Small Wikipedias' burden
In a certain way, writing Wikipedia is the same everywhere, in every language or culture. You have to stick to the facts, aiming for the most objective way of describing them, including everything relevant and leaving out all the everyday trivia that is not really necessary to understand the context. You have to use critical thinking, trying to be independent of your own preferences and biases. To some extent, that's all there is to it.
Naturally, Wikipedians have their biases, some of which can never be cured. Most Wikipedians tend to like encyclopedias; but millions of people in the world don't share that bias, and we represent them rather poorly. I'm also quite sure that an overwhelming majority of Wikipedia co-authors are literate. Again, that's not true for everyone in this world. Yet we have other, less noticeable but barely less fundamental biases.
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Wikipedia is a continuance not only for the ancient tradition of collections of human knowledge, but particularly the modern encyclopedic tradition that was most famously represented by Denis Diderot's great L'Encyclopédie. We share several beliefs with the philosophers of the Enlightenment. We believe that knowledge is good, and ignorance is not bliss. It's better to know, even if it's uncomfortable and you'd feel better shutting your eyes to the world around you. Otherwise, we'd have the Encyclopedia of All Things Good and Beautiful that would mention no pain, dangers, disease, or wars—nothing controversial, just the everlasting progress of humanity, with science and religion marching hand in hand towards the eternal sunshine of a splendid future. Yet we've chosen knowledge and, to some extent, maybe even truth. This means we have to acknowledge our social responsibility. After all, that's one of the sources of our aims to be objective and neutral.
In small cultures, languages, and societies, this means a lot more than in the big ones. Of course, in a big culture, your every mistake is read daily by thousands of people in many countries, some of who might possibly fix it. In a small culture, your mistakes most likely stay as they are until they're copied into every book on the topic.
And while talking about books, there are many fewer other dependable sources in small cultures than in big ones—no Britannica, no Larousse, no Brockhaus. In my first language, Estonian, three encyclopedias cover the whole alphabet: one was published before WWII, one during the Soviet times, and one started in USSR in 1980s, then changed its name and was finished in 2000s. It's possible there won't be another finished encyclopedia because it is just too costly to produce for a small market. Try to imagine: what would that mean for local Wikipedians? If you don't get it right, no one else will.
In good themes and in bad, in sickness and in health
Wikipedia tends to take a special place in a small regional culture's media landscape. If there are few commercially successful publications, it is hard to find money for investigative journalism. Instead, the media tends to focus on quick online news that flicks by at an unbelievable rate. Such journalism is cheap to produce and cheap in its content: it doesn't create a balanced media field where every bias is levelled by competition. That means if you want to get a good overview of recent (or even not so recent) events, you either have to wait until someone publishes a good book on that theme, or turn to, well, Wikipedia. The accounts you give on socially and politically important themes in Wikipedia gain much more resonance in small cultures. Proportionally, their impact is much bigger in Estonian than in English.
The same is true just about every controversial subject. I doubt there will ever be lasting consensus on the English Wikipedia's talk page on Estonia about whether Estonia was occupied in 1940 or not. Now, try to imagine how the same events would be described in Estonian and in Russian. There is a faint possibility that a consensus can be reached about the description of controversial issues, but it would need a tremendous amount of diligent work and good will.
For every nation, there are controversial and hurtful subjects; these are not willingly recalled, like childhood memories of being abused or abusing others. A friend recently told me there are numbers and dates on the building blocks from which his house was built. Those blocks were made during World War II in a local concentration camp. Currently, all numbers are covered by plaster because his father doesn't want to see them.
That's understandable. Nobody does want to remember. But if we stick with our belief that it is better to know, we should acknowledge those memories. We have to write about parts of history that no one is proud of—about "unpopular" ethnic minorities, social problems that are not yet admitted. If the majority in a particular culture states that a certain issue is not worthy of an article, this might be the exact reason why we need to face it.
We can work it out
It's hard to write about the demise of the White Russian North-Western Army after WWI, or the expropriation of Baltic German estates in the Estonian Wikipedia. It must be quite difficult to give a balanced account of the Abyssinian campaign in Italian, and I can't imagine writing about Armenian Genocide in Turkish. But this does not mean it shouldn't be done. Quite on the opposite. We just have to be very careful about it.
That's where it's helpful to stick to policies that are designed with the community consensus in mind. Wikipedia is unique among all big encyclopedias in that its articles do not reflect the viewpoint of a certain expert or two. They're written by a motley crew with a colourful mix of views, luckily joined by the will to reach an understanding—or at least a balanced presentation of all important views on a subject. In some respects, we might say we can never reach objectivity, as only objects are objective; we are a community of subjects, and even if we reach a consensual decision, it will always be subjective. At any time disagreement might emerge. Indeed, if there are enough newcomers, they can raise a discussion and influence community to review the original decision. But the most important thing is the process: the habit of arranging the public meeting of the minds, the belief in the possibility of common ground, and the will to reach it. If we can make an example of that every day, teaching the societies around us, then we'll have succeeded.
The same goes for the big Wikipedias: every big society consists of smaller ones: people of a city block, pupils of a school class, customers in a coffee shop, town people, newspaper readers, philatelists. But these goals are much easier to reach in small societies, small cultures, and small languages. And if we don't do this, it may very well be that nobody does—noblesse oblige. To paraphrase Kipling, that’s the small Wikipedias' burden.
