at the British Museum editathon in 2010 have been very longlasting, and over six years later that editathon is still generating featured articles. What we didn't predict was the effect on editor retention, six and a half years later the nine established Wikipedians who took part in the 2010 British Museum editathon are all still active - that's a better retention rate than we get even by making people admins. Outreach editathons are a nut we've failed to crack, but that's been known for a while. ϢereSpielChequers 21:53, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
• Excellent write up. Yes figuring out how to recruit long term editors is sort of the holy grail of Wikipedia. In Montreal during the medical pre conference we will be having a talk by a new Wikipedian (just recruited this year and making more than 100 edits a month her first three month). She will be discussing her experience of joining the community and becoming an active editor.[1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:44, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
• Editathons here in NYC often have a theme of some underrepresented group of people. Most people indeed, thus most potential editors, are members of such groups, but the result is a concentration on new biographies. Such articles are subject to the harshest scrutiny. With experienced help, first-timers can get over the hurdles of notability and reliability. They come away cheered by their success, but feeling that they need expert guidance to make any progress. I wish I could recommend cutting their teeth on an easier kind of editing. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:38, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

When I run edit-a-thons, I never recommend new biographies but instead old books. An editor's time can go much further by paraphrasing a section of a book for an article that won't be deleted (because a book has been written about the subject or subtopic). The activity of paraphrasing CVs and primary sources only to have the work deleted is doubly despiriting—we set editors up for failure by going for "gaps" (all so someone can compare a category count en masse) rather than quality. czar 21:18, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oh. We are often in a library so we can use its books to look up our bio subjects. No. Write about the book. Or about one of its topics, when it's about some little subfield of botany or Indonesian art or whatever, especially when it mentions a particular practitioner who is the focus of our interest even though not the focus of the source. It finally dawns on me; thanks. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

• First, let's review the money line: "I am convinced by now that recruiting Wikipedia editors by offering a workshop nearby is a terribly ineffective measure. We always easily get funding for such initiatives, and we might do them for the publicity. But to increase our editor base there is hardly any method less successful than running workshops." Do the powers that be notice? Do they care? Are they good stewards of donor dollars? We shall see. That said, I really believe that Wikipedians are born, not made. That sounds ridiculous on the face of it, but it is really true: it takes a mother a couple of hours to give birth to a geek or a nerd and a lifetime to raise one. There has been precious little study about who the Very Active Editors are in real life, partly because of a careless attitude on the part of WMF, who historically has viewed the 10,000 or so core volunteers across all projects as more or less disposable and replaceable "power users," partly due to Wikipedia's profound (and I think misplaced) aversion to delving into real life identities, even in a data-protected way. What I believe to be true is this: core volunteers are older than many people think they are (median age: middle 30s running all the way to the 70-years-old-plus crowd). They share a commitment to education and the educative process. They are not afraid of learning the fairly simple mark-up language that we use and are not overly deterred by the lack of a true What You See Is What You Get editing process. They tend to work alone or in small groups. They tend to be subject experts about one or a few things, although willing to branch out into other fields to improve the encyclopedia and contribute to Something Greater Than Themselves. They are a precious commodity, a limited set of individuals. There are additions and subtractions to the core over time, to be sure, but growth is an organic process that is difficult to rush. WMF should start figuring out who we are, should start figuring out what we need, and should start making retention of its core volunteers a top priority rather than worrying overly about the fact that these people tend to have have white skin or penises or are middle class or live in cities and towns of the industrialized world. End transmission. —Tim Davenport, caucasian, M, 55, Corvallis, OR USA /// Carrite (talk) 23:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes, Wikipedians are born, not made, but the task remains to find them and to show them that this is what they are born to do. In my case (a mediocre computer professional who, however, managed to make a living from it since the 1990s) it took 7 years from Wikipedia's birth until I clicked 'edit' for the first time... hard to say how often I have used Wikipedia before without really knowing what it was. I find it perfectly reasonable that someone far away from the computer and Internet business might not have realised that Wikipedia is for them to edit. And, I found it in my mother tongue and only later moved to English due to the hostile atmosphere at de. The chance to bump into one of the 80-something OtjiHerero articles on the Incubator is pretty much zero. So what I was attempting to do with my workshop was searching for pretty much what you described, Carrite, educators, life-long learners, subject experts. But that is not enough. How do I find the 'Wikipedia gene' without probing the entire population? --Pgallert (talk) 20:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

• You're improving the future of Wikipedia. Even if edit-a-thon attendees don't becoem active editors, they have knowledge that they can and likely wil pass on to others. Most are now most concerned with earning a living wage and supporting their families. How many of us started by making an occasional IP edit to fix punctuation or spelling, then singed up for an account that was rarely used and finally became active? Look at the activity timelines of the recent and current group at WP:RFA. What may look like a failure now may be the spark that brings a person back in a few years. Patient's not dead, just busy with other aspects of life right now and into the near future. Hold out hope for them years into the future. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 21:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• Very interesting article and the conclusion is in line with what I have after running dozens of courses in Norway. Lots of good comments about what can be done, but what about difference in editors per million speakers? They vary widely, even among countries close to each other, like Norway (66) and Denmark (38). Neither does it seems that money helps, then Germany (28) should have had a better ratio than the Nordic countries that only recently got functioning local chapters. Ulflarsen (talk) 15:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Recent research: Privacy risks as perceived by Tor users and Wikipedians (1,634 bytes · 💬)

