Talk:Requests for comment/Large scale language inaccuracies on the Scots Wikipedia

Adding up and down arrows

Does Wikimedia have an equivalent to w:en:Template:Skip to top and bottom? I think this page could benefit from something like that. --Puzzledvegetable (talk) 17:42, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal order

Zoozaz1, re this, do you mean from most severe to least? If so, proposal #8 might need to be reordered up as well (mine is really just a sister proposal of proposal #8, I suppose). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:29, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Spoke too soon, guess that's fixed. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:30, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah, just saw your ping. Yep, I'm trying to bring some format to the rfc so something gets done in the end. Zoozaz1 (talk) 13:42, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

What will happen on Wikidata regarding this wiki?

Is this RFC meaning that Wikidata items that have links to the scowiki are also problemic now? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 11:03, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata tends to deal with data from external databases and such, and the information there is categorized rather than editorialized. So I'm honestly not worried about that. ReneeWrites (talk) 13:46, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Realistically, very little information is "wrong", just that the translation is ropey. Can't see this effecting wikidata at all really. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:04, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

This remains to be seen. A.G. was active on Wikidata, and may have included less reliable spellings in some instances, for example. James Salsman (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2020 (UTC) Please see also [1]. James Salsman (talk) 07:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Next steps for Wikidata

(I've posted this here on the talkpage so as not to distract from the main discussion, which is (rightly) focusing on Scots Wikipedia. @AllyD and Jonathan de Boyne Pollard: who both had mentioned it in the main discussion, FYI)

To recap the current situation, Wikidata contains some "Scots" text, almost entirely in labels (page titles), descriptions (short one-sentence summaries), and aliases (alternative labels) - eg "Edinburgh", "caipital ceety o’ Scotland", "Embro / Edinburrie / Embra". Given that most of these labels were probably populated from Wikipedia, it is likely that a decent amount of descriptions and labels are "bad Scots", both in things being mistakenly named, and in bad terminology being used in descriptions (eg there is an open question whether "ceety", "ceetie" or "city" is preferred). However, the scope for bad grammar is quite limited - they're usually just two or three words long.

At the moment, there are 1.2m Scots labels for items, 7.2m descriptions, and 66k aliases. This sounds a lot, but a large number of these are boilerplate descriptions, or labels that are usually consistent across languages (eg items for people, creative works, names, disambiguation pages, etc).

• Of the 7.2m descriptions, at least 6.5m are accounted for by boilerplate descriptions on template, category, disambiguation page, or name items.
• Of the 1.2m labels, at least 956k are accounted for by people, disambiguation pages, or Wikidata items for family/given names. These are all things that tend to have standard names across multiple languages. Another 47k are template or category pages, which do have issues but are not as worrisome as "normal" item labels.

I looked at 10000 WD items with links to Scots WP; after throwing out boilerplate for templates etc, and blank descriptions, only about 250 seemed to be human-produced Scots text. About a fifth of those look to be semi-boilerplate using a set pattern ("toun in Scotland"), a fifth are possibly just English, the rest are text in Scots of varying quality.

So... there's definitely work to do, but it's not as bad as it might seem at first glance.

I think some easy next steps would be:

1. Confirm what the standard descriptions for things like categories should be, and ensure that the boilerplate (and the bots which apply it) are updated. This is a very quick win (we only need to decide on about six phrases!)
2. Screen descriptions & labels for words in the problems list at sco:Wikipedia:Spellin Fettle, and deal with them as needed.
3. Flag any cases where Scots and English descriptions are identical (though there will definitely be some where this is "correct")
4. For items linked to Scots Wikipedia, ensure that WD labels are consistent with the title selected by Scots Wikipedia after any cleanup moves, including categories etc
5. For items deleted from Scots Wikipedia as part of this ongoing cleanup, blank their labels & descriptions (as it is reasonable to assume they are not good Scots, since we've deleted them)