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Bangla-language survey suggests the challenges for small Wikipedias
Bangla Wikipedia survey
The Bangla language, also known as Bengali, is spoken by some 200 million people in Bangladesh and India. The Bangla Wikipedia has a very small community of just 10–15 very active editors, with another 35–40 as less active editors. The project faces particular challenges in being a small Wikipedia, and Dhaka-based WMF community fellow Tanvir Rahman is working to understand these challenges and develop strategies to improve small wikis that have strong potential to expand their editing communities (Signpost coverage).
During July 2012, Tanvir conducted an online survey of more than 1800 Bangla Wikipedia readers, a response over just two weeks that was beyond expectations; of these participants, 1107 answered all 29 questions. Like all online surveys, the advantage is the relatively large sample size, which increases statistical strength, although there is the likelihood of some self-selection bias. Of the 1107 completed surveys, 25% of the participants count themselves as editors of the project, and 75% as readers who had never edited the site; 81.2% were from Bangladesh, with 16.3% from India and 2.5% from other countries, including the US and the UK. The issues surveyed concerned readability, editing, help, and community support of the Bangla Wikipedia. The survey also provided the first-ever demographic information of volunteers editing this language project.
62.2% of participants are students, and this matches the largest age-range in the survey, of 16–26 years. The results have established that college and school students make up the largest group of readers and editors of Bangla Wikipedia, and that this group feels the project has been very useful for their studies. In Bangladesh, students usually have better internet access than the overall population, which may be a factor in this result. Ironically, it seems that the English Wikipedia plays an important role in promoting the Bangla Wikipedia, since most participants learned of the existence of the Bangla Wikipedia from the English Wikipedia's other languages links. Other sources include search engines, social networks, and newspaper reports on the project and outreach events (Signpost coverage).
In a finding that will have a familiar ring to English Wikipedians, new users feel inhibited by the current lack of proper help pages and other technical issues. However, there the similarities end: while two-thirds of participants find Bangla Wikipedia useful, readers pointed out several limitations that need to be tackled. Like other small Wikipedias, a lack of information in articles is the most commonly raised issue for the Bangla Wikipedia. More than 700 responses included open suggestions for how to improve the project's readability.
- Most know they can edit, but ...
The majority of participants say they know they can edit the Bangla Wikipedia, but only a quarter actually do edit. Most readers feel the need for a guideline on where to start editing; it appears that the current help-page system – where known at all to a reader – fails to provide convenient and useful help to newbies.
Bangla help and policy pages are mostly translated versions of English Wikipedia guidelines, although the actual editing environment in Bangla is much simpler than on the more developed English-language project. On the other hand, the English Wikipedia community and the WMF have recognised that the help pages on the English Wikipedia are deficient, and the system is currently subject to review and redesign (Signpost coverage).
The editing interface is the second major factor that Bangla participants feel holds them back. Many are unfamiliar with wikicode, and those who have learned how to use it are on their own thanks to the lack of useful documentation. Several participants expressed the hope that a Bangla version of Visual Editor might eventually solve this problem.
As Bangla is written in its own script, 17.5% of the participants mentioned that they don't know how to type Bangla in computers. Bangla script has 49 characters (not including hundreds of consonant conjuncts), which makes it more difficult to work in than in English. It's now possible to write Bangla using English with the phonetic keyboard layout, and this typing tool in turn is embedded in Wikipedia.
Bangladesh has more than 92 million mobile phone users, with an unknown number in the Indian state of West Bengal; 90% of the total internet users in Bangladesh gain access to the internet through mobile services. However, few people said they browse Wikipedia from mobile phones (typing Bangla into a mobile phone is a complicated affair).
- New way to help newbies
56% of all participants said they would like to get help in editing, but don't know where they can ask for support from Bangla Wikipedia. A majority would prefer a step-by-step help environment, rather than traditional help pages. Newbies, the survey finds, shouldn't be expected to know much before starting to edit. People would also like help from Wikipedians online, so a mentorship program like the English Wikipedia's adopt-a-user could be of value.
Aside from basic help issues, 57% of the survey participants would like to help translate content from the English Wikipedia to Bangla, and 60% would like help for new content creation. The English Wikipedia is the biggest information source for other Wikipedias' translation activities, and it is often easier and less time-consuming to develop a Wikipedia by translating articles from English.
- Demographic findings
Almost all participants completed their university and college bachelor graduation; 11.8% were high-school graduates alone. (In Bangladesh, the home-country of most participants, high school is from grades 6–10, and college is grades 11 and 12.)
The gender gap is an issue on the Bangla Wikipedia: only 5.6% of participants are female, and just 21% of female respondents have edited the site. Of those who did not, after learning from the survey instructions that they can edit, most expressed interest in contributing. Women were particularly keen to have a step-by-step help system.
- The way forward
The survey findings will be a starting point for developing incremental help pages in Bangla, which will be intended to tackle the problems revealed by this survey. The starting point will be the translation of the help space from the English Wikipedia, with an eye to developments on that project towards simplification and greater effectiveness. It will aim to provide newbies and interested editors with an adequate help structure in line with the expressed preferences of the respondents. Discussion on the new help system is underway with the local community, and the help experiment is expected to go live next month.
