User talk:Mdennis (WMF)/Archive 6

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For Your Kind Attention

Please read this: Commons:User_talk:Russavia#Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_persons. J Kadavoor J e e 05:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Q about July fundraiser at VP

Hi Maggie. Thanks for all the great work you've been doing improving the communication between the foundation and the community. There's a question at the village pump about the current fundraiser. Could you please stop by there when you have a free moment? Thanks. 64.40.54.47 (talk) 01:46, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Answered. :D (And thanks for your kind words. :)) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:59, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you 64.40.54.47 (talk) 02:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks!

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement! "Get Well" wishes really do help, a least for me. And to get one from a random WP editor is especially nice.

I'll check out the new Visual Editor when I'm feeling a bit better. By that time, it will have evolved further and I may have more patience!

Good luck with the project.

Ande B. (talk) 23:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The STOPhaus Movement Claims that WP Community is Purposefully Maintaining Libel

You may or may not be aware that there has been an ongoing feud between an anti-spam organization known as The Spamhaus Project and an anti-censorship collective known as The STOPhaus Movement. This has spilled over into Wikipedia community due to a largely biased and one-sided section on a page that seems to be gvery one-sided altogether. The Spamhaus Project has a page on Wikipedia and on that page there is a discussion concerning STOPhaus and their involvement in the "Largest DDoS Attack in History" as NYT so sensationally called it.

The NYT journalist, Nicole Perlroth and John Markoff were fed the content by Cloudflare, a DDoS mitigation company working alongside The Spamhaus Project. The Wikipedia article reflects on allegations against The STOPhaus Movement and even goes as far as to use a quote calling us "spam and malware hosters", "criminals" and various other libelous claims. We, if there is a "we" are a group of people, users, ISPs, and various anonymous supporters that believe that Spamhaus are over-aggressive in their means to the point it is, or should be, illegal. The debate is whether or not they are, in fact, criminal in their actions.

I am reaching out on the behalf of The STOPhaus Movement to suggest that your editors allow the inclusion of the allegations against Spamhaus, made by STOPhaus or the removal of any reference to STOPhaus from The Spamhaus Page. Maintaining what we are calling libel without moral or reasonable grounds to do so appears to be malicious propaganda and is being received as such. Congratulations on your new life, but you should understand first hand, how a NYT inaccuracy becomes a PR nightmare and Wikimedia Foundation Inc. should not promote the libelous abuse of any group of people.

Especially since the largest STOPhaus support comes from your hometown and a recently formed Political Party in Pinellas County support TSM. Seems you should be a proponent for the whole truth and nothing but the truth, bring a Floridian. Maybe London has already gotten to you though, who knows? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.120.156.50 (talk • contribs) 03:40, 10 July 2013

For background see this discussion at ANI and the talk page of this user, now indefinitely blocked for legal threats. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 05:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Voceditenore.

174.120.156.50, the Wikimedia Foundation is an online service provider, not a publisher. It does not create or curate content on Wikipedia or the other websites that it hosts; instead, this work is done by a vast community of volunteers, who also create the policies that govern what content is published here. I am not familiar with STOPhaus, but I trust that the community of volunteers will work reasonably with civil communication to ensure that the article is consistent with the Terms of Use and with the local policies they have created, including those on neutrality, high-quality sourcing and respecting the rights particularly of living people. Wikipedia:Contact us - Subjects talks about some of your options for working with that community, but please keep in mind that volunteers may not choose to work with you if you take a threatening tone. As volunteers, they have that option. In my observation, they are generally quite good at helping to ensure that your rights are protected while at the same time accurately reflecting legal public discourse about article subjects. Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations, another community-written document, also has some very good advice. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Birthday

	A little birdie told me...
	That you're turning 16 today! Happy Birthday! Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

LOL! Your little birdie, it LIES! Well, about the age. :) The birthday, not so much. Thank you! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:42, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Visual Editor Feedback

Thanks. I'm not sure how you'd do it but it would be good if it was made clearer that within wiki links could also be done with the link button.

Oh, and happy birthday Red Fiona (talk) 20:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Discussion on AfC at the Village Pump: AFC ruining Wikipedia

FYI: A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WikiProject Articles for creation Threatens to Ruin Wikipedia. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:35, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the notice. I probably will not have time to follow it, given the amount of attention I am putting into VisualEditor, but if there's something in particular you think I can assist with, please let me know. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:23, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Mdennis (WMF). You have new messages at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#How_did_it_go_to_Vedit_mode.3F.
Message added 18:27, 14 July 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Redtigerxyz ^Talk 18:27, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Maggie for your superb effort in helping with the VE deployment. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:35, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, John, that means a lot. :) It's been interesting - I'm certainly learning a lot about Bugzilla, if nothing else. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy notification

I have made a proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Fork the wiki in which I used a diff authored by you as an example. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:51, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that you seem to have misunderstood that diff - which was asking him to specify why he didn't like it so we could report any bugs we might find in his note - but I appreciate the notice. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:55, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the tone of your reponses on that page, but that diff - among a very large number - illustrates that VE was made the default long before it was ready for prime time. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:23, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I understand you feel that way, but it's not just a matter of the tone. You have selected that diff as an example of the WMF encouraging people to continue using the editor in spite of their dislike of it so that they can report bugs. I didn't do that in that diff, and while I'm certain I have asked people to let us know if they find bugs if they feel like using it in spite of their initial disinclination, I have advocated since the rollout for choice. I am also a volunteer editor (even though you'd never guess I'm still alive, with as little time as VE leaves me to edit :/), and I exercise that choice with every edit I make. Nobody is required to use VisualEditor, and that has consistently been my message. Your presentation of my statement as "Please keep trying it so we can find the bugs" is not only inaccurate, but entirely the opposite of my stance. (Talk page guidelines, of course, do encourage care in properly conveying what people say). I also find it really perplexing that you are using my statement encouraging people to voice their thoughts at bugzilla to support your assertion that "it was not planned to enable editing sections, thereby making editing long articles impossible for those with slow connections/computers". :/ There was discussion of the planning higher above in that same conversation, which I could see you linking, I suppose, although it would be better of course if you excluded your conclusions about that from the link. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

3RR notice

Just to note, you are about to be in violation of the three revert rule at WP:VisualEditor. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:27, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Adam, I wonder if you have recently read WP:CONSENSUS. "When editors do not reach agreement by editing, discussion on the associated talk pages continues the process toward consensus." Please discuss on the talk pages until you reach consensus. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

You will note I have made multiple changes to attempt to deal with your suggestions. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:32, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

As I have made multiple changes to attempt to deal with yours. Nevertheless, it is recommended practice to settle these things on the talk page when the changes are contentious. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:33, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

You haven't made any changes, you've just deleted. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:34, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

