Can we make the page look like a normal disambig page? I think the historically inactive thing on Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard discourages participation/editing. For example, if I wanted to modify where to tell people where to go, now I can't. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:54, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I propose we create a new barnstar to award to people who spot factual errors/misrepresentation of sources/maybe whatever critera used in this study in our existing Featured Aritcles. Biosthmors (talk) 11:08, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Create it, then. For better or for worse, we have no Barnstar Approval Committee. But I think this is a good thing to reward for. (Although personally, I would use the "thank" feature.) Keφr 11:34, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, we don't have restrictions for creating one or using as WP:PUA, but we do have a long-standing practice of getting consensus before addition to WP:BARNSTAR. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keφr, I was hoping I wouldn't have to learn how to make one, but maybe interest someone who could throw it together. Any suggestions? Thanks Hellknowz. Biosthmors (talk) 16:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Biosthmors:: When I wanted to create a barnstar (Template:The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar), I found somebody with design skills. One technique that might work for you is to find a barnstar you like and approach its designer with a request. Many designers are listed at Wikipedia:Barnstars, but you can always check a barnstar's history. :) You might also try cold-calling some of the people at Wikipedia:User page design center/Help and collaboration/Participants to see if their design skills extend to creating barnstars, although you might want to check their userpages first to see if you like their work. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @Biosthmors: I have created many PUA (barnstars). Let me know if you think I may help. Most probably, I'll not create directly, but, I'll work on coding. --Tito☸Dutta 18:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Although most templates vary in importance from "critical" to Roche.svg; I personally think that, after seeing some vandalism by IP's to some navboxes lately (particularly ones for media conglomerates for some bizarre reason), maybe we should consider only allowing registered users to edit templates (they would still be allowed in Template talk, of course, and maybe we can exempt sandbox pages from it as well).

This may seem like an odd idea, the real question is, can anyone else provide justification for such an idea? ViperSnake151  Talk  18:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Permanently preemptively protecting pages (even templates) flies in the face of the goals of Wikipedia. I don't think it's a good idea at all. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:55, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In practicality I don't think semi-protecting all templates would be such a bad thing. Almost nobody who has less experience here than the autoconfirmed requirements should be expected to know what they're doing with templates. Nevertheless, I think the fact that anyone can edit them sends an important message about Wikipedia's principles. It reminds us of those principles as well. Any preemptive restriction is a step towards another preemptive restriction. equazcion ^(talk) 19:13, 13 Sep 2013 (UTC)

We have experienced IP editors who choose not to register. Enacting such pre-emtpive restriction would affect them. -- Whpq (talk) 19:24, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Screw IP editors! But no seriously you do have a point, I didn't think of that. :) equazcion ^(talk) 19:29, 13 Sep 2013 (UTC)

• Out of curiosity more than anything, Whpq, can you show me a template that has had many IP edits that couldn't be considered trivial or vandalism? I don't disagree with you, I would just like to see some evidence that there are actually use cases of templates being edited by IPs that goes past casual. I also wouldn't be opposed to them being semi-protected with the option to unprotect upon valid request. Technical 13 (talk) 20:06, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• IPs routinely update some of our NHL team roster templates, such as {{Boston Bruins roster}} and {{Calgary Flames roster}}. As far as pre-emptive semi protection goes, I'd probably support it for templates with a certain number of transclusions, but not globally. Resolute 20:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Resolute, I would like to point out a couple things about the templates you have linked. {{Boston Bruins roster}} is transcluded on only three articles and contains more content than template. I would argue it belong in content space. {{Calgary Flames roster}} is also transcluded on only three articles and contains more content than template. This "template" has also been a victim of a bit of vandalism/speculation (which you yourself had to remove) and is currently broken due to template misuse. Technical 13 (talk) 20:47, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• My comment was a general point that we deliberately have made the choice that editting as an IP is allowed, and absent very good reasons, we shouldn't be restricting their abilities to edit. Navboxes are nice to haves, so I don't see that vandalism happens on them as a sufficiently good reason to protect them in any manner. -- Whpq (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• They are actually a template comprised of other templates, and are used to ensure synchronization between the three relevant articles. And yes, I noted the irony myself of the vandalism to the Flames template, but I think it curious that you focused on that rather than the dozens of useful updates. Resolute 00:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Flys in the face of Pillar 3 Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute.. I don't see (and don't see an example for) a good "Ignore all Rules" reason for overriding the pillar. We're only supposed to restrict editing in the face of persistent disruption. While there may be a case for some templates that have been the target of disruption to be semi-protected, the vast majority is harmless mistakes or easily corrected through other methods (like blocking individual offenders). Hasteur (talk) 20:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I'm an IP and I occasionally edit templates such as this. I've also helped a new user with their first DYK, which occurs in Template: namespace. Cheers. 64.40.54.174 (talk) 04:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• No. --erachima talk 00:49, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Ip's can be good editors too. Just because they are anonymous doesn't mean they are evil. assume good faith and let them edit. Konveyor Belt ^{yell at me} 17:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Some IPs definitely are. I have seen wonderful works of IPs in templates (mainly one IP starting with 76 something). So, No. --Tito☸Dutta 18:22, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Templates certainly aren't content or plain text, and I think it can be safely said that most (but certainly not all) templates affect several articles and provide links or serve to automate data entry and update stats subject to frequent changes. I don't believe that restricting access to auto-confirmed editors would be a hinderance nor fly in the face of the encyclopedia being free content that anyone can edit. Conversely, I don't believe most templates are in any need of protection. Perhaps the threshold for semi-protecting templates could be set very low; otherwise this seems to be a solution in search of a problem. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:45, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, especially if this would include userspace templates (as is the case for userboxes). Protection should only be used when there is a risk of vandalism or other abuse.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:14, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Not only would this prevent IP-by-choice editors from ever experimenting with templates, it would prevent registered editors in good standing from doing regular template maintenance when they are accessing WP from an insecure location where logging in to an account is inadvisable. Also, it is a violation of a pillar. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 06:04, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - if anything, the "convenience" protection of many non-critical, low- or mid-traffic templates should be lifted. Constructively editing IPs are (or can be) a valuable contribution for most Wikipedia aspects, we shouldn't risk loosing their input. What should be done, is going more consequently after vandalism-only IPs and banning earlier, if an IP doesn't manage to offer any worthwhile addition at all. GermanJoe (talk) 06:45, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose on technical grounds. After much thought about this and reading the discussion here, there is really no technical way to distinguish between templates and drafts and otherstuff in userspace or project space, so this protection canvass could only be applied to Module: and Template: effectively. What would this mean to the project? This would mean that:

A) There would lot unconfirmed and IP editors that would be creating templates in inappropriate places to circumvent the protection.

B) There would be a lot more template submissions at WP:AFC that the project is currently unable to process (we only have a few reviewers capable of understanding templates and most of them either wouldn't have the time to keep up with the inflow or don't have the interest in reviewing others templates).

There are likely other scenarios that would be undesirable from this that I've not had enough coffee to think of right now, but either one that I listed here is enough for me to say "no thanks" to this proposal. Technical 13 (talk) 12:03, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Eliminate or rename the "Fictional Hillbillies" category, and any other article or category that employs the ethnic slur "hillbilly", using "Southern Mountaineer", "Southern Highlander", or some other, neutral term.

Argument: Wikipedia wouldn't tolerate a category of "Fictional Coons"—meaning stereotyped misrepresentations of black Americans as ignorant, boisterous, superstitious, libidinous, cowardly, and brainless—even though there are plenty of such characters, so designated when they were popular. A category of "Fictional Yids", "Fictional Dagoes", or "Fictional Micks" would, quite properly, be taken down within minutes of being posted, even though stereotyped characters appropriate for inclusion in such categories are abundant in the popular music and literature of the 19th & early 20th Centuries.

Why then does Wikipedia tolerate a category for analogous stereotypes of Southern highlanders? Like "coon", "yid", "dago", "beaner", etc., "hillbilly" is a jocularly derisive, manifestly ethnic classification, applied to Southern highlanders (or occasionally to all white Southerners)^* by others, to point out the former's membership in a despised, alien, and fundamentally inferior group; their non-membership in the speaker's own, presumably superior, group; and, at times most importantly, the speaker's non-membership in, and "appropriate" disdain for, the inferior group.

The unfortunate history of race in the United States has tended to obscure genuine ethnic distinctions (other than those deriving from relatively recent immigration) within broad racial classifications. (Wikipedia's article on Ethnic groups in the United States suffers greatly from this confusion.) Such divisions nevertheless exist (though seldom without some element of race, or class, or both); and each is accompanied, to a greater or lesser degree, by its distinctive complement of conflicts, abuses, prejudices, stereotypes, and derogatory names.

There's no reason why a slur like "hillbilly" should be any more welcome on Wikipedia than any other epithet that demeans or disparages people on the basis of race, class, ethnicity, age, or similar category.

Notes:

• I recognize that my proposed alternatives to "hillbilly" suggest a United States POV in using "Southern"; but less parochial alternatives like "Southern (U.S.A.) Mountaineer" seem awkward and contrived. I venture to predict that the average reader will readily understand "Southern" in this context to refer to the Southern United States.
• Wikipedia does have an article on the musical genre of "coon songs", while the equally offensive term, "Hillbilly music" appropriately redirects to Old-time music. Since "coon songs" are songs about stereotypical black American characters (usually presented in the persona of such a character), rather than the authentic musical expression of a group referred to as "coons" (although some "coon songs" were written by black Americans), it's appropriate for Wikipedia to cover the genre under its regrettable name. (I do, nevertheless, prefer to see the term "coon song" set off with quotation marks, as an indication that it was coined and used by others, in another time, and that its use today is in the nature of quoting those who named the genre, and not a matter of preference or choice.
• Stereotyped fictional black American characters, such as Amos 'n' Andy, who might have been referred to as "coons" in former times, are listed on Wikipedia under the rubric Fictional African-American people.

Reference:

* See, e.g., this charming remark (second-to-last comment in section) by a now-departed Wikipedian in a Village Pump discussion: "I am surprised we are even debating if the Birmingham in Alabama is as notable as the one in England, there is no debate, the UK one is more famous and important to world history unless you count lynchings or number of hillbillies."

Jdcrutch (talk) 00:48, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you mean category rather than namespace. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:57, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that rapid correction to my ignorant use of "namespace", which I have applied above. Jdcrutch (talk) 01:07, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see from your userpage that you're from Staunton; I'm from that area as well, so it's interesting to me that you and I would have such differing views on the appropriateness of the word. To me, it's no more offensive than city slicker, bumpkin or yuppie, and quiiiiite a far cry from "coon", which, I agree, is the kind of word you'd not ever want to use outside of quotation marks. It will be interesting to see what other people have to say about this. 28bytes (talk) 02:17, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Strictly speaking, Fishersville—the hospital just happened to be in Staunton. We lived there till I was about five, then moved to Newport News. Our old house (formerly the Tinkling Spring Manse) now houses the offices of the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce, and sits behind the Sheetz filling station.

I think "hillbilly" now is about where "coon" was in the 1920s: it's not always meant as derogatory, but it is always demeaning, if only in a joking way. And often it is meant in a very derisive and contemptuous way, as in the example I quoted above. (Search the Village Pump for "hillbilly", and you'll find two or three more gems along the same lines from the same person—who, by the way, has contacted me to inform me that she or he has not departed Wikipedia, implications on the person's user page to the contrary notwithstanding, and to warn me against using the term "coon" so freely.)

In any event, white Southerners who aren't mountaineers, such as myself and, I surmise, 28bytes, bear a special obligation in this regard, because historically our people have tended to look down on the mountaineers, too, and have been all too ready to accept and employ all the relevant derisive stereotypes and epithets. Similarly, white Southerners of middling social status and higher have traditionally had no problems with stereotypes and epithets based on other ethnic or class distinctions within Southern society, such as "redneck", "grit", "peckerwood", "coonass", "white trash", "trailer trash", "swamp trash", and so on. It behoves us to reflect, first of all, that all people are entitled to common, decent respect, unless by actual bad conduct they forfeit it; that prejudice is an ugly thing at best; and that putting other people down just for being who they are diminishes us, not them. If that's not enough, we ought to remember that many non-Southerners are happy to disregard these nice distinctions of class and ethnic group, and to deride all white Southerners en bloc with the same stereotypes and epithets. Some call us "hillbillies"; some call us "rednecks"; some smile and call us "Bubba"—just the way our great-grandfathers might have called a Pullman porter "George", or a black waiter "Sambo".

Prejudice isn't always hateful: sometimes it's just condescending. Stereotyping a group as figures of fun may not be as bad as making them out to be terrorists or thieves or rapists, but it still belittles them and tells them that we don't consider them worthy to be taken seriously. So the Li'l Abner-Jethro Bodine-Gomer Pyle stereotype is bad enough; but when people start talking about "hillbillies", it's usually not long before somebody mentions inbreeding and "Deliverance".

