Misplaced Pages

:Village pump (WMF): Difference between revisions - Misplaced Pages

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 00:35, 7 April 2021 view sourceClueBot III (talk | contribs)Bots1,385,862 editsm Archiving 1 discussion to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 2. (BOT)← Previous edit Revision as of 22:17, 7 April 2021 view source DannyH (WMF) (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users928 edits →What we've got here is failure to communicate (some mobile editors you just can't reach)Next edit →
Line 109: Line 109:
* I wish I could say I was surprised by any of this but I've long assumed that something like this was the cause of numerous editors I've come across who display quite clearly that they have never seen their IP/user talk page, and simply have no idea why their edits "aren't going through" (because a human editor keeps undoing them). A thorough waste of thousands of hours of volunteer time, ''on both ends''. There are some countries or regions in which accessing the internet is only financially possible for the everyday person via a mobile phone, so the WMF's inaction here is another built-in systemic bias which prevents some cultures from effectively contributing their knowledge and skills to Misplaced Pages. — ] (''']''') 06:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC) * I wish I could say I was surprised by any of this but I've long assumed that something like this was the cause of numerous editors I've come across who display quite clearly that they have never seen their IP/user talk page, and simply have no idea why their edits "aren't going through" (because a human editor keeps undoing them). A thorough waste of thousands of hours of volunteer time, ''on both ends''. There are some countries or regions in which accessing the internet is only financially possible for the everyday person via a mobile phone, so the WMF's inaction here is another built-in systemic bias which prevents some cultures from effectively contributing their knowledge and skills to Misplaced Pages. — ] (''']''') 06:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
*{{tracked|T278838}}<br>] seems to be an excellent overview but it would get more attention if it were on phab. I have tried to roughly copy it to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T278838 which can probably be used as a parent task for all these issues. – ] (]) 15:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC) *{{tracked|T278838}}<br>] seems to be an excellent overview but it would get more attention if it were on phab. I have tried to roughly copy it to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T278838 which can probably be used as a parent task for all these issues. – ] (]) 15:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi everyone, thanks for raising these issues, and documenting the problems so thoroughly. We're going to get a group of people from the Product department together next week to talk about these problems, and see what we can do about it. I'll let you know what we figure out. I appreciate you all bringing it up. — ] (]) 22:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)


== A commercial subsidy of WMF == == A commercial subsidy of WMF ==

Revision as of 22:17, 7 April 2021

Discussion page for matters of significance to both the community and the foundation
 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
Shortcuts 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.

Threads may be automatically archived after 14 days of inactivity.


« Archives, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Centralized discussion
Village pumps
policy
tech
proposals
idea lab
WMF
misc
For a listing of ongoing discussions, see the dashboard.


What we've got here is failure to communicate (some mobile editors you just can't reach)

Summary of overall issues: User:Suffusion of Yellow/Mobile communication bugs ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:08, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Over a year ago, I reported two problems to the WMF:

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T240976

(1) Logged-in mobile web editors are not given a very strong indication that they have new messages. There's just a little number in a red circle. It's similar to what many other sites use for "Exciting! New! Offers!" and other garbage. There's nothing to say "A human being wants to talk to you."

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T240889

(2) Mobile web IP editors are given no indication at all that they have new messages. Nothing. Every template warning, every carefully thought out personal message, and everything else just disappears into a black hole, unless the user stumbles across their talk page by accident, or switches to the desktop interface.

But I get it. Bugs happen. They can be fixed. Instead both problems were marked as a "low" priority.

This is baffling. Problem 1 is a serious issue. Problem 2 is utterly unacceptable.

We are yelling at users (or even dragging them to WP:ANI) for "ignoring" our messages that they have no idea exist. We are expecting them learn without any communication all sorts of rules from WP:V to WP:3RR to WP:MOS that don't even apply to most other sites on the web.

Until they get blocked, of course. What a terrible experience. How are we supposed to gain new users when their very first interaction with a human is being told to f--- off, for "ignoring" a message they didn't even know about?

