Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in June 2021, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.
Grant Proposal: Global Open Initiative/Movement Strategy Implementation Plan
Hello,
I am announcing a rapid grant proposal we have submitted about implementing movement strategy 4 (Ensure Equity in Decision Making). We would be very grateful to have your feedback and endorsements about this project. Please see the proposal here:
Thank You. --Mwintirew (talk) 12:47, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
New sister project proposal
Hi all! After over a month of preparation, I am proposing two new sister projects: "WikiWorks" (or Wiki Hardware) – a collaborative manufacturing, DIY, and Open-Source Hardware wiki, and "WikiFacts" - a fact-base wiki that allows sharing knowledge on point, accurately and concisely. I believe both of these projects are feasible and can be very much beneficial for humanity. I request you to kindly add your valuable inputs and suggestions to these two as well as other proposals for new projects. Thank you! -Vis M (talk) 22:19, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
It's questionable, since I thought they're not public (their usage is restricted to specific users) in most case; such as GCP and AWS. Semi-Brace (talk) 17:00, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Should the Wikimedia Foundation also have a presence in the Fediverse ?
I notice that https://wikimediafoundation.org/ has links to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but seems to have no presence on the Fediverse. Should it now also have an account on a Mastodon, or Pleroma server, or even run one of its own ? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paladyn-john (talk)
I would love to see some reforms to the Wikimedia Foundation, to make it better able to fulfill its goals. WMF needs to become more accountable to its contributors, and devolve both resources and control to its user and contributor base.
Discussion and detail about the migration of IRC channels used by WMF comunity members from Freenode to Libera has diminished. Collapsing that discussion to allow for useful navigation of page. Detail will be kept available for a period of time as questions prevail and some aspects of migration of services will linger. — billinghurstsDrewth23:43, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Freenode IRC and the migration of IRC channels used by WMF comunity members to www.libera.chat
With most of the staff resigning and freenode changing hands, the future of Wikimedia channels, all of which are hosted on Freenode seems uncertain. There has been discussion of moving to libera.chat and I feel that it's important to notify the global community as IRC is home to a lot of important communication, including office discussions, steward requests and local oversight requests. Pinging our primary GCs: @Snowolf:, @Dungodung:, @Fox:, @Az1568:. Is there a better place this can be posted as this will impact a lot of editors and services. Praxidicae (talk) 12:54, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
IMHO, Libera is probably the best place to go to at the moment, as it's the new home of the old freenode staff that we've come to know and trust. stwalkerster (talk) 13:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
To me it seems a given that we stick with the people who built and ran Freenode, not the domain name. But it's not clear to me what exactly we need to do to migrate, do we need to re-register channels and set ops/perms? Will they be migrated? And so on... Legoktm (talk) 13:21, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
That's why I'm bringing this up - we have some channels and maintenance/log bots that I'm worried won't be able to be migrated for various reasons. :( Praxidicae (talk) 13:24, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Praxidicae it took me about 15 minutes to move wikibugs over to Libera. I suspect most other IRC bots are either in a similar state or they're entirely unmaintained and were going to die at some random moment anyways, and need someone to take them over in a sustainable manner. Legoktm (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Legoktm i'm mostly worried about my favorite bot, which is CSDrbot and has been unmaintained for about 5 years and the operator is MIA, but it would be a great loss. :( Praxidicae (talk) 21:23, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
According to Libera people it's best if the freenode-era group contacts are in touch with them and sort things out. Freenode data will not be migrated due to the possible legal issues of doing so (which caused its creation in the first place). Majavah (talk!) 13:26, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Is IRC (which libera is) even the best place to continue? It feels like an antiquated and old piece of technology. Why not consider moving away from IRC? I was thinking of an open-source alternative to Discord. Leaderboard (talk) 13:23, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
For many of us, IRC is a primary means of communication, there's no reason to fix what isn't broken. Seems to have been working well enough for the last 20 years. Praxidicae (talk) 13:24, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I think it's more of a reluctance to move away from something which has been used 20 years, which this is a good opportunity to. And relying on a technology that is 20 years old has its drawbacks, such as outdated mobile support and a lot more. There's a reason why Discord is popular even within Wikimedia. Leaderboard (talk) 13:27, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I didn't mean Discord on its own (as that's for-profit), but an open-source equivalent. IRC just hasn't kept up with the times. Leaderboard (talk) 13:30, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
The main reason to keep it alive is that we have lots of bots and monitoring channels that many people rely on – while it's likely that people will migrate away over time, but we have a good amount of infrastructure that currently depends on IRC, for better or for worse. Blablubbs|talk13:33, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
such as [IRC's] outdated mobile support In my opinion IRC doesn't necessarily have bad mobile support. IRC is simply a protocol: if there's a problem with mobile support then the solution is to have a good movie client - there's nothing fundamentally part of IRC that's stopping mobile support. Personally, I use Revolution IRC on mobile - it's functional and looks nice. However, I agree that there aren't many options.
The fact that we can move off Freenode is a big positive with IRC. If Discord did something disagreeable then we couldn't change who provided the service. With IRC, we can.