Jdcrutch (talk) 01:20, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• agree with 28 on this one. — ChedZILLA 14:03, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is this even a serious proposal? You have got to be kidding me. Let's start with hillbillies not being exclusive to the American South. There are hillbillies in I assume all 50 US states to begin with. Second- it's not an ethnicity, even if you claim it is an exclusive term for whites (which would make it racist, not an ethnic slur, there's a difference). Third- there are Black hillbillies. And finally (humorously)- Who cares about hillbillies being offended? They wouldn't realize it anyways.Camelbinky (talk) 14:12, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and I'm hardly a "now-departed Wikipedian", as you can see I'm still here, alive, and commenting with humor about hillbillies. For the record I live in Mid-Missouri (also called "Little Dixie" based on the Southern heritage of the original settlers and their slave-owning habits) where people are quite proud of being hillbillies, whether they be white or black.Camelbinky (talk) 14:23, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This should be taking place under the appropriate procedures, i.e. Categories for Deletion, as the last discussion did (see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 June 7) back in 2007. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:58, 17 September 2013 (UTC) (a cracker, but not really a hillbilly)[reply]

Reply Sorry if I posted this in the wrong place—it's my first proposal, and I did try to do it right. I'm also not insisting on deletion. I'd be content with renaming the category, as I suggested in my initial posting. Jdcrutch (talk) 02:53, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wherever this winds up, I see no reason to delete, as this is not a racial, but rather a regional/cultural designation, akin to redneck. While on one hand the word "hillbilly" does originate in the south (if there are hillbillies in all 50 states, it's because they migrated from the south, elsewhere the word "redneck" is more descriptive), there are also words like Okie or Yooper that carry similar regional connotations, which could be viewed as offensive to the people so labeled, but if the people themselves (nodding to southerners) have no real issues with it, then I'd say let it drop; no sense imposing PC on people who don't want it. Montanabw^(talk) 15:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply What Montanabw calls "regional/cultural" I call ethnic. Broadly speaking, what we call "race" is just one kind of ethnicity; but for historical reasons it's entirely appropriate to treat race and ethnicity as distinct—though related—phenomena in American society. Ethnic and racial stereotyping are not directly equivalent, of course; but both are demeaning, and neither has a place in a serious academic setting like Wikipedia (except as a subject for study, like any other social pathology).

As with racial epithets, ethnic slurs may be benign or deeply hurtful, depending on who uses them, and in what context. Luke Jordan, a black man from Virginia, recorded a song called "The Travelling Coon", and another in which he sings, "I'm a hustling coon, that's just what I am." In yet another song, a couple of circus monkeys clearly stand for black people. Even so, I would hesitate to conclude on that basis that Jordan had no real issues with white folks' calling him a "coon" or a "monkey". The name of the band, "N.W.A." stood for "Niggaz Wit Attitudes"; but if somebody started a Wikipedia category called "Niggers With Attitudes", and I objected to it, I wonder if anybody would think I was trying to impose PC on people who didn't want it?

It would be nice if we could all be good sports, and take a joke at our own or our group's expense, when nobody means any real harm by it. Some of Shakespeare's most delightful characters are ethnic or class stereotypes. Ethnic/racial humor was a mainstay of Vaudeville and the early cinema, and some of it was genuinely funny. But in modern-day America we've become extremely touchy about such things, and most ethnic and racial stereotyping is strongly disfavored. In that context, it's just not right to have one or two groups whom it's still OK to ridicule.

Jdcrutch (talk) 02:53, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would say the people "themselves" do not find it universally offensive as the ethnic and racial slurs used by the original poster of this thread. And the "people themselves" are not just Southerners, as the article hillbilly points out, it includes people of the Ozarks, which are in Missouri as well as Arkansas, and Missouri is a Midwestern state, not a southern. Also, West Virginia is not a southern state, nor is Pennsylvania both of which have lots of hillbillies in their Appalachian sections. Please also note that President Truman, General Bradley, and JC Penney (all good Missourians) had no problem receiving a Hillbilly medal of distinction from the Springfield, MO chamber of commerce; the article also mentions a Kentucky town that has "Hillbilly days" festival, and I'm sure it isn't the only one. I fail to see that the African-American or Jewish communities would have a medal or festival named for "coon" or "kyke".Camelbinky (talk) 17:02, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Missouri IS a southern state. If it was a slave state pre-Civil War, it's a southern state. Upper south, maybe, but the south. West Virginia was a "southern" state until it broke with Virginia at the time of the Civil War. I must say that hillbillies in Pennsylvania is news to me, got a source for that? Otherwise, I agree with Camelbinky. Montanabw^(talk) 01:57, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

TROUT Which LP are we protecting with this? Fictional Hillbillies? Looks like a racism paintbrush in search of a scene to paint over. How else would you categorize The Beverly Hillbillies? Hasteur (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply "TROUT" and "LP" are lost on me, I'm afraid. A neutral, encyclopedic rubric for the characters portrayed in "The Beverly Hillbillies" might be "Fictional Southern Mountaineers", as I suggested above. I personally might characterize them somewhat differently, but I'm not asking Wikipedia to express my personal views. Jdcrutch (talk) 02:53, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For claiming to be a expert on wiki policy you seem to have some curious holes in your knowledge. TROUT refers to the glorously enshrined WP:TROUT. LP is a shorthand for Living Person as derived from WP:BLP. I don't understand how the whitewashing of the name does anything but make less clear the categorization. Also your recategorizaiton fails on the Beverly Hillbillies for the reason that they were never Mountaneers (Jed shot some game in his swamp and up came a bubblin' crude...). Even Mountaineers is an inappropriate categorization (See also Kilimanjaro Expedition) Hasteur (talk) 03:19, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Thanks for the explanations. I don't recall claiming to be an expert on anything. I do, however, know that the fictional Jed Clampett was said to be "a poor mountaineer". As for the appropriateness of "mountaineers", Hasteur will have to explain that to Appalachian State University's football team. Jdcrutch (talk) 04:16, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I've not noticed this category previously. The name is pejorative (see Category:Pejorative terms for people). Most of the pages within that scope would fit in the more neutrally named Category:Works about Appalachia or Category:Appalachian culture (one reason why I say "most" instead of "all" is because there has been some heartburn at WP:WikiProject Appalachia in regard to the inclusion of Ozark Mountains topics). Since not all depictions of "hillbillies" are fictional (U.S. reality TV currently has a fascination with "hillbilly"-type characters), it's important to have non-pejoratively named categories for real people who might be considered hillbillies. --Orlady (talk) 03:10, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Strongly oppose

• I recognize that my proposed alternatives to "hillbilly" suggest a United States POV in using "Southern"; but less parochial alternatives like "Southern (U.S.A.) Mountaineer" seem awkward and contrived. I venture to predict that the average reader will readily understand "Southern" in this context to refer to the Southern United States.

• We have hillbillies in the north too, thank you very much.

• Wikipedia does have an article on the musical genre of "coon songs", while the equally offensive term, "Hillbilly music" appropriately redirects to Old-time music. Since "coon songs" are songs about stereotypical black American characters (usually presented in the persona of such a character), rather than the authentic musical expression of a group referred to as "coons" (although some "coon songs" were written by black Americans), it's appropriate for Wikipedia to cover the genre under its regrettable name. (I do, nevertheless, prefer to see the term "coon song" set off with quotation marks, as an indication that it was coined and used by others, in another time, and that its use today is in the nature of quoting those who named the genre, and not a matter of preference or choice.

• Most hillbillies are proud to be such. I don't know where you get off calling it offensive.

• Stereotyped fictional black American characters, such as Amos 'n' Andy, who might have been referred to as "coons" in former times, are listed on Wikipedia under the rubric Fictional African-American people.

• So? Are you trying to say that because other stuff exists, that we should...?

This seems like a poorly thought out proposal to me. There is no reason to deprecate this category in either of the ways proposed... Technical 13 (talk) 12:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OPPOSE. I must concur with the thought of keeping the category. It is just as important to keep it as it is to debunk it. How any of us feels about a word, or a slur is censorship simple and clear. Lest there be any confusion, I have been called a hill billy, a hick, coal camp trash, white trash, red neck, ignorant country fuck, ridge runner etc etc etc I actually had to learn to drop my accent, which took a few years. That and us country folk spoke a form of cajun french in the hollers, which only added to the fact that people in general believed us as a group and as individuals to be impaired or the term, dumb hick. As much as these terms caused me pain, it brings me greater pain to get rid of them. Ignoring a factual thing, even a slur, allows the slippery slop of forgetting and when we forget we repeat the ignorance over and over and over. Oddly, people need this stereotype. Thats how they used to sell all those cute little signs and salt shakers at gift shops. It makes money and brings in tourists. It still exists here on Wikipedia....GASP....Want an example? How about when myself or another person creates an article about a small town or community in Appalachia? I am told, it is not notable...Really? I have even been told, nobody would really care to notice. Were these things said to me personally? No. It is however, rather ignotrant to assume that a remote place is not notable. It might have had a post office, a coal mine, even had a building on the National Register of Historic places. Did it dawn on any of you, that if I buried people there, if I helped birth children there, if I watched people marry, I would question the NOT notable assertion? Most people who state its not notable, lets ask this, have you even been to these places? AND when I say been to these places, I do not mean you got lost. OR how about when the bulldozers come and take away the graves, the church, the schools, am I to understand, this is dome because, its not notable. Human beings by the sheer accident of birth may or may not be in notable place, AND we affirm this, because, no data could be found....I state, no data could be found YET. AND all of the cute terms, all of the clouded ambiguous language is not meant to make hicks feel better. THAT language is meant to make YOU feel better. From this self proclaimed hicks point of view, if the terms you seek are made to make you feel better, then SHAME ON YOU. Coal town guy (talk) 13:19, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose There's no reason why hillbilly must mean Southerner. Hillbilly as used by most people means a backward, old fashioned person. There's no reason why it has to target one group. Konveyor Belt ^{yell at me} 17:25, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The idea of renaming the category to something with "Southern" in it raises my hackles. Being referred to as Southern can easily be perceived as a slur. I refer the reader to Southern Culture on the Skids. And yes, thereabouts is exactly where I am located. Fylbecatulous talk 17:48, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose as the term is not even offensive. Southern is much to vague, and could apply to many different countries with incorrect meanings. Being fictional implies no slur on any real people. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:18, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak oppose. While I don't consider it a proper term for an encyclopedia, there are clearly fictional characters that are best described as "hillbilly." The designation should only be used for fictional characters, however. Bms4880 (talk) 06:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment - all current members of the category are not merely poor Southern hill whites, but stereotypical poor Southern hill whites. What do we do with somebody like Mike Stearns, who is a poor Southern hill white but does not meet the stereotype (although if you start dissing hillbillies, he will steadfastly identify himself as one)? --Orange Mike | Talk 18:24, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

snowball anyone?Camelbinky (talk) 01:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since its inception, horizontal lists have become very popular. But during its creation, some insisted that the ordinals (numbers) do not appear when using a horizontal ordered list. This has never sat right with me. I propose that horizontal ordered lists show their ordinals by default, by means of deprecating the hnum class. Here is why:

• Just as with using regular HTML lists, people expect ordinals to be shown when using ordered lists. The same principle should apply to horizontal lists: If one does not want to show ordinals, one should not use an ordered list to begin with.
• Hiding the ordinals by default creates an accessibility issue... not for those with screenreaders, but ironically for the seeing. Where screen readers still read out the ordinals, they are hidden from view on the display. Why this is not seen as a valid accessibility issue is beyond me.

— Edokter (talk) — 15:55, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It seems a little weird to have "Contents" in the Sidebar (added several years ago in a Sidebar redesign) immediately followed by "Featured content". Not only is the "s" vs. "no s" difference somewhat awkward, but the "Contents" link seems a bit too general in light of the other one. Could we possibly use a more specific label in place of "Contents" that would "go better" with the "Featured content" link right below it? Perhaps one of the following?