I think this should deal with the worst of the issues, and would be a good first step. Thoughts? If it looks reasonable I will run it past people on d:Wikidata:Project chat, to check they're all OK with it as well, and then look into setting it up. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:26, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Gray: Another "worst" way is to temporary shut down the Wikidata support for scowiki (i.e. remove scowiki dbname from wikidataclient.dblist), which I would  Oppose myself even I proposed this. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:53, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226: Oh, I don't think there will be any need for that! Andrew Gray (talk) 19:59, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Updated rationale

I updated the rationale to reflect the current discussions, which I feel have outgrown the events that kicked it off. I'd like to hear your feedback, things that could be improved or included, etc. In case the rationale is not supposed to be changed after a topic is started, I'd like to hear that, too, and I'll change it back. ReneeWrites (talk) 13:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I like the new rationale better. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:16, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Page split

We could probably split this page into three. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:07, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know. Let's see how this goes before I do anything more. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:25, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I transcluded Requests for comment/Large scale language inaccuracies on the Scots Wikipedia/other wikis. James Salsman (talk) 05:54, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

p.15 Ignore further suggestions from James Salsman regarding this issue

User:James Salsman has made many suggestions in this discussion thus far. He has made proposals that were shut down for being unworkable. He has made proposals widely criticized for being unnecessarily vindictive towards the user at the center of this controversy, attempting to demand that AG agree to a permanent ban from editing. He has recklessly proposed multiple people for adminship without checking their credentials. He has been hectoring people over whether or not the user AG was or was not acting in good faith, again demanding that AG (who has since gone silent) be subject to discipline.

None of these are, strictly speaking, prohibited by site rules. However, I think it is amusing to note that James Salsman has himself been blocked indefinitely from en.wiki since 2012. He was blocked on meta.wiki from 2012 to 2017. As a known sockpuppet of en:User:Nrcprm2026 he remains blocked from en.wiki up to the present date.

I stumbled across this accidentally, then did a quick ctrl+f of this page and discovered that it had been brought up by others as well. It is kinda funny to me that the guy pushing hardest for AG to be punished for disruptive editing was himself punished for disruptive editing. Anyways, since none of Mr. Salsman's proposals have been accepted thus far -- and since I don't expect his contributions to be at all productive, given the degree that his proposals have already wasted the time and energy of other editors -- I propose that no further proposals by James Salsman be accepted in the discussion about Scots Wiki and its fate. RexSueciae (talk) 00:51, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I feel like I am being unjustly pilloried here for considering the interests of endangered language speakers over the personal feelings of the culprits. I invite any interested parties to contact me off-wiki if they would like to know the details about my past. I stand by my recommendations and will continue to work on supervised automated solutions to address the issues. James Salsman (talk) 00:57, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Can you take this dispute to the talk page? PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@PiRSquared17: Done –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:29, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Just to add -- no, you are not being "unjustly pilloried for considering the interests of endangered language speakers." You're being criticized for reckless activity without regard for community consensus or common sense. RexSueciae (talk) 15:13, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I think a sort of en:WP:OWN mentality would be useful here. As unhelpful as some of this user's comments or proposals may seem, we should divorce the proposals from the person who said them. If they are useful, we should adopt them, and if they aren't we shouldn't. As it is with not punishing AG, it's not constructive or useful to ignore comments from or ban a person even if they are disliked by the community. Zoozaz1 (talk) 01:11, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't make this proposal out of personal sentiment -- I feel that the community would be better served not having to respond to proposal after unhelpful proposal, and could direct its energies towards more productive endeavors. RexSueciae (talk) 01:14, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposals are proposals; I don't think the community should immediately discount them because of the person saying them. If they are unhelpful, then, as they were, they can be quickly closed by an admin. Zoozaz1 (talk) 01:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

An admin did close Requests for comment/Large scale language inaccuracies on the Scots Wikipedia#Criteria for promoting the Scots Wiktionary from the Incubator? but James Salsman is pressing on, tasking a WMUK member and envisaging governmental orders and in the law. 79.73.243.47 01:57, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Were his actions specifically for the wiktionary proposal? If they were, then that should be addressed, but that still doesn't mean we should ignore potentially constructive proposals. Zoozaz1 (talk) 02:08, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's the wiktionary proposal he's continued after it was closed. Sadly, optimism has to be balanced with realism on Wikipedia, as time and again some editor's past, ongoing and predictable disruption outweighs their benefit. 79.73.243.47 02:26, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I am trying to obtain public domain dictionaries to assist with review tasks in support of repairing the encyclopedia. James Salsman (talk) 03:02, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

