Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2018-10

Reminder: No editing for up to an hour on 10 October

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The Wikimedia Foundation are testing its secondary data center. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.

They switched all traffic to the secondary data center 12 September 2018. On Wednesday, 10 October 2018, they will switch back to the primary data center.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while we switch.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday, 10 October. The test will start a bit after 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST). If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. Please share this information with your community. /User:Johan(WMF) (talk)

12:03, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 06:47, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Research about how to measure the effectiveness of blocks

The Community health initiative is starting a project to measure the effectiveness of blocks. The first step is to discuss with the wikimedia community ideas about how to do it. To that end, the Anti-Harassment Tools team and Morten Warncke-Wang has created a page with some initial ideas and a discussion space to talk about these and your ideas.

AHT is particularly interested to learn whether the new partial blocks feature is successful as a tool or instrument. Therefore, the first part of this research will mainly focused on the short term gains in the utility of partial blocks in order to understand whether it appears to be working and if there appears to be a need for changes. These measurements will provide us with insight quickly. Currently there is not much known about how sitewide blocks affect users. This makes a comparison of the effects of the new partial block feature to sitewide blocks difficult. To provide all of us with some insight, the Anti-Harassment Tools team would like to examine historical block data across wikimedia projects to establish a baseline.

However, our list of measurements that we propose has a lot of longer term ones, e.g. surveys. These are important and should be considered to be implemented later, because they can provide all of us with insight that is otherwise hidden.

Please join us to discuss these proposed measurements. For the Anti-Harassment Tools team and Morten Warncke-Wang. SPoore (WMF) , Trust and Safety Specialist, Community health initiative (talk) 14:56, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Call for applications: 2019 OC

Hi everyone! It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to serve on the Ombudsman commission (OC). This commission works on all Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser and Oversight tools, and to mediate between the complaining party and the individual whose work is being investigated. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Executive Director or the Board of Trustees in investigations of these issues. For more on their duties and roles, see Ombudsman commission.

This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for appointment to this commission. Volunteers serving in this role should be experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser/Oversight tools OR who have the technical ability to understand these tools and the willingness to learn them. They are expected to be able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict.

Commissioners are required to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation and must be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation board policies (such as the access to non-public data policy and the privacy policy). This is a position that requires a high degree of discretion and trust.

If you are interested in serving on this commission, please write me an email at kbrown(at)wikimedia.org to detail your experience on the projects, your thoughts on the commission and what you hope to bring to the role. The commission consists of nine members; all applications are appreciated and will be carefully considered. The deadline for applications is end of day on 31 December, 2018.

Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be qualified and interested. Thank you! Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Results from global Wikimedia survey 2018 are published

Hello! A few months ago the Wikimedia Foundation invited contributors to take a survey about your experiences on Wikipedia. The report is now published on Meta-Wiki! We asked contributors 170 questions across many different topics like diversity, harassment, paid editing, Wikimedia events and many others.

Read the report or watch the presentation, which is available only in English. Add your thoughts and comments to the report talk page. Feel free to share the report on Wikipedia/Wikimedia or on your favorite social media. Thanks! --EGalvez (WMF) 20:41, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Creative Commons license differences

Who's responsible for Wikinews using a different Creative Commons license (2.5) than Wikipedia (3.0), the Foundation or the bureaucrats at Wikinews? I'm well aware that many Wikipedians consider Wikinews dead, but shouldn't it at least be tried to remove obstacles to content creation there? Who can decide on a license change? Gray62 (talk) 12:15, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

The Community Wishlist Survey

The Community Wishlist Survey. Please help translate to your language.

Hey everyone,

The Community Wishlist Survey is the process when the Wikimedia communities decide what the Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech should work on over the next year.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can post technical proposals from now until 11 November. The communities will vote on the proposals between 16 November and 30 November. You can read more on the wishlist survey page.

/User:Johan (WMF)

11:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)