WMF, please explain to this community why this is a "low" priority. One year is long enough. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll just note that a majority of our users are accessing us on mobile so this isn't a niche problem either. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Wow. Neglected high-priority phabricator tickets are nothing new, but this is another level. Jimbo Wales, this deserves your attention. {{u|Sdkb}}  08:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the majority of messages left to IPs will never reach the user in question anyways, ESPECIALLY on mobile connections. Due to shared ips, the chance of someone else viewing the message before the person you are trying to reach is probably about 50/50. I realise that sometimes leaving a message is effective, but there are serious questions about all the cases where it is simply leaving a very confusing and often aggressively toned message to a completely different user just randomly reading an article at the busstop a month later. What we really need is a completely new way to leave messages to anonymous users. Possibly with some sort of very short lived session or something. But as ip users are more or less stateless (the software concept) right now, that is probably hard to implement. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:26, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
@TheDJ: I would have no objection to expiring the OBOD if the talk page isn't clicked in a few days. Many messages come only a few minutes after the user makes the edit; most mobile carriers aren't that dynamic. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T263943
Equally baffling is that mobile app users do not see any notifications, including no talk page notifications, logged in or out. The link to talk is buried within the settings. Official mobile apps! They don't even see block messages! See T263943 and others. This block review and also this discussion where an editor also tested block messages. The editor was blocked multiple times for something that was not their fault but that of a poorly thought out app. They are not alone. Quote from phab task: Conclusion: Using the app is like being inside a bubble, without contacts with the exterior. It's no wonder there's so much people complaining here that using the app caused their Misplaced Pages account to be blocked, for reasons they don't understand. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:33, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T275117
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T275118
I have filed T275117 and T275118. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm always surprised that anyone manages to edit with the mobile interface. As another example, if you're not logged in, there is no way to access the talk page of an article, or even any indication that it exists. If an unregistered user makes an edit and is reverted with a common summary like "see talk", I imagine many will have no idea what's going on. – Joe (talk) 09:39, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
The mobile web, and mobile apps, appear to be designed for readers and not writers. Having used mobile web occasionally, I think it's usable for logged in editing, but I do have to switch to desktop every now and then. I've used the iOS app only for a test - it is not usable for editing imo. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
The number of edits I have made with the mobile web or app interface is most likely less than 50 (out of 13,000). Even for reading, the mobile interface is borderline unusable. I do frequently edit from my 4-inch cell phone screen (in fact, I'm doing that right now)... but I use the desktop version. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 14:04, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Joe and have always found Cullen328 to be a bit of a superhero for being who he is on a mobile device. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:19, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind words, Barkeep49, but I simply use the fully functional desktop site on my Android smartphone. It's easy. If I was the king of the Wikimedia Foundation, I would shut down the mobile site and apps, because they are an ongoing impediment to serious editing. RoySmith, there is no need to invest more effort (money) on a good editing interface for mobile, because that interface already exists - the desktop site. Just change its name from desktop to universal or something, and the problem will be solved.Cullen Let's discuss it 18:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
  • In some parts of the world, laptops and desktops are common, and people's phones are their second screen. In an environment like that, yes, it makes sense for mobile devices to be thought of as a read-mostly interface. On the other hand, in other parts of the world (particularly India in the context of English language users), mobile is how people access the internet. There's no doubt that building a good editing interface for mobile is a hard thing, but we should be investing more effort there. Poor mobile editing tools disenfranchises a large segment of the world's population. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
  • @Suffusion of Yellow: Thank you for basically expressing exactly the same problem I wanted to. I have blocked a few editors who seem to be editing in good faith but just don't communicate, which eventually end up at ANI and after much agonising, get hit with as friendly a WP:ICANTHEARYOU block as we can muster. In the last instance, Mdd97 (talk · contribs), I specifically made a custom block template that said "CLICK HERE TO READ YOUR MESSAGES" in a way that they surely couldn't miss .... but again, following the block they've not edited again. We have to get to the bottom of this; if it's got to the stage where I've got to block people and the root cause is a software fault, it needs to be fixed. Surely the WMF can't be happy that I've needed to issue blocks on good-faith editors in this manner. Ritchie333 16:10, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
  • To address a reaction some might have, yes, the vast majority of users on mobile are readers, not editors, and no, I wouldn't want the community totally in charge of redesigning the mobile interface, since we'd end up with the phenomenon we have at desktop where e.g. the tools section of the sidebar is visible to every user on every page despite it being of zero use to 99.9% of them. But this request is not just editor-centrism; it applies to users who have already edited and who badly need a notification to help them not get lost. {{u|Sdkb}}  18:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I think the mw:Talk pages project, especially now that they are beginning to work on subscribing to notifications for talk page sections, could be interested in this discussion. Pinging User:PPelberg (WMF) and User:Whatamidoing (WMF). It also touches on UCoC Enforcement, highlighting that there needs to be funding for software dev. in addition to other measures. Pinging User:SPoore (WMF) and User:BChoo (WMF) for want of knowing who to contact regarding Phase 2. Pelagic ( messages ) – (09:51 Sat 20, AEDT) 22:51, 19 February 2021 (UTC) ... Adding User:Xeno (WMF) after seeing section above. Pelagic ( messages ) – (09:55 Sat 20, AEDT) 22:55, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
    Pelagic: Thank you for the ping and highlighting how this is a related need for my current project. I've been following this thread and will be including the comments (and phabricator links - thank you for those!) in my work categorized under important requests for additional human or technical resources to assist with on-wiki workflows. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Question - Is this something that could be cured by bringing back the "Orange Bar of Death"? Mjroots (talk) 16:31, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@Mjroots: the orange bar of death never went away. Last I check, it's still there for non mobile IP editors. That's why they get an indication of new messages. AFAIK, it was never there for the mobile web editor, that's probably part of the problem. Nil Einne (talk) 03:06, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
What no one has ever told me is why it was left out in the first place. Was it a simple oversight? Did someone have such a little understanding of how the sites work that they thought communication was unnecessary? Some other reason, that I'm not thinking of? This is the most confusing part. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
I wish it could be brought back for all editors. Looks like bringing it in for IPs on mobiles could be the cure here. Mjroots (talk) 18:40, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
This is alarming but not surprising. Since I do a lot of question answering at the Teahouse, I'll point out a random IP's post from yesterday, in the same vein as some of the sentiments noted above: "Also, why don’t they get rid of the mobile view? So terrible!".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:29, 24 February 2021 (UTC)


Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.