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Privacy

• I appreciate Tbayer (WMF)'s write-up on this. I give very little thought to security, as anyone that's ever doxxed me already knows. Perhaps more Wikipedians, especially those that run into crazies and partisans, ought to consider anonymizing. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:18, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I also am impressed with this writeup, but I draw a different conclusion. As an active editor who's used his real name since 2006, I have found that starting off with full disclosure has led to incredibly positive results. It's a good incentive to conduct myself in ways I would be happy to defend in any context; while I may not have a 100% perfect record on that front, it's worked out pretty well. I never have to worry about being "outed," and it makes it much easier to address any areas where a connection to a topic should be disclosed. I understand and appreciate that many people have had different experiences, and I would not say it's for everyone; but it's well worth considering. Potentially of interest: I created an overview of different levels of anonymity, and the pros and cons of each, for the Wikipedia course I teach: Wikipedia:WIKISOO/Create an account -Pete Forsyth (talk) 00:34, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Special report: German Wikipedia ArbCom implodes amid revelation of member's far-right political role (36,862 bytes · 💬)

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Aww man. To be the one who had to write up the report for the German Wikipedia's Signpost. Speaking of which should probably write write another one of those for the rest of 2016. GamerPro64 03:12, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

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• If four arbitrators is not enough for a quorum, then how, if at all, is their arbitration process going to function until May? Mz7 (talk) 03:39, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Ah, I see at the very end of the article: they're working on amending their policies to allow by-elections. This is seeming like a Wikipedia version of a constitutional crisis. I note that our own arbitration policy does allow for interim elections if the ArbCom determines that arbitrator resignations or inactivity have created an immediate need for additional arbitrators. This article notes that the few supporters thus far in each suggest that these attempts could be going nowhere – out of curiosity, what are the arguments against running by-elections that are being discussed? Mz7 (talk) 03:45, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
    • User:Mz7: This is a misunderstanding. The Schiedsgericht isn't an ArbCom. They aren't set up to settle disputes about content. It's a council people may call for when they have a dispute with another editor. The Schiedsgericht had been dysfunctional many times before and nobody noticed. So … it isn't a crisis at all. -- Janka (talk) 15:14, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
      • I understand. The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee is also not set up to settle content disputes. On the English Wikipedia, however, disputes only go to the ArbCom if it is so complex that the community is unable to resolve it without the structured process that arbitration provides. Perhaps it is a mischaracterization to say it's a crisis, but it does seem that the German Wikipedia will be without a functional Schiedsgericht for the next 5 months, solely because the rules preclude any possible action to bring it back to function. Either change the rules or hope there isn't a complicated user conduct dispute your way the next 5 months. Mz7 (talk) 15:47, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

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Did you make any effort to speak to Magister and get a comment from him? I didn't see a mention of that in the article, but perhaps I just overlooked it. 2601:602:9802:99B2:29CB:FF0D:9468:342A (talk) 06:56, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

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Actually, if nobody starts a succesful "Meinungsbild" (similar to a RfC), the arbcom will be able to make decisions at the 1st June, next year. That can get a problem, I agree. Luke081515 20:48, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

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Why he should have accounced his personal political views in the ArbCom elections, shouldn't his Wikipedia activity be what people judge him based on? Then apparently some special snowflake admins can't be in the same committee with a person who's active in a political party they don't like. Remember: participating in the democratic system is a human right. Tolerance, intellectual diversity and all that... The AfD is now the 3rd largest party in the polling, and German Wikipedians are going crazy over that some of their supporters edit Wikipedia? Hysterical. --Pudeo (talk) 23:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree. I would've preferred MAGISTER kept his political views to himself, although I'm unclear in what context his statement was made. Worse, de-wp now has an issue with the SG because a bunch of admins resigned over apparently nothing. I fail to understand why we can't work collaboratively with people who do not match our ideologies especially when those beliefs aren't a point of conflict on wiki. I have my own political and religious beliefs but I don't make an issue of them here nor do I take exception with editors that differ. Imagine then, being elected to ARBCOM and bailing as a protest vote against views you find distasteful that have nothing at all to do with the task at hand. Not counting the fact that de-wp is better off without the special snowflakes, I'd like to see de-wp return those same editors to the SG and force them to do what they were elected to do. The German-language Wikipedians deserve better. Chris Troutman (talk) 06:12, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Unless I am gravely mistaken, the German Wikipedia's ArbCom is made up of volunteers just like the English one. How exactly would you propose forcing a group of volunteers, with no binding contracts and no compensation, to do this work? They are entirely within their rights to resign for whatever reasons they see fit. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:56, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

On the English Wikipedia, ArbCom has ruled that WP:NOTCOMPULSORY does not apply to admins. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:39, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I certainly don't recall making such a ruling, was it before my time? GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:52, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7 and GorillaWarfare: I don't recall this either, and I've been unable to locate any reference to this in any arbitration proceedings. Hawkweye, please can you provide a link to where this ruling was made. Thryduulf (talk) 13:59, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree, I can't find such a ruling either. Even if there were, I would disagree: an administrator is just another volunteer editor—when we trust them with the tools, we don't expect that they will always use the tools; we trust that when they volunteer to use the tools, they will use them correctly. (In the way I'm using it, "the tools" are not just software changes; they include such abilities as discretionary sanctions.) Arbitrators are a little different. We do expect that, as long as they hold the seat, they will dedicate the time to the responsibilities they were elected to, but it is still volunteer work in the sense that, yes, they can resign at any time for any reason. Mz7 (talk) 16:05, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I've just spent a couple of hours looking through every arbitration case page that links to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and I've found that the Committee over the years has endorsed the following from that page:

• Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advocacy or propaganda / Wikipedia is not a soapbox (several alternative wordings, subjectively the second most common reference)
• Wikipedia is not a hosting service
• Wikipedia is not a vehicle for original research / Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought (several alternative wordings, subjectively the third most common reference)
• Wikpiedia is not a link repository
• Wikipedia is not a dictionary
• Wikipedia is not a battleground (subjectively the most common reference)
• Wikipedia is not a crystal ball

Additionally, one statement was proposed but did not pass:

• Wikipedia is not a commentary on scripture

There have been two, sort of relevant, statements on what administrators are expected to do:

• "Administrators are required to explain their actions. [...] While all editors should reply promptly and civilly to good-faith queries about their edits or actions, administrators are particularly expected to do so. Additionally, when an administrator takes an action that is likely to be controversial or to raise questions, he or she should explain the action in advance or at the time, in a location that the affected editors are likely to see, so that they will understand what has been done and why." -Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MZMcBride#Administrator communications
• "[A]dministrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed.[...]" -Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute#Standards of conduct for administrators

These can be summed up as "If an administrator takes an action they must explain why they took it, if asked." This is very different to saying that NOTCOMPULSORARY does not apply to admins. Thryduulf (talk) 16:21, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I was being a bit glib in my reply to Hawkeye7 above—I recognize that he's probably referring to instances when the Arbitration Committee has taken an administrator's failure to respond into account when making a decision. However, that is very different than saying WP:NOTCOMPULSORY doesn't apply to admins. An administrator is free to ignore an arbitration case or questions about their administrative decisions; they just should not expect to be able to continue administrating while doing so. We do not force administrators to keep editing or administrating. — GorillaWarfare 19:07, 24 December 2016 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

@GorillaWarfare and Thryduulf: I knew that, GorillaWarfare! You don't force administrators to keep editing or administrating; but you do force them to cease doing so. I'm happy to concede this point of Wiki-law. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

This is what Chris troutman was suggesting above for the dewiki arbitrators (I'd like to see de-wp return those same editors to the SG and force them to do what they were elected to do). I'd love to know how he would expect that to work. What are they going to do, take away their pay? Take them to court for a breach of their employment contract? GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:07, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: Obviously I understand this isn't indentured servitude. I don't think it appropriate (although it's permissable) to quit an elected position of trust just because you don't agree with the affiliation of one of your colleagues. Where I elected to ABCOM I'd believe those that supported me want me to fulfill my duties. For me to then quit (with or without explanation) because another member expresses political beliefs is a betrayal of those that elected me to serve as arbiter. I thought my point was understood but from what I'm reading too many of you took me literally, as if I think chaining special snowflakes to their keyboards would fix the matter. I find your apparent lack of respect for the public trust disturbing. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: (Moved your comment because I believe it was misplaced.) I guess I don't understand your comment could be interpreted figuratively, but thanks for being clear... I personally feel that by choosing to elect an individual as an arbitrator, voters are indicating that they have trust in that person's judgment and ability to fulfill their role satisfactorily. It's completely acceptable for an arbitrator to decide that their best judgment call is to resign, whether it's so as to not become complicit in actions they disagree with, because they feel like they can no longer fulfill their responsibilities, etc. In fact I think continuing to serve under such circumstances would be a violation of voters' trust. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:42, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Chris troutman: As a former arbitrator I very much disagree. If I found that I was unable to work with one of my colleagues, for whatever reason, I would have resigned for the good of the project so that our mutual problem did not prevent arbcom business from happening (and that is more than is visible from the outside). Thryduulf (talk) 20:45, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare and Thryduulf: I understand the argument you're both making, but that dog won't hunt. I neither understand how someone's outside affiliations prevent anyone from performing satisfactorily nor do I think it's fair to the editors whom now have to find someone else to execute the office. If two arbiters have a personal disagreement that poisons every interaction, I might agree with you. The story doesn't portray that; it says that the first defections happened almost immediately following the revelation of MAGISTER's politics. That doesn't sound to me like those involved even attempted to resolve differences if that was even needed. While I think we all ought to keep our beliefs out of Wikipedia for the good of the project, we cannot tolerate this ideological terrorism where one group refuses to work alongside the other out of what looks like (based on Sebastian Wallroth's quote) an attempt to enforce a litmus test. This is another incident of Wikipedia's systemic bias which ought to be examined and addressed. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:24, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Chris, basically you and Pudeo are assuming that nine volunteer arbitrators all resigned in bad faith. And now on Christmas Eve you, Chris, even insult them as terrorists. Disgusting. --.js (((☎))) 19:27, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

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particularly given the history of political extremism in the German-speaking world in the first half of the 20th century? "Political extremism"? Really? GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually, genocidal mass murder on an industrial scale. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. In case it was not clear, my point is that calling it "political extremism" is a gross understatement. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:50, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

It was clear to me, and we are in agreement. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:02, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Sure. But the Nazi party started as a more or less democratic political party of the far right, having (some) success in democratic elections. The horrible crimes started a few years later. So the uneasyness we germans have with the democratic far right may be understandable. --Drahreg01 (talk) 15:56, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

It is very true that summing up the Holocaust as an incident of "political extremism" would be an awful thing to do. But this story did not endeavor to sum up the Holocaust. When editing the story, I assumed that Tony1's intended meaning was to compare present-day "political extremism" to a relevant past period of political extremism, implying (but not stating directly) that it had previously led to one of the worst atrocities in history.