1. Content guide
2. Content guides
3. Content overview
4. Content portal
5. Explore our content
6. Explore Wikipedia
7. Reader's guide
8. Get started
9. Start here

(These are numbered for ease of reference, not necessarily because they're in order of my personal preference — although I must say the last two are my least favorites.) Opinions? Suggestions? - dcljr (talk) 20:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I support this idea, and specifically favour options 1 and 4 and 6. –Quiddity (talk) 20:32, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Support: Perhaps just simply "Content" would serve. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 21:25, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As with Templates for discussion, not all discussions on this page result in deletion; they sometimes result in redirects and/or merges as well. I don't have much more to say, but changing it to Articles for discussion reflects a more neutral take on the deletion process. ViperSnake151  Talk  22:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose:Discussion should take place on the talk page. Afd is not discussion to improve an article, rather it is what it says it is: disussion regarding deletion. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 22:40, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem is when talk is limited to the talk page of an article, it limits the audience to primarily those that are interested in the article, typically creating a bias against any proposed change (particularly mergers or redirects) and without the process aspects of AFD, any consensus reached there can be overturned by any editor. I will say that there is currently (as of today) an effort to construct an RFC that addresses the past issue of "Articles for Discussion" being a perennial proposal. --MASEM (t) 22:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The editors who are interested in an article are the most natural people to be discussing it. It would be nonsensical to structure discussions to try to attract editors who are not interested. That's the current trouble with AFD - it's mostly random junk and so few people participate. Warden (talk) 23:09, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • That attitude creates the walled garden that allows articles to persist despite failing core policies and guidelines. As long as the Deletion Sorting project remains involved to sort this discussions to topic areas by interest, you will get a broad selection of editors - both with opinions for and against the nominations - involved as already happens at AFD. --MASEM (t) 23:42, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose We have over 4 million articles and so it would be absurd to try to discuss anything and everything about them all in the same place. AFD already gets little participation and so can't cope with even the current small number of deletion discussions. Warden (talk) 23:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If an article gets very little participation at AFD, that likely means that there is no one interested in improving it and deletion is a reasonable option (as state, the onus is on editors wishing to retain material to do the legwork to assure that) --MASEM (t) 23:43, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose TfD and CfD can be used for renaming or merger, neither of which are the role of AfD. pbp 23:23, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Er, why would we "pollute" Templates and Categories for discussion to discuss article issues? --MASEM (t) 23:46, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think he's trying to say that the reason TfD and CfD stand for discussion rather than deletion is because they're intended to allow outcomes for templates and categories other than deletion. He's not suggesting using them for articles. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:50, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's exactly what I'm saying. I believe AfD to be serving the correct purpose, and see no point in the pollution you speak of pbp 03:11, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as deletion is not the only option available to articles submitted to this venue. There have been discussions that have closed as Merge, Userfy, Move, Redirect, and DAB as well. This proposal does not suggest that all articles need to be dragged to the forum to be discussed, it simply neutralizes the tone that it is indeed a discussion. Changing the name of this forum also does not mean that the other process can't, or shouldn't any longer, be used; however, the current name of the forum does imply that the only acceptable option in the forum is keep or delete and I find that unacceptable and contrary to the goal of building an encyclopedia. Technical 13 (talk) 23:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support this perennial proposal, for several reasons; though I believe it should be made clear that the name change doesn't insinuate that content discussions should be held at this forum. Rather, it lines up this debate forum with the other namespaces for consistency. Secondly, it makes the important distinction that a discussion is not a black and white case of "should this article be deleted, yes or no?", but instead a grey scale gradient of "What should we do with this article?" Precedence has shown us that many merge, redirect and renaming discussions find their way here, and so there is a clear conflict that requires resolution - do we want the black and white debate that ultimately becomes a vote, or the discussion forum that decides the future of articles? In its current format, the title of this forum is often used as a wikilawyering technique to dismiss nominations which depart from the procedural "this article should be deleted because x, y and z." If the community feels this forum should be limited to black and white debates - with all nominations presented by the party seeking deletion, all outcomes limited to "delete" or "keep", and all other issues discussed elsewhere - then these expectatiosn should be made clearly and inconspicuously on this forum so as to direct irrelevant nominations to Requests for Comment or Dispute Resolution. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:36, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per the reasons given at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Rename AFD. I wish it were not possible to even post this perennial proposal without ticking a box that says, "Yes, I've read the reasons why this has been rejected six dozen times in the past, but I promise that my proposal will acknowledge and deal with those strongly held objections." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - I've thought about this before. The problem I keep seeing is that proposed merges often hinge on the same determination of independent notability that deletions entail. Merges were originally thought of as article talk discussions because they were viewed as more about form and efficient display, and that is sometimes still the case in some circumstances. But more and more frequently, this has actually not been the case. A merge is often essentially a deletion for lack of evidence of independent notability. AFD is where article existence based on notability concerns should be discussed, and it shouldn't matter whether or not the article title can be viably redirected to an existing article (which is often the only reason we'll call a situation a "merge"). With respect to this being a perennial proposal I think it nevertheless warrants yet another look. equazcion� | 01:18, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)
• Support as a simple matter of following practice. AfD outcomes can already be outcomes such as "merge", "redirect", or "transwiki", and often are. Black and white "keep" or "delete" arguments are not required to be the only ones made. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Mere change of name will not accomplish anything but create lots of work for people who will be implementing it. Some time ago, I have posted here a proposal to spin off a new deletion process from AfD, based purely on WP:V/WP:GNG. And to define more rigorously what does it mean to pass that process instead of relying on vague notions of "consensus" to keep or delete something. (Another venue could be created for WP:NOT-related deletions. Actually I think that would then exhaust all the possible deletion reasons, making a "classic" AfD unnecessary.) I think that could have accomplished something. Keφr 05:29, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. AfD is where one goes for deletion of articles. It is a clear, straight-forward process that matches the name and everyone knows why the page has been nominated. Adding things like merges or redirects will increase the number of discussion (for example, we have ~700 AfDs and 11k merges). Editors will start nominating articles for things other than deletion in mind. At this point, commenting becomes harder, closing becomes harder and overall participation drops. For the TfD/CfD examples, many discussions get closed with no comments by others. Not to mention, deletion is where many new users end up due to their contributions, and it hard enough explaining just the notability guidelines to them. The argument that there are other outcomes does not make sense to me, because the outcome can be 'keep', which is the direct opposite of 'delete' and means the nominator's position did not match that of the community. This happens all the time, so why is it a problem that merge or userfy or redirect happen once in a while? I personally do not see this as a problem. I would support having a separate venue for merges, splits, redirects, etc. While is sounds like bureaucracy, in practice small, directed venues work best and editors like to focus on these. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:00, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As long as "merge" and "redirect" are valid outcomes from AFD, the above statement doesn't hold true. If AFD was truly a binary choice, sure, but we have various shades of grey in the process. --MASEM (t) 05:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • AfD is not a binary choice and I didn't say it was. I said the purpose of AfD is and should be unary - deletion. It so happens not everyone agrees when an article should be deleted, and we have many alternatives. I'm not saying those alternatives aren't valid (they are perfectly fine), I'm saying they shouldn't be the nominator's rationale and neither the process nor the name should imply otherwise. If you re-read my argument, you'll see I never say that outcomes should be somehow limited. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:43, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose there are better places to talk about merging renaming or redirecting. The current name clearly gives it purpose. Euphemisms are not needed. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:00, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Then you're saying that merging renaming or redirecting are not acceptable outcomes for AfD because that is what the current name clearly says. (I hope you can see the other side of the coin and realize this is not an assumption of bad faith or any such silliness just because I'm pointing out what your comment says to me). Technical 13 (talk) 22:31, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • And a problem right now is that merge and redirection discussions, even if they close with consensus to do something, lack the "purpose" that AFD offers, allowing any editor to revert the change without any weight of the consensus mattering. Having some backing decision at a central venue other than the article talk page (eg wide WP consensus) strengthens the weight of these discussions. --MASEM (t) 05:31, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I continue to oppose this idea for one simple reason: the most likely outcome of an afd discussion is deletion. We should not sugarcoat it and pretend it is just a discussion and anything might happen because this might actually discourage newer users from taking steps such as researching better sources and fixing an article that would otherwise have been deleted. in all honesty I have also always thought the whole concept that changing the name would change the way it works is a bit silly. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vicisious circle argument (that is, until we try it we have no idea if this is what would happen), and also against practice, since many current AFDs do end in merges and redirection. BEFORE arguments would still apply and problems with that handled in the same way. --MASEM (t) 05:31, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose (1) The argument "we can't call it Articles for Deletion because sometimes articles are merged" is fallacious: obviously there has to be some alternative to deletion or why would we have a debate? Should we only call it AfDeletion if all articles are always deleted? (2) The proposer seems to be advocating a change to the name without a change to the procedure: the current procedure is based around deletion (with rules that say you shouldn't propose an article if you think it can be saved). So it couldn't be renamed without reconstructing the AfD procedure. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:49, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clearly there would have to be some process changes made, but it doesn't make sense to talk about what those have to be until we have consensus if we should change the concept of the process to begin with. (Eg if consensus was determined tomorrow to make the change, it would probably take a few weeks to distill how it should be done properly). --MASEM (t) 15:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. There are far more outcomes to a discussion than deletion, and the title is overly hostile. Fiddle Faddle 15:51, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose (probably again). The change does not explain what the remit would be (which is vital if we don't want every article where these is disagreement taken to it), I don't see it as solving any existing problem. Sure, some articles are merged, that isn't sufficient reason to change the name to one that doesn't represent in any way the current system. DNR is basically "articles for discussion" already. AfD is for when the discussion, or dispute, is about whether the article should be deleted. We already have a system for requesting mergers without deletion. Dougweller (talk) 16:04, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The biggest problem right now for merge/redirects (eg we know we don't want to lose the content/contribution history but the standalone article is inappropriate) is that discussion is limited to the talk page of the page to be merged and the target. Right there, the audience that will see those discussions is nearly always immediately biased against the merge/redirect (not always, but more often than not). Yes, you could carefully get input from associated Wikiprojects as to avoid canvasing but more than likely the projects in question will have the same point. So outside of people that follow general merge discussions, these rarely go through. Merge discussion need a better venue because we are talking about conforming articles to global wiki standards, not project internal ones. DNR would likely falter under the weight of adding merge discussions. AFDeletion is about nearly all the same issues and the same resolution steps exist, in addition to the benefit of having deletion sorting that helps to broadcast relevant discussions to a broader set of topics. We could replicate AFD for "Merges for Discussion" and get the Deletion Sorting teams on that but that seems like duplication of an unnecessary process that is already set up. And since when discussing deletion and merging, the same concepts on sourcing and notability come up all the time, so it seems silly to separate their discussions. --MASEM (t) 16:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment This is not getting consensus in part because the proposed rename is too vague. We primarily, first-stop, discuss Articles on the pages where we Talk about them (that's the purpose of that page). We primarily do not take editing actions by tool use except where necessary. Those wanting this should regroup and revise (for example, why would we have a centralized discussion, at all, if the consensus at the article was to merge). It appears the AfD exists because it and only it requires uninvolved tools, and its inefficient for regular or involved editors to have a discussion about tool use on the talk page, whereas regular and involved editors can merge and redirect. So, perhaps an Articles Organization board with a section for proposals for deletion and a section for proposals for reorganization (the first section (Deletion) requiring no prior discussion, as currently, the second section (reorganization) requiring some prior discussion/consensus editing) -- or at least something that does not mixup what editors can do for themselves and when editors need uninvolved tool use. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:19, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation employees are members of the community, arbitrary break

It seems that many conflicts between the WMF and the community arise because the WMF tends to wait until community proposals are nearly or completely over before stating their opposition. They currently see themselves (generally speaking -- I don't want to speak for all of them) as a separate legislative body with veto power. In the best cases, they see the need for a second consensus determination to take place following a community discussion, where the WMF and the established community position are the two sides.

Wherever this notion came from, I think it requires changing. I'd like to create a policy that states, or reinforces (depending on your view), that WMF employees and representatives are community members who can participate in community proposal discussions -- and that they must do so, if they want their opinions to be considered in final outcomes, just as any community member should expect.

The ability to enforce this is, of course, questionable at best, should the Foundation disagree with it. Yet I feel enacting it would declare something important about the community's position regarding the way things are supposed to work, as well as document the source of the conflict, as we see it, that is bound to rear its ugly head in the future, for easy ongoing reference.

This is by no means a well-packaged static proposal. I welcome input on how it could be changed to make it more viable, useful, and perhaps even more likely to be accepted for future practice by the WMF. equazcion� | 00:49, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm not sure the only reason WMF employees don't participate is because of them as a "separate legislative body with veto powers." A fair number, I believe, don't because of accusations of trying to meddle in local wiki decisions, it is deemed very important to let the wiki be the wiki and (WMF) next to the name carries a lot of weight both for good and for ill. Many are admins on enwiki, but still put a firewall between their (WMF) personas and their established editor ones.

I think more fleshing out of this idea is in order. For instance, how would this statement scale across the hundreds or so wikis out there that are not enwiki? - tychay (tchay@wikimedia) (talk) 01:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I know that I personally don't engage in proposal discussions because of the following reasons:

1. I don't want to be seen as trying to "muscle" a conversation,
2. I often don't feel it is appropriate for me to get involved in a discussion (largely an offshoot of the first reason),
3. I often feel paralyzed about saying anything, because words I say are often read as a "de facto law" because of the staff position, and
4. Many staff - myself included - often feel that any comments we make will be met with extreme hostility and incivility that it's often just best to ignore the conversation entirely and actually just do your work.