Matrix/Element is great but quite frankly Freenode is currently run by a seemingly hostile or at least untrustworthy operator and it appears we need to migrate ASAP. A migration to Matrix/Element cannot be done in that timeframe. Legoktm (talk) 13:34, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Leaderboard:[citation needed]. There's zero need to fix something that isn't broken, and the protocol isn't the issue here, it's the humans running a particular IRCd instance. This isn't a "let's move away from IRC" discussion, this is a "to what server should the IRC stuff be moved to from freenode because reasons" discussion. Libera appears to be a fine replacement, given that it's run by the people we know and trust, unlike present-day freenode, apparently. What a sad, sad day this is. --Jack Phoenix(Contact)13:40, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Jack Phoenix: I know the protocol isn't responsible for what has happened today, but what I am saying is that the protocol itself is badly outdated and I don't think relying on that is good. If we need to make a switch, why not move to something modern? IRC isn't that one. Leaderboard (talk) 13:42, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Because we should migrate sooner rather than later: Again, some channels contain PII (-checkuser, -privacy, -en-accounts come to mind) and should not be in the hands of an untrusted operator, and some workflows depend heavily on existing, IRC-specific bots. Blablubbs|talk13:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Blablubbs: Can only the sensistive/PII channels be migrated to Libera then (as an emergency) while rest of the work is focused on moving to a better and more modern system? Leaderboard (talk) 13:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Badly outdated? It might be old (like many other protocols like HTTP and SSH), but (just to name a few) IRCv3, new servers and other IRC-related projects are under active development. Majavah (talk!) 13:45, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
If I have to struggle finding a proper mobile client, I think that can count as outdated. I'm not familiar with IRCv3 and such, are they modern enough to rival Matrix.org/Discord/any modern communication client? Leaderboard (talk) 13:47, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
It's mainly because mobile developers don't give a rat's ass about IRC, not due to it being outdated but due to it being old. JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)13:55, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I know more good mobile IRC clients than good mobile SSH clients. Does that make SSH also outdated, or it has to be you who looks for the clients? :) --Base (talk) 13:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Base: Unfortunately (at least on Android), I didn't find a good mobile IRC client (and desktop, while better, is not good either). Conversely, I know of at least two good mobile SSH clients on Android, never found that to be a problem. Leaderboard (talk) 13:59, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
For SSH VX ConnectBot works fine for me, but it is hardly the most convenient app I have used. For IRC I prefer to stick to IRCCloud's client, it is extremely modern looking, but I also had good experience with I believe AndroIRC, although it has been a while since I have used it, so I had to look it up in my Google Play directory. --Base (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
It does, what helps is to have its web client open 24/7 on a computer, then it does not disconnect. For me it worked better because where I live metro has got 4G only this year, so whenever I was commuting with traditional clients I was missing some messages. So a power move is either to set up a bouncer, which I have never bothered to do, or just use IRCCloud, even free account is enough to give proper time buffer. If you do not have such particular problem then any other client works fine. Also since it is a protocol, you can write your own client, there should be plenties of libraries for it too (I remember having zero problems to write a simple IRC bot). --Base (talk) 14:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
+1 for libera. It's online, the #wikimedia- namespace is already reserved and IRC group contacts already know many of the people there because they're freenode staffers. Given that some of the channels we run contain PII, I think it's more important to have a trusted and functional solution as soon as possible, as opposed to a perfect one in 2 months. Blablubbs|talk13:41, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Blablubbs: I'd almost rather see us self-host. I think the freenode fiasco is a good example of why we likely shouldn't be using someone elses infrastructure, at our size, and especially with our usecases. I get the argument against hosting it on WMF's internal networks, but it shouldn't be hard for an entity of the WMF's size with the WMF's resources to acquire a couple to a few diverse, DDoS-resistant colo/dedicated boxes for a small IRC network. SQLQuery me!11:28, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Considering that we need to make a switch anyway, I would think that it's better that we do it properly rather than as a stopgap measure based on outdated technology. Leaderboard (talk) 13:41, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I do not think an emergency migration is the proper time to reconsider this. I think once the dust has settled a bit, people will certainly have more appetite to discuss it. Legoktm (talk) 13:48, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't think that would happen in practice - the tendency to stick with something that works (no matter how bad or outdated it is) is quite prevalent in this community. Leaderboard (talk) 13:50, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I too would like a switch to matrix.org, instead of intentionally blocking users there from accessing our IRC channels as was done previously. Matrix is... definitely not a great platform, but it's better than IRC, and should at least be an option. Elli (talk) 16:50, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
@Elli we aren't intentionally blocking Matrix users; it's an unfortunate side effect of requiring registration in most IRC rooms (due to regular spam / harassment happening for a while) plus the bridge not being very good. Tgr (talk) 16:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
How does Matrix handle private logging? (I keep logs for #wikipedia-en-help out of practicality, especially if a user, problem or otherwise, comes in over multiple days.) JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)13:35, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
As of I am aware their public server (matrix.org) deletes the old data, but we can run our own server to control what to save and what not. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 13:39, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I invite you to re-read what I wrote above. (I didn't ask about public logging; I'm asking about private, personal logging.) JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)13:42, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
That's what I am talking about. There's no option to log on your own machine and everything is stored on the server even when the channel is private. So how long your private log will stay depends upon the server. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 13:48, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
That is not acceptable to me. I do not want to have relevant logs from months ago removed just for age, and I do not want the logs' longevity to otherwise be tied to an Internet connexion if I can help it. JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)13:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
If you run your own matrix homeserver (you can still seamlessly connect to all other servers), you can configure it to never delete old messages as you describe (as I understand Matrix). If you lose connection, you'll regain any missed messages when you reconnect: that is a fundamental part of the Matrix protocol. Additionally, Matrix is intended to have a very friendly API: you could fairly easily collect data that way.Calumapplepie (talk) 02:01, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
While there is nothing wrong with offering support and tech channels on other open source & not profit communications platforms (in addition), I'd argue an irc version should at least be kept as well as it is established, working, many are comfortable with it and using it for non wikipedua/media topics in parallel anyhow plus the requirement on resources are extremely low.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:43, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
You cannot rely on multiple support systems. That's been going on now (with Matrix, IRC, Discord etc) and it just doesn't work and looks fragmented. Leaderboard (talk) 13:45, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
You can. It's called "redundancies". And the loss of IRC is a serious issue for users who won't have access to anything else whether because of local issues or software blocks. JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)13:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Does Matrix.org have this problem as well ("local issues or software blocks")? And no, people will gravitate to one major system in the end (like IRC is the case right now). Leaderboard (talk) 13:48, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Best to have 1 central point (to take advantage of network effects), but perhaps allow multiple ways to access it. Eg. IRC bots do exist for many major chat systems. --Kim Bruning (talk) 13:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
yes and the matrix link above is mostly about running matrix as an irc client, so we kinda need an underlying irc network anyhow.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:01, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
To be clear, I am advocating moving away from IRC entirely - so using Matrix.org technology perhaps, not an IRC layer (which is what the link focuses on). Leaderboard (talk) 14:03, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
(also in response to your question above) Leaderboard, advocating migration to an entirely different platform seems to be a minority viewpoint in this discussion. Given that this is somewhat urgent, I suggest focusing on what most people here seem to be focused on, that being the migration of all wm/wp-related channels to libera or potentially another network. There seems to be clear consensus for that – we'd probably have to discuss things for weeks until we figure out whether people actually want to migrate away from IRC and if yes, where to, and fragmenting the infrastructure early on does not seem like a sound idea to me. Some people might not want any of their data in the hands of freenode's new operators, even if the things they are discussing on IRC aren't PII-related. Blablubbs|talk14:17, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Matrix has full support for two-way IRC bridges. If you ever see someone with an [m] after their name, they are connected via matrix. There are many communities where the majority of people use matrix, and IRC is kept available for those who desire it. The only difference is on what is considered the "primary": which one new users are pointed to. If you consider Matrix the primary, you can freely use some fancy features not found in IRC.
