Please ask me any questions about my work on editor engagement at Wikimedia Foundation.
Appreciation Barnstar
The Original Barnstar
Your fine effort with the feedback tool is appreciated. Please pass on my appreciation is others of WMF working on the project. Regards, SunCreator(talk)01:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your user page is very cool :) Some of the suggestions in the photos of 'How can we make Wikipedia better' are great while others are not so hot. Do those suggestions go anywhere? I mean someone got editors to write them out, but then what comes next? Regards, Sun Creator(talk)23:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Sun Creator, thanks so much for your kind words about the 'How can we make Wikipedia' slide show. I'm so sorry for not responding sooner, I was really slammed launching Page Curation for the past couple weeks. To answer your question, a number of the suggestions that I collected at Wikimania are being incorporated in our plans and future products -- and they are posted prominently on our office walls, as a reminder of what seems important to community members. But it is not meant to be a comprehensive listing of all our plans, just an impressionistic sample of things people told us at that conference. Given the favorable response I have received, I plan to do more slide shows like these at the next Wikimania and other gatherings I attend. Thanks for noticing! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 00:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A user on IRC asked me too look at Special:AbuseLog/7874614 (it was raised on WP:AF/N), and I think it's a valid false positive. I did a little more digging and found a few others like Special:AbuseLog/7955055 which don't seem to be "vandalism". I'm not too familiar with the policies surrounding AFT so if you could take a look at the filter, it would be appreciated.
Hi Fabrice: Sorry that the AFT has gone through the "growing pains" it has gone through. I think the community decision to remove all articles from the scheme is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but then I tend to run against the stream a bit when it comes to Wikipedia decisions! I like the newer (i.e. currently being tested) version considerably better than the one currently available on English Wikipedia. If you're looking for a few articles to test it on eventually, let me know; I'm happy to put it on at least some of the articles I have on my watch list. Also, you might think about having the developers figure out some way to list all articles in a project's "watchlist" (i.e. any that are tagged with a project's template); this would allow anyone from that project to keep an eye on related articles, even if they didn't have them on their personal watch list. That could certainly help eliminate one apparent concern of many of those who commented on the RFC — that too many of the encyclopedia's articles have "no one" watching them. MeegsC (talk) 21:01, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dear MeegsC: Thank you so much for your kind note about AFT 5! I am really glad that you like the newer version of the tool -- and appreciate your offer to put it on some of the articles on your watchlist. This is something that you can do next week, when we re-enable the tool on the English Wikipedia (we had to turn it off for technical reasons to convert the current feedback to a new data format, and it's taking longer than expected, sadly). I'll ping you when it's back up -- and you'lll be able to simply add 'Category:Article Feedback 5' to display the feedback form at the bottom of your pages. I also really like your suggestion to list feedback from all articles in a project's "watchlist" -- this idea makes a lot of sense to me, because it encourages productive collaborations around shared interests. I've included it as 'Wikiproject-specific feedback pages' in our wish-list of features to consider for future releases, on our requirements page. We will also explore other ways to make this tool more useful to editors and integrate it better with the article talk pages -- as well as apply any new lessons learned from our other pilots on the French and German Wikipedias. In the meantime, I am very grateful for all that all you have done to make this experiment possible on the English Wikipedia. You led by example, showing how this reader feedback can be used to improve article quality, as demonstrated by your fine editing on the Golden-crowned Sparrow page. (Speaking of which, did you know that this bird stops by in our backyard twice a year on its way to and from Alaska? That's why I picked this article as our main test page: I wanted to find out for sure if it was the right bird, to answer the original question I posed on other sites like Quora). Thanks again for your support, MeegsC -- I hope we can do more together in coming years! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 06:49, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Any ideas??
Hi Fabrice: Any idea when the feedback database conversion might be done? Seems like it's been long enough that the bugs should be shaken out by now! ;) MeegsC (talk) 18:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Meegs: thank you so much for following up on the status of AFT5. We are really sorry for the delay in getting the tool back up on the English Wikipedia. The issue that is holding us up is outside of our direct control, and related to a site-wide data migration from our old data center in Florida to the new one in Virginia -- which impacts many other applications as well. Our operations and platform teams have just now come up with a solution to this issue. So we will try again to re-deploy the tool in our next window, which is this coming Tuesday. We will post on the AFT5 talk page as soon as the tool is back up. Thanks again for your patience, and rest assured that this is as frustrating for us as it is for you. Fingers crossed ... Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Your feedback on "Golden-crowned Sparrow"
Thanks for posting your feedback on "Golden-crowned Sparrow".