When you spend three times as much money without the actual job you were hired to do changing, you start to focus more on spending all of that money instead of on doing your job. When you hire a boatload of new employees when the current bunch are more that enough to do the job, those new employees find something to do, whether that something needs doing or not. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:31, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

  • User:Suffusion of Yellow broadly you have two factors. Firstly there is little incentive for WMF people engage people here were they will get a bunch of people shouting that them (which is not fun). Secondly there has been a longstanding unwritten understanding that mobile is the WMF's turf while the community has more ownership of the desktop.©Geni (talk) 11:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    Well, imagine this. Someone is standing on your foot. You politely ask them to move off of it. They don't. You repeat your request more loudly. They continue to ignore you. It still hurts. At some point, does shouting and shoving come into play?If WMF doesn't like being shouted at, well—certainly, no one does. But people do not like being ignored either, and doing so is an excellent way to get them started shouting just to be heard at all. Seraphimblade 21:42, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Action from the WMF! One two three new mobile bugs I discovered while investigating this have been triaged as "low" priority, and a fourth was lowered to "medium", after a volunteer developer had raised it to "high". All without a word of explanation. The first (unparsed spam blacklist messages) isn't a huge deal I'll agree. But why is not telling users why they're blocked or falsely telling registered users that they're blocked personally not a major concern? That's how we lose people. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:55, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
    • Can we locally block these apps from editing English Misplaced Pages? That would force the WMF to fix them. Fences&Windows 00:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
      @Fences and windows: Yes, this can be done with the edit filter. It could even be limited to users with no confirmed email address. But there's a catch. The apps don't properly display custom edit filter warnings, either! The iOS app just displays the title of the page where the message is stored. And the Android app doesn't display custom messages at all. The mobile web editor does display messages properly, however. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:10, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
      If this were a lower-priority issue, I would say we should come back in a month and see if the WMF fixed it. But this is such a glaring oversight that I feel this may be the only option if we want to fix this. Question: would this apply to just the app, or to the mobile site as well? —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 15:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
      It's app only (the user_app variable in the edit filter). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
    Thanks, ProcrastinatingReader. If we prepare an RfC, where would it be held? It would need advertising on cent. Fences&Windows 23:47, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
    @Fences and windows: Any RFC will need some very careful drafting first. If it fails (for any reason) the WMF could interpret the failure as "see the community doesn't really care about this issue". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
    We might want to move this thread to WP:VPT; this noticeboard is not widely watched. –xeno 23:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
    I really don't want to rush into an RFC, though. There are many questions. Should we also disallow mobile IP web editors? Should we disallow edits from users with a confirmed email address? Which bugs, exactly, do we want fixed? How long do we give the WMF to fix them? This is a nuclear option. It should not be taken lightly. But please don't move the whole thread to VPT. It's here so it doesn't get buried in the archives. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) Two-question RfC maybe? Initial brainstorm - Question 1: consensus 'letter' to WMF requesting resources be allocated to promptly fix the issues. Question 2: if not done within 90 days, mobile apps blocked from editing enwiki by edit filter. Best to move this particular matter to VPI. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:36, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
    It has to be noted though that disallowing edits, if it comes to it, is really not great and rather bitey, as the editors will hardly have any clue what's going on due to EF messages being iffy. Maybe bugging Jimbo and/or Doc James to contact someone in engineering is a viable option? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
    As I said. Nuclear. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
    Yes, IDEALAB is the best place (for a new thread). That will discourage any supporting and opposing until we figure just what we're asking for. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
    This needs caution—an overly enthusiastic RfC or proposal at WP:VPI is bound to be voted down and that would cause a lot of people to automatically vote down any future proposals of a similar nature. I'm thinking of masked IPs—any proposal to impede or block such users could easily fail if it appeared to be similar to an earlier idea to block "good faith" users who were unaware that communication was even possible, let alone required. Johnuniq (talk) 08:34, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I wish I could say I was surprised by any of this but I've long assumed that something like this was the cause of numerous editors I've come across who display quite clearly that they have never seen their IP/user talk page, and simply have no idea why their edits "aren't going through" (because a human editor keeps undoing them). A thorough waste of thousands of hours of volunteer time, on both ends. There are some countries or regions in which accessing the internet is only financially possible for the everyday person via a mobile phone, so the WMF's inaction here is another built-in systemic bias which prevents some cultures from effectively contributing their knowledge and skills to Misplaced Pages. — Bilorv (talk) 06:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Tracked in Phabricator
    Task T278838

    User:Suffusion of Yellow/Mobile communication bugs seems to be an excellent overview but it would get more attention if it were on phab. I have tried to roughly copy it to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T278838 which can probably be used as a parent task for all these issues. – SD0001 (talk) 15:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi everyone, thanks for raising these issues, and documenting the problems so thoroughly. We're going to get a group of people from the Product department together next week to talk about these problems, and see what we can do about it. I'll let you know what we figure out. I appreciate you all bringing it up. — DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

