Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

The WMF section of the village pump is a community-managed page. Editors or Wikimedia Foundation staff may post and discuss information, proposals, feedback requests, or other matters of significance to both the community and the Foundation. It is intended to aid communication, understanding, and coordination between the community and the foundation, though Wikimedia Foundation currently does not consider this page to be a communication venue.

• Discussions of proposals which do not require significant foundation attention or involvement belong at Village pump (proposals)
• Discussions of bugs and routine technical issues belong at Village pump (technical).
• Consider developing new ideas at the Village pump (idea lab).
• This page is not a place to appeal decisions about article content, which the WMF does not control (except in very rare cases); see Dispute resolution for that.
• Issues that do not require project-wide attention should often be handled through Wikipedia:Contact us instead of here.
• This board is not the place to report emergencies; go to Wikipedia:Emergency for that.

Threads may be automatically archived after 14 days of inactivity.

Behaviour on this page: This page is for engaging with and discussing the Wikimedia Foundation. Editors commenting here are required to act with appropriate decorum. While grievances, complaints, or criticism of the foundation are frequently posted here, you are expected to present them without being rude or hostile. Comments that are uncivil may be removed without warning. Personal attacks against other users, including employees of the Wikimedia Foundation, will be met with sanctions.

« Archives, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

The movement

The phrase "Wikimedia movement" is not a recent invention, though it has received more attention in the past couple years. We individual Wikians of course are free to call ourselves proudly as we will but I think the failure a few years ago to rename the outlying and ancillary sites to "Wikipedia [something]" was unfortunate as it would have helped in public recognition. It would help in recruiting; almost all my students have been attracted to our teaching sessions in hopes of writing a new article when really, it would usually be easier for them to learn how to add a new picture. For my own editing, for a decade or more I have been putting about as much effort into Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata as into English Wikipedia. Those sites do a few things but mainly they supply pictures and data (geographical coordinates are one of my specialties) to the hundreds of Wikipedias including English. Even without a common name, I figure there ought to be a common policy structure and general set of guidelines for us all, so the WMF staff don't have to decide so many things for us. Naturally there will be an interest in adding matters that are mainly the concern of only the encyclopedias or of only few of the various other autonomous member sites, who each ought to handle such things by their already established methods. There will be disagreements on such questions, but I'm confident our usual methods of drawing a consensus will prevail. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:16, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• In short: I'm curious whether you're saying you believe that a difference of one letter (in some cases) constitutes a real detriment to the development of Wikipedia's sister sites? "Wiki" is already very widely associated with Wikipedia by the public, does "Wikipedia Data" being a thing people hear about and are surprised it exists seem much more unlikely than with "Wikidata"?
• I really disagree that even in effect Commons's main function is to act as Wikipedia's image repository. Its use is ubiquitous.

I figure there ought to be a common policy structure and general set of guidelines for us all, so the WMF staff don't have to decide so many things for us.

• I don't really think this structure makes sense. WMF doesn't really make that many choices for us—or at least, I feel part of the process for just about every choice I would like input on. I'm not sure what exactly you would like centralized, the current model seems to work. Do you have specific areas of policy or administration in mind?

Remsense诉 00:39, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it's important to remember that there isn't a "we", strictly speaking. Not all of us are here to be part of a movement or whatever, or even editing for the same reasons; some just want to fxi a tyop that bugged them, others to add information about their favourite volcano. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I have a great respect for sister projects. I refer to Wiktionary regularly, and I use Commons unconsciously most times I read a Wikipedia article with images, though I've contributed very little to either. I use Wikidata occasionally, and was briefly an enthusiastic contributor; I would use it much more if it had an intuitive user interface. None of this makes me part of a "Wikimedia movement", which I see largely as a political stance shared by some but not all editors. Certes (talk) 09:08, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The fact that you think the other projects are nothing more than ancillary sites that should be rebranded as under the Wikipedia umbrella is a very, very bad sign. Cremastra (talk) 22:04, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I completely understand that Wikipedia editors have a very Wikipedia-centric view of the broader Wikimedia community. It would be nice if everyone had the interest to learn more about the other projects, and how they are used, but I understand that it's not a priority for most Wikipedians, regardless of which language Wikipedia they choose to edit. But I'll just throw in a few tidbits:
• For many mainstream media sources that use images, Wikimedia Commons is often a go-to resource. There isn't a day that I don't find a Wikimedia Commons credit on the series of mainstream media sources I look at.
• Wikidata is used widely as a data aggregator by many other not-for-profit resources.
• Some language editions of Wikisource are the largest repositories of open-source historic documents and literature in those languages
• Some language editions of Wiktionary are having a major impact in preserving dying languages

