Talk:Requests for comment/Superprotect rights

Annoyed

Courageous RfC. However, I find the whole page very annoying. Please continue to contribute to Wikipedia in a kind way and close this unhelpful RfC. Thank you. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 11:44, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

And what gives you the right to demand something like this? --178.38.117.143 11:56, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Keep calm and carry on? Nice try but somehow the substantial reason lacks. NNW (talk) 11:58, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

The user made no demand, it's a request, a report of being annoyed. Obviously, the user finds the RfC "unhelpful." Unhelpful for what is unstated, so the request is not likely to have any effect, that's all. Look at meta RfCs. Most accomplish little purpose but for a few users to dump some feelings. Some are exceptions. This is looking like it could be one, but, as-is, it is too much of a train wreck, i.e., a typical wiki phenomenon, a sign of no-consensus. This particular no-consensus is deep, going back to the origins of the WMF.

(There is an apparent consensus here, which I'd recommend the WMF look at and consider carefully, but that is up to them. Notice: "them," not "us." That is or is near the core of the problem.)

This RfC, in itself, as-is, won't accomplish anything except air some grievances, but there is nothing that requires this to stay the same, except inertia. Typically, though, we will wait for Someone else to identify and fix the problem, but since NOBODY is responsible, Someone else won't bother, and probably lost the password long ago. --Abd (talk) 15:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your time Abd and thoughtful comments. I agree with you. A lot of people are angry and feel the need to expres their anger and grievances. I have experienced this three years ago by the issuance of the Haifa letter. The trauma is felt by chapters to this day. People feel a loss of control as they realize the project websites are internet real estate owned by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia editors are engaged and empowered to do a whole lot, but not everything. The WMF keeps the servers running and that is including determining which softwares runs on which machine. So, nice to meet you Abd, we haven't met before, have we? Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 20:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I've seen your name, Ad, but I don't recall any interactions. I'm banned on en.wikipedia, long story, am mostly active on en.wikiversity, get into trouble at meta from time to time, mostly from "writing too much." My long term-interest is how large numbers of people can communicate, cooperate, and coordinate. It's the problem of government, in fact, but also the "Wikipedia problem." Above, Ad, you describe a role for the WMF, which is not necessarily intrinsic, and which may contradict the assumptions of many, and, realize, people have sometimes invested years of their life into those assumptions. We might say that the assumptions were naive, but ... the way in which the wikis developed and much of the promotion of them has encouraged the assumptions. That's history. This is the present reality:

The WMF has legal control of the wikis. A diffuse and not-well-defined collection of people has defacto control of almost all content. For strong legal reasons, the WMF has mostly been hands-off with regard to content, and this has allowed the "community" to think that it is in charge of the wikis. The WMF is operating with mission and vision statements that define the role of the WMF, not as an independent entity, but with a narrower purpose:

... to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

There are two ways to read that statement, one of which narrowly defines the Foundation mission as "empowering and engaging people", who then "collect and develop and disseminate." The other could separate out the dissemination. However, practically, the primary mission of the WMF is to "empower" the community, the group that "collects and develops." There is nothing in there about the readers, per se.

Now, obviously, those who collect and develop the content will care about the reader experience. All of them (us) also read the site. Does the WMF have special expertise in this? Some staff might, but it's off-mission! Yet it is easy to understand how Foundation staff might take this on as a goal. Still, I'd venture that an active editor spends far more time reading the site than most Foundation employees.

So what has happened here? It is totally normal in organizations that begin as mostly volunteer operations. As I understand the history, Wikipedia was owned, initially, privately, but was immediately positioned as a user-created and managed site. Then the WMF was created *to serve the community*, to provide a means for legal responsibility, and, as well, tax-free operation and charitable status.

The WMF can do things that, as it is constituted, the user community cannot do. The most significant of these is the ability to make decisions in a timely fashion, with known people being legally responsible for them. It does have the keys to the server, and with developer access there is little legal restraint on its power. It can also discard the mission statement and vision, should it choose to do so.