A commercial subsidy of WMF

meta:Wikimedia Enterprise

I was just reading Misplaced Pages Is Finally Asking Big Tech to Pay Up in Wired by Noam Cohen and it appears that the WMF has setup a for profit subsidiary "Wikimedia Enterprise LLC" that hosts a version on AWS. A couple other things of note from the article There will also be a level of customer service typical of business arrangements but unprecedented for the volunteer-directed project: a number for its customers to call, a guarantee of certain speeds for delivering the data, a team of experts assigned to solve specific technical flaws...The Foundation says it doesn’t expect Enterprise ever to become the primary source of funding for the foundation’s roughly $100 million budget. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:12, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Cohen believes this a smart move (For Misplaced Pages to reject this steady stream of money, to throw up objections based on principle, would perhaps seem as quixotic and stubborn as those homeowners who turn down a big check from a real estate developer planning a new skyscraper. The building usually goes up anyway, while the house sits in its shadows, a relic of the past. And the owner has missed out on a big payday to boot). I wouldn't go nearly that far but I certainly don't have any problems with this. I do have a problem that the Foundation seems increasingly assertive in its actions. It feels like with the Global Council we're headed towards some Constitutional structure in terms of Foundation/community relations which has some advantages but also takes us further from supporting the core function of the project - the thing that builds enough value we can create a for profit subsidiary to work on it despite giving it away, nominally, for free - and more into supporting whatever is new and shiny. I would love if the profits of this revenue stream were dedicated towards community directed development. Maybe then we wouldn't have mobile editors who we cannot communicate with. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
The Misplaced Pages Enterprise link in the topic above is exactly about Wikimedia Enterprise LLC. and the responsible user, as far as understand, is Wittylama.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Barkeep49 It's what was brought up multiple times in the past including in the strategy meetings. Basically.. the foundation is already spending a ton of money supporting these companies. This is often very disruptive support because it has to go in between planned projects etc. and no one keeps track of it. But its necessary because otherwise those companies use the same entryways as community and plain readers and it would become even more unpredictable and costly, so why not make that an actual professional service that can be predictable and stable. There is also hope that investing in better commercial/professional support will trickle down into services for the community like further professionalisation of toolforge services, better backups and export options, maps etc. So basically, instead of having volunteer and NGO labour pay for the commercial services (and then be thrown a grant every once in a while), flip it around and hope that the enterprises can create more value for the NGO and volunteers. The projects has been in development as an idea for quite a while already previously known as okapi. More information is on meta including on the principals, legal structure etc. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:36, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Hello, and yes, I'm the community liaison for the project (to be clear as LWyatt (WMF) (talk), not my volunteer account Wittylama). The WIRED article is a fair description, but it is by-necessity a simplification for a general audience, and it also doesn't get into the details that are most interesting from a wikimedian's perspective. It (quite naturally) focuses on the issues for big tech etc. So, for anyone wanting to read the documentation on-Wiki (as User:TheDJ so kindly pointed out), there is a new an Essay on Meta which discusses the “why?” and “how?” of this project. See also, the associated FAQ, operating principles, and also the technical documentation on mediawiki.org. There's various 'office hours' advertised on the project's main page (on Meta) if you'd like to join those. Sincerely, LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
As I stated above I have no problems with this for the reasons you mention. I've been at an average of 1.5 WMF meetings per month (not counting ArbCom) since October but obviously I've not been at the right ones. I'm glad to hear it's been discussed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
and to quote the FAQ: "Beyond covering for the costs of the project itself, all the funds generated from Enterprise customers will be used to support the Wikimedia mission. This includes investment in the Wikimedia projects, the community, our movement organizations, and the Wikimedia Endowment." —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:44, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
That's the part I don't agree with. Basically the profits will do whatever the board decides - no different than now. I would suggest, instead, this would be a fine dedicated revenue stream so that things like our inability to communicate with IPs get fixed (or whatever else the community collectively decides is a priority). Right now that feels very underfunded compared to other areas. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
When they have trustee elections, I'll be asking the candidates whether they think we should provide our data to the public for free, and if big data take up all the bandwidth, rate limit them; or, whether we should provide our data to the public for free, and if big data take up all the bandwidth, charge them for it. Personally I think I'm in the former camp. Also I wonder if big data would be as interested in our data if it was licensed CC-BY-NC-SA instead of CC-BY-SA. Levivich /hound 04:14, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Enterprise timeline