The 339 Wikipedias, with their collective 62+ million articles, are indeed the major drivers of the Wikimedia family of projects; the largest Wikipedias, especially the English one, have deservedly gained a reputation for accuracy and neutrality in providing the entire world with information. That doesn't mean that the "sister projects" don't make a valuable contribution to the sum of all human knowledge. I will never fault anyone for choosing to focus on one specific Wikimedia project, or even one small aspect of a specific project. We're all better for those contributions. Risker (talk) 08:39, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Fearful of being caught beating a dead horse, I'll speak once more and hope to be disciplined enough to hold my peace. Yes, one little letter can indeed make a difference. Besides the local Wikimedia Chapter I am a member of local clubs concentrating on bicycling and astronomy. I'm always nattering to them about how we make Wikipedia and sometimes they actually listen. A couple times, though they did not surrender to my efforts to get them to edit an article or two, they decided that a money contribution would be a good thing. "Eh? The form said 'Wikimedia Foundation'. Is that the same thing, or did someone else sneak in with some kind of Internet scam?" These people had me to make the explanation, unlike most outsiders.
• A common brand can't help us thousands of insiders to understand what we're doing; like other big busy communities we are too complex to be understood with just a few simple labels. However, that's not what brands are for. Brand names are to promote instant understanding among the mass of outsiders, in this case their understanding that this is a big complex of websites with a common theme. We have different detailed policies to handle our specialties, but we are all about Wikipedia's original aim of promoting universal knowledge by organizing it for accessibility.
• I have uploaded thousands of pictures to Wikimedia Commons, and I know of a dozen that are used in news publications, books, and other works. Probably hundreds more are so used; we don't require to be given notice. The usual credit, when given, is "From Wikipedia" or "From Wikimedia Commons" or "by Jim.henderson via Wikimedia Commons". I figure, out of the small minority of their readers who actually wonder where the pictures came from, "From Wikipedia" is the only one that isn't mysterious. Yes, knowledge professionals, most often, know what they are doing but they hope their product will be read by many more people than are composing it; same as we do. They don't expect their readers to learn what it takes to be a knowledge professional.
• Wikidata is indeed used by many knowledge professionals. I am most familiar with the work of librarians since I work with them often, and have a lunch appointment tomorrow with a relative who's in that line of work. They are familiar with the different workings of OCLC, Worldcat, LoC and various local or specialized catalogs, and many of them also use Wikidata to help find their way through and among the others. Haha, a couple years ago I looked at the Wikidata item about me, and it showed my LoC Authority Control Number. What, has my good work come to such high prominence? No, that was another Jim Henderson, so I corrected it. Wikidata is full of dirty data like that, some of it imported from massive outside databases a century old or more. Not a big problem since WD serves people in the database business who are aware. I have also worked with art museum archivists and have no idea whether their old catalogs have as many errors as the databases for community gardens in Brooklyn or defunct restaurants in The Bronx. Hmm, perhaps I have wandered but anyway yes, the question of what brand name Wikidata ought to use is a lot less important than for Wikiprojects that serve a wider direct audience.
• Oh-oh, it seems this paragraph on WD has revealed that I've already gone overboard. So, I'll drop my stick and carefully back away from the dead horse. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:13, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The full Movement Charter draft awaits your review on Meta

Hello again! I am following up on the pre-announcement from the previous week to let you know that the full draft of the Movement Charter has been published on Meta for your review.

Why should you care?

The Movement Charter is important as it will be an essential document for the implementation of the Wikimedia 2030 strategy recommendations. Participating in the Charter discussions means that you ensure that your voice is heard and your interests are represented in shaping the future of the Wikimedia Movement. As the English Wikipedia community is the largest of the Wikimedia movement, it is essential to have the perspectives from your community presented in the global conversations. I hope many of you will find time to provide feedback, share your thoughts and perspectives!

Community Engagement – April 2nd to April 30th

The Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) cordially invites everyone in the Wikimedia movement to share feedback on the full draft of the Movement Charter.

Let your voice be heard by sharing your feedback in any language on the Movement Charter Talk page, attend the community session today, on April 4th at 15.00-17.00 UTC, or email movementcharter@wikimedia.org. I will also be monitoring conversations on this talk page, to bring back the summaries to the ongoing global conversations.

You can learn more about the Movement Charter, Global Council, and Hubs by watching the videos that the Movement Charter Drafting Committee has prepared. Read the Committee's latest updates for more information about the most recent activities from the Drafting Committee.

Thank you again for your time and kind attention! I look forward to your input and feedback. Have a wonderful month of April! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 13:07, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Unified enwiki response to the charter

In votes like these a significant issue is that interested editors do not have the time or wherewithal to properly assess the issues or candidates presented and so abstain from the vote. I propose that we attempt to address this, by having more engaged editors consider the proposal carefully and, in consultation with the community though an RfC, issue a recommendation either to support or oppose the change. Specifically, I propose a three-stage process:

1. A pre-RfC discussion where we will write a neutral summary of the proposal.
2. An RfC where we will:
   1. !Vote to approve the summary and its dissemination
   2. !Vote whether we should encourage eligable enwiki editors to vote for or against the change
3. Assuming the summary is approved, a mass message to all eligable enwiki editors providing it. Further, assuming there is a consensus either for or against the change, a recommendation to the editors that they vote in line with that consensus.

Stage one should probably begin soon, in time for a RfC in May; first, however, I wanted a brief discussion of the general idea. BilledMammal (talk) 02:41, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, BilledMammal. This isn't a bad idea, but it is worth noting that the draft charter will be revised in early May following this current feedback round. Although the MCDC (of which I am a a member) does not anticipate making really large changes, I think it would be reasonable to assume that the final version is going to have at least some differences from the current draft. Would it make sense to create a feedback page on this project as a place where interested enwiki editors could flesh out their opinions before the final revision is made? I'd hate to see people investing a lot of time reviewing a draft and proposing a project-wide opinion in an RFC-type format, based on a document that we know will change. There is something to be said for having a local page for comments and suggestions for improvement (and please yes, if someone thinks X is a bad idea, propose an alternative) as long as there's a link to it on the Meta page so that the MCDC will be well-informed of the discussion on this project. (For that matter, it may be a good idea for other projects, and I'm pretty sure some of them are thinking about this too.) Risker (talk) 03:17, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

That's a good point, but we also need to consider that it will take time for the RfC to run. I think we should start drafting the summary based on the current document, and then make any updates that are necessary to align it with the May changes and start the RfC a few days after it is released.