We've also been trained that it doesn't matter what we say - someone will always disagree, and usually vehemently. It's very draining and frustrating when you have to keep a smile on your face while people call you an idiot. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you find that people aren't calling you an idiot now? :) (Just making a point about your argument; I'm not calling you an idiot). The point being, I think most of the reasons you specify occur 20-fold and with more dire consequences when you stay out and shoot things down afterwards ("you" being the foundation, not necessarily you personally), as evidenced by recent events. I think with a policy in place that the community establishes on its own based on broad input -- if we can indeed get it established -- we would end up with a generally altered and improved view of WMF employee participation in community proposals. equazcion� | 01:45, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (Warning: this is going to get a bit rambly and theoretical. Embark at your own risk.) If I'm understanding your point correctly (which I may not be doing), this is, at least theoretically, what the WMF hires Community Liaisons to do. It's the liaisons' job - again, theoretically - to speak for the Foundation to the community, and for the community to the Foundation. If the community holds an RFC on Project X, the Project X liaison's job is to participate in that RFC in an informatory capacity. In practice, this has turned out to be an exceptionally hit-or-miss idea, with CLs tending to publicly take the "side" of the WMF in on-wiki conversations while, I suspect, being shut out from active input into development in intra-WMF conversations. As a result, they're put in a position where they can't do anything the community wants done anyway, and find themselves being painted more and more as WMF shills by the community, which assumes they don't even try to pursue what the community wants. Recent comments by staffers that they feel it's not their place to join in community discussion are, I think, to some extent predicated on the idea that "hey, the codemonkeys code. the managers manage. the talky people talk to the community. when codemonkeys or managers talk to the community, things get screwed up." Which is sometimes true, but just as often, when the talky people talk to the community it's no better, because the talky people can't affect the code, which is what the community wants to talk about.

As far as a solution to that...I don't know. We're never going to get the devs to hold full-fledged RFCs on product features, and even if they could, I'm pretty sure they would refuse to, on the principle that they don't need our permission to work on Mediawiki. One possibility is charging the actual product engineers/managers with speaking for their teams rather than the WMF continuing to use CLs who lack the power to affect much of anything except community ill-will. And I don't mean Manager X telling underling Y "Go tell the community they can't have blah". I mean that the people with actual power to affect the product's development should be talking to us - and listening to us, in return - about the product. This might mean that more engineers/managers/singing porpoises needed to be hired, to pick up slack during the time in which the "liaison" engineers/managers/porpoises interact with the community, but that engagement time has value and should nevertheless be set aside.

Another possibility is increased liaison transparency. If the higher-ups cannot engage with the community themselves, they need to be responsible for engaging with their liaison and, in turn, the community's questions, thoughts, and wishes. Right now, that interaction is a black box to the community, and as a result we see "pushy" liaisons (and yes, occasionally product managers) hammering on WMF's preferences, but almost nothing about whether the actual decision makers are even being told about the community's preferences. We don't know if the talky people aren't passing the message, if they're passing a distorted message, if they pass the message but the managers ignore it, or whether so many people are involved in the game of telephone that what starts as "The community wants a sparkly purple umbrella" finishes as "The pony wants a fish." Quite how a transparent version of this could work, I don't know - CLs logging which messages they pass back and forth, somewhere onwiki? - but it's something worth considering.

At any rate, I think you do have something in your idea that the WMF needs to engage in community processes when it wants the community to accept its proposals. The real question is which part of the Foundation, at what level of power, and in how many voices? And how much does the WMF's !vote count in those discussions, compared to one community member, or to many? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:45, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The point is basically that the "codemonkeys or managers" already end up engaging the community with disastrous consequences. They may stay out of community proposals for fear of precisely that, but they end up doing so anyway, and at entirely the wrong time (after the community has come to its decision and feels it should be enacted). I'm proposing that the foundation consider the reality -- that they will be engaging the community, and that it's really only a question of when -- and that doing so during the community discussion is the more constructive option. Anyone at the the foundation who has an opinion on a proposal, and who would need to end up presenting it should a proposal gain community consensus, should instead participate in the discussion while it's ongoing. Limiting that participation to liaisons is not viable because it only provides a PR layer to tell the community what the WMF position is (as I understand it), when a discussion is a give-and-take that must include the possibility of all sides compromising and reconsidering their positions. equazcion� | 01:58, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

• If they are, then they need to be banned from the project for disruption: WP:Competence. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 02:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  And this is a great example of why we are loathe to comment on anything.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  This is a flame-free zone. There are several existing venues where you can go to pile on zings to the foundation. Jorm, and everyone, please take the high road and don't feed the trolls. We're trying to remain constructive here. equazcion� | 02:13, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

• I think the piece above is part of the problem. Vanisaac is not a troll, and nor are the rest of us who have been growing increasingly frustrated with the Foundation's heavy-handed treatment. It may not have been phrased in the best or most constructive way, but polite discussion didn't get the Foundation to listen. It took a "Damn it, if you won't do it we will" to get them to do what we unambiguously told them. It shouldn't have taken that kind of push; as soon as the consensus was apparent, that it would happen should have been a foregone conclusion. The same should have been true here, but that still hasn't been done, and the whiz-bang wowie this will solve it "new article interface" put forth as an "alternative" (read: "%@#!* you, we're doing it the way we say") hasn't solved anything. We still speedy hundreds of junk articles every day and delete countless more, and while most of the ones we get are from editors who were not interested in contributing constructively anyway, some are. One of the most recent is at Serenism. Obviously junk, obviously had to go. We were right to delete it. But the contributor was not acting in bad faith. They just didn't understand how it works here. Maybe making a few edits before a creation would have gotten them to understand it, and just maybe we would've retained that editor rather than driving them off. As it is, I'm stuck explaining to them "Well, yes, the article you wrote is junk and does need to go, and the bunch of deletion notices you've gotten are correct, but please do stick around and help us out. Really."
• It's time for the Foundation to realize that the volunteers who do this day in and day out (who they dismissively call "power users" and disregard, and who incidentally built the vast majority of their projects) actually know what those projects need. And apparently, politely telling them doesn't get that across. It's apparently time to show them in stronger terms. That's not trolling, it's the point WMF has brought it to. They've steadfastly refused to listen to asking politely, even with strong consensus. If they don't want the requests to become more strident, they need to listen in the first place.
• And yes, Foundation employees should be considered members of the community, just like every person on Earth is entitled to be. What they should not be is "supermembers", entitled to veto the consensus of the community because they hold technical control. As a means of comparison, I can go delete an article against consensus, or block an editor without consensus to do so, because I have those buttons. But the reason I'm entrusted with them is that the community knows I won't do that. If I start doing it, I'll be relieved of the ability to rather quickly, and I should be. Since WMF won't respect consensus voluntarily, it's apparently time to relieve them of that ability, too, as was done with Visual Editor. That's a shame, and I'm sorry it had to come to that, but it was the right thing to do. WMF is here to keep the lights on and the servers running, not to act as some type of ruling body. WMF cannot keep playing at I didn't hear you and expect anything but severe pushback and a total loss of community confidence and trust.
• As a final note, if WMF doesn't want to be seen as trying to "muscle" a conversation, it would be helpful to not, you know, do that. That would mean to implement the consensus of such conversations rather than throwing them casually to the roadside. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:52, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • So, can I take that as a "support" for this proposal? equazcion� | 02:56, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)
    • Absolutely. And in many cases, if WMF were to join a discussion, and say "We would like to commission an expert on this subject, could we suspend this discussion until we provide the community their report in X weeks?", they'd find the community intelligent enough to understand that more data is good and willing to work with that. What the community won't accept, and never will, is these heavy-handed overrules of clear consensus. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • "WMF is here to keep the lights on and the servers running" Our monthly reports make it pretty self-evident that our remit is clearly not limited to what you describe, and hasn't been for years. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 04:05, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Steven (WMF): If you're going to take that hyper-literally, no, obviously not. Nor did I mean it hyper-literally, and I would hope that was clear. My point was that it is WMF's job to serve its communities, not to rule them, and especially not to overrule them. It is similarly not WMF's place to decide that its existing dedicated volunteers are "power users" to be dismissed and blown off, and that some hypothetical out-there future editors are more important and that the seasoned volunteers do not in fact have any idea what they're doing. That's the exact kind of problematic attitude that's caused the blowups over the past couple of years, and eroded trust almost entirely between the community and WMF. So let me ask you this: What do you see as outside the WMF's responsibility, and how do you think WMF could have handled situations like ACTRIAL and the pushback to VE in a better way? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:13, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Point taken about literalism. However, people who work for the WMF and shape its direction, including the Board of Trustees and Sue Gardner (Sue will correct me if I am putting words in her mouth) have unequivocally said the WMF is not the servant of the communities, doing whatever it wants at all times. We are partners, with differing responsibilities and areas of expertise. Just like you don't want to be blown off as a "power user" with nothing to contribute and no say, we don't want to be blown off as a mere "servant of the community", filing paperwork on your behalf and dusting off servers. ;) In any case, I think you are right to ask for greater clarity about roles and responsibilities. This is a much larger and more nuanced topic than I can convey in this reply, to be honest, but characterizing the situation as a partnership, where each group has something to provide and the ability to have an equal voice in the conversation, is something that I think is the ideal. To answer your question about ACTRIAL etc. directly: yes, being equal partners means that sometimes we are going to overrule a bad idea. Other times, like here with rolling back VE to opt-in for registered people and not at all for anons, we are going to acquiesce to something we honestly don't want to do, in the name of not continuing to escalate an issue more unnecessarily. What the VE team wants is to make VE great, and having talked to them today, they sincerely hope that the current state of the configuration will be a step that gives them room to do that, rather than continuing to debate about the previous mistakes in the rollout. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 04:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • Well, then, to answer you directly: You didn't overrule a "bad idea" with ACTRIAL. You overruled a good idea with a bad idea (the new article creation interface). If you'll see my above comment, we've still got a flood of junk articles coming in, sucking time out of volunteers and admins and steadily driving off new editors as their attempts get nuked from orbit. The community knew what was needed (experience before attempting creation), and the WMF patted our heads and said they knew better. It's failed miserably, but that's not figured into anything, and WMF is still pretending to have gotten it right. That's the problem with the idea of a "partnership"—even after that abject failure, WMF hasn't turned around and said "Oh, our way really did fail, guess time to try yours." A relationship where one party can unilaterally overrule the other, and is willing for any reason to exercise that ability, is not a "partnership", it is a dictatorship. The only reason VE got changed is because we forced the issue, after the creation of an ocean of ill will and bad blood. The community could force ACTRIAL with the abuse filter, and it may come that we have to do that, too, after the problem continues long enough and you refuse to see your "fix" didn't fix it. That sucks, and it's a terribly poor way to do things, but it seems the only thing WMF responds to is force if what we ask for isn't what you intended to do anyway or at least a minor variant on it. Major deviations from what WMF thinks best, even if strongly supported, get a rote and apparently immutable NO.
            • So, do you want to be partners, and give on major issues that strongly matter to the community even when you don't think they're the decision you would have made? Or would you prefer to hold the power to make an absolute overrule, and continue to grow the rift between WMF and the communities they depend on? You can't have both. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:09, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I believe it's difficult for WMF employees and contractors to join in discussions because of the animosity directed at them. These are the folks that put in countless hours to keep the servers running, the software updated, add new features, fix bugs, etc. but are often treated poorly. It's difficult to put you blood, sweat and tears in to something and then be criticised for it. I think this same basic problem is a significant part of the reason new editors don't want to join Wikipedia. As an IP, I am very familiar with this. The hostility problem has been around for years. As just one example, see Bullypedia, A Wikipedian Who’s Tired of Getting Beat Up, which lead to the WP:NEWT experiment back in 2009. Things have only gotten worse since then. The media often report on Wikipedia's hostility. People will only take so much abuse before they simply stop participating. Perhaps if we could fix the hostility issue, more people would join in. Just a thought. My contribs for those that have difficulty following the WP:AGF guideline. 64.40.54.225 (talk) 02:55, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The possible wider WP:BITE issue is not something I'm hoping to address here. I think the WMF vs. community issue is a small piece we can maybe bite off and chew sensibly for the time being. There is of course a longstanding rivalry that won't be resolved overnight, but establishing a policy may at least give it a decent start. equazcion� | 03:01, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

• I've had the opportunity to meet quite a few WMF staff over the past couple of years. To a person, they *care* about the WMF projects; I don't mean they see them as their livelihood, they really care about what the editors think, about how to make the projects better and easier to use, about trying to understand what makes both editors and projects tick. And a lot of them find the community, particularly the English Wikipedia community, quite overwhelming. I think we have to be honest with ourselves and admit that there have been a lot of examples of poor behaviour on the part of some editors directed at WMF staff; in fact, I've commented on one example tonight and read half a dozen more. Just like in any other communication medium, even if there are 10 positive or neutral comments, the one that everyone remembers is the flame. We need to do more to actively discourage this kind of behaviour, at all levels.