That said, though, in hindsight I agree, we could have found a clearer and more sensitive way to make the point. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 18:16, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

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@Tony1: The banner says Distribution is no solution, nack'ing Merkel's efforts to distribute the people who reached Germany/Sweden into other european countries. Einwanderung - "immgigration" isn't on the banner. -- Janka (talk) 15:22, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I checked ... twice ... with a native-speaker of German. Tony (talk) 02:16, 24 December 2016 (UTC) Now on further inquiry it should have been "Redistribution [of immigrants across the EU] is no solution". Too much political context required for non-German-speakers to get it, so I've removed the translation. Tony (talk) 05:48, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

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Hmm. Every organization should have something in its bylaws that says "if action is urgent, there must be someone or some group available to do it." Of course, one way to do that is to define things such that no action is so urgent it can't wait until the next regularly scheduled election. Is there any possible issue that could come up before the Schiedsgericht which, by its very nature, couldn't wait until May? If so, how likely is such a scenario? In the English Wikipedia, if, heaven forbid, 80% of the sitting ARBCOM members were to suddenly resign (or worse) 5 days before newly-elected members were to be seated, it's unlikely we would need to do anything special to fill those seats. On the other hand, if it was 5 months before an election, we would.

My recommendations for most "boards" similar to ARBCOM or Schiedsgericht: If you are short of a quorum, have some method of temporarily filling the seat on an "emergency" basis, but any decisions made before the community either ratifies the appointment or fills the seat in some other way will be considered "temporary." Furthermore, the group would be actively discouraged from making decisions except those which cannot wait until the community confirms the appointment or there is a new election. If the appointee is not confirmed or elected by the community, all "temporary" decisions that are still in effect must be looked at again as soon as there is a quorum of community-elected or -confirmed members within a very short period of time. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