Brief notes
- Questia accounts: The online research library Questia has agreed to offer 1000 accounts gratis access to its databases for a year, to be used and distributed at the discretion of the community. The project page is managed by Ocaasi, who has set up the community's collaboration with HighBeam and is proposing to establish a Wikipedia Library to bundle such community–corporate relationships with publishers.
- Nominations open for FDC: Nominations for the seven volunteer FDC positions and the related position of ombudsperson are open at Meta until August 15. At the time of writing, there are 11 candidates for FDC positions and one for ombudsperson. Membership, which will be decided by the foundation's Board of Trustees, does not require affiliation with a Wikimedia entity. Editors are welcome to ask questions of candidates at a Q&A page.
- Steward policy review: The policy governing the conduct of Wikimedia stewards, who are empowered to act as a member of any permissions group on any project with no active member of that permissions group, is under review on Meta. A RfC has been opened to approve or reject the reform.
- WMF reshuffle: The foundation's Global Development Department – charged with tasks such as promoting Wikipedia's mobile reach, managing the global education program, and supporting the new finance committee – is undergoing structural and personnel changes. Barry Newstead, the department's chief officer who contributed substantially to Wikimedia's global strategy and other structural reforms, is stepping down to relocate to Australia for personal reasons. The WMF's communications team will be moved to the Legal and Community Advocacy Department (LCA).
Reader comments
Youreallycan request for arbitration
A request for arbitration was filed late last week, ending the three-week long absence of pending cases.
Youreallycan
Prioryman filed a request for arbitration concerning Youreallycan, alleging misconduct. In his arbitration request, Prioryman alleged that Youreallycan "has a persistent problem with personal attacks and edit-warring" and highlighted the latter's block record. He alleged that Youreallycan had made further personal attacks and engaged in edit-warring during the RfC/U, and on Prioryman's own user talk page, and requested that the Arbitration Committee resolve the matter. Youreallycan, however, noted that Prioryman had opened a request for comment on Youreallycan's conduct just a week previously. Other editors noted the same, with Collect commenting "Actions here while such an RfC/U is ongoing are premature, and may have the effect of being aimed more at harming an editor than of seeking a collegial and collaborative environment."
Other requests and motions
Discussion of the motion regarding annotation of changed usernames in case pages and the current requests for clarification and amendment has been inactive this last week.
Reader comments
On the road again
Featured articles
Six featured articles were promoted this week:
- United States Senate election in Ohio, 1898 (nom) by Wehwalt. The Senate election of 1898 by the legislature in the US state of Ohio saw two Republican factions, one backing incumbent Mark Hanna and the other backing Robert McKisson. Democrats agreed to support McKisson as a means of defeating Hanna, but it was not enough: Hanna won the election with a bare majority, amid allegations of bribery.
- U.S. Route 41 Business (Marquette, Michigan) (nom) by Imzadi1979. Business US Highway 41 was a state trunkline highway that served as a business loop in Marquette in the US state of Michigan. The trunkline was decommissioned in 2005. Its target streets had been a part of the state highway system since the 1910s, and the business loop designation dating back to the 1960s was removed in 2005.
- Liverpool F.C. in European football (nom) by NapHit. Liverpool Football Club is the most successful British team in Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) competitions. Liverpool first participated in the 1964–65 European Cup. Since then, they have made over thirty appearances and won multiple Champions League, Europa League, and Super Cup titles. Jamie Carragher holds the club record for the most appearances.
- Kappa Kappa Psi (nom) by Sycamore. Kappa Kappa Psi is an American college fraternity established in 1919 at the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College in Stillwater, where it remains today. Operating primarily as a recognition society, it is open to band members and provides services, leadership opportunities, and social programs for its members. Members include Bill Clinton, Neil Armstrong, and William Revelli.
- Problem of religious language (nom) by ItsZippy. This problem considers the possibility of speaking about God meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God (incorporeal, infinite, and timeless) are accepted. As these traditional conceptions make God difficult to describe, religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories of religious language attempt to demonstrate either the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of religious language.
- Marshall Applewhite (nom) by Mark Arsten. Applewhite (1931–1997) was an American religious leader who founded what became known as the American religious group Heaven's Gate and organized their mass suicide in 1997. After a period as a soldier and music teacher, Applewhite developed a close friendship with the nurse Bonnie Nettles. They established Heaven's Gate together, collecting many converts; after Nettles died, Applewhite continued the work alone.
Featured lists
Nine featured lists were promoted this week:
- List of Malmö FF chairmen (nom) by Reckless182. The Swedish football club Malmö FF has been led by nine men holding the position of chairman since being established in 1910. The team was most successful under Eric Persson, who was also its longest running chairman.
- List of accolades received by Miami Vice (nom) by Grapple X. The American police procedural Miami Vice, broadcast from 1984 to 1990, received 33 award nominations, including 20 Emmy nominations, with a total of 10 wins. Songs and albums from the series also charted internationally.
- List of Sri Lanka Twenty20 International cricketers (nom) by Astronomyinertia. Sri Lanka's Twenty20 International cricket team has had 45 players, including five captains, since being established in 2006. Current captain Mahela Jayawardene is also the team's highest scorer, while Tillakaratne Dilshan has made the most appearances.