Hey Fabrice Florin (WMF) :). I'm dropping you a note because you have signed up for the Notifications, or Echo, newsletter.
If all goes according to plan, we should be launching Echo on en-wiki either tomorrow, or next Tuesday - I'll drop a followup tomorrow when we know what's happening. Should the launch succeed, we'll begin the process of triaging bugs and gathering feedback on what features work, what cause problems, and what we should do next; I hope you'll help us out on these fronts by leaving any comments you might have on the talkpage.
Thank you for your wonderful work with the new notifications. Please also convey this to other Foundation employees that have worked on it. It's awesome: functional, pretty, and minimalistic. Just awesome. Thanks. TheOneSean | Talk to me02:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hey TheOneSean, thanks so much for your kind words! I really appreciate your encouragement about our work on Notifications, and I have forwarded it to our team. It was particularly welcome after weeks of hard work on this first release, sometimes under stressful circumstances. Your positive feedback just gave me a big boost. Thanks for making my day. :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 04:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome! Thanks! It was my pleasure - I always like to give kudos to those who deserve it. Keep up the awesome work. TheOneSean | Talk to me11:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Notifications box replacement prototypes released
Hey Fabrice Florin (WMF); Kaldari has finished scripting a set of potential replacements available to test and give feedback on. Please go to this thread for more detail on how to enable them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not ignoring you
Not ignoring your reply at bugzilla or on the talk page, just haven't had a chance to review in depth so that I'm responding knowledgeably. Will try to get to it tonight. Risker (talk) 01:08, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Risker! I appreciate your note, and look forward to your response. This particular issue is top on our list, and we're proposing to solve it in two steps: an immediate fix that's easy to do on the archive page and HTML emails, followed by a second update that will require more design and development time, based on community feedback and usability studies. Thanks for your patience as we sort this out methodically. :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 01:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Barnstar of Diplomacy
The Barnstar of Diplomacy
For keeping a cool head amidst a lot of fierce feedback, I award you the Barnstar of Diplomacy (and Good Guidance).
'Getting it right' is an iterative process, and your attitude and communication style helps make that possible.
Why, thank you, Ocaasi! I really appreciate your kind words -- and I'm really glad that we were able to find new solutions to old problems with the help of community members who contributed to the Notifications project. I am also very interested in your own initiatives, and can't wait to participate in your Wikipedia Adventure and other projects in coming months. Thanks again for your encouragement, which means a lot to me. Take care, Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your quick response, and update on trying to update the thank button to remove potential problems. I find a very healthy difference from the responses before. :)
Hello User:PiRSquared17. Yes, we're aiming to start deployments to non-English wikis in August, most likely in the second half of the month. We're also considering a couple test deployments on Meta and the French Wikipedia at the end of July, if all goes well. Are you interested in getting Notifications on a particular wiki project? Thanks for checking in. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking about Meta in particular, but I'd be interested in any of the sister projects. When this is enabled on multiple wikis, will notifications for one be displayed on others? (assuming SUL) πr2 (t • c) 19:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good. Meta will be the first one. We are investigating the possibility of providing cross-wiki notifications, but do not know yet how soon we can deploy this feature, which is likely to be complex. Stay tuned. Are you on our editor engagement mailing list? That's the fastest way to get our progress reports. Cheers! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 20:49, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Fabrice! This is SoHome whom you have met during 2013 Wikimania Hong Kong. Wish we would have further discussion and collaboration about Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia articles in the future! --SoHome Jacaranda Lilau (talk) 06:54, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Article Feedback
Hi Fabrice. There's a discussion at the Aft5 page that you might want to take a look at. The problem is that MZMcBride deprecated Category:Article Feedback 5 in response to your comments of 12 June 2013 on the Aft5 talk page, ostensibly to switch to the enable/disable system on the sidebar. Unfortunately, the Article Feedback Activity log doesn't track who enables/disables feedback on a page, so anonymous users (truly anonymous, not limited to IPs) have been disabling feedback on pages whenever it is turned on. At the same time, some users have been insisting at the Aft5 talk page that Aft5 be turned off completely, contrary to the opt-in procedure established by the RfC. Could you do something to solve this problem? Either we'll have to bring back the category system for enabling feedback, or preferably, the WMF could make a technical fix so the logs show who enables and disables feedback. Thanks. Altamel (talk) 19:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am a big fan of the notification system, but I've identified a solution to what I perceive as a critical flaw. I posted to the notifications thread, which you are probably following, but I wanted to reach out and see if my proposal was sufficiently clear.--SPhilbrick(Talk)16:11, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Article Feedback Tool update
Hey Fabrice Florin (WMF). I'm contacting you because you're involved in the Article Feedback Tool in some way, either as a previous newsletter recipient or as an active user of the system. As you might have heard, a user recently anonymously disabled the feedback tool on 2,000 pages. We were unable to track or prevent this due to the lack of logging feature in AFT5. We're deeply sorry for this, as we know that quite a few users found the software very useful, and were using it on their articles.