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• Thanks for the report, Tony1. It's important to keep in mind that the German-language Wikipedia's Schiedsgericht (SG) has less power than English-language WP's ArbCom and is less often invoked. According to the archives, there was a total of seven requests in 2016, three of which the SG refused (due to not being competent, "unzuständig"). The last request was in June. The peak was reached in 2013 with 38 requests, there were 22 in 2014 and 18 in 2015. When it was introduced in 2007 (community decision via two "Meinungsbilder" in April and October 2007), it was explicitly declared that the SG will not be competent do deal with any kind of conflict with regards to content in article namespace ("Konflikte zu inhaltlichen Fragen im Artikelnamensraum werden nicht durch das Schiedsgericht entschieden"). This has limited its potential, as many conflicts are based on content disputes, of course. As I see it, there is a strong symbolic importance, as you mentioned in the report ("is symbolically powerful") - people know that there is another instance if all other mechanisms of conflict resolution fail. As the current practical importance of the SG is rather limited, I think that a pause of a few months could go nearly unnoticed (after all, there were no requests since June) if it were for less politically charged reasons. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I have to correct myself: There were two additional requests since June which are closed but not in the archive yet, see here. One in July, and one in connection with the events discussed here in December (rejected). Gestumblindi (talk) 01:28, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
    • @Gestumblindi: I am interested in the differences between the English Arbitration Committee and the German Schiedsgericht. You and Janka above both note that the Schiedsgericht cannot settle disputes about content, but the Arbitration Committee is the same: the the English Wikipedia arbitration policy states that The Committee does not rule on content, but may propose means by which community resolution of a content dispute can be facilitated. Both the Schiedsgericht and the ArbCom are the final step after all other mechanisms of conflict resolution fail, and I think many English users would agree that the "practical" importance of the English ArbCom is also limited—the essay at Wikipedia:The Committee provides a good view of this. The vast, vast majority of disputes on the English Wikipedia never reach the ArbCom. In fact, this year has seen an unprecedented low number of arbitration cases: only 4 requests for arbitration were accepted by the ArbCom this year (compared to 18 in 2015). But what this means is that in the rare case that a dispute does reach the Arbitration Committee, it is an extremely complicated or unusually protracted dispute that the community has not been able to resolve on its own. While content disputes cannot be decided by the ArbCom, user conduct disputes can, especially in controversial topic areas. The English ArbCom has the ability to impose binding resolutions (meaning that editors must follow the committee's decision or face sanctions), including and up to the authority to "site-ban" users from contributing to the English Wikipedia entirely. To what extent is the Schiedsgericht different? Mz7 (talk) 07:06, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mz7: Maybe it's not that different, after all. In German-language Wikipedia, there's a widespread perception that the English ArbCom is far more powerful, has more competency and has become a kind of "wiki government" for English-language Wikipedia. Until now, I shared this perception, but after reading your description, it seems to be (partly?) inaccurate. Although having similar language in written policy (en: "The Committee does not rule on content" / de: "Konflikte zu inhaltlichen Fragen im Artikelnamensraum werden nicht durch das Schiedsgericht entschieden") does not necessarily mean that the practical interpretation will be the same. It's interesting that English-language ArbCom and German-language SG appear to share the unprecedented low number of arbitration cases in 2016, and there were even less requests for the ArbCom than for the SG. Indeed, I have started a thread very similar to your "Declining caseload" thread at the SG discussion page in November; it's already archived there ("Immer weniger Anfragen - gutes oder schlechtes Zeichen?"), asking similar questions. - Still, I see some differences comparing en-WP's arbitration policy to the German policy ("Regeln"). Requests for removal of administrative tools are not explicitly stated as part of the SG's scope, there's a broader phrasing "Auseinandersetzungen um Adminfunktionen". While the SG probably may decide that admin tools have to be removed, this isn't really something coming up a lot, as de-WP has a binding procedure for admin recall, called Adminwiederwahl. Access to Checkuser and Oversight tools is not managed by the SG; due to de-WP's strict policy on privacy, these tools are handled in an extremely restrictive manner, and the few who have access to them are elected by a community procedure. - Another possible difference, as at first glance I don't see how admin tools for ArbCom members are handled: In de-WP, the roles of admin and SG member are strictly separated. If a SG member doesn't have admin rights when they're elected, they get them, but strictly in order to deal with SG requests. They are forbidden to use the admin tools in any way not connected with their SG duties, unless they're also elected "regular" admin. Also, the SG never enforces its decisions itself. A basic policy is that this has to be done by admins, resp. stewards in the case of admin rights removal, and that the admins have some leeway in enforcing SG sanctions. Gestumblindi (talk) 13:07, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Gestumblindi: Thank you for your thorough response! It's true: the only way on the English Wikipedia for an administrator to have his or her permissions removed involuntarily is by the Arbitration Committee. The community has extensively discussed possible recall alternatives similar to the Adminwiederwahl (see Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Community de-adminship proof of concept), but to date, none have achieved consensus. Indeed many of the cases that the English ArbCom hears revolve around administrator conduct, and I accept that that is one noteworthy difference between ArbCom and the SG. As for admin tools for ArbCom members, since the early days of the Committee's formation, the community has never elected any non-administrator to the Committee, although many non-administrators have run (I believe there may have been one or two in 2004, when the Committee was in its infancy). Just last year, the community had a widely attended discussion on that issue in 2015 and came to a consensus that the roles of administrators and arbitrators are different, so were a non-administrator to be elected to the English ArbCom in the future, they will not automatically receive administrator tools, although paradoxically they may still hold oversight and checkuser rights. The ArbCom can hold community consultations regarding checkuser and oversight access (see the most recent one in September/October 2016), but the final decision is with the committee. The English ArbCom also does not typically enforce its decisions—that task is also usually handled by uninvolved administrators. Mz7 (talk) 22:31, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mz7: This is a late reply, well... maybe still interesting. You write "since the early days of the Committee's formation, the community has never elected any non-administrator to the Committee" - then that's also an interesting difference; though in the early days of the SG, mainly administrators were elected, several non-administrators were elected over the years. One the one hand, this may be due to the view of many community members that admin and SG roles should be separated, and on the other hand, I think, there is a growing reluctance of admins to run for the SG. However, as said above, elected SG members automatically receive the admin tools, strictly for SG use. Gestumblindi (talk) 16:44, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

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Having a member of the right-winged party AfD in an important position in the community without knowing it because WP:ANON is just one aspect (and in my view a less important one) of the bigger problem that the German wikipedia has more and more right-winged authors manipulating articles in article clusters of political importance. What's worsens this development is that these article clusters are one of the most read by the public. Being the 7th most visited website in Germany Wikipedia has a societal impact which is imho not reflected in the rules of and the will to take responsibility by the central community. We will see how the internal problem awareness and external pressure will lead to a solution-oriented debate about this dangerous developments in 2017. After more than 15 years and an enourmous increase in releveance for the societal informations sphere it is time to talk about the level of responsibility reached and whether of not the old rules still fit this level of responsibility. We live in exciting times. --Jensbest (talk) 21:19, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

The article on AfD describes it as a "right-wing populist and Eurosceptic political party". I'm sure this must have been discussed to death on the article itself, so I don't understand why it is considered appropriate to describe them here as "far-right". AndrewRT(Talk) 21:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, also the banner shown in the article is a banner of the far-right Identitarian movement, which doesn't have to do much with the AfD per se, either. --Vogone (talk) 23:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, the demonstrators in the picture carry AfD banners as well, though (the blue ones with the AfD logo visible in the corner). Gestumblindi (talk) 01:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Thus "per se". This does not exclude possible personnel overlaps. --Vogone (talk) 13:38, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