I would also agree that creating a local page where editors can make comments and suggestions for improvements would be useful, although I would suggest just using this page as it isn't as busy as the other village pumps and thus an extensive discussion of the proposed charter won't disrupt other discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 04:59, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I think mass messaging every eligible voter WP:ACE style might be too many people. Perhaps a watchlist notice, or pinging rfc participants, would be a good compromise. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that the vote to ratify this charter is less important than the vote to elect the Arbitration Committee. BilledMammal (talk) 16:32, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this initiative, BilledMammal, to approach the Movement Charter conversations in a constructive way! For reference, the timeline for the steps can be found here on meta and you are right, the time is of essence. It has been already pointed out on the meta discussion page that the review of the Charter would benefit from additional contextual materials for informed decision-making. As a supporting staff member to the MCDC I will see what I can do, yet it might take some time. If there are priority areas for further context in the English Wikipedia community, please let me know, so I can focus my work around that and hopefully have respective content available earlier. Also let us know, if we can support the discussions around the Charter in other ways. Looking forward to hearing the perspectives and seeing good participation from en.wp community! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 12:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@KVaidla (WMF), can you please provide an update on recent actions by the WMF Board,. re the movement charter? thanks!! Sm8900 (talk) 20:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Responding to Katherine Maher / Uri Berliner Story

What is WMF's position on the buzz on X/Twitter over Katherine Maher's ideological beliefs (e.g. with 2 million views) and NPR Veteran Uri Berliner's resignation  ? Are there any efforts to clarify the distinction of those views from WMF and editors at large?

@llywrch raised concern about the transition in January. I worry about unfair attention to implications of Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia which may trickle over to Wikipedia's editors & patrons.

cc: @I JethroBT (WMF) Tonymetz 💬 18:46, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

In that clip, Maher's not talking about her personal philosophy. She's talking about a principle that's been part of Wikipedia since long before her tenure at the WMF: the distinction between verifiability and capital-T Truth. The idea is that an encyclopedia anyone can edit could not function if it were predicated on a bunch of anonymous users arguing about what The Absolute Truth is. To make this model work, we try to leave The Truth and the beliefs of individual users out of the equation and instead spend our time debating how to effectively summarize what reliable sources outside of Wikipedia say about a subject. Then we cite those sources. As a tertiary source, we can afford to outsource ~truth to journalists, book publishers, academics, and other experts/professionals.
What's going on now is that people are highlighting that clip and similar claims about Wikipedia and making it seem like she doesn't care about what's true in a journalistic sense. It is [ironic] misleading partisan dreck. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:34, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

That is helpful context thank you. Tonymetz 💬 20:30, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

An example I use is that, at one point, plate tectonics was considered a fringe theory by most of the best and most reliable sources in the field. Had Wikipedia existed at that time, it would have said as much. Now, of course, those who thought it was true actually did the hard work, collected the evidence, did the math, convinced their peers, and today plate tectonics is widely considered correct. So Wikipedia says as much. But Wikipedia isn't out to "scoop" anyone on anything (and indeed, if we ever do, we should not congratulate ourselves, but ask "What went wrong?"). Rather, once the best sources available on a given subject change their consensus, then, and only then, should Wikipedia change to reflect that. We could argue forever over what the truth actually is and never come to consensus on it, so the best we can do is to reflect what the best available sources say on a given subject. If it turns out that they're wrong and that later comes to light, well, articles can be edited after that happens. But only after. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:10, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

thanks this helps provide some context on her words. I also want to make sure WMF helps manage the PR . Most patrons, editors and readers will need help understanding WMF & Wikipedia's position Tonymetz 💬 23:12, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I am Lauren from the Communications Department at the Foundation. Thank you for letting us know about your concerns. We are following the situation, and our goal as always is to raise understanding of the Wikipedia model. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Lauren for your efforts here. What is the best way for editors to track the Communication Department's efforts as the situation develops? I've noticed the attacks have become more directed toward Wikipedia itself. Tonymetz 💬 17:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

We can update you here if there are any new developments. Thanks for being so attentive to this. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Are any comms planned? The story seems to be getting more coverage and as an editor I would like to see the comms team defend Wikipedia. Tonymetz 💬 20:49, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Could we have the comms team hold a Q&A? Some of the claims, particularly around US federal government influence over content (akin to Twitter Files ) are particularly worrisome. It would be nice to see that this matter is being seriously addressed. Tonymetz 💬 20:29, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, we are continuing to monitor and are addressing any incoming media questions, as well as clarifying our model to people. We've seen a dramatic drop in conversations about this issue. Our social listening analytics, which assess the volume of mentions on this topic based on relevant keywords, show that from 1 April - 2 May, the peak of mentions occurred on 18 April (with 8709 mentions). On 2 May, there were 15 mentions, and we continue to see a decline. The press team is keeping a close watch. Thanks for the flags in this thread. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and some updates. So it sounds like the Twitter / social-media message volume is the critical indicator of the gravity of this story? Are there other indicators used? I ask becausea Congressional hearing has been called and if that happens, her tenure at Wikipedia will be the primary topic (she's only been at NPR for a few months)