From the beginning, though, the WMF has held out the promise that it serves the community, not the other way around. It holds the keys in trust. As a nonprofit corporation chartered in the United States, it is legally responsible, not to the "membership" -- it doesn't really have members -- but to the chartering government that allows it to function as a legal person. Yet the community majority has always understood that, in all this, the WMF was serving the community, not dominating or controlling it, and when we have supported the WMF, that was what we had in mind.

On the other hand, the community is itself, often, dysfunctional. It can dither for years, it can be perversely conservative, and, instead of being a fount of crowd-wisdom, it can be a mob ready with pitchforks. Community process can be highly unreliable as to details. Policies are not usable, necessarily, as a way to predict outcomes, as with "rule of law," so users may end up guessing how to behave, and not uncommonly, guess wrong. Community process can be massively inefficient.

Those arguing for MediaViewer correctly point out that only a small number of users voted in polls, compared to the general readership, but this is generally true about every decision on the project. Indeed, I could show a recent case where a poll majority clearly did not reflect the true overall assessment of the full editorial community, but only of those who monitor central process, which is far from an unbiased sample. And so a "consensus" was expressed that has been very difficult to enforce, which is a clue that it wasn't a real consensus decision. Genuine consensus is easy to enforce.

So what to do? This much is obvious. The WMF made a decision regarding the MediaViewer. The community did not make that decision, and the community expressly, by a substantial majority, rejected the opt-out implementation of the viewer. The WMF went ahead anyway, and when the community acted, as it could, to defeat this, the WMF then created a tool, superprotection, to allow it to defeat the community. WMF staff argued, basically, we are right and we are going to do this.

Right or wrong, this was a declaration of unilateral control over what the community had considered was within its jurisdiction. Many have expressed wonder that the WMF would consider the MediaViewer so important and so urgent that it would draw the line in the sand at this position. What I'm suspecting is that a certain naivete arose within the WMF. I find it hard to believe that this was a deliberate stick poked in the community's eye. WMF staff expected to be trusted. And, besides, they believed they were right. Doesn't everyone want us to do what's right?

I've seen software companies end up embattled, their users angry with them, because they believed that they knew better than the users. Sometimes they might even have been right, but user communities are generally far larger than the companies that serve them, and the collective experience and wisdom of the users is a resource that companies do well to harness. At one point I facilitated that with a CAD program user community, organizing it to support the company, in developing the next revision. The result was astonishing. Everybody won. Every single user-requested change was implemented.

So my suggestion to the WMF is to

• Understand how human beings avoid domination, it is a survival trait. Communicating without arousing that response is a skill worth knowing. (It can take training.)

• Engage and enable the community, per the mission statement. In particular, long term, enable the community to become more coherent in its decision-making processes. The function of the community, properly, is not to control the WMF, but to advise it, and it is in the interest of the WMF, long-term, that the community be able to do this efficiently and effectively. This enabling is called "facilitation" in consensus process. It can take expertise.

• Apologize for allowing enthusiasm for software improvements to cause WMF staff to forget the primary mission and core values. Properly, this should come from the top: WMF staff members should not have to grovel, and, indeed, should not have to apologize at all for carrying out WMF decisions. If a staff member acted without authorization, perhaps a personal apology is appropriate. Normally, though, I'd expect WMF management to protect the staff, while guiding them.

Consider the alternative: the WMF may insist on superprotect, in spite of what is at this point approximately a 90% majority on de.wikipedia against it, with over 300 votes requesting removal, and votes still pouring in. And de.wiki administrators may block WMF staff, and the WMF may start desysopping, and users may go on strike -- or worse -- and none of this will serve the readers, in fact. So they get a MediaViewer which they can use to view ... what?

The community is not coherent like the WMF. I can sit here and say what the community should do, and it might influence a few, but the community will do what the community will do, that's a wiki. To my mind, the only relatively reliable access to sanity here is though an awakened WMF. That is, within the community there is great wisdom, we can see many, many cogent comments in this RfC and elsewhere, and we can also see the usual assumptions of bad faith, demands, complaint about others, and shallow understanding. The WMF is fully capable of sorting through all this, separating the wheat from the chaff, and leading the community, having been thoroughly advised by the community.