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For those interested in the elected-term overlaps, you can see the history of deWiki SG members in the nice graphic here -- de:Wikipedia:Schiedsgericht#Besetzung_des_Schiedsgerichts. Might have to scroll to the righthand side to see recent chronological changes. Most of the people that resigned, had served on the SG with Magister for somewhere in the range of 3 months to considerably longer, if I'm reading it correctly. There was a vaguely-similar case with enWiki ARBCOM a few years ago, w.r.t. the top vote-winner being asked to step down over participating in an off-wiki group, albeit a wiki-criticism forum rather than a political party. It ended up playing out differently on enWiki, partly because Jimbo Wales personally became involved, if memory serves (not in a WMF capacity but just in a personal one, again if memory serves). Don't know if there is any IAR which might help the SG reconstitute itself. I don't really think that the suggestions above about having a by-law-election clause are wrong, but I also don't think that a bylaw-election clause would have kept deWiki from undergoing a 'constitutional crisis' or whatever you want to call this ongoing sequence of events. Better to have multiple layers of internally-strong but in practice overlapping-yet-distinct systems of governance, so if one institution runs aground on the rocks, with luck another still-internally-strong type of approach might be able to right the nearby ship. If that isn't mixing metaphors too horridly 47.222.203.135 (talk) 21:35, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks for this disply!
  I note that three SG members, while not resigning, were not reelected in the last semiannual election, namely User:THWZ, User:DerMaxdorfer, and User:Codc. I think it would be relevant to know how many of them (if any) who candidated for re-election.
  I think that an important aspect here has not been discussed sufficiently, namely, the interpretation of the anonymity protection. I would have found it shocking to be elected to a body (where three persons a couple of months ago resigned "for personal reasons"), and find out that there is an ongoing and animated principal and personal conflict going on - of which neither voters nor candidates have been made aware, due to the anonymity protection rules interpretation. I might even have felt a bit cheated. (Now, of course, I do not know exactly what the new members were met by; but it seems a reasonable guess to have been something in this style.) I do not think it to be obvious that the anonymity considerations of de:Benutzer:MAGISTER ought to be respected under the circumstances. JoergenB (talk) 14:35, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I now have checked up the list of candidates for the last SG election. As you can see, neither of the three aforementioned (THWZ, DerMaxdorfer, Codc) was a candidate for re-election. In other words, out of the ten SG members after the May elections, six have resigned openly, and three have just not candidated for reelection; of the six new elected in November, three have resigned. JoergenB (talk) 15:50, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

    At my last reelection (fall 2015) I explain that this will be my last elecation as candadate for a while because in my opinion member of arbcom shall be change frequently and two years plus later additional two years member of arbcom is enought for a while in particular this work consumes a lot of time. So, my retirement hasn't a reason in the recent problem. Futher in my opinion, a member of the arbcom has elected an if there are no problem in his work at arbcom (arbcom isn't a polical commitee) there aren't any reason for ending the collaboration in the commitee. MAGISTER was member of the arbcom some year and wasn't disputed so for me there aren't any reason for changes. --Codc (talk) 17:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

    @Codc: Thanks for this explanation! I now checked the SG membership overview slightly more carefully, and found that a 60% renewal (3 new vz. 2 reelected) seems to have been the typical outcome in the SG elections the last years. Thus, the outcome "5 new, 0 re-elected" would be a bit unusual, but not statistically inexplainable within normal variation. (Of course, taken together with the explicite resignations, the situation still could hardly be called "normal".) JoergenB (talk) 20:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

    From my side my statement at the reelection last year (maybe its understandable with google-translate). --Codc (talk) 20:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Readership statistics for this article were enormous

For what it's worth, I wanted to note that the readership of this article was enormous, dwarfing all other features from the December 22 edition. Kudos, Tony1, for the thorough report on a topic of such great interest. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)

Technology report: Labs improvements impact 2016 Tool Labs survey results (495 bytes · 💬)

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Very nice overview of tools and labs. Highly appreciated. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:36, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

+1! Thanks for this.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:10, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Traffic report: Post-election traffic blues (9,625 bytes · 💬)

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Commentary is a bit over the top

Surprised to see myself as first commenter here, but here goes. I found the political commentary a bit over the top in this issue. Including the one that seems to imply that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barron Trump (2nd nomination) never happened. I really came for a traffic report, not for a condemnation of America being "not normal". - Brianhe (talk) 01:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• Brianhe, thanks for your comment. The Traffic Report is derived from the the Top 10 of the weekly WP:TOP25 reports. When the Nov 13-19 report was first published at the Top 25 Report pages, the Barron Trump AfD was ongoing and the future outcome was unclear. If that was canvassing at the time that we mentioned it, I didn't care, because a ten year old doesn't need a BLP because his dad got elected President, just as we concluded for Barrack Obama. I have updated that entry to note the AfD was closed. As for political commentary, we welcome all opinions here in comments. The stats are the stats; the opinion is commentary as part of analyzing popularity, and when people wish to record additional points or disagreements in comments, they are welcome. My theory has always been that in 100 years or whenever, someone can read our commentary and discern something more about what humans were thinking in our times.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 04:12, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • As editor in chief, I concur with what Milowent said. I did note, when reviewing this edition's traffic report, that it gets a bit more into political commentary than usual; I thought about it and read carefully, and found nothing "over the top" in my view. That doesn't mean I personally agree with everything said; but when volunteers go to the trouble, every edition, of compiling and contextualizing this data, in my view they have some license to put some of themselves into it, and the reading is more entertaining (at least for some) that way. The raw lists, as Milo pointed out, exist for those who prefer to skip the commentary. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 05:13, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Brianhe here, I was surprised to read it and was about to create a new comment myself. Entertainment can be achieved without being scathing. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 06:19, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• I find the notes instructive and incisive, one of the reasons I follow the traffic reports. SeoMac (talk) 18:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Like Brianhe, I want the traffic report without absurd and self-indulgent fringe-element in-crowd snarking. Rhetorical question: has whoever wrote the mischaracterization of Breitbart News in the notes on the Bannon entry been forbidden to notice the "racist, anti-semitic, misogynistic" aspects of other news outlets such as the NYT, WashPo, CNN, and MSNBC? I don't care about Signpost contributors' political views and I'd respect the process and the result more if obviously biased commentaries were decontaminated before publication. – Athaenara ✉ 18:31, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