- List of Maya Angelou works (nom) by Figureskatingfan. The American writer Maya Angelou has written six autobiographies, numerous collections of poetry and essays, children's books, screenplays, and dramas. She has also directed, produced spoken word albums, and acted.
- Golden Eagle Award for Best Foreign Language Film (nom) by GreatOrangePumpkin. The Golden Eagles are Russian film awards established in 1987. The award for best foreign-language film, historically dominated by the US, is the only category of the Golden Eagle Award that honors non-Russian-language films.
- Chrisye discography (nom) by Crisco 1492. The Indonesian singer Chrisye recorded more than a hundred works during his 40-year career, including 20 studio albums and 56 singles. Most were well received, and several have been selected as among the best Indonesian albums of all time.
- List of colleges and universities in South Dakota (nom) by Ruby2010. The US state of South Dakota is home to 22 current and 7 former colleges and universities. The oldest was established in 1862; the largest has an enrollment of more than 12,000.
- List of The Simpsons guest stars (nom) by Gran2 and Lemonade51. The US animated sitcom The Simpsons has featured 596 guest stars in its 23 years of broadcasting. Several of these have returned to voice the same characters; Phil Hartman made 52 appearances before his death.
- Ronald Reagan filmography (nom) by Lionelt (based on content by Happyme22). Before he became president, the American film actor Ronald Reagan starred in numerous feature films, beginning with Love Is on the Air in 1937. When he received fewer film roles beginning in the 1950s, he migrated to television before ultimately retiring in the mid 1960s.
Featured pictures
One featured picture was promoted this week:
- Neophema chrysogaster female (nom; related article) by JJ Harrison. The Orange-bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster) is a rare parrot endemic to southern Australia. Only 36 wild specimens of this species are known; another 208 survive in captivity.
Featured topics
One featured topic was promoted this week:
- Nickels of the United States (nom) by Wehwalt. The new featured topic contains featured articles on the four incarnations of this American coin, as well as the article on the coin itself. The nickel is a five cent coin first struck in 1866.
Reader comments
"Phabricating" a serious alternative to Gerrit
Phabricator: a serious alternative to Gerrit?
| “ | As I understood it, the big gotchas for Phabricator adoption are that Phabricator doesn't manage repositories – it knows how to poll a Git repo, but it doesn't have per-repo access controls or even more than a shallow awareness of what a repository is ... [consequently], it would still need some work to efficiently deal with hundreds of repositories, long-lived remote branches, and some of the other fun characteristics of Wikimedia's repos. | ” |
—WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller addressing code review tool Phabricator | ||
Three weeks into a month-long evaluation of code review tool Gerrit, a serious alternative has finally gained traction in the review process: Facebook-developed but now independently operated Phabricator and its sister command-line tool Arcanist.
Phabricator has long been considered a possible alternative to Gerrit, first appearing in discussions way back in February this year, prompting the Wikimedia Foundation to invite its lead developer to visit the WMF office in San Francisco and "sell" Phabricator to several key members of staff, including Deputy Director Erik Möller. That meeting occurred on August 6, reviving Phabricator as a contender for the role of Gerrit replacement.
A test project was quickly established; nevertheless, it is unclear whether lead platform architect Brion Vibber, who is heading the review, considers it a workable enough solution at present given concerns about its design paradigm (see quote box). Vibber this week suggested that despite the original cutoff date (August 10) having passed without Phabricator's credentials having been proven, the code review tool should continue to be reviewed and investigated on an ongoing basis for the immediate future.
Google Summer of Code: Watchlist improvements
Continuing our series profiling participants in this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) programme, whereby student developers are paid to contribute code to MediaWiki, the Signpost this week caught up with San Francisco–based student and amateur journalist Aaron Pramana, who took on the challenge of improving MediaWiki's watchlist feature.
| “ | For my project, I've been working with Wikimedia developer Alex Emsenhuber to give watchlists a revamp, adding features and improving the workflow of the watchlist for current and potential power-users. For many wiki editors, the watchlist is one of the most important features that the MediaWiki software has to offer. Many top ranked websites, from e-commerce sites like eBay to media sites like YouTube, have comparable features that help users track pages that interest them. It was my view that the watchlist should continue to evolve so that the MediaWiki software remains a potent tool for the collaborative exchange of knowledge. This project was designed to be an amalgamation of several smaller feature improvements which will make the watchlist more useful.
Thus far, the project has added watchlist grouping, permissions to make watchlists publicly viewable by other users, and a new raw watchlist page. Although these features are still at an early experimental phase, I would like to solidify the progress I've made up to this point and then solicit ideas from the greater Wikimedia community for a more detailed plan towards a possible Wikimedia deployment. The greatest challenge of the project has been assuming a scope of responsibility that is greater than a "typical" programming job. Every programming project I've participated in previously has emphasized specialization in one niche (e.g. one person does database work, another does UI design). However, GSoC teaches student developers to persevere independently and actively seek out help when needed, which are useful skills to have in the field. |
” |
Pramana added that after the GSoC project ends later this month, he'd love to solicit help from other interested developers, especially UI designers. Code for his project can be found on Gerrit; more human-readable updates also regularly find their way onto his blog.