The sign that the community is being effectively led is that it follows. If it is resisting, the leadership is weak or defective, something is missing. Natural consequence. What is missing can be supplied. --Abd (talk) 00:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

This RfC, the TOS, common law and expectations, and civility

The TOS has been mentioned in the RfC, as if it were controlling in some way. It is controlling, legally, though less than some might think. That is, when we edit the projects, there is a note at the bottom of the screen:

By clicking the "Save page" button, you are agreeing to Wikimedia's terms of use and privacy policy, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

This incorporates the mw:Terms of service which are written primarily to protect the WikiMedia Foundation from legal claims, which protection is the core of the TOS. However, this RfC is not based on any legal claim against the WikiMedia Foundation. Nobody is here contesting the legal right of the WMF to do whatever it chooses with the wikis and the content. The WMF has no legal obligation to maintain access to the content; per the TOS, it may lock accounts and wikis for any reason or no reason. The TOS provides some limited protections for users, on the face, but it then takes them away, by asserting the right of unilateral decision.

And that is, at this point, a legal necessity, and it is not in question. Rather, what is in question is the voluntary relationship of the WMF and the user community. The WMF immunizes itself against any responsibility for content, outside of claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), by allowing the community to contribute content and manage compliance with policy, which the community also sets, with few exceptions.

What had been written was a suggestion, "Our time and goodwill is ours to give, the Foundation's to lose." In response, a user wrote:

The WMF is the organization that determines the terms of use, so whatever good will you have needs to be based on that fact.

The goodwill and the TOS bear almost no relationship with each other. We have good will, generally, when we expect to be treated fairly, and we don't expect that from the TOS, which provides no guarantees of fair treatment. We expect it from the history of the WMF and how the WMF has generally conducted itself.

The efficient operation of the sites requires voluntary cooperation from a large community of users. This is clear: the WMF may legally take actions that would unnecessarily alienate the community. Arguing, then, that complaining users should basically shut up because they have no rights, due to the TOS, is to align with the very "insult" that created this flap, pretending that the TOS is controlling.

That is a radical misunderstanding of the TOS. I could write about common law on this kind of contract, but we don't need to go there. Nobody is going to sue anyone. The WMF is not going to pull out the nuclear weapons, and the users are not going to dynamite the wikis. My recommendation, however: don't tempt either side by telling them that they are stupid, wrong, and powerless. --Abd (talk) 18:54, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Please close this request for comment

I would like to request that you close this request for comment. The reasons are:

1. It is not properly translated to other languages. Community from other languages is incapable of participating.
2. It is poorly written. We do not get anything actionable out of this discussion, and we're not even brainstorming — which I perceive as a step to do before requesting comment. We're just dumping raw rage onto the screen and wasting time of other people. (For more detail, please see this discussion.)
3. It gives only one side of the issue. I've written a couple essays, which both give a more complete picture (although they are both incomplete at the moment as I'm still thinking it through; you can find them in my contributions on this wiki.)

--Gryllida 09:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

No.

It's insulting to say it is poorly written. And you are also saying its not properly translated and other communities aren't participating - they are. A large majority of comments are coming from de.wp - perhaps that's why you find it poorly written?

I don't think this RfC or any other's criteria is to fulfill your or any specific individual's level of expectation. RfC's have been in multiple languages and projects for years. They predate your account or your familiarity with Wikimedia, even wikimedia itself.

This is exactly the reason why I moved your "guidelines" from the main page to the talk page - you introduce guidelines all on your own based on only your opinions a few days ago, and now you use those proposed guidelines to request a closure for this RfC.

Most of these points and the guidelines are your opinions, and perhaps solely your own. there is little to no participation here or in the guidelines. You've proposed guidelines, written essays in just the span of last week - you should consider that your own views might not be reflected by others. Or atleast give proper time for others to notice. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 11:22, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Closing this is way premature. "Poorly written" is never a closure reason. Yes, RfC process could use some work. However, the request from Gryllida displays part of the problem: "... request that you close this." Who is "you"? Nobody here but us chickens. I've closed quite a few RfCs on meta. Before concluding that an RfC is "useless," I'd wait for months, or, for example, note that there is no request or specific purpose. Here, there is a very specific situation, and there are specific proposals to be considered. There are lots of ideas.