We don't need dictionaries James. That's how we ended up here. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:24, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not trying to use them to generate text, but to measure where and by whom spelling errors have been made. James Salsman (talk) 03:39, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Your intense focus on the "who" of this project is why you have had so many issues here. We just don't need that information in order to proceed further. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:47, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@MJL: how do you propose to use rollback methods to repair the damage without identifying which of the many prolific but disfluent editors to roll back? James Salsman (talk) 04:01, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@James Salsman: Focus on the articles and not the contributors. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Nobody said anything about "generating text". This whole problem was caused in the first place by a person doing word-by-word translations using a dictionary. The problem were not "spelling errors" but misapplications of translations and grammar, and dictionaries can't help with that. As for your question to MJL for what they propose be done, they did propose this. ReneeWrites (talk) 18:15, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

79.73, part of me feels that James Salsman does not respect me in my role as admin because I am not a Scots Speaker (despite the fact I am the only person in a position to do things about Scots Wikipedia on their behalf). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@MJL: how do you think I have shown any lack of respect? James Salsman (talk) 03:38, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@James Salsman: You have said I am not qualified to respond to this mess and I needed to discuss [things] with those who have more admin experience because I didn't agree with you. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:24, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you found those statements disrespectful. I did not intend them to be. Do you disagree that any admin who lacks fluency in Scots is not qualified to handle (I did not write "respond to") the totality of the mess? If you find constructive criticism asking you to consult with those who understand that we have never had a single employee role account granted admin privileges before their volunteer account had been, I don't know how I can help you understand that it was not intended as disrespectful. James Salsman (talk) 04:36, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@James Salsman: Wikipedia is supposed to be a volunteer project, and your insistence that we need professionals to lead the project is unwelcome in my view. We need editors; not admins. The admins should be selected from a new base pool of editors once they feel comfortable becoming one. If you have spoken with either Soothrhins or My hat stinks then you'd know they have felt very uncomfortable being suddenly thrust into leadership just for the sake of having Scots-speaking admins. I still think they are both perfect for the task, but they should've been allowed to seek adminship on their own terms.
As for my opposition to Drchriswilliams's RFA, I feel that we need to be empowering Scots speakers not looking for pre-existing Scots Wikipedians to just "take over" things. Drchriswilliams hasn't shown a need for the tools like the other two, and with the doctor we lose the chance to oversee a new generation of Scots editors. If Drchriswilliams is an admin, we will likely just have another Derek Ross situation. People will lean too heavily on the single individual with experience and knowledge of the project and language. Soothrhins and My hat stinks need to be driving this ship, not you and me, James. They saw what was happening and volunteered to help; no one recruited them. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I have asked James Salsman to pull back, to stop trying to recruit people from inside or outside Wikipedia[2] and not to harrass government officials[3] in the light of his lack of understanding of Scotland and his actions such as asking a top civil servant and a cabinet secretary for their hourly rates for private consulting. I hope the above now indicates acquiescence and that he will refrain from pressing further proposals, without necessarily implying his acceptance of criticism. 79.73.243.47 01:24, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I have given James Salsman a warning for his creation of a page which listed all of AG's contributions. It was a million bytes long, and he shouldn't have created it without discussing it here first. I am very upset about his recklessness today. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, is there a meta-wiki equivilent of the enwiki Not a ballot template? Can I Log In (talk) 03:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I forgot the interwiki colons, and apparently, there is. Adding. Can I Log In (talk) 03:41, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• I agree that James Salsman is too quick to take actions without seeking consensus. I would prefer it if he throught proposals through more and asked for others' opinions instead of acting unilaterally. However, I do think he has brought up some worthwhile ideas so I don't support ignoring him. Also, his block history doesn't seem particularly relevant to this discussion. PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:07, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

My two cents as a citizen of Scotland and a Scots speaker:

• A common theme I see running through most of James Salsman's contributions is to make assumptions, as opposed to raising queries to canvas opinion. Personally this can feel a bit othering.
• I find any requests of 'action' from the Scottish Government at this time deeply uncomfortable. Right now the Scottish Government's prime focus is (rightly in my view) on combatting coronavirus and supporting the economy—thousands of people have died and lives and livelihoods are literally still at risk. This means there are lots of things that are important that aren't being addressed. However, even if we were in normal times, fixing a Wikipedia isn't the most important thing the Scottish Government can (and in my opinion should) be doing for the Scots language. Final point (as others have noted), seeking government intervention would be ethically called into question on other language wikis. Soothrhins (talk) 08:42, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

  @Soothrhins: very well-put. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• I would like to add my discomfort with some of James's activity (some of which I have responded to already). This entire problem was caused by people - in undoubted good faith - thinking they could fix things on behalf of the Scots-speaking community without really understanding the language or its cultural context. This is not the way to solve things, and I feel some of these proposals are in serious danger of taking us down that road again.

To be clear on my position here - I am Scottish, but like many people of my age and background, while I can read Scots (and take pleasure in doing so!), I am not fluent enough to confidently write in it. But I know it matters, and what has happened to scowp is deeply saddening to me. I regret that I can't do more to help with it than give advice - but I acknowledge my limitations in what I am competent to do. I do not think I am alone in taking that approach. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:23, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

To be honest, as often as people remind me and others here that AG probably acted in good faith when he did what he did to Scots WP, maybe the same people can also try to assume some good faith with JS? --Janwo (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Partially agree. AG was acting in good faith, but making mistakes and no one noticed. JS we hope is acting in good faith, but that action may cause mistakes and people are noticing and trying to avoid mistakes. Soothrhins (talk) 14:01, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. For all the magnitude of AG's error, there is little evidence that he received any sort of direction during his editing career and, when this discussion began, he made a (flawed, but tangible) statement expressing his desire to step away from the wiki. I have little trouble believing that he, like most people, was acting in good faith. I have somewhat more trouble believing that JS is acting in good faith -- he was disruptive on the English wiki, was placed on probation, kept being disruptive, was indefinitely banned, and now his actions are disruptive here. Unlike AG, he has had ample time to learn the basics of interacting with a community, and has had staff tell him multiple times to chill. And, in any case, regardless of whether or not he is acting in good faith, reading through the proposal page is made even more exhausting with the existence of his proposals. I don't know what else to say. RexSueciae (talk) 15:06, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm not a fan of the fight fire with fire approach. If the belief is that JS is being unreasonable in his insistence that we call out a particular user, doing the same thing to him won't help. Enough already. --Puzzledvegetable (talk) 13:23, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

JS's insistence on calling out AG is problematic, but it's worse than that. He doesn't grasp and he won't hear that his knowledge of Scotland is extraordinarily flawed. It's the same as with AG and others re Scots (and on a larger scale, some US interventions around the world), except that AG eventually stopped. 92.19.31.156 15:34, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Have I made any assertions about Scotland or Scots, other than implying that editors knew or should have known about grammatical issues when they were global replacing alternate spellings on other projects' articles, and recommending CC-BY(-SA) for the national dictionaries? I would like to make one assertion, which is that the Government of Scotland calls itself "the sole custodian of Scots."[4] James Salsman (talk) 16:53, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

The Ulster-Scots Agency may disagree with that assertion. Soothrhins (talk) 17:59, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I expect they do. I disagree with it too. James Salsman (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

You have made many errors, both in the claims you made to back up tasking a WMUK member to seek relicensing of dictionaries and elsewhere, and you have been corrected, and yet you ask this question? [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] 92.19.31.156 18:08, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Please see [14]. I have no authority to task any WMUK employee but I hope everyone will join in the request. James Salsman (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

User:James Salsman would you kindly explain your reasoning? Dropping a link to an article as if it explains everything (which it really doesn't) isn't very helpful at all. You've consistently been firing out proposals rapid-fire, never admitting any sort of fault when questioned, producing more text than people can practicably analyze and accept or refute. At this point you are a minority of one. RexSueciae (talk) 19:57, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