In brief
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Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for several weeks.
- translatewiki.net to drop SVN extension support: Starting October 1, translatewiki.net will drop support for all MediaWiki extensions it currently supports that still remain in the Subversion repository, Community Manager Siebrand Mazeland explained this week (wikitech-l mailing list). The site, which assists a large community of volunteer translators in their efforts to improve language coverage for various open source projects, did not want to burden its translators with work on extensions that are not "well maintained". All extension developers are invited to transfer over to the current version control system Git to continue to receive updates. A maximum of 273 extensions are affected, Mazeland said. In related news, a translatewiki.net translation rally is ongoing. Funded by Wikimedia Nederland, the Dutch Wikimedia chapter, €1000 will be split between contributors who add 500 or more translations across 11 named Wikimedia-related projects before 18 August.
- Redesigning Wikipedia: discussion continues: Continuing on from WMF Senior Designer Brandon Harris' opinion piece in last week's Signpost, things design-related have received attention on the Wikimedia-l mailing list this week, when it considered a redesign proposed by brand consultancy NewIsNew. Many of the visuals received at least a degree of praise, whilst there was criticism of the consultancy's ignorance of internationalisation and multilingual issues, which factor heavily into current MediaWiki thinking. The Signpost will carry an alternative to Harris' analysis of the correct future direction of MediaWiki design in the near future.
- Introducing Phalanx: Development work has started on porting the Phalanx extension from its Wikia-specific beginnings into something suitable for deployment on WMF wikis. The extension represents the merging of existing "ad hoc anti-spam tools into one powerful tool" and is part of a wider WMF initiative to both improve and centralise MediaWiki's anti-spam (and anti-mass vandalism) provisions; smaller and non-WMF wikis are likely to benefit most from the work, which will also include the introduction of global abuse filter rules and the "rethinking" of MediaWiki captchas, which are easy for bots to break but still present difficulties for human users, according to a WMF-led investigation.
- Three bots approved: Three BRFAs were recently approved for use on the English Wikipedia:
- MahdiBot's third BRfA (and first successful BRfA), adding, removing and modifying interwiki links;
- JBradley Bot's first BRFA, covering the update of many of the US-census-based statistics originally introduced into the English Wikipedia by User:Rambot;
- EarwigBot's 19th BRfA, assisting in the management of the dispute resolution noticeboard.
- At the time of writing, nine BRFAs are active. As usual, community input is encouraged.
Reader comments
WikiProject Dispute Resolution
- Check out the new WikiProject Editor Retention
- The Wikimedia Foundation's blog has an interesting post about improving Wikipedia's medical articles across many languages with the help of the Medicine Translation Task Force
- The August issue of the Metro has been released for anyone interested in London transport
- The August Wikify Drive is underway — start wikifying and earn a barnstar for your efforts!
This week, we interviewed the lively bunch at WikiProject Dispute Resolution. Started in November 2011 to study and discuss improvements to Wikipedia's resources for resolving disputes between editors, the young project has supplemented dispute resolution efforts currently handled at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, Mediation Committee, and other venues. Over 40 editors have signed up to provide feedback, a variety of ideas have been proposed, and a manual for dispute resolution has been created. We spoke with nine of the participants: bobrayner, Steven Zhang, TransporterMan, Shooterwalker, Guy Macon, Noleander, Electriccatfish2 (Electric), Mr. Stradivarius, and czarkoff.
What motivated you to join WikiProject Dispute Resolution? For folks who are unfamiliar with the project's work, what is WikiProject Dispute Resolution's purpose and what does it do?
- bobrayner: Disputes don't just involve some contested piece of text; they also sap the time and goodwill of editors. Handled badly, a dispute can suck in more and more editors' time and lead to lasting grudges, burnout, or tit-for-tat edits elsewhere. Each member of the community is a cog in a bigger machine; good DR is the grease that keeps the machinery running efficiently.
- Steven Zhang: I set up the project in November last year in an effort to consolidate reform discussions on dispute resolution. I (as well as others) have a lot of ideas for reform of dispute resolution, which was also a reason i applied for a fellowship – to get more data about dispute resolution and develop ideas to improve the processes – this project acts as a central location for those and many other ideas. I also hope that this will be a location where people will go to if they have an interest in participating in dispute resolution – we have very few volunteers and could use a lot more.
- TransporterMan: I'm a lawyer in the real world and dispute resolution was just a natural place for me. Indeed, doing DR is about all I do here except for occasionally going on binges of adding geographical coordinates to articles. Joining the WikiProject to aid in DR planning was just a logical step forward. And that's what the project is for: planning and improving DR.
- Shooterwalker: The way we resolve disputes is essential to editor retention. Established editors don't expect a miracle where we stop having disputes and discussions. But we lose a lot of editors when conflicts continue in multiple forums with no real progress. Our dispute resolution pages aren't just so people can air out their "side", and then shrug and say "no consensus". The point of dispute resolution is to resolve disputes.
- Guy Macon: Off-wiki I am a consultant who specializes in fixing dysfunctional engineering departments. I find that volunteering at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard is a natural extension of that. My reward comes when I see an article that is in bad shape because of an ongoing dispute, I help to resolve the issues, and later I see a big improvement in the article.