+1 for libera. But I would like to know more about there democratic process. It is a few friends who ran the Freenode but without the now-hostile actors, yes? What stops this from happening again? Will moderator decisions be transparent? Will the community be consulted on decisions? If so, how? I hope I am not alone here in seeing that this is a clear problem that keeps arising in internet spaces and wanting to see a system would be better for everybody without endlessly repeating the same mistakes (such as behind the scenes decision making, single points of trust/failure, for example). W1tchkr4ft 00 (talk) 15:05, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Libera seems to have some growing pains, I can barely stay connected to their servers. It may also be worth considering using more established networks like OFTC (used by Debian, others), efnet, etc... Legoktm (talk) 13:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I'd prefer going with libera if they can sort out the teething issues within a few days, given our pre-existing contacts there. Blablubbs|talk13:53, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I just managed to get on myself. I guess we'd best hang on and give the ops a chance to stabilize the net. One could also consider offering a node or two. --Kim Bruning (talk) 13:55, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I asked how to offer servers or money and they said they'll get back to us, understandably they're a bit busy :) Legoktm (talk) 13:59, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
EFnet is not a good idea. They don't have NickServ. I prefer going with libera as well. I trust the former freenode staff running that network. Pandakekok9 (talk) 13:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't see other networks than libera and oftc as practical options for our community, and of those I'd go for libera. Majavah (talk!) 14:00, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
┌─────────────────────────────────┘ We should not rely on other servers imo. If this problem has happened once, this can happen at other places too -- and it will be best if we use irc.wikimedia.org or something self-hosted for this. acagastya14:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
WMF SRE here, I'm going to come out with a reality check here: running an actual IRC network is a time-consuming activity and it's neither simple nor something we have expertise with - what is irc.wikimedia.org right now would surely not satisfy our current or future needs. It's surely not something we can consider without time and resources being invested in the process. GLavagetto (WMF) (talk) 15:53, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Not the worst of ideas, but we do mostly trust the freenode opers. They managed to keep the network up for > 20 years as is, and appear to be migrating pretty quickly. I think that's a good track record. --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:00, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Do you think it is sensible that we are relying souley on trust? There should be more to it than this, simple trust seemed to be in part in this ongoing saga with freenode, sadly. W1tchkr4ft 00 (talk) 15:06, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with that, plus it would probably take us a while to spin up our own infrastructure, so I'd argue it's better to migrate now, using the existing contacts we have, and then potentially have an extended discussion once the urgent issue is addressed. Blablubbs|talk15:02, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
And Freenode Libera staff are pretty good at running an IRC network. Wikimedia sysadmins don't really have that experience (current irc.wikimedia.org doesn't really count). Legoktm (talk) 15:11, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, and we'd ideally want something that can be used to coordinate things if Wikimedia's sites had major outages. Majavah (talk!) 15:13, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree completely FWIW but i think Libera would be a good stop-gap whilst this is considered. It should certainly be discussed once we are again stable. W1tchkr4ft 00 (talk) 15:05, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi folks, we are aware of the ongoing situation with freenode and are considering a potential move to Libera - but nothing concrete yet. We will update once we know more. For the GCs. —-Az1568 (talk) 15:49, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi [User:Az1568]], a lot of people are already on Libera and have set up temporary +o etc until the chanops from freenode show up :-). --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:50, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Intuitively I would avoid migrating to a system different than IRC. The migration would certainly come to be problematic since there is a paradigm shift (imagine having to rewrite all bots for an entirely different protocol) and it seems wiser to stick to the IRC protocol, at least for now. Freenode events are fairly recent and might settle eventually, but with staff resigning and creating a new network, I am afraid Freenode might not live long. Should we follow the Freenode staff to Libera.chat? Maybe since I am assuming we have established tight connections with the admins, that would certainly make it easy. But would Libera has the ability to sustain the load of various projects migrating to it? Oftc might seem appealing in that regard since their infrastructure has been there for almost a couple decades.
At least both Libera and Oftc are held by non profit foundation, and it would be very nice to have the Wikimedia Foundation to join and formally sustain any of those networks. Antoine "hashar" Musso (talk) 15:54, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I support a move to Libera. Freenode is no longer compatible with our goals, in my opinion. Changing off of IRC would require too much redevelopment. Waggie (talk) 16:29, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I support a move to Discord or Matrix. IRC is not a modern communication platform, a small minority of the community congregates there, and we should move our "sanctioned" off-site communication somewhere else. – Ajraddatz (talk) 17:06, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikimedia is a conglomerate of multiple communities :) Most of the technical community is still on IRC for example. But I get your point, and have no opposition to properly considering a switch to Matrix (I don't think Discord should be on the table as it's proprietary) and bridging IRC to it...but I think we're kind of in an emergency mode here and think we should first move to a new server and then start discussing long term plans. Legoktm (talk) 17:23, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Definitely understand the concern with Discord, even if I don't share it (other parts of Wikimedia use proprietary software, including the WMF, doesn't seem to be an issue). My concern is that the Wikimedia community is horrible at making decisions and once something is done, it tends to stay done that way even in the face of serious problems. IMO we should put the work into moving to a long-term solution now, but I also don't want to be a huge roadblock here, just sharing my opinion :-) – Ajraddatz (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
What should the next steps be for getting to a long-term solution? Matrix.org already exists. Should we be drafting an RfC? (not *yet* volunteering) Legoktm (talk) 18:49, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't see the community going for a long-term solution other than moving to a different IRC host, so no real plans from me for that because it wouldn't go anywhere. The IRC group contacts on Freenode have already unilaterally decided to move to Libera, and I imagine most existing IRC users will join. But I do love putting out a dissenting opinion now and then :-) – Ajraddatz (talk) 23:18, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
/me opposes the above message. Discord is non-free and can fuck off for even the list of candidates. An insult used against IRC is "it is not modern" -- that is not the case. HTTP and SSH and SMTP are not modern either, but I don't see you all opposing that. It serves the purpose what it was built for. acagastya17:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Most people are using HTTP/2.0 or HTTP/3.0, which are pretty modern protocols (2015 and later). That's not including all the various changes to TLS over the years. In any case, I think it's pretty objective to say IRC isn't modern. For some people that's a feature, for others it's very lacking. I strongly agree with Ajraddatz that IRC is declining in popularity and not as accessible as some alternatives could be. Legoktm (talk) 18:54, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
irc.wikimedia.org should be at least used for the channels like #wikimedia-otrs-en -- we ideally should not be trusting other servers. acagastya17:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
My point is more that IRC doesn't serve the purpose that it was built for. It is used by only the "old guard" of the movement, is not welcoming or easy to use for new users, and is not a "mainstream" method of communication in the population as a whole nor does it even attempt to be or attempt to mimic common communication principles like a platform like Matrix does. If we as a movement are looking to be more inclusive, open, and engaging to new audiences, insisting that we move from one confusing and inaccessible option to another doesn't make much sense to me. – Ajraddatz (talk) 17:30, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
IRC is pretty old, traditional, well worn, and works. And one can provide webchat, at which point most of these objections pretty much go out the window: using your own client is optional, but not required. Also note that a bunch of technical stuff (probably still) works via IRC because it's a simple and open protocol: you can pretty much use it with a telnet client in a pinch. --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC) (disclaimer, libera.chat doesn't provide a webchat *yet* , but freenode does, so presumably they'll include the same tools as work on their new website progresses).