If I had access to the dictionary source code as would be more likely if it were CC-BY(-SA), I would be able to improve upon this preliminary word suspect list, for example. James Salsman (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

See the continuation below the closure box of Criteria for promoting the Scots Wiktionary from the Incubator? for JS's desire for a law depriving a charity of its intellectual property so that he can "improve upon this preliminary word suspect list", and some problems with that. 92.19.31.156 22:14, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Any sources in support of deprivation, contrary to [15] for example? James Salsman (talk) 23:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

You:"The legislators to whom I have reached out have the authority to propose returning some or all of the copyrights to the Crown."[16] 92.19.31.156 00:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

If they did do you believe print dictionary sales would increase or decrease? James Salsman (talk) 02:50, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

A Scottish charity should have its property taken away from it for its own good? And you want WMUK to seek legislation to force that, and editors here to pursue that? We need you to stop. 92.19.31.156 13:06, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I see that Vermont has banned James Salsman from participating in this RFC or its sub-pages, so he will be unable to respond further. 92.19.31.156 18:25, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, I guess that's that. RexSueciae (talk) 01:25, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Could we get some of James Salsman's tangents on the RFC page archived? They make it even more confusing to follow. TrickyApron (talk) 14:25, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Deletion without transclusion

I object to [17] and [18] together as unnecessarily censorious. I am certain that there are people who do not see what the American government has been doing to Haiti as directly analogous to what the lack of wikimedian attention has been doing to the Scots Wikipedia, but I am not one of them. James Salsman (talk) 06:16, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Vermont and PiRSquared17: I think someone needs to show Mr. Salsman out. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:19, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

...what does Chelsea Clinton have to do with anything? RexSueciae (talk) 12:00, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

User: James Salsman was your point that Chelsea Clinton said that Haiti has gotten screwed over by other countries and thus Haitian Creole is in more danger than other languages? That...that doesn't really follow. RexSueciae (talk) 12:04, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I get your political position, but what still baffles me is how this relates in the slightest to Haitian Creole Wikipedia. Zoozaz1 (talk) 12:54, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Bring under scope of small wiki audit

This rfc has been very productive so far, but just as a suggestion I'm throwing out there related to the small wiki audit, we could redirect this page to Small wiki audit/Scots Wikipedia/2020 (or vice versa) to make it a part of the small wiki audit. Zoozaz1 (talk) 18:39, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I suggest linking to it from the Small Wiki Audit pages but not treating it as a subpage or subproject of them. The audit concept is at an early draft stage of discussing whether such a commendably ambitious project can proceed at all, whereas this RFC is focused on a single wiki, discussing options that go beyond auditing, and is further advanced. It doesn't need to be put under an umbrella project as that project's sole active member. 92.19.31.156 19:41, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with 92.19 for now. But the /other wikis thing could be moved there maybe. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:41, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Results of first Editathon

Didn't know where might be appropriate to post this on the main pages, but you can see the results of the first Editathon here now. Soothrhins (talk) 23:35, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Neat! The website is causing my browser to hang up when I try clicking on anything, but I can see the list of pages edited and so forth -- a good start, I think. RexSueciae (talk) 01:25, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes and some groundwork for future improvements too (practical things and more experienced editors). Discord server helping a lot too, for answering questions/getting immediate feedback. Soothrhins (talk) 07:23, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Deletions

In the last 24 or so hours, I have deleted 480 pages on Scots Wikipedia - 270 if you don't count talk pages. Pretty much none of these had any content whatsoever, but there are still more deletions to come. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:43, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for these updates. –SJ talk  18:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Archiving closed proposals

