Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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Proposal: New Village Pump Page[edit]

There has been a long recognized need for improved communication and coordination between the community and the Wikimedia Foundation. Too often Foundation plans have come as an unexpected and unwelcome surprise to the community. Too often community concerns or objections have come as an unexpected surprise to staff members. Better communication and collaboration would reduce the rate of conflict and failed projects. Staff members are generally enthusiastic about our public service mission, have good intentions, and want to help us. However to be frank, most of them know about as much about what goes on over here as most of us know about what goes on inside the Foundation. They are employees in a conventional top-down authority structure. Most of them have no experience in the community, and our consensus system is alien concept. Sometimes they struggle to understand how we work, what we want, what we need, and even how to talk with us effectively. There is a communication and culture gap.

I have seen positive efforts from the Foundation over the last few years. However I believe both sides need to work to bridge the communication gap. I have some ideas, and it begins with this proposal to create a new village pump page. The current Draft Village Pump Page header reads as follows: 

The WMF section of the village pump is a community managed page. Editors or Foundation staff may post and discuss any information, proposals, feedback requests, or any other issues of significance to both the community and the Wikimedia Foundation. It is intended to aid communication, understanding, and coordination between the community and the Foundation.

There is currently a Pump Proposal open above, asking WMF Legal to enforce the Terms of Use against an abusive company. That is a prime example of kind of topics I envision for the new page. The Central Notice template also currently lists an RFC for the Foundation's rebranding strategy to rename itself from Wikimedia to Wikipedia. As part of that project they evaluated the level of community support and produced a report, which I believe has been delivered to the Board of Trustees. The report states Measure community appetite for change: ✓ 0.6% of informed oppose. The 0.6% oppose figure is in rather stark contrast to the over 92% oppose on the RFC. I have several other examples of confirmation bias in Foundation's gathering or handling of data. I believe bad data has contributed to some of the tensions between the Foundation and Community. The RFC page also has a Statement by the Foundation. Given how the RFC is going, I believe it is clear that the staff handling the project do not grasp the significance of the RFC.

I have long been following Foundation projects, plans, and strategy. I have a small pile of similarly significant topics for the new page, including matters of past and future Foundation strategy. As some of you may be aware the Foundation has finally given up on the Flow project, and a Consultation resulted in a decision to keep and enhance existing Talk pages. I am concerned that the enhancement project is going off course. For example, like Flow, the project has a design flaw that can result in wikitext content corruption. The manager has indicated that he considers it an insignificant matter, not worth fixing. One of my priorities for the new Pump page will be to provide more detailed information on the new Talk Page Project. I hope to bring that team helpful information on our needs, concerns, and expectations for any major changes to Talk pages.

Over the years I have had discussions with several top managers, with the previous Executive Director, and with the current Executive Director. I believe the Executive Director would be receptive if we produce some consensus message regarding Foundation strategy and engagement. That is beyond the scope of the immediate proposal.

Proposed: Install Draft Village Pump Page. The page may of course evolve based on comments here or later. Alsee (talk) 12:04, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Responses (NEW VP)[edit]

  • Support as proposer, per the rationale above. Alsee (talk) 12:04, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Additional communication is a good thing! This makes hella sense! GenQuest "Talk to Me" 12:53, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • So another village pump page that most people won't watch? Much less WMF? Nah. --Izno (talk) 15:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    Izno... Can you come up with a better suggestion? We do need SOME way to facilitate more communication with the WMF. Blueboar (talk) 15:20, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment Previous discussion: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 130#New Village Pump page?. Anomie⚔ 15:23, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support concept, but in practice, this will need buy-in from the WMF - if they don't use it, then there's no point. creffpublic a creffett franchise (talk to the boss) 15:32, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, such a thing is better placed on the Meta wiki; that's where the WMF does most of its work and it would make this venue usable for non-enwiki projects as well. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:47, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support as beneficial, even a less active Village PUmp page would be seen more then the current set-up which is basically "meta pages only seen by a couple of keen souls. They panic and dump on CENT after a significant delay". The only other action that could provide a substantial assistance would be something akin to Tech News "WMF Newsletter". The issues with this are threefold: you'd need about 200 sign-ups to get reasonable awareness; you'd need several active people to run it reliably; some major WMF discussion areas would need much quicker response times than (a max) 30 days to give a chance for proper discussion. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:53, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    Summoning @Whatamidoing (WMF):... — xaosflux Talk 16:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    User:Nosebagbear, rather than creating Yet Another Newsletter that nobody reads, the English Wikipedia would probably find it easier to promote the WP:Wikipedia Signpost, which already has the subscribers, and which could be a reliable source of information that mattered to this particular community. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:45, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support concept per Creffpublic's similar comment above, but Jo-Jo Eumerus has a good point too. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:57, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong support Regarding Jo-Jo Emerus's comment; Meta is where the WMF does most of its work, but the problem with discussions on Meta is that members of the individual communities rarely go there and can easily miss important discussions. Having a page here to discuss things with the WMF makes it easier on the community. Such a page can house links to important discussions that are taking place on Meta, thereby driving traffic there. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    • ONUnicorn, have you heard about User:DannyS712's work on a global watchlist? Flow/Structured Discussions, which is widely used at MediaWiki.org, will ping people with every new discussion thread on a watched page. That's great for cross-wiki notifications, but at Meta, your options are either changing your prefs to email you for every change to your Meta watchlist, or hoping that we get a global watchlist. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
      @Whatamidoing (WMF): I'm glad you find it useful. Useful enough to support the grant request / incorporate it as an extension? See m:Grants:Project/Create a global watchlist extension DannyS712 (talk) 23:58, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Yes, I'm aware of the global watchlist project. I also have no idea why it's relevant to this discussion. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 01:13, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
      • Being able to see, while you're still "here", that a discussion page has changed "there", seems like a way to improve the problem you identified, that "members of the individual communities rarely go there and can easily miss important discussions". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
        • Yes, but in order to add a discussion "there" to your global watchlist, you need to first be aware that it exists "there". ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:42, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
          • I agree with you that it's not a complete solution, but it could improve the situation, especially if you put Meta's central announcement pages, such as m:Template:Main Page/WM News, on your watchlist. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Having a dedicated page for communication with the WMF seems like a no-lose proposition. I think it needs to be two-way; people should be able to post questions for, and expect answers from, Foundation personnel, and the Foundation should also be expected to make announcements for the community, using the page. I can't think of a downside to this proposal. --Jayron32 17:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support A direct way to see WMF related proposals, and for clear, one on one communication with them? Yes please! This would, hopefully, greatly help with places where the WMF clearly didn't get proper consensus, and would allow for us to bring proposals their way in a place everyone would see. --moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 17:24, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support in principle per Creffett. I would love to see this happen. Our best chances for greater two-way communication with the Foundation may be by raising it as an issue in the Board of Trustees election. EllenCT (talk) 19:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support - Having a centralized enwiki discussion forum for interacting with WMF would be beneficial. I hope that WMF agrees. - MrX 🖋 13:06, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. On issues for which the WMF is completely non-responsive, I don't think having a dedicated board would make them willing to respond. On issues where they are willing to respond, they're frequently willing to participate anywhere, unless it's a cross-project issue, in which case they'll sometimes only interact on Meta. The WMF has given no indication that they'd be more willing to use a dedicated forum. The task of dragging the WMF into areas where we can have some level of mutual awareness is going to take a long time. The WMF has the ability to communicate things well, they even use a wiki internally to host things like every team's weekly report (which they won't let us see, or comment on), but as far as I can tell, they just don't want to allow that much WMF-community interaction, for reasons unknown to me. --Yair rand (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2020 (UTC) seems fine, but
  • Oppose, I wonder, why the enWP, who already is the center of the anglocentric WMF, is complaining, just go to Meta, unfortunately for the non-anglophone projects they seem to speak only english over there. This sounds to me more like a venue, whre the WMF can pretend to talk with the community, while they are talking just to a tiny peace of the community, bur one that conveniently speaks the only language they seem to know. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ (talk) 05:19, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support concept but different name and framing WMF communications happen in a decentralized way and there are regular disagreements about what WMF representatives communicated effectively and what was hidden in some out-of-the way area. I support the idea of centralized posting but think it should be either outside the village pump, or if listed with the village pump boards, then it should have a different name and branding. WMF communications are different because everything that organization does is entangled with money and someone's career, and consequently much of that organization's activity here is in a conflict of interest with some individual or team's financial livelihood. The interests of the Wikimedia Movement and the Wikimedia Foundation often diverge, and staff of the Wikimedia Foundation are not part of the Wikimedia community in that they each have a commitment to serve the interests of the Wikimedia Foundation as an organization and favor that organization in the case of any conflict between the Wikimedia Community and that organization. The reason why the village pump is not the place for WMF discussion is that the village pump is established as a community volunteer space. Instead, I think the right board for the WMF would be something like a Wikipedia:Local Embassy, where the WMF sends its diplomats and negotiators into English Wikipedia space to negotiate something. Maybe the WMF should set up embassies wherever it would log its efforts to establish agreements with a local Wikimedia community. The idea of a central space is great. We should distinguish ideas and proposals from the WMF from ideas and proposals from Wikimedia community volunteers, though. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:57, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support concept. I am a little concerned that not all the messages that would be posted to such a board would actually be matters that require the attention of the WMF. There should be norms established that if inappropriate content is added, it can be moved to a different pump page. Sdkb (talk) 21:29, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support the concept... but I ain't holding my breath on this being useful if the WMF decides to have a rerun of the Fram and Flow Show. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Onward to 2020 23:43, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Dont mind, but don't think it will approve communication of either the foundation or the community one bit. The problem is not the amount of locations to discuss, its that there are too many stakeholders with too many different opinions and too many thing happening to keep track of no matter what you do. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:18, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Concept per above, especially Creffet and EllenCT. Puddleglum 2.0 20:29, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support this idea for now. Anything to open constructive communications seems fine. I would like to suggest we review the actual results later. a channel to discuss things with WMF seems fine, but we should also hjave the option to look at other methods later, if this new idea doesn't have the full effect desired. --Sm8900 (talk) 04:28, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support the concept of constructive communications with "norms established": I am one of those that very rarely "go there" (Meta), and think comments to "just go to Meta" are out of touch, as I imagine many also don't "go there". I think there would be community benefits in this proposal and help others not "easily miss important discussions". We "advertise" to get involvement so why not have a local centralized place? Will the WMF get involved or "buy-in"? I don't know, but I will continually assume good faith that others will do the same. If true, the comments "WMF is completely non-responsive" might be a reason that a collaborative effort (and a fairly large show of support), will hopefully gain more involvement ("WMF-community interaction"), and "might" be a game changer, or not. We will never solve issues or find solutions by just complaining and not trying. I do not know anything about "anglocentric" concerns (Is this a real problem and how is it really relevant here?) the WMF "might" be complaining about. I assume enWiki is among the more active projects. I cannot help where I was born (demography of the editors), but this is where I am, and I imagine that is true for the many on this project. The WMF has to understand that it is not the fault of any considered anglocentric that broad community involvement somehow created some sort of bias. I want to see worldwide involvement but I only speak English so my endeavors, that consume most of my free volunteer time, would very logically be focused here, so I "favor this organization" for obvious reasons. The WMF and the other projects need to worry about their end. On this "end" I would like to see better communication (dedicated forum?) and support anything in that direction. Maybe a new tab here, or another supported location, but I don't see that Wikipedia:Local Embassy ("Wikipedia-related multilingual coordination") would be proper. If the WMF is picky about what involvement they wish to be involved in, then at the least, we can have a central location for discussions and potentially important news, as well as hopefully collaborative communication. Any thoughts that we possibly somehow shouldn't continually make attempts doesn't seem logical. Otr500 (talk) 17:41, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (NEW VP)[edit]