It's useful to me, as editor, to hear the kind of feedback here -- I appreciate you all sharing your thoughts, and it will inform future discussions. But ultimately, the influence of opinions that are accompanied by a willingness to roll up your sleeves and work with us from one edition to the next is the kind of influence that really counts. Please do contact us (user talk, email, or WT:Wikipedia Signpost) if you'd like to get involved. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 18:39, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

So all this hub-bub is about the Bannon comments, isn't it? Those comments are supported by reporting (Serendipodous authored that report so I mention it here in case he wants to comment), e.g., it was reported by many sources that Bannon has made anti-Semitic comments in the past. As a middle aged white American male, I'll mention this doesn't shock me. A certain portion of us do rag on women, black people, and Jews , though we aren't all future Hitlers. But in my opinion I call out that bullshit whenever I hear it; being ethical is not always tidy. In no way am I saying I have special knowledge of all white American middle aged males or Stephen Bannon, though I was acquainted with Andrew Breitbart (a Jew!) in online discourse. I don't know how we can satisfy everyone here, as some articles are popular for the untidy reasons we are commenting on. Bannon wasn't such a popular article that week because he's universally seen as a groovy guy.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Let me just state, for the record and hopefully for all time, my reasoning on this oft-recycled topic. My job as a compiler of the Top 25 Report/Traffic Report is to discover how and why some articles are popular in any specific week. If I have determined, as far as I can tell, that an article on a specific person is popular because a large number of people have been shocked by his racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic views, I will say so. If you do not believe that Mr or Ms So and So is in fact racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic, then fine. You are free to believe that. But that is not relevant to the discussion. Conversely, I do not include facts that I deem irrelevant to an article's popularity. For instance, I happen to believe that Mel Gibson is racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic, and, for the curious, can cite many of his own personal quotes. However, if he appears in the Top 25 and the reason behind his appearance is, as far as I can determine, utterly mundane (say if he has a movie out) then I will not mention them, because they are not relevant. Serendi^podous 20:02, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with your comment here generally, however you should state the Bannon description in a more neutral fashion (e.g. describe that a newspaper considers him a...). Though I know news is supposed to be entertaining, as I said above it can be entertaining without being scathing. I also thought the Trump comment was a bit over the top, given the pretty biased photo that in no way would make it onto a Wikipedia article, and the statement that this country hasn't returned to normal? That's extremely pushing the importance and effects of this election. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 20:52, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For me, it wasn't that at all. It was this: "[Article view] numbers are slowly returning to normal ...Would that his country could." Elections with results that upset about 50% of the population are quite normal in America. IMHO the country was normal both before and after this traffic report, and the words chosen are either incredibly inapt and non-descriptive, or gratuitously inflammatory. Either way, insensitive to the community as a whole. Brianhe (talk) 20:57, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Order

Why isn't the most recent week at the top? Doesn't make any sense to read what was popular a month ago first. The-Pope (talk) 13:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Milowent, thoughts on this? Seems reasonable to me, especially if/when less frequent publication makes for longer lists. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 19:43, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Make sense. Certainly would have helped this time, Bannon would have been buried well below my witty comments on UFC or other vacuous subjects of popularity!--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:46, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Ivanka's son

• NO longer has an article. I didn't want to edit something that was signed.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:04, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Speed of Light

• Romer's determination of the speed of light got a Google Doodle on 7 December. BakingNerd (talk) 16:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Year in review: Looking back on 2016 (12,195 bytes · 💬)

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More to highlight for 2016

I wish this wasn't as WMF focused. Did we achieve so little as a community this year that we don't have much to highlight other than what is in the last paragraph ? That's a bit sad. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:17, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

TheDJ, my estimate of the number of important things I missed is about 9,000,000. There is so much going on in our world! I hope you and others will add items here in the comments. (But I do hear your concern, thanks for the feedback.) -Pete Forsyth (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Missed highlights

• Inaugural WikiConference North America
• Inaugural Bay Area WikiSalon
• 5 millionth enwiki article by Casliber — Preceding unsigned comment added by Checkingfax (talk • contribs) 18:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• The start of the Challenge series of contests to improve content -- many with cash prizes. (About time people who write content got to directly benefit for their efforts.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:23, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
• ... add your suggestion above this bullet point

Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 17:55, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@Checkingfax: The 5 millionth article happened in 2015. See last year's Signpost. Mz7 (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• I think everyone agrees that one article cannot hope to cover the full spectrum of such a complex worldwide movement. At the Signpost, we would love to see more news writers. It's hard with so few. Tony (talk) 10:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Concurring with Tony, I note that several here have written or outlined items that could easily spin off into separate articles or be incorporated in a report like this. I hope Peteforsyth doesn't mind if I suggest that anyone who might be interested in contributing to a future edition of the Signpost should drop Rosiestep, our HR specialist, a line to see how to get involved. Pinging Mz7 and Checkingfax in particular. Go Phightins! 06:22, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
    •  Done [2] Mz7 (talk) 07:56, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