And how about internal comms? I've seen other editors with concerns over possible censorship. Can we get reassurance that there has been no outside influence over Wikipedia content? Tonymetz 💬 16:21, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I think proving the negative can be quite difficult. There are some things I would change about WMF but I don't recall seeing any sort of censorship on a content project. As other's have said WMF doesn't have a ton of influence over content. And WMF has a clear and explicit legal policy (and strategy) to not get involved in content or editorial decisions. Now moving on from WMF to Wikipedia itself:

In many ways Wikipedia really goes the extra mile to be transparent about what changed, who changed it, when they changed it, what did they discuss about it before or after the change. Have you identified any part of the wiki where you think transparency is lacking? Any information you have been unable to find?

It would be helpful if you could identify specific instances (topics? articles? diffs?) Where you think Wikipedia has been censored. Were you censored yourself? I believe analyzing specific instances would be more productive. Jeremyb (talk) 18:04, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Ok that's helpful and it seems like getting internal comms on the subject will be trivial. Tonymetz 💬 18:24, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing and it helps to learn more about the process that WMF uses to ensure they are living up to policies. I did look at the policy you shared it was helpful, but also concerning.

About what you shared, I have two concerns. One , the policy itself says Wikimedia Foundation generally does not edit, contribute to, or monitor the content on the site. -- which means in some cases they do.

Secondly, any corporate policy is just a legislative mandate. The organization is also required to perform regular audits to ensure they are abiding by the policies. So we should have a record we could go by. Tonymetz 💬 18:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding "transparency" , which is a popular topic with many connotations. I believe You're referring to the edit history that every page has. Yes this is one component of transparency but does not live up to a full audit log and accountability process required to confirm that WMF is not involved in editing.

MediaWiki itself supports confidential edits and edits can be hidden. The hosting platform can also modify the edit log itself so editors don't have a record of what is changing.

Even ignoring the audit trail, WMF has WP:ADMINH admin authority over the editors and also side-channel authority . There are dozens of ways that the WMF leadership team could have influenced content on COVID-19 without WMF showing up on the history page of those articles.

I think what you are referring to as "transparency" is only a small component of what a regulatory audit would consider as good governance and accountability.

I know you've asked me to provide evidence of WMF influence and I want to clarify that I'm not the one making the case here. The media has made a reasonable case that KM made claims to have helped the government have influence over covid-19 content.

Assuming that WMF has a clear policy of zero modifications on Wikipedia, and that policy is being enforced and audited, I'm assuming that they can quickly spell out why the media's claims are preposterous. Tonymetz 💬 18:55, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

@Tonymetz: It should be rather obvious that it is impossible for the WMF to not make a single edit to Wikipedia. Office actions are sometimes performed.

Regarding transparency, as Jeremy mentioned, it's very hard to prove a negative. How would you confirm the WMF is not involved in editing? Would a "full audit log" not also be vulnerable to modified edit logs? Do you think no one would notice if content on a high-traffic page was all of a sudden changed substantially without any corresponding edit log? ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:18, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Generally institutions hire a third party auditor who establishes the appropriate process, evidence (including audit trail), resources, personnel etc that would be required to attest that the given commitment is withheld.

I'm saying that the Page history alone would not meet that bar (of full transparency).

I don't want to say that's my expectation here. Just being clear that the Help:Page history alone is not an audit log.

For my request here I'm just asking WMF to help with internal comms to reinforce that WMF is not influencing content Tonymetz 💬 19:29, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

So what is your expectation? An explicit statement that the WMF does not covertly influence Wikipedia? ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't want to be too prescriptive. Right now I'm just asking for more comms & engagement with the editors than we've seen so far. Tonymetz 💬 20:07, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Do you think no one would notice if content on a high-traffic page was all of a sudden changed substantially without any corresponding edit log

This wouldn't be an adequate safeguard assuming there is a policy in place.

In case you think I'm being academic. Twitter & Meta both had technical and procedural systems in place to intervene with Covid-19 content . Those procedures were not revealed until they were exposed by subpoena, despite having a massive amount of visibility Tonymetz 💬 19:32, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I highly doubt people wouldn't notice if content suddenly shifted in tone. Relying on editors has worked so far, i see no reason why this should be any different. Content moderation on social media is done differently than on Wikipedia. Edits are logged, page history is viewable, moderation is performed by users, not the parent organization. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:50, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I hope I've made a case on why this is good yet still incomplete. Perhaps I can ask -- why would you be opposed? The WMF is well funded, and likely has all of this content available already. Why would you be opposed to internal comms re-enforcing that WMF does not influence editing? Tonymetz 💬 20:23, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

If you mean abolishing office actions this is not realistic. This would mean you (and not a lawyer representing the WMF) would go to the court if you accidentally upload a copyright violation and get sued over it. Ymblanter (talk) 20:29, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

no i didn't mean anything having to do with office actions. Tonymetz 💬 20:56, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to a statement from the WMF regarding what they do on wiki, I just think it's a bit pointless. Just to be clear, the WMF has edited articles before, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just doubt that the WMF has covertly influenced articles to support some unknown agenda. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:38, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing WP:Office Actions it has an interesting history