Jayron32, you used the phrases 'expecting answers' and 'expecting announcements' from the Foundation. I want to emphasize that this is a community page, and creating a community page does not create any particular obligation on the Foundation. An appearance of imposing an obligation or responsibility onto the Foundation could raise objections and resistance. The new page is a workplace for us, and I wish us to extend an open invitation to the Foundation utilize the page. I hope and believe they will accept that invitation (likely with hesitation and fear, as conflicts have been painful for both sides). The only expectation on the Foundation is that they continue their existing efforts, and I have hope that we can help work towards improvement. Alsee (talk) 22:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

See, I still feel that is backwards. Wikipedia and the en.wikipedia community does not exist for the purpose of supporting the whims of the Foundation. The Foundation exists to support the work of the volunteers and the various communities of the Wikipedia movement, and increasing and improving communication between the Foundation and the communities it serves is what we should be focusing on. We should not be focused on being better foot soldiers blindly following whatever mission the Foundation has decided to set us upon, we should be expecting and receiving support from the Foundation for the purpose of building an encyclopedia. Where conflicts have been painful have been where the Foundation has acted unilaterally and in its own interest without regard for the interests of the Community. The expectation is, the Foundation should seek input and advice from the community on major issues, and that the Foundation should be willing to respond to legitimate concerns from the community. If they are not willing to do either of those things, the noticeboard is pointless. --Jayron32 12:40, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I will pass along a link to this discussion, but I think I can predict some of the questions I'll get, so perhaps some of you would like to start answering them now, just in case:

  1. Why do we need a single, separate page? Why not have all of us talk on whichever pages are relevant? At least some of you have figured out how to ping me ;-) and if that's too hard, we could always create a generic {{ping the WMF}} template. Having a discussion half at one page and half at a "Village pump (WMF)" sounds like a WP:CENT problem. On the other side, imagine that the WMF is offering hackathon scholarships to bot operators. Why should that be announced at a special "WMF" page instead of at WP:BOTN? Have you thought about the signal-to-noise problems in the movement? The main problem isn't a lack of information. It's finding the thing you care about in the middle of all the things you don't care about.
  2. What's the specific purpose? Specifically, is it primarily one-way information from editors to the WMF, primarily one-way information from the WMF to (some) editors, primarily discussions to exchange views without trying to make decisions, or is it primarily a location for decision-making? I see comments above that seem to believe each of those four. Forums that try to do all of the above usually fail at achieving most of them.
  3. Why shouldn't this online community join all the other online communities in central locations (such as Meta)?
    • The Working Group volunteers for the 2030 Strategy discussions say that we should be integrating the movement across all the online and offline communities. This proposal is for more separation, elevating the status of one online community and one movement organization.
    • To give a concrete example, I see elsewhere on this page that the OP still thinks that the WMF is planning to cram the visual editor down our collective throats. Why shouldn't we be talking about which editing options to offer in a central place, so that people like User:Sänger, who has been asking the Editing team to enable the visual editor on talk pages for years now, can join the conversation and share his insights? (Sorry, Sänger, they're still saying no.)
  4. Do you really understand that it's not just the WMF that you need to deal with?
    • The Strategy folks are advocating for a smaller role for the WMF and decentralized action. This proposal seems to be focused on a single organization, when editors at the English Wikipedia need to be talking to many.
    • For example, WMDE is finishing up a project that will change the <ref name="Alice"> syntax to do something similar to the {{sfn}} templates. I'm not taking bets on how long it will take for someone to complain that "the WMF" did this "unwanted" work (which was democratically selected through a public, on-wiki voting process), but I do want to point out that if you're setting up a page for just the WMF, you are excluding all of the (multiple) organizations whose activities affect us here.
    • To give another example, see https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/events/13 for a list of 300+ events that have been announced in the last few months. Many of these are editing events, which have a direct effect on New Page Patrollers and other editors. Very few of those announcements are from the WMF. This trend is going to continue: more events, and more articles about people, places, and things that the average English Wikipedian has never heard of. You might want to hear about them, and a WMF-focused page won't tell you about any of them, because the WMF isn't running those events.

There will probably be other questions, but perhaps these would be a good starting place. In terms of a response, I predict that the WMF's managers first thought will likely be that they're hiring someone to create something called a "strategic communications plan", so nobody should make any final decisions today. (My own personal thoughts sound a lot like https://xkcd.com/927/ – namely that it would be convenient for me if a single forum could replace all the others, and if people would actually pay attention to it [even though most of it would be irrelevant to them], but I do not expect that to happen.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) You mentioned above the global watchlist work; and here you list several items that can be summarized as, "people should use Meta". One thing I'm thinking this would be useful for is as a repository for links to important discussions happening on Meta. Because if there is a discussion happening on Meta, but people who would be interested aren't aware of it, they aren't going to participate. A global watchlist to remind you to check up on developments with discussions you are interested in on Meta is only useful in as much as you are aware of the discussion and have added it to your watchlist. People on en wiki are constantly surprised when action gets taken as a result of a discussion happening on Meta that affects 100% of the en wiki editing community, but less than 1% of the community was even aware the discussion was occurring. The end result is that the WMF looks like the Vogons in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”