We've now re-released the software, with the addition of a logging feature and restrictions on the ability to disable. Obviously, we're not going to automatically re-enable it on each article—we don't want to create a situation where it was enabled by users who have now moved on, and feedback would sit there unattended—but if you're interested in enabling it for your articles, it's pretty simple to do. Just go to the article you want to enable it on, click the "request feedback" link in the toolbox in the sidebar, and AFT5 will be enabled for that article.
Hi. I just saw your note on the talk page for the Article Feedback Tool/Version 5 page. I've only really noticed this tool in the last week or so, and actually have just registered my dislike for it on that talk page. If I understand your post correctly, the "xx reader comments" notation at the top of pages where this tool is enabled will shortly be vanishing throughout the English language Wikipedia. If this is true, I have to say I'm utterly delighted: I strongly feel that allowing reader comments on articles to be visible to other readers is likely to devalue Wikipedia's reputation as an encyclopedia. My reasoning is based largely on the positioning view of website content: people's mental image of an encyclopedia is not compatible with the sort of visible commenting system this tool provides. However, I am sympathetic to the aim of getting more feedback from our readers, and keen to encourage more active contribution to Wikipedia. If you are developing other tools with these aims in mind and would like input from an "ordinary" editor, please feel free to contact me. I can't guarantee I'll always agree with your ideas, but I do know that we're all trying to make Wikipedia the best it possibly can be. Thank you. RomanSpa (talk) 03:19, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hello RomanSpa, thanks for your comment about Article Feedback. Yes, the 'Comments' link will be removed when this tool is disabled at the end of the month. I appreciate your willingness to advise future plans to get more feedback from our readers, and will contact you if we start another initiative along those lines. Thanks again for reaching out to me about this project. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
AFT5 again
Hi Fabrice. I'm not sure I fully understand the fate of the AFT. Is it possible for me to retain it on an article, or is it going out of service completely? Also, I'm talking with others about arranging an English Wikipedia reader survey using a link on articles; would it be possible for us to use the skeleton of AFT5 to run it? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 06:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Anthonyhcole: thanks for contacting me about Article Feedback. As requested by a majority of editors, our plan is to disable this tool completely on the English Wikipedia, with a target date of March 3, 2014. So if you would like to save any useful feedback on articles you watch, we recommend you use the 'Discuss on talk page' button to add them to the article talk pages before the end of the month. I am glad to hear that you and others are considering an English Wikipedia reader survey. The Article Feedback technology could be repurposed to support surveys like these, but this would take significant resources which are not currently available at the Foundation. I am recommending that the Foundation build a survey infrastructure in the long-term, as I believe that type of tool is essential for our movement to effectively respond to the needs of the public whom we serve. However, it could take months for resources to be allocated for this type of tool, and months more for a useful tool to be built, even if we repurpose the AFT technology to that end. But please keep me posted on your initiative, as I would like to cite it as one more reason for us to provide a solution for this need. Is there any place I could read more about your project? Thanks again for your interest in Article Feedback, and I am sorry that we cannot meet your immediate needs at this time. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Matty.007. Thanks for checking in. I'm afraid there are no plans to bring back any of the article feedback tools at this time. If you haven't already, check out this report on Article Feedback v5, which summarizes our reasons for discontinuing this experimental project. We are now focusing on Flow as our next initiative in this space. Thanks again for your interest, and I hope to collaborate with you on other projects. All the best. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 00:47, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I just Thanked someone for an edit, then thought: what a brilliant thoughtful idea, so I looked up the Project Page, and found you! Thanks Fabrice! LeoRomero (talk) 12:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd been using the feature for months now; soon after I first noticed it. And since there appears to be a cosmic requirement for me to follow you around and do your bidding, I'll go further now, and evangelize. Heart the "culture of kindness". Civility is not enough. Folks over at wikiHow invited me to the August mania; now I have another good reason to go. Hope to see you there! LeoRomero (talk) 00:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Started my campaign by putting your "Culture of Kindness" initiative at the top of my User Page, along with my sorry attempt at a campaign logo. LeoRomero (talk) 00:50, 30 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Dear LeoRomero, thank you so much for promoting this important cause! I'm honored by your recognition, which made my day :)