--Guy Macon (talk) 14:03, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

  • My perspective
    • No meaningful conversation in advance
    • Avoidance of requests for conversation, to avoid tough questions
    • My overall take: WMF is selling Wikimedia community trust and reputation for cheap with no public evidence of due diligence, forethought, or rationale
    • Identified team behind this is tech-oriented; no WMF team members here have training in ethics, diversity, society, humanity, values, community, etc.
    • The team itself seems prohibited by WMF higher ups from having conversation, or perhaps they simply have no opinions about what they are doing
    • The refrain and explanation from the WMF is that money will come in, but nothing else will change.
    • The major protest from the Wikimedia community is that inviting corporation will change culture and invite corporate shenanigans and interference with Misplaced Pages community processes; WMF denies this
    • Other online communities have been monetized to their detriment. For example, OpenStreetMap used to be a more of a volunteer community like Misplaced Pages, but now at their conferences the majority of attendees are corporate professionals
    • When Misplaced Pages ecosystem data is monetized, Misplaced Pages becomes a business asset which will invite investment in influencing Misplaced Pages to become a more favorable asset for organizations relying on the revenue stream
    • The number that I have heard as unreliable rumor that WMF expects is US$20 million a year starting within 3 years, but so far as I know, no WMF statement on the estimate
    • Wikimedia community must demand 51% of gross revenue of the Wikimedia Enterprise Money should go to grants. This is in addition to other Wikimedia community claims to the funding of the Wikimedia Movement.
    • Additionally WMF must be financially transparent as part of the Wikimedia Movement commitment to diversity. The public requires financial reports to the satisfaction of the Wikimedia community, including clear reporting (1) how much Wikimedia money is governed by the WMF versus by community (2) reporting by region: Each America, Europe, Africa, South Asia, etc (3) reporting by target minority focus (Global South, gender, etc)
    • With this massive change in income, the only resource sharing that I have heard from the WMF is more opportunities for volunteers to spend hours engaging with their paid staff doing the staff's work, and more participation certificates and unpaid recognition with the stated goal of uplifting minority communities through thanks to volunteer representatives
This all makes me anxious that the WMF is moving into crazy territory without a pilot or anyone able to articulate what they are doing. The lack of communication when so much is at stake is an indicator of major problem. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:00, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Agreed with many of those points. A concern is by taxing Google et al will stop using Misplaced Pages data (as much). Misplaced Pages is so popular because the data is open and free, they drive traffic to our site. And once you start imposing fees it is hard to stop, indeed the pressure is to charge more and more often. It creates not partners but competitors. All sorts of problems arise. -- GreenC 18:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry:
  • WMF staff appear to be engaging on the Meta talk page.
  • Pegging a percentage to grants strikes me as a bad idea. I expect the overall Wikimedia resource allocation framework to be taken out of WMF hands in any case, per the strategy, so the funds won't be any more under WMF control than other income. (This contradicts the Enterprise FAQ, which asserts that long-term decisions on spending this income will be up to the Board.)
  • Overall, bringing in a lot of funds from deals with Big Tech organizations sounds like a very risky move, and it does not look like the WMF is adequately managing this risk.
--Yair rand (talk) 18:44, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
It does indeed contradict the Enterprise FAQ. I continue to believe that designating the profits from this endeavor - which I expect to increase in the medium term - to community directed purposes, whether programming or grants, should be done. Of course the board wants to have ultimate discretion but that doesn't mean we can't push back on those ideas. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:04, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
@Barkeep49 and Yair rand:: With regards to the specific point about WMF Board oversight of revenue (and how it is eventually spent): As you note, the FAQ describes the status quo - which is that the WMF board has ultimate legal discretion over movement funds raised by the Wikimedia Foundation. If, as a result of strategy-implementation discussion, the broader movement governance structure were to change in a way that alters the board's role in oversight of movement resources then Wikimedia Enterprise's governance rules would adapt correspondingly. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for making this clear @LWyatt (WMF). The FAQ is obviously correct as to what is happening now while I am arguing that the status quo should change. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
@Yair rand: you are right, pegging any one thing to grants is a bad idea.
Wikimedia community must demand 51% of gross revenue of the Wikimedia Foundation
The only engagement that I want from WMF staff is their funding Wikimedia communities to organize their own conversation. WMF staff should not be using consultants or their own labor to formulate the values and ethics of a community. The Wikimedia Foundation staff and the Wikimedia community are not the same and have very different values and ethics. Increasingly the Wikimedia Foundation has a conflict of interest against the Wikimedia Movement, and moreso as it continues to invest in compromises with corporate players who are buying their way into Wikimedia policy votes.
I can support the Wikimedia Enterprise intent to negotiate with corporations, but I wholly oppose the long planning the WMF designed to exclude Wikimedia community perspective from this and the WMF paying people to argue ethics with Wikimedia community volunteers. Ethics and values do not come from corporate paid labor or strategic revenue plans. The heart of all this is revenue and at best, someone at WMF may in the future make a budget item for ethics or compassion, but that has not till now been a consideration even after making 100s of 1000s of other dollars investment in the planning.
The Wikimedia Movement needs its own funding for community ethics because the corporate colonialism of the Wikimedia Foundation is never ending and I cannot see where that organization keeps its brain or thought process. The only soul in the Wikimedia Movement is in the community. The corporate personhood of the Wikimedia Foundation is an inhuman golem or Frankenstein. I feel strongly that the success of the Wikimedia Movement is in the trust and reputation that we have good ethics, and the WMF is greatly compromising that by hiding essential information and investing in countering community discussion while not investing in promotion of discussion. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:10, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Every time I see one of these WMF flowcharts, it's missing the step at the beginning called "Ask the Community If It Wants to Do This". Levivich /hound 19:13, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