My thought is that the board could be used to post announcements about discussions happening on Meta, with reminders to discuss this there. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 14:57, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
ONUnicorn, a page for links to relevant discussions (more than fit in CENT) could be created by any interested person. It already happens in some other communities, and there's no reason why you couldn't do the same here if you wanted to (e.g., w:de:Wikipedia:Projektneuheiten, which is specific to technical changes, or w:fr:Wikipédia:Annonces, which is general news). Subject-specific pages might improve the perceived signal-to-noise ratio for readers. I recommend against making it WMF-specific, as this community is affected by far more organizations and individual-led projects than just the WMF. You might want to talk to the Signpost about this, as they have some experience with announcements, and they already have an audience.
It won't solve the problem that most people won't read it (or remember what they've read). I've manually posted messages to more than a hundred high-traffic pages, and run site-wide banners to 100% of logged-in editors for weeks, and still had editors say they never heard about it; I've seen a CENT-listed, month-long RFC here at VPPR, with 20+ editors supporting it and nobody opposing it, get overturned because some other editors didn't notice the RFC; I've even seen someone actively participate in a discussion on wiki, and then ask a month later why nobody ever discussed the subject. There is no way to make people read and remember everything that's relevant to them. But the fact that it won't be a total and perfect solution doesn't mean that it's not worth doing it at all. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Whatamidoing (WMF) I find it ironic that you come here opposing the new page and apparently blaming me regarding the WMF cramming the visual editor down our throats. It's ironic because, on exactly the issue of WMF's VE throat-cramming, you are responsible for letting us get to the brink of second Superprotect-level crisis. In case you don't recall you were liaison for the Single Edit Tab (SET) deployment. I told you that the manager explicitly assured me it would NOT be deployed as VE-default without a community consensus. I repeatedly asked you weather the the product was going to deploy with a VE-default. I presented a pattern of evidence that the product was about to deploy with a VE-default. Your responses and denials on the subject turned out be... unhelpful and untrue... that is the most generous way I can put it. Furthermore the manager on the project later asserted surprise at the issue... suggesting that either (1) you failed to ask or mention the issue with staff or (2) the manager was lying. I will not speculate between those options. In any case, the project for which you were liaison was in fact deployed with a VE-default. Exactly as I anticipated. Exactly as I repeatedly brought to you in advance. After deploying the VE-default the Foundation went non-responsive for well over a week, despite attempts to reach the Foundation in multiple places including the manager's personal talk page. We only got a response when I escalated the issue to the Executive Director's talk page! She had to summon the manager to give an answer. The manager gave us assurances that it was a bug and that he would fix it. More than a week went by with no action. We went back to the manager and he told us that VE-default was always his intention and he had absolutely no intention of fulfilling his promise to change it. At that point things went from ugly to obscene blatant bad faith. He was outright called a "liar", and ANI decided that "liar" was not uncivil given the diffs of his own words. A community member then wrote a hack for the sitewide javascript to change the default. The community members involved were acutely aware that hacking the sitewide javascript to explicitly override a manager was putting us on the threshhold of repeating the Superprotect incident. Note that the manager said it was a bug - so either the javascript hack was an undisputed bugfix or the manager was acting in deceitful bad faith. Either way the editors involved considered the javascript absolutely justified. At that point the manager finally agreed to fix the default-editor from his end, as he had promised to do a week earlier.
Whatamidoing, I respect your work and experience and expertise and dedication as a community member. However as a liaison your job was to prevent any of that from happening. I persistently attempted to ask you and warn you, attempting to head off the impeding problem. The reason I want this new Pump page is because you and other staff consistently ignore my accurate warnings that manure is about to hit the rotary air-mover. I am trying to tell you that there are a whole series of fans spinning right now. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I'm hoping the new page will help us sort out issues before they escalate to crisis. I hope the page will help us get moving in a common direction.
To minimize WallOfText I'll limit my reply to that one subject. Oh, and Spoiler Alert, the Foundation is about to release hard data on how badly a VE-default reduces edits. Alsee (talk) 18:36, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Last I checked, I still hadn't been appointed queen of the wikiverse. (I'm sure it's just an oversight. ;-)) However, until that happens, I can't actually prevent everything that I'd like to prevent, any more than I can force someone to build the things that I want built (e.g., phab:T89970).
The movement might need a clearer understanding of which groups ultimately get to make which kinds of decisions, and specifically where the English Wikipedia's editors fall in a typical responsibility assignment matrix for different kinds of projects undertaken by outside communities. Are you supposed to be "informed" or "consulted" about projects that affect you, but the people responsible for the project get to make the decisions? Or do you see yourself as the ultimate "approver" or "decider", with veto power over everyone else? The volunteers in the Strategy Working Groups have proposed that a movement charter be written to clarify some of these points of contention. Perhaps having a document that explicitly says something like "An online community {can|can't} veto a project that affects that online community, but which was undertaken by another group" would forestall some of these disputes by preventing all sides of any dispute from thinking that their side has the ultimate decision-making authority. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:24, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
But the Foundation did appoint you queen of Single Edit Tab liaising. You do an excellent job as liaison - until the Foundation agenda is questioned. At that point you tend to cease liaising. That doesn't serve the community or the Foundation. I can't decide whether it's better or worse than a liaison who lacks your community knowledge and understanding. The job should be to facilitate communication, understanding, and collaboration between the Foundation and the community. One of the most important things is to alert staff of any issues that may negatively impact their work, especially any potential or actual opposing consensus. Those staff then need your expertise and help to reach a viable resolution. Too often such situations go unacknowledged until too late. Most staff don't seem to have have the mandate or understanding to constructively engage that kind of situation. That leaves us with unconstructive approaches and bad outcomes. The Foundation and community need to work as partners.
Regarding Responsibility assignment matrix, I spent some time absorbing the page. The models generally seem to presume a context essentially internal to an organisation, generally everyone is an employee. It's a bit more complicated to apply the models here. I will try to summarize my view this way: Those models generally acknowledge approval may be needed from multiple parties to initiate a project and/or approve deployment. I acknowledge the Foundation has something approximating universal veto of every stage of anything affecting them or expending their money or labor. Wikis should get broad local decision-making on things affecting us, and I see cases where a global level consensus could apply. For example the Foundation sometimes cite the issue of a wiki unreasonably blocking some deployment - perhaps even one admin on a tinywiki. The community has the solution. It's documented in WP:CONLEVEL. If a wiki goes Nationalistic and violates NPOV and abuses admin tools, the global community can revoke the admins and reboot the wiki. If a wiki is unreasonably obstructing some deployment, global consensus can assert global deployment. Problem solved - if the Foundation engages consensus. Alsee (talk) 09:57, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Liaison work, as any professional liaison officer could tell you, does not mean that you can always make two sides agree. It is possible to do excellent work as a liaison (i.e., as a person who carries information from one side to the other, and back again) and still end up with an intractable disagreement.
Before we could agree that things could be done by global consensus, we would have to have a consensus that consensus is the movement's method of making decisions. "The consensus of people who showed up" is mostly how we do it here at this wiki, but it is not how things happen in other communities. Some prefer straight-up majority votes or super-majority votes. There are also disagreements about what to do when there's no consensus. The Strategy volunteers favor the idea of a more integrated movement, but I think that will require us to spend time sorting out the details. For example, is it each human who gets a "vote", or each community or organization? And how do we respect devolution and local autonomy if we all get to vote on other group's affairs? (Surely we wouldn't want to say that the 99% of us who don't speak Swedish get to tell the relatively few Swedish speakers what they're supposed to be writing about.) And what do you do about intractable disagreements, e.g., that on the one hand, "the Foundation has something approximating universal veto of every stage of anything affecting them" but on the other hand, this community very much wants to have the opposite outcome, and sees itself as being the primary party affected by a WMF decision? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, we'll collectively sort out how the page actually gets used. But for what it's worth, my concept for the page is "about WMF" rather than "to WMF". For example I picture anyone could post "The WMF is working on X", information which might be of interest here. That post might or might not spark a conversation. That conversation might or might not rise to a level where we want to actively talk to the WMF about it. Although I do anticipate a need for feedback-to or discussion-with the WMF for some initial topics that I want to post. Alsee (talk) 12:34, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I support Alsee's proposal. and this new resource would be beneficial to WMF, and to Wikipedia. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:44, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

In defence of wikiprojects[edit]

From many of the above comments, it looks as if wikiprojects are a thing of the past. Only those concerned with producing high quality articles are considered successful while those with few active participants are considered to be inactive.

I have a rather different view. I find wikiprojects extremely useful in identifying articles on a given area of interest, in contacting editors for pertinent collaboration and in alerting potential collaborators to developments which may be of interest to them. I can confirm this has worked effectively in connection, for example, with the monthly topics of Women in Red, with notices of contests, with the need to concentrate on third world countries/populations, and with attracting interest in developments such as elections or world conferences.

There has been little mention of the part wikiprojects play in attracting new editors but in my experience that is frequently one of the more important outcomes.

There is one aspect in particular which seems important to me and which up to now has received little attention. It is the frequency with which wikiprojects are included on the talk pages of new articles. These templates serve not only to relate an article to the areas of interest it covers but they are also a means of initial and on-going assessment. I think it would be very useful if we could find a means of listing the number of talk page templates per wikiproject added each month. In my opinion, it would provide quite a different view of the importance editors give to one of the more important features of wikiprojects.