Proposal #8: Pay auditors to review the language

Extended content
This proposal was refactored as Puckle Proposal #p.6 Ask for help cleaning up below. I remain in favor. James Salsman (talk) 14:55, 28 August 2020 (UTC) SNOW CLOSE: This isn't on the table. This discussion is about what Scots Wikipedia should fix; and we're already working with Wikimedia UK to get more support from the Scots linguistics community. WMF doesn't need to be a part of that. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:14, 27 August 2020 (UTC) The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. #Proposal above. James Salsman (talk) 04:12, 27 August 2020 (UTC) Dismiss not gonna happen for thirty thousand articles. We should focus on realistic proposals. Blythwood (talk) 04:15, 27 August 2020 (UTC) You think that would take more than a couple million? James Salsman (talk) 04:45, 27 August 2020 (UTC) A guy who came to Mali did pay users of the en:Bambara Wikipedia some money to edit but not everyone felt it was the best way WhisperToMe (talk) 04:57, 27 August 2020 (UTC) I doubt the WMF would be willing to spend millions of USD/GBP to correct grammatical errors on the Scots Wikipedia. The site doesn't get enough traffic to warrant it, most likely. Did you have another funder in mind? PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:35, 27 August 2020 (UTC) Somehow I fail to see the WMF getting on board with that. We don't pay editors. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 05:21, 27 August 2020 (UTC) The heck we do. James Salsman (talk) 05:45, 27 August 2020 (UTC) @James Salsman: Not sure how to interpret that: you mean we do pay them? We don't? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:09, 27 August 2020 (UTC) I would love to have paid mods to do things like page review but it's clearly not part of WMF's vision. Maybe the next few scandals like this will change that, but the budget to pay people for a low priority like this is not there. Blythwood (talk) 05:29, 27 August 2020 (UTC) No. While it's possible there might be cultural grants for this kind of thing, they should come from cultural institutions (e.g. museums), universities, and occasionally government grants. There is a place for paid WMF members, and this should maybe happen more frequently, but this would generally be for problems of community organization, legal compliance, and reputation. The infamous Croatian Wikipedia probably needs a lot of paid WMF staffers to watch over it, for example - but that's because that Wikipedia, and its associated community, needs a hard reboot, and the employees would be there to ensure the same neo-fascist problem doesn't happen again, as well as attempt to nurture said new community. There wasn't any community to actually organize on Scots Wikipedia, at least as of three days ago. The best argument would be one of reputation, I suppose. But in general, paid content editors tend to "push out" volunteers and make volunteer work feel disrespected if it's not strictly focused, so it's very easy to accidentally create a failed Nupedia again. (Now, if rather than "review the language", the proposal was to pay a community builder... well, that's more likely to be within WMF's purview, at least.) SnowFire (talk) 07:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC) Also, if a grant did come in from some source (whether it be the WMF or not), it would be far more productively spent on creating fresh new content on the kind of topics that would be interesting to have good Scots versions of, not on reviewing random extant work that is not merely bad, but also frequently not that relevant. There probably isn't much need for a Scots article on the sco:Vietnam War, people will just use the English Wikipedia article for that. There might be interest on topics directly related to Scottish history, politics, and legends though, in Scots. Basically, do stuff like have the paid scholars create a good article on en:Chronicle of the Kings of Alba in Scots (which doesn't even exist in Scots yet), or expanding sco:Kirk o Scotland from the tiny stub it is now, and less on random non-Scottish topics. SnowFire (talk) 08:03, 27 August 2020 (UTC) As noted above given how small the community is and given how small the traffic is there really wouldn't be any justification for spending thousands if not millions on it, The WMF would never agree to it anyway (rightly so). –Davey2010Talk 14:30, 27 August 2020 (UTC) This would be atrociously expensive, a complete flip to how Wikipedia operates, and by no means the best use of the money. Oppose, firmly. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:15, 27 August 2020 (UTC) This is a really bad idea, and a proposal that has been firmly rejected by the community every time it has come up for two decades. It isn't a plausible option. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:56, 27 August 2020 (UTC) The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Current Statistics

This is the current set of statistics for the wiki.