You might want to look at some of the diffs. I've removed the mention of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines pending agreement of how they impact, but that doesn't mean I haven't made changes. In fact, you reverted one of my changes yourself. :/ --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I double checked: You're right. that last one is not a revert, merely an edit, and I apologise. I guess I can live with that last revision, as the WCAG does require substantial interpretation to apply to a site like Wikipedia. (And, honestly, I really don't like feuding with a member of the WMF without at least a pretty good reason to.) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:46, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Good, I'm glad we can live with that. :) I don't want to argue with you, either - I don't like arguing with anybody. I'm much happier when we can all come to terms. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I really am sorry, I get over-protective of things sometimes, and while this has its good sides, I can lose perspective at times when I think an issue is really important; plus I've been under a fair bit of stress of late (first time leaving the country without family waiting for me on the other end since I started getting panic attacks after, well, long story. Bullying, basically, on several fronts for an extended period). My emotions are going a little haywire in the short term. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 19:03, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I understand; and, for what it's worth, I think it's better to be excitable about something that's really important than about something that isn't. :) I'm really sorry to hear that you've been under so much stress and that you have long-term cause for it. :( I hope that situations are improving for you. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

List of guinea pig breeds

Hello, on the list of guinea pig breeds I was wondering if you could add some more information onto the Silkie/Sheltie bit, as I would like to know about them. Thank you Lusa bear (talk) 17:47, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello. :) I think guinea pigs are adorable, but I'm afraid I really don't have any information about them to add to the article. Are you new? Maybe you would like to visit Wikipedia:Tea house or Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user. There are a lot of nice people on Wikipedia who might be able to help show you the ropes. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for your help. Lusa bear (talk) 18:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, Mdennis (WMF). Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Continuing from your volunteer talk page given where we're going...

I'm going to preface what I'm about to say with the statement that the rest of this paragrpah is not aimed at you personally as I realise you are operating within rules set by others and with possible legal implications. But, frankly, this "mixing two hats" idea and what it means is absurd - it's beyond stupid that I feel the need to bring this here rather than carry it on on you volunteer talk page. Realistically there is no way for you to separate the two roles and you shouldn't be put in the position of trying to do so. There's obviously going to be situations which you run into in your "volunteer" role which you think overlap with your "WMF" role, especially in the are of copyrights. What, should I go and find a different member of staff to discuss copyright issues with because I've already discussed the issue with you in a volunteer role despite you being the best member of staff to discuss such things with. There have been cases in the past where I've debated bringing something up with you as a "volunteer" in case I needed to bring it up with you as "staff". That hardly helps communication and more generally I don't think having a separate WMF account helps make staff approachable.

Of course we have a similar problem when it comes to legal. Legal represents the WMF so can't represent volunteers. So effectively volunteers are left with no legal support even if it's an issue that effects large number of volunteers. This certainly doesn't help give the idea that the WMF is there to help support volunteers. Now I know it's a sticky legal issue but has the WMF looked to see if it is possible to provide a legal advice to editors service? If it has I've never heard about it instead all we got is "legal represents WMF so tough" with no real further explanation.

Meta is evil. I don't mean that in the way I've seen several editors suggest it is in the past. I think it's evil because I see to much "well, it was discussed on meta and if you didn't see it tough". This doesn't recognise the fact that many editors probably don't know meta exists and even in the case of those that do many, probably most of them, don't want to put in a lot of time trying to find out what may effect them and is currently going on in meta. This over reliance on meta again seems to help create a "them" and "us" environment. There are very similar problems with Bugzilla, especially because, despite it's name, it tracks enchantments as well as bugs. And then of course there's the impression I've got that developers on there feel able to assign "WON'T FIX", low priority etc with impunity despite what he community may be saying and with very little discussion. I've looked at both meta and bugzilla and found them both to be a complicated mess that I don't have the inclination to try to get involved in. And I say that as a technical minded person - I'm sure they're even worse for others.

I looked at the Board vote and decided there was no way I could make an informed choice. Lets vote on people I've never interacted with based on a paragraph or two. Oh, and the answers to some questions which I didn't know existed to just now (more communication issues). So although I knew it existed I didn't feel able to take part in it.

I'm going to quote two things you said back to you firstly - "The hard part is knowing where to find the folks who can fix it." So surely the WMF should be looking at how to organise stuff better to make this easier. And secondly "but I think there is a danger of developing tunnel vision and not recognizing the scope of what is being done...and certainly not understanding who sets its agenda and why." Yes this is true but in my mind this is more an issue on the WMF side and not communicating effectively with editors. Indeed it's become obvious to me over the last few weeks that communication failures are one of the biggest problems we currently face. Yet as far as I'm aware there isn't anyone looking at this at WMF yet there's lots of lots of people dealing with VE which, frankly, if it were delayed a bit wouldn't have hurt anything.

Rant over. Sorry about that but given your comments I wanted to express my views on them. After all if the WMF doesn't find out editors views things are never going to improve. Dpmuk (talk) 21:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Dpmuk, I don't especially want to mix my hats. :/ Wikipedia has been my favorite hobby since 2007. I like to keep it separate from my work. As far as I'm concerned, the relationship I have with you as Moonriddengirl is social, and it's one I have always appreciated. (Or I wouldn't have mixed my hats to begin with.) I wouldn't imagine if my work/hobby cross-over were in another arena that you would call me at home to talk about my work, and if you perchance brought it up at a social gathering I would hope it wouldn't irritate you if I asked you to call me at the office...much less if I said, "I usually don't talk about work here, but on this occasion I will." :(

When I run into areas that I think are addressed to the wrong role, I am generally able to redirect it without much issue. The legal concerns regarding crossover are not as crippling as all that - I do plenty of work with copyright as staff, but if you needed help with a specific copyright issue with which you'd already interacted with me as a volunteer then, yes, you'd need to go to somebody else, and I would help you find that somebody else. I'm hardly the only staff member who is familiar with Wikipedia's copyright policies, and I could help you find the person you needed.

The lawyers at the Wikimedia Foundation cannot represent volunteers, due to the ethical codes that govern the profession. That said, they do plenty to support volunteers, both with broad legal information (see m:Category:Legal notes, for instance, which were all generated from community requests) and with actual representation (see the legal fees assistance program and the defense of contributors policy).

You'll note that all of this is on Meta. I'm speaking emphatically here from my own perspective when I say Meta is not evil - it's been the only possible way to coordinate work among hundreds of separate websites, which is what Wikimedia is. The English Wikipedia is an important community, definitely, and the amount of staff attention here reflects that. We had 24 hour coverage by multiple people on English Wikipedia of bug reports for the deployment of VisualEditor, for instance. But if you think how to put out messages so that they are equally accessible to editors on English Wikipedia and German Wikivoyage and Danish Wikinews and Japanese Wikisource, I think you can see the issue. It is a challenge to learn your way around, but it's not due to technical barriers. I doubt there are many people on staff who are less technical than I am, and I've got Meta's number. :) When I first arrived at the Village Pumps, I wasn't sure how to use those, either. And, yes, there is an "us" against "them" mentality sometimes, but so far as I can see it's self-imposed. I see the same thing between "admins" and "editors" or "vandalism cleaners" and "content creators." We all share some responsibility in overcoming these self-imposed distinctions and working together. The German Wikipedian commenting at Meta is no more a "them" than the Meta admin is (or an "us" - not sure where the line is drawn).

Bugzilla is a lot harder, but there have been steps lately to make that easier as well. I mean, one of the things I've been doing with VE is filing bug reports so that editors who aren't comfortable doing so don't have to. In terms of prioritizing bugs, of course developers don't always have the same opinion as editors. They don't always have the same opinion as each other. That's why discussion happens. I've been talking to the bug wrangler about the best ways for liaisons to indicate when the community has a higher priority than the developers do. He's got some good suggestions, which I've run by the VE lead developer.