In conclusion, while I welcome general discussion of how we can revive community collaboration, it looks to me as if many wikiprojects continue to serve a useful purpose and should therefore be given further support. But to avoid confusion, those which really no longer serve any useful purpose should be deleted.--Ipigott (talk) 08:00, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I think Sandy is referring to the fact that many WikiProjects end up inactive or barely have a couple of active editors and that most editors have the tendency to do their own thing. I know I've personally started a few projects which are now largely inactive and I see dead projects all of the time when I send out notifications of my contests. The Intertranswiki project for instance is arguably one of the most important things we can do towards addressing systematic bias and getting content on other wikis put into English but we only have one regular contributor who functions within that project, most people work independently. My challenges are faring pretty well as a whole though, and have grown in the number of contributors. The Women cause is somewhat different in that it unifies a lot of people in the real world who are campaigning to make a difference, Women in Red has been extremely well organized and run, in an ideal world every topic would have a fully functional operation and be consistent like this.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:55, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
The inactive WikiProjects should be nominated for deletions. GoodDay (talk) 15:19, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Sandy is quite right that many wikiprojects often end up completely inactive and I agree that they should either be deleted or completely bypassed. But many of the others serve a useful support purpose as I've tried to explain. Thanks for reminding us of Intertranswiki - I had almost forgotten about it. It's the kind of wikiproject that could be usefully revived as there is a growing need for translations in and out of English. But like many of the others, someone needs to drive it along.--Ipigott (talk) 15:23, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I didn't expect my observation about MILHIST's performance, relative to other moribund WikiProjects (or active WikiProjects where quantity does not equal quality), to be taken as a reason to delete WikiProjects, rather as a reason to Be Like MILHIST. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I strongly oppose the deletion of WikiProjects unless there is a good reason behind doing so. The pages can just as easily be marked as "historical" until interest is regained on the subject. See: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion as an example of this. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I just want to add that past consensual reasons for deleting WikiProjects include: Projects created by a sock/banned user, and Projects that are created pre-maturely. Keeps have been historically high for former large scale WikiProjects, and those with a lot of members. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:18, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one WikiProject that was deleted, and that was because its purpose was deemed to be antithetical to collaborative editing. isaacl (talk) 21:01, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  • How is the encyclopedia improved by deleting an inactive wikiproject? This is like people wanting to clean up stale userspace pages. They may have minimal (or even, zero) value, but if they're not actively causing any harm, why expend any effort to delete them? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
    • If anyone wants to spend time and effort on getting wikiprojects deleted then I would suggest that they would get more bang for their buck by improving articles, not least by finding reliable sources. Yes, most such projects are moribund, but why waste effort on getting something deleted that nobody reads anyway? Let's remember that we are supposed to be producing a public-facing encyclopedia, not making a nice tidy Wikipedia space for ourselves. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
      • One possible benefit of deleting an inactive wikiproject is that it makes it less confusing for editors to find a venue to raise their concerns. Wikipedia has lots of dead spaces where you can shout as much as you want, but no one is listening. Removing some of these could make for a more responsive experience.
        That said, I think this is a fairly minor concern. The harm done by inactive wikiprojects is pretty minimal and likely not worth the trouble to address. --Trovatore (talk) 19:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
        The work done by the WikiProject can still be of use, even if the project is no longer a central hub of activity for the topic area, such as style advice and guidance on article content and format. Additionally, preserving the historical record is important to ensure that future work can build on the past and that blind alleys aren't unnecessarily retaken. Marking them inactive may be useful to set expectations on responsiveness, but deleting them is not required. isaacl (talk) 20:55, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
        That's well-argued and convincing. I never did think it was very useful to delete them; I was just pointing out that it's not quite no benefit. --Trovatore (talk) 01:39, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
        I would like to chime in briefly, just to my own agreement with Isaacl's well-said comment above. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:33, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikiprojects were never just about collaborating on articles. Of the two projects where I make regular comments on the talk, I've only ever "signed up" for one. Usually the best way to judge the health or usefulness of a project is to see how often the talk page has changed. Women in Red score very highly there, and in fact generates a lot of collaboration or just helping out, but nearly always at well below FA level. Johnbod (talk) 19:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Aren't Wikiprojects also the framework for how articles are rated? I don't think I've ever seen an article rating outside of a Wikiproject banner on the Talk page. Even a moribund project can still serve that purpose. Schazjmd (talk) 19:38, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Yes, but many of us see ratings more often because there's an option in your gadget preferences to display an assessment of an article's quality in its page header (documentation). Wikipedia runs parallel rating systems: A-B-C are managed by the projects, FA-GA by community processes. At MILHIST we have vigorous A- and B-class review processes, but responsibility for ratings below B were turned over to the Project Bot. (Any other project that would like to use this facility is welcome to do so.)
    • In addition to ratings, the MILHIST project organises collaborations, runs competitions, provides recognition in the form of barnstars and other awards, and provides a forum for editors to receive expert advice and resolve content disputes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Not all WikiProjects that are quiet are moribund. Some have other channels of communication through mailing lists, chat rooms and meet ups, and some, like WP:WikiProject Olympics, come alive every four years. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
^^this. I agree fully with this comment by Hawkeye7. on that note, please feel free to comment on the section above, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Idea for new community workspace. I am trying to offer different ideas for some sort of workspace where WikiProjects could actively provide updates on their status, their current activities and where people can find them, i.e. in a resource and forum that could be used by 'editors and coordinators from multiple wikis, in other words to provide a shared space where several wikis would combine information and updates.
If no one finds this handy enough for easy use, then I guess it may not get so far; however, I am open to any form. method, or approach that people think might enable this type of resource to become useful. E.g, if you want to make this a sub-page of some existing resource, page or project, then that's fine as well. feel free to comment if you wish. thanks!!--Sm8900 (talk) 20:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Greetings, as a novice editor, I have found the concept of WikiProjects useful. Experience Report I am still in the observe, learn, and make very small contributions phase as an editor. The WikiProject I found that I wanted to participate in is inactive. I looked around and found an active WikiProject topic adjacent to the one that caught my interest. I then read about the history of WikiProjects, about reviving WikiProjects, explored the articles of interest to the inactive WikiProject that drew my initial interest. Someplace in my journey I caught a subjective, subtle, nearly subconscious sense that WikiProject’s days we're waining. Today I asked at the tea house about the topic, then I tripped into this conversation. I can't say I have a point of view. Too soon. Thanks you for your attention. I will return to observing this community in which I am new and trying to grok the culture. — philoserf (talk) 07:31, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

adding this memory of Wikipedians past to the conversation: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-05-16/WikiProject report — philoserf (talk) 07:53, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, wikiprojects should stay. >>BEANS X2t 16:54, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

possible collaborative resources[edit]

I can see many areas where a collaboration (never a bad thing) would be important. One example would be article assessments and issues involving multiple projects. There is some bot assessed articles but I have seen where a member from one project raises the level (particularly on B-class), and then someone else raise the others to match. An issue I have is particular to a B-class article with sourcing tags or inline citation tags. This means the blanket promotions where solely to match the other articles without looking to see if there are issues. The criteria is that the articles should be suitably referenced with inline citations. I realize that many like to state something to the affect of "why not do it yourself. On articles in the areas I regularly operate I may, BUT sometimes I am reading articles, from a maintenance point of view, that may involve a large number of articles on a list. It is easier to note comments on the talk page than redirect efforts (like to researching the issue) to solving problems on one article. Also, why just demote an article, especially that has a 4 or 5 year old career tag, as if there is an emergency. An involved or topic proficient editor may "fix" the issue, without someone slapping a revert for BRD reasoning, that should not be applicable on policy and guideline related maintenance issues, and then involve more discussions and edits. Seems logical to me but not to everyone. I give more attention to BLP issues and at my age I would never get through one complete list, if I stopped on every article to assess the issue. Sometimes I am not topic proficient, and sometimes I may notify several projects of comments seeking a solution. It would be a benefit, in some of these cases, to have cross-project collaboration where diverse editors watch one page. I, in fact, read where if there is doubts to inquire at the relevant talk page or project. That is seeking uncontroversial collaboration as well as help. Nope, I don't see a down-side in this instance. Otr500 (talk) 20:56, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
@Otr500:, thanks so much!!! if that is the case, then could you please stop by the draft page for the proposed forum, and leave any comments, any content you may wish, or else simply say hi? I haven't gotten a whole lot of activity there, in the short time since I introduced this new proposal. that's totally fine of course, and obviously I will accept whatever the overall community consensus may be. However, my main thought in creating this page was that it would simply be a community resource, for anyone who might wish to use it; in other words, for those who want to use it, it is available, and for those who don't, they are free to use it or to not use, as they may wish. it is meant simply to be available for those who find it helpful as a community resource and forum.
so therefore any ideas, input, or simple greeting that you might wish to add there would be more than welcome. right now, we simply want to hear from active or experienced members of our community, really any editor who has any group idea or effort that they wish to explore, and who sees a resource like this one as a net positive. so I would welcome any input that you might wish to provide. thanks!!
* the draft page is located at: User:Sm8900/Draft for town hall page (see below for new title)
I appreciate your help, and your great positive and encouraging comments above. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 21:59, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm a member of Unreferenced articles and despite what looks like a healthy list of members is currently in a semi comatose state with little wider community involvement or collaborative efforts. One of the reasons I think is looking and clicking through the oldest and obscure unreferenced articles is enough to make you lose the will to live. WProjects like MILHIST are more interesting, broader in scope etc. I'm not sure that outright deletion of WProjects is the answer, some of them could be merged/redirected. I remember there was a big blacklog drive (8 years ago?) to deal with unreferenced BLPs so the Wiki community can come together when there is the will among enough editors. I'm haven't got an answer to the WProjects problem, many of the smaller projects get created by a small group of enthusiastic editors only to die when there isn't any wider community support for them to keep going. Hopefully User:Sm8900 efforts can bring something positive to the WProjects ecosystem Mattg82 (talk) 00:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

@Mattg82:, thanks so much!! I appreciate your positive words and encouraging insights.
Based on some comments above, I have decided to simplify the name for this new page somewhat. the name "Town Hall" was overly broad, and does not give a real idea of what we are trying to do. so here is the new name, below:
  • DRAFT NAME: User:Sm8900/Community forum and bulletin board re WikiProjects
    • in order to build this, I will be approaching various individual editor who are working on specific group projects, to ask them what items they might like to post.
  • One editor asked an excellent question; how is this different than Wikipedia:Community bulletin board?
    • this idea is different from the Community bulletin board because this would be an active forum, where editors from different wikiprojects exchange ideas and data; the Wikipedia:community bulletin board is mainly for concise announcements.
    • however, until we get actual activity there, any such features might remain hypothetical. so I will approach some individual editors, and see what they might like to post there.
    • even for simple updates, this page would be much more expansive; in other words, it would not just be for terse announcements, but rather a collaborative bulletin board and forum, so even simple updates would be more detailed, and more engaging
  • the reason I entitled this "Community forum and bulletin board for WikiProjects," is to make it clear that this is not just one more new WikiProject which might eventually fizzle out; so that's why I did not name this "WikiProject bulletin board," as that would be a bit misleading.
this is still just a page in my own user space. it will remain there, as a draft, until I get some more editors directly involved in this. I hope to approach a few editors who are leading current group efforts, whether at WikiProjects or elsewhere, and see what they might like to post, and hope to make this a real resource for them.
however, if anyone here has any content or topics that they'd like to post, please feel free to come by any time. right now, we are seeking any material for inclusion that others might find helpful. so any ideas or items are welcome. feel free to visit the page any time, to provide ideas for topics or material, or any comments. thanks!!! --Sm8900 (talk) 05:03, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Inactive WikiProjects should NOT be nominated for deletion. They should be tagged as inactive. We should not delete the history of any once-active WikiProject. There is always potential for a resurgence of interest, and other good reasons.
Many WikiProjects are moribund. This should be acknowledged.
I propose that as a rule, new pages should not be tagged with the banner of an inactive WikiProject. I believe that patrollers adding banners for WikiProjects have been a contribution to the death of WikiProjects. Only active WikiProject members should be tagging new pages with their WikiProject banner. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikiprojects certainly shouldn't be deleted. I am not sure of the benefit of marking dormant ones as inactive, the risk is that it may make them less likely to revive when editors post there or return after wikibreaks. With a broadly stable editing community there are bound to be areas which come in and out of activity. I'm also not sure of the merit in not tagging articles for wikiprojects, in the past I have come across editors who screened new articles in particular wikiprojects at least to tag hoaxes and unnnotables for deletion. So an apparently inactive Wikiproject may still be serving a purpose. ϢereSpielChequers 15:17, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed a lot of editors here seem to have some strange ideas about the function WikiProjects serve. WikiProjects served a different function 10 or 15 years ago: there were large amounts of interesting articles that needed creation on most topics, and at the same time, lower featured standards much more easily facilitated article collaboration of the WP:FA/WP:GA type between lots of editors who weren't necessarily niche subject matter experts on specific article topics.