There are few edits before 2023 -- which makes me think it's a tool & policy that's only recently been activated. Tonymetz 💬 19:43, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Try taking a look at the contribs instead of the filter log. There are a bunch of edits before 2023. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:51, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

can I ask your help with that? I thought those were the same. Tonymetz 💬 20:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

The filter log lists only lists things that have tripped an edit filter, usually an unconstrctuive edit or vandalism. The vast majority of edits won't trip these filters, so won't appear in the filter log. See WP:EF for more info. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

It seems the filtered contrib log is here [1]. thanks for helping with that I had mixed up the UI Tonymetz 💬 20:25, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

To add to what other users have noted, we publish transparency reports that provide information about requests we receive to alter or remove content on Wikimedia projects. The most recent covers July to December 2023. If you have further questions, feel free to contact us at answers@wikimedia.org. @Tonymetz @ARandomName123 LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 16:19, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing this it's helpful I hadn't seen it yet. This is the sort of content I was hoping to discover with our discussion here. Tonymetz 💬 18:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there a way to see the content of the requests (e.g. Article Names & requested changes) for Requests for content alteration and takedown by project Tonymetz 💬 23:23, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

it's showing 89 requests on English Wikipedia, 33 by USA in H1 2021 Tonymetz 💬 23:24, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

what's the best forum for pursuing this concern? I get that I'm in the minority, but minorities can often have valid concerns. This conversation has been revealing, from "WMF is independent of WP" to "our transparency report shows about 200 changes / year".

In short I think it's a valid topic yet also nuanced and may ruffle some feathers. What would be the best way to continue this ? Tonymetz 💬 23:45, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

You use quote marks but I don't believe you're quoting anything on this page. (I used ctrl-f to search for "200 changes" and "independent of".)

MediaWiki itself supports confidential edits and edits can be hidden. The hosting platform can also modify the edit log itself so editors don't have a record of what is changing. There are regular dumps of content published. (at least once a month) for as long as I can remember there's been a real-time feed of edits as they happen (at least 15 years but wikitech makes me think 19+ years) and anyone that watches that IRC feed could fetch diffs/revisions/other history immediately as soon as it's submitted.

You should identify a specific case of a change to an article (diff? log entry? or at least an article title and time period) that concerns you. You should tell us why you believe the existing transparency measures are insufficient and propose specifically what should be changed to alleviate your concerns. You should go make some edits yourself and see what sticks or doesn't. Jeremyb (talk) 04:40, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

i'm sorry who are you? Tonymetz 💬 21:39, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Are there ways to see the articles affected? Tonymetz 💬 16:06, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

If yes I'm sure it won't be comprehensive. maybe @LDickinson (WMF): can say more. Jeremyb (talk) 04:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@Seraphimblade You too, huh? [2]. Ignaz Semmelweis is a good alternative. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:34, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

When I was writing WP:When sources are wrong, to illustrate a case where we had no choice but to be wrong I used this version of Priming (psychology): We did a good job summarizing a well-respected social science theory. It later turned out that that theory is almost certainly junk, but we still got it right based on the information we had to work with. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 18:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

it's more honest and straightforward to say "we got it wrong". "getting it right" doesn't mean following the rules — "getting it right" means "getting it right" Tonymetz 💬 18:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion Wikipedia can't function if people are chasing truth rather than Verifiable content that has a Neutral Point of View based on Reliable Sources. That does mean that we're going to present information that is wrong at times. But does provide a reasonable set of parameters on which editors can more likely find consensus about what content says than if we go after truth. And far more often it means we don't present information that is wrong even if the editor adding it firmly believes its true. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:01, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

In practice, "right" is always relative to something. One can argue that there is such a thing as objective correctness—that's a pretty profound philosophical question, and above my paygrade—but even if there is, only supernatural beings would be privy to such a distinction. For we mere mortal encyclopedists, the best we can do is be "right" relative to the knowledge we have access to. Even now, can we conclusively say we were wrong then and are right now? Science could be wrong twice, unlikely as that may be. From our frame of reference now, our current article is right. (Well, right-ish, it actually hasn't been updated very well.) From our frame of reference in 2012, the article we had then was right. We can't hold ourselves to any higher or lower standard than that. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 19:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I am old enough to remember that the views expressed by Maher in this clip were very well represented in the initial iterations of the Wikimedia Strategy 2030 process. I would even say they represent the core of what the Strategy process was meant to produce initially. But there was a big community pushback and all that language got dropped. MarioGom (talk) 13:20, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm just puzzled as to why any Wikipedian would be treating Vivek Ramaswamy or Chris Rufo as if they are honest brokers. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:19, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Since my name was mentioned, I'll add my two cents. I find the issue that Berliner raises intriguing. While I haven't listened to NPR for something like 30-35 years, I've seen criticism of NPR for being too conservative; this makes me wonder just how accurate Berliner's criticism is. Yet I feel a certain solidarity with his situation at NPR: there are times I feel Wikipedia is increasingly pandering to certain groups at the cost of helping volunteers in general. I can only wonder if this tendency was caused Maher, since I don't remember this happening before her. (I want to emphasize that this is more of a feeling than an accusation.)