  I was at Wikimedia this year, and the conversation that made the greatest impression on me was one where a young engineer was telling me about his work; I didn't understand half of what he was saying, but I recognized that faraway, dreamy look of a man who loves what he does, is thrilled that it's improved the user experience and can hardly wait to do something else that will have the same effect. I think it's easy to forget that only a few years ago, the total WMF staff would have fit around my dining room table (well, if I put all the leaves in) - and now we have a really robust staff that is working to fix problems that have been identified for years. (Yeah, I know, it's not "our" staff. But most of what they're working on is designed to help *us*, and there are very few vanity projects around.) I think there is a lot of good work being done on a daily basis that we've already grown so used to that we don't even notice it. A lot of things do work better and more consistently and more reliably and more straightforwardly than they did a few years ago. That doesn't happen without people caring about what they're doing. Risker (talk) 06:03, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Risker That's pretty and all, but how bout the proposal? ;) I think talking about how one party in this may have mistreated the other invites comments about who started it, even if placing blame wasn't your intention. I rather look at this as a situation where hostilities were bound to crop up due to errors in the de facto "system". equazcion� | 11:09, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

• @ Risker, Equazcion a lot of them find the community, particularly the English Wikipedia community, quite overwhelming – if only we had a modern discussion system that made it easy to comment on proposals instead of having to wade through a wall of text to find where to insert your comment, then calculate how many colons you need in order to indent properly, then persevere through 5 edit conflicts... /me whistles, walks away... :)

But seriously, I think before we have a conversation about getting staff involved in proposals and other community discussions, we should be up-front about the fact that there's a sizable chunk of non-staff community members whose voices aren't represented in these discussions at all. If you take a look at this study of bytes added to various namespaces by cohort of users from a couple years back, you can see that users who joined Wikipedia in 2006/7 are significantly overrepresented in the Wikipedia namespace (WP and WP talk), where the VPs and many RfCs are located. There are plenty of new users and even experienced users who have been editing for years and never get involved in these big meta-discussions; hence they get no say on matters of new feature trial and adoption – and I'm pretty sure it's not because they don't care. Building tools like Flow to make it easier and more inviting for them to voice their concerns/feedback early and often is part of the solution; recognizing our systemic bias (as experienced Wikipedians, as staffers, as whatever) and not getting caught up in an echo chamber is a far more difficult hurdle to leap, but it's just as necessary. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 02:54, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what this has to do with the current discussion, but saying the technical discussion system is the reason for lack of participation is an assumption, and one I don't subscribe to. I think many people either indeed do not care about certain issues, or at least feel they don't understand them enough to get involved. That's not something a new forum system is likely to solve. Either way, I think this is a bit off point. We're talking about the WMF vs. community interaction for major proposals. equazcion� | 03:06, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

On this, Equazcion and I agree. In fact, there is no research that indicates that experienced editors who don't participate in discussions fail to do so because they don't like the format of the talk pages. I think you're trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear with that analogy, Maryana. As well, your correlations are faulty: more currently active users joined in 2006/07 than at any other time in Wikipedia history; as I recall, this cohort is pretty much equivalent to all active users who joined in all other years combined on this project. So, I think if you're going to make an assertion that essentially accuses people from the 2006/07 cohort of freezing out all other users, you'd better have some hard data including independent studies that support such an opinion. Given the quality of much of the research that has been done by the WMF, and the rather absurd ways in which some of it is being used (e.g., using data from pre-Vector small-group studies to justify systemic changes in 2013, or even some of the studies being used for Flow), and the amount of digging required to find even the most basic statistical information on the users of the WMF projects, there's good reason not to rely on the data coming from within. Risker (talk) 04:20, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, how about a paper published in American Behavioral Scientist, co-authored by John Riedl? Two of the authors went on to become WMF staffers later on, but maybe you can find it in your heart to forgive them for this callous misstep? :) If you're still not convinced and believe that this particular discussion we're having right now is perfectly representative of the opinions and interests of all Wikipedia community members (however you define community), and that the people who aren't present are choosing not to participate, I'm afraid the burden of proof rests with you now, as I've given you two sources, and you've yet to provide anything other than anecdotal evidence. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Risker is only talking about "experienced editors who don't participate in discussions". The research you're citing is about new editors. We have some evidence at the top of this page that even experienced editors can't always figure out where discussions are happening, even if the talk page format is no mystery to them: just look at the proportion of people in the first section who didn't realize that the Notability Noticeboard even existed, even though that noticeboard has been listed at the top of all the administrator's noticeboard pages since 2009, in addition to prominent links at the relevant guideline pages. Even though the talk page format is not a significant barrier for the smaller group of users that Risker is talking about, I don't believe that we are justified in assuming that every experienced editor who wants to particpate in making a decision is actually able to participate. You have to know that the discussion is happening before you are able to participate. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maryana, I find it somewhat ironic for people representing flow to be talking about listening. How strong was the feedback to the Flow team that they had to provide the capability to completely expand all wikitext markup, including templates and math, in a Flow-based discussion? Can you point me at any commitment anywhere that states that the Flow project views complete expansion of wikitext markup, including templates and math, as a design requirement? It's possible that I missed a statement on the subject, so I await your reply before proceeding.—Kww(talk) 17:49, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Kww, You do watch WP:Flow, right? I updated it earlier this week to point to the latest prototype, which fully supports wiki text; there's a set of screenshots on Flow portal talk showing that it handles math and IPA and all that good stuff just fine. This has been out on the wikis for weeks. Finally, it's right there in the MVP doc – take a look. Short of my chiseling this into a stone tablet and/or climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spiderman, anything more you need to clear this up, or are we good? :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:31, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer you not to. However, writing it everywhere doesn't seem like a bad idea. Maybe that would silence the critics. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 20:38, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You pointed me at a discussion that began with "What wikitext will and will not be supported is a difficult question" and a document that contains "allowing users to copy-paste markup for most templates and advanced wiki syntax (math, IPA symbols, etc.) into their comments" (emphasis added). Surely you see the difference between that and a commitment that "the Flow project views complete expansion of wikitext markup, including templates and math, as a design requirement", don't you, Maryana? I think that's my major objection: we express what we view as requirements, and they get phrased as objectives with substantial wiggle-room. After the VE fiasco, I'm suspicious of wiggle room.—Kww(talk) 20:46, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• • • Seriously? I think it's a fairly horrible idea, given the fact that it only takes one Wikipedian running wild and throwing around ad hominem comments to make any discussion feel like an insurmountable battlefield to WMF staffers, particularly when there aren't a lot of Wikipedians participating (q.v. WT:FLOW). And in discussions with dozens if not hundreds of people participating, it's almost impossible for anyone, including WMF staff, to keep up with the conversation, what's being proposed, what alternatives are going to fly, and so on. Further, it's not unusual for WMF staffers not to be notified of discussions. At the end of the day, there *are* some things that this community really has no business poking its nose into in an authoritative, "you must do things our way" sense (we don't have a place in having the final decision on what's stored on which server or where those servers are located, for example), and plenty of situations where there *has* been plenty of community participation that simply hasn't drawn the attention of the community as a whole (e.g., the move to Lua, and quite a few other changes directed to those who contribute technically but that have no effect on the editing interface). And I do not believe that this single community has the right to direct the work of WMF staff who we do not employ, supervise, recompense, or set objectives for. So no, I don't support the proposal as written, but I do believe that WMF staff are members of the community. Risker (talk) 13:47, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• To indulge an analogy, this proposal is like saying the continent of Europe is part of the community of the people of the United Kingdom. True, in a way, from an environmental, sociological, etc. perspective but still subject to many other forces then the votes of some of those people, or their representatives at Brussels. And in the end its all still in Europe. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:11, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I have given this a lot of thought over the past year or so, and I haven't arrived at any proper conclusion yet. I would definitely prefer it if the employees of the foundation are part of the wikimedia community. One of the problems is that the WikiMedia community is ill defined. Basically everyone who feels at home with the WikiMedia spirit and works on anything Wikimedia related is a wikimedian. So that makes all employees community members by default. Still I get the feeling they don't often feel it. An indication of this is that WMF employees talk about the community/ies quite often, as if they were no part of them. I feel a lot for the partnership model, but it is difficult to be partners if your partner has the power to overrule any decision if they would want to. At the same time, the employees are governed by the same basic principles we follow that make us all wikimedians. So what I have often asked myself is the following: when trouble stirs, and for example the English wikipedia editing community disagrees with the foundation, what should happen? One thing that is important, at least to me, within the Wikimedia movement is that you own your actions, and you don't do things you think are bad for the project. So when the editing community comes to a point where they want a change to be made, and the technical person they ask to carry it out is vehemently opposed to it, and think it will harm the project, what should they do? As a wikimedian, isn't it their responsibility that they refuse to carry it out, if they believe it is wrong? I think so. But then again, it puts us in a very skewed power balance, where employees of the WMF control the servers that run the content projects, and in the end, what happens on the servers controls everything.
  This has led me to believe that WMF employees should be part - as equals - in more projects alongside non-WMF employees. That might put the balance back again a little. But that leads to another problem: while we can encourage, we can't force anyone to take part in any project. We can also integrate more the other way round: more non-wmf people working on traditionally wmf-led projects: server and network administration, legal, and software engineering. The problem with that is that we try that all the time, but it's not really working. They need almost full time dedication to do right, and if a volunteer is both capable and willing to invest in that, the WMF quite reasonably looks to hire them. So what do we do? I don't know.
  So to your question, I vote support, and, er, good luck with it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:44, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from the new product manager at the WMF

I've been working at the Wikimedia Foundation for two weeks now. In that time, I've been taught a lot by my colleagues about the things the Foundation has failed at. I mean this quite literally; it was not a wishy washy discussion, or a discussion spun to suit an corporate agenda, it was explicitly "Here is a list of things the Foundation has failed at". I was very impressed by this attitude. The most echoed of those failings is community engagement. Multiple staff members, including those on the VisualEditor team, have recognised that the Foundation has not engaged enough with the community, and more crucially, that it has not engaged early enough with the community. James has explicitly stated that failing here. In recognising where it has failed, the Foundation has taken the first steps to fixing the problem. The specific next steps aren't clear. Erik has, quite eloquently (pun intentional), laid out a potential course of action that was discussed in the past few weeks. Further discussion is still taking place on our end.

On the other hand, in my opinion, a failing of the community is that some community members are incredibly hostile towards Foundation staff. It's quite easy to forget that almost all of the staff you see on the wiki, responding to the community, are long term community members. I've lost sight of this myself, once or twice. My point is that all of us have the best interests of the Wikimedia projects at heart. Perhaps you adamantly disagree with the actual implementation of that interest. That's fine. In fact, that kind of disagreement is healthy, as it encourages debate. However, letting rage take you over does not help matters, as it often obscures the point you're making. I've always found that when it comes to Wikimedia projects, calmly, concisely stating your point, and providing evidence to back your statements up, is far more effective in convincing people of coming around to your way of thinking than making grand statements about how everything is being done wrong and getting angry about it.

In summary, I think the Wikimedia Foundation recognises its failings, and is interested in ways to move forwards. The Foundation has made new employees such as myself aware of these failings so that we are less likely to repeat them. I am happy that this discussion is taking place, as it's constructively looking at ways that the lines of communication can be improved. There've been quite a few salient points raised already. I'm hopeful that something will come of this discussion.

--Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 04:09, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The Foundation may have internally acknowledged failure, but towards the English Wikipedia, these acknowledgments are always too little, too late, and too wishy-washy. Take the one by JdForrester you link to: while supposedly apologising (but blaming his failure on "off-line comments"), he at the same time states " I'd note that the community has banned users for accusing each other of 'weasel' words in the past, as you just did". Great way to win back hearts, and all this hot on the heels of his (paraphrased) "I have implemented the opt-in because your solution ruined Wikipedia, but you are bad puppies who are wasting the money of our donors". So, in his opinion, the only failing is that he should have told the English Wikipedia earlier that the RfC was a waste of time and that no one was planning on implementing the consensus of it anyway, not that he should have taken the concerns of the English Wikipedia community more to heart and should have recognised the serious and widespread concerns we had instead of giving us a cosmetic pat on the head.