The former are largely done now except in areas that severely lack interested editors, but WP:WIR is a great example that it still works for that purpose only as long as you've got a discernable group of interesting articles that needs creating on a subject matter broad enough to bring in a mass of editors. The rising standards have meant that WP:GA/WP:FA collaboration as a thing across the encyclopedia is largely dead, and WikiProjects for that purpose only work where you've got numbers of hardcore niche experts wanting to work together on the same specific articles - which is very rare, and unsurprising WP:MILHIST is one of the few to pull it off.

What we're left with is that areas have more subtle content issues: neglected corners of the subject matter that need fine-tuning and ideally need multiple editors to put their heads together and come up with a good solution that's generally agreeable to the editors in that area, new work that needs highlighting to interested editors, and a place where interested editors can generally engage with other interested editors where that would be helpful. This, although less suited to the mega-topic projects (i.e. history, medicine) happens quietly all the time in our more specific WikiProjects across the encyclopedia. It was also the inevitable evolution of the role WikiProjects once the low-hanging fruit was done and the standards rose. Given that, I think it's helpful to have more discussions about how you effectively link up the editors in a subject matter area through a WikiProject in a way that works, for what it's worth, given that many ongoing WikiProjects would be, if they were people, almost old enough to drive in some places. And I also think it's a damn bit more helpful thinking about how we can more effectively revitalise projects that have fallen by the wayside (given that, as I said, the mega-topic ones are too broad to be helpful - there are rarely editors actually interested in all of "history" as a topic). The attempts to undermine the format from editors who don't understand the role of WikiProjects for the last decade or so because they aren't involved with any is really frustrating when they continue to be an incredibly important part of keeping the encyclopedia functioning in many areas (and could be in more areas given some thought). Editors who are heading down the portal line with these need to get out and engage with editors doing the subject work more. The Drover's Wife (talk) 16:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

@The Drover's Wife:, I agree with you!!!!! your points above are excellent. so then, if that's how you feel, can you please come by, and help me build a community forum, for addressing these exact issues and ideas?? I hope you'll feel free to drop by! if not, that's okay too,; however, either way, I hope you will take a little time to let me know what you would ideally like to see in such a community-wide forum for projects, and what you think of our current ideas so far. Here is a link, to view our efforts so far: User:Sm8900/Community forum. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 18:51, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I agree that these are excellent points, particularly regarding the value of more fine-grained projects and the need for more thought to what effective topical collaboration looks like on-wiki. However, I do feel compelled to disagree with the idea that article creation is "largely done". AFAICS we are orders of magnitude short of what even a rough sketch of a complete Wikipedia would look like. Indeed, I would suggest that the collapsing rate of article creation (for which those "rising standards" IMO carry considerable blame) means that we are actually moving backward relative to the only benchmark that matters ("the sum of all human knowledge"). This fact is obscured by the dysfunctional way that editors are socialized into creating an illusion of completeness by not creating redlinks or creating inappropriate redirects to conceal the inadequacy of our coverage. Almost every time I create an article, I have to run around and create links that should have been red to begin with. (One example that sticks in my mind is subscription school, a topic of considerable importance in US educational history whose absence was hidden first by widespread non-linking and then by an editor creating a wholly inappropriate redirect to an unrelated topic.) -- Visviva (talk) 22:04, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm not so much suggesting that article creation is "largely done" as much as that the low-hanging fruit is. For example, we had many city-based WikiProjects that were very active in rolling out articles on things like suburbs, major monuments, parks, etc, but faded into inactivity when all of that was created. On larger topics, all the more obvious topics that easily sparked editor drives tend to have articles. The article creation work that needs doing these days is much more niche, less likely that a particular specific niche is of interest to large amounts of editors, and harder to collectively drive through that format. For example, in my areas of interest, we can highlight creation work that needs doing, and it'll probably get done eventually, but any one niche area needing articles created is rarely of interest to multiple editors in that subject area. The use of WikiProjects now reflects this obvious development of the project. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:27, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
I added some new features to this. the draft is at the link below. thanks.
thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:17, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Another (somewhat labour-intensive otion) can be to consolidate wikiprojects into taskforces of a more active wikiproject. A cetralised talkpage might be able to consolidate some of the discussion to keep momentum in the community whilst maintaining specific tagging of articles, subject-specific advidce etc. E.g. WP:Molecular Biology recently merged WP:GEN, WP:MCB, WP:COMPBIO, WP:BIOP, WP:RNA, WP:WPMP and WP:CELLSIG. See also WP:MED's taskforce system. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 04:49, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Evolution and evolvability, I agree with that idea. by the way, one option might be to create a shared page where all such projects could discuss group projects. it could be a roundtable for related wikiprojects. --Sm8900 (talk) 02:22, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't agree. In my experience, conversion to a Task Force is just a slow death march. Task Forces get deleted due to lack of use as well, only with less fanfare. A better option would be a straight merge into a WikiProject that could cover that area, or create a new WikiProject with a wide ranging portfolio, in either case allowing for growth and then a natural split into a functioning specifically focused WikiProject again. WikiProjects contain a lot of information in them - subject specific guidelines, styles, resources etc. That information should not be lost, or else we'll just find ourselves having to reinvent the wheel. - X201 (talk) 10:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

What gets overlooked by many that WikiProjects give access to a number of automated lists which aid the editing process by pointing to articles that need looking at, even when there is no apparent discussion going on. Maybe it needs a tutorial for the new generation of editors, rather than just deleting what they do not unterstand. Agathoclea (talk) 08:03, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I totally agree with the comment above. --Sm8900 (talk) 01:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
Here, here. Invaluable! —¿philoserf? (talk) 02:34, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to streamline the welcome template[edit]

Template:Welcome (the standard welcome template) contains too many duplicate or unnecessary links and needs some streamlining so that new users aren't paralyzed by choice. For instance, it currently suggests four different places to go if you have a question[a] and four different tutorials[b]. Following a survey of Wikipedia's introductory materials, I drafted some changes to streamline the template that establish a clearer visual hierarchy to point new users to our best resources and remove more minor links to topics covered in Help:Introduction (such as the Manual of Style). After receiving some positive feedback at the Welcoming committee WikiProject, I'm bringing it here to establish a broader consensus for implementation. Here's the proposal:[c]


Welcome!

Hi [Username]! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Wikipedia community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

As you get started, you may find this short tutorial helpful:

Learn more about editing

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that covers the same topics.

If you have any questions, we have a friendly space where experienced editors can help you here:

Get help at the Teahouse

If you are not sure where to help out, you can find a task here:

Volunteer at the Task Center

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date.

Happy editing! Sdkb (talk) 21:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


The full code (which includes customization options) is at the template's sandbox. Please let me know what you think! Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 21:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

  1. ^ The Teahouse, WP:Questions, the welcomer's talk page, and the new user's own talk page
  2. ^ WP:Introduction, WP:Getting Started, WP:Contributing to Wikipedia, and the WP:Wikipedia Adventure
  3. ^ Note: Refactored 03:08, 27 February 2020 (UTC) by Sdkb (talk) to include Task Center button.


Initial comments copied over from the Welcoming committee WikiProject:

:I most often leave GF newcomers the {{Welcome!}} or {{Welcome-anon}} templates. I prefer the proposal by Sdkb as simplifying their choices to one of two, rather than a roster of policies and procedures. We may want to have a third choice for people who appear to be creating a draft article? - Bri.public (talk) 17:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bri.public: Yeah, as I was looking around the new user welcome pages, I noticed that the WP:Article Wizard and Help:Your first article (which has a big bold link to the wizard) are both well-designed and useful. Users that seem to be creating an article should definitely be pointed there. I'm not so sure about including it in the standard welcome message, though, since I think it's a bad idea to encourage newcomers to create an article right off the bat — they're very likely to try creating an inappropriate article for a topic with which they have a COI, and when it gets rejected they'll feel bitten. Do you have a sense of how many new users try creating an article as one of their first edits? If it's something they're going to do anyways, we may need to point them to our resources by default, whereas if most new editors can be steered initially toward other types of editing, I think we're better just leaving it out. The edit notice when you try creating a new article points there anyways (although perhaps not quite boldly enough). Sdkb (talk) 21:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
Wow, this looks MUCH more approachable to me than any of the other welcome templates! I think it's very effective at directing new users to two main ways to learn more about the "hows" of editing Wikipedia. It's amazing how different it is vis-a-vis choice paralysis compared to the other options, especially the more "graphical" options, which tend to look overwhelming.
Having just praised the simplicity and restraint of the links included..... I find myself wanting to add a link to the Five Pillars, because I think the one aspect that's missing right now is an approachable entry point to the core goals and norms of Wikipedia. Of the resources intended to introduce that information, I think the Five Pillars page does the best job of hitting the key points in a visually approachable way. I wonder if it can be slipped in as a sentence or phrase that doubles as a wikilink somewhere? So it's not an immediate "call to action" but it's present for a newbie to find early in their process of exploring. Or -- could it be added to the Introduction help page itself? I think that helping newbies feel like they have a handle on the core principles of the culture and norms is as important as technical knowledge.
I'd be very happy to see this template in use, though, with further tweaking after it's entered the real works! Well done on the research and design work to build a compelling alternative. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 04:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the praise, Oulfis! Regarding the pillars, the second module of the linked introduction is titled "Policies and guidelines", and while it doesn't explicitly list the pillars, it does mention that the project is "founded on five fundamental principles" and goes on to cover them. Sdkb (talk) 05:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
This hasn't gotten enough discussion to reach too solid of a consensus, but since there's been some support and no strong opposition, I'm going to act boldly and go ask for it to be implemented. Sdkb (talk) 06:05, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Sdkb: Is there a reason one button is blue and the other is not? I'd prefer they be the same but it's not a huge deal; I like the general concept. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:54, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
    You can see a little bit about the different types of buttons WP has at the template page here. The blue button is the "progressive" class, i.e. something that we think you ought to click. The white button is "neutral" class, i.e. something that you can click if you want. I classed them that way since the tutorial is something we strongly want to encourage new users to check out, so it makes sense to have a more prominent styling, whereas the Teahouse is something we want them to know about but don't need to push them toward. Per the rules of visual hierarchy, it's also better to have a single point of focus, i.e. if a new user is only willing to click on one link, we should let them know that it should be Help:Introduction. Now, all that said, I also thought it looked slightly odd, and if it also appears that way to others, I'd be fine with making them both blue. Sdkb (talk) 01:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I like it. I remember being overwhelmed by the many links and options when I was welcomed. I've been using {{welcome-screen}} because some other editors in a discussion seemed to think it the best of the options at the time, but even simpler (like this) would be better. I think some way to set it off (a border, perhaps?) and make it stand out on a talk page would be helpful. Schazjmd (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
    A border would definitely be nice! I focused on changing the text/buttons since that's more what I know how to do, but feel free to tweak the sandbox if you're inclined, and we can consider it. One thing to keep in mind is that when the welcome template is used, it being it's own section provides a sort of natural border, so it doesn't appear as floaty as it does here when I put it in the middle of a conversation. Sdkb (talk) 01:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
    That's a good point (about the separate section). I know nothing about making templates, I just admire and appreciate them. Face-smile.svg Schazjmd (talk) 01:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
    I use the Welcome template regularly, especially when I see a red Talk box in a history. Concistentcy in the wording would be a good change. Allowing an article name to go in from a box in more places would be good, too. Perhaps we could allow a choice of images, not just cookies, as we already have in some barnstars. There are too many ways to warn new users or IP users, and not enough ways to welcome a new user with many or especially good contributions. Good idea to post the revision here for us to see and comment on. Cheers!--Dthomsen8 (talk) 02:14, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong oppose choice of links "if only one page"...should be WP:Contributing to Wikipedia. .Not good feed back or good data for multi-page tutorials that are not formatted property for mobile view. Main problem I see above is the fact our main intro page is missing WP:Contributing to Wikipedia (the page with all the info, links to all the main help pages, and videos, brochures produced by this community and the Wikimedia Foundation). We have learned over the years the "Next page style" doesn't retain readers. Should not replace links to our help articles maintained by the community with mobile view format problem tutorials that lack basic info and our outdated. If trimming of links is required...tutorials should go and our 3 main help articles that have watchers to help should be retained. Don't send new editors on a goose chase trying to find information ...make it available on one page with a nice TOC for navigating to the section most relevant. Raw data Wikipedia:IntroductionDaily average:723....next page Daily average:85...page after that Daily average:44.....by page 50 only 6 virws. People dont want a list of link to another list of links.....they want serviceable info at a glance in a recognizable format.--Moxy 🍁 06:42, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi Moxy — I'm very much with you about reducing the lists of links, so hopefully we're at least in agreement about the overall need to streamline. Funneling users to a single intro when we currently have multiple is unfortunately going to have to involve stepping on someone's toes. I see that you're by far the top contributor to WP:Contributing to Wikipedia, so I apologize, but in its current state it just does not feel as modern and user-friendly as Help:Introduction. Essentially all other large websites (which, let's be honest, devote a lot more resources to user interface issues than we do) have onboarding processes for new users that use multiple short pages as Help:Intro does, rather than one really long one. I have to imagine they know what they're doing. Sdkb (talk) 21:49, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
We will simply have to disagree. ..... I don't see how info separated out over 50 different pages that does not work properly in mobile view is more helpful ...run around setup.--Moxy 🍁 22:32, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
We have lots of welcome pages, no objection to another being created. But changing the default this radically should not be done without first testing different welcomes and seeing which has the best result in terms of turning newbies into regulars. ϢereSpielChequers 08:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I see these changes as an improvement to the standard welcome template, not an alternative to it; they're substantial but build on what's currently there rather than replacing it from scratch. More to the point, since so many editors default to using the standard welcome, I think it's important we make that one as good as it can be; the old one could be renamed to something else if any editors really want to keep using it. I also don't think it's great to have too much welcome template proliferation — we need to keep our best resources centralized so they can be maintained/improved, not fork them every time there's a controversial upgrade.
Regarding testing, I'm very much behind the idea of doing some A-B testing in theory, but when we previously discussed it, it didn't seem to be very practical. It would take a long time to build up a sample (since I don't know of any way to welcome newbies in bulk) and would take some programming to measure the results. If you or someone else has the expertise and time to conduct that sort of experiment, I'd be fascinated to see it, but barring that, we should act boldly and go with whatever we think will likely work best. We risk as much through inaction as through action, and there's a lot of room for improvement in converting readers to editors. Sdkb (talk) 22:23, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: off the top of my head, you could create two redirects, E.G. WP:TEST1 and WP:TEST2 that both go to the same page. Have the template randomly link to one of them on each transclusion. After a few days/weeks, compare the number of page views each redirect got with the number of back links to show which had the most best ratio of clicks to transclusions. — Wug·a·po·des​ 03:06, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
A redirect could be used to measure the engagement of this template, but it wouldn't work with the current Template:Welcome as a control, since that template links to many intros, not one. And there's still the issue of building up a meaningfully sized sample. Sdkb (talk) 03:42, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  • This welcome message doesn't work on an Android mobile device. In its current state it takes you through several pages of broken formatting. Until that is fixed, this is not an improvement and is more likely to drive many editors away. While I can see your good intentions here, simplicity is best when we have to consider mobile audiences. From Hill To Shore (talk) 00:22, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
    @From Hill To Shore: Can you share a screenshot of the issue you're encountering? It works alright on my Android device. And yes, simplicity is the whole goal here—that's what this template is doing. Sdkb (talk) 03:29, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
A note regarding mobile formatting: I fully agree that ability to read on mobile is vital, and the {{intro to}} and {{intro to single}} templates both need to be updated to use flexbox css to make that smoother. Thet should be a relatively quick fix. The cause of the poor mobile formatting is that these are all currently in rigid divs, rahter than flexbox divs (main culprits are the handling and placement of {{Intro to tabs}} and the column implementation in {{intro to single}}). Sidenote: this is also a problem with a lot of templates that aim to implement multilpe tabs (compare Wikipedia:Tutorial vs v:WikiJournal_User_Group for a flexbox equivalent for tabs). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 05:31, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
@Evolution and evolvability: Thanks for that info! I made a request for help at the technical pump since I don't know how to use flexbox divs myself, but I'm not sure if anyone will take me up on it. If you end up being inclined to make the fixes yourself, it might go a long way toward helping this proposal achieve consensus. Sdkb (talk) 09:37, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb, From Hill To Shore, and ToxiBoi: I've updated the Template:Intro_to/sandbox to work pretty well on mobile I think (as well as making the window on a desktop narrow). I'd welcome any testing by others though! Formatting parameters now controlled through Template:Intro_to/styles.css. Side-by-side comparison to Wikipedia:Tutorial on others' devices also valuable. Just waiting for the sandbox version to be copied over to the main template before it's viewable as the default for all pages using that template. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 07:25, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@Evolution and evolvability: Good work, the problems I was seeing in Firefox on Android have now gone. From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:18, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
We had talked about linking the main To-do page Wikipedia:Maintenance in the past but most seem to think that pointing new editors to what to do page off the bat would not be all that helpful. I personally think Wikipedia:Maintenance gives a good overview. PS was looking for this link for hours last week.... As it was one of the reason WP: contributing to Wikipedia was updated with Foundation brochures and added to the templates.--Moxy 🍁 00:02, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Moxy: WP:Maintenance is certainly comprehensive, but I'm not sure it's accessible to new editors. It has too much detail on too many tasks — for instance, the very first item after the intro is a full section on copyvio, a complex area I'm not sure many new editors are going to want to dive into. I think the best approach for new editors is to provide a bunch of options of areas where help is needed, let them choose one, and then provide instructions for that area and clear examples of pages where they can apply what they've learned. The Task Center does this with a short intro followed by a concise list of tasks. I like how it plugs the benefits of participating in different areas. The open tasks list has the advantage of listing actual articles editors can click on and then help out with. Overall, I'm leaning toward including the task center. Sdkb (talk) 07:19, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Update: I've added a button for the Task Center to the sandbox. If there are no objections, I'll wait a day or so and then refactor the proposal here to include it. Sdkb (talk) 00:19, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment: Research and testing It makes a lot of sense to actually assess how effective our welcome messages are, and to improve them where possible. Ensuring that not only the welcome messages, but also the pages they links to will display properly in mobile view seems almost as important as the effectiveness of the welcome template itself. Sadly, as Moxy has found, there seems to have been no serious research into the effectiveness of welcome messages and their impact on editor retention since around 2011/2012. (i.e. all pre Teahouse) All I could find is this, this and this, which was mentioned above.
One 2011 study on German Wikipedia concluded that:

Overall, these results support our findings from other tests: Welcome messages that are relatively short, to the point, and which contain only a few important links are more effective at encouraging new editors to get involved in the project. Our recommendation is to change the default German welcome template to the short version.