But I found more of interest was the PR release announcing Katherine Maher as the new head of NPR, especially about her "achievements" at the Foundation. I'm sure to anyone who wasn't a volunteer at Wikipedia during her tenure it sounds impressive; I can only wonder just how much of these claims she actually believes. (I must admit almost everyone inflates their resume to some degree.) One detail I will comment about, her claim that she "reversed decades-long declines in core contributors": my own opinion is that after Sue Gardner's less than empathetic attitude towards the average volunteer, almost anyone could have been appointed head of the Foundation, & the number of "core contributors" could have only increased. She benefitted by not being Sue Gardner. -- llywrch (talk) 07:19, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm dumbfounded by Katherine Maher's statements directly undermining some of the core principles of Wikipedia: including verifiability and notability through published, secondary, independent, and reliable sources. And linking those to some identitary and racial arguments is appaulling. One other core value of Wikipedia is that editors' identities do not matter: what matters is the quality of their contributions, judged by themselves.

I am a contributor of both my time and my money to Wikipedia/WMF. I have tended not to follow closely the work by the WMF and its leadership. I am appalled by Katherine Maher's statement. How could she been allowed to become the WMF's ED?? That seems gross negligence by the Board of Directors. That all makes me want to stop my monthly donations. I think it would help address this issue if the WMF made a public statement that despite Maher's crazy statement, the WMF stays true to the original core values of Wikipedia and as a consequence does not get involved in identity politics. Thoughts? Al83tito (talk) 14:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia has always been a left-wing institution, just as academia has been for decades prior. The ideological bias was baked-in. Why else are supposed right wing sources deprecated here so often? Now the problem for many contributors is that they realize the one party they joined in hope actually eats its own young, and that in the future you guys might not be so safe from your erstwhile allies. If this story reflects on Wikipedia, it is only this realization that the WMF is as much of the pipeline for this ideology as the other parts of Maher's resume. Don't bother trying to distance us from her. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Within my lifetime in the United States the only major political party which has eaten its own has been the Republican Party... Between 2000 and today the GOP ran Bush, McCain, Romney, and Trump... Only one of them is currently a Republican in good standing. The Democratic Party ran Gore, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, and Biden... All are currently Democrats in good standing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree that her positions on censorship, truth, the first amendment, and “correcting past wrongs” are a bigger risk to Wikipedia than the degree of her left-leaning beliefs. They threaten Wikipedia’s reputation as a neutral publication. Both her ideology and left leaning views may scare off a good portion of our patrons and editors. It would be good to know exactly how little or how much influence her views have had on Wikipedia. Were there active censorship efforts? How much does WMF influence the senior administrative staff like bureaucrats, stewards, Aprbcom, admins etc. ?

In short, WMF has had a few months to prep for this fallout and there are hundreds (thousands) of volunteers who deserve PR support to protect their hard work on the encyclopedia. Tonymetz 💬 15:55, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I think most of her personal positions are being overblown and conflated with Wikipedia, but I do disagree with her statement about notability. It's not Wikipedia's responsibility to right great wrongs. She points out that Wikipedia reflects the biases of the world, but that's Wikipedia working as intended. If there is more source content written about Western topics or cultures with written traditions, then Wikipedia is going to have more articles about Western topics or those cultures. Yes, that would mean unequal coverage, but what are we expected to do about it? We follow what sources say, not lead them. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 01:42, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Tonymetz: Thanks for your question, Tony. I'm not personally aware of any official statements from the Foundation on these developments at the moment, so I've brought this thread to the attention of the Movement Communications team. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 16:13, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

thank you for the quick attention to this post and for escalating it to the appropriate team. I appreciate your help here. Tonymetz 💬 16:33, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Does Maher have a current role in the WMF? I am unsure why WMF would need to have a position on her statements related to her current role, a few years after she moved on from being WMF CEO. (They certainly should not have a position on X/Twitter buzz.) CMD (talk) 02:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Katherine Maher says that, as CEO of Wikipedia, she "took a very active approach to disinformation," coordinated censorship "through conversations with government," and suppressed content related to the pandemic and the 2020 election.

[3]

More generally, the bulk of the content receiving attention was made during her tenure here (or refers to it).

This is among the top responsibilities of the comms team. Tonymetz 💬 02:33, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Responding to X/twitter posts should certainly not be among the top responsibilities of the comms team, especially if they're such obviously rubbish tweets. The WMF does not editorially control the various language Wikipedias. CMD (talk) 05:17, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Tonymetz: Why do you care what Christopher Rufo has to say about her? Wikipedia says he is a conservative activist and he is certainly not a reliable source. If you want to criticize or analyze her words then why not look at her original words in their original form? and then quote from there not from Rufo. I believe that I've found a video and transcript of what Rufo was referring to. I tentatively plan to watch the video tomorrow, haven't read the transcript yet. Jeremyb (talk) 05:51, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Why do you care

. I worry about unfair attention to implications of Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia which may trickle over to Wikipedia's editors & patrons.