You can literally connect using kiwiirc and things are as intuitive as any other chat platform. Don't know why the fuss about "old". It works well for what it is supposed to do. You prolly don't like the irc clients you have been using. acagastya18:02, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Not going to respond much further, but would like to point out that you don't know whether I like or dislike my IRC client nor my knowledge of how many people use IRC. I've presented specific arguments completely unrelated to my own subjective like or dislike of IRC (which I use and personally like), and which are not informed by a lack of knowledge on the subject, and I don't appreciate it when you construct strawmen versions of my arguments to attack. Thanks. – Ajraddatz (talk) 18:38, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Feel free to drop in and explain why "old" is a problem then. And what new features are "missing". acagastya19:15, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Acagastya: Loading and use kiwiirc/IRC is far less user-friendly than Discord [disclosure: I am one of the wiki Discord mods]. That's not saying I back the "move everything there", less because it's proprietary, though that reasoning has strength, especially not knowing who may ultimately take-over Discord. More because IRC is very closely tied in as a wiki-adjacent process, and I'm not sure we would like that to become the status quo for Discord.
However, I do think it behooves the IRC regulars to accept that it is NOT as user-friendly as, particularly, Discord, and to factor that in their considerations, even if you ultimately decide circumstances outweigh the negatives. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:58, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
proprietary software, especially those which expect users to give their phone numbers is inherently evil. I have used both IRC and discord -- and discord is inferior to what IRC enables, by a country mile -- be it searching, retrieval and archival. Or bandwidth. acagastya15:11, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
"Inherently evil" is more than a tad dramatic, think you're going to struggle to demonstrate that. Not evil in what it does (or doesn't) do, but inherently? All of it. I started using Discord about 2 weeks before I tried to use IRC. Discord was head and shoulders above in terms of user-ease to get going. Ease of use for advanced users is secondary. Beyond that, voice-chat, use of images, videos, and certain forms of bots is vastly easier. I didn't do much searching/archival on IRC, so that certainly could be the case. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:18, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I've never been active on IRC, but came across this. It's probably worth mentioning that, if the consensus for what to do ends up being "not IRC", there already exist Wikimedia Chat (based on MatterMost) and mw:Outreach programs/Zulip, both of which are open source and work on mobile. Vahurzpu (talk) 17:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Sure. And even better: these systems are bridge-able (see topic below), so a person using one of the options can still chat with people using one of the others. --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:00, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I think it'd make more sense to move to Libera.Chat as most of the staff are there as founders. Most of my communities have already moved there, and I think it makes sense not to splinter communities too much. Don't fix what's not broken. MJ94 (talk) 19:41, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Freenode now only lists a skeleton crew of 3 staff remaining. The original staff are (almost) all listed at Libera.chat now. In a sense we can almost treat this as a rebrand of freenode. We'll be having the same people and the same software as before, just a different domain name. --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:36, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I urge a move to Libera rather than changing protocols. Users are familiar with IRC, it works worldwide, it doesn't require either a learning curve or registration with a new provider. Wherever the migration is to, please ensure there are announcements on the projects so that project members who do not follow technical noticeboards are aware, and either migrate cloaks or set up a process for registering for them. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:54, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I would ask that if we do move to Libera Chat for the Wikimedia IRC operation, then the Wikimedia Foundation offers/makes some legal and accountancy staff available to assist Libera Chat in getting the correct legal and financial structures established for their new network. Freenode and the staffers who are now running Libera Chat have been an enormous part of the Wikimedia success story, the very least we can do is offer to help them in their hour of need. Nick (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I also support OFTC. Their IRC server hostname is irc.oftc.net . They've been doing almost the same thing as Freenode for a long time. If you're the kind of old-timer like me who values stability and don't want to join a new fashionable website every year, come there. Just be aware of the differences in ritual that stem from the schism way back in prehistory: on OFTC the NICKSERV IDENTIFY command takes its two arguments in the opposite order from what you're used to on FreeNode. – b_jonas00:00, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi, just some random who wants to thank everyone taking (especially) Leaderboard to task for abject foolishness. In recent years especially, there have been endless attacks on IRC as a concept. In 2021, let alone many years before, we should finally be able to understand that new is not necessarily better. In this case, IRC is not fundamentally broken, and does not have a real alternative. Discord is completely proprietary and run by a single company that does not have any appreciation for what they do or for the people who use their service; they only appreciate the money. If Discord goes, everything attached to it goes; it's not really possible for IRC to "go" like this, because it's a freely-usable protocol rather than a single business running a service. Slack is identical to Discord and needs no more words on it. Matrix is a possible alternative, using a similar ethos to IRC, except the majority of Matrix goings-on are highly centralized to a very similar degree to Discord, and it doesn't seem that anyone in the Matrix community is interested in changing that. Yes, in theory, stuffing a large number of open source projects into the same IRC network is similar, but in practice it's quite different because the idea of simply moving elsewhere is actually possible. At any rate, the idea of money being involved except to physically run the thing is shocking with either IRC or Matrix (as far as I know with the latter), and the idea that freenode could be "sold" was a shock not just to users but to the people actually running things on a day to day basis.
You can't just say that something is "old" and "outdated" over and over again like some kind of mantra, especially when that something being "old" means little and when that something being "outdated" is just not true. 72.11.37.19317:37, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
Decision from GCs
The Wikimedia IRC group contacts have made the decision to support a move to Libera.Chat and join other open-source communities that have already moved over. We are actively working with the staff there, and have begun the groundwork of getting a group registration with the network and reserving our primary channels. We will not force users to move away from freenode, however, we hope that slowly folks will choose to move over on their own. Project affiliated cloaks will more than likely, no longer be issued on the freenode network (supporting one network is already a challenge!) and we will begin processing cloak requests for Libera.Chat once the needed infrastructure is in place. Please be patient with us, as this is not a simple process, and please stay tuned for further updates. For the IRC Group Contacts, --Az1568 (talk) 03:41, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for the update, Az1568. I have already created my Libera.chat account. Is there anything I can do to assist you and the other group contacts in this transition? Risker (talk) 04:07, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Wouldn't it have been better to wait till the dust is settled and act based on reason and arguments instead of acting based on emotion? Natuur12 (talk) 12:15, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
@Natuur12: There are practical issues way beyond a little emotion at play here too - and for those, time and speed are important. We are now dealing with a Freenode that is new and unknown with regards to privacy, data protection and security, whilst with Libera Chat, we're dealing with something that is largely well known and understood, interacting with almost all of the same staff members we've established lengthy and fruitful relationships with over many years. Nick (talk) 13:41, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm fully in support of moving to Libera, owing to the continuity in staff and Freenode's newly founded security issues. Considering how many free software projects, e.g. Vim, have already migrated, I think that this would be a wise choice unless Wikimedia is willing to proceed /w a self-hosted solution (which I think was previously established as unfeasible). Casspedia (talk) 14:01, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Natuur12 and Nick above. It's fine to express a wish to migrate to Libera, but things are still in flux. We don't even know whether the famous Swedish non-profit was actually incorporated or what its bylaws are, etc. The power struggle at freenode has been going on for months, so I doubt things will change overnight. It's not the first time that freenode has governance issues, with entities being taken over or disbanded. This incident might be end up being resolved, like the others. I do support the concept of making sure we run on an IRC network hosted and controlled by a friendly non-profit entity with suitable governance (like SPI, SF Conservancy, FSF, KDE, Eclipse Foundation or whatever). I encourage the IRC GC to prepare their recommended plan, present it in an RfC and ask the endorsement of the wider community before any widespread changes. Nemo15:51, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Freenode was always run by voluenteers on donated hardware. I cant’t see how this can be restored now and support (with a heavy heart) a switch to libera. --DaB. (talk) 15:58, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Strongly agree with this. There is no actual evidence that private info has been compromised, or of the need for a fast response to this. We should take a more measured approach and do so with community support, rather than the unelected/unaccountable GCs rushing into a decision. – Ajraddatz (talk) 16:37, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I'd love to see us move to Matrix. As many have noted, IRC is a 30 years old protocol which just did not keep up with the times and does not support many thinks which are taken for granted today - user identities, notifications, rich text, emoji responses, threading etc. IRCv3 fixes some of those but not most. As a result, by using IRC we exclude the large majority of our userbase, and if we leave it at that, most people will end up on random proprietary services instead (just like people ended up on Facebook because our mailing lists are similarly shoddy).