- Noleander: Passionate editors, although well intentioned, can sometimes be a roadblock to improving the encyclopedia. Uninvolved, level-headed dispute resolution volunteers can help break logjams.
- Electric: I liked the idea of a place where Wikipedians can go when they get in a dispute. We mainly handle content disputes, which are very common on here. Editors here come from all different backgrounds and professions, so content disputes are inevitable.
- Mr. Stradivarius: I was helping out a the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard a lot at the time the project was set up, and I was also a coordinator at the Mediation Cabal along with Steven, so joining WikiProject Dispute Resolution seemed like a no-brainer. The project itself is just a place for discussions about dispute resolution; the actual work of resolving disputes goes on in other places. Previously, there was no central location where editors could talk about dispute resolution. Discussion went on at the talk pages of the various dispute resolution venues, or at the village pump for anything deemed important enough. Aside from the dispute resolution noticeboard, the various dispute resolution venues on Wikipedia have a long history, and many aspects of them have become institutionalised. The result is a complicated system which is hard to understand for beginners who get into disputes. Centralizing the discussion made it easier for volunteers from the different dispute resolution venues to discuss the system as a whole. The hope is that this will translate into a more efficient dispute resolution system where more disputes get resolved, and get resolved faster.
- czarkoff: Once I participated in a minor content dispute which turned into epic war simply because it was mishandled and inappropriate forums were chosen to settle it. This experience was so frustrating that I found myself willful to offer help to other wikipedians seeking for dispute resolution. That's how I found myself participating in dispute resolution and (consequently) in WikiProject Dispute Resolution. As I see it, the purpose of WikiProject itself is to serve an umbrella for discussions concerning improving dispute resolution methods and practices on Wikipedia.
- Steven Zhang: Conflict occurs generally when there is a breakdown of effective communication, whether it be users talking past each other or getting angry, not coming to an agreement on certain proposals, misunderstanding of policy or simply a lack of understanding as to what other participants are seeking. Dispute resolution aims to restore order by structuring discussions with the involvement of uninvolved third parties who can help editors come to a compromise, understand policy and communicate effectively with one another. Once effective communication has been re-established, dispute resolution has ultimately served its purpose – editors can understand the viewpoints of their fellow editors and work collaboratively to a mutually agreeable solution. People also need to be open to compromise. You need to give a little to get a little.
- Shooterwalker: A lot of the truly hot-headed debates flame out quickly, because someone will make an obvious personal attack and get blocked. If you're worried about Wikipedia burning to the ground, you're more troubled by the slow boil. The slow boil occurs when an dispute (over conduct OR content) is revisited over and over without any consensus. The "no consensus" creates a vacuum that becomes a free for all, usually exploited (not necessarily in bad faith) by the more extreme voices as an excuse to keep doing what they've been doing, which escalates the conflict until multiple editors quit in frustration. We might avoid this if A: we were more able to recognize disputes that have gone on too long, and bring them to a forum where we can assist them in reaching some kind of closure, and B: our dispute resolution forums tried to achieve even partial or vague consensus rather than no consensus. Any progress is better than no progress.
- Guy Macon: On Wikipedia, if both of the disputing parties want to improve the encyclopedia but cannot agree, I think the present system works well and that some of the changes we are working on will cause it to work even better. In the case where one party is being disruptive and simply will not follow our policies and guidelines, the only tool we have is a series of escalating blocks. That being said, we should study other online communities and see what works, what doesn't and what we can adapt to Wikipedia. Why is it that every unmoderated USENET group is destroyed by flamers and trolls, and moderated USENET groups require a huge amount of time moderating them? How do Slashdot and Reddit avoid that happening? Why are YouTube comments so different from Fark or Slashdot comments? I think there are things to be learned there.
- Noleander: Most content disputes are initiated by an editor that puts their personal agenda before the readers' interests. Symptoms of a dispute are ad hominem attacks and a refusal to listen to the other party. There is no magic bullet to stop that from happening, but uninvolved editors can step in and try to get the parties back on track. I find that if often helps to ask the parties to supply quotes from reliable sources.
- Mr. Stradivarius: On Wikipedia, we tend to categorise disputes as either content disputes or conduct disputes. However, my viewpoint is a little different: I think that all disputes are essentially conduct disputes. If all parties to a dispute were always perfectly civil, then there would be no need for dispute resolution. The parties would simply look to the policies and guidelines, investigate the relevant sources, judge the relevancy of any past consensus, and then make the choice that seems in the best interests of Wikipedia. Disputes arise when one or more of the editors makes their editing personal, maybe by insisting that they are correct, or by assuming that other editors have ulterior motives. (Or by having ulterior motives.) This is a social problem at its root, and as such is hard to solve. It needs to be dealt with by educating users about Wikipedia policy and about better ways of interacting with others. How to improve user education is a big problem that has ramifications across the whole of Wikipedia, and there are no easy answers. However, a good start would be for experienced editors to make sure that they are following due process, and to remember to talk about content and not personalities, especially when dealing with newer editors.