I tentatively plan to watch the video tomorrow, haven't read the transcript yet.

do let us know Tonymetz 💬 17:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Precisely. Ymblanter (talk) 06:35, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

What's going on

Pardon the self-indulgent subsection and long post, but this is turning into a real story in right-wing media and it seems useful to pull all the claims together. So here's what's going on, as far as I've seen. (I do not work for or speak for the WMF, just to be clear, and as such don't object if someone wants to move this elsewhere).
It appears to begin with Christopher Rufo, who found in Katherine Maher a new target in a campaign to dig through people's past comments to frame as radical leftists, stoking partisan outrage and eroding trust in institutions he perceives as leaning left. And yet again right-wing media is eating it up while making no effort to verify that the framing is accurate. Ironically, it's terrible journalism about insinuations of bad journalism.
Here's what he found, and the basis for the current hubbub about Maher:

1. Some years-old tweets that make it clear she's a democrat. Yes, she appears to support Biden and doesn't like Trump. Certainly none of the heads of the news organizations picking up this story have expressed political beliefs before, right? IMO it would've been a good idea to wipe her Twitter before jumping into the WMF CEO role and certainly before the NPR role, but none of the tweets were really all that wild. Maybe cause for some light Twitter bashing like we see anytime leaders of companies are found to not be apolitical robots, more or less assuaged with a "I shouldn't have said that on my personal twitter account years ago" apology. The most "scandalous" was one about Trump being racist, which might be jarring if she tweeted it today in her NPR role, but it was six years ago. Also, whether you agree or not, it's hardly a fringe interpretation of his comments/actions. Regardless, these aren't what most people are focusing on.
2. One of the clips going viral is from a TED Talk (here's the full talk) where she's talking about Wikipedia. When you hear someone say something odd about Wikipedia and the truth, they're probably talking about the practical way in which Wikipedia works, not a personal philosophy. Wikipedia works according to verifiability, which is what makes it possible for a bunch of anonymous users to collaborate on a single version of an article. If we were all arguing about things we know to be True, it would be chaos. Imagine writing an article on the Israel-Palestine conflict, for example, based just on what individual people on the internet say is true. It wouldn't work. For some subjects, it's easy to agree on a single truth; in others, we have to figure out how to present multiple perspectives based on good sources and put aside what individual users say is true. That is the kind of truth Maher is talking about, arguing that the "productive friction" of sorting out how to summarize multiple perspectives could be beneficial outside of Wikipedia, too. Her words about Wikipedia, by definition a tertiary source, are being isolated and reframed to make it seem like she's talking about truth in the journalistic sense of NPR. That would be clear to anyone who watches the full talk or puts any effort at all into fact-checking the context. Journalistic outfits that care about truth usually do that sort of thing rather than write a story about a short clip someone posted on X without asking any questions.
3. The "first amendment" clip doesn't even need the jargony context of the Wikipedia-related one -- it just requires listening to the question she's answering. Here's a link that includes the question. She was asked about solutions for dealing with content like misinformation and asked where those solutions will come from: companies, the government, civil society, etc. So she talks about civil society and about companies. As far as government, she says that yeah, if you think the government is going to intervene and do something to address misinformation, the first amendment presents an obstacle. It's just a non-starter. That's.... it. She never says it should change, she never says it should be removed, never says it's bad. She's not even talking about her own opinion -- it's just addressing the government part of the question. She then talks about the importance of the first amendment in giving platforms the ability to moderate content according to their own business interests and values. It's simply misleading to present it as "Katherine Maher is against the first amendment".
4. Some quotes about race, gender, notability, and a "white male Westernized construct". There's a lot to be said about systemic bias on Wikipedia, gender gap on Wikipedia, racial bias on Wikipedia, etc., and a lot of debate over the extent to which systemic bias affects Wikipedia's content, whether it's something to be fixed, how it could/should be fixed, or if it's something simply to understand as a historical reality. The idea is, if demographic surveys show that Wikipedia is written overwhelmingly by men in North America and Europe, that probably affects the content in some way. Our articles on European naval battles, baseball, and Hollywood movies are better than our articles about women's health in Tanzania. So there are efforts to recruit other participants, with the hope that it will increase the overall quality/coverage of the encyclopedia. It's not especially controversial to acknowledge that the historical record of Europe and the US was almost entirely written by and about white men. Again, whether that's something we should look at and say "that happened, and we've come a long way since then" or "that happened, and we haven't done enough to address it" is open to debate, but Maher is basically alluding to these things and saying that the free/open approach of Wikipedia reproduces those biases rather than corrects them. If your perspective is that we should not try to fix these biases, I have good news for you! Those are our policies. We base articles on published sources and whatever biases exist in the body of literature on a subject will typically be reproduced in Wikipedia because we are a tertiary source. During Maher's time at WMF, our rules for notability (how we determine which subjects get articles) got stricter, not more inclusive. That's not specific to Maher -- they've been getting steadily more restrictive for years. The point is, regardless of where you stand on issues of bias, the Wikimedia Foundation and its CEO have no power at all to change anything at all about how Wikipedia writes articles or which articles it covers. The most they can do is decide where to allocate recruitment funds and determine what makes for the best language in fundraising/communications.