I'm running long and well out of time, due to family stuff, so I'll finish by addressing a couple of the notes you left above. First, it's difficult to vote on any election where you don't know the candidates, but unfortunately unless you have a party system where somebody tells you how to vote, the only cure for that is studying the candidates. :(

I'm not sure what you mean when you say there isn't anyone looking at communication failures at the WMF. What do you think that would look like that isn't being done? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I think you took me to mean something different to what I actually did about mixing your hats. I can totally see where you're coming from with not wanting to do so and that's not what I meant. I thought from what you've said before that your "uncomfortable" comment was because of the "rules" rather than a personal thing and that's what I was commenting on. If that's not the case I apologise for making that inference and what I inferred from there.

The legal ones an interesting one in that despite working in copyright for some time I was unaware of both the assistance program and the defense policy and only somewhat aware of the notes (in that I was a aware of a couple of specific ones but had somehow missed the larger category). Again this seems to be a communication issue.

I could comment more on my specific concerns with meta and bugzilla but am not sure that would be of value so instead I'll comment more generally. I think of lot of the issues caused by VE were due to editors not knowing what was coming and feeling like they had no influence over it. I think that's a wider issue that extends way beyond VE and needs investigating. I think someone at WMF needs to look at how the different "bits" interact e.g. the projects, meta, developers, the WMF etc. and see if the people involved in each are getting the information they need to do their "job" and that they feel able to have their voices heard in the other bits that can influence their ability to do that "job". So I suppose what I'm suggesting is some sort of communication survey by the WMF to see if there is a problem and then if there is a problem (which I strongly suspect there is) to follow on with working out how to solve it (with community input). I would imagine questions would be along the lines of:

How well do you feel informed about upcoming software changes (e.g. VE, Flow etc)?
How well do you feel able to influence those changes?
Do you know where wikimedia wide policies are discussed?

etc.

I have for a long time tried not to communicate with you in a WMF role due to the "mixing" issue and I sort of wish I hadn't done so now but I thought the need to respond to some of what you wrote. Dpmuk (talk) 00:22, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and P.S. please never feel that you have to reply to me, in either role, if time is tight. There are far more important things in life than work or wikipedia and family is one of those things. Dpmuk (talk) 01:01, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

It's late, so I'm going to leave most of this for tomorrow, but I wanted to come in and say that while I agree with your last sentence, I value friends, too. :) Our relationship may be based around working on a community project, but it's important to me. I appreciate you, and you are worth my time. And that said, I will respond to the rest of your note tomorrow! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:11, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, my "uncomfortable" is my own personal line, not fear of the man. :) That said, the WMF does prefer that staff strictly separate their volunteer activities from their work activities to avoid confusion in roles. The disclaimer on my user page is mandatory: "Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, contributions under this account are exclusively in my individual, personal capacity." There are some staff who use one account only, but this practice is discouraged these days for those employees who are volunteering also precisely because it can be hard to determine when John the employee is speaking and John the volunteer is.

In terms of communication, I agree with you that the average editor on the average project is completely unaware of what's going on in the wider wiki world. This is one of the first projects I proposed when I came aboard: User:Mdennis (WMF)/Wikimedia Foundation announcements. It met with some approval, but there were concerns about it - both the sustainability of it and the practical impact of creating just another board. Honestly, even though I am less naive now than I was when I started, I still kind of like the idea. :) Communications have improved since I came aboard, but I think we all would have to agree that they can be better. I mean, they can be better within the WMF. There's plenty of room for improvement.

If you want to communicate with me in my WMF role, please do. I may be able to help - and if not, I'm supposed to be able to find out who can. :D For instance, I know that the WMF does have someone to look at how bits interact and how communication can be improved. Shortly after I came aboard, the Wikimedia Foundation hired a person from the community to serve first as a contractor and then as a regular employee supporting movement communications: User:Tbayer (WMF), who has been an editor since 2003 as User:HaeB and who was editor-in-chief of the Signpost for a bit over a year. Part of his work includes "research to understand and address movement communication challenges." Among other tasks, his work included the 2012 Editor Survey, the results of which have not yet been released (I believe). It might be a good idea to suggest to him a communication survey or to talk to him about what steps are being taken to improve communication in the movement. There are a couple of ways that this can be done, of course. I could drop him a lightweight note on your behalf, you could email him directly, or you could simply approach him on his user talk page. :)

I know things can get tense, but I believe we have the power to make them better. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:37, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry to step in the middle of an interesting discussion, but if either of you haven't seen it, I left some comments at Wikipedia talk:User Advocacy#Problems_and_solutions that are attempting to summarize some of these problems of communication. The first post is densely packed with points, and core examples, and might reward re-reading.

Minor note on "bugzilla" - technically it's issue-tracking software, and whilst it is somewhat painful to use, it's a lot less painful than many of the other issue-trackers I've had the dubious pleasure of working with in the past. Having "bugs" and "feature requests" and related items all in the same database, makes software-development a lot more efficient - if they were split apart, even more things would fall through the cracks.

HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 17:27, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. :) Seems like you ought to talk to Tilman. :D Obviously, you've put a lot of thought into that. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Wow, was this three weeks ago. I've been meaning to comment for a while but have been kept busy with non-wikipedia stuff. I find it rather interesting that for someone meant to be looking at how the community interacts that their wikipedia talk page contains virtually no interaction with the community. I don't think that's a good, or reassuring, sign! Anyway going to ping him now and point him at this discussion rather than repeat what I say above. Dpmuk (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, please keep in mind that community is vast and can be contacted in many ways. :) Beyond Wikipedia, there's all the other projects, in every language, including Meta, MediaWiki, Commons, and Bugzilla. I can go quite a long time on English Wikipedia without any activity on my user talk, but my inbox has a constant influx. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:53, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I know that. I'd just hope that someone looking into communication would be pro-active in seeking views as I doubt those of us who get in touch with the WMF are representative of the wider community. And I accept there may be good reasons, and that they may be communicating in other ways, but I'd maintain that at first glance it looks bad. I also get a bit fed up with the WMF comments on the community is bigger than en.wikipedia. While I accept that this is obviously the case, and I certainly don't want the smaller communities sidelined, it does come often come across as ignoring the fact the en.wiki is the biggest project. Now from the support we've got over VE I don't think that the WMF does undervalue en.wiki but it often gives that impression. The more I see the more I get the impression that the WMF and it's staff do really care about editors and en.wiki, they are often just awful at communicating it . Dpmuk (talk) 15:47, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Personal and Moral Rights?

In a discussion with Jimmy Wales on the moral rights of the photographers and the personal rights of the subjects, he said "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed."

We further requested him to bring this matter to the attention of WMF and make a resolution or something to force Commons make enough policies to protect our rights as a photographer and our commitments to our subjects. He replied: "I am just one board member on this issue. I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff, but I need help from the community to illustrate that this is a problem that concerns many of us."

So we would like to bring that discussion to the attention of every member on board and some staff.