- czarkoff: Probably the most common problems that lead to disputes are unwillingness to cooperate ("Why should I consider another editors' arguments if I already have my opinion"), lack of collaborative experience and lack of understanding of Wikipedia policies. Once the dispute has started, the editors become passionate about it, and the focus shifts from content to others' statements and overall behavior.
Do you have any tips or techniques the average Wikipedian can use when involved in a dispute? Who can a Wikipedian ask for help when things get tense?
- bobrayner: The first tip is: Ask for help. (And be prepared to accept that maybe you're not the right one. Sometimes neither side of a dispute is right. Alas, we're all just human). It's very easy to lapse into 386 mode and hit the revert button, but stepping back and talking is a better solution. This is the first stage of the dispute lifecycle, before it even reaches formal DR tools which are later in the dispute lifecycle.
- Steven Zhang: Put yourself in the shoes of the other person, and try to see things from the other perspective. Consider drawing up a list of issues that are being discussed ad have participants outline their view – sometimes their view isn't that different to yours and you just assumed they were on the opposite end of the spectrum. Be civil, and always be open to compromise – that is key. It's all about working together.
- TransporterMan: Take a deep breath, step back, and consider what best benefits the encyclopedia. Many things that come before the DR forums are edit wars over the color of templates: cutthroat battles over tagging, categories, music genres, the content of infoboxes, and the like in which the outcome doesn't really affect the welfare of the encyclopedia in the long run as much as the fight itself does. In those cases, I'm always tempted to begin my DR effort with "Really?!?" The first person to ask for help in a dispute is the other editor: talk about it on the talk page. A huge number of disputes come to DR with no effort to try to discuss the issue first. If that doesn't work, then go to Third Opinion or Dispute Resolution Noticeboard.
- Guy Macon: The best thing you can do to in a dispute is to follow the basic principle of "More Light, Less Heat." No matter what has happened before, remain calm, cool and collected. Focus on evidence and logic, not emotion. Be concise, making your case in as few words as possible and not repeating yourself. Finally, when a dispute resolution volunteer tries to help, listen. Don't ignore the advice you are given. Read every word of any policy pages you are referred to, even if you are 100% sure that you already know the policy. Finally, be humble. Don't enter into dispute resolution convinced that you are right and that you have nothing to learn from those who oppose you.
- Noleander: It helps to listen, and to focus on the sources, rather than the other editors. The problem is when the other editors don't play by the rules. That is when DRN or RfC comes into play.
- czarkoff: Sure:
- Don't take it personal; stay focused on content.
- If required, choose appropriate DR forum (WP:3O, WP:DRN, WP:MEDCOM). Don't bring the matter to broad public unless you understand the consequences.
- RTFM; Wikipedia have policies and guidelines, and numerous essays are there to help you comprehend the way the whole thing works.
- Always try to reconsider your position. However smart you are, you may make mistakes.
- Be prepared, consensus may be against your position. Move on when necessary.
Is the project planning any new initiatives or experimenting with any new tools? Where do you foresee the project a few years from now?
- bobrayner: A recent survey suggested that many editors felt the DR ecosystem was a little too complex. We are working on responding to this; the Mediation Cabal or Mediation committee might be closed, or pared down. Personally, I feel a little sad – medcab is where I first cut my teeth on DR – but I recognise that having a hundred different options (each with different rules) is unhelpful.
- Steven Zhang: In partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, a workflow system has been developed to make it easier to file disputes at the dispute resolution noticeoard, but also better structure the discussion to avoid long posts before a volunteer can assess the situation. This will be trialled in August and potentially rolled out more extensively if it is effective. We're also discussing techniques and processes that we can implement to resolve disputes in a more timely manner. Furthermore, a bot is currently being developed – working in a similar way to ClueBot – that would be able to detect when a dispute is getting our of hand and needs looking into. It is very much experimental with no ETA, but if it is a success would be ideal – as generally the longer a dispute lasts the lower chance there is of successful resolution – early intervention is key. In a few years, I'd like to see the project with a list of accomplishments – to have made dispute resolution a simple, undaunting process with lots of volunteers. That's all the project really is about – reform and recruitment.
- TransporterMan: Keep your eyes on Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. In some ways it has become the premiere DR venue at WP and it's about to undergo a sea change to make DR faster and easier.
- Shooterwalker: Dispute resolution is a complex problem, and we've had a lot of discussions about where to even begin. We agreed that Wikipedia can make better use of the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, so we've been improving that forum through volunteering and gradual redesign. We've also agreed that a good place to start would be to organize the DR ecosystem, because some mechanisms rarely work (if at all). Some ideas that have been tossed around are eliminating or merging some of the dispute resolution forums, or creating a clear "central forum" or "triage" that helps each dispute get the right kind of attention at the right kind of forum. We're discussing it.
- Mr. Stradivarius: I'm not sure what dispute resolution on Wikipedia will look like in the future, but at the moment, simplifying the process is highest on our priority list. Simple processes and quick resolution make for happier users who stick around for longer. One specific suggestion that I liked was to have a system like the one used at SPI, where every article has its own subpage. This way it would be easy to see whether the problem has been persistent, whether there have been related issues at the same article, and who the main editors involved have been. It would also be easier for the users involved, as there would just be one single dispute resolution venue, rather than the multiple venues we have today.