That said, Matrix is a completely different protocol, migrating bots would be a big effort, and the Matrix-IRC bridging is IMO currently not mature enough to support a gradual migration. (Also, which Matrix homeserver would we migrate to? Messages are federated on Matrix but identities are not. The official Matrix server has solid governance but often poor performance. Not sure if a better alternative exists.) So while I think we should work towards a Matrix migration in the long term, I don't think that is relevant to the current problem. --Tgr (talk) 16:16, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
That it is old not no reason at all. HTTP and SMTP are equaly old or even older and still work. The chance is high that IRC will still be there when matrix&co are already forgotten again. --DaB. (talk) 21:19, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I think that Matrix as a whole is not mature enough for day-to-day use. The user experience is just too laggy and buggy. While IRC certainly feels dated and somewhat clunky in today's world, at least it works, and things like IRCCloud make it quite tolerable for non-technical users, too. Matrix might be future of instant messaging, but it might take years before it is really usable. Better not to rush into such an immature technology. --ilmaisin (talk) 20:30, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
Question: Well ARE we sure that there is any problem to stay on freenode? Or is it speculations? --MGA73 (talk) 16:50, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm afraid we would be very much isolated from other free software and free content projects if we stayed behind because they have already quit Freenode for libra.chat. Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 20:19, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
That's an exaggeration. The vast majority of users are still on freenode, as are most of the big projects. The statistics of freenode for now barely changed (except the servers, which increased for some reason; possibly to replace some which were moved to the other network?). There's no sign yet of freenode collapsing entirely, although the proponents of the new network are adamant that it will happen soon. All this to say that any major decision can probably wait a few days or weeks without any problem. Nemo10:44, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
While I'm not a GC, I have followed this situation very carefully. It seems a few people here are concerned about trusting Libera. If trust is your concern, Freenode is now entirely run by a group of unknown persons who have motivations that are ...unclear... at best.
To respond directly to one of Nemo's comments: "...I doubt things will change overnight...".. I think you're behind the times here. They already did change overnight (very literally), the new management forced the situation and all but 1 or 2 staffers resigned en masse within 12 hours (with the others following within days). I should also point out that none of the governance issues in the past didn't involve a complete changeover of staff or operational control transferring to a completely uninvolved third-party.
Let me be clear, we are following the staffers that we've known and trusted for many years. All the same people that were running Freenode are now running Libera - they left Freenode because they did not trust the new management. Except now, they're legally better organized to avoid these problems in future. It's true that the dust hasn't settled yet, but with unknown persons already in control of Freenode, waiting around was not a good idea. A prompt move is in the best interests of our users. I just wish we could move more quickly and be completely done with Freenode.
I fully support our GCs and their decision, and thank them from the bottom of my heart for all the difficult and tedious work they are putting into this right now. Waggie (talk) 18:50, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Libera Chat governance
To add to Nemo's points above: Where can one find out more about this new non-profit (Libera Chat) that we are being asked to entrust the Wikimedia movement's future IRC communications to? What are its bylaws, governance structure, and leadership personnel? The website doesn't even provide an address as far as I can see. To quote from https://github.com/Libera-Chat/libera-chat.github.io/issues/18 where someone has already highlighted these concerns in more detail
Ideally, I'd like a document explaining:
who exactly are current staff? [...]
do staff have different roles? If so, which roles each staff member currently holds?;
how do people assume and leave roles?;
how do you make decisions regarding the network?;
who sponsors each machine that hosts the network, and on what terms?.
The author of that issue also points out that OFTC, which they regard as a viable alternative to migrate their own community to, handles this much better than Libera Chat currently.
Commenters above have argued that some of the folks involved in Libera Chat are awesome people who have done good work on Freenode for years, and I take their word for it. But as the present incident very clearly demonstrates, good impressions and personal trust in some currently involved individuals are not sufficient in the long term. At the very least, there is a strong argument for holding off migrations for a few days or weeks until Libera Chat gets its house in order.
Sorry to contradict my last posting yesterday: I think you are right, @HaeB. What's more, I don't manage to establish a secure connection to Libera, neither with Thunderbird nor with Colloquy for macOS (which is a frontend to ircii). Vice versa, OFTC has proved to be a reliable platform for many years, hosting, e.g., the OpenStreetMap channels. Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 07:35, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
Aschmidt, if you're still having problems connecting securely, have you tried updating your client? Libera Chat does not support the deprecated TLS1.0 and TLS1.1 protocols which freenode still supports; only TLS1.2 and TLS1.3 are supported on Libera. I've included this information on the IRC/Migrating to Libera Chat page. stwalkerster (talk) 19:50, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
See the "Differences from Freenode" part of the migration guide, specifically about TLS versions. I'm guessing the clients you're using don't support TLS 1.2. You might need to upgrade them before you can connect securely. (Freenode allowed for using insecure/broken/deprecated SSL and TLS versions so it's not really like things were better there.) Legoktm (talk) 19:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. The new TLS version probably is the reason why I cannot connect securely with Colloquy. Colloquy connects without TLS. I used it for registering. But my standard client is Thunderbird which does not connect to Libera at all, no matter whether I switch on TLS or not. Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 20:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I just tested with Thunderbird 78.10.1 on my Fedora 34 machine and I was able to connect securely: "16:22:28 * [Whois] legobird is legobird!~Thunderbi@<hostname> (legobird)". Maybe use webchat to join #libera and ask for help? Legoktm (talk) 23:25, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for trying it out! I must admit that the move to Libera and the technical issues that go with it made me thinking about whether I should keep using IRC at all. I am inclined to say no. It is not worth the effort. Your mileage may vary. Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 08:20, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. Is there some proof of incorporation? I suppose there's some registry in Sweden. These bylaws are quite strange, for instance the purpose is very vague and the article on dissolution doesn't state that the assets need to be given to an entity with a similar purpose. I could mention many other things but more generally it's best to make sure that someone versed in Swedish law checks that the bylaws are legally valid and sound. Maybe the board of Libera Chat can ask a grant from WMF to pay for the necessary professional services. Nemo17:54, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
Well, I am "into law", albeit not "into" Swedish corporate law. The bylaws page together with the rest of the website tells us almost nothing about the organisation. No key people involved in running it. Who is on the board? Who are its members? Is there an original bylaws text in Swedish? No information about when it was founded and by whom and who pays its bills. We are not told where it is registered under Swedish law so we could retrieve more information. So, everything remains rather obscure. To me, Libera is just a website. It seems to be enough for most hackers to trust Libera more than the old Freenode network. Hm. Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 17:22, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