Please note a somewhat related discussion at Commons too: Concern about the bureaucrat role of Russavia J Kadavoor J e e 11:20, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the notice. I am myself very aware of the importance of these issues to the community and to the public - as an OTRS volunteer, I have corresponded more than once especially with unhappy subjects of photographs. Unlike Jimmy, though, I'm not even one board member on this issue. :) I do try to make sure that the staff does not lose sight of such matters, but I think that the board is really going to have to take point on any resolutions or sweeping policy changes. They do have a noticeboard, meta:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard, if you'd like to be sure to alert all of them. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:59, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Maggie; and glad to hear you feel much better now. I posted a notice at there too. J Kadavoor J e e 14:03, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Template

Hope the sick period is pleasantly transient. Fiddle Faddle 11:06, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Maggie, I am sorry to hear that you are not feeling well. I just wanted to write you to encourage you to stay strong and to let you know you are in my prayers. J Kadavoor J e e 11:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both. :) I am doing much better and working to catch up with the backlog of emails and issues I have. Fortunately, some of my colleagues have been able to lighten the load! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:31, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

A sub-community to advocate for?

Hi Maggie,

Why do I always come here with unusual things?

Please look at this discussion, contributing if you wish, naturally. The reason I'm drawing it to your attention is that we don;t do very well with editors with intellectual differences from the norm. I wondered if this topic fell into your sphere of things here.

How do we make Wikipedia a better place for (eg) Asperger's folk, and help them work within Wikipedia's rules? Fiddle Faddle 09:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Tim. :) I'm afraid that this doesn't really fall into my sphere. My role is to help coordinate work between the Wikimedia Foundation and communities, basically. I'm like a conduit between communities and the Wikimedia Foundation. When it comes to volunteers interacting with each other, that's outside of my remit, as the communities are self-governing. Where I might enter in would be if somebody had an idea for how to improve this area but needed funding...since I could help connect them with the options for funding within the movement. (We used to have fellowships for this kind of thing, but the WMF has moved more towards funding in the hopes of increasing reach.)

Of course, if I knew of any work going on in this area, I would be happy to share that with you, but unfortunately I don't. :/ I wonder if this is something that a relevant Wikiproject might help with? Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability might have some thoughts, for instance. I presume that they will be interested in the area and perhaps up to date. If nothing else, I would think hooking people up with friendly assistance at the Teahouse perhaps or through the mentorship programs might be a good start. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:41, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Luckily we have got somewhere with this editor in difficulties. The article that drew them to my notice, Damon Matthew Wise, may be good enough to stay, and they now have two mentors.

Even though it is outside your terms of reference, this might be something that our esteemed founder might set his mind to. It feels in his area of global 'things' somehow. I wondered if you might nudge it towards his antennae? Fiddle Faddle 16:57, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

There's Wikipedia:High-functioning autism and Aspergers editors (WP:ASPIE), which might link to other useful pages and people (I haven't had a chance to re-read it lately). Sadly the main contributor, ThatPeskyCommoner, is on sick-leave at the moment (and has been for a few months), otherwise I'd direct you to her talkpage. Hope that helps. –Quiddity (talk) 23:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

It's useful in a way. Thank you. It helps those who care to cope, but it isn't anywhere near what I'm hoping for. Baby Wales (and I don;t mean Will and Kate;s kid, has interfered with the timing on Jimbo's talk page, and it was a faint hope to gain traction there. Ah well. Fiddle Faddle 16:06, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Tim. Sorry I didn't respond to you directly earlier - I noticed that you had approached Jimbo with it directly and assumed that superseded your suggestion that I do so. Even if it did, I should have made sure of that, and I apologize.

I'm sorry that it didn't gain traction there, but I really just don't know what else to suggest. :( You could leave a message at the Board's noticeboard, but I kind of suspect that something like that is going to have to be grassroots. Even if Jimmy were to push this idea, he wouldn't be able to "staff" it professionally, I don't think, given our position on community governance, and it would need volunteer buy-in to succeed (much like the Teahouse, which was funded and supported by WMF but imagined and executed entirely or almost entirely by volunteers). --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm somehow not surprised it has not yet gained traction. Autism is a 'there but for the grace of ... goes my child' thing, and we forget that those with the condition are people, too, because their behaviour is, for us, abnormal. I shall keep chipping away quietly. I feel this is a thing where drum banging has no value, but the quiet voice can work where all else is unheard. Funding et al are details once the seed has germinated. Fiddle Faddle 17:34, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Popular pages

Hello Maggie! I was wondering if you knew anything about that. Is that kind of inquiry, the one Doc James is asking about, something that is best dealt with by sending a random request on the Wikitech-l mailing list? I'm also curious and I would like this to receive support. It seems like a core technical function to perform in order to support the community. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 10:51, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi, @Biosthmors:. :) Your best bet for something like that is to probably to speak to User:MPelletier (WMF). Alternatively, you can also put in a Bugzilla feature request, I believe. If you want information in general on how to get engineer time, you can speak to User:Okeyes (WMF), who is now a product analyst for the Wikimedia Foundation. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

@Jmh649:. Thanks Maggie! Biosthmors (talk) 19:42, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

User study

I'm pretty sure this isn't WMF sponsored, but it would be helpful if a WMFer verified: please see ANI discussion. NE Ent 10:39, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that would be good to look into. :/ I'll ping the research team and find out. Thanks, User:NE Ent! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 10:43, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

(Temporarily?) Removed invitations. Wrote to research team staff. Left a message for the user. I'll see if I can help work this out. Thanks again, User:NE Ent. :) --11:20, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Bad moon rising

I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way... John Fogerty / Creedence. Please see really bad idea at AN NE Ent 17:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping us informed. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

User talk:Jimbo Wales

I also linked to you from User talk:Jimbo Wales. Best! Biosthmors (talk) 09:41, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, that could be interesting. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:30, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

So whatever I posted was removed for being an inaccurate job description for you. Given that your title is "Senior Community Liaison", would you mind if I put that on User talk:Jimbo Wales? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:50, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the edit summary, I think the issue was with the language. You hadn't mentioned the job title. :) It's part of my job to help people find the proper place to go, but it's not really my job to get answers to every question or provide direct WMF feedback on everything. For instance, if you said, "Is this a good idea? Can I get money?" I would send you to the grants pages on Meta, not get feedback for you directly. :) I wonder if a link to your new WMF page would be better? It has space for more nuance, and you've got pointers to multiple locations already. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

That one's already linked on the page, actually. ;-) Done. It's silly to not mention you, in my opinion. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

workshop on copyright, perhaps

Hi, I wonder if there is any possibility that WMF can somehow support a workshop on copyright, or something like that, to address some pretty serious disagreements among some Wikipedia editors. I mean this as a constructive alternative to engaging in arbitration and wp:ANI and other dispute resolution processes available within Wikipedia. I am interested in this because there are some good people misinformed, IMHO, and there is long-running badgering and dispute and accusations of copyvio going on, with accusations against me that I consider to be serious and also completely ill-founded. Fighting it out in ANI or elsewhere just seems to leave everyone more entrenched, and does not lead to learning.