Should there be a "pre-RfC"? This is the pre-RfC. This has not been global-messaged, nor is it site-messaged anywhere, yet. And I wouldn't recommend that, until and unless there is much more focus.

Yes, there is rage being dumped. Some are saying things that might better be left unsaid, from some point of view or other, except that if they are left unsaid, WMF Staff might never know the depth and power of the nerve they touched. In the end, this could prove to be one of the most useful RfCs ever, if it clarifies the relationship of the WMF and the community, and if, as a result, communication is improved, as I expect.

To those who are "retiring" in protest, I suggest, give it some time. To those upset by this, I'll note that getting upset over upset is more of the same. People are upset, that's a fact. Now what? --Abd (talk) 13:23, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Clarification

No, I'm not saying to stop discussing this topic. I'm just saying it's being discussed wrongly here, with a waste of time.

Merely shouting around about how unethical this new user right is is not an efficient use of time of other volunteers, alone. If we don't identify and solve the underlying problems which made WMF resort to introducing this user right, then the WMF will have to do so. We can help it do that properly.

I would like to see more of community discussion of these underlying problems and how to approach them.

I doubt we can shift the focus right here without closing this RfC and opening a new one. But if you think you can, go ahead and do so. --Gryllida 06:21, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

No; opening a new discussion elsewhere means there would be just another place where these subjects are discussed. How would you prevent good thoughts mentioned here from being lost? I, having written something on this page, would have to notice in the first place that the discussion has been moved elsewhere, then leave my comments there again? It is a fact that the discussion has grown "historically" at various places without any logical structure, and we cannot "correct" this easily. If you want to do something about it, collect all those bits of information and make a summary, and an inventory of pages where related discuccions take (or have taken) place. --CHF (talk) 12:49, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Actionables

Should someone start extracting from the discussion some recurring or seemingly agreeable action points/decisions that can be summarised in a way suitable for further polishing and discussing in a more focused later step? --Nemo 07:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Nemo. This is exactly what I was talking about. (I couldn't even imagine that someone wants to walk through the huge noisy page, though; was hoping that a more structured approach could be adopted at the beginning in the first place.)

Probably that's how RfCs go: a pile of flood and garbage that someone processes later. That'd be an amusing thing to realise. People walked onto my talk page and didn't explain that to me at all. --Gryllida 11:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's how it usually goes, unless some previous discussion/mind-reading/shared feeling makes everyone meet and immediately agree on some specific thing to do. :-)

However I'm not particularly suitable for extracting specific proposals because after quickly reading all the comments I still think my own proposals (despite being just drafts) would be the best starting point. :-D It's worth noting that Limits to configuration changes was created (in its current title) by me, not by the WMF, though the WMF keeps abusing that page to mean something it doesn't mean; it's the global community's responsibility to fix that page, but this time I don't intend to do it on my own. --Nemo 14:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Although they only address one part of the problem, namely the trigger of the conflict (the way the introduction of a specific software tool by WMF was handled), the 9 point guideline proposed by user Thogo would be a concrete step to start with. I quote:

• get an idea for a new feature
• find out if the communities think this feature could be worth programming
• if so, program it
• make an extensive beta test on the labs
• actively seek community input permanently during the beta test
• inform the communities that you plan to change something
• switch the feature on on all wikis and make it opt-in for logged-in contributors (and default for readers if it is something they can use), but inform the communities that it now exists and explain them what it is for and how it is used, and have a little poll for readers to give feedback about the new feature
• if a decent number of active users have opted in, ask the community if they want the feature as default
• if so, make it default. If not, leave it as an opt-in feature, and improve it after seeking community input and continue with #3"