Meanwhile, I have been discussing this topic with Romaine, who wrote: "For years I say there is a mentality problem among users. Also I notice often that as nobody has learned in school/etc to communicate appropriate in a digital environment, many many communication trouble exist because of that. This is because if you are critical and you deal with in face to face, you have a mimicry, facial expression and intonation that defines in a very large part how the receiver is receiving the message. All that is missing with typing a text and is for many users very very difficult to handle. This is even harder for someone with a dyslectic background. To improve a friendly/kindly atmosphere, a training for communicating something negative in a good manner I would really like to follow."
Romaine's comments are music to my ears, and I think he has expressed very well one of the core issues we face as a movement. :) The question we will need to answer together is what are the most effective ways to provide that training. I would appreciate any more ideas you might have on addressing that specific issue in practical ways on Wikipedia.
Re "To improve a friendly/kindly atmosphere, a training for communicating something negative in a good manner" and "what are the most effective ways to provide that training": for the good of Romaine, Fabrice, Leo, the Planet Wikipedia, and the Planet Earth, I do. Thanks for the assignment! - LeoRomero (talk) 22:59, 30 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Fabrice, It is funny to see that on mailinglist Wikimedia-l this subject came along as well with a thread called "How to Criticize with Kindness". I must say, reading it is difficult to understand as English isn't my native language, but I see some value in it.
I am very conscious what happens in discussions on-wiki and a couple of years ago I started to collect good ways and bad ways of how users communicate. How it can go wrong lies in the details of the communication used. For a long time I am planning to write a guide for this and in the beginning of this year I finally started to add some lines to nl:Gebruiker:Romaine/Handleiding (Handleiding = Dutch for Guide) with as header "Recommendations for a productive collaboration". I am intended to expand that page further an further with how users can communicate the best. Romaine (talk) 16:57, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Mediaviewer
Hi. You may remember me from a few months ago. I'm afraid I've got another complaint, and this one is much more significant.
Yesterday my partner woke me up at 3.30am to complain about Wikipedia, on the grounds that I'm an editor and my partner isn't. I grumbled something and fell asleep again. Unfortunately, it happened again this morning (though not so early). This might tell you a couple of things about my partner's personality: (1) pushy and irritating, (2) insomniac, and (3) concerned about their privacy. The cause of this angst seems to be your recent roll-out of the new "Mediaviewer". I've looked at it myself, and by God it's irritating.
My partner's principal complaint, with which I fully agree, is that the new Mediaviewer makes it impossible for a user to enlarge a map (or other image), and it's impossible to find the source or credits for the image. What on earth were you thinking when you rolled this out? If we were writing a children's website this might be acceptable, but our aim is to provide the best possible service to our readers, not some simplistic idiot's lantern.
Now, I've discovered that I, as an editor, can opt out of the Mediaviewer. However, this option isn't available for people like my partner, who are concerned about their privacy and actively avoid signing up to websites. But my partner needs Wikipedia for work, and from time to time needs to view maps (and other images) to large scale, and needs to have some idea of where these images came from. By all means make Mediaviewer an option, but it should not be the default for anonymous users. Please revert this change as soon as possible.
It should be obvious that I'm particularly irritated by this change because it's cost me real actual middle-of-the-night sleep. Your team's unhelpful actions have had annoying effects in my real life. Whilst I may have suffered more than most, it's pretty obvious that other people are annoyed by this change too. The Mediaviewer is profoundly unhelpful, and should be dispensed with at once. Thank you.