The situation is that there are different views of what is acceptable, copyright-wise and perhaps also plagiarism-wise, among several editors of historic places listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (which includes one percent of all wikipedia articles!) An editor or two or three active in the copyvio section of Wikipedia has been asked to weigh in once or twice and could be involved again, but I think something more is needed, some convening of useful discussion and teaching/learning, in order to actually attract/affect the occasionally disputing parties. Probably some improvement in the wikipedia coverage of copyright issues is needed, in fact, and the existing copyvio volunteers don't have it all perfectly handled. This could possibly involve some staff time or some fianncial resources or some legal consultations. I wonder, is there any program or are there any resources or ideas that you could suggest? I'll watch here, or please feel free to email me (email enabled at my Talk page). Sincerely, --do ncr am 22:06, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello, @Doncram:. The Wikimedia Foundation is happy when we have resources to do so to provide guidance and comments on general policies, although they cannot give legal advice, particularly on issues related to specific content. If you have general questions regarding policy and approach to copyright, I can pass them along for review - research on these are typically posted on Meta (for example, see meta:Category:Legal notes). Of course, no matter how much the WMF reviews policies or guides in developing them, there will always be questions around application of policies to specific issues, and these are always going to rely on community members reviewing existing policies and determining how they apply to individual media. Financial resources for policy review might be possible, but it's certainly a big question. If you want to explore funding through the existing processes, you would want to visit m:Grants. Meanwhile, I have floated your suggestion to the legal team and will let you know if they have any idea how they can assist beyond responding to general questions. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:37, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful reply. In that meta category, i see this note about Close Paraphrasing, which seems helpful, providing some guidance and pointing to cases and sources. I am imagining that the note is a work of the WMF legal people, or the outcome some process in which they were involved, or could have a say in if they wanted to. I wonder if creating a similar note about Quoting could be helpful to have, eventually, to provide similar guidance, if and when a discussion / workshop seemed to demonstrate a need for such a note. About how any legal people could help, I wonder if someone interested and/or knowledgeable in the area of copyright could be willing to participate informally, say in a conference call or series of a few conference calls that could be arranged. I recall participating in some free conference call, set up by appointment at some free service, which enabled me and others involved in some national-level non-profit initiative to join in without giving out identifying info to others, and which I wonder if could be used to convene a discussion with a few Wikipedia editors.

I would want there to be no obligation to come to legal judgement on behalf of the WMF about any specific quotation appearing in Wikipedia, but hope rather that a legal person could provide an uninvolved, informal view about what factors come to bear in considering copyvio, and whether Wikipedia guidance seems accurate or not, and so on. Perhaps in reference to some specific examples of quotes that could be shared in advance, but without requiring legal judgments on the examples, unless the legal person is completely comfortable with judging. I haven't just checked, but I seem to recall that Wikipedia copyvio guidance was lacking in terms of addressing something called "transformative" quality of quoted material, which is arguably relevant in determining copyvio of longer quotes. For short, fully attributed quotes, the guidance is and should be simple, but perhaps there can be discussion about length, what is short enough not to require other tests to be passed. Anyhow, I wonder if someone would be willing to participate in one or a few discussions, arranged well in advance, through some conference call service, if the other wikipedia editors I wish to work with, who are valuable long-term contributors, would agree to participate. I am just hopeful that something like this would be productive, by participation of non-involved legal people. --do ncr am 20:36, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, those notes are produced by our legal team - generally one of our legal interns under the supervision of one of the WIkimedia Foundation's lawyers. It may be possible for me to pull together an IRC office hour to discuss copyright, although I am doubtful that a conference call would happen. Honestly, I imagine it will in part depend upon capacity. Our legal team is small and very busy. I don't believe that our legal team would offer input on specific examples, though, unless these were perhaps theoretical only and not related to content that is or has ever been published on Wikipedia. In the meantime, if you have general questions that can be answered by research such as the close paraphrasing document, please feel free to let me know, and I'll pass them along. As an aside, if you are not familiar with them, there are a few web pages that might help - [1], [2]. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Maggie and do ncr, please help edit WP:WMF to include this info? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:01, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I think all WMF pages should link who they report to, that way everyone could see this clearly, from user page to user page, if they so chose to take this path. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:03, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll mention that as a possibility to HR, but this information is more flexible than it may appear. :) However,there's also wmf:staff. This lists staff and contractors in their departments. While it is sometimes easier than others to figure out who a staffer reports to (for instance, it's pretty easy to tell that community advocates report to Philippe who reports to Geoff), it's always possible to determine the "C Level" of a department. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:52, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Did you hear anything back from HR on that? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:54, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

No, but I'm not expecting to, really. As I said I would, I mentioned it as a possibility. It's not a question so much as a suggestion. :) It's often a complicated situation. People "answer to" different people on different tasks. For instance, the liaisons who are working on VisualEditor technically work under Howie Fung (in that he's the one who approves contracts), but they are answering on that project to Philippe Beaudette. A couple of them are also working with (and "answering to") Fabrice Florin on a different project. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Well I'd be happy to see something like "X is my 'technical' supervisor, but i work closely 'under' Y on project Z". Could I suggest that? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:57, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

A relevant example. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:15, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: As I mentioned above, wmf:staff is helpful here. :) If you go to [3], you will see Jami and her team. First in line is her program director. The C Level of the department is to the left. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Difference between de.wiki and en.wiki

Despite it being mentioned in the thread mentioned immediately above and WMF staff reading and commenting on that thread we still have no answer as to why VE has been disable by default on de.wiki as a result of consensus but yet the WMF won't do the same here. This to me seems another example of the WMF shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to communication. Ignoring a perfectly reasonable question such as this does not seem the best way to keep editors on board - it makes us seem like we're being ignored. As community liaison, could you get an answer for us. Dpmuk (talk) 19:01, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Dpmuk. :) Thanks for the question. I'll pass it up the chain and try to get an answer for you within a couple of days. I'm not sure if that was the project manager's decision or not, but he is traveling at the moment and not easily accessible. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I realise answers can often take time but a holding reply goes a long way to keeping people placated. I may also be misrepresenting the situation as I'm relying on others to let me know what's going on at de.wiki, as I speak no German, but even a reply that says I've misunderstood things would be good. Dpmuk (talk) 19:25, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Understood. I will try to expedite it. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:26, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I know the WMF have finally bowed to pressure and implemented VE as opt-in here but I'd still be interested in knowing what the thought process was in delaying it so long both in relation to the de.wiki issue and the fact that we had to go as far as implementing our own solution before WMF finally listened. Dpmuk (talk) 23:56, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm also interested in quite how much power James Forrester, who he reports to, what the decisions making process is etc. It comes across that he is god when it comes to VE and what he says goes, that there's no oversight and that no one can challenge his decisions - I'm aware that's probably not the case but that's how it's coming across. That seems fundamentally wrong. Dpmuk (talk) 00:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The question is out, and I will let you know what response I may receive. :) James Forrester is the product manager for VisualEditor, but he does not operate in a vacuum. He works in consultation with many people on his team and outside of it (including my supervisor, Philippe, who is the Director of Community Advocacy and who is leading the change management team, which includes the liaisons interacting at feedback pages. Philippe passes along feedback from the liaisons, which James also receives directly). Project managers work under Howie Fung, who is Director of Product Development, and ultimately under Erik Möller (aka Eloquence), who is both the Deputy Director of the WMF and VP of Engineering and Product Development. Beyond him, of course, there's Sue Gardner, who is the WMF Executive Director. Sue is directed by the Board of Trustees. There's tons of input and oversight. I believe James has the final authority, but he is not operating in a vacuum. That said, James and "the WMF" (in the sense of people who are involved with VE, including engineers and change management team - I can't speak for the accountants) have been listening all along. Communication needs to get better, although I think it has greatly improved in the last couple of years. The change management team is evidence of both progress and the desire to improve. It's just got a ways to go yet. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:56, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