You're saying you don't trust the same people we've trusted for over a decade? The entire Freenode staff literally resigned and most went to start Libera together. I'm following the people I've known and trusted for many years, because I know they can be trusted, they've proven it time and time again. Waggie (talk) 03:08, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm afraid we cannot tell whether they actually are the same people as the ones who ran Freenode, as we are nothing told about the staff in neither case and in neither position, be it the board, the executives, or anyone else. Sorry, I am just not convinced. The only thing I can see is that such situations have a potential for breaking old habits and will probably lead to replacing IRC completely with something else. I also cannot tell whether this is for good or for bad. It is just a rather bad situation. What do you do if you cannot tell what is right and wrong? Throw a coin? :( Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 08:30, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
I've been on freenode for roughly about 14 years now, and have gotten to know several members of their staff (and now former staff) during that time. To be clear, the staff members on Libera.Chat are indeed the same exact staff we have relied on for cloaks and upkeep of the network. We would not have gone forward with a move had that not been the case. --Az1568 (talk) 08:58, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
I can concur, I am certain these are the same staffers as I explained before. I have been working with multiple staffers on both sides of the transition and it's clear from the communications that they are definitely the same people. I also would not have supported this move unless I was absolutely certain the staffers are trustworthy and known. Waggie (talk) 04:19, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Well … if you are that sure my scepticism is unfounded, then go ahead. I made my point because now is the right time to do so, before, not after the switch. Regards, Aschmidt (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Personally I don't question the trust in the individuals. My point (and HaeB's, I believe) is that it's irrelevant/insufficient. Even if we trust individual operators of the new network now, what makes them safe from yet another takeover (or another corporate drama, of which freenode has had several)? Currently, the answer seems to be "the bylaws of some Swedish entity they plan to incorporate soon". Nemo20:49, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
What makes it safe is that the current staffers REALLY don't want to go through this again, either. They are dead-set on making sure this cannot happen again. What would you do in your position? They've already been burned and want to avoid it happening again. I'm sorry that everything isn't perfect right now, but their hand was forced early, so they're still getting things in order, but the Freenode problem is a real problem NOW and has to be addressed. Andrew Lee is already making changes to policy that aren't really in our best interest or allow us the greatest freedom. Waggie (talk) 04:19, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm not talking about what others should do, I'm talking about what Wikimedia should do. If we are bothered by risks of take-overs and so on, for me it's clear we need a network hosted by a solid legal infrastructure to prevent such risk. When we started using freenode in the early 2000s, it was believed that PDPC would take care of it. Nemo07:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not overly confident with wiki editing so please bear with me. I'm Svante Bengtson, Treasurer of the Libera Chat organisation and the one who initially drafted our bylaws. I'd like to at least try answer some of the above.
a) Libera Chat is not yet in the Swedish public registers since we've not been assigned an Organisation Number yet, the application for this has been sent to the tax authority but that process might take a little while. (I would've hoped it would be done already but they're being unusually slow) It's however worthy of note that the lack of an organisation number doesn't make the organisation less valid, according to Swedish law an "ideell förening" becomes a legal person/legal entity as soon as a constituting meeting is held and bylaws are accepted, (see link to the tax Authority mentioned earlier by Tegel) there are many organisations who never even apply for an organisation number.
b) As for publishing the address, I'll bring this up, the reason at least I haven't proposed it internally so far is that it's a c/o address until we can get an organisation number and register a PO Box properly. (Since most organisations in Sweden require an org.nr. to enter into agreements with you) and whilst I'm incredibly findable it would feel best for me personally if the published address is one that fully belongs to the organisation and not to me.
c) There are definitely room for improvement in the bylaws, and I do hope now that it's public that we exist and once the dust have settled a little we'll be able to seek funding for and talk to a lawyer and get a proper review. The original is in English and is what's published on the website. We were a bit rushed in this whole process as I hope you can understand, and the best we could do has been "to the best of our abilities". When I drafted up the current version I had about an afternoon to work with. I looked to template bylaws provided by organisations like the Swedish Sports Confederation, the Swedish Orchestra Association, the recommendations from the Swedish Tax Authority (again, see link by Tegel), and various bylaws I had at hand from organisations I've been involved in in a board or member position and made an attempt to marry common best-practices with the organisation structure past freenode staff had agreed to move to. Some of the choices are also very painted by having been burned before, such as having a mostly powerless board, primarily requiring full consensus etc. As of right now the auditors are internal members of the organisation, but long term I hope that we can find funding to pay an authorised Swedish auditor to review the financial records, and someone else that can audit the doings of the organisation. Like mentioned above the purpose clause is also very broad, and I do think we should and can make improvements to it over time. Essentially what I want to try get across is that we're trying our best to do things "the right way", but it might take a couple revisions, Rome wasn't build overnight and all that jazz. I'm Swant on libera.chat and I'm always open to answer questions on our organisation and receive feedback on improvements to put forth to our next all-staff meeting. Swantzter 11:53, 26 May 2021 UTC
@Swantzter: Thank you for participating in our forum, it's really appreciated (and your wiki editing is just fine!). I am not familiar with Swedish non-profit policies, and personally would like to see if another respected/trusted organization with this expertise like Conservancy or SPI would be willing to do a review of Libera Chat governance to see if they find any issues. The other thing I think should be considered is giving some power to the projects who use and rely on Libera Chat. I don't have any specific ideas in mind yet, but I think that the users who make up the Libera Chat network deserve to have some say in decision making, in addition to the staff. Legoktm (talk) 06:13, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
Can we get a stable hostname for our community irc network under a wmf-owned domain?
Now we will need to change all Freenode references to the new network we choose, which is a large task. If we change those to a domain we actually control as the official hostname for our chat network, CNAMEd to the actual network providing the service, should we need to migrate again in the future after some months/years, by changing that official hostname to point to the new network, most things documented or coded to use that official hostname would switch automatically.
(TLS certificates could be a problem, but hopefully the new network will be willing to add that hostname to their server certificate)
This would lead to severe NickServ identification issues and name collisions for exactly those it's meant for. ToBeFree (talk) 22:23, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Did such nefarious consequences materialize for Debian, which has irc.debian.org CNAME'd to OFTC since forever? Nemo17:46, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
I believe the concern is that if a hypothetical irc-chat.wikimedia.org was repointed some new other IRC network, people would try to auth to nickserv on login, and get failures. If you have SASL, then you wouldn't be able to connect to the network at all. If the hostname never changes to where it points, then there's no issue... Legoktm (talk) 09:10, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I saw on the birdsite that irc.ubuntu.com is a CNAME to irc.libera.chat now (formerly it pointed at freenode). So maybe we just need to come up with a suitable hostname? Legoktm (talk) 22:21, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
Web front end for Libera?