Dear RomanSpa: Thanks so much for reaching out to me. I'm sorry that you and your partner have been losing sleep over Media Viewer. We have been working on the issues you cite above, and have started to roll out features to address them incrementally; that said, we've observed that these issues only affect a very small portion of images, and the majority of images look great in Media Viewer and have full attribution and license information.
Also note that we already provide helpful remedies to these issues: please let your partner know that you can press shift-click or control-click to bypass Media Viewer when you want direct access to the file page, as documented in the Help FAQ. To view the original image from Media Viewer, click on 'Use this file' in the lower right, then 'Preview in browser'. Media Viewer also provides license details in the metadata panel below the image (click on the chevron arrow near the title. Last but not least, Media Viewer includes a prominent link to the Wikimedia Commons page, where people can find more information; this link will be even more prominent for anonymous users as of next week.
I would also like to describe the methodology we used to develop Media Viewer. Over the past year, we hosted a dozen IRC and roundtable discussions with community members who confirmed that the previous user interface was confusing and needed improvement: they generally supported Media Viewer as a practical solution to those issues. The tool has also been tested for over six months by 15,000 English Wikipedia editors on an opt-in basis, as part of our Beta Features program. After improving the tool based on their helpful feedback, we ran surveys in 8 languages with over 8,000 users, and 70% confirmed that it was useful to them; about half of survey respondents were editors, who are well represented in this study, as shown in the full survey report. On that basis, we concluded that the feature was ready for wider release. This decision process seems logical, methodical and fair to all user groups. Lastly, we note that about 450 users have disabled Media Viewer on English Wikipedia at this time, which is a relatively small number -- about 0.37% of the users who have been active since the rollout.
So it appears that a lot of folks are giving Media Viewer a try -- and we hope you will too. Over time, we hope that you find enough value in the tool to use it for your own purposes, but fully respect your desire to disable it if it doesn't work for you. Thanks again for taking the time to share your perspective, which is much appreciated. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 09:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
One of the things I (and many others) enjoy about Wikipedia is the interaction with other people. A personal message is much more inspiring and meaningful to me than a statcounter that informs me of yet another +1. Even if the quantity increases because clicking a link is easier, the quality has decreased to almost zero. Before the implementation of the "thanks"-link it would give you a good feeling that someone somewhere (usually far away) personally took time to write you a message thanking you (a great starting point for a conversation that can result in, for example, a collaboration/mentoring etc), now I compare it to those annoying and meaningless messages from Youtube that inform you that someone somewhere thumbed your comment up. Who cares? It is not possible to explain why you thank someone, and the conversation is replaced by a SQL query that counts the +1 so it is impossible to reply to someone who has thanked you.
You guys are actively encouraging people to stop interacting with eachother, because you've replaced the act of leaving a personal thank you-message with Wikilove templates and a "thanks"-link. Disabling the thanks link per editor is not an option because people who get used to thanking people that way will simply not thank editors who disabled that functionality. Facilitating lazyness (in human interaction and in general) has its drawbacks. These thank you notes are more important than they seem, many people use them as inspiration, are secretly proud of them and leave them on their talkpage a long time, the interaction with strangers who are interested in the topics of the articles they edited is usually the only reward they get for doing their volunteerwork...
The +1's are hidden, so no more "bragging rights" (sounds like a good idea until you take human nature into account). When people are in a bad wikimood reading their talkpage would help them, now they have to check a notification list.
The implementation of Wikilove reduced the amount of conversations on Wikipedia by a bit, but it made it easier to add barnstars/injokes and overall it had a positive effect as far as I can tell. People generally still write a personal message, with some tea or cookies or a kitten attached, but a template is far less likely to start a real conversation between humans. The people who leave templates often don't watchlist the page because all the response they are likely to get is "Thanks. ~~~~" (and many people don't even bother responding to those templates). New people don't even realize they can, they tend to give up once they see a bunch of wikicode.
The implementation of the Thanks link reduced the amount of conversations on Wikipedia even further. Many of the people who use that Thanks link would've left a personal message, but you gave them a way to be lazy and people are generally lazy (myself included).
This means that you can make thousands of edits without any human interaction whatsoever if you start wikignoming; you only get a welcome template and a couple of +1's. That is very very bad for editor retention.
p.s. I admit the "thanks" link is probably the perfect system for people with certain forms of autism, but for the majority of us it is a bad thing. When will the thank-links be removed?