See I think that's part of the problem. If you as a WMF staff member and community liaison don't know who has the final decision what chance does the community have of trying to understand how the WMF works. I do believe the communication issue isn't as bas as I first thought - and the communications over VE, have I think slowly been getting better - but I wonder if that's because I now know where to look more and it still looks just as bad to most users. I've now seen quite a few staff members at WMF say that they know there's a communication problem but I've yet to see even the merest suggestion that the WMF has a plan on dealing with this. Obviously answers may take time but knowing there was someone looking into and that there was a plan on how to engage the community and work towards those answers would help a lot. Dpmuk (talk) 15:35, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Even if somebody has authority over a project the authority for any given decision may change. For instance, in the most recent request for consultation with legal, legal wrote the document. I don't have authority to change it. But I wrote the language to announce it. The authority for one decision rested with Yana and Geoff; the authority for the other rested with me. I know who the decision-makers are on the team - James is, as I said, the project manager - but I can't say with confidence that he has "final authority" on everything - although I believe he does - because, as I said, nobody works in a vacuum. :) On any given decision, if you want definite attribution, I'd have to ask. Communication is a major focus at the Wikimedia Foundation, but communication is - like everything else - complex. I realize that I'm probably overcomplicating this, but I can't quite help it - if you asked me as Moonriddengirl if there was a plan for dealing with copyright issues, I'd have to say, "Well, yes, many. There's this plan for image issues and this one for text issues, and the text issues are subdivided into...." :) There's a communications department at WMF that are dealing with several different kinds of complicated communication issues (it's headed by Jay Walsh, but he's leaving by the end of the week). The Community Advocacy department - where I am - is currently and actively working on improving community engagement. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:55, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, that's how I'd have thought it would have worked but the feeling that I've been left with is that James Forrester makes all the decisions concerning VE. From what you say that's not the case but I suspect I'm not the only one left with that feeling. I also note that at VPT several other WMF staff members have commented on the VE issue but it's been far from clear what their relationship is to VE - even when I've looked at their user page. Maybe it would be helpful that staff related to, and commenting on, the big projects (VE, flow) etc had more information about their position in their project on their user page. For example User:Tychay described themselves on their user page "Director of Features Engineering" and not a whole lot more. That leaves me pretty unclear as to what their role is in general and with absolutely no idea what their role is with regard to VE, yet they have commented extensively. Erik's user page is a little bit better in that it gives the impression he's in charge but I'm still left wondering what role he's playing in VE. The situation at the feeback age is perhaps even worse with lots of WMF staff commenting and their roles being unclear. Obviously expecting such information for every little project would be unreasonable but I think it's something worth considering for the big projects that are bound to be contentious such as VE and flow. I also don't think it's ideal that the neither the VE page here or on meta or on mediawiki has any information about who the team is or who the community should be contacting. Related to that I also think it would be worth considering assigning someone to be the go to person for the community for each large project. At the moment lots of people pitch in and this, I would imagine, makes getting an overall picture difficult both for the WMF and the community. Dpmuk (talk) 18:27, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I think introducing the teams on the project pages is an excellent idea. As I said, my department is working on ideas for improving community engagement, and I'll toss that one on the list. VE actually does have go-to people (the liaisons are assigned to different projects although English is big enough that more than one is working here), but I think that how that's messaged has to be handled carefully. For instance, a couple of the heroes of VE to me are User:Thryduulf, who has been insanely helpful to the community with feedback, and User:John Broughton, whose deft hand with a user guide can't be denied. (No, really. He's awesome. :) (He probably does not know this, but he had a major influence on me as a volunteer. He passed me the baton at WP:DRAW and based on his example I worked on it for years. I found somebody when I stopped, but it looks like it eventually went defunct. :/) Anyway, my point before getting nostalgic was that while I agree that it's important to have somebody who can officially answer questions, it's really important that we not forget the value of crowd-sourcing. It's one of our greatest strengths. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

@Dpmuk: Yes, I can see how things can be confusing. Part of it is keeping things up-to-date, part of it is the complex organization of Tech into departments that are "cross matrixed", part of it is because there are many projects going on simultaneously. In my case, you can see from the staff page that Erik is my boss; that Trevor (listed as one of the leads) as well as the other engineers on VisualEditor and Parsoid report to me; James Forrester and the community team do not. I was once listed as the engineering project manager (EPM) for the team, but I changed it to Trevor and James Forrester in order to be both more apt as well as to give credit where credit is due. As for decisionmaking, decisions depend on each product and the nature of the decision. In the case most relevant in this example the decision is in VisualEditor and the natures most relevant to you are product decisions. In that case, the decision responsibility lies in product (James Forrester, Howie Fung (his boss, my counterpart), and Erik Moller (Howie's boss) in consultation with the engineering and community teams. A decision on how many and which engineers we sourced on the product are mostly me, while actual engineering decisions for VisualEditor and Parsoid might be Trevor or Gabriel Wicke's responsibility. You notice many qualifiers in the above. This is because like the wikis themselves, we would prefer a more consensus-driven approach over a top-down one. For example, the Flow project is testing a rule that decisions are made by 3+1 in consultation: meaning that three people representing four areas (one informed immediately) need to derive consensus among themselves for it being actionable or decided. The four areas are product, engineering, design, and community. They're hoping to expand the definition of the last beyond just a community liaison or product analyst to the actual editor community. I hope this helps begin to explain a confusing situation. - tychay (tchay@wikimedia) (talk) 17:21, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

@Dpmuk:: I had meant to stop by with this earlier in the week, but was caught up in other things. Sorry! It's been crazy hectic. :)

James touched briefly during Office Hour on 9/30 on the question of what made the German community different. m:Office_hours_2013-09-30. "Well, one of the things that VisualEditor doesn't do right now is table structure, and the German Wikipedia community clearly said that they considered that vital for editing all pages due to the much larger number of tables that they have."

Since our projects evolved naturally and independently, they don't all work in the same ways. As VisualEditor is in development, it may be of different utility to one project over another. Feedback from the German community is still extremely helpful, so the opt-in approach was not preferred there either, but it seems that the German community's strong consensus that editors would consistently encounter a specific workflow they simply could not do in VisualEditor due to de wikipedia's proportionally greater use of tables was a major factor in that decision. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:05, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

In light of recent events...

Note, I've crossposted this to User:Whatamidoing (WMF) just for the sake of hoping I'm posting it to the right people.

Some, on both sides, have complained that there was a lack of notice and discussion between the WMF and the community. After discussing with User:TParis, we feel that there are a number of things that can be done to improve the community and WMF's communication. Hopefully these can be looked at as improvements, not us trying to impede your day or make it harder for you.