In summary, I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation recognises its failings at all (or at least didn't until we forced them with the opt-in change, perhaps this has changed something), and is repeating them at a high rate over the last few weeks (the amount of comments by WMF employees which blamed things on the English Wikipedia which were entirely to blame on the WMF and the VE instead is staggering). I believe we are interested in ways to move forward as well, but I at least would like some constructive proposals by the WMF. Fram (talk) 14:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Dan, I think you need to reread James's statement in a more jaded light, and you will see why it got the negative reaction it got. VE is regarded as bug-ridden and a sufficiently major threat to Wikipedia that it needed to be returned to the lab. There's no way to read the RFC and not see that. Our consensus on that was unprecedented: never in the history of English Wikipedia have so many users come to an agreement on anything. The actions I took over the last week are also unprecedented: I'm not aware of any previous event where the community has come together and agreed to modify the scripting files to consciously and intentionally defeat the will of the WMF. We could do that for many things: we could turn article creation off for new users, prevent anonymous editors from editing, all kinds of things, but we don't, and I could never get consensus to do any of those things. I wouldn't even try.

On this topic, though, the community gave emphatic support, and I did the unprecedented. And at that point, the WMF lashed out. It didn't acknowledge that it had been wrong to keep VE deployed. It didn't acknowledge that forcing the community to support its development effort at that level was wrong. No, none of that. It lashed out at me, claiming that I had deployed "known broken software" and had "ignored warnings about the damage it would cause." That's simply false: the software behaved as designed (with one known and relatively inconsequential limitation due to it being on the client side), and every piece of feedback that Catrope supplied about actual damage was listened to and acted upon before deployment. Even yesterday, well after the fact, you can see that the Erik was making statements that reflected an analysis of a week-old version of the code that I floated prior to testing, prior to announcements of impending deployment, and prior to review by anyone. Basically, I was accused of ignoring review when in fact, the WMF was ignoring the fact that I was responding to review and retesting the code carefully prior to deployment.

If you want to improve communication, a big part of that involves acknowledging mistakes and apologizing for them sincerely. One mistake that I'm still waiting for an apology on is being accused of recklessly risking damage to Wikipedia.—Kww(talk) 19:04, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you think that some Wikipedians are uncivil towards the representatives of WMF, then act accordingly. Warn them on their user talk pages, report them at WP:ANI, start user RFCs, go to Arbitration committee... Otherwise, if you are doing nothing to stop the incivility you do notice, maybe you shouldn't complain if the rest of Wikipedians do the same thing (and about the incivility they do not notice, or consider to be insignificant - that should be assumed per WP:AGF)..?

Or, if you want appeal to some larger group of editors asking them to change their rhetoric, maybe you should state what you do not like in that rhetoric in a little more detail? And how things could be said better? Try using some examples. That would make your criticism much more useful.

For otherwise I look at the post I am writing here with little idea if you would consider it to be an example of that "incredible hostility" you are talking about. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:56, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Martynas Patasius.

In my observations as a volunteer, I've seen that civility enforcement is already a complex social issue. Warnings for civility are often empty threats, and the effectiveness of civility blocks is questionable. Considering how people are responding to the Foundation at present, and considering that those who are most likely to be uncivil are also those who would be criticising us, how do you feel people would respond to the Foundation responding to this criticism with warnings for civility? I think there would be a large outcry. I'm afraid I don't see how your solution is workable at all.

Examples of things which I think are needlessly hostile are calling for people to be fired and calling Foundation employees names. My solution is simply not to do those things, and comment on the matters at hand instead. This is in line with the long standing practice we have of not commenting on contributors.

With regards to whether your post is hostile, I would say that it is self-evident that it is not. The definition of hostile that I have here is "unfriendly; antagonistic". Your post was neither of these things.

Best regards,

--Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:34, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "civility enforcement is already a complex social issue" is not a bad way to explain things... But that's the point: if the community is not very good at keeping any discussions civil, why is it a "special" problem when it is not able to keep discussions with WMF representatives civil? And, from what I have seen, those discussions are not that uncivil - there are much worse cases...

In other words, if you said that incivility is a problem of the ones who are uncivil, you would have made a legitimate point. But when you said "On the other hand, in my opinion, a failing of the community is that some community members are incredibly hostile towards Foundation staff." and ended up creating an impression that you are accusing the whole community for the failings of the few, your point is no longer legitimate. I would recommend to retract or (far more likely) clarify it.

Then let's look at the examples: "Examples of things which I think are needlessly hostile are calling for people to be fired and calling Foundation employees names.". Name-calling is a standard example of incivility and is to be discouraged - at the very least. But then, I do not happen to remember many examples of it. There was something on WP:AN, I think, but, as I remember, it did get a response. I can think of no other clear examples at the moment. On the other hand, I am not sure that "calling for people to be fired" would have to be considered to be uncivil in all cases. After all, the precedent is that it is not uncivil to call for people to be blocked, banned, "desysopped" - by itself (though it can easily become uncivil without justification). Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to actually block, ban or "desysop" anyone. Are you sure that a call for someone to be fired must be that much worse..? (Yes, I think it is an arguable position, but are you willing to argue in favour of it now..? To say that working for WMF is "a big deal"..? I don't think it is a right time for that...) Maybe in some cases it would not be "uncivil", but just, let's say, "unfriendly"..?

And that's a further point: are you really saying that in discussions with "normal" Wikipedians, administrators, arbitrators we must be merely "civil", but in discussions with WMF representatives we must also be "friendly"..? And the requirement is unconditional - just as one must be "civil" even if one's opponent is not? (Yes, when Jorm is saying "It's very draining and frustrating when you have to keep a smile on your face while people call you an idiot.", he seems to be complaining about something expected of all of us.) If so, why should that be the case..? And shouldn't the representatives of WMF be unconditionally "friendly" as well..?

Anyway, if you are not going to do anything about the incivility and unfriendly relations on the community side (with exception of rather general calls for civility), there might be something you can do on WMF side. For example, in this thread (and in WP:AN) we have an instance of a member of community calling a representative of WMF incompetent. In return the representative of WMF has expressed his, er, lack of happiness... Bad idea. By the way, calling someone incompetent is also not uncivil in all cases. It is uncivil without justification. And that is what the WMF representative should have asked for. Let's say: "I am sorry to hear that you think I am incompetent. Could you, please, explain me the problems you see with my competence in more detail..?". Most likely, that would have defused the situation. So, can you get your team to act in that way..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:28, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Shameless plug for a page I created

It's at WP:Wikimedia Foundation, and it is intended to document/help communication about some of these things. For example, see Wikipedia:WMF#Reception, which anyone can edit, since it's Wikipedia. If we can come to a consensus version of what the Wikimedia Foundation has done in the past that affects the English Wikipedia, that might set up a useful framework to build community discussion upon. WMF employees and contractors are invited to edit the page as well, without prejudice. In fact, I'd argue that if you work for the WMF and you feel like you can't edit the page, then that's part of the problem. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I for one don't know what the story is behind the ACTRIAL thing, so could someone incorporate that? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:15, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ACTRIAL (Autoconfirmed Creation Trial) was a proposal to temporarily try disallowing page creation by non-autoconfirmed editors. It was passed by the community but then vetoed by the foundation, similar to the Visual Editor situation -- but in the ACTRIAL case the community didn't have a recourse to move ahead anyway, so ACTRIAL didn't end up happening. Many people were and still are sore about this (it wasn't very long ago). The sequence of events there is one of the prime examples of the issue I described initially. equazcion� | 11:42, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

ACTRIAL's objective was to require the WMF to change the actual user permissions structure so that non-autoconfirmed accounts could not create pages in a specific namespace (i.e., article space). This is what the WMF turned down. As well, it was designed to redirect attempts by non-autoconfirmed users trying to create articles to articles for creation, which was a fairly ridiculous concept given that almost nobody works those pages. One of the core reasons for wanting to do this was that new page patrol got backlogged easily and unreviewed changes "fell off" the queue after about 30 days. Instead of doing this, the WMF made major changes to the software for new page patrol, which keeps all unreviewed changes in the queue regardless of the length of time they exist, better tracks the actions taken, allows one-click communication with the article creator, and (surprise surprise) isn't nearly as backlogged as the old NPP system. Their alternative was a much better idea, and it works better for the project. Let's get over ourselves about ACTRIAL. Risker (talk) 13:58, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's helpful for the purposes of this particular discussion to go back to judging the merits of any specific example. ACTRIAL had a broad consensus that the community was excited about and the foundation shot it down afterwards. Whether or not you think it was a good idea, it's an example of how things go badly, and how they'll continue to go badly, unless something changes in the system for WMF and the community addressing each other when major changes are on the table. equazcion� | 14:10, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

See now, this is what I mean. You're stuck on "we had a solution we liked, even if it required the entire reworking of the permissions structure of the entire MediaWiki interface, just to deal with an annoyance applicable only to this project", instead of "we got a better solution in the long run". I get the vision that was behind the idea. I also get that the technical solution proposed was a major change that would affect the entire MediaWiki structure. It's particularly true when the "decision" completely ignored the real problem, which was the new page patrol software. The problem wasn't new users creating pages. We shouldn't build (or make major changes to) software for philosophical reasons, and we have to carefully analyse the causes of problems rather than pinning our flags to the first "cool" solution that comes along; I think that should be what the takeaway was there. Risker (talk) 16:43, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Arguing about past successes and failures of past projects will contribute nothing to the discussion. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 16:53, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Except that when you are actually trying to use those "past successes and failures" as a rationale for a proposal, it is necessary to assess them honestly. One can't say "Look at how you failed X", then complain we shouldn't look at X when it's pointed out that it wasn't failed to begin with. — Coren ^(talk) 18:28, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No one's saying "look how you failed". Well, at least I'm not. I responded to mention of ACTRIAL because it's an example of how the system failed. I don't care whether it was a good or bad idea. I don't care if the alternative that came afterwards was better or worse. I don't care who says the community was at fault, and I don't care who says the foundation was at fault. I also don't care who had more of a right to be angry. I just don't care. It's completely irrelevant here. ACTRIAL was simply an incident that deepened the hostilities between the WMF and the community; it's a theme we're seeing repeat itself with VE and there's plenty reason to think it will do so again in the future with other proposals. Disregarding all of your (the general "you", nobody in particular) repeated crap recycled from other discussions that you've all made more than clear ad nauseum already (as have I), let's focus on the systemic flaw that causes these things to happen (and NOT on blaming either party).

Just for the record, at the Default State RFC I supported it remaining open for anonymous users. Think about this before you develop another urge to comment on the wisdom or stupidity of either the community's or the WMF's ideas. It's just not about that. There's something larger to discuss here, and if you can't get your head out of the merits of some proposal or another where one side pissed you off, kindly let others handle this particular discussion. equazcion� | 18:59, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Except that it is ultimately about exactly this; the occasions where the community and the engineering staff clash revolve around two scenarios: either something some segment of the community wants is vetoed by engineering, or something the foundation wants is objected to by some segment of the community. Unless you confront the reasons why that happen, no systemic overhaul can be successful; and you must do that by analyzing the result and fallout of past occurrences. This proposal would have done nothing to change the outcome of that particular incident, for instance, and it's not clear to me that it would have improved the roll out of VE either because it does nothing to address the core issue (that is, different priorities). — Coren ^(talk) 19:25, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The actual precedent set here is different. If "ACTRIAL" came up again and was scorned by the WMF, the result would probably be that an admin with a RC-watching bot would simply set it to copy-and-dump the new page into the new user's userspace, delete the article, and drop a note on their talk explaining why... all in the name of "implementing community consensus". The WMF botched customer relations just that badly now (remembering that the people who edit are absolutely the client when it comes to the editing interface). --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 21:31, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree, but...