How very 2014

"no substantial change in the overall decline in Wikipedia contributors that began in 2007" would have been trueish in an annual review of 2014 but things have moved on a bit. After the rally of 2015 numbers now seem stable, though below the 2007 peak (individual language communities will vary). Since I broke the story of the editing rally over a year ago in the Signpost it seems odd to recycle a 2014 story today. If you want to be specific to the English Wikipedia numbers are clearly up on the 2014 minima with User:Katalaveno/TBE showing a shift from 10 weeks per ten million edits to more like 9 weeks.ϢereSpielChequers 16:57, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I've removed the incorrect info ϢereSpielChequers 22:56, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for this, WereSpielChequers, I regret the error. I do think it's worthwhile to note that even if stabilized, the trend has not substantially reversed -- but you're quite correct that my phrasing was inaccurate. I've restored the original text, but made reference to your comment, which should make things a bit more consistent and informative for our readers. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 02:04, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I don't dispute that the stats are complicated and among those who see the editing decline as a problem, the jury is out as to whether things are stabilising, rebounding or it is just a pause. Of course if it does continue to grow the glass half empty brigade will start to lament that we are no longer making big reductions in vandalism edits by faster reversion and edit filters. Most of the big wins there have already happened and unless someone designs some effective anti-spam filters future reductions in badfaith editing due to filter improvements will be minor. The unfortunate thing is that we don't know whether such positive reasons for the decline in raw edits are more or less significant than negative reasons such as the difficulty of tablet editing and near impossibility of smartphone editing. But if we are both still around in a year would you like a paragraph from me for the 2017 year in review? ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes please! WereSpielChequers, I would certainly appreciate that, and if for some reason I've been succeeded by new editor I'm confident they will feel the same. To be perfectly honest, I can't be confident that I will remember at the relevant time...I will try to find a convenient place to leave a note, but it would be most helpful if you could also reach out in, say, November. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 18:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

750 millionth edit

A better stat to have included would have been that the English Wikipedia's 750 millionth edit took place on the 17th November 2016. OK the actual edit was a vandalism, but it is an impressive stat. ϢereSpielChequers 19:16, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

The year of user rights

On the technical side, we saw three new user access levels created this year: extended confirmed, page mover, and new page reviewer.

Extended confirmed

The first, extended confirmed, was originally intended solely as a means of enforcing the various arbitration remedies that prevented editors with under 30 edits/500 days threshold to edit various topic areas, such as Palestine-Israel articles – see this village pump discussion in February authorizing its creation. In a widely attended request for comment in July and August, the community expanded the scope of extended confirmed protection to include "any form of disruption (such as vandalism, edit wars, etc.) on any topic", so long as semi-protection has proven to be ineffective. Supporters argued that an intermediary between semi-protection and full protection was needed, while opponents argued that the widespread implementation of the new protection level would discourage newcomers – a consensus developed that extended confirmed protection should not be used as a first resort and that all implementations would be posted to User:MusikBot/ECPMonitor/Report, transcluded on WP:AN. There is currently a request for comment in progress as to whether the scope should be expanded to include high-risk templates and creation protection.

Page mover

The second, page mover, received wide support from the community for its creation – see the request for comment in April and May. The RfC simultaneously approved the flags to be added to the new user group: suppressredirect (which allows users to move pages without leaving a redirect behind) and move-subpages (which allows users to move subpages when moving their parent pages). There were additional proposals to include the ability to override title blacklist, the ability to apply move protection, and an increased throttle limit for page moves to the user right, but those did not receive consensus.

New page reviewer

The third, new page reviewer, was a bit more complicated. In late August and September 2016, a request for comment discussed a proposal for a new user right called “New Page Reviewer”, whose stated purpose was “to ensure that users are suitably experienced for patrolling new pages.” The RfC’s introduction presented arguments stressing the importance of the new page patrol process and the need to get it right in order to avoid biting newcomers. There was significant opposition within the RfC to any restriction to accessing functions of Twinkle, but that was ultimately deemed beyond the scope of the RfC, and it closed with a “clear, community-wide consensus for the technical changes proposed.” A second RfC was then held in October 2016 to determine the qualifications for granting this newly endorsed user right, proposing a set of criteria which received wide community approval. These guidelines for granting the permission may be read at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers.

In accordance with these consensuses, on 16 November 2016, the technical ability to mark pages as “patrolled” was restricted to users with the newly created new page reviewer right, as well as administrators. As this transition took place, a dispute was brought to ANI revolving around whether users without the “new page reviewer” user right were still permitted to identify themselves as “new page patrollers” through user boxes like {{User Newpages with Twinkle}} and {{User wikipedia/NP Patrol2}}. Some said no, arguing that as a result of the prior RfCs, users without the “new page reviewer” user right should no longer participate in the new page patrol process. Others said yes, arguing that the prior RfCs only restricted the technical ability to mark pages as “patrolled” to a group of editors, and that the general tasks of “new page patrolling” (e.g. adding maintenance tags, copyediting, nominating for deletion) could still be performed by anyone. A request for comment was started late November to resolve that dispute, which is still partially open as of now. Mz7 (talk) 17:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)