Am I missing something in the IRC/Migrating_to_Libera_Chat directions? For all of our user-help type channels it seems we've relied heavily on the web front end to connect with casual users - especially ones we wanted to just drop in to report one time things. This feature seems to be sorely missing, there is no way we should expect drop in users to install and configure a traditional IRC client. If this is missing, how is this not a show stopper? — xaosfluxTalk12:22, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
For what it's worth, freenode uses Kiwi IRC as well for its webchat. The main difference right now is that freenode has embedded Kiwi IRC into its website, while Libera currently does not, so it's a lot less intuitive for non-IRC savvy users to figure out how to connect, unless they are provided with a pre-filled Kiwi IRC link. —k6ka🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 12:45, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
That's temporary until we've got -en-help set up a bit better; we'll drop that before we switch the on-wiki links to Libera. stwalkerster (talk) 18:40, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
For all help/support channels I manage, I've avoided closing them for this exact reason, instead setting up bridges. There's an open task asking for an official webchat. Legoktm (talk) 16:22, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
Since this is apparently a very big deal for lots of people, I thought I would ask the question that most contributors to the WMF uninterested in forum chatter are probably asking:
what is so necessary about IRC/Discord/Matrix/etc. for building an encyclopedia / dictionary / ontology / image archive / etc.? I saw some mention of OTRS above?
What do these bots do that are mentioned above?
Are IRC chats transparent to the public? Should they be? Are participants more likely to be tech workers rather than normal contributors?
Why would anyone expect the WMF to create chat forum software? Is there a legitimate operational reason for this? Would the expectation be that the chat forum software used for WMF projects should be publicly searchable and subject to the universal code of conduct?
Why do you ask about WMF? Channels are generally about the Wikimedia projects, WMF is a secondary consideration. Nemo14:21, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
I guess I was confused by the request above to use irc.wikimedia.org (which a WMF employee said was not possible). The question remains the same really though: why are these channels necessary, rather than using email or talk pages for matters related to Wikimedia projects? What I read on en.wp about IRC subculture suggests that these are amnesiac rooms used primarily by gamers, hackers and programmers rather than by ordinary "knowledge-equity" workers. The en.wp page suggests there is a fair bit of hazing and pseudo-hierarchy involved? I assume there must be more to it than this and that there must be some operational utility... SashiRolls (talk) 14:55, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Email assumes you have email enabled and/or there is a user you can trust, while talk pages are a bad idea for matters which require an elevated responce (i.e. oversighting). JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)22:52, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your response. I have noticed that users who wish to hide their identity already use email services that do so, though. I agree that it seems obvious that oversighting questions would be handled privately (by emailing an oversighter). I remain puzzled about the bots and the need to delete the trace of any discussion: i.e. the comments about being sure to delete all the "sensitive" information from Freenode above. Could someone give an example of one of the bots that posts to IRC about WMF matters? SashiRolls (talk) 11:44, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
The "sensitive" information some people want to delete from freenode's database is the individual users' registration details, mostly their email address. Some are also worried about interception of private messages (although clearly they should be using OTR then). Nemo20:52, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
@SashiRolls: in terms of Discord (I tried to use IRC - too user-unfriendly), as others say, immediacy of response and community are big pluses (whereas most on-wiki discussion is very specific-task/discussion oriented, which is generally a positive as otherwise we'd have huge amounts of extraneous discussion).
I only do social email discussions with a few editors I directly view as friends, and in terms of tasks, they're less good if I want a look over. Discord doesn't have the ancillary official functions that IRC does (you definitely wouldn't want an Oversight channel on a proprietary system that logs everything, but we also view ourselves as being somewhat more independent than IRC). Nosebagbear (talk) 01:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
To answer the original question, when I first started editing Wikipedia, IRC provided a social community of people I could chat with about Wikipedia-related things, and plenty of non-Wikipedia-related things too. I think the best way to describe why IRC and other real-time chats are useful is that it's like the difference between texting someone and sending emails back and forth (talk pages). I don't know if that analogy works for everyone, but it's how I see it. Some things absolutely need to be discussed on-wiki, but other quick things like "hey can someone double check my edit?" or "I'm having trouble verifying X, there's no ref" can easily be done over IRC.
Now that I mostly do stuff on the technical side of Wikimedia projects, IRC is used for coordination of people working together, you get a feed of what patches people are working on, bugs that are being updated, actions people are taking on various servers, and so on. When something is down (an "incident") we quickly react and organize on IRC to work together to fix it.
Most technical channels are publicly logged, though not all. Some project channels are, it varies based on what the community wants. I do think IRC participants are more likely to be tech-savvy, though webchat has made that less likely. I agree with everyone above who said that using IRC does leave a significant amount of users behind compared to modern chat platforms like Matrix, Discord, etc.
I don't think the WMF should be creating chat software, period, enough people already do that. Whether the WMF should host its own chat platform, using something like Matrix, I'm not sure about yet. One of the really nice things about of being on a shared space like Freenode/Libera Chat is that you can just pop into the PHP or httpd or nginx channels for advice. However, it's important we find a space that has a rigorous privacy policy, doesn't exclude people from US-embargoed countries, etc. If no such space exists, then we may need to create and host our own. Legoktm (talk) 22:10, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
per Legoktm. It is simply another tool, just like a talk page, or a log, or a diff/history. It gives the convenience of "being in the same room" and some immediacy for questions and feedback. The ease of certain tasks and monitoring are definitely convenient when bots can filter our the mundane and focus on problematic editing, answer queries, and so on. — billinghurstsDrewth03:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I appreciate the information on these off-wiki forums. I suppose I should try to figure out how to use this carrier pidgin that's sitting on my desktop. Of course, I guess I'd need to know where to aim it, so I'll see if I can find that info somewhere in the surrounding discussion. :) So I guess the bots sort through things before posting them to IRC, then? SashiRolls (talk) 12:12, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
This sounds like Lee is fairly salty about how this all unfolded. (Update: it's since been edited to not directly mention Wikimedia by name.) JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)22:37, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The updated post still includes the screenshot of a log including Waggie though, who is one of our ops. rasengan doesn't really know proper IRC etiquette huh? Pandakekok9 (talk) 02:30, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
And evidently they're basically trying to reconstruct the Wiki*edia channels on freenode, albeit with double-hashes instead of single. This is happening with channels that deal with confidential info as well, apparently. JéskéCouriano(v^_^v)03:15, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
As of today (June 13th) "IRCCloud is no longer welcome on freenode" and everyone using it was k-lined. This means a lot more users are now saying goodbye to freenode. MacFan4000 (talk) 19:55, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Freenode network starts from scratch
Less than 24h ago, freenode network has been split, with new servers running an entire new network (new servers, services, etc), and old servers running the old network. There has been no migration. When you connect now to freenode, all known channels have been wiped (unregistered) and the same with nicks, which require to be registered again.