So, I've always approached this discussion with an interesting perspective as a community member turned staff member (as are a not-insignificant number of others). I still consider myself a member of the community, so things like transparency and consensus are very important to me. I don't disagree that there can be tension between people when we're on different sides of consensus. In the end I always remember that it'll work out eventually because we're all on the same side and here for the same reason. The one thing I'd like people to keep in mind is the tons of work that goes on by developers (paid and volunteer) that largely goes unnoticed--many many bugfixes and features go out every single week without a hitch. Sure new big things can have hiccups, but that's part of the fun of developing software :) ^demon^{[omg plz]} 18:24, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For the cases we're concerned with for the purposes of this discussion, things work out in the end because one side overrules another via technical means, with the other remaining quietly embittered. I actually don't consider such results an example of things having worked out, and I don't think anyone should. equazcion� | 19:12, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Count me amongst the "quietly embittered". Eric Corbett 19:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A hiccup is when your text is blue when you wanted it black. I don't consider pushing something out that can't handle basic functions a hiccup. That's something that wasn't ready to go beyond a mid-sized beta test. Intothatdarkness 14:51, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Things we can do

We can appeal to more editors to volunteer to test the software. We can write an appeal in the Signpost and put appeals for volunteers on noticeboards for WikiProjects and the like. We can ask for volunteers to achieve modest but specific goals ("This week, please make ten edits using the Visual Editor and then put your feedback on the feedback page") and we can increase the prominence of the link to opt in to the Visual Editor.—S Marshall T/C 20:51, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VE had many testers before it launched to the entire project. Many things were solved, but many were also not solved prior to the launch. At the date of the launch there were somewhere in the hundreds of open, unresolved bugs. Some might've been minor, but as we can see, community (and each of us as individuals) saw how error-prone it was. tl;dr testing doesn't always fix things. Killiondude (talk) 03:38, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does testing ever fix things? I thought fixing things fixed things. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:49, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also note that comparatively little testing was taking place until VE was made the default editor because, absent the ability to use templates or add references, it was not terribly useful. Those two key components were added at the same time as the switch to default, meaning that core functionality had zero beta testing before the switch to production. This was, in and of itself, a major failure to follow even the most basic beta testing practices. Having said that, I do intend to continue to test VE where possible. As Killiondude and MZMcBride correctly point out, though, testing does not equal fixing. Risker (talk) 04:57, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• That's accepted, folks, but it rather misses the point. We've had conflict between the community and the WMF. What's important is that the conflict ends and we get back to co-operating, and that means listening to the other side's concerns and reacting to them. As I understand it, the WMF's concern that we can do something constructive about right now is that with the Visual Editor set to opt-in rather than opt-out, not enough testing will happen. Therefore what we, the community, can do right now to heal whatever perceived rift might exist, is take constructive steps to get more testing done and more feedback given. It's an attempt at a bury-the-hatchet-and-move-on approach, you see.—S Marshall T/C 08:28, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• But they are rolling it out to what, 20 new Wiki versions this week? Let them be the guinea pigs for a change, together with the other Wikipedia language versions that have VE and haven't made it opt-in yet (French, Italian, ...). If these wiki-versions combined don't provide enough testing, then I'ld like to know why. Plus, there are anough serious open bugs to keep the developers busy for quite a while before a new, much improved version can be presented for renewed testing anyway. At least, that's what one would expect in a normal environment. Fram (talk) 08:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Along with the appalling change management proceedures that initially brought it to us all without choice, I found VE unacceptably slow for doing almost anything. I'm always keen to try new things, but am hesitant about VE until it becomes a lot faster. HiLo48 (talk) 09:06, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It's only to be expected that many people, for many reasons, will not want to participate in the testing, or will question the technical need for it. I can't participate in the technical discussion because I lack the relevant expertise; but when the WMF representatives tell me the opt-in conclusion is a problem because they're concerned about testing, I'm prepared to (a) accept that at face value and (b) come up with suggestions about how we could try to persuade people to engage with the testing process. I do understand what you're feeling, and I have expressed the same concerns as HiLo48 about the product and the process. Still, there's a rift that needs healing and what we, the community, can do right now to heal it is to take constructive steps to get more testing done and more feedback given.—S Marshall T/C 12:08, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Sadly, I no longer accept anything the WMF says at face value. But even believing them, why would I care? I'm concerned about the encyclopedia, the quality of the articles, the quality of edits. IPs testing new software in it on a large scale is not beneficial (in toto, individual edits may of course be beneficial). The WMF have done zilch to heal that rift (enabling the opt-in after we had an opt-in procedure is not something I count as a positive step, certainly not in the way it was presented here); let them make some first attempts. Enough testing has been done, enough feedback has been given (and often ignored); once the major problems have been solved, they can come back and ask us whether we would be willing to open up a bit more again. There is no reason at all to do that now though. When they think they have solved the major nowiki, file, table, ref, redlink, infobox, IE, ... problems, then a new round of more large-scale testing may be appropriate. Until then, they can use the test wiki or any other wiki that is willing to be their playground. Fram (talk) 12:29, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My personal intention is to wait until the most critical bugs in the backlog are fixed (table editing and some version of cut-and-paste) and then I will start testing it extensively.—Kww(talk) 15:24, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Unfortunately, when VE debuts, it will be up to the editors who only edit in source code to clean up the mess of wikimarkup that VE leaves behind. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 15:35, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki forking

I mentioned this once a long time ago, and it seems somewhat relevant again. Another root problem that may be present is the difference between what's good for the generally distributed MediaWiki software and each individual Wikimedia wiki. Whereas once they were one in the same, MediaWiki and English Wikipedia are basically two different projects with perhaps somewhat differing priorities now, and complications may have arisen because they're still managed as one.

This is just food for thought at this point, but I was thinking that large WMF wikis with capable community developers could have volunteer bodies of developers manage their own MediaWiki forks. The Foundation's MediaWiki changes could be reviewed by the fork teams, who would then decide whether to implement which patches into their forks, based on community input and testing. The fork teams could also develop their own patches, which the Foundation could decide whether or not to incorporate into the MediaWiki distributable. equazcion� | 04:37, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki and Wikimedia projects are in fact not really managed as one. MediaWiki and Wikimedia projects are released separately, and there's lots of work that goes on which is not driven or owned by Wikimedia Foundation employees or editors of Wikimedia projects. The vision you're describing, where code is passed back and forth between MediaWiki as a general software distribution and Wikimedia projects, is basically the status quo. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 07:37, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's really not the status quo though. English Wikipedia is still not independent of the whims of WMF developers as to whether or not "updates" to the software are implemented or not. The problem with the VE rollout is largely that en.wiki was treated as a testing sandbox for the developers, instead of as an independent project with its own culture and goals that might not be the same as that of WMF. Placing the responsibility for decisions on updates and changes on-wiki would give the largest and most visible wikimedia project the ability to say "we want to enact ACTrial", and WMF would be able to say "let us know when you figure out how to do that". On the other hand, this community could say "hey, VE is not ready for prime time yet, let us know when it has the functionality we need", and WMF can still do its thing through other projects that aren't mature enough to govern themselves, or that have a community more tolerant of experimental tools. As long as the people in charge of implementing changes to the mediawiki software on en.wiki are beholden to the WMF and not this project, there are going to continue to be fiascoes like the VE rollout. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 12:41, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vanisaac pretty much nails it here. equazcion� | 13:05, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Not quite. You both are missing the larger picture, I think. Currently configuration of Wikimedia wikis is done by editing PHP files directly (exposed at <https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/>). This includes edit rate limits, enabling extensions, adjusting project logos, etc. If someone were to spend the necessary time and energy to put these settings behind a proper user interface, stewards (or even local bureaucrats) could be empowered to make changes on a per-wiki basis. Forking MediaWiki and other such topics are tangential and probably unhelpful. Giving wikis control over their own settings is the goal, so why not simply do that? mw:Requests for comment/Configuration database has some relevant notes. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Developing an interface could offer individual control over certain settings, but would be much more limited. If an individual wiki decided it required a change not predicted by those who developed the interface, they would still have to appeal to the foundation developers, who may or may not see it as something worth the effort to develop for the MediaWiki distributable. Giving individual wikis control to edit the PHP files of their own MediaWiki forks would offer the same control plus a lot more. There's also the question of how the Foundation's MediaWiki patches would be handled in your scenario -- would each change entail a new setting that the individual wikis could turn on and off, and who would decide which patches required such a setting? I visualize there still not being the requisite separation of interests with your scenario. equazcion� | 14:44, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

You seem to have a flawed view of how MediaWiki (and Wikimedia) development works. I think you should get involved in order to better understand what you're discussing. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 14:59, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I do have a flawed view, especially as Steve Walling appears to think this is how things work already. Either way your response isn't all that helpful. If you want to point out specifically what you think makes my suggestion infeasible you may attempt to explain your thinking. equazcion� | 15:04, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

In order to optimize or improve a system, you have to first understand how the current system works. I don't think you do. There are a number of ways in which to gauge someone's participation in development (e.g., bug reports submitted to Bugzilla, edits to MediaWiki.org, wikitech-l mailing list participation, Gerrit changesets submitted and reviewed, IRC lurking, SVN revisions, edits to wikitech.wikimedia.org, etc.). I don't study you closely and perhaps you're more involved in development than I'm giving you credit for. If so, I apologize.

A cursory examination of your activity—along with your comments here—suggested to me that you're not particularly involved in MediaWiki or Wikimedia development. Consequently, I can't give much weight to your ideas about how to improve it, as quite simply, I don't think you're informed enough (right now!) to offer a valuable opinion. To be clear: I'm not trying to blame or shame you for not being involved, in fact I'm encouraging the opposite. If you spend a few months getting/being involved, I think you'll have a much better understanding and appreciation of the current development process and you'll be able to find (and advocate for) much more realistic means of improving it. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:57, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What happens to changes that aren't written by the Foundation? It would totally suck if we made our volunteer developers jump through hoops to see their work actually be /used/ by anyone. Also: this makes it sound like every change that goes into MediaWiki needs to be signed off on by the local community. That's not practical. There's dozens and dozens of completely non-controversial changes that go into the code every single day and this bureaucracy would make it impossible to ever get those live. Also, sometimes there's performance or security concerns; the community shouldn't be allowed to hold that up ever.

So I'm totally for increased participation in MediaWiki and I've called for it for years. All of the software is open. All of the mailing lists are public. MediaWiki.org is not a private wiki. Problem is we talk here and then nobody comes to participate with the devs. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 15:22, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for posting here ^demon. (FWIW, I have tried to communicate some at mw but I found it impossible to understand: [1]. Has the setup over there changed?) In my mind, people don't get upset about small changes that improve the system. People get upset about big changes create many bugs, usability issues, etc. And it seems, with MZMcBride's comment to Erik here, that this was a mistake coming from management, such as Sue/Erik. On a human level, I'd like an apology from Sue/Erik, so we know what WMF thinks they did wrong and what they'll do to make sure it doesn't happen again. But at the same time, how long did it take the German Wikipedia to switch it off? Days? I guess we at English Wikipedia might have a lesson or two to learn how to be as well organized as them. How did they manage that? I'm sure some of it has to do with their large, well organized, well funded, and tech-savvy chapter, but still. If we could have turned this off in a couple days, then we wouldn't have had this drawn-out drama fest. So ^demon, I'm excited to see what the VE is like after a while of fixing. And I do plan to submit my first bugs or feature requests soon. It took me a little while over to figure out what the difference was between a bug/feature request. At first it was a mystery, with me being a dumb new user. It seemed like when I started going into Bugzilla from mw, that the only option I had was to submit a bug. It was very confusing until I backtracked my way to read more at mw:How_to_report_a_bug#Reporting_a_new_bug_or_feature_request. Maybe we should change the documentation over there? I've tried to explain what I learned over at WP:WMF. Did I do it well? Feel free to edit over there. As for Bugzilla, there's a bit of a psychological barrier in the minds of many here, unfortunately, about taking the steps to submit a bug report/feature request. I'd love to see a friendly YouTube/open licensed video explaining Bugzilla in 3 minutes to people. But still, I should have submitted the bugs I want to submit already. That fault lies with me. By the way, let me know if you see me doing something stupid over in the "territories of the devs", so hopefully I don't repeat my mistakes twice. Thanks again. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:43, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And ^demon, I figured out how to start mw:User_talk:^demon#I_replied_to_you.2C_FYI_33606 this time without as much trouble over there as I've had before. But did I notice a bug? I'm not sure I've completely gotten my mind around that talk system yet. Maybe it just takes some getting used to. It doesn't seem to be widely used. Does anyone know if that system has any similarities to what WP:Flow is supposed to be like? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:04, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't a bug. I had previously watchlisted a page that had this "thread" as a "parent". But I couldn't tell this "thread" was a "child" to a "parent" I actually cared about immediately. I hope I got the terminology right on all that. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:15, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome. I'd rather not speak to VE much--I'm not on that team, I do cool backendy things that hopefully no one ever notices--but let me just say that I'm not 100% pleased with how it was rolled out either. It needed more testing, obviously. The problem is how to engage people? To take a different example (and shamelessly plug my own project), right now we're working on completely overhauling the search engine that powers WMF sites (we've done some cool things if you want to read about it). We want people to test it because we know we've not ironed out all the bugs yet. But not many people are testing yet. I'm open to suggestions here, as I think everyone will agree that the end result is better when people test early and find bugs that can be fixed before wider deployments.

As for Bugzilla and MediaWiki.org... bugs and enhancements both go in Bugzilla (for better or worse), and there's plenty of people who will make sure it ends up in the right place if you misfiled or something. And MediaWiki.org is a wiki, just like any other, pages can always be improved at a later date. Better docs can help, that info you added to WP:WMF looks pretty good to me. I also think that video tutorial idea is really cool so I filed a bug to track it.