Sounds reasonable enough to me and if implemented, it might help defuse at least part of the conflict. As there are many places where the disagreement is discussed and I can't quite follow all of those pages, can someone tell me whether Wikimedia officials have commented on these points anywhere? And in case they reject them, on what grounds? Seems to me that to implement them would also be of use for Wikimedia as it would be regarded as a gesture of goodwill towards the community and it would spare them tedious confrontations with Wikipedians in the future as there would be a clear procedure. The guideline should be binding though, otherwise distrust surely will remain. Once the quarrel about new software features is settled, it might be easier to address the question of superprotection. Clear and binding procedures might be the best remedy against lack of trust. Of course, "binding" would also raise the question of what should be done in case the guideline provisions will be breached but that may be discussed in a reasonable manner among grown-ups. Or does Wikimedia explicitly say: "We do not accept any rules that would fix our powers vis-à-vis Wikipedia and the implementation procedures"? You may call me naive but still I think Thogo's approach looks more productive to me than sysop strikes or forks while at the same time it's not begging for some act of clemency WMF may grant but a clearcut agreement between equals. --Proofreader (talk) 07:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

We must keep in mind that "superprotect" isn't just a new software feature like others. The procedure above (or something quite similar) could have prevented the "invention" of "superprotect" if it had been followed when implementing the media viewer, the starting cause for the escalation. In addition, such a procedure (if it were binding) would expressly forbid the development of "quick reaction battle features" like "superprotect" by the foundation. --CHF (talk) 13:00, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Background

"The first use of 'superprotect' was to prevent German Wikipedia sysops from using Common.js to deactivate the mw:MediaViewer." Actually, it was used to prevent just one stubborn sysop from doing so [1]. I am not aware of any other sysops who wanted to disable the MV. --PM3 (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Publicise this

This RfC needs to be more widely known. This issue affects everyone, everyone, on every Wikimedia project. This is more than a discussion of user rights, it is a discussion of how the Wikimedia Foundation has betrayed the trust of the community in a shocking and unprecedented way, and furthermore, has not backed down from it. That the Foundation thinks they have the right to take executive actions across all wikis affects the future of Wikipedia and all the other projects. Meta-Wiki is not known to the vast majority of editors on the projects, the editors who are the foundation of Wikimedia. The Foundation has forgotten that these small-time contributors are what makes this project great, but everyone here at Meta-Wiki should know better, and realise that this debate cannot be had just here. It needs to be brought to where the editors are, the editors who are blissfully unaware of the actions being taken by the Foundation: to the Wikipedias, and especially the English Wikipedia. We can force the Wikimedia Foundation to back down on this if we get the broader community behind us. If they still won't back down, there are radical things that could be done, like putting a banner on the Main Page of the English Wikipedia telling everyone what the Foundation is doing. Maybe then the Foundation will realise that it is the editors who are really in control.

To sum up, I propose moving this RfC to the English Wikipedia and to other large wikis, in order to bring this issue to the broader, non Meta-using base of editors. Liam987 01:15, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Liam987: I'm with you. We need to hear a response, whether it come from a person on the Board of Trustees, Lila Tretikov, or Jimbo himself. Just someone. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 02:52, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

"Meta-Wiki is not known to the vast majority": that can be fixed. Further word spreading about this discussion is always welcome, as with any open RfC. We've had RfC with over a thousand participants here on Meta, it's not a matter of place but of how much effort and ability people like you put into raising awareness. --Nemo 18:04, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I myself only found about this the day I wrote my above comment. (Which further illustrates my point: I'm an active editor on the English Wikipedia, and yet I heard nothing about this.) I don't feel I am familiar enough with the issue to bring this up in a major way on en wiki. Liam987 20:32, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't really know where to mention it at enwiki. I might get fried, you now how bitey some people at enwiki are. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 21:47, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

A centralnotice campaign for it would be better than cross-posting to each projects - finding the results for that would be very hectic. I'd personally prefer to leave it the way it is though... Ajraddatz (talk) 21:49, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

A central notice would be nice, but anyone that would have the rights to do that would probably refuse to post it. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 21:53, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean? Most of the people with centralnotice access aren't WMF people. You could post a request at WM:RFH. My personal concern is that nothing will come of it other that bickering and that it will create needless conflict, but if enough people think that advertising this would be beneficial in some way then even I could do it. Ajraddatz (talk) 22:01, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'll look into it, I really had no idea who exactly had those rights. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 22:08, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz: This is what I mean --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 18:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

So that's ruled out, I guess, but there's got to be someway to reignite the debate. Liam987 23:45, 18 March 2015 (UTC)