The first thing we thought of (rather, the most major) is a weekly "what we are going to do this week" update. This would include things such as technical changes (implementation of new extensions, or other switch flipping) that has any effect on the community (but not minor technical fixes like most bug fixes). It'd also include anything that is in discussion in the WMF, no matter how early the stage. Lastly, it would include updates on the development of any features that are already in development. Hopefully this way, the community can voice it's concerns before it's too late, and not get into a spit fight afterwords.
This weekly update would be conducted similar to WP:AC/N, with announcements on WP:WMF/N or similar, and then a "discuss this" link to WT:WMF/N. The comments would be read by someone (preferably a community liaison or other active community member), and if any ideas are floated that receive any support, they would be passed up to the WMF for continued discussion (i.e. a WMF started RfC) on the issue. If any major changes are to be implemented between a weekly update and were not included in the previous update, a special update should be issued, and 24 hours given for comment (where feasible). I can further detail my preferred design of this sort of thing if you wish, but I'd rather not tl;dr this more than it already is.
Secondly, the WMF should start RfCs liberally that would be advertised via sitewide notice to all readers, editors, etc. logged in or not for development of ideas and consensus. This would a) make better consensus, and more ideas, but b) also show the WMF cares about the community's opinions and wants to take them into account.
Thirdly, I'm not sure how much TParis shares my sentiments on this one, but I'd like to see an improvement in the community's role in the WMF's decision making process. There's been backlash against almost all of the steps of the VE rollout the entire way, and I'd like to see the WMF take a more active role in determining community consensus for things before they do them, ex. starting their own RfCs or discussions. This would probably also include giving the community liaisons more power to stand up for what they believe the community wants, and turn discussions toward the community instead of internally if they feel it's in the best interest of the community.

Hopefully these things can avoid this sort of thing in the future. I'm available on IRC as Charmlet if you want to talk more, and I also welcome email (through EmailUser). Thanks ~Charmlet ^-talk- 01:00, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

For the record, my role in this has been as a open ear for Charmlet and a few ideas for the concerns he's brought up. I think some of the ideas are good but I know very little of the premise itself to share it.--v/r - T P 01:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello T, hello Charmlet, I think you're looking for WP:WMF and WT:WMF?, which is was what I created out of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WMF noticeboard. Also try m:Forum. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:51, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Charmlet, User:TParis. :) The Wikimedia Foundation really tries to get information out. I mean, for one thing, it hosts its monthly m:Metrics and activities meetings with live streams and IRC participation and posts the videos later so that anyone can view them at any time. At this meeting, the various departments report on what they're up to to each other and to community. When I first came aboard as community liaison, I was looking into a kind of board system myself, which was somewhat similar in spirit to what you're talking about, I think, so obviously I agree that getting this information out to the communities where they live is a good thing. :) (However, there were some challenges with that approach - including the complexity of communication with hundreds of different projects and languages at once.) I don't regard anything that makes informing communities as in any way making my day harder. It would actually make things a lot easier not only for me, but for other staff. For instance, the staff involved would love to be able to reach out better to people with information about m:Individual Engagement Grants.

The WMF does regularly start RFCs, but you may not be aware of these as much because they may not be in areas that interest you or because they're generally held on Meta. Honestly, I think Wikipedia:Flow is going to help tremendously with communication challenges, since we can effectively all be in the same place at once. (It won't solve the language problem, but that's being worked on, too.) For instance, just to name two, there's an ongoing discussion about changing the privacy policy and about the handling of trademarks. With Flow, stuff like that will be much easier to watch and participate in without leaving your "home" wiki. :)

I think that User:Tbayer (WMF) may be the best person to approach with most your ideas. He was hired in part to "research to understand and address movement communication challenges." As a key member of the communications team, he may know what work is underway. If you'd like, I can package up your ideas in an email for him, but you can also just approach him directly here. If he's not the right person, I can reach out to somebody else in Communication for their thoughts. :)

In terms of the liaisons, that is somewhat more in my area, since the liaisons are coordinating closely with Community Advocacy. The liaisons have been very clear and consistent in passing along the feedback they are receiving. I'm not 100% sure what you mean about turning discussions towards the community instead of internally, though. Can you expand? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:37, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that Charmlet means that the perception is "We hear what you're saying, but it's our decision." What he'd like is not only do community liasons take feedback to the WMF meetings, but then they come back to us and share the results. Bi-directional communication. Also, a heads up about what decisions are about to be made so input can be shared before the courses are set and resources are expended. Progress has been made, as you point out, but Charmlet is saying that there is still much to be desired.--v/r - T P 12:41, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Bi-directional communication is a good thing. :) This is something that's being worked towards - the problem is not with the liaisons, but with the current (and still evolving) structure of the information stream. There are legitimate reasons not to want to get in the way of engineers who are engineering, and we're still working out the best way to get their input without slowing down their bug fixes, etc. One possibility that was suggested was hosting a face-to-face meeting between liaisons and product team at the beginning of any major release so that they get to know one another and are comfortable with quick communication. We're also working to ensure that meetings have good and consistent representation from both sides. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Good ideas, I like them. Another one for consideration, we could arm the liaison team with big rubber mallets. Your thoughts? :) --v/r - T P 13:29, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

LOL! I'm for it! :D (I've never seen a rubber mallet wielded, but I understand I have missed a nerf battle or two. And I have heard of people being trouted - though I hope not literally. :/) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:54, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Maggie - my point about the noticeboard (I did know of the two meta RfCs going on, thanks :) was that it'd be a place for people to get their weekly updates, it's more the weekly updates that I was concerned about. Maybe not weekly, just some structure that I can know "oh, hey, it's tuesday, let me go check on and comment on the latest WMF occurances". ~Charmlet ^-talk- 15:50, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

And since I'm an idiot and just left out what I really wanted to say - I think having the noticeboard getting up and running as you have it now would be great, sooner rather than later if possible. I think it should be restricted to WMF posting announcements, and the details of what announcements + format can be worked out later. Also, RfCs on topics affecting only the English Wikipedia (ex. when the WMF turned VE to opt out or enabled it for new editors on enwp only) should be held here, perhaps as a subpage of WP:WMF/Community_input or similar. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 15:53, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