In fairness, the community appears to view most things the WMF does with skepticism (perhaps often deserved, but still). Personally, if the WMF wants to monetise big tech usage of data & is willing to reinvest the profits into making the project better (eg properly funding a development team that can work through the phab backlogs) I'd say it's a good endeavour. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that the WMF has a strong track record of spending money on perpetuating itself with wishy-washy jobs for people doing things like "outreach" that never deliver anything rather than proper jobs for people who can improve our infrastructure, such as, for example, people who can improve the abysmal experience of editing from a mobile platform. If they would concentrate on the primary job of giving us good infrastructure rather than on perpetuating the bureaucracy then I'm sure nearly everyone would support this. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:56, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
For what it's worth Levivich, I did write up a reasonably detailed description in the project FAQ to the question of "Where has this previously been discussed?" - going back more than a decade for the general idea. Most recently, there are two specific section of the Movement Strategy recommendations which talk about an Enterprise API. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 21:14, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Reading the FAQ is what prompted me to write that comment. The FAQ answer says, "Revisiting large-scale data services to help ensure the success of the movement, irrespective of changing discovery methods of Wikimedia content, was discussed as a possible avenue for exploration in 2015 and again on Wikimedia-l in 2016 ... The start of work on the Enterprise API project specifically was raised on Wikimedia-l in mid-2020." A board meeting in 2015, a mailing list thread in 2016 do not count as "previously been discussed". It definitely doesn't count as "asking the community if it wants to do this". I suggest revising the FAQ to a direct and honest answer: "Where has this previously been discussed? It wasn't, except in this one board meeting six years ago and once on the mailing list five years ago." Levivich /hound 21:23, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Indeed that’s quite true that conversations on mailing lists several years ago about the general topic of an enterprise API do not constitute a discussion of ‘’this’' project. But the point of mentioning these older discussions is that the issue at the heart of this (an for enterprise-scale needs that brings in revenue) has been floating around the movement for a long time – this is not a “new” idea that grew after the last rain-storm. That includes the fact of User:Brion Vibber (WMF), the first ever(?) employee, being able to be hired because of/for the m:Wikimedia update feed service (now long since defunct).
What cements those previous discussions, is that Wikimedia Enterprise is based on two sets of recommendations from the movement strategy process and was based on the output of two different working groups. Those recommendations are part of a 4 year body of work that built by nearly 100 Wikimedians of all backgrounds that was based on the inputs of hundreds of volunteers. Given that this project is a direct result of the recommendations from the strategy process, the biggest questions are I feel mainly about how we ought go about this: There are really bad ways this project could be approached, and then there are ways which are aligned with our movement – and we are most definitely trying approach this project via the latter. Over the past 9 months we've also held a number of roundtable discussions and sought the input of a number of volunteers with specific expertise - to design the "principles" list, and various oversight rules described in the FAQ.
The public pages for this project (on Meta, MediaWiki, Phabricator) were started in mid-2020 with what was - naturally - relatively little detail since there wasn’t anything “built” yet. But nonetheless there were threads on mailing lists, phabricator tickets etc. at the time too. Now, at this stage of development, there is actually something to “show’ (both in terms of policy and technology) that is concrete enough for people to give useful, actionable, feedback and commentary upon. Much earlier and it’s all hypothetical, much later and it’s already ‘done’: and in both of those cases it would be rightfully very frustrating to be asked ‘what is your feedback?’ of an either non-existent, or an already-finished, project. We’ve tried to get the ‘goldilocks’ moment in the middle of those two extremes: But it’s never going to be the right moment for everyone simultaneously. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
I agree. The WMF should have started a discussion onwiki (with a notice on Village Pump) specifically about this project. Ideally, there should be consensus, but at the very least they should have consulted us and considered our opinions. In this case, there was no consultation, and public news reporting is the first time that I have even heard of this project. Very disappointing, since the volunteers (not the WMF) generate the vast majority of Misplaced Pages's content. Tony Tan · talk 21:48, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
In the WMF's defense I think the place they should start such discussions is meta. This is not an enwiki related thing so while we can (and are) discussing it here I think the foundation is under no obligation to post something about it for us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Meta is the right place for the centralized discussion, but WMF has an obligation to advertise such discussions on all projects. Levivich /hound 21:55, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Also while I'm here, some other feedback about the FAQ:
The FAQ question, "How will the money be spent" is answered by Once we have a more clear picture of timing and profitability, the Board of Trustees can plan for how they want to invest the profits to support the mission. That is likely to be at least a year away. So we're going to roll out this new product and we don't have a plan for how to invest the profits to support the mission, and won't make a plan until after we have the money, which begs the question: where are you going to put the money in the meantime?. And the really important part of that question is: the LLC or the non-profit?
The FAQ question, "How much money will this raise" is answered by Unsurprisingly, this is one of the most important questions from a business-model perspective, and it is also impossible to answer in advance. Significant research has been undertaken to learn what the Enterprise API's potential customers need and want, which has informed the product development and, consequently, the estimates of potential revenue over time...
So we haven't pre-sold it. We're building a product for a customer base of like.. what.. less than 100 potential customers? Less than 10? Less than 5? And we haven't presold it? There is no contract in place? We're estimating revenue based on research?
Which means no customer is making an up-front payment that is paying for the development of this new product.
So let me get this straight: We're taking money—millions?—from the non-profit and putting into an LLC, and then using that money to build a product that might be interesting to about five customers, and hoping that when it's done, they'll pay for it. If they do, we don't know how much they'll pay, but when they pay, we'll figure out what to do with that money. That'll be at least a year away. We're doing this based on a mailing list discussion five years ago and a board meeting six years held by a board that has since been replaced evaluating the recommendation of a CEO that has since been replaced. Without any discussion revisiting the topic in the interim.
And this is part of the reason why I can't wait for the next trustee elections. Levivich /hound 21:44, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
“So we haven't pre-sold it. We're building a product for a customer base of like.. what.. less than 100 potential customers? Less than 10? Less than 5? And we haven't presold it?” U run a business where you presell software and services u don’t yet have? Goddamn, I gotta get in on that trick... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:25, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Every service I sell is pre-sold. I just finished the control electronics for a firefighting robot, and before I started the work we agreed on exactly what they would get and how much they would pay me. Of course some busineses can't do that (Pepsi, for example) but if you only have 10 potential customers pre-selling is a great way to make sure that they will buy what you make. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:46, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Some folks apparently are unfamiliar with how custom software is sold. Levivich /hound 23:49, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Letting the wolves in at the door

It's one of the oldest dictums out there - money is power. If you control the purse strings, you can control everything else. Or, to put it another way, a budget document is a values document. I believe that the WMF is creating this in good faith. After all, why pass up the potential for a lot of money from some of the world's richest companies if all it's doing is affecting the data flowing out of Misplaced Pages, and won't impact what content is added or deleted?