(Talk-page-stalker comment) The "Thank" button enhances my communication here; I thank many more people than I would without it. It's more personal, like a smile and a wink, than a formal, public statement. Well done, WMF. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:53, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi NicoPosner. I appreciate your comments about the Thanks feature, even if I don't agree with them. But you are barking up the wrong tree. I have moved into a different role at the foundation, where I am now product manager for multimedia. Danny Horn is now the product manager for the Thanks extension. But as the original creator of Thanks and a big fan of this feature, I am happy to chime in if people are proposing to make major changes to it. So do let me know if a group discussion starts somewhere other than my talk page. My observations are that the Thanks feature seems to be adding value for a lot of people, judging from its steady use and the generally positive comments we keep hearing about it, such as Anthonyhcole. Be well. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 15:05, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Fabrice,
I do not live in Dilbert's universe; I want to talk to the guy behind the idea (who is not necessarily the current product manager), which is why I came here. The tree can get a new job title or even get fired, but it is the dog who decides what to bark at (and where to pee)...
You claim you appreciate my comments, but you have not replied to them, so I can safely assume you are lying to me. I know some people IRL dislike me because I am too honest. Honest people are not very kind. You talk about a "Culture of Kindness", but you lied to me and you insulted my intelligence; which is not very kind of you.
Thanks to Anthony for proving my point that this feature causes devaluation. You seem to think that you can safely ignore my opinion because Anthony disagrees, are you unfamiliar with Wikipedia's culture? Read WP:ILIKEIT and WP:NOTAVOTE.
If we dissect it:
The "Thank" button enhances my communication here; [I agree]
I thank many more people than I would without it. [This is exactly my point, it causes devaluation]
It's more personal, [I agree, this is one of the main problems]
like a smile and a wink [No, smiles and winks are forms of human contact, which in this case has been replaced with a database query]
than a formal, public statement [talkpage comments may be publicly accessible, but they are as formal as you want them to be]
Well done, WMF. [His personal opinion, see WP:ILIKEIT]
Anthony was among the tiny minority of users who liked the AFT. In the AFT's case the problems were so obvious that basically everyone else could foresee them, I think that only a minority of people will understand the downsides of the Thanks bug/feature, even if they read an explanation. Not many people spend time thinking about user retention in online communities.
Meaningless statistics are easy to find, but how do you quantify the value of human contact? It is impossible to research the negative effects of the Thanks links beforehand (A/B testing with a parallel universe is not yet possible). The WMF likes to think that everyone who uses something is automatically a fan of it, and it asks noobish people who are using a mediaviewer to view media if they think having a mediaviewer is a good idea (without explaining the full context with all the alternative solutions, which would be far too long for people to read).
Do you understand why the AFT is a bad idea (in hindsight)? If you don't understand the problems with the AFT, then it is unlikely that you will understand why the Thanks links are a bad idea. NicoPosner (talk) 10:19, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitration request
You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#MediaViewer RfC and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—
One guy in the WMF has a bad idea, and implements it immediately without discussing it with a large (enough) group of people. Because his code is imperfect and because Wikipedia is quite complex it will break things and need bugfixes. Because he is not a hardcore member of our community and does not fully understand how wiki's (and online communities in general) work he cannot foresee that it will fail.
People start complaining en masse. Many people are forced to waste many hours explaining the WMF guy what consequences his actions have.
The WMF tries to confuse the community with statistics and ignores the members of our community (some of whom are not only experts on the topic of wiki's but also on topics like webdevelopment and usability). Some WMF people openly state that our consensus is irrelevant and that they are the boss.
The community reminds the WMF that the community is ultimately the real boss. It is not about who owns the servers, that is irrelevant. Trust me, it is easier to get rid of you guys than it is to fork Wikipedia, and we will probably chose the path of least resistance if we need to (online communities, and large groups of people in general, usually do).
Changes made by the WMF get reverted.
Rinse and repeat.
The community dislikes the WMF more and more. This is a bad trend, but it can be fixed (see suggestions below).
The WMF seems to believe that the community is unwilling to change anything. In reality the community is very willing to accept change as long as it is an improvement, but it is really hard to improve on a tried and tested system. You tried to improve File: pages with a lightbox thing, but because you haven't listened to the community the changes you guys made are not an improvement.