- czarkoff: The DR forums are constantly evolving. The current hot topic is condensing the means of dispute resolution with the goal to regroup labor at fewest possible locations to improve QA. Recently MedCab was deprecated in favor of other forums, and changes are about to happen with MedCom. Frankly, in several year I see us reiterating ideas over making dispute resolution more efficient and easier to reach, as it is absolutely sisyphean task.
What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new member get involved today?
- bobrayner: Put simply, we need patient and hardworking people who can help resolve disputes. It's helpful to be able to recognise when process is important and when it's possible to cut through red tape; find a happy medium between bureaucracy and IAR. There are several fora where disputes can be handled (some are not officially within the project's scope); it would be selfish to suggest that only "our" fora need attention. Anyway. At the moment, WP:3O seems to be ticking over nicely, but I think Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard would benefit from a few more helpers, and I expect more disputes will go there over the next year or two.
- Steven Zhang: We need more volunteers, plain and simple. The dispute resolution noticeboard is in the process of restructuring to make it even easier for editors to offer assistance to a dispute, and a simple guide on techniques and best practices to use has been developed – so if anyone wanted to get involved, id go to the dispute resolution noticeboard, click the volunteer button, and get started. If I could ask for anything, it would be for more volunteers, even if its occasional. The more of us the better – and dispute resolution has an enormous impact on Wikipedia, it creates more stable articles and happier, more collaborative users. The existing volunteers there that will help and offer advice if you get stuck – but it's not as scary as it seems :-)
- TransporterMan: We need people. One of the problems with DR is that a lot of folks first move from content editing into the underpinnings of Wikipedia through working at DR. The ones who last tend to move on into either becoming an administrator or at least doing quasi-administrator kinds of things. When they do, many tend to leave DR behind so there's always a need for new help. It has been suggested (by Foundation fellow and Mr-All-Things-DR Steven Zhang) that there a lot of disputes that need to come to DR which do not, but if they did right now we couldn't handle them for the lack of warm bodies. As for how to join in, my recommendation would be — and this is certainly not the only way to do it — to first simply edit WP for awhile to get a feel for how it works, then become familiar with the most important policies, read a few cases listed at Dispute Resolution Noticeboard to see how experienced DR'ers do it, then jump right in and take a few requests at Third Opinion.
- Shooterwalker: I'd echo the call for real volunteers. I think there's been a lot of good discussions about dispute resolution and a lot of grand ideas. But if things are going to improve, it's going to be through the spirit of incrementalism that has made Wikipedia a success. That means we need editors who have the time and patience to get involved at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, and we need editors who can look for small-but-high-impact changes that would make dispute resolution more effective overall. Most disputes are difficult and require a lot of compromise and steady work. I can't imagine that fixing the entire dispute resolution system will be any easier.
- Guy Macon: WikiProject Dispute Resolution needs more of the experienced volunteers from places like WP:COIN or WP:RFCU to get involved with looking at the big picture and making the dispute resolution system better. Dispute Resolution Noticeboard needs more volunteers. There is a very real danger of the present pool of volunteers getting burnt out.
- Noleander: Just go to WP:DRN and find a dispute that is within your comfort zone. Or add your name to Wikipedia:Feedback request service to help with RfCs.
Next week, we'll try to bridge the gap between two hostile countries on a highly fortified peninsula. Until then, discover other cultures in the archive.
Reader comments
Image placeholders, machine translations, Mediation Committee, de-adminship
Proposals
- Main page redesign
- A competition has begun to find a better alternative to the current main page, which was last redesigned in March 2006.
- Activate section 0 edit link for everyone
- Adding an edit button to the lead section of an article to help aid editing is being proposed. This edit button would allow users to edit the lead section without having to open an edit screen with the whole article.
- Add link to menu bar
- To help aid newer editors it has been suggested to add a link to an editor's subpages to the top bar. Through some discussion it has been suggested to add a gadget to aid newcomers.
- Additions to the sidebar
- There has been a suggestion to add links to sidebar for the Article creation wizard and the Teahouse.
- Image placeholders
- A wikiproject has decided to use image placeholders for a month to help aid the image search for their project. Is it time to reconsider this aspect to help aid other projects?
- Signature policy
- There has been a proposal to change the signature policy. It has been suggested to allow images and templates.
- Speedy deletion of machine translations
- ((No-rough)) currently informs users not to add machine translations into articles, but to follow guidelines at Wikipedia:Translation. Should a new criterion for speedy deletion be made to delete machine translations from other projects?
Requests for comment
- Changing the Mediation Committee
- Users are requesting input on how the Mediation Committee should be changed or if it should be closed.
- De-adminship
- There are currently 5 methods for how administrators can lose their rights with 3 being controlled by the administrator. Should more community based action be available to remove administrator rights or once elected to become administrator, are you one for life?
- Does US FoP apply to foreign works?
- The license of ((FoP-USonly)) is being discussed in regards to photos of buildings in countries with a limited freedom of panorama provision. This license states "while architectural works completed after December 1st, 1990 are protected by copyright laws, photography is not an infringement of it".
- Citation needed
- Should the [citation needed] tag be changed to "unverified information"?
- Global ban discussion
- As mentioned in previous Discussion reports, the community is still trying to work on the details of the global ban policy regarding problematic editors.
Reader comments