Talk:Wikimedia-l

Rules of Guidelines for engagement

I think we should have some and I've asked Pine to propose some ... Regards, Ariconte (talk) 01:54, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• @Ariconte: here are some proposals. I got some ideas from policies I have seen elsewhere.

• • Do:
    • Be civil.
    • Keep your posts relevant to the purposes of the list and the subject of the thread.
    • Remember that some users have a first language and culture that may be different from yours.
    • Be honest.
    • Treat others as you would want to be treated.
    • Assume good faith.
    • Show wikilove.

• • Do not:
    • Post in HTML.
    • Quote excessively from previous emails.
    • Insult, harass, bait, troll, or infringe on the privacy of others.
    • SHOUT.
    • Swear excessively.
    • Canvass for votes.
    • Encourage or take part in activities that are illegal in the jurisdictions where the Wikimedia Foundation is located.
    • Say something you will regret saying a year from now.

• • Access to the list is a privilege that may be limited or revoked at any time by the list moderators or the Wikimedia Foundation.

• • Users are solely responsible for the content of the emails they send to the list. The list moderators and the Wikimedia Foundation are not responsible for the content sent by users and do not have any obligation to filter or moderate the list.

• • Any use by you of the list or its content indicates your agreement to these policies.

• I think WMF Communications and WMF Legal should take a quick look also before any policy changes are finalized.

• Those are my two cents. --Pine^✉ 07:18, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see evidence that we need more rules, nor that rules have helped in other mailing lists of ours. Cf. Mailing lists/Guidelines for past attempts. --Nemo 07:48, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Civil folks are civil; uncivil folks are uncivil. Rules won't change that. Unless we also propose a ruthless moderator, this is an exercise in futility. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 16:13, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I using 'Rules' in the section head was a bit strong - I will tone it down.

Thanks Pine and thanks Nemo for the pointer to the Guidelines - I will incorporate that and consider getting the monthly 'password' reminder message used to ask people to consider them.

I hope thinking people will consider 'guidelines' and maybe relax a bit. Regards, Ariconte (talk) 07:43, 26 April 2014 (UTC).

Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants), I disagree. The guidelines are about technical and formatting issues in addition to some specific points about civility. The expanded guidelines give the list moderators some specifics that they can use. Enforcement of the guidelines can be appropriately nice at first and forceful if necessary. Far from being an exercise in futility, this is an exercise in practicality if the moderators actively and prudently use the guidelines when making decisions. Most of the enforcement will probably be gentle reminders but some people could use a little more prodding to stay on topic, not post a huge chain of quotes, and so on. --Pine^✉ 07:10, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you actually disagree: your 'if' conditional agrees with my point about guidelines being useless unless there's actual, active moderation. Historically, AFAIK, there has not been such moderation. I am decidedly in favor of ruthless moderation of the list, if that was not clear. What I am against is crafting beautiful guidelines and leaving it at that. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 18:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) thanks, I think I understand. I agree that there needs to be some active moderation of the list. I would support light moderation but more than we have now. Ruthless moderation would cause its own set of drama. --Pine^✉ 07:41, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Post limit

When did the 30 post/month soft limit start? John Vandenberg (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

@John Vandenberg: November 2009. See also: Improving Foundation-l (the list's old name).--Eloquence (talk) 02:59, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that. It seems John was the second reply in that mailing list thread, which makes the combination of your parenthetical comment and the opening post here a bit amusing in context. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:05, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Erik. Added to the page. I vaguely recall that posting limits had been maybe partially implemented before that, or maybe only discussed to death. John Vandenberg (talk) 04:14, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I remembered it was a November but not the year. ;) I think the rule should be enforced very strictly and swiftly: I passed the limit once without noticing and it was probably not a good thing, it would have been nice to be warned; moderation is not that bad, slows down without silencing.

Anyway, proper mail software like Thunderbird (and probably Evolution?) makes it very easy to ignore (or delete) subthreads with excessive back and forths by few users: I see that in most cases where moderators failed to enforce the rule I was unaffected because I skipped the fruitless threads entirely. Being allowed to post doesn't mean that one is actually read more. ;) --Nemo 08:37, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

One problem is the failure-mode of "mobbing" - several people make accusations against a person. If that person replies to all the accusations, they hit the posting limit. If they *don't* reply to all the accusations, they risk whatever damage that does, plus also can get further accusations about ignoring the original ones. Putting several replies in each post tends not to be read. Thus I suggest the specifics of a situation should be taken into consideration. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:02, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I just removed the word "soft" from the description "soft limit" on the main page, because it's not a term I know, and I'm not sure if anybody really does. (I also linked to the relevant announcement.) I suspect that "soft" means that it's not a technical feature, but that it will be up to an individual moderator to implement the rule at his or her discretion. If that's the case, I think that should be stated explicitly, rather than using an undefined term like "soft" -- but since I'm not certain that is what was meant, I will leave that for somebody else to do. -Pete F (talk) 01:46, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I restored 'soft'. It means 'at the discretion of the moderators'. This is shown in the 2009 posting you linked to. Perhaps a better word is 'discretionary'. I don't think the moderators want to impose limits but will do so to manage the list. Regards, Ariconte (talk) 05:49, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Ariconte. The terms soft vs hard limits are used a lot in systems theory, but are also very common in academia in the sense of soft and hard word limits, and in web UIs as 'character limits'. But now that I google I see that it is also used in BSDM : w:Limits (BDSM). Learn something new every day. A term like 'discretionary' might capture the meaning in a way that is more likely to be understood by a greater number of people. John Vandenberg (talk) 06:04, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence that the limit was meant to be discretionary rather than erga omnes. It's a soft limit because moderation only slows down further posts beyond the limit but doesn't prevent them. A hard limit would be automatic rejection of all posts beyond the 30th. --Nemo 07:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

How does someone reach 95 posts in a month if it isnt discretionary? John Vandenberg (talk) 07:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Oversight? --Nemo 11:17, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Moderation in description

Moderation is just an abusive personal action of the admins and should not be part of the description, which is written with consensus. If the information is added to the description for transparency, we should also add that the moderation status was decided by themselves alone. Nemo 08:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The description still needs fixing, as I mentioned on Requests for comment/wikimedia-l-post-limits. --Nemo 04:58, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Volunteers interested in administering the list

Every now and then list admins retire, and there is a need to refresh the ranks. Traditionally, incumbent admins hand-pick trusted volunteers to join as co-admins. This process works, but has obvious built-in bias, and could use more fairness.

One mitigation to the closed-network effect can be publicly declaring one's interest in helping out with the (thankless) role of administering the list, so that the list admins have a long-list to review next time admin slots are vacant, which can help incumbents expand their intuitive thinking to include people they may not personally know but who may be excellent admins.

If this describes you, please feel free to sign with four tildes below, and you will be considered next time admins are recruited. Admins were last recruited in November 2021. Ijon (talk) 22:47, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Interested volunteers

1.   --TNT (talk • she/they) 23:01, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
2. ...