TL;DR - Culture warriors on X are isolating clips of Katherine Maher and using a blatantly misleading framing to stoke outrage about NPR and Wikipedia. Maher's statements aren't actually controversial, didn't have anything to do with how articles are written on Wikipedia, and have nothing to do with NPR at all, but yeah she wore a Biden hat and had a nice dream about Kamala Harris (Twitter's a weird place sometimes). Even if they were accurate portrayals of her philosophy, the Wikimedia Foundation does not influence the content of the articles you read on Wikipedia in any way. Any news publication that's actually interested in things like "truth" could've figured out these tweets were misleading with minimal effort. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

100% endorse with one quibble. My reading of her answer to the question in the First Amendment clip is that she actually does endorse the First Amendment, even in the context of content moderation on the internet, because it gives platforms the ability to moderate content according to their own interests and values. Small difference, but an important one. Loki (talk) 03:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see that I said something different, but for the avoidance of doubt: yes. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:34, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

100%. A lot of this is just basic willingness to look beyond what people scream out loud. If people haven’t learned by now that those who yell loudest are generally in it for their own good, rather than the rest of us… well I call that a failure of the educational system. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Funny thing is that my criticism of Maher has been independent of whatever this Rufo troll has been writing. (I'd like a reliable source to confirm that he has been the primary instigator.) And I'm annoyed that my criticism about her abilities as a manager is being usurped by one side in the ongoing US culture wars. From what I've read, her political views are very close to mine. Further, the effort to combat systemic bias on Wikipedia started years before Maher's tenure, probably years before she even heard of Wikipedia -- that page was first created 4 October 2004 -- so I'm offended she is taking credit as a major driver in that effort, when I never witnessed her making any significant contributions to solve that serious problem. Flying around the world to hold meetings to discuss how this is a problem & that more meetings are needed doesn't count. Especially when this hasn't generated any of the many needed articles.

My criticism is based on what I've seen while a contributor during her tenure -- especially her clumsy handling of the FRAM incident. In that incident, she was so out of touch with what was happening & obsessed with her own priorities that it required someone to flame her on her preferred social networking platform for her to finally acknowledge that a problem existed needing her attention. (People posting on her talk page over at Meta, asking her to intervene, failed to attract her attention; from other statements she made it would appear that she didn't value the wikiwiki platform that highly.)

As I wrote above, almost everyone inflates their resume to some degree. I found Maher's claims about her accomplishments as CEO of the Foundation was notably inflated. And I am annoyed about that, if not offended. Where was she when I -- or anyone -- needed help with finding materials to write articles to fill gaps in Wikipedia coverage? I have stated elsewhere that I hope she learned from her tenure at the Foundation, & won't repeat the same mistakes at NPR as she did there, but I'm reserving my final judgment on that matter. -- llywrch (talk) 17:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Your comments have been helpful for me to better understand her leadership accomplishments and setbacks. Tonymetz 💬 20:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Given that you think the attack is unfounded -- would you see the need for comms to correct the story and defend against the attack? Tonymetz 💬 18:21, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: "job aids" for Wiki editors

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Proposal: "job aids" for Wiki editors

 – Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:27, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Digital Safety on Wikimedia Platforms

Hello Wikimedians,

We are reaching out to you all today with a message from the Human Rights and Trust and Safety Teams at the Foundation to provide you with some resources around digital safety while using the projects.

What do we mean when we say “digital safety”? Your digital safety on Wikimedia platforms can refer to your risk of being harassed, doxxed, or targeted by external organisations. There are ways to reduce the risk to yourself while you are using the platforms. For example, protecting your personal information gives anyone targeting you limited access to you and your life outside Wikimedia.

Here are some available resources to help with your digital safety:

• You can find lots of helpful resources at the Human Rights Meta page for Digital Security;
• You can read this Meta page on digital security concerns for Wikimedians;
• There is this Meta page from Trust and Safety with some resources for those dealing with harassment;
• We also have a learn.wiki module about digital safety where you can learn how to do a digital security risk assessment on yourself.

You can also read the following Diff posts:

• How can a username keep you safe?
• Doxing: Have you tried doxing yourself?
• Doxing: Why should you care?
• Digital safety during election time
• Digital safety best practices when attending conferences
• The Internet Outages Guide

Also, for some resources produced by other organisations, see the simple Security Planner to proactively stay safe online, and explore the Digital First Aid Kit for guidance in addressing digital harms as they arise.

If you are ever experiencing digital safety issues due to being active on Wikimedia platforms and you don’t know how to resolve them, or if you have any thoughts or questions on digital safety, you can reach out to our teams:

• For concerns around harassment, abuse, doxxing, disinformation, or other Trust and Safety concerns: ca@wikimedia.org
• For concerns about being targeted by a government or other human rights related concerns: talktohumanrights@wikimedia.org

Kind regards, Human Rights and Trust and Safety at the Wikimedia Foundation Wikimedia Foundation office (talk) 10:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in India

Dear all,

I would like to take the opportunity to inform you all about the upcoming annual Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in India.

The fundraising campaign will have two components.

1. We will send emails to people who have previously donated from India. The emails are scheduled to be sent between the 22nd of July to the 15th of August.  
2. We will run banners for non-logged in users in India on English Wikipedia itself. The banners will run from the 13th of August to the 10th of September.

Prior to this, we are planning to run some tests, so you might see banners for 3-5 hours a couple of times before the campaign starts. This activity will ensure that our technical infrastructure works.

I am also sharing with you a community collaboration page, where we outline more details around the campaign, share some banner examples, and give you space to engage with the fundraising campaign.

Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact us:

• On the talk page of the fundraising team
• If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket
• If you see a donor on a talk page, VRT or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donate at wikimedia.org

Thanks you and regards, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 05:59, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Board of Trustees election

The Q&A phase is underway, closing on June 12. Here's the candidate list. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)