While you should be careful around developers, I promise you we're a generally nice group once you get to know us :) ^demon^{[omg plz]} 17:19, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:10, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

^demon I'm not saying every single patch should need community approval; only that English Wikipedia volunteer developers should make that determination, and present large changes to the community when they deem appropriate -- as well as roll back changes they didn't foresee as controversial, if the community decides it's best. equazcion� | 19:52, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

So enwiki runs the same version of MediaWiki that everyone else does plus or minus config differences. We are not going to have a special enwiki-only fork of MediaWiki, full stop. Let me outline our development process (briefly):

1. A change is proposed to MediaWiki/extensions/config/etc via an RFC or Bugzilla or the mailing list
2. Code is written and debate begins on Gerrit
3. Code is iterated on, fixing all problems that have been identified
4. Code is merged by a developer (we have different maintainers for different repositories, and many many non-WMF mergers)
5. Depending on urgency, how its being rolled out and where it lands during the deploy cycle, it can be live on the sites anywhere between a few minutes and a week or so at most (we don't deploy from master, so code also has to be merged to the relevant deploy branch(es) by a shell user)

I'm totally fine with people joining this process (especially the first 3 parts). Where in this process do you see these supposed English Wikipedia Developers having their say-so on deployment? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 20:17, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal sounds good on paper, but if implemented I strongly suspect that a year later we'd see that a major deployment produces the same negative reactions that we see now, just directed at the "local volunteers" rather than WMF. Someone eventually has to say "deploy now" and go ahead with it, and we simply don't have a working system for ten thousand active users to give commentary on proposed changes before they're rolled out. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) That works out then -- After code is merged by a developer into MediaWiki (your step 4), English Wikipedia's developers examine the changes and decide whether or not to merge them here. Only thing is, there would be another smaller-scale set of these steps running in parallel for enwiki's developers to propose, write, fix, and then merge changes the enwiki community wants to see into enwiki's MediaWiki branch. Responding to Andrew Gray (post-edit-conflict), the local volunteer developers would be just that -- local volunteers, established members of this community whose job is to implement enwiki community consensus, rather than to tell us what we need. All developers tend to get flack, but the special brand of flack reserved for WMF people wouldn't occur in my scenario. :) equazcion� | 20:59, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't it work out better for these people to insert themselves into steps 1-3 rather than adding a new step and significant complexity to the deployment process? It's a whole lot easier to fix things when they're being debated and written, rather than after the merge. Personally I'm much more likely to respond well to someone saying "hey this isn't going to work for XYZ reason" during the planning/writing stage, rather than as I'm wrapping things up and possibly moving on to the next thing. I'm totally fine with more community members being involved in development--it certainly makes MediaWiki a better product--but I just think it's counterproductive to be involved so late in the process. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 21:13, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Again this has to do with the difference between enwiki's priorities and WMF/MediaWiki's. Vanisaac explained this better than I could have above. It's similar to the reasons WMF people stated regarding why they don't get involved in enwiki community discussions -- same issue, sort of, only reversed. MediaWiki development isn't, and in a certain sense shouldn't, be tailored around what the English Wikipedia's community wants. They've grown into two different things in many regards, and any solution that nevertheless demands a continuing near-identical development of both will continue to generate conflict. equazcion� | 21:20, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. This is why we have feature flags for most new things (ability to turn them on/off) and generally make things configurable. It's incredibly easy to handle particular needs when you're doing the initial development--then we end up making it more flexible for everyone. What you're proposing is to continue what we do now, but have a committee of local developers review all changes and say "yay/nay" before they go live. That's never how the code's been written or deployed, ever, and I can't say I think it's a good system. I think it'll break down pretty quickly and create whole different kinds of conflict. I imagine lots of time wasted resolving merge conflicts. I predict a fair bit of confusion about dependencies (heck, we have enough of a time coordinating changes between core and extensions across two wmf branches as it is). Also, who's going to do this? You talk about volunteer developers, but who are you referring to? Do they have any idea how much work they're signing up for...code review is a time-consuming task and there's a lot of changes ^demon^{[omg plz]} 22:00, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As ^demon has said, we shouldn't try to make things easier by making them more tedious. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 22:08, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

^demon Alright then, how about letting an English Wikipedia team control those flag settings? equazcion� | 22:56, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Within reason, the community is able to control those flags. The configuration is all available in git, and anyone with an account can propose changes. Also, we've always accepted config change requests via Bugzilla. All we want to see is consensus. I don't disagree with MZMcBride that having a UI for it would be nice (I've long wanted to do it), but it's not an easy problem so let's not wait on it. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 23:05, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

^demon So if there's a demonstrated consensus for, say, disabling Visual Editor, we just request that and consider it done? :) You see where I'm going with this... Without any direct control by community people there's conflict. equazcion� | 23:29, 25 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Of course it's never that easy ;-) I've really been trying to avoid talking about VE (it's really really not my thing...), but....I'm only speaking for myself but I personally think that VE is still a little too beta and should be opt-in for the time being for those wishing to test it. I don't think the product is as polished (yet!!) as others do, but I certainly do like where it's going. Direct control of all settings is simply not possible--many settings have massive performance implications if they're turned on or off. Enabling or disabling an extension always needs a shell user to guide it as there are often non-config things that need doing. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 23:51, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

^demon I'm not trying to steer this towards the merits or pitfalls of VE. I was actually for keeping it up, even for anonymous users, and said so at the RFC. But once it was clear where consensus lay, it shouldn't have mattered what either of us thought. If a shell user is needed to guide such changes in a purely technical fashion, that's fine. The "executive" configuration decisions, as it were, for English Wikipedia's branch of MediaWiki, can still at least be codified as ours. equazcion� | 00:11, 26 Sep 2013 (UTC)

As long as there are no technical reasons to oppose or the decision isn't completely insane to our values, I think community consensus should be respected. I've always thought that, being a community member myself. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 00:15, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, then deciding what or what not is insane to our values must be done by a higher authority. But then if WMF could block anything as "being insane to our values", we'd be back at where we started. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 00:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) ^demon Under this proposal, you would not have the opportunity to "oppose" (except from within the proposal discussions, as a community member) -- and I use quotes there because what you're really referring to is a veto, as opposes from the WMF currently are. You seem to be suggesting that things are fine as they are, but they're not, so we're discussion a possible change. It's not going to be good enough, in the interest of avoiding these repeated instances, to say that we will just continue submitting configuration requests to the Foundation, and they will make them... so long as they're not "insane". Insanity is a vague threshold open to interpretation, and one that both ACTRIAL and the disabling of Visual Editor apparently crossed, by WMF standards. We again need something at the very least codified, that configuration decisions are determined via demonstrated community consensus. Stewards can be required to sign off on and make the larger requests to make sure something truly "insane" doesn't get through, with shell users then being required to make the changes. equazcion� | 00:34, 26 Sep 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Of course consensus should be respected when possible (read: almost always) but technical management of the sites is not a democracy and it never has been. It's always been up to the shell users and WMF to be the final arbiter of what's acceptable on the sites, that's nothing new. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 00:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No one said it was new. It just needs to change, or the WMF and the community will continue to be at each others' throats. And it's good to know that you engaged in this exchange continuing to point out technical problems with the suggestions, when all the while you opposed it on principle as well and were never planning on budging there. You could have saved us both some time by letting me know this was not up for debate as far as you were concerned long ago. I'll remember this for next time. You have not helped here. Quite the opposite. equazcion� | 00:47, 26 Sep 2013 (UTC)

To get it a bit clearer. There are 3 reasons that hold up configuration changes in general.

1. People have not put in the effort to make a change actionable (Still takes more than 15 minutes to process the request (not taking into account execution))
2. A change is technically problematic / unsafe for the stability of the parc of websites
3. A change is politically problematic. (WMF has different view, so WMF employees usually won't volunteer the execution of the change but need to be pressed).

You will never ever get rid of reason 2 is what demon is saying, you might be able to change something about 3. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:51, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:^demon, is there a sign up sheet for early notifications on anything going on with the EducationProgram extension? =) Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:21, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Biosthmors: The short term plan with that extension is that we are hiring a contractor in features engineering to make sure it doesn't completely fall apart. In the long run, it's a large, pretty unwieldy piece of software that has created not insignificant cruft in terms of additional namespaces etc. We are just starting to work on a spec for a more lightweight system that could allow us to invite a special group of people (students, editathon participants, whoever) and view their activity as a cohort. This is all very early stages, so I'm all ears about who/where best to discuss the topic further. (The work will be co-owned by the Education program, Analytics, and my team.) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:34, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Steven, I started Wikipedia:EducationProgram extension and ping to Sage about the page's existence as well. In an ideal world, I think it would be cool to have a prose summary of all the filed bugs with links to them but hey! Just something else to file in the wiki-backlog. Feel free to fix any mistakes I made or clarify anything. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:23, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

^demon, to be fair «We are not going to have a special enwiki-only fork of MediaWiki» is in a way a simplification: MediaWiki development definitely is tampered by en.wiki-only or (at best) Wikimedia-only considerations: either stopping good changes just because Wikimedia wikis are not able to handle them; or forcing everyone to swallow changes designed for Wikimedia projects but not good for others. The former happens more often and was discussed e.g. at [2] with no real functioning conclusion.

On the other hand, it's also bad when changes useful for everyone are developed in a way that doesn't share it with all MediaWiki users, and this happens too. So I can only agree with your conclusion that there is no bright line or clear cut separation that can help anything. --Nemo 07:49, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How about a new board to supplement the Village Pump - the Village Idiot board? The idea is that this could be where questions are asked that don't really fit anywhere else. Examples: "Why is there a preference to set Monobook screens to green text on a black ground?", and "What is a product manager?". Peridon (talk) 19:03, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is a miscellaneous Village Pump. Also, the Help desk, reference desk or Tea house may have a role like you describe. Chris857 (talk) 19:39, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, they're all for 'sensible' questions. I'm thinking of something rather more off the wall. Peridon (talk) 20:25, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - I think we could use something like this, kind of a semi-entertaining yet not totally irrelevant pump for exploring curiosities that people might be hesitant to bring up elsewhere. equazcion� | 20:34, 28 Sep 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose- As a Teahouse host, I am against the idea of directing newbies who know little about Wikipedia to a "village idiot" board. The name itsef is derogatory enough, and there is a more sensible option than yet another abandoned dump message board where newbs will ask a question and promptly get ignored. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 20:44, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who said this was for newbies? I see it kind of being the opposite, and wouldn't direct newbies there. Either way though, the name doesn't seem derogatory to me, but rather tongue-in-cheek. Kinda has that "Books For Dummies" appeal to it, where people can feel more comfortable asking "silly" questions. equazcion� | 20:54, 28 Sep 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose We already have a place for people to do this. It is called "The rest of the Internet". --Jayron32 20:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per User:Equazcion - We have "Books For Dummies" so why not a "board for dummies!, Seems a brilliant(ish) idea. →Davey2010→→Talk→ 21:14, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• It has previously been suggested that we rename the current WP:Village pump (Jimbo), perhaps these ideas could be combined? ;)
  More seriously, (a) the 2 example questions are both valid HelpDesk questions (or Refdesk if you don't mean WMF's product managers), and (b) creating new Noticeboards without strong justification just adds to the overwhelming proliferation that a newcomer has to navigate (See Template:Noticeboard links), and (c) a silly-questions noticeboard is likely to turn into a vector for sarcasm and other easily-misinterpretable comments. –Quiddity (talk) 21:58, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose This will undoubtably result in users being directed there by less than welcoming Wikipedians. Not exactly a warm welcome. Ross Hill22:23 28 Sep 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Jimbo's page does just fine (and there is no way of renaming it). We don't need another place no one will answer you. I'm sick of answers at noticeboard being- wrong place. Go to xx." posting to the wrong place is a procedural error and per policy procedural errors do not invalidate someone's attempt at getting help or doing anything. Despite some attempts around her to shut down things based on technicalities.Camelbinky (talk) 16:16, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To the bottom. The page is what greets public users. Those notes are not for them. Place at bottom of page where editors can check them. (aka Cleanup Templates) (I've only seen past proposals for moving to Talk page) George Slivinsky (talk) 05:36, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the rationales for placing them at the top, are that they're a call to action (encouraging readers to become editors), and they alert readers to potential problems in the article they're about to read, and they remind (or introduce) readers as to how this project is built. –Quiddity (talk) 05:52, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think most if not all of the reasons for rejection in WP:PEREN#Move maintenance tags to talk pages apply to this related proposal as well. Anomie⚔ 11:14, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not good editing practice. When you invite guests into your home do you have dirty laundry laying around? George Slivinsky (talk) 17:00, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong perspective. When you give those guests directions to drive to your house, do you tell them that is a road that may be washed out, or do you just let them drive through it and stall out their car and drown? Do you tell them to walk right through the gate, or do you warn them about the angry pit bull in your yard? And maybe they would like to help with that laundry, if only they knew it was there and that their help would be welcome. Nobody is just a "guest" here, anyone who reads Wikipedia is a potential contributor as well. Hiding problems with articles for those not in the know is out where to look s exactly the wrong approach. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:12, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]