By the way, I'm sure I'm not the only one who had no clue these metrics meetings existed O.o I'll take a look at them. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 15:54, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Metrics are fairly informative. They don't have quite as much detail as they used to, but that's because at one point they became a kind of endurance test. :/ They've been streamlined since. I'd love to see some kind of localized noticeboard, but I'm not sure if the WMF has the resources to run it right now. (If somebody walked up to me and said, "Hey, Maggie, would you maintain this?" I'd have to say, "What do you want me not to do, instead?" I worked 16 hours yesterday. The number of hours was unusual, but the "not enough time in the day" is not.) There's also the challenge of reading and responding to all the comments that might come in on the latest WMF occurrences in all the projects around the world. When VE first deployed, we had two liaisons on English alone for the first 24-36 hours. And we could barely keep up. :) Those concerns expressed (and I'm not saying they'd be insurmountable), I agree with you that we need to improve. I've put it on the table to talk to my supervisor to see if perhaps some kind of community engagement on this is possible. Jay Walsh, who is Senior Director of Communications, is leaving the Foundation on September 27th, and it may be a couple of weeks before he is replaced. I'm not sure how much momentum is possible before his replacement comes aboard, but I'll see what I can find out. In the meantime, are you familiar with the various monthly reports we have? They're listed here: m:Wikimedia Foundation reports. If you didn't know already, you can get weekly tech news delivered directly to your talk page by signing up at m:Global message delivery/Targets/Tech ambassadors. You can read about it m:Tech/News and see the latest issue here: m:Tech/News/2013/34. (User:Biosthmors, it occurs to me to wonder if that stuff is on your page. If not, I may try to add it later, if I remember. For now, I've got to run get ready for a meeting!) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Seeing this thread reminded me that I posted on User:Tbayer (WMF) talk page about the very similar discussion we had a little while back. After a month I've still not received a response. That's not very encouraging from someone that's meant to be dealing with communications. Dpmuk (talk) 15:29, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised - Tilman seems to be generally quite good at answering comments on his talk page. But I have to say, Dpmuk, I try to talk to staff with the same courtesy and basic assumption of good faith that I do volunteers. Even if they're staff, they're human beings. :) Having met most of them in person, I can say they generally seem to be pretty decent human beings - not perfect, but generally competent, and I get along with some better than others. I'm a little worried that your approach there might be a bit adversarial. Even a guy who deals with communications might not be anxious to wade into a conversation if he thinks it's going to be a fight. :) Even if you're upset with the WMF, please try to approach individual staff as if you're assuming the best of them, at least until they prove you shouldn't. Even if not because it's just a happier way to interact with people all the way around, then because it makes people more likely to pay attention to you. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, having read that again I can see how it could be adversarial especially if you took the "you"s in the last sentence to mean someone personally as opposed to the WMF as a organisation which is how it was meant. I think that the problems here are with the foundation, its set up, policies etc than with the staff who I generally assume are doing their best - and, credit where credit's due, I've been very pleasantly surprise by the engagement of many staff over VE and the very reasonable discussion we can have with them. There's only one member of staff I have strong bad feelings about (and which, if you've been reading VPT you're probably aware of) and that's because they've repeatedly come across as treating the community with contempt. And even then I'm prepared to admit it may be a communication issue. Dpmuk (talk) 22:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad that you've been pleasantly surprised. :) In terms of staff, just like with volunteers there are some I get along with better than others. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:35, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to believe that is true. Given that when English Wikipedia did things the right way -- with an RFC that gathered hundreds of comments -- WMF did not make VE opt-in, but when English Wikipedia engaged in adversarial brinkmanship, WMF then made VE opt-in, what do you think the take away message is? NE Ent 23:57, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm speaking entirely for myself here and without talking to anyone else on staff about it (because most of them are still sleeping, I'm sure). I'd say it depends on who is taking the message away. :) My take away is that in the future we need to hear more from the people who are in position to influence engineering decisions directly earlier when issues are raised.

This is the first time we have attempted to manage a change in this way - you can see some early thoughts on it here, although things have evolved considerably since then - and it's a learning experience for all of us. (By the way, please don't assume from "owns tactical day-to-day operations execution" that I've suddenly developed engineering authority. :D That means I keep the schedule for the liaisons. My engineering know-how is really amazing...for a woman of my age with a liberal arts degree. Which is to say that I know what OS means, but the Global message delivery scares me.) There are areas that need work, as mentioned above. Some of these are natural challenges. For instance, there's an awful lot of attention to VE right now, but not quite as much to WP:Flow. Now is when constructive, useful feedback on Flow could be most helpful. I think Flow is going to be simply amazing. I also know it won't come without some pain. But people tend to pay most attention to where there is most pain, so odds are good that no matter what pre-release announcements are made, the bulk of the community will ignore Flow until it is upon them. Now is the best opportunity for the community to be part of the development. We need to figure out how to get people to participate at an early stage.

Other challenges may result from limited manpower or the difficulty of deploying software to a vast community with a lot of different behaviors (how you use software can seriously impact development, obviously) and a host of individualized scripts. Others are related to the fact that "community" is a big and complex concept - we have frequent users ("power users" for lack of a better word), occasional users, new users, anonymous users, future users, readers. We hear from some of these clearly, others less clearly, and others not at all. And we have mandates from a largely community elected Board directing what we must accomplish, hopefully in good time and budget while making this complex community happy.

There are some things I think we've done really well, such as managing bug reports and getting the infrastructure in place for releasing to multiple projects. The liaison team have done a fantastic job coordinating with one another and making sure that community feedback is organized and presented. But figuring out how we can help in doing tech deployments better is a top priority for the Community Advocacy team right now. Among other things, we know we need earlier engagement with engineering so that we can start helping get the word out to community long before completion. We know we need more consistent and clear communication with engineering. And we know we need better ways to not only inform the community but to engage before we reach the "pain" point. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:35, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

What a good answer. Deflected the snark, turned into something positive -- good that WMF has some of you liberal arts folks in among the techies. I had thought maybe to make some suggestions on JD or Erik Möller pages' but I find I am low on wikitime (real life stuff beckons). I've found that it is often better to make no comment than hasty ones (easily misinterpreted), so I'll toss to nugget of the ideas to you to do with as you see fit (including nothing, thanks okay). To wit: JD's response on the VE RFC was just really bad from a tone point of view. Which isn't unusual -- I've been in software engineering for decades and the skill set and personality traits the make one a good coder rarely coexist with folks really good at public relations. To some extent, that may be the organization's problem as much as JD's. While no one likes to be micromanaged it would have been prudent for someone higher in the WMF structure to show some leadership when the English WP <--> WMF interaction regarding VE starting turning really ugly. Erik made some really good points on VPT about how small an actual fraction of editors us politically active types are; in hindsight I think it would have been good if those had been made earlier. NE Ent 20:06, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Most of the "tone" complaints were that James F's note sounded too much like a "public relations" piece. But none of the complainers agreed with the content or gave examples of a preferable way to phrase the same content, which makes it a little difficult to figure out what would have been better (from the perspective of the complainers; we deal with a lot of different cultures here, so what's "publicity like" for one person is often "barely polite enough" to the next). It's even difficult to be sure that what they really meant wasn't "if you're not saying, 'Yes, immediately, whatever you want', then please be rude, too, so it's more obvious that you're a bad person". The complaint consequently doesn't really result in clear understanding or anything actionable. So perhaps, if you (or someone else who is interested) find a little more time on your hands in the coming weeks, you would consider taking the paragraph or two that you think is the most publicity-like, and re-writing it as an example of how to say the same thing in a less publicity-like manner. (The content of the message: the devs want 100% availability, the community asked for 0%, they had already given the community changes that resulted in 50% reduction in use, and James F was proposing, as another meet-in-the-middle compromise to give them another 30% or 40%, and not—repeat not—absolutely and permanently ruling out the possibility of doing what he has since done, which is taking away VisualEditor from all logged-out editors and requiring all others to explicitly opt in). If you could find a way to say that same message with a tone you prefer, and especially if you can find several people who disliked James' tone this time and agree that your version of the same content would be preferable, then I will make sure that the issue was discussed so that any future messages could benefit from the comparison.

As for providing information about how few editors are involved, well: the fact is that I've been saying that for years, and have specifically made that point repeatedly about this RFC, but it doesn't seem to matter. An RFC that involved about half as many people as the SOPA blackout, and that drew support from just one out of every 250 active registered editors (and from basically zero IPs), is still being touted as the biggest community response ever. An RFC that got about 70% support overall is being described as the most unifed response ever, even though IAR got 85% support at its adoption (and that seems to most people to be surprisingly low for a policy adoption). I don't think that the actual numbers matter to most people. For the people who are saying that it's the biggest ever, it really is the most important issue to them personally, and so it seems to be a bigger deal to them than the numbers make it seem to everyone else. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 6 October 2013 (UTC)