That might be true today. But the WMF is putting itself in a dangerous position. If the revenue stream is as successful as the WMF hopes, at some point, it will make up a substantial portion of the WMF's budget. And then the big companies will be in a position to lean on the WMF for changes, in big ways and small, obvious and subtle. Misplaced Pages is an idealistic place. It will be destroyed by the rapacious maw of capital if it is not carefully managed. The WMF and the community have kept the wolves at bay for years. But this lets them in at last. One step at a time, $$$ will change what Misplaced Pages is. This idea is a mistake, and a dangerous one to this project. Ganesha811 (talk) 21:28, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

This is the best nutshell description of the problem. Beautifully put. Rollo (talk) 12:56, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

NOTE: see Meta:Talk:Wikimedia Enterprise#Letting the wolves in at the door. This exact question was also asked on the Meta talkpage for the project, it was answered there, and the conversation continued there. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

The foundation is building an endowment fund, eventually that endowment could produce sufficient income to fund the whole prject. If this new revenue stream were to be directed into expanding the endowment fund, then you reduce the risk of WMF budgets expanding to the point where we have to have this money, and you bring forward the day when the movement is financially independent. ϢereSpielChequers 13:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
As it is currently structured, the W?F can at any time take money out of the endowment and use it to maintain their ever-increasing spending despite a major drop in revenue. This is unlike many endowments, where the principle cannot be spent, and makes the W?F endowment just another bank account with extra paperwork needed to make a withdrawal. We may very well choose to trust the current W?F management, but do we also trust all possible future management teams? Having some of the same people on the W?F board and the endowment board is also troubling. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:20, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
WSC is right that they're building an endowment, effectively doing a capital campaign all without acknowledging it and all basically on the back of small donors who don't realize that's what they're contributing to. I support them building an endowment even if I don't love the way they're going about it. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

The Enterprise API: a technical analysis

Based upon my decades of managing hardware and software projects and as a consultant specializing in rescuing engineering projects that are in trouble, here is my technical analysis based upon first principles with no insider information about the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, Amazon, or Apple:

  • Assumption #1: The software that Misplaced Pages runs on can be run on someone else's' computer.
  • Assumption #2: The content on Misplaced Pages can be mirrored on someone else's' computer.

See...

Misplaced Pages:Mirrors and forks,
Misplaced Pages:FAQ/Forking,
Downloading the Wikimedia software,
Misplaced Pages:Republishers,
Wikimedia Installation Guide. and
How to mirror Misplaced Pages

...to examine the above assumptions. Also keep in mind that you can create a mirror of most things that are available on the internet by crawling the website like any ordinary user.

If the above assumptions are true, then Google, Amazon, and Apple can create and maintain complete and frequently updated copies of Misplaced Pages on their internal servers.

They could also check Misplaced Pages (we are on the web, after all) to verify that individual pages on their internal server are up to date, with the choice of what pages to update driven by them displaying that content to their users in some form.

At this point, engineers at Google, Amazon, and Apple could reverse engineer the Enterprise API and create an identical API that pulls data from their internal servers. They might even be able to poach some foundation engineers, at least some of whom would welcome a doubling of salary and a promise of better management.

This would give Google, Amazon, and Apple exactly what they would get from the Enterprise API without paying a dime for it.

Engineers at Google, Amazon, and Apple could then attempt to differentiate themselves from each other by making their internal API better in some way than the Enterprise API.

One obvious improvement would be to not update their copy when a new Misplaced Pages user makes a change unless the edit survives without being reverted for a day or two. This would give them a feed with less vandalism.