You guys believe in "release early and update often", so the quality of your work is not up to par. Usually when the WMF deploys software it breaks things and it immediately needs lots of bugfixes.
I don't really mind that you guys waste money, but I am disappointed that you guys waste so much time from volunteers (e.g. AFT) and that you ignore the opinions of people who understand the situation better than you do (e.g. here, AFT, MediaViewer etc.).
My suggestion would be to make a list of people who have criticised WMF projects. Next time, before you start coding anything, ask that group of people for feedback. You may not like them, but they are probably more than willing to help you with constructive criticism and they understand Wikipedia better than the WMF members. The WMF is quite small but our community is huge.
I would recommend posting messages on the talkpages of people who have criticised WMF projects to inform them that there is a new page where they can check out new ideas (before they are coded) and new code (before it is implemented) and a list of current projects so that we can use the talkpage to provide input. Ask some people from WP:VPT if they would be so kind to watchlist this new page. There are a lot of Wikipedia users who can help by identifying problems with ideas and checking and testing WMF code before it is implemented so that we can avoid certain mistakes. Ask the same group of people which projects should be prioritized and which ones should be dropped.
This replaces "release early and update often" with "share early, update based on input, release later".
I know how annoying people who complain (e.g. me) can be. But if you actively try to involve people who complain (like me) in the decision making process then you'll discover that we are not all bad, and you will take the wind out of our sails. The downside is that a lot of ideas that seem good at first will be shot down because they cause more negative effects than first expected. As a nerd I like having a bunch of Javascript to do some cool effects. As a Wikipedian I want this site to be as simple as possible. Less is more, I need to have access to this information even on outdated hard- and software on a bad wifi-connection in a third world country. Over the years it has become harder and harder for people who want to code something new, which can be quite frustrating.
I would also recommend not using statistics about user adoptation in debates because it is incredibly hard to do that in a good way. Of course you can publish the results, but referring to them in a debate is really problematic because you always have to leave out some of the context which means that you always give someone the chance to say that you are interpreting the data incorrectly or presenting it in a misleading way (even if that is not intentional). On a related note: discussions are in many cases more effective than polls and surveys. Polls are basically a bad habit.
Hello. This is a courtesy note that the draft findings and principles in the Media Viewer RfC case have now been posted. The drafters of the proposed decision anticipate a final version will be posted after 11 August; you are welcome to give feedback on the workshop page. For the Committee, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:31, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Media Viewer RfC arbitration case - extension of closure dates
Hello, you are receiving this message because you have commented on the Media Viewer RfC arbitration case. This is a courtesy message to inform you that the closure date for the submission of evidence has been extended to 17 August 2014 and the closure date for workshop proposals has been extended to 22 August 2014, as has the expected date of the proposed decision being posted. The closure dates have been changed to allow for recent developments to be included in the case. If you wish to comment, please review the evidence guidance. For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:00, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Media Viewer RfC arbitration case - motion to suspend case
The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:
This case has been suspended for sixty days and to be subsequently closed. In the intervening period, the case may be re-activated either at the request of the committee or if fresh issues arise following a successful request at ARCA. The motion notes the following:
From 15 September 2014, the WMF will require require staff to segregate their work and non-work activities into separate work and non-work accounts respectively, with work accounts containing the identifier '(WMF)' in the account name.
The WMF aims to improve working practices. This includes a new software implementation protocol which provides for incremental roll-outs of upgrades and new features.
The Media Viewer RfC arbitration case is closed following a suspension period of 60 days. The following considerations were taken by the Committee:
The WMF has introduced a new staff user account policy, prohibiting the use of the same account for both work and non-work purposes. With effect from 15 September 2014, staff are required to segregate their work and non-work activities into separate work and non-work accounts, with the work accounts containing the identifier '(WMF)' in the account name.
Eloquence (talk·contribs) has resigned as an administrator on the English Wikipedia. While this does not prevent him holding staff administrative rights on a designated work account, it does mean that as he resigned the tools while an arbitration case was pending, he may only regain administrative rights on his personal non-work account via a successful request for adminship.
The WMF has announced a number of initiatives aimed at improving working practices. This includes a new software implementation protocol which provides for incremental roll-outs of upgrades and new features.
Wikipedians: Biographies of Wikipedia's Top Contributors - anything like that in the works? Might fit nicely into your new remit (congrats btw!) I'll co-edit. - Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 04:25, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