The most surprising thing of this is that there's no official statement nor prior notice, just a global notice before everyone being disconnected from the old servers. Gladly we already moved before this happened! --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) 09:08, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Namely, in recent months there are a few Wikipedia mirrors/forks that show up in the first page of Google Search results and have the following characteristics:
They all show machine translations of English Wikipedia content in Japanese.
Note: None of the machine translations from English to Japanese are of sufficient quality. Not even Google Translate.
A user has reported that antivirus software on their machine had a warning popped up when they tried to access the website(s).
Some examples of the mirrors/forks are as follows. Due to the risk of potential malware, visit these sites at your own risk.
ja.abadgar-q.com
askwiki.ru
ja.janghan.net
ja.kcugenii.com
wiki-jp.lingual-ninja.com
ja.melayukini.net
nipponkaigi.net - Apparently a phishing site with a domain name similar to nipponkaigi.org, the official site of Nippon Kaigi (a political organization).
ja.vvikipedla.com - Apparently a phishing site with a domain name similar to Wikipedia.
wikiarabi.org
ja.wikinew.wiki - Apparently a phishing site with a domain name similar to Wikinews.
ja.wikiarabi.org
wikiqube.net
ja.wiki2.wiki
These are particularly problematic in that (1) some are phishing sites, (2) they could come above the real Wikipedia in search results. For example, searching for "ドゥナイェツ川渓谷" gives one of the fake sites as the first result.
Is there anything that the Wikimedia community and/or Wikimedia Foundation can do to fight against these websites? (An ordinary user can submit an abuse report to Cloudflare or send feedback to Google, but it would be much more effective if Wikimedia Foundation does that instead.) ネイ (talk) 12:39, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
@ネイ: Thank you for this report. I've informed our Legal team about these circumstances for their review. You can also use legal-tm-viowikimedia.org to report any future trademark violations to the team directly. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Idea: Using Discourse forums for discussions (Village Pump, administrator noticeboard, etc.)
This is just an idea.
The current problem we have here is kind of long-standing; our current Wikimedia forums (like the Village Pump) is not super friendly for new users and has serious limitations. Sure there is StructuredDiscussions and there are the reply tools that I am testing right now, but there are still several limitations with using the MediaWiki software for discussions.
Firstly, there is not an easy way to do a poll or +1 a comment. Sure you can thank a user for an edit, but there is no way to see how many people agreed to or liked a post.
Secondly, uploading images is a hassle. While on other forums you can simply drag and drop an image to upload it, here you have to go through a complicated form and then select the correct licensing, and images that you want to share takes much longer to share that I have not found it worth trying.
Thirdly, there is no easy way to report posts, and every post remains visible forever. While this is good for pages, for discussions, especially when one person makes multiple heated personal attacks, it is not so much.
Lastly, there is no private messaging system. We have email, but not everyone is willing to share an email address. From my understanding, Discourse has that in place to allow for private messages to be sent, some as moderator actions, as well as having private forums and private admin comments on discussions.
I have seen Discourse forums be used on lots of sites for discussion, including wikiHow and our own MediaWiki labs (before they were closed down) with positive responses. There is also trust levels that can be used to easily identify new users from experienced ones (to stop spam) as well as moderator tools that can lock and set the trust level to any of them.
I know one downside is that Discourse forums do not make it easy for IP addresses to contribute to discussions, but these other features are important to have to allow for more effective discussion IMHO. Aasim19:36, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
@Awesome Aasim: A few issues that arise here to me. One is that literal votes are rare on the projects - you may have seen !vote, which literally means "not a vote", so a +1 system would not be helpful.
Image release is complicated on ours because images need to standards that no regular project would ever have. We need photos to meet either a broad copyleft license or prove that a free-use grounds applies, and in a form that we can test that the claim is true. That puts much more complexity in but there isn't a ready way to dodge that issue without causing even bigger copyright patrol issues.
While it would be good for every project to have a way of handling cases where there must be private evidence (the UCOC is likely to necessitate this), because our admins aren't mods, that high level of enabling private admin discussion and comments is less applicable and in many ways, not good. On any non-basic conduct case, I would only execute a Community decision - I don't decide what happens.
Do discourse forums bed into mediawiki? Village Pump and AN (and their equivalents) are hyper-active users of templates - I've not used the software so I don't know if it can operate those. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:22, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Actual votes, with "majority rule" (50%+1, 60%, 66.6% – it varies), are common on some projects. The English Wikipedia uses "consensus", but not everyone does. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
deWP uses a lot of real votes, with eligibility criteria and so on. Admins are voted on, and can be voted off office as well, they need a 2/3 majority to get elected. Arbs, bureaucrats and CU are voted on as well, and even content decisions can be voted, if they are some basic decisions in a de:WP:Meinungsbild (they are votes, not like RfC's, no admin is allowed to close them arbitrary). Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden)07:36, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
The results of Community Reporting System research are ready
Hello All,
To better understand the perspectives of individuals in the Wikimedia community who have experienced harassment, Wikimedia Foundation researched our community members’ knowledge of, and comfort with, existing enforcement and reporting processes.
An executive summary of the research report is now available on Meta.
Currently, the executive summary is available in English, Spanish, and German.
Please share the results of the research with your community by posting a link to the report, or translating the report into your language.
You can discuss the results or raise questions on talkpage or by contacting communityhealthwg@wikimedia.org. We will be collecting questions for review by staff and will have answers available starting June 28, 2021.
The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
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 Tuesday, 29 June 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday 30 June).
If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.
Other effects:
Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
There will be code freezes for the week of June 28. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.
The links to the message (and for translation) are wrong, they link to last years message. Please fix this asap, it's already a far too short time-frame for such a message, but nobody can translate a non-existing message.
BTW: Why is there this extreme short notice? Nobody reads the esoteric nerd-wiki wikitech you linked to, even phabricator is detached from the normal editors, this is not even there, so this is probably the first possibility for everyone to become aware of this, and a 2-day notice is nothing acceptable imho, 2-weeks notice is fine, longer better, 2-days is a sign of disdain for the communities. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden)07:37, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
It is now mostly one year since the fiscal year 2019-2020 ended and I havent found the Form 990 for that year. The Form 990 is a public information with tax related informations that is filled out by organisations with their seat in the United States. When do you publish the Form 990 for that Fiscal Year. From my point of view it should be possible to publish it soon after the Financial Statements, what was published in October 2020. From my point of view the most questions in the Form 990 are based on clear definitions and so I think it should be possible to fill the Form 990 semiautomatic, if the accounting data is detailed enough. Please tell me when you plan to publish the Form 990 and also how you fill it out and do you think that it is possible to make it faster. Maybe it is possible that the Finance Team of the Wikimedia Foundation makes a Office Hour and then interested people can attend and maybe there can be then found ways to make it faster. --Hogü-456 (talk) 19:16, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
wikimedia.org to report any future trademark violations to the team directly. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 21 June 2021 (UTC)