My conclusion is that this proposal has a fatal flaw; the potential customer can easily eliminate the middleman. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:12, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I was curious about that too, but the reasoning is explained at mw:Wikimedia Enterprise. – Joe (talk) 15:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I must be missing something. You can take that document, replace every mention of "Wikimedia Enterprise API" with "Apple's API to their internal server" and all of the listed advantages remain the same. The only way out I can see is if one of my two starting assumptions isn't true. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
The reasoning has a gap: this applies for every software product, ever. The difference is that it costs time and money to develop and maintain these systems, more than it costs to purchase API access, and presumably they’d do a worse job than the people who actually have ran the software for decades. The same reason why FAANG and other tech giants buy API subscriptions for practically every other thing, and pay for software like GitHub Enterprise rather than develop their own GitHub from scratch (and repeat for everything else they own). Simply not worth the cost or effort. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:45, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
No. It does not "apply for every software product, ever." Ignoring the fact that we are talking about a service, not a software product, it only applies to open source products. You can fork Linux, but you can't fork Windows.
If, as you claim, Google, Amazon, and Apple will be willing to pay for Wikimedia Enterprise API, why then are they not willing to pay to create it? Why does the W?F have to pay the cost out of donations that were never meant to be used to fund a for-profit venture? Has any potential customer signed a contract agreeing that if the new LLC creates X the customer will pay Y for it? Has Google, Amazon, or Apple given us a definition of what they might be willing to buy in the future, or are the details of the Enterprise API based upon what some foundation engineers are guessing that those customers might want? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I never said there are people willing to buy it. I don’t know exactly what the WMF is selling. I’m just saying it’s a demonstrable fallacy to make the general “big tech can just write it themselves rather than pay for API access” argument. Big tech frequently use external APIs and services rather than reinvent and maintain the wheel. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:33, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Looking at the mw page, briefly it appears for the most part they’re high availability APIs offering access to the same content. I suspect they’d have more interest if they made APIs that analysed the content and provided that, aka something different, rather than just raw data dumps. But I’ve done zero market research and that’s just a guess. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:38, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
What makes you think that Google, Apple, and Amazon don't already have their own internal mirrors, whether exact or post-processed in some manner? The trick is in keeping these mirrors up to date as Misplaced Pages is edited, particularly when all three are competing on having the most complete and up-to-date data for their various assistant programs. To me it looks like this whole Enterprise API thing is basically a way to sell then a better feed so they can update their mirrors more reliably, and possibly reduce their own investment in maintaining exact mirrors, while possibly also reducing their impact on Misplaced Pages's existing infrastructure that isn't really designed for large-scale real-time mirroring. Plus, if you want to ascribe philanthropic motives to the big players, it's much easier for a publicly traded for-profit company to justify (to their shareholders) spending money on a service than to justify making large donations. Anomie⚔ 23:10, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
You have pretty much nailed it on the head @User:Anomie Seddon 01:08, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Yep - as Anomie said. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 03:43, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
So why haven't these potential customers made a financial commitment? Have we even bothered to ask them if they would be willing to fund this? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
As I wrote on Meta's forum where you also asked this question: It was stated on the record in an interview for WIRED that conversations between the the big tech companies and the project team "are already underway" - which is is a simple way of saying that yes, the 'enterprise' team has been in close contact with those companies: finding out what they currently do and how they do it, what they need and can't do themselves, what they'd like instead, and would they be willing to pay for it... This is not being built in a vacuum. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 04:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! Very helpful. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:36, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
The ability to replace one vendor is not a "fatal flaw", it's the whole point of being in the business of free knowledge. Business models for open-source software is a complicated topic, so naturally the press made a giant mess of the news with its sensationalist headlines. All the various for-profit proprietary software companies have a sore need to share technology, although not everyone is happy. Selling free software may not get you the 40 % margins Microsoft has, so some people get sad they can't become billionaires on the stock exchange, but we don't have that problem. Nemo 06:31, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Consider this as an opportunity

Perhaps we should consider this as an opportunity. I call upon the W?F to publish a detailed accounting of every penny and every hour spent on this project and of every penny that comes back to the W?F if it succeeds. There is absolutely no reason to keep this information secret -- no other giant online encyclopedia snapping at our heels and trying to figure out how we do things -- and a detailed accounting would make the project a lot more palatable to the community. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

As noted in the FAQ on meta in the financial subsection, overall revenue and expenses, differentiated from those of the Wikimedia Foundation in general, will be published at least annually. More generally, for those interested in financial issues specifically, there are a couple of other related questions that have been asked and answered on the Meta talkpage, here and here. -- LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 04:43, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Monitoring / alerting thread on VPT

Somebody from MWF WMF may want to participate in WP:VPT#Monitoring / alerting platform for tools?. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:23, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

They decided to rebrand to MediaWiki Foundation in the end? – SD0001 (talk) 15:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Open Letter from Arbcoms to the Board of Trustees

I just stumbled onto m:Open Letter from Arbcoms to the Board of Trustees, expressing concerns about how the UCoC Enforcement policies are being developed. Thanks and support to our Arbs (won't ping you all) and those of the cs, de, fr, pl, ru, uk communities. You have expressed it better than I ever could. Pelagic ( messages ) – (23:39 Wed 31, AEDT) 12:39, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Note: More discussion at WT:ACN —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct – 2021 consultations

Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a universal baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire Wikimedia movement and all its projects. The project is currently in Phase 2, outlining clear enforcement pathways. You can read more about the whole project on its project page.

Drafting Committee: Call for applications

The Wikimedia Foundation is recruiting volunteers to join a committee to draft how to make the code enforceable. Volunteers on the committee will commit between 2 and 6 hours per week from late April through July and again in October and November. It is important that the committee be diverse and inclusive, and have a range of experiences, including both experienced users and newcomers, and those who have received or responded to, as well as those who have been falsely accused of harassment.

To apply and learn more about the process, see Universal Code of Conduct/Drafting committee.

2021 community consultations: Notice and call for volunteers / translators

From 5 April – 5 May 2021 there will be conversations on many Wikimedia projects about how to enforce the UCoC. We are looking for volunteers to translate key material, as well as to help host consultations on their own languages or projects using suggested key questions. If you are interested in volunteering for either of these roles, please contact us in whatever language you are most comfortable.

To learn more about this work and other conversations taking place, see Universal Code of Conduct/2021 consultations.

-- Xeno (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

English Misplaced Pages Request for comment: Universal Code of Conduct application

Further to the above, I've opened an RfC at Misplaced Pages:Universal Code of Conduct/2021 consultation, and community comments are invited. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 22:40, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to participate discussion

Hello everyone,

This is Michel BAKNI from Wikimedia Foundation. I am writing this post on behalf of the Wiki for Human Rights Campaign which is an annual campaign. This year we are focusing on the right to a healthy environment.

We are currently looking for local communities to engage in the campaign. Thus I would like to invite you all to participate in the challenge or any event related to the human rights campaign.

Here are some usual links related to this year's campaign:

Please feel free to get back to me if you have any questions or need more information, you can also add join the discussion here and I will be more than happy to answer all of your questions.--Michel Bakni (talk) 19:10, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Category:
Misplaced Pages:Village pump (WMF): Difference between revisions Add topic