Page stateestics
Content pages	57,246
Pages (Aw pages in the wiki, incluidin tauk pages, reguidals, etc.)	210,834
Uplaided files	1,686
Eidit stateestics
Page eedits sin Wikipedia wis set up	790,834
Average eedits per page	3.75
Uiser stateestics
Registered uisers (leet o memmers)	76,941
Acteeve uisers (leet o memmers) (Uisers that hae performed aen action in the laist 30 days)	290
Bots (leet o memmers)	51
Admeenistraters (leet o memmers)	7
Interface administrators (leet o memmers)	1
Bureaucrats (leet o memmers)	0
Stewards (leet o memmers)	0
Account creators (leet o memmers)	0
Importers (leet o memmers)	0
Transwiki importers (leet o memmers)	0
IP block exemptions (leet o memmers)	3
Oversighters (leet o memmers)	0
Rowbackers (leet o memmers)	11
Autopatrollers (leet o memmers)	16
Bot uisers (leet o memmers)	0
Check users (leet o memmers)	0
Confirmed users (leet o memmers)	0
Ither stateestics
Words in all content pages	9,262,034

Since the revelations, we have recruited 2 new admins and 5 new rollbackers. 12 of our active users have made more than 100 actions in the last 30 days, and more than 1,000 pages have been deleted.
This has been my update. I look forward to comparing these numbers to statistics at some future date (maybe in 2 weeks). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:23, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Incubator

I don't know if this is relevant now since sco.wiki imported all incubator:Wt/sco pages into wp itself. But would like someone to check the edits made by AmaryllisGardener on incubator. Thanks. --Minorax (talk) 14:01, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Fielding request to close

There has been a request for meta admins or stewards to close this RFC. When you are talking content and community it is my opinion that this is not the role of either group of people. Sure we can close it, but we cannot be determining your consensus and way forward for your community. The comments are there from a broad range of people, and the scoWP community needs to take what it needs from those opinions and plot its path. If the path is still not evident then keep working to your consensus.  — billinghurst sDrewth 22:03, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Statistics (2)

Page stateestics
Content pages	55,875
Pages(Aw pages in the wiki, incluidin tauk pages, reguidals, etc.)	209,355
Uplaided files	1,665
Eidit stateestics
Page eedits sin Wikipedia wis set up	798,233
Average eedits per page	3.81
Uiser stateestics
Registered uisers (leet o memmers)	77,564
Acteeve uisers (leet o memmers) (Uisers that hae performed aen action in the laist 30 days)	203
Bots (leet o memmers)	51
Admeenistraters (leet o memmers)	8
Interface administrators (leet o memmers)	1
Bureaucrats (leet o memmers)	0
Stewards (leet o memmers)	0
Account creators (leet o memmers)	0
Importers (leet o memmers)	0
Transwiki importers (leet o memmers)	0
IP block exemptions (leet o memmers)	3
Oversighters (leet o memmers)	0
Rowbackers (leet o memmers)	14
Autopatrollers (leet o memmers)	20
Bot uisers (leet o memmers)	2
Check users (leet o memmers)	0
Confirmed users (leet o memmers)	0
Ither stateestics
Words in all content pages	9,084,161

I wanted to post an update before I ran cliverbot to delete sco:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Proposal 2 today.

Kindest Regards, –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:31, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Statistics (3)

Page stateestics
Content pages	42,497
Pages (Aw pages in the wiki, incluidin tauk pages, reguidals, etc.)	180,597
Uplaided files	1,521
Eidit stateestics
Page eedits sin Wikipedia wis set up	802,401
Average eedits per page	4.44
Uiser stateestics
Registered uisers (leet o memmers)	77,947
Acteeve uisers (leet o memmers) (Uisers that hae performed aen action in the laist 30 days)	158
Bots (leet o memmers)	51
Admeenistraters (leet o memmers)	8
Interface administrators (leet o memmers)	1
Bureaucrats (leet o memmers)	0
Stewards (leet o memmers)	0
Account creators (leet o memmers)	0
Importers (leet o memmers)	0
Transwiki importers (leet o memmers)	0
IP block exemptions (leet o memmers)	3
Oversighters (leet o memmers)	0
Rowbackers (leet o memmers)	14
Autopatrollers (leet o memmers)	20
Bot uisers (leet o memmers)	4
Check users (leet o memmers)	0
Confirmed users (leet o memmers)	0
Ither stateestics
Words in all content pages	8,177,036

The page-count is about to go really down for a bit, so I'm posting another set of statistics here. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)