Back at English Wikipedia, there is a study currently ongoing by WMF researchers into Teahouse invitation message effectiveness. (Summary: It is comparing the old automated invitee selection process against an ORES-based editor selection process for HostBot to send out invitations to new editors who've made their first few edits here. The research process unfortunately contained a small number of variables which rendered the results on editor retention inconclusive, and a second wave of research will hopefully go ahead soon. It did not look at the effectiveness of the Teahouse invitation wording, or timing, - only the criteria for the selection of good faith editors to send them to. See here for summary and feedback)
Now, it strikes me that the A/B study methodology used to look at Teahouse HostBot invitations must be very similar to that needed with Welcome messages. Therefore, I am pinging @Jtmorgan, Maximilianklein, and Halfak (WMF): in the hope that one of them might be willing to offer ideas or insight on whether any research study is currently ongoing or planned, and whether there might be a possibility of encouraging, supporting or funding an investigation into this important and related area of editor welcome and retention. Nick Moyes (talk) 12:34, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Nick Moyes: Maximilianklein is considering doing some more testing of AI-powered HostBot invites later this year, but no plans are finalized. If it looks like it's going forward, we'll notify on the Teahouse. Depending on the scale of the experiment, I could see experimenting with different welcome templates being a component of it. When it comes to what should be on the generic invite template, I'm definitely in the "less is more" camp. We can't, and shouldn't expect new editors to RTFM before they do anything. J-Mo 19:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Simply is best in my view as per this - thus I use Template:W-short alot. Years ago we created 2 types of "MAIN" help pages - one static article style WP:Contributing to Wikipedia and duplicated that at info at Wikipedia:Tutorial with tabs/next buttons (see what worked best). We can see and saw by the numbers most dont go beyond the first page of the tutorial. This is also what happens at the Wikipedia:Adventure - 50 percent drop in views by the second page....with a loss of 90 percent by page 3. I am all for making things easier ...not harder by making people click 50 times to get serviceable information....less is best and of course mobile view must be considered. -- Moxy 🍁 14:22, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Moxy: those numbers are certainly concerning. To me, they potentially point to those resources not being as well-designed as they ought to be. (Do you have a link to the data, btw?) Some dropoff is natural, though, since we're never going to convince everyone to read a full tutorial, and for all we know, the dropoff rate on the pages that present it all together could be even higher. (The metric we'd need to measure that would be average time spent on page, and probably only the WMF knows that.) The benefit of splitting materials into multiple pages is that short chunks are more digestible, whereas sending readers to one long huge page will overwhelm many and make them give up. Sdkb (talk) 00:03, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Good day I phone user.....can you elaborate on your experience! I am assuming your our normal IP poster and get a lot of welcomes.....what template is used most in your case?--Moxy 🍁 23:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

The blue-with-white-text button seems wrong to me. I believe (though I might be wrong) that blue buttons have a specific semantic meaning on Wikipedia. On my desktop interface, the "Publish changes" button is blue/white, and the "Search" button on the search page is blue/white, implying submission of a request, not just a link. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:03, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: I haven't been able to find any stylebook or documentation about when it's appropriate to use a blue vs. gray button. I gave my rationale for choosing blue to Wugapodes above, but similar to what I mentioned above, I'd be open to it being gray if it looks weird to others, too. Sdkb (talk) 03:39, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
At the very least we should follow MOS:COLOUR "Links should clearly be identifiable as a link to our readers." Big changes here...removal of most links....replaced with a link to an intro with 50 sub-pages that is currently not viable for 60 percent of our readers.....and big buttons that may or may not look like links. Best create a new template see if it gets good feedback ...then ask for a whole scale change to the main welcome template.--Moxy 🍁 04:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
This style guide was very difficult to find. I think it is current and accurate. Jon (WMF) may be able to give us some pointers or send us to the right resource or person. It would be useful to have some version of this UI style guide in a form comprehensible to regular editors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Interesting read.--Moxy 🍁 05:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: Thanks; that's what I was looking for (without knowing it existed)! The key phrase seems to be this: Use progressive variant for actions which lead to a next step in the process. (progressive variant = the blue one) Whether that's applicable here is a little borderline; I think we could go either way. Courtesy pinging Wugapodes, as you had the same concern about the color. Sdkb (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Action.= ."If an action is to “navigate the user to a new resource, taking them away from current context, consider a link instead.". The norm as per all wikis. the most significant navigational symbol we have.--Moxy 🍁 06:08, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
The major advantage of buttons over links here is that we can easily make a button fittingly prominent, whereas I'm not sure how to do that for a link. If you want to experiment, I'd be interested to see a design that uses a prominent link instead. Sdkb (talk) 07:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Sdkb You make a good point about experimentation. To that end please do not overwrite the old welcome template, but create a new one instead which will allow side by side comparison as to its effectiveness, as Moxy suggested above. I appreciate there is already an over-abundance of tweaked welcome templates, but this is a significant change and one well worth testing and tweaking alongside the older approach. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:31, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
We can also consider the example and precedent of the Teahouse HostBot invitation template, which uses what looks like a custom-designed button. If we used that style of button here, it would display as this:
Learn more about editing



Sdkb (talk) 23:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. I agree that the current Welcome template is in need of some streamlining. My only concern with the new design is with the buttons, it could trip up a new editor when they press one and get taken to a different page (that's what I think, though). Also can confirm it works fine on Mobile Web. –ToxiBoi! (contribs) 02:06, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
    If concerns are with the mobile app, I can see that happening. I won't be able to test that myself though. –ToxiBoi! (contribs) 02:07, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I strongly support this new welcome template. Simply put, less is more. This new message feels more personal and less like automated spam, it's got a clear actionable goal you can take to learn the basics about the site (rather than a dump of a couple dozen links that don't feel like they have a cohesive narrative) and it's less prone to being bloated over time. (Brought here by a neutral message at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-01/Opinion.) — Bilorv (talk) 22:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Less links would be better. Should keep link to standard page over an assembly of tutorial pages. If simplicity is the goal then multiple page tutorials is not the answer.--67.201.160.202 (talk) 23:10, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Support generally as long as some of the other considerations above are taken into account, like making it mobile-friendly and reconsidering the first link. I personally would have loved to see the Teahouse link or the "Task Center" links earlier on when I first joined -- I only found out about them somewhat recently, but they both make Wikipedia way more approachable/simpler to new users. The simpler design of the template overall is also really approachable.
My concern is that I don't think the first link is the most helpful introduction to editing. And I agree with some above that it should probably have either an option for or one extra link about drafting articles. - Whisperjanes (talk) 04:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
@Whisperjanes: Thanks for the support! Regarding mobile-friendliness, to my understanding the issues above have been fully addressed at this point. Regarding WP:Your first article, I think editors really set on creating one will find their way there—it's linked from the Task Center and from the uncreated page edit notice, which we recently strengthened. For all others, we should direct them toward tasks less likely to bite them. Regarding the introduction link, what would you consider the most helpful intro? Having surveyed them all in some detail, I feel the blue button should go to Help:Introduction, but I'd have no problem modifying the line beneath it, perhaps to Alternately, the Contributing to Wikipedia page and interactive Wikipedia Adventure tour cover the same topics. It's worth noting that whatever we choose here will almost certainly be an improvement over the current version of the welcome template, which links first to WP:Introduction, an intro so bad it is likely to be converted to a redirect soon. Sdkb (talk) 06:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Only agreement here is for less links.....no agreement to change to an action button....or to link the 60+ page intro over our main help pages....So really all we have is the WP:Introduction that will change to Help:Introduction but if we drop links multiple page tutorials should be dropped...As mentioned above ...best test before trying to implement multiple changes.--Moxy 🍁 06:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
I would be ok with....- -Moxy 🍁 07:02, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Example, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

You can visit The Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help ask me on my talk page, or ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome!

Stop marking WikiProjects as inactive (but keep the defunct status)[edit]

Most of the WikiProjects on English Wikipedia have a low level of activity. Those that have a very low level often get marked as "inactive" via the {{WikiProject status}} template. This generally has the effect of driving off potential contributors and making sure that the WikiProject remains inactive forever. I would contend, however, that even WikiProjects with very low levels of activity (for example, WikiProjects about small countries) are still useful and often have lots of "lurkers" even if there are few active conversations going on. We shouldn't be discouraging people from using these collaborative resources by putting a big "closed" sign at the top of the page. I do think, however, that we should retain the "defunct" status for WikiProjects that are no longer relevant, for example WikiProjects connected to specific events. Kaldari (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if some other metric could be used instead, like new articles in the project, number of talk page + subpage edits, improvements to article class for the articles within its scope, or similar. And instead of active/semi-active/inactive/defunct, we'd have highly-active/active/lowly-active + defunct as a separate category when the project is closed/merged elsewhere. Or perhaps simply just present the numbers in a "Recent Activity levels" table and do-away with classification entirely (save for defunct). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:55, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing's idea of response time on the project talk page is I think a good one: a community continues to exist if it can engage into discussion when required. I would suggest also looking at number of editors who engage, although in a low activity project it may be hard to gauge. I think page views of key pages such as style guidelines would help highlight ongoing relevance of the project. isaacl (talk) 23:06, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I think that's a good point. I think pageviews is not necessarily helpful here; plenty of these projects might be rarely used (and not, for example, have style guidelines) but still get useful responses if used. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Crude mockup

Activity levels
Page Edits Views
Last 12 months Last 31 days Last 12 months Last 31 days
Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics (talk) 4 (363) 0 (62) 15,373 (8,222) 1,255 (817)
All subpages (talk) ### (###) ### (####) 57,972 (37,067) 2,541 (2,103)
+ Other activity metrics ### ### ### ###

Which would be updated monthly. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I would even be happy with just changing "inactive" to "low activity level". "Inactive" sounds to most people like the project is closed. Kaldari (talk) 01:16, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/All could be extended to do this. --Izno (talk) 01:20, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
I'd support a switch to "low activity level" or otherwise ceasing to use "inactive", which drives people away when the WikiProject may still bring some coherence to readers. -- econterms (talk) 01:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
This bit of basic logic/understanding keeps getting lost:
  • A WikiProject is a group of people (NB: not pages).
  • If nobody's actually there, then the WikiProject ceases to exist (even though the pages still exist).
  • A non-existent group of people cannot do anything for anyone.
So if you show up to a page like Wikipedia:WikiProject Essential Oils, which is currently marked "inactive" (see the complete absence of any regular editors there; notice that the last time an editor posted a comment on the talk page was in 2016), then "driving people away" is probably the right choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
I disagree. If a WikiProject was just a set of people, then as long as those people were still active, the WikiProject would be considered active. A WikiProject is basically 3 things: a set of people, a talk page, and a set of resources (categories, templates, WikiProject pages, etc.). Right now we judge whether a WikiProject is "active" or "inactive" solely based on whether the talk page has been recently used or not, regardless of whether the members of the WikiProject are still editing related articles, regardless of whether people are still using the resources of the WikiProject, and regardless of whether people are actively adding or updating those resources. The main reason I actually want people to stop marking WikiProjects as "inactive" is because people then mark the WikiProject templates as "inactive" which de-activates all the WikiProject categories and hides all the assessments. For most of the WikiProjects that I'm a member of, I don't actively post on the WikiProject talk pages, but I do heavily utilize the resources of the projects, especially the categories, assessment templates, hot article lists, etc. It's frustrating when these projects essentially get shut down and all of those things stop working just because no one is using the talk page. Kaldari (talk) 04:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
I can see both sides of this, but I do agree with WhatamIdoing that there's some point at which driving people away becomes the right choice. That's true with regard to resources, too, since those resources take effort to keep up to date. Sdkb (talk) 06:55, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
And that's what the state of Defunct is for. When people agree that the project is no longer useful, or is superseded by another. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:23, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I am a novice editor and recently encountered the subject of inactive projects. Because of the page assessment system, the draw to revive the project was strong. So I am working on that. I was not dissuaded from working within an inactive project. The subject of the project matched my editorial interest. However; since it was inactive and was not set up to use the page assessment system, it was a lot to learn for a novice. Too much except for the social distancing of the COVID-19 and the resulting time I had available. I am too new to have formed an opinion about what to do here. What was frustrating were the number of tools and pages about the project system that are old, wrong, incomplete, or broken. I still haven't groked how to get the project watchers or cleanup reports working. For this editor inactive wasn't daunting. It served to alert me that if I wanted the project to serve its editorial purpose I would have to revive it. —¿philoserf? (talk) 16:03, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Grant to improve and spread excerpts[edit]

Hi! I'm requesting a rapid grant to improve and spread excerpts on the English Wikipedia and five other wikis. Excerpts are a form of content reuse within Wikipedia, easy to use and with wide potential. The proposed strategy involves:

  • Developing the necessary resources in six wikis (Spanish, English, German, Portuguese, Italian and French)
  • Manually replacing 1500+ calls to plain #lsth parser functions for excerpts, here in the English Wikipedia
  • Developing a user script for replacing sections that contain just a link to an article (thousands exist) for excerpts
  • Using said script for adding thousands of valuable excerpts to six wikis
  • Manually adding excerpts to a few high-traffic articles in six wikis

I hope you'll consider taking a look at the full grant proposal and leave a comment there. Thanks! Sophivorus (talk) 01:38, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposals to redirect WP:Introduction/WP:Tutorial and the Welcoming Committee welcome[edit]

 You are invited to join the following discussions:

Sdkb (talk) 08:21, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC notice: proposal to delete all of MOS:JOBTITLES[edit]

FYI: Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#RfC on removal of MOS:JOBTITLES. This is a proposal to delete an entire section of MoS rather than continue trying to come to consensus about some unrelated disputes/confusions involving it. This could have an impact on at least hundreds of thousands of articles (resulting in reintroduction of capitalization of all job titles at any occurrences).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

This is a completely inappropriate and misleading canvassing attempt. There is a proposal, after widespread unhappiness with the present guideline and neverending disputes caused entirely by its flaws, as well as no progress towards any kind of consensus replacement, to acknowledge that the current text doesn't have (and/or arguably never had) consensus and to wipe the slate clean before working on a replacement from scratch. SMcCandlish claiming that this is happening "rather than continue trying to some sort of consensus" is interesting from someone who has adamantly personally opposed even the concept of trying to amend the guideline to try to resolve some of the years of conflict it has caused. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
I neutralized the heading per TPG. Edit section to see original. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:29, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
This does come across as WP:Canvassing. Let's centralize discussion at the RfC itself. Sdkb (talk) 22:39, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Considering that OP is very quick and prolific in attacking other editors for canvassing, even for benign and properly neutral messages... not a great look. Herostratus (talk) 04:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
This was neither benign nor neutral, and predictably resulted in a bunch of !keep votes from numerous people who saw the entirely misleading summary of "This is a proposal to delete an entire section of MoS rather than continue trying to come to consensus about some unrelated disputes/confusions involving it", were alarmed, and didn't engage with the RfC or any other discussion whatsoever before !voting and passing on their way. Legitimate RfC advertising doesn't attempt to canvass for your own position and doesn't mislead people in an attempt to win !votes for your side. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Rename the page User contributions to User edits[edit]

Withdrawn by OP. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:02, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The page would be more accurate because contributions imply that a person has a positive effect on Wikipedia. Using the term edits is more neutral. It is also a more accurate description of the page. Interstellarity (talk) 17:31, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: are you wanting to put a label on MediaWiki:Contributions (that only our English readers will see), or do you actually want to change everythign about contributions to edits? (e.g. Special:Contributions, the actual underlying message, actually defaulting to "edits" to have people translate to other languages, etc) — xaosflux Talk 19:06, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: I would like to do both. Interstellarity (talk) 19:12, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
As usual, we would need some evidence that a problem actually exists, and that the problem is significant enough to warrant the change. It's fairly obvious that we apply the word "contributions" to all edits, so I don't see how many people could be misled or confused about its true meaning. Note that we would also have to deprecate the word "contributor", for the same reason. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:20, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
Not worth the effort. If we were building Wikipedia from scratch, I would agree that "edits" might be better than "contributions", but per Mandruss above, there doesn't seem to be enough of a problem here for this to be worth the effort/cleanup to change. Sdkb (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree that this would be too much effort for little or no benefit. The word "contributions" can include negative contributions as well as positive. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:17, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
@Mandruss: Can you please point out which bullet point in WP:TPO that explains the policy I broke? Interstellarity (talk) 10:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
@Interstellarity: If you are looking for a bullet point that says you can't remove withdrawn proposals that have replies, there isn't one. The guideline lists things you can remove, not things you cannot remove.
"The basic rule, with exceptions outlined below, is to not edit or delete others' posts without their permission." The "exceptions outlined below" for removal include prohibited material, harmful posts, comments by blocked sockpuppets (under certain conditions), and empty edit requests. They do not include other editors' comments in withdrawn proposals. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
@Mandruss: I understand. Interstellarity (talk) 11:30, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
@Interstellarity: Do you still want to withdraw your proposal? ―Mandruss ☎ 11:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
@Mandruss: Yes, please close it. Interstellarity (talk) 13:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal for Recent Changes[edit]

Being a recent changes patroller is a good thing to stop vandalism. Not having enough RCPs will let a lot of vandalism slide though unnoticed, and it will stay on Wikipedia for quite a while. However, too much RCPS may lead multiple people going to the same diff in concern and if reverted, only one person would've been needed. Other diffs with problems, resolved, the RCPs that didn't do anything were essentially not needed. Everything needs to be in moderation.

That is why I am proposing the following.

  1. The number of people currently watching Recent Changes
  2. Template:Vandalism information being displayed primarily on the recent changes page, and secondarily. at the top of the screen as a gadget or forced on.

The reason for this is because the two proposals will be proportional to each other. The 1st proposal will and should be proportional to the 2nd proposal. This is intended to make sure we don't get too much RCPs doing things they weren't needed to do at the moment when there are other RCPs, and could be doing things that are higher in demand.

So when the vandalism information is low (5), and there are high or sufficient enough RCPs, then it should mean there are enough and you should be doing something else that is higher in demand. When the vandalism information is high (1), and there are low RCPs, then it should mean more RCPs are needed at the moment and you really are needed.

When I've gone RCPing sometimes, when I see a problematic diff and try to revert, someone else has done it. {{SUBST:replyto|Can I Log In}}Copy and paste the code to reply(Talk) 05:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

  • I disagree, for a couple of reasons. One is that it's already self-correcting - if you are still finding you are getting to fix edits, you might as well keep doing it as you are serving some purpose. If you are getting blocked too much then that would naturally push you elsewhere already. Additionally, RCP is a good maintenance activity as it is enjoyed by both experienced and "new to the backscenes" editors. I think this step would discourage the latter from picking up some helpful experience. I believe this overstates the problem, and would cause various negatives. I also am less than sure that everyone who decided there were enough RCP would naturally go on to do another backlog. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:57, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  • What would be far more useful is if RCP went back to opening a new Tab on clicking any diff link there, rather than pointlessly taking one away from the Recent Changes page each time (- makes antivandalism on a mobile not worth trying). But, to address your suggestion, whenever you get revert conflicts, why not simply scroll down the RCP page and look for missed issues, rather than staying at the top to monitor just the five or ten most recent edits? It's amazing what gets missed and if you enable ' Navigation popups' at Preferences>Gadgets, you can mouseover any diff and very swiftly preview and assess each edit without ever having to leave the Recent Changes page. You can also preview the number and style of user contrubutions that way too. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:05, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia Meetups postponed because of coronavirus?[edit]

Should we recommend ONLINE and cancellation of in person Wikipedia:Meetup as Wikipedia:Meetup/San Diego/April 2020 has done?--Moxy